The moment it struck an echo ran through the building that sounded like an unearthly moan filled with anguish. It was surely a bizarre effect of the chapel's acoustics, they told themselves, but it had sounded so vocal it made them all grow cold. Shavi and Marshall glanced at each other, saying nothing. Laura backed a few paces away, wrapping her arms around her.
Shavi swung the pick again. This time the moan seemed to be outside, all around the chapel, caught in the wind. It grew palpably darker in the already gloomy sacristy.
"There's a storm coming," Marshall noted, but it didn't ease them. Almost at his words, the wind picked up and began to buffet the outside of the building.
The stone wasn't as resilient as it had first appeared. Large chunks had fallen to the ground and the cement had all crumbled away; they would soon be able to remove an entire block and from then on the job would be relatively easy.
Shavi raised the pick for the third time.
A tremendous boom resounded through the main body of the chapel above them. They realised at the same time it was the sound of the chapel door being thrown open. Shavi threw down the pick and hurried up the steps with the others close behind.
Framed in the doorway was a man of indeterminate age, although Shavi guessed he must have been in his sixties. His greasy, grey-black hair was long and hung in an unkempt mess around his shoulders, framing a skull-like face that was sun-browned and weatherbeaten from an outdoor life. He was thin but wiry and exuded a deep strength that belied his age. Shavi would not have liked to have been on the receiving end of a blow from the six-foot, gnarled staff that the man clutched menacingly. At first sight Shavi guessed he was some kind of itinerant; his well-worn baggy trousers had long lost their original colour to become a dirty brown; he wore tired sandals and a dingy cheesecloth shirt open to the waist. But then Shavi noticed the warning issued by his dark, piercing eyes; the power within showed he was a man with a mission.
"I've come to stop you two doing something you probably won't live to regret," he said with a rural accent Shavi couldn't place.
Laura tugged at Shavi's arm. "Here's a word of advice: stay out of the way of that staff."
"You know him?"
"We met in Avebury before you came on board," she said.
And then Shavi recognised him. "The Bone Inspector." He smiled and held out his hand in greeting.
The Bone Inspector didn't take his eyes off Shavi's face.
"Who is he?" Marshall asked.
"The custodian of the land's old places, the stone circles, the longbarrows and burial mounds. The last in a long line of wise men who kept the knowledge of nature's ways." Shavi tried to read him, sensed a threat, though he didn't know why.
"Do you know what you're doing here?" the Bone Inspector asked.
"Trying to save the world," Laura said from the back. "You should try it some time."
"I couldn't believe it." His voice was low, trembling with repressed emotion. "When I felt it in the land, like a shiver running through the soil, I came as quick as I could to stop you, you damn fools. I'll ask you again: do you know what you're doing?"
"We have been guided here to free the hidden power-"
The Bone Inspector snorted derisively. "Hidden power! Then you don't have any idea what's beneath your feet. Or why this place was built to keep it there."
"Then tell us," Shavi said firmly.
The Bone Inspector laughed contemptuously. "It's beyond you, boy. It's bigger and darker and more dangerous than you could ever imagine, and if you had any idea what it was, you wouldn't even be within ten miles of this place. All of you, you're like mice, getting into things you shouldn't, causing trouble. I knew you weren't up to the job."
"We're up to it," Laura said adamantly, "so you can take your staff and shove it-
Shavi silenced her with a cut of his hand. "I mean to find what is here and take it with me. Everything turns on this. If we return without it, all is lost."
The Bone Inspector's face grew harder. "And I mean to stop you. I could sit quietly and explain why what you're doing is a mistake of nightmarish proportions, or I could beat the shit out of you. Either way you'll get the messageand I know which one will be more effective. So let's see who's up to the job, eh? Boy." There was arrogance in his voice; he was not used to being opposed. He raised his staff aggressively and in a liquid movement rolled on to the balls of his feet, primed and ready to attack. Shavi could see he knew how to use the staff, there was something in the way he held his body which suggested the rigid discipline of the martial arts, although Shavi guessed the fighting style was uniquely British, and very ancient. "How do you plan to fight, then, boy?" the Bone Inspector asked.
Shavi stood calmly with his arms by his side. He registered no fear, no sense of urgency at all. He knew he would be no match physically for the Bone Inspector. Instead of tensing, he let his muscles relax, pushed his head back slightly and closed his eyes.
"You do that," the Bone Inspector said. "Pretend I'm not here."
Shavi had never tried it before, but the fact that his abilities were improving each day was unmistakable. It was difficult to attempt something untried in the crucible of conflict, but he was growing increasingly confident. He knew in his heart what he should be able to do. It was only a matter of seeing if he could.
At first nothing seemed to be happening. Then, gradually, the Bone Inspector's sneering voice seemed to fade until it sounded as if it were coming from the depths of a long tunnel. At the same time Shavi's vision skewed like it was being twisted through a kaleidoscope. Dimensions stretched like toffee, turned on an angle. Once the distortion took over, different, deeper senses took over. Time appeared to be running slowly. He could hear sounds, whispers, that had not been there before, although he had no idea who was talking; and he suddenly seemed to be able to see through the dense stone of the wall and out across the land for what appeared to be miles. In that dream-like state he was beyond himself, beyond the chapel; although he had touched on it with his experiments he had never achieved such clarity before. And then he was ready: he put out the call with a voice that was not a voice.
"Shavi! This is no time to zone out on me!" Laura shook his arm but he didn't even seem to feel it.
"What's going on?" Marshall said. Then, to the Bone Inspector, "Why are you threatening these people?"
The Bone Inspector grinned, his staff still levelled at Shavi's throat. "Hold your voice, church-man. Your kind act like you know everything about everything when you know nothing about nothing. Don't go sticking your nose in where it doesn't belong."
"This is sanctified ground!" Marshall said irately. "I will not have fighting here!"
"No, but you'll let these two take a pick-axe and shovel to the place. Hypocrites, your kind, always have been."
Laura was distracted from the confrontation by a movement outside the door: a shadow flitting against the background of clipped grass and mist. Another one, too quick to pin down the shape. There was something outside, several things, and they were drawing closer.
"Shavi?" she muttered.
"Playing dead won't help, lad," the Bone Inspector mocked. "You'll have to learn your lesson soon enough."
"What lesson's that?" Laura's eyes darted back to the door. Closer. "That sooner or later everyone turns into a bitter old git?"
The Bone Inspector's grin soured. He opened his mouth to speak. And in that instant something flashed through the door and hit him, and then he was howling in pain. Everything moved so fast it took a few seconds for Laura to register what was happening. A large russet fox was scrabbling wildly at the Bone Inspector's torso, its teeth sunk deeply into his forearm. Blood trickled down his brown skin. He flailed around with the staff, trying to thrash it off, but it was holding on too tight and the pain was throwing him off balance. Before he could toss away the staff and grapple it with his free hand, a large mongrel and a Great Dane still trailing its owner's lead burst through the door and set about him with snapping jaws. Laura could tell they were not really trying to hurt him, but they kept him reeling and gave him enough nips to make his skin slick with blood and saliva. More shapes were moving towards the chapel; she glimpsed another fox, a badger, bizarrely, several rabbits, all heading towards the Bone Inspector. In the whirlwind of fur and fang, snapping and snarling, he was driven backwards by sheer weight of numbers until he was on the threshold. Laura picked up his stick and ran forward to jab him with it so he went spinning out on to the grass.