Karl stood up, his arm ablaze, then his shoulder, as the flames started to envelop him, burning his flesh and drawing from him agonising howls of pain as he thrashed around on the fuel-soaked floor. Priest lifted Julian and hauled him off the altar just as the fire caught the end of the cloth.

‘No!’ screamed Karl, lurching forward. ‘Let them go!’

Priest kicked out and caught him in the chest, sending him sprawling backwards and skidding across the pool of fire. The flames danced around him. He was soon swathed by the heart of the blaze, his shrieks of pain and anger echoing around the stone walls.

Slinging Julian over his shoulder he made to grab Elinor but, with Julian’s dead weight getting in the way, he couldn’t lift her so easily. The best he could do was fall backwards, dragging the bodies with him and only just in time as the fire ravaged the altar, growing stronger and more intense with every moment that passed.

He dragged Elinor and Julian to the far corner. The fire seemed to spread faster down the northern side of the church, ripping into the velvet curtain across the vestry door – the flames now as high as the windows. The heat was excruciating and Priest sank back against the wall as far as he could get but already he could feel the skin around his face burning.

He held up his arm to protect himself but there was nothing he could do. He was trapped. The fire had already reached the back of the church. He was hunched against the wall in the only area that hadn’t been touched by the inferno, desperately clinging to Elinor and Julian, but whether they were alive or dead he had no idea.

This is it. The day of reckoning. My own personal rapture.

He gasped for air. If the flames weren’t going to kill him then the smoke would surely choke him. Great waves of thick, black fumes rolled over him and as his brain started to shut down it appeared as though a flock of ravens were shrieking in anger as they circled overhead.

For a second he lost his vision. The church was black. Karl’s screams had morphed into a blood-curdling howl, until eventually he was silent and the only sound was the roar of the fire and the crackle of burning flesh.

He closed his eyes. He saw Jessica’s face and she was mouthing something at him.

His name?

‘Priest!’

The sound of the fire was deafening, but there it was again.

‘Priest!’

He opened his eyes. Rowlinson looked as though, somehow, he was embedded in the wall, his body extended towards him, hand outstretched, calling his name.

How is he doing that?

He lifted his arm, it felt like it weighed a tonne. Couldn’t do it. And the image of Rowlinson wasn’t real. It was nothing but a mirage.