‘And you thought what exactly?’ the wasp said, all those creases frowning as one. ‘Did you think that you would be safe here of all places?’

‘But you…’ Ben stuttered, looking at those surrounding him. ‘How are you outside after dark? Is it over?’

The wasp stared at him, contemplating the question. There wasn’t a whisper from those who only moments ago couldn’t hold their sanity together.

‘Is it over?’ he imitated before cackling to himself.

Such a scurrilous, cruel laugh that Ben shifted in front of Chloe to shield her from whatever the man was planning.

‘It will never be over,’ the wasp said. ‘As long as we believe, then he will never die.’

The villagers watched from the shadows of their cowls like a ring of gargoyles. Imprisoned for centuries, with every generation becoming something less as the years chipped away at their minds and bodies, until this was what they had become.

‘Sparling sent you,’ the wasp said, ‘always two, every two years. Never was a man so predictable.’

‘You know Alec Sparling?’ Ben asked him.

‘Know him?’ the wasp scoffed. ‘His family once counted amongst ours. He keeps hoping that one day we’ll all forget and that he’ll go away.’

‘Sparling told us everything,’ Ben said. ‘We know what happened here.’

‘It wouldn’t be like the man to speak of such things.’

‘I know that it was his family who exposed the creeper. He warned everyone who lived here. He didn’t know any better. He told them all about him. He doomed your families to this life.’

‘Doomed us?’ the wasp repeated, brandishing his mouth of maggoty teeth. ‘He opened our eyes to the truth. For so long he had led our families astray, reciting the lies of a false prophet, guiding our prayers towards a God that did not listen, one that did not care. No, he didn’t doom us, boy. Tell me, what does Sparling believe happened to his ancestor all those years ago?’

Ben had to brush the dust from his memory. Had Sparling elaborated on the priest’s death? He looked to Chloe for an answer but she shook her head.

‘How could Sparling know?’ the wasp sneered. ‘His family fled Tír Mallacht before the man met his fate. Let me tell you, no man of God has any place here.’

‘They burned him alive,’ Chloe said, staring the man down through her tears.

A sickening smile stretched across the wasp’s face. ‘Stories say he prayed until the end, even as the flaming thatch fell from above. He pleaded for mercy, to be forgiven, but our families had heeded his lies for long enough.’

‘The villagers killed him?’ Ben asked in disbelief.

‘We had to prove that our faith was true,’ the wasp replied. ‘And since that—’

‘Who did you have to prove it to?’ Chloe yelled.

His dark eyes locked upon her. The man was not given to being interrupted.