"You know that you are more than welcome David." Rob said.
"In that case I will be there in two hours, three at the most." David replied.
**********
Moira Bourbon was sitting in the small library of the convent that she was residing in now, she was reading a large leather bound book about the life of St Paul when she heard the faintest of whispers, and strangely enough, she could have sworn that the voice that she heard was her own.
"He killed our father Moira, Rob Hinds killed him."
Moira immediately stood up and searched the large room for the owner of the voice; angry at being the victim of such a wicked joke, however she found that the room was empty save for herself.
Lord Asbaritch had now commenced on his seduction of Moira away from the ways of the righteous and back towards the ways of Lucifer. He had spoken to her from the Dreamscape, known to some as the astral plane, a dimension that Lord Asbaritch used as his own personal larder. He would visit a dreamer and turn the individual`s dream into a nightmare, and the dark lord then fed off the emotions given off by the dreamer.
This time he had simply used the Dreamscape to literally fly to her and so was able to speak to her mind without the need to materialise in the room and thereby warn her of the presence of one of Lucifer`s dark lords.
"Moira, remember that your dark lord loves you and only you, he is so very sad and lonely now that you have forgotten him. However, you must keep his love a secret for now, but do not fret for later you can scream it from the rooftops." A soft tenor voice whispered from the very walls of the room where she sat.
She searched for the owner of this new and no less mysterious voice, a voice she decided she liked very much, but try as she may she could not find him. She should have been afraid, for a man in this part of the convent was forbidden, but she was not, in fact the knowledge that somebody from her past had feelings for her made her pulse quicken and her temperature rise. She wished that David Pritchard would tell her about her old life, however he had always said that it would be unwise for her to look into the past, however he would not say why.
*********
At exactly seven o`clock the next morning Rob and David entered the large office of Sir Willoughby Brown.
"Sit down both of you. David, good of you to join us. I have a new case for you both, one in which you will be working on with Inspector Humphreys." Sir Willoughby Brown said introducing the elderly detective who looked tired and rather annoyed, and who was slouched in a chair that was in front of the large mahogany desk behind which Sir Willoughby Brown sat.
After the usual greetings, Sir Willoughby Brown explained why he had sent for them.
"The case that Scotland Yard has asked our assistance on is the one involving the deaths of seven people near to the city of London. You must have heard all about it both on the television and the radio, the victims` corpses were left hanging from one of the beams in the church of St Luke in the Fields." Sir Willoughby Brown said grimly. "This morning's newspaper headlines have likened the city of London to a war scene featuring those murdering bastards the Daesh, and they have all demanded instant action. What I am going to tell you now was not mentioned on the news or in the newspapers, and it is not very pleasant." Sir Willoughby Brown said. "It is believed that they were killed with what can only be described as some sort of energy weapon. Then the top of their skulls was cut cleanly off with some sort of laser and their brains were removed, and finally their bodies were drained of blood. All seven victims died over one night, leading the inspector to believe that the murders were carried out by a cult." Sir Willoughby Brown said and once again indicated Inspector Humphreys.
"His view is similar to the ones voiced by his colleagues; one scenario thought out by Scotland Yard is that it might have been carried out by a Satanist cult, for some grotesque ceremony known only to them. This is why they asked for our help; well your help as you are the only men we have who have been involved with the real thing." Sir Willoughby Brown said.
"Sir Richard, surely this is the work of psychopaths, even Satanists are not that sick." Rob protested as his stomach did flip-flops again at the thought of being involved with more Satanists.
"I agree Rob, but the commissioner is very worried, so many horrific deaths with no leads means that if the newspapers got hold of the whole story, it could see questions being asked in the House and heads rolling." Sir Willoughby Brown argued. "The Yard is looking into all the other more mundane theories and they will keep us fully apprised, however after your success in battling real life and very powerful Satanists, the commissioner has asked for your personal assistance in this case, but only on the satanic angle."
Minutes later Rob led David and the detective back to the office he shared with the other agents of the SIS, and where they could talk at length about the case and any evidence that the murderers had left behind. The first thing that Humphreys showed them was the scene of crime photographs, which included the grisly pictures of the topless and very empty skulls. Rob looked at each of the grisly photographs but saw nothing that offered even a partial answer except the one that he had already given, namely that it was the work of a group of psychopaths. Rob started the discussion.
"Inspector Humphreys, you may have heard some weird stories about me and David, and how we are both loopy, well at times we both wished that that was in fact true, but it is not. However, for the sake of those who believe that we are loopy let us get the usual Hollywood villains out of the way. First up is the vampire, now if the perpetrator was found to be some sort of an actual vampire why have we not come across it until now, and in any case Vampires do not cut the top of their victim`s skull off. No, it is much more likely that the sick bastards behind it are a bunch of psychopathic killers, and it could be that they want to make out that this terrible crime has been committed by a vampire." Rob said. "As for the empty brain cases, some aboriginal people had been known to eat their enemies' brains, but if some lost Amazonian tribesmen are behind it then why have they suddenly appeared in London? That just leaves our friendly neighbourhood Satanist, the one your chief has asked us to look for, and in the time that I have spent chasing such people I have never heard of them committing such large scale barbarity, what about you David, you have been fighting them for much longer than I have?"
"No, Rob, this is something far removed from your usual devil worship." David replied grimly. "They go in for the odd virgin sacrifice but nothing like this."
Inspector Humphreys was surprised to hear Rob and David talk this way, he had expected the two men before him to twitter on about vampires and black masses, not to poo-hoo the very idea.
"I agree Mr Hinds, Mr Pritchard." Humphreys began as he tried to get his mind away from Dracula. "Unfortunately we have not found a single witness to any of the seven murders, and as yet we have not found anybody who even saw the back of a group of men acting strangely, or seen any large low flying bats come to that." Humphreys complained and adding the last as a way of breaking the ice with the SIS agents. "Even the CCTV cameras came up empty handed, and that should have been impossible unless all of the murderers live very local to the murder scene or found their way down into the sewers, and without passing a single camera. In fact Mr Hinds that is not quite true, a number of the cameras did record something, static, but only for a short time, however not one camera recorded the static at the same time, which might give us one lead, of a sort. The static only affected each camera for the time it took for a small group of men to walk past it; my colleagues are following this static trail to see if it will lead us to our madmen. In my opinion this one fact, regarding the cameras that is, it proves that the men behind these sick killings have money and very up to date technology, to be able to mess with the CCTV cameras in such a way is beyond the normal Sicko. More of my colleagues will be out tonight talking to any late night revellers to ask them if they saw anything unusual early yesterday morning. A request for help is also being broadcast on the main television cha
nnels." Humphreys said.
For a moment Moira Bourbon came into the minds of Rob and David, for they knew that when she had been a powerful Satanist, she could easily have managed to make the cameras eat static, however they both quickly pushed such thoughts away, the thought that Moira could be back was too scary for words. Instead, Rob spoke of things that were more mundane.
"I would be surprised if you find that the men behind these grisly killings actually do live nearby, no; as you say it is much more likely that the killers were able to get their hands on some hi-tech equipment to temporarily take out the cameras. I take it Inspector that the Yard have now moved men into the surrounding areas to ensure that another seven murders do not happen over one night?" Rob asked.
"Yes, but not over the whole of London, we do not have the manpower or the money to pay for the overtime to cover such a large area, or for any extended length of time." Humphreys replied defensively. "We need to come up with something, anything, and soon, or it might just happen again, and with it the chance that the full facts are leaked onto the internet, that would cause panic and shut done London and the nearby towns during the hours of darkness."
"What did you do to draw the short straw then Inspector?" Rob asked Humphreys, "Being sent here to spook central?"
Humphreys smiled. "I am what they think of as a dinosaur; they sent me here to get me out of the way while they dash round in ever decreasing circles in their hunt for whichever poor deprived souls committed these terrible crimes. After they are caught, the psychiatrists will find reasonable excuses as to why they committed such a crime and advise that they should be treated sympathetically. The bastards will live out the remainder of their lives in the lap of luxury, with Sundays off so that their human rights are not infringed in any way." Humphreys replied bitterly. "Sorry about that but of late I have begun to wonder if it is worth staying in the job. Oh! And I am Joe to my few friends who still acknowledge that fact." Humphreys finished with a weak smile.
"Well Joe, I am Rob and this is David, and to seal our new friendship why don`t you take us on a tour of the crime scene, maybe something will inspire us?" Rob said and smiled at the detective, who seeing someone who he thought he could relate to, smiled back.
**********
They arrived at the crime scene a little after 9 o`clock that morning, the city was now fully awake and was beginning to fill with a myriad of people hurrying to work, beginning their shopping trip or sightseeing. The first thing that Rob noticed on entering the church was a priest, for this was his church, with him were his bishop and three other men of the church. They were standing at the rear of the church, and each of them looked very pale and they looked to be in various stages of shock. For never could any of them have imagined in their most terrible of nightmares that their church would be used so blasphemously and in such a violent way.
The next thing that Rob noticed were the bloodstains on the floor, he immediately noted that there was not that much blood for seven people, but then unknown to him most of the blood had either been drunk by the aliens or taken away for use later. Rob knew they were lucky to arrive here after the crime scene had been partially sanitised, after the removal of the seven bodies and the remains of the horrific meal, and the smell of blood had mostly been vented into the atmosphere through the open doors of the church.
They were also lucky to meet one of the scientists, who was part of the forensics' team, just inside the doors, and he went through all that they had found up until that morning, which was precious little.
"The rope used to hang the poor sods is not your usual stuff, although it is made of a manmade fibre, unfortunately we have not decided which one as yet. This means of course that we have not attempted to track down the manufacturer or supplier. One thing that I can tell you about it though, it is very strong and very thin. There is an abundance of shoe prints of various types and sizes, however we narrowed it down to one type, an assortment of prints found on the many small patches of dried blood, we might be able to come up with some sort of a lead there, in time. They were killed here, that we know, but the lack of blood means that the killers must have used some kind of receptacle to collect the blood, maybe to make us think that this was the work of some want-to-be vampires, but whatever the reason the Yard are checking up on that particular lead. The receptacles they used to collect the blood did leave their own marks, one under each victim, but apart from the width of the base of the receptacle they offer us no leads to follow. Finally there are thousands of finger prints which means it will be some time before they will be of any help to us." Alan Powers said, who was the scientist leading the forensics' team.
"What about the pentagram itself, did you find anything on it to show whether the murders might have been part of a ritual of any kind?" Rob asked pointing to the design under the rafter used to hang the bodies.
"You think that they could have been satanic murders, well we did search the area thoroughly, however we found nothing to point towards such a thing, except that the central receptacle was set on it." The forensics' man replied.
Rob now turned to Humphreys. "Joe, the pentagram is directly beneath the murder scene, this fact increases the chances of it being a satanic killing, however having said that I still think that the Yard will find that the killers are some sort of sick bunch of psychos."
Rob noticed the five men of the church leaving, so he spoke again to the detective. "Joe, David might be able to answer the question the Yard asked of us, and very quickly, namely were Satanists behind the atrocity committed here."
Humphreys turned to David. "And just how are you going to do that David, hold a s?ance?" Humphreys asked facetiously.
"Not quite Joe, although I am no longer a catholic priest I still would not do such a thing." David replied sternly although he then smiled to show that he did not take the question seriously.
"If it means that we can draw a line under this nonsense David, then please do whatever you like inside of the church and I will OK it." Humphreys replied.
"Joe, can you clear the area around the murder scene of people, just for ten minutes while I try my experiment?"
"Yes I think that will be all right, they have just about finished anyway, but this thing that you are about to try, it will not destroy any of the evidence that they have found here, not that they found that much." Humphreys replied.
"No, nothing like that, probably nothing will happen anyway." David replied while strangely hoping that he was correct in this.
David took a glass bowl out of the holdall that he was carrying, the bowl had a lid pressed on to it to prevent the potion that was within it from spilling out, he put the glass bowl in the centre of the pentagram.
He then handed a sheet of paper to Rob. "Rob when Joe light`s the potion, we must recite this spell?"
When Humphreys heard the word spell mentioned, he did not know if he should laugh loudly or get very worried. In the end, he chose to wait and see.
"David, you want me to light the stuff in the bowl?" Humphreys asked just a little anxiously.
"That`s right Joe, but do not worry, it does not explode, it will just give off a little light smoke." David said reassuringly.
Humphreys walked hesitantly into the centre of the pentagram and bending over he struck a match and lit the potion, which as David had said began to emit a narrow plume of white smoke, however Humphreys hastily backed up, just in case.
Rob and David were on their knees when Humphreys turned to look back at them, and they were both reciting the spell. Humphreys looked on just a little shocked by this, he seriously wished that he had chosen to act rather than to wait. However, he had not expected the two SIS agents to get involved in such tomfoolery, even after all he had heard at the SIS offices, as for the forensic team they were openly laughing at Rob and David.
"We, champions of the right hand path, call upon the angels upon high to show to us any black rites that have been conducted over the last two day within the walls of this holy place. I
beseech you to aid us so that we may stop those who follow the path of evil from using this holy church again for such blasphemous rites." Rob and David said together.
Their voices rang out across the church, and even those who had not noticed Inspector Humphreys` actions looked up surprised, and a little annoyed, that someone was using the church for such rubbish, especially after the terrible murders. Rob now pulled out his iPhone and began to video the scene before him.
The white plume of smoke rose almost up to the ceiling and then began to fill the area in and around the pentagram; everyone within the church had moved forward to see what was happening, and to take Rob and David to task for doing this within a church where seven people had been viciously killed. As the smoke began to thin out seven figures could be clearly seen hanging by their feet from the wooden cross beam, and at least three members of the forensics' team gasped in fear mixed with a little dread at what they might see next. Thirteen figures were clearly seen walking around the hanging figures, each of them holding a smoking metallic tube above their heads, the red plumes of smoke showing clearly through the white, their chant coming through time to scare many of those standing within the church, and with the smell of Jasmine accompanying it. It was now that David, himself feeling fearful at what he was watching, strode forward and cried out.
"Reveal the faces of those who have done so terrible an act."
The smoke cleared and the Amaymons were clearly seen, tall thin figures with gaunt pallid faces, and dressed in just a white tunic. As they turned their heads to look on the interlopers, those within the church saw that the faces of the figures were filled with anger, anger at being discovered. However, the most terrible thing about them was their red blazing eyes, eyes that were staring straight into the eyes of those closest to the pentagon. Rob began to feel the power within these blazing eyes and it scared him, he decided to end this fantastic vision that he and his friend had initiated, and immediately, for it reminded him of the power used to great effect by the powerful Satanist Moira Bourbon. Thrusting his iPhone into the hands of Inspector Humphreys he strode into the pentagram and picking up the bowl threw it at the far wall, the bowl smashing to pieces and the vision of the past disappeared from the church as a long drawn out howl of anger rang round the church, a howl that had come from Magnus One.