Doctor Who_ The Adventures of Henrietta Street - Lawrence Miles [126]
But one night the Cardinal had turned himself in to the authorities, pale and shaken, pleading for the protection of the Pope himself. The priest had claimed that his summoning of the Devil had been a success… but the Devil hadn’t been the suave, intelligent agent of darkness the Church had led him to believe. The Devil had been an idiotic, drooling animal, who sat in court at the centre of a grey, ruinous Hell. The Cardinal had been dragged through the streets of purgatory by Satan’s grey-furred minions, and brought before His Majesty’s throne. The Devil had been an ape, muscular and matted with blood, reclining on the throne as if he were one of the crown princes of Europe. He’d worn a crown of bloody thorns and human teeth, and held a sharpened femur as his sceptre. As the Cardinal had cowered in fear, Satan had screeched wildly at his demonic minions, which had scraped and bowed in their hundreds around him. Then Satan had pointed at the sky with the bone wand. When the Cardinal had looked up, he’d seen that instead of a sun the scene was lit by something so horrible he hadn’t been able to describe it.
All the images here are familiar. Yet, bizarrely, the Cardinal had survived and been returned to his rooms in the Vatican. Though he had no idea what it was, the Cardinal now felt sure that some form of bargain had indeed been made. And this must have come as a shock to the huntsmen. Previously the apes had simply been animals, but now… now it was almost as if they were capable of making plans.
Over the next few days, more of the apes’ ceremonial rock-piles would appear in the forest. Worse, there’d be two more fatalities, huntsmen who’d go missing in the jungle and be found, eviscerated, shortly before sunset. On both occasions the bodies would be found pinned to the rock-piles, guts exposed to the sun, like offerings to the great black thing in the sky that the Cardinal hadn’t been, able to describe.
Re-Engagement
In London, there was a curious hush. The House on Henrietta Street was deserted, and nobody in the neighbourhood seemed to know who owned it or what was to be done with it. Somebody broke the windows in mid-November. The prostitutes of London, who’d spat at the backs of Scarlette’s women and started rumours that the House had spread the pox of the King himself, found themselves suddenly uneasy now that Scarlette had vanished from the country. There were no apes or nightmares, but it was as if they were holding their breath, scared that one bad wind would reduce London to bleached grey rubble. These were tough times for everyone. Career politicians like Charles Greville still failed to ally themselves with the new government, and as a result Emily Hart found herself reduced to a state of near-poverty. Twice she wrote to her ‘good friend’ Sabbath for help, but Sabbath was too concerned with other matters to reply.
Yet in his conscious moments, the Doctor didn’t seem to understand any of this. He spoke as if the House were still open, as if he had great plans for it. (Sabbath himself once noted that being a creature who depended only on his ‘place of power’ for food and shelter, the Doctor had no understanding of money even as a concept.) But one morning, the day after the ominous news had arrived from the Vatican, a change seemed to come over the Doctor. He sat bolt upright in bed, apparently understanding where he was and what was going on. Scarlette tried to quieten him, although the Doctor informed her that ‘they’re all here’ and insisted that Scarlette should immediately report to the Church. When she asked why, the Doctor only pointed to the painting