‘Now, one last time; where is she?’
Breathing heavily, Gareth stared straight at Camael, his jaw fixed, the side of his face throbbing painfully. The words of his reply were long and drawn out: ‘I don’t know!’
Camael’s finger flicked out a silent order. The man who had struck Gareth bent down to Gareth’s leg and yanked off his shoe.
‘What are you doing?’ Gareth gasped as he tried to yank his leg free. The shoe on the other foot was similarly removed. Then his socks were pulled off. The man had both Gareth’s legs pinned to the ground. ‘You’re crazy! Let me go!’
‘Bring the lamp closer,’ Camael ordered.
With a sinking heart Gareth recognised the man with the lamp when he came closer; it was the man who had been engrossed in his cake and magazine at Cardiff station. ‘This is pure madness!’ he said. ‘I never met her before that day. I don’t know where she is now or what all this is about!’
Camael ignored him. He removed a small leather case from his coat and unzipped it. ‘I’d like to believe you, but you must understand that I have to make doubly sure.’ He smiled coldly, his teeth revealed to be large, uneven and yellowed. ‘Are you afraid of death, Gareth?’
‘What kind of question is that?’ He was instantly reminded of his strange conversation with Lambert-Chide.
‘The one most people usually answer yes to.’ Camael took a long, slender needle from the case and held it up to the light, which zipped down its length like silver fire as he twisted it before his eye. ‘I am not afraid of death. I know what awaits me when I pass over. But you — well if I were you then I would certainly live in fear of it. Eternal damnation, burning in the fire pits of hell for all time; not exactly a holiday, is it?’ He bent down to Gareth’s left foot and placed the needle against the soft centre of his sole. He flinched but the man held his leg tight. ‘Where is she, Gareth?’
‘I know what you know; nothing.’
Camael shoved the needle deep into the yielding flesh of Gareth’s foot; it came to rest against bone. Gareth screamed out in agony.
‘My colleagues here have long experience of extracting information from reluctant lips, Gareth,’ Camael said. ‘But whilst pulling out fingernails and such like have their place in the grand scheme of things I find the simplest measures are often the most effective.’ He twisted the needle in Gareth’s foot and he yelled out. ‘Straightforward darning needles, large ones of course. Available from your local store.’ He removed another from the leather case and placed it gently against Gareth’s right foot. I always find myself wondering at this point how Jesus must have felt, his feet being nailed to the cross. Where is the woman you call your sister? Please tell me, I have a case full of needles and all the time in the world.’
He shook his head frantically. ‘I’ve told you all I know.’
Camael rammed home the needle till it struck bone and Gareth cried out. His arms strained at his bindings to no avail, and his legs were still pinned heavily down despite his manic thrashing.
‘You are either very brave or very foolish,’ said Camael. He signalled for the man to release Gareth’s legs. He drew up his knees and groaned, the soles of his feet scorched by twin fires.
‘Take them out,’ Gareth said angrily. ‘You have to believe me.’
The response from Camael was for him to take out another needle. Rising to a stoop, his head close to the low stone ceiling, he grabbed Gareth’s right wrist and placed the needle against the palm of his hand. ‘Not just the feet, of course; Jesus was nailed by the hands.’ He drove the point of the needle deep into Gareth’s flesh, his teeth biting his lower lip as he forced the metal through the hand and out the other side. ‘Drink deep, Gareth, of the pain of our Lord.’ Gareth screamed. ‘No one will help you. No one can hear your pathetic pleas for help. No one knows you are here. You could die here and your body would probably never be found for decades to come. Tell me where she is and I will make the pain stop. Refuse and I will add to your suffering.’
Sweat drenched Gareth’s hair, his face and neck; his eyes were screwed up into agonised slits. ‘I…can’t…’ he said breathlessly.
‘That’s a shame,’ said Camael. ‘Hold his head’, he commanded. The man stepped forward and grasped Gareth’s hair, jerking his head violently backwards, wrapping his arm around his neck and holding him fast in a steely arm lock. Camael reached back into the leather case. ‘I have two needles here.’ He held one in front of Gareth’s eyeball. ‘It’s no use closing your eyes against it; the eyelid is but a flimsy barrier, as is all human flesh. Do you remember what it felt like to experience total dark? Remember the fear?’ The point of the needle touched Gareth’s unprotected eyelid. ‘One simple push on my part and that darkness will be permanent.’ To demonstrate he pressed a little harder. ‘Where is the woman?’ Tell me where she is. A simple answer will save your eyesight.’
‘I don’t know,’ he said, a tear being squeezed from the lid. ‘You have to believe me.’ His voice was shaken, his lips trembling.
‘One last chance, Gareth,’ he said evenly.
Gareth clamped his lips and shook his head, the movement restricted by the man’s arm lock.
Camael’s tongue ran over his lower lip. He breathed in deeply, then exhaled a sigh. He put the needle back into the case and turned away. Gareth watched as he strode over to the other man and said something he could not catch. With that he held out his hand and was given a torch. Without another word he left the chamber, the sounds of his footsteps growing fainter. The man released Gareth’s head.
‘What are you going to do?’ Gareth asked, sucking in breath, his chin slumping exhaustedly to his sodden chest.
The man from the station came over to him. ‘It’s not good news. But there again it rarely is for your kind. Vermin have to be destroyed.’
‘You’re going to kill me?’ he said, the fear coursing through his veins like iced water.
‘There was never going to be any other outcome.’ He looked at his watch in the gloom and then went over to sit with his back against the wall. He signalled to his companion, who walked over to a large canvas bag which Gareth had failed to notice in a dark corner of the chamber. He brought it over, the sound of metal hitting metal loud in the chamber’s confines. He put it down again and then began to look over one of the walls, running his hand over it. Satisfied that it appeared an even surface he reached into the bag and to Gareth’s surprise took out a small tin of paint and a brush. Silently he prised the lid off the paint and lowered the brush into the contents. It came out glistening black, as if dipped into crude oil.
‘What are you doing?’ said Gareth, his voice seeming to thunder in the eerie silence. No one answered. He watched as the man began to paint something on the chamber wall, methodically, skilfully. When he eventually stepped away Gareth was both surprised and appalled to see the same symbol that had been painted on his cottage wall; the same that appeared on the photo taken at the murdered woman’s flat; the same serpent eating its tail, the cross at the centre with the flaming star in the middle. A fresh wave of horror engulfed him as the implications struck home.
‘Who are you people?’ he said, wincing at the excruciating waves of pain emanating from the embedded needles.
The man with his back against the wall reached up and stroked back his short, black hair. ‘Pest control,’ he said, his face twisted by loathing as he stared hard at Gareth.
‘I’m an ordinary guy,’ he said tiredly. ‘Why won’t you believe me?’
The man’s eyes glared white and fierce in the gloom. ‘That’s where you’re wrong. You aren’t ordinary. You’re far from ordinary.’ He looked at his watch again. ‘And because of that you have only one hour and thirty three minutes to live.’
‘You’re mad,’ Gareth managed weakly.
‘I’d save your breath for any prayer you need to offer up to whatever god it is you worship, though your filthy black soul was damned from the moment you drew breath. There is no salvation for you or your kind; only death and eternal punishment for transgressing the Holy Laws of Doradus. I feel dirty just being in your presence.’