They were good instincts. Gar was starting to huff a little as his feet slipped and dug into the loose surface; being significantly heavier than his quarry, it must have been like trying to run up a sand-dune for him. Torelli paused, picked up a lump of sharp-edged concrete about the same size as his head with both hands, and lobbed it at Gar. Gar tried to dodge, but he couldn’t move very far to either side and the missile bounced off his right shoulder, cutting it open in a red splash. Gar roared in pain and fury.
‘Not happening, chum, sorry,’ said the deserter. He slewed the van to a halt on the other side of the small mountain on which Torelli was currently playing king-of-the-castle, leapt out and sprinted up the slope. Torelli turned to meet him; his eyes were wide and his nostrils flaring, and wet hair hung in his eyes.
‘What the fuck?’ he gasped, and just kept repeating, ‘What the fuck?’
Some part of Torelli was enjoying this, the deserter knew, but he didn’t have the time to indulge this luxury, and he drew his Webley. He’d had it since the trenches and it had done him good service ever since. He kept it in perfect working condition even though he’d rarely had to use it in the last few decades; these days mostly just showing it to someone did the trick, as it did now. Torelli’s hands went high, and he stepped back.
‘Hey, wait, man, I don’t know what this is about, but—’
Then Gar slammed into him from behind. Torelli went down hard. Gar roared and stamped on his lower leg, and the brittle snap of breaking bone was almost as loud as the gunshot would have been. Torelli twisted and howled. Before Everett could stop him, Gar stamped on the other leg and broke that too. Everett had heard most sounds that a human being in agony could make, but this was loud even so.
‘Gar! For God’s sake man! Muffle that noise!’
Gar clamped a hand over Torelli’s mouth but the screaming just went on behind his fingers. Between them they dragged him back down to the van, tied him up and gagged him, then looked at Gar’s shoulder. It was a deep gash, and his arm was already red down to the elbow.
‘You’ll survive,’ Everett said, and it was true, the blessing of Moccus would ensure that this would heal in a few days, but in the meantime it was bleeding abominably so he did his best to wad it up with some old dust rags that were in the van. When he’d finished he nodded at Torelli, who was semi-conscious with shock, moaning and writhing, and said to Gar, ‘You’re going to have to carry that now.’
Gar indicated his wounded arm and made an indignant sound.
‘I don’t care. It serves you right for losing your temper.’ He started the van and drove them back to the farm.
That evening the weather improved enough for them to see the tusk moon in a narrow band of clear sky low down on the western horizon, chasing the setting sun into darkness, and as if that were a sign from Moccus the replenishment rite was completed in the early hours of the following morning without complication. Unlike the first vessel, who had just wept and trembled, Torelli fought right to the end, which the deserter found satisfying; Moccus would need something of that defiance when he rose anew.
Another piece of good news was that the old woman seemed to have taken the hint and was not sleeping in her shed. So too, the others that they had brought into the periphery of the new church had been sent home, including the boy; it was one thing to ask them to sweep floors and dig holes, but quite another to expect them to accept the necessity for the use of human vessels in the replenishment. Once they had seen Moccus arise with their own eyes, however, things might very well be different.
Ardwyn, Everett and Gar returned in high spirits, but as they approached the farm gate Everett peered through the windscreen at a pale blur which had formed in the very periphery of the headlights.
‘What’s this?’ he murmured.
The blur resolved into a human figure: an old woman, wearing only a nightdress, standing barefoot in the middle of the road by their gate.
The deserter cursed. It was Denise Keeling, and she had that damned dog with her.
12
SOMNAMBULISM
SABRINA IS BOUGHT FOR DENNIE FROM A CRAFT FAIR IN Loughborough in the winter of 1960, when she is six years old, and quickly becomes her favourite toy. She is a rag doll, with mitten-shaped hands and round feet, golden hair in a long pony-tail and large friendly eyes. She wears a pair of baggy knickers and the fabric of her body is printed so that it looks like she’s wearing a vest too, and a white blouse under a pink pinafore dress, which fastens up the back with pink flower-shaped buttons. She does not have any fancy lace, ribbons or flowery patterns. She looks happy, calm, sensible, and down to earth; the kind of no-nonsense friend that you can rely on in a tight spot, who will keep your secrets,
