Phil Rickman - The Chalice

'Now that,' said Ben delightedly, 'is a wonderfully New Age thing to say.'

'I'm embarrassed.'

'But you don't believe any of it anymore.'

Powys sighed. This was it with publishers. They never read anything properly, not after they'd made the entirely arbitrary decision that it was going in the wrong direction.

Henry's old pendulum clock struck eight. The night was young. He was going to have to go into this.

Look, he didn't not believe. He accepted totally that there were… things… out there. But who was really equipped to mess with them? The trance-mediums who'd call up your grandad so he could tell you about the missing socks? The Kirlian photographers who'd do your etheric body for the family album?

Or what about the dowsers? Not Henry Kettle. Henry had been over-cautious, if anything. For years he'd dowse only for water, wouldn't get into anything he was unsure of.

'But now you've got all these bastards, been at it for about six months and they're claiming to feel the earth's pulse. Energy dowsing. Everybody's a bloody energy dowser suddenly Everybodycan tune into the Earth Force, Sunday ramblers. New Age travellers

…'

'Yeah, yeah.' Ben snapped his way into another can of lager. 'But it's all harmless. I mean, it can't hurt anybody…'

He stopped. Sensing the change in Powys's mood, Arnold got to his three feet and began a low growl

'It's OK, Arnold,' Powys said. 'I can't kill a man when he's pissed. '

Ben Corby looked warily at Arnold and then back at Powys. 'What did I say?'

'You said "harmless''.'

Powys tossed a log on to the fire, crushing the embers of the last one and sending up a splash of red sparks.

'They go to Totnes. And they go to Glastonbury. And they're like kids in Toys R Us. It's like they've been given a New Age credit card. Think I'll have a go at that hypno-regressive therapy next week. Damn, really must have the old aura resprayed. And it's all natural. No drugs, no artificial sweeteners. Totally harmless.'

He held up the poker, its tip glowing with heat-energy.

'They'll stand in a stone circle on Midsummer Night and call down the supreme atavistic power of the Horned God, right? But you offer them a bag of crisps containing monosodium glutamate, and it's like you pulled a gun on them. What's that tell us?'

'Jesus,' said Ben, 'it's a pitiful sight, an old New Ager who's lost his life-force.'

'Yeah. Pass me another lager.'

'None left, old son. Got another pack in the fridge?'

'How many packs did we drink?'

'Three. And half a bottle of some filthy liqueur.'

'In that case, no.'

'Listen,' Ben said. 'If you insist on doing this, I'll show it to the guy upstairs.'

'God?'

'No, you pillock. We belong to Harvey-Calder now, as you know, since Goff's untimely demise. And being the smallest, least-credible part of this big, faceless, mindless publishing conglomerate, we're naturally in the basement and the literary guys treat us like shit.'

Powys smiled.

'Some joker hung wind-chimes outside our door,' Ben said gloomily. 'Bastards. But there's this not bad guy upstairs in charge of Harvey's general nonfiction called Dan Frayne. If he publishes it, it's no skin off Dolmen's nose. I'll show it to him.'

'Oh.' Joe Powys stood up, feeling confused, and a little cool air through the peeling patch in the left knee of his jeans 'Well, thanks. Thanks, Ben.'

'Don't thank me,' said Ben Corby, who didn't believe in anything you couldn't get into a wallet. 'Just because I don't want you to starve doesn't mean I don't think you're a complete arsehole.'

Ben slept – or tried to – in a spare room about the size of a double coffin. No soothing traffic noise, that was the problem, no police and ambulance sirens en route to somebody else's crisis.

It was very still and very dark. The panes in the little square window were opaque, like slates. There was no noise at all from outside, nothing, no owls, no wind through trees, no branches tapping on the glass. Only the creak from the bed when he turned over.

It would have made no difference.

It would have made no difference if there'd been a force-ten gale blowing or a fox had got into somebody's chicken shed. It would have made no difference if a plane had crashed in the woods.

He'd still have heard it; he'd still have awoken around three in the morning with a chill running up his back, from his arse to his fuzzed-up brain.

No question: there was no sound quite like this for putting the shits up you.

Ben didn't move again until he heard another door open across the passage and Joe Powys's loud whisper. 'Arnold, no. Leave it.'

Ben rolled then from under his duvet, snatched up his bath-robe, staggered to the door, crouching because of the thought of beams, the way you did in the car going under a low bridge even though you knew there was plenty of room.

As he felt his way out to the landing, the ceiling light blinked on in its little pot shade, low-powered, but dazzling at first. The vibrating dots resolved into Joe Powys in his T-shirt and briefs standing very still, a hand on the switch on the wall at the top of the stairs.

Ben, his voice thick, said, 'What's up with him?'

But before Joe Powys could reply, another long, rolling howl began welling from the foot of the stairs, went on and on, spooky as hell. '

'I didn't think dogs did that in real life,' Ben said stupidly.

Powys started to go downstairs into the living room, half-lit from the landing, and Ben followed him because, shit, what if Powys went out of the house and left him here on his own?

They were halfway down when the crash came.

A classic splintering crash of exploding glass. Ben was clutching at Powys's arm, hissing, 'Fucking burglars.' Swivelling his head, looking for a weapon, like he was going to find a poker in a stand at the top of the stairs or a baseball bat hanging from the wall.

The crash seemed to go on and on, with a coda of rolling splinters.

The dog was silent.

'It's over,' Powys said.

Ben stared at him. Couldn't move. Powys padded barefoot down the rest of the stairs. 'Mind the glass,' Ben said weakly.

Half-light from the landing was the best they could hope for. The paraffin lamp converted to electricity had been converted to glass shards and dented tin. It was in the middle of the floor, still rolling.

Ben looked fearfully around the room. Nothing seemed amiss, apart from the lamp. In the grate, the fire was almost burned out, one ashy log glinting like a red foil sweet paper. On the chimney breast over the inglenook, the two pictures, of the old vicar-guy and the woman with ash blonde hair, were perfectly in place.

So quiet now, Ben could hear his own nervy, staccato breaths. Trying to convince himself this was another of Powys's scams. That he'd crept down in the night, maybe balanced the lamp on the very edge of the table.

Joe Powys hadn't said a word. He was standing by the fireplace looking at the two photos, Ben looked too and…

'Oh, fucking hell…' His leg muscles turned to porridge. 'You just did that. Didn't you?'

Powys just looked sad.

Ben went up close. Peered, horrified, at the pictures. And then backed off with his hands out, like he'd opened a door and a blast of winter had hit him full in the chest. He fell back on the sofa, hands on his knees as if glued there 'Tell me they aren't,' he said.

Joe went over to the pictures and carefully turned each one the right way up.

'It's OK. It's happened before. '

Ben said, 'You have to get out of here, Joe.'

'No.' Powys smiled. 'I know where I am with this.'

'Who are they? Those people.'

'The old bloke with the beard is Fay's dad, Canon Peters.'

'Dead?'

'And the woman was called Rachel.''