World's End (Age of Misrule, Book 1) (14 page)

Church awoke some time in the early hours. Tom and Ruth were still sleeping, cast in the faintest reddish glow from the embers of the fire. His soft back muscles ached from the hard ground, but as he rolled around trying to get comfortable, he became aware of an uneasy feeling in the pit of his stomach and the sensation that he was being watched. Over the next five minutes it grew gradually stronger until he had to stand up to look warily around. Beyond the small circle lit by the dim mantle of the fire, the night seemed uncommonly dark.

He waited for a minute or two, but when the sensation didn't diminish he cautiously edged towards the shadows. Beyond the reach of the fire's luminescence, his eyes grew accustomed to the dark and he began to make out the shapes of hedges and trees on the plains that rolled away from the henge. There was no sign of movement and his ears, tuned for the tramp of a foot, could only pick up the bleak moan of the wind as it swept across the lowlands.

When he reached the outer stones, Church paused, his heart thumping madly from the discomfort of invisible eyes. "Who's there?" he hissed.

There was a lull, as if the night were waiting for him to progress further, then he heard what appeared to be the faintest reply on the edge of his hearing, barely more than a rustle of grass.

After a few seconds he caught a glimpse of movement, like a dark shape separating itself from the lighter dark of the night. His skin seemed to grow taut across his body. A figure, slim and tall, moved towards him, gradually developing an inner light as if tiny fireflies were buzzing around within it. Long before it had coalesced into any recognisable form, Church was overcome. And when it finally halted twenty feet away from him, his eyes burned with tears and his trembling knees threatened to buckle.

"Marianne," he whispered.

She was pale and fragile, her eyes dark and hollow, as if she had gone days without sleep; Church couldn't bear to look into their depths. Her skin had an opaque quality that seemed to shimmer and for the briefest instant become transparent. Her arms hung limply at her sides, her shoulders slouched from an unseen burden. Church felt an overwhelming wave of despair and longing washing off her, sluicing away the frisson of fear he felt at her terrible appearance.

And all he could remember was that moment when the last dregs of life drained away and the intelligence died in her eyes, leaving him with just an armful of hope and chattering images of promised futures now lost and, worse, the certain knowledge he would never know why everything he ever needed or believed in had been taken away from him.

He thought he might die if he heard the truth, but he asked anyway, in a hoarse voice that didn't sound like his own: "Just tell me why."

If she heard, she gave no sign; her blank features still radiated that sense of terrible loss. Church couldn't bear to look at her; he closed his burning eyes and stifled the sobs that threatened to rack him.

When he did finally look again, she had raised her arms, beckoning.

His breath froze in his throat. Tom's warning flickered for an instant, then was driven away. He took a step and passed the edge of the stones.

But as he moved forward, Marianne began to recede, still holding her arms in front of her, faster and faster, however quickly he advanced, eerily gliding an inch or two above the ground. And then he was running madly down the slope and Marianne was whisking away from him, growing smaller until she was just a glowing spot on the horizon that eventually winked out.

Heartbroken, Church fell to his knees, his loss as raw as in the days just after her death. Somehow he managed to compose himself enough to trudge back to the stones, but as he passed the spot where she had waited he noticed something unusual. On the ground lay a rose, its petals as black as the night, perfectly formed, with a stem that had been neatly clipped. As he picked it up, he felt a whisper in his head that said Roisin Dubh, and he knew in a way he couldn't explain that it was the flower's name; and that it was a gift from Marianne.

Although he couldn't fathom its meaning, he felt a rush of elation. He tucked the flower secretly into his jacket and made his way back to the dying fire.

hey woke early with the sun heavy and red on the horizon. A thick dew sparkled on the ground and on their jackets and there was a chill in the air that made their bones ache, but they soon stamped the warmth back into their limbs. As soon as they had properly woken, Church and Ruth realised they felt strangely refreshed; new and clean like they had been reborn; Church could not remember having slept so deeply in the last two years.

"It's the healing and energising effect of the earth energy," Tom told them as they made their way back to the car.

"The NHS should get a franchise," Ruth replied with a relaxed smile. Church was pleased to see her face clear of the anxiety and worry that had transformed her the previous evening.

In the tunnel they stopped to examine the black crust scorching the concrete and were instantly reminded of how close their escape had been. And before they could depart, Church had to scrape the car windows free of a thick layer of ash made tacky by the dew; the air smelled like the aftermath of a house fire.

"I still do not understand how the Fabulous Beast was marshalled in our pursuit," Tom mused as Church cursed quietly in his labour. "They are supposed to be wildly independent, uncontrollable."

"Maybe that's one bit of your lore that's wrong," Church said sourly. "A good council Fabulous Beast training course ... sit ... beg ... roll over. They'll do anything for a treat."

Tom muttered something under his breath and wandered off to take the air while Church finished the windows.

"Doesn't he speak funny?" Ruth found a clean part of the wing to perch on. "Like some bad historical novel."

"He's a strange fish all round. I still don't trust him. It feels like he's just throwing out enough titbits to keep us interested while he works on his own agenda."

"As long as we're aware of it." Ruth closed her eyes and put her head back to feel the sun on her face.

Church was glad of the silence that followed. He could barely contain the emotional upheaval he felt after his encounter with Marianne; it resonated confusingly through every thought. Why was she visiting him-to torment him further or to pass on some message? Was it linked to all the other high strangenesses that had descended on the country? And what was the significance of the Black Rose which was secreted in the inside pocket of his jacket close to his heart? Instinctively, he felt he ought to tell Ruth about it, but there was a niggling part of his mind that forced him to hold back. Maybe later, he promised himself.

Their first aim was to find somewhere to eat. At the A345 they came across a Little Chef surrounded by trees and were the first inside once the doors opened. Over full English breakfasts and tea looking out over the sun-drenched car park, they tried to make some sense of what was happening.

"I still don't see what we can possibly do," Ruth said as she dunked her toast into her egg.

"Probably nothing apart from find some way to raise the alarm. But we do have a responsibility to do something." Still distracted, Church sipped on his tea; he knew exactly what he wanted to do: discovering what the mysterious email woman knew about Marianne was still the driving force. At the moment that dovetailed with their search for more information about the imminent crisis Tom had described, but if he ever had to make a choice between the two, he didn't know how he would react.

Ruth suddenly glanced down at her hand in surprise. "Look at this: I cut my hand scrambling through the fence last night, and this morning there's no sign of it. It's completely healed."

"Make the most of it," Tom mumbled grumpily. He seemed preoccupied, constantly glancing around the room.

"Expecting guests?" Church said.

"Just because we survived last night doesn't mean it's the end of it."

"There's a cheery thought," Ruth said breezily, but Church could see she was disturbed by it.

"So now we're on the run," he said. Tom didn't answer.

They went to the checkout, but as the waitress totted up their bill the till suddenly started spewing out reams of receipt paper. Her eyes flashed irritation while she attempted to maintain a pleasant smile as she wrestled with the snaking roll. Eventually the register jammed and she tore off the streamer with restrained anger. On it was the same thing printed over and over again:

1OF5

It bore no relation to what she had keyed in. When Church noticed it, he felt strangely uneasy. He was immediately thrown back to his journey to collect Ruth and the odd sequence of coincidences.

Church leaned on the car bonnet in the sun with Ruth's mobile phone after struggling for ten minutes to find a signal. Laura's sleepy voice told him he'd woken her.

"It's Jack Churchill. I'm sorry we didn't make the meeting with you last night. We got delayed in Wiltshire."

There was a long pause, then: "It's Sunday. Mornings have been banned. What's the matter? The missus thrown you out of bed?"

"I'm sorry."

"Yeah, yeah." She yawned. "So what's the score? You still want to meet?"

"Yes, and soon. We can get up to Bristol by-"

"Don't worry, I'll come to you. If You're in Wiltshire then you might as well head to Salisbury. That's where it happened. You can take the ghost train with me, see if you get the full Fright Night treatment too. Or maybe I really have done too many drugs." The line threatened to break up, but then her voice came through clear once more. "-king mobiles! I'll meet you tomorrow at Poultry Cross in the city centre. 10 a.m. You'll find it."

"What about your work?"

"Yeah, like it matters any more."

They reached Salisbury just after 10.30 a.m. The March sun was strong enough to catch the historic cathedral town in an unseasonable light, bright and buzzing with tourists through the main shopping area and Market Square. Ruth used her credit card to check them into a hotel in the centre of town, selected by Tom for its olde worlde appeal: a thirteenth century coaching inn, half-timbered in black on white, with hanging eaves, high chimneys and diamond window panes which, from the pavement, made the interior seem mysteriously murky. They managed to get rooms side by side. They were fitted with all mod cons, but the sloping floors and oddly angled ceilings still gave them a time-lost feeling.

With the threat of so much darkness looming on the horizon, they agreed to take a break, from each other and, hopefully, from the stresses of the events sweeping in around them, until early evening. Ruth and Church both felt they needed time to assimilate all that Tom had shown and told them at Stonehenge.

In the sun outside the hotel, amongst the bustle of everyday life, they could easily have pretended nothing had changed. But as they walked away, Tom called out, "Be on your guard."

For some reason he couldn't quite explain, Church found himself drawn to the cathedral which stood on the south of the city, an imposing vision of majesterial white stone in acres of greenery bounded by the River Avon. As he stood in The Close looking up at the soaring spire, he had a sudden impression of it as a symbol of all that was under threat. Seven hundred years of British history, built on solid foundations that not even an earthquake could throw down. It had overseen the coming of the Age of Enlightenment, of the establishment of a civilisation based on science, reason and logic. And more than that, it represented the glory of a God who had created that world; a religion which allowed no space for the truth that was slowly being unpeeled before their eyes. The magnitude of what could be swept away dwarfed him.

It was too much. He hurried in through the south-west entrance as if he were seeking sanctuary and walked slowly up the nave to take a seat in the pews. For long minutes, he couldn't bear to think, instead losing himself in the quiet beauty of the surroundings. Organ music played gently in the background, adding to the air of reverent tranquillity which soothed him a little, and eventually his attention fell upon the altar and its intricately worked cloth. The central image showed a crown of thorns in gold and red surrounding the Holy Grail. There was something about the image which seemed to speak to him, whispering insistently at the back of his head until he became disturbed by the suggestion of a subconscious connection which he couldn't make. In the end he had to force himself to look away.

Then there was no other choice but to let his mind turn to Marianne, as he knew it would. Carefully, as if he were handling a fragile piece of pottery, he drew out the Roisin Dubh, wondering how he knew what he guessed was the Gaelic, marvelling at how the rose had survived so immaculately. The petals were like velvet, the black so rich it seemed to have numerous depths. He lifted it to his nose, but surprisingly it had no fragrance at all. Was it, as he hoped, a sign from her of their enduring love?

The thought filled him with such a swell of desperate emotion he had to close his eyes, and in that instant he almost prayed. But since Marianne's death, nothing any religion preached made sense any more; however much he hoped her essence lived on in some kind of afterlife, the mundanity of everyday life had almost convinced him that death was an end. Now he couldn't even wallow in that existentialist purgatory. Two years of weighing up every option, trying to find some common ground between hope and reality, had left him sick and mentally worn down. He was too tired to have faith. He just wanted to know.