He felt a gentle touch upon his bowed head, and looking up found the doctor bending over him, an expression of tender compassion upon his face.
Tony gulped. “I raised my hand against you master,” he whispered. “Can you ever forgive me?”
“It is forgiven already, my son. Forgive me, too, if I spoke harshly, but I had to break the spell she had cast over you.”
“It’s true, then, what you said?”
“Only too true, I fear. I spoke from knowledge, not at random. Come, I will show you.”
“No, no! I don’t want to see. I believe you.”
“You must. I cannot have you weakened like this. Come!”
The doctor’s old ascendancy conquered, and Tony followed him up to his room. There Gaunt took out his crystal and set it upon the table, motioning Tony to look into it.
“Look, my son,” said he, “and behold the frailty that is woman. I will not influence you at all. There is no deceit.”
He walked over to the window and stood looking out, while Tony gazed into the shadowy depths of the crystal, stretching his mind out towards Valerie. All at once he stiffened and his breath came faster.
What he saw need not be recorded. Suffice it that not many yards away Vaughan was sitting with the duplicate crystal, exercising his trained will to the uttermost, and projecting into the two co-ordinated spheres a vision which was wholly false, born in the dark recesses of his own obscene brain.
After a few minutes Tony sprang up, his cheeks stained a dull red and his mouth twisted with pain.
“No more!” he gasped. “I have seen enough. Oh, Valerie! And Hamilton — the filthy swine!”
Gaunt regarded him with quiet satisfaction.
“Be of good heart, my son,” said he. “Our great faith rises above such little things. You can have her, too, you know, provided you do not let her dominate your soul.”
“No! Not after that. I couldn’t touch her.” Angrily Tony dashed the tears from his eyes.
“Then, Tony,” pursued the doctor, “there only remains — vengeance!”
“How?”
“We will say the Black Mass with special intention for their destruction.”
“When?” Tony passed his tongue over his dry lips.
“Tonight. Afterwards their lives will not be worth the living.” He caught Tony’s shoulders in a firm grip. “All power is given unto us. Those two shall rue the day they offended you, my brother.”
Tony’s lip twisted into a snarl.
“They shall,” he muttered.
“Go to your room, then, my son, and pray to our Lord that He will look favourably upon our sacrifice. When all is ready I will summon you.”
When the young man had gone Vaughan rejoined his colleague.
“Did I do well?” he inquired.
“Far better than I had hoped. You were in great form tonight, Simon. He was very difficult at first, but now he thinks only of revenge. You shall say the Mass tonight and he will help you.”
“Magnificent! In the meantime… Hamilton?”
“Yes, I had thought of that. We will endeavour to put a spoke in the wheel of our friend the Reverend Father Bennett.” Gaunt chuckled. “Come, let us see what is really happening there.”
They sat down at the crystal and were almost immediately watching the scene in the rector’s study, where Hamilton was relating his version of the visit to the Abbey.
For a long time they sat thus, the doctor occasionally moving his lips silently. Suddenly his face changed, and Vaughan looked up, about to speak, but was silenced by a gesture. The mocking smile had disappeared from Gaunt’s lips and his eyes were wide. His companion could feel the energy pouring from that rigid form into the crystal. A strange hush came over the room and the pale light within the sphere grew stronger. The tension increased until Vaughan felt that he could bear it no longer — that he must scream or die. A faint groan came from Gaunt’s lips, and the sweat glistened on his brow.
Then, with a splintering crash, the quivering crystal burst into a thousand fragments, and Gaunt sprang up, his chair going over behind him. He stood trembling with rage, and taking out his handkerchief began to dab his cheek, where the blood was welling from a gash inflicted by one of the slivers of flying glass.
The other sat huddled up, his face grey with terror and his great body trembling like a leaf.
“That damned girl again,” said the doctor in a thick voice; “but for her he would not have gone in.”
“They are moving against us,” whimpered Vaughan.
“Yes, and we must move faster. Tonight will see the beginning of the end.”
“Why not the end itself?” Vaughan urged. “Why must we wait until the twenty-fifth? I know you have told Tony that it is because that day is the anniversary of the Abbot’s curse, but what has that to do with it, when the monstrosity was here long before then?”
“Because that day is not only the anniversary of the Abbot’s curse, but also, by what at first seems a strange coincidence, the anniversary of the day, centuries before, when the Veil was rent, and the monstrosity first came into the world. It is really no coincidence, for these matters are governed by laws which even I do not fully understand, but I do know, for certain weighty cosmic reasons which I cannot explain to you, Simon, that upon that day only, at twelve noon, can the monstrosity be released from this rock and loosed upon the world. It can be released from its bondage to the Lovells at any time, and that is what Tony will do, all unknowingly, tonight.”
Shortly after midnight the three met again in the crypt. Tony’s temporary rebellion against his old allegiance had left him more devoted to the occult faith than ever before, and he was determined to make amends for his lapse. His blind rage of the afternoon had been replaced by a grim resolve to have his revenge upon the girl who he believed had been responsible for his infidelity, and who had been proved so unworthy.
He vested rapidly, eager to begin the ceremony which he knew would effect his purpose; at once testifying to his renewed enthusiasm and bringing disaster upon the heads of the unhappy pair who had wronged him. When he had finished he began to prepare the incense, lighting the necessary charcoal and putting it into the thurible. In the absence of servers he, as subdeacon, would have to act as thurifer, in addition to his other duties.
While Tony was thus engaged Vaughan and Gaunt put on their own vestments in silence. The former wore the customary chasuble of the celebrant, and the latter the deacon’s dalmatic. Their attire was identical with that of the sacred ministers at a Catholic High Mass, and the vestments had, indeed, been used for that purpose at one time, before they were degraded to their present office.
The altar had been draped with a dark cloth and bore six tall candles of black wax, which burnt with a smoky, bluish flame. In the centre stood an inverted crucifix with a serpent coiled about the Figure. One of Vaughan’s trunks served for a credence table, upon which stood chalice and paten, and the cruets of wine and water. The dim light of the candles was reinforced by two lamps set on the floor.
When all was ready the three took up their positions on the altar steps, and the dreadful mockery began. Thick yellow clouds of pungent incense-smoke billowed up against the low roof.
Until the consecration the ritual tallied with normal Catholic procedure, save that the prayers were invariably twisted into blasphemous contradiction, the great voice of the apostate priest echoing round the distant walls as he intoned them.
What must Vaughan’s thoughts be? Tony wondered, as he watched him bending over the altar, the blue glimmer of the candles shining on his hairless skull. Did he remember the countless times he had performed this self-same act, with how different an intention, before he had joined the legions of Darkness? But Tony had never been a Catholic, and the peculiarly monstrous nature of the contradiction did not occur to him. He was disposed to look upon all sacramental ceremony as somewhat childish and absurd, and did his part automatically, as he had been taught, with little thought for the deep significance of his actions.