World's end

Chapter Eight

"You want to push me completely over the edge, you go ahead and play Sinatra one more time." Laura gave the back of Church's seat a sharp kick. "Because we've only heard `Come Fly with Me,' like, what, a thousand times? Music-induced psychosis is not a pretty thing to see."

Church ejected the tape with irritation. "What do you want, then?"

"Somebody who's not dead would be nice."

"I hate to say it, but I'm with her on this one," Ruth chipped in.

"Fine. Gang up on me."

Laura rested her arms on the back of his seat, her breath bringing a bloom to his neck. "Have you got anything that makes your ears bleed?"

"An icepick?"

"How about some golden oldies, like, say, The Chemical Brothers?"

"No."

"What's the matter? Don't you like music that makes your blood boil?"

His first reaction was to say I used to, but he realised how pathetic it sounded. If truth be told, his irritation with Laura came more from how she pointed up the parts of his character that he had lost than from her forthright manner.

"How about the radio?" he snapped, feeling the first bite of self-loathing. He switched it on and tuned across the band until he heard music.

"It'll do, I guess." Laura slumped back into her seat, successful.

The music gave way to the syrupy voice of a local DJ who rambled aimlessly for a minute or two before another fizzy, optimistic Top Ten hit came on. Outside the car the windswept uplands had given way to sun-drenched green fields, trees on the verge of bursting with new life, sparkling streams and little stone bridges. The road behind was comfortingly empty and, despite everything, Church was feeling remarkably at ease in the light of their success at Avebury. The lantern had directed them on to the A4 towards Bath where they were able to build up some speed and put some distance between them and whatever the Bone Inspector had feared was waiting for them on West Kennet Avenue. They felt confident enough to pause briefly at Chippenham, where they bought a couple of tents, cooking equipment and other camping gear for emergencies. Laura protested she wasn't the outdoor type, but, as usual, it seemed to be more for effect.

Bath was choked with traffic, the winter season already forgotten as tourists flocked to the Roman baths or to gawp at the Georgian architecture. Ruth muttered something about the bliss of ignorance, and for a brief while a maudlin mood fell across the car as they all became acutely aware of what was at risk.

But by the time they had passed through Bath into the more sparsely populated countryside beyond, their mood had buoyed as they focused on the task ahead. They were making good time and the lantern seemed to be taking them into the deep south-west, far away from the troubled areas of the previous few days.

As they travelled through tiny, picture-postcard villages south of Bristol, with the undulating slopes of the Mendips away to their left, they were shocked by a sharp, ear-splitting burst of static on the radio. When it faded, the DJ's voice was replaced by giggling, mocking laughter fading in and out of white noise, growing louder, then softer; there was something inhuman about it. It was the same mysterious sound Ruth and Church had heard on the tape in the therapist's office when they had first discovered what they had seen under Albert Bridge. Church hastily ran the tuner across the band, but the laughter remained the same, and even when he switched the radio off, it continued to come out of the speakers for a full minute. Ruth and Church shot an uneasy glance of recognition at each other.

Five miles further on, all the electrics failed.

"I'll have a look, but there's no chance I can do anything today." The mechanic glanced at a dusty clock above the door of the repair bay; it said 3 p.m. He was unusually tall and massive-boned, with a solid beer belly kept in check by his grease-stained blue overalls. His face was ruddy and his unruly black hair was peppered with grey. "Everything's going bloody crazy at the moment."

Church sat wearily on the Nissan's wing. He'd spent an hour searching for a garage with a tow truck. This one had only relented and agreed to come out after he had virtually begged.

"It's these modern cars, you see," the mechanic continued. "They build 'em to break down. Though this last week I've never seen anything like it. The place has been full every day, most of it electrical stuff, though I've had a fair share of busted alternators. I tell you, you need a bloody degree to sort out these electrics. This week I've worked on some all day long and then, just like that, they've been fine again. No explanation for it. Couldn't find any fault at all, yet they were dead as a dodo when they were brought in." He shook his head at this great mystery, then added, "Still, bloody good for business."

Church got his assurances that the car would be looked at first thing the following day, then wandered out to Ruth and Laura who sat with the camping equipment on the dusty forecourt. The garage was well off the beaten track, a rundown affair that seemed to have been barely updated since the fifties, down to the period petrol pumps that stood dry like museum pieces at the front. Only farms lay scattered around the surrounding countryside, and there was no sound of traffic, just the song of birds in the clustering trees.

"What did he say?" Ruth asked anxiously.

"Tomorrow. I think we can risk giving it a shot before we start looking around for the local Avis."

"Yeah, there'll really be one round here," Laura said sarcastically.

Ruth noticed Church's concerned expression and asked him what was wrong. He repeated the mechanic's tale of mysterious breakdowns. "I think things are starting to go wrong, just like Tom predicted. It's as if the rules of science are falling apart in the face of all these things that shouldn't exist."

Laura looked at him curiously. "What do you mean?"

"I mean," he said, nodding to the computer in the bag on her arm, "that pretty soon that will be as much use to us as it would be to some lost Amazon tribe, along with every other technological gadget. New rules are falling into place. Science is dying."

"Unless we can do something about it," Ruth said hopefully, but Church merely shouldered the tents and rucksack and began to trudge along the lane.

They found a good campsite in a secluded grove out of sight of the road. They didn't ask permission, preferring anonymity. The trees were thick enough to prevent the tents being seen by the casual passer-by, and there was a natural clearing shielded by a tangle of brambles where they could light a fire. Ruth seemed uncomfortable at the prospect of sharing with Laura, but they reached some kind of unspoken agreement, and Church slipped off to collect firewood.

Lost in thought as he scoured the edge of the copse, he failed to see the figure until it was upon him. He whirled in shock, ready to fight or run, and was then suffused with embarrassment when he saw it was just a girl of about ten, pretty, with long blonde hair and a creamy complexion. She was wearing a tight T-shirt with a sunburst motif and baggy, faded jeans.

"Hello," she said in a thick West Country accent. "Are you looking for something?"

"Just sightseeing," he replied ridiculously.

"Not much to see round here." She laughed disarmingly.

Relaxing his guard, Church returned her smile. "Not really my cup of tea."

"Where you from then?"

"London."

"I'd love to live in London." She looked dreamily into the middle distance. "It'd be great to be somewhere where there's a buzz."

"Nothing to stop you when you're older."

Her smile became slightly more enigmatic. "My name's Marianne. What's yours?"

"Jack." Although he knew nothing about her, the simple matter of her name suddenly made him warm to her. "That's a nice name," he continued. "I used to know someone called Marianne."

"A girlfriend?"

"She was."

"Did you split up?"

He thought twice, then said honestly, "She died."

Marianne nodded ruefully. "It figures." Church looked at her curiously, but she'd already danced ahead of him. Noticing the wood he'd piled nearby, she grinned and said, "Sightseeing, eh? Looks to me like you're going to have a little fire." She looked around. "Where's the camp?"

Church's shoulders sagged. "Blimey. Rumbled. Look, we're trying to keep a low profile. I'd appreciate it if you didn't tell anyone."

Her laughter at Church's obvious dismay was innocent and infectious. "Don't worry, I'm not going to rat on you. But if my dad finds out it'll be a different matter. He farms on this land and he's always going mad about bloody trespassers. Threatened to set the dogs on the last lot he caught. We're close enough to Glastonbury to get those scruffy New Age types passing through. Some of them leave the place in a right mess, but most of them seem okay to me. My dad thinks they're all scroungers and vandals, though."

"Well, I'm neither."

"I can see that. Come on, I'll help you collect some wood." She walked at his side for a minute or two, then said, "Do you miss her?"

"Marianne? Yes. A lot."

"I thought you looked sad. I could see it in your eyes." Church winced at the thought that it was so obvious. There was a long, thoughtful pause and then she said, "Do you think people die for a reason?"

He shrugged. "I don't know-"

"Yes, but do you think?"

"I'd like to believe that, but it's not always easy to see." The maturity of her conversation surprised him, and made him feel a little uncomfortable. "This is heavy stuff for someone your age."

"Just because you're young doesn't mean you have to fill your head with rubbish," she said tartly. "Anyway, I do like a lot of rubbish. It's just I like to think about other stuff too."

"I stand corrected."

"Apology accepted," she laughed, picking up a rotten tree branch and tossing it to Church. "Why are you so bothered about dying? Don't argue-I can see you are! It's just another part of life, isn't it? The only thing worth bothering about is what we do before we pop our clogs."

"It's not as simple as that-"

"Why not? I want to do exciting stuff every day, learn new things, see life. I want to pack a week into a day, a month into a week and a year into a month. Don't you think that's a good philosophy? Why doesn't everybody do that?"

Church pretended to scour the grass for wood while he attempted to think of an answer, but he couldn't summon anything that didn't sound pathetic. Her victorious grin forced him to laugh. "I think I should be Prime Minister," she said triumphantly, sashaying theatrically ahead of him.

When she turned back to him, she'd pulled out a locket from under her T-shirt. With a dexterous flick, she opened it and held it up to show him the tiny picture squeezed inside.

"Princess Diana," he noted. "Did you like her?"

"I loved her. That's why I asked you about dying. She did so much good with her life. I think she died for a reason."

"Oh?"

"To make us see how bad we were all living our lives. So that we could learn from her and live more like her, you know, doing good, helping the world."

Her tone was so adamant it would have been reprehensible to sour her views with adult cynicism. "She seemed very decent. All that campaigning for land mines. And all that."

Marianne looked up at him with a faintly pitying smile. "I can see you're not a believer."

"I'm sorry. I'm just … an old grouch."

"I've got pictures of her all over my bedroom. And in one corner I've got a little table with the best photo I could find in a frame. You'd know it if you saw it. It's famous. She's looking at the camera really thoughtful, and when you look right into her eyes you can see so much goodness it almost makes you cry." She lowered her voice conspiratorially. "Before bed, I kneel down in front of it and pray to her."

Church lowered his eyes, trying to remember the last time he felt such an innocent belief. "What do you pray for?"

"For Diana to make me a better person. For me to do some good, like her, before I die."

"Well, of all the things to pray for, that sounds like one of the best."

"You should try it some time."

He laughed. "Maybe I should."

"No, I mean it." She undid the locket and offered it to him. "Not to keep. Just try it tonight and I'll get it back off you tomorrow."

"No, I couldn't-"

"Don't be silly!" She grabbed his hand and forced it into his fingers, laughing. "She's a saint, you know. She'll listen to you."

He felt uncomfortable taking it from her, and that made him wonder why: perhaps it was the cynicism-Diana, Patron Saint of Bulimics and Damaged Women Everywhere. But then maybe Marianne was right. Perhaps blind faith was what was needed. It certainly seemed to make her happy.

"Okay," he said finally. "Maybe you'll make a convert of me." That seemed to please her.

They spent the next hour trailing through the trees and along the hedgerows, doing more talking than wood collecting. Church found himself enjoying Marianne's company; she was funny and passionate, filled with questions about every subject that entered the conversation, and possessed of a generosity of spirit that made him feel good to be around her, and a little humbled. She was an only child, yet quite unspoilt, with a love of music that reminded Church of his younger days. They argued about the strengths and weaknesses of a few pop icons, then listed their top ten songs, which ended in uncontrollable laughter when she made Church sing the chorus of all his selections.

Finally they'd located enough firewood and Marianne helped Church carry it back to the camp. Ruth and Laura weren't anywhere to be seen so they lit the fire together and made some tea. Oddly, Church found himself talking about his own Marianne with an openness that he hadn't managed since her death. The young girl was an easy listener and she seemed to have a handle on his emotions that belied her years. When she said goodbye, with a promise to bring them milk at breakfast, he was sorry to see her go.

Night still fell quickly at that time of year, and there was a chill to it which made a mockery of the warmth of the day. Ruth and Laura had reached an uneasy, unspoken truce; enough to follow directions from the garage to a local shop where they had bought enough provisions for the evening meal and breakfast: some vegetables for a stew, rice, bacon, eggs and bread, although Laura revealed she was a strict vegetarian. They cooked around 7.30 p.m., keeping close to the fire for warmth, speaking in voices that were subconsciously low. The conversation was muted. The darkness among the trees seemed deep and disturbing; none of them would admit how scary the quiet countryside had become.

While the food bubbled over the fire, Laura plugged her computer into her mobile. "Thought it would be worthwhile to check up on some of those lines the old guy had been spinning you before he caught his ticket to Neverland."

When she booted the computer up, Church noticed her desktop wallpaper was a strange design of interlinking trees. "What does that mean?" he asked.

"It's a design. It means I like looking at it," she sneered. "Shit. The battery's getting low. I'll need to find somewhere to charge it soon. Anyway, earlier I found this site called the Charles Fort Institute, which is like this massive online reference library and archive for all sorts of bizarre shit. They've got lots of links to folklore sites. So why don't we start with the pooch." The screen jumped to The Black Dog Reporter. "Here we are: Black Shuck. Shuck comes from scucca, the Anglo-Saxon for demon." She scrolled quickly down the page. "There's an account of a great storm in East Anglia in 1577 when a black demon dog 'or the Devil in such a likeness' appeared in Bungay Church, leaving two parishioners dead at their prayers and another `as shrunken as a piece of leather scorched in a hot fire.' Loads of tales from all over the country, but he's usually described as big as a calf with saucer-sized eyes that weep green or red fire, and he only comes from his secret lair at dusk. In East Anglia when someone is dying they still say `The Black Dog is at his heels.' Generally seen as a portent of something much worse, death or disaster."

"Hang on, if it only comes out at dusk, how come you saw it in daylight in Salisbury?" Ruth asked.

"Maybe he's found a good sunscreen," Laura said.

"The tales might simply have it wrong. Because he was only seen at night, the people thought he could only come out then," Church suggested.

Ruth sighed. "Some come out by day, some are nocturnal. This is all too confusing."

"Nothing about how to drive it away?" Church asked hopelessly.

"Well, being as how this stuff is generally regarded as not real, there's not much of a user's guide," she replied tartly. "Nothing in the folklore to link him to the Wild Hunt either. But I guess we're in uncharted territory here."

"What have you got on the Hunt?"

After she'd jumped to the next site, Church tried to read her screen, but she moved it so he couldn't see. "Lots of conflicting stories. It comes from the Norse tradition, long before the Vikings or Christianity came to Britain." She scanned down to the relevant section. "Odin was supposed to race across the sky on stormy winter evenings with a pack of baying hounds. Anyone who saw the Hunt could be carried off to a distant land, while anyone who spoke to the Huntsman died. Later, Odin's place was taken by the Devil, but the Wild Huntsman has also been seen as Herne the Hunter or Sir Francis Drake, who used to ride in a black coach led by headless horses across Dartmoor. The pack is called Yeth Hounds or Wish Hounds, another bunch of demon dogs, and they say you can hear their screams on the wind as they hunt down the souls of unbaptised babies. Cute. The Wild Huntsman's also known as the Erl-King, which is some mistranslation of an old Danish legend about the King of the Elves leading the Wild Hunt."

"We've got to remember the legends aren't the truth," Church cautioned. "They're just stories twisted from the few facts people recall-"

"And isn't that a relief," Laura interrupted. "Demon hounds whisking poor bastards off to some kind of Purgatory. Portents of death and destruction. We're still not in line for Big Fun, are we?"

"Can't you find anything useful?" Ruth said with irritation.

"Sorry, I forgot you're a completely useless waste of space. It really is all down to me." She logged off the net and clicked off her computer.

Ruth didn't bite. "Okay, we've suddenly been swamped with every supernatural creature known to man, but what do you think is really going on?" she said to Church. "These Night Walkers are obviously manoeuvring in the shadows. I mean, why were they all at that depot? Are they all getting regular jobs? I don't think so."

Church nodded in agreement. "Exactly. If they're so powerful, why haven't they made any move yet?"

"Maybe they're planning a first strike that will wipe us off the board in one fell swoop," Laura noted.

"Whatever they're planning, it's something so important they can't risk us messing it up."

Ruth looked out into the encroaching dark. "They could be all over the country, just mixing with people, and nobody any the wiser. That funny-looking bloke you always think is a bit odd at the bus stop. The weirdo staring at you in the supermarket. Everywhere."

"That's a good recipe for paranoia." Laura lay back so she could see the moon coming up through the trees. "There's going to be the war to end all wars and nobody knows."

After dinner, Laura handed out the beers she had bought and they discussed what lay ahead. Church was surprised how optimistic the other two seemed, despite everything, although he knew his view had been coloured by his vision of his own death in the Watchtower. Laura had been entrusted with the stone, although they had never discussed it; it just seemed natural as she had been the one to find it. As their conversation turned to the possible locations of the other talismans, she pulled the stone out from the small rucksack where she had decided to keep it.

"It's a weird thing," she said. "I still can't get over the feel of it. It's kind of creepy."

"What do you mean?"

"You'll know if you touch it. Here, cop a feel."

She handed it over to Church for the first time. But as his fingers brushed it, an ear-splitting shriek burst from the stone and he dropped it like a hot coal. "What the hell was that?" he asked in shock.

They all looked at it for a moment before Laura picked it up. "Care to try that again?" Laura held it out to him again.

Church hesitated, then gingerly brushed his fingers over the stone's surface. The shriek erupted immediately.

"Jesus, why don't you set off a flare so everyone knows where we are!" Ruth protested.

"What does it mean?" Church said curiously. "You try it," he said to Ruth.

She took it from Laura, passed it from hand to hand, then gave it back. "Looks like it doesn't like men," Laura said to Church. "Or maybe you've just got clammy palms."

Church felt suddenly cold. "The woman in the Watchtower said it had the power to recognise the true king of the land."

Laura burst out laughing. "King Church the First! That's a good one!"

Church shook his head. "Don't be ridiculous."

"You can't get away from the fact it only reacts to you," Ruth said.

"I don't want to think about that. With this kind of stuff we can spend forever guessing. Who knows what any of it means?"

Laura was still laughing coarsely. "The king! With his royal carriage, the Nissan Bluebird!"

Her mockery was so sharp they couldn't help joining in the laughter. It eased some of the tension which had been collecting around them.

They spent the next couple of hours drinking beer, talking quietly and feeding the fire from the rapidly diminishing woodpile; a cold wind threatened a storm. The conversation never strayed far from their mission, as they called it (ironically at first, but with increasing seriousness); even Laura's attempts to keep the chat superficial failed.

Shortly after 9 p.m., Ruth felt a change come over her. It started as a simple shiver that reached from deep within her, followed by a prickling of the skin that suggested the onset of some virus; a moment or two later she heard, or thought she did, her name whispered somewhere among the trees. Church and Laura continued to talk in hushed voices, oblivious to whatever had alerted her. Yet despite their situation, she didn't feel frightened. The pull was too strong to resist; she told the others she was going to stretch her legs and slipped off into the trees.

As she walked, she realised she couldn't turn back, even though some distant part of her was warning of the dangers of straying too far from the fire; obliquely, she recognised something was in her head, dragging her on and calming her at the same time.

She had wandered barely a few yards when she regretted it. The light from the fire faded quickly, as if it were being leached by the dark which quickly enfolded her. The noises seemed unnatural and disturbing; the creak of the branches above her head too loud, out of time with the gusts of the wind, as if they had a life of their own, the arms of living tree-gods reaching down to her; crunches in the undergrowth, near then far, which could have been small animals but sounded like footsteps circling her; whispers scarcely reaching her ears, dispossessed words fading out before she could make sense of them. Within moments she felt Church, Laura and all of civilisation were lost to her; she was in a dark, elemental world that considered her an interloper.

The flap of large wings made her jump and a second later an owl swooped close to her head, its face ghostly white against the dark. The owl shrieked once, sounding more human than bird, and a second later the trees were alive with light. Tiny white flames flickered as if myriad candles had been placed among the branches and for an instant Ruth had a breathtaking vision, as if the stars had been brought down to earth.

A figure stood next to an ancient, twisted hawthorn bush, its shape distorting amongst the shadows. As Ruth drew closer, she saw it was the young girl she had seen in the park in Salisbury-although she knew in her heart it was neither young nor girl-a cloak of what appeared to be thousands of interlocking leaves billowing in the wind around her.

Ruth felt drawn to the apparition as if she were in some hypnotic state, yet at the same time she was consumed by fear and awe: the figure was so alien. She knew, on some level she couldn't understand, that the girl had some specific interest in her; she could feel the subtle strands of manipulation in her head, the sense that the girl was trying to communicate something important.

"He is missing. The night to my day, the winter to my summer." The words came out without her mouth moving; it was the same thing she had said in the park in Salisbury.

Who is missing? Ruth thought. And what has it got to do with me?

As if in answer, the quality of the light changed and Ruth could see something large crashing and stumbling among the undergrowth behind the girl. It was a vision, not reality, primal and terrifying. Ruth caught a glimpse of powerful muscles, and a shape slightly larger than a man, but with antlers curving wickedly from his head. Beyond him the small grove of trees went on forever.

Whatever moved through the trees made snorting noises and began to circle closer, but still beyond the circle of light thrown by the flames in the branches, so it was impossible to see it fully. As the vision disappeared, the girl's flowing dress seemed to fade beneath her cloak, leaving her naked. Her skin was almost translucent, milky like the moon, her breasts small, her belly rounded, hips shapely. Ruth felt an incipient sexuality in the air, as if it were electricity and the girl a generator.

"Find him and then you must join us. Become our daughter. Our champion."

Ruth stared into her mesmerising eyes, trying to comprehend. The girl reached out to Ruth, but the thought of touching those alien hands filled her with such dread, the spell was broken. She started to back away.

The owl that had startled her earlier suddenly swept down into the space between them and stared at Ruth with eyes that were unnervingly intelligent; it made her shudder.

"A companion," the girl continued, "a familiar, to guide you through the dark. When you see him, remember me."

She began to say something else, but Ruth couldn't bear to stay any longer. And then she was running wildly through the trees, terrified by the knowledge that she had been recognised by something unknowable, and filled with the awful belief that she would never be allowed to return to the life she once knew.

"Are you making any sense of this?" Laura lounged back against the twisted trunk of an old ash tree, supping on the last of the beers. In her eyes, Church saw a sharp wit, incisive, and dark things moved beneath it.

"I try not to make sense of anything any more. If you thought about all the things happening to us in any kind of rational way, you'd go mad. The only way is to just deal with it as it happens."

She shrugged, looked away into the dark. Since Ruth had gone for her walk, she seemed to have sloughed off some of the superficiality and mocking humour; for the first time Church felt a glimmer of the real Laura. "Sort of screws up the belief system, doesn't it?"

"Belief," Church said with surprise. "What do you mean?"

"You know, God and all that. Not much in the Bible about this."

"You believe the Bible then?" Church asked cautiously.

"I've got no time for any religious dickheads," she said brutally. In that simple sentence, Church sensed dark currents running, but she made it clear it was something she wasn't going to discuss further.

"When you get into the historical truth of that whole Bible thing, it's hard to keep any faith," he said.

"What do you mean?"

"Well, you know, how the Bible was put together by a council of the religious establishment from all the various texts lying around. Some got put in, some got left out-the Apocrypha-so it presented a simple, uncomplicated teaching guide for the masses, and a unifying cosmology. Politics. So even if the Bible is God's word, it was edited by men. How reliable does that make it?"

She shrugged. "Maybe it's just like all these legends you keep pontificating about-some truth, lots of crazy stories trying to explain it." She drained her can, carefully slipping it into the rubbish sack. "Or maybe there's nothing out there at all. The No-Point Law-the perfect justification for staying in bed every day until we finally fade out."

"That sounds a little bleak."

"You think there's a meaning to it all? To all this we're going through?" Church was surprised; she sounded almost desperate.

"I don't know. A few weeks back, I thought there was no meaning to anything. Now I'm not so sure. We're suddenly living in a world where anything can happen. These days it's impossible to be sure, full stop." He paused thoughtfully. "Maybe we just think too much."

The hoot of an owl made them both jump and they laughed nervously. Although he knew Laura irritated the hell out of Ruth, he felt remarkably comfortable with her. He enjoyed the spikiness of her character, and there was something oddly moving about the vulnerability he sensed beneath the patina of hardness; he was surprised Ruth couldn't see it too.

Laura cracked her knuckles, then seemed to become aware of the night's cold. With a shiver she moved closer to the fire, sitting crosslegged next to Church. "So tell me," she said, the faint mocking smile returning once more, "have you and Miss Goody Two-Shoes done the monkey dance yet?"

Church looked at her in bafflement at the sudden switch in conversation. "It's not like that. We're friends."

"Come on! Don't tell me you don't realise she's desperate to get into your Calvins?"

Church shook his head forcibly. "She's never shown any sign-"

"What do you expect? A big, flashing neon heart? Believe me, she's yearning to get to your loins, boy. So what are you going to do about it?"

Church shifted uncomfortably. "There are things you don't know-"

"Well, tell me then."

It was obvious she wasn't going to back down, so he reluctantly told her about Marianne. Yet as he spoke he became aware that something had changed; the rawness he felt inside whenever he discussed Marianne was gone. He felt sad, but not devastated-for the first time since her death. His hand went to the Black Rose in his pocket, gently caressing the petals, closing around the stem. Had the rose freed him from the despair, or was it because he knew some part of Marianne still existed in whatever place the dead dwelled? A sign that the new Dark Age was not all bad.

"So you haven't had sex for two years?" Laura said insensitively when he'd finished. "What's the matter? You've got a phobia about it now?"

He felt his cheeks redden, with irritation rather than embarrassment. "When you've been in love you don't automatically jump to someone new once a vacancy arises."

"Look, I'm sure she was a nice girl and all that, but she's dead. Get over it. What are you going to do? Spend the rest of your days living in the past while life passes you by? I'm sure all this moping around was touching and romantic in the first few months after she died. But let's face it, it's pretty pathetic at this stage. And not a very attractive quality for the chicks."

He snorted in exasperation.

"Ooh. Have I touched a nerve?" Her triumphant grin made him fume, but it was instantly tempered and once again he caught a glimpse of some honest emotion moving behind. "You don't want to cut yourself off too much. In these days, with everything falling apart, you need to have someone close to you, know what I mean?"

"Yes. I know." He looked her in the eye. She didn't smile, but there was a faint shift of something in her face that suggested they both recognised the subtext of their conversation.

Ruth saw it too. She was standing in the shadows amongst the trees after trying to find her way back to the camp. She had been desperate to tell them of her unsettling experience, but her emotions had diffused after hearing Church speak about her in terms that suggested little more than acquaintanceship and seeing Laura's obvious-at least to her-attempt at seduction. She felt more excluded than ever as she watched them looking deep into each other's eyes, locked in their own world. She hovered, undecided, for a moment, then hugged her arms around her and turned to walk back into the night.

She halted when a distant whirring sound broke through the stillness, and when she glanced back she noticed Church and Laura had seen her as they searched the sky for the origin of the noise.

"Sounds like helicopters," Church called to her. "Several of them."

They walked to the edge of the glade, where they had a better view. Four searchlights played across the fields and hills as the choppers circled, searching the landscape.

"What are they looking for?" Ruth asked.

"Some crook on the run," Laura said.

"You won't find many forces with the resources for four 'copters," Church noted. They watched the lights for ten minutes more until they eventually drifted away. There was no evidence, but they all felt, instinctively, that it had something to do with the growing shadow that was falling across the country.

The morning was chill and grey, with heavy clouds banked up to the horizon, and there was rain in the wind. They waited patiently for Marianne to arrive with the milk, as she had promised, but when she didn't turn up, Church rekindled the fire and cooked bacon and eggs for him and Ruth while Laura simply had some black coffee. They were keen to move on as soon as possible. Church visited the garage the moment it opened, but the mechanic had made no progress and told him to come back after lunch. The breakdowns seemed to be continuing at an unaccountable pace; cars were starting to back up on the forecourt waiting for repair and the phone in the cluttered, nicotine-smelling office rang continuously.

The rain started to fall heavily by midmorning and Church, Laura and Ruth huddled morosely in their tents, one of them continuously watching the landscape for signs of movement. The conversation was muted and at times fell to silence as they struggled with their own thoughts. Church feared the worst when he returned to the garage, but the Nissan was waiting for him. The mechanic was apologetic; all the diagnostic tests on his equipment had found nothing wrong; it had started mysteriously an hour earlier as if it had suddenly decided the time was right. Church drove quickly back to the campsite where Laura had organised a methodical clean-up, insisting nothing was left behind which would damage the environment.

As they loaded their tents and bags into the boot, they were disturbed by the sound of crying caught on the wind, fearful and despairing, lost then as the gusts twisted among the trees. Soon after they caught sight of a red-cheeked man, his face distorted by grief, running wildly along the road nearby. Church's first thought was to ignore the distraught passer-by, but some instinct had him pounding through the trees to hurdle a fence and intercept the sobbing man further along the road.

"What's wrong?" Church asked, catching at his arm.

The man, who was in his late forties, grey hair plastered over his balding head by the rain, was startled by Church's intervention and for a second he seemed to be in such a state of shock he didn't know where he was. Then he said, "My daughter-" before he was wracked by a juddering sob that crumpled his body. He came to his senses and roughly grabbed Church's shoulders. "Have you got a car? I need a car!" Church nodded and hurriedly led him to where the Nissan was parked. "My daughter's sick. Dying. Bloody car won't start. Only had it serviced the other week. Too far for an ambulance to get here and back to Bristol-" Another sob engulfed him.

Ruth and Laura wanted to know what was wrong, but the man made it plain there was no time to talk. They piled in the back and Church followed the man's directions up a long, winding lane to a neatly tended farmhouse. He scrambled out of the car and ran inside and before Church could follow he was out again carrying a young girl, with his hysterical wife close behind. It was Marianne.

Suddenly all her questions about death made sense. For nearly three years she had been living with a blood clot in her brain after a fall at the farm. It was in a position which made it too dangerous to operate, unless it moved or spread to become life-threatening, which, the doctors had warned her parents, it could at any time, without warning. When that happened, there was so little to lose that an operation became feasible. And the clot had chosen that day to strike her down.

"Her mother found her out cold on the kitchen floor with a bottle of milk smashed beside her," her father said.

The one she'd been on her way to bring to us, Church thought.

As her father recounted the details, her upbeat, optimistic character took on a sharp poignancy; Church marvelled at how she had managed to remain so unspoilt while living permanently in the shadow of death. And it made his own doubts and fears seem so insignificant; he felt weak and pathetic in comparison.

The drive to Bristol passed in a flash of recklessly taken corners and jumped red lights. Each time Church glanced at Marianne in the rearview mirror, his heart rattled and his stomach knotted. Her face was impossibly pale. She was still out cold and he couldn't tell if she was suffering. He couldn't believe how acutely he felt for someone he barely knew; perhaps it was just the name creating echoes in his subconscious-maybe this Marianne he could save! — but whatever it was, she had touched him on some deep level. More than anything else in the world, he didn't want this Marianne to die.

Laura warned the hospital of their approach with the last gasp of life in her mobile phone and when they arrived at Frenchay the staff were waiting for her. As Marianne was rushed on a trolley up to the operating theatre, the farmer paused briefly to offer thanks for their help before chasing after his daughter.

"Poor girl. I hope there's something they can do," Ruth said softly. Seeing the concern on Church's face, she touched his arm gently and said, "At least we were around to get her here quickly."

After occasional bouts of drizzle, the gathering storm clouds finally broke in a downpour that hammered against the reception doors. Bursts of lightning crackled overhead. "We should be hitting the road," Laura said as she watched the fading light.

"I can't go until I know how she's going to be." Church silenced Laura's protests with a shake of the head before wandering slowly to the lift doors through which Marianne had disappeared.

Like most hospitals, the layout of Frenchay was labyrinthine. Church thought he was following the numerous signs, but he must have missed one at some point, for he found himself in a quiet ward with no sign of any operating theatres. Looking for directions, he stepped inside. Unlike the rest of the hospital, it was so still his footsteps on the creaking, sticky linoleum sounded like he was wearing hobnailed boots. There was the unmistakable smell of antiseptic that he always associated with sickness. Small rooms lay on either side of the corridor at the start, but further on he could see double doors through which he could just glimpse a large, open ward filled with beds. The room to his right had a big viewing window like a storefront. Inside, a sickly boy lay on his bed staring blankly at a TV set which featured US cartoons that were cut so fast it made Church feel nauseous. Numerous tubes snaked from his arms and his nose and there was a bank of monitors to each side of his bed. From the intricate locking system and the red light above the door, Church guessed it was some kind of isolation unit.

The door on the room to his left was slightly ajar and as he approached it Church could hear voices whispering a mantra over and over again. Through the glass panel he could just see a middle-aged woman in the bed, her arms so thin they looked like sticks. Her eyes were closed and she had on a black wig. A man with grey hair and a face lined by grief sat on one side of her, his hand resting gently on her forearm; his fingers trembled intermittently. On the other side a younger man, in his twenties, his face flushed from crying, held her hand loosely. They were both repeating the words "I love you" in quiet, strained voices.

"Are you a relative?" The voice made him start. A black nurse, short and dumpy with a pleasant face, was at his side.

"No. I'm sorry, I didn't mean to intrude. I just …" His eyes returned unbidden to the painful tableau. "What's wrong with her?"

The nurse smiled, but she wasn't going to give much away. "She hasn't got long. She's been in a coma for the last day. But she can still hear, we think, so they're just saying what they feel, trying to show her she's loved."

Before the end, Church thought. He looked on to the double doors where he could now see people of all ages lying in the beds. "Them too?"

"Leukaemia mainly. Some others. The boy in the room behind's just had a bone marrow transplant. We need to keep him isolated because he's susceptible to infection."

"Looks like some people's worlds are ending ahead of schedule." Laura had walked up unseen and had been watching the two men whispering to their wife and mother. Church rounded on her to berate her for her callousness until he saw her eyes were brimming with tears.

The nurse glanced at them both, then said questioningly. "Is there someone-?"

"No," Church apologised. "A friend's just been rushed into an operating theatre. I got lost."

"Easily done," she smiled. "This place is a rabbit warren. The next floor up."

"Where's Ruth?" Church asked as he led the way up the stairs.

"In reception, sulking."

Church guessed that wasn't the case, but said nothing. When they reached the next floor, he held open the door and said, "I never thought about the repercussions."

"What do you mean?"

"How many people rely on technology. That boy in the isolation unit, all those monitors and electronically regulated drips-" He broke off when he saw Marianne's father sitting on a chair with his head in his hands. "How is she?" Church asked cautiously.

"They're just prepping her now. The op should take about five hours, they reckon. They think we got here in time. If all goes well-" He swallowed, grasped Church's hand again. "Thank God you were there." Church sat next to him, listening to the clinical sounds of the hospital, the rat-chat of swing doors, the measured step of soles on lino, the clink of trolleys, the whir of lifts. "I've spent years preparing myself for this moment and it hasn't done one bloody bit of good," the farmer continued. "I should've just pretended she wasn't ill and dealt with this when it happened." He added bleakly, "I hope I haven't wasted the time I've had with her."

"No point thinking about the past," Church said calmly but forcefully.

"Do you believe in God?" The farmer's hands were shaking. He caught his wrist, then buried his hands in the folds of his jacket.

"I'd like to," Church replied guiltily.

"And so would I. I used to pray, when we first found out about Marianne. I stopped after a while. I couldn't really see the good of it, you know? It didn't seem like the kind of thing grown-ups should be doing. The wife kept at it, though. Down the church every Sunday. I should have carried on. That was me being selfish." Church politely disagreed, but the farmer waved him quiet. "She's the only one we've got. We never seemed to get round to having any more, but she got lots more love because of it. You couldn't have wanted for a better child. Never been any trouble. Always done her schoolwork, passed her exams. Never been lippy to me or the wife. Helped out around the farm, even when I didn't want her to because she was going through one of her bad periods. She's a bit of a dreamer, I suppose. Used to read books all the time. Not like me. I like to be out there, bloody well doing stuff with my hands. But Marianne, she liked to think." He paused reflectively. "I always hoped she'd take over the farm one day."

"She still might."

The farmer nodded, tight-lipped, refusing to tempt fate. For a long period they sat in silence, listening to their thoughts. Laura seemed to grow uncomfortable at the inactivity and after a while muttered something about going off to find the canteen.

Through the windows at the end of the corridor Church watched the night draw in, wrapping itself around the storm that still buffeted the building. Flashes of lightning flared briefly like the distant fires in the void he had witnessed through the windows of the Watchtower.

When four hours had elapsed, a nurse emerged from the theatre, her expression closed. The farmer caught her arm as she passed and pleaded for some information.

"I can't really say. Mr. Persaud will be out as soon as he knows the situation," she began, but looking at his face, she relented a little. "It looks like it's going well," she said with a comforting smile. "Barring anything unforeseen-"

As if her comment had been heard by the gods, in that instant all the lights went out. The farmer cried out in shock as the darkness swallowed them. "Just a power cut," the nurse said reassuringly, before muttering, "Bloody storm." The lack of illumination through the window suggested it had hit most of the city. "Don't worry. We're well prepared for things like this," she continued. "We've got an emergency generator that will kick in any second."

Like statues, they waited in the claustrophobic dark, their heavy breath kept tight in their lungs.

"Any moment now," the nurse repeated. There was an edge in her voice that hadn't been there before.

It was as if the entire hospital had been held in stasis, but then the dam broke and the cries started far off, rippling towards them in a wave of despair and anxiety. Church heard the rattle of the nurse's feet as she ran from their side and then the bang of the swing door as she disappeared back towards the operating theatre. The cry that squeezed out from the farmer's throat was filled with such devastation that Church felt tears sting his eyes. A man calling out, "They're dying! They're dying!" reverberated up the stairwell, followed by the jarring punch of a woman screaming, "Do something!"

The movement came out of nowhere; people rushing by in the dark, what could have been a hair's breadth away, or several feet. Church tried to remember where the wall was for safety, but before he could move someone clipped him hard and he slammed against it with such force he lost consciousness.

When he recovered, the chaos had reached a crescendo. He didn't know how long he had been out, but screams and shouts punctuated the gloom, along with the sound of running feet like machine-gun fire. Church called out for the farmer, but there was no reply. He felt a sudden wave of despair when he realised there was no way the surgeons would be able to finish the operation; Marianne would be dying, if she wasn't already dead.

Before he could dwell on it, someone came hurrying along the corridor and knocked him over again.

The intense confusion and claustrophobia left his thoughts in a whirl, but he know he ought to get to the ground floor as soon as possible. He found the stairwell easily enough by scrambling along the wall. Negotiating the descent was trickier; he clung to the railing and felt for each step like a blind man.

As he reached the next floor, a burst of the purest white light suddenly flared through the glass panel in the door, so bright it lit the entire stairwell. It faded just as quickly, leaving flashes of purple dancing across his retinas. It had been far too dazzling for a torch, and without electricity nothing else could have explained the quality or the intensity of the illumination. He fumbled for the door handle and stepped out into the hall.

Oddly, the screams and cries on that ward had died away, leaving an incongruous atmosphere of tranquillity. The stillness was broken a second or two later by the sound of a man crying, only the sobbing didn't seem despairing. Then there was laughter, tinged with an obvious note of disbelief, and someone whispering, "Thank God!" over and over again.

Another flash of the burning white light erupted through the double doors that led to the wider ward and in its glare Church caught a glimpse of a scene he would never forget. The woman the nurse had told him was in a coma and dying of leukaemia stood in the doorway of her room, tubes trailing from her arms and nose like decorations. She was staring at her hands in incomprehension, a smile of amazement drawn across her face. Her husband and son had their arms around her, burying their faces into her neck, their bodies racked with sobs of joy. And then the darkness returned again.

Desperate to understand, Church propelled himself through the double doors. As he crossed the threshold into the larger ward the power came back on. The patients, many of whom had seemed close to death, were sitting up in their beds, examining themselves with new eyes, smiling, chatting to those around them. Some were clambering out, testing legs that hadn't walked with strength for weeks, pulling out chemotherapy drips with distaste.

One tall man, his skin sun-browned but his body wasted by the illness, smiled broadly at Church. "What ho! I feel like I could run a marathon!" He pulled back the sheets to reveal a long scar on his lower belly. "Cancer. They said the op hadn't worked." He held out his hands in joyous disbelief.

Moving through the wave of uplifting emotion, Church looked for some clue to what had happened. Then, when he reached the far wall, he noticed a small figure slumped on the floor like a bundle of dirty clothes. With shock, he realised it was Marianne. Before he had even knelt at her side, he could tell she was dead; she was covered in blood which had poured from the open incision on her shaved head. The wound seemed to have partly sealed itself-there was no evidence of stitching-but it was still impossible to believe she could have made it even a few feet from the operating table. Inexplicably, there was faint charring of the skin around her eyes so that it appeared she was wearing a black mask; despite that, her pale face was composed.

Church took her hand, marvelling at the softness of her skin as stinging tears sprang to his eyes.

"She did it." A short, dumpy man with chemo-baldness stood behind him. "At first I thought she was a ghost walking through the ward. After the lights went, I thought it was the end-I was a bit delirious, I think. And then there she was." He raised his hands in awe. "Suddenly she burned with the brightest white light. It was the most amazing thing. I thought, `She's an angel come for me.' And when the light fell on me I suddenly felt better." The tears were streaming down his cheeks at the memory. "She carried on through the ward and did it again. She made everybody better. And then she just fell down here like she'd burned herself out."

Church brushed a stray hair from her forehead, touched her cheek with his fingertips, as if the contact would in some way impart an awareness of what had truly happened. He took out the locket she had lent him-only the previous day-and considered fastening it around her neck; let Princess Diana guide her into the light. But then he hesitated, before slipping it back into his pocket. Even though their meeting had been brief, Marianne had been inspirational to him and he wanted something to remind him of her. Perhaps the new saint for the new age really would do him good too. All he could think was that in that terrible, awesome new world, belief and faith really could move mountains. Magic was alive, and it wasn't just the providence of the dark side; good people could make a difference too, lighting a beacon that would shine out in the coming night.