“Mr Wormwood?”

The creature raised its yellow eyes. There was grease upon his cleft chin and he had spilt white sauce on his jacket lapel. “Most palatable,” said he.

“And Captain?”

The Captain chewed ruefully upon a jellied lark’s wing and grunted assent in a surly manner.

Crowley was growing bolder by the minute, and felt it high time that he put one or two of the questions he had stewing in his head. “Dear sir,” said he, “may I say how much I have enjoyed this dinner, never in my days have I tasted such claret.” He held up the short crystal glass to the candle-flame and contemplated the ruby-red liquid as it ran about the rim. “To think that anything so exquisite could exist here in Brentford, that such a sanctuary dedicated to life’s finer things could be here, it is a veritable joy to the soul.”

The red-eyed man nodded thoughtfully. “Then you approve?”

“I do, I do, but I must also confess to some puzzlement.”

“Indeed?”

“Well,” and here Crowley paused that he might compose inquisitiveness into a form which might give no offence.

“Well, as to yourself for instance, you are clearly a man of extreme refinement, such is obvious from your carriage, bearing and manner of speech. If you will pardon my enquiry might I ask to which part of our sceptred isle you owe your born allegiance?”

“I am broadly travelled and may call no place truly my home.”

“Then as to your presence in these parts?”

“I am at present a guest of the good Captain.”

“I see.” Crowley turned his eyes briefly towards the elder. His glance was sufficient however to register the look of extreme distaste on the Captain’s face.

“Then, sir, as you have the advantage of us might I enquire your name?”

The red-eyed man sat back in his chair. He took from a golden casket a long green cigar which he held to his ear and turned between thumb and forefinger. Taking up an onyx-handled cigar cutter he sliced away at one end. Satisfied with his handiwork he placed the cigar between his cruel lips and drew life into it from the candle-flame.

“Mr Crowley,” said he, blowing a perfect cube of smoke which hovered in the air a second or two before dissolving into nothingness. “Mr Crowley, you would not wish to know my name.”

The young man sipped at his wine and smiled coyly. “Come now,” he crooned, “you have supplied us with a dinner fit for royalty, yet you decline to identify yourself. It is unfair that we are not permitted to know the name of our most generous and worthy host.”

The red-eyed man drew once more upon his cigar, while the index finger of his left hand traced a runic symbol upon the polished tabletop. “It is to the Captain that you owe your gratitude,” said he. “He is your host, I am but a guest as yourself.”

“Ha,” the young man crowed, “I think not. You suit all this a little too well. You sit at the table’s head. I feel all this is your doing.”

“My doing?” the other replied. “And what motive do you think I might have for inviting you to the Mission?”

“That is something I also wish to know. I suspect that no other guests were invited this evening and” – here Crowley leant forward in his seat – “I demand an explanation.”

“Demand?”

“Yes, demand! Something funny is going on here and I mean to get to the bottom of it.”

“You do?”

“Who are you?” screamed Crowley, growing red in the face. “Who are you and what are you doing here?”

“What are you doing here, Mr Crowley?”

“Me? I was invited, I came out of respect to the Captain, to celebrate the Mission’s centenary. I have a responsible position on the board of trustees, in fact I am a man not without power. You would do well not to bandy words with me!”

“Mr Crowley,” said the crimson figure. “You are a fool, you have no respect for the Captain, you have only contempt. It was greed that brought you here and it will be greed that will be your ruination.”

“Oh yes?” said Crowley. “Oh yes?”

“I will tell you why you came here tonight and I will answer your questions. You came here because you knew that not to come would be to draw attention to yourself. It is your plan to have this Mission demolished at the first possible opportunity, and to make your shady and treacherous deals with this corpse here.” Wormwood cowered in his seat as the tall man continued. “I will never allow a stone of this Mission to be touched without my consent!”

“Your consent?” screeched Crowley. “Who in the hell do you think you are?”

“Enough!” The red-eyed man pushed back his chair and drew himself to his full height, his eyes blazing and his shoulders spreading to draw out his massive chest. His hands formed two enormous fists which he brought down on to the table with titanic force, scattering the food and shuddering the candelabra. “Crowley,” he roared, his voice issuing from his mouth as a gale force of icy wind, “Crowley, you would know who I am! I am the man to whom fate has led you. From your very birth it was ordained that our paths would finally cross, all things are preordained and no man can escape his fate. You would know who I am? Crowley, I am your nemesis!”

Crowley hurled his chair aside and rushed for the door, his desperate movements those of a wildly flapping bird. His hands grasped about the door-handle but found it as solid and unmoveable as if welded to the lock. “Let me go,” he whimpered, “I want nothing more of this, let me out.”

The giant in crimson turned his hellish eyes once more upon the young man. “You have no escape, Crowley,” he said, his voice a low rumble of distant thunder. “You have no escape, you are already dead, you were dead from the moment you entered this room, dead from the first moment you raised a glass to your mouth, you are dead, Crowley.”

“I'm not dead,” the young man cried, tears welling up in his eyes. “I’ll have the law on you for this, I’m not without influence, I’m…” Suddenly he stiffened as if a strong cord had been tightly drawn about his neck. His eyes started from their sockets and his tongue burst from his mouth. It was black and dry as the tongue of an old boot. “You… you,” he gagged, tearing at his collar and falling back against the door. The tall figure loomed above him, a crimson angel of death. “Dead, Crowley.”

The young man sank slowly to his knees, his eyes rolling horribly until the pupils were lost in his head. A line of green saliva flowed from the corner of his mouth and crept over his shirt. He jerked forward, his manicured nails tearing into the parquet flooring, crackling and snapping as convulsions of raw pain coursed through his body.

Above him, watching the young man’s agony with inhuman detachment, stood the crimson giant. Crowley raised a shaking hand, blood flowed from his wounded fingertips, his face was contorted beyond recognition. He bore the look of a grotesque, a gargoyle, the skin grey and parched, the lips blue, bloodless. He raised himself once more to his knees and his mouth opened, the blue lips made a hopeless attempt to shape a final word. Another convulsion tore through his body and flung him doll-like to the floor where he lay, his limbs twisted hideously, his eyes staring at the face of his destroyer, glazed and sightless. Brian Crowley was dead.

The red-eyed man raised his right hand and made a gesture of benediction. With terrifying suddenness he turned upon the Captain, who sat open-mouthed, shaking with terror. “You will dispose of this rubbish,” he said.

“Rubbish?” The Captain forced the word from his mouth.

The red-eyed man gestured at the twisted body which lay at his feet; then, raising his arm, he pointed across the table. The Captain followed his gaze to where Councillor Wormwood sat. His hands grasped the table top in a vice-like grip, his eyes were crossed and his head hung back upon his neck like that of a dead fowl in a butcher’s window. The skin was no longer yellow, but grey-white and almost iridescent; his mouth lolled hugely open and his upper set had slipped down to give the impression that his teeth were clenched into a sickly grin.