Hugh Jamieson thought that anyone observing the four of them hurrying along Main Street, would never in a million years have mistaken them for freedom fighters. Taken as a group they made a ridiculous sight. McCammion striding ahead, his tangled hair and bushy beard making him look like a mad scientist. Eleanor Jarvie (now augmented by the Dead Brides if Mary Syme was to be believed) travelling in McCammion’s slipstream, still wearing Mary’s winter coat which was ridiculously short on her, and every time the wind gusted past, Hugh saw a white flash of bare buttocks. Then there was the comic figure of Mary herself, dressed in her Sunday best, her little legs going nineteen to the dozen as she struggled to keep up with the two pace setters. Hugh glanced down at his own natty apparel of paisley patterned pyjamas and tartan dressing gown, and thought he resembled a character from a Noel Coward play. Mary Syme could have at least given him the time to get properly dressed before rushing him out the door.
    Along the way the wind had died with the tolling Church bell; the gales speeding past them as if they were rushing somewhere else in a hurry. Luckily it had been at their backs as they climbed the hill towards the Church, helping rather than hindering them. Hugh tried to work out why Mary was intent in carrying out another Briding. Even if Martha Tarres and all the Dead Brides had taken up residence inside Eleanor Jarvie, it didn’t necessarily mean they could thwart Thurston Jenner. Things had gone too far and Jenner had become far too strong. Just by attempting to return to the crypt they would be attracting undue attention to Jenner’s missing hands. There were other things to be taken into consideration also. What if Jenner had placed sentries at the crypt entrance? How the hell did anyone expect him and Mary to fight against the unnatural things Jenner spawned from his dark imagination? And another thing that hadn’t been discussed. Perhaps the most important thing. Who would husband the Bride?
    Hugh sucked his burning breath between his teeth and wondered what a heart attack would feel like. Most likely it would be a pleasant affair compared with the humiliation of being ordered to get down on the mattress with Eleanor Jarvie and make a fool of himself. He couldn’t see Angus McCammion being too pleased with the arrangement either. The thing was, the Groom had to be a local man and that ruled McCammion out along with Robin Kirkbride, if he should actually show up with the amulet. So that only left one Hugh Jamieson to drop his pyjama bottoms and save the world. The thought of attempting the sexual act at his age, and in front of an audience made him feel ill. It frightened him even more than the Black Minister himself.
    The sound of a voice being raised in alarm came as a welcome distraction. It was a man’s voice and came from the direction of the Churchyard which was still some twenty yards or so up the hill. Eleanor Jarvie and her friend broke into a hard sprint, leaving himself and Mary to struggle along in their wake. Seeing that Mary was suffering, Hugh offered her his arm, half expecting the haughty old woman to shrug him off. Mary however seemed grateful for the assistance and leaned on him as they approached the Churchyard gates.
    Between breaths she managed to say to him, ‘We have to be careful Hugh, this time Jenner will try to halt the Briding. He’s too close to destroying the village to let us muck up his schemes. Once we get down into the crypt there won’t be any time for the usual prattling. No spouting on for hours about all your ‘We are the gathered’ nonsense. Just do what Martha tells you and don’t waste time arguing about it.’
    Hugh’s heart sank. Mary was as good as telling him that he would be the star turn on the mattress. It was all right for her to say just do as you’re told. Who was going to tell his body? Didn’t anyone realise he was nearly sixty four years old? He thought about making his protests heard here and now, but before he could voice any objections, they had reached the Church gates and a feeling of doom fell upon Hugh’s heart as if it were radiating in great black waves from the Church itself. Thurston Jenner was in there right now doing God knows what. Hugh could feel his dark aura emanate through the stone walls as if they were made from thin paper. Surely Jenner must know that they were outside. At any second he would come marching through the Church doors and crush them where they stood.
    Mary Syme tugged on his arm, making Hugh realise he had halted at the entrance to the Churchyard. ‘I think they are over there,’ she said pointing with a bony finger towards the area of the Churchyard where Cathy Armour had been buried four weeks ago. Reluctantly he forced his trembling legs into a quick walk and was glad Mary was still holding onto his arm. The contact gave him an inner strength that wasn’t of his own making. Behind him, from the Church, came the distinct sound of a man’s voice and Hugh knew what Jenner was doing in there. The Black Minister was preaching. The very thought of it filled him with a nameless horror and he almost pulled Mary Syme off her feet as he scuttled towards the cover of the tall headstones.
    His relief at making it safely behind enemy lines was short lived as he gazed on what the headstones had previously hidden from sight. Willie Baxter was injecting something into his arm with a syringe, while scattered around him were four dead bodies, making him look like a careless undertaker. With a terrible shock Hugh realised one of the corpses was Ben Shankly. He could only shake his head, unable to speak. He had no idea the madness had spread this far, and Willie Baxter of all people. The man was supposed to heal folk, not kill them.
    Standing only yards away from the insane doctor were Eleanor and McCammion. The vet viewed the scene dispassionately, like a bored pedestrian waiting for the lights to change. McCammion on the other hand wore an expression of deeply etched horror. His eyes flickered from one corpse to another as if he couldn’t really believe what he was seeing.
    Hugh watched silently as Baxter depressed the plunger and then withdrew the syringe from his arm, dropping it into his jacket pocket. He nodded politely to Hugh as he rolled down his sleeve.
    ‘Ah, Jamieson, a timely arrival. I was just on my way down to see you.’
    Hugh gestured mutely with his free hand in the general direction of the doctor’s victims. This was sheer butchery. A young man lay only three feet away from him, a knife impaling his hand against his eye, the remainder of his face so badly mutilated Hugh failed to recognise him. Ben Shankly lay half in moon shadow, the dark blotches on his head suggesting his fate hadn’t been much kinder than the unidentified young man’s. Hugh deliberately didn’t look too closely at the other bodies. No doubt the doctor had dispatched them with as much sadistic artistry as the first few.
    He knew it was up to him to reproach Willie Baxter for his terrible deeds. Make him see he had acted wrongly. It was his place as the only remaining member of the Betrothal Society to take charge. Martha Tarres might be head honcho in all matters relating to the supernatural, but Willie Baxter was human and that put him under Hugh’s own jurisdiction. He needed strong words to snap the doctor from whatever blood hungry glamour Thurston Jenner had inflicted upon him. If necessary they would subdue him.
    Eventually what emerged from his mouth was, ‘Willie Baxter! What in the name of blazes are you doing?’
    Anger flared in the doctor’s eyes as if it had just occurred to him what Hugh was accusing him of. ‘What am I doing?’ he said harshly. ‘I’ll tell you what I’m doing Hugh Jamieson. I’m shooting up heroin and committing mass murder just like I do every bloody Friday night! Maybe it should be me who’s asking you what the hell you’re doing. You’re supposed to be the great Lord Protector where the Black Minister is concerned. So you explain to me how all this has happened. And if you’re really interested in what I was doing with the syringe, I was administering something to help me stay sane and alive. It’s just as well I’m not depending on the Betrothal Society to do that for me.’
    Hugh hung his head ashamed. He had jumped to conclusions and made a prize idiot of himself. He felt Mary Syme’s sharp elbow dig into his ribs like a reprimand, and he had to restrain himself from asking her why hadn’t she said anything if she was so damn clever. Mumbling an apology of sorts, he asked Baxter who the other bodies were, more for the sake of saying something than really wanting to know. Willie Baxter pointed to each of the corpses in turn as if he was introducing guests at a dinner party.
    ‘The tall fellow is Rick Jansen, one of the policemen who was here this afternoon. You were talking to him I think.’ He gestured to the youth with the knife in his face. ‘Unfortunately Eddie Hyslop saw fit to sneak up on Mr Jansen from behind and stabbed him through the throat. It was Jansen by the way who found Ben and asked me to make an identification.’
    Hugh grimaced as he tried to visualise what had taken place. The policeman had seemed a decent sort, aside from his frightening looks. ‘What was Jansen doing here in the first place? I thought the police weren’t supposed to be coming back until tomorrow.’
    ‘He was looking for the other CID man, Inspector Davidson. I’m not sure if you had the dubious pleasure of meeting him. Oh, and he’s dead too incidentally.’
    From the sidelines Hugh distinctly heard Angus McCammion hiss ‘Good riddance,’ and realised there was an awful lot going on in Carapace tonight he knew nothing about. Naively he had assumed the Betrothal Society was at the epicentre of the everything. He glanced down again at the gruesome death pose of Eddie Hyslop. ‘Did you....?’ Hugh stopped, he didn’t want Baxter jumping off the deep end again. ‘I mean, I guess you acted in self defence. It’s understandable you know.’
    Willie Baxter chuckled sardonically. ‘For God’s sake Jamieson if you think I killed the boy just say so. Don’t beat about the bush. A few minutes ago you had me down a serial killer and now you’re acting coy over a single culpable homicide. Just for the record though, it wasn’t me. That piece of handiwork was down to Robin Kirkbride I’m afraid.’
    Hugh followed Baxter’s gaze and realised he had entirely forgotten about the fourth corpse.
    ‘He managed to disarm Eddie after the boy killed Jansen. I tried to stop him, but Robin was too far gone to stop by that point. I wouldn’t think badly of the man, he probably saved both our lives.’
    Unable to take his eyes from the still, crumpled figure on the ground, Hugh felt a great burden of responsibility settle upon him. Kirkbride was another death entirely accountable to his own stupid actions in all of this. The man was only here because the Betrothal Society had burned his house down. He could feel Mary Syme staring hard at him and knew she shared his view, but before he could wallow any further in his own self condemnation, another thought struck him like a punch in the kidneys. If Eddie Hyslop had murdered the police sergeant, and Robin Kirkbride had in turn killed Eddie, then who had killed Kirkbride? Once again he turned to look at Willie Baxter, his stare stark and accusing. His face must have easy to read because Baxter raised his eyes to the starry sky above and looked like he was praying for deliverance.
    ‘Is there a single death within a fifty mile radius that you haven’t got my name pencilled in against Hugh Jamieson? Robin’s not even dead for heaven’s sake!’
    Hugh sat heavily on a low gravestone. He was utterly confused now. ‘Not dead?’ he heard himself say stupidly. ‘But I presumed..........’
    ‘You presume too bloody much Jamieson. Robin passed out, that’s all. A combination of trauma and exhaustion. Nothing that twenty years of psychotherapy can’t fix. He’s had a bad time of it.’ Baxter paused momentarily as if bracing himself to taste something bitter in his mouth before spitting it out. ‘Jessica is dead you know,’ he finally said.
    Hugh hung his head, not meeting the doctor’s eye, sure his shame must be shining like a beacon. He was glad when Mary Syme quietly said, ‘We know.’
    ‘And the worst thing is that Robin didn’t find out until he’d spent most of the day with her, ‘Baxter continued. ‘I guess that makes a difference to your Briding too.’
    It was at this moment that Eleanor Jarvie finally stirred herself into action and walked between the two men. ‘We must leave. Thurston Jenner’s power grows while my hold over this flesh wanes with every passing minute.’
    Willie Baxter stared at the vet as if he was only just noticing her presence here. A perplexed look flicked across his face and his hand reached up scratch his bald head. ‘Eleanor, please don’t tell me you’ve joined Jamieson’s band of crazies. You’re not well. If you’ve any sense you’ll go straight home and lock your door until the morning.’
    Hugh watched as Baxter’s stare was dragged down to the vet’s crotch level where a button was missing from the coat. He took a small, mean pleasure from the way the doctor’s eyes widened in surprise.
    ‘For heavens sake woman, you’re not wearing a stitch of clothing beneath that thing. What in the name of God are you thinking of?’
    Eleanor Jarvie stood ramrod straight but remained silent. The warrior glint in her eye had diminished somehow, and every time she glanced towards the Church, Hugh saw cracks of apprehension appear on the fortress walls of her courage. Mary Syme laid an arm on the doctor’s arm. ‘This is no longer Eleanor as you know her Willie Baxter. The woman before us is Martha Tarres and every other Bride who continued the chain after her.’
    Hugh expected Baxter to laugh in Mary’s face, or make one of his sarcastic comments. To his surprise though, Willie Baxter merely shrugged as if Mary had told him nothing more ordinary than the sky was blue.
    ‘Well I suppose I’ve already accepted the reality of Thurston Jenner emotionally, if not intellectually. So that doesn’t leave my disbelief much room for manoeuvre does it.’ Willie Baxter scrutinised Eleanor Jarvie closely before adding, ‘If it’s any help Miss Tarres, my friend has your necklace. It’s around his neck.’
    The woman nodded gravely before replying, ‘This is known to me. We must go now even if you must carry your friend.’
    Eleanor Jarvie/Martha Tarres strode forward without a backward glance to see if anyone was following her. Hugh thought she drifted between the maze of headstones like the pilot of a boat who knows where every sharp rock lies in a treacherous river. Angus McCammion held his hands up in the gesture of a man who knows he has few choices left and nodded towards the prone figure of Robin Kirkbride. ‘I guess you’ll need a hand with him,’ he said.
    Hugh stood up and prepared to help carry a man who might just want to kill him when he woke up.

    Hector Ramsay waited half way down the centre aisle for the collection plate to return. His dream that was no dream had become a nightmare of juggernaught proportions. It bore down mercilessly upon him, crushing him beneath wheels embedded with ragged chunks of metal and shards of coloured glass. In the last ten minutes he had given up believing in God. There was no holy puppeteer above pulling the strings of a trillion souls. Christianity had been nothing more than a bad joke. There was no heavenly host, no Calvary cross, no garden of Eden, no everlasting joy and light. There was only chaos. Astoroth, Gomeh, Valefar, Yod, Acteus. Lords of disorder. The only truth behind the pathetic charade of human life.
    He had thought Thurston Jenner would strike him dead where he lay after falling from the pulpit, and in hindsight it would have been a softer option, but the Black Minister had subtler punishments for those who did not bend to his will. Elizabeth Logan had handed Ramsay the collection plate while Thurston Jenner smirked evilly at him. The heavy duty pliers in the collection plate left him in no doubt that it wouldn’t be money he gathered from the congregation.
    He looked towards the chancel where a fire had been lit in the marble font. David Melrose was feeding black leather bound books, one by one into the leaping flames. Ramsay understood now what the books were. Jenner himself had screamed from the pulpit what the books contained. Heretical writings, lies, contamination, covenants written in blood, false testaments against God. They were the Betrothal Society’s journals that Hugh Jamieson had mentioned to him. Now they were smouldering ashes in the soot blackened font.
    Jenner himself remained in the pulpit, silent now, although his mouth still worked as if he was muttering quietly to himself. Occasionally his maimed arms would flap above his head like a demented scarecrow, revealing the raw stumps of his wrists. His lank hair hung over his face, but his eyes were still visible, rolling wildly in their sockets. Ramsay wanted to look away, but the alternative was to watch the congregation mutilate themselves as the collection plate passed from hand to hand along the row. Jenner’s movements became more complex as his body swayed to the organ music. It was hard to imagine such sounds could be wrung from the old pipe organ. The notes curled and twisted upon themselves like a nest of snakes, evoking a feeling of erotic rapture. Someone moaned softly to his left and Ramsay saw the shopkeeper’s wife, Megan Gallacher from the corner of his eye, both her hands buried in her lap as she openly pleasured herself. An elderly lady directly behind the masturbating woman leaned forward, and he thought she was going to chide the shopkeeper’s wife for her indecent behaviour in Church. Instead the older woman slid her hands around Megan Gallacher to cup her breasts. The shopkeeper’s wife cried out for God in a way that had nothing to do with divine salvation.
    Ramsay quickly refocused his attention on Thurston Jenner in the pulpit. He had become one with the music as he writhed like a man possessed, his head shaking violently from side to side. Ramsay hoped he was having a seizure, before reminding himself that the Black Minister was already dead and buried. David Melrose dropped the last of the books into the flames and stood back, making eye contact with Elizabeth Logan standing like a sentinel at the top of Ramsay’s aisle, checking that he didn’t flinch from his own disgusting duty. Every twenty seconds or so, the hollow chunk of the pliers came from the pew to his right, getting louder each time, and Ramsay knew the collection plate was getting nearer.
    He kept his eyes on Jenner, disturbed by the man’s frantic jittering. He could tell from the expectant looks Melrose and Elizabeth Logan exchanged that something was about to happen. Maybe the Black Minster would bring the whole Church crashing about their heads. Ramsay hoped that would be the case. At least it would put an end to the obscenities taking place around him. The music roiled like smoke, and more of the congregation began to wail and moan as the dark rapture invaded their hearts like a poisonous dart.
    Then as the organ soared one more time with a jarring progression of diminished ninths, Thurston Jenner rose from the pulpit like a flapping bat, ascending through the pastel coloured moonbeams until he hovered thirty feet in the air, the music sustaining him, keeping him aloft. Gibberish and saliva in equal measures spilled from his slack, open mouth and Ramsay saw David Melrose drop to his knees as he witnessed the miracle. With each grating blast from the organ, Jenner was lifted higher and higher until he was just below the eaves of the roof, his head thrown back like a wolf howling to the moon. A hush fell over the congregation like a blanket woven from threads of awe.
    Abruptly the music stopped and Ramsay saw Jenner fall like a stone back towards the pulpit. For a split second he thought something had gone amiss with Jenner’s incantations and a tiny spark of hope kindled in his heart. It was quickly extinguished when the Black Minister didn’t crash into the wooden pulpit so much as melt straight through it. There was no sound of collision, no smashing wood, as he disappeared from view. Around Ramsay the entire congregation burst into spontaneous cheering.
    Ramsay waited for Jenner to reappear and accept the plaudits for his cheap parlour trick, but the pulpit remained empty. The organ started up again, low, muted funeral music this time. A sepulchral intermission. Ramsay had a crazy image of David Melrose and Elizabeth Logan wandering through the congregation with little torches and trays of ice cream. The thought broke up as something hard edged and solid bumped against his leg. He looked down to see Elliot Strang pass him the collection plate already heaped with gory offerings. Ramsay tried not to look at the overflowing wooden plate as he took it and turned quickly to the pew on the opposite side of the aisle.
    The elderly woman (whose name Ramsay now remembered was Molly Kelly) had twisted Megan Gallacher’s head around and was kissing her passionately on the mouth, her hands still feverishly kneading the woman’s breasts. Ramsay ignored them and passed the collection plate along with the bloodstained pliers to a woman in the row beyond them. This done, he looked up to see the two turncoat Church elders conferring with each other. They didn’t appear to be unduly worried over Jenner’s disappearance.
    Ramsay closed his eyes, wondering what would happen if he made a break for the doors. Melrose and Elizabeth Logan would give chase of course, but they were only human and with Jenner momentarily out of the way he might have a chance of reaching the woods and hiding until daybreak. Surely by morning the police would be back, although how he could possibly explain any of this insanity to them he didn’t know. The congregation were too far gone to notice if he made a run for it, and probably wouldn’t be roused from their masochistic stupor unless Jenner himself returned to stir them up. Ramsay was actually beginning to think seriously about this possibility when an elbow dug into his thigh. He looked down into the tired face of a woman with bleached blonde hair.
    ‘Can’t manage it,’ the woman said dully.
    Ramsay swallowed hard. Surely she wasn’t suggesting he should assist with her offering. The very thought made his blood run cold and pockets of acid bile formed in his stomach. ‘You have to try,’ he whispered. ‘Please, just try a little a harder.’
    The woman shook her head vigorously. ‘No, it’s not me. It’s her. My daughter.’
    For the first time Ramsay noticed the little girl wearing a Daisy Duck night-dress seated beside her mother. In the half light of the Church, she looked like an angel with blonde, almost white hair. At most she was six years old. As he watched, the child held her pinkie at the first knuckle between the jaws of the pliers and squeezed as hard as she could on the rubber grips. The metal jaws sliced through the flesh easily enough, but she wasn’t strong enough to break the bone beneath. Daisy Duck was already splattered with dark stains.
    ‘You’ll have to help her,’ said the woman. ‘Isn’t that what you’re here for?’
    Ramsay prayed to God, quite forgetting that he no longer had any faith left worth mentioning. He couldn’t do this. He would mutilate his own hand rather than hurt the child.
    ‘Is there a problem Hector?’
    Ramsay hadn’t noticed Elizabeth Logan creeping up on him. It was the first chance he’d had to study her close up and he didn’t much like what he saw. The school teacher’s clothes were askew as if she had dressed hurriedly in the dark. Her make up was haphazard with smears of red lipstick around the corners of her mouth, and her hair was a fright. But it was her eyes that spooked Ramsay most. Looking into them was like peering through a telescope that was aligned upon hell. David Melrose stood behind the school teacher a superior smile on his smug face. He was now holding a stout looking baseball bat which he passed from hand to hand as if he were about to break into a song and dance routine. Ramsay looked from one Church elder to the other and saw nothing in their faces that suggested anything other than cold hearted sadism.
    ‘For God’s sake she’s only a child. How can you do these things?’
    Elizabeth Logan laughed lightly and patted Ramsay on the cheek with her palm. ‘Oh Hector, we’ve only just started, doesn’t the phrase ‘Suffer little children’ appear in the bible. It’s just a matter of interpretation. That’s why our Lord has returned to this earth. To show us where we have erred. Now what exactly is the problem here?’
    As the mother explained her daughter’s plight, Elizabeth Logan sighed heavily before saying, ‘Oh is that all. Give me the pliers.’
    ‘No!’ David Melrose was pointing the bat at Ramsay’s chest. ‘I want to see him do it. Lessons have to be learned. Take the pliers Hector.’ Melrose raised the bat above his head like a cudgel. Moonlight struck the varnished tip, making it glint cruelly.
    Ramsay shook his head and waited for the baseball bat to fall. Melrose would be doing him a favour by bashing his brains out.
    ‘Are you refusing a direct order Hector?’ The smile on Melrose’s face grew wider and his eyes sparkled behind his spectacles. Ramsay knew the man would be disappointed now if he backed down. Taking a deep breath he stared hard into Melrose’s laughing face and said, ‘Yes I am.’
    The bat came down in a blur of speed and at the last moment veered away from Ramsay narrowly missing his head by a fraction of an inch. Melrose still followed through with his swing and connected with someone behind Ramsay. There was brief grunt of pain and then the sound of a body sliding off the pew. Ramsay turned and saw the sprawled form of Megan Gallacher lying half in the aisle, a dark pool of blood rapidly spreading around her head. In the row behind, Molly Kelly still held her arms out as if embracing a phantom lover. The dead woman’s husband didn’t appear to have noticed at all.
    David Melrose wiped the bat on his jacket. ‘Did you see what that woman was doing? Absolutely disgusting. A bad example to any children present. Now Hector, are you going to do your duty or not?’
    Ramsay turned away from the dead woman. Sick in his heart. If he refused again it would be him on the floor with his skull crushed like an eggshell. He looked to the child waiting patiently for assistance and Elizabeth Logan holding out the pliers. For a brief second he almost took them from her, but there was still some shred of simple human dignity left in him that refused to cower like a beaten cur. The woman’s death changed nothing. He would rather die a man than act like a beast.
    To David Melrose he said, ‘I will not do it.’
    Melrose merely shrugged and dropped the bat to his side. ‘You’re no fun at all Hector. But don’t worry, our Lord has interesting plans for your demise. You can count on that my friend.’
    Melrose nodded to Elizabeth Logan. ‘Help the child Elizabeth, show Hector that a true Christian would never turn his back on someone in need.’
    Ramsay looked away as the school teacher leaned forward, pliers in hand. There was a slight pause before metal closed upon metal. Chunk. ‘There, that’s much better isn’t it,’ she said. ‘Thank you so much for your offering, That’s right, pass the plate along.’
    Then the two Church elders were marching back towards the chancel, leaving Ramsay to his own devices. He no longer had room in his mind for escape plans. There was no point anyway. No matter how far he ran away from this place, he would always hear the hollow chunk of pliers snapping though bone. He would hear it in dripping taps, and fluorescent light tubes, and ticket punchers on trains. It would drive him insane.
    Hector Ramsay slowly lowered himself to the floor, ignoring the spreading pool of blood from Megan Gallacher’s head, and began weeping as if he would never stop.

    For the second time in one night, Robin spiralled back up from the grey underworld of unconsciousness, and unlike the first time, this resurrection was instant and relatively pain free. A second ago he had been swimming through a colourless, uninhabited sea. Now he was somewhere else. But where? The air he breathed was fusty and held the after taste of kerosene. His protesting back muscles told him he was lying on hard stone. He could still hear the pipe organ breathing out its deep bass drone, only now it came from above him. Guessing the where wasn’t difficult, it was the why that was important. Had the unholy congregation from the Church rushed out and grabbed him after all? Had they carried him down to the crypt to sacrifice him to their dark God?
    He wondered how long he had been unconscious. The last thing he remembered was plunging a knife into a boy’s face. Robin felt no guilt over the act. It was justified violence. Guilt was reserved for worse things. Like stomping heavily on the stomach of a pregnant woman. Like killing your own unborn child out of sheer spite. Inside his head a wall made of interlocking bricks slid smoothly apart revealing a secret torture chamber where studded belts and barbed flays were uncoiling themselves, pleased to hand out another vicious beating to his already horse whipped conscience. Robin shied away to safer territory. This wasn’t the time to indulge in that particular luxury.
    He also remembered that he himself had been wounded in the fight with the boy. He gently shrugged his shoulder, but there was no pain, only a dull numbness. Around him he could hear voices, anxious whispers that relied on intensity of sibilance to compensate for lack of volume. Someone was arguing quietly. Robin listened.
    ‘And I say it should be you who does it. I’m not eligible, it would be against the rules.’
    ‘Oh, there’s rules is there? Did you ratify these rules when the Betrothal Society held their annual shareholders meeting? You’re making this up to shirk your responsibilities.’
    ‘I am not!’
    ‘You bloody well are!’
    Robin heard the indignant belligerence in Willie Baxter’s voice and almost smiled. The second voice had to be Hugh Jamieson of the fabled Betrothal Society. Robin was about to sit up and announce his waking state when a third man’s voice joined the discussion. This voice didn’t bother with whispering.
    ‘Shut up the pair of you! This craziness has gone far enough! If either one of you so much as touches Eleanor, I’ll smack both your heads together. We should be going to the police, not playing disgusting sex games down here. You’re all mad, every one of you.’
    Unable to play dead any longer, Robin opened his eyes, and in the light of a flickering Tilley lamp saw Willie Baxter standing next to a small, white haired man wearing a tartan dressing gown. Nearby, a heavy set man with a bushy beard glared daggers at both of them. A tiny figure dressed in black pushed her way between the three quarrelling men, and Robin recognised Mary Syme. Her words were scalding hot as if she had boiled them beforehand.
    ‘Aye McCammion, we might all be mad. But we’re alive and we want to go on being alive. And there’s more to consider than your own hurt feelings at stake in this issue. There’s a hundred lives right above our heads to think of. If we fail here, they’ll die too. Every man, woman, and crying child.’
    Suddenly it was plain to Robin what all the bickering was about. He had wakened up in the middle of a Briding, as Jess had called it, and Baxter and Hugh Jamieson were arguing over who got to do the honours. Or rather, who didn’t. The bearded man Mary Syme had addressed as McCammion looked as if he still intended arguing his corner until Robin sat up and coughed into his fist. Four faces swivelled to stare at him curiously as if he had walked straight through one of the thick stone walls. Robin decided if his opinion was sought on the matter he would give his support to McCammion. He had been in the man’s shoes himself tonight and felt a bond of solidarity link them.
    Willie Baxter was quickly over at his side. ‘Robin! Are you all right. No, don’t try to stand up yet. Best to just sit there for a while and get your strength back. How’s the old shoulder? I hope you don’t mind me taking the liberty of giving you a little jab. You probably won’t feel a thing for the next few hours. I also did a temporary sewing job on you, not very good I’m afraid, but as long as you don’t start tap dancing or something, it’ll hold until I do it properly. Listen, we’re having a little problem here. I’ve not really got time to explain, it’s just............’
    Baxter was cut off in mid flow by a voice Robin hadn’t heard so far. It came from the shadows behind the lamp which rested on top of a granite platform. Robin also realised that what he had taken for a fancy part of the platform was actually a stone sarcophagus. A woman dressed in a short black coat walked into open view and Robin suddenly found it hard to breath as he recognised Jess. Then he blinked and the woman became a stranger who didn’t remotely resemble his dead wife in the slightest. Something tugged at his memory and he remembered a woman in a white blouse running hard for the woods while the sound of dying dogs filled the air. This must be the vet, Eleanor Jarvie. What she had to do with all this Robin couldn’t imagine.
    ‘Enough!’ the woman said. ‘We must act now or be forever lost. The physician will husband me. I have spoken.’
    Robin’s mouth dropped open as she slipped off her coat and stood before them naked. Not wanting to add to McCammion’s misery he averted his gaze from the nude woman and instead scrutinised Willie Baxter’s reaction to the command. The doctor looked as if he had just been told to eat a maggot infested burger lifted from a dustbin, rather than make love to an attractive woman. His mouth set into a hard, grim line and the glare he directed at Hugh Jamieson was murderous. The bearded man looked as if he were about to burst into tears and Robin felt for him. He could only watch as McCammion slunk to a corner of the chamber and sat with his head in his hands, a picture of abject misery.
    Eventually Willie Baxter shrugged and said in a resigned voice, ‘The oracle has duly spoken. We may as well get on with it. But at least have the decency to turn your backs.’
    Robin got to his feet, wincing as his sore and bruised muscles came back to life. After the horrors of the past few hours, this situation should have seemed like a comic farce, but there was an undercurrent of fear that told him the active participants were playing out their roles in deadly earnest. He realised Mary Syme was staring at him with raw sympathy in her eyes.
    ‘I’m sorry about Jessica,’ she said. ‘We all are.’ Her gaze momentarily switched to Hugh Jamieson who was now steadfastly refusing to look in Robin’s direction. Robin assumed the small man was embarrassed at being involved in cuckolding him when the Betrothal Society held its first Briding tonight. Jamieson was an active party in his wife’s infidelity. For that matter so was Mary Syme. Funnily enough he no longer felt angry at the wrinkled old woman or the Betrothal Society. They had all been cuckolded in the end by Thurston Jenner. Next to him their petty sins amounted to nothing.
    He nodded to Mary Syme. Acknowledging her apology. He wanted to ask about what they thought they were going to accomplish by holding another Briding, but the vet spoke again.
    ‘I require the amulet.’
    Robin flinched at the tone of her voice and turned round, trying hard to keep his eyes locked on her face. There was something in her stern, detached manner that made him feel slightly afraid of her. Without a word he slipped the amulet over his head and handed it to the woman who accepted it with a slight bow of her head. She put on the chain and seemed to stand taller as the amber stone nestled between her full breasts. Stepping round the stone platform, she locked her intense gaze on Hugh Jamieson.
    ‘You too, school teacher, have a task to carry out. When the consummation is under way, you will remove Thurston Jenner’s hands from their place of concealment. Only then may I reveal to you how they can safely be destroyed.’
    The Betrothal Society man looked dumbstruck but said nothing. Robin tried to remember what Jess’s doppleganger had said to him about the severed hands, and why they had been so important. It was something to do Jenner’s power. Destroy the hands and the Black Minister was gone forever, or something like that. It all seemed suspiciously simple.
    Satisfied everything was now in order, the naked woman turned and walked to corner of the crypt where a thin, camping mattress lay spread out. Robin couldn’t help himself from taking in the heavy sway of her buttocks as she walked. It was only when she lay on the mattress with her legs spread wide apart that he finally tore his eyes from that part of the chamber.
    Willie Baxter had removed his jacket and trousers and now stood in his shirt and a baggy pair of boxer shorts. His bald head gleamed with sweat despite the chill of the air around them. ‘Well, what are you looking at Kirkbride?’ he snapped. ‘Go and sit out the way. This won’t take long, if it happens at all.’
    Robin stood to the side as Mary Syme approached the doctor with a flask in her hand. He thought that if the old woman offered Baxter some hot soup to get him going, he would crack up completely. It was like being in the middle of a bizarre dream from which he knew there was no hope of waking.
    ‘Here,’ said Mary Syme to Baxter. ‘There’s not much left, but it’s very potent. Drink it quickly and do what must be done.’
    Baxter upended the flask and swallowed its contents, grimacing as the liquid went down his throat. He looked as if he were about to utter a disparaging remark about the vile concoction he had swallowed, when his features went suddenly slack, and a long, thin erection began to nose its way from the opening in his boxer shorts. Robin turned away embarrassed.
    He intended joining McCammion in the far corner where the man sat with his head in his hands, but was stopped by Hugh Jamieson laying a hand on his arm. The Betrothal Society man still wouldn’t look him in the eye, and kept his gaze somewhere over Robin’s shoulder as he quietly said, ‘I might need a bit of assistance getting Jenner’s hands free.’
    Robin nodded and actually began to feel slightly sorry for this little man dressed in his pyjamas and dressing gown. From the back of the crypt came the sound of dry rustling as someone adjusted their weight on the mattress, followed by the unmistakable age old human symphony of laboured breathing, and flesh smacking against flesh. The consummation was underway.
    Mary Syme came to stand beside them as Jamieson removed the Tilley lamp from the stone coffin and laid it on the floor. The crypt at once took on the sinister ambience of the Inquisition as shadows leapt up the walls like freed souls. Grasping the bottom edge of the lid, Jamieson slid it back and nodded at Robin to help him lift it to the floor. As he leaned over the sarcophagus Robin inhaled the desiccated aroma of old bones and leathery skin. It wasn’t entirely unpleasant but he sure wouldn’t have worn it as an aftershave.
    Once the lid was safely on the floor, Jamieson lifted the lamp and placed it inside the stone coffin. Robin felt a chill creep over him as he stared at someone he had already met tonight, albeit in a dream. He remembered reaching out his hand to lift the veil of the Black Bride when this bundle of dry sticks and leather had commanded him to wake up. At the time he had just thought it was another part of the nightmare, and afterwards things had escalated so fast he had no time analyse the dream in any great detail. Now he knew better, he felt a twinge of gratitude. If he had lifted Cathy Armour’s veil he might never have woken up at all.
    He wasn’t aware that he had spoken aloud until Mary Syme whispered, ‘What was that?’ Robin shook his head and half smiled. ‘So this is Old Martha. I was just thinking that she already saved me once tonight.’
    ‘She has?’ the old woman sounded surprised. ‘How?’
    ‘Another time perhaps. It’s a long story. But put it this way, if she wasn’t so bloody ugly I would kiss her.’
    Hugh Jamieson’s eyes widened in alarm and he held his finger to his lips. ‘Not so loud. She might hear you. And I wouldn’t like to be the man who gives offence to that one.’
    Robin smiled indulgently until he realised Jamieson wasn’t looking at the husk in the coffin. He was staring pensively towards where Willie Baxter was puffing and panting atop the vet.
    Intuitively Robin understood why the woman had been behaving so peculiarly, and why she hadn’t seemed in the least bit shy about shedding her clothes in front of strangers. Turning, he could just make out the seat of Willie Baxter’s white boxer shorts rise and fall valiantly as the good doctor played his part in fighting Thurston Jenner. To Mary Syme he said, ‘You mean she’s......?’
    ‘Yes,’ she whispered back. ‘Martha Tarres is back amongst us. Her and every other Carapace Bride down the line. They’re all in there.
    Hugh Jamieson smiled wryly and said, ‘Baxter thinks he’s having sexual intercourse, but he’s wrong. He’s having a bloody orgy. There must be at least nine Brides in there.’
    Mary Syme scowled darkly at the little man but only said, ‘Ten if you must know, but enough chit chatting, it’s vital we remove the hands before the consummation ends.’
    Robin peered into the coffin and saw nothing that resembled two severed hands. Perhaps they were hidden beneath the crumbling corpse, that would mean actually touching it. As much as he felt grateful to Old Martha for her timely intervention in his dream, he balked at the idea of actually laying his hands on her. He’d read that certain diseases could lie dormant inside dead bodies for hundreds of years. The bubonic plague could be sleeping mere inches away from him.
    ‘Christ, we don’t have to lift her do we?’
    Jamieson shook his head. ‘No. We have to open her up. Jenner’s hands are hidden inside.’
    Blood drained from Robin’s face as he realised what they were asking him to do. Behind him Willie Baxter’s breathing was speeding up, and from the anxious expressions on both Hugh Jamieson’s and Mary Syme’s faces he knew they had noticed too.
    ‘The shroud first Hugh,’ the old woman whispered urgently.
    Robin stood back as Jamieson tore the dusty shroud straight down the middle, the brittle material tearing like old paper. Under the lamp light, the exposed body looked like something from those old black and white films about Nazi concentration camps, only a hundred times worse. With the breasts nothing but empty flaps of skin, it was difficult to even tell what sex the body was. Every bone stood out sharply, making it look like a hellish musical instrument designed by the devil himself. Hugh Jamieson had scuttled around the opposite side of the coffin and placed his hands on the corpse’s sternum, his fingers sinking into the crumbling flesh for leverage. He paused, waiting for Robin to do the same.
    Robin hesitated. He didn’t want to do this. They were going to pull the dead body apart like a Christmas turkey. He tried to think of some other way they could open the torso without having to touch it, but he could think of nothing. In the background, Willie Baxter’s breathing intensified into a crescendo of rasping grunts. Still Robin faltered, unable to touch the dead thing in the coffin. He listened as the pipe organ upstairs ebbed and flowed like a dark sea crashing against the walls of the church, sending shock waves down into the foundations. Mary Syme stuck her face as close to Robin’s as she could and hissed, ‘Do it Robin Kirkbride! If not for the love of God, then for the memory of your dead wife.’
    The words hurt Robin like sharpened barbs sinking into his scalp, but they broke his stasis. He moved forward, gripping the edge of the corpse’s rib cage feeling the parchment dry flesh push its way beneath his fingernails. Jamieson said ‘One, two, three. Heave!’, and Robin pulled with all his strength , hearing the ribs break apart with a sickening snap of glass brittle bone. Centuries old dust filled the air making all three of them cough and sneeze. Robin heard Willie Baxter moan deep in his throat as he neared the end of his own personal race, and the muted organ music eerily soared as if to match the doctor’s efforts.
    Unable to help himself, Robin joined Jamieson and Mary Syme as they frantically searched amongst the debris in the sarcophagus for Jenner’s hands. The lamp was flickering erratically, causing shadows to dart this way and that, making it difficult to see what they sought for so desperately. Then Robin caught sight of two shrivelled, brownish objects that looked like nothing more than a couple of withered crabs. Jamieson saw them at the same time and thrust his hands into the wreckage of Martha Tarres’s mortal remains. ‘I have them!’ he cried, but the look of triumph on his face turned to turned to panic. ‘Oh Christ, Mary, they’re stuck. I can’t believe it, they’re bloody well caught on something. Help me!’
    Robin leaned further over the coffin, but even as he did he saw the leathery old fingers suddenly uncoil and wrap themselves around Hugh Jamieson’s wrists.
    With a screech of fright, Jamieson tried to pull away, but all he succeeded in doing was to wrench the hands out of Martha Tarres’s ruined torso. The hands were not the only thing Jamieson pulled from the coffin. Attached to them were a pair of arms covered in dark sores. Robin wanted to aid Jamieson but he could only watch in horror as a head and then shoulders followed the arms into the crypt.
    Beside him, Mary Syme keened like a woman lost as Thurston Jenner breech birthed himself from the sarcophagus.