Phil Rickman - The Wine of Angels

David Campbell had actually asked the question, Do these phenomena really fit inside our field of operation? The Church still asking everyone to put their faith in a huge all-powerful supernatural being while loftily backing away from lesser phenomena.

Like a pale, naked figure, cold as a slug, crawling towards you up the aisle of your church. Obviously, a representation of her own perceived isolation as the first woman minister of Ledwardine?

Ha.

From far up in the soaring hollows of the house came a sudden, resonant bump.

There was a break in the music, the strobes were off. On the stage, Dr Samedi was guardedly allowing some of the boys to examine his mixers and tape decks and things. At a table near the door, Jane sat with Quentin the Suitable in his baggy cricket shirt.

It had been hard going at first, but so far he hadn’t mentioned tractors.

‘Actually,’ he said, ‘I didn’t really want to come tonight at all’

‘No kidding.’

‘It’s just that my parents come for dinner here quite regularly, and they’ve become fairly friendly with Colette’s parents.’

‘They must be really sad, lonely people,’ Jane said.

Quentin didn’t get it.

Jane smiled at him. ‘So tonight’s the first time you’ve actually met Colette?’

‘I tend to be away at school a lot. Only this weekend, our half-term’s started, so ... No, I’ve never actually met her before.’

Jane said airily, ‘Some bitch, huh?’

‘Pardon?’

‘Take my advice, Quentin, don’t get involved. She’s, you know, she’s kind of been around.’

Quentin looked puzzled. ‘You mean abroad?’

Jane rolled her eyes. ‘I mean been around as in eat-you-for-breakfast kind of been around.’

‘Oh,’ Quentin said. ‘I see. Well, she did seem a bit disconcerted when her father asked her to sort of ... look after me. I think she had other plans.’

‘Colette always has plans.’

‘No, I mean someone she was interested in.’

‘Oh?’ Jane sat up.

‘I may be wrong.’

‘No, go on.’ Jane looked into his soupy eyes, but he quickly averted them. ‘This is interesting. What made you think that, Quentin?’

But she didn’t find out because this quivering shadow fell across the table and she looked up into the face of a grossly sweating Dean Wall.

‘This’ll do.’ Dean pulled out a chair opposite Jane and sank into it and beamed at Jane and then at Quentin. Danny Gittoes was with him and Mark, the reputed dealer. ‘All right, are we?’

Jesus, Jane thought, who let these bozos in? She’d forgotten about Colette’s professed need for ‘tension’. Silly cow. She looked around for Barry, the manager, locating him behind the bar where a waitress was putting out things to nibble, apparently on the instructions of Colette’s mother who didn’t realize that the only things that got nibbled at parties like this were ears. To begin with.

Mark the Dealer stood by the door, hands in his pockets. Danny Gittoes sat down opposite Quentin, who seemed to be urgently wishing he was somewhere else. Like the dentist’s.

‘So, go on ...’ Dean nodded towards Dr Samedi and looked at Danny. ‘Voodoo, eh?’

‘Kind of thing,’ Danny said.

‘Where’s this then, Gittoes? Jamaica?’

‘Haiti. He was this voodoo God in Haiti. Only he was called Baron Samedi, see. God of the dead. Hung around graves. Led these tribes of zombies. And he wore that same gear – coat with tails and a top hat. Maybe a stick. Like a cane. I read this book. So that’s where he gets it from, see?’

Dean winked at Quentin, who smiled stiffly. ‘And this was, like, devil worship, right?’

‘Yeah. Well, more or less.’

“Cause Jane’s well into that, see,’ Dean said, not looking at Jane.

‘You on about?’

‘Got her ma into it now, too, from what they says.’

‘OK.’ Jane half rose. ‘Watch it.’

She saw Quentin’s hand tightening around his can of Dr Pepper’s.

‘What they’re saying,’ Dean said, ‘is that Jane’s mother, the vicar, she chucked her load in church tonight.’

Danny Gittoes said, ‘Eh?’

‘You en’t yeard? All over the village, man. ‘Er chucked up. Splatted all over the bloody bishop.’

‘Geddoff!’ Danny said theatrically. Jane smelled set-up.

‘Runs in the family, see.’ Dean’s little eyes glinting. ‘Can’t keep nothin’ down. Throws up right in the middle of’er ordination service, whatever they calls it.’

‘Never!’

Dean cackled. ‘Er’d prob’ly been on the cider!’

‘Shut your fat face!’ Jane was out of her seat. But Dean went on as if he hadn’t heard her.

‘Well, what’s that but a sign of Satanism, see. A devil-worshipper, witch, whatever you wanner call ’em, they can’t go into a Christian church without they vomits. I seen it in a film. Ole black and white job. Mark o’ the Witch, some shit like that. Chucks her—’

‘Stop it!’ Jane screamed. ‘You bastard!’

‘You year some’ing then, Gittoes?’ Dean leaned back smugly. ‘Makes you think, though, dunnit? Why don’t Jane Watkins ever go to church of a Sunday? You ever see Jane in church?’

‘Don’t go, do I?’

‘Well me neither, but my gran does and ’er says to me the other day, ’er says, You never sees the vicar’s daughter at no services, do you? En’t right, that. En’t right at all!

‘She was there tonight,’ Danny Gittoes said. ‘I seen ’er goin’ in. School uniform an’ all.’

‘Ec ... sacly, ’ Dean said. ‘Exacly, boy. Special occasion, so ‘er’d need to be there, bring down the forces of darkness, innit? Now ... No, listen, this is interestin’ ... You remember that night Jane threw up on us. Where’d that happen exacly? Right outside the bloody church! In fact ... in fact ... it was up agin’ the ole church wall, right? So that’s holy ground, ennit? An’ we said, we said we was all gonner go in the church porch, open a coupler cans, and that was when she done it. You think about that, Gittoes ...’

‘Fuckin’ hell, Dean—’

Danny Gittoes broke off because the lights began to fade and the strobing began from the stage, Dr Samedi demonstrating something. Dean’s voice rose placidly out of the flashes.

‘She only got to think about goin’ in the church porch, see, an’ up it comes. Splat. Well, all right, Jane never threw up tonight, see, but her evil presence in that church was enough to—’

Jane threw herself at him, knocking the glass out of his hand, seeing alarm on his fat, porous face, but, because of the strobe, when she saw it again it was wearing a grin and he was on his feet, around her side of the table and his arms were around her.

‘Wanner dance with me, is it ... devil woman?’

‘Get your filthy—’

Dean gripped her tightly; she felt something hard against her stomach. She realized that in the strobe it might look as though they were actually snogging. She couldn’t kick him because of the chair legs in the way. She wondered where she could bite him without encountering great pools of sweat.

‘All right.’ Quentin was on his feet. ‘Now let’s stop this.’

‘Hey,’ Dean said over Jane’s shoulder. ‘It fuckin’ talks. I ‘ad it figured for one ‘o Doc Samedi’s zombies.’

‘You just ... just let her go,’ Quentin said uncertainly.

‘ Let her geeeow! What you gonner do about it, sunshine? Phone up your dad on the mobile, is it?’

Through the flashes, Jane saw that Danny Gittoes had pushed his chair back but was still sitting on it. The third boy, Mark, however, had moved in from the door. His hands were out of his pockets, something gleaming in one of them.