Mark Chadbourn - Darkest hour

"So we don't know what it looks like, just that it's very fucking bad." Veitch jumped to his feet and started pacing round the room; his eyes repeatedly strayed to the appetising food. "Well, it was driven off, so it can be done. It sounds like a big deal, but I'll be hunting it, not the other way round. Anyway, it's got to be, for Ruth, for Church and everything. Can't fuck up now."

Tom realised he was talking to himself, planning, bolstering; it was like the ritual of a boxer preparing for a fight.

After another moment's pacing, he turned to Tom and said, "Okay, I've got my head round it. I'm going to get some Zs in now. We'll do it when I wake."

As he left the room, Tom hid the fact that he was secretly impressed; once a conflict situation had been established Witch's developing abilities made him like a machine. Fear or overconfidence didn't burden him; he simply weighed up all the available evidence and decided what needed to be done. Tom hoped that would be enough.

In the court it was impossible to know if it was night or day. But when Veitch woke his body told him he had had a good rest; the exhaustion had seeped from his muscles and he felt ready for anything. He was still hungry, but he knew he could find something to eat back in the real world.

Tom joined him soon after, as if he had been waiting for the sounds of stirring. Together they stepped out into the corridor where Melliflor was waiting.

Veitch had hoped the Queen would have come to see him off, but she was nowhere around. Instead, Melliflor led them to the armoury, a long, lowceilinged chamber where the walls were covered with a variety of bizarre weapons and strangely shaped body armour. Veitch picked up one of the weapons which looked like an axe with a spiked ball hanging from it, but in his hands it felt a different shape completely to how it appeared and he replaced it quickly.

While Melliflor oversaw, three other members of the guard brought Veitch different pieces of armour. They strapped across his chest a breastplate which shone like silver, but which was covered with an intricate filigree. Shoulder plates were fastened on, and he was given a helmet which vaguely resembled a Roman centurion's, but was much more ornate. After mulling over the weapons for fifteen minutes he eschewed them all for his own sword and crossbow.

He had no idea of what the armour was constructed, but it was surprisingly lightweight; he could have walked for miles in it. He didn't have to, though, for as soon as he was ready Melliflor took him through to an adjoining stable which contained enough horses for a small army.

"Stolen from our world," Tom muttered. It allows the lesser members of the Tuatha De Danann to travel quickly when they cross over."

"This is no bleedin' good, I've never ridden before," Veitch moaned.

"The steed will respond to your every movement. We have adapted it," Melliflor said ominously.

Melliflor offered Veitch a handsome white charger, but he didn't feel comfortable with it. "Too flash," he grumbled. Instead he chose a nut-brown stallion indistinguishable from many of the others.

Once he had mounted the steed, Melliflor led it by its reins to a blank stone wall at one end of the stable. He made a strange hand gesture and the wall opened with a deep, rumbling judder. They were high up on a hillside with a vista over Loch Ness. Mist drifted across the water in the post-dawn light. From all around came the sweet aroma of pine trees. Everywhere was still and quiet.

Veitch turned to view the scene in the stables, but he couldn't think of anything to say to Tom. Instead, he merely waved; Tom nodded curtly in reply, but there was much hidden in the two gestures. Then Veitch spurred his horse and galloped off into the world.

The darkness licked at the foot of Mam Tor, an angry sea crashing on the rocks. From his vantage point beneath a burning sun and a brilliant blue sky, Church watched as hopelessness washed over him.

"They'll be coming up soon." Laura's voice made him start.

"Best not to think about that."

"Sure. Do you want me to help bury your head or can you do it yourself?"

Church managed a tight smile; he didn't have much humour left in him. With Ruth's condition worsening by the day, the strain of their isolation and the constant fear that their hiding place would be discovered at any moment, it was surprising he hadn't lapsed into permanent silence.

"No sign of the others yet?" Laura rested on his shoulder and peered out to the horizon. It was a running joke; she asked the same thing every day, knowing the answer.

"Not yet. Maybe tomorrow." He tried, but he couldn't help believing that they wouldn't be coming back at all. He knew they had long distances to travel, with huge obstacles along the way, but they still seemed to have been gone a long time. Even if they did return, how would they be able to slip past the mass of Fomorii? He had been right the first time: best not to think about it.

"She's asking for you." Laura continued to scan the horizon, as if by doing it everything in the foreground could be forgotten.

"How is she?"

"Not talking like she's pissed up for a change." Ruth's lucid moments were increasingly few and far between; at times she ranted and raged in the throes of her delirium so much they thought they would have to restrain her. It always happened at night, in the small hours, snapping them out of sleep and filling them with fear that they were being attacked. Sometimes she would hold conversations with someone neither of them could see; on those occasions they didn't go to sleep again.

Church turned despondently to wander back to the house, but he hadn't gone more than a few steps when Laura grabbed him and gave him a long, romantic kiss. It was an astonishing show of emotion for someone who seemed ever more locked up with each passing day.

"What was that for?" he asked, pleasantly surprised.

"What's the matter? Can't I show you I love you?" She had turned and was walking away before he had a chance to grasp what she had said.

He mulled over it until he was in the house, but the moment he saw Ruth it was driven from his mind. Her skin was like snow, emphasised by the darkness of her hair, which was plastered with sweat to her head. There were purple rings under her eyes and her cheeks had grown increasingly hollow. Beneath the sleeping bag, her belly was hugely swollen. Her appearance was so shocking he had a horrible feeling she was going to die before Balor's rebirth. A part of himself that he never faced hoped that was the case; then he would be saved from having to make the awful decision to kill her.

Although he was creeping quietly, she looked up before he had crossed the threshold. "Hi. You're starting to get a tan." Her voice was just a rustle.

"You know how it is. Nothing to do apart from lie by the pool with a good book." He knelt down next to her to brush a strand of hair from her forehead. When he rested his hand against her cheek, her skin felt like it was burning up.

She put her hand on top of his and gave it a squeeze. "I'm glad you're here."

"Sure. I'm doing so much-"

"I just feel better having you around." He smiled; her eyes brightened briefly before she was forced to close them; a tear squeezed out and trickled down her cheek.

"I'm sorry you've had to go through all this," he said gently. "You've had the worst of all of us. One bad thing after another."

"You know, bad things happen." She pulled his hand round so she could softly kiss his fingers; her lips were too dry.

"You don't have any right to take it so well. You're giving us all too much to live up to. You git."

They laughed together, and the sound of it in that dismal room made Church's own eyes burn. He blinked them dry. "Sometimes I feel like I've known you forever. I know it's only been a few months since that night under Albert Bridge, but it seems like a lifetime ago."