Nightfall

73

Sebastian Mitchell kept the oxygen mask over his mouth as he took deep breaths, his eyes on Nightingale, who was slowly chalking a pentagram on the stone slabs. There was a clock on the wall and he squinted at it. Eleven forty. Twenty minutes before Proserpine would come to take Nightingale’s soul.

Sylvia walked into the room, her high heels clicking on the wooden floor. ‘I’ve stationed extra men around the house, and we have three dogs in the garden now, sir.’

‘Thank you, Sylvia,’ wheezed Mitchell. ‘But there’s no danger for us. It’s Nightingale she wants.’

Nightingale placed the metal suitcase in the centre of the pentagram. He took out an ornate gold dagger and held it up. It glinted in the spotlights covering the terrace. He waved the knife over the five points of the pentagram, then slid it into the inside pocket of his raincoat. ‘You’re wasting your time, Nightingale,’ Mitchell muttered. ‘Knives are useless against devils.’

Nightingale took a piece of a branch from the case and slowly went over the chalk outline with it. Then he sprinkled water from a small bottle around the perimeter. ‘Consecrated salt water,’ Mitchell wheezed, ‘but it will do you no good. It will keep her out but you will still lose your soul.’

Nightingale put the branch and the bottle back into the case and took out a small leather-bound book. Mitchell frowned. ‘What’s that? Sylvia, can you see what book he’s holding?’

Sylvia walked over to the french windows and peered through the glass. ‘No, sir,’ she said. ‘There doesn’t appear to be a title but it looks old.’

‘What are you up to, Nightingale?’ muttered Mitchell.

Nightingale sat cross-legged in the centre of the pentagram with the book in his lap, staring out over the garden.

‘Now what’s he doing?’ said Sylvia.

Mitchell looked up at the clock on the wall. ‘He’s waiting,’ he said. He looked back at Sylvia. ‘Turn the lights off,’ he said. ‘We might as well give him a chance.’