somewhere-'
There was a roar like a jet taking off, a concentrated burst of orange-yellow light that illuminated the interior of the car as brightly as day, and then the hedge on their side of the road disintegrated in a firestorm. Church fought to keep the car on the road against the sudden shockwave of superheated air.
They crashed across a roundabout, narrowly avoiding another car, and then Tom ordered Church to take the next right. For the first stretch it was a dual carriageway, allowing Church to floor the accelerator; the car complained under the sudden pull. But then the road narrowed to a single carriageway and Church feared the worst. At Tom's instruction he took a right fork on the wrong side of the road, his shirt wet with sweat.
'Turn right when I say!' Tom yelled. Church's eyes were constantly drawn to the sky, but he steeled himself for the order. 'Now!'
Church swung the wheel, clipping the curb as another pillar of fire erupted from the heavens. Behind them the tarmac exploded in molten gouts. They swung round in a massive car park, the plain rolling off flatly ahead of them.
'Where do we go from here?' Church shouted, suddenly confronted by a huddle of low buildings and a barrier with a turnstile.
'Out of the car,' Tom ordered, wrenching the door open.
Before Church could protest, Tom was moving rapidly for someone in his late fifties. He vaulted the barrier, and by the time they had caught up with him he was turning into a tunnel which cut back under the road. Overhead, the slow beat of the creature's wings was almost deafening. They felt the surge of air currents as it swooped by, but by the time it had rounded to emit another blast of fire they were already deep in the tunnel.
Ruth slumped against the wall to catch her breath. 'Thank God,' she gasped.
'Not here,' Tom stressed, grabbing her arm and pulling her on. A few seconds later, a wall of flame roared along the tunnel to the point where she had been standing, the wave of scorching air knocking them to the ground.
Coughing and choking, with lungs that seemed to burn from the inside, they scrambled forward and emerged into the cool night. Church was instantly transfixed by a view of black megaliths crowded squat and ancient beneath the light of the moon.
'Stonehenge?' Ruth gasped.
They ran forward and clawed their way over the perimeter fence, only pausing once they were amongst the stones.
'It can see us here as easily as anywhere else,' Ruth protested as she watched the creature soar and turn high overhead, a black shape blocking out the stars as it passed.
'I told you, she senses.' Tom knelt and patted the scrubby grass affectionately. 'The land is filled with power. Earth Magic. Tremendous alchemical energy that flows among the old places and sacred spots. The Fabulous Beasts feed on it, use the lines for guidance when they are flying. We can't see it, but to them it appears like a network of blue fire on the land. And here, in a powerful nexus of that energy, we're lost in the glare.'
There was a moment of silence as Ruth gaped at Tom, then she turned to Church; he shook his head dismissively.
Tom shrugged and turned away. 'Believe what you will. You have seen one of the Fabulous Beasts. You cannot wish your way back to your old life.' He wandered off amongst the stones and was soon lost in the shadows.
Ruth and Church watched the sky, ready to run at any second.
'Well, he's right about one thing,' Ruth said after a tense few moments. 'It's not attacking.' She watched it circling, the arc growing wider and wider.
Church followed her gaze. 'What the hell's going on?'
Gradually the creature disappeared from view. The wind picked up, blustering over the sweeping plain, driving the few remaining clouds ahead of it until the night sky was clear and burning with the beacons of a thousand stars. Church couldn't remember the last time he had seen the sweep of the heavens in such a virginal, breathtaking state.
'Beautiful,' Ruth whispered in a state of dazed incomprehension. 'I knew there was a reason to move out of the city.'
The enormity of their experience made it almost impossible to consider so Church focused on the mundane. 'What do you make of him?'
Ruth thought for a while, her face hidden in shadows. 'I think he could help us.'
'But you don't trust him.'
'No.' She chewed on her lip thoughtfully, then said, 'I don't like the way he's not telling us what's happening. You can see he knows more. But it's like he's using it to control us.'
The wind that had been rushing around the henge died down and for a second there was just peace and quiet. 'Who is he, Church? How can he know these things?'
'I've given up trying to make any sense of it,' he replied morosely. 'I'll just be happy getting out the other end in one piece.'
They found a spot on one of the fallen stones where they could lie without getting damp and simply watched the stars, almost touching, aware only of their presence in the universe, the noise of their chaotic thoughts shut down for a brief moment of tranquillity. A shooting star streaked brightly across the arc of the sky, and the last thought Church remembered having was, 'That's an omen.'
The tramp of Tom's boots disturbed them some time later as they floated half in and out of sleep.
'I feel like I've slept for hours,' Church said, scrubbing his face to wake himself. 'Must be the stress.'
'The blue fire,' Tom corrected. 'It heals and invigorates if you open yourself up to it.' Something landed on the ground before them. 'Dinner,' he said. A rabbit lay there, its tufts of white fur ghostly in the dark.
'How did you catch that?' Ruth asked.
'You pick up a few tricks when you're hungry on the road.'
'We're going to eat it raw?' Church said in disgust.
'You can if you like. I'ni lighting a fire.'
'And have every security guard in the county here in five minutes. I'm surprised they haven't picked us up already,' Church said.
'Their technology is blind to us. And there's no need to worry about the fire, either. I'll make sure of that.'
Church lay back and closed his eyes again. 'I'm not even going to ask.'
Tom looked around for some fuel; the land was just grassy scrub in all directions so he tore up a walkway of wooden pallets that kept the tourists out of the mud in wet weather. It was enough to build a decent fire, and even though the kindling was damp he was able to get it alight with relative ease. He skinned, gutted, trimmed and jointed the rabbit with a Swiss Army knife, then stuffed the various pieces in packets of turf and placed them in the embers around the edge of the fire.
'It will not be long,' he said when he'd finished. 'A hedgehog would have been quicker, but I could not find one.'
'Mmmm,' Church said acidly. 'Vermin.'
'It's a tasty dish. You're soft.'
'That's why God invented pizza parlours.'
Tom smiled wryly. 'And what will you do when all the pizza parlours have gone?'
'More doom and gloom. The end of the world is nigh.'
'You're starting to sound like an idiot who can't count the fingers held in front of his face,' Tom countered.
Tom and Church glared at each other until Ruth interjected. 'Don't argue-I haven't got the energy.' Her face seemed too pale in the firelight and her eyes brimmed with tears. 'I keep thinking of all those people who died on the motorway. Everywhere there was something horrible-somebody's face screaming. I can't get it out of my head.'
Compassion lit Tom's face, softening the lines and the set of his jaw that gave a hardness to his appearance.
'And we caused it!' Ruth continued.
