But buried in the whole mass of paperwork were a number of brief references whose true importance was just beginning to register upon him. Refusing to be forgotten, only now did they start to fidget for his attention.

  He drove straight home and placed a frozen pizza, and some oven-chips into the small stove. Then he tried Brady's number again, and this time - to his delight - got through to the man.

  They arranged for Brady to come over at about nine o'clock.

  Haddingham lived spartanly in his two-bedroomed apartment, on the ground floor of an elegant Georgian house that had been converted to flats some years before. He could never be bothered to cook properly, depending on the excuse of company, female companions, and vitamins to induce the correct mineral and dietary balance in his far-from-frail physique.

  Now, as the pizza heated through, he went straight to the lounge, turned on all the lights, and placed the great wad of reports onto the coffee table in front of the sofa. He placed soft music onto the Hitachi - Brahms - and poured himself half a glass of scotch, before deciding against it, and tipping the spirit back into the bottle.

  He checked his pulse, looked at his tongue in the mirror, and breathed deeply several times. He felt a little dizzy, and as he walked about the room he felt distinctly ill at ease.

  Quickly then, deciding to take no chances, he placed small iron bowls of dilute nitric acid at the four corners of the lounge. Into each he sprinkled a little salt, from a linen bag on which was marked a Christian seal. He went upstairs and stripped totally naked, standing under the shower for a few minutes, then dressed in meticulously cleaned white slacks and a white, linen shirt.

  His sense of unease faded. Although it was almost certainly auto-suggestion, with two of his friends undergoing psychic attack it made sense to be cautious.

  The smell of the acid in the lounge was sharp, but when he burned sweet herbs in a copper dish, the room took on a cosy, homely feel. He fetched the pizza and chips, and a fork, and began to absently feed on them as he turned the pages of the three reports, seeking the information that he had subconsciously registered months before.

  It was an hour before he found the first piece he sought.

  It was a sample of psychic writing from a seventeen-year old youth who slipped, almost without control, into trance conditions, and produced as near-perfect a facsimile of seventeenth century English handwriting as any expert had ever seen. To produce the untidy, spidery script the boy had used his left hand, although he was normally right-handed. The samples consisted, for the most part, of obscure symbols, nonsense words, some of which proved to be anagrams, and incoherent babble. There were moments of lucid prose, but these amounted to apparently arcane references, passages of description, and requests for understanding, presented in a pleading, almost begging tone.

  Academics at Cambridge who had examined the writing had stated that, although the work was clearly fakery, had they been genuine they would evince some knowledge of alchemy, and the mystic arts of the time of the philosopher Robert Fludd, and others. In fact, there was an awesome reflection of Fludd's own handwriting in the cryptic style that the youth produced, but no verbal or written clue as to the "name" of the psychic contact had ever emerged. What drew Haddingham's attention, now, was the passage that he had noticed before. Written over a year ago, it read simply:

  'He is awakening, and that awakening is of the first order. Now they will gather and the eyes of the lazerene will open. A RACH NIAR. Rocas. Oh Void, the Awakening. Rotor Rotas.'

  Haddingham removed that particular sheet, and used a pencil to ring the short, typed phrase. To his irritation the original - or a copy of the original - had not been included with the report.

  In the margin he scribbled: Lazarine = lazarus? A RACH NIAR = Arachne? Rotor/Rotas = wheel, or turning. Fate?

  He moved on quickly, however, since the main piece he wished to relocate was deeper in the file. He found it at last, and sat back, his skin cold, his heart beating hard as he read through the short exchange between a medium and a questioner, made some six months previous. It was not the reference to "Dan" that had made him spot the piece, at that meeting during the summer, but the reference to The Awakening. All through the reports, from various psychic fields, he had seen that reference, and at the time it had seemed just another part of the Ennean's paranormal quackery.

  Now he stared at those papers: at the bizarre, at the odd, at the freak and at the lunatic; and he wondered seriously whether the Ministry of Defence might not have been seriously underplaying its hand, working in areas hardly removed from realistic physics and chemistry. He wondered if his personal commitment to the idea of metaphysics without the occult might not have been the most serious blindness he had experienced in all his fifty-five years.

  The report was titled:

  Angela Huxley: medium. Self-induced trance and seance contact, August 27th 198-. Contact unidentified.

  8.31. Physical distress, head shaking, subdued sound of sobbing. Contact with spirit 'Harold' broken, apparently unwillingly.

  8.33. Stillness. AH staring straight ahead, sweating profusely.

  8.36. New Contact. "Who can I tell?' Voice slightly deeper than normal AH.

  Q. Who are you?

  'Who can I tell?'

  Q. What do you wish to tell?

  'Who can I tell?'

  Q. Will you identify yourself? Do you have a name?

  'Who can I tell?'

  Q. What do you wish to tell?

  'They are awakening.'

  Q. Who is awakening?

  8.40. Silence. AH breathing heavily. Body shaking. Still profusely sweating. Three full minutes silence after the last question.

  8.43. Q. Who is awakening?

  'They can reach. They have reached. They are awakening.'

  Q. Who is this message for? Is it for anyone at this table?

  'Tell him. Tell him they are awakening. Tell Dan. Tell him.'

  Q. Who is Dan?

  'Tell Dan. They are gathering. They have reached. Tell him.'

  Q. Who is Dan?

  Silence.

  8.47. AH emerges from trance and is physically sick. Reports that she felt as if she had been in an ice-cold wind.

  In the hour before Dan Brady arrived, Haddingham located two more references to "the awakening". He was sure there were more, but they eluded him in the dense-packed reports and pages. His back was aching, and his eyes were sore. He sat back in the sofa, staring at the report of the seance with Angela Huxley, and the name "Dan" seemed to swim in and out of focus. Seances were riddled with names, scattered in and among the various messages with great abundance. Why was he so certain that this Dan was meant to be Daniel Brady? On August 27th, if he remembered correctly, the Bradys had been in Holland, a happily complete family, holidaying in Amsterdam.

  It would be four months before the tragedy struck. Why should a spirit wish to communicate with Dan with what sounded like a warning?

  Unless the spirit 'knew' at that time that Brady was being targeted? Brady had certainly complained of tiredness and headaches over the summer. Haddingham had thought nothing of it. Psychic attack was the last thing he had on his mind.

  It would not be for a month that Ellen Bancroft would be so brutally attacked and he would find himself drawn into her truly bizarre world of occult power, and directional evil. And by that time his brief, inadequate perusal of the reports from the Ennean Institute would have been forgotten.

  Awakening. Gathering. Reaching. Targeting. It added up to practically nothing. Except for gathering. He could understand that. Ellen had said she had sensed that her attackers were gathering. Would Dan Brady have had the same experience?

  *

  Brady turned up just before nine o'clock, and he and Haddingham greeted each other like the old friends they were - with one exception: they left the drinks firmly locked away in the cabinet.

  They talked briefly, and grimly, about what had happened three months ago, and Brady explained how, with Ellen's help, he was going to turn Brook's Corner into a sort of psychic fortress. Haddingham listened silently, and without expression. He was slightly shocked by Brady's changed appearance. Brady had always been a full-figured, rather indulged looking man. Now he was grey-eyed and gaunt, his handsome face chiselled, the pale skin darkened with a couple of days' growth of beard that he hadn't bothered to shave off. Although his hands shook as he held the papers that Haddingham wanted him to read, there was an unfamiliar strength about the younger man, an ice-cold hardness - the eyes were haunted, but now they saw everything; the lips were parted in a half smile, but it was a disarming smile, an expression that Haddingham believed could touch a man's face in the moments before he cold-bloodedly killed.

  Brady finished reading and they talked some more, Brady making it clear that he was finished with the Ministry, and with work of any kind, until he had hunted down the attackers of his family.

  'What will you do for money? Have you thought of that?'

  ' I have savings. I have all of Alison's money, and she was well off . . .'

  'Inherited money. Yes.'

  'And several books she wrote under her maiden name. She made a small fortune. My father too. He'll help. And I'll try and get what I can out of the Government. Ideally they'll let me stay on the payroll ... as a field worker.'

  'I can't see it,' said Haddingham.

  'Nor me. But I'll try. Savings won't last for ever, especially if I pay off the mortgage.'

  'I'll do what I can,' said Haddingham, impressed by the way Brady was beginning to think clearly, shaking off the initial shock and sadness that had followed his recovery. 'The stumbling block will be George Campbell. He was never very keen on you. I can't see him writing a recommendation for sabbatical leave.'

  'Damn Campbell. I was never establishment enough for him.' Brady rubbed his eyes. He was tired and the smell of burning herbs was irritating them. 'Mandrake?' he asked with a smile. 'Hemlock?'

  'Garlic, hellbore root, and simple fragrances. I've got an elementary block up around the room, just nitric acid and consecrated salt. Ellen's idea. I can't say it doesn't work, because I don't know if I've been targeted. But it's comforting.'

  Brady shook his head, almost in disbelief. He looked around the cosily lit room, at the elegant furniture, at the huge colour TV, with its video recorder tucked neatly away below, at the beautiful picture of earthrise over the moon's surface, which had been Haddingham's favourite image from the early seventies. And he looked at four iron dishes at the corners of the room, and the tiny copper brazier with its thin trail of incense smoke rising into the air. 'It's a new world, Andrew. For all my working with supernature, I could never have imagined this . . .'

  'I know what you mean.'

  'Talking to Ellen today,' Brady went on, 'made me feel like I was insane. Some of the things she said should have made me laugh. With derision. Instead, I took it all in. I've come to accept it, to believe it. Root extracts, burned herbs, metal bracelets, talismans, seals, markings in the air . . . defences against mind power that my common sense says can't possibly work.'

  'I know exactly what you mean,' Haddingham repeated, re-experiencing his own difficulty in acceptance.

  Brady said, 'But something killed three people at the hospital, on my ward. And that something tried to kill me. And it couldn't get me. I was defended. It's madness. And perhaps for the rest of my life I have to be a part of that madness.'

  For a moment Haddingham just stared at his colleague. Then he smiled. 'It's odd, isn't it? Both you and I work in the field of the paranormal. Physicists laugh at us; the scientific community spurns us, despite the fact that we are "establishment"; the police are sceptical even when they can actually see results like psychic body location. But we're just as bad. I never thought that beyond simple supernature there might be a real, occult world of spirits, witches, religious phenomena, Hermetic correspondences, representational magic. It's the way we were trained. Rational training for rational minds, with the emphasis on rationality.'

  As if the words were triggering some uncomfortable associations in his head, Brady licked his lips and laughed nervously. 'Quite. It takes some adjusting to.'

  'You've adjusted well. Your own words, Dan. But for me, it's taken time. Even when Ellen's family were taken, even when the Stalker began to attack her, I couldn't really believe everything she said. It took the destruction of your family ... it took Alison's disappearance, and those hideous wounds on your body, to start the ball rolling in my head. To start me believing.'

  Leaning forward in his seat, Haddingham picked up the few sheets of paper he had marked out from the files. Staring at them he said, 'I feel lost, Dan. I feel totally lost. What in God's name are we up against?'

  'That,' said Brady, 'is what I intend to find out.' He took the papers from Haddingham and there was a silence as he skimmed them again, shaking his head. At last he said, 'It's a big jump from "Tell Dan" to "Tell Daniel Brady of Brook's Corner". I'm not sure, Andrew. It could have been a message for anybody.'

  But Haddingham disagreed. 'I don't think so. Don't ask me why. Don't ask me to be rational. It's you, it was meant for you. We can set up a seance with the same medium, if you like. Try and get the same spirit back.'

  '"They are awakening",' Brady read from the sheets. '"He is awakening. They are awakening. Tell Dan. They are reaching. Lazarus, Arachne, Wheels of Fate".' He glanced at Haddingham. 'Something is beginning, then. It's been beginning for a year or so. An awakening, followed by a gathering. Alison was gathered. And Marianna, and Dom. And before them, Michael Bancroft and Ellen's boy. And before them . . . others. Sutherland said there had been two other incidents like mine. But perhaps there have been more ... in other countries. Or disappearances that have never been reported, or which seem to be different from the disappearance of Alison.' He looked down again. 'Awakening. Gathering. But for what purpose, Andrew? For what purpose?'

  'God knows!' Haddingham's face was pale. The room seemed cold.

  'I wonder if they're alive . . .' Brady's voice had dropped. The hard edge had dulled for a moment, and it was a dejected, shattered man who sat across the table.

  'Who can tell? Don't think about it—' Stupid words! Haddingham felt immediately angry with himself.

  Brady looked up sharply and there were tears in his eyes. 'I think about it all the time! I can't accept that they're dead. They must be alive. But for how long? Why were they gathered? For what purpose?' He lowered his gaze, his head shaking.

  For a moment Haddingham thought that Dan Brady would weep. He said nothing, just watched and waited for the sudden tension in his friend to drain away. At last Brady looked up, and his eyes glittered between the narrowed lids. The animal was back. The killer was in control again.

  Haddingham said, 'They're powerful, Dan. Christ knows, they're powerful. To be able to attack you and Ellen in the way they're attacking . . . whoever they are, they're years ahead of us when it comes to mind power. We're grubbing around at the edges of abilities that these people ... or whatever they are . . . can use with facility. They're strong, Dan. They're awesomely strong.'

  Brady placed the reports back on the coffee table, and clenched his fingers before him, staring at Haddingham as he let the man's words sink in. 'I agree,' he said, his voice becoming soft, the tone almost deadly. 'But they have weaknesses, Andrew. Ellen has told me that. They are strong, but I am strong also. They are gathering. Perhaps they are spread thin, therefore. But I am hunting. I don't spread my strength. And the nearer I get to them, the stronger I shall become.'

  After a moment: 'And where will you begin? Your hunt?'

  'Right here. Where else? I have only one contact . . .'

  'The thought-form.'

  'Precisely. The beast that stalks me. There is a mind behind that beast; and there is a man around the mind. And he's one of them. The first of them. Ellen thinks she can get to know who it is. The moment she finds out I shall find him, and I shall kill him. I shall stalk him as he has stalked me. And the weapon that he is using, the violent force of his mind, is the way I shall find him.'

  'How?'

  'By snaring it. By trapping it. By capturing it at Brook's Corner. Ellen thinks it's possible. If we can trap the beast, we can immobilize the man who has created it.' Brady smiled, but there was no warmth in that gesture, rather a sense of anticipated triumph. 'It's a beginning. The end may take months to reach, but I shall hunt them all down. And I shall find my family again, of that I swear. I shall die before I cease to search for them.'

  The quiet passion, and the gently voiced anger with which Brady had spoken, subdued Haddingham for a moment. Again, he was impressed by the way the young man seemed to have transformed from being soft and easygoing into something hard, something with a cutting edge. The lean, hollow features, the deep, dark-rimmed eyes, belonged on another man, a crueller man, a colder man than Daniel Brady.

  'What can I do for you, Dan?'

  'You've done something already.' Brady nodded towards the files. 'These. It's something to add to what I have already ... an amulet like a severed head; the names Wickhurst and Magondathog; a jewelled object; and a man with a face like a corpse. Maybe something else will turn up. Watch and listen, Andrew. At the Ministry and at the Ennean. It surely can't be a coincidence that of three families struck by this terror . . . three families collected . . . that two surviving members worked in the field of the paranormal.'

  With a shrug of his shoulders, Haddingham at once agreed to listen and watch at Hillingvale, but also struck a negative note. 'The police interviewed me, and several people in the department. But I don't think they make a connection. Their theory -'

  'Is coincidence. I know. I've spoken to them too.'

  'The first family to be . . . collected . . . they were ordinary. What I mean is, no connections with occult work at all. They left a child and a mother, who didn't work, took the father, who was a college lecturer, and two children.' He hesitated. 'But Dan . . .'

  Brady knew what was coming. Haddingham said softly, 'They killed those they didn't take. It's the pattern of the attack that gives the connection. But you. . . you and Ellen . . . you both survived. Why the hell was that?'