Darkest hour

Chapter Three

The night dragged on interminably. They sat in a state of near-paralysis, fearing the worst, afraid to discuss what had happened, unable to decide what they should do next. The finger remained on the small table, the blood rapidly congealing. Their gaze kept returning to it, as if its unchanging pointing were a Poe-esque accusation.

Laura sat apart, staring out of the window blankly. Church found it impossible to read her; the impassive expression could have been hiding a sense of deep betrayal, or something he didn't want to consider, but which was nonetheless licking at the back of his mind. He hated himself for thinking it, though when he looked around he could tell the others felt the same. The thing he had dreaded had come to pass: a cancerous suspicion was eating away at them all.

Beyond that he found it almost impossible to cope with the raw emotion searing his heart. At times, if he allowed himself to inspect it too closely, it reminded him of those terrible feelings that had consumed him after Marianne had died, and that surprised him; had he grown so close to Ruth so quickly? So much had changed over the past few weeks, bonds materialising on a spiritual level, others being forged through hardship: he hadn't even begun to get a handle on what was happening inside him.

As the first rays of dawn licked the rooftops across the street, the intermittent, stuttering conversation told him what he feared: that the others were looking to him to make a decision. Before Beltane, he would have wanted to tell them he wasn't up to it, he didn't have the resilience or tenacity of leadership within him. But his failure had made him face his responsibilities, and he would take the difficult decisions however much they might corrupt his essential character and beliefs. That, he told himself, is what it's all about. He had to make sacrifices for the greater good. He just hoped the sacrifices wouldn't be so great that there would be nothing left of him by the end of it.

"We need to move on to Edinburgh rapidly," he said eventually.

"We are going to look for Ruth, right?" Veitch asked.

"Of course."

Veitch eyed him suspiciously. "What would you have done if she'd been taken in the opposite direction?"

Church didn't answer.

None of them could decide how they should dispose of the finger so they wrapped it in a handkerchief and buried it in the depths of Church's bag. They packed quickly and checked out, despite the obvious concern of the hotel manager who wondered why they were leaving so early, without breakfast and one travelling companion short.

The last building of the town was barely behind them when a police car came screaming by, lights flashing, forcing them to pull over. The driver was a man in his mid-forties with greying hair and the wearied expression of someone who had been pushed to the limit, while his eyes suggested he'd been dragged out of bed to catch them. Veitch wound down the driver's window as he approached.

"You're going to have to accompany me back into town, sir." His eyes were piercing, but Veitch didn't flinch from the stare.

"No can do, mate. We've got business down south."

"I don't want to have to ask you again, lad. Since the martial law was brought in, I've been run ragged. They don't think it's the rural areas that need the help, so we have to fend for ourselves. So don't push me around because I'll push back harder if it makes my life easier."

As Veitch bristled, Church hastily leaned across him. "What's the problem, officer? We were driving okay-"

"You know what the problem is." There was a snap of irritation in his voice. "A certain matter of blood on the carpet."

"Oh, that. A bit of horseplay that got out of control. If the manager wants us to pay for cleaning-"

"Get out of the van. Now." The policeman's body grew rigid with tension.

Shavi tugged at Church's jacket from the back. "He thinks we killed Ruth," he whispered, too low for the policeman to hear. There was something in his voice that suggested he wasn't simply reading the policeman's mannerisms.

Everything seemed to hang for a second. Church saw Veitch's eyes narrow, his forearm muscles tense, and an instant later he had snapped on the ignition and popped the clutch. The van roared away, leaving the policeman yelling furiously behind them. Veitch drove wildly until the police car was out of sight, then he slammed on the brakes and reversed up a rough foresters' track which wound through ranks of pine. When the trees obscured the road he killed the engine.

"Big macho idiot," Laura said coldly from the back. "Now we'll be on everyone's most wanted list. We won't be able to travel anywhere."

Veitch glared at her. "You haven't got any right to talk. We wouldn't be here if not for-"

"Leave it out," Church ordered.

Veitch grew sullen. "The moment he got a look at my record we wouldn't stand a chance of getting out of the area for days," he continued. "We can't afford to waste that time."

"You did the right thing, Ryan." Church put his head back and closed his eyes wearily. "If things are as bad as they seem… if things are going to get as bad as we expect… the cops will have too much on their plate to worry about us. It might make things a little more difficult, but if they're not putting a dragnet out, I reckon we'll be okay."

"You better be right," Laura said gloomily.

Church recalled Shavi's apparent knowledge of the policeman's thoughts and turned to him. "You can read minds now?"

Shavi shrugged. "It was empathic."

"But you can get into heads, you've shown us that." Shavi wouldn't meet Church's gaze.

"What are you getting at?" Laura asked.

"I think Shavi should try peeling back the layers of your memory so we can find out what you really did see last night."

Even Laura's sunglasses couldn't mask her concern. "Not in my head."

"What have you got to hide?" Veitch asked coldly.

Laura's face froze.

"Ruth and I went through something similar when all this mess started." Church tried to be as reassuring as he could, for Shavi's sake as much as Laura's. "It wasn't so bad. And it really helped us to get all those trapped thoughts out in the open."

Laura moved her head slightly and Church guessed that behind her sunglasses she was looking at Veitch, weighing up his words and her options; his barely veiled accusations made it impossible for her to back out.

"Okay, Mister Shaman. You get to venture where no man has been before." Her voice was emotionless.

Church clapped a hand on Shavi's shoulder. "It'll be okay."

Shavi smiled at him tightly.

They locked up the van and ventured into the pines until they found a spot where the sun broke through the canopy of vegetation, casting a circle of light. Laura and Shavi sat cross-legged in the centre, facing each other, while Church, Veitch and Tom leaned on tree trunks and watched quietly. Shavi had already eaten some of Tom's hash to attune his mood. He spent a few moments whispering gently to Laura; after a while her eyes were half-lidded, her movements lazy.

The atmosphere changed perceptibly the moment Shavi leaned forward to take Laura's hands; the birdsong died as if a switch had been thrown, even the breeze seemed to drop. There was a stillness like glass over everything.

When Shavi spoke, the world held its breath. "We are going back to last night, Laura. To the hotel, after the dance. You and Ruth had gone to bed early."

"I wasn't in the mood. I'd had enough of Miss Prissy. And too many people were looking at my scars."

"You both went into your rooms. And went to sleep?"

"I lay down on the top of the bed. I was tired, the booze was knocking me out." Her voice was soporific. "I don't know how long I was asleep. Couldn't have been long. I heard a noise-"

"What was it?"

"I can't remember."

"Try."

She thought for a moment. "It was Ruth. She cried out."

"What did you do then? Tell me, step by step."

"I got up. I felt like someone had beaten me around the head with a baseball bat. I walked to the door… Actually, it was more of a stagger. I thought, `I'm glad Church isn't here to see this. I'd never live it down.' There was another noise. Sounded like a lamp going over. I thought I could hear voices through the wall. I stepped out on to the landing…" Her breath caught suddenly in her throat.

"What was it?"

Tears sprang to her eyes and trickled down her cheeks. "I…" She shook her head, screwed her eyes up as if that would prevent the images forming.

Shavi's reassuring voice grew so low the others could barely hear it. "Concentrate, Laura. Focus on the interloper."

"It was…" A shiver ran through her. "No, no. I see a large wolf. It reaches right up to the ceiling. Bigger. Passing through. It's growing to fill the whole hotel. It has sickly yellow eyes and it turns them on me. And it smiles… it smiles like a man."

She started to hyperventilate. Shavi let go of her hands and put his arms around her shoulders, gently pulling her towards him until she was resting against his chest, where her breathing gradually subsided.

"A giant wolf? She's making it up," Veitch hissed.

They moved into the circle of light and squatted down, waiting for Laura to recover. She wouldn't meet any of their eyes. "That's what you get delving around in the depths of my mind. I told you I'd done too many drugs."

"What do you think? A shapeshifter?" Shavi seemed to have gained renewed confidence from the success of the exercise; the faint, enigmatic smile Church remembered from the first time they met had returned to his face.

"I don't think so." Tom's expression was troubled. "The wolf could be representational of whatever she saw. She might be converting her memory into symbols to help her deal with it."

Church remembered his own experience of regression therapy to try to unlock the memories of the terrible sight beneath Albert Bridge, images so horrible his mind had locked them away. Although what eventually surfaced had proved to be the truth, the therapist had talked about false screen memories designed to protect the mind's integrity from something too awful to bear.

"This is doing my head in," Veitch said. "It's like you can't believe anything you see or remember or think!"

"That's how it always was," Tom replied curtly.

"So how do we break through the symbolism to get to what Laura really saw?" Church asked.

Shavi rubbed his chin uncomfortably. "I would not like to try again so soon after this attempt. I think Laura… both of us… need time to recover. The mind is too sensitive."

"Yeah, and it's the only one I've got." With an expression of faint distaste, Laura rubbed her hands together as if wiping away the stain of the memory.

"At least we know Laura saw something… someone," Shavi continued.

"So do you believe me now, musclehead?" With her sunglasses on, Church couldn't tell if she was talking to him or Veitch.

"I still think she could be making it up," Witch said suspiciously. "None of you know what's going on here, what her mind can do, what's real and what's not. She might have dreamed it up this way. Some kind of self-hypnosis, I don't know." He turned to Laura. "You didn't say anything about how you got the blood on you."

"I remember that now. Whatever I saw turned my head upside down. I wandered into Ruth's room like some kind of mental patient and I just, sort of, touched the blood because I couldn't believe what I was seeing."

"Fits together perfectly, don't it?" Veitch sneered.

As Laura bristled Church jumped in to prevent further confrontation. "We can't stay here any longer with that cop driving around." He glanced among the trees. "Who knows what's in these woods anyway? We need to get to Edinburgh."

"That cop will at least have put out the van's description and number," Laura said. "Face it, we're not going to get far in that."

"Then we dump it, find another form of transport," Church said. "Time to use our initiative."

Before they left, they took Ruth's finger and buried it in the leaf mould. It made them sick to leave it there, but there was nothing else for it. Then they took the A84 to Stirling where they found a dealer who took the van off their hands for two hundred pounds. It was an effort to lug their bags, camping equipment and remaining provisions to the station, but they didn't have long to wait to pick up a train to Edinburgh Waverley. There were only two carriages but apart from a trio of people at the far end of their carriage, the train was empty.

"I thought they would have shut the trains down by now," Church said to the conductor as they boarded.

"Make the most of it," he replied gruffly. "The last service is tonight. Indefinite suspension of the entire network." He shrugged. "I still get kept on at full pay, at least for the moment. Not many people travelling anyways."

They settled into their seats, lulled by the sun-heated, dusty interior, and once the train gently rocked out of the station they found themselves drifting off after their night without sleep. The journey to Edinburgh would be under an hour, but they had barely got out into open countryside when they were disturbed by the loud voices of two of their fellow travellers. It appeared to be a father and daughter conversing in a heated manner. His greying hair was slicked back in a manner popular during the war, and he had on an old-fashioned suit that seemed brand-new. A cracked briefcase was tucked under one arm. The daughter, who was in her early thirties, wore clothes that were smart, if unstylish. She was quite plain, with a complexion tempered by an outdoor life.

Drifting in and out of half-sleep, Church made out they had a farm somewhere outside Stirling which was experiencing financial problems and they were heading into Edinburgh to attempt to secure some kind of grant. But there was an edgy undercurrent to their talk which suggested some other issue was concerning them and they couldn't agree about how to deal with it.

Veitch shifted irritably in his seat and plumped up his jacket as a pillow. "Just shut up," he said under his breath as their voices rose again.

They all managed to get some sleep for the next ten minutes, but then they were jolted sharply awake by the farmer snarling, "There's no bloody fairies in the fields! No bloody God either! It's not about luck! It's about those bastards in the Government, and in Europe!"

Church glanced around the edge of the seat ahead. The woman was pink with embarrassment at her father's outburst and trying to calm him with frantic hand movements. But there was something else concerning her too.

"What are you talking about, girl? Words can't hurt anyone! Who's listening?" The farmer's face was flushed with anger. "This is what's important: the farm's going broke and we'll all be in the poorhouse by the end of summer if something's not done!"

His rage was born of desperation and tension bottled up for too long, and he probably would have carried on for several more minutes if the woman hadn't suddenly jumped to her feet and marched to the toilet.

The strained atmosphere ebbed over the next few minutes as Church drifted again. In that dreamy state, he found himself faced with an image of Ruth pleading with him for help in a scene disturbingly reminiscent of when the spirit of Marianne had begged him to avenge her death. His anxiety knotted: so much pressure being heaped on his shoulders, so much expectation he was afraid he couldn't live up to. And then he looked into Ruth's face and all the emotions he had tried to repress came rushing to the surface. He had tried to pretend she hadn't suffered, wasn't dead, but-

A piercing scream echoed through the carriage. All five of them jumped to their feet as one, ready for any threat, hearts pounding, bodies poised for fight or flight. The woman had returned from the toilets and was standing opposite her father, who had his back to them; her face was frozen in an expression of extreme shock.

Shavi was the first to her, grabbing her shoulders to calm her. She was shaking her head from side-to-side, oblivious to him, her eyes fixed so firmly on her father Shavi was forced to turn to follow her gaze. The old man was no longer there; or rather, his clothes and his briefcase were there, but his body had been replaced by straw; it tufted from the sleeves, dropped from the trouser legs to fill the shoes, and sprouted from his collar into a hideous parody of a human head, like an enormous corn dolly.

"Dad!" the woman croaked.

Veitch reached out to prod the shoulder curiously and the mannequin crumpled into a pile of clothes and a heap of straw. This set the woman off in another bout of screaming.

"What happened?" Laura asked with a horrible fascination.

While Shavi led the woman to the other end of the carriage where he attempted to calm her, Tom knelt down to examine the remains. "You heard the things he was saying," he said.

"I don't get it," Laura replied. "So he was a crotchety old git like you-"

"In the old days, the people who worked the land were terrified of saying anything which might offend the fairies, the nature spirits, whatever," Tom snapped. "They even had a host of euphemisms like the Little Folk or the Fair Folk in case the powers took offence at their name."

"And now they're back…" Veitch began without continuing.

"They always were a prideful race," Tom said. "They demanded respect from all those they considered as lesser."

"But all he said was…" Laura caught herself before she repeated the farmer's words. She glanced back at the sobbing daughter. "Poor bitch. At least the old man will be able to keep the crows off the fields."

"Oh, stop it!" Church said sharply. He looked at the broken expression on the daughter's face and read her future in an instant; he felt a deep pang of pity.

"It simply shows the contempt in which they hold us," Tom noted. "We need to be kept in our place."

Veitch looked round suddenly. "Wasn't there someone else in here?"

"That's right. There were three other passengers." Church looked to the seats where the third traveller had been. "I don't remember him getting up. No one got off."

"That might have been one of them." Tom hurried to the adjoining door to peer into the next carriage. It was empty. "Now they are back, I presume they will be moving among us, seeing how things have changed."

As if in answer to his words they heard a sudden scrabbling on the roof of the carriage, then a sound like laughter and footsteps disappearing to the far end. Veitch ran after it and pressed his face up close to the window in an attempt to peer behind, but all he saw was a large, oddly shaped shadow cast on the cutting. It separated from the train, rose up and, a second later, was gone.

Soon after, the train trundled slowly through the regimented green lawns and blooming flowers of Princes Street Gardens into Waverley Station, the volcanic ridge topped by the imposing stone bulk of Edinburgh Castle rising high above them. The daughter was bordering on hysteria by the time Shavi led her out on to the platform in search of a guard, who promptly took her off to the medical centre for treatment. There were few travellers around for such a large station, but that only made the small pockets of police more obvious; at the furthest reaches of the platforms where they would be unobtrusive to the majority of travellers, armed troops patrolled.

"This is creepy," Laura hissed. "It's like Istanbul or something."

Paranoia crept over them when some of the police started looking intently in their direction, and they hastily collected up their bags and moved off. "Do you think that bastard in Callander radioed through our descriptions?" Veitch said under his breath.

"Just another worry to add to the list," Church replied darkly.

They argued briefly about conserving their cash-a policy favoured by Church and Shavi-but eventually agreed credit cards would probably be useless within a short time and so opted to live in style while they stayed in the city. It was Laura who won the argument when she said, "Might as well make the most of it. We may not get the chance again."

For accommodation, they selected the Balmoral, an opulent Edwardian pile that loomed over Waverley Station at the eastern end of the bustling main drag of Princes Street. They all laughed at the comically shocked expression on Veitch's face when he first walked into the palatial marble reception, but although he slipped to the back, where he furtively eyed the smartly uniformed staff as if they were about to throw him out, he was soon making the most of the luxurious surroundings when they were shown to their rooms with views of the castle and the Old Town.

Despite all that was happening, at first glance the city seemed virtually unaffected; cars still chugged bumper-to-bumper through the centre, people took their lunch in the sun in Princes Street Gardens and the shops and bars of the New Town seemed to be doing a brisk trade.

But as they took a stroll towards the Old Town, they could see it was different. It was almost as if the people had taken a conscious decision to avoid its long shadows and gloomy stone buildings, driven out by an oppressive sense of old times. The pubs, restaurants and shops still remained open, but the crowds that moved among them were thin; they always kept to the sunny side of the street, expressions furtive, shoulders bowed by invisible weights.

It was Shavi who characterised it the best as he stood on the Esplanade and looked from the jumbled rooftops of the Old Town to the clean lines and Georgian crescents of the new: it was a city split in two, Jekyll and Hyde, light and dark, night and day.

"Another sign of the duality that seems to be infusing everything in this new age of metaphor and symbolism." The wind whipped Shavi's long hair around his face as he scanned the area.

Laura pressed her sunglasses up the bridge of her nose. "At least we know which side we'll be drinking in tonight."

Tom shook his head. "Look at the New Town-it hasn't been affected yet. This seems to be the centre of change. If we want to learn anything, we have to come here."

Laura scowled at him. "You always know how to bring things down, you old git."

They ate dinner in the hotel's elegant dining room at a table far from the few other residents. But despite the high quality of the food, they only picked at their meal; after Ruth's disappearance, an air of hopelessness had started to congeal around them, growing stronger with each passing hour.

It was Veitch who finally gave voice to the questions that troubled them all. "What's the plan? Try to find Ruth or work out why we're supposed to be here?"

All eyes turned to Church, but he kept his gaze fixed on the remnants of his venison. "We can't waste time looking for Ruth." His words sounded harsher than he intended, but it was impossible to soften them. "We don't know if she's still alive. And if she is, we can't even be sure she's here in the city. A hunch about the direction of the city just isn't enough."

"What are you saying? That we just forget about her?" Veitch's face grew colder.

"Of course I don't want to forget about her, but we've only got a few short weeks to prevent the Fomorii bringing Balor back and that time will go quickly, believe me. Christ, we've got no idea how we're going to start. The way I see it, it's our responsibility. We're the only people who might stand a chance of succeeding, and a slim one at that. If we get distracted, the whole of the world goes to hell. Could you live with that?"

"You know what? Right now I don't really care about that." For a second Veitch looked like he was going to cry.

"It's heartless, but those are the kind of choices we're being forced to make." Church kept his face impassive because he knew if he allowed vent to even the slightest fraction of the emotion he was feeling, he wouldn't be able to maintain the strength they expected of him. Ever since Ruth had disappeared he'd been tearing himself apart about what they should do, but on cold reflection he knew where his responsibilities lay, whatever that did to him, however much the others grew to hate him for it.

"So that's it? She's gone? Just like that?" Veitch looked around the others for support. They said nothing, but the conflicting emotions struggled just behind their features. Veitch shook his head slowly. "Fuck it."

"Ryan-" Church began.

"What is it? She means nothing-"

"Of course she doesn't mean nothing." The steel in Church's voice brought Veitch up sharp. "And I don't believe this is the end of it. Whatever got to her isn't going to leave us alone. And when he or it or whatever it is comes back we're going to find out what happened to her before we gut the bastard."

The unrestrained venom took the others aback. Laura pushed the vegetables around her plate with her fork while Tom tapped out a beat with his spoon.

Shavi leaned forward and broke the silence diplomatically. "Then what is our next step?"

Tom answered. "The guidance offered to us specifically mentioned the Well of Fire. Historically it was the most abundant and powerful source of the earth energy. Some say it even provides a direct channel with the source of the energy, whatever or wherever that might be. But with the gradual break between land and people it has lain dormant for a long time."

Church nodded. "We're supposed to be waking the sleeping king… arousing the wounded land… whichever metaphor you want. This fits the pattern. How do we get to it?"

Tom shrugged. "The entrance lies somewhere on Arthur's Seat, that big pile of rock at the bottom of the Royal Mile, in the middle of Holyrood Park-"

"But the guidebook says the name has nothing to do with Arthur," Church interjected. "Not like all the other places where the blue fire is strong. Historians think it's just a corruption of Archer's Seat."

"Which shows how much they know." Tom removed his spectacles and polished them with the tablecloth.

"Then we head up there." Church glanced through the window at the late afternoon sun. "Tomorrow, now. And tonight-"

"Tonight," Tom continued, "we visit the Old Town."

The warm evening was filled with the oddly comforting aromas of the modern age: heated traffic fumes, food cooking in restaurants downwind, burnt iron and hot grease rising from the train tracks that cut through the city. Girls in skimpy summer clothes and young men in T-shirts and jeans lounged in the late sunlight outside the Royal Scottish Academy on the Mound. There was an air of spring optimism that made it almost impossible to believe that anything had changed.

But as the companions wound their way up Ramsay Lane into the Old Town, the shadows grew longer and an unseasonal chill hung in the air despite the heat of the day. The area centred on the Royal Mile was the oldest part of the city. In the Middle Ages it had been hemmed in by city walls, forcing the housing to be built higher and higher; they were crammed too close together, blocking out the sky, so that a claustrophobic anxiety seemed to gather among them. Tom, who had obviously been in the city before, led them down Lawnmarket to one of the numerous, shadowy closes that lined the Royal Mile. At the end was an eighteenth-century courtyard and the jolly judge pub. They decided it was as good a place as any to discuss their plans.

It was small and cellar-like, with a low, beamed ceiling painted with flowers and fruit. A fire glowed nicely in the grate and the comfortable atmosphere was complemented by the hubbub of conversation coming from numerous drinkers gathered at the tables or leaning on the bar.

As they bought their drinks, Veitch said, "It doesn't seem right sitting here getting pissed."

"We could be roaming the streets like some moron tourists." Laura took a gulp of her vodka as if she hadn't drunk for weeks.

"She's right," Tom said as he led them over to the only free table. "Inns are still the centres of community, even as they were in my day. Sooner or later all information passes through them. We simply have to keep our ears and eyes open."

"That's good," Church said, recalling all the pubs he'd passed through with Ruth, "because I don't feel much like drinking."

He changed his mind quickly. There was a desperation to all their drinking, as if they wanted to forget, or pretend the blight that was infecting reality was not really happening. The rounds came quickly, their mood lifted as they settled into the homely ambience of the pub. And once again Tom was proven right. They overheard snippets of conversation which added to their knowledge of the situation in the city, and Laura and Shavi engaged in brief chats with people they met on their way to the bar or the toilet.

As they had found elsewhere, after the announcement of martial law there had been an initial flurry of panic, but when no hard evidence of anything presented itself, people slipped back into old routines, cynically blaming the Government for some kind of cover-up or coming up with numerous wild hypotheses in the manner of old-fashioned campfire storytellers. It quickly became apparent to everyone that martial law wasn't enforced anyway; the police and armed forces appeared to have more important things on their minds, so everyone quietly ignored it. That resilience gave Church some encouragement, but he wondered how they would fare once the true situation become known.

Certainly everyone seemed to accept that some kind of change had come over the Old Town, although this was a topic few were prepared to discuss. When Church raised the matter, conversations were quickly changed or eyes averted. All that could be discerned was that the ancient part of the city had somehow become more dangerous and that after the pub closed the drinkers would "hurry home to wifey." But Church could tell from their faces that some of them had seen or experienced things which they couldn't bring themselves to discuss with their fellows.

Sometime after 10:30 p.m. another technology failure took out all the lights, but the drinkers dealt with it as they did any of the other minor changes which had come into their lives. A loud cheer went up, a few shouted comments about raiding the pumps while the landlord couldn't see, and then lots of laughter. The blazing fire provided enough light while the bar staff scrambled round for candles which they quickly stuffed into empty wine bottles and placed on every table and the bar.

"Nice ambience."

Church started at the voice which came from the previously empty seat beside him. A large-boned man carrying a little too much weight inside an expensive, but tie-less, suit was smiling knowingly, a pint of bitter half-raised to his mouth. His hair was collar-length and he had a badly trimmed beard, but the heaviness of his jowls took away any of the rakishness he was attempting. Church placed him in his early to mid-thirties and from the perfectly formed English vowels of his public school accent it was obvious he wasn't a local.

"Pleasant enough," Church replied noncommittally.

"And how are you finding this new world you're in? A little destabilising, I would think." He smiled slyly.

Church eyed him suspiciously. There was an awareness about the stranger that instantly set him apart. "Who are you?"

"A cop," Veitch said threateningly.

"Good Lord, no," he replied, bemused. "How insulting."

Church inspected the cut of his suit, the arrogance in his posture. "Security services."

The stranger made an odd, vaguely affirmative expression, one eyebrow half-raised. "Once, not so long ago. Decided to head out on my own. Not much point having a career structure in this day and age." He took a long draught of his bitter and smacked his lips.

"What are you doing here?" Church wondered if it had anything to do with the encounter with the police in Callander; he was ready to leave immediately if the situation called for it, and he tried to convey this surreptitiously to the others, but all their attention was on the spy.

"Why, to see all of you, dear boy." He chuckled at their uncomfortable expressions. "That would be a little bit of a lie, actually. Stumbled across you by accident in town earlier. Thought I'd drop in on you… see how you're getting on." The chuckles subsided into a smile that made them even more uneasy.

Shavi leaned across the table curiously. "And the security services know who we are?"

"Well, of course. They know everything that's worth knowing. That's their job, isn't it?" He looked around at their faces, still smiling in a manner that might have seemed jovial until it was examined closely; it was a social pretence. "You really don't know what's happening, do you?"

"We have a good idea," Church replied.

"No, you don't. You just think you do." He took another sip of beer, playing with them. His eyes narrowed thoughtfully. "Let me cast my mind back, remember all those reports and discussions. So much said and written, it's hard to believe it's only been going on for three months, give or take. Right, I have it. The M4, back in March. Terrible pile-up, cars and lorries and buses all mangled. A conflagration that blocked the entire motorway, caused traffic chaos for days. You remember it, don't you?"

Church gave nothing away.

"And what caused all that carnage?"

Church's eyes flickered towards the others; no one spoke.

The spy chuckled again. "I understand your reticence. Really. It's not the kind of thing one talks about, is it? Well, let me answer the question for you. You believe the disaster was caused by some kind of flying creature out of a fairy book, blasting gouts of flame from its mouth."

"And you're saying it wasn't?" Church made an attempt to pierce that jovial mask, but all he could see beneath it was more lies and deceit.

"Perception is such a funny thing," the spy mused. Their uneasiness had started to turn to irritation at his undisguised patronising manner. "We have all these faculties which paint a picture of the world for our mind." He made a fey, airy gesture. "Something we can make sense of. But can any of them really be trusted, that's the question? If there is one fact known by all security agencies around the globe, it is that there are no absolutes. Sight, sound, smell, touch, taste, all can be manipulated to present a view of the world as real as the real one."

"What are you saying?" Church bristled. "That we didn't see what we thought we saw?"

"Come on, old chap! It was a creature from a fairy book!" The spy aped disbelief. "It all depends how you see things. Fire streamed down from the sky and blew up a chunk of motorway and some poor commuters. Well, of course, it could be some kind of mythical beastie. But, really, come on now, we are all intelligent people here, are we not? What would you say is the most rational explanation? The flames of a dragon's breath? Or a missile fired from a plane or a helicopter?"

His words struck them all sharply, prising open the doubt and dislocation they had felt in the early days. "We saw-"

The spy silenced Church with a furious shake of his head. "No, no, no, that's not good enough. Can't be trusted. After you witnessed the murder under Albert Bridge, you and the young lady went to see a therapist, did you not? And he attempted to recover the hidden memory of the incident-"

"How do you know about that?" Church's angry indignation masked a growing concern; how long had he been spied upon?

"He told you about screen memories," the spy continued. "False memories created by the mind to hide a truth which is unbearable. Or false memories created by an outside source to hide a truth which they do not want to come out."

"You make it sound as simple as flicking a light switch," Laura said.

"It is. Drugs, mind-control techniques, subliminal programming, targeted microwave radiation, post-hypnotic signals. The mind is a very susceptible organ."

Veitch snorted derisively. "Bollocks. That's what it is, mate, whoever the fuck you are. You're saying we can't trust anything we see or hear. Or think-"

"Exactly." The spy settled back in his chair and smiled triumphantly.

"You speak as if you are saying something new." Tom surveyed the spy with a face as cold and hard as marble; the spy looked away. "But that is exactly how it has always been in life. You simply have more ways of manipulation now."

Church shook his head. "Everything we've experienced-everything supernatural-is just a big lie created by a lot of jumped-up public schoolboys with too much free time? I don't believe you."

"That's your prerogative. But you know the old adage about big lies working the best. And it's not just a few jumped-up public schoolboys. It's…" The words dried up, and he waved his hand dismissively. "Occam's Razor. The most likely explanation is the correct explanation. Dragons or attack helicopters? Shape-shifting demons or special forces assassins? Wizards juggling occult forces or very clever scientists? Demon torturers in underground dens or a few rough lads who've lost their natural calling in Ulster, making the most of the peace and quiet in high-security converted mines? Listen to me again: drugs, post-hypnotic programming, screen memories. Lies heaped on lies."

"And this is the biggest one of all." Church went for his drink to give him a moment to think. Wasn't this the kind of thing he first feared in the aftermath of that night beneath Albert Bridge? Suddenly he wanted to smash the glass and turn the table over. All that suffering, and they still couldn't trust what was happening.

"Tell me," the spy continued, "when you look at one of these shape-shifting demons, do you feel queasy? Does your mind protest that it's not seeing the right thing? When you look at one of those glorious god-like beings, do you occasionally think you see the truth behind it? The bottom line is: do you want to carry on living a lie because it's easy and comforting to believe? Lots of lovely magic and heroic derring-do, just the kind of way you dreamed the world really was when you were children. Or do you want to face up to the harsh facts about how life really is? No magic at all. Just lots of cynical, powerful people manipulating you on a daily basis for their own ends?"

"That's a difficult choice," Laura said acidly. "And not in the way you think."

"There have been too many facts which uphold-"

"Don't argue with him, Shavi," Church snapped. "He's enjoying screwing with your mind."

"I admit it is a very carefully constructed scenario," the spy mused. "In fact, it would even fool someone who knew how these things were done."

Shavi, however, seemed to be enjoying the intellectual game. "If what you are saying is true, then why is so much effort being expended?"

"Power. Control." The spy smiled. "You should never raise to high office, either democratically or through promotion, people who want high office. That desire is a signifier of some very unpleasant character traits." He paused while he finished his beer. "We have martial law now. The democratic process has been suspended. For how long? Until the crisis is over. Oh dear. Let me posit a scenario: there has been a coup. Those sick old aristocrats couldn't take losing their seats in the Lords… Friends in the military, the security services, the judiciary, all those Chief Constables… Late-night chats in the Lodge-"

Church shook his head vehemently; he realised vaguely that he looked like a sullen schoolboy.

"Think about it for a minute. Doesn't it make a certain kind of sense? Can anything that you've experienced be perceived in another way? Think deeply about every incident you've experienced. Could it have happened in a different way, from another perspective?" He raised his hands, prompting their introspection.

"Interesting," Shavi said with what the others thought was undue excitement. "But that would imply that we five have been specifically targeted for mind control. That begs the question, why us? We are nobody special."

"Perhaps the powers behind the curtain believe you are somebody special. But no, more people than you five have been influenced. Just to keep the grand illusion growing. A big lie is the best lie, and this is the best lie of all."

Church could see from the faces of the others that the spy's words were disturbing them, destabilising a world view which had already been fragile in its unreality; he had to admit, he felt the world was moving under his own feet. Only Tom seemed unaffected.

"Give me one reason why we should believe you," he said.

"Oh, God, you shouldn't. That's the subtext of what I'm saying, isn't it? Don't believe anyone, don't believe anything. Not even yourselves. This is my reality. We all make our own. Perhaps it's yours, perhaps not."

"You're a victim of your own disinformation," Church said harshly. "There's no point us questioning you at all. You're either lying to us or lying to yourself."

The spy rattled his empty glass on the table, as if he were expecting one of them to buy him another. "Do you know people can die of sadness? We find them all over the place, just sitting, slumped, a blank expression, no evident sign of death. They stopped believing in their reality. Switched themselves off-"

Witch's growing confusion triggered the anger that was always just beneath the surface. When he leaned across the table there was such repressed violence in his movement that the spy was taken aback. "This is just bollocks. You're screwing with our heads just to knock us off course. You're working for the Bastards, aren't you?"

"Believe what you want-"

"Shut up." Veitch jabbed a finger in the spy's face. "Get out of here before I break something."

The spy shrugged, rose, still smiling, but there was now an obvious wariness behind his patina of chumminess; he glanced once more at Veitch, almost relieved to be moving away. "Think about what I said-"

"Get out," Veitch said coldly.

The spy made a gesture of reluctance and moved off, but when he was far enough beyond their arc to feel safe once more, he turned back and flashed the same arrogant smile. "Be seeing you." And then he was swallowed up by a crowd of drinkers heading towards the bar.

They played with their drinks in silence for a moment and then Shavi said, "What do you think?"

"You know what I think," Veitch replied. "He's a liar. How can you believe any of that bollocks?"

"You know how it is with these gods and mystical items and all that stuff that's supposedly crossed over. We all see them in different ways." Laura gently rubbed the scar tissue on her face, a mannerism she had developed whenever she was feeling particularly uncomfortable. She rapped her head. "All this stupid grey matter up here can't begin to grasp what they really are."

Tom adjusted his spectacles thoughtfully. "I've had more occasions of altered perception than most people so I have little fondness for some overarching view of reality. He was right-everyone has their own reality, none more valid than any other. Personally, I find it hard to believe that all my memories have been implanted, but it's certainly possible. I could be a carpenter from Wigan or a used-car salesman from Weymouth who only believes he's the mythical Thomas the Rhymer. Who's to say? But I do believe this-you can chase your tail round in circles for the rest of your life trying to find out what the truth really is, or you can just deal with it the way you think it is. Paralysis or action. And does it really matter what the higher power truly is-some incomprehensible power seen as dark gods by ancient man or corrupt humans? Surely the aim is to defeat it, whatever it is."

"It matters to me," Laura said. "If I can't put a head in the target sights, I can't pull the trigger."

The confusion had brought an air of despondency to the table. Church knew he had to take some action to prevent the paralysis Tom had mentioned. "Tom's right. There's no point sitting here like a bunch of pathetic losers. We've operated in a state of permanent confusion for the last few months, so this isn't going to make any difference." He turned to Laura, although his words were meant for all of them. "Okay, if you want to believe somebody who turns up out of the blue and frankly admits his life is based on telling lies, then that's your prerogative. But at least keep it at the back of your mind until you find some evidence to back it up. I don't believe we should mention it again. What do you say?"

Laura shrugged. "You're the boss, boss." A ripple of agreement ran through the others.

As the clock neared midnight, the bar began to thin out. Church watched the drinkers hovering near the door as if they were reluctant to venture out into the night, making jokes about watching out for the "bogles" waiting to chase them home.

"It's as if they all secretly know there's something frightening out there, but won't admit it to themselves or anyone else," he mused aloud.

"Normal human nature," Shavi said. "Who would want to believe the world is how it is?"

Laura finished her drink and slammed the glass down theatrically. "So are you really trying to fool yourself this was anything other than a night's serious drinking?"

"We have actually learned a great deal with this reconnaissance," Tom said indignantly. "Would you rather rush into danger blindly? We know that in the New Town Edinburgh seems untouched by what is happening. Yet the Old Town is transformed, corrupted. That tells me the Fomorii are here as we suspected, and here in this particular quarter of the city."

"You better not be saying we need to get out on the streets at this time of night." Although Laura was as combative as normal, Church could hear the uneasiness in her voice.

"I don't think it would be wise after midnight," Church said.

"So far the Fomorii have confined themselves to the out-of-the-way places, the lonely places," Shavi began. "Why do you think they are here, at this time?"

"Because," Tom replied, "the Well of Fire makes this one of the most significant places in the land. In times past the Fomorii would not have been able to come within miles of this site, but now the Earth-blood is dormant. So, I presume, there is a certain frisson in colonising a place that was so important to everything they despise."

"The dark overcoming the light," Shavi noted.

They finished their drinks and left, their heads swimming with too much alcohol and all the doubts implanted by the spy. Outside, the unseasonal chill had grown even colder. Laura shivered. "Jesus, it's like winter."

The Royal Mile was deserted. Church had visited the city with Marianne for the Festival and he knew it was never so dead. An eerie stillness lay oppressively over everything; no lights burned in any windows, the late-night coffee shop was closed, even the street lights seemed dim.

They didn't need any prompting to move hastily back to the hotel. But as they made their way up Lawnmarket towards the spotlit bulk of the castle, the night dropped several more degrees and their breath bloomed all around them. A dim blue light seeped out of Ramsay Lane, although they couldn't tell if it was some optical illusion caused by the stark illumination of the castle. As they drew closer, however, there was no doubt. The sapphire glow emanated from somewhere along the road they had travelled earlier that evening, casting long shadows across their path; the shadows moved slightly, as if the light was not fixed.

"Police?" Shavi suggested.

Tom was unusually reticent. "I don't think so."

A deep hoar frost sparkled on the road and gleamed on the windows near where Ramsay Lane turned sharply. They marvelled at the display of cold in the first thrust of summer, but then a dark shape suddenly lurched into view and they all jumped back a step. Veitch quickly moved in front of them, lowering his centre of gravity ready to fight. The shape moved slowly, awkwardly, in a stiff-limbed manner; they saw it was a man with long black hair and a bushy beard they had seen drinking in the pub-except now his hair and beard was white with frost and his skin had a faint blue sheen that shimmered in the street light. He slumped against a wall, saw Church and the others and reached out a pleading hand. A faint strangled sound escaped his throat which they presumed was a cry for help.

As they ran forward, he crumpled to the pavement, still.

Laura went to turn him over, then snatched back her hand. "Ow! Too cold to touch."

Shavi blew on his hands, then quickly pressed two fingers against the man's neck. "No pulse."

"What do you think, Tom?" Church said.

It was only when the Rhymer didn't answer that they realised he wasn't with them. They looked up to see him standing at the top of Ramsay Lane, staring towards the source of the blue light. His expression had grown even more troubled.

As the others ran back to his side they were shocked to see the whole of Ramsay Lane was covered in ice, as if it had been transported to the middle of the Antarctic. At the bottom of the winding street the blue light glowed brightly. It was bobbing gently in their direction and at the heart of it they thought they could make out a dark figure. As it moved, the ice on the surrounding buildings grew noticeably thicker.

"What is it?" Church asked in hushed amazement.

Tom's voice was choked so low Church could barely hear the reply. "The Cailleach Bheur."

"In English," Laura snapped.

He looked at her with eyes shocked and wide. "The Blue Hag, spirit of winter. Quickly, now!" He roughly pushed them until they were moving hurriedly back down the Royal Mile, the way they had come. Tom kept them to the middle of the road and only calmed once they had turned off the High Street on to the broad thoroughfare of the North Bridge. Once they were firmly over Waverley Station he slumped against a wall, one hand on his face.

"What was that?" Church asked forcefully.

It was a moment or two before Tom answered, "One of the most primal forces of this land."

Church couldn't help glancing over his shoulder towards the shadowshrouded Old Town. "Fomorii?"

"No, nor of the Tuatha De Danann. Like the Fabulous Beasts, the Blue Hag and her sisters are a higher power, almost impossible to control. Yet the Fomorii have somehow bent her to their will, like they did with the first Fabulous Beast you encountered. They have her patrolling the Old Town like some guard dog, leaving them free to carry on their business."

"She's some kind of evil witch?" Veitch said hesitantly.

Tom turned a cold gaze on him. "If the deepest, coldest, darkest, harshest winter is evil. The Cailleach Bheur is a force of nature. Nothing can survive her touch."

"You know, hag doesn't sound too frightening when you think about it. It makes you think of bath chairs and whist drives that never end-"

Tom's glare stopped Laura in her tracks. "The Cailleach Bheur controls the fimbulwinter. If she unleashes it the entire planet will freeze and all life will be destroyed."

"That sounds like a tremendous power for the Fomorii to influence," Church said.

"It's a mark of their confidence. Or their arrogance." Tom put his head back and took a deep breath. Some of the strength returned to his face. "It will have taken a tremendous ritual, an appalling sacrifice, for them to control her, and even then it will undoubtedly be for only a short while. They really are playing with fire this time."

"Bad joke, old man." Laura rattled a stone across the road with her boot. "And this thing has sisters?"

"Black Annis, the devourer of children, who makes her home in the Dane Hills of Leicestershire. And Gentle Annie, who controls the storms."

"I think I prefer that last one," she said.

"The name is ironic," Tom said, "and designed to placate her. You wouldn't want to be caught in one of her storms."

Church recalled Black Annis from his university studies. "But the scholars believe the myth of Black Annis grew out of the Celtic worship of Dann or Ann, the Mother of the Danann."

"The same provenance," Tom snapped, "but very different."

The night in the New Town was summery and relaxing, but a blast of wind filled with icy fingers rushed down from the hill, as if to remind them what lay only a short distance away.

"Then to get to the Fomorii, wherever they might be, we have to go past the Blue Hag," Church said.

Tom nodded. "And in the minds of the old people, the Cailleach Bheur was another name for Death."

His voice drifted out on the chill wind that spread out across the city.