off the wheat field. It might be a sobering thought that, once you were on this side of the church, you were completely screened from the road and any passing traffic, but the vicar didn’t have time to think about that. He rounded the final corner and strode several yards along the south-side path, before stopping dead.
A man with longish red hair, wearing patchwork green/brown khaki, was striking with a wood-axe at the vestry door. He grunted with each stroke, splinters flying, going at it with such gusto that he’d already chopped a hole in the middle of the door, and very likely would soon have the whole thing down.
The soles of the vicar’s black leather shoes had made barely a sound on the worn paving stones, but the man in khaki had heard him; he lowered his axe and turned.
The mask he wore had been chiselled from wood and depicted a goat’s face – but it was a demonic kind of goat, with a humanoid grin and horns that curled fantastically. The worst thing about it, though, was real: the eyes peering out through the holes notched for them were entirely human, and yet they burned with living hatred.
The man came down the step from the door and approached, axe held loosely at his side. The vicar stood his ground and spoke boldly.
‘What are you doing here? Why are you damaging church property?’
‘You know what we’re doing here, shaman!’ a voice said from his right.
He glanced sideways: three more figures had risen into view, each from behind a different headstone. They too largely wore green; he saw old ragged jumpers, ex-military combat jackets. They too were masked: a toad, a boar, a rabbit, each one decked with additional monstrous features, and each with the same hate-filled eyes glaring out.
The vicar kept his voice steady. ‘I asked what you are doing here?’
‘You know the answer, you holier-than-thou prick!’ said a voice from behind.
When the vicar spun backwards, a fifth figure had emerged around the corner of the church. This one also wore green, but with brown leather over the top. His wooden mask depicted a wolf, and as he advanced, he drew a heavy blade from a scabbard at his belt; a hunting knife honed to lethal sharpness.
The vicar looked again at the threesome in the graveyard; Toad now smacked a knotty club into his gloved left palm; Rabbit unhooked a coil of rope from his shoulder; Boar hefted a canister of petrol.
‘In the name of God,’ the vicar said, ‘don’t do this.’
‘We don’t recognise your god,’ Wolf replied.
‘Look … you don’t know what you’re doing.’
‘Oh, very good,’ Wolf sniggered, as they closed in. ‘Very fucking saintly.’
‘This is sanctified ground,’ the vicar advised them. ‘Use more blasphemies here, and I’ll be forced to chastise you.’
‘Really?’ Wolf was so surprised by that, that he almost came to a halt. ‘I can’t wait to see how you do it.’
‘I warn you, friends …’ The vicar pivoted around. ‘I’m no martyr.’
‘Funnily enough,’ Wolf sneered, ‘the ones before you didn’t go willingly to it, either.’
‘Ah, now I know who you are,’ the vicar said.
‘Always a good thing to know thine enemies.’
‘You’re on your final warning.’
‘Perhaps your god will strike us down?’ Wolf was only five or so yards away. ‘Maybe throw a thunderbolt this fine summer evening.’
The vicar nodded solemnly. ‘I fear one’s coming right now.’
A rasping chuckle sounded behind the lupine mask. ‘You’ve got balls, I’ll give you that.’
‘I also have this.’
From out of his trouser pocket, the cleric drew an extendable autolock baton, which, with a single jerk of his brawny wrist, he snapped open to its full twenty-one inches.
Before Wolf could respond, the baton had struck him across the mask in a backhand thwack. The carved wood cracked as Wolf’s head jerked sideways and he tottered, dropping his knife. As the rest came to a startled halt, the vestry door burst inward and the figure of a man exploded out, launching at Goat from behind. This figure was neither as tall nor as broad as the vicar, just over six feet and of average build, with a mop of dark hair. He wore blue jeans and a blue sweatshirt with a police-issue stab vest over the top, but he also carried an extended baton, which he brought down in a furious, angled swipe at the elbow joint of Goat’s right arm.
The axe clattered to the floor as the target yelped in disbelieving pain. He grappled with his injured joint, only for a kick in the backside to send him sprawling onto his face. His assailant leapt onto him from behind, knees-first, crushing the air from his lungs.
The vicar swung to face Toad, Boar and Rabbit, holding aloft a leather wallet, displaying his warrant card. ‘Detective Inspector Reed, Serial Crimes Unit!’ he bellowed. ‘You’re all under arrest on suspicion of murdering John Strachan, Glyn Thomas and Michaela Hanson!’
Wolf fled towards the southwest corner of the church, only to slam head-on into another huge figure, this one even more massive than the vicar. He too wore jeans and chest armour, and he greeted Wolf with a forearm smash to the throat.
As Wolf went down, gagging, a deep Welsh voice asked him: ‘What time is it, Mr Wolf? Time you weren’t here? Too bloody late for that, boyo.’
The other three ran energetically towards the boundary fence, only to be stunned by the sight of more police officers, some in uniform and some in plain clothes, all armoured, rising from the wheat and spreading into a skirmish line.
‘You don’t have to say anything,’ Reed intoned, watching the fleeing trio as, one by one, they were overpowered, unmasked and clapped into handcuffs, ‘but it may harm your defence if you do not mention when questioned something you may later rely on in court. Anything you do say may be given in evidence.’
‘You’re also under arrest for being a sacrilegious little fuck,’ the big Welsh cop whispered, leaning into Wolf as he fastened his hands behind his back.
‘We don’t fear your god,’ Wolf hissed in an agonised voice.
‘You shouldn’t.’ The Welsh cop yanked the fractured mask off the lean, sweaty features underneath. ‘My God’s merciful. Problem you’ve got, boyo, is … there’s a long, hard road before you get to Him.’
Beside the vestry door, the cop in blue snapped a pair of cuffs onto Goat, who, without his mask, was gaunt and pale, his carroty red hair hanging in lank strands as he cowered there.
‘Get up,’ the cop said, standing. His accent was Northwest England.
‘Shit … think you …’ Goat’s voice became whiny, frantic. ‘Think you broke my arm.’
‘No, I didn’t … just whacked you on a nerve cluster.’ The cop kicked him. ‘Get up.’
‘Can’t feel
