It was a weak, childish thing to do and he didn’t know what he really expected-Marianne hearing his voice, coming to him, making everything all right?-but he felt even more desolate in the ringing silence that followed his words. It was then he noticed a thin layer of white on the edge of one of the petals which, strangely, appeared to be frost. After he brushed it away, the cold seemed to linger unnaturally in the tip of his finger. It disturbed him so that when he fell asleep it infected his dreams with images of people he knew frozen to death in sweeping, pristine dunes of snow.
The morning broke bright and hot. They woke to the sound of cawing gulls, swooping in a clear blue sky, and the soothing sound of the tide washing against the golden sand. Still subdued, they gathered in Tom’s room, where something caught Church’s eye on the TV which had been playing silently in the background. He snatched the remote to boost the sound on a local news bulletin. Scenes of the police and army diverting traffic instantly placed it as the incident they had encountered on the M4.
“-cloud of toxic chemicals escaping from the Pearson Solutions plant at Barry Island has now dispersed. The massive operation by the emergency services to ensure thousands of people stayed in their homes while others in the high risk area were evacuated has been dubbed an overwhelming success by-” Church muted the TV and tossed the remote to one side.
“You believe that?” Veitch asked.
Church suddenly felt too weary to consider any of it any more. “Who knows?”
Laura shook her head resolutely. “How can you tell when a journalist is lying? Their lips move.”
They all jumped as a blast of insane laughter burst from the TV speaker, then the set fizzed and went blank. Shavi noticed the clock radio had gone blank too. “Technology crash,” he said.
Ruth cursed under her breath. “I don’t get this,” Veitch said. “Are those bastards switching everything on and off just to wind us up?”
“I think,” Shavi mused, “it is simply the world finding its new status quo by trial and error.”
Witch’s face suggested he found this an even more disturbing prospect.
“Time to sell the computer and mobile,” Laura said. “Beat that glut on the market.”
The power came back on in time for breakfast, which they consumed in the restaurant in near silence. Afterwards, they gathered the talismans in the crate and headed down to the quay where the first boat to Caldey Island was preparing to sail. They were the first on board, although a couple with pre-school twins joined them soon after. The sea was calm and the boat rolled smoothly. Once they were past the rocky outcropping of St. Catherine’s Island, topped by its Victorian fort, Caldey Island rose up, sun-drenched and green, three miles away in the bay.
When they were almost halfway there, one of the twins who had been gazing into the chopping waves suddenly called out excitedly, “Mummy! Somebody’s swimming!”
The mother laughed and rubbed his hair affectionately. “Sometimes dolphins follow the boat, sweetie. Now sit down before you join them in there.” The boy protested until a stern look from his father quietened him.
Witch glanced surreptitiously over the side, not wishing to show the others he was interested in seeing the wildlife, and was surprised to see the boy had been right-someone was swimming. Several people, in fact, their outlines distorted by the water. Veitch counted five alongside the boat, several feet beneath the waves. Yet they didn’t appear to be wearing scuba gear, although they had been submerged an unnatural length of time, and they were swimming faster than anyone he had ever seen; they easily kept pace with the boat.
He thought about pointing it out to the others when a couple of the swimmers surfaced and he had another surprise. They were women, unashamedly naked to the waist, but their skin had a translucent greenish quality, almost the colour of the water, and their eyes were bigger than average and slightly slanted. And from the waist down they had scaly tails and long, gossamer fins like angel fish. As they turned and rolled in their undulating swim, their lustrous blue hair floated out behind them. Veitch saw gills slashed into the neck just below the ear.
Despite their outlandish appearance, they were stunningly beautiful. He understood how sailors of old were so transfixed by them that they plunged beneath the waves and drowned. One of the women caught him looking and swam up to just beneath the surface where she rolled on to her back and gave him a smile of such honeyed warmth, he almost felt himself melt. He smiled back, which seemed to please her. In response, she pursed her full lips and blew him a kiss before diving back to join her companions.
“What are you looking at?” Laura said accusingly. “Thinking about jumping?”
Veitch smiled at her too, which obviously surprised her. He thought about telling the others what he had seen, then decided against it. It was his own small spot of wonder, a brief, private, transcendental moment that he would carry with him always.
After the boat docked alongside an old concrete jetty, the team followed the winding path from the small beach to the parkland that lay before the white walls and sunburnt orange tiled roof of the monastery.
“Whoever hid these talismans liked their religious spots, didn’t they?” Ruth mused thoughtfully. “Pagan. Celtic. Christian. That’s quite crossdenominational.”
“You think it means something?” Veitch asked.
“Duh!” Laura mocked. Witch flashed her a dark look.
They continued along past a roadside shrine and then the Wayfinder signalled a sudden change to the west. The paths in that direction were less welltrodden, the island more overgrown with dense trees and bushes. The heat had become almost claustrophobic and there was an abundance of midges and flies, despite the numerous birds cawing in the trees. Apprehension pressed heavily on them as they walked. The cut in Church’s chest left by the Erl-King both stung and itched, while the Roisin Dubh in his inside pocket seemed to be reaching out to his heart with frosty fingers.
The dwindling path eventually brought them to a deserted beach sheltered in a small cove. Shavi stood among the blue-green and yellow banks of gorse and shielded his eyes to peer at the sparkling waves. “Beautiful,” he said.
“Make the most of it.” Church glanced at Tom, who had stopped to wipe his forehead with a handkerchief. “You okay?” He nodded, but still seemed uncomfortable, distracted.
Church took the lead, picking a way along the serpentine path that led down to the beach. Halfway there he realised the Wayfinder was pointing to a grove of trees on a ledge that broke the steep slope down to the sea. The thick bracken and brambles surrounding it suggested no one had been there in a long while. He nodded towards it.
“If this spear is such a big deal, how come it’s left in a bunch of trees where anyone can find it?” Veitch was already on his guard, scanning the landscape for any sign of danger.
“Not just anyone can find it,” Tom said.
“Well, aren’t we the lucky ones.” Church ploughed ahead through the dense fern cover.
About ten feet from the grove, he noticed a sudden change in the air pressure and temperature, as if they had slipped through the skin of an invisible bubble. He could taste metal in his mouth and there was a bizarre aroma of coffee in his nose. As he neared the trees, the hairs on the back of his neck mysteriously stood on end.
“There’s something pale there,” Ruth noted apprehensively.
Church peered among the branches, but although he could make out the indistinct shapes Ruth had seen, he couldn’t tell what they were.
“I advise caution,” Tom said.
“Why don’t you advise us all to breathe at the same time?” Laura took a step forward.
Church crept ahead, keeping his gaze firmly on the dark shadows that clung between the trees. When they were close enough to smell the fragrance of the leaves, he finally made out the faintly luminescent orbs that seemed to be hanging like Chinese lanterns from the branches.
“Oh my God!” Ruth said before he could utter a word.
Human
heads, eyes staring, mouths drooping, were draped on twisted vines, some of them as fresh and new as if they had been put there only the day before, others with skin as livid as the leaves that shaded them. Men, women, the old, the very young.
“Mondo disgusto!” Laura pinched her nose tightly.
“The Celts revered human heads. They thought they were a source of magical power. They always kept their enemies’ heads on display.” Church paused, unsure whether to continue.
“We have no choice,” Shavi said, as if he could read Church’s thoughts.
Church steeled himself and stepped into the shade. The smell of the heads was ripe in the hot morning sun; he coughed, tried to hold his breath. The others covered their mouths; Ruth was on the verge of vomiting.
Church felt like they were in another world; the quality of light was wrong; distorted. The shadows were too deep to see exactly where they were going.
“Marianne was having an affair.”
Church froze. The voice was rough, as if it hadn’t spoken for days. He turned slowly, looked into the face of a mottled green head. Dead eyes stared back. But the lips quivered, formed new words to torment him again. “She killed herself because she could not bear to tell you.”
“Don’t listen!” Tom instructed from the back. “Lies to divert you from the path! Thoughts plucked from your own mind!”
“How come you’re never at the front?” Church snapped.
“Your uncle’s guts spilled from his body,” another head said as Ruth passed. “Ryan laughed when he saw it.” Ruth’s eyes filled with tears and she turned sharply to Veitch. He shook his head forcefully, but it didn’t dispel the hate in her eyes. She put her head down, kept walking.
Other words were spoken. Church heard some, but it made him sick to his stomach and the only way he could progress was to deaden his ears to it. And the heads were everywhere. The grove seemed much bigger than it had appeared from the outside, and those foul decorations looked to be hanging from every branch; he wondered if it were a crop scooped from the remnants of an enormous bloody battle. The more they moved forward, the more the trees, and the heads, pressed together until they were regularly brushing against them, feeling the dead skin, setting them swinging like Christmas tree decorations. And the words continued in hideous whispers from all sides, punctuated by the occasional shriek and howl that made their blood run cold, until it seemed like they were being suffocated by waves of noise that threatened to drown their souls.
But however many emotional blows they took, their determination kept them moving forward. Then something seemed to break, as if the heads, or whatever force controlled them, realised their tactics weren’t working. The head nearest to Church moved of its own volition and clamped its jaws on the muscle of his upper arm. He howled in pain and frantically tried to knock it off, but it held fast, increasing the pressure. Just when he thought it was going to rip a chunk from his flesh, Veitch stepped forward, pulled out his gun, put the barrel to the head’s temple and pulled the trigger. Bone and brain exploded over Church and the jaw dropped free to the ground.
“Jesus!” Ruth yelled. “You’ve still got a fucking gun!”
But there wasn’t any time for anyone to answer. As one, all the heads emitted a piercing scream and tore their jaws wide, gnashing their jagged, broken teeth as they tried to bite anything that came near them. That far into the grove they were packed so tightly there was barely any space to squeeze between them; to stand still meant the flesh would be torn from their bones in bloody chunks.
Church put his head down and ploughed forward, with the others following suit, cursing loudly and lashing out as if the heads were punchballs. Within a matter of paces, any area of bare flesh was slick with blood.
Finally, when they all doubted they would be able to get any further, they suddenly broke through to an area of hard-packed leaf mould and mud, free from any grotesque ornaments. The moment they stepped into the wide circle, the heads instantly lost all animation, as if someone had flicked a switch.
The sun broke through the verdant canopy to illuminate a small circle at the heart of the open space, like a spotlight on a stage. And in the centre of the glowing spot lay what appeared to be a long stick, intricately carved with a tiny, strange script.
“That’s the spear?” Veitch said. “Where’s the business end?”
Church saw that he was right; at the end of the stick was a scored area where it obviously fitted to a blade of some kind. “I thought it was going to be over,” he said dismally.
“The remainder of the spear will be somewhere in the surrounding area, but not in the immediate vicinity,” Tom said. He removed his glasses to wipe away the flecks of blood. “The spear has great power as a weapon, and the two parts may have been separated to make it more secure, but they are bound on some intrinsic level and so cannot lie too far apart.”
“You have all the answers apart from the ones we really need,” Church said coolly. He picked up the spear, which seemed to sing in his hands, and inspected the odd inscription. “Looks like Ogham script.”
“Arabic,” Shavi corrected. “See the swirls?”
“No, I don’t see that,” Church replied.
“Greek,” Laura suggested, pushing her way in next to them.
“No, that’s definitely Russian,” Ruth prompted.
Church shook his head, then weighed the spear in his hands. “What am I going to do with this? It won’t fit in the crate.”
“Carry it,” Shavi suggested. “It could easily be a staff.”
“But what if I damage it?”
Tom snorted contemptuously.
“Okay,” Church agreed, “that was stupid. It looks like ancient wood, but it’s not. It’s survived millennia and I suppose it’s pretty much indestructible. Let’s get out of here.”
They stood on the edge of the circle looking at the gently swaying heads with trepidation, but the way they had come was the only way out; the other side of the grove was barred by an impenetrable mass of bramble and hawthorn. Finally Veitch pushed past the others and plunged among the mass of heads. Church followed swiftly behind. They were in such a state of high alert that they had travelled several paces before they realised the heads were unmoving; as dead as they looked. Nevertheless, they all continued through the stinking atmosphere as fast as they could and didn’t look back until they had exited the grove and skidded down the bank, back to the beach in the tiny cove. There, they washed away the blood in the sea and dabbed at their wounds, resting on the sand until their tension eased.
Once he had recovered enough, Church took out the Wayfinder for what he hoped would be the final time. Its flame pointed across the strait to a point slightly along the coast. He checked his watch; it was just past noon. “If we hurry, we can find it and be prepared to make our stand by nightfall,” he said.
Back on the mainland they hauled their few possessions to the van and set off out of town along a winding coast road that ran through beautiful, unspoilt countryside. After a few miles, the lantern pointed them down a side road which picked its way through the sleepy village of Manorbier, where they bought sandwiches, packets of crisps and Coke. At the end of a steep, tree-lined lane, they found themselves in another secluded cove. They parked in a large but nearly deserted car park near to the stony beach where the flame finally resumed its upright position.
“Where now?” Laura asked.
Shavi pointed to a ruined castle which could just be glimpsed through the trees.
They ate lunch in the van and bantered with new-found vigour, buoyed by their success on Caldey. Church and Ruth led the way to the twelfth century castle atop a red sandstone spur, still partly occupied by its current owners. Inside the gates it was quite small, a lawned area the size of a football pitch lying at the heart of the crumbling battlements. Tom bought a guidebook from the tiny castle shop for reference, which he read while smoking a joint on a wooden bench. The others wandered around looking for a sign of the way forward.
“What do you expect-neon signs?” Laura said. “These things are supposed to be near-impossible to find.”
“Except for us,” Church stressed. “We’re fated to find them, remember?”
Laura bristled. “Nice line in patronising. When was your coronation?”
“Sorry.” The tension was making them all irritable; Church could see it in their faces, their body language. Unchecked, he was afraid it might tear them apart. “We’ll start looking again-“
“Maybe we’re in the wrong place,” Veitch suggested. “It could be buried under the car park.”
Church shook his head. “This place fits the trend. It has to be here.”
Ruth looked to Shavi. “You could do something. Like you did in Glastonbury.”
Shavi recalled uneasily how much the exercise in Glastonbury had taken out of him; there was one point when he feared he might have been consumed by the powers he was unleashing, but he didn’t let the others see his thoughts. “I seem to have an aptitude for certain shamanistic skills,” he agreed in response to Church’s enquiring expression. “In the right conditions, the right frame of mind, I can communicate with the invisible world.”
Veitch looked at him as if he were speaking a foreign language. “Talk to ghosts?”
“Everything has a spirit, Ryan. People, animals, ghosts. Throughout history shamans have contacted them in search of knowledge.” Veitch sniffed derisively. “I have always felt I had certain abilities, though unfocused, raw, but since the change that has come over the world they seem sharper.”
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