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'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!'

My mother's timing, impeccable as always. Thankfully, this broke the lingering tension in the room. I stood, wobbling slightly as one of my foot paws had fallen asleep during my confrontation with Kiniun. I hobbled down the stairs with the lion following in my wake. There was a smell of cooking lingering in the air, where my mother had managed to get more food form was a mystery to me: I knew that there was pretty much nothing to eat in my pantry; and I was convinced that Mum had cooked everything there was to cook at Anna's as well. Nevertheless, she had managed to prepare a proper Sunday lunch.

I ate in silence, the others chatting quietly. I admit that I felt a lot better for some food. As I was chasing the last pieces of carrot (when did I buy carrots? Sometimes, I could have sworn that my mother could do magic) around my plate, Harry coughed.

'Nerd, are you sure that you're up to this? These funny turns you've been having...' He tailed off.

I rested my muzzle in a paw and looked at him. Studying his face, all I could see was genuine concern.

'Harry, if Kiniun is right, this is just to be expected. This is why I need both you and Anna with me tonight.' I paused and looked around the room, making sure that everyone was listening. 'This is not something that can be done alone, to do this alone is what this evil wants. We have to stand together: The Church is a community; we are more than mere individuals. We act together, doing that which we are given to do, not what we want to do. I am not taking this into my own paws, but acting with Bishop George's permission - if I were not the diocese's exorcist we would be unable to act on our own without giving over everything to this, this demon. I know I'm waffling, but, no: I'm not up to this, not without you, Harry to help me; Anna to guide us; and Mum, Kiniun and Charlie Hopes to support us.'

Harry nodded, then flexed his paws causing a sharp cracking noise that made my mother wince. He picked up my now empty plate and placed it on the side. Then, he plonked down a small, black-bound book on the table. I looked at it and picked it up carefully, it wasn't one of my books, but it was familiar to me, an old publication, but useful in my line of work: The Ministry of Deliverance: Rites and Liturgies, or as most priests of my generation called it: The Book of Freaky Prayers. Flipping the cover open, my eye was caught by a small cross set into the front fly-leaf.

'This is nice, Harry, is it yours?'

'Yes,' He answered, 'I was given it by Father Ravenstone before he retired.'

'Perfect, just the book you need tonight. Anna, are you still happy to show the way?'

She took my paw and smiled at me.

'Yes, love.'

I met her eyes and saw the steel in them. Nothing I could say would dissuade her, and she was the only animal I knew who could find this temple-like building on the Oxfold Estate.

The rest of the afternoon was, frankly, an odd sort of humdrum. A series of tasks that could be filed under: things that have to be done. I spent some three quarters of an hour pacing around the kitchen with my copy of The Book of Freaky Prayers repeating the words of the rite quietly.

Possibly the strangest thing I had to do that afternoon was at Harry's behest. Both me and Anna had to undergo "crawling lessons".

'We don't want to be seen on the approaches to the site.' Said Harry, unconsciously slipping back into the jargon of the army. 'Everyone's seen it in films, how the soldier crawls flat along the ground to an enemy position,but not everyone can do it. Watch me.'

With that, he dropped onto all fours and then onto his stomach and worked his way across my lawn, his head pressed to one side and his arms and legs moving at funny angles. Then, he set us to doing the same. Anna took to it like a fish to water, I was less adept.

'No, no, no! Nerd, you've got your bum in the air and your tail's sticking up like an aerial. I were to tie a little flag to it, you'd look like a dodgem.' To emphasise his point, he flicked a pebble at the tip of my tail with deadly accuracy and stinging force.

'Ow!'

'And, that's why you need to keep your tail flat, Nerd!'

'Thanks, Harry!' I said ruefully, holding my tail in one paw and rubbing the tip with the other. 'You've got an advantage; lynxes don't have proper tails!'

'Huh!'

At about tea time, the humdrum of the afternoon was broken by the arrival of Charlie Hopes. Harry was the first to the door and enveloped the little hare in a massive hug. As a consequence, all I could see of Charlie was the tips of his ears either side of Harry's head. Before I could greet Charlie, I heard:

'Do you know that Nerd's got a girlfriend?'

'What? Francis?'

'Harry!' I shouted. 'Let Charlie in the door. We haven't got time for gossip. Thanks for coming, Charlie - do you know what's happening?'

Charlie extricated himself from Harry's arms and peered into the hall. He tugged on an ear, then nodded.

'I think so. Who's Kiniun?'

In answer to his question, I waved a paw at the kitchen and ushered Charlie in the right direction.

'Charlie, this is Father Kiniun; Kiniun, Canon Charlie Hopes. Kiniun was a friend of Dad's.'

'Hello.' Said Charlie.

More time passed, my mother flitting about with cups of tea. After some while we all settled around the kitchen table with a large scale map of the village that I had found lurking in a desk drawer. The positively military air of a plan of campaign was rather spoiled by the pair of Diocese of Newton branded mugs weighting down one end of the map and the sugar pot on the other. That and the fact that Harry was using a wooden spoon in place of a swagger stick to point at things.

'The temple is here.' He said, looking to Anna for confirmation.

'Yes.'

'We'll approach the temple from here and cut into these woods.' He said, indicating a route with a sweep of his swagger-spoon. Anna nodded, I shrugged.

We talked through the technicalities in minute detail as the day waned and the darkness took over the sky. Anna had told us that this Offering was due to take place at midnight. So, we would have the cover of darkness, unlike the Offering I saw in my dream of a few nights ago which was bathed in sunlight.

At ten that evening, the alarm on my mobile chirruped and we set out, but only after I tore around the house collecting the things I would need for the rite (of course, I somehow had managed to scatter them hither and yon). Such a simple thing to say, a sentence that singularly fails to convey what was about to happen.

We parted ways on the vicarage doorstep: Kiniun, Charlie and my mother heading towards the church; Harry, Anna and me going in the other direction - towards the edge of the Oxfold Estate. Harry had a khaki satchel slung around his neck, the "goodies" from Natasha Fuchs. We walked quietly along the deserted road, the trees and buildings cast in a silvery sheen by the moon scudding through the cloudless sky. The moonlight made the village look ghostly and unreal - it made us look like ghosts. The colour was missing from our fur and eyes, blanched and otherworldly.

Scant moments later the tall wall of the Estate cut across our path. We darted across the road and headed up-hill until we came to a place where the wall had tumbled slightly. A few yards before the gap, Harry stuck a paw straight up in the air and stood stock still. He pointed a claw ahead of us to indicate the animal standing guard in the gap. My ear twitched as the quiet air was split by the crackle of static from a walkie-talkie.

'We need to distract the guard. We can't afford to have him not report to his boss, that would leave us worse than dead.' Whispered Harry.

He pressed his body against the wall and inched his way slowly towards the guard. After a couple of yards, he bent down and scooped up a pawful of pebbles from the verge. Straightening up, Harry continued to work his way through the deeper shadows at the base of the wall. Just before the tumbled gap in the wall, Harry froze, and with a quick flick of his paw, sent the pebbles clattering up the road beyond the guard. The lupine guard's ears twitched and he trotted in the direction of the sound.

As soon as the guard's back was turned, Harry waved a paw to us and then slipped through the gap. Anna followed him, sliding sinuously around the crumbling edge of the wall. I was less graceful: I tripped over a brick and landed nose first in a patch of stinging nettles. I opened my mouth to yelp, but was stopped by Harry wrapping his paws around my muzzle and whispering:

'Don't make a noise, Nerd.'

I nodded, my nose burning from the nettle stings.

'Good, follow me, you two.'

Harry moved off at a quick, but silent jog across the moonlight silver meadow. Anna and me followed him, trying our best to imitate his movements. We stopped again when we entered a little coppice. Standing in the shadows of the trees, I leant forward with my paws on my knees, panting for breath. I hadn't realised that moving silently was such hard work.

'Five-minute break.' Said Harry.

Thankfully, I slumped down against the bole of a tree next to Anna. She reached across and took my paw, squeezing it reassuringly.

'We'll be fine love.' She said in my ear.

I squeezed her paw in reply. Then relaxed my grip, not voluntarily, but because my vision had started to turn to fog. There was a feeling as if I was falling forwards.

_ He is here. He is encroaching on my domain. Does he not realise the weakness and futility of this? Clearly he is too trusting of that ex-Shaman, even with what that lion did. I could, so easily, so very easily, turn my followers into ravening beasts, to rip him and his dear friends limb-from-limb, but I should not bare my talons now, patience. How will he react to his Anna turning against him?_

I opened my eyes, the colours of the world had changed: cartoonish primary colours, vivid and bright. I was not in the coppice on the Oxfold Estate, but in some featureless field. Anna was standing in front of me, slightly larger than life, her eyes burning and red.

'You worthless piece of crap!' She screamed. 'Weak, useless!'

She drew back a paw, claws extended and swiped across my face. Then, everything went dark - again.

He is stronger than I thought. Perhaps I am foolish. I am using a sledgehammer to crack a nut. Bide your time, this next hour is merely the prelude, the overture to the main act.

_ _

I opened my eyes, the real world was still there. Anna was still sitting next to me, holding my paw. I sighed.

'Where did you go that time?' Anna asked. 'You went... kind of... floppy for a moment.'

'Harry needs to hear this as well.' I turned slightly and raised my voice to a hoarse whisper. 'Harry, come over here.'

The lynx stood slowly and came over in a kind of crouching-walk.

'What?' He said.

'There was another attack. Quite crude, it tried to convince me that Anna was trying to kill me.'

There was a snuffly-snorting noise, Anna suppressing a laugh. She rubbed my arm and quickly kissed my cheek, her whiskers tickling against my nose. A reassuring gesture, a gesture that worked. Harry lifted a paw and checked the luminous dial of his watch.

'We've got to keep moving if we're going to get to the temple in time.'

Anna stood up, and helped me to my paws. I was not doing a great impression of the hero about to save the day. We crept through the coppice with me bringing up the rear. After some ten minutes or so, Harry turned slightly right, towards the little hills at the north of the Estate.

The woods petered out into straggly scrub and then into manicured and landscaped grass. We paused on the edge of the grass, each lying flat in the scrubby bushes. Ahead, there were more animals about, chatting to one another. It gave the scene a strangely homely air. Snatches of banal conversation wafted on the air.

'I see old Avis is threatening to close the Post Office again.'

'It'll never happen; she's wedded to that place.'

And so on. We waited in the scrub until we could hear the tolling of the church bell carrying across the stillness of the night. Midnight. The animals who had been milling about on the hillside all turned and headed in the same direction. We crawled after them until we reached the top of the hill. Below us lay the temple from my dream, the group of animals standing outside and singing:

This ae nighte, this ae nighte,

Every nighte and alle,

Fire and fleet and candle-lighte,

This offering of thy soule.

_ _

When thou from hence away art past,

Every nighte and alle,

To the god's house art come at last,

This offering of thy soule.

_ _

If e'er thou gavest hosen and clout,

Every nighte and alle,

Sit thee down, thy veil put on,

This offering of thy soule.

_ _

From the god's house thou shalt not leave,

Every nighte and alle,

The Brig o' Dread be thy surcease,

This offering of thy soule.

_ _

Banishèd is prieste and churche,

Every nighte and alle,

Purging fiere shalle clean thy bones,

This offering of thy soule.

_ _

Thy fur shall blanche, thy bones shall dry,

Every nighte and alle,

Offer of thy puritie,

This offering of thy soule.

_ _

This ae nighte, this ae nighte

Every nighte and alle,

Fire and fleet and candle-lighte,

The god shalle eat thy soule.

The call and response of the song droning again and again in my ears. I could feel my fur standing on end, my body beginning to shake. Harry glanced over at me and snaked an arm around my shoulders. Pulling my head close to his, so that we were muzzle to muzzle, he whispered:

'Don't freak out on me now, Nerd. Concentrate!'

I grunted, fighting the rising darkness with all my strength. A supreme effort of will pushed the blackness to the edge of my vision. Below us, the singing continued, increasing in volume with each repetition. The rough-edged music rose to a crescendo and then stopped. Some animals headed into the temple and formed a ring of dancers similar to that which I saw in my dream. The rest silently turned and stared southwards down the slope of the valley towards the river.

In the distance a group of figures appeared. A shout rang out from a rangy dog in the crowd:

'Weshale? Weshale?'

The response, made faint by the distance came just as I remembered it:

'Good hale! Good hale! See, the tribute comes, clean and pure; all dressed in white.'

The group became clearer as they neared. Burt Ursus, another heavyset brown bear and Gerald, looking ragged and muddy. Strangely he wasn't struggling against his captors. Another part of the demon's power, I thought. Closer and closer they came, until they were directly below where we were lying. I put a restraining paw on Harry's shoulder. He was growling, very softly.

Oxfold stepped out of the temple, dressed in a white robe with stag's antlers and the ears of a hare tied to his head. He put his arm around Gerald's frame and propelled him towards the temple.

'Bastard, what an utter bastard.' Muttered Harry.

The devotees of the demon's cult formed a double line behind Oxfold and Gerald and filed into the temple, finding their places in the ring of dancers. As the last animal entered the temple, we began to move down the slope of the hill.

When the mental attack came, it was swift and overpowering. One moment, I was creeping towards the open door of the temple; the next, I was somewhere else.

My senses returned to me one after the other. My ears were filled with the rumbling of a diesel engine, a deep, throbbing sound that spoke of power. Then came the sensation of jolting from side to side, a particularly violent lurch sent my head slamming against something unyielding. A smell reached my nose, the stench of fumes and oil. This was accompanied by a flat, acrid aroma that I couldn't place.

Vision was the last sense to return, and very slowly. From total blackness there appeared a point of light, so small as to be almost non-existent. This point of light gradually expanded until I had what could only be called tunnel vision. There was a glimpse of drably coloured metal. Then, my vision returned. I was, apparently, inside some kind of tank, rattling along a rutted track. Directly in front of me were a pair of paws, the tank commander's, standing on a small platform attached to the ceiling. They looked suspiciously like Harry's.

I blinked and the scene changed. No longer inside the tank, but looking from the outside and from quite a height. To either side of the road stretched an evergreen forest, dark green and brooding. The road itself looked like an ugly scar through the landscape and the tanks travelling on it like some kind of crawling beetles. My view swooped down in a sickening dive, so that I was following the progress of Harry's tank.

Harry was leaning against the front edge of the tank's hatch, a pair of binoculars in one paw and a map in the other. From time to time he turned his head slowly to check his surroundings. He turned fully in the hatch so that he was looking back down the line of vehicles. My view turned with him, and I was caught by the incongruous pennants fluttering from each machine's radio aerial: little splashes of red and gold in a picture made of greens and browns. The commander of the rear-most tank waved a signal to Harry, who acknowledged it. I recognised the soldier, the young dog from Harry's photo, how could I forget that flash of white on his muzzle? It was like looking at myself.

On the edge of my vision, Harry was turning back to look forwards. I remained having to look back down the line of tanks. The sounds changed, suddenly I was less aware of the sound of the rumbling diesel motors and the world was filled, for me at least, with a whistling. No, not a whistling, but a screaming - a sound familiar from every war film I had ever seen: the sound of a shell in flight. The shell itself was moving so fast as to be invisible, but the ball of oily evil-looking fire filled the world. Harry had described it to me as a 'rose of fire' and it did, indeed, seem to bloom on the side of the tank. The dog on the turret just seemed to disappear: one second he was there, the next... nothing. The tank lurched off its tracks and onto its side with a terrible clanging and screeching of metal under unimaginable stress.

Again I blinked, and again the scene changed. The same moment, but from a different angle. The same change in the sound, the scream of the falling shell, the fire of the explosion, the lurching of the tank.

Again. This time was different, I was riding in the mind of the young canine. I heard the scream of the shell, too late. And, felt the moment the burning gasses burnt at his fur and flesh - a fraction of a second of agony, stretching out into a private eternity of pain. Then, blackness. That was the only time I have been thankful for the death of another animal; thankful for the cessation of unbearable physical torture. Thankful for the release from suffering that death had brought.

Again. A different part of the attack. Watching from the cover of the trees, as if I was standing behind the spotters for the enemy mortar, looking at the back of their heads. A pair of foxes, lean and haggard from the stresses of war. One had a radio set in one paw and was talking quietly and rapidly into it - I didn't understand the language, but his intention was clear, to place each falling shell with deadly and appalling accuracy. Another scream of ordnance cut through the lesser screams of animals in pain. This time, the shell was visible to me as a black streak through the smoke-filled air. Another burst of smoke and fire and, helplessly, I had to watch as Harry was thrown out of the hatch and into the trees on the far side of the road. His limbs flailing uselessly. I had seen the one thing that had saved his life.

Again. Riding behind Harry's eyes, feeling his thoughts and emotions. He was boiling with rage, cursing fluently under his breath. I felt as his paw went to his ear to activate his radio. Heard what even he had forgotten:

'Forward 5-8 to control! Contact, contact, contact! Mortar fire heavy and accurate. Grid: X-Ray 7638. Request air support.'

The shell dropped, the tank bucked away. Suddenly all Harry was able to see was the blue of the sky above him. A sickening thump as he hit a tree and slid down into the bracken. For a moment there was nothing, then pain: Harry had experienced pain like I had never known, searing agony. Despite this, he looked up from where he lay, and watched as the tank, now lying upside-down, took a final hit from the last shell. Saw the death of his comrades, his friends. The crushing sense of guilt flooded through Harry. The feeling of, what I could only describe as, survivor's guilt built and built, filling his mind until everything faded to blackness and he lost consciousness.

I was suspended in darkness again, hoping, praying that this was the end of my experience of Harry's suffering. Hoping for the end of Harry's weakness... No! Not weakness, what he went through was more than any animal should have to experience.

_Weak, he was and is weak. Cast him away, go it alone. He is a liability, hopelessly in love with Gerald. Weak! _

_ _ No! Harry is not weak. We do not work alone. Not alone, never alone!

You stand alone, Francis. All alone against my unimaginable power. How can you stand? I batter you with forces beyond your feeble comprehension. You cannot defeat me: you do not even know my name. My name that whispers secretly in the depths of your soul, tempts you away from your pointless morality_. They call me Mother Moon; they make their sacrifices to me. Mam Lleuad! Hah! No mother, I. I do not bring life, but death and the power that comes with death._

_ You are only worthy of mockery, but you did not surrender my tribute to me - that I have to salute. Forcing me to compel him to come to me, across the miles. I salute that, but you will pay for your insolence!_

The voice that re-echoed around my mind was full of loathing for me. Not just loathing, but something else - fear, perhaps. Not fully fledged fear, but a nervousness, not even that, but something that had the potential to become fear. Slowly I forced my paws together (whether in my mind or physically, I could not tell) and began to pray aloud:

'O God, to whose holy care I am committed by thy divine mercy, defend and protect me from all sin and danger. Amen.

'Visit, we beseech thee, O Lord, this place and drive from it all the snares of the enemy. Let thy holy angels dwell herein, to preserve us in peace. Amen!

'God the Father, bless us; God the Son, defend and keep us; God the Holy Ghost sanctify us in this hour and forevermore. Amen!' My voice reaching a desperate scream with the last few words.

The world came flooding back, sounds: Harry's voice repeating the prayers I had said; the sound of Anna moving. Shivering, I sat up from where I had fallen.

'Another attack, Nerd?'

I nodded, then shook myself.

'Yes, it was your turn Harry. I'm sorry, you really did have to go through hell.'

'Fuck.' Spoken softly, burning anger in his voice. 'Look, they're all inside the temple now. We have to move.'