World's End (Age of Misrule, Book 1) (25 page)

"Hello," she said in a thick West Country accent. "Are you looking for something?"

"Just sightseeing," he replied ridiculously.

"Not much to see round here." She laughed disarmingly.

Relaxing his guard, Church returned her smile. "Not really my cup of tea."

"Where you from then?"

"London."

"I'd love to live in London." She looked dreamily into the middle distance. "It'd be great to be somewhere where there's a buzz."

"Nothing to stop you when you're older."

Her smile became slightly more enigmatic. "My name's Marianne. What's yours?"

"Jack." Although he knew nothing about her, the simple matter of her name suddenly made him warm to her. "That's a nice name," he continued. "I used to know someone called Marianne."

"A girlfriend?"

"She was."

"Did you split up?"

He thought twice, then said honestly, "She died."

Marianne nodded ruefully. "It figures." Church looked at her curiously, but she'd already danced ahead of him. Noticing the wood he'd piled nearby, she grinned and said, "Sightseeing, eh? Looks to me like you're going to have a little fire." She looked around. "Where's the camp?"

Church's shoulders sagged. "Blimey. Rumbled. Look, we're trying to keep a low profile. I'd appreciate it if you didn't tell anyone."

Her laughter at Church's obvious dismay was innocent and infectious. "Don't worry, I'm not going to rat on you. But if my dad finds out it'll be a different matter. He farms on this land and he's always going mad about bloody trespassers. Threatened to set the dogs on the last lot he caught. We're close enough to Glastonbury to get those scruffy New Age types passing through. Some of them leave the place in a right mess, but most of them seem okay to me. My dad thinks they're all scroungers and vandals, though."

"Well, I'm neither."

"I can see that. Come on, I'll help you collect some wood." She walked at his side for a minute or two, then said, "Do you miss her?"

"Marianne? Yes. A lot."

"I thought you looked sad. I could see it in your eyes." Church winced at the thought that it was so obvious. There was a long, thoughtful pause and then she said, "Do you think people die for a reason?"

He shrugged. "I don't know-"

"Yes, but do you think?"

"I'd like to believe that, but it's not always easy to see." The maturity of her conversation surprised him, and made him feel a little uncomfortable. "This is heavy stuff for someone your age."

"Just because you're young doesn't mean you have to fill your head with rubbish," she said tartly. "Anyway, I do like a lot of rubbish. It's just I like to think about other stuff too."

"I stand corrected."

"Apology accepted," she laughed, picking up a rotten tree branch and tossing it to Church. "Why are you so bothered about dying? Don't argue-I can see you are! It's just another part of life, isn't it? The only thing worth bothering about is what we do before we pop our clogs."

"It's not as simple as that-"

"Why not? I want to do exciting stuff every day, learn new things, see life. I want to pack a week into a day, a month into a week and a year into a month. Don't you think that's a good philosophy? Why doesn't everybody do that?"

Church pretended to scour the grass for wood while he attempted to think of an answer, but he couldn't summon anything that didn't sound pathetic. Her victorious grin forced him to laugh. "I think I should be Prime Minister," she said triumphantly, sashaying theatrically ahead of him.

When she turned back to him, she'd pulled out a locket from under her T-shirt. With a dexterous flick, she opened it and held it up to show him the tiny picture squeezed inside.

"Princess Diana," he noted. "Did you like her?"

"I loved her. That's why I asked you about dying. She did so much good with her life. I think she died for a reason."

"Oh?"

"To make us see how bad we were all living our lives. So that we could learn from her and live more like her, you know, doing good, helping the world."

Her tone was so adamant it would have been reprehensible to sour her views with adult cynicism. "She seemed very decent. All that campaigning for land mines. And all that."

Marianne looked up at him with a faintly pitying smile. "I can see you're not a believer."

"I'm sorry. I'm just ... an old grouch."

"I've got pictures of her all over my bedroom. And in one corner I've got a little table with the best photo I could find in a frame. You'd know it if you saw it. It's famous. She's looking at the camera really thoughtful, and when you look right into her eyes you can see so much goodness it almost makes you cry." She lowered her voice conspiratorially. "Before bed, I kneel down in front of it and pray to her."

Church lowered his eyes, trying to remember the last time he felt such an innocent belief. "What do you pray for?"

"For Diana to make me a better person. For me to do some good, like her, before I die."

"Well, of all the things to pray for, that sounds like one of the best."

"You should try it some time."

He laughed. "Maybe I should."

"No, I mean it." She undid the locket and offered it to him. "Not to keep. Just try it tonight and I'll get it back off you tomorrow."

"No, I couldn't-"

"Don't be silly!" She grabbed his hand and forced it into his fingers, laughing. "She's a saint, you know. She'll listen to you."

He felt uncomfortable taking it from her, and that made him wonder why: perhaps it was the cynicism-Diana, Patron Saint of Bulimics and Damaged Women Everywhere. But then maybe Marianne was right. Perhaps blind faith was what was needed. It certainly seemed to make her happy.

"Okay," he said finally. "Maybe you'll make a convert of me." That seemed to please her.

They spent the next hour trailing through the trees and along the hedgerows, doing more talking than wood collecting. Church found himself enjoying Marianne's company; she was funny and passionate, filled with questions about every subject that entered the conversation, and possessed of a generosity of spirit that made him feel good to be around her, and a little humbled. She was an only child, yet quite unspoilt, with a love of music that reminded Church of his younger days. They argued about the strengths and weaknesses of a few pop icons, then listed their top ten songs, which ended in uncontrollable laughter when she made Church sing the chorus of all his selections.

Finally they'd located enough firewood and Marianne helped Church carry it back to the camp. Ruth and Laura weren't anywhere to be seen so they lit the fire together and made some tea. Oddly, Church found himself talking about his own Marianne with an openness that he hadn't managed since her death. The young girl was an easy listener and she seemed to have a handle on his emotions that belied her years. When she said goodbye, with a promise to bring them milk at breakfast, he was sorry to see her go.

Night still fell quickly at that time of year, and there was a chill to it which made a mockery of the warmth of the day. Ruth and Laura had reached an uneasy, unspoken truce; enough to follow directions from the garage to a local shop where they had bought enough provisions for the evening meal and breakfast: some vegetables for a stew, rice, bacon, eggs and bread, although Laura revealed she was a strict vegetarian. They cooked around 7.30 p.m., keeping close to the fire for warmth, speaking in voices that were subconsciously low. The conversation was muted. The darkness among the trees seemed deep and disturbing; none of them would admit how scary the quiet countryside had become.

While the food bubbled over the fire, Laura plugged her computer into her mobile. "Thought it would be worthwhile to check up on some of those lines the old guy had been spinning you before he caught his ticket to Neverland."

When she booted the computer up, Church noticed her desktop wallpaper was a strange design of interlinking trees. "What does that mean?" he asked.

"It's a design. It means I like looking at it," she sneered. "Shit. The battery's getting low. I'll need to find somewhere to charge it soon. Anyway, earlier I found this site called the Charles Fort Institute, which is like this massive online reference library and archive for all sorts of bizarre shit. They've got lots of links to folklore sites. So why don't we start with the pooch." The screen jumped to The Black Dog Reporter. "Here we are: Black Shuck. Shuck comes from scucca, the Anglo-Saxon for demon." She scrolled quickly down the page. "There's an account of a great storm in East Anglia in 1577 when a black demon dog 'or the Devil in such a likeness' appeared in Bungay Church, leaving two parishioners dead at their prayers and another `as shrunken as a piece of leather scorched in a hot fire.' Loads of tales from all over the country, but he's usually described as big as a calf with saucer-sized eyes that weep green or red fire, and he only comes from his secret lair at dusk. In East Anglia when someone is dying they still say `The Black Dog is at his heels.' Generally seen as a portent of something much worse, death or disaster."

"Hang on, if it only comes out at dusk, how come you saw it in daylight in Salisbury?" Ruth asked.

"Maybe he's found a good sunscreen," Laura said.

"The tales might simply have it wrong. Because he was only seen at night, the people thought he could only come out then," Church suggested.

Ruth sighed. "Some come out by day, some are nocturnal. This is all too confusing."

"Nothing about how to drive it away?" Church asked hopelessly.

"Well, being as how this stuff is generally regarded as not real, there's not much of a user's guide," she replied tartly. "Nothing in the folklore to link him to the Wild Hunt either. But I guess we're in uncharted territory here."

"What have you got on the Hunt?"

After she'd jumped to the next site, Church tried to read her screen, but she moved it so he couldn't see. "Lots of conflicting stories. It comes from the Norse tradition, long before the Vikings or Christianity came to Britain." She scanned down to the relevant section. "Odin was supposed to race across the sky on stormy winter evenings with a pack of baying hounds. Anyone who saw the Hunt could be carried off to a distant land, while anyone who spoke to the Huntsman died. Later, Odin's place was taken by the Devil, but the Wild Huntsman has also been seen as Herne the Hunter or Sir Francis Drake, who used to ride in a black coach led by headless horses across Dartmoor. The pack is called Yeth Hounds or Wish Hounds, another bunch of demon dogs, and they say you can hear their screams on the wind as they hunt down the souls of unbaptised babies. Cute. The Wild Huntsman's also known as the Erl-King, which is some mistranslation of an old Danish legend about the King of the Elves leading the Wild Hunt."

"We've got to remember the legends aren't the truth," Church cautioned. "They're just stories twisted from the few facts people recall-"

"And isn't that a relief," Laura interrupted. "Demon hounds whisking poor bastards off to some kind of Purgatory. Portents of death and destruction. We're still not in line for Big Fun, are we?"

"Can't you find anything useful?" Ruth said with irritation.

"Sorry, I forgot you're a completely useless waste of space. It really is all down to me." She logged off the net and clicked off her computer.

Ruth didn't bite. "Okay, we've suddenly been swamped with every supernatural creature known to man, but what do you think is really going on?" she said to Church. "These Night Walkers are obviously manoeuvring in the shadows. I mean, why were they all at that depot? Are they all getting regular jobs? I don't think so."

Church nodded in agreement. "Exactly. If they're so powerful, why haven't they made any move yet?"

"Maybe they're planning a first strike that will wipe us off the board in one fell swoop," Laura noted.

"Whatever they're planning, it's something so important they can't risk us messing it up."

Ruth looked out into the encroaching dark. "They could be all over the country, just mixing with people, and nobody any the wiser. That funny-looking bloke you always think is a bit odd at the bus stop. The weirdo staring at you in the supermarket. Everywhere."

"That's a good recipe for paranoia." Laura lay back so she could see the moon coming up through the trees. "There's going to be the war to end all wars and nobody knows."

After dinner, Laura handed out the beers she had bought and they discussed what lay ahead. Church was surprised how optimistic the other two seemed, despite everything, although he knew his view had been coloured by his vision of his own death in the Watchtower. Laura had been entrusted with the stone, although they had never discussed it; it just seemed natural as she had been the one to find it. As their conversation turned to the possible locations of the other talismans, she pulled the stone out from the small rucksack where she had decided to keep it.

"It's a weird thing," she said. "I still can't get over the feel of it. It's kind of creepy."

"What do you mean?"

"You'll know if you touch it. Here, cop a feel."

She handed it over to Church for the first time. But as his fingers brushed it, an ear-splitting shriek burst from the stone and he dropped it like a hot coal. "What the hell was that?" he asked in shock.

They all looked at it for a moment before Laura picked it up. "Care to try that again?" Laura held it out to him again.

Church hesitated, then gingerly brushed his fingers over the stone's surface. The shriek erupted immediately.

"Jesus, why don't you set off a flare so everyone knows where we are!" Ruth protested.

"What does it mean?" Church said curiously. "You try it," he said to Ruth.

She took it from Laura, passed it from hand to hand, then gave it back. "Looks like it doesn't like men," Laura said to Church. "Or maybe you've just got clammy palms."

Church felt suddenly cold. "The woman in the Watchtower said it had the power to recognise the true king of the land."

Laura burst out laughing. "King Church the First! That's a good one!"

Church shook his head. "Don't be ridiculous."