developed both life and a feral depravity, as if all its frozen
suffering and grotesqueness had been wrenched back from
the grave — wrenched back and endowed with a desire to
wreak horror.
Even as the glittering eyes held Elsa mesmerised,
she realised that Denis Proctor and Roland Sadler had
moved up on either side of her. Through a trance of terror
she became aware of them ripping off her gown and flimsy
nightdress. Wrenching her eyes from the living death mask
she yelled and struggled but in a minute they had torn off
her bra and panties and held her writhing between them.
She could feel the intensity of the distant blazing logs hot
around her legs and buttocks, and the dankness of the
walls cold against her face.
The thing in its hood stood aside and motioned to
the two men. They dragged her screaming across to the
granite slab, flung her on to it face-down and held her
there. She continued to struggle and to scream, and she
saw the hooded thing move swiftly, chaining her wrists
and ankles so that she lay spreadeagled in heavy iron
manacles.
Then it spoke, and the voice both chilled and
shocked her because it belonged to the hotel proprietor
Conrad after all.
‘Surely you realised,’ it said softly, ‘that a curse
once cast must eventually attain its destiny. Across the
centuries, if necessary.’
‘What are you talking about, you fucking
madman?’ Elsa screamed.
60