'There must be something we can do,' Church said when they were far enough away from the car not to be overheard.
'Perhaps. But there is a more immediate problem. The Fomorii will never leave us alone until they have Balor back. Inside her is their entire reason for existence, the Heart of Shadows. They must have regrouped after the devastation in Edinburgh. Once they locate us their pursuit will be relentless.' He paused. 'They can't take the risk that you'll kill her to prevent Balor being born.'
'Kill her?' The thought hadn't even entered Church's head.
Tom nodded gravely. 'At the moment it's the only option.'
Church cursed Tom furiously for his cold-heartedness, but his reaction was so extreme because he knew, if he could bear to examine his thoughts rationally, that the Rhymer was right. The rebirth of Balor meant the End of Everything. To prevent that, Ruth's life was a small price to pay. Rationally, objectively, from a distance. But from his close perspective she was so dear to him her life was more important than everything. How could he kill her? And he knew, with a terrible, hollow ache, that ultimately the decision would come down to him; one of the burdens of leadership. And whatever his choice, he also knew it would destroy him forever.
The atmosphere on the way back was thick with unspoken thoughts. Church could see Max was seething with questions, but he didn't feel like answering anything; it was too big to consider even in the privacy of his head. Ruth had dried her eyes and was coping with the shock remarkably well; somehow, that made Church feel even worse.
'That's why my familiar has disappeared,' she muttered, almost to herself. 'It won't come anywhere near me while that thing's inside me.'
They drove with all the windows down, but even that couldn't disperse the oppressive heat in the car. They were sleeked in sweat, sticking uncomfortably to the seats, flushed and irritable. There wasn't even a breath of wind across the lush landscape; the trees remained upright, the crops and hedgerow flowers unmoving.
Max drove speedily along the empty roads, leaning forward to peer through the windscreen that was streaked yellow and orange with the remains of a hundred bugs. But as he rounded a corner, he cursed loudly and slammed on the brakes, the Fiesta fishtailing to a sudden halt. A stream of cars filtered past the turning they needed for the route home: ahead were the unmissable signs of another police roadblock.
'They did see us on the way here.' Church grabbed Max's shoulder. 'You need to back up and get out of here. Find a different route.'
The words were barely out of his mouth when a spurt of blue activity broke out at the road junction; someone had already spotted them. Officers wearing body armour and helmets were tumbling out of the back of a van parked on the edge of the road; Church thought he glimpsed guns.
Max slammed the car into reverse and stepped on the accelerator. With a screech of tires, they shot backwards, but they'd only travelled a few yards when he hit the brakes. Church and Ruth crashed into the seats in front. Roaring out of a field behind them where it had been hidden was another police van, lights flashing.
'What now?' Max shouted. Before Church could answer he engaged gears, threw the car to the right and shot through an open gate into another field. The going was easy on the sun-baked ground, but they were still thrown about wildly as the car propelled itself over ridges and furrows.
Church gripped on to the ridge of the back seat so he could watch through the back window. The police were drawing closer. 'I hope you watched The Cannonball Run,' Church said.
Max grunted something unintelligible. All four wheels left the ground as the car crested a rise. They came down with a bone-jarring crunch and careered sideways on the dusty soil for a short way. 'It always looked easier in the movies,' Max said.
The police were only yards away when Max swore fitfully and suddenly drove directly at the barbed wire fence ahead. They ploughed through it with a rending and scratching and slid down a steep bank, bouncing over a small ditch on to the road with a shower of sparks.
The police vehicle followed suit, but when it hit the ditch its higher centre of gravity flipped it over. It smashed upside down and slid along the tarmac. Max gave a brief cheer as he watched the scene in the rearview mirror.
'Don't celebrate too soon,' Tom said gruffly. They followed his gaze to the bottleneck of traffic at the police checkpoint.
A shadow had risen up ten feet off the ground beyond the vehicles. Its outline shifted ominously in a manner Church had seen too many times before. Max started to retch loudly.
'Don't look at it!' Church snapped. 'Whatever you do. Keep your eyes on the road. Drive!'
Max couldn't resist one last look and vomited on to the floor between his feet. It deflected his attention from driving. The engine idled while he wiped his mouth, shook his dazed head.
The shadow moved, began to take on a sharper form. It was enormous, powerful, dense, seeming to suck in all light from the vicinity. It accelerated towards them, oblivious to the vehicles lined up in its path. A Renault flipped up end over end with a sound like a bomb going off, then a Peugeot and a Mondeo. A Jag folded up like paper in an explosion of glass and a rending of metal.
Church was transfixed; it was like a shark ploughing through water, leaving carnage in its wake. Cars flew like sea spray as it surged onwards. 'Drive, Max.' Church's voice was almost lost beneath the orchestral crashing of metal on tarmac.
It was relentless; as it built up speed it began to change, parts of the dense shadow detaching themselves and folding out, unfurling then reclamping themselves around the figure. It was like the horny carapace of an insect slowly building before their eyes, impenetrable plates, then something that looked like a helmet, but with horns or claws, and all of it in shimmering black. And still it moved.
Finally Church recognised his vision of the monstrous Fomorii warrior in the distorting cavern beneath Arthur's Seat; the same creature Veitch had seen at the ritual under the castle.
A People Carrier went over as if it weighed no more than paper. How powerful is it? Church thought. 'Come on, Max!' he yelled again.
The urgency in his voice finally shocked Max into activity. The car shot forward, throwing them all around once more.
'Don't look in the mirror,' Church cautioned; he knew Max, who was not inured to the terrible sight of the Fomorii, would black out instantly. 'Give it all you've got.'
The car began to race just as the Fomorii smashed through the last of the cars and started on the open road between them. Church could feel the thunderous vibrations from its pounding feet through the frame of the car.
'Is it gaining?' Ruth asked. She was clinging on to a corner of the seat to stop herself being thrown around.
'It's making the car jump around!' Max shouted over the racing engine. 'I'm having trouble controlling it!'
Agonisingly slowly, the car began to move faster. It didn't appear to be fast enough, but Max kept his foot to the floor, bouncing up and down in his seat as if trying to add to the momentum. And then, although they hardly dared believe it, the bone-jarring vibrations began to subside a little. Church glanced back once more at the nightmarish image of the beast and saw it had started to fall back; but it was still driving on, and he knew that even if they escaped this time, it would always be somewhere at their backs until it had completed its frightful mission.
'We're doing it,' he said. 'Just pray we don't have another technology failure. And be thankful we've got an open road ahead of us.'
Eventually the twists and turns of the road took them out of sight of the pursuing creature, although they could still hear it for several minutes after. Gradually, Church's heart stopped racing and he rested his face on the back of the seat.
'That's it,' he said. 'That's what they've sent after us.'
'One of the things,' Tom corrected. 'Every resource will be marshalled-'
'Oh, God!' There was a note of hysteria in Ruth's voice.
Church took her hand gently. 'Once we get back to the village we need to get moving again,' he said. 'We can't stay in one place too long.'
'Why? We've only got to kill time until Lughnasadh. Then it will all be over,' Ruth replied bitterly.
