Sparks brought them back around the ruins to their starting roint, completing the loop of their footprints in the snow, railing away in either direction into darkness.
"Shall we have a look inside?" asked Sparks.
No answer came, but when Sparks walked through the pen doorway, no one lingered behind. Because of the regaining irregular ribs of roofing, snow had not gathered to the same depths inside. They removed their snowshoes, leaning them against a wall. Sparks led them into the next room, a grand, vaulted rectangular space with uniform rows of broken stone running across the floor. A raised deck at the far end of the nave identified the room's original function.
"This was the church," said Sparks.
Sparks moved forward toward the altar. Larry and Barry fanned out with their lanterns, and the room grew more evenly illuminated. Snow continued to fall through the open ceiling. The air felt as dense and ponderous as the glaze on a
frozen lake.
"There used to be witches used this place for sport," said
Larry.
"You mean nuns," corrected Barry.
"Nuns wot had lost their way is wot he said."
"Feller told us in some pub," said Barry to Doyle and Eileen—mostly Eileen.
"That's wot he said. Whole convents' worth, the lot of 'em, went chronic, over to the other side. Devil dodgers one day, consortin' with the Prince of Darkness the next. That's why people put the torch to the place."
"People from the village?" asked Doyle.
"That's right," said Larry. "Took matters in their own hands. Killed and tortured and otherwise beat the devil right out of them nuns, right here in this room, that's what we heard."
"Tommyrot," said Eileen.
"That's the jimjams," agreed Barry. "The fella was wonky
wit' gin."
"I'm not sayin' it's the virgin Gospel, I'm just sayin' it's
what he—"
"Bring the lanterns!" shouted Sparks.
Barry and Larry scurried to the front of the cathedral, bearing the light. Doyle and Eileen quickly followed. Sparks was standing over a closed and weather-beaten crate lying in the altar area on a loose pile of dirt.
"What's that then?" asked Larry.
"It's a coffin, idn't it?" said Barry.
Doyle thought of Stoker's account of the old sailor's story and the night cargo he saw brought ashore from the ship.
"The nails securing the lid have been removed," said Sparks, kneeling down with one of the lanterns.
"Didn't the old man say they brought two coffins up here?" said Doyle.
"Yes," said Sparks, looking at the wood.
"So what's inside the bloody thing?" said Eileen.
"Only one way to find that out, isn't there, Miss Temple?" said Sparks, and he reached for the lid.
As Sparks's hand made contact with the wood, a chilling howl went up from just outside the building: the cry of a wolf, almost certainly, but the timbre lower, more guttural than any Doyle had ever heard. They froze as the sound echoed away.
"That was very close," whispered Doyle.
"Extremely," said Sparks.
Another animal answered back an identical howl from the other side of the abbey. Then a third sounded, at a greater distance.
"Wolves?" asked Barry.
"Doesn't sound like springer spaniels, does it?" said Eileen.
"Turn very slowly around and face the room," said Sparks.
"No need to turn slowly, guv," said Larry, already facing that way and pointing to the center of the cathedral crossing.
A dizzying welter of blue sparks was spinning in a loose circle around a still point two feet above the floor. As it continued to gyrate, the circumference of the circle expanded, first horizontally, then vertically, until it equaled the span of the broken stone pews. The air crackled with a noxious energy. Doyle felt the hairs on the back of his neck elevate.
"What the bloody hell—" muttered Eileen.
The blue sparks faded as a shape emerging out of them defined itself: five translucent, cowled figures kneeling in prayer, knees resting a foot off the floor, as if supported by a spectral prayer rail. Issuing from exactly where it was impossible to determine, but the room was suddenly alive with a chorus of soft, whispery voices. The words were obscure, but the harsh, fervent tone of the invisible chorale penetrated sharply the ear of the listener, a heavy, distressing blow to the conscious ordering of the mind.
"Latin," said Sparks, listening carefully.
"Is it a ghost?" Doyle heard himself ask.
"More than one, guv," said Larry, crossing himself.
"See, there's your nuns," said Barry, who seemed not the slightest bit discomfited by the sight.
Upon longer examination, the figures did project as aspect more feminine than monkish, and the high, insinuating voices that swirled around them did nothing to alter that perception.
Eileen grabbed Larry's lantern, stepped fearlessly down off the altar, and started directly toward the apparitions.
"Miss Temple—" protested Doyle.
"All right, ladies, that'll be quite enough of this prattle," she said in a strong, projected voice. "Vespers are done for the evening, now run along; back to whatever hell-place you came from with you."
"Barry," said Sparks, a command. Barry immediately jumped down after her. Larry pulled his knives and moved to the right, while Sparks drew a bead with
the shotgun.
"Be gone, stupid spirits, fly away, disperse, or you'll make
us very angry—"
The ghostly voices suddenly stilled. Eileen stopped ten feet
away from the penitent wraiths.
"That's better," she said approvingly. "Now the rest of you girls just trot on off as well. Go on."
The ghostly figures lowered their hands. Barry slowly moved after Eileen, only a few strides behind her now.
"Miss Temple," said Sparks, loud and clear, "move away from the center of the room, please."
"We run into ghosts in the theater all the time—" she said.
"Please do as I say, now."
She turned back to Sparks to argue. "There's nothing to worry about, they're perfectly harmless—"
Moving as one, the ghostly figures threw back their hoods, revealing hideously deformed and hairless heads that looked half human and half predatory bird. They let loose a shrill, paralyzing shriek and rose up above Eileen to a height of ten feet or more, preparing to strike. At that moment, two huge wolves sprinted into the nave from either side of the apse, growling ferociously, making straight for Eileen. Barry dove forward and tackled her to the floor as the wolves leapt to attack. Sparks fired the shotgun, both barrels, knocking the lead
animal backward off its airborne course; it hit the ground with a hard thump and lay still, ruptured and bleeding. In the same instant, Larry let fly his knives; there was a loud yelp as the second animal came down on Barry, handles of the knives protruding from its neck and upper chest. The beast still had enough ebbing strength and instinct left to tear into Barry, the arm he'd raised to fend it off gripped in its ripping jaws. Barry reached around, pulled the knife from the wolf's side, and plunged it decisively into the back of its skull. The animal spasmed and fell back, dead before it landed.
"Stay down!" cried Sparks.
But Eileen jumped to her feet, grabbed a lantern, and hurled it at the phantom figures towering above her. The lamp exploded on contact; the images combusted, disintegrating into a shower of silvery sparks and red smoke.
"I hate nuns!" shouted Eileen.
Doyle heard a low, feral growl behind him and turned cautiously. A third wolf stood beside the crate, a few feet behind Sparks, his back completely exposed to the animal.
"Jack ..." said Doyle.
"My gun's not loaded," said Sparks quietly, without moving. "Is yours?"