‘Not tonight. You get the fuck out of here.’ Ron kept walking towards the altar.
‘You get the fuck out, I said!’
The face in front of Ron was alive with leers and grimaces: there was lunacy in it.
‘I came to see the altar; I’ll go when I’ve seen it, and not before.’
‘You’ve been talking to Coot. That it?’
‘Coot?’
‘What did the old wanker tell you? It’s all a lie, whatever it was; he never told the truth in his frigging life, you know that? You take it from he. He used to get up there – ‘ he threw a prayer-book at the pulpit’ – and tell fucking lies!’
‘I want to see the altar for myself. We’ll see if he was telling lies-‘
‘No you won’t!’
The man threw another handful of books on to the fire and stepped down to block Ron’s path. He smelt not of mud but of shit. Without warning, he pounced. His hands seized Ron’s neck, and the two of them toppled over. Declan’s fingers reaching to gouge at Ron’s eyes: his teeth snapping at his nose.
Ron was surprised at the weakness of his own arms; why hadn’t he played squash the way Maggie had suggested, why were his muscles so ineffectual? If he wasn’t careful this man was going to kill him.
Suddenly a light, so bright it could have been a midnight dawn, splashed through the west window. A cloud of screams followed close on it. Firelight, dwarfing the bonfire on the altar steps, dyed the air. The stained glass danced.
Declan forgot his victim for an instant, and Ron rallied. He pushed the man’s chin back, and got a knee under his torso, then he kicked hard. The enemy went reeling, and Ron was up and after him, a fistful of hair securing the target while the ball of his other hand hammered at the lunatic’s face ’til it broke. It wasn’t enough to see the bastard’s nose bleed, or to hear the cartilage mashed; Ron kept beating and beating until his fist bled. Only then did he let Declan drop.
Outside, Zeal was ablaze.
Rawhead had made fires before, many fires. But petrol was a new weapon, and he was still getting the hang of it. It didn’t take
him long to learn. The trick was to wound the wheeled boxes, that was easy. Open their flanks and out their blood would pour, blood that made his head ache. The boxes were easy prey, lined up on the pavement like bullocks to be slaughtered. He went amongst them demented with death, splashing their blood down the High Street and igniting it. Streams of liquid fire poured into gardens, over thresholds. Thatches caught; wood-beamed cottages went up. In minutes Zeal was burning from end to end.
In St Peter’s, Ron dragged the filthied cloth off the altar, trying to block out all thoughts of Debbie and Margaret. The police would move them to a place of safety, for certain. The issue at hand must take precedence.
Beneath the cloth was a large box, its front panel roughly carved. He took no notice of the design; there were more urgent matters to attend to. Outside, the beast was loose. He could hear its triumphant roars, and he felt eager, yes eager, to go to it. To kill it or be killed. But first, the box. It ‘contained power, no doubt about that; a power that was even now raising the hairs on his head, that was working at has cock, giving him an aching hard-on. His flesh seemed to seethe with it, it elated him like love. Hungry, he put his hands on the box, and a shock that seemed to cook his joints ran up both his arms. He fell back, and for a moment he wondered if he was going to remain conscious, the pain was so bad, but it subsided, in moments. He cast around for a tool, something to get him into the box without laying flesh toil.
In desperation he wrapped his hand with a piece of the altar cloth and snatched one of the brass candleholders from the edge of the fire. The cloth began to smoulder as the heat worked its way through to his hand. He stepped back to the altar and beat at the wood like a madman until it began to splinter. His hands were numb now; if the heated candlesticks were burning his palms he couldn’t feel it. What did it matter anyhow? There was a weapon here: a few inches away from him, if only he could get to it, to wield it. His erection throbbed, his balls tingled.