Phil Rickman - The Chalice

'It's the way things are,' Rankin said apologetically. Immediately outside the door he put on his leather cap. 'Preserving what has to be preserved, So much of it's gone, you see.'

'Yes.' Arnold was gone. We've killed your dog, sorry about that.

Well, that wouldn't be hard, a three legged dog, recovering from shock. While Rankin was neatly closing the porch door, he thought about Arnold, the night the vet had taken his leg off. Everything they'd been through since, the long walks along Offa's Dyke after which he'd sometimes have to carry Arnold home.

'Please,' he said, knowing this time that there were real tears in his eyes. 'Can't you…?'

And seeing a definite naked contempt in Rankin's eyes in the half second before he felt his face contort in blind fury as he sank his left fist into the man's gut.

Distantly aware, as Rankin doubled up, of all his rediscovered New Age credentials floating away into the ether. Surprised at the surge of maddened strength, which hurled Rankin back into the porch, snarling,

'… fucking scumbag cunt…' A face smashing again and again into the double-glazed door, which did not break.

Aware with a sense of dismay that it was his voice and Rankin's face. Fully aware that all this would have been entirely beyond him if Rankin had not blithely mentioned having killed his dog.

'Hey, shit, come on…' Pulling on Powys's shoulder. 'Stop it. You don't wanner go to gaol for shit like this.'

Powys's hands were covered in blood. He got back to his feet. Rankin sat up on the top step and spat out blood. His eyes were moving, coldly weighing up the situation, working out his best move.

Powys kicked him in the throat.

'Bugger me,' Sam Daniel said, as Rankin went down gagging. 'I thought this was the Age of Aquarius. Just let's get the hell out, eh?'

Powys remembered now. How he'd called up Woolly on the off chance he was still around, needing someone to be at Meadwell if Verity got the call from Wanda. And Woolly had turned up with Sam who'd offered to go with Powys to Bowermead Hall. Slipped out of the car at the bottom of the drive to find his own discreet way in, keep an eye out.

'He killed Arnold,' Powys said. Rankin didn't move, lay wheezing quietly to himself.

'He what?'

'Where's the car?'

'It's down there, by those bushes,' Sam said. 'You left it unlocked, remember? I let the handbrake off and rolled it a few yards to the bushes, out of the light. To give me some cover, as we eco-guerrillas say.'

'Arnold?'

'He's lying on his rug. What did you think?'

'Why would this guy say he'd killed him?'

'It's the kind of guy he is, Powys. Or maybe he was going to. Or maybe somebody else… Shit.'

Powys turned and saw a mirror image of Rankin at the foot of the steps.

'Dad?'

'This is Wayne Rankin,' Sam said. 'He's training to be as big a psycho as his old man.'

Wayne Rankin was looking at Powys's hands. 'What you done to my dad?'

'Your dad,' Sam said, 'made a slight miscalculation about the aggression quotient of New Age Man. Now just back off, son, it's two against one and neither of us is in the best of moods.'

Rankin moaned.

'You can get him to hospital when we've gone, look.'

Sam walked slowly down the steps. Wayne Rankin moved away, but he didn't take his eyes from Sam.

'You're a friend of Lady Loony, yeah?'

Sam stopped.

'We banged her last night,' Wayne said.

Sam froze.

Wayne kept on backing off. 'Gave her a good seeing to.'

'Don't react,' Powys said in a low voice. 'If his dad lied about the dog…'

'Come here, Wayne,' Sam said. 'Tell me all about it.'

'Three of us.' Wayne had vanished beyond the feeble house lights. 'One after the other.'

Sam charged out. Powys grabbed his arm. 'Don't go out there. He'll be waiting.'

Wayne Rankin's voice came out of the darkness.

'Squealed like a stuck pig, she did.'

Woolly told himself he and Meadwell deserved each other. Sitting in the dark here was probably as close as you could get on this earth to authentic purgatory.

Sitting waiting for Pel Grainger.

He'd actually been at that lecture of Grainger's at the Assembly Rooms. Been unimpressed. Superficial bullshit. Even if you could welcome the night like you did daylight, how was that really going to expand your life?'

The exercise, when Grainger had all the lights put out, that felt good. On the surface, it was the harmless kind of meditation exercise Woolly'd done a thousand times. But that night it produced a serious buzz.

But that was a weird night anyway. Woolly had had to leave before the end after getting a message that somebody had been smashing windows out on the street. Whatever you were doing that night, it was going to be intense, off the wall. Something had been happening. Somebody doing something. He should have seen it then.

Dark Chalice rising.

He wondered what he'd really do when they came for the well.

Simple, JM Powys had said. You just call the police. Report intruders. Let them handle it. Nobody knows you're there; don't enlighten them Don't even think of going out there after them.

But he might. The fuzz might not make it in time. And he didn't have a lot to lose. He might well go out there. Needing to do something.

Dark Chalice rising. Corrupting everyone in its path.

Like Grainger. Grainger had been corrupted.

He could stop Grainger, if he was on his own. Pompous, fat git. Woolly felt he really needed to stop somebody. He was feeling totally useless. A whole pile of bad shit coming down and nothing that soon-to-be former councillor Woolaston could do about it.

Right now, he didn't want to leave this kitchen. Wasn't that wimpy? He didn't want to go anywhere in this spooky old house. Just to sit right by the Aga, listen for a car, the sound of the gate opening, and then maybe…

Face it, any kind of action outside was better than being in here. Little Verity had to be a really strong person to have survived this. A really good person. Mother Teresa class.

Even on top of the Aga, he was still cold. Moonlight fluttered in through the high window like the ribbons on a shroud.

This was an evil house. As black as the black bus.

He kept thinking about that bus. Was it his own private demon? Was it a representation of everything he most feared: the fast-breeding traffic monster which fed on the English countryside? Had that bus come out of his own head, bred from his own paranoia?

Woolly projected himself back… back into the car, coming down along Magdalene Street, seeing the tree lights. He remembered thinking how nice that was, what a really good vibe Christmas put into the town. Trying to see those lights in his mind before they all went up in the air and he saw the other lights, the wishy-washy yellow either side of a peeling grille.

Was there a driver? He peered harder down his dope-scarred memory.

Focusing on the headlights, on that grille that was like a lopsided, evil grin full of rusty teeth. Into the window. This really old-fashioned window, with a divider strip of rusting chrome.

His hands groping up the side of the Aga in the dark, the warm shiny metal, like he was climbing up on to the bonnet of the bus, peering in through that window. If he could only see the driver's face, he'd know.

He could feel the engine throbbing now under his feet.

Could see the street. Hang on, this was wrong, had to get down High Street from the top. Coming down from Chilkwell Street, left into High Street, down towards the Post Office and the zebra crossing, under the wash of amber streetlight, the big steering wheel vibrating under his hands, that loose spring irritating his bum, gotta patch that seat, glaring through the muck on the windscreen.

Driving the bus. Driving the black bus.