‘I don’t like the fact that one can do this. Very few people know. Priests who apply to be the vicar of this parish are warned off it, and only if they persist are they told the nature of the geography here, and only if they then still persist are they trained to make use of it. Turns out I’m rather pig-headed. We’re told it’s for the health of London. There used to be some sort of body overseeing it, but for some reason no one now seems to know how to contact them. I’m quite interested to see whether it still works.’

‘Me too.’

She led him not inside the church, as he’d been expecting, but around it, to a side of the churchyard where there were no spotlights and the shadow of the building cut a straight line between light and absolute darkness. There they stopped. ‘Here we are.’

‘Have you done this before?’

‘Twice. My predecessor only did it once. Demand seems to be on the increase.’

He showed her the Bridge of Spikes. ‘I thought this was unique, or at least just once a century.’

‘It might be. I don’t know what it is.’ He quickly explained to her, and she raised an eyebrow. ‘In every previous case I’ve dealt with, and in all I’ve read, these are only visits. You think that this object offers … a permanent solution?’ She sounded not only dubious, but worried at the implications.

Costain found he was suddenly angry. But not at her. He could only hope he hadn’t sacrificed so much for something brief and terrible. ‘Whatever. Come on. Let’s do it.’

‘All right.’ She closed her eyes, said some prayers under her breath and made the sign of the cross. ‘If you know what to do with that thing, do it now.’

Costain took a deep breath. He only had a feeling for what had to be done. The sphere seemed to be telling him. If he was to use it on himself, this is what he’d have had to do at any point before he died. He supposed you could even do it way in advance. He put the sphere in the palm of his left hand, and then, decisively, crushed it in his grasp. For a moment, nothing happened, and then—

He stared in shock as he saw the spikes burst through his flesh. It was as if his hand had turned into a golden sea urchin, every spike dripping with blood.

Then the obvious agony of that hit him, and he had to fall to his knees. He grabbed his left wrist with his right hand, staring at it. Blood was gushing around the spikes now, surely from some major artery! He was panting. The meth both amplified the shock and deadened it, let him see past it. But … it was … only pain. He somehow knew he hadn’t been horribly wounded, that the Bridge had prevented that.