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    The Devil Deals Death
    The Devil Deals Death
    The Devil Deals Death
    Ebook269 pages4 hours

    The Devil Deals Death

    By TONY NASH

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    Douglas Steele is running away from a secure and peaceful past. The last thing he expects to see in front of his car is a naked sixteen year old girl, fleeing from all the horrors of Hell at the height of a storm, the mark of the Devil on her shoulder. From the moment he kills her he is inextricably enmeshed in the shocking life of a village that has sold out to the Dark Forces, where his mortal life and his very soul hang in the balance, and he and his new love are forced to try to defend themselves through an entire night of otherworldly terrors unleashed against them, which ends, despite his best endeavors, with the entire house and garden plastered with gore and body parts.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherTONY NASH
    Release dateSep 11, 2013
    ISBN9780957511750
    The Devil Deals Death
    Author

    TONY NASH

    Tony Nash is the author of over thirty detective, historical and war novels. He began his career as a navigator in the Royal Air Force, later re-training at Bletchley Park to become an electronic spy, intercepting Russian and East German agent transmissions, during which time he studied many languages and achieved a BA Honours Degree from London University. Diverse occupations followed: Head of Modern Languages in a large comprehensive school, ocean yacht skipper, deep sea fisher, fly tyer, antique dealer, bespoke furniture maker, restorer and French polisher, professional deer stalker and creative writer.

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      Book preview

      The Devil Deals Death - TONY NASH

      The Devil Deals Death

      By

      Tony Nash

      Copyright Anthony Nash 2013

      Published by Anthony Nash at Smashwords

      ISBN 9780957511767

      This is a work of pure fiction, and any similarity between any character in it and any real person, living or dead, is purely coincidental and unintentional. The village of Caisterham is not intended to portray any real village, in Norfolk or elsewhere.

      Author’s note: Whilst the voodoo personalities and Black Magic formulae to be found in this book are those actually used at occult ceremonies, the Inca Death Invocation was too dangerous to include in its complete form, and has therefore been abbreviated in this book, in order to avoid misuse and the possibility of unfortunate ‘accidents’.

      Other works by this author:

      Carve Up

      Murder by Proxy

      Murder on the Chess Board

      Murder on Tiptoes

      Murder on the Back Burner

      Tripled Exposure

      Murder on the High ‘C’

      Coming soon:

      The Makepeace Manifesto

      ‘The first bringer of unwelcome news

      Hath but a losing office, and his tongue

      Sounds ever after as a sullen bell

      Remember’d tolling a departed friend.’

      (Shakespeare: King Henry V)

      CHAPTER ONE – REBIRTH AND DEATH

      He was already regretting leaving the main road. In less than half an hour the narrow country lane that was his chosen highway of escape had been transformed into a turbulent, muddy river.

      The throaty blatter from the unbaffled exhaust on the old four-litre Bentley tourer – normally an all-pervading, obliterating roar – now made only a muted background accompaniment to the powerful drumming of the huge raindrops on the roof and the cymbals of the thunder and lightning.

      The big wire wheels ploughed through vast sheets of water, shooting waves of spray out over the hedgerows and inwards onto the hard under body of the car, adding their own tune to the stormy symphony.

      Fate, who after all had engineered the journey, added insult to injury by introducing a touch of sarcasm: a coloured singer began to croon ‘Stormy Weather’ on the radio, in perfect time to the slow ‘swish-swish’ of the outdated windscreen wipers: ‘…since my man and I ain’t together,’ swish, swish, swish, swish, ‘it’s raining all the time…..’

      Douglas Steele, a handsome, eye-twinkling thirty-five year old smiled wryly, but without a trace of the bitterness that would have accompanied it yesterday.

      The fourteenth of June. Only a day away yet almost lost in the past. And what a day it had been – a day of sudden clarity and self-awareness, when the tormented anguish of first love cast violently aside had revealed nothing but mental blindness and sexual infatuation; a day when the whole of his previous life had been condensed into one minute of cataclysmic realisation. As always, old Bill Shakespeare had the thing in a nutshell: ‘All our yesterdays have lighted fools the way to a dusty death.’

      For the umpteenth time he reflected on what he’d given up yesterday: an all-embracing dedication to research into old languages that had left him little time for the normal small pleasures of life. He hoped what he’d given up had taken him out of that category of ‘fool’ that he’d most certainly been in – a computer-literate, fully-functioning human being, with an IQ of 188, who did not even own a television set or a mobile telephone – a human anachronism; an adult male who ate, slept, defecated, and even copulated – with an emotional age of fourteen.

      The ring safely in his inside pocket he’d sat at the heavy oak desk that had been his friend for twelve long years, but for once found it impossible to concentrate. Words swam before his eyes, as the hands on the clock danced their endless cyclic jig through the hours to twelve. A strange excitement was in him: she dominated his thoughts - he couldn’t exclude her and didn’t want to – that little snub nose, deep green eyes, silken hair…….

      ‘Oh, Claire!’

      He sat up, startled, and glanced around guiltily, believing that he’d spoken aloud and relieved to find he was alone.

      Though naturally shy he’d had many brief affairs thrust on him. His tall manly figure, dark-brown wavy hair and brown spaniel’s eyes made him irresistible to women, and he was constantly under siege from them, but the affairs lasted only days, or at the most a few weeks, until they learnt that his work was twenty-four-seven, with no room for other than momentary diversion. Until Claire not one had helped his shyness, and every one of them wanted to take the dominant part and mother him.

      Claire was different - a pert little brunette of twenty-three, with a terrific sense of fun and a voracious sexual appetite. With woman’s wiles far beyond her years she’d cleverly contrived to force him into taking the initiative for the very first time. It had been a revelation, and not only had the affair lasted five months already, it seemed more wonderful with every day that passed. Totally ignorant of the convoluted workings of the adult female mind, he was convinced that she loved him as much as he loved her. Unlike the great majority of men, Douglas had not had the ‘I can’t live without her’ experience before the age of sixteen, when the entire universe falls apart when it ends, and the lover’s name is forgotten in days, rather than weeks. He was having it at the much more dangerous age of thirty-five. As one of his fellow professors had suggested to a friend, ‘No question - our Douglas has gone potty.’

      A creature of habit, he always lunched at the University, and more often than not at his desk, but today he’d ordered a table for two among the trailing plastic geraniums and once-plush grandeur of the Purple Griffin.

      At the door he had to stop and look, entranced by the vision. She sat at a table by the window, her head thrown back proudly, fully aware that her wild beauty dominated the frowsy middle-class dining room and enjoying every minute. He saw two middle-aged men being quietly tongue-lashed by their wives for ogling her, and several others likely to get the same treatment.

      Like a schoolboy out on his first date, he struggled with his impatience through the meal, itching for the moment when he could ask the question, relieved when the decrepit, soup-stained waiter served the after-lunch coffee and walked back to the kitchen.

      He reached out to take her hand and looked into her eyes.

      She giggled mischievously, ‘Why, Douglas, this is so sudden!’

      ‘Hrrmph!’ He cleared his throat nervously. ‘Claire, darling – will you marry me?’

      He blurted out the words so fast that she had difficulty in registering his meaning until she saw the ring he’d drawn from his pocket and was holding over the table with his other hand.

      She ripped her hand from his as if it had been burned.

      ‘Marry you?’ She almost screamed, causing every head in the dining room to turn, ‘God, Douglas – you must be joking!’

      She jumped to her feet, eyes blazing, and stormed out, handbag flying.

      He struggled to get the wallet out of his inside jacket pocket and open it, threw some notes on the table, knocking the coffee over and spilling it on the table and his trousers, and rushed out after her.

      He finally caught up with her a hundred yards along the street and tugged at her arm.

      She turned, angry, ‘Let go, Douglas! Get lost!’

      ‘But Claire,’ he pleaded, ‘at least give me some explanation.’

      She raised her hand to strike, but something in the pathetic spaniel’s eyes made her resist the impulse.

      ‘Explanation?’ She shrugged, ‘Yes, I suppose you do deserve an explanation.’ She thought quickly for a moment, trying to find a way of letting him down lightly, but decided against it – anything soft and he’d still carry on trying. Better to be harsh and kill all lingering hope.

      ‘Look, Douglas,’ she began, seriously, ‘don’t think it hasn’t been fun. Some of the time with you I almost began to think you might be human. I enjoyed being seen out with you – you really are a handsome bugger – and you’re the nicest I’ve had in bed up till now, and the biggest – you probably didn’t want to know before, but I’ve screwed scores of men, some while I’ve been going to bed with you, and I intend to have scores more before I think of settling down, if I ever do. But if you think that I ever felt serious about you, you need your tiny mind examined. All I ever wanted to do was screw you. Have I ever said, ‘I love you’? No – because I don’t – not one little bit. In any case, I wouldn’t marry you if you were the last man on Earth and I was violently in love with you. You’ve been married for years – to your bloody Dead Sea Scrolls and your Hildebrandslied and your Sandskrit inscriptions. You live, eat, sleep and dream them. No woman could ever find even a tiny corner in your mind.’

      She saw his stunned expression and felt pity.

      More softly she told him, ‘Look – I really do appreciate the offer, Douglas, and I truly am fond of you. The fact is, marriage is just not my scene. I want to stay fancy free. It’s a lot more fun that way. You’re a decent guy. One day you’ll find a nice lady professor with the same bent as yours, and you’ll both live happily ever after. Us? Well it was good fun, but that’s all it was. It was never for keeps.’

      She held out her hand, ‘Bye, Douglas.’

      He took it, not realising what he was doing.

      At the corner she turned and looked back, to see him still standing, his hand outstretched, on the same spot.

      Minutes passed as he stood there, blind to the stares of passers-by, in a state of advanced mental shock, before his brilliant mind, after so long on one wavelength, slowly began to readjust itself. Suddenly, as if in a bolt of white light sent from his guardian angel, he saw himself with absolute clarity - what he was, what he’d become.

      Astounded, he thought, she’s absolutely right – I’m married to my work – spending up to sixteen hours a day researching. Researching what? The dodo-dead works of men themselves dead for hundreds of years. And for what? Minute quantities of new information, useful only to other researchers. A perpetuation of uselessness. What a title: ‘Professor Douglas Steele – Expert in Useless Information’.

      What was more – for the first time in his thirty-five years he allowed his reasons for choosing such a life to formulate clearly in his brain – reasons of which he’d been aware, but had never dared question.

      ‘Douglas Steele, you’re a coward’, he told himself, truthfully; not a moral coward – he could make a moral decision with the best of them, but he was a physical coward, and it was not his fault but his mother’s.

      The little girl’s dresses he’d had to wear until his fifth birthday, the way she curled his hair, the feminine touches to his clothes at prep school and later; he blushed even now at the ridicule and abuse he’d had to suffer. The anti-violence indoctrination from her - never once had he been in a fight. Under his mother’s influence, he’d come to believe that he abhorred violence – that it was not ‘civilised’, whatever that might mean. He had deliberately kept out of the limelight.

      It was no surprise that he’d come to accept himself as he appeared to be.

      After half a lifetime of dedication to just one aim, his decision took less than five minutes. At two-thirty, his resignation lay on the Dean’s desk, without explanation.

      John Marshall sighed. Researchers of Douglas Steele’s calibre came along only rarely, and when they did, he liked to ensure they stayed.

      ‘Why don’t you go away for a long holiday, Douglas, and then see how you feel about it? Go to the Mediterranean for a year, or even two if you like, on full salary, of course. If you feel up to it after a few months, you could do a little work. If not, just enjoy yourself in the sun. You have been overdoing it lately, you know.’

      ‘I’m sorry, John, my mind is made up.’

      ‘Very well, Douglas, if you’re sure. You know that you will be irreplaceable, and I’m very sorry to see you go. May I wish you the best of luck in whatever you decide to do in the future. Your post is always here for you if you decide to return.’ He shook Steele’s hand, thinking, ‘You lucky bugger. I wish I had your guts.’

      ‘I’ll be moving from my lodgings tomorrow, John. All my books and manuscripts can go to the University library.’

      The Dean started to protest at the gift of so many priceless works, ‘But……..’ He saw that it was no use. He finished lamely, ‘Thank you very much, Douglas.’

      Twenty-four hours later, the old car was loaded and ready to go. He realised that the Bentley – the only thing left of his father, who died just before he was born, and kept garaged and pristine for him by his mother - was as much of an anachronism as he had been, and it would have to go, and be replaced with something newer, but there was no time now. Apart from his books, his effects had been either packed or given away to his landlady.

      He eased himself in behind the leather-covered steering wheel and, without once looking back, headed towards East Anglia.

      There was no particular reason for his choice, except maybe the dim memory of a boyhood fishing holiday, spent on the North Norfolk coast, with an uncle.

      This was a rebirth, so why not head for the earliest of his memories? He had a moderate private income from investments, some of which he’d inherited, some he’d made himself, so could do whatever he liked within reason.

      His first decision was to do nothing for a long time.

      When the storm clouds began gathering on the horizon, just before six, he wondered if it could be an omen. At seven, as the heavens opened, he muttered, ‘Après-moi, le déluge!’, whistled a few notes tunelessly, switched on the radio and relaxed behind the big wheel, driving easily and comfortably, and well within the speed limit.

      He was serene and at peace with the world for the first time in over a dozen years. He knew that he’d come to his senses in time, thanks to Claire; he was in no hurry and, in fact, had no destination in mind. He would arrive, he told himself, at his appointed destination, and having arrived, he would know he was there.

      For a man of his intelligence, it was a foreign concept, but in his new role of vagabond, it seemed to make perfectly good sense.

      The road entered a small wood. Wind-torn twigs and leaves floated on the flood like nature’s armada, on an endless voyage of destruction, huge raindrops bombarding them relentlessly. Flashes of lightning transformed the scene into a macabre stage setting, branches and trunks bathed in ghostly light, in the early dark.

      St Elmo’s Fire – only the second time in his life that he’d seen it – danced fleetingly along the riveted ribs of the big bonnet.

      The lightning flashed again – a great sheet illuminating the whole sky, throwing the trees into stark relief. A forked flash buried its fiery head into a hoary old oak, less than a hundred yards from the road, splitting asunder the growth of centuries, and bringing half a ton of decaying timber crashing to the ground.

      At the same instant and entirely without warning a distraught figure flew out of the trees onto the road immediately in front of the car, fleeing as if from all the devils in Hell – a stark-naked teenaged girl, black hair flying wildly; taut young breasts glistening, rain-soaked, in the headlights.

      Steele had no chance. He hit the brake, but it was too late!

      The left-hand wing smashed into the girl and threw her off into the flood of water running along the edge of the road.

      The big drum brakes brought the car slithering to a standstill. Steele threw himself out and ran to where she lay, almost swimming in water. She was unconscious.

      He lifted her gently in his arms.

      Her eyelids flickered and then, suddenly, her eyes opened wide – staring madly. Her fists began to pummel him. She screamed, weakly, pitifully, ‘No! No! No!’

      He tried to soothe her, ‘It’s all right. I’m a friend.’

      She stopped struggling, and stared wildly at him, fingers digging into his jacket.

      She said, ‘Wic…..wi…..’

      Her head fell back slackly, as the tense vitality of life fled from her body, her wide-open eyes staring without seeing.

      Steele wanted to close her eyes, not giving a thought to the fact that he had, all his life, had an uncontrollable fear of death and dead bodies. As an eight-year-old, he’d locked himself in his bedroom for five hours after seeing the canary dead in its cage, and would not come out until his mother assured him that it had been removed from the house. And yet here he was, with the first human corpse he had ever seen held tightly in his arms.

      For minutes he stood motionless – up to his calves in water, the rain soaking him to the skin, holding the girl to him, cradling her head and swaying very gently from side to side, as if rocking her to sleep.

      At last, the cold and damp penetrated his state of shock. He began to walk absent-mindedly along the road, the car completely forgotten.

      He’d covered scarcely twenty yards when a crashing in the bushes on the left made him whip round, startled, suddenly aware and very afraid.

      The crashing came again, and in the same instant, a brilliant flash of lightning overhead turned the scene almost to day.

      He didn’t believe – didn’t want to believe – his eyes. Staring at him from the trees was a face more fiendish than his wildest imagination could have conjured up.

      In the split-second of the flash, his stunned mind registered a caprine face of tufted hair, and inhuman, evil, red eyes – eyes alight with burning hatred.

      Worse – he was sure he’d seen horns above the shaggy brow.

      An unearthly, enraged roar – half-human, half-bestial – the most eerie sound he’d ever heard, rose and wailed through the dark, before being drowned out by the tremendous thunderclap which followed the lightning.

      The hackles on his neck stood out, an ice-cold band prickling beneath them.

      Sweat poured out of his body. A blind, unreasoned fear took hold of him and lent wings to his feet.

      He ran – ran in a desperation he’d never known before – ran blindly away from the ‘thing’ – the girl’s body held tightly to him.

      Close behind him, he could hear trees and shrubs crushed and smashed aside, as the unknown terror followed on his heels, howling and wailing like a Banshee.

      It was his worst nightmare, endured so often in his youthful dreams, come to life.

      The beast had gained the road. Steele could hear its hoofs, splashing through the water close behind him. He fancied he could feel its breath on his neck, and the stench of brimstone in the air.

      Fear lent him strength – he ran desperately, as he’d never run in his life, not daring once to turn and look.

      His wind was giving out and the end was near when he saw a light through the trees and rain, over to the right.

      He blundered off the road towards it.

      Branches snatched at him with every step, scratching his face and plucking at his clothes. He heeded nothing, but tore on, his breath coming in great sobs, his lungs raw and feeling as it they would burst. Tears of desperation mingled with the rain and the sweat, and the blood from the scratches.

      At last he was running over grass. The light was close.

      As he neared the house, the door flew open, and a very old lady stood in the doorway, her arms stretched out to each side. Where the light fell on the sodden lawn, her shadow made the shape of a long cross.

      Steele collapsed in a heap at her feet.

      She remained in the same attitude, looking out into the night.

      From the darkness at the edge of the garden came one angered, inhuman roar, then another, but then, miraculously, the sound of a large

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