Prince of The Night

Prologue.

“Anna? We’re there!” Mary’s voice broke her dream.
Anna, reclining in the back of the car, eyes almost closed in her suddenly pale face, gave a start & sat upright.
She gulped air gratefully forced a smile. “There already?”
She managed to get the words out. “I…I must have been miles away!”
Mary pulled the big car into the car park behind the church, breaking to a gentle halt. Then she turned to look at her passenger. “Are you sure you’re all right?”
Anna nodded. “Yes, I’m fine. Maybe a little tired, that’s all. Come on; help me with this carry-cot.”
The church was of old stone, all stained glass windows & gothic arches, with a cemetery to one side where the headstones where leaning & crusted with grey-green lichens. Anna couldn’t bear lichens, especially when they covered old legends gouged in leaning slabs. She looked the other way as she hurried by the graveyard & turned left around the buttressed corner of the church towards its entrance. Mary almost dragged along on the other handle of the carry-cot, had to break into a trot to keep up.
“Goodness!” she protested. “You’d think we where late or something!” And in fact they almost where.
Waiting on the steps in front of the church, there stood Mary’s fiancé, Trevor Blake. They where going to be Uilian’s godparents.
There had been several christenings this morning: the most recent party of beaming parents & relatives where just leaving, the mother radiant as she held her child in its christening gown. Trevor skipped by them, came hurrying down the steps, took the carry-cot & said, “I sat though the entire service, four christenings, all that mumbling & muttering & splashing- & screaming! But I thought it was only right that one of us be here from start to finish. But the old vicar- lord, he’s a boring old fart! God forgive me!”
Leaving Anna’s hands free to tidy herself up a bit, they now took the carry-cot between them & made to enter the church. The doors was of oak under a huge arch one standing half open outwards on to the landing at the head of the steps. A wind came up from nowhere, blew yesterdays confetti up in mad swirls & slammed the door resoundingly in their faces. Earlier there had been the odd ray of sunshine filtering through whispy grey clouds, but now the clouds seemed to mass, the sun was switched off like a light & it grew noticeably darker.
“Not cold enough for snow,” said Trevor, turning his eyes upwards towards the sky. “my guess is its going to chuck it down!”
“Chuck it or Bucket?” Anna was still reeling from the door’s slamming, her expression puzzled.
“Fuck it!” said Trevor, irreverently “Let’s get in!”
A moment more & the door was shoved open from inside by the vicar. He was lean, getting on a bit in years, close to bald. His one advantage was his great height, so that he could look down on them all. He had little eyes made huge by thick lensed spectacles, & a veined beak of a nose that seemed to turn his head as if it where a weathercock. His thinness gave him the impression of a mantis, but at the same time managed to look owlish.
A bird of prey! Thought Trevor & grinned to himself. But at the same time noted that the old vicar’s hand shake was warm & full of comfort however trembly, & that his smile was a beam of pure goodness. Nor was he lacking in his own dry wit.
“So glad you could make it,” he smiled & nodded over Uilian in his carry cot. The baby was awake, his round eyes moving to & fro. The vicar chucked him under his chin, said, “Young man it’s always a good idea to be early for ones christening, punctual for ones wedding& s late as one can possible get for one’s funeral!” Then he peered frowningly at the door.
The freak gust of wind had disappeared taking it’s confetti with it. “What happened here?” the old man lifted his eyebrows. “That’s odd! I had thought the bolt was home. But in any case it takes a wind of some power to slam shut a door this size. Perhaps we’re in for a storm.” At the foot of the door a bold dragged along the groove it had worn in the stones & slammed down into it’s bolthole as the vicar gave the door one final push. “There!” He wiped his hands & nodded his satisfaction.
Not such boring old fart after all, all three thought the identical thought as he led them inside & up to the font. In his time, the clergyman had baptised Anna, had nearly married her to her husband she had now. So there was no need for long preliminaries, & so he began at once. As Trevor & Mary put the cot down, & as Anna took Uilian in her arms he began to intone: “Hath this child already been baptised, or no?”
“No.” Anna shook her head.
“ Dearly beloved,” the vicar began in earnest, “forasmuch as all are conceived & born in sin-“
Sin, thought Anna, the old mans words flowing over her. Uilian wasn’t conceived in sin. This had ever been the part of the service that got her back up. Sin indeed! Conceived in joy & love & sweetest sweet pleasure, yes- unless pleasure where to be construed as sin…
She looked down al Uilian in her arms; he was alert staring at the vicar as he mumbled over his book. It was a funny expression on the baby’s face; not quite vacant, not exactly & drool. Somehow intense. They had all kinds of looks, babies.
“…that thout will mercifully look upon this child; wash him, sanctify him with the Holy Ghost; that he being-“
The Holy Ghost. Anna knew of ghosts & they certainly weren’t holy!
Thunder rumbled distantly & the high stained glass windows brightened momentarily from a far flash of lightening before falling into deeper darkness. A light burned over the font, however, sufficient for the vicar’s eyes behind their thick lenses. He shivered visibly as he read his lines, for suddenly the temperature had seemed to fall dramatically.
The old man paused for a moment, looked up & blinked. His eyes went from the faces of the three adults to the baby paused there for a moment, blinked rapidly. He looked at the light over the font, then at the high windows. For all his shivering, sweat gleamed o his brow & upper lip. “I…I…”he stuttered
“Are you all right?” Trevor was concerned. He took the vicar’s arm.
“A cold,” the old man tried to smile, only succeeding in looking sick. His lips seemed to stick to his teeth which where false & rather loose, & he was immediately apologetic.
“I’m sorry, but this is not really surprising. A draughty place you know? But don’t worry, I won’t let you down. We’ll get this finished. It just came o so quickly that’s all.” The sick smile twitched o his face.
“After this,” said Mary, “you should spend what’s left of the weekend in bed!”
“I believe I will, my dear.” Fumblingly, the vicar went back to his text.
Anna said nothing. She felt the strangeness. Something was unreal, out of focus. Did churches frown? The one was frowning. It had been hostile from the moment they arrived. That’s what was wrong with the vicar: he could feel it too but he didn’t know what it was.
But how do I know what it is? Anna wondered.
Have I felt it before?
“…they brought young children to Christ, that he should touch them, & his disciples scolded those that brought them…”
Anna felt the church groaning around her, trying to expel her. No trying to expel…Uilian? She looked at the baby & he looked back: his face broke into that unsmile which small babies smile. But his eyes where fixed, steady unblinking. Even as she stared at him, she saw those darling eyes swivel in their sockets to gaze full upon the vicar.
Nothing wrong with that- it was just that it had looked so deliberate.
Uilian is ordinary! Anna denied what she was thinking. She’d had this feeling before & denied it, now she must do it again. He is ordinary! It was her, not the baby.
She glanced at Trevor & the heavily pregnant Mary, & they smiled back reassuringly. Didn’t they feel cold, the strangeness? They obviously thought she was concerned about the vicar, the service. Other than that, they felt nothing. Oh, maybe they felt how draughty the place was, but that was all.
Anna felt more than cold & so did the vicar. He was skipping lines now, hurrying through the service almost mechanically.
“Dearly beloved,” the old man was chanting at Mary & Trevor now, the godparents, “ye have brought this child here to be baptised…”
I have to stop it. Anna’s thoughts where growing wilder. She started to panic. Have to, before it- before what? - happens?
“…to release him of his sins, to sanctify him with…”
Outside, much closer now, thunder rumbled, accompanied by lightening that lit up the west facing windows & sent kaleidoscopic beams of bright colours lancing through the interior. The group around the font was first gold, then green, finally crimson. Uilian was blood in Anna’s arms: his eyes where blood where they stared at the vicar.
“…promise that you are his sureties, that he will renounce the devil & all his works, & constantly believe…”
Uilian had had enough. He began to kick, gather air for a howling session.
“…the carnal desires of the flesh…what was crucified, dead, & buried; that he went down to hell & also did rise up again the third day; that he…”
Just a baby, thought Anna, with my, &… Lorgen’s blood!
“…the quick & the dead…”
The church was thunder dark, the storm almost directly overhead.
“…resurrection of the flesh; & everlasting life after death?”
Mary & Trevor answered I unison:
“We believe”
“Wilt he be baptised in this faith?”
Again in unison, “That is his desire.”
Uilian denied it! He gave a howl to raise the rafters.
The vicar took him from Anna decided not to delay it any longer. Over the baby’s screaming, the vicar said to Trevor & Mary: “Name this child.”
In unison again, “Uilian.”
“Uilian,” he nodded, “I baptise you in the name of-“
He paused, stared at the baby. His right hand- practiced, accustomed, of it own accord- dipped into the font, lifted water & was poised, dripping.
To the vicar the infants howling had taken on a new form. It was no longer the cry of a child but the growling of a beast. His jaw dropped & he looked up blinking rapidly as he peered from face to face; Mary & Trevor didn’t hear it & Anna was looking pale & feint.
H then looked again at Uilian. He was issuing grunts or animal rage! As if his crying was only a disguise.
His hand splashed a little water over Uilian’s forehead & began to trace a cross on it.
NO! The thunderous voice threatened. PUT NO CROSS ON ME, YOU TREACHEROUS CHRISTIAN DOG!
“What-?” the vicar suspected he had gone mad. His eyes bulged behind his glasses.
The others heard nothing except the baby’s crying.
The vicar glared at the baby as its mouth opened produced a black snakes tongue & long needle like teeth.
“Jesus!” Screamed the vicar, “What are you?”
And he dropped the child. Uilian landed in Trevor’s arms. The old man fell to the floor at the same time that Anna had feinted.
Mary called the ambulance.

Anna was a year in a coma. Uilian spent that year with his godparents. The vicar had suffered a stroke & died minuets after reaching the hospital. Still convulsing he had told Trevor that the baby needed to be baptised yes, but first he should be exorcised. Trevor had never told anyone.... obviously the old man was insane.