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While I had been in the back of the ambulance, everyone else, it appeared, had eaten, leaving me with my meal sitting under a layer of cling-film on the worktop. I was just reaching out to pick the plate up when Anna put a paw on my arm.

'You'll want to nuke that first.' She said.

'I'll. Want. To. Nuke. It.' I repeated, making quite sure that I had each word in the right place.

'Yes, you know, in the microwave.'

That came like the sunrise, everything slowly becoming clearer; the microwave, I still had to ask:

'Nuke it?'

'When Mum bought a microwave, apparently Grandma thought it was some kind of atomic device, I suppose it just stuck. Family weirdness.'

'Well, you've managed to survive my mother in your kitchen, and me having some kind of episode - you'll have to do better than that it you want to out weird me!'

The rest of the evening was as normal as we could make it. We even played a couple of board games, both of which I lost in spectacular fashion (even having resorted to blatant and obvious cheating). At about half past eleven, Harry, Kiniun and I left for the vicarage.

Despite the oppressive silence that still overshadowed the village, it was the first decent night's sleep I had been able to have in days.

That Sunday morning broke with no fanfare, there were no towering flame-red clouds; no ominous, stormy light, just the puttering of a tractor and the sound of a large bumble-bee bouncing off the window pane. It was all really quite innocent, sometimes the weather is rather lacking in a sense of drama. Rolling over, I looked at the ceiling and rubbed my eyes. Having done that, I held up my paws and stretched slightly. Quietly, I swung myself out of bed and got dressed. When it comes to Sunday mornings, I am a creature of habit: I am always out of the house by seven and in the church by quarter past.

The church was still cool and welcoming, it would have been nice to be able to say that in a few hours it would be bustling with animals, but it wouldn't. That did not truly matter, there was a faithful (if small) congregation. Walking along the nave, my claws clicking on the floor, I breathed in and out slowly, savouring the scents of the building: the musk of incense, the tangy flavour of teak oil from the pews - for me it was a little of what heaven could smell like. As with every other Sunday morning, I went straight to the organ and switched it on. The massive instrument came to life with a rumble from the blower motor and a gentle swishing, hissing sound as the air rushed through the hundreds of complex pipes and valves. Hitching up my cassock, I swung my legs over the organ bench and settled my foot paws lightly on the pedal board.

I watched closely as the air-pressure dial on the console reached its green section. Then I pulled out a couple of stops and played a few notes at random. Satisfied that the organ hadn't suddenly decided to disintegrate over the past week, I pulled out some more stops and flexed my paws over the manuals. Soon, I was lost in the music, my paws dancing up and down the manuals and the pedal board. So many animals I met were surprised at my passion for organ music, but spending a huge amount of time at university playing computer games really helped my dexterity. Soon, I was fooling about trying to work video game and film music in with hymn tunes. I had just blasted though a medley of the loudest organ pieces I could remember more than a few bars of, when I glanced at the time: it was, in fact, more than time I stopped and got the church ready for the Sunday service.

As it had been a few days before, the simple mundanities of setting the church up for the service helped to order my mind. Pottering back and forth from the sacristy to the altar was just the thing I had needed. That and a solid eight hours of sleep.

In spite of this, it was as if some rogue memory haunted my mind - things I could not remember, being remembered: a threatening presence within my very being. There came a feeling of overpowering worthlessness, of my very best not being good enough. A feeling of some entity that had seen things that history has forgotten. As sense that I was threatening its hold on the land. It was as if there were two voices fighting to be heard in my mind.

This confusion forced me to sit in one of the chairs by the altar. The feeling of co-habiting with something secretive and hidden in my own skull made me dizzy. With the church spinning around me, there was little I could do but sit and wait the dizzy spell out. Slowly, the dizziness cleared and I was just about in a fit state when the first of my parishioners walked through the door. It was Mrs Avis, she had been a stalwart of the church since, well, since before recorded history, it seemed. She was an old-fashioned old bird and was wearing a black mourning dress that had last been in fashion in 1894, nevertheless she seemed happier than the week before, her bright, beady eyes twinkling with suppressed laughter - as if she had just been told a slightly salacious joke.

'Good morning, Father.' She said.

'Good morning, Mrs Avis, I must say you're looking better than you did last week.'

'Thank you, Father, the doctor has changed my medication, I haven't been able to walk so well in years. Not since Harris fell ill.'

The old chicken bustled off towards the pews, ready to take up her role as undisputed queen of the hymn books. She deposited her bag in the rearmost pew and took station with hymn books and service sheets at the ready. Moments later, another of my regulars walked in, Mr Clydesdale. He was a gruff, no nonsense farmer who lived just the other side of the main road. From my main source of village gossip (Anna), it was commonly held that Clydesdale had been in some hush-hush specialist unit of the RIAF before coming to run his uncle's farm in the village. It wasn't beyond the realms of possibility, he looked as if he could push bricks out of a wall with very little effort.

He was a surprising horse, although he came across as gruff, deep-down he was a sensitive soul; the death of his wife a year ago had deeply affected him, and he had turned to me almost before I had been inducted to the parish. Over the months we had become firm friends, although I remained wary of his home-brew - it had something of a reputation.

'Morning Jerry.'

'Morning Francis, you look dog-rough.'

'That's a little personal, Jerry, and if I'm going to look anything, it's going to be dog-something.'

This elicited a laugh from the big horse, who patted me on the shoulder in, what was for him, a friendly manner - it sent me staggering slightly, my knees buckling under the blow. As I was regaining my balance, Clydesdale wandered down the nave.

Still weaving a little after Clydesdale's friendly gesture, I went and attempted to hide in the sacristy. This was to no avail as Mrs Avis bustled in shortly after I had closed the door. She hurried around the cluttered room muttering under her breath, her claws clicking and clattering on the stonework.

'What's the matter, Mrs Avis?'

'Somebody, and I think I know who, has moved the collection plates!' She said, righteous indignation tinging her voice. 'How am I supposed to take the collection without a collection plate?'

At times like this, the same thought always runs through my mind: put the pastoral face on, you can't laugh at parishioners.

'I don't know, Mrs Avis. Have you thought of checking the safe?'

There was some sotto voce grumbling and the creaking of the hinges as the safe door swung open; the cracked gold-coloured enamel logo proclaiming to the world that: _Horseman's Safes - guaranteed bomb-proof. _ There was further quiet grumbling and some clanking as Mrs Avis rattled through the safe's contents. Straightening up she stalked out of the sacristy clutching the brass collection plate.

'Collection plate in the safe... well.' Were her parting words.

Calm returned, Mrs Avis' chuntering gradually disappearing into the general background noise of parishioners arriving for the service. Seeing as my favourite chasuble was still at the dry cleaners' in Amblehead, I carefully removed the parish's green set of vestments from their drawer. It was of a much simpler design than my father's set of vestments - green silk with a darker green Chi-Rho symbol on the front and back. With a rustling of material, I brought the garment over my head and settled it into place.

As I was gazing absently into the mirror, Harry poked his head around the edge of the door.

'Are you alright, Nerd? We haven't seen you all morning.'

'I'm fine, I just came over here early. Was there anything else, Harry? Only...' I pointed a claw at the clock, '...it's time for Mass.'

He shook his head and disappeared. Breathing out slowly, I checked my reflection: ears the right way out? Yes. Chasuble not wonky? Yes. In the church the organist began to play, the swelling tones of the instrument filling my ears. Distantly, there came the sound of the church bells being rung down, the ringing being muffled by the organ. Standing at the back of the nave, I saw that the church was fuller than normal: normally it was possible to tell who was there by where they sat and the shapes of the backs of their heads. Today, the church was almost full. As usual, I reached up and gave the clapper of the sacristy bell a hefty flick with my paw: this produced a sonorous dong sound and the organ fell silent. Behind me, there was a quiet scuffling as the last of the bell-ringers came into the church, his tail brushing against me as he squeezed through the doorway.

I announced the processional hymn and there came a great rustling as animals stood and hunted in their hymn-books for the right page. The sound of a large group all turning the page at just about the same time always put me in mind of the distant crashing of waves on the seashore. The organ rumbled back into life, the organist playing with gusto, I must have chosen a particular favourite hymn of hers.

As is my wont, I walked down the nave with my eyes half closed, enjoying the feeling of the cool flagstones beneath my paws. Therefore, the shock of my life was waiting for me when I turned around at the chancel step to greet the congregation: Arthur Oxfold sitting in the front row of pews, large as life and twice as ugly (as my maternal grandmother was fond of saying). With (although I say it myself) a masterful display of self-control, I spread my paws wide:

'The Lord be with you.'

'And also with you.' Came the usual mumbled response.

We made our usual unhurried way through the liturgy - except for the fact that several animals in the congregation kept glancing at Oxfold. Everything went normally until I mounted the short flight of wooden steps to the pulpit. As I reached the top of the steps, Oxfold stood, the wood of the pew he had been sitting on groaning as his weight was taken off it.

Confused, all I could do was stare at the bull as he turned slowly in his place - looking around the congregation. Some of the members of the congregation shrank from his gaze; others, such as Harry, Kiniun, Anna and my mother, stared back. Having turned through a full circle, Oxfold stared up at me. His eyes burned with some internal fire that seemed to come from somewhere not of this world. I was transfixed, like something small and inoffensive caught in the headlights of a forty-ton lorry there was nothing I could do to escape. I coughed and shuffled my sermon notes, then Oxfold began to speak.

'To find you here is no surprise, Father.' He said, there was a hollowness to his voice that had replaced the politician's smoothness of our first meeting. 'Cowering in your pretty building, mouthing your weak and meaningless words. Leave.' His voice took on a deeper tone, dripping with malice. ' Do not suffer the same fate as your predecessors. Leave_now_. Look at this pointless priest and his little flock. What power do they have? This will not stand; no longer shall this husk of a Church hold any sway in this place.'

With that, he stopped speaking and swept out of the church, his cronies filing out after him. For a lingering moment, the building was filled with the re-echoing of his hooves on the flagstones and the threatening import of his words. The silence was broken by a cough. Shaking my head, trying to clear Oxfold's threats from my mind, I looked down at my sermon. The words on the page blurred and ran together - laying a paw on the pages, I looked out into the now (smaller) congregation. I had thought that I had just gone through the worst experience of my life until:

'Francis, don't scratch at your muzzle like that.'

There was nothing for it, I left the pulpit, sermon un-preached. There truly is no-one like my mother for a poorly timed remark. It left me wanting to curl up in a corner and whimper quietly for a while, but it also cut the tension in the church: a less than polite laugh ran around the congregation. The rest of the service was a blur to me, Oxfold's words, the jibes, the threats blotting everything else out. My memory returns at the sending out, the very end of the service. I stood on the chancel step, my back to the altar looking down the sunlight church; it was quite still - the only sound I could hear was the gentle hissing of the organ blower pump. As normal, I spread my paws wide before speaking the words of the blessing, then my vision began to swim: the church before me changed.

Gone was the stained glass from the windows, the casements now gaping holes. Sunlight still streamed through the building, but through the gaping openness where the roof should have been. The dark pews were rotten and crumbling, the victims of many years of water and neglect. Small trees were flourishing, having pushed the flagstones aside in their race to the sun. I was surrounded by the smell of decay and neglect. Gleaming in the sunlight was a cat's skull, I started towards it...

...The church returned, I staggered slightly and managed to stutter through the words of the blessing and announce the final hymn. In something of a daze, I made my way slowly down the nave and took up my normal position beside the door to speak to parishioners on their out into the summer sunshine. There was a pause as members of the congregation gathered their belongings (quite how they got so scattered around the church, I will never know) and then it was as if the floodgates had opened: parishioners streamed out and it was all I could do to ensure that I shook each proffered paw as they passed. There was the normal string of mumbled niceties (the kind that proved that some animals just drifted along in their own little worlds in services) along the lines of: lovely service, vicar; and the usual from Mrs Avis:

'Why can't she leave things where I put them? If it wasn't for me this church would look like a bomb site.'

'Yes, Mrs Avis,' I replied, 'Thanks for helping with the setting up. I'll try and pop round during the week for a visit.'

And off she bustled. Honestly, she never just walked, she bustled - there was always a particular air of busyness to her gait. As the last of the regular parishioners left, I slumped against a pillar - it was as if all the energy had gone out of me, like I had been drained. My eyes ached and my head was pounding. I squeezed my eyes closed and then slowly opened them again. For a few seconds, all I could see were vague blurry shapes until they resolved into Kiniun.

'Francis, what happened? You look half-dead and your ears won't stop twitching.'

A pause, then:

'Oxfold's outburst,' I said, 'And then I saw... something, just at the end. The church completely ruined, things rotting... and a skull.'

'That is Oxfold's doing, in a manner of speaking. The power that controls him is able to leech out and affect others nearby. That you were not affected until the end of the service is a testament to the power of your will. More worryingly, the demon's power is growing.'

Kiniun put his paws on my shoulders, pinning me against the door frame.

'But,' He continued, 'What you saw is not fixed; the future is mutable, it can change. What you saw was: what might come to pass if the demon remains unopposed.'

He changed his grip and propelled me away from the door frame and towards the sacristy. I was fuzzily aware of Anna, my mother and Harry gathered around the sacristy door; a certain nervousness radiating from them. Kiniun strongly but gently pushed me into a chair and took the chasuble from me. Normally, I would have resisted being 'undressed' like that, but it was too much effort.

'Come on Taonta, you'll feel better for some lunch.' Said my mother.

'But, I haven't phoned...'

'Charlie, I know,' Interrupted Harry, 'I called first thing, he'll come over later to keep Kiniun and Theresa company.'

'Muh.' I said. Although my speech was not at its most eloquent, my mind was working overtime.

What might come to pass. I thought. _ What if I fail? What if this is the wrong choice? Am I even right to stand against this evil? Dear God, I can't let this community down, I'm relying on you. Why can I not hear you? This power, this blackness is filling my mind, its voice speaks too loudly._

_ Where is my trust? Has that been taken from me as well? I'm surrounded by my friends, but I've never felt so alone. Everything is whirling and whirling around me. Is this the power of this evil? Cutting one off from all that supports? It feels as if the ground is being cut away from underneath my very paws. This blackness is creeping closer and closer; the light is failing. I'm standing alone._

_ No! Not alone, never alone: The Church stands with me, my friends stand with me. We have a great cloud of witnesses. Not alone, never alone! _

_ _ 'You are alone, Francis. I am the power in the land, your God will not help you now. Helpless puppy, I have shown you what I am capable of - I have stolen your charity case away, Gerald will be mine. He no longer knows that he will willingly bear his breast to the descending knife of my minion. Hah! Oxfold, he thinks that he has power, but he is but a tool, something to be used and discarded.

_ 'I will push your friends away - they are your weakness, little priest._

_ 'Why do I stoop to communicate with you? Why do I put my voice in your mind? You are nothing.'_

I was snapped out of the melee in my own mind by the pressure of Harry and Kiniun's paws under my arms as they hauled me out of the chair.

'Come on, Nerd, you need to have something to eat.' Said Harry.

I was pretty much dragged along the road by Harry; having to clutch his arm for support until we arrived at the vicarage. It appeared that they had been particularly busy before coming over to the church. The purple and red paint that had once been daubed across the front of the house had been washed away.

'Muh?' I asked, noting in a rather abstracted manner that I was still just as eloquent. Thankfully, Harry seemed to have developed some skill for mind reading.

'DCI Martyr phoned, he said that they had what they needed from "the crime scene" and that it would be okay to wash the paint off. Your mum and Anna were hard at it from the moment they came round this morning in order to find you. Of course you were already at the church, so they decided to surprise you with a nice clean house.'

'Thanks.' I said.

'Look, he speaks!' Said Anna, her voice dripping with sarcasm.

Kiniun turned slowly to look Anna directly in the eye, stooping slightly. There was a profound sadness in his gaze.

'Do not mock him, Anna. What we are seeing, and what Francis is experiencing are the effects of an attack against him by the demon. He is a threat to this entity's power.'

I stared at him groggily, willing my brain to start functioning properly again. I assayed a step towards the door without hanging onto Harry. Wobbling, I tottered off down the path and nearly threw myself against the door. Leaning heavily with one paw on the door handle, I took a couple of attempts to fit my key into the lock. The effort nearly killed me, I stumbled over the threshold and slid slowly down the wall onto the tiles of the hall's floor.

The hall's familiar tiles dissolved before my eyes; the scene began to change. One thing was at the front of my mind:

Oh no, not again.

This time, I was not given a vision of the village. Gone were the rolling hills and verdant woodlands; of the neat little fields there was no sign. Above me the sky stretched into infinity, a great bowl of burnished blue. I sat up. This time, at least, I can move, I thought. The landscape was a burnt brown - a dry, hungry land without water. There was the grittiness of parched earth beneath my paws.

Standing, I looked down, and was relieved to see that I was still me, still the dog I was used to being. Looking around at my surroundings, a word came unbidden into my mind: Savannah. Movement in the distance caught my eye. I peered towards the moving figures, shading my face from the burning Savannah sun with a paw. It was a group of three big cats: two cheetahs and a lion.

The group was running lightly and easily, the kind of steady loping pace that can be kept all day. They turned slightly and began heading towards me, crouching behind a rock, I followed their progress. As they neared, it became apparent that they were hunters: each animal had a long spear grasped in a paw. The lion had a bow and a quiver of arrows slung across his back.

A shout rang across the baking air and one of the cheetahs pointed to something in the distance. From my covert behind the rock, I turned my head and saw what the cheetah had indicated. It was a family of rhebok, pushing a smallish cart along the rutted road.

The lion let out a guttural, triumphant roar and dropped his spear. In a fluid movement he had unslung his bow and placed and arrow on the string. He paused, aimed and loosed the arrow. I watched in disbelief as the arrow flew towards the rhebok family. I tried to bark a warning, but my voice died in my throat. Time seemed to slow, to stop and start in a series of still images. The male rhebok looking in shock at the group of hunters. The arrow burying itself in the chest of the calf. The calf falling in a cloud of dust - its weak cry of pain just reaching my ears. Then a scream, heart rending and shrill.

I looked back to the group of hunters as they passed my rock. Now that they were passing within ten yards of me, I realised just who had let that fatal arrow fly: Kiniun. There was no doubting who it was: although this vision (dream, hallucination, nightmare?) had propelled me back some thirty years or so, I was watching Kiniun. Watching as the lion killed a defenceless child in cold blood.

The group of hunters passed my rock. The male rhebok was wavering between fight and flight, his wife seemed to only be aware of her dead child. I was frozen in place, horrified by what I had seen. I curled my body into a ball, covering my ears with my paws as the growls and roars of the hunters changed from the vicious anticipation of a kill, to savage celebration of death. Another scream rent the air, then a third - then silence.

My vision changed, gone was the roasting heat of the Savannah sun; replaced by the familiar sight of the cracked plaster of my bedroom ceiling. There was the sound of someone moving as I stirred in my bed. How long had I been out, that my friends had felt it necessary to carry me upstairs? The door opened and closed, and Anna was standing over me, concern filling her eyes.

'How long was I out?' I managed.

Anna sighed and ran her paw through the fur of my cheek.

'Twenty minutes or so, love.'

Another noise of movement came to my ears and Kiniun's face entered the edge of my vision.

'Theresa says that your dinner is waiting for you, Francis.'

I shrunk back against the pillow, the images of the last vision still too fresh in my mind. Carefully, I swung my legs out of the bed.

'Anna? Would you give me and Kiniun a moment alone?'

Anna shot a puzzled glance between me and the lion.

'Sure, love. I'll go and tell your mum that you're coming down.'

We both watched her retreating back through the doorway.

'I had another... vision.' I said, struggling to keep myself from growling.

'Oh yes?'

'Yes, Kiniun.' I continued. 'This time, I saw you. On the Savannah. Maybe thirty years ago.'

'Ah, yes, before I met Ben.'

'You were hunting.'

'I'm not surprised.'

'Not dumb animals, Kiniun, but a sentient family!' By now I was shouting, fury making every word heavy in my mouth. 'Three rhebok, does that mean anything to you?'

The lion's eyes widened, his ears twitched nervously. He worked his paw through his mane as I stared at him, chest heaving as trying to suppress the anger building within.

'My shame, my greatest shame.' Said Kiniun at last. 'God may be able to forgive me that, but I cannot. Every night I see that family. I owe you an explanation.'

'You're damn right you do.'

'May I sit down?'

I waved a paw in the direction of a chair. As Kiniun was taking his seat, I shifted position so that I was sitting on the edge of the bed, with my body between the lion and the door.

'Explain.' I growled.

Kiniun sighed, then began:

'What the demon showed you is the truth. There is no escaping the awful nature of my actions when I was younger. As I told you and Harry on Thursday, the En-gal used to not consider any animal outside of the tribe as real beings. Therefore, we considered anyone outside of the tribe as fair game in our hunting expeditions.

'What you saw was the final part of my initiation into the caste of Shamans. To prove my loyalty to the tribe and my disdain for all others not fit to be En-gal, I had to kill. Kill and eat.'

My jaw dropped open. Deep pain was writ large across Kiniun's face. My stomach heaved at the thought, luckily I was able to hide the retching with a cough. The disgust must have been apparent on my face, as Kiniun continued:

'I know that what I did was abhorrent to all civilised animals. But, and I understand that this will sound weak, what you saw is not who I am now. What you saw was from before I met Ben, before I saw the error of my ways. What you saw was another attack against you, an attempt to make you try and stand against this power alone. This was an attempt to undermine your trust in me.

'All I can do is to tell you the truth: yes, I did kill that family, I did something that was vile. And, I have repented my sins, and took an oath of non-violence upon my ordination. I am determined to never fall back into the old ways; to never fall back into ways of evil.'

'All the same,' I said, scratching at my muzzle; realising what I was doing I let my paw fall back into my lap and continued, 'That's a massive revelation to have suddenly dumped into my brain. You can understand how it's difficult to trust you.'

'Yes,' Said Kiniun, his voice slow and steady, his nose slightly wrinkling as he thought through the up-coming sentence, 'My only option is to be completely honest with you. It's not the kind of thing one says to anyone straight off the bat: "By the way, I killed and ate an entire family of rhebok." I hid what I did from you because I am ashamed, but I will not deny that I did what I did.

'Once your father knew, he reacted in the same way that you did. Right down to that growl you almost successfully forced out of your voice. From Ben, I learnt that the only path to take is openness and honesty.

'Francis,' He said, leaning forward, 'This is the demon's attempt to weaken you, to drive you away from those who can support you. Believe me, believe me as your father did, I am not the lion I once was. We change, I have changed.'

Silence reigned. I watched mutely as tears tracked slowly over Kiniun's fur.

'Please,' He said, his voice barely a whisper, 'Please believe me.'

'Kiniun. I have to believe you; I have no other choice. If Dad trusted you; I trust you.'

A shout rang up the stairs:

'Francis! Dinner!'