McKinley suddenly sat on a chair away from the others. With head bowed as if in prayer, he seemed shrunken.
Carter turned to Kirby and Bayliss. ‘John is telling me that he thinks I’m right.’
‘Come on then,’ Bayliss said. ‘Right about what?’
‘DeMarco has been recruiting people for one more battle. Dead people mainly, but if there weren’t enough of those he takes them anyway. Like the management team from Waincraft. Like the crofters. Like Jane.’
Bayliss walked to the bar and poured himself another large whisky. ‘And deMarco is performing this recruitment drive here on Kulsay, is that it?’
Carter pointed to the floor. ‘Not on Kulsay; under it.’
Kirby coughed. ‘What I don’t understand, well there’s loads of it really, but if deMarco is Jewish, a convert or what ever, and his grievance is against the Catholic Church, why is he recruiting non-Jews, and even Catholics?’
Bayliss threw his glass to the floor where it smashed like childhood dreams. ‘Come on, deMarco!’ he shouted at the top of his voice. ‘Come on, Alphonse. Are you up for recruiting a shit like me? I’m a true challenge, a real non-believer. Can you…’
There was a sound like jelly being poured from a jug and McKinley called out, ‘Carter.’
Everyone turned to the window where McKinley was sitting; only he wasn’t seated comfortably. His feet had sunken into the ground almost up to his knees so that he was slumped forwards, half on and half off his chair.
Carter stood but before he could move across to him McKinley motioned him to stay where he was.
‘I tried to stop myself from sinking into the floor,’ McKinley said. ‘But it didn’t work. I had to use my ability to keep what ever it is at bay. You won’t be able to pull me out without using your psychic power.’
Kirby put her hand on Carter’s shoulder. ‘Which means opening yourself up, and making yourself vulnerable to attack.’
‘Come on,’ Bayliss said. ‘We can pull him out if we work together.’ He bustled over to McKinley, standing behind the chair, and grasped the large man’s shoulders. ‘Push back, John.’
‘No,’ Carter said. ‘You’ll break his concentration and we’ll lose him.’
Kirby took Bayliss by the arm and guided him away. ‘Leave Robert to deal with it.’
Carter closed his eyes. McKinley stared at him for a moment and then closed his. Kirby was certain she could feel an energy buzz in the room, like an electric generator humming a monotonous tune. McKinley began to move his head up and down like a mockery of nodding. Then his upper body joined in so that he was rocking forwards and backwards in the chair as if demented. Carter raised his arms in the air, spread them and then thrust them hard against his side.
McKinley rocked forwards so far that it looked as if he was going to fall on his face. Then he propelled back again, hit the chair hard, and his feet and legs reared up until they were over his head. The floor where he had been encased was rippling as if liquid. It looked like a crystal clear surface of water and Bayliss couldn’t take his eyes away from the figures and shapes he could see. The motion of McKinley’s body carried his legs over his shoulders and he fell backwards out of the chair.
His eyes opened at the same time as Carter’s.
‘Did you see them?’ Bayliss said. ‘Did you look into the…’
McKinley walked over to Carter and thrust out his hand. ‘I owe you.’
Carter shook his hand and then sat down. The forces that had been pulling on McKinley were powerful; not just physically, but their mental strength was strong.
A roar of cracking masonry ripped through the room like the cry of a wounded animal. The walls of the Manse began to buckle as if being squeezed, and slowly but certainly a hole began to form in the floor at their feet.
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
The hole was perfectly symmetrical. Small at first; gradually it widened out, never deviating from its circular shape, never getting distorted. If the movement of it opening had been accompanied by music it would have been Mendelssohn’s Scottish Symphony, the lavish Fingal’s Cave.
McKinley placed an arm across Bayliss, indicating they should both move away from the lip of the hole. Carter took hold of Kirby’s arm and all four of them moved towards the door. The floor was all but gone now, and the hole opened almost as wide as the room. From within the hole they could see flames, though there was little heat; and there were screams.
‘It’s Dante’s Inferno,’ Bayliss said.
‘Only it’s deMarco, not Dante,’ Carter said, and as he spoke the outer wall of the room broke in two and pieces of the masonry fell into the opening. Great plumes of smoke and flame billowed up, eager tongues of fire.
‘The ceiling,’ McKinley shouted, and the whole of the ceiling began to collapse downwards.
They rushed out of the room and into the entrance hall. The staircase had fallen in on itself; the windows were shattered, great panes of glass hanging in cracked arrangements of irregular pattern. The marble floor tiles were popping up, one by one, as if pushed from beneath.
Carter turned to face the others. ‘We need to get out of here, and fast.’
‘What are we waiting for?’ Bayliss said and moved to run.
Carter held a hand to the man’s chest. ‘They’ll try to stop us.’
The front door crashed open, the force flinging the heavy oak hard against its hinges, pulling them from the wall.
Bayliss pointed. ‘That doesn’t look like we’re being prevented from leaving. That looks like an invitation to me.’ Then he heard a voice calling his name. ‘Did you hear that?’
Then his name again, ahead of him now, through the door, a faint hissing voice, terrifying in its malevolence.
‘Doesn’t sound like an invitation now, does it?’ Kirby said. The voice was angry and demanding.
Carter could see the trees and the garden to the front of the Manse, but it was in the distance, and the scene seemed blurred, out of focus, as if his eyes were covered in gauze.
Despite the dangers he knew they couldn’t stay in the house. At first he had thought the collapse was intended to kill them all. Now he realized it was merely designed to get them out into the open. ‘Come on,’ he said. ‘We’ll have to risk it. We can’t stay here.’
He clapped Bayliss on the back, and lightly took hold of Kirby’s hand.
He ran on, as the sudden silence of the house overwhelmed him. There was no sound in the place at all, no screams from the opened floor in the bar, no loud rumblings as the walls crumbled. He was conscious of a slapping sound as his feet hit the floor, but even that sound was sucked away until all he could hear was the blood rushing in his ears.
Progress was painfully slow. Although he was conscious of running with all the speed his body could muster, the front door never seemed to get any nearer, and gradually he became aware that the floor under his feet was becoming soft. He seemed to be sinking into the tiles with each step he took. Almost as if he was running through sand, and at the edge of the sand was water, deep water waiting to claim him.
Voices began to clamor in his head. Let yourself go, Robert. Let your body sink into the floor. We’re waiting for you.
He looked around at the others and it was as if they were running in slow motion, fierce effort burned into their faces, but they didn’t seem to be moving.
The voices whispered in his ear again, joined this time by other voices, each calling his name, cursing him, vilifying him. Too exhausted to reply to them he ran on, wanting only to reach the outside.