As if ripped by shrapnel to expose the ground below, the fire of summer streams through the woodland canopy. Within these trees Tom can run no further and falls to his hands and knees, though such bloodless limbs as now extend from his pelvis disallow crawling. His jeans might be packed with cement. There is no feeling at all in his fingers either, save a remote tingle, the last spark of dying current.
His vision swims across scrub, coils of bramble, trunks shadow-blackened as if charred by blasts of light, and he squints to see what it is that has run him to ground.
Hopping arthritically, before rising like a man on his last legs in a famine, the tatty thing arrives in the glade first, absurdly tall and tufted with tawny fur. The long head coughs then grins at Tom with teeth unsuited to a human mouth. Until sunlight soon sears and blinds the awful form into a wasted silhouette.
Almost immediately, the other follows. A figure he prays is more woman than beast. Yet how can it be human with those bristles extending from rolls of pink flesh and with soil bearding the wet chin?
Her tottering into the glade compels him to peer at what impedes her advance. It is then that he sees the trotters and not feet.
A rope encircles his ankles and Tom is inverted, then pulled up towards a gnarly oak branch.
‘Stop. Please. It doesn’t have to…’ he splutters until his throat becomes as moribund as his limbs.
The plastic bucket Tom uses for decorating is kicked under his head by the hare, before it prances away, screeching, ‘We’ll catch it all!’
When it returns to him, on the other side of Tom’s useless body, the hare holds a scythe of black iron in one skinned hand and steadies the hanged man’s swaying with a long-toed foot.
* * *
To the surface of sleep Tom rises, desperate to gulp a breath. And in a moment of bliss, he realises that he’s been sleeping and is not suspended upside down in a wood, with his throat dangling over a bucket positioned to collect his lifeblood.
A waking groan and his blurred vision clears on Blackwood’s face. The old practitioner’s ungroomed features form one great expression of intense excitement.
‘Thank God…’ Tom says.
‘Precisely!’ Blackwood’s hand ceases shaking his shoulder and retracts. ‘You need to hear this.’
Still wearing the previous night’s clothes, Tom rediscovers his body, limb by limb. He’s slumped with splayed legs upon Blackwood’s book and paper-strewn couch. Like the doorway into another dimension that he’s about to topple through, the minutely detailed astrological chart looms upon the wall above.
Tom rubs at the stiffness of his lower back. He must have nodded off. No more than a few minutes ago, he remembers pulling his cap over his eyes. ‘I was asleep.’
‘For hours.’
‘What? No.’
Blackwood steps away from the couch. The floor of the room is congested with open books, as is the desk. More so than usual. Papyri that Tom stole from the Moots are stretched out, their sides weighed down with various ornaments. The computer screen on Blackwood’s desk displays glowing jpegs, all recovered from Tom’s phone.
Nimbly dodging obstacles on the floor, Blackwood reaches his desk, bends over and grasps the mouse. ‘I found something in your photographs.’ An irritating pedant’s gleam enlivens his eyes. ‘The incantation they use originates from a Mesopotamian magician. It was then rewritten by a Roman. And again in the eleventh century by a Jewish scholar. Someone who knew Latin, Demotic Greek and Egyptian. Here. I traced it. From this page of the grimoire!’ Blackwood jabs his finger at the photograph from Tom’s phone, now enlarged onscreen.
Blinking, Tom leans forward. He vaguely recalls that page of the book in the Moots’ study. A page filled with Latin inscriptions, embellished by symbols and what might have been calculations recorded in a chart.
Blackwood near hyperventilates. ‘It all pertains to a lesser deity. A rite to animate a statue. Or take something from it. A being . To transfer it to another place.’
With his expression equal parts awe and terror, Blackwood turns swiftly from the desk as if to confront Tom. ‘It’s enough to make me shit myself.’
‘Please don’t.’
‘Incredibly dangerous. A highly unstable process. Only the mad would even attempt it. I didn’t know anyone could even do it anymore. The toll upon the Moots must be monumental. No mind could withstand it for long. So they must do this sparingly. When threatened.’
‘Do what?’
Blackwood’s chest rises and his expression adopts the familiar self-serious cast. ‘They have a god.’
The enormity of the suggestion drains the warmth from Tom’s skin.
Dazed by the magnitude of his own thoughts, Blackwood stumbles while withdrawing from the desk. ‘Imprisoned, I would guess. Forced into service. The voces magicae are all there. The incantations. Though only the Moots will know how they must be said. The correct measures of minerals, which animal parts, the oils to accompany the spell, are all listed here. But it’d take a lifetime to find the right sequence. And that’s exactly what they’ve had. A lifetime. Together. I imagine their parents passed on the keys.’
‘You can defeat it? With what you know?’
Blackwood doesn’t appear to be listening. ‘This is how they’ve done it. For years! Incredible. It accounts for why they’ve been so successful. They’ve had a lot of help. Bastards!… Defeat it? Ha!’ He laughs as if unhinged. ‘Not an option, I’m afraid. Banish it? Maybe.’
Inappropriately joyous and elated by his discovery, Blackwood raises his arms to the ceiling, his eyes alight with maniacal glee. ‘Nor can the greatness of the heavenly ones be represented in the likeness of any human face. They consecrate the groves and woodland glades . Tacitus was right! Don’t you see? The heart of their power. From where they draw favours. The images they ape in transformation. What they have made beholden to them is captive. Somewhere near them. But not in their home. No. Too dangerous. The woods, I’d imagine. That barrow must be active. It’s why they chased you out. Why they forbid trespass.’
‘What do we do?’
‘What do you do?’ Blackwood’s attention finally settles upon Tom, his eyes grave. ‘You must enter the consecrated space. The circle. Then recover the effigy in which they have bound the god. It will be buried inside that mound.’
‘Can’t you, I dunno, cast a spell instead? From here? Or come with me and do an … exorcism? Banish it?’
‘Load of bleedin’ Dungeons and Dragons! Haven’t you listened to a word I’ve said? The artefact! The idol! In the mound! Start digging. Break the seals. The effigy must be recovered. Then I’ll have more to go on.’
‘The neighbours? They’re not going to just let me dig into that hill.’
‘They’ll have your throat open before you get one foot deep. So you need to deal with them first. Blind them. Hobble them. Hood them.’
‘The fuck? Blind them?’
‘There won’t be any of that vile jelly business. Don’t worry.’
‘Jelly?’
‘A hood. Blinkers. You must hood a shaman. Prevent the God’s spirit entering. Block the conduit. Stall the transformation. Though their discomfort must be considerable, even when blind, so they cannot channel what they have compelled to serve them.’ Upon his last word Blackwood breaks his stance, scurries to the cupboard under the stairs and throws open the door.
Tom slips from the sofa. ‘My girl, this will save her?’
He’s not sure Blackwood hears him over the noise of an avalanche from within the cupboard. And he forgets what he’s just asked Blackwood when the man ducks from under the stairs holding a vintage shotgun by the barrel. ‘Last resort.’
‘Hold on. Hold on.’
‘Afraid we’re there, my friend. This is the only chance your daughter has. I cannot begin a banishment with the seals in place, protecting the effigy. That must be brought here before a very long process can even begin to dispel its presence. But you must deal with the Moots first. They will do anything, as you have seen, to protect the source of their power.’
‘I can’t.’
‘You must. You must act and trap them outside of their temple, where they are vulnerable, before they can change again. I suggest you deal with them outdoors as they journey to the barrow. I doubt they will give you another night. My defences will almost certainly be swept aside and they will be inside with you before dawn.’
‘Whoa. What are you suggesting? That I shoot them?’
‘The Mantis you must take down first, the priestess. The pig! She’s in control. The hare is but a footman and assassin. Get the legs. So they can’t dance.’