Dennis Wheatley - Unholy Crusade

`All right. I'll learn it.'

Five minutes ticked by, then Alberuque said, `You have had long enough. Recite it to me.'

Adam laid down the paper and did so, but deliberately muffed the words.

`Enough of this mulishness,' Alberuque snarled, his dark face now set in anger. `You are an educated man, Gordon. An author, used to words and phrases. These are easy ones to memorize and I have no more time to waste. Either you will now recite them properly or we will proceed to the pyramid. The sight of the Senorita Chela about to be thrown into the lap of Chac Mool may loosen your stubborn tongue.'

Seeing that he had no option, Adam spoke his piece. Still holding his pistol, Alberuque went to the door, opened it and said to Father Lopez, who was waiting outside, `He has come to heel. Call an escort, then take him over to the museum.'

Two minutes later, Adam was marched between two guards, with Father Lopez following, across a corner of the open space. The museum was divided into a number of bays by walls, upon which there were photographs of excavated ruins and big glass showcases containing pottery, weapons and other items from the long dead civilizations of Mexico. In several of the bays, attendants were robing Alberuque's principal lieutenants.

Occupied as Adam's mind was with the danger in which he stood, the significance of the fact that several of the leading conspirators were changing into the barbaric vestments of a pagan priesthood did not escape him. Even the parody of Christianity combined with worship of the old gods, with which so many of the Indian and Mestizo priests had satisfied their parishioners for four centuries, was evidently now to be abandoned. Tonight there would be no mockery of the Mass to precede the ceremony of his `Elevation', and he had counted on that to gain him a good twenty minutes. It brought home to him more sharply than ever how time was running out, and he began to fear that Hunterscombe might not now come on the scene before the dreaded pagan ceremony was well under way.

In a bay reserved for him, Adam found four men waiting. Laid out nearby was the gorgeous costume of feather work and embroidery that he had worn at Uxmal. During his wild career down the Pyramid of the Magician and subsequent arrest by the police he had lost his great feathered head dress, his shield and the wand crowned with his jeweled symbol of power. But he saw that replacements, probably stolen from one of the museums, had been procured for him.

To delay matters a little, he again demanded to be taken to the

lavatory. Father Lopez showed annoyance, but could hardly refuse his request; so he was led away to one just inside the entrance to the museum. Getting out the cigarette case, he repeatedly gave Hunterscombe's call sign. As he had hoped, there is no reply. That cheered him a little, as it showed that the Wing Commander was not still in his apartment telephoning anxious authorities; the police could now definitely be assumed be on their way.

Knowing that Alberuque would be extremely loath to proceed with the ceremony without him, Adam sat down and lit a cigarette. after a few minutes Lopez rattled the door and called on him to come me out. He ignored the shouts and went on smoking. But he as not allowed to do so for long. The door was kicked in and Alberuque stood outside. He was now dressed in the flamboyant robes of a High Priest, his face was painted with stripes and circles and he presented the same terrifying appearance as he had when in his incarnation as Itzechuatl. Glaring at Adam, he snarled: `We leave in five minutes. If you are not ready to accompany us stay here and I will send you a pair of human ears that you may recognise.'

At this threat, Adam quailed and surrendered. Hurrying now, he returned with Lopez to the bay where his vestments were laid out. As he passed the other bays, he saw that they were all empty. The men who had been changing in them had disappeared. Suddenly seized with panic at the thought that Alberuque might carry out his threat to leave without him, and Chela pay the penalty, he refused to take off his suit and insisted that the men who were attending him should arrange the princely robes over it. Neither would he allow them to remove his shoes so that they could put on his feet the gilt leather sandals. In less than free minutes he was again feeling the weight of the solid gold breastplate, leg gyves and arm bucklers as he strode towards the entrance to the museum.

Alberuque was waiting there. Beside him stood another, slenderer, figure, also berobed in splendour and with fans of gorgeous Quetzal plumes appearing to sprout from every limb. only the blue eyes in the lavishly painted face enabled Adam to recognise Chela.

As they walked out on to the open space, Adam thought of trying to warn her that the evil priest to whom she had given such devotion would kill her without the slightest scruple. But he decided that there was no point in doing so at the moment since,

as long as he obeyed Alberuque's orders, she would be in no danger.

Adam had expected to have to walk the quarter mile to the base of the pyramid, then make the long, tiring climb to the summit; or, as had been the case in the vision he had had of himself some weeks earlier, be carried up it in a sedan chair. He had counted on that to take not less than a quarter of an hour, and there would at least have been a chance that Hunterscombe, with the forces of law and order, would have arrived by then. But Alberuque had thought of a much more impressive way for the Man God to make his appearance. Instead of turning right, in the direction of the pyramid, he walked straight ahead towards the helicopter.

As Adam realised that they were to fly up, his heart gave a sickening lurch. He had assumed that the ceremony would not start until midnight. Now it was evident that by midnight it might be over. In four minutes or less they would be on the top of the pyramid and the last chance of Hunterscombe's arriving in time be gone.

This was the second time that Adam's hopes of a delay had been unexpectedly disappointed. Now he could no longer hope to be rescued. When help did come, he would be marooned on the summit of the pyramid, at the mercy of men who would certainly murder him in their fury at seeing their followers down below being dispersed by police and troops.

Chela was leading the way, Adam walked just behind her, and Alberuque, his automatic again in his hand, brought up the rear. Realising that death stared him in the face, Adam was sorely tempted to break away and run for it. But the double threat of Alberuque's pistol, and what would happen to Chela if he did, kept him walking towards the helicopter. When they reached it, Adam saw that the pilot was now robed as a priest and his scarred face painted. They took their places as before: Adam beside him and Chela and Alberuque in the two rear seats. There was a whirr of blades and the 'copter lifted.

As it rose in the air, the bright moonlight revealed the scene below. In three open spaces scores of cars and small vans were parked. The men who had arrived in them were assembled on the pyramid and round its base. Its three terraces were packed with people and those who had arrived too late to get a place on them were grouped on the mounds and uneven ground where, weeks before, Adam had had his fall and knocked himself out. It was possible to arrive only at an approximate estimate of their numbers, but he guessed that the assembly could not be fewer than one thousand.

The helicopter went up high, made a wide circle so that the car

parks and crowds temporarily passed from view, then it returned hovered and landed with a slight jolt that made it lurch sideways on the great square of tumbled stone blocks which had once led the temple, and now rose in a tangled mass a few feet above the level of the flat summit of the pyramid. When they alighted, Adam saw that only six of Alberuque's lieutenants, including the pilot, had been granted the honour of donning priestly robes to assist him in the ceremony. With him that made seven, and it passed through Adam's mind that seven the magic number common to all ancient religions. Five of them had climbed the pyramid in advance and were standing on broad, flat terrace that had once had the temple as its background. They now formed a line there and as Alberuque, followed Adam and Chela, picked his way across the big, uneven stones towards them, they genuflected.