The Unhappy Medium, page 42
‘This isn’t a dressing gown!’ railed La Senza. ‘These are my robes of office!’
‘Bollocks, that’s from a fancy-dress shop, it’s polyester,’ laughed Newton. ‘And as for your girlfriend, what’s that all about?’ La Senza’s eyes were staring madly as if they were set to pop out.
‘Sister Wendy is dressed in the manner befitting a nun.’
‘If you say so Cardinal,’ said Newton, his eyebrows raised. ‘But she looks like a right bloody slapper to me.’ Insulted, Sister Wendy hissed angrily. She brandished a whip with sharp, gloved fingers. Newton’s sarcasm was starting to bite.
‘Wendy, ignore him!’ said La Senza. ‘He’s trying to rile us.’
‘Wendy, that’s a nice name ... how much does she charge per hour?’ asked Newton. The nun shrieked in anger and cracked her whip in the air. ‘Ah’ said Newton. ‘I take it she’s fully booked then?’
‘My dear doctor, I can kill you angry – or I can kill you calm. It’s all the same to me. So please, don’t waste your time and mine,’ said La Senza, changing the subject. ‘Truly, Dr Barlow, I admire your spirit for coming here alone to rescue your daughter and your girlfriend.’
‘You do?’
‘Well no, not really, but anyway, here you are, and given that I need a few test subjects for the machine, it’s nice to have the extra numbers. It’s been in storage a long time and it’s probably a bit rusty, so I can’t promise it will make a clean job of you. But, my technology people have had a good look at it and they assure me it’s all ready to go. It’s a beautiful bit of craftsmanship actually. Here, let me show you it in action. It was designed so that it could be powered by a train of oxen, a windmill or a water mill, but tonight we shall be using something a bit more modern. Gunter, the gen-er-a-tor please.’ From behind the machine there was a rattle as the power kicked in.
La Senza popped open a small door above the control panel to reveal an array of pulls and buttons, somewhat like the controls on a church organ. After cracking his fingers ostentatiously, the Cardinal dropped a lever.
The machine twitched, very subtly, like a dissected frog in a biology class. Gradually, an internal glow began to spread along its foul length. Flickering gold, blue and green flames danced up behind the stained-glass windows. On the roof, large leather bellows began to wheeze asthmatically, their ghastly sulphurous breath fanning the growing flames. Above the hiss and cackle of the fires, there was a clang of metal against metal as sharp knives and toothed wheels inside the monster started to grind against each other.
‘That’s the blades, Dr Barlow!’ shouted La Senza, above the cacophony. ‘I had the boys give them a bloody good sharpening ... razor sharp now, hahahaha!’
The symphony of hate and malice pouring out from the beast was near deafening. Newton fixed his eyes on Gabby and Viv, his mind frantically trying to find an angle, anything that could stop what was beginning to look inevitable. La Senza was flipping and switching buttons manically like a crazed Count in a black-and-white movie. Then, chillingly, he pointed to Gabby. Newton was in a panic; to his horror, his daughter was being dragged forward. She was fighting hard to break free, her big Dr Martens slamming down on the henchmen’s army boots with pathetically little effect.
‘Let me go you wankers!’ screamed Gabby, trying unsuccessfully to sink her teeth into one of Gunter’s men. Just as Newton was about to make a last-ditch attempt to break free of La Senza’s goons and throttle the Inquisitor himself, something popped up in the back of his grey matter.
‘Wait!’ shouted Newton. ‘I’ll do you a deal!’
La Senza turned to look at him and cradled his ear, grinning, the noise of the machine swamping Newton’s desperate plea.
‘I SAID I WANT TO MAKE A DEAL!’
La Senza stopped the machine. It waned and puffed, coughed and clashed a few times then growled to a standstill. Its menacing jaws closed. La Senza closed the control panel and walked with slow deliberation back to Newton.
‘Go on, Dr Barlow,’ said the Inquisitor, slowly. ‘Impress me.’
Newton was panting like an excited dog. ‘You want to wipe out the good and the godly ... right?’
‘Oh yes,’ said La Senza, smiling and closing his eyes. ‘I most certainly do.’
‘Right, so ... you know where these relics are?’
‘The relics?’
‘Yes,’ said Newton. ‘You’ll have to find out where the relics are if you’re going to destroy them. Do you know where they are?’
La Senza thought for a second, his eyes looking from side to side beneath a furrowing brow.
‘Van Loop,’ he said, finally calling to his dark champion. ‘We know where all the relics are, don’t we?’ Van Loop senior, normally very self-assured, suddenly looked a trifle unsure of himself.
‘Er ... the relics? The good relics?’
‘Yes,’ snapped La Senza. ‘The good relics. We know where they are hidden, am I correct?’
‘Er ... well ...’ said Van Loop, nervously. ‘Not yet we don’t, er ... but it won’t be long I’m sure.’ La Senza closed his eyes wearily.
‘Van Loop, dear loyal Van Loop ... just how long has your family been party to my dark ambitions?’
Van Loop shrugged pathetically.
‘I’d say around five hundred years!’ La Senza snapped, keeping his eyes on Newton as he began to realise that his captive might be onto something .
‘Er ... yes, that’s about right,’ said Van Loop.
‘So, what we’re saying here is ...’ continued the Cardinal. ‘My beautiful, diabolic plan to take over the world might, just might , be slightly hampered because of one tiny detail, namely ...’ he drew breath. ‘Namely, that we cannot take over Purgatory by destroying the reliquaries of the good guys because ...’ Now he started to scream. ‘You haven’t had the fucking bloody bollocking good sense to find out where the bloody things are buggering hidden! Is that right?!’
‘Er, well ...’ said Van Loop, shuffling awkwardly from foot to foot as if he needed the toilet rather badly, which by now he probably did. ‘When you put it like that, I have to admit it does sound a little remiss.’
‘IS THAT FRIGGIN WELL RIGHT?!’ yelled La Senza, sending a rain of burger-tainted spittle into Newton’s eye. The entire room was looking numbly at Van Loop and he sagged, knowing only too well what was probably about to happen.
‘Sorry great Inquisitor, I’m so sorry. You see, it was just that I was so busy trying to get you back on earth, I must have sort of ... overlooked it. I was under pressure, you know. I’m not a young man anymore.’ Van Loop’s lame excuses were not making an impact upon the Cardinal.
‘Dr Barlow, we will discuss your “deal” in a moment,’ said La Senza. ‘But if you will forgive me, I need to inform one of my employees of the outcome of his annual appraisal.’ With that, he walked slowly back to the control panel and reopened it. He gestured to the gunmen to seize his admirer.
‘What?’ screamed Van Loop, as the gunmen held him firm. ‘NO! Dear, great, wonderful La Senza! Please no. Didn’t my family help you all these centuries ... didn’t we bring you back? Oh, your great cruelness ... show me some pity. I’m your biggest fan! Cardinal, please !’
It wasn’t that the Inquisitor was deaf to Van Loop’s desperate pleading – it was more that he was getting off on it. La Senza pointed to the end of the belt. Old Van Loop, struggling pathetically, was hauled towards the machine.
‘OK,’ said La Senza, buoyantly. ‘On you go!’ The old man was thrown unceremoniously onto the conveyor.
Dazed, he tried to raise himself back up. Straight away, he felt something snag upon the left sleeve of his jacket. Looking down, he could see one of the evil thorn-like metal barbs catching the material. He reached down to try and detach himself.
‘Oh dear,’ he panted. ‘Oh dear, oh dear, I seem to be stuck on something.’
As he tugged at the barb, his other sleeve caught firmly on an equally wicked hook. Secured like a fly on a spider’s web, each desperate movement seemed only to ensnare him further. Frantic, he looked towards the demonic figure of La Senza. With a horrible almost slow-motion movement, the Cardinal switched the machine back on.
‘Oh no ... oh no! My great one, please no!’ Towering above him, the jaws of hell began to widen; they bared their wicked fangs as ahead of him down the track, like a sinister echo of a tacky fairground ghost train, the inside of the monstrous contraption erupted with blue, yellow and orange flames. ‘No please, La Senza, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m soooooooo sorry! I’ll make it up to you, I promise ... I’ll do lots of unpaid overtime.’ He looked over towards his only son. But Gunter was strangely blank and unmoved by his father’s predicament. ‘Gunter help me, please. Help your poor Popa!’
‘I’m sorry, father,’ he said in a dead, emotionless voice. ‘You always brought me up to obey the great one. You told me that when he returned I was to follow his commands no matter what. This I am doing now.’
‘Gunter, I was wrong ... it was a joke! Just a little joke. Be a good boy and help your poor father off this nasty thing!’
‘No.’
‘Gunter PLEASE! I am your daddy!’
‘What a disobedient boy your young Gunter is,’ said La Senza smugly. ‘I blame the parents.’
The belt shuddered forward. Van Loop’s eyes were now as big as hubcaps and he tugged frantically at his stuck clothing, each feeble thrash making him more immobile and impotent than the last. ‘Oh God ... no ... no, no!’
Now he was passing through the wicked jaws, the razor-sharp blades hanging like the teeth of an anglerfish, slicing his clothes through to the flesh. Van Loop’s frantic begging and pleading were drowned out as he passed like a log into a sawmill. Occasionally, he would appear at one of the colourful glass windows, desperately banging and begging for mercy, before the hooks dragged him deeper still into the ghastly interior .
It took but three minutes before the horror of Van Loop’s passing was thankfully, mercifully, at an end. From the rear of the machine there came a subtle whirr and then, flatulently, the beast emitted a whoosh of gas mixed with a fine dust containing all that was once the very being of Raymond Van Loop. A pair of mangled, broken spectacles clattered red-hot to the stone floor where, in a puddle of rainwater from the broken roof tiles far above, they briefly hissed. The body and soul of Van Loop were gone forever.
La Senza switched the machine off and wiped his hands on his cheap robes. The great atrium was deathly silent now, so silent that drips from the roof could be heard splashing to the floor in rooms beyond. He walked back towards Newton.
‘Now then. About this deal of yours?’
Newton hadn’t had long to formulate his gambit. He wasn’t even sure if La Senza would bite at all. However, if his gamble didn’t work, at least he’d bought some time and made La Senza sacrifice one of his own.
‘Well. You need to know where the relics are,’ said Newton, in the most nonchalant voice he could muster. ‘But you don’t.’
‘So it would appear,’ said La Senza. ‘Go on.’
‘Well as it happens ... I know where they are.’
‘You do? Wonderful. Tell me.’
‘No,’ said Newton firmly.
‘I’m sorry? Did you just say no to me?’
‘Not unless you let the girls and that man from the museum go free.’
‘Haha ...’ La Senza laughed, with practised theatre. ‘How about I edit that slightly for you. Tell me where the relics are or I’ll kill them. Yes, that sounds so much better!’
‘Kill them and you’ll have to kill me. Kill me and I’ll definitely never tell you anything.’
‘A good try ... but ... if I let them go, why would you tell me anyway? Are you going to tell me that you are a man of your word or something?’
‘Oh good lord no, Cardinal. I fully expect you to torture me eventually either way. But trust me, I’m never going to tell you anything if you don’t let them all go. I can cope with the pain if I have to.’
‘Oh everyone says that ... at first. What makes you so sure you can cope?’
‘I’ve read a lot about pain. It’s merely a question of disabling pain receptors using the process of voluntary synapse disassociation. I’m sure you’ve heard of it – plenty of people have had pain-free surgery like that.’ It was a bad lie. Newton was counting on the gathering being free of neurologists.
‘He’s lying,’ said Gunter. ‘There’s no such thing.’
‘On the contrary, young fellow m’lad,’ said Newton, bluffing. ‘The mind can cut off the way that neural transmitters send pain signals to the frontal lobes of the cerebral cortex.’
‘Bullshit!’ said Gunter.
‘Surely you’ve heard of people walking on hot coals? Same thing. You’d be surprised what you can do under pressure. But even then, it’s worth pointing out that most torture is utterly pointless anyway. As an Inquisitor you should know that.’
‘Well, I have to admit I did it more for fun than profit,’ said La Senza, wistfully. ‘I didn’t care whether my victims were guilty or not, to be honest.’
‘Precisely,’ said Newton. ‘You just make the poor sap tell you what you want to hear. Anyway, you won’t know whether or not I’ve told you the truth until you’ve wasted months, if not years, chasing around after these relics like a big bunch of arseholes.’
‘We have drugs,’ said Gunter defiantly. ‘Sodium pentothal.’
‘Oh that old chestnut,’ said Newton. ‘That will just make me drunk. Only works in films. You might as well get me pissed up on fifteen pints of Stella.’
‘I say we just kill him,’ said Gunter. ‘He’s bluffing.’
‘Sure,’ said Newton. ‘Pop me in if you want. But then you’ll have a real problem finding the relics. I happen to know just how well they’re hidden. Spread out in the most unlikely of places, precisely so the likes of you will never get your hands on them. I hid a lot of them myself, recently. Eric the Greek, for instance – I moved him to new premises not two weeks ago.’
‘The Greek? You know where the relics of that pathetic little paper pusher are?’
‘Oh you know him?’
‘Know him?’ raged La Senza. ‘He’s the vile little creep that had me trussed up these last five centuries. Where are his feeble bones? TELL ME! ’
‘Nope ... not a hope. Let them go.’
‘I must know! He imprisoned me, strung me up like a dead chicken, such degradation, such shame for a truly great and evil man like me! To be humiliated in such a way! TELL ME WHERE HE IS!’
‘No, no and a whole dollop of no! Release the girls and the old guy and we can discuss it.’ Newton returned La Senza’s bulging gaze with a calm, cold exterior, quite at odds with his increasingly warm and liquid interior. Infuriated, La Senza bellowed like a wounded bull and stomped impotently around in a lather.
‘Arrggghhh, you drive me to distraction wizard! I will not stop until I get what I want, you should know that!’
‘Well, I can be a stubborn bastard myself,’ said Newton blankly. ‘But that’s the deal, let them go and I’ll give you the Greek, the council, anyone you want. If you don’t release them, you get nothing. Zilch, nada, zip.’
His hands clenched in frustration, La Senza turned away from everyone in the room and bowed his seething head in silence. He was taking deep breaths of indecision, any trace of logical strategy fighting hard with a stronger irrational need for fast visceral revenge. Newton was gambling on the bile and the malice.
Finally, La Senza spoke.
‘Release them.’
Gunter, who up to this point was willing to obey the Cardinal without question, was open mouthed.
‘What?’ he gasped. ‘With the greatest respect, my great Cardinal, are you sure ?’
‘With the greatest respect, Gunter, shut the fuck up. You heard him, he can give me the council and the Greek. I want them. I must have them, do you hear me?!’
‘But my lord, surely ...’
‘Shut up!’ yelled La Senza in a cloud of spittle. ‘Release them now! I want these bastards as soon as possible. I want to see Eric the Greek’s smug little face as I crush and smash his brittle bones into a pulp. I must have revenge on that little bureaucratic worm. Resist me, disobey me and you will share the fate of your wretched father ... do you hear me?!’ La Senza’s fury and vengeance was unstoppable, and like all successful tyrants, he ensured that no one could give him a second opinion, even if it was in his best interest. Gabby, Viv and the curator were allowed to walk.
Unsure, nervous, they drew level with Newton. He winked at Viv as subtly as he could and nodded towards the door. Viv held Gabby’s hand tightly as if she were her own daughter and walked towards the entrance. They waited as Gunter reluctantly pulled back the bolt and the door swung wide open. A blast of cold air entered the atrium. Outside a mist was starting to form, hanging in thickening clouds amongst the rose bushes and statues. Viv and Gabby looked back at Newton, reluctant to leave him in the old asylum. Firmly he nodded to them again and with a heavy heart the girls turned back towards the darkness beyond.
Ill-timed, inconvenient, and totally out of whack with Newton’s desperate gamble, this was the moment that the Reverend Bennet chose to launch his assault.
CHAPTER 35 – Assaul t
As Gabby, Viv and the curator reached the open air, a crackle of gunfire erupted at Hadlow Grange’s perimeter.
‘Oh no, not now Bennet,’ Newton grimaced. ‘Not now!’ He looked at La Senza, then at Gunter. ‘RUN!’ Newton shouted, very, very loudly at the girls. ‘RUN!’
They didn’t really need to be told. But run to where? It was either out into the cold goon-infested grounds, or back into the dark labyrinth of the asylum. Viv looked at the curator and hesitated.
‘Go, go!’ he warbled. ‘Save yourselves!’ With mixed feelings, Viv grabbed Gabby and they bolted past two of Gunter’s men and away down a gloomy side corridor.
‘No!’ wailed La Senza after the departing hostages. ‘Sister Wendy ... fetch!’ The weirdly clad Wendy Dryer, or what was left of her, flared her nostrils and clattered away after Viv and Gabby on her cheap stilettos. Gunter’s men turned their guns back onto Newton, who shrugged and grinned unhelpfully. ‘I don’t need to tell you that the deal is off Dr Barlow!’ barked La Senza.
