"A conflict of evils."
A 1987 novel by James Herbert.
Bodyguard agency Achilles’ Shield supplies ex-soldier Liam Halloran to guard Felix Kline, whose psychic insight is crucial to global mineral corporation Magma.
At Neath, Kline’s secluded Surrey estate, Halloran, while shown irrefutable evidence of Kline’s abilities, is disturbed by the mansion’s minimal security, and bemused by the forlorn, masochistic advances of Cora Redmile, Kline’s aide.
Meanwhile, Shield operative Dieter Stuhr is found murdered, the motive of Neath’s prospective invaders remains unclear, and the true nature of Kline’s powers heralds revelation to shake Halloran to the core...
"There are tropes beneath us, Halloran..."
- Age Without Youth: In Neath's lodge, a Jerusalem merchant encountered by Kline in the 1920s, bears the bodily effects of Kline's unnatural ageing. On untimely death of the Keeper, Kline plans to have Cora take his place.
- Angry Guard Dog: A pack of jackals roams the grounds of Neath.
- The Antichrist: Bel-Marduk, an incarnate celestial visitor to ancient Sumer, whose mission of corruption and destruction inversely paralleled the later ministry of Jesus.
- Archaeological Arms Race: On Sir Leonard Woolley's excavation near the city of Ur of the Sumerian Royal Cemetery, Kline hastened to uncover a psychically anticipated boon. Through an underground secret passage, he found a concealed pit to hold the preserved heart of Bel-Marduk.
- Axe-Crazy: At sixteen, Theodore Monk murdered his domineering mother and molesting uncle, and moved from Coatsville to Las Vegas. With Slimeball and Rivaz, mugging prostitutes incurred the wrath of local pimps, whose leader Monk brought to a sticky end. On the run from the law, he was then picked up by Kline...
- Bad Is Good: Like his god, Kline venerates the "superiority that comes from corruption."
- Battle Butler: Asil and Youssef, who serve as domestic staff, are also lethally skilled assassins.
- Biblical Motifs: The Book of Genesis is depicted to have adapted elements of Sumerian history. The Serpent in the Garden is traced to Bel-Marduk, an incarnate deity who advanced the Sumerians; demanded Human Sacrifice, and was eventually dismembered and left to die by the high priests - his limbless body earned the name Serpent.
- Big Fancy House:
- Or rather corporate tower; Magma's twenty storey bronze plated headquarters is lavishly equipped.
- Neath, Kline's redbrick Surrey manor.
- Blob Monster: A huge mound of tentacular flesh, formed from pure, concentrated malice, appears in Kline’s lake to drag in several visiting IRA hitmen.
- Bloody Horror: The ritual killings performed by Kline's followers are very gruesome.
- Body Horror:
- Kline periodically sheds his skin.
- The Keeper retains the bodily effects of Kline’s unnatural ageing.
- The Brute: Theodore Monk, Kline’s "ox."
- Cannibal Larder: In metal bins kept at the lodge house, Kline, for, Palusinski, saves some of his sacrifice victims.
- Chekhov's Gun: Halloran offs three IRA terrorists in the opening chapter, setting himself up as the target near the end of the book.
- The Corrupter: Having chosen staff comprised of worldwide miscreants, Kline nurtured the malign tendencies of each.
- Dark and Troubled Past: Aged eight, Halloran saw his father, a British Army captain, shot dead in front of him by IRA terrorists. Forced to keep the murderous secret of her relatives, his mother eventually killed herself. Following distinguished service in the Battle of Mirbat, Halloran, further disillusioned by the death of his captain, worked for a while as an apathetically ruthless mercenary.
- Dark Is Evil: In response to the corruption of those within, shadowed regions of Neath's structure metamorphose into amorphous, reaching shapes.
- Empathic Environment: From the corruptions of those within, the structure of Neath adapt itself into shadowed, amorphous creatures.
- Fat Bastard: Deconstructed with Monk, whose tendency to bastardry was partly nurtured by relentless bullying over his weight.
- The Gadfly: On introduction to Mather and Halloran, Kline undermines formality with an excitable, mocking impudence.
- Genki Guy: Kline's mood often swings to a jovial arrogance.
- God: Acknowledged by Kline to exist, and implied to have sown Kline’s downfall by sending Halloran.
- God of Evil: Bel-Marduk, otherworldly visitor to ancient Sumer, demanded regular human sacrifice, venerated corruption, and advanced humanity with intent to enable us to wipe each other out.
- Good Is Not Soft: While trained to prevent violence, Halloran's traumatic past has immunised him to fear and mercy - those who threaten him or his charges can expect a swift, violent end.
- Horrifying the Horror: Most of the IRA hitmen are scared half-witless by emergence from Neath's lake of huge, psychically manifest tentacles.
- Human Sacrifice: As part of Kline’s Deal with the Devil. A young runaway is snatched from the streets, brought to Neath, drugged, and mutilated to death. By incantation of the cuneiform writings of Bel-Marduk, the boy's vitality is transferred to Kline.
- I'm a Humanitarian: Jansusz Palusinski, Kline's chauffeur. Aged nine, his impoverished father's theft of a pig introduced the constantly hungry boy to raw meat. Interred in the Majdanek concentration camp for (reluctantly) bringing food to the Polish resistance, starvation drove him to eat the flesh of corpses. Later, starving and on the run from the Soviet police for black marketeering, he was taken in by a family, and murdered them. Found eating their twelve year old daughter, the police's stunned revulsion eased his escape. In Kline's employment, he's allowed to eat the remains of Human Sacrifice victims. Although he also enjoys a ham and mustard sandwich.
- Imperturbable Englishman:
- Anglo-Irish Halloran.
- Jovial, supremely efficient Shield Planner Charles Mather.
- In the Hood: During untoward prolonging of his periodical skin shedding, Kline, over his cracked, flaking body, wears a hooded cloak.
- Like a Son to Me: Charles Mather, friend to Halloran’s father, steered the brutal skill of the traumatised youth to an auspicious military career, and later, to Achilles' Shield.
- Magitek: In location of worldwide minerals, technologically advanced Magma utilises Kline's psychic insights.
- Mesopotamian Monstrosity: The book goes to Sumer and its mythology for its primary force for evil — the god Bel-Marduk.
- Mind Rape:
- On entry to an upstairs room Neath's lodge, Halloran is forced to relive traumatic memories.
- Kline tries to finish off Halloran by telepathic stimulation of pain.
- The Mole: Magma chief executive Henry Quinn-Reece, to rival company Consolidated Ores, leaks Kline's latest mineral find. Alone on the top floor, in the near-total darkness of the White Room, Kline's psychic affectation of giant cockroaches gives Quinn-Reece fatal heart failure.
- Motormouth: Kline, when hyped up.
- No Kill like Overkill: With Kline shot, and the embalmed heart of Bel-Marduk crushed, Halloran feeds its remains to one of Kline's jackals, then dismembers Kline in the manner of Bel-Marduk, leaving him to die in his own sepulchre.
- Not Me This Time: While Dieter Stuhr initially appears to have been tortured and killed just for the fun of it by some of Kline's warped followers, the real culprit is IRA hitman Danny Shay, to find Halloran.
- Old Soldier: SAS Major Gerald Snaith and MBE Charles Mather, having sustained a permanent limp, serve respectively as Controller and Planner for Achilles' Shield.
- Older Than They Look: Kline, having been around in the 1920s, still looks quite young.
- Our Liches Are Different: Kline, whose custody of the preserved heart of Bel Marduk transfers his bodily ageing onto an ancient, unnamed "Keeper", and requires periodic shedding of his skin, may indeed be considered an undead sorcerer.
- Precursors: Bel-Marduk nudged humanity toward civilisation by teaching basic science, numeracy, and literacy to the Sumerians.
- Private Military Contractors: A converted London wharfside warehouse houses Achilles' Shield, a bodyguard agency staffed by ex-military personnel.
- Psychic Powers: Kline uses psychic powers to detect mineral sources, project disturbing images, and anticipate an attempt on his life.
- The Reveal: The assassins who have been pursuing Kline are the IRA out for revenge on Halloran.
- Revenge: Sought by IRA hitman Danny Shay on Halloran for the killing of three fledgling terrorists.
- Rogue Agent: Dieter Stuhr, former member of the Bundeskriminalamt, a government-attached branch of the German police, now works as Organiser for Achilles' Shield.
- Self-Fulfilling Prophecy: Dying in his sepulchre, Kline realises his psychically anticipated doom to have come at the hands of his bodyguard.
- Start of Darkness:
- On internment in a concentration camp and living through Soviet tyranny, Janusz Palusinksi resorted and became addicted to cannibalism.
- Displaced Palastinians Asil Khayed and Youssef Daoud, having grown up in squalor, became sadistic assassins.
- Theodore Monk, an obese boy domineered by his mother, molested by his uncle and relentlessly bullied at school, became accustomed to avenging himself with murderous cruelty.
- The Stoic: Halloran calmly accepts Kline's undeniable psychic insights and projections; faces mortal danger with a disquieting smile, and is an unflappable professional. However, forcibly confronted in the lodge house with traumatic memories, his guard briefly slips.
- Sword Cane: Mather carries one, both in aid of his limp and for such sticky situations as an eventual raid on Neath.
- Title Drop Chapter: Chapter 42 has the same title as the book.
- Too Kinky to Torture:
- Monk, whose masochism makes him a very hard target.
- Seemingly with the surreptitious aid of drugs, Kline has honed such tendencies in Cora.
- Unstoppable Rage: On finding a naked Monk flogging Cora, to their mutual enjoyment, Halloran goes absolutely mental.
- The Vamp: Subverted; Cora visits Halloran's room for an impromptu liaison - but confesses Kline to have pressured the arrangement, seemingly as a malicious test.
- Vampiric Draining: By Cabala recitation, Kline attunes to, and absorbs, the draining life force of slain Human Sacrifice victims.
- Villainous Rescue:
- IRA hitman Danny Shay disrupts Kline’s attempt to sacrifice Cora.
- On Shay's shooting of Daoud, Khayed manages to stab the hitman, before succumbing to his own gun wound.
- White Void Room: Magma's corporate tower has a completely blank room, whose lit walls show glaring white, grey, and a void of total darkness. Set with luminous maps and satellite photos, its blankness helps Kline psychically detect mineral sources.
- You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: On paralysis by Halloran, Kline takes Monk down to his sepulchre for sacrifice.
