Max grunted something unintelligible. All four wheels left the ground as the car crested a rise. They came down with a bone-jarring crunch and careered sideways on the dusty soil for a short way. "It always looked easier in the movies," Max said.
The police were only yards away when Max swore fitfully and suddenly drove directly at the barbed wire fence ahead. They ploughed through it with a rending and scratching and slid down a steep bank, bouncing over a small ditch on to the road with a shower of sparks.
The police vehicle followed suit, but when it hit the ditch its higher centre of gravity flipped it over. It smashed upside down and slid along the tarmac. Max gave a brief cheer as he watched the scene in the rearview mirror.
"Don't celebrate too soon," Tom said gruffly. They followed his gaze to the bottleneck of traffic at the police checkpoint.
A shadow had risen up ten feet off the ground beyond the vehicles. Its outline shifted ominously in a manner Church had seen too many times before. Max started to retch loudly.
"Don't look at it!" Church snapped. "Whatever you do. Keep your eyes on the road. Drive!"
Max couldn't resist one last look and vomited on to the floor between his feet. It deflected his attention from driving. The engine idled while he wiped his mouth, shook his dazed head.
The shadow moved, began to take on a sharper form. It was enormous, powerful, dense, seeming to suck in all light from the vicinity. It accelerated towards them, oblivious to the vehicles lined up in its path. A Renault flipped up end over end with a sound like a bomb going off, then a Peugeot and a Mondeo. A Jag folded up like paper in an explosion of glass and a rending of metal.
Church was transfixed; it was like a shark ploughing through water, leaving carnage in its wake. Cars flew like sea spray as it surged onwards. "Drive, Max." Church's voice was almost lost beneath the orchestral crashing of metal on tarmac.
It was relentless; as it built up speed it began to change, parts of the dense shadow detaching themselves and folding out, unfurling then reclamping themselves around the figure. It was like the horny carapace of an insect slowly building before their eyes, impenetrable plates, then something that looked like a helmet, but with horns or claws, and all of it in shimmering black. And still it moved.
Finally Church recognised his vision of the monstrous Fomorii warrior in the distorting cavern beneath Arthur's Seat; the same creature Veitch had seen at the ritual under the castle.
A People Carrier went over as if it weighed no more than paper. How powerful is it? Church thought. "Come on, Max!" he yelled again.
The urgency in his voice finally shocked Max into activity. The car shot forward, throwing them all around once more.
"Don't look in the mirror," Church cautioned; he knew Max, who was not inured to the terrible sight of the Fomorii, would black out instantly. "Give it all you've got."
The car began to race just as the Fomorii smashed through the last of the cars and started on the open road between them. Church could feel the thunderous vibrations from its pounding feet through the frame of the car.
"Is it gaining?" Ruth asked. She was clinging on to a corner of the seat to stop herself being thrown around.
"It's making the car jump around!" Max shouted over the racing engine. "I'm having trouble controlling it!"
Agonisingly slowly, the car began to move faster. It didn't appear to be fast enough, but Max kept his foot to the floor, bouncing up and down in his seat as if trying to add to the momentum. And then, although they hardly dared believe it, the bone-jarring vibrations began to subside a little. Church glanced back once more at the nightmarish image of the beast and saw it had started to fall back; but it was still driving on, and he knew that even if they escaped this time, it would always be somewhere at their backs until it had completed its frightful mission.
"We're doing it," he said. "Just pray we don't have another technology failure. And be thankful we've got an open road ahead of us."
Eventually the twists and turns of the road took them out of sight of the pursuing creature, although they could still hear it for several minutes after. Gradually, Church's heart stopped racing and he rested his face on the back of the seat.
"That's it," he said. "That's what they've sent after us."
"One of the things," Tom corrected. "Every resource will be marshalled-"
"Oh, God!" There was a note of hysteria in Ruth's voice.
Church took her hand gently. "Once we get back to the village we need to get moving again," he said. "We can't stay in one place too long."
"Why? We've only got to kill time until Lughnasadh. Then it will all be over," Ruth replied bitterly.
He didn't know how to answer that.
"We thought you lot were never coming back," Witch said when the car pulled up in the dusty High Street. He tried to hide his concern behind an irritated facade.
"How long have we been gone?" Church helped Ruth out, wondering how he was going to break the news to the others, in particular to Veitch.
"Three days." Veitch couldn't contain himself any longer. He stepped up so he could look Ruth in the eye and said tenderly, "How are you?"
She forced a smile. "Pregnant." Veitch looked shocked, then worried, and that made her laugh. They retired to The Green Man where Church, Tom and Max had a steadying drink and Ruth attempted to put a brave face on the end of her life.
Witch's face never flickered when they told him what they had learned, but Church knew he would never forget the look buried deep in the Londoner's eyes; it was the mark of someone who had discovered there wasn't a God. Veitch took a drink, put his arm round Ruth, cracked a joke and said they'd find a solution-they always did; all the right noises. But that deep look never went away. Church wondered how Veitch would cope the closer it got to Lughnasadh; and what his response would be if that terrible decision had to be taken.
The mood remained sombre while they caught up over drinks. Shavi's account of what had taken place in the village left the returnees horrified. Max looked dazed, then queasy. "I've known Sir Richard since I've been here. All those others too. I can't say I ever really got on with them, but I thought we were all coming from the same place. And I'm supposed to be a trained observer and a good judge of character." Despite the shock, his spirits soon raised as they always seemed to, and it wasn't long before he was feverishly scribbling everything down in his notebook.
Their attention turned to Witch's success in uncovering the deception. His ears coloured when Church congratulated him effusively; he looked genuinely touched by the praise.
"And I always thought he'd been clouted with the stupid stick," Laura said. "Looks like I'll have to find some other insults. Good job there's a long list." She was getting braver once more; and Veitch, for his part, seemed to take her words in good humour.
"But you haven't told us what happened to Sir Richard," Church said. "You couldn't really take him to the cops, could you?"
Shavi and Laura watched Veitch intently. "I convinced the bastard to leave town," Veitch replied coldly.
Finally it was time to go. Max offered them his car, an act of generosity that brought a warm hug from Ruth and a back-slap from Veitch, but Church knew the police would be watching for it. After a heated discussion they decided to make their way on foot across the deserted countryside far away from the roads, cities and towns, despite the dangers that might lie away from the centres of population; it would give them a better chance of evading the Fomorii while they decided what to do next.
It was midafternoon and still unbearably hot when they left the cool confines of the pub. There was still plenty of the day left to put them deep into the heart of the wild upland country. They shook Max's hand, waved to Geordie, who grunted gruffly, and then they wound their way wearily towards the horizon.