Darkest hour

Chapter Seventeen

"What do you mean, it's all your fault?" Breaker's face was shattered, his cheeks still stinging red from tears. Carolina stood beside him like a ghost while Meg squatted nearby, her hands pressed against her eyes, as if she were trying to stop the image from entering her brain.

Shavi explained everything, from when it had all begun on the banks of Loch Maree. The others listened intently, their faces impassive; Shavi couldn't tell if they were judging him. Afterwards Carolina asked in a breaking voice, "So why is it hunting you?"

"I have no idea." He swallowed, composed himself. "I thought we had seen the last of it in Edinburgh. I had no idea it was following me or I would not have brought it to your door. You must believe me-"

"We do." Meg came forward and hugged him tightly. "We can all see you're all right. You wouldn't have put us at risk if you'd known." She glanced over to where the body lay covered by a sheet. "Poor Penny. Just after she'd found out what'd happened to jack."

"That is why it happened," Shavi said morosely.

"What do you mean?" Breaker asked.

"The attack was meant to show there is no hope. Penny was snuffed out just as she achieved it." Shavi chewed his lip until he tasted blood. "It was a message for me. The finger was left outside the tent, a sign that the killer could have come for me while I slept."

"But why?" Carolina looked like she was about to vomit.

"To make me suffer, I would think. To make me frightened, always looking over my shoulder, so never knowing when the attack will come."

"What's the obsession with fingers?" Breaker asked.

"I have no idea. Are you going to report this to the police?"

Breaker toyed with his beard, but it was Meg who gave voice to the thoughts in all their minds. "There's no point. With all the shit going down, the cops haven't got time to look into this. They'll probably just use it as another excuse to harass us."

"Then I would suggest we bury her among the trees. The Wood-born will watch over her," Shavi suggested.

The grave party ensured the hole was six feet deep, carefully avoiding all the roots that criss-crossed the area. There were enough of them to ensure the work was done quickly, then everyone in the camp gathered for the ceremony; their faces were disbelieving, angry, distraught. Their lives had been disrupted so suddenly and completely no one had quite been able to assimilate what had happened. Breaker and Meg said a few words in a ritual which echoed the cycles of the seasons and spoke to the overwhelming force of nature.

Once the grave was filled, everyone was surprised to see a spontaneous shower of leaves from all the surrounding trees, until the overturned soil was covered by a crisp blanket of green; it was an act of such respect several people wept at the sight. Shavi felt, in a grimly ironic way, that the bond between the two groups had been strengthened further.

They decided to postpone any wake until everyone had had time to come to terms with what had happened. Instead, Breaker, Carolina, Meg, and Shavi gathered around a makeshift table in the back of Breaker's bus.

"Of course, I will be leaving shortly," Shavi announced once they were seated.

"Why?" Meg's eyes blazed.

"This sickening thing is pursuing me. When I leave he will follow me and you will be left to return to your lives."

"No," Meg said forcefully.

"I agree," Carolina added. "You're one of us now. We're not going to desert you."

"They're right," Breaker said. "They're always right about everything, that's why we love them." His words seemed honest rather than patronising. "There's safety in numbers, Shavi. You go off on your own across that deserted countryside, well, that bastard could pick you off at any time. We're organised here. We can do more, better, watches. We'll get you where you need to go."

"But-"

"Don't fucking argue," Carolina said wearily. She wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. "Think of your friend. Think of the big picture, all you're trying to do. Here's where we do our bit too."

Shavi sagged back against the window and slowly rubbed a hand across his eyes. "Thank you. You are true friends."

"Just do one thing for us," Breaker said.

"What is that?"

"If you get a chance, any time, ever, bring Jack back. For Penny."

Shavi put one hand on his heart and held the other up, palm out. "For Penny."

Church perched on a rocky outcropping over a precipitous drop, contemplating how quickly the remaining nine days would pass. Before him the Derbyshire countryside rolled out in the hazy, late morning sunshine, a patchwork of green fields, shimmering water, ribbon roads and small, peaceful villages. But it wasn't the great beauty of the scene that caught his attention.

Nearby, houses were burning. The tangled wreckage of vehicles glinted in the sunlight. Things he couldn't quite comprehend moved along the hedgerows or kept to the dark at the edge of copses. Occasionally one would be forced to cross a field, like a cloud shadow moving across the land. It always made him shiver to see it.

The Fomorii appeared to be growing in force, more daring in their desperation as Lughnasadh neared. They sensed Ruth and what she contained were somewhere in the area, but the magic Tom had identified at Mam Tor was, so far, enough to blind them to the exact location. But if he allowed himself to admit it, he knew it was only a question of time. For once, he could do nothing; it was a matter of placing his faith in Shavi, Veitch, and Tom.

Sometimes he saw the Fomorii hunter-warrior circling the area, more intense and threatening than the other shifting shapes, like a localised storm filled with lightning fury. It left him feeling fearful and nauseous. And something more than that: he was starting to feel the bitter taint of hopelessness. Only days to go. What could they do? They were going to fail again, and it would be the end of everything.

Cautiously he crept back from the edge. What would he do when the black tide did begin to surge up the mountain? Fight them off with sticks and stones like schoolboy war games? Or sit back and pray there really, truly was a God in His heaven?

Ruth lay in her sleeping bag on a bed made of flattened fern in a corner of the room. Her skin was ashen, her hair matted from the bouts of sweating and delirium that were coming with increasing regularity. Her eyes flickered, her features trembled; terrible thoughts that did not seem to come from her own mind stumbled through her head.

They had cleaned up the place as best they could. Church and Laura had spent a morning sweeping out the rubbish and depositing it in the shadows at the back of the house. Church had patched up the roof with dead wood and vegetation, but the wind still whipped through the broken windows and sometimes it was uncommonly cold for that time of year; perhaps it was the altitude. Food was a problem. There was little to trap on the mountain and none of them were any good at it anyway. Church had made several forays into a nearby village and had stocked up the larder as best he could. The increasing Fomorii activity in the area made it too risky to go foraging any more. They all prayed the provisions would hold out.

Laura squatted in the corner, occasionally casting a subdued glance to Ruth's restlessly sleeping form. The sunglasses rarely came off these days, even at night. Her brooding consumed her. She hated the way Church cared for Ruth; there was real tenderness in his touch, an honesty in his words that made her yearn; the feeling between the two ran so deep it was as if it had formed when the earth was just cooling. She knew it was jealousy, pure and simple; it was the kind of relationship she had always dreamed about, had expected once she had hooked up with Church, yet even though all the facets seemed in place, it had never materialised, and that was the bitterest blow of all. If she couldn't find it with Church, who could she plumb those depths with?

And she could see Ruth was dying; they all knew it, though no one spoke it aloud. Yet there she was, being petty and jealous and bitter. That filled her with guilt and self-loathing, which once more fed all those negative emotions; a terrible, dark spiral that had no end.

"What are you thinking?"

Laura started; she hadn't realised Ruth was awake. "I'm thinking, `Boy, I hope she doesn't start whining any time soon."'

Ruth managed a weak laugh; her voice sounded like autumn leaves. "You'll never change, will you?"

"Count on it."

Ruth tried to lever herself into a sitting position. Her arms were feeble and her belly was enormous; she seemed to have gone almost full-term of a natural pregnancy in a matter of days. Eventually she gave up and settled for halfsitting, half-lying. She snorted with laughter at her own pathetic attempt.

"How do you keep so up? You've had the bum deal to end all bum deals. Some psycho slicing off your finger. Getting tortured by the Bastards. Now this-"

"Now I'm pregnant with the one-eyed God of Death and he's going to burst out of my stomach in a few days and tear me apart. Well, when you put it like that…" She laughed again, before breaking into a coughing fit.

"What is it with you? When I first met you, you were such a poker-up-the arse kind of girl. Some spoilt little middle-class moron. I thought you'd fall apart at the first sign of trouble."

"What's the matter? Jealous?"

Her words were lighthearted but they stung Laura as if she'd been slapped. "You have a real sense of the absurd, don't you?"

"I'm dying. You're supposed to be nice to me."

Laura watched her impassively.

"That was the point where you were supposed to say, `Course you're not dying. Everything will work out in the end."' Ruth threw an arm across her eyes. Laura couldn't tell if she was trying to hide her emotions, but she felt bad anyway.

But not bad enough she could bring herself to be nice. Nice was for losers. "What do you expect me to say?"

"I don't know. Nothing to say, is there? I'm dying. I know I'm dying. And any chance I have is the longest of long shots." She removed her arm and Laura was surprised to see a remarkable peace in her face.

That twisted the knife in her gut even more and suddenly she felt like crying; the words just bubbled out. "What is it? Church, you can see he's a hero. It's stitched right into the heart of him, always beating himself up about responsibilities and obligations and doing the right thing. Shavi's just Mister Decency. You know he'd give up his life if the cause was right. Even Veitch, the Testosterone Kid, a fucking murderer by his own admission! Even he's fighting against type to be good, to be a hero. And despite all his very obvious limitations, you know he's going to come through, when the chips are down and all those other cliches. And then there's you, kicked around and tortured from pillar to post, taking all this shit that nobody should have to take. And dying with dignity. I don't fit in here. You give me a choice between saving my own skin and doing the right thing and you watch my dust!" The self-pity was sickening, but she seemed unable to control herself.

"You're not being fair on yourself-"

"Don't start analysing me. I don't need it. And for God's sake, don't start being nice to me."

"I won't-"

"Just don't."

"Look, can't we just be friends? Even now?" Ruth's eyes filled with tears; despite her calm, her emotions were on a knife edge.

Laura remained silent, staring at the wall. The mass of scrawled writing disturbed her immensely and in all their time there none of them had felt up to making any effort to decipher it. It was just part of the oppressive mood that lurked in the comers of the house. She was sure Ruth sensed things there that she wasn't talking about, and there were times when she felt it acutely herself, and she was less sensitive than anyone she knew. Something bad had happened, Ruth had said, and something bad was going to happen. Perhaps that was it: not an echo of the past, but a premonition. She felt it so strongly she could almost touch it.

"You've always hidden yourself away from all of us." Ruth's voice was hazy and Laura could tell she was on the verge of drifting into one of her intermittent periods of delirium. "Hiding behind your sunglasses, trying to be smart and glib all the time so no one knew what you were really thinking. Even that name-Laura DuSantiago. That's got to be an alias, a new persona to hide in." She swallowed; her mouth sounded sticky with mucus. "Tell you what," she continued weakly. "You tell me your real name now. I won't tell a soul. A dying woman's last wish." She laughed hollowly.

Laura sat quietly for a moment, then moved to the bedside and knelt so her mouth was close to Ruth's ear. Ruth strained to hear.

"Go fuck yourself," Laura said softly.

Then she rose and calmly walked out of the room in search of Church.

Breaker cursed under his breath as the lead bus began another difficult threepoint turn in the middle of the road. About half a mile ahead they could see the tailback leading up to the police checkpoint. It looked like the police were barring every road they tried; Shavi had lost count of the times they had turned around and sought an alternative route. But that wasn't what was troubling him. It was the things he increasingly caught glimpses of from the corner of his eye, moving as fast as foxes, or slipping back into shadows when he half-turned his head. He hadn't mentioned them to Breaker or the others, but he knew what they were: the Fomorii were abroad.

He took some relief from the fact that they were still wary enough to stay out of plain sight; just. They must be terrified about having let the essence of their god slip through their fingers, if it were possible for such creatures to feel fear. But he was concerned about how widespread they were and how their number appeared to be increasing. If they were this close to the surface now, what would happen when desperation set in as Lughnasadh neared?

He knew they were searching for any sign of Balor, but was it possible they could sniff out the Pendragon Spirit too?

"You look worried." Breaker cast a sideways glance as he pulled up behind the bumper of the bus in front.

"I was merely trying to second-guess the obstacles which might lie between us and my destination."

"You reckon the Finger Hunter is somewhere nearby? I don't see how he could be keeping up with us unless he's smelling us on the wind."

Shavi thought that was a distinct possibility, but said nothing.

"The biggest problem is the cops. We need to stay out of their way. I don't know what's happened to them. They were always bugging us, but now they seem to be hassling everyone. All these checkpoints. What the hell do they think they're trying to do?"

Some of the police at every checkpoint had waxy faces, Shavi had noticed; it was obvious to him what they were trying to do. And it appeared that there was some link between what Breaker called the Finger Hunter and the Fomorii too. Shavi had an overpowering image of a net closing around him. Perhaps he would never reach Windsor at all.

After leaving the camp where Penny had been buried, they had taken a couple of days to pick a relatively short route past Banbury before cutting through the lanes between Oxford and Bicester to reach their current position just north of the M40. On the map Windsor looked to be only forty minutes' drive away. Two rapidly successive technology failures slowed them down even more, but every attempt to cross the motorway failed and they were continually pushed east towards London. With only a week remaining before Lughnasadh Shavi could ill afford any more delays.

"We can't get too close to the Smoke," Breaker said, concerned. "A convoy this size'll draw too much attention. We'll get snarled up and they'll have us off the road in a minute. Plus, some of our valued members get very uneasy whenever they're near any built-up area. All that pollution."

Shavi barely spoke any more; his attention was directed at the apparently empty countryside. Thoughts were piling up inside his head, forcing him down a very worrying path. The one who killed Penny was obviously not Fomorii, but possibly had some kind of link with the Night Walkers. The killer knew who Shavi was travelling with, probably knew exactly where he was. What if the killer decided to point the Fomorii in his direction? Shavi scanned the fields cautiously. He had not seen any sign of the Fomorii for some time. Perhaps they too were wary of getting too close to the Capital. Still, he would be on his guard.

They paused in a lay-by on the A40 east of Postcombe to weigh up their options. Most people stayed in their vehicles, taking the opportunity to have a quick snack or a drink, but the ones who had naturally gravitated towards the leading group gathered on the roadside for a conference. There were Breaker, Meg, Carolina, and four others whom Shavi didn't know by name. While they spoke hear- edly, Shavi circled the group, focusing his attention on the fields that swept out to the north and east.

It was late afternoon and the sweltering temperature of the day had been made worse by thick cloud cover rolling in to trap the heat. They would have to consider making camp soon, and that was a prospect Shavi did not relish.

Exhausted by the day's driving, still shattered by what had happened to Penny, the travellers' nerves were fraying, their voices growing harsh. Shavi tried to ignore them to concentrate on the darkening landscape, but their debate grew louder and more hectoring until he turned and snapped, "Quiet!"

They all looked at him. A car roared by and then the road grew still. "What is it?" Carolina said. "There's nothing-"

He waved her quiet with a chopping motion of his hand. Something was jarring on his nerves, but he couldn't quite put his finger on what it was. There was the wind in the trees. Distant traffic noise from the motorway. Nothing, nothing… And then he had it. The field birds were cawing harshly; on the surface it was not unusual, but instinctively he seemed to know what they were saying. He could hear the tonal differences, the faint nuances, almost as if it was speech. They were frightened.

He spun round to the others. "Back to the vehicles. Quickly. It is not safe here."

The words had barely left his mouth when there was movement along all the hedgerows of the fields: darkness separating from the shadows near the hedge bottoms, rising out of ditches; the Fomorii were moving.

Most of the travellers obeyed him instantly and ran towards their vehicles. One of the men whom Shavi didn't know turned to look at the fields curiously; his eyes started to roll and nausea passed across his face. Shavi gave him a violent shove in the direction of his camper van before he could see any more.

"Do not look at the fields!" Shavi yelled. "Get on the road and keep driving! Follow Breaker's lead!"

He threw himself in beside Breaker and the bus lurched out on to the road. A horn blared furiously as a Porsche overtook at high speed. "What's going on?" Breaker asked.

"The Fomorii are attacking," Shavi said darkly, one eye fixed on the wing mirror. "They want me. And they will destroy you all to get at me."

The vehicles surged on to the road in a wave of creaking, protesting metal. But age lay heavy on some of them and their response was poor. Shavi held himself tense as he watched the trail pull out of the lay-by as the fields turned black with movement; it was as if a termites' nest had suddenly been vacated.

"Are they all with us?" Breaker asked anxiously.

Shavi counted the vehicles out. "Nearly there." A bus. Another. A mini-van. "One more." The straggler was the camper van belonging to the traveller Shavi had forced into action. It was slow, weaving unnecessarily, and Shavi knew the driver was trying to see what was in the fields through his mirror. "Do not look," he prayed under his breath.

The camper van slewed suddenly to one side and came to a halt. Shavi pictured the driver vomiting, then passing out. He slammed a hand against the side window as if it would jolt the driver awake.

In the mirror Shavi watched the darkness sweep over the hedgerow into the lay-by. He had an impression of teeth and body armour, wings and too many legs, all shimmering sable, and although he had grown almost immune to the appearance of the Night Walkers, he still felt his stomach churn.

The Fomorii hit the camper van like a tidal wave. It crumpled as if it were made of paper, then shredded into a million pieces. Shavi looked away quickly.

Breaker glanced at him, but didn't have to ask. After a long silence, the traveller said, "Do you think they'll follow us into London?"

"They will not be able to keep up with the vehicles if you travel at speed. But now they know I am with you they will continue to hunt you down. If we go into London there is a danger we will be obstructed, slowed down."

"Then what?" Breaker's thumb was banging on the wheel in an anxious rhythm.

Shavi thought for a moment. "We must speed up, but not go completely out of sight. They must see you drop me off-"

"We can't abandon you to them!" Breaker flashed him a dismayed glance.

"I will have a better chance of hiding from them alone. There must be somewhere near here where I can attempt to lose them." He snatched up Breaker's dog-eared book of maps and hastily riffled through the pages. When he found the page they were on, he pored over it for a minute, then stabbed his finger down. "Here."

When Breaker was convinced the convoy was going to go straight into the centre of High Wycombe, Shavi indicated a turning. They came to a stop at West Wycombe and waited anxiously, with constant reference to the mirror. Meg and Carolina could contain themselves no longer, and ran from their respective vehicles to see what was planned. They pleaded with him not to go, but he would not be deterred; his leaving was the only chance they had.

When he spied movement in the countryside on either side, he kissed them both, shook Breaker's hand forcefully, then sent them on their way. His last view of the travellers was a series of pale, frightened faces trying to comprehend what was happening in their lives.

He waited alone in the road for as long as he could. It quickly became obvious the dark stream of Fomorii had realised he had left the convoy, for they hurtled towards him relentlessly, without heeding the disappearing vehicles.

Once he was sure of that, he dashed through a gate and ran as fast as his legs would carry him.

The lowering clouds made the late afternoon into twilight. The very air around him seemed to have a gun-metal sheen and he could taste iron on the back of his tongue; a storm was brewing, which he hoped would be to his advantage, although he had the unnerving feeling the Fomorii could see in the gloomiest weather conditions.

But at least he was sure he could make the location work for him. Once he saw the name on the map, the information about myths, legends and history that he had amassed over a lifetime instantly came into play.

He was sprinting through the classically designed grounds of West Wycombe Park in full view of the gleaming Palladian mansion where the Dashwood family had made their home for hundreds of years. It was one of their ancestors who had earned the place such notoriety. In the mid-eighteenth century Sir Francis Dashwood founded a private brotherhood of the upper crust, which he ironically named the Knights of St. Francis. There was little of the chivalrous about a secret society dedicated to orgies and blasphemous religious ceremonies, acts which earned it the nickname the Hellfire Club and a motto Do what thou wilt. The truth had turned into legend, which had haunted the family and the area ever since, but somewhere in the grounds was another part of Sir Francis' grim legacy which Shavi thought might save his life; if only he could find it.

He headed for the unmistakable landmark of St. Lawrence's Church, built by Dashwood, with a meeting place for ten of his Hellfire Knights in a gleaming, golden ball on the top of the tower. Shavi had half expected to be met by security guards or someone trying to make him buy a ticket, but things were falling apart quickly all over; what was the point of maintaining tourist locations when everyone was trying to live on a day-to-day basis in a climate of increasing fear?

At the church he stopped and glanced back. The shadowy shapes were closer now, massing as they flowed down the sweeping green slopes of the garden. Quickly he scanned the area.

Eventually he found what he was looking for: an entrance cut into the hillside overlooking the park. Within lay a network of artificial caves going deep underground where the Hellfire Club had held its magic rituals and orgies. It was tucked away at just such an angle that the approaching Fomorii would not see him take the detour and would presume he had continued on through the grounds; and it was discreet enough that unless they knew it was there, they would not see it. He hoped.

He skidded inside, his chest aching from his ragged breathing; even fit as he now was, he hadn't moved at such a clip for a long time. The catacombs were filled with an inky darkness. Lights had been installed for the tourists, but he didn't dare attempt to put them on, even if he could have located the light switch. He moved as swiftly as he could while feeling his way along the chill, dank walls. When he rounded a corner and the ambient light was extinguished, the gloom was complete. He had a sudden flashback to the grim ruins of Mary King's Close and felt his heart begin to pound. He had attempted to bend the supernatural to his will, but the more he had learned about the Invisible World, the more he realised how much there was that terrified him. He wondered if any remnant of the monstrous rituals carried out by the Hellfire Club had been imprinted in the rock walls; if Sir Francis Dashwood's spirit still walked the place, trying to expunge his lifetime's sins; if there were other, worse, things there that had been called up by the Club's desire to be an affront to natural law.

But more than the otherworldly threat was the certain knowledge that if the Fomorii did enter the catacombs he would not be aware of them until they were upon him.

When he felt he had progressed deep enough into the heart of the tunnels, he slumped down against the foot of the wall and took a deep breath. His whole body was shaking from the strain and the fear, his blood pumping so loudly he didn't think he would hear if a column of hobnailed soldiers were marching towards him; he forced himself to do a series of breathing exercises to calm himself. Once he had relaxed as much as he could he tried to concentrate all his energies on his hearing. In his mind's eye he pictured the scene above ground: the oppressive force of Fomorii smashing down small trees, tearing through shrubs and flowers, sweeping up and around the church. By now they should have reached the entrance to the catacombs.

He listened intently. Nothing.

Perhaps they had already passed, thundering through the rest of the grounds, not stopping for miles, like robot drones pointed in one direction and turned on. Of the Fomorii he had encountered, there appeared little of independent thought and cunning; that rested in large quantities with their leader Calatin, and Mollecht, the Fomor who appeared as a swirling mass of crows, whom Shavi had not seen since that night in the Lake District when they thought they had snatched victory.

Time passed in deep silence. How long should he wait there, he wondered? In the dark he found he was losing track of the hours. If the Fomorii had not already found him, it would be logical, he supposed, to wait until morning before attempting to leave. They would be scouring the countryside for him and the night was not the best time to be trying to evade them. But even if he did make it through the night undiscovered, what chance would he have of reaching Windsor Park? It was not far on the map, but if there were an army of Fomorii between him and his destination, it might as well have been a million miles away.

At some point he fell asleep, and he must have been out for a while, for on awakening suddenly his mouth and throat were uncommonly dry and every muscle ached. When he opened his eyes he was completely disorientated by the dark and had to struggle to recall where he was. But as soon as his memory clicked into action he became alert; he knew something had woken him.

His first thought was that the Fomorii had finally tracked him down, but the dark caves around him seemed as empty as they ever had been. His next thought was of some supernatural presence; his instincts were as attuned to the Invisible as the visible world. But he didn't have that queasy sensation which always materialised in the pit of his stomach whenever something uncanny was nearby.

He held his breath and listened. At first, nothing; then a sound, just the slightest scuffle of dust from a footstep that many would have missed, but his own hearing had grown hyper-sensitive in the dark. There was someone else in the caves, and they were creeping, so as not to be discovered.

The construction of the caves meant all sound was distorted, so it was impossible to tell from which direction the footfall had come. In the all-consuming darkness Shavi was loath to move one way or the other in case he bumped into the intruder. But then neither could he sit there and wait to be discovered.

Weighing the odds, he decided to attempt to make his way back to the door; at least then he would have the option of fleeing if necessary. He stood up and rested his left hand on the wall before moving forward a few paces. He paused and listened. Another few paces and he stopped again.

The unmistakable scrape of a foot on the gritty floor. A tingle ran down his spine. It seemed to come from somewhere over to his right. Cautiously he continued ahead, placing each foot down slowly and carefully, so as not to make even the slightest noise.

His breath was held tightly in his chest. He half expected to come face to face with something terrible; the dark was so deep he wouldn't have known if there were someone standing motionless even six inches in front of him. With an effort he drove those thoughts from his head; it would do him no good; he had to stay calm.

Another noise, this time in front of him. The echoes were mesmerising. He couldn't tell if the intruder was circling or if he was misreading the direction of the sounds. He moved back a few paces and waited again.

In the claustrophobic space of the caves, Shavi knew it was only a matter of time before his pursuer caught him. Yet there was a slim chance to weight the odds a little more in his favour. He closed his eyes and took a deep, calming breath, focusing far within himself. He still couldn't turn his nascent shamanistic abilities on and off like a light switch, but with concentration there were little tricks he had practised. He felt the force rising within him like a billowing sheet, filling him, moving out through his mouth, to wrap itself around him. The first time he had attempted this he had been standing within a few feet of Veitch, yet the Londoner had not even noticed him, at least for a moment or two. He didn't know how it worked, but he perceived it as a cloak which made him merge in with the surroundings. It was a subtle trick and easily punctured, yet in the gloom of the cavern it might have more force. He hoped it would be enough.

His throat had grown painfully dry. After several minutes without a sound, he moved off again. This time he progressed a long way through the caves, but somewhere in the dark he must have taken a wrong turning, for he knew he should have come across the door by then. There was no point retracing his steps-he wouldn't have any idea when he arrived back at where he had slept anyway. His only option was to keep going left, in the hope that it would lead him to an outside wall which would eventually take him around the perimeter of the catacombs to the exit.

As he moved he listened as intently as he could, but there was no sign of anyone; at the same time he had an overwhelming and unpleasant sense of presence. And then he froze as every nerve seemed to fire at once. Was someone standing right behind him? His mind screamed at him to run, but somehow he held his ground. In that heightened moment his senses started playing tricks on him. Was that the bloom of a breath on his neck? An involuntary spasm ran through him; he didn't even dare swallow. The most natural thing in the world would have been to run away, but he was as sure as anything in his life that that would be the end of him.

And so he waited, and after several minutes the feeling slowly ebbed away. He didn't know if the intruder had been there, just inches away, listening, unable to see him, or if it was all in his mind. But the nausea he felt at the strain was certainly real.

He began moving again, hugging the wall, straining not to be heard.

His journey seemed to take hours, punctuated by long pauses brought on by dim echoes, the faintest footfalls, that might very well have been all in his mind.

And then, just as he was about to dismiss the entire experience as a flight of fancy, he happened to glance behind him, though his eyes were useless. The intensity of the darkness was almost hallucinatory and for a while his mind had been conjuring up flashes of colours, streaks of light, that were just brief electrical bursts on his retina. He could have dismissed it as another mind-flash, but what he saw made him stop and stare. No flash, no streak. Two tiny points of yellow away in the dark.

But then they disappeared and reappeared and he knew what they were: eyes, glinting with an awful inner light.

In his shock, he turned back and there was a thin grey band of dim light. It was seeping through the entrance. He moved towards it as quickly but as quietly as he could.

Steeling himself, his hand hovered over the handle. Then he wrenched it open and hurled himself out into a world just coming to life. On the threshold, he couldn't resist making the most of that pre-dawn light and threw one glance over his shoulder before sprinting across the park as fast as he could go.

And then he ran and he ran, that briefest glimpse staying with him as he put as much distance between him and his pursuer as he could. What he half saw in the gloom was a shape that looked like a giant wolf, its eyes growing with a malignant fire. But an instant later his mind had started to rearrange it into something else: a human figure. The killer was still close behind him, as relentless in its pursuit as the wolf his mind presumed it to be.

But what troubled him more than the knowledge that he had escaped death only by a hair's breadth was that in that instant when the shape had started to change he was almost convinced he knew the person it was becoming. In the gloom and the fear, he hadn't been able to harden up the vision, and the connection remained disturbingly elusive.

To his infinite relief, there was no pursuit; nor were there any Fomorii in the immediate vicinity. But what he had half seen continued to haunt him long after the sun had driven the greyness out of the landscape.