Dennis Wheatley - To The Devil A Daughter

`No, Prince of the Bats, no! You cannot sully the sacred knife dedicated to the sacrifice of offerings on the altar. Do your will upon him, but not in blind anger. We are not here to witness common murder. I demand that he be sacrificed in due form, so that his blood may mingle with hers and the altar be deprived of neither.'

`Yes! Yes!' chorused the others, and the squint eyed witch who had also come from Scotland screamed above the rest, `But the woman first. She is ready for you, and we are waiting.'

Slowly Copely Syle turned about. His anger seemed suddenly to have drained from him, and he muttered to himself, `The incantation may yet work. It is her birth hour and she is twenty one.'

Again he approached the altar, and this time raised his knife with quiet deliberation. John felt as if his heart was about to burst from impotence and distress. For a moment hope had sprung wildly in his breast, but now he knew that final defeat was rushing upon him. Only seconds of life remained to Christina.

Suddenly, on an unbidden impulse, he found himself shouting with all the power of his lungs, `Christina, darling! I love you! I love you!'

As his voice rang through the chamber Christina's whole body tensed. With a violent jerk her wrists snapped the strip of fabric that bound them. From the impetus, her freed hands were flung out and backward. At the end of its swing her deft hand struck the jar that contained the homunculus. John's ring hit it with a loud clang. The inch thick glass shivered and broke as though it had been paper thin crystal. As the jar fell to pieces the liquid in it gushed out. For a moment the naked and obscene homunculus stood among the falling fragments; then she leapt straight at the Canon.

With a piercing shriek he staggered back under the impact. Her taloned hands dug into his shoulders; her claw like feet fixed themselves in his legs above the knees. For a few seconds her slimy, dripping face was pressed against his in an awful mockery of a kiss; then, her eyes goggling with her hunger for blood, she lowered it and fixed her teeth fiercely in his neck.

The rushing water from the jar swirled against the low brazier. The coals in it hissed and dulled, reducing the glow of light in the chamber to a glimmer. Pandemonium broke loose. Screaming, the Canon fell to the floor with the homunculus on top of him. Two of the men holding Beddows and John left them to run to his aid. By violent efforts both succeeded in throwing the others off. Beddows groped for his knuckle duster and pulled it from his pocket. John whipped out his knife. Savagely and indiscriminately they laid about them. Shrieks and curses told how their weapons were finding their marks.

Rushing forward, Beddows kicked over the brazier. The remainder of the live coals hissed in the water and swiftly dulled. Near darkness engulfed the awful mere. Beddows shouted to John

`Get the girl out! I'll keep these bastards busy.'

John had already reached Christina and pulled her to her feet. The squint eyed witch barred their path. Without hesitation John knifed her in the breast. With a filthy imprecation she clutched at the wound and staggered sideways. Jumping the still hissing coals, John and Christina dashed towards the doorway. As they did so, by the dying light they glimpsed the tall bony faced man charging at them. Evading his clutch by inches they gained the passage and sped down it.

Before they were half way to the foot of the slope John knew that Christina's strength was failing. With one hand he had thrust his knife into his pocket and pulled out his torch, so that he could light the way ahead of them the other he had round her waist and, as they ran on, he could feel her flagging. From behind them came the sounds of pounding feet, telling that they were very far from being out of danger. A veritable madness had seized upon the remaining Satanists, and those not occupied in endeavouring to overcome Beddows were in full pursuit, headed by the lean man from Scotland.

Gasping and reeling, the flying couple reached the slope, but after a few steps up it Christina staggered and fell. This last effort after her terrible ordeal had proved too much for her; she had fainted. She was nearly as tall as John, yet, temporarily granted superhuman strength, he pulled her arm across the 'back of his neck, heaved her up in a fireman's lift across his shoulders and continued the steep ascent.

Bent nearly double, he lurched a dozen steps; then he knew that he could never make it. He had still a hundred and twenty feet of slope to mount, and at its top he would have to get her up the twenty foot long rope ladder. Even a Hercules could not accomplish such a feat in time to escape the fiends who were now coming up the slope behind him, howling for vengeance.

Then for a moment he was given fresh hope by hearing Beddows' voice mingled with the rest, shouting, `Go on, John! Stick to it! I'll stop them following!'

That cheering sound told him that Beddows had either dealt with, or escaped from, the Satanists remaining in the temple, and was now attacking the others at the bottom of the slope.. It meant a brief respite and he did his utmost to make the best of it. Holding his torch in one hand and grasping Christina's wrist with the other, he dragged his feet yard by yard upward. Yet he was barely half way to the top when he fell to his knees, weighed down by Christina's limp body, and mentally crushed by the knowledge that he was at the end of his tether. In vain he tried to rise. He could not. He could only pray, and mutter over and over again

`Oh Lord, help us ! Oh Lord, help us!'

And then indeed help came. There was the sound of slithering footsteps above him, and the light of torches shone in his eyes. Echoing back from the stone walls C.B.’s voice reached him:

`John! John! Thank God we are in time!'

Willing hands lifted Christina off him. Still gasping for breath he staggered up the last half of the awful slope. At its top, C. B. and another man got Christina up the ladder. A third helped him to climb it.

Half dazed, he stepped out into the moonlight. His mother was there and flung her arms about him. Beside C. B. stood old Malouet, and with them were several gendarmes. It was they who carried Christina to one of the stretchers and covered her sacking garment with warm cloaks.

John was still standing on the edge of the hole when he again caught the clamour of the surviving Satanists. They had reached the platform immediately below the opening. Molly and C. B. ran to it. The latter shone his torch downwards. It lit a group of wild upturned faces. That of Beddows was among them. It was covered with blood, but he was still striking out at the nearest of the enemy. In the darkness and confusion they had failed to identify and overcome him.

What John took to be a stone fell into their midst. Next second there came a blinding flash of light and a shattering explosion. C. B. swore and pulled Molly back. Two of the gendarmes came running up to ask what had happened. No one could say. It could only be assumed that one of the Satanists had been carrying a package of explosives, and a blow upon it during the melee had set it off. When C. B. shone his torch down the hole again it revealed a tangle of dead and dying men and women.

Leaving all but two of the police, who had already picked up the stretcher on which Christina lay, to perform such rescue work as might still be possible, the others set off down the hill. When John had recovered a little he asked C. B.

`How did you manage to come on the scene like this and save us at the very last moment?'

`It was your mother, my boy,' C. B. replied. `She is a woman in a million.'

`Nonsense!' cut in Molly, who was walking just ahead of them. `I did no more than use my common sense. Your having promised Count Jules that you would not communicate with the police was not binding on me.'