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    "You knew!" Whitney was yelling. "You brought us into Hell!" Maeve could see him now, moving between the trees, calling after his quarry into the shadows.
    "O'Connell? O'Connell! You'll burn in a lake of fire for this. Burn and burn and-"
    He stopped; swung round, his eyes finding Maeve with terrible speed. Before she could retreat, he yelled: "I see you! Come out, you little bitch!"
    Maeve had no choice. He had her in the sights of his rifle. And now, as she approached him between the trees, she saw that he was not alone. Sheldon Sturgis and Pottruck were just a few yards from him. Sturgis was crouched against a tree, terrified of something in the branches above him, where his rifle was pointed. Pottruck was watching Whitney's antics with a bemused expression on his oafish face.
    "O'Connell?" Whitney yelled. "I got your little girl here." He adjusted his aim, squinting for accuracy. "I got her right between the eyes if I pull the trigger. An' I'm going to do it. Hear me, O'Connell?"
    "Don't shoot," Sturgis said. "You'll bring it back."
    "It'll come anyway," Whitney said. "O'Connell sent it to fetch our souls."
    "Oh Jesus Christ in Heaven-" Sturgis sobbed. "Stand right there," Whitney said to Maeve. "And you call to your Daddy and you tell him to keep his demon away from us or I'll kill you."
    "He hasn't-hasn't got any demons," Maeve said. She didn't want Whitney to know that she was afraid, but she couldn't help herself. Tears came anyway.
    "You just tell him," Whitney said, "you just call." He pushed the rifle in Maeve's direction, so that it was a foot from her face. "If you don't I'll kill you. You're the Devil's child's what you are. Ain't no crime killing muck like you. Go on. Call him."
    "Papa?"
    "Louder!"
    "Papa?"
    There was no reply from the shadows. "He doesn't hear me.
    "I hear you, child," said her father. She looked towards his voice and there he was, coming towards her out of the murk.
    "Drop your rifle!" Pottruck yelled to him. Even as he did, the trumpets began again, louder than ever. The music clutched at Maeve's heart with such force she started to gasp for breath.
    "What's wrong?" she heard her father say, and glanced back in his direction to see him start towards her.
    "Stay where you are!" Whitney yelled, but her father kept running. There was no second warning. Whitney simply fired, not once but twice. One bullet struck him in the shoulder, the other in the stomach. He stumbled on towards her, but before he could take two strides, his legs gave out beneath him, and he fell down.
    "Papa!" she yelled, and would have gone to him, but then the trumpets began another volley, and as their music rose up in her, bursts of white light blotted out the world, and she dropped to the ground in a swoon.
    "I hear it coming-"
    "Shut up, Sturgis."
    "It is! It's coming again. Whitney! What do we do?"
    Sturgis's shrill shouts pricked Maeve awake. She opened her eyes to see her father lying where he had fallen. He was still moving, she saw, his hands clutching rhythmically at his belly, his legs twitching.
    "Whitney!" Sturgis was screaming. "It's coming back."
    She could not see him from where she lay, but she could hear the thrashing of the branches, as though the wind had suddenly risen.
    Whitney was praying.
    "Our Lord, who art in Heaven-,, Maeve moved her head a little, in the hope of glimpsing the trio without drawing attention to herself. Whitney was on his knees, Sturgis was cowering against the tree, and Pottruck was staring up into the canopy waving wildly: "Come on, you fucking shit! Come on!"
    Certain she was forgotten, Maeve got to her feet cautiously, reaching out to grab hold of the nearest tree trunk for support. She looked back to her father, who had raised his head a couple of inches off the ground and was staring at Pottruck as he fired up into the thrashing branches.
    Sturgis yelled, "Christ, no!," Whitney started to rise from his kneel, and in that same moment, a form that Maeve's bewildered eyes