Dennis Wheatley - The Devil Rides Out

They settled down again but in some subtle way the atmosphere had changed. The fire glowed red on its great pile of ashes, the candles burned unflickeringly in the five points of the star, and the electric globes above the cornices still lit every corner of the room with a soft diffused radiance, yet the four friends made no further pretence of trying to sleep. Instead they sat back to back, while the moments passed, creeping with leaden feet towards the dawn.

Marie Lou was perplexed and worried by Richard’s outburst, De Richleau tense with a new expectancy, now he felt that psychic forces were actually moving within the room. Stealthy— invisible—but powerful; he knew them to be feeling their way from bay to bay of the pentacle, seeking for any imperfection in the barrier he had erected, just as a strong current swirls and eddies about the jagged fissures of a reef searching for an entrance into a lagoon.

Simon sat crouched, his hands clasped round his knees staring, apparently with unseeing eyes, at the long lines of books. It seemed that he was listening intently and the Duke watched him with special care, knowing that he was the weak spot of their defence. Presently, his voice a little hoarse, Simon spoke:

‘I’m awfully thirsty. I wish we’d got a drink.’

De Richleau smiled, a little grimly. Another of the minor manifestations—the evil was working upon Simon now but only to give another instance of its brutish stupidity. It overlooked the fact that he had provided for such an emergency with that big carafe of water in the centre of the pentacle. The fact that it had caused Simon to forget its presence was of little moment. ‘Here you are, my friend,’ he said, pouring out a glass. ‘This will quench your thirst.’

Simon sipped it and put it aside with a shake of his narrow head. ‘Do you use well-water, Richard?’ he asked jerkily. ‘This stuff tastes beastly to me — brackish and stale.’

‘Ah!’ thought De Richleau. ‘That’s the line they are trying, is it? Well, I can defeat them there,’ and taking Simon’s glass he poured the contents back into the carafe. Then he picked up his bottle of Lourdes water. There was very little in it now for the bulk of it had been used to fill the five cups which stood in the vales of the pentagram—but enough—and he sprinkled a few drops into the water in the carafe.

Richard was speaking—instinctively now in a lowered voice —assuring Simon that they always used Burrows Malvern for drinking purposes, when the Duke filled the glass again and handed it back to Simon. ‘Now try that.’

Simon sipped again and nodded quickly. ‘Um, that seems quite different. I think it must have been my imagination before,’ and he drank off the contents of the glass.

Again for a long period no one spoke. Only the scraping of a mouse behind the wainscot, sounding abnormally loud, jarred upon the stillness. That frantic insistent gnawing frayed Marie Lou’s nerves to such a pitch that she wanted to scream, but after a while that, too, ceased and the heavy silence, pregnant with suspense, enveloped them once more. Even the gentle patter on the window-panes was no longer there to remind them of healthy, normal things, for the rain had stopped, and in that soundless room the only movement was the soft flicker of the logs, piled high in the wide fireplace.

It seemed that they had been crouching in that pentacle for nights on end and that their frugal dinner lay days away. Their discomfort had been dulled into a miserable apathy and they were drowsy now after these hours of strained uneventful watching. Richard lay down again to try and snatch a little sleep. The Duke alone remained alert. He knew that this long interval of inactivity on the part of the malefic powers was only a snare designed to give them a false sense of security before the renewal of the attack. At length he shifted his position slightly, and as he did so he chanced to glance upwards at the ceiling. Suddenly it seemed to him that the lights were not quite so bright as they had been. It might be his imagination, due to the fact that he was anticipating trouble, but somehow he felt certain that the ceiling had been brighter when he had looked at it before. In quick alarm he roused the others.

Simon nodded, realising why De Richleau had touched him on the shoulder and confirming his suspicion. Then with straining eyes, they all watched the cornice, where the concealed lights ran round the wall above the top of the bookshelves.

The action was so slow, that each of them felt their eyes must be deceiving them, and yet an inner conviction told them that it was true. Shadows had appeared where no shadows were before. Slowly but surely the current was failing and the lights dimming as they watched.

There was something strangely terrifying now about that quiet room. It was orderly and peaceful, just as Richard knew it day by day, except for the absence of the furniture. No nebulous ghostlike figure had risen up to confront them, but there, as the minutes passed, they were faced with an unaccountable phenomenon—those bright electric globes hidden from their sight were gradually but unquestionably being dimmed.

The shadows from the bookcases lengthened. The centre of the ceiling became a dusky patch. Gradually, gradually, as with caught breath they watched, the room was being plunged in darkness. Soundless and stealthy, that black shadow upon the ceiling grew in size and the binding of the books became obscure where they had before been bright until, after what seemed an eternity of time, no light remained save only the faintest line just above the rim of the top bookshelf, the five candles burning steadily in the points of the five-starred pentagram, and the dying fire.

Richard shuddered suddenly. ‘My God! It’s cold,’ he exclaimed, drawing Marie Lou towards him. The Duke nodded, silent and watchful. He felt that sinister chill draught beginning to flow upon the back of his neck, and his scalp prickled as he swung round with a sudden jerk to face it.

There was nothing to be seen—only the vague outline of the bookcases rising high and stark towards the ceiling where the dull ribbon of light still glowed. The flames of the candles were bent now at an angle under the increasing strength of the cold invisible air current that pressed steadily upon them.

De Richleau began to intone a prayer. The wind ceased as suddenly as it had begun, but a moment later it began to play upon them again—this time from a different quarter.

The Duke resumed his prayer—the wind checked—and then came with renewed force from another angle. He swung to meet it but it was at his back again.

A faint, low moaning became perceptible as he unholy blast began to circle round the pentacle. Round and round it swirled with ever-increasing strength and violence, beating up out of the shadows in sudden wild gusts of arctic iciness, and tearing at them with chill, invisible, clutching fingers, so that it seemed as if they were standing in the very vortex of a cyclone. The candles flickered wildly—and went out.

Richard, his scepticism badly shaken, quickly pushed Marie Lou to one side and whipped out his matches. He struck one, and got the nearest candle alight again but, as he turned to the next, that cold damp evil wind came once more, chilling the perspiration that had broken out upon his forehead, snuffing the candle that he had re-lit and the half-burnt match which he still held between his fingers.

He lit another and it spluttered out almost before the wood had-caught—another—and another, but they would not burn.

He glimpsed Simon’s face for an instant, white, set, ghastly, the eyeballs protruding unnaturally as he knelt staring out into the shadows—then the whole centre of the room was plunged into darkness.

‘We must hold hands,’ whispered the Duke, ‘Quick, it will strengthen our resistance,’ and in the murk they fumbled for each other’s fingers, all standing up now, until they formed a little ring in the very centre of the pentagram, hand clasped in hand and bodies back to back.