‘Let’s have him come down here shall we? He wants you, you know. He wants me to – ‘
‘What’s happened to you?’
Declan’s face was just visible in the dark. It grinned; lunatic.
‘I think he might want to baptise you too. How’d you like that? Like that would you? He pissed on me: you see him? And that wasn’t all. Oh no, he wants more than that. He wants everything. Hear me? Everything.’
Declan grabbed hold of Coot, a bear-hug that stank of the creature’s urine.
‘Come with me?’ he leered in Coot’s face.
‘I put my trust in God.’
Declan laughed. Not a hollow laugh; there was genuine compassion in it for this lost soul.
‘He is God,’ he said. ‘He was here before this fucking shit-house was built, you know that.’ ‘So were dogs.’ ‘Uh?’
‘Doesn’t mean I’d let them cock their legs on me.’ ‘Clever old fucker aren’t you?’ said Declan, the smile inverted. ‘He’ll show you. You’ll change.’ ‘No, Declan. Let go of me – ‘ The embrace was too strong.
‘Come on up the stairs, fuck-face. Mustn’t keep God waiting.’ He pulled Coot up the stairs, arms still locked round him. Words, all logical argument, eluded Coot: was there nothing he could say to make the man see his degradation? They made an ungainly entrance into the Church, and Coot automatically looked towards the altar, hoping for some reassurance, but he got none. The altar had been desecrated. The cloths had been torn and smeared with excrement, the cross and candlesticks were in the middle of a fire of prayer-books that burned healthily on the altar steps. Smuts floated around the Church, the air was grimy with smoke. ‘You did this?’ Declan grunted.
‘He wants me to destroy it all. Take it apart stone by stone if I have to.’
‘He wouldn’t dare.’
‘Oh he’d dare. He’s not scared of Jesus, he’s not scared of. . .’ The certainty lapsed for a telling instant, and Coot leapt on the hesitation.
There’s something here he is scared of, though, isn’t there, or he’d have come in here himself, done it all himself . . .’ Declan wasn’t looking at Coot. His eyes had glazed. ‘What is it, Declan? What is it he doesn’t like? You can tell me-‘
Declan spat in Coot’s face, a wad of thick phlegm that hung on his cheek like a slug.
‘None of your business.’
‘In the name of Christ, Declan, look at what he’s done to you.’ . ‘I know my master when I see him – ‘ Declan was shaking
‘ – and so will you.’
He turned Coot round to face the south door. It was open, and the creature was there on the threshold, stooping gracefully to duck under the porch. For the first time Coot saw Rawhead in a good light, and the terrors began in earnest. He had avoided thinking too much of its size, its stare, its origins. Now, as it came towards him with slow, even stately steps, his heart conceded its mastery. It was no mere beast, despite its mane, and its awesome array of teeth; its eyes lanced him through and through, gleaming with a depth of contempt no animal could ever muster. Its mouth opened wider and wider, the teeth gliding from the gums, two, three inches long, and still the mouth was gaping wider. When there was nowhere to run, Declan let Coot go. Not that Coot could have moved anyway: the stare was too insistent. Rawhead reached out and picked Coot up. The world turned on its head –
There were seven officers, not six as Coot had guessed. Three of them were armed, their weapons brought down from London on the order of Detective Sergeant Gissing. The late, soon to be decorated posthumously, Detective Sergeant Gissing. They were led, these seven good men and true, by Sergeant Ivanhoe Baker. Ivanhoe was not an heroic man, either by inclination or education. His voice, which he had prayed would give the appropriate orders when the time came without betraying him, came out as a strangled yelp as Rawhead appeared from the interior of the Church.
‘I can see it!’ he said. Everybody could: it was nine feet tall, covered in blood, and it looked like Hell on legs. Nobody needed it pointed out. The guns were raised without Ivanhoe’s instruction: and the unarmed men, suddenly feeling naked, kissed their truncheons and prayed. One of them ran.