Rosemary is somewhere else now, somewhere better, somewhere wonderful. The horror and the danger are still nearby, close enough for her not to be oblivious of them, but she can keep them out of range while she immerses herself in this: in taste, in smell, in feeling.

He's warm against her. The skin of his back is cold in each new place she touches, but wherever there is contact, heat seems to spread, like sparks to her fingers around a plasma ball.

She didn't hesitate to worry whether he would respond, whether he would permit this: it was as though they both knew in one sudden moment that it had to happen. She doesn't know how long ago that was. Time is suspended here, and while she is in this moment, she knows she is not in the horror of the immediate past or the terror of the immediate future.

It's not some gentle embrace, some delicate, tender kiss. It didn't even begin that way. It is both a hunger and a feast, a thirst and its slaking, a need and a fix, but there is no satiation, only escalation.

She pulls his hand to her breast because she wants to feel it there, but it's not enough. She tugs her top up so that her chest can press against his with no material between them, but it's not enough. Then she takes his hand and pulls it between her legs, holding it in place with her own as though she's afraid he'll take it away.

Deso's not complaining, but what with demons running around, he is genuinely wondering whether Rosemary might have become possessed. He quite liked the girl, thought there was more to her than she let people see under all the holy wullie stuff, but he didn't realise how much he fancied her until she kissed him. At that point he became immediately aware he was experiencing something unlike with any previous la.s.sie he's got off with. If what pa.s.sed between him and the others was a nine-volt battery, then this was like being plugged into a hydroelectric power station. However, when she put his hand up her skirt, it was as if she was no longer in control, no longer quite here. She stopped kissing him then too, just buried her face in his neck as she held his hand still and moved against it. There were bangs in the distance: three, then a little later, three more, but she didn't even seem to hear them.

She lets out a series of shrieks m.u.f.fled by his collarbone, her whole body shuddering, the fingers of her free hand gripping him like she might fall off the world. Then she lets go of his fingers and he feels her go loose with a long sigh. She's back now.

Uh-oh, he thinks. This is where it turns to dust. This is where t.i.tania sees that Nick Bottom has a donkey's napper.

Rosemary steadies her breathing, still resting her head against his shoulder. Somewhere in her mind's horizon she can see a storm of embarra.s.sment and shame, but it's a splinter in a kaleidoscope, and it belongs in the old world where demons never came, where she would never have had the nerve to even kiss Deso.

In this dark new world, the guilt doesn't come. There is clarity instead, clarity like she cannot ever remember. She understands that this world, this universe, is something far different and far more complex than that which she had so long believed.

Within this greater complexity, however, she knows three things for certain.

If there is such a thing as sin, then what she just did most definitely wasn't it. If there is such a thing as G.o.d, presiding over such an infinite domain, then He cannot possibly be concerned with what a girl did with her genitals.

And if the demons are already out there, then it's way too late to worry about d.a.m.nation.

'Thank you,' she tells him, finally pulling away from his shoulder and looking him in the face. His eyes glint a little in what meagre light there is, the only features truly distinguishable.

'Eh, any time,' he replies uncertainly, a little taken aback. 'I mean . . . you know . . .'

'I do,' she a.s.sures him. 'So we have to make sure there is an any time. Let's have a look around at what's in here.'

Rosemary reaches for the light switch again, but Deso stops her once more.

'I'm sure there's nothing out there,' she argues.

'I think I saw a torch. If we use that, we won't be so blind when we switch it off again.'

Deso locates what does indeed turn out to be a small Maglite. He switches it on and plays it around the shed, revealing a tractor mower to be taking up a great deal of the floor s.p.a.ce. The beam then picks out a number of plastic cylinders containing pesticide, next to a high-pressure spray lance with back-pack mounting. Deso continues to scan the walls but Rosemary grabs his hand and directs the torch back towards the pesticide sprayer.

Deso doesn't get it.

'What?' he asks.

'It says it's an eighteen-litre tank, and it doesn't have to be pesticide that's in it.'

'What, then? You think we could get Father Blake to bless it and it'll turn into a holy-water gun?'

Rosemary takes the torch from his hands and picks out another large plastic container on the floor to the rear of the mower. It has a pressure-seal cap, a detachable filling nozzle thrust through the carrying handle, and the words 'highly flammable' etched on it in several different places.

'I was thinking infernal rather than divine,' she says.

XXVII With the doors closed, it takes those who were already in the games hall only a short few seconds to deduce the implications regarding those who didn't come through them. Heather looks to Blake, whose apologetic expression serves as confirmation about Kane.

As the long-fought tears finally take her, she lets herself fall against the priest, whose arms close around her. They remain in this clinch for a while, Blake allowing himself to close his eyes and shut out everything else just for a merciful moment. It feels like the only good thing left in the world. The warmth of Heather's body, the smell of her, the wetness of her cheeks against his neck: it feels vital, the essence of being human. It feels like something to stay alive for.

He opens his eyes again and catches sight of someone else's gaze: one of the girls looking briefly across then turning away again. He is reminded, minutely, that such an embrace would have been the talk of the steamie mere hours ago. Now it seems bizarre to care about things like that. Nonetheless, it's important to believe that there is a normal world for everyone to return to: a world where these kids get to go back to school and have a future. He has to focus on getting them there, but he's starting to ask himself what he wants his own role in that world to be.

Sendak gives the hall a quick survey, checking the fortifications. Kirk stands alongside him as they look through the small windows in the emergency doors.

'Anyone else still out there, you think?'

Sendak shakes his head. 'Never seen anything like it, not in man nor beast. A bloodl.u.s.t that's beyond feral, and yet they're intelligent, coordinated. More like warfare. War crime crime.'

'They leave nothing alive,' says Adnan. 'f.u.c.kers only spared Marianne and Cameron to use as bait.'

'They crucified them,' adds Radar.

'Crucified?' Sendak asks.

Blake glances across, over Heather's head.

Marianne holds up her bandaged hands, red soaking through at both palms. She and Cameron have been laid out on exercise mats, having had morphine administered by Mrs McKenzie. Marianne is groggy, but she has sat herself up against the wall, partially resting against Deborah. Cameron, however, is mercifully unconscious.

'Fair to say they've got a serious issue with crucifixion,' Marianne says bitterly. 'We were ambushed by several of them, and we only got away because Bernadette pulled out a crucifix.'

'They shrank from the crucifix?' Blake asks.

'No. They went f.u.c.king postal. Ignored the rest of us and all fell upon Bernie. At least it was quick,' she adds, glancing towards Cameron. 'I saw some other bodies in the barn. I'm not sure who. They'd been eaten.'

'Marky and Theresa,' says Beansy, his voice dry.

'Didn't kill the horses, though, for what that's worth.' Blake doesn't understand why, but he feels relief at Marianne's response to his question, despite it discounting a possible means of defence. While his faculties can still comprehend this, he knows he can ward off complete despair. He knows he may be clutching at straws to be still searching for what would be termed a 'rational' explanation, but those straws are the only thing he can can cling to if he wants to believe that the normal world still exists. cling to if he wants to believe that the normal world still exists.

Sendak casts an eye over Cameron, taking in the makeshift tourniquet Mrs McKenzie has fashioned from ripped-up clothing.

'This boy's lost a lot of blood,' she reports. 'He needs hospital treatment soon or he's not going to make it.'

Sendak scans the room, calculating.

'Twenty-three,' Deborah tells him, antic.i.p.ating what he is about. She holds up the sheet of paper bearing her lists of names.

'Okay. Gonna be snug on legroom, but I can't see anyone whining about it.'

'About what?' Blake asks.

'Got two Land Rovers outside.'

Heather finally pulls away from Blake and looks at Sendak like she can barely dare to believe it.

'But this is the part where you tell us the keys are in an office at the other end of the corridor we just escaped down,' Blake says.

Sendak holds up two sets of car keys.

'Oh, thank G.o.d.'

'Thank me,' Sendak tells him, 'but maybe not yet. The Land Rovers are parked all the way on the other side of the compound - hundred and fifty, maybe two hundred yards from here. Not to mention the five miles of single track we gotta drive through the forest before we hit the open road and are literally out of the woods.'

'I've got faith,' Blake tells him.

Sendak permits himself a smile.

'Okay, people,' he announces. 'We're launching Operation Get the f.u.c.k Outta Here. Heads up. Let's look sharp.'

Adnan reloads the shotgun with the last sh.e.l.ls from the box and hands it to Sendak.

'Six rounds left,' Adnan reports. 'That's it.'

Sendak nods in acknowledgment, then turns to Kirk.

'Can you drive, big guy?'

Kirk shakes his head regretfully.

'I take it you can, Padre?'

'Sure,' says Blake.

Sendak tosses him a set of keys. Heather looks at him like she wishes he'd kept this to himself.

'I'm coming anyway,' Kirk declares.

'd.a.m.n straight. These f.u.c.kers are scared scared of you.' of you.'

'Scared of this, anyway,' Kirk replies, picking up the chainsaw.

Sendak casts an evaluative eye over Kirk's black-spattered weapon.

'How much juice you got in that thing?'

Kirk frowns.

'Petrol? Don't know. How?'

Sendak goes over to the five-a-side goals that are wedged against the door to the corridor and unscrews a length of tubular metal from the stanchion.

'Gimme your jacket,' he tells Blake.

Blake hands it over and Sendak begins ripping it into pieces. He wraps several strips tightly around the metal tube at one end, before soaking the binding with petrol poured from the chainsaw. Then he taps Beansy for a lighter, sets the torch ablaze and hands it almost ceremonially to Blake as Adnan and Radar prepare to open the doors.

'We know they ain't scared of crosses, but I never encountered any creature dumb enough not not to be scared of getting its a.s.s barbecued.' to be scared of getting its a.s.s barbecued.'

They move briskly but tensely, eyes darting to seek out unseen dangers in the darkness. Blake forms the forward point of a triangle, flanked a few feet behind by the others. They stay close to the wall for the first stretch, then, on Sendak's command, drift wider as the corner approaches, in order to have the widest field of vision upon anything that might be waiting for them around it. Blake can feel the metal pole get gradually hotter. It's tolerable right now, but he hopes it steadies soon.

The purr of Kirk's chainsaw is the only noise to be heard, drowning the sounds of their breathing and their footfalls on the frosted gra.s.s. They can't hear their own steps, so there will be no aural warning of attack. Blake strains to see beyond the flickering corona extending around his torch, trying to resolve shapes out of shades. Around the corner, the side of the building ceases to present any clean lines: walls advance and retreat as dictated by the facility's blocks and link corridors, with fuel tanks, bins and hoppers also looming haphazardly in the darkness, each potentially concealing an ambush. Matt-black panels denote the kitchen's broken panes, distinct from the sheen where other windows remain intact. But there, a dozen or so yards right of the building's far corner, their goal is in sight. Two Land Rovers sit parked on an ap.r.o.n of frozen dust, a narrow track leading around to the open ground where the coach dropped everybody two days ago. Beyond that is the road through the forest: it's less than a hundred metres off, but that part of the journey is a long, long way distant.

'f.u.c.k,' mutters Kirk. 'Here they come.'

Blake turns to his right and looks up the gentle slope towards the treeline, where silhouetted figures are emerging from the shadows. There are only a couple at first, then more and more become visible, cautiously intent upon the exposed trio. Their guttural voices sound out across the air, calling instructions. There is no ma.s.s charge, but as their numbers swell, they begin to spread out, forming a noose that they will inevitably tighten.

Blake holds the torch a little higher, keeping the brightness above his sightline. There must be a dozen of them. Fifteen. Twenty. G.o.d knows. He can't count, can barely retain focus in his fear.

'Stay tight,' Sendak commands. 'Keep it together. We can do this.'

The triangle closes, the three of them now almost back-to-back in a defensive formation. Some of the demons are holding their ground, maintaining a perimeter; others are closing in, slowly, cautiously. Kirk holds aloft the chainsaw, revving it as a warning.

Nervously, Blake gives the torch a wave too, sweeping it to convey that it is a weapon. The flame flickers, then starts to fail.

'Oh, b.u.g.g.e.r.'

He waves it again, like the air will help reignite it. It dies.

'Oh s.h.i.t. Sendak . . .'

'Keep it together,' Sendak states, his tone indicating that even for him this is a bigger ask than the last time he said it.

'Should have used more petrol,' Kirk moans.

The trio keeps moving, but the approaching demons are now less cautious and are starting to stride forward with purpose.

Kirk revs the chainsaw again. It cuts out.

'Oh for f.u.c.k's sake.'

He tugs the starter cord. It growls briefly then splutters out again.

'Used too much much petrol,' he revises, sounding close to panic. petrol,' he revises, sounding close to panic.

'How many shots are in that thing?' Blake asks.

Sendak pauses before responding, long enough for Blake to fear the answer will be one.

'Six.'