My heart is thudding so hard in my chest I can hear its roar in my ears.

‘A child goes missing every three minutes in the United Kingdom alone, and around the world millions disappear every year.  They are never seen, heard of or found.  What do you think happens to them?’

I am too stunned to reply.

‘On some days of the year, but especially eight dates, tens of thousands of children are sacrificed, not just by the sons of El, obviously, but by the Satanist and other cults around the world.  On the night of the autumn equinox, September 21, three days from today, Sorab would have been ritually murdered.  Like my brother, his uncle, and his uncle before him.’

My hands are clasped like a prayer in front of my mouth.

‘I had to stop it,’ he says, his face gray.

‘Why couldn’t we have just run away?  Why have his blood on our hands?’

‘There is no place on earth where Sorab, or you, for that matter, would have been safe.  Only with me at the helm of the agenda, can the forces be held back.’

‘But I don’t want you at the helm of such a sick and twisted religion,’ I cry.

‘There is no other way.  It is not a club.  We are chosen to rule.  I was born into it and must die in it.’  I shudder visibly.  ‘Please,’ he continues, ‘don’t grieve for me.  I am reconciled to the knowledge that it shall be for me…a hell for all eternity.  It is only important now that Sorab and any other children I father are not initiated.  They will be free as my brother Quinn is.’

My skull aches.  ‘Is Marcus involved in…your father’s death?’

‘No.  I acted alone.  To protect what is mine.’

A desperate sob escapes me.  ‘Why can’t we run away and let Marcus take over?  He’s older than you.’

‘Marcus is not strong.  My father always knew that.  It was always going to me.  At the helm of this empire of dirt.’

‘Why can’t you expose them?  Tell the whole world the truth.’

‘Who would I tell, Lana?  Over the years hundreds of children who have escaped have told the same story, with the same details of underground chambers, hooded figures, orgies, and sacrificial murders, and they have all been dismissed as unreliable fantasists.  Not a single figure of real prominence has ever been brought to justice.’

‘But you are Barrington.  You are powerful.  You have inside information.  You know people.  You are not an unreliable witness.’

 ‘The other families would immediately close ranks.  What my father claimed he would do to me will be done.  I will be destroyed and you and Sorab will disappear without a trace.’

I am frightened to ask my next question, my throat feels raw.  I swallow.  ‘Do you also participate in these…rituals?’

‘No, the rituals are not for us.  We float above them.  They are for the compromised and those who enjoy such perversions.  I do not.’

 ‘Can you not stop the agenda from the inside out?’

‘Can you stop Monday from rolling into Tuesday?  No one can stop the agenda, Lana.  It will come to pass no matter what I do.’

Thirty-five

I fell into a burning ring of fire

I went down, down, down as the flames went higher

And it burns, burns, burns,

The ring of fire, the ring of fire.

—The Ring of Fire, Johnny Cash

That night we do not make love.

We huddle together like the shell-shocked survivors in the embers of a horrific battlefield.  All around us are the dead and the terrible cries and wails of the dying.  His hands cling to mine.

His voice is a whisper in my hair.  ‘I know I should push you away, but I can’t.  Until you came I lived a joyless life.  It will be up to you to leave me.’

Finally, I understand why the choice to stay will be mine.

It is only in the early morning hours that his hands stop clinging, relax, and fall away in exhausted sleep, but sleep never comes for me.  I lie on my side, his warm body curled around me and I think of Victoria’s mother.  That shrill look in her eyes that had so frightened me.  She was right.  It was already too late for me by the time she came to see me.

When the first light filters through the gap in the curtains I watch him sleep, his face relaxed and vulnerable, and I shiver not with desire, but with the memory of my desire for this man, for this body.  It seems another lifetime ago.  I think of what he has done for Sorab and I, and I am filled with sorrow at the thought of the secrets and sins that he carries in his soul.  I understand that he is as trapped as I was when I slipped into a sluttish orange dress and went to sell my body to the highest bidder.

Billie, Jack, and probably even you…you thought it was too much to sacrifice for such a small percentage of success, didn’t you?  But I didn’t.  I would have done anything for my mother.  Would I kill for her?  If someone climbed into her bedroom and threatened her survival, yes, in a heart beat.  Blake and I are worlds apart and yet we are cut from the same cloth.

I get dressed quietly and put my son into his carrycot.  He smiles at me.  I look into his clear blue eyes and feel like sobbing.  How lucky he is.  He is pure.  He has done nothing wrong, yet.

I go downstairs.

Brian is sitting at the kitchen table watching TV.  It is running the news of Blake’s father’s plane crash.  When he sees me at the doorway, he switches off the telly and stands up.  In his eyes something has changed.  A new respect.  It is in recognition of my association with the new head of the Barrington empire.

‘Good morning, Ma’am.’

Ma’am?  Even that’s new.  ‘Good morning, Brian.  Is there a church nearby?’

‘Sure, but it won’t be open yet.  Bit early.’

‘Can we try it, anyway?’

‘Of course.  Would you like to go now?’

‘Yes.’

‘I’ll let Steve know.’

Outside Tom is carefully polishing the Bentley.

‘Good morning, Miss. Bloom,’ he calls.

I wave.

Brian drives me to the church, and as luck would have it, a man is locking the great doors.  I run up to him, carrycot in hand.

‘Oh please, please.  Can I go in and say a quick prayer?’

He looks at me, glances at the child.  Behind his gold-rimmed glasses his eyes are kind, innocent, unaware that I have been touched by sin.  Would he believe me if I told about the secret world of the children of El?  What they do for power and domination?  Even to me, in the cold light of day, it all seems like a fantastical nightmare or a particularly bad film script.

He smiles kindly, and opens the door.

‘Thank you.  Thank you very much.’

‘I’ll be outside.  Go with God, my child.’

Inside it is very quiet.  First, I consecrate myself with holy water, then I walk down the old church.  Light is filtering in through the stained glass, a magnificent aspect in the still gloom of grey stone.  It streams onto a massive icon of the dying Christ as he hangs sorrowing above the altar.  Above the smell of flowers and ferns.

I stand in silent awe in the middle of the house of God.  A lost sheep returning to its fold.  Alone, I go to the side of the hall where there is a statue of Mary carrying baby Jesus in her arms.  I open a wooden box and take out four candles.  They cost a pound each, but I have no money with me.  I will come back tomorrow and put the four pounds into their donation box.  I light the candles and put them into their metal holders.  One for Jack, one for Sorab and one for Blake and one for all the little children.

The flames cast their warm light into the shadows.

I remember my grandmother saying, Gods are not beings like people.  It is only humans who have given them arms and legs and faces.  They are metaphors for all the things human consciousness can aspire to.  If there is a darkness called El, then there must be another metaphor to describe the consciousness of light and goodness.  I will pray to that god, in every temple, mosque, synagogue and church that I find.