Ruth and Laura both glanced off into the night uncomfortably. 'We should finish up here as quickly as we can,' Ruth said redundantly.
'I'll keep watch.' Laura scanned around, but it was hopeless; the night was so dark and the rain so heavy that they wouldn't see anything until it was upon them.
Although they tried to work fast, the cold drove the feeling from their fingers and the simple act of screwing on the wheelnuts became torturous; there was repeated scrabbling in icy pools under the van for ones that had been dropped. And the more anxious Ruth got about what might be prowling in the dark, the more clumsy she became. But finally, with all of them shivering and sodden, the wheel was changed and Shavi lowered the jack.
There was such a potent inner peace about Shavi that he looked almost beatific, soaked to the skin and battered by the wind. Ruth was convinced her instinct about him was right, but what could she say-we're trying to stop the end of the world; want to cone along for the ride?
At that moment Laura suddenly tensed. She was peering back the way they had come.
'What is it?' Ruth asked.
'Can't you see it?' Laura's voice was almost lost in the wind.
And then she could. There was something moving on the horizon, roiling and churning as if the storm clouds were folding in upon themselves; it was flickeringly illuminated by an odd, inner light as if coloured lightning were crackling within it. The billowing clouds moved towards them. Ruth felt a cold that went beyond the chill of the rain.
'What is it?' Laura asked.
A second later they heard the sound that others could have mistaken for thunder: the clattering of iron-shod hooves. And then they saw the figures among those swirling clouds, lost then revealed, distant, but bearing down on them.
Ruth whirled and made to run towards the Nissan. 'We've got to move. We might still be able to-'
Shavi caught her arm and gently but forcibly held her back. 'Take the van with me. It is fast. Turbo- charged.'
Ruth glanced at Laura who nodded; there were flashes of wild fear in her eyes. Shavi leapt into the driver's seat and the engine roared into life while Laura hauled herself through the rear doors. The bag with the stone in never left her grasp. Ruth began to follow her, but then shouted, 'Wait!' She turned and ran for the Nissan. Shavi had pulled up beside her by the time she had found what she wanted and she jumped into the passenger seat.
'The water's warped your brain,' Laura said sharply. 'What are you doing?'
Ruth held up a handful of cassettes. 'Church's music. I didn't want to leave it there.'
Laura eyed her as if she was crazy, but she said nothing; they both knew why she had done it. It might be the only thing they had to remember him by.
And then Shavi slammed the van into gear, hit the accelerator and the van hurtled forward so fast Laura was thrown across the back amidst a hail of cursing. Ruth gripped for support as she was pressed into the seat. She glanced over at Shavi who was as placid as if he were out on a Sunday drive. Of course, Ruth thought. He doesn't understand whats behind us.
'You've got to keep your foot down,' she said. 'If we're caught, we're dead. Literally.'
'I know.' He flashed her a smile. 'What is it exactly?'
Laura scrambled to the rear doors and pressed her face against the window. 'They're getting closer.'
'Something that will tear us apart if it catches us.' She glanced at him, unsure. 'Something supernatural.'
He nodded as if what she had said was the most normal thing in the world. 'The van should be fast enough.'
The engine had the throaty rumble of a big cat and the acceleration was breathtaking, although the ride was as smooth as silk. But Ruth found it impossible to put her faith in anything technological after seeing science fail so easily.
'Worry more that we should run out of road,' Shavi said. 'Do you have any direction in mind?'
'Just keep driving until the sun comes up. The Hunt seem to go at first light.'
'Definition of an optimist,' Laura chimed from the back. 'Someone who thinks they can keep ahead of the Hounds of Hell for four or five hours with just a crappy van.'
'What would you rather we do? Throw ourselves to the dogs?' Ruth snapped. She looked back anxiously. The figures in the swirling clouds were more starkly defined now, the odd lighting diminishing as they moved closer. There was a flurry of movement around the horses' legs which Ruth guessed was the pack; distantly she could hear their howling breaking through the storm.
'I'm sorry you got dragged into this,' she said to Shavi.
He shook his head dismissively. 'I was meant to be here.'
Ruth eyed him curiously. 'Meant how?'
'I was guided here by my dreams.'
A snorting noise echoed from the back, followed by some muttering which Ruth couldn't decipher.
'All my life I have had vibrant, colourful dreams,' Shavi continued. 'Sometimes they were like trips. Certainly not like the kind of dreams other people told me about. I had no idea what they meant, but I always knew in my heart they meant something. And then, a few weeks ago, I began to have the same dream night after night. It was about a dragon, landing on the ground, becoming part of the ground, and lines of blue light spreading out from it in all directions. And then I was following one of the lines to the place where the sun sets. To a big moor.' There was a screech of tires as the van slid around a sharp bend, which Shavi accelerated out of like a professional rally driver. 'Somehow I found myself on the road where we met and I knew at once it was the right place.'
'How did you know?'
'I just felt it.'
Ruth couldn't concentrate on talking further; her muscles felt like steel knots and her chest hurt from breathing too hard. Looking back once more, she saw the Hunt had drawn only slightly closer. The speedo said they were doing sixty-plus on the treacherous moorland road, which was a risk in itself, but if they could maintain that speed there was a chance they could keep ahead.
In the back, Laura attempted to hold herself fast, but the cornering was so intense she was bouncing off the walls, being slammed by Shavi's holdall, narrowly avoiding a sliding tool box; she was already covered in bruises and there was blood leaking into her left eye from a cut on her temple. But the pain was the least of the things concerning her. She couldn't believe how fearful she was becoming. Each glimpse of some terrible thing that shouldn't exist made it seem her life was spinning away from her, when she really needed to keep it under tight control. The only way she could deal with it was to damp it down into the hard, cold space deep inside her where she kept every other negative experience. Only that space was full to bursting and Laura knew it was just a matter of time before everything started to eat its way out.
'Where did you learn to drive?' she vented. 'Some school for the blind?' She slammed into another wall before rolling back, her head ringing.
Shavi apologised, but Ruth said, 'Ignore her. All she does is moan. Just focus on the driving.'
Somewhere along the way the road had dropped a grade.
The straight-as-a-die, well-surfaced tarmac had given way to something that was little more than a country lane, throwing twists and turns so regularly they either had to cut their speed or risk a wipe-out. Shavi shifted gear rapidly, using them to complement the brakes, but they all knew he was living on borrowed time. On one corner, the nearside rear wheel skidded on to a grass verge, churning up mud and vegetation so violently they thought the tire was going to burst or the van roll over. Although the storm seemed to be receding with the last flicker of lightning over Rippon Tor in the north, huge pools of water still covered the road at irregular intervals, threatening to throw the van into the moorland whenever it ploughed into them at speed.
'They've got closer,' Laura said as she managed to claw her way up to look through the rear windows once more. 'These country roads are slowing us down too much.'
'Yes, but what happens when we hit an urban area?' Ruth said. 'We can't keep going at this speed.'
'We will simply have to do the best we can,' Shavi said as he hunched over the wheel, trying to concentrate on the road; Ruth marvelled that there was still no strain showing on his face. 'We should avoid the smallest country roads, the bigger roads that might be too busy, the heavily built up areas where we could be stopped by traffic lights-'
