slid down in the back seat and spoke in hushed voices.
'I can't believe this is happening,' she said, staring out of the window at the blue sky.
'You're right. You've suffered enough,' Church said.
'No, the people out there have suffered enough. I've had a little pain, but at least I know what's happening in the world. What's a few aches and pains compared to having your life turned on its head? I mean, I want to get back to doing something that matters and there's all this-' she gestured irritatedly holding me back.'
The weariness was evident on her face. Slowly she lowered her head back on to his shoulder, but Church continued to watch her while she rested, feeling a sense of deep respect that almost overwhelmed him.
They'd just moved on to the A6108 when Tom exclaimed loudly.
'What's wrong?' Church threw himself forward between the seats. He quickly saw it wasn't the right thing to do. Tom was already sliding down as low as he could go. On the side of the road, three policemen stood stiffly around a patrol car. They were gone so quickly Church had no way of telling if they were Fomorii, nor if they had seen him. He ducked down, turned and crawled up the seat just enough to peer out of the back window. The police all appeared to have got into the car, but it wasn't in pursuit. He held his breath and watched until it was out of sight.
'Close shave,' he said, still not wholly sure.
Shavi had spent an hour doing his best to boost Veitch's spirits, but the Londoner still wore the broken expression of someone who had seen ultimate victory snatched from his fingertips. 'We have to believe Ruth will be all right.' Shavi's voice rolled out softly across the quiet bar. His arm rested comfortingly around Veitch's shoulders, and Veitch made no attempt to shake it off. Laura watched them both carefully from behind her sunglasses, but added nothing to the conversation.
'You saw the old man's face. He looked like it was already over.' Veitch gently massaged his temples. There was an intensity about him that made the atmosphere uneasy.
'We have to have hope, Ryan. That is the message of this whole era.'
Veitch looked up suddenly and curiously into Shavi's face. He seemed surprised at what he saw there. After a moment's contemplation, he said, 'Okay, you're right. Course you are.' In the centre of the table where they had been abandoned earlier, he noticed the sheaf of notes Ruth had prepared. 'We've got to sort this out. Help these poor bastards.'
Shavi could see it was merely a displacement activity for the futility Veitch was feeling at his inability to do anything to help Ruth, but if it kept his mind focused on something positive, it was worthwhile. Veitch examined the notes with gusto, making observations as he read before handing each paper he finished to Shavi or Laura. No obvious conclusion presented itself to them, but they continued to turn it over while they ate the dinner Geordie had prepared for them.
'There's nothing new here,' Laura protested. 'Unless you're thinking of tracking them out to their lair, and then we wouldn't know how to kill them.'
'We don't even know where the lair is,' Veitch said. He shovelled a forkful of mashed potato into his mouth.
'It must be somewhere in the vicinity of the route we came in.' Laura told them about the scarecrow and the glowing red eyes.
'That's something,' Veitch said, 'but you're right, we don't know how to wipe them out yet. No point looking for them until we get a handle on that. It didn't look like we'd get much of a result with the sword or the crossbow.'
Laura re-examined one of the pages of notes. 'At least we know where the feeding ground is.'
Veitch perked up at this. 'What do you mean?'
Laura pointed out the rough sketch of the village layout with the victims' houses highlighted.
'That's a bit of a coincidence, isn't it?' he said.
'I don't know what you're talking about.'
'All those poor bastards in one place.'
'The old biddy wasn't anywhere near them. It's probably just that they've settled on this area because it's near to where they come in to the village. Or something.' She stared at the map intently, turning it this way and that.
Veitch chewed on a jagged nail thoughtfully. 'I'm getting a very fucking unpleasant idea,' he said.
The evening was warm and still as they moved through the village. The chorus of birdsong filled the air, but there was no sound of cars or human voices. Even though it was still light, everyone had retreated to their homes.
Witch first took them to the large, detached house of Mrs. Ransom, quiet beneath its canopy of old trees. They slipped through the creaking iron gate and up the brick path to the front door. Instead of knocking, Veitch simply inspected the door jamb before growing suddenly excited. He ran back down the path and vaulted the low brick wall on to the pavement. Shavi and Laura hurried to keep up with him as he ran the two streets to the collection of council houses which had provided all the other victims.
Oldfield's house was the first to be inspected. Veitch ran from there to the other two. He didn't bother checking the door of the young mother who had lost her child. Finally he rested breathlessly against the wall of one of the houses. He'd obviously figured something out that everyone had missed, but there was no jubilation in his face; instead, he seemed intensely troubled, and when he looked up Laura saw the familiar glint of cold, hard anger in his eyes.
'Fucking hell,' he said.
Max gunned the Fiesta into Richmond just as dusk was falling. The town was dominated by the ruins of the Norman castle which overlooked the River Swale, the keep towers soaring up a hundred feet into the darkening sky. Beneath it, the cobbled market was filled with people enjoying the warm summer evening as they made their way to the pubs.
Max scrutinised the scene. 'People carry on trying to be normal even when they realise something is badly wrong,' he mused.
'Nothing there to write about,' Tom muttered.
A tight, knowing grin crept across Max's face. 'That's where you're wrong. That is something to write about. That's something that speaks loudly.'
'Yes. And it says `Sheep to the slaughter,'' Tom noted sourly.
Max laughed easily in disagreement. 'And that's just what I'm going to do. Write about it. About all this. This is something I can do, let the people know the truth. It's a kind of-'
'Calling?' Church knew just how he felt. Max nodded, still smiling.
They left the car in the centre and headed towards the castle on foot, Ruth trailing apprehensively between Church and Tom. Church surveyed the broken stone silhouetted against the blackening sky.
Tom followed his gaze. 'Do you feel it?'
Church nodded. 'The blue fire.'
'All the clues are there in the legends. The secret history. The story goes that a potter by the name of Thompson found a secret tunnel under the castle. He followed it and found a large cavern where King Arthur and his knights lay asleep. Sound familiar?'
'What are you talking about?' Max asked.
'All the legends have truths stitched up inside them. Important information, vital lessons.' Church could see the reporter was soaking up all the information. 'The King Arthur legend is a metaphor for the power in the land, what we call the blue fire. The legends surround all the places where this earth energy is most potent, many of them with links direct to Otherworld.'
'Like here,' Tom said.
'So when the legends say the king needs to be woken to save the country in the bleakest of times, they're really talking about waking the power in the land?' Max looked up at the castle in a new light.
'Thompson found a horn and a sword near to the sleeping knights,' Tom continued, obviously irritated that his story had been interrupted. 'When he picked up the horn, the knights began to wake. Naturally, he was scared to death. He dropped the horn and ran back down the tunnel, and as he did so a voice came after him. It said, `Potter Thompson, Potter Thompson, If thou hadst drawn the sword or blown the horn, Thou hadst been the luckiest man e'er born.''
