Mark Chadbourn - Darkest hour

The Bone Inspector shrugged. "I wouldn't know about that. The Western Isles are somewhere in Otherworld, so the stories say. But I'll tell you this, there's another old story that says if you go down to Mousehole in Cornwall and stand at the quay and look across to Merlin's Rock, you can catch a fairy ship that will take you wherever you want to go."

Church nodded thoughtfully. "It isn't a lot, but we've gone a long way on much less." The Bone Inspector dipped into his pocket and pulled out a halfbottle of whisky. "Found it in one of the houses." He took a long slug, then threw it to Church. "You're at a turning point in your life. The mechanics of the mind are rituals. They tell that ancient bit at the back of your head to clear out the last cycle and prepare to move on to the next. This is your ritual, now-the best we can do under the circumstances. Make a toast."

Church didn't have to think long. He held up the bottle and said, "To absent friends. Let's hope they're all well. And to Laura, for being the best of all of us." He took a drink and tossed the bottle to Ruth.

"I'll drink to that," she said, "and I'll say this. It's just the two of us now, like it was when we started. But that'll be enough. And we'll win." There was so much fire and defiance in her voice Church almost believed her.

After that they sat drinking quietly, talking about their friends, trying to keep them alive with words; and at some point, they looked up from their discussion and found the Bone Inspector had gone, back to his age-old round of the sacred sites of their ancestors.

They moved as close to the fire as they could without burning themselves and kept it well stoked against the oppression of the night. "Do you really think we can do it?" Church asked above the crackling of the wood.

"Look what we've achieved so far." Ruth slid next to him and rested her head on his shoulder; he put his arm around her. "You killed Calatin-"

"With Mollecht's help."

"But you killed him. And it was your planning that brought Maponus here to devastate the Fomorii forces. You pulled out a great victory when it didn't look like we had a chance."

"There was a lot of luck-"

"And that's a quality a good leader needs." She looked up into his dark eyes and smiled. "But don't try lording it over me, all right?"

They rested silently, half-dozing, but too uneasy to sleep fully. Although they never discussed it with each other, they both knew the world had changed: a faint smell of cinders drifted in the chill wind and there was an unpleasant feeling of a great weight pressing in all around them. And though they waited and waited for the streetlights to come back on, they never did.

Somewhere away in the dark, the Heart of Shadows had started to pulse, a beat that was growing stronger with every passing minute; relentless, like the pounding of war drums signalling the End of Everything.