Phil Rickman - The Chalice

When Juanita opened her eyes it was to see the goat-face close to Jim's, as though it was going to kiss him. Jim didn't move his head away, but she saw his hands grip the flaps of his overcoat to stop them shaking.

That did it. Diane wasn't here and Juanita couldn't watch this any longer. She pulled her Afghan coat together and marched through the crowd.

The goat man turned to her. Nothing moved behind the blackness of the eyeholes. She felt horribly exposed, as if she were naked, not him. She pushed her hands hard into her coat pockets.

'OK, look.' It came out as a croak. 'We made a mistake. Come on, Jim, she's not here.'

'Bloody hell, Juanita.' Jim stood there like a bulldog.

'Why couldn't you just leave this to me?'

He pushed irascibly past the goat-man-priest and advanced on the boy held against the tower.

'You all right, sonny? Look, bloody well let him go, will you?' Snatching at the wrist of one of the men holding the boy. 'He's been sick. What's wrong with him? Drugs?'

Jim was pretty strong. The man's grip broke; the boy stumbled away and then straightened up, swaying into the darkness. They heard him slipping and rolling down the side of the Tor, into the mist.

'Jim, we're going.' Juanita took his lamp. 'Let them get on with their… religion.'

The goat-man moved under the archway, as if he needed to think. Well. Juanita didn't Whatever they were doing they could get the hell on with it. She grabbed the end of Jim's scarf and tugged him towards the path. Still, nobody said a word, but the atmosphere was stiff now with menace. These were the new hippies? Christ.

'Listen, we're sorry. Sorry to mess up your ritual, whatever, OK? We were just looking for a friend.'

She heard Jim grunt, and his scarf came away in her hand.

'Jim!'

Her shoulder was gripped. She dropped the lamp in alarm. When she turned, she fell into someone's arms, was swung round and looked up into a stubbly, grinning male face. As she squirmed, she saw two men seize hold of Jim, slamming him against the wall of the tower, where the boy had been, his arms stretched above his head.

The naked man stooped to pick something up. When he stood before Jim it was glittering in his left hand.

He whispered, 'I did not say you could go.'

He was bent over the bonnet of Mort's hearse. His face was streaked with mud and blood from scratches on his cheek and jaw. His eyes were big in the lamplight and sort of glazed.

Diane raised the Tilley lamp. 'Head… Headlice?'

'Mol…'

He stared up at her. In the white light, the swastika on his head looked crude, like a knife wound. He smelled of sick. Why was he alone? Where were the others?

He let her help him up and walk him over to the bus. He stood on the little platform, framed in the doorway. Somewhere behind him was the Tor, but there were no lights there now.

'We'll get those cuts bathed.' She found a plastic bottle of water. The little woodstove in the bus was still going, just about.

'No time.' Headlice shook himself as if remembering something then swung round, urgently scanning the dark.

'Gotta get the hell out, Mol '

The plastic bottle went slippery in her fingers. 'What happened?'

They were alone. Hecate had disappeared, probably not wanting to be around when Headlice found out what they'd done to his bus.

Diane had lit the Tilley lamp when the Tor went dark again. She'd been afraid to leave the bus. She didn't know what she'd seen, but it had left an atmosphere tainted with a brooding evil she'd never felt before. Not here. Not anywhere. The blackness at its heart had seeped into the unnatural spread of light until it was a night sky again. But it was a different kind of night, as black and opaque as soot, with no moon any more.

'Shit.' Headlice glared down at his hands. 'Look at that. Shakin' like a fuckin' leaf. Bad shit, Mol.'

'Listen,' Diane said. 'All I know is that sometimes you can't trust your… what your mind's telling you. It does awfully odd things to you. Up there, I mean. On the Tor. Tell me what happened.'

'You're talkin' dead posh.'

'I am posh. Frightfully posh, actually, For what it's worth.'

'I wanted you to be there. I wanted…' He shrugged. 'Nobody got laid, anyroad. There was a… like… holy water and chanting and stuff in Latin. I don't remember. Don't fuckin' remember

…'

The kettle began to whistle on the iron stove. Headlice pushed it angrily away. 'I told you, we got no time! Gotta get this thing going, piss off.'

'Headlice, you have to tell me. What did they do?'

Headlice picked up the kettle and emptied the hot water into the stove's firebox, causing an explosion of hissing steam.

'Water. Holy water. Acid, mushrooms, some shit. Did me head in. I'm not down yet. Not… There was ' He stopped, as if he wasn't sure what he remembered. 'This old man. And like a black chalice.'

Diane went very cold inside. Arms. Huge smoky arms in the sky, hands cupped like a communicant's to receive…

Headlice sprang to his feet. 'Get the bus goin' before the bastards come back. You an' me, Mol. I'm trusting you, don't shaft me.' The Tilley lamp spread its gassy, wobbly light over his face, mud and blood on it like warpaint.

'Tuum Montem… Summat like that. That were part of it. He'd lift his arms – like that.'

'Lift his arms…?'

'Monum Sanctum?'

' Monum sanctum tuum,' Diane said. 'Your holy hill. It's from the Mass. They have conducted me and brought me unto thy holy hill?

She sighed. They sent me to a convent. Once.'

'Gonna write about this, Mol? Gonna write it up for the papers?' He sneered and poured cold water from the plastic bottle into the stove.

'Headlice, oh my God, listen. Gwyn. Had you ever met Gwyn before?'

He shook his head, slammed the metal stove door.

'What about Mort?' Oh gosh, these people, she knew there was something wrong with them.

'Yeah. Mort was the guy got me into this. He was in a pub, back home. Salford. I told you before.'

Headlice was moving around the bus, throwing things on the luggage racks. She remembered him saying he'd been unemployed, living with his parents, devouring earth- mysteries books, dreaming of ley lines. And Mort had introduced him to a man with an old bus for sale and Headlice had sold his motorbike to pay for it. How he'd met Rozzie was a mystery.

'Look,' she said. 'When Gwyn joined us at Bury St Edmunds – you remember? When Gwyn joined, the whole mood of the convoy seemed to change. Some people left.'

'Con and Daisy.'

'What?'

'At Bury. Con and Daisy, Irish travellers. Con says to me, he says, You wanna fuck off, man, this guy's heavy shit. I mean, come on man, heavy shit's what I've come for. And he just shakes his head. That's it, Mol, we're off'

He took out his ignition keys for the bus, threw them up in the air, caught them.

'Me an' you then, Mol. Back on the St Michael Line. And no more stopping at churches, goin' in backwards. No more shit.'

'What did you say…?'

But Headlice had leapt down from the platform to get into the cab. He was probably right; they had to get out of here. She'd go with him, as far as the town and then…

She heard Headlice yell, 'Who the f…?'

And then he screeched in pain and there was a bump.

'Headlice!'

Diane snatched up the Tilley lamp and stumbled down the deck to the platform. She leaned out from the top step, holding out the lamp by its wire handle.

'Headlice?'

She couldn't see anything at first, but she heard retching and moaning. A dark figure moved unhurriedly aside.

Headlice was writhing on the grass, clutching his stomach, his head flung back. She saw a heavy-booted foot crunch into his face, under his nose. Bright blood fountained up. Headlice started to snuffle.