World's end

Chapter Seven

Chutch wanted to keep to the well-lit roads while following the lantern's general direction, but that would have meant heading back towards Stonehenge, where Tom had said the Baobhan Sith had posted sentries. Instead he had to follow a looping route which took them on to an unlit road across Salisbury Plain. As they left the sodium haze behind and the night closed around them, they all thought they could see strange things moving off across the plain; odd lights flickered intermittently, will o' the wisps trying to draw their attention, and at one point a large shadow loomed at the side of the road. Church floored the accelerator to get past it and didn't look in the rearview mirror until they were far away.

It was a disturbing journey; they all felt the countryside had somehow become a no-man's land filled with peril. At first, hedges were high and trees clustered against the road oppressively, but as they moved on to the plain it opened out and they were depressed to see there were no welcoming lights anywhere. They passed a sign for Ministry of Defence land where a red flag warned of military manoeuvres; Church wondered briefly if they were already having to cope with things that shouldn't exist; whether they could cope.

They felt relief when they reached the outskirts of Devizes. The lantern pointed them towards the north-east as they passed through the town and they found themselves on another quieter road, although there was not the same sense of foreboding they felt on Salisbury Plain. The landscape on either side was ancient, dotted with hill figures and prehistoric mounds. By 10 p.m. they had wound through numerous tiny villages and eventually found themselves in Avebury, where the lantern flame relaxed into an upright position. The village was protectively encircled by the famous stone circle, its lights seeming a pitiful defence against the encroaching night. Church pulled into the car park in the centre where they could see a handful of the rocks silhouetted against the night sky; he felt oddly unnerved by the synchronicity of long lost times shouting down the years.

"More standing stones," Ruth said, peering through the windscreen at the squat, irregular shapes. "What are we supposed to do now?"

"It's too late to do anything now." Church stretched out the kinks in his back.

Laura leaned forward between the two of them. "Looks like we've just driven into the dead zone. Any danger this place has a pub?"

"We're not here for the night life," Ruth said sourly.

"No reason why we can't enjoy ourselves while we're waiting for the world to end." Laura picked up her computer and mobile phone and climbed out.

Although it was only just March, the night was not unduly cold. An occasional breeze blew from the Downs, filled with numerous subtle fragrances, and the lack of any traffic noise added to the time-lost feeling which was, oddly, both comforting and disconcerting. The Red Lion pub lay only a short walk along the road, an enormous, many-roomed inn whose black timbers creaked beneath the weight of a thatched roof.

"I can't help feeling we should be digging out a foxhole instead of sitting down for a quiet drink like nothing was wrong," Ruth said as they settled at a table.

"When everything is going insane, it's reassuring to do normal things," Church replied. "Pubs have a lot of power in situations like this. It's all about humanity coming together, celebrating in the face of-"

"Do you two always talk bollocks like this?" Laura took a swig of her beer from the bottle, then leaned back in her chair. "Because, you know, I'm starting to see an upside to Armageddon."

Ruth bristled. "You're still on probation. It would be a shame if you made us dump you here in the dead zone."

Laura smiled mockingly which irritated Ruth even more, then directed her comments at Church. "Mystic Meg wouldn't have told you all that information if she didn't think you could do something with it."

Church nodded. "You're right. She thought we were capable of it." He took a long draught of his beer, then looked at Laura curiously. "You've got a good job, a life. Why did you decide to come with us?"

Laura shrugged, then glanced around the bar with studied distraction. "I can't go back to my life and wait for the world to go to hell in a handcart."

"No, you want to give it a helping hand down the slope," Ruth said acidly.

"And let's face it, I'm a different person now," Laura continued. "I've done a few drugs in my time. It's not big or clever, but, hey, I enjoyed myself. And if you've done drugs you know they change you. Suddenly you find yourself apart from all your old friends who haven't done them. They couldn't ever understand what you've been through without experiencing it themselves. After crossing over to that castle, that's how I feel now. It was such a big thing, such a lifechanging experience, bigger than the wildest trip, there isn't a single person on earth who understands me now. Except you. We've got an affinity, Church-dude. We're beyond everyone else. Could you go back to your life after that?"

Church felt Ruth stiffen beside him. He couldn't tell if Laura was specifically trying to annoy her by making her feel excluded, but he guessed she was. "We've all experienced weird things," he said. "I suppose that puts us on common ground."

"But we don't have to like each other," Ruth said coldly.

Laura looked away; nothing seemed to concern her.

"So what's all this nonsense about Brothers and Sisters of Dragons?" Ruth said directly to Church. "It sounds like some ridiculous secret society."

"She was implying we were important somehow. Different. Special." He wrinkled his nose; it didn't make sense to him either.

Ruth snorted ironically. "The way you told it suggested it was some kind of destiny thing. But we wouldn't be here now if we hadn't been under Albert Bridge at that particular moment in time, and that was chance. A big coincidence. If I hadn't had that row with Clive and got out of the taxi, if you'd stayed in bed for five minutes longer, none of this would have happened to us. So how can it be destiny?"

Church shrugged. "Well, she wasn't lying to me-at least it didn't seem that she was. Maybe she was mistaken."

"She wasn't lying," Laura said emphatically.

"How do you know?"

"I just feel it."

"But maybe that explains why those things have been going for the nuclear option in trying to stop us," Church mused. "It would have helped if the mystery woman had told us exactly what our little dragon group is supposed to do. Something about our heritage, she said-"

"If Tom were here I bet he'd have something to say about it," Ruth mused.

"Yeah, he'd be sitting back dispensing enigmatic wisdom like Yoda," Church said. "He was obviously keeping stuff from us-we couldn't trust him. Maybe we're better off without him."

"Do you reckon he's scattered in bits and pieces across Salisbury?" Laura stared out some elderly local who was watching her curiously.

"Who knows where he is. Maybe he fell through another of those holes in the air. Maybe he's hiding out and doing this just to wind us up."

"Oh, he helped us out, Church. He was just selective in what he said." Ruth pondered for a moment, before adding, "He seemed a little scared when you told him about that black dog."

"You should have seen it."

Ruth glanced out of the window, but the lights were too bright within to see anything clearly. "I wonder how much longer we've got?"

"What do you mean?"

"Before the next thing comes after us. The Wild Hunt, Tom said. The worst thing we could expect."

Outside the pub, while they waited for Church to return from the toilet, Ruth could no longer contain herself. Laura was chewing on some gum and kicking stones at the parked cars.

"You ought to know I don't trust you," Ruth said, "and I'm going to be keeping an eye on you."

"Ask me if I'm bothered." Laura continued to boot the stones; one rattled on the side of a brand new BMW.

"You should be."

"What do you want me to do, cry myself to sleep because you don't like me? Wake up, it's never going to happen."

Ruth wanted to slap her, but she controlled herself. "What's wrong with you? This is a nightmare. We could die at any moment. You could at least make the effort to get on."

"I am who I am, Miss Boring Pants. Like it or lump it."

"Really? You expect me to believe DuSantiago is your real name? Lots of South Americans in Salisbury, I suppose. And you really haven't tried hard to build up that cool, hard exterior? Yeah, right."

"Nice sermon. Pity you're talking out of your arse. You don't know anything about me."

"That's the problem. If you opened up, we could start trusting you … if you really want to help."

"Don't go getting all touchy-feely, New Agey on me. I'm not one for hugs and baring my soul." A stone bounced off the bonnet of a Volvo and set the car alarm blaring. Laura turned back to Ruth, her face lit by the flashing indicator lights. "I'm as committed to this as you are. That's all you need to know."

"No, it's-" Ruth caught her tongue as Church emerged from the pub.

"So … a night in the car. Should be very restful," he said ironically.

"Lucky me. I get the bijou back seat." When Laura dropped into step next to Church, Ruth felt an odd twinge of loneliness, as if she were slowly being cut out.

"You think we'll be safe there?" she said.

"As safe as anywhere. At least we'll be able to drive off if anything happens." He laughed quietly to himself.

Ruth trailed behind them, overcome by the sudden knowledge that her friendship with Church had become deeper than she realised. How had that happened? she wondered. Their situation was complicated enough without bringing emotions into the fray, but somehow the whole stupid mess had blindsided her. She looked at Laura and hated herself for feeling a twinge of jealousy that the cosy relationship she had with Church was being interrupted. She just hoped she was level-headed enough to prevent her feelings from getting in the way during the difficult times ahead.

Church woke at first light. His joints ached, his feet felt like ice and there was a band of pain across his thigh where his leg had been jammed under the steering wheel. Sleep had been intermittent, troubled by the discomfort of his quarters, nightmares and fears of things off in the dark. He resolved to buy a tent for any future emergencies. But the moment he wiped the condensation from the window with the back of his hand, any grumbles were swept away by the beauty of the early spring day. The sun was just breaking above the horizon, painting the few clouds golden beneath a sky that was slowly turning blue. Among the stones a faint mist rose and drifted, and a stillness lay across the whole area. From his viewpoint, there was no sign of the twentieth century; it could have been anytime. The thought sent prickles down his spine, adding to the haunting quality of the moment that left him feeling like he had been cut adrift from the life he once knew.

Ruth and Laura were still sleeping. He was instantly struck by how beautiful they both looked, in their own ways, once the troubles of the day were stripped from their faces.

But as he wondered if he should wake them, he caught sight of something out of the corner of his eye that jolted him alert. A man was perched on a fencepost next to a hawthorn hedge, eyeing the car intently. Church had to look twice to convince himself it was what he had seen; the watcher was old, thin and angular with skin so sun-browned he seemed almost like a spindly tree growing out of the hedge. He was holding a long, gnarled wooden staff that must have been at least six feet tall, and his grey-black hair hung lank and loose around his shoulders. Apart from his clothes-mud-spattered sandals, well-worn, baggy brown trousers and a white cheesecloth shirt open to the waist-he resembled nothing so much as the pictures Church had seen of the men who helped raise the stones and build the longbarrows that were scattered across the landscape.

"Who is that?" Ruth's voice was sleepy. She rubbed her bleary eyes as she leaned close to Church to peer at the onlooker.

Laura stirred and after a few seconds she too was up, resting her elbows on the backs of their seats. She already had on her sunglasses. "Probably just a peeping tom," she said throatily. "Thought we'd been having a little three-way here in the car. Let's put on a show-see if he goes blind."

"Just some local," Church muttered. He opened the door and climbed out. The air was chilly despite the sun, and he couldn't prevent a convulsive shiver. The only sound was that of the birds in chorus. Ruth and Laura joined him, pulling their coats tight about them, stamping their feet to start their circulation.

The old man's eyes never left them as they walked the short distance to the fencepost. Up close, the most startling quality was the colour of his eyes, which were as blue as a summer sky, and given more power by the brownness of his skin. Church couldn't tell his exact age, although he guessed from the wrinkles on the man's face that he was in his sixties.

"Morning," Church said.

"Morning," the man replied impassively.

"Early start," Church noted.

"Aye. Same as you."

Church wished he had some idea of exactly what they were trying to unearth. Although the lantern had brought them to Avebury, it didn't seem to be much help in establishing an exact location. "Seen anything strange going on round here recently?"

"Depends what you mean," the old man said slyly. "I see lots of strange things in my travels. I've covered the country from Orkney to Scilly a hundred times in my life and every place I've stopped there's been something strange."

"You're not a local?" Church gave the man a renewed examination; there were none of the slightly odd features or waxy skin that disguised what the woman in the Watchtower had called the Night Walkers, but Church felt suspicious nonetheless.

"I'm local wherever I go."

Church was starting to feel distinctly uncomfortable in the old man's presence. There was a faintly threatening air about him and his gaze was becoming more dissecting, as if he knew exactly who Church was.

The old man glanced away across the stones and when he looked back, his eyes were cold and hard. "You cause any trouble here and there'll be hell to pay."

"Who are you?" Ruth asked.

"I guard the old places. Keep an eye on the hidden treasures, the undisturbed burials, the sacred spots. From the Scottish Isles to the South Downs, Land's End to the Fens." He grabbed his staff tightly with hands that looked much stronger than his years suggested. "Sleeping under the stars, watching out for the grave robbers and the sackers and the vandals. Tending to the land, you might say. Some call me the Stone Shepherd-"

"The Bone Inspector." Ruth recalled Tom's account of the man who had first alerted him to the crisis. "Tom mentioned your name."

"And where is he?" he said gruffly.

Church and Ruth glanced at each other uncomfortably.

"He's fallen already, has he? And you are the ones he was looking for?" His expression suggested he wasn't impressed.

"Who are you exactly, and what do you know about what's going on?" Church insisted.

"And who are you to ask questions of me?" As Church began to answer, the old man waved him silent dismissively. "There's been a Bone Inspector since these stones were put up. When one dies, there's always another ready and waiting to take over. In the old days there were lots of us. The keepers of wisdom, we were, worshipping in the groves, tutoring the people. Now there's just me."

In his eyes, Church saw the flat, grey sky over Callanish and the green fields around the Rollrights. In his voice there were echoes of the solemn chant of ancient rituals. But there was the hardness of nature in him too, and Church knew he would be a fool to cross him. The old man held the staff more like a weapon than a walking aid, and his lean limbs were sinewy and powerful.

"How did you find out that everything had changed?" Church asked.

"I felt it in the land. In the force that sings to you if you're of a mind to listen."

"The blue fire?"

"Aye, that's one way of seeing it." He banged his staff gently on the turf. "It's all changing, going back to the way it was. The cities haven't felt it yet, but out in the country they're starting to know. People are keeping clear of the quiet places, specially after dark. There've been a load of disappearances and a few deaths, all put down to accidents so far. They'll know the truth soon enough. I was up at Arbor Low in the Peaks the other day and I saw a wolf that walks like a man. Just a glimpse, mind you, away in the wild. But when I went to look I found an arm. Or what was left of it."

"Gross!" Laura made a face.

"That's when I knew for sure, even though I'd felt the change long before. Soon they're going to have to redraw all the maps. No one will know this land, see. It will be all new, and terrible. Even some of the lost places are coming back. I saw …" He caught himself and looked into the middle distance. "Well, there'll be time enough for that later."

There was an uneasy note in his voice that made them all feel uncomfortable. They shifted from foot to foot, not really knowing what to say.

Eventually he broke his reverie and turned back to them, his face dark. "And now you three rabbits are here. You look like troublemakers to me. Maybe I should be seeing you off." He raised his staff menacingly. Church held up his arm in instinctive protection and instantly the staff was performing a deft, twisting manoeuvre that was so fast it was almost a blur. It flicked Church's arm to one side, then cracked him obliquely on the elbow, too gently to hurt. But in an instant fiery lances of pain ran up to his shoulder and he crumpled at the waist in agony. Ruth stepped in to help, but the Bone Inspector thrust the staff between her calves and twisted, knocking her to the floor. In one fluid movement, the staff came up to point directly at Laura's throat. "Now you better be telling me what you're doing here," he said in a voice like flint.

Church drew himself upright, rubbing his elbow furiously, and then took a sudden step back when the staff was levelled at him. "Take it easy," he said as calmly as he could muster. "We're not here to cause any trouble for you."

"We're looking for something," Ruth added hastily. "One of the four talismans."

The Bone Inspector knew exactly what she meant. "You'll never find them."

"We have to," Church said. "Or else- Well, you tell me the or else bit."

The Bone Inspector lowered the staff and looked at them slyly again. "Who are you to think you can do something about it?"

A thought jumped in Church's mind. "We're the Brothers and Sisters of Dragons," he said.

It was the confirmation for which he was obviously waiting. "So Thomas did find you," he said thoughtfully. "You don't look like much. How do I know you're who you say you are?"

"Wait here." Church returned to the car and came back with the lantern. "Would I have this if I wasn't?"

The Bone Inspector laid down his staff and approached, almost deferentially. Gently, he reached out his hands until they were on either side of the lantern, though being careful not to touch it. The flame flared brightly, painting his skin blue. "The Wayfinder," he said in awe. "I'd heard it was no longer of the land."

"It wasn't," Church said. "I brought it back."

The Bone Inspector cursed under his breath. "And you don't know what you've got, do you? Leaving it in the bloody car! Are you mad, man?" Church shifted uncomfortably. "Keep it with you at all times," the Bone Inspector said with irritation. "Don't ever let it fall into the wrong hands."

Now it was out in the open, close to the circle they could see the flame was gradually rotating. "That must mean we're in the right place," Ruth said. "But where do we start looking? And what exactly are we looking for?" she added with exasperation.

"And why here?" Church said.

The Bone Inspector shook his head, contemptuous of their lack of knowledge. "Stonehenge may be better known, but this is the place. It doesn't look like much now, thanks to those Bible-obsessed fools in the last century who pulled all the stones down because they thought they were the Devil's work. But it's the most important place in the land, the source of all the power. That's why I'm here, now, to be in the most important place at the time when I'm most likely to be needed." He knelt down and marked out a wide arc with his arm. "Imagine it getting on for five thousand years ago-a sacred site stretching three miles. Here was the main temple, two stone circles surrounded by a circular ditch twenty-five feet deep with a bank fifteen feet high. And approaching it from either side were two gently curving avenues, a mile and a half long, each of them, marked out by ten-foot-high stones. Can you imagine the work that went into that? And they wouldn't have done it if they didn't have a reason."

"This is the source of the blue energy?" Church asked. "The Earth Magic?"

"This is the place where it's strongest. It's a Dracontium, a Serpent Temple, so called because of the way the avenues snaked. There were no straight lines back then-we have the bloody Romans to thank for that. But that's not the only reason-the dragon is the symbol of the Earth's power."

"And the Fabulous Beasts are drawn to it too," Ruth said thoughtfully as she tried to imagine the scene without any of the houses cluttering up the line of sight.

"You've heard of them, have you?" Ruth could tell from his expression that he suddenly saw her in a different light. "Well, that's another reason why this is the Serpent Temple."

"What do you mean?" Ruth said.

"Sometimes," he said with a sly smile, "when you put your ear to the ground you can hear it roar."

Church, Ruth and Laura looked at each other, unable to tell if he was joking. Before they could ask him further, he stiffened and turned suddenly in the direction of Windmill Hill, the ancient site which looked over the village a few miles away. His brow furrowing, he stared hard, although none of them could tell what he was seeing. After a moment, he said, "We're being watched."

They followed his gaze, but could see nothing across the countryside. "Where?" Ruth asked.

"Up there. On top of the hill."

"Right," Laura mocked, sneering at the distance that turned the hill to a blur of green beneath the blue. "Tell me what's happening in Birmingham while you're at it."

The Bone Inspector ignored her, squinted, concentrated. "I see a tight flurry of crows, swirling madly like a black cloud. And at their heart is a man. Not a man, a monster. And with him are more monsters."

"Monsters." The breath caught in Church's throat.

"They're here for us," Ruth said. "You have to help us." He stared at her coldly. "Please help us."

"How should I know what to do?" he replied sourly. "I know as much about the resting place of the talismans as the next man, and it's something I wouldn't want to know."

"But one of the talismans is here somewhere. The lantern is telling us that," Ruth continued. "You know the place better than anyone. Where do you think it would be?"

He stared at her for a long moment, weighing up her worth, then he said, "In a hidden place." His pause carried his doubt about revealing too much, but something in Ruth's face prompted him to continue. "All the old sites have hidden places. It's part of my job to make sure they stay hidden, away from prying fingers that might destroy them, and by doing so destroy the land itself."

"You have to show us," Ruth said with passion. "If we don't find the talismans the land will be destroyed anyway."

"You better not be making an idiot of me." He made a clicking sound at the back of his throat, then whirled on his heel and strode out powerfully across the grass. He came to a stop five minutes later beside a large megalith which cast an imposing shadow across the land in the dawn sunlight. "The Devil's Chair," he said, nodding to it. "The villagers here say if you run around it a hundred times you'll hear the voice of the Devil. But it isn't the Devil they hear."

"If I ran around it a hundred times I'd hear the sound of my stomach coming out through my mouth," Laura said.

"Three times widdershins will do," the Bone Inspector said, leading them around the stone. They felt stupid, traipsing in line like primary school children, but by the third revolution they experienced the buzz of the earth energy in the air, creating a resonance which began to creep along the meridians of their bodies from the base of their spines. "Now, quickly, along West Kennet Avenue," the old man said.

He hurried up a steep embankment and skidded down the other side before crossing a road and darting through a gate. Two rows of concrete markers led to the largest group of megaliths they had seen, stretching out in an avenue across the fields. As they moved forward, shimmers of blue shot out from beneath their soles and the tingling in their spines had now reached the base of their skulls. Church felt like he was hallucinating; the dappled patterns of light and shadow across the landscape seemed to move fluidly and unusual bursts of sound kept breaking through into his ears. When the ground began to open up in the centre of the avenue ahead of them, he at first thought it was a vision. But the Bone Inspector hurried them along and then they were scrambling down into the dark as the turf and soil closed behind them with a rumble.

As the Bone Inspector had seen them, the creatures on Windmill Hill had seen the strange ritual that opened the secret way to the hidden place. They were prevented from venturing into the station of light and life, but when the earth spewed out the Brothers and Sisters of Dragons, they would be waiting. Rapidly they moved towards Avebury, keeping to the hedges and ditches and whatever feeble shadows the landscape offered. But the occasional villager who glanced out of their window at that early hour would have seen only one thing: a cloud of crows churning so tightly, it was impossible to tell how they could keep aloft: a vortex of black, beak and talon, man-shaped and moving with resolute power.

"Where are we?" Church asked, blinking in the gloom. He held up the lantern, which provided enough eerie blue light to see. The air was dank and filled with the odour of loam. The hollow echo of dripping water resounded from somewhere nearby.

"The heart of the mystery," the Bone Inspector said icily. "Don't betray my faith in you. Or you won't be in a position to tell of this experience to anyone." His bald threat unnerved them and they refused to meet his piercing stare. Instead, they turned their gaze ahead where a low tunnel dipped down gradually into the depths of the earth. The Bone Inspector led the way with Church at his shoulder, holding the lantern aloft, all of them maintaining an anxious silence.

They walked for about fifteen minutes, the tunnel widening almost without them noticing it; the light no longer played on the walls, merely faded into the oppressive dark, and the quality of the echoes of their footsteps became duller. It was getting brighter; the lantern's light was being dwarfed by another, more fulsome blue glow from further ahead. With a jarring mixture of wonder and apprehension, they crept forward until they stood on the lip of a ledge overlooking a lake of the blue energy, churning and roiling as if it was boiling water. Ruth began to ask what it was, but the Bone Inspector shushed her with an impatient wave of his hand. Resting his hands on his knees, he peered into the depths of the blue lake and, as they followed his gaze, they gradually saw a dark shape deep in the azure depths. It was rising; slowly at first, but then with increasing speed, churning the energy even more, until suddenly it broke the surface with its long, serpentine neck before dipping back down below. It was only the briefest glimpse, but they had a sense of something magnificent, of scales gleaming gold and green on a body filled with elegant power.

"This Fabulous Beast never left," the Bone Inspector said. "It merely slept."

The others cautiously drew themselves upright, listening to the unnatural echoes that bounced around the cavern. "Are you sure it's safe?" Ruth asked. "It could fry us in a second here."

"It could if it wished," the Bone Inspector said, offering no comfort.

"It's the king of them all," Laura said in a tone which surprised them; it was something she felt instinctively. She pushed her way past them to the edge, but the creature was lost beneath the blue waves.

"It is the oldest," the Bone Inspector agreed. "When all the creatures of imagination departed in the Sundering, this one stayed behind to protect the land, keeping the fire alive here in the furnace of the planet. Ready for the time when the power would flow freely again." He looked at Church knowingly.

"Is that one of the things we're supposed to do?" Church asked. The Bone Inspector shook his head contemptuously.

"We don't know what we're supposed to be doing!" Ruth protested. "We have no idea what a Brother or Sister of Dragons is. Why everyone thinks we're one. What's going on at all!" The stress brought a snap to the end of the sentence.

"Don't lose it," Laura chided.

"I'm not your teacher." The Bone Inspector walked to the edge and began to scan around the cavern. "I'm giving you a helping hand here, but after this you're on your own. To be honest, I don't think you're up to the job."

"What do you know," Laura muttered.

When he turned she thought he was going to hit her with the staff, but instead he used it to point to the wall of the cavern nearest to them. "There's a path that goes right round the edge of the lake to the far side. You might find what you're looking for there. Or you might not."

Church squinted to see where he was pointing. "It looks a bit precarious. It's only about a foot across."

"Better not look down then," Ruth said.

The Bone Inspector caught her arm before she could walk away. "Just one of you."

"Why?"

"Because the one whose home this is will only let one of you go."

They stared into the blue depths for a moment, considering this, and then Church said, "I suppose we have to trust you. But how can we be sure it won't attack even one of us?"

"It senses the dragon-spirit," the Bone Inspector said. "One ofyou will be safe."

"What are you saying? We're family?"

"Not in any way you'd understand," the Bone Inspector replied curtly.

Church sighed. "Looks like-"

"Not so fast, leader-man," Laura said. "I admire your chivalry and all that, but I want to do this one."

"No way!" Ruth was shaking her head forcefully. "She's probably after the talisman for herself-"

"So you don't trust me," Laura snapped. "But you had better start doing so, because this is a partnership and I have an equal say. If you believe what Mystic Meg said and you believe I'm one of the five big cheeses, then you have to at least listen to me."

"I don't know …" Church chewed on a knuckle.

"I say no," Ruth said firmly.

The Bone Inspector snorted with derision. "There isn't a hope."

"He's right." Church scrubbed a hand over his face, hoping he was making the right decision. "We can't start off this way. We have to have some kind of faith in ourselves."

"I appreciate the vote of confidence," Laura said with a broad grin.

"I still say no," Ruth added a little childishly.

Without a backward glance, Laura headed over to the path. She caught her breath when she saw it. Church had been right: barely a foot wide, with a precipitous drop into the roiling blue energy. Without showing her nervousness, she pressed her back against the rock wall and confidently stepped out on to the ledge.

Anxiety had turned Laura's shoulders and stomach into knots of steel cable, but she had been unable to resist the pull that had forced her to look down at the surface of the lake. The sinuous body of the Fabulous Beast occasionally broke the surface, as if it were shadowing her progress, but even the slightest glimpse filled her with excitement; she felt like a child again.

The inside of her mouth tasted metallic from the blue energy which spouted up from the surface in an effect which reminded her of a lava lamp; every tiny sound she made was strangely distorted by the cavern and the energy into something that was almost hallucinatory. She had to keep clinging on to the wall, feeling with her foot as she took each step. It was laborious and terrifying, but she was making good progress. Church and the others were lost to the blue haze and now the cavern walls had started to close in on both sides, allowing her to see things which both chilled and intrigued her. Human bones protruded from the rock, as well as the remnants of other skeletons which were not remotely human, nor animal either; they were yellowed and pitted with great age. Cor roded helmets, swords and chain mail hung from ledges, next to axes and rougher tools from older times. And there was treasure, jewels beyond imagining, gold artefacts which still gleamed, mysterious objects: it was like a magpie's nest of historical plunder, all scattered on rocky outcroppings or lower ledges.

The cavern grew smaller and smaller until the walls were less than fifteen feet apart and Laura feared she would eventually become trapped. Then, as she made her way into what appeared to be a separate cavern, they widened out once more. This cave was much smaller than the other, and the ledge opened on to what Laura could only describe as a beach, where the blue energy lapped like surf.

Cautiously, she explored towards the rear wall of the cavern. As she neared, she saw the sheer face was intricately carved with symbols and shapes that were unmistakably Celtic: spirals, circles interlocking, infinite lines, faces, stylised animals, a dragon. It seemed to have some sort of meaning beyond simple design, but she had no idea what it was. Further along the wall was an alcove framed by two carved trees forming an arch with their intertwined branches. At the foot were severed heads, hollow-eyed with bared teeth; peering through the branches was a face made out of leaves.

Although the alcove appeared to be shallow, it was heavily shadowed and she couldn't tell what lay within its depths. There seemed little else of note around, so she stepped in for a better look and instantly realised her mistake.

With a deep rumble, some hitherto hidden door slammed behind her, shutting her in utter dark. A second later there was movement, a tremor of a touch at her ankle, her back, her neck. Something like bony fingers closed tightly around her wrists, yanking her arms up and to the side, caught in her hair, pinched her waist. Laura couldn't help herself, she opened her mouth and screamed.

The sound stifled in her throat as, with a brutality that surprised even her cruelly disciplined, modern, mature self, she forced calm on the frightened little girl struggling to escape. Don't be pathetic, she thought furiously. But it was so dark, and so claustrophobic, and she had no idea what was gripping her: things that felt like fingers, felt like bone, felt alive yet dead.

The door at her back was solid rock; no amount of pushing would budge it at all. She estimated a gap of six inches in front of her face, and if she moved from side to side her shoulders brushed the walls. It was a tomb. She choked back panic again. Stay calm, stay calm. Surely the Fabulous Beast wouldn't have allowed her to this secret spot just to have her sealed in a stone wall. Frantically, she tried to remember the carvings on the wall in case they had offered any instructions to escape the trap. Steel bands seemed to be closing across her chest and she was sure it was getting harder to breathe. Was the alcove airtight? She struggled against whatever was gripping her, but that only made it tighter. The panic started to come again, black waves that threatened to drown her, until she was gasping, feeling everything fall apart. And then, suddenly, a moment of lucidity that she clung to with the desperation of a drowning woman. She suddenly went limp, relaxing every muscle as she slumped forward. In response, the hands loosened their grip and, as she continued to play dead, they eventually fell away: the trap was for a threat who would fight, not for a friend who would offer themselves supinely. Or perhaps it was more than that, she thought. Perhaps it was a test of some kind.

"Abracadabra," she said hopefully. She ran her fingers over the wall in front of her. It was uniformly smooth, except for one area where there were faint indentations. In the impenetrable dark, she could focus on her sense of touch without any distractions: a circle, and within it two smaller circles. On the left, a line snaked out and ended in a hole as big as her fingertip. On the right, another line started to snake out, but was abruptly curtailed. Laura pictured the outline in her mind, and after a moment of deliberation she realised what it was: a map of the Avebury Dracontium; except the curving right hand line should have extended, mirroring the one on the other side. She continued tracing it to where it should have ended and felt a small lump.

Suddenly she knew what she had to do. She pressed hard and the raised area sank in. A second later, there was a corresponding click and a small hatch opened at head height, flooding the alcove with a diffuse blue light. In the newly exposed area lay a shiny black stone as big as the palm of her hand. When Laura plucked it out, she was surprised, and a little disturbed, that it felt like skin, warm and soft. As she slipped it into her pocket, the doors slid back and, with a relieved gulp of dank air, she stepped back out into the cavern.

"This waiting is terrible." Church sat with his legs dangling over the edge above the lake of blue energy; he had the disturbing feeling that if he pushed himself off he would be able to walk across its surface.

"Now you know how I felt in Salisbury." Ruth was still annoyed he had allowed Laura to go on such an important mission; she was more angry at herself for feeling that way. The Bone Inspector had left them alone and was waiting silently in the shadows near the tunnel through which they entered.

Church stared into the blue depths, his hand unconsciously going to the Black Rose in his jacket; since they had gone underground it had felt horribly cold, like a block of ice burning his skin, and now the discomfort was starting to make him a little queasy. "Brother of Dragons. What does that mean exactly? I wish somebody would give us a look at the script. Why are we so special?"

"Don't you feel special?" She controlled an urge to slip an arm around his shoulders and hug him. Since he had returned from the Watchtower, he seemed different; darker somehow, more intense, if that were possible. That odd conjunction of emotional fragility and strength of character moved her on some deep level so acutely, at times she wondered if she was falling ill, although she knew the truth, and that was just as bad.

"Not in the way all these weird people are intimating," he said. "I've always felt different. Even at school I knew I wasn't like other kids. She came to me, you know? When I was a boy."

"Who?"

"The woman in the Watchtower."

"There you are, then. You were different right from the start."

"But I don't feel it inside me. I feel normal, like I always have done."

"I don't know if anybody does feel different until they're called upon to-" She was interrupted by a call from Laura, who was edging her way along the last stretch of the ledge.

They ran to meet her as she stepped back on to the rock shelf. "We'd just about given up on you," Church said.

"Bad pennies always turn up. You should know that." She dipped into her pocket and pulled out the stone; it seemed to glow with an inner light. "Look what I found."

Church and Ruth gathered round. "Is that it? Wow! I expected a lump of rock or something," Ruth said.

Church looked at her curiously. "It is a lump of rock."

"No, it's not. It's a diamond," Ruth said incredulously.

"Are you both insane? It's a black stone, like polished obsidian."

They looked from one to the other in disbelief until the Bone Inspector stepped up. "Save your breath. It has no true shape in this world. It's fluid, like everything from the Other Place. Our tiny little minds can't grasp it, so we give it some kind of shape to make sense of it."

"That's crazy," Ruth said. "How are we-"

"It doesn't matter what things look like," the old man said with exasperation, "just as long as you know what they are."

Church peered at the stone in Laura's hands. "The first of the four talismans. What does it do?"

Laura held it out to the Bone Inspector for advice, but the old man backed away hastily. "Don't bring it near me! It's too powerful. It's your burden now."

"But what does it do?"

"It doesn't do anything," the Bone Inspector snapped. "It's not a toy! It has a purpose which I'm sure you'll find out sooner or later. Now enough of the fool questions. Let's get back to the light. And not the way we came either. I have no doubt our friends from Windmill Hill will be waiting for us on West Kennet Avenue."

He led them to another tunnel off to one side. As they made their way uphill by the light of the lantern, Church said to Laura, "So did you have any trouble getting it?"

"Easy as pie," she replied.

They emerged blinking into the warm morning light on Beckhampton Avenue, the snaking route on the other side of Avebury. After the dank passages, the air was fragrant with spring flowers and the verdant aromas of the countryside.

"You leave here quickly now and don't look back," the Bone Inspector said gruffly. "Dawdle too much and you'll find the Devil at your heels."

"Where are you going now?" Ruth asked.

"I've got a country full of ancient places to tend, graves to visit, old bones to check, and in these times I think they'll need me more than ever."

"Thanks for your help," Church said, stretching out a hand which the old man ignored. "We couldn't have done it without you."

"Aye. And don't you forget it. I bloody well hope I've done the right thing. Don't go and ruin it all."

Then he turned and was loping away, over a gate and into the fields, faster than they would have believed, almost dropping to all fours at times so that he seemed more animal than man as he disappeared into the countryside.

"We could have used his help," Ruth said regretfully.

"We don't need any crumbly old folk." Laura replaced her sunglasses after the dark of the cavern. "We've got youth, good looks and sex on our side."

"Look at this." Church held up the lantern; the flame was now flickering towards the south-west.

They hurried through the quiet streets until they reached the car, and then they were speeding out of the village before anyone noticed.

On West Kennet Avenue, the cloud of whirling, flapping crows suddenly turned towards the south-west. A guttural voice filled with the grunts of beasts rolled out from the heart of it, and four shadows seemed to separate from the base of the hedges. The voice barked and snorted again, incomprehensible to human ears, and all the birds, and the cows lowing in the fields fell silent.