If she was lucky, the villains of London would give her the weekend off. But she wasn't counting on that.
The acrid smoke that rose from the altar made the supplicant's eyes sting and his throat burn, before it was carried away on the air current above the subterranean river. The walls were covered with frescoes depicting demons and the landscape of hell.
"Does the offering please you, Mephistopheles?"
"It is not I who must be satisfied, Faustus," the cowled figure with the white mask said, watching the flames die down. "There is another who receives the hair and nails of our victims with relish."
"And…and the ear?"
Mephistopheles laughed. "I have added it to our collection, fear not."
The supplicant stood up slowly, licking his lips nervously. The masked figure seemed to be alone, so Faustus allowed himself to relax.
Then, with a high-pitched snarl, the beast came bounding across the cave floor, his jaws wide apart and the yellowed incisors bared.
Faustus forced himself to stand firm. At least the mandrill called Beelzebub did what his master told him. There was a human animal, thankfully not present tonight, who had begun to find their activities insufficiently visceral. Faustus swallowed hard and steeled himself. He could kill as well as anyone else and the Lord Beneath the Earth knew that. Five I parked my black Saab 9-3 sport sedan at the designated rendezvous two streets away from Dave's house in North Dulwich. Roger van Zandt and Peter Satterthwaite were waiting for me in the latter's Grand Cherokee. A minute later, Andy Jackson arrived on his new 600 cc Hornet. We all got into the Cherokee to prepare. "Any idea where Ginny and the kids are?" I asked. "Yeah," Andy said. "Dave said they were going to visit her aunt today. He was going to spend the morning cooking lobster." "So he was on his own in the house," Rog said. "The place is like a fortress. How could anyone get in?" Pete glanced in the rearview mirror. "Maybe the entry we're going to use isn't as hidden as Dave thought." As I was the one who was going to be using that entry first, Bonehead's comment didn't make me feel great. Rog turned around. "Did you call him back, Wellsy?" "Several times, and on his cell. The messaging service cut in both times. I wasn't going to identify myself."
"What do you mean?" Andy demanded. "Whoever's got him will know he called you."
I shook my head. "Cool it, guys. We talked about this when we set the reporting system up. He called me, which suggests he was free at that time. Maybe he saw trouble coming."
"What, up the garden path?" Pete said. "If he was on his own, he wouldn't have used the code."
"He might have," I replied. "If he suspected his line was being tapped or his cell phone frequency scanned. Anyway, that's what we're here to find out. Let's get geared up."
We each made sure our phones were switched to vibrate and checked our weapons-we all had the same pistols, knives and knuckle-dusters. In the quiet time after the White Devil's death, Dave had encountered some piss-taking because of his insistence that we carry such heavy-duty weapons when the alert codes were used. Now I could see he'd been right. There could have been a squad of hard men hired by Sara in his spacious house.
"What about silencers?" Pete asked.
"The book says put 'em on," Andy replied. He was referring to the operations manual Dave had given each of us.
"The problem is, the Glock doesn't fit in a pocket when it's that long," Rog said. He shrugged and screwed his silencer on when he saw the way Andy was looking at him. Slash had spent a couple of deeply unhappy years in the marine corps, but at least he'd learned to accept orders-when he agreed with them.
"You're taking the rifle, aren't you, Boney?" I said.
He nodded. Dave had obtained a Walther WA2000 sniper's rifle with Schmidt and Bender telescopic sights from the same dodgy East London arms dealer who had supplied our pistols and silencers. Pete was the best shot apart from Dave, so he got the big gun, which was actually shorter than an ordinary rifle and fitted into a tennis player's bag.
"Okay," I said, "we'll play this by the book, as Slash said." I opened the copy that Pete handed me; I'd forgotten my own in the rush to leave home. "Rog, you're on the front, behind the inner hedge and by the garages."
Dave's house was detached and surrounded by tall trees and thick bushes. I once asked him how he could afford it on an army pension, even one augmented by First Gulf War and SAS service. He laughed and told me that his wife had inherited a shedload of money from a spinster aunt.
"Pete, you cut down the path that runs along the far end of his garden." I pointed on the map Dave had drawn.
"I remember," Bonehead said. "Dave showed me. The neighbors can't see me and I can cover all the rear windows."
"Right," I said. "If there's a lot of people inside and we get desperate, we'll try to get to the back of the house."
"Yeah," said Andy. "Just make sure you don't drill us." He pointed to his blond hair. "This is me."
Rog finished with his Glock, and turned to Andy and me. "Are you both going in? The book leaves that optional."
I looked at the American. "What do you think?"
He shrugged. "I'll hoist you in and we'll take it from there. You all got your walkie-talkies?"
Dave had insisted that we each buy an identical good- quality walkie-talkie. We were each responsible for ensuring the batteries were permanently charged, and I was glad to see that they'd all fulfilled that requirement. The units fitted to our belts and we each had a mini headset with an earpiece and a microphone that lay across one cheek like a dueling scar.
"We'll test 'em after we've split up," Andy said.
"Uh, what do we do if someone spots us?" Rog asked. He would be in the most obvious position.
"Say you're a telecom engineer checking radiation levels," I said. "That should get them moving on."
"You're joking," he said, his brow lined. "Aren't you?"
Pete raised a finger. "Remember what Dave always says. When the book doesn't tell you what to do."
"Improvise," we all chorused. The number of times Dave had been mocked about that was huge.
"What if you two both go in and we don't hear from you?" Boney asked.
"If we don't come out after half an hour, you call the cops," I said. "You've both got Karen's number, haven't you?"
They nodded.
"Why don't we call them now?" Rog asked.
"Because Dave used the alert code for us," I said. "And we know from our White Devil experiences that we're the only people who can look after each other." I saw their expressions change when I mentioned the monster's name.
"Come on," Andy said, adjusting his microphone. "We were trained by the best. We can handle this." He glanced at each of us. "Let's go and get the man."
Trust Slash to look keen. The rest of us tried to match him, with varying degrees of success.
"Watches, guys," I said. "I've got ten forty-two. Check?" "Check," the others replied, after some tweaking. "Right, communications check in ten minutes," I said. "Go, Pete." He had the farthest to walk and set off at a rapid pace, the bag with its lethal contents on his right shoulder. We gave him five minutes. "Rog, go," I said. After two minutes, Andy and I moved off. There was no point in splitting up. If anyone asked what we were doing, I'd say we were friends of Dave's from the army. At least we looked the part. "Breathing steady," I whispered, under my breath. "Concentration. Be aware of what's happening around you. Control the adrenaline rush." That was easier said than done. Andy looked relaxed enough. I pulled a balaclava down my forehead, covering the headset straps. No one was out on the pavements. We turned rapidly onto the path that ran down the right side of Dave's house. There were no cars in the drive and the garage doors were shut. "In position?" I said quietly into my mike. "Confirmed," came Roger's voice, then Pete's. "Take this as the comms check," Andy said. "Confirmed." "Any sign of Dave from where you are?" I asked. "Negative," said Rog. "Curtains on the front are all open, except in the sitting room. No movement." "All the curtains at the rear of the house are open," Bonehead said. "No sign of anyone." I looked at Andy. "Why are the sitting-room curtains closed?" He raised his shoulders. "Let's go and find out." He squeezed my arm. "Steady, my man."