despair.
Before any of them could speak, Church shrugged off the paralysis and ran out onto the landing. For the first time he noticed tiny splatters of blood leading away from Ruth's room down the stairs. Frantically he threw himself down them, following the stains out to the street. But there the trail ended and he found himself running backwards and forwards along the deserted road searching futilely for any sign of what had happened to her.
Back in the bedroom, the others could read what he had found in his dejected face.
Veitch suddenly noticed Laura standing apart, still in shock. 'What did you do?' His voice rumbled out infused with so much threat, Church felt his blood run cold.
Laura shook her head dumbly. 'I don't know-'
Veitch moved quickly. He was already gripping Laura's shoulders roughly before the others realised. 'You better tell us, you bitch. You're the one! Look at all the blood-'
'Ryan!' Church and Shavi grabbed him by the arms and hauled him off her roughly. His face was filled with rage.
'Look at the blood!' Veitch spat accusingly.
Laura held out her hands which were stained red. 'It's not like that-'
'What is it, then?' Veitch struggled briefly, than allowed the others to restrain him.
'I was asleep on my bed,' Laura began hesitantly. 'I woke up… some kind of noise. My head was fuzzy… you know, the drink.' She looked around the room, didn't seem to see any of them. 'I got up to find out what it was… thought it might have been Church. When I was out on the landing there was another noise. I saw Ruth's door was open.'
'Who was there, Laura?' Shavi asked calmly.
Her eyes widened and filled with tears as she looked past him into the shadows in the corners of the room. 'I don't know… I can't remember!'
Veitch searched her face. 'You're lying,' he said coldly.
She shook her head, held out her hands pleadingly, but all anyone could see was the blood.
'You don't remember anything?' Church asked.
There was a flicker of pain in her eyes. 'Don't you believe me?' She started to back towards the corner.
'Stay calm, Laura.' Shavi's voice was warm and reassuring. 'We are simply trying to find out what has happened to Ruth-'
'We haven't got time for this!' Veitch snapped. His clipped movements and roving eyes reminded Church of an animal; he was surprised how concerned Witch seemed to be for someone who had hated him only a few days before; it suggested feelings beyond friendship. Church laid a calming hand on Veitch's upper arm. He half-expected Veitch to throw it off instantly, but the Londoner responded almost deferentially.
Laura slumped on to a chair in the corner and rested her head in her hands before realising she was smearing the blood over her face. She jumped up in a fury and stormed into the bathroom to wash herself.
Her departure seemed to break the dam of disbelief that constrained the others. 'Why weren't we more careful? Christ, we should have known by now.' Church's voice hummed with repressed emotion.
Veitch glanced from one to the other. 'Do you think she did it?' he whispered, jerking his head towards the bathroom. 'All that blood on her-'
Church gnawed on a knuckle. The others looked away, unsure what to say.
Veitch scrubbed his face, suddenly sober, then walked over to the window and threw back the curtains. 'Where is she?' Then, fearfully: 'Do you think she's dead?'
'They'd have left a body,' Church replied. 'Wouldn't they?'
'Unless they needed it for ritual purposes,' Tom noted. Church glared at him for his unfeeling bluntness.
Veitch finally found it within himself to look at the finger on the table. 'What kind of a sick bastard would do a thing like that? Christ, what must she have felt-' His voice choked off.
Shavi dropped to his haunches to scrutinise the stains on the carpet. 'The amount of blood is commensurate with the removal of a finger. There is a chance-'
'Don't touch it!' Tom yelled as Veitch stretched out a trembling hand towards the finger. Veitch snatched his arm back as if he'd been burned.
Tom marched over and bent down to examine the finger at table height. 'I think it's a sign.' He removed his cracked glasses and said, 'Which direction do you think it's pointing?'
Shavi glanced out of the window. 'The sun set over there,' he said with a chopping motion of his hand, 'so I would say, maybe, south-east.'
Tom replaced his glasses and stood up. 'Exactly south-east, I would guess. Towards Edinburgh.'
Church broke the long silence that followed Tom's comment. 'What does it mean?'
'Whoever did it is showing us the way. They want us to follow.' He stared out to the shrouded countryside that lay beyond the feeble lights of the town. 'In all this there is the pathology of evil, of ritual. Somebody is trying to bend the power that is loose in the land towards darkness.'
'Calatin?' Church suggested. 'Mollecht? Some other Fomor?'
Tom shook his head. 'This is not their way. It is the first play in a new game.'
Chapter Three
The night dragged on interminably. They sat in a state of near-paralysis, fearing the worst, afraid to discuss what had happened, unable to decide what they should do next. The finger remained on the small table, the blood rapidly congealing. Their gaze kept returning to it, as if its unchanging pointing were a Poe-esque accusation.
Laura sat apart, staring out of the window blankly. Church found it impossible to read her; the impassive expression could have been hiding a sense of deep betrayal, or something he didn't want to consider, but which was nonetheless licking at the back of his mind. He hated himself for thinking it, though when he looked around he could tell the others felt the same. The thing he had dreaded had come to pass: a cancerous suspicion was eating away at them all.
Beyond that he found it almost impossible to cope with the raw emotion searing his heart. At times, if he allowed himself to inspect it too closely, it reminded him of those terrible feelings that had consumed him after Marianne had died, and that surprised him; had he grown so close to Ruth so quickly? So much had changed over the past few weeks, bonds materialising on a spiritual level, others being forged through hardship: he hadn't even begun to get a handle on what was happening inside him.
As the first rays of dawn licked the rooftops across the street, the intermittent, stuttering conversation told him what he feared: that the others were looking to him to make a decision. Before Beltane, he would have wanted to tell them he wasn't up to it, he didn't have the resilience or tenacity of leadership within him. But his failure had made him face his responsibilities, and he would take the difficult decisions however much they might corrupt his essential character and beliefs. That, he told himself, is what it's all about. He had to make sacrifices for the greater good. He just hoped the sacrifices wouldn't be so great that there would be nothing left of him by the end of it.
'We need to move on to Edinburgh rapidly,' he said eventually.
'We are going to look for Ruth, right?' Veitch asked.
'Of course.'
Veitch eyed him suspiciously. 'What would you have done if she'd been taken in the opposite direction?'
Church didn't answer.
None of them could decide how they should dispose of the finger so they wrapped it in a handkerchief and buried it in the depths of Church's bag. They packed quickly and checked out, despite the obvious concern of the hotel manager who wondered why they were leaving so early, without breakfast and one travelling companion short.
The last building of the town was barely behind them when a police car came screaming by, lights flashing, forcing them to pull over. The driver was a man in his mid-forties with greying hair and the wearied expression of
