Laura avoided Church's gaze when he looked from her to Ruth. 'That leaves just the three of us,' he said.
'You're sure we're up to protecting the Queen Bee,' Laura said acidly.
'We'll do our best, as always.' It wasn't a question he really wanted to consider too deeply.
Thunder rolled across the moor; a flash of lightning lit up the northern sky. 'Looks like we're in for a storm.' Veitch seemed happier now he felt he was doing something positive.
They watched the sky for a while, but the bad weather was skirting the edge of the moor, moving eastwards. Another flash of lightning threw the landscape into stark relief.
'What's that?' Ruth said suddenly. But the night had already swallowed up whatever she had seen.
'What did it look like?' Church asked.
'I don't know.' Her voice sounded like she had an idea. She moved to the edge of the circle to get a better look.
'Don't go beyond the stones!' Tom said sharply. 'The earth energy gives a modicum of invisibility here if there's anything supernatural in the vicinity. They'd have to stumble right across us to see us.'
'I don't know…' Ruth peered into the dark, but it was too deep.
Another flash of lightning, moving away now, so the illumination was not so stark. Even so, Ruth caught her breath; this time it was unmistakable. A large black shape like a sucking void was moving rapidly across the bleak moorland.
'It's here.' Her voice barely more than a whisper. She turned, eyes wide; the others could read all they needed in her face.
Tom rushed over and kicked out the campfire. 'Stay down, stay quiet! It may pass us by.'
At that moment twin beams of light cut through the night, rising high up into the sky like searchlights. A second later they lowered sharply as a car came over a rise and started to head towards them. The headlights briefly washed over the stones as the car came on to the road that ran within sight of the circle.
'Shit,' Veitch said under his breath.
Across the quiet landscape music rolled from the car's open windows. Church unconsciously noted it was New Radicals singing 'You Get What You Give,' but that thought was just a buzz beneath a wash of rising panic. The car's engine droned. Young voices sang along loudly, male and female, four, maybe five of them.
'Shut up,' Laura hissed to herself.
'Turn off the headlights,' Veitch said.
As if anything will do any good, Church thought.
The car continued its progress, a firefly in the night.
Veitch spun round, his face contorted with anxiety. 'We've got to get out there and do something! The Bastard will be on them in a minute and those poor fuckers won't stand a chance!'
Church hesitated; he was right, they ought to try.
Tom seemed to read his mind. 'No! No one leaves the circle! If you go out there you will surely die. Even here, your chances are slim-'
'Fuck! We have to do something!' Veitch protested. Church thought he was going to cry.
'You go out there and die in vain, everybody else dies with you!' Tom's voice was a snarl that would brook no dissent. 'You're too important now! You have to think of the big picture!'
Veitch was starting to move. Tom gripped his shoulder and Veitch tried to shake it off furiously, but Tom held on so effortlessly it seemed incongruous. Veitch half-turned, eyes blazing, but he didn't move any further.
Another diminishing flash, an instant's tableau: the dark hulk of the Fomorii warrior had risen up, started to change as its insectile armour clanked and slid into place, preparing to attack. The car trundled along, the occupants oblivious.
Ruth's eyes were tear-stained. She stared at Church, aghast. He winced, looked away.
'Maybe we could…' Laura stopped, shook her head, walked away until she was out of the others' line of sight.
Shavi was like an iron staff, his face locked, his eyes fixed on the feeble beams of light.
Suddenly there was a sound like aluminium sheeting being torn in two. Several stars were blotted out. And then the ground trembled. There was an instant when they all had their eyes shut, praying. But they had to see, so they would never forget. The darkness swept down like a pouncing lion. There was a crunching of metal. The headlight beams shot up in the sky. Singing voices suddenly became screams that must have torn throats. New Radicals were still singing, just for an instant longer, then snapped off at the same time as the screams. A second later the lights blinked out. More crunching. Silence. And then an explosion which rocketed flames and shards of metal high into the sky as the petrol tank went up.
Everyone in the circle was holding their breath. The universal exhalation came slowly, filled with despair.
'Get down!' Tom hissed.
They dropped flat so they could feel the vibrations in the ground, fast, growing slower. They didn't stir until they had died away completely. When they eventually sat up, everyone looked shell-shocked; faces pale, eyes downcast.
'We did that,' Veitch said bluntly. He walked over and leaned on one of the stones, staring out across the moor. The crackling fire cast a hellish glare across the scrub, the smoke rising to obscure the stars.
Ruth leaned in to Shavi who put his arms around her. Church looked over to Laura, but she had her back to him, wrapped in her own isolation.
'You were right,' Church said to Tom, 'but I don't know how you can be so cold.'
All Tom would say as he slumped down at the foot of a stone was, 'Life's much more simple when you're young.'
It was over an hour before they felt able to talk some more. Veitch still looked broken, the others merely serious.
It was Ruth who voiced the thought that was upmost in all their minds. 'If that thing is hunting us, what chance do Church, Laura and I stand? Do you think we can possibly keep ahead of it until one or the other of you gets back?'
'No,' Tom said baldly. 'But I have a plan-'
'Well, yippee,' Laura said flatly.
'There is a place not too far away that has the potency of this circle. Another blindspot. It is big, very big, and if you choose your hiding place carefully you should be able to avoid detection for…' He chewed on a knuckle for a second or two. '… Quite a while.'
'That's not the wholehearted answer I was hoping for,' Ruth said irritatedly.
'Where is it?' Church asked.
'In the High Peaks. It's a magical hill, more a mountain really, called Mam Tor, the Heights of the Mother, rising up 1,700 feet. The most sacred prehistoric spot in the entire area.'
'A mountain to hide in!' Veitch said in astonishment.
'Great. We can play at being the Waltons,' Laura said.
'The ancients recognised it as a powerful spot. Nearby there is a hill dedicated to Lugh, now known as Lose Hill. All around there are standing stones and other ceremonial sites, all looking up to the hill of the Mother Goddess. At the foot is the Blue John Cavern, where the semi-precious stone originates. A landscape filled with magic and mystery. The perfect hiding place.'
'Great,' Church said. 'Now all we have to do is get there.'
Church woke in the middle of the night with a familiar, uneasy feeling, but one he hadn't felt for a few weeks. He crawled out of the tent, feeling his stomach churn. Laura was on watch, but she was dozing near the dying embers of the fire; he would have to have a word with her in the morning.
Slowly he looked around the darkness that pressed in tightly against the stones. Nothing. The wind blew eerily across the moor, making an odd sighing noise in the scrub. He prayed he was wrong, but in his heart he knew.
'Where are you?' he said softly.
A second later a figure separated from the dark: indistinct, almost blurred, as if he were looking at it through a curling sheet of smoke. He thought after all his brooding, all the weighing of emotions, the logical acceptance, he
