shock of her approaching death: his eyes seemed to be flooded with blood, as if every capillary in them had burst at once, and there was a subsequent movement under the skin around his orbits. As if something was crawling there.
Church was the first to notice the rear doors of the van hanging raggedly open. There was nothing inherently sinister in the image-Laura might simply have opened them to get some air to the suffocating interior-but his intuition sent a flood of icewater through his system. And then he was running, leaving the others chatting obliviously behind him. Bloody footprints led away from the van. Anxiety spurred him on, driving all rational thought from his mind. When he reached the doors and glanced in, his stomach turned.
The inside of the van looked like an abattoir. Blood was splattered up the walls and across the floor where Laura's pale, unmoving form lay. Her T-shirt was in tatters, the taunting legend Jesus Saves looming out at him, now appearing as if someone had attempted to scribble it out.
And the crate containing the talismans was gone.
The journey back to Tenby passed in a high-speed blur of madly overtaken vehicles, blaring horns and heart- stoppingly dangerous turns. They screamed into Accident amp; Emergency at the hospital on Trafalgar Road and Church ran in with Laura in his arms, her blood soaking through his shirt, leaving sickening spatter marks behind them like the spoor of some giant beast; despite his first impression, she was still alive, but in shock. If they had tried to deny it until then, the moment they saw the faces of the team of young doctors and nurses, they were left in no doubt as to the seriousness of her condition. She was whisked off behind flapping curtains, leaving them alone in an empty waiting room.
'But we'd won!' Veitch pleaded, his staring expression revealing the shock that played across all their minds. 'It's not fair.' It sounded pathetic and spoilt, but it was all he could think to say.
Ruth chewed her thumb knuckle. 'God, I hope she's going to be okay.' Church watched the regret and guilt play out on her face.
'But we'd won!' Veitch repeated, as if saying it enough times would make it come true.
'They selected the right time to attack,' Shavi noted, 'when our defences were down. Perfect, really.'
'She was attacked with a knife or a razor-you saw the cuts. That doesn't seem like the Fomorii,' Church said. 'Maybe it's just a random disaster-just some nut who crossed paths with us. The kind of thing that happens in life all the fucking time,' he added bitterly.
'Who specifically took the talismans?' Tom seemed more upset than Church would have expected. His eyes had been filled with tears from the moment they had discovered her; sometimes he could barely talk; at other times he shook with the ague which increasingly seemed to be afflicting him.
'All that bleedin' struggle. For nothing!' Veitch buried his head in his hands.
'This is probably not the best time to discuss it,' Tom began, 'but we need to get on the trail of the talismans. There's much more at stake here than-'
'No!' Church stared at him angrily, but all he could see was Marianne. 'Nothing is bigger than people! Individuals. People you love. They deserve your time and attention and passion. Not a world that couldn't care less if it went to hell in a handcart!'
Tom made as if to argue, then looked away.
'I don't care about anything else right now. I just want to see my friend pull through. If you haven't got friends, if you haven't got people you love, you've got nothing.'
Veitch stared at Church as if he was seeing him in a new light, then nodded thoughtfully.
Just then Tom put his head in his hands and started to sob silently. The others stared at him in surprise. Ruth slid up next to him and put a comforting arm around his shoulders, but he seemed inconsolable.
Veitch's shoulders were weighted with desolation. 'What the hell are we going to do now?'
They were allowed to see her at noon. Against the crisp white sheets of the bed she looked uncommonly frail, like a sickly child; they barely recognised her. Her dyed blonde hair was matted and unkempt, her skin like frost, her body somehow thinner and more angular than they remembered. Pads had been taped to the left side of her face. A couple of tubes snaked into her; she was dead to the world.
'We sedated her,' the doctor explained. 'It was for the best, after the shock.'
'Is she going to be okay?' Church asked.
The doctor didn't look too sure of his answer. 'Physically, I suppose. We gave her some blood, stitched the deepest wounds, bound the others. But …'-he shrugged-'you know, a razor attack. It's sick, disgusting. When I see the mess it leaves, I can't understand how anybody could be so twisted as to carry it out.' He paused, swallowed. 'And her face … she's going to have some bad scarring on that left side. You saw her back, her arms. She looks like a jigsaw. The psychological scars will be the hardest to heal. I noticed the old scar tissue …' He looked from one face to the other, hoping for an explanation.
'She's suffered before,' Church said simply.
The doctor nodded as if that was answer enough. 'That makes it worse. She's been bitten twice, as it were.'
'When can we take her with us?' Tom asked tentatively. He succeeded in ignoring the others' annoyed stares.
'Oh, well, a few days. She needs lots of rest, nothing too strenuous. I can put you in touch with the counselling service.'
They thanked him for what he had done, but said nothing further until he had left the room. Then Church turned on Tom. 'Christ, if she were dead you'd have us dumping her at the side of the road!' When Tom didn't seem too shocked by this allegation, Church became even more angry.
'You may not be so outraged when you see the way things will be in a few short months.' He seemed to be struggling with the conversation, dragging up each word individually, but some of his old frostiness had returned. 'If you do not pursue the talismans now, you'll be making the decision to give up the world, civilisation, everything. Is that what you are prepared to do?'
Church looked away, angry that Tom was making him face up to it, when all he wanted to think about was Laura.
'She's going to be fine,' Tom continued. 'You heard the doctor. But we can't afford to leave it another day. The trail could be lost by then.'
The room was filled by a long, hanging silence and then Veitch said, 'I'd really like to find who did this to her.'
'You heard the doctor. She's in no state to be moved,' Church protested. 'What happens if she gets an infection in the wounds? Tears one of them open? We could be putting her life at risk.'
'A decision needs to be taken now,' Tom said insistently.
Church saw all eyes were on him. 'Why are you looking at me?' he raged. They looked away uncomfortably, but the answer to his question was obvious; no one else was going to speak out.
Tom stepped in front of him and rested a hand on his shoulder; there was an honest paternalism in his face. 'It's your call,' he said softly.
Church had the sudden, terrible feeling that he would be damned whatever he decided.
Veitch managed to find a wheelchair and they lifted Laura into it after a heated discussion about the status of the drips and whether they should remove them; one appeared to be a rehydrating solution, while the other was a painkiller with some kind of electronically timed dose. In the end, they decided to wheel both of the drips out behind her, still attached. A blanket was hastily thrown over her legs to try to hide the fact she obviously wasn't in any condition to be moved. If they were stopped, they would never be allowed to take her out, and would probably pay a heavy price for trying to kidnap a patient, so they hurried through the corridors, desperately following a roundabout route that took them away from the busiest areas. The alarm was raised only at the last minute by a furious nurse, when they were forced to pass through reception to where they had abandoned the van.
They made a makeshift bed of sleeping bags on the floor of the van for Laura and tried to secure the drip trolleys with clothes, but every time Shavi went round a corner they fell over with a clatter.
After the euphoria of the morning, the mood in the van was dismal. Suddenly it seemed like everything was turning sour and whatever they did would not be able to make it right. Church sat on the floor next to Laura, watching her face for any sign of awakening, or of her condition deteriorating. He hated himself for the decision he had had to make, and for the fact that he had no choice. And he wanted to yell at them all that he wasn't up to the
