World's end

Chapter Five

They woke early with the sun heavy and red on the horizon. A thick dew sparkled on the ground and on their jackets and there was a chill in the air that made their bones ache, but they soon stamped the warmth back into their limbs. As soon as they had properly woken, Church and Ruth realised they felt strangely refreshed; new and clean like they had been reborn; Church could not remember having slept so deeply in the last two years.

"It's the healing and energising effect of the earth energy," Tom told them as they made their way back to the car.

"The NHS should get a franchise," Ruth replied with a relaxed smile. Church was pleased to see her face clear of the anxiety and worry that had transformed her the previous evening.

In the tunnel they stopped to examine the black crust scorching the concrete and were instantly reminded of how close their escape had been. And before they could depart, Church had to scrape the car windows free of a thick layer of ash made tacky by the dew; the air smelled like the aftermath of a house fire.

"I still do not understand how the Fabulous Beast was marshalled in our pursuit," Tom mused as Church cursed quietly in his labour. "They are supposed to be wildly independent, uncontrollable."

"Maybe that's one bit of your lore that's wrong," Church said sourly. "A good council Fabulous Beast training course … sit … beg … roll over. They'll do anything for a treat."

Tom muttered something under his breath and wandered off to take the air while Church finished the windows.

"Doesn't he speak funny?" Ruth found a clean part of the wing to perch on. "Like some bad historical novel."

"He's a strange fish all round. I still don't trust him. It feels like he's just throwing out enough titbits to keep us interested while he works on his own agenda."

"As long as we're aware of it." Ruth closed her eyes and put her head back to feel the sun on her face.

Church was glad of the silence that followed. He could barely contain the emotional upheaval he felt after his encounter with Marianne; it resonated confusingly through every thought. Why was she visiting him-to torment him further or to pass on some message? Was it linked to all the other high strangenesses that had descended on the country? And what was the significance of the Black Rose which was secreted in the inside pocket of his jacket close to his heart? Instinctively, he felt he ought to tell Ruth about it, but there was a niggling part of his mind that forced him to hold back. Maybe later, he promised himself.

Their first aim was to find somewhere to eat. At the A345 they came across a Little Chef surrounded by trees and were the first inside once the doors opened. Over full English breakfasts and tea looking out over the sun-drenched car park, they tried to make some sense of what was happening.

"I still don't see what we can possibly do," Ruth said as she dunked her toast into her egg.

"Probably nothing apart from find some way to raise the alarm. But we do have a responsibility to do something." Still distracted, Church sipped on his tea; he knew exactly what he wanted to do: discovering what the mysterious email woman knew about Marianne was still the driving force. At the moment that dovetailed with their search for more information about the imminent crisis Tom had described, but if he ever had to make a choice between the two, he didn't know how he would react.

Ruth suddenly glanced down at her hand in surprise. "Look at this: I cut my hand scrambling through the fence last night, and this morning there's no sign of it. It's completely healed."

"Make the most of it," Tom mumbled grumpily. He seemed preoccupied, constantly glancing around the room.

"Expecting guests?" Church said.

"Just because we survived last night doesn't mean it's the end of it."

"There's a cheery thought," Ruth said breezily, but Church could see she was disturbed by it.

"So now we're on the run," he said. Tom didn't answer.

They went to the checkout, but as the waitress totted up their bill the till suddenly started spewing out reams of receipt paper. Her eyes flashed irritation while she attempted to maintain a pleasant smile as she wrestled with the snaking roll. Eventually the register jammed and she tore off the streamer with restrained anger. On it was the same thing printed over and over again:

1OF5

It bore no relation to what she had keyed in. When Church noticed it, he felt strangely uneasy. He was immediately thrown back to his journey to collect Ruth and the odd sequence of coincidences.

Church leaned on the car bonnet in the sun with Ruth's mobile phone after struggling for ten minutes to find a signal. Laura's sleepy voice told him he'd woken her.

"It's Jack Churchill. I'm sorry we didn't make the meeting with you last night. We got delayed in Wiltshire."

There was a long pause, then: "It's Sunday. Mornings have been banned. What's the matter? The missus thrown you out of bed?"

"I'm sorry."

"Yeah, yeah." She yawned. "So what's the score? You still want to meet?"

"Yes, and soon. We can get up to Bristol by-"

"Don't worry, I'll come to you. If You're in Wiltshire then you might as well head to Salisbury. That's where it happened. You can take the ghost train with me, see if you get the full Fright Night treatment too. Or maybe I really have done too many drugs." The line threatened to break up, but then her voice came through clear once more. "-king mobiles! I'll meet you tomorrow at Poultry Cross in the city centre. 10 a.m. You'll find it."

"What about your work?"

"Yeah, like it matters any more."

They reached Salisbury just after 10.30 a.m. The March sun was strong enough to catch the historic cathedral town in an unseasonable light, bright and buzzing with tourists through the main shopping area and Market Square. Ruth used her credit card to check them into a hotel in the centre of town, selected by Tom for its olde worlde appeal: a thirteenth century coaching inn, half-timbered in black on white, with hanging eaves, high chimneys and diamond window panes which, from the pavement, made the interior seem mysteriously murky. They managed to get rooms side by side. They were fitted with all mod cons, but the sloping floors and oddly angled ceilings still gave them a time-lost feeling.

With the threat of so much darkness looming on the horizon, they agreed to take a break, from each other and, hopefully, from the stresses of the events sweeping in around them, until early evening. Ruth and Church both felt they needed time to assimilate all that Tom had shown and told them at Stonehenge.

In the sun outside the hotel, amongst the bustle of everyday life, they could easily have pretended nothing had changed. But as they walked away, Tom called out, "Be on your guard."

For some reason he couldn't quite explain, Church found himself drawn to the cathedral which stood on the south of the city, an imposing vision of majesterial white stone in acres of greenery bounded by the River Avon. As he stood in The Close looking up at the soaring spire, he had a sudden impression of it as a symbol of all that was under threat. Seven hundred years of British history, built on solid foundations that not even an earthquake could throw down. It had overseen the coming of the Age of Enlightenment, of the establishment of a civilisation based on science, reason and logic. And more than that, it represented the glory of a God who had created that world; a religion which allowed no space for the truth that was slowly being unpeeled before their eyes. The magnitude of what could be swept away dwarfed him.

It was too much. He hurried in through the south-west entrance as if he were seeking sanctuary and walked slowly up the nave to take a seat in the pews. For long minutes, he couldn't bear to think, instead losing himself in the quiet beauty of the surroundings. Organ music played gently in the background, adding to the air of reverent tranquillity which soothed him a little, and eventually his attention fell upon the altar and its intricately worked cloth. The central image showed a crown of thorns in gold and red surrounding the Holy Grail. There was something about the image which seemed to speak to him, whispering insistently at the back of his head until he became disturbed by the suggestion of a subconscious connection which he couldn't make. In the end he had to force himself to look away.

Then there was no other choice but to let his mind turn to Marianne, as he knew it would. Carefully, as if he were handling a fragile piece of pottery, he drew out the Roisin Dubh, wondering how he knew what he guessed was the Gaelic, marvelling at how the rose had survived so immaculately. The petals were like velvet, the black so rich it seemed to have numerous depths. He lifted it to his nose, but surprisingly it had no fragrance at all. Was it, as he hoped, a sign from her of their enduring love?

The thought filled him with such a swell of desperate emotion he had to close his eyes, and in that instant he almost prayed. But since Marianne's death, nothing any religion preached made sense any more; however much he hoped her essence lived on in some kind of afterlife, the mundanity of everyday life had almost convinced him that death was an end. Now he couldn't even wallow in that existentialist purgatory. Two years of weighing up every option, trying to find some common ground between hope and reality, had left him sick and mentally worn down. He was too tired to have faith. He just wanted to know.

His sense of alienation on the sacred ground drove him to his feet, but as he turned to go he glimpsed someone watching him from across the nave. The figure seemed unreal, oddly proportioned and hazy. It darted behind a pillar when it saw him look, but it left him with a sudden chill, as if its gaze had transmitted a hoarfrost. Suddenly he had to see who it was.

Cautiously, he made his way along the pews to the pillar. His footsteps sounded uncommonly loud, although an elderly couple passed by immersed in their guidebook, oblivious to him. The space behind the pillar was empty, but in the corner of his eye he saw a shimmer away to the right; someone was moving unfeasibly quickly along the south aisle. Church had an impression of a man, yet he was almost mist, as if he were radiating a grey light. In his trail there was a claustrophobic sense of threat.

Get out of here, he told himself. But running away seemed a weak thing to do, and after Marianne's death he didn't want to be pathetic again. He moved quickly in pursuit.

He slipped through an exit near the refectory and found himself in the cloisters, a square of wide corridors with low, vaulted ceilings surrounding a brightly sunlit lawned area which only served to make the other legs of the cloisters seem impenetrably shadowed. His first impression was that it was eerily still, as if he had stepped through time into after-hours. There were no tourists, even near the entrance to the Magna Carta exhibition in the Chapter House, and the sound of the organ had mysteriously disappeared. His skin prickled as he watched for any sign of movement. Gradually he became aware of an atmosphere of disquiet lying across the area. A cloying scent of lavender hovered in the air.

Slowly Church left the protection of the door. He hadn't progressed far when the stillness was broken by a deep, guttural growling that raised the hairs on the back of his neck. He froze, then turned slowly in a circle. Still nothing. It was impossible to see through the sunlight of the square into the darkness beyond.

The growl rang off the stone once more, filled with menace, hinting at some enormous beast. He glanced down one corridor, then another, unable to tell from where it was coming. There was no sign of the shadowy figure either. Slowly he advanced along the north corridor, but with each step the sensation of unease grew more intense until he felt an unbearable urge to get out of that lonely place.

But as he rounded the corner into the east corridor, it was there, waiting for him, halfway along: a black dog, bigger than any he had ever seen before; it was only when it took a step forward on its heavy, sinewy limbs that he realised it was the size of a small pony. And then Church noticed its eyes, red as blood, with an inner light that burned with a cruel, demonic intelligence. A long strand of saliva drooled from its yellow fangs to splatter on the stone flags, where it sizzled like acid. It was so monstrous he knew it was no earthly creature.

The dog growled once more, rumbling menacingly deep in its throat. Then it lowered its head and took a slow step forward. Church knew if he turned it would be on him in a second. He noted the power in its jaws; he would have no protection if they were tearing at his throat. He took a tentative step backwards.

Deep in his head he felt a buzzing like a swarm of flies, sickening in its intensity, and he knew that in some way it was the creature's alien, terrible thoughts interfering with his own; there was nothing there he could make sense of, just a primal feeling of threat and devouring. His stomach churned at the contact. What is it doing? he thought.

Slowly it moved forwards, each heavy paw echoing as it thudded on the stone. Powerful muscles rippled beneath the sleek black fur. Its eyes ranged across his face with a terrible, malign force, scarlet pools surrounding a circle of black like the drop into the abyss; the buzz of its thoughts crackled louder in his head. And in that moment he knew this was no chance encounter; it wanted him.

Church backed away a little further, but he realised the door was too far away to run. Slowly the muscles on the dog's back began to pull together as it lowered its enormous head. The deep, rattling growl dropped a notch into its throat. It was preparing to attack.

Church felt the cold wash of fear. He had an instant to decide what to do, but there were no options. Hopelessly, he decided he should turn and run. The dog's nails clicked loudly on the stone.

This is it, he thought.

But just as he was about to launch himself, the door into the cloisters crashed open and a guide leading a column of tourists marched in, his voice echoing out with the history of the site. Church was about to yell out for them to flee when he noticed a sudden, subtle change in the atmosphere. Out of the corner of his eye he saw the beast pause on the cusp of its attack, its eyes falling sullenly in the direction of the tourists. Briefly, it seemed to consider whether to continue its assault, but then it closed its jaws with a faint snick and padded away with a heavy step. Church remained frozen, unable to tear his eyes from it. When it was twenty feet from him, it turned its head and surveyed him balefully before losing itself in the shadows.

The column of tourists trooped past him, clicking their cameras, muttering in foreign languages. Church rested back against the stone wall in relief, his heart pounding madly, the stink of the dog all around. "Are you all right?" the guide asked in concern.

Church smiled weakly, but he couldn't bring himself to reply. He had the sudden feeling that events were closing in around them.

Ruth wandered through the city, staring into shop windows without really seeing, her head swimming with the bizarre experiences that had impacted on her life. She felt completely at odds with herself. Everything she had seen and heard filled her with a feeling of dread for what might lie ahead, yet at the same time she was overcome with a sense of freedom that was remarkably uplifting; the office was just a bad dream; from a distance the career seemed like shackles preventing her living her life. Now she was able to do what her heart told her. At the same time, these feelings ignited a tinge of guilt, as if she was betraying the memory of her father. He had always dreamed of her establishing a great career in law and he had been so happy when she was offered her job. It was all a mess of conflicting emotions and for the first time she felt she didn't know herself at all.

But she had been intrigued by Tom's manipulation of the blue fire; more than that, she decided, she wanted to be able to do it for herself. Now there was freedom. The thought of it raised her spirits enough that with the sun and the crowds she finally began to feel optimistic, for the first time since she had left her flat.

After a while she found herself crossing a gushing stretch of the Avon to The Maltings shopping centre, a modernist slab of brown brick at odds with the age of the rest of the city. As she mused whether there would be anything in it worth her attention, she suddenly caught sight of an old woman watching her intently. She had a sun-browned, wizened face with diamond-sparkle eyes and tight grey curls, and although she was slightly hunched with age, she was still tall and slim. Her smile reminded Ruth of the richness of autumn, while the crisp, goldenbrown of her long dress was like fallen leaves. Ruth smiled in return, but the way the woman was focusing on her alone unnerved her and she hurried quickly by.

She picked up an alley that took her around the squat, grey mound of St. Thomas's Church, but as she glanced over into the churchyard, she felt a sudden tingling deep in her belly. A woman was standing amongst the stones watching her. If Ruth didn't know better she would have sworn it was the woman she had just seen; the same proud line to her jaw, the same sparkling eyes, the same body shape. Only this woman was years younger; the face had no wrinkles and was rounder, with the apple cheeks of middle age. The dress was the same design too, but the colour was the deep, dark green of summer vegetation. And then she smiled and Ruth felt the tingling turn into a cold shiver; it was the same smile.

Suddenly it was as if her eyes had opened. She felt an odd, unearthly atmosphere around the woman, as if the air was shifting between opaque and translucent. And no one else passing by seemed to notice the woman standing there, staring at Ruth with such eerie intensity. Fearing the worst, Ruth hurried on aimlessly, following the crowds back to the city centre before somehow turning back on herself to arrive at the gently undulating greenery of Queen Elizabeth Gardens along the banks of the Avon.

She glanced around anxiously before flopping on to a bench, where she rested for a moment with her head in her hands, trying to understand what she had experienced. She hadn't felt any sense of threat from the woman; if anything, she was warm and comforting, almost motherly. But how could she know that was not a deception? Everything was wild and unfamiliar; there was nothing to get a handle on.

After a while Ruth began to relax and watch the children laughing and running in the play area while their mothers chatted secretively nearby. Ducks splashed in the river, then waddled over to sun themselves on the grass, while the air was filled with the intoxicating scents of spring wafting in from the woods and hills that lay just beyond the river's floodplain. Everything seemed so incongruously peaceful and normal, it was hard even to begin to grasp what was happening.

Then, inexplicably, her left hand began to shake uncontrollably. She gripped the wrist with her right hand to steady it, and when she looked up and around she gasped in shock. The woman now stood directly behind her, her hands resting on the back of the bench. Ruth leapt to her feet, her heart thundering; she hadn't heard even the slightest sound of the stranger's approach. And it was the same woman, except now she was in her teens, her face beautiful and pale like the moon, her long, lustrous hair glinting in the sun. The familiar dress was now the bright green of early spring shoots. Her eyes, though, still sparkled with great age and unnerving mystery, and there was a terrible aspect to her face that made Ruth shiver in fear, although there was no malice that she could see; she felt in the presence of something so inhuman, she couldn't begin to comprehend what it was that stood before her.

"He is missing. The night to my day, the winter to my summer. We must be joined and then you must join us, daughter." The tone of her voice was eerie, part rustle of wind in the branches, part splash of water on rock.

Ruth backed away slowly, that awful, unblinking stare heavy upon her. "Leave me alone," she said hoarsely.

Slowly the girl who was not a girl raised her arms in a beckoning gesture. It was too much for Ruth. She turned and hurried away several yards. But when she glanced back, confused and troubled, the girl had gone and in her place was an odd effect, as if gold dust had been sprinkled in a sunbeam. After a few seconds something began to form in the glimmering; light shifted and blazed from nowhere, forming an intense halo around a dark figure which gradually became the Virgin Mary.

Someone called out, "Look! It's a miracle!" and then people were running from all over the park to the bench where the vision was already beginning to fade. Ruth watched the joy and amazement infuse the crowd for a while longer before walking slowly back to the city centre, the burden of her thoughts heavy upon her.

The Haunch of Venison was almost empty at 7 p.m. when Church and Ruth arrived within minutes of each other. The pub had all the twisty-turny nooks and crannies one would expect of fourteenth century architecture and it took them a while to locate Tom at a table in a shadowy corner. He appeared tired and irritable, nodding emotionlessly when they sat down with their drinks.

Church looked from Ruth to Tom. "I saw something this afternoon."

"So did I." Ruth shifted in her seat uncomfortably. She had spent the rest of the day walking, but she still hadn't been able to escape the memory of what she had seen in the woman's eyes.

Tom made sure no one was watching, then folded down the upright collar of his jacket to reveal four livid scars on the soft flesh of his neck.

Ruth stared in horror. "My God, what happened?"

"The Baobhan Sith." Tom winced as he gingerly raised his collar.

"What's that?" Church asked although he wasn't sure he wanted to hear the answer.

"In the old tales, they are the sentries of the night. Terrible things that take on the shape of beautiful women to lure passers-by. Get too close and they'll tear out your throat and drink your blood."

"And now they're here too," Church said, before adding, "You seem to have a good knowledge of folklore."

"I thought, if the worst came to the worst, we might be able to go back to Stonehenge for the night," Tom continued. "But I wanted to be sure the road would be open to us so I went out on foot for a couple of miles to check the route. I presumed they would have moved to bar our retreat in some way, but not …" He paused to touch his neck tenderly. "One of the Baobhan Sith was lying in a ditch, waiting. She rose up when I passed." His face seemed to drain in the halflight. "There were more, I'm sure. We would never get past them."

"They're bad, then?" Church asked facetiously. Tom's expression gave him all the answer he needed.

"How many more things are there going to be?" Ruth fidgeted with her glass, slopping vodka and tonic on to the table. "This afternoon I was followed by a woman, only she wasn't, she was something more, pretending to be a woman. She kept changing age. There was no sense of threat, but … It was me she wanted. To do something for her. What's that all about?"

Church took a long draught of his Guinness while he thought. "Is this how it's going to be from now on?"

"I think it probably is," Tom replied dismally.

"I suppose only a few people have seen them so far," Ruth mused. "But what will the response be when it becomes so widespread that everyone realises what's going on?"

"Chaos. The kind of supernatural fear you used to get in medieval times," Church said.

"What bothers me is the intelligence behind it," Ruth said. "What do these things want?"

"At the moment most of them seem to want you and me wiped off the face of the earth," Church said. "And that's another thing. A lot of effort is being expended on two people who aren't very much of a threat. Why should they be even bothering to hunt us down because we know something-and not much at that-when it's bound to become common knowledge sooner or later? Christ, I'm surprised it's not all over the media now after a big, scaly monster blitzed the M4!"

"It's not-I checked," Ruth said. "I can't understand why nothing's appeared-you'd have thought the Sun at least would have gone for dragons tearing up the motorway, wouldn't you?"

Church turned to Tom. "Well? You're the man with all the answers."

"I wish I was the man with all the answers." Tom cupped his cider with both hands and stared into its depths.

The pub had started to fill up quickly, but they still felt alone in their gloomy corner. "Should we be sitting here?" Ruth asked. "If those bloodsuckers that took a bite out of you are on their way, shouldn't we be hitting the road again?"

"We haven't heard what Laura has to say yet!" Church protested. "We can't just keep running until we hit the sea."

"The Baobhan Sith are supposed to have little intelligence or guile. They're more like animals, I suppose … hunting dogs … point them in the right direction and they'll bring you down. But it's possible to hide from them."

"And you're basing this knowledge on, what?" Church said sharply. "Some old fairytale you read? There might be some truths in the folklore and legends and myths, but we can't take them as gospel. People add bits to spice them up. Take things out. Mis-tell them."

"And what do you suggest we do?" Tom snapped.

"Okay, we should calm down." Ruth raised her hands between them. "Same team and all that. I vote we sleep together tonight and take it in turns to keep watch. You're right, we need to check out what that Laura woman has to say and we've only got to get through the night."

They agreed, but before they could return to their drinks, Ruth turned to Church and asked, "And what did you see?"

"A black dog, but like no-"

Tom froze with his glass halfway to his lips. "My God," he said in a thin voice.

As Church related what had happened that afternoon in the cathedral cloisters, Tom's face grew darker. "Black Shuck," he said when Church had finished. "The Devil Dog. I hoped it would just be the Baobhan Sith-"

"What is it?" Ruth said.

"A demon, some claim. And the precursor of something far worse. It was here long before the first settlement was hacked out, trailing disaster in its wake. I remember once, in Scotland, lying awake one night listening to its awful howling above the raging of the worst storm of the year, and I knew some poor bastard was about to die horribly." Tom took a deep swig of his cider. "Before you encountered it, or just after, did you see something-like a shadow flitting across your vision, or a misty figure passing nearby?"

Church nodded. "In the cathedral. It seemed to be watching."

Tom took a breath and said, "Black Shuck marks the way for the Grey Walker. The Erl-King, the leader of the Wild Hunt."

Church stared into his Guinness, recalling a snippet from the reading he had done for a strand of his degree. "The hunt that hounds lost souls to damnation."

There was a commotion at the bar as a tall, thin man with swept-back silver hair and a hollow face was berated by a group of drinkers. He was smiling obsequiously, but one woman seemed on the verge of attacking him.

Ruth raised her glass. "Here's to the end of the world."

"Now there's a toast to which one can really drink." The silver-haired man had slid up behind her, clutching the dregs of a half-pint. His broad smile revealed a gap between his middle teeth, which were stained with nicotine. His black suit had the grey sheen of overuse, but it was offset with a red brocade waistcoat. His boots were dusty and worn; the smell of the road came off him, of muddy verges and damp hedges, a hint of sweat and the bloom of being caught in too many downpours. Despite the colour of his hair, he couldn't have been more than forty-five. Tom eyed him suspiciously; Church finished his drink.

"Knock it all down and start again, I say. Deconstruction before reconstruction." He raised his glass heartily. "Cheers!" Ruth smiled in return, and the man gave her a wink.

Church picked up his empty glass and offered the others a refill with a nod. As he turned towards the bar, the silver-haired man quickly drained his glass and held it out. "As you're going, old boy, do me a favour and fill this up. I'll get the next one in."

A sarcastic comment at the stranger's audacity sprang to Church's lips, but it seemed more trouble than it was worth. Grudgingly, he snatched the glass as he passed.

"Cider, please," the man said, slipping into Church's seat. "And thank you kindly." He turned to Ruth and took her hand. "Charmed to meet you, my dear. I have many names, though the one I like the most is Callow. I hope you don't mind me resting my old bones. It's been a long day's travelling. The romance of the open road is a fine thing, but no one talks about the exhaustion at the end of the day."

"Where are you going?" Ruth asked politely.

Callow laughed. "Oh, from here to there and back again. There's too much to see on this beautiful, beautiful island of ours to be resting in one place for too long. I've done all that, you see. Worn a strangling tie in an office prison, filed the papers, counted the paper clips, watched the clock mark the passing of my life. Slow death for a poor wage. But how much could they pay you to make it worth dying? One needs to hear oneself think. In the words of Longfellow, `Not in the clamour of the crowded street, Not in the shouts and plaudits of the throng, But in ourselves, are triumph and defeat.' And if you can't find a reason for being in one place, or even for being, then you have to look elsewhere."

"I know what you're saying." Ruth was entertained by his attitude. It was an act he had obviously perfected over time, a mix of music hall comedian and slightly fey theatre ham. If it managed to get him a few free drinks, who was she to judge?

"Ah, a kindred spirit. And have you broken the shackles of mundanity for the life of quicksilver heels?"

"We're just touring around," Tom interjected coldly before Ruth could answer.

Callow reached across the table. "Pleased to meet you." He nodded towards the badges on Tom's holdall at the edge of the table. "A veteran of the road too, I see. Ah, the Isle of Wight Festival. I remember it well. Hendrix played guitar like an angel. And Glastonbury, so many weeks there in the summer. The mud! You must remember the mud! Terrible. But fun. If you know what I mean. The Stonehenge Free Festivals too! Ah, how I miss them. The Battle of the Beanfield. I was there, I was there. Took a truncheon from a stormtrooper in blue. Saved some poor young girl from getting her head stove in." He shook his head sadly. "Ah me, the end of the world. And not a day too soon."

Church placed the others' drinks before them, then pointedly held Callow's cider up high for him to vacate his seat. Callow stood up to take it, then sat down quickly and snatched a thirsty sip. "And cheers to all of you!"

"That's my seat," Church snapped.

"There's one over there, old boy." Callow waved his hand dismissively to a stool next to Tom. "Don't interrupt us now. We're reminiscing about the good old days."

Ruth couldn't help a giggle at the irritation on Church's face. It deflated the moment, making it churlish for him to have stood his ground. With obvious annoyance, he took up his new position.

Callow didn't leave a gap in the conversation long enough for the others to throw him out, and soon his constant spiel mingling with the effects of the alcohol had almost lulled them into a hypnotic acceptance. As their guards dropped, they loosened up and the conversation became fourway. There was no doubting that Callow was entertaining, with a knowledge of every subject, it seemed, and a colourful use of language that was bizarrely at odds with his lifestyle, although, if they had been sober, they would have admitted to themselves he was accepted more because he was a distraction from the worries that lay heavily upon them.

When Callow finally felt comfortable enough to go to the toilet, Church said, "How did we get lumbered with that freak?"

"Oh, he's harmless," Ruth said, "and entertaining, which is a relief after listening to you and Tom go at each other with knives."

"I'd be happier if he stood his round," Church said. "He's freeloading his way to getting well and truly pissed."

Ruth punched him on the shoulder a little harder than she intended. "Don't be so miserable. You can afford it-spread a little happiness."

As the night progressed, the pub became more and more crowded, the air filling with smoke, shouts and laughter. Ruth surprised them all with a tale of her engagement to a political activist whom her father had admired and whom she had jilted on her wedding day after a panic attack that had almost resulted in a call for an ambulance. Church related the story of his brief, aborted career as a guitarist in a band which ended at his debut gig in a pub backroom when he vomited on stage through a mixture of nerves and too much drink. And Tom, loosened by several pints of cider, had several outlandish tales of his wanderings, most of them involving drug abuse: to Goa, and a frantic escape from the local police; to California, and a trip over the border to Mexico in search of the fabled hallucinogenic cactus; how he had raised the alarm about the brown acid at Woodstock; and his brief time as a "spiritual advisor" to The Grateful Dead which seemed to involve little more than handing out vast quantities of drugs.

As drinking-up time rolled around, Church leaned across the table to Tom and said drunkenly, "So when will we get the Wild Hunt knocking at our door?"

Tom waved him away with a dismissive snort, but Callow's eyes sparkled and his brow furrowed curiously. "The Wild Hunt?"

"Don't you know?" Church slurred. "Every fairytale you ever heard is true! Bloody goblins and bogles and beasties are real-they've just been hiding away! And now they've come back!"

Callow laughed, although he didn't get the joke, but when he looked around the table he saw there was obviously some truth in what Church was saying. "What do you mean, old boy?"

"It's the end of the world, right. That's why we're all sitting here drinking. For tomorrow we may die."

"Don't mind him," Ruth said, who was nowhere near as inebriated as Church. "He talks rubbish when he's drunk."

"No, no, please tell me. I love a good tale," Callow said. "I once met a man in a pub in Greenock who swore the fairies were real. He claimed he'd seen them one Midsummer's Eve."

Tom finished his drink. "It's late. We better be on our way." He added pointedly, "We've got an early start in the morning."

"Oh? A little sightseeing?"

"We're meeting a woman who's going to tell us about it," Church said. Tom helped him to his feet a little too roughly.

"If you don't mind, I'll walk with you a while. It's a nice night," Callow said. He sidled up next to Church. "So tell me all about it, old boy."

The evening was surprisingly mild. As they walked, Church poured out everything he knew, not caring if Callow believed him or not, while Ruth chipped in wry comments every now and then. Tom trailed behind, cautiously watching the shadows off the main road.

"Why, it seems to me that this could be a time of great opportunity for people like us," Callow said in a tone which suggested he didn't entirely believe them, but was going along with the joke anyway. "Forward thinkers and dazzling iconoclasts who have shaken off the shackles of a society which only wants to keep us locked away! We are free to adapt while the sheep mutate into lemmings and rush towards the cliff! Magic-now there is a great leveller. Power on tap for all! Raising the lowly up to the level of the great and good!" He paused thoughtfully. "If one doesn't get eaten first, of course."

Church and Ruth both laughed at this, the first time they had found humour in anything for too long, and, coupled with the act of unburdening, it provided a greater release than they could have imagined.

"Where are you staying?" Ruth asked Callow. Unselfconsciously, she slipped her arm through Church's and leaned against him.

"Here and there," the stranger replied. "A different night, a different billet. But enough of that. Look at the sky! Look at the stars! What a world we live in, eh? We are all in the gutter, but not enough of us look at the stars, to paraphrase Wilde. And where are you staying, my dear?" Ruth told him and he smiled broadly. "A fine establishment. I could tell you appreciated quality and I am rarely wrong when it comes to character. Let's be off, then!"

"Be off where?" Church asked.

"Surely you're not going to abandon me now?" the stranger asked with a hurt expression. "On such a fine night, and with it being so early and all. We still have stories to tell, experiences to share! The end of the world is nigh! We must make the most of what we have left. There must be a bar in your hotel that serves libations after hours to guests?"

"No-" Church began to protest.

"Go on," Ruth laughed. "Let him get another drink. We don't have to stay up."

Callow took her hand and kissed it. "You are a lifesaver, my dear, and I am eternally in your debt!"

In the bar, Ruth set Callow up with a pint of cider and a whisky. He wrung her hand, praised her to the roof and tried to entreat all three of them to stay with him drinking.

Finally retreating to a table in the corner, he called out jovially, "Remember the words of T. S. Eliot, fellow travellers: `We shall not cease from exploration, And the end of all our exploring Will be to arrive where we started And know the place for the first time.' Philosophy does not come easily at this time of the night and that, unfortunately, is the best I can do."

They left him there, attacking his drinks with a gusto that suggested not a drop had passed his lips all night.

"I shouldn't have got drunk," Church groaned. He was slumped in a chair in a corner. "Bloody stupid!"

"We did it to forget. Don't criticise yourself for being human." Ruth sprawled on the bed against the plumped-up pillows, her eyes closed, while Tom leaned against the wall near the window, occasionally peeking out behind the curtains. "You know, I'm not a wilting flower. I don't have to have the bed just because I'm a woman," she continued. They had chosen Church's room to spend the night; it was slightly bigger and it had a better view of the street.

"Indulge us." Tom nodded towards Church. "I wouldn't want him to have the bed if I have to sleep on the floor, and I'm sure he would feel the same about me. You're the compromise candidate."

"In that case, you won't catch me arguing." Ruth's laugh faded quickly. "Do you think we're going to be safe?"

"We can hope." Tom glanced outside again. "No sign of anything yet."

"Do you think they'll keep sending bigger and bigger things after us until they get us?"

"The Wild Hunt is coming," he replied darkly. "There is nothing after that."

"Yeah, but we'll be safe tonight," Church mumbled. He crawled on to the mat at the side of the bed, threw his coat over him and was asleep within seconds.

When he awoke in the deep still of the night, Church at first wondered if Marianne had come to him again. His head was thick with the alcohol, but he soon realised he had been disturbed by a strange grating noise, faint yet insistent. It seemed to be coming from the window. And it sounded like fingernails on glass.

"What's that?" he hissed to himself.

"Be still." Church started at Tom's strained whisper; Church hadn't noticed Tom was awake, but he was sitting up, staring at the drawn curtains. "The Baobhan Sith are here."

"But we're on the first floor."

Suddenly Church was filled with an overwhelming desire to see what was on the other side of the thick drapes; the fingernails scraped gently, chinking on the glass, calling to whoever was inside. He began to crawl towards the window. He could just peek through the gap, get some final proof that he'd left one world behind and entered another one which had no rules he could grasp. And what would he see? he wondered. What would he feel finally looking into the face of the unknown? He reached out to peel the curtains aside.

Tom's arm crashed on to his shoulder and thrust him to the floor, his nails biting almost to the bone. Tom's breath was hot in his ear. "Don't," he hissed, "if you want to live a second longer."

There was a pause in the scratching, as if whatever was outside had heard them. Tom and Church froze, their breath hard in their chests. Church halfexpected the glass suddenly to burst inward, but then the scratching resumed and they both exhaled slowly and painfully. Tom gripped Church's upper arm relentlessly and dragged him back to the other side of the bed.

"They only know we're somewhere in the vicinity, but they can't pinpoint us, or they would have had us in our sleep," Tom whispered. "The scratching is to draw the occupant of the room. If you had pulled back the curtains, you wouldn't have seen anything, but they would have seen you."

"Sorry," Church said, "I don't know what came over me."

A noise in the corridor outside made them both catch their breath again. Tom's face was pale in the dark, his cold eyes fearful. "I think they're coming in," he said.

Before Church could speak, he had leapt across the room and was kneeling next to the bed where Ruth was still sleeping soundly. He roused her gently, then clasped a hand across her mouth before she could speak; her eyes grew wide and frightened, but Tom silenced her with a finger to his lips.

He summoned Church to his side, then said, "Hide under the sheets with Ruth. I'll get into the wardrobe. When they come into the room, don't make a sound. Don't move a muscle."

"But they'll see us under the covers," Church protested.

"If they don't see you move or hear you they won't investigate further. They have little intellect. They simply respond," Tom said. "Trust me. Now, quickly."

He held up the sheets so Church could wriggle down next to Ruth, then pulled them over their heads. It was hot and stifling, emphasising the swirl of alcohol in Church's head and the steadily increasing rumble of his heart; for the first time in his life, he had a sudden twist of claustrophobia. The wardrobe door clicked and then there was silence. In the dark he couldn't see Ruth's face, but he could feel the bloom of her breath. Her fingers found his hand and gave it a confident squeeze.

They didn't have to wait long. A dim clunk echoed hollowly; the tumblers of the lock turning although Church had sealed it on the inside. The faint creak of the hinges as the door swung open. A soft tread on the carpet, deceptively light as if it was a child, moving to the foot of the bed.

Church held his breath; Ruth's stopped too. Her fingers around his hand were rigid. Together they listened. It seemed the intruder was watching the heap of covers on the bed for any movement, listening for a barely audible rustle. Suddenly every nerve on Church's body came alive. A tic was developing in his calf, a spasm in his forearm; he didn't know how much longer he could hold it. Somehow Ruth seemed to sense his discomfort for her fingernails started to bite into the soft flesh at the base of his thumb, drawing his attention to the pain.

After what seemed like a lifetime, they heard movement again. The quiet tread progressed around the bed to the head and with his blood ringing in his ears, Church waited for the sheets to be snatched back. Instead, the tread continued to the wardrobe door, where it waited again, then to the window and finally back to the door. Even when they'd heard the click of the door closing, they remained in hiding for five more minutes, not daring to move.

Finally they heard the wardrobe door open tentatively and Tom stepped out. "Gone," he whispered.

Church threw back the covers and sucked in a breath of cool air. Ruth rolled over and gave him a hug in relief and he was surprised at how comforting it felt; he responded, and she nestled her head into the crook of his neck briefly before getting up.

"Will they be back?" she said.

"I doubt it. They'll continue to search the area until dawn, but we should be out of here before sunset tomorrow." Tom stretched and cracked his knuckles.

Despite Tom's earlier warning, Church couldn't resist peeking behind the curtains. All along the street shadows flitted in and out of doorways or shimmered in the streetlights like ghosts. It wasn't as if they were insubstantial; Church had the feeling they simply didn't want to be seen. And high over the rooftops there were others, floating like leaves caught in the wind. It was an alien infestation that made him shudder and he returned to the others dreading what the forthcoming days would bring.

They slept fitfully, but awoke with a sense of purpose driven as much by what was at their backs as what lay ahead. They made the most of a heavy breakfast of bacon, sausages and eggs and tea, not knowing when the next meal would be, and then went to check out. Church carried out the formalities and got the credit card slip for Ruth to sign, while Ruth and Tom watched the street outside, but when he came back over to them there was anger in his face.

"What's wrong?" Ruth asked.

He waved the bill at them. "That sneaky bastard from the pub stiffed us! It looks like he was drinking till sun-up, plus food from the kitchen, and he signed it all on to our bill! I knew he was a conman the moment I laid eyes on him!"

"He was quite sweet in his own way." Ruth laughed. "He stopped us wallowing in our misery so we owe him something for that."

"Fifty quid! That's Harley Street rates!" He screwed up the bill angrily. "If I see him again I'm going to take this out of his hide."

At first there was a shock of colour glimpsed through the throng; white-blonde hair, short at the sides, spiky on top, expensively cut to look like a mess. Then there were the sunglasses, round, hi-tech and, again, expensive, on a morning when the sun was as pallid as a watercolour; the clothes, shabby, long overcoat, jeans and engineer boots, designed to look hard and uncompromising; the portable computer tucked under her arm; and finally the air of confidence that seemed, at least to Ruth, to border on arrogance. They knew it was Laura DuSantiago long before she spoke. She looked as out of place in the crowd of shoppers and business people as if she had beamed down from another planet.

"You brought the posse," she said to Church after they'd exchanged introductions.

"They're both trustworthy. Within reason."

"They better be. I don't want my insanity made public. I have enough trouble getting a loan as it is. So, you fancy something hot, wet and sweet?" The sunglasses prevented Church reading her eyes to tell how he should take the innuendo so he simply nodded. "Yeah, I bet you do. Face it, tiger, you just hit the jackpot."

She led them down a side street off the main drag to a cafe called Mr. C's Brasserie that was quiet enough to talk and not too empty to be overheard. They took a seat in the window and once the espressos and cappuccinos had arrived, Laura plugged her computer into a mobile phone and logged on to the net. The forteana newsgroup was so jammed with postings it seemed to take forever to load.

"It's getting worse," she said. "All over the country, an epidemic of bozoness. Claims of alien abductions, hauntings, UFOs, sightings of the Loch Ness Monster, even fairies, for God's sake. Now don't get me wrong, not so long ago I wouldn't have acknowledged these geeks if they'd painted themselves red and were doing naked handstands in Cross Keys Shopping Centre. Anybody who believed in the supernatural was dead between the ears. But we're talking smoke and fire here, if you know what I mean."

"You said something happened to you." Church had to restrain himself not to ask her about Marianne.

"I'm getting to that. Slowly. Because I don't want to talk about it, but I do." Her confidence seemed to waver for a moment. "Listen to me. I sound like I've got Alzheimer's."

"If it makes you feel better, we've seen things too-" Ruth began.

"Does one crazy make another seem better? Look, I'm doing this because somebody has to, because there's something important going down, but all I see is dull sheep going about their lives either blind to it or pretending things are just how they were. And I'm doing it for me. To make sense of my experience before it eats its way out of my head." She sipped her espresso, watching Church over the top of her sunglasses with eyes that were cold and unreadable. "So, you ready to get screwed in the head?"

He met her eyes without flinching. "Tell us what you know."

"It happened back here in Salisbury, the city that made me into the woman I am today. I was staying with friends for the weekend and we went out to a party on the Saturday night. Talk about dull. I thought I'd gone into the Incontinence Home for the Elderly. But I made sure I enjoyed myself, even if they didn't know how to, and the next morning I needed to chill out so I took a walk. Ended up on this industrial estate. Right in the middle there's a depot for something or other-cogs or shit, I don't know. Anyway, it's pretty rundown, grass pushing up through the tarmac, the odd broken window, you know what I mean. I was standing outside looking at it thinking it would be a good place to hold a party when I heard … I mean, I thought I heard … it could have been the wind … I heard my name. Now I don't want you thinking I'm the kind of person who always follows imaginary voices, but I thought I ought to check it out. I've seen enough slasher flicks to be on my guard in that kind of situation, but, you know, it bothered me. I had to see."

She looked from one face to the other as if searching for validation, but not wanting them to think she needed it.

"You don't have to explain yourself," Church said. "We've been through the same thing-trying to deal with something your head tells you can't be true, but your heart tells you is."

"Sorry? Do you think I'm interested? Quiet, bud, this is my story." Her attitude was antagonistic, but there was something, a flicker of a facial muscle, perhaps, that told Church his words had given her some comfort. "So, I went through the wire and had a look around. It was deserted, Sunday morning, but I still thought there might be some social inadequate with a uniform and a dog so I moved out of the open sharpish. Then I heard it again. Laura. Definitely, Laura. It seemed to be coming from this route between two buildings where lots of yellow oil drums had been stacked. By that time even I was thinking I was crazy-there could have been any psycho down there-but it was like I was being pulled in by something. I picked my way through the drums, and then … Can I get another coffee?"

Church could tell she'd done it for effect. Even though her face remained impassive, she seemed pleased at the grumble she'd elicited from Tom; Church could see Ruth wasn't wholly warming to her either, but there was something in her obviously faux obnoxiousness that he quite liked. Tom ordered her another espresso which she took without thanks, and then she continued.

"I walked past the last heap of oil drums and it was like the air opened up in front of me." She fumbled for the right words. "Like the depot and everything around was some kind of stage scenery and somebody had peeled it back to show what really lay behind. I tried to back off, until I realised it was coming towards me quicker than I could move. And then it swallowed me up."

Ruth looked at her incredulously. "It was alive?"

"No, it was like some Star Trek effect-with no Scotty to pull me out at the last minute. There was this weird, spangly shit like I was having beads of oil sprayed on me, and then it was like I was tripping. I'm not going to start to describe the sensations-I don't want to sound like some burnt out acid case." She nodded to Tom. "No offence, space cadet. And then I saw things, heard things-"

"What kind of things?" Church interjected.

"Images. Sounds. It was a trip. And a half."

"But what did you see?" Church stressed.

"Enough to know that this whole world's in deep trouble. And I was told-"

"Who told you?"

"— I was told that all this strange, supernatural shit that's been going on all over the country is tied into it. The basic message was: don't go getting any long-term mortgages." Before Church could complain about her reticence, she added, "Anything I say won't do it justice. But I can show you."