'How is she?'
'Not talking like she's pissed up for a change.' Ruth's lucid moments were increasingly few and far between; at times she ranted and raged in the throes of her delirium so much they thought they would have to restrain her. It always happened at night, in the small hours, snapping them out of sleep and filling them with fear that they were being attacked. Sometimes she would hold conversations with someone neither of them could see; on those occasions they didn't go to sleep again.
Church turned despondently to wander back to the house, but he hadn't gone more than a few steps when Laura grabbed him and gave him a long, romantic kiss. It was an astonishing show of emotion for someone who seemed ever more locked up with each passing day.
'What was that for?' he asked, pleasantly surprised.
'What's the matter? Can't I show you I love you?' She had turned and was walking away before he had a chance to grasp what she had said.
He mulled over it until he was in the house, but the moment he saw Ruth it was driven from his mind. Her skin was like snow, emphasised by the darkness of her hair, which was plastered with sweat to her head. There were purple rings under her eyes and her cheeks had grown increasingly hollow. Beneath the sleeping bag, her belly was hugely swollen. Her appearance was so shocking he had a horrible feeling she was going to die before Balor's rebirth. A part of himself that he never faced hoped that was the case; then he would be saved from having to make the awful decision to kill her.
Although he was creeping quietly, she looked up before he had crossed the threshold. 'Hi. You're starting to get a tan.' Her voice was just a rustle.
'You know how it is. Nothing to do apart from lie by the pool with a good book.' He knelt down next to her to brush a strand of hair from her forehead. When he rested his hand against her cheek, her skin felt like it was burning up.
She put her hand on top of his and gave it a squeeze. 'I'm glad you're here.'
'Sure. I'm doing so much-'
'I just feel better having you around.' He smiled; her eyes brightened briefly before she was forced to close them; a tear squeezed out and trickled down her cheek.
'I'm sorry you've had to go through all this,' he said gently. 'You've had the worst of all of us. One bad thing after another.'
'You know, bad things happen.' She pulled his hand round so she could softly kiss his fingers; her lips were too dry.
'You don't have any right to take it so well. You're giving us all too much to live up to. You git.'
They laughed together, and the sound of it in that dismal room made Church's own eyes burn. He blinked them dry. 'Sometimes I feel like I've known you forever. I know it's only been a few months since that night under Albert Bridge, but it seems like a lifetime ago.'
'Maybe we have known each other forever. Maybe it's that old Pendragon Spirit speaking. Telling you we've stood side by side across the centuries.'
'You're an old romantic.'
She tried to laugh again, but it broke up into a hacking cough. When the attack had subsided, her mood had grown forlorn. 'I just wish it wasn't happening here. This house feels bad, sour. I don't know what happened here, but sometimes I can hear voices whispering to me. The things they say… that Ryan's going to die… that other terrible things are going to happen-'
'Hush.'
'That writing on the wall… Sometimes words seem to leap out at me-'
He put two fingers on her lips to silence her. Gradually the delirium returned to her eyes as they started to roll upwards. After a moment or two she began to rave, occasionally speaking in tongues, thrashing from side to side. Church sat patiently beside her during the worst of it, then stroked her head until she eventually drifted off to sleep.
Sometimes Church thought he had never seen a night sky like the one above Mam Tor. Unencumbered by light pollution, benefiting in some indescribable way from the sheer height above sea level, they seemed to be enveloped by the sparkling heavens. If not for their circumstances, it would have been a sublime experience.
He stood with Laura in his arms, looking up at the celestial vault; for once she had removed her sunglasses. 'We've come a long way, despite everything. Pity if it had to end here.'
'No fat lady singing yet, boy.'
'No, not yet.' He watched a meteor burn up over their heads, wondering if it were some kind of sign. 'Sometimes it's hard to take a step back and appreciate exactly what we're doing here. You know, I look at myself, look at you and the others, and all I see is normal people with all the stupid kinds of problems everybody has. And that's who we are, but at the same time we're something else as well-the champions of a race, a planet. The living embodiment of the Pendragon Spirit, whatever that might be-'
'Maybe we're not special.'
'What do you mean?'
'Maybe this thing the old git calls the Pendragon Spirit is in everybody. Maybe it's the spirit of man, or some shit. Listen to me, I sound like some wetbrained New Age idiot. What I'm trying to say is, what if he's just calling us special to keep us on board. So we think sorting out this whole mess is just down to us.'
'Or so we dig deep to find the best in us to get the job done.'
'That too.' She rested her forehead on his shoulder. 'That would explain why we all seem like such a bunch of losers. We are a bunch of losers.'
'Doing the best we can. And doing a damn good job-'
'So far. But if we've not got any special dispensation, the chances of us fucking up are even greater. We've got through on a wing and a prayer and too much confidence. But sooner or later the blind, stupid luck is going to run out.'
Church thought about this while he continued to watch the stars. Then: 'I might have agreed with you a few weeks back, when we first met each other. But in all the shit we've waded through, everybody has shown a real goodness at the heart of them. There isn't anybody else I'd want around me at this time and there isn't anybody else I think could do a better job-'
'You don't know the thoughts in my head-'
'I can guess at them.'
'No, you can't. There are sick, twisted things crawling around up there. Take Little Miss Goody-Shoes back there. Sometimes I wish she'd hurry up and die so she wouldn't carry on getting between me and you. I know it's a nasty, evil little part of me and I hate myself for it. But I still do it.'
'She doesn't get between us.'
'You're too stupid to see it. She loves you and I think you love her, and if there wasn't a constant state of crisis you'd recognise that.'
Her words sparked rampant, brilliant bursts in his mind, but they were all too fleeting to get a handle on. He pulled back slightly so he could try to read her; she half-turned her head away. 'You're a good person, Laura.'
'You're a good liar.'
'You've got an answer for everything.'
'If I had, I wouldn't be feeling like my brains were leaking out of my ears. Too much thinking isn't good for anyone.'
'Look-'
She slammed her hand on his mouth. 'Don't say anything. It'll sort itself out one way or the other.' He didn't like the look that crossed her face when she said that.
He hated to think anything unpleasant of her, so instead he kissed her. At first she seemed to be resisting him, but then she gave in, and for the briefest instant everything seemed in perfect harmony.
But then an unseasonally cold wind came whipping across the tor and buffeted them. Church broke off the kiss, shivering. Away in the west, billowing clouds were sweeping towards them at an unnatural rate. Lightning flashed within them, illuminating the underside of the roiling mass; one bolt burst out in a jagged streak to the ground. But they were not storm clouds, and there was no thunder.
The wind grew stronger as the clouds neared until it was lashing their hair, then threatening to throw them
