the droning voices of the others slipped into dim awareness. It stayed that way for long enough that she felt a wash of damp emotion when she realised something had changed. It took her a second or two to grasp what it was: no one was speaking in the background. An unsettling tingle started at the base of her spine. Her first thought was that they had all stopped talking to stare at her. She prepared an acid response and turned to confront them.
She was surprised and unsettled to see they were still standing in the same position, unmoving; a deep unnatural silence lay over them. They weren't holding their breath, or listening for something. Everyone was frozen, hands mid-gesture, mouths poised in question or response, as if time had stopped in that one small spot.
Laura felt a chill creep over her. A change had come to the soothing atmosphere on the island too; it was now heavy with anticipation.
Soniething''s conning, she thought, without quite knowing how she had recognised that.
Her eyes darted among the trees. The island wasn't so big that someone could creep up on them unannounced; they would have heard something. As if in answer to her thought, she did hear a sound. Branches cracked, leaves rustled suddenly. She spun round quickly, her heart hammering.
Light and shadow changed on the periphery of her vision. It could have been an illusion caused by her blinking, but, coupled with the sound, she was sure: something big was lumbering around in the trees. But whenever she tried to pin it down among the undergrowth it had already moved on to somewhere else. She caught a flicker of a silhouette, then gone. A heavy footstep that sounded only feet away, then another one near the water's edge.
She backed up hastily to the others, tugged at Church's arm in the hope of somehow waking him, but when her fingers brushed his skin, it felt as cold as marble. Something like a stone seemed to grow in her throat. She crouched down to lower herself below the line of sight, then moved forward through the vegetation. If she could get to the boat, she could row out on to the water and reassess the situation, possibly go around the island until she could get a good view of what she was up against. Either that, or she could just run back to the van and drive off.
But the moment she was away from the tiny clearing surrounding the altar, things became even more confusing. Sounds were distorted by the undergrowth, the shape began to move faster, its thrashing becoming more animal-like. Anxiety knotted in her chest. She put her head down and dashed, but she hadn't gone far when her foot caught on a branch which she was convinced hadn't been there before. She went sprawling; the impact knocked the wind out of her. As she attempted to scramble back to her feet, a dark shape loomed above her like a cloud moving across the sun. Cold, unforgiving. She glanced up into a face which registered for only the merest instant before her consciousness winked out under the protest of an incomprehensible, alien sight.
When she came round, Church was crouching next to her. The others had gathered a few feet away, watching her with concern.
'Stop looking at me,' she snapped.
'What happened?' Church asked.
'There was something here, in the trees.' As her thoughts whizzed, she became aware of a dull ache on the back of her right hand. She raised it slowly, turning it until she located the right spot. Burned into the flesh was a familiar design: interlocking leaves in a circle.
Laura's attention snapped on to Ruth who was staring in shock at the tattoo. It matched the one she carried: the mark of Cernunnos delivered to her after the confrontation in Wales.
'Get a grip. It doesn't make us sisters.' Laura rubbed her hand, obscuring the sign.
'It looks as if our great nature god has decided to honour two of our number,' Shavi said thoughtfully.
'He told me there were two of us.' Ruth looked at Laura curiously.
'What's the matter? Can't believe you're not special any more?' Laura let Church haul her to her feet, then quickly thrust her hand into her trouser pocket. 'So does this mean I'm going to be a witch-bitch too?'
'It simply means,' Tom said, 'that Cernunnos has some plan for you.'
'That's a relief,' Laura said sourly. 'I thought it was something bad.'
They rowed back across the water in silence. Laura seemed even more locked-off than normal, ignoring all their attempts to get her to talk about her experience, but they could see it lay on her shoulders like a rock. Church, who probably understood her the best-and even then, not very well at all-saw something in her eyes that made him want to take her on one side and hold her; it was a look that suggested she was ready to run from something with which she could no longer cope.
As they gathered at the water's edge, mulling over what the encounter meant, Shavi glanced towards the van and raised the alarm. They all scrambled over the rocks as one, but Church was the first one to reach it, not quite believing what he was seeing. On the bonnet was a dead rabbit, its blood trickling down towards the radiator grille. It had been gutted, the stomach cavity splayed to the air, its internal organs carefully laid out beside it.
'What the fuck's this?' Veitch said in disgust.
Shavi stepped forward and examined the carcass without touching it. 'It was left for us particularly,' he said after a brief moment. 'You can see the precise nature of the cuts. Someone took the time to do this.'
'Is it linked to what happened on the island?' Ruth asked.
Tom shook his head. 'I wouldn't think-'
'Wait!' Shavi leaned forward to peer into the stomach cavity. 'There is something in here.'
'Don't touch it,' Ruth pleaded.
Church watched her from the corner of his eye; she seemed unnaturally fearful, as if she were sensing something without being aware of it. 'Be careful,' he cautioned.
Shavi looked around until he located two twigs which he held like chopsticks. Cautiously he used them to investigate the rabbit's interior. A second later he retracted what at first appeared to be a small pink slug smeared in blood.
'That is gross!' Laura screwed up her face, but couldn't tear her eyes away.
It was a finger, severed at the knuckle.
Shavi laid it on the bonnet and they all gathered round, as if they expected it to move. 'Who could it belong to?' Shavi mused. 'And why was it left here for us?'
Veitch scanned the deserted hillsides, which were suddenly unwelcoming and lonely. 'We should be getting out of here.'
The grisly discovery cast a pall over their journey south. For the first few miles they travelled without speaking, struggling to make sense of it all, feeling a deep dread creeping out of the mystery. There was something about the image that was inherently evil, ritualistic, beyond mere threat. Yet it made no sense, and it was that which wormed its way into their subconscious and lay there, gnawing silently.
They picked up the A9 just north of Inverness and followed it south through the rugged, desolate landscape of the Cairngorms. Two technology crashes slowed them up and it soon became apparent they would be searching for somewhere to stay in Edinburgh by the time the curfew came around. The best option seemed to be to break their journey and set off for the city fresh and early the next day. So, hungry and bored with the road, they arrived in the small town of Callander at the foot of the Highlands in the late afternoon.
The jumbled collection of stone buildings nestled so hard against the thickly wooded foothills that, with the mountains soaring up in the background all around, they felt instantly enveloped and protected; it was a pleasant sensation after all the wide open spaces. The town smelled of fish and chips and pine, but that too was oddly soothing. A lot more people were wandering around than they had seen for days, their faces free of the taint of fear. It gave hope that the major centres of population still hadn't been too affected.
It was a long time since they had experienced the comfort of a soft bed so they opted to spend the night in a hotel. The Excelsior lay at the end of the main street, a Gothic-styled pile of stone that resembled a fortress with its turrets on four corners and enormous windows looking out on all sides. The thick, wild forest swept down almost to the very back of it, but it still seemed a place that could be secure.
While the others rested or abluted, Church and Veitch went down to the hotel bar. It was comfortingly cool and dark away from the bright afternoon sun and had the cosy feel of a place which had grown organically rather than been designed to fit the frenzied drive for increased profits. Veitch had a Stella, Church a Guinness, and they took their drinks to a table in a window bay where they could look out on to the sun-drenched main street.
'It's the little things I'm going to miss,' Veitch said introspectively.
'What do you mean?'
'Like this.' He held up the pint so it glowed golden in a sunbeam. 'If things carry on falling apart, we're not
