Ardwyn didn’t reply, but gently took the bone carnyx from her frozen hands.
Gar brought the new vessel before him and forced it to kneel. For the first time, Everett realised how much it resembled the young German soldier. ‘Nothing personal, chum,’ he said, as he took the new vessel by the hair and bent its head back. It was weeping and screaming behind its gag. ‘First flesh, first fruit,’ he whispered, and the knife made a whisper of its own, and the vessel emptied onto the black soil. Then Ardwyn blew the bone carnyx to summon their god back to life, and the ground began to heave.
This time, Moccus made it on his own, and stepped out of the pit to tower over them in something like his former vitality. His amber eyes locked onto Everett’s.
He nodded, once.
Then he was gone, loping into the trees, and the Recklings too disappeared in their father’s wake, to leave the Farrow alone in the clearing, shocked and weeping.
‘What have you done?’ whispered Mother, her voice hoarse and utterly distraught. ‘Oh, my children, what have you done?’
‘Survived,’ said Ardwyn. From the way she was rubbing her belly he could tell that she was feeling better already, and he could feel the heaviness in his lungs clearing too. ‘And so have the rest of you. You’re welcome, by the way.’
‘Get out,’ said Mother. ‘All three of you.’
‘Gladly,’ Everett retorted, and tossed the knife at her feet. ‘But one day you’ll come to see the necessity of all this, and you’ll want me back.’
‘Never!’
‘Try not to take that long. You’ve got another twenty-six years to change your mind or find someone else.’
* * *
By February of 2020, she hadn’t changed her mind. The old wooden farm gate that had once opened from the road onto the lane into Swinley had been replaced by a pair of tall wire mesh security gates attached to razor-wire-topped fencing that disappeared into the trees to left and right, a sign that read No TRESPASSING: THESE PREMISES PROTECTED BY PRIVATE SECURITY and, as if to prove that this wasn’t a bluff, a CCTV camera set on a pole a little further in.
Everett parked the RV that they’d picked up in Frankfurt and looked at it all. ‘Do you ever get the impression that you’re not welcome?’ he said to Ardwyn and Gar.
The lock on the gates was too strong even for Gar to break, so he tore a hole in the chain-link fence to one side and they walked instead.
‘Maybe we should try the Recklings first,’ he suggested. ‘Get the lie of the land, so to speak. See what other surprises might be in store.’
‘No,’ said Ardwyn. ‘This is our home. Mother can’t keep us out; we’re Farrow, the blessed of Moccus, just like her, and we have a right to worship him. I won’t sneak in like a thief and I won’t hide with the beasts.’
Gar grunted, but whether it was in agreement or displeasure at being called a beast was hard to tell.
‘Fair enough,’ Everett said, and checked that his officer’s Webley was fully loaded before they set off. They managed no more than a few hundred yards before they heard the sound of a vehicle approaching, and a Land Rover Defender appeared around the corner, slewing to a halt across the lane diagonally in front of them. Two men in dark, nondescript uniforms were inside; while the driver said something into his radio, his passenger got out and approached them. He was wearing a utility belt with all sorts of things clipped to it, including what looked like pepper spray, a baton and something in a pistol-shaped holster.
‘You need to leave now,’ he said. He was very large and there was an earpiece with a coiled wire running behind his collar. ‘This is private property. That’s your one warning.’
‘My name is Ardwyn Hughes,’ she replied. ‘This is—’
‘We know who you are. All three of you. You were ID’d when you pulled up outside the gate. The owners have made it clear that you’re not welcome. Leave. Now.’
‘If I could just speak to—’
The guard’s hand reached for something on his belt, but never arrived at its destination, as Everett produced the Webley and shot him in the face. There was a cry of ‘Shit!’ from inside the Defender and the driver slammed it into reverse, trying to turn around in the lane, but all that accomplished was to bring the driver’s window side on to Everett, who shot him twice through the glass. Then he went back and put another in the first guard just to make sure.
‘So much for the diplomatic approach,’ he said. ‘There’s no point in trying to be stealthy about it now; there’ll be more of these goons and the longer we hang about the more chance they have of nailing us. Ardie, where does Mother keep the knife and the carnyx?’
‘In St Mark’s,’ she replied, looking down at the bodies. ‘It’s a shame it had to be this way.’
He looked at her. ‘Second thoughts?’
She shook her head. ‘No.’
‘Good.’ He went back to the Defender, opened the door, dragged the dead driver onto the road and climbed into his still-warm seat. ‘Come on, you two. Chop chop.’
They climbed in and the vehicle drove away towards Swinley, leaving the winter morning sunlight to seep through the trees’ bare branches, dappling the bodies of the two men who lay on the road. The watches continued to tick blank and busy on their wrists, and the voices in their earpieces squawked and crackled with increasing urgency. Birdsong returned. After a while, a pig-like creature with a long, human torso crept out of the underbrush and sniffed at the scene. It approached the nearest corpse slowly, ears and nose a-twitch for any scent or sound of an intruder. With small and oddly finger-like trotters it worked at the baton that was attached to the man’s belt. It came free, and the Reckling snatched its prize up
