by M E. Holley
A woman put her arms round Megan’s mother comfortingly, as the demon crowed with glee and leaped up and down on the girl’s back. The Night Creatures on the roof hopped around, screeching with delight, as they watched. They jabbered at each other and then they all swung down from the porch and the guttering, bounded about among the squealing crowd and grabbed at people’s clothes with their skinny little grey fingers. Children in the crowd screamed in panic and men were trying to push frightened women out of the way, as the grotesque little fiends herded them away from the gate and the wall that ran beside the lane.
Erin clutched Jonah’s sleeve, as they stood wondering which way to run. Claire and Gwen peered from behind the huge yew tree. When they saw that there were no demons near the church porch, they rushed across the grass towards the children.
‘Quick,’ gasped Gwen. ‘Slip away to the corner of the graveyard there, behind the church, and get over the wall into the field. Then we can run for home. You two go first. Quick now, before any of those things see you.’
‘Yes, go on. Hurry,’ urged Claire, giving Jonah a push. ‘We’ll be right behind you.’
Jonah took one last glance at the chaos among the gravestones. Through people’s legs he could just make out Gethin, jerking on the ground. It reminded him how he shook, when the wolf had bitten him. Suddenly, he realised just what they had to do.
‘Just a minute. I’ve got an idea.’
‘No, Jonah. There’s no time. We must get away while we can.’ Claire took his shoulders and urged him towards the field wall. He twisted away from her.
‘No, not yet. There’s something we have to do.’ He grabbed Erin’s arm and pulled her along the path..
‘Jonah! Come back!’ Claire threw up her hands and the two women groaned with frustration.
At the corner of the church, he turned urgently to Erin. ‘How does the spell work? What do you have to say?’
She looked puzzled for a second and then her eyes lit up. ‘Oh, yeah. That’s it! That’ll get rid of them. Oh, brilliant, Jonah!’ She bit her lip in thought. ‘I think it goes...’
‘That’s no good,’ Jonah interrupted. ‘It’s too chancy. If we don’t say it right, it probably won’t work. We’d better go in the church and learn it. Quick.’
‘You do that. I’ll get Mike. If he’s who we think, he’ll know how to use it.’
While Erin ran towards the back of the church, Jonah looked around to for Night Creatures. Seeing that there weren’t any close to the church, he ran towards the south door. He peered over the gate into the porch and squinted up at its ceiling. The porch was empty. No fiends there.
‘Jonah!’ Erin was rushing back along the path. ‘He’s not there. Mike’s not there. Did you see him come back?’
Jonah shook his head and scanned all the people backed behind the gravestones. ‘He’s not here. We’d be able to see him if he was. He’s taller than most people.’ He turned to Erin. ‘What are we going to do?’
She bit her lip and then slapped her hand against her head. ‘Oh, I’m dim! Of course. We need the vicar! He’ll know it off by heart. Won’t be a tick.’ And she sprinted off across the grass, without looking to see where the Night Creatures were, and nearly colliding with Mr Vaughan, as the vicar hurried towards the church.
‘Jonah’s got an idea to frighten them off,’ she burst out. ‘The spell on the wall. It’s to use against demons, isn’t it?’
‘Yes,’ said the vicar, his face brightening. ‘Well done! Quick. Come with me.’
‘But— ’ Erin waved towards Megan and Gethin.
‘No, I can’t just say the prayer. There’s more to it than that,’ gasped Mr Vaughan. ‘You’ll see in a minute.’
He seized Erin’s arm and they ran towards the church door. Jonah was standing in the nave looking up at the framed explanation of the ancient spell, repeating it to himself. The vicar hurried into the vestry and came back with some sheets of paper and a couple of pens.
‘What we have to do,’ he said, carefully folding the paper, ‘is copy out the Abracadabra spell.’ He looked hard at Jonah. ‘If you would help me, I won’t have to waste precious time explaining to anyone else. But it might be dangerous.’
‘Doesn’t matter. I’ll help,’ Jonah blurted out. ‘I’ll be OK.’
‘I will, too,’ said Erin eagerly.
‘Right,’ said Mr Vaughan. ‘Come and look.’
They went to stand in front of a framed explanation of the ancient spell. The word Abracadabra was written to make a triangle:
ABRACADABRA ABRACADABR ABRACADAB ABRACADA ABRACAD ABRACA ABRAC ABRA ABR AB A ‘We need to copy it out exactly as it is on the wall,’ the vicar explained, beginning to write, ‘on five separate pieces of paper. We know that there was a terrible plague, in 1665 I think, and people wore the charm, folded up as an amulet. They had it round their necks to keep themselves safe against infection. We’ll make amulets, too.’ He stopped and thought for a moment. ‘I don’t think there’s any string in the vestry, though. We’ll have to find another way of hanging them round the children’s necks.’
‘Would it work if we fixed the charms to their clothing instead? Safety pins or paper clips?’
‘I don’t see why not. Good idea, Jonah. I know, we could use sticky tape. I think there’s some in the cupboard in the vestry. Could you have a look, Erin?’
She nodded and shot off towards the vestry door. Mr Vaughan turned to Jonah. ‘Then, and this is the dangerous bit, we have to somehow get past that creature and put them on the young people’s clothes. We’ll protect ourselves with them, too. Can you each write one out, while I do the others?’
Erin was soon back with a roll of tape. Working as fast and as neatly as they could, they wrote out the charms and stuck a long piece of tape to each one.
‘Don’t let the other end get stuck on the paper,’ warned the vicar. ‘Now, each of you put one on the front of your tee-shirt. So the demons can see them. That’s right.’
In a few moments, they were running back towards the two unconscious children. The big demon kept rushing at the appalled group of people watching helplessly nearby and then sprang back to its victims. The other creatures crowed with joy as they made little shrieking dashes that scattered the crowd. Rhodri and Ted, armed with branches broken out of the hedge, were trying to drive the big one off but just as Mr Vaughan and the children ran up, it spat vile green phlegm into Ted’s face. He gasped with pain and clawed at his eyes as the Night Creature grabbed Gethin by his ankle, digging its horny nails into his flesh until the blood ran, and began to tug him across the grass.
The onlookers scattered to make room as Mr Vaughan walked up to the demon, the spell taped to his shirt. He looked calm and determined. He and the Night Creature locked eyes for a second. Then, as it snarled and tensed to spring, Mr Vaughan’s voice rang out across the churchyard, ‘O Lord, we beseech thee for mercy. Grant that this holy charm ABRACADABRA may cure thy servants Megan and Gethin from all evil spirits and from all their diseases. Amen.’
The demon hissed and crouched possessively over Gethin, staring up at the vicar. Jonah seized his opportunity, while the creature was preoccupied, and moved quietly behind it. He lowered himself to the ground beside Megan carefully, hoping that he would not alert any of the other fiends. Then he tried to fasten the spell on her tee-shirt. It was awkward to stick it to the fabric and he was scared that the Night Creature would turn round and see what he was doing. It made his fingers feel clumsy. As he struggled to secure it properly, the demon turned and saw him. It screamed with rage and ran at him. Jonah jumped to his feet and held his own tee-shirt out, so that the creature could see the charm-paper.
‘O Lord, we beseech thee for mercy,’ he began. ‘Grant – er – grant…’ He began to falter but Mr Vaughan’s strong voice joined in, ‘Grant that this holy charm ABRACADABRA may cure thy servants Megan, Gethin and Jonah from all evil spirits and from all their diseases. Amen.’
As they repeated the prayer, a woman he
lped the vicar put a charm-paper on Gethin’s shirt. The demon visibly shrank and began to gibber, covering its eyes with its clawed hands. The creature quailed and then lurched at the villagers. As they jumped out of its way, it raced back towards the drainpipe on the church wall, where it hung swearing and hissing with rage. Enraged and frustrated, the other little fiends scurried back to the church roof where they yowled and screamed abuse. The vicar looked down in distress at the two children on the ground, who were still jerking and shuddering. Megan’s mother was on her knees, stroking Megan’s cheek with trembling fingers.
‘We need an ambulance!’ she cried, looking up wildly.
‘My husband’s gone to bring up the Range Rover,’ said a kindly-looking woman. ‘Don’t you worry. He’ll have them over to Kington Hospital in a few minutes.’
A man and a red-haired woman edged through the crowd and bent over Gethin. The man looked over his shoulder at the anxious people around him. ‘I think he’s coming round,’ he muttered. Gethin moaned faintly. His eyelids fluttered and he opened his eyes. At first, he stared upwards unblinkingly, as if he could not see. His mother gripped her husband’s hand, biting her lip.
‘Gethin,’ said his father softly. ‘We’re here, son. You’re going to be all right.’ His voice trembled.
Then Gethin turned his head slightly and seemed to focus on his father’s face. ‘Dad,’ he whispered groggily. He lay quietly for a moment and then his eyes opened wide, as his memory seemed to return. He reached out for his mother’s hand. ‘I saw terrible things,’ he whispered in a frightened voice. ‘I saw—’ he faltered, as if he could not find the right words. He began to shake uncontrollably. Jonah gazed at him sympathetically. He guessed just what Gethin had seen.
The Reverend Vaughan joined the children and laid a hand on Jonah’s arm. ‘Well done, you two,’ he said. ‘That was quick thinking.’
The vicar’s last words were drowned in an explosion of sound from beyond the wall. Then there was another immense roar and a great sheet of flame shot upwards from the woodland.
CHAPTER 14
THE AWAKENING
As tongues of fire streaked above the trees, the slates on the church seemed to shiver and billow. Suddenly, the roof was alive again with swarms of scrawny fiends, leaping over the slates, gibbering and squawking, and making lewd gestures at the horrified people. Everyone scrambled away from the church. A young man tapped Rhodri’s arm.
‘Don’t look round too quickly,’ Jonah heard him say in a low voice, ‘but we are being surrounded.’ He gave a slight nod towards the bushes overhanging the old wall separating Cascob churchyard from the hilly field on the western side of the church. Rhodri and Jonah followed his gaze and saw a couple of grey forms slide through the undergrowth. At the same time, they both caught a quick glimpse of a figure in a long, hooded robe, who slipped out of sight down the hill.
‘Who was that?’ asked Jonah. ‘He’s a bit brave!’
‘Or bloody stupid,’ said Rhodri. ‘He’ll get killed, if he’s not careful.’
Erin let out a squeak and put her hands over her mouth.
‘Looked like a monk,’ said the other man, ‘but I don’t think it could have been. There’s no monastery or anything round here.’
On the far side of the slope, another wolf loped away.
The man leaned over to mutter in Rhodri’s ear. ‘They’re not real wolves, are they?’
‘No. Like Mike said, they are demons,’ Rhodri said. ‘Oh, Duw, what next? This is awful. I can’t see how we can get rid of them...’
As he raised his voice to be heard over the thunderous noise from the woods, a pearly radiance flickered in the east and began to grow in strength. Gradually, shining ribbons of light, gauzy rose and blue and soft gold, began to dance in the sky. The light shimmered, expanding and contracting, weaving across the sky in glowing folds. On the church, the demons howled in anger, hissing and spitting as they stared at the glimmering sky.
‘Is it the Aurora Borealis?’ someone gasped.
‘The Northern Lights!’ people were telling each other. ‘It’s the Northern Lights.’
Everyone looked up in wonder as the wavering light billowed above them, seeming now to advance and now recede. As the crowd gazed, they began to make out transparent shapes glowing in the pulsing colours.
‘It’s a message,’ somebody said.
‘No! Look!’ Jonah was staring up in excitement. ‘Look! It’s not the Northern Lights. They are angels!’ And he raised his arms to the sky, shouting with excitement.
The angels’ vast wings beat gently in the streams of radiance. Their soft robes flowed around them and bright hair blew back from faces that had an unearthly beauty. Almost without being aware of what they were doing, the villagers began to kneel down, as they gazed upwards. The demons moaned as they cowered on the tiles. From the centre of the host of angels, a great winged form moved slowly earthward in a ring of light. The angel’s luminous hair blew about his head and a huge golden scabbard was belted on to his billowing robe. Jonah was staring up at the being’s face. His heart seemed to beat so hard, he felt as if his chest would burst.
‘It’s Mike, Erin! It’s Mike. Look!’ he shouted. But even then, he could hardly believe it was real. He turned to Erin, laughing in excitement. ‘Mike is the Archangel! He is Saint Michael.’ He shook her arm but she was rooted to the spot, staring at Mike with her mouth open. Jonah shook her again. He was almost dancing with excitement. ‘Erin, he’s the Dragonslayer! He’s going to save us!’
The demons fled to the edge of the roof as the great angel descended and hovered over the church. As the people gazed up at him, Erin groaned.
‘Oh, no! Look at him. What’s happened to him?’
With dismay, Jonah saw that the angel’s hands and feet were skeletal, his great limbs frail and worn. As the young Mike Golding, he had looked strong and powerful but now the great Archangel appeared to be much older.
‘Why is he looking so old?’ Erin asked.
Jonah hesitated. ‘Maybe it’s like that bit in Peter Pan. You know. ‘Do you believe in fairies?’ If people don’t believe in them, the fairies can’t live on.’
‘He’s not a fairy!’
‘I know that! I just meant perhaps it’s the same with angels. Maybe he’ll get stronger once people believe who he is.’
As Saint Michael came to hover above the church roof, a deafening roar, like the sound of a huge furnace, came from the west.
Flames shot above the earth until a curtain of fire and smoke screened the forest. There was a terrible cracking, tearing sound, and then Jonah heard an ear-splitting shriek over the noise of the roaring flames. There was a sound as if an army was pounding up the slope from the woods and, then, into the sky shot a gigantic winged shape, glowing red-bronze. Fire shot from its open mouth. Everybody screamed and threw themselves down on the ground. They lay there cowering, appalled, as the colossal beast seemed to block the sun.
Lazily, the Last Great Dragon of Wales swept about the sky above their heads, occasionally belching out tongues of flame. Hardly daring to look upwards through the smoke, Jonah and Erin could just see the light from the east glinting on its massive bronze scales and wicked claws. Around them, on the ground, everyone seemed paralysed with fear. Even the Night Creatures on the church were motionless and the wolves had stopped howling.
Frantically Jonah pulled Erin down behind a gravestone and
they peered up into the billowing smoke. They could hardly see the angels. The choking clouds coming from the dragon’s mouth had almost blotted out their glowing light. Jonah could feel Erin trembling and saw that his own hands were shaking, too. The dragon sailed up the valley and then, suddenly, it turned, raced back across the sky and whipped its great barbed tail about, striking viciously at the Archangel. Saint Michael swept out of range. His hands went to his scabbard and grimly he drew out the massive golden sword, but it seemed to the terrified onlookers that the angel was trembling with the strain.
‘Look,’ Erin whimpered, ‘the demons are moving on the roof. Oh, Jonah, they’re going to come down again! I don’t think the spell will work on them all at once. They’ll hurt us. And I ‘m not sure Saint Michael can help now. We’ve got to get out of here!’
They grabbed each other’s hand tightly, as the dragon turned and flew west, over the Radnor Forest.
‘Wait till it’s out of sight. When nothing is looking this way,’ Jonah muttered, ‘we’ll run for it! Wait till I say “go” and then run as fast as you can. OK?’
Erin nodded and squeezed his hand. They were crouching, tense and ready to run, when they heard a scraping sound and a huge grey wolf bounded on to the churchyard wall. Jonah winced as Erin’s fingers dug into him. More wolves with glaring yellow eyes slunk up and down the field. Sobbing with fright, people scrambled away from the church. The sky darkened again and smoke obscured the angelic radiance completely. A gigantic booming noise reverberated around the Radnor hills. The Last Great Dragon of Wales was laughing.
CHAPTER 15
ALPHA MALE
As the dragon circled the Forest again and the terrible laughter died away, pandemonium broke out. The crowd pelted towards the lych-gate, everyone struggling to push through. The wolves, snarling as they saw their prey beginning to escape, raced up and down beside the churchyard wall to find crumbling places where they could scramble over. Jonah pulled Erin to her feet.