Crybbe aka Curfew

ascend for ever into Thy holy light.'

Alex paused and looked across at the mantelpiece as though it were an altar.

'Amen,' he said, and lowered his chin to his chest.

He had no holy water, no vestments, no Bible, no prayer book.

An old man in faded Kate Bush T-shirt, tracksuit trousers and an ancient, peeling pair of gymshoes, standing, head bowed in the centre of the room, making it up as he went along.

What else could he do?

Certainly not this strident stuff about commanding unquiet spirits to begone. Not to Grace, a prim little lady who never even went to the newsagent's without a hat and gloves.

'Forgive me, Grace,' Alex said.

He sat down in the fireside chair, which had been hers, on those special occasions when the sitting-room was in use.

'Forgive me,' he said.

And fell asleep.

Fay slipped into the hall unprepared for the density of the crowd.

How could so many be so silent?

Every seat was taken and there were even more people standing, lining every spare foot of wall, two or three deep in some places.

Wynford Wiley, guardian of the main portal, turned his sweating cheese of a head as she came in, rasping at her. 'Not got that tape recorder, 'ave you?'

Fay held up both hands to show she hadn't, and Wynford still looked suspicious, as if he thought she might be wired up, with a hidden microphone in her hair. For Christ's sake, what did it matter?

She stood just inside the doors and saw the impossibility of her task. There must be over three hundred people in here. Joe Powys hadn't been entirely serious, but he'd been right: the best thing they could have done was pile into the car and make a dash for civilization. And she'd been so glib: I'll think of something.

Fay looked among the multitude, at individual faces, each one set as firm as a cardboard mask. Except in the New Age ghetto, towards the front of the hall, to her left, where there was a variety of expressions. A permanent half-smile on the nodding features of a smart man in a safari suit. A woman with an explosion of white hair wearing a beatific expression, face upturned to the great god Goff.

Max was being politely cross-examined on behalf of the townsfolk by the chairman, craggy Colonel Croston, who Fay knew from council meetings – the only councillor who'd ever spoken to her before the meetings.

'I think one thing that many people would like me to ask you, Mr Goff, is about the stones. Why is it necessary to erect what I suppose many people would regard as crude symbols of pagan worship?'

Goff seemed entirely at ease with the question.

'Well, you know…' Leaning back confidently in his chair 'I think all that pagan stuff is a concept which would raise many an eyebrow in most parts of Wales, where nearly every year a new stone circle is erected as part of the national eisteddfod. I realize the eisteddfodic tradition is not so strong here on the border any more – if it ever was – but if you were to place these stones in the ground in Aberystwyth, or Caernarfon, or Fishguard, I doubt anyone would even notice. The point is, Mr Chairman… all this is largely symbolic. It symbolises a realisation that this town was once important enough to be a place of pilgrimage – like Lourdes, perhaps. And that it can be again.'

Spontaneous sycophantic applause burst from the New Age quarter.

Is he blatantly lying, Fay wondered. Or does he seriously believe this bullshit?

Or are we, Joe Powys and I, grossly, insultingly, libelously wrong about everything?

But almost as soon as she thought this, she began to feel very strongly that they were not wrong.

It was ten minutes past nine, the chamber lit by wrought-iron electric chandeliers, and she just knew there was going to be a power cut within the next half hour.

'Come in, Joe,' Jean Wendle said. 'I fear we shall be losing our electricity supply before too long.'

How do you know that?'

Carrying Arnold, he followed her down the hall and into her living-room, where a pleasant Victorian lamp with a pale-blue shade burned expensive aromatic oil.

'There's a sequence,' Jean said, perching birdlike on a chair-arm. Tea?'

'No time, thanks. What's the sequence?'

'Well, temperature fluctuation, to begin with. Either a drop or a raising of the temperature. Coupled with a kind of tightening of the air pressure that you come to recognize. Y'see, these new trip mechanisms or whatever they use do seem to be rather more vulnerable to it than the old system. Or so it seems to me.'

Jean crossed her legs neatly. She was wearing purple velour trousers and white moccasins. 'No time, eh? My.'

He put Arnold down. 'When you say 'it'…?'

'It? Oh, we could be talking about anything, from the geological formation – did you know there's a fault line running through mid Wales and right along the border here, there've been several minor but significant earthquakes in recent years, there's the geology, to start with…'

'Jean,' Powys said, 'we're in a lot of trouble.'

'Aye,' Jean Wendle said, 'I know.'

'So let's not talk about temperature fluctuations or rock strata, let's talk about Michael Wort.'

'What about him?'

Powys sat down, gathered his thoughts and then spent three minutes telling her, in as flat and factual a way as he could manage, his and Fay's conclusions. Ending with the shadow of Black Michael falling over Crybbe, whatever remained of his earthly power centres fused with the town's, the exchange of dark energy.

He felt Arnold pushing against his legs in the way he'd done last night in Bell Street, before leading him to the blood and the semi-conscious Fay. Powys reached down a hand and patted him, and Arnold began to pant. He's aware of the urgency, too, Powys thought. But then, he's a dowser's dog.

'It'll try and take the church tonight,' he said. 'And then… God knows…'

Jean sat and listened. When he finished she was silent for over a minute. Powys looked at his watch and then bit on a knuckle.

'That's very interesting,' Jean said. 'You may be right.'

Arnold whined.

'Shush.' Powys laid a hand on the dog's side. Arnold breathing rapidly.

'We haven't any time to waste, Jean. I think… it seems to me I need to get over to the church and ensure that… well, that old Preece makes it to the belfry. I can't think what else I can do that's halfway meaningful, can you?'

Jean thought for a moment and then shook her head.

'What I think is… in fact I know… that you ought to go for the source.'

Her eyes were very calm and sure.

Powys said, 'I don't know what you mean.'

'The source, Joe. Where it begins.'

He thought of the great dark mound with its swaying trees and the blood of Henry Kettle on its flank.

'That's right,' Jean said. 'The Tump.'

'I…' It was forbidding enough by daylight.

'Don't think you can handle that?'

'I don't see the point, I'm not a magician. I'm not a shaman – I'm just a bloody writer. Not even that any more.'

No, he might just as well have said. I don't think I can handle it. This was Jean Wendle he was talking to. Jean Wendle, the psychic. Also Jean Wendle the barrister. The human lie detector.

'Oh, Joe, Joe… You're like Alex. You won't face up to the way it is. To what has to be done. You lost the wee girl Rose, you lost Rachel Wade.'