faint red glow was strangely comforting. He couldn't believe he had slept so long. Remembering the fading remnants of his dream, he pulled the Black Rose from his pocket and examined it cautiously. There was no sign of any thorn. He stroked it lovingly, then glanced into the shadows in the corners of the room.
'Marianne? Can you hear me?' His voice rustled like paper in the still air. He waited hopefully for a moment and then swung his legs off the bed and rested his head in his hands.
Through the window, Dartmoor looked cold and menacing, a muddy smear of charcoal and grey and brown beneath a churning sky. At least the rain had stopped.
There was faint music coming through the floorboards, the Pet Shop Boys singing 'Being Boring' so he made his way downstairs to the bar to see Simon dancing alone in front of the roaring fire. He squealed when Church spoke.
'Lordy, you gave me a start! Do you always creep around like a thief in the night?'
Church shrugged. 'I didn't know I was creeping.'
'Well you were!' Simon flounced to the bar, then did another little dance and finished with a forgiving smile. 'Enjoy your beauty sleep?'
Church nodded. 'Any chance of something to eat?'
'You're a lucky boy. Stuart's a gourmet chef and when I say gourmet, I mean to die for. He was out all day buying some goodies in Plymouth, so we have some mouth-watering delights for tonight's menu. Salmon, John Dory, lamb in a red currant sauce, something very delicious with pasta and squid ink. You'll think you've died and gone to heaven. They've started to come from all over to sample his wares, so to speak.'
He disappeared behind the bar and returned with a handwritten menu. 'I hope you'll be staying around later. It's entertainment night. A little spot of glamour in a bleak landscape.'
Church smiled falsely, but his mind was elsewhere: Marianne, dead on the floor; the young Marianne, dead in his arms; his own body lying in a stream. Sometimes he wondered how he managed to keep going.
His food arrived quickly, and the pan-roasted chicken and spring onions was as good as Simon had promised. It seemed forever since he'd eaten, and as he was tucking into it hungrily Ruth emerged, her hair still wet from the shower. She looked fully refreshed, untroubled even, and flashed him a warm smile as she slipped in opposite him.
'Thinking of your stomach again,' she said, leaning over to pluck a piece of chicken from his plate.
'You seem different.' He searched her face, which seemed to glow with an inner light.
'What do you mean?'
'I don't know.' He shrugged. 'I've only noticed it since the other night when we camped out. You seem stronger somehow.'
She laughed easily and snatched up the menu. 'I didn't feel it last night with that dog chasing me.'
'At least you kept going. Most people would have keeled over faced with something like that.' He paused, averting his gaze to toy with his food. 'I'm glad you're on board.'
Ruth's eyes sparkled, but she restrained a broad smile. 'That's the closest thing to a compliment I've heard from your lips.'
'Make the most of it. That's as good as it gets.' He finished off the last of the chicken and pushed the plate away. 'I guess it would help if we knew exactly where we were going and what we were supposed to do when we got there.'
Simon lurched out from behind the bar humping a machine which he placed on a table. Sweating and cursing under his breath, he proceeded to drag tables and chairs around noisily until he had cleared a space in one corner. A young black man emerged from the bar area wearing an irritated expression. He was astonishingly attractive, with perfect cheekbones, well-defined muscles beneath his silk shirt and a faintly feminine turn to his features. They guessed he was Simon's partner. There was engine oil on his hands and he was brandishing a spanner. He was obviously about to launch into some tirade when he spotted Church and Ruth and smiled with embarrassment.
'He's tinkering with his motorbike while I'm breaking my back,' Simon said with theatrical haughtiness; it was clearly the source of their disagreement.
Ruth glanced anxiously at the windows, where a gust brought a splatter of rain as if someone had thrown it; it was too dark to see beyond the circle of light cast by the porch lamps.
'You think Black Shuck will come tonight?' Her eyes grew fearful.
'We're doing the best we can, Ruth,' he said firmly. 'We're out of our depth here. We have no defence against these things. You can't plan for it. I think we just have to face up to crises when they materialise, like anything else in life. What do you suggest?'
'I don't know.' She looked into the fire, wishing they were sitting closer together. 'Do you think we can trust Laura?' she asked incongruously.
'Don't you?'
'I don't know. Sometimes. I don't like her attitude, and I'm not convinced she always tells the truth, like she's got some secret agenda.'
'She's not going to win any good personality awards, but she seems okay so far.'
Ruth tried to read any more in his comments than there appeared. She was convinced he was attracted to Laura, whether he knew it or not, and she hoped her suspicions weren't born out of jealousy because of it. For someone who had always maintained emotional equilibrium, her latest predicament unnerved Ruth with its unpredictability. Her feelings for Church had crept up on her, forged through their harrowing experiences, yet she couldn't see a glimmer of a response in him. She didn't know if that was because he was still trapped in his feelings for Marianne, or if he simply didn't care, but she knew, deep inside, she felt like she'd finally found something for which she'd been waiting all her life.
'If you have any doubts you should say.' Church looked her in the eye. 'I'm not always the most perceptive of people.'
'Not yet. When I'm sure.' Ruth made her selection from the menu and caught Simon's eye as he pushed the makeshift sections of a stage into the recently cleared space. She didn't have to wait long for her seared salmon and grilled vegetables, which was as succulent as Church's meal.
Simon made a face at Laura when she came out of the door to the bedrooms at the foot of the stairs, her computer clutched under her arm. She glared in return and said, 'Get many guests here? Didn't think so.'
'Ooh, listen to her,' Simon said before returning to his work.
Laura glanced at Ruth and Church's plates and said grumpily, 'I hope they do vegetarian.'
'What are you in such a bad mood about?' Ruth asked.
'It's not working.' She slid the computer on the table in front of them. 'I charged up the battery fine, and then I booted it up to do some more research. The moment I got online I got some of that screeching laughter, some of the freakiest images I've ever seen, and then it just died on me.'
There was a crash as Simon dropped a microphone on the stage, which made them all jump. He smiled apologetically, then cursed under his breath as he attempted to untangle the coiling lead.
Church examined the computer briefly, then shook his head. 'I wonder if it will carry on intermittently like this-some days everything works properly, some days it doesn't-or if we'll just lose technology overnight and wake up in the stone age.'
They wrestled with their thoughts in silence for a while until Laura decided to call Simon and harangue him until Stuart could come up with a vegetarian dish that matched her unreasonably detailed recipe. When it arrived, Ruth and Laura ordered some red wine and Church had a beer. The alcohol seemed a comfort in the face of the storm lashing the building, and after Laura had finished eating they moved closer to the fire which Simon had just loaded up with cracking and sputtering logs. The warmth and the drink made them feel a little easier, although they knew it was an illusion.
Eventually Church glanced up at Simon's stage, which now had a microphone, a monitor and a strange- looking machine. 'What is he planning?'
'Karaoke,' Laura replied distractedly. She was stabbing her boot on to one of the new logs in the fire to make sparks shoot up the chimney. 'That man is the definition of desperate. As if all the sheep-shaggers and inter- breeders of Dartmoor are going to come to his poxy pub to lose what little dignity they have by performing a Celine Dion cover.'
'You know you'll be up there with the best of them,' Ruth gently mocked.
'Yeah, like I'm so perverse I need to debase myself before lower life forms.'
