knew I wasn't like other kids. She came to me, you know? When I was a boy.'
'Who?'
'The woman in the Watchtower.'
'There you are, then. You were different right from the start.'
'But I don't feel it inside me. I feel normal, like I always have done.'
'I don't know if anybody does feel different until they're called upon to-' She was interrupted by a call from Laura, who was edging her way along the last stretch of the ledge.
They ran to meet her as she stepped back on to the rock shelf. 'We'd just about given up on you,' Church said.
'Bad pennies always turn up. You should know that.' She dipped into her pocket and pulled out the stone; it seemed to glow with an inner light. 'Look what I found.'
Church and Ruth gathered round. 'Is that it? Wow! I expected a lump of rock or something,' Ruth said.
Church looked at her curiously. 'It is a lump of rock.'
'No, it's not. It's a diamond,' Ruth said incredulously.
'Are you both insane? It's a black stone, like polished obsidian.'
They looked from one to the other in disbelief until the Bone Inspector stepped up. 'Save your breath. It has no true shape in this world. It's fluid, like everything from the Other Place. Our tiny little minds can't grasp it, so we give it some kind of shape to make sense of it.'
'That's crazy,' Ruth said. 'How are we-'
'It doesn't matter what things look like,' the old man said with exasperation, 'just as long as you know what they are.'
Church peered at the stone in Laura's hands. 'The first of the four talismans. What does it do?'
Laura held it out to the Bone Inspector for advice, but the old man backed away hastily. 'Don't bring it near me! It's too powerful. It's your burden now.'
'But what does it do?'
'It doesn't do anything,' the Bone Inspector snapped. 'It's not a toy! It has a purpose which I'm sure you'll find out sooner or later. Now enough of the fool questions. Let's get back to the light. And not the way we came either. I have no doubt our friends from Windmill Hill will be waiting for us on West Kennet Avenue.'
He led them to another tunnel off to one side. As they made their way uphill by the light of the lantern, Church said to Laura, 'So did you have any trouble getting it?'
'Easy as pie,' she replied.
They emerged blinking into the warm morning light on Beckhampton Avenue, the snaking route on the other side of Avebury. After the dank passages, the air was fragrant with spring flowers and the verdant aromas of the countryside.
'You leave here quickly now and don't look back,' the Bone Inspector said gruffly. 'Dawdle too much and you'll find the Devil at your heels.'
'Where are you going now?' Ruth asked.
'I've got a country full of ancient places to tend, graves to visit, old bones to check, and in these times I think they'll need me more than ever.'
'Thanks for your help,' Church said, stretching out a hand which the old man ignored. 'We couldn't have done it without you.'
'Aye. And don't you forget it. I bloody well hope I've done the right thing. Don't go and ruin it all.'
Then he turned and was loping away, over a gate and into the fields, faster than they would have believed, almost dropping to all fours at times so that he seemed more animal than man as he disappeared into the countryside.
'We could have used his help,' Ruth said regretfully.
'We don't need any crumbly old folk.' Laura replaced her sunglasses after the dark of the cavern. 'We've got youth, good looks and sex on our side.'
'Look at this.' Church held up the lantern; the flame was now flickering towards the south-west.
They hurried through the quiet streets until they reached the car, and then they were speeding out of the village before anyone noticed.
On West Kennet Avenue, the cloud of whirling, flapping crows suddenly turned towards the south-west. A guttural voice filled with the grunts of beasts rolled out from the heart of it, and four shadows seemed to separate from the base of the hedges. The voice barked and snorted again, incomprehensible to human ears, and all the birds, and the cows lowing in the fields fell silent.
Chapter Eight
'You want to push me completely over the edge, you go ahead and play Sinatra one more time.' Laura gave the back of Church's seat a sharp kick. 'Because we've only heard `Come Fly with Me,' like, what, a thousand times? Music-induced psychosis is not a pretty thing to see.'
Church ejected the tape with irritation. 'What do you want, then?'
'Somebody who's not dead would be nice.'
'I hate to say it, but I'm with her on this one,' Ruth chipped in.
'Fine. Gang up on me.'
Laura rested her arms on the back of his seat, her breath bringing a bloom to his neck. 'Have you got anything that makes your ears bleed?'
'An icepick?'
'How about some golden oldies, like, say, The Chemical Brothers?'
'No.'
'What's the matter? Don't you like music that makes your blood boil?'
His first reaction was to say I used to, but he realised how pathetic it sounded. If truth be told, his irritation with Laura came more from how she pointed up the parts of his character that he had lost than from her forthright manner.
'How about the radio?' he snapped, feeling the first bite of self-loathing. He switched it on and tuned across the band until he heard music.
'It'll do, I guess.' Laura slumped back into her seat, successful.
The music gave way to the syrupy voice of a local DJ who rambled aimlessly for a minute or two before another fizzy, optimistic Top Ten hit came on. Outside the car the windswept uplands had given way to sun- drenched green fields, trees on the verge of bursting with new life, sparkling streams and little stone bridges. The road behind was comfortingly empty and, despite everything, Church was feeling remarkably at ease in the light of their success at Avebury. The lantern had directed them on to the A4 towards Bath where they were able to build up some speed and put some distance between them and whatever the Bone Inspector had feared was waiting for them on West Kennet Avenue. They felt confident enough to pause briefly at Chippenham, where they bought a couple of tents, cooking equipment and other camping gear for emergencies. Laura protested she wasn't the outdoor type, but, as usual, it seemed to be more for effect.
Bath was choked with traffic, the winter season already forgotten as tourists flocked to the Roman baths or to gawp at the Georgian architecture. Ruth muttered something about the bliss of ignorance, and for a brief while a maudlin mood fell across the car as they all became acutely aware of what was at risk.
But by the time they had passed through Bath into the more sparsely populated countryside beyond, their mood had buoyed as they focused on the task ahead. They were making good time and the lantern seemed to be taking them into the deep south-west, far away from the troubled areas of the previous few days.
As they travelled through tiny, picture-postcard villages south of Bristol, with the undulating slopes of the Mendips away to their left, they were shocked by a sharp, ear-splitting burst of static on the radio. When it faded, the DJ's voice was replaced by giggling, mocking laughter fading in and out of white noise, growing louder, then
