Then suddenly it was pitch dark again. Silence, not even an engine ticking over idly. Even the wind seemed to have dropped.
Peter reached the window and stood there looking out into the blackness of a mountain night. He saw only shooting lights like the magnificence of an aurora borealis as his eyes rebelled against the alternating brilliance and darkness. No, he hadn't dreamed it, because he could still feel the searing pain in his pupils, and see a kaleidoscope of colours that threatened to blind him.
And then the light was back again, a single white beam that hit him with the force of a water cannon, and made him stagger back and cover his eyes with his hands. Christ alive, what the hell was going on out there?
He stood back and forced himself to look. The light wasn't coining from the adjoining lane, that was a certainty. It came from somewhere on the fields above—which explained how it came to be directed down into the bedroom. A stationery vehicle (a Land Rover?) was parked downhill. It was deliberate aggro to stop him from getting to sleep, a continuation of everything that had happened so far. Wear him down, drive him out.
Peter found his clothes before the light went out again and the darkness plunged back, and struggled into them with an urgency fired by anger. Those bastards were back again, the ones who had killed the cat and the rabbit, and burned the trees in the circle. Well, spooks didn't use Land Rovers or high-powered lights! He'd go out there, take a look and possibly get the number of the Land Rover. That was all he needed: some evidence so that the police could take action and put a stop to it once and for all.
He grabbed the duffle coat on his way out, noticing that the atmosphere didn't feel cold any more. A typical still November night. He carried his torch but he didn't use it, not wanting to give his position away. The light would come on again for sure before long, but in the meantime he was familiar enough with the sheep track that led up towards the stone circle.
A strange sensation of timelessness in a dark empty world, walking through eternity, a black void which went on and on, that this was how it would be forever. Maybe it was a dream and he'd wake up and—
A sudden shaft of white light blasted the darkness, a beam that came from beyond the fire-devastated trees and swung across the night sky like a searchlight seeking out enemy which looked down on the old druid circle when the landscape was plunged back into darkness.
He found himself crouching, moving forwards on tip-toe, the only sound the thumping of his heart and the racing of his pulses. A brief moment of fear, but he swamped it with anger. Whatever these people were doing, whoever they were, they were in for one helluva shock!
He had just topped the rise when the hillside was lit up again, this time with all the brightness of seaside illuminations. He saw every detail with the clarity of an artist's sketch laid out before him: a stark black and white landscape and the horrific scarred pines seeming to move, to beckon him, the dark mass of the forest above an army on the march, the forces of evil gathering to launch an assault now that the apocalypse was nigh.
Not just one light now; two, three. Criss-crossed beams latticed the pastureland, terrifying in their total silence like a wartime commando manoeuvre. Peter shielded his eyes and tried to pinpoint the source of the lights, but beyond them was a thick curtain of darkness.
He advanced, smelling the rancid odour of dead ash and feeling it crumbling beneath his feet. His brain was working fast, outlining a plan of action. Where there were lights there were men; he must single one out, approach furtively and surprise him. Or should he go back and call the police? No, the phone was dead and if he used the Saab the men would hear it and disappear whence they had come. There was only one course of action open to Peter, except for skulking in the cottage—and he wasn't going to do that. There were a few scores to be settled and right now he was in the mood for doing just that.
He could sense rather than hear somebody moving about, a kind of stirring of the atmosphere that had him glancing around trying to figure out from which direction it came. There was total blackness again, which didn't help. Peter found himself crouching down, trying to hold his breath. Waiting.
Then something else occurred to him, something which he had previously overlooked in his search for for a reason behind these goings-on. A black-magic covern! Of course, it had to be that. The setting was right: a remote druid circle that had seen atrocities in the past. Two animal sacrifices. Now they were up to something else.
His mouth was very dry. Not that he believed in all this occult nonsense, but these people could be very dangerous. They needed to scare off the Foggs so they could continue with their rituals in peace. Mentally Peter found himself apologising to Ruskin, and to Bostock and Peters as well, although not wholly to the Wilsons after what they'd done to Gavin. But they certainly weren't the kind to get mixed up in this kind of hocus-pocus. He wondered why he hadn't thought of it before.
The coven had done their best to scare Peter tonight. Maybe they knew Janie and Gavin had already left and this was a determined effort to send him in their wake. Cut the telephone wire, shine powerful hand-lamps, the kind that worked off a heavy-duty battery and had a range of several hundred yards, into his bedroom, and if that didn't work . . .
One light came on about two hundred yards beyond the circle, then went off again. Another much nearer replaced it for a few seconds, then it went back to total darkness. Some kind of signalling?
Peter's eyes were flashing again in the dark, a blaze of painful colours. His head was aching with a dull throbbing that had him wincing. Then he heard something, a definite sound this time, maybe a foot crunching on dry stone and ash. Whiding, torch at the ready, thumb on the push-button switch, he hesitated because one flash of light would give him away.
And then the light hit him, a blinding devastating white beam that caught him full in the face, making him stagger back and throw up his arms to cover his face. He heard his own torch fall and was groping on the ground for it when his skull seemed to explode in a myriad of stars.
Lights of ail colours, flashing fluorescent daggers, stabbed into his brain and brought a cry of agony from his lips. The blaze of brightness began to dim, the pain escalated and then numbed. Fading, red blending in to blackness.
Then nothing.
12
Peter regained consciousness in stages. His first recollection was one of waking and staring up into a darkened room, feeling ill in the same way as when he'd had measles as a boy, with a permanent headache, afraid of the light because it hurt his eyes.
Where the hell was he? This wasn't the bedroom and neither was he lying on a bed. A hard surface gouged his back and had him wriggling about in an attempt to find a more comfortable place. Sharp stones and ash clung to his skin, and made him cough. Then he remembered.
Men with powerful lamps; they'd known he would come, had spotted him all the way, their lights flashing to lure him where they wanted him, right here in this ancient druid circle, their killing ground.
He sat up. God, his head was threatening to split in two. He rubbed the back of his neck gingerly. Apart from the thumping headache and nausea, he was all right. They had not wanted to do any more than rough him up this time. Next time . . .
He groped around and after some time located his fallen torch. He checked it; it worked. Almost certainly his attackers had gone. Nevertheless he swung the beam round in a circle just to make sure.