had the feeling that if she stood up or moved closer she would scare Mora away again. ‘Please, tell me what you want. I am listening to your story.’ She fell silent, trying to open herself to whatever came. The figure hadn’t moved. Shadows from the trees outside fell through the stained glass of the window and played across the altar. She frowned, afraid she would lose sight of the figure in the shifting beams of light. ‘Mora, speak to me.’
‘Who in the name of Our Lord Jesus Christ is Mora!’ Kier’s voice just behind her made her spin round, rigid with shock. ‘Just who are you praying to?’
She turned back to the altar but Mora had gone. With a mixture of rage and disappointment, she fell back onto the chair. ‘Get out, Kier.’ She spoke through clenched teeth.
‘Not until you’ve told me. Who is Mora? Are you praying to some sort of goddess?’ He sputtered over the word as he stood over her.
She shook her head wearily. ‘No, Kier, I am not praying to a goddess.’
‘What then?’
‘It is none of your business. Please go away. I thought you had gone. I thought you had realised you had made a huge mistake coming down here.’
He shook his head wildly. ‘Please, don’t look so cross, Abi. I only want to talk to you for a few minutes, then I will go. I promise. I need to explain – ’ He paused and looked away, anguished. ‘I didn’t mean to come and hound you.’ He tried again. ‘I don’t want you to feel you’ve got to run away all the time. It’s only because I care so much that I have come here. It’s not your fault I’ve lost my job. I know that now. I went back to see the bishop. I handled everything appallingly but it will all come right. I know it will.’
Abi put her hands in her jacket pockets and waited in silence. He glanced at her, then looked down at the floor. ‘You are a sensitive woman, Abi,’ he said at last. ‘Exceptionally so and as an ordained priest you are a prime target. You know that as well as I do.’ He paused as though expecting her to say something.
She waited, looking at him, amazed that she could feel so much hostility towards a man who had once attracted her. ‘I don’t know how to get through to you,’ she said at last. ‘I don’t want to see you any more. I don’t want you interfering in my life.’
‘When I first came it was because your father asked me to,’ Kier went on. ‘He begged me to help you. He knows how dangerous that rock crystal is. He says it destroyed your mother. It has demonic powers.’
‘Rubbish!’ Abi felt a surge of anger. ‘Look, Kier. I am trying to be reasonable. I don’t care what my father asked you to do. My father hates anything that smacks of superstition to him, and that includes the Church of England, I may say. I left home because he and I do not agree on a great many important subjects. Our relationship is none of your business. Please go now.’ She saw him hesitate. ‘Now, Kier!’
‘I’m not going anywhere. I can’t leave you here like this. Your immortal soul is in danger – ’
‘No, not again!’ Suddenly she was so angry she couldn’t contain her rage. She stood up and turned on him. ‘My immortal soul is my affair, Kier. If I want to pray to the devil himself I will! Now I want you to go away and leave me alone and never, never come near me again. If you don’t I shall go to the police and charge you with harassment, do you understand me?’
He took a step back. ‘Abi! There’s no need for that. I want to help you.’
‘You are not helping me.’
‘Then explain. Who is Mora?’
‘All right. I’ll tell you.’ Her eyes were blazing with rage. ‘Mora is a ghost. She was a druid priestess and she has been trying to speak to me.’ His face had gone white, his eyes narrowed with shock. She didn’t notice. ‘She is a healer. Yes, a healer, Kier. And what is more she was a friend of Jesus. She loved him. He was a student here, on the Isle of Avalon. The legends are true. He came with Joseph of Arimathaea, a trader who came to pick up cargoes of tin and lead round the coast here, and he studied with the druids and he healed the sick and I have seen him. Watched him at work. And this church is one of the most sacred places in the whole of England and you have walked in here with your petty jealousy and anger and your puritan ignorance and you have spoiled everything!’
He was silent for a moment, staring at her. When at last he spoke it was just two words. ‘Oh, Abi.’
‘Yes, oh Abi!’ Ducking away from him she threw herself into the aisle near the pulpit, and turned to face him. ‘Go away, Kier.’
‘You poor child. You are completely deluded.’ He took a step back away from her. ‘It is far worse than I thought. Far worse.’ He paused again. ‘Have you told Ben about this delusion?’
‘It is not a delusion.’ She was so furious she could barely speak. ‘Yes, I’ve told Ben about Mora. She has been seen around here for hundreds of years by generations of his family. She has a story she needs to tell, about Jesus, Kier, and she has been trying to find someone who can understand her. Someone who will listen.’
‘And that person is you.’ His voice was flat.
‘Yes, that person is me.’
‘I see.’ He sighed. ‘OK. I can see why you were angry with me for interrupting you. I’m sorry.’ He glanced round the church with a shiver. ‘I take it she isn’t here any more.’
‘No, she’s gone.’
‘I saw the ghosts at St Hugh’s, you know.’ He shook his head. ‘I’ve always seen ghosts. They terrify me. They are evil. They take you over. I wanted you to help me stop them, but you made them worse.’ His voice was shaking. ‘Can we pray together, Abi? Then I’ll go.’
She hesitated, her anger short-circuited by his sudden capitulation. What harm could it do to pray? With a nod of her head she relaxed visibly. ‘All right.’
He walked past her to the altar step and turning beckoned her to come and stand beside him. He gave her a brief smile, then he turned to face the window, staring up at the crucified Christ. The sun was shining directly in, highlighting the colours. The face of the man on the cross was inscrutable. ‘Dear Lord,’ he murmured. ‘Bless us and hold us in your hand. Especially look with mercy on your servant, Abi, and cast from her the devil, Mora, and all her illusions – ’
‘No!’ Abi turned on him once more. ‘How dare you!’
Kier was ready for her. He grabbed her arm and twisted it behind her. ‘I’m sorry, Abi, I truly am. But I have to do this. Kneel down.’
‘No!’
‘Yes!’ He was forcing her to her knees on the step. With her arm held so painfully behind her back, Abi gave in and subsided. He could hold her easily now with one hand. She couldn’t move. She watched in real fear as he groped in his pocket and produced a small bottle. ‘This is holy water, Abi. It will remove her. Don’t be afraid, my dear. In a moment it will all be over.’ He looked up at the window again, addressing the man on the cross. ‘Lord, be with us here in this place and help me reclaim it for you. Begone from this place, every evil haunting and phantasm; depart for ever, every unclean spirit – ’
‘No! Kier, stop! You don’t know what you are doing. Don’t be so stupid!’ Abi’s protest was cut short as he gave a small vicious jerk on her wrist, forcing it up between her shoulder blades. Her shoulder was agony.
Flipping the stopper out of the bottle with his thumb he held it over her head. ‘Almighty God, your nature is always to have mercy and to forgive: loose this your servant from every bond of evil and free her from all her sins. I ask this though Jesus Christ our Lord, Amen.’ He was sprinkling the water over her hair, she could feel it, warm from his pocket. Splashes of it fell on the step where she was kneeling. The sun had gone in and the window in front of them had lost its colour. He waited for a full minute, as though expecting something to happen, then he released her arm. She fell forward, trying not to sob out loud as she cradled her shoulder in her other hand. Kier was watching her closely.
‘There,’ he said at last. ‘Now you will be safe. Pray, Abi. Ask for God’s forgiveness and protection.’ He turned away and walked back down the aisle. Near the door he stopped and pulled out his mobile phone. As Abi staggered to her feet and turned to look after him she heard him speaking urgently. ‘Ben? It’s Kier Scott. Can you come at once? I’m in St Mary’s Church. Abi is here. I’ve prayed with her and cast out this demon who has been possessing her, but it would be good to have you here for back up.’ He flipped the phone shut and put it back in his pocket. Then he went to sit down at the back of the church.
Abi sank onto the altar step. She had begun to tremble all over.
Lugging her suitcase up the steps after her, Athena inserted her key in the door and pushed it open. She was exhausted. The last couple of days had been hell. Funerals were never good, but this one had been particularly bad. The service, if that was the word, had been held at the West London Crematorium. It had been arranged by Tim’s
