somehow threatening in its isolation. The wind howled around them as they moved down the slope; even when it dropped there was still the eerie sound of waves rippling across the lake, giving the uneasy sensation that something was emerging from the depths. Church felt his fear grow as they neared; he could tell from Tom's face that he felt it too.
'It's just the spooky atmosphere,' Church said hopefully.
Tom's face remained dark and troubled. 'I would have thought by now you would have learned to trust your instincts. In this new age, what you sense is as important as what you see.' He stretched out his arm, bringing them up sharply.
Veitch squinted at the murky surface of the water. 'What's that moving? Is it the shadows of clouds? Or is there something in there?'
'This is Dozmary Pool, a place of legend.' Tom said. 'Local stories claim it is the lake where Sir Bedivere threw Excalibur after Arthur's death. A hand rose from the water to pluck the sword and take it down beneath the waves.'
Church tried to read his face. 'None of that Arthurian stuff is true,' he ventured.
'Not literally, no. But all legends reflect some aspect of a greater truth. I told you before-lakes and hills are liminal zones, the boundaries between this world and the place where the old races went after they retreated from the land. There are doors in all of them. Some of them have remained closed tight down the years. But not here.'
He wouldn't venture any closer to the lakeshore, so they took a long, circuitous journey along the ridge, their eyes constantly drawn to the lapping waves. It wasn't until the lake had long disappeared from view that the sense of brooding and menace slowly started to fade.
A mile and a half further down a tiny, winding lane they reached the village of Bolventor, little more than a small group of houses huddling together for shelter. And just beyond it was Jamaica Inn, its lamps already burning in the growing gloom. It had been heavily commercialised since the days when Daphne du Maurier had used its heritage of smugglers and violence as the basis for her story, yet it still retained an atmosphere that transcended the trappings of the late twentieth century. History lived on in its aged timbers, brooding slate and heavy stone walls which kept out the harsh Bodmin weather. Exhausted, and with little sign of welcome in the surrounding moorland, they were drawn to its cheer and decided to take a room for the night. As they crossed the cobbled yard where stagecoaches once clattered and heard the inn-sign creaking in the breeze, Church felt he had been flung back hundreds of years. A few months earlier, it would have been romantic; now it seemed like a warning of what lay ahead.
They ate steak in the restaurant and drank a little too heavily in the bar before settling into their room. The wind rattled the windows and thumped against the walls and they were thankful they were secure indoors. But Church knew that however sturdy the building, it wouldn't amount to anything if the things that ranged through the night decided they wanted to break inside.
At the window he tried to pierce the darkness, but beyond the lights of the car park there was nothing but a sea of black; they could have been alone in the void, and for an instant he was disturbed by a memory of his view into the abyss from the Watchtower window.
'I hope Ruth and Laura are okay,' he said; then, to Tom, 'Do you think the Wild Hunt will be back?'
'Devon and Cornwall is their favourite hunting ground. I have tried to mask our presence as much as possible, but they will not leave until the blood of their prey has been spilled. It is only a matter of time.'
'`Mask our presence'?' Veitch repeated. 'Is that one of your little tricks?' Tom ignored him.
Outside, the gale clattered like iron horseshoes on stone and howled in the eaves like the baying of hounds. Church drew the curtains tightly and retired to his bed.
The stark red digits of the clock radio displayed 3 a.m. when Church woke with a start from nightmares of a pursuer that snapped relentlessly at his heels. Tom and Veitch both slept deeply, although Tom occasionally twitched and mumbled deliriously. Church stumbled out of bed and headed to the bathroom for a glass of water. On his return he had the odd sensation someone was standing outside the door, although he could hear nothing. He dismissed it as another by-product of the nightmare, but after he had slid back under the sheets it didn't diminish and he knew he wouldn't be able to sleep until he had investigated.
Sleepily cursing his own obsessive tendencies, he unlocked the door carefully so as not to wake the others, his natural caution blanked out by his halfawake state. As he had thought, there was no one without. But if anything, his uneasiness had grown stronger now the door was open. Cautiously, he leaned out and looked up and down the corridor. For the briefest instant he thought he glimpsed a figure disappearing round the corner at the far end. He weighed up his options and then closed the door behind him and hurried in pursuit.
The gale was still in full force and the creak of the inn-sign echoed ominously throughout the building; there was no other sign of life at all. But as he rounded the corner he was brought up sharply, his breath catching in his throat. Facing him twenty feet away was Marianne, as pale and dark-eyed as the last time he had seen her at Stonehenge.
This time he was more ready to confront her. 'What do you want, Marianne?' he asked softly.
There was a ripple like a sigh that seemed to run through her whole body. Church felt the shiver echo within him, filled with the terrible ache of loss that he was convinced he would never lose. He tried to look in her eyes, but couldn't; the things he glimpsed there were too awful. But her face held the same delicate combination of beauty and sensitivity with which he had fallen in love. He bit his lip to prevent the tears.
She didn't reply, although he hadn't expected it; he had come to believe speech was no longer within her power. Instead she stretched out her right arm and gently touched the wall. Where her pale fingertips brushed the plaster a spot of red bubbled out, like a thumb that had been pricked by a rose. Gradually she began to retreat, in that same unmoving, horrible way he had witnessed at Stonehenge, her fearful aspect turned upon him like the light of a beacon. And as she receded, the blood spread out from her fingertip as if it had a mind of its own, tracing words that sprang to life like a speeded-up film of flowers bursting in the sun.
Somehow Church managed to draw himself from her face to look at the message, and in that instant he felt as if he had been blasted with an arctic wind. It said:
Murder. Avenge my death.
Church thought for a moment his legs were going to buckle. Marianne had reached the far end of the corridor and was now fading into the wall as if she were slipping below waves. And in the last instant he thought he saw her expression change. The look that frightened him so much became, briefly, tender and sad and if he had had any doubt this was truly Marianne it was gone then. But it was too quick, and he was left with an aching emptiness that made him feel sick.
Back in the room he couldn't sleep. Suddenly his whole life felt like it had been turned on its head; his guilt that he had been somehow complicit in Marianne's suicide had been a part of him for so long, he could barely consider the prospect that she had been murdered. It was such an upheaval that he considered whether it had been some instance of supernatural trickery designed to destabilise him. If that were true, it had worked well. But he knew it was Marianne as well as he knew himself and instinctively he felt her message was genuine. He was shaking so much he could barely consider what that meant for him. To calm himself, he took out the locket the young Marianne had given him and rested it in the palm of his hand. Although he couldn't explain why, it seemed to do the trick.
At that moment he became aware of a strange, unearthly cold that washed out from his jacket on the chair next to him. Anxiously he pulled the Roisin Dubh from the inside pocket and examined it secretively. All of the shining black petals were spotted with droplets of blood.
Ruth, Shavi, and Laura spent the next morning studying information about Glastonbury in the local bookshop Gothic Image. A mountain of words had been written about the town, more than any other place they had visited, and most of it formed an intricate tapestry of tradition, fact and romance, with little sign where one ended and another began. But after wading through numerous books, they stumbled across a locally printed pamphlet which gave them their breakthrough: the translation of the Latin phrase.
The Chalice Well lay at the foot of Chalice Hill, the third and gentlest of the three hills that surrounded Glastonbury; of all the many mystical sites in the Isle of Avalon, it was the most revered, and the most ancient. The well was fed by a spring rising on the slopes of the hill which provided water so iron-impregnated it flowed red. That had earned it the alternative name of Blood Spring, adding to the ancient legend that the Grail was hidden
