'We were at Stonehenge,' Sophie continued, her face like stone. 'It used to be a dead site… all the energy leeched from it because of exploitation… but after the Fall it came back with force. We were investigating some reports that a Fabulous Beast had settled in the area when-'
'They came out of nowhere!' Rick raged. 'Black-shirted bastards with a red cross on the front — we've seen them around the cathedral! Think they're some kind of knights-'
'No!' Miller exclaimed, waving his hands as if he were trying to waft away the notion.
'They did that?' Mallory said.
'They tried to drive us off,' Sophie replied. 'Came at us on horseback with swords and pikes and all sorts of medieval weaponry.'
'I couldn't get out of the way in time,' Melanie said. 'I fell beneath the hooves. They weren't able to save my legs.'
'No,' Miller repeated, backing towards the purple drapes. 'I don't believe it.' Sophie, Rick and Melanie looked at him in puzzlement.
'It's true,' Sophie said. 'We wouldn't make something like that up. They knew who we were — unbelievers — and they rode her down. They didn't try to help or anything, just drove us away. They didn't care if we lived or died.'
'No,' Miller said again. 'We're knights — we're from the cathedral. And no one there would do anything like that.'
Mallory's heart sank. Miller's denial was too strong, bolstered by his own need to believe that there was no truth in the story. Mallory had been focusing on Rick's face; the puzzlement hung there for an instant while he processed what Miller had said and then his features hardened.
'Is this true?' Sophie said directly to Mallory. A hint of betrayal chilled her eyes.
'We only signed up today,' Mallory replied.
Rick looked as if he would leap across the room and attack them. 'They're all the same!' he raged. 'They hate anyone who's not a Christian-'
'That's not true!' Miller protested, close to tears himself.
'Please,' Melanie said weakly, 'no arguments.'
Mallory could see that the warm atmosphere had already evaporated. The extent of Melanie's tragedy meant any attempt to argue their innocence would be offensive. 'Come on, Miller, this isn't the time,' he said, grabbing the young knight's arm. Miller threw it off, preparing to defend his Faith further, and Mallory grabbed him tighter this time, dragging him back. 'Get a grip,' Mallory hissed in his ear. 'Look at what's happened to her — have some heart.'
'Yeah, get out of here,' Rick said, 'and tell your lot we'll never forget what they did.'
Melanie closed her eyes; the strain was telling on her. Mallory tried to imagine the pain and horror of having two legs amputated without recourse to anaesthetic or an operating theatre. 'Come on, Miller,' he said, softening. Slowly, his companion unclenched and turned to go.
Miller paused at the drapes and said, 'I'm sorry. I truly am.' But the look on the faces of Sophie and Rick showed they both realised Melanie was probably dying and there were no words that could make amends for the crime that had been committed.
Sophie exited with them while Rick tended to Melanie. The frostiness of her mood made Mallory feel as if he'd lost something truly valuable; she didn't meet his eyes any more.
'I know it's not your fault,' she said, 'but I have a very real problem with anyone who subscribes to a belief system that condones something like that.'
Mallory wanted to tell her he'd only signed up for a job of work, but at that point it would have sounded so pathetic it wouldn't have achieved anything. Instead he said, 'I'm sorry things ended like this.'
She didn't wait to hear any more.
As they trudged across the camp, the first light of dawn coloured the eastern sky. The screeching wind ended as if someone had flicked a switch, nor was there any sign of the Fabulous Beast.
Miller had been lost to his thoughts until he said, 'It can't be true, Mallory. No one at the cathedral would stand by that kind of behaviour.'
'I don't know, Miller — it only takes one bad apple… or one psycho… and everybody gets tarnished. Any club that has me as a member can't have a very strict vetting procedure.'
'We should tell James… or Blaine-'
'Right, and say we dumped our uniforms and slipped out under cover of darkness to spend time with a bunch of witches. That should merit a crucifixion at least.'
'Don't joke about that, Mallory!' Miller's emotions were all raging near the surface, but he managed to calm himself. 'I'm sorry. But I'm not like you, Mallory. I believe in things, and it hurts me when you take the piss out of them.'
'OK. I won't do it again.'
Miller eyed him askance to see if he was joking, but couldn't begin to tell. Mallory's thoughts, however, had already turned to seeing Sophie again and ways that he might bridge the gulf that lay between them. It wasn't insurmountable, he was sure, but he would need time away from the strict regime of the cathedral.
When they walked along High Street up to the main entrance, what they saw brought them to an immediate halt. The enormous iron gates were bowed, almost torn asunder, hanging from their hinges by a sliver. The Devil had come calling.
Chapter Four
'No human being will ever know the Truth, for even if they happened to say it by chance, they would not know they had done so.'
September turned to October and with it came the first real chill of the approaching winter. The rooftops visible beyond the walls sparkled with frost as they emerged from the dawn mist, and the breath of the brethren formed pearly clouds when they trooped to the cathedral for prime. How the city's residents were coping with the first cold snap was a mystery, for since the night of the near-destruction of the gates the bishop had ruled that no one should leave the compound.
The attack had shaken the cathedral to its core. A black, fearful mood lay over all, turning every conversation at the refectory tables, or in the leaky, cold shacks, or in the kitchens, or the herbarium, or the infirmary, to only one subject: the End Times had arrived.
At first, no one could quite grasp that what had been predicted and dissected for millennia had finally arrived and they were truly living in the age of the ultimate battle between good and evil, but gradually the desperate reality of their situation crept over them. Everyone in the cathedral who had seen the horned figure looming over the city or felt the scuttling touch of the presence's hideous intelligence in their mind had no doubt of the Adversary's black power. As the bishop pointed out in one of his sermons, there were no coincidences in God's world; the Adversary had come when the Church was at its weakest, but also at the point when it was preparing to break out as a potent force once more. 'Evil is determined to prevent our resurgence,' the bishop had said, 'and so it is down to us to ensure that Evil does not triumph. We are God's champions at a time we thought was always in the distant future. But it is now, and we cannot fail, and with our Lord beside us, we shall not fail.'
Yet while the bishop and the Church administration pored over ancient documents in the library, or discussed the signs and portents for any insight — sightings of the risen dead reported around the cathedral compound being one of the most prominent — many of the brethren were driven to frantic prayer. They felt cripplingly weak beside the strength they had seen exhibited, unprepared, fragmented, the rump of a once- mighty religion, and after the
