Darkhenge

A. ALIM: FIR

“You’ve got to stop them, Father,” she kept saying. “You’ve got to make sure they don’t switch anything off!” She was hysterical almost. And the rest of them, scraggy-looking girls, a few men who hadn’t washed for weeks, by the stink.

Vetch’s tribe.

“What’s it to do with you?” I asked. I was gruff. Katie still hadn’t come. Only John, white as a sheet, in there now holding Chloe’s hand across the bedding, talking, talking about anything.

The woman said, “He’s taken Rob into the Unworld with him. Our people are ringed around the henge. He’ll get her out. This is possible. It can be done. You must believe me.”

Rosa, her name is. She grabbed my hand.

I let her. I said calmly, “Nothing will be turned off until we know it’s too late.”

In my pocket, the rosary was twined around my fingers like ivy.