The Gathering

By Michael T Ashgillian

28 years after a young child is rescued from a supernatural attack the nightmares have begun.

Are these simply childhood memories emerging from somewhere buried deep in his subconscious? Or has the Evil really returned to attack him once more?

In David P Elliot’s sequel to his historical supernatural thriller ‘Clan’, Thomas Ralstone needs to turn again to his family to understand what is happening and why a Russian mercenary is stalking him and seems determined to return him to the scene of his childhood nightmares in the Borders of Scotland and the dark brooding menace of Hermitage Castle where it seems a 700 year old curse is once again unravelling to threaten him.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Red Cap Publishing
• Release date: Apr 30, 2013
• ISBN: 9780957341159

Michael T Ashgillian

David P Elliot was born in Reading in the UK and, apart from 8 years in the Police Service in the 1970s, he spent almost 30 years in the IT industry before leaving to concentrate on his first love, writing. His debut novel ‘CLAN’, to which ‘The Gathering’ is a sequel, is a historical, supernatural thriller, first published in December 2008 and so far has sold in 16 countries, as well as being translated into German and can be downloaded as an audio book in MP3 or iPod formats narrated by the author. He has 3 grown up children and 3 grandchildren one of which inspired the novel. He now lives in Faringdon UK, with his partner Monika, a native of Munich. ‘Pieces of Fate’ his second book is an anthology of short stories in the ‘Tales of the Unexpected’ mode and is available in paperback or as an e-book, with the individual stories available only in e-book form. He is also working on developing ‘Clan’ as a feature film. You can find out more at www.davidpelliot.com

Book preview

Prologue

February 2007 – Branxholme, Roxburghshire, Scotland

‘So where is he?’

Susan Coltrane’s usually fine features showed untypical signs of tiredness, the dark rings below her eyes attesting to the sleepless night she had endured following the horrific events of the previous night.

She studied Sir Ronald Robertson, who suddenly looked older than his 70 plus years and she noticed his hands were shaking as his thin, bony fingers clasped the large crystal whisky tumbler, the deep amber liquid trembling as he shook.

She had never seen him drinking at this hour of the morning or witnessed his usual practiced elegance and courtesy to slip.

She looked around at the others. Clemenza, the short and stocky dark-haired Columbian, was standing looking out of the huge window across the manicured lawns of Branxholme. Stefan Erikson, the naturalised American ex-Swede sat in a comfortable armchair, sipping espresso, and the young Russian Vladimir Romanski was pacing up and down, nervously wringing his hands, obviously still traumatised by the vivid memory of his father’s slaughter the night before.

The group seemed happy to leave Susan to question Robertson.

He took a deep swallow before answering. ‘I have no idea where he is now. He left to pick up Soulis early this morning, as you know. He didn’t tell me where, originally, but he phoned me later to tell me he was out at a place called Hermitage Castle and he seemed shocked to find the place overrun by police.’

‘So he was meeting Soulis at this Hermitage Castle? Where the hell is that?’

Robinson continued to stare into his glass as he carried on. ‘It’s a derelict castle, 30 minutes or so from here, outside a place called Newcastleton. I have no idea if or why they were meeting there. Andrea seemed very upset when he called me. He wanted me to find out what the police were doing there. He then apparently left Hermitage and went to a hotel in Newcastleton called The Grapes. He called me from there and wanted me to use my connections at the Home Office to find out what was going on at Hermitage. I spoke to a contact of mine. He telephoned the Chief Constable to find out.’

‘I’m not sure I like the idea that the police are involved in our business.’ Clemenza spoke without turning from the window as he pulled on a large Cuban cigar, blowing blue smoke in a steady stream and watching it disperse against the glass of the window.

‘We have no reason to believe they know anything about us.’ Robertson responded, ‘my contact at the Home Office told the Chief Constable it was a security matter, there was no need for him to mention any of us.’

‘Nevertheless....’ Clemenza responded, leaving the statement hanging in the air.

Robertson continued: ‘It seems there was some kind of investigation into some local murders. Some police officers and a couple of civilians were killed. It appears just a coincidence that their investigations took them to just the place where Andrea had arranged to meet Soulis.’

‘I do not believe in coincidence,’ Clemenza responded, ‘and any involvement with the police is unhelpful. So where the hell is Dettori now?’

‘I don’t know,’ Robertson replied, his voice pitching higher with frustration. ‘As far as I can tell, he met with the investigating officer, a Superintendent Munroe, and went back up to Hermitage with him. I could question the Superintendent more, but as far as I can tell, Dettori disappeared and hasn’t been seen since. It seems something odd happened up at the Castle. Dettori’s disappearance was, on the face of it, the least surprising element.’

‘Surprising? What do you mean surprising?’ Clemenza turned to face Susan and Robertson, ‘What I call surprising is what I witnessed last night. What were those creatures? I have never seen slaughter like that. They tore Romanski to pieces, what could be more surprising than that!’ He spat out the words, his face colouring with anger.

‘I mean, it seems there was some kind of mass hallucination up at the castle, apparently strange warriors were seen, horses, children – it doesn’t make any sense; the police seem to be loathe to talk about it.’ Robertson had a real tremor in his voice as he took another swallow of the whisky.

‘Look, none of us understand what happened last night, but we have to remain calm, consider what we do next. There is too much at stake for us to panic now.’ Susan placed a hand on Robertson’s arm, gently trying to calm his shaking.

She looked at her colleagues in the highly secretive Soulis Foundation. Only two of the Foundation’s Board of Trustees were absent: Andrea Dettori and William Soulis after whom the Foundation was named. Oddly, only Dettori had ever met Soulis and of course now Dettori was missing.

‘I don’t like this,’ she eventually said, ‘I agree with Clemenza. The police involvement is, shall we say, unfortunate. I think we should leave here as soon as possible. We can let Ronald here make discreet enquiries. In the meantime, I think, the further we all are from here and from each other the better. The Soulis Foundation pretty much runs itself, as far as I can see, and we all run our own parts of it as well as our own businesses. I think we should leave Ronald to look into this, and in the meantime wait to see if Dettori contacts us. Once we know what has happened here, we can consider the future of the Foundation. In the meantime, I think we should not meet again until we have a clearer idea of what we are dealing with. Agreed?’

Her colleagues nodded in turn.

‘Ronald, let’s stay in touch and if everyone is okay with it, I will take responsibility for keeping everyone updated. The less individual contact we have, the less likely we are to be associated with each other’.

Within an hour a procession of black Mercedes limousines with darkened windows crunched to a halt on the wide gravel drive at the front of Branxholme and the colleagues took their leave of each other at the front of the house, each leaving in separate cars.

As Clemenza leaned forward to kiss Susan Coltrane on the cheek, they both looked at the young Russian, Vladimir Romanski, as he climbed into the back of one of the Mercedes. The thin and dishevelled young man was still visibly shaking.

‘Watch him,’ Clemenza said quietly into Susan’s ear. ‘Watch him, he’s the weak link here.’

As the limousines swept out of the driveway, servants hurried out of the front door, carrying luggage which was quickly loaded into a van to be taken to the airport and sent on to the various locations the Foundation members called home.

Susan’s car was the last to leave and she turned in the comfortable rear seat to look back at the imposing edifice that was Branxholme, a double towered castle in the heart of the Scottish Borders, a few miles from the town of Hawick. At a small window at the very top of the tower to the left of the main entrance she thought, for a second, that she saw a small grey face with black soulless eyes and vicious yellow teeth. On its head was a foul-looking, matted dark-red cap. She closed her eyes tightly and then she opened them again and refocused. If there had been anything at the window, it was no longer there.

She shuddered uncontrollably as her mind returned to the horror of the night before. Had she stared into the eyes of a Red Cap? Or was her mind playing tricks on her? Was she so traumatised that she was hallucinating?

As the dust from the gravel drive rose in a cloud behind the limousine, obscuring the receding building in its manicured grounds, she turned to face forward again, tears flowing down her cheeks. She pressed a button to close the tinted screen that hid her obvious distress from her driver and she stared at her tear-streaked reflection in the glass panel before her.

CHAPTER ONE

28 years later February 2035 – London, England – 2.00 a.m.

Mikel Batnykov pulled the collar of his black raincoat up at the back, protecting his ears from a sudden cold blast of icy air that swept suddenly across the park as he stood almost invisible in the shadows of the undergrowth that separated him from the railings of the park at the edge of the quiet side street in Islington, London.

His steel-grey eyes focussed unflinchingly on the first floor balcony of the flat opposite, a red brick Victorian property, once a comfortable private house. Now it was sub-divided into one and two bedroom apartments.

He realised that in his prime, he would have not even noticed the cold, but now in his seventies, old injuries ached in the cold weather and the severe military cut of his snow-white hair afforded little protection from the cold.

He was old now, he knew, but the years had not dimmed his single-minded concentration and dedication to the task in hand.

At this moment, in the early hours of a bitter February morning, his focus was the flat on the first floor, or more precisely the man asleep inside.

Currently the flat was in darkness. Why would it not be at that time of night?

Batnykov raised himself briefly onto his toes, the way a soldier on parade might raise his heels to relax the tension in his legs.

His eyes, set in the hard and lined face, swept periodically around the area, checking for any small change that might suggest that anyone had any indication of his presence there, before returning his gaze coldly towards the balcony.

He did not look directly at the two shabbily dressed young men who were making a very poor effort at concealing themselves behind a small Victorian public toilet at the edge of the park, some 100 metres to his right.

Most men of his age would be concerned, standing alone in a deserted London park, in the dark early hours, but Batnykov was not most men and he had already concluded that these two were weighing him up as a possible mugging victim to feed some seedy drug habit.

He hoped their drug-addled senses would somehow warn them that there were easier targets elsewhere, but it seemed, judging by the way their observation of him was interspersed with agitated and nervous surveying of the surrounding area, that they were more concerned with who else might be around to see them, rather than focussing whole-heartedly on their intended victim. They were an irritating distraction from his main objective and he considered moving away before they approached and risked bringing unwanted attention to him. But there was a slight possibility that they might leave him alone and he could continue his surveillance.

On the other hand, if they didn’t, they would probably still follow him anyway, unwilling to give up on what they clearly considered easy prey, and if he was going to have to deal with them, here, in the relatively secluded spot in the bush-covered shadows of the park, was as good a place as any.

It seemed they were about to make their move as they slipped out from behind the toilet building and effected a nonchalant walk along the pathway towards him, hoping presumably not to frighten him off.

As they approached within a couple of metres, Batnykov turned to face them, hands deep in his coat pockets. His steely eyes met their nervous gaze as the larger of the two young men flicked open a butterfly knife in a practised movement, presumably intended to intimidate any prospective victim.

Batnykov looked at the knife and then at the other young man who, rather stupidly it seemed to him, did not appear to have a weapon.

‘You really do not want to be doing this,’ he said quietly to the young man with the knife.

‘Shut the fuck up, old man, and give me your wallet before I put you out of your misery.’ As he spoke he moved forward, the knife extended out before him, its sharp point aimed directly into the face of Batnykov.

With a speed that belied his age, Batnykov’s left hand came out of his coat pocket and shot out grabbing the wrist holding the knife, pulling the young man towards him and twisting at the wrist and thumb at the same time as his right arm struck out, hitting the attacker in the throat with the ‘V’ formed between his thumb and forefinger.

The scream that had started in the attacker’s throat as the thumb holding the knife snapped against the joint was instantly cut off by the blow to his neck and he collapsed to his knees, choking as he desperately tried to breathe in through his shattered larynx.

Batnykov slid his hand down and prised the knife from the young man’s limp fingers, as he simultaneously grabbed the second youth by his mop of long greasy hair. The second youth who was currently standing open-mouthed and motionless was pulled forward and Batnykov pushed the blade of the knife into the groove at the back of his neck and up into his brain, his body going limp as the Russian, supporting the youth’s body with the vice-like grip on his hair, allowed him to drop to his knees.

Still holding onto the youth’s hair, he slowly withdrew the knife, then let go the lifeless body as it collapsed across that of the first young man who was gurgling and twitching in his final, choking death throws.

The whole attack had lasted less than 15 seconds as Batnykov pulled out the young man’s shirt and wiped the handle of the knife before dropping it on the ground beside the bodies.

He sighed.

This was a distraction from his objective. He returned his gaze to the flat he had been watching. He would have to leave and come back another time to continue his surveillance on the man who occupied the flat. He was the important one.

He would come back for Thomas Ralstone.

CHAPTER TWO

February 2035 - London, England - 2.05 a.m.

It was starting again.

Laura Ralstone opened her eyes reluctantly, raising herself wearily onto one elbow as she looked at the naked, restless body of her husband.

The hard muscled torso glistened with sweat. A damp sheet was knotted tightly around him and his head was beginning to roll from side to side as the rapid eye movement under his closed eyelids indicated the start of the dream.

She looked at the green fluorescent glow of the alarm clock on the bedside table. 2:07am, and her heart sank as she heard the low guttural mumbling that began to emanate from his lips, a sound that always frightened her.

It seemed too deep, too harsh to come from the gentle person she knew her husband to be, and it terrified her. Every time, it terrified her.

She reached for his forehead, finding it slick with sweat as she stroked gently trying to comfort him, but frightened of waking him suddenly.

She knew that sometimes when he woke he was completely disorientated and would lash out defensively. Whatever the dream meant, it clearly took a little more out of him each time it happened.

The dreams had started several weeks back but were increasing in frequency, until now it was happening almost nightly.

Her instinct from the start had been to wake him, to do what she could to protect him from these hateful recurring nightmares, but he was a powerful man and an accidental blow as he struck out unknowingly, she knew from bitter experience, could be dangerous.

She remembered the teasing she had received at work the morning she arrived with a huge black eye from an accidental back-hand that had almost knocked her senseless as Tom had lashed out defensively when he awoke from one of these night terrors.

He had of course been mortified.

Tom was 6 foot 3 inches tall and had the broad shoulders and narrow hips associated with a top class swimmer, for that was in fact what he was. Only his passion for history and his reluctance to compromise his studies had prevented him making the Great Britain Olympic Team although he had represented England many times. He had also represented Oxford University at rugby, a game he was also hugely talented at. But history had always been his passion and he was never ultimately prepared to devote the time away from his research to train full time, which was what was required nowadays if you were to reach the top in any professional sport.

But one of Laura's many reasons for loving this man was his innate gentleness; the confidence of a man whose strength and upbringing left him with nothing to prove, nothing to fear.

With Laura it had been love at first sight. It seemed it had been for him, too.

They met in Oxford, in The Eagle & Child Pub in St Giles. They sat next to each other, having been introduced by a mutual friend celebrating his graduation.

It seemed they had hardly been out of each others’ company since.

Tom's gentleness with women was almost quaint, a product she believed of his upbringing. Tom's parents Kate and Simon, she had adored from the start, and Tom had inherited a quiet gentleness from them both.

The absolute horror Tom had felt when he realised how, albeit accidentally, he had hurt Laura, had broken her heart and despite her protestations, she knew he had never forgiven himself.

So she carefully stroked his forehead, calling his name quietly and gently but watching intently for any sign of an involuntary lashing out, as Tom fought his way out of the nightmare.

Suddenly, Tom sat up, his sweating body tense and a look of terror in his eyes as the lids snapped open and he stared wide-eyed at Laura, apparently without recognition. One arm went across his mouth in a defensive motion and he reached out with the other, grabbing Laura by the upper arm, gripping tightly and pushing her away.

‘Tom, you’re hurting me!’ she cried out in pain as his powerful hand tightened.

A few seconds passed with Laura pulling ineffectively at Tom’s fingers, struggling to loosen his powerful grip, before his breathing seemed to ease slightly and a look of recognition returned to his terrified eyes.

He panted, and slowly his grip slackened and released as both hands went to his face. He wiped the sleep and the sweat away. He seemed calmer, and slowly he took Laura in his arms and pulled her towards him. She, reluctant at first, studied his eyes and, satisfied that he was in control, surrendered to the safe warmth of his arms.

CHAPTER THREE

February - 2035 Hermitage Castle - Scotland – 2.05 a.m.

‘28 years is a mere heartbeat in the history of the struggle.’

The vile little dwarf sat on top of the ancient wooden chest bound by rusted bands of iron, his skinny legs swinging, and the curled and vicious yellow claws of his feet clicking against the side of the box; his dry, crackling voice a harsh whisper.

‘Our Master, Lord Soulis took 700 years to perfect his skills, to return to the Old World.’

Andrea Dettori approached the Red Cap from the shadows at the edge of the dank chamber lit only by flaming wooden torches that guttered, casting ever-moving shadows across the mud covered stone floor of the dungeon.

He studied the foul creature with disgust as he contemplated the last 28 years in this hell he was trapped in, with only his plotting and the visits from the Red Cap every 7 years to break the endless cycle of despair.

The serpentine tongue that flicked endlessly from the creature’s oversized mouth lined with yellow fangs was set in a grey, cadaverous head, below black, soulless eyes that glistened in the torch light.

Strands of black, greasy hair hung from the chin and from beneath a foul, feted cap pulled tightly down on the creatures head. The matted cap bore centuries of gore collected from the corpses of countless victims, and from which the creature got its name.

‘Soulis failed. I will not.’ The small figure of Andrea Dettori, with its grey tailor-made suit, once white linen shirt and red silk tie which although now muddied and stained, still seemed incongruous in the strange surroundings and in stark contrast to the stinking wretch before him, dressed in foul smelling rags.

‘I have learned in 28 years what it took Soulis 700 years to learn, how to escape and how to rule. I misjudged Soulis, I believed he was invincible. I will not make the mistakes Soulis made.’

He turned away from the Red Cap.

‘...and you and your many brothers will help me.’

CHAPTER FOUR

February 2035 – New York City, USA

Susan Coltrane stood naked in front of the full-length mirror in the dressing room of her New York apartment that overlooked Central Park, and she appraised herself with as much criticality as she would a set of economic forecasts for the companies she ran.

Now 58 years of age she realised that probably her large breasts were perhaps more in need of a bra than in her younger days, and as she turned and looked over her shoulder into the mirror there was just the slightest indication of the effects of gravity on her butt, but all in all she knew she could easily pass for 45 years of age and there was certainly no shortage of willing young admirers seeking to get her into bed.

She ran her fingers through her golden blond, mid-length hair and noted with pleasure how the perfect cut (at least it should be perfect with the amount of money she lavished on it), caused it to effortlessly fall back into place, making her look enticingly windswept rather than dishevelled, despite the fact that she had just climbed out of bed.

Bed. She turned, slipping a white silk robe around her body and tying it at the front before standing in the doorway of the dressing room, leaning on the door frame with arms folded across her chest, looking at the sleeping body on her bed.

A white silk sheet, draped around the lower half of the tanned and muscled body of the young man, the sheet rising and falling gently with his breathing.

She wondered, not for the first time, whether her rule of never mixing business with pleasure, which had served her well for more than 30 years, should have been abandoned for this, admittedly beautiful, young man.

Susan understood her own sexuality completely. She knew what she liked and how to get it. Her taste was for young men, beautiful and fit and usually not too bright. She was fully aware of her own attraction to both men and women and was happy to use it to get what she wanted, whether that was for sexual fulfilment or in business. She was also excruciatingly bright. The fact that her own personal wealth was often as much of a turn-on for these young men was not an issue for her; as long as she got what she wanted, her particular brand of sexual fulfilment or a deal signed – that was fine. Young men were ten a penny, there was always another around the corner and she knew that even if her beauty faded, there would still be men who fooled themselves into thinking that they would be the one, the one she would fall for and share her wealth with.

Not for a moment did their self-delusions influence her. She had not the slightest compunction in casting them aside once she had got what she wanted and the occasional one who sought to outstay their welcome, or even seek revenge for being unceremoniously dumped, were soon dissuaded by one of her ‘specialist’ assistants, who had a talent for discouraging unwanted advances, permanently if need be.

Of course, her sexual predilections brought their own dangers, which was actually part of the excitement for her, and her habit of picking up these handsome but somewhat intellectually challenged young men in bars and taking them to seedy hotels where she goaded them into the kind of aggressive, almost violent sex that she craved, had often led her into danger over the years. But, invariably, she had always been bright or ruthless enough to avoid anything more than a few cuts and bruises.

But this young man was different. He had now been her regular partner for months and the only one who had ever made it into her bed at home, rather than in some non-descript hotel. He had got to her in a way she had, up until now, considered she could not be got to, and it excited her and worried her in equal measure.

Scott Butler certainly fulfilled the physical requirements that Susan demanded, but by no stretch of the imagination could he be considered dim-witted like so many of her erstwhile dalliances. In fact, he was as intelligent and well read as any man she had ever met, despite his youth.

Of course, with her normal insistence on ‘due diligence’ she had checked out his story as far as that was possible. There was too much at stake in her life not to. In fact this task was ongoing, but the team that was working on the investigation was finding that it was proving a little more complicated than normal, but as far as she could tell, what he told her about himself checked out; not that he seemed to know that much about his background himself apparently.

She thought, for the first time in years, of Sir Ronald Robertson. Robertson had been a fellow member of the secretive Soulis Foundation, and very much a member of the British political elite. What he didn’t know about how things got done and who could influence them within the British Establishment wasn’t worth knowing. His contacts were second to none, not just in Great Britain but in diplomatic circles and wherever influence existed, in most countries in the World.

She shuddered slightly as her mind was dragged, involuntarily, back to that night in Branxholme, Scotland, nearly 30 years ago. It still haunted her and the minute her thoughts were drawn back to that terrible night, she needed every ounce of her considerable mental strength to drag her thoughts away again.

Robertson had not been so lucky. Already in his early seventies in February 2007 when that terrifying slaughter had occurred, his mind seemed to have been totally unable to cope with the sheer horror of the events of that night and whilst he had continued to work to try and resolve the mystery of the sudden disappearance of their colleague, Andrea Dettori, and to report that back to Susan as the surrogate head of the Soulis Foundation in Dettori’s absence, he had deteriorated rapidly both mentally and physically. This process had not been helped by his drinking which had got so out of hand he had become a walking skeleton.

6 months after Branxholme, he was found dead in his London apartment, an empty whisky bottle on the floor by his chair, along with a semi-automatic pistol which had slipped from his dangling hand, apparently having fallen there after a bullet fired into the roof of his mouth had blown his brains through the top of his skull. The verdict was suicide, whilst the balance of his mind was disturbed. In British political circles, the story was it was the drink. That suited Susan and the other remaining members of the Foundation who knew the causes were considerably more complex, but pragmatically, his death had removed a potential risk to the security of the Foundation through his ever-growing unreliability.

She knew if there was anything to find in official records in Britain, Robertson would have found it. But that was a stupid distraction. Robertson was long dead and was of no further use, or indeed more importantly, a threat to the Foundation.

Susan walked across to the bed and sat on the edge, looking down at her sleeping lover as she ran over in her mind what she had learned about him.

He was an only child, born in 2008, the son of an English army Major who served with the SAS, the elite British army unit based in Hereford, England, and a Scottish Mother. Both of them had died in a car accident in a multiple pile up on the M1 motorway in England, just outside the Yorkshire city of Leeds. He had apparently been 5 years old then.

Scott had been staying with an aunt at the time his parents were travelling to London for a social event, so