The Devils of D-Day by Graham Masterton Read Free Book Online Page A

, for
instance, who is mentioned in the Pseudomonarchia Daemonum , which I have on the shelves right here. Or Belial. Then there is Beelzebub, Satan’s successor, who
was always notoriously difficult to banish. I never faced him myself, and it is
probably best for me that I didn’t. But I have an interesting account of how he
possessed a nun at the Ursuline Convent at
Aix-le-Provence in the seventeenth century, and how it took seven weeks of
determined exorcism to dismiss him back to the netherworld.’
    ‘Father Anton,’ I said, as kindly as I could. ‘This is all
kind of medieval. I mean, what I’m trying to say is, we have something here
that’s evil, but it’s modern.’
    Father Anton smiled sadly. ‘Evil is never modern, monsieur . It is only persistent.’
    ‘But what happens if we have an ancient demon right here?’
    ‘Well,’ said the priest. ‘Let us first hear the tape. Then
perhaps we can judge who or what this voice might be. Perhaps it is Beelzebub
himself, come to make a match of it.’
    I wound back the cassette, pushed the ‘play’ button, and
laid the tape-recorder on the table. There was a crackling sound; then the
clank of metal as the tape-recorder was set down on the turret of the tank;
then a short silence, interspersed with the barking of that distant dog. Father
Anton leaned forward so that he could hear better, and cupped his hand around
one ear.
    ‘You realise that what you have
here is very rare,’ he told me. ‘I have seen daguerrotypes and photographs of manifestations before, but never tape-recordings.’
    The tape fizzed and whispered, and then that chilling,
whispery voice said: ‘You can help me, you know.’
    Father Anton stiffened, and stared across at me in
undisguised shock.
    The voice said: ‘You sound like a good man. A good man and true. You can open this prison. You can take
me to join my brethren. You sound like a good man and true.’
    Father Anton was about to say something, but I put my finger
against my lips, warning him that there was more.
    The voice went on: ‘You can help me, you know. You and that priest. Look at him!
    Doesn’t that priest have something to hide? Doesn’t that
priest have some secret lust, concealed under that holy cassock?’
    I stared at the tape-recorder in amazement. ‘It didn’t say
that. There was no way it ever said that.’
    Father Anton was white. He asked, in a trembling tone: ‘What
does this mean? What is it saying?’
    ‘Father, father,’ whispered the tape-recorder. ‘Surely you recall
the warm summer of 1928. So long ago, father, but so vivid. The
day you took young Mathilde on the river, in your
boat. Surely you remember that.’
    Father Anton rose jerkily to his feet, like a Victorian
clockwork toy. His snuff tipped all over the rug. He stared at the
tape-recorder as if it was the devil himself. His chest heaved with the effort
of breathing, and he could scarcely speak.
    ‘That day was innocent!’ he breathed. ‘Innocence
itself! How dare you! How dare you suggest it was anything else! You!
Demon! Cochon ! Vos mains sont sales avec le sang des innocents!’
    I reached out and seized Father Anton’s sleeve. He tried to
brush me away, but I gripped him more firmly, and said: ‘Father, it’s only a
trick. For Christ’s sake.’
    Father Anton looked at me with watering eyes. ‘A trick? I don’t understand.’
    ‘Father, it has to be. It’s only a tape-recording. It’s just
some kind of trick.’
    He looked nervously down at the cassette recorder, its tape
still silently spinning. ‘It can’t be a trick,’ he said huskily. ‘How can a
tape-recorder answer one back? It’s not possible.’
    ‘You heard it yourself,’ I told him. ‘It must be.’
    I was as puzzled and scared as he was, but I didn’t want to
show it. I had the feeling that the moment I started giving in to all this weirdness,
the moment I started believing it for real, I was going to get tangled up in
something strange and