91

Athame had been lying without moving for close on three hours. During the whole of that time, the Halach Uinic and the Chilan had only stopped their chanting once, when someone – she supposed Sabir – had shouted out something about dogs.

She had taken to working on one part of her body at a time. Small movements. Flexions and tensions. Tiny spasms of the muscles designed to keep the blood flowing around her body and to protect her from cramp. She wondered how much longer she would have to suffer this torment for the sake of – well what? Nobody had said anything worth missing supper for so far.

At one point her cell phone began to vibrate. Fortunately for her, the bass-baritone droning emanating from the Chilan and the Halach Uinic, with the occasional contralto interjection from the witchdoctor woman, more than compensated for its sound, and Athame was able to dampen it with her hand until it switched itself off. She had arranged with Abi that he only let any of his calls run for two rings – if she didn’t answer, it meant that she was otherwise engaged. This foresight had now saved her from the embarrassment of premature discovery – a discovery which would have forced her to act in a manner directly contrary to Madame, her mother’s, wishes. Athame was sufficiently level-headed to realize that in those circumstances Abi would gleefully have fed her to the dogs, transferring all responsibility for his own maverick actions onto her head.

Once, when the chanting became especially raucous, Athame achieved a partial change of position, turning from facing the wall to facing outwards. What were these people thinking of? Why were they all sitting in a pitch-dark space chanting nonsense? She began to regret her super-smart, on-the-hoof idea of sneaking inside. Now, given the impossible situation she had contrived for herself, she knew that she would have to see the thing through until the bitter end.

She silently prayed that Abi might somehow be able to deduce what had happened to her, and detail one of the others for skull and codex duty.