Mark Chadbourn - World's end

The column of tourists trooped past him, clicking their cameras, muttering in foreign languages. Church rested back against the stone wall in relief, his heart pounding madly, the stink of the dog all around. "Are you all right?" the guide asked in concern.

Church smiled weakly, but he couldn't bring himself to reply. He had the sudden feeling that events were closing in around them.

Ruth wandered through the city, staring into shop windows without really seeing, her head swimming with the bizarre experiences that had impacted on her life. She felt completely at odds with herself. Everything she had seen and heard filled her with a feeling of dread for what might lie ahead, yet at the same time she was overcome with a sense of freedom that was remarkably uplifting; the office was just a bad dream; from a distance the career seemed like shackles preventing her living her life. Now she was able to do what her heart told her. At the same time, these feelings ignited a tinge of guilt, as if she was betraying the memory of her father. He had always dreamed of her establishing a great career in law and he had been so happy when she was offered her job. It was all a mess of conflicting emotions and for the first time she felt she didn't know herself at all.

But she had been intrigued by Tom's manipulation of the blue fire; more than that, she decided, she wanted to be able to do it for herself. Now there was freedom. The thought of it raised her spirits enough that with the sun and the crowds she finally began to feel optimistic, for the first time since she had left her flat.

After a while she found herself crossing a gushing stretch of the Avon to The Maltings shopping centre, a modernist slab of brown brick at odds with the age of the rest of the city. As she mused whether there would be anything in it worth her attention, she suddenly caught sight of an old woman watching her intently. She had a sun-browned, wizened face with diamond-sparkle eyes and tight grey curls, and although she was slightly hunched with age, she was still tall and slim. Her smile reminded Ruth of the richness of autumn, while the crisp, goldenbrown of her long dress was like fallen leaves. Ruth smiled in return, but the way the woman was focusing on her alone unnerved her and she hurried quickly by.

She picked up an alley that took her around the squat, grey mound of St. Thomas's Church, but as she glanced over into the churchyard, she felt a sudden tingling deep in her belly. A woman was standing amongst the stones watching her. If Ruth didn't know better she would have sworn it was the woman she had just seen; the same proud line to her jaw, the same sparkling eyes, the same body shape. Only this woman was years younger; the face had no wrinkles and was rounder, with the apple cheeks of middle age. The dress was the same design too, but the colour was the deep, dark green of summer vegetation. And then she smiled and Ruth felt the tingling turn into a cold shiver; it was the same smile.

Suddenly it was as if her eyes had opened. She felt an odd, unearthly atmosphere around the woman, as if the air was shifting between opaque and translucent. And no one else passing by seemed to notice the woman standing there, staring at Ruth with such eerie intensity. Fearing the worst, Ruth hurried on aimlessly, following the crowds back to the city centre before somehow turning back on herself to arrive at the gently undulating greenery of Queen Elizabeth Gardens along the banks of the Avon.

She glanced around anxiously before flopping on to a bench, where she rested for a moment with her head in her hands, trying to understand what she had experienced. She hadn't felt any sense of threat from the woman; if anything, she was warm and comforting, almost motherly. But how could she know that was not a deception? Everything was wild and unfamiliar; there was nothing to get a handle on.

After a while Ruth began to relax and watch the children laughing and running in the play area while their mothers chatted secretively nearby. Ducks splashed in the river, then waddled over to sun themselves on the grass, while the air was filled with the intoxicating scents of spring wafting in from the woods and hills that lay just beyond the river's floodplain. Everything seemed so incongruously peaceful and normal, it was hard even to begin to grasp what was happening.

Then, inexplicably, her left hand began to shake uncontrollably. She gripped the wrist with her right hand to steady it, and when she looked up and around she gasped in shock. The woman now stood directly behind her, her hands resting on the back of the bench. Ruth leapt to her feet, her heart thundering; she hadn't heard even the slightest sound of the stranger's approach. And it was the same woman, except now she was in her teens, her face beautiful and pale like the moon, her long, lustrous hair glinting in the sun. The familiar dress was now the bright green of early spring shoots. Her eyes, though, still sparkled with great age and unnerving mystery, and there was a terrible aspect to her face that made Ruth shiver in fear, although there was no malice that she could see; she felt in the presence of something so inhuman, she couldn't begin to comprehend what it was that stood before her.

"He is missing. The night to my day, the winter to my summer. We must be joined and then you must join us, daughter." The tone of her voice was eerie, part rustle of wind in the branches, part splash of water on rock.

Ruth backed away slowly, that awful, unblinking stare heavy upon her. "Leave me alone," she said hoarsely.

Slowly the girl who was not a girl raised her arms in a beckoning gesture. It was too much for Ruth. She turned and hurried away several yards. But when she glanced back, confused and troubled, the girl had gone and in her place was an odd effect, as if gold dust had been sprinkled in a sunbeam. After a few seconds something began to form in the glimmering; light shifted and blazed from nowhere, forming an intense halo around a dark figure which gradually became the Virgin Mary.

Someone called out, "Look! It's a miracle!" and then people were running from all over the park to the bench where the vision was already beginning to fade. Ruth watched the joy and amazement infuse the crowd for a while longer before walking slowly back to the city centre, the burden of her thoughts heavy upon her.

The Haunch of Venison was almost empty at 7 p.m. when Church and Ruth arrived within minutes of each other. The pub had all the twisty-turny nooks and crannies one would expect of fourteenth century architecture and it took them a while to locate Tom at a table in a shadowy corner. He appeared tired and irritable, nodding emotionlessly when they sat down with their drinks.

Church looked from Ruth to Tom. "I saw something this afternoon."

"So did I." Ruth shifted in her seat uncomfortably. She had spent the rest of the day walking, but she still hadn't been able to escape the memory of what she had seen in the woman's eyes.

Tom made sure no one was watching, then folded down the upright collar of his jacket to reveal four livid scars on the soft flesh of his neck.

Ruth stared in horror. "My God, what happened?"

"The Baobhan Sith." Tom winced as he gingerly raised his collar.

"What's that?" Church asked although he wasn't sure he wanted to hear the answer.

"In the old tales, they are the sentries of the night. Terrible things that take on the shape of beautiful women to lure passers-by. Get too close and they'll tear out your throat and drink your blood."

"And now they're here too," Church said, before adding, "You seem to have a good knowledge of folklore."

"I thought, if the worst came to the worst, we might be able to go back to Stonehenge for the night," Tom continued. "But I wanted to be sure the road would be open to us so I went out on foot for a couple of miles to check the route. I presumed they would have moved to bar our retreat in some way, but not …" He paused to touch his neck tenderly. "One of the Baobhan Sith was lying in a ditch, waiting. She rose up when I passed." His face seemed to drain in the halflight. "There were more, I'm sure. We would never get past them."