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the inferno’s glare glinting off its body. I swing the telescope in its direction to take a better look. Seven heads. Ten horns. A golden crown on each of the horns. The body of a leopard, the mouths of a lion and feet of a bear. It is the Beast of the Revelation, the harbinger of the Biblical end of the world.
    “As if to confirm my worst fears, one of the Beast’s many heads turns in our direction. Even from the church tower, I can see its eyes flash in black hatred. I hear a roar of rage as the whole Beast turns and violently twists in the air before soaring down towards us at great speed. But, equally suddenly, it veers away as if some invisible force is protecting us. It swoops down upon us twice more only to swerve away at the final moment.
    “I glance over to you for an explanation. For a few seconds you seem puzzled, then you click your fingers as if a thought has suddenly sprung to mind and you ask me what the time is. I check my watch and see it has stopped. ‘Your watch is digital,’ you say, ‘the EMP, the electro-magnetic pulse, caused by all the crap going on all around must have fried everything electronic we have with us. Hang on,’ you add, ‘I’ve a better idea.’
    “Then you rush to the edge of the tower and peer over the parapet so you can see the church clock. ‘The clock,’ you call out, ‘says 11-50. Last time we checked it was running 20 minutes late, so that means in the real world it’s now ten minutes past twelve.’
    “I ask why, if that’s the case, we are still alive and you reply ‘It must be the ley line. We’re sitting on a sacred site where time is running 20 minutes behind the rest of the world. Either the location or the time disparity, possibly a combination of the two, is shielding us. That’s why the seven-headed Beast couldn’t touch us, our time hadn’t yet run out. Amazing! We have front row seats for the Apocalypse. Of course what we’re seeing now is probably what will happen to us in ten minutes but in the meantime welcome to my world of myths, magic and mysteries, where the normal rules of science and logic no longer apply!’
    “There is a further disturbance in the air above us. We both look up to see an enormous feathered creature being chased by the biggest hound I could ever imagine. ‘So remind me,’ I ask, ‘which End of the World myth involves a big chicken being chased across the sky by a giant hairy dog?’
    “You reply ‘That’s not a chicken we are watching but Quetzalcoatl, the feathered serpent once worshipped by the Toltecs, the Mayans and the Aztecs. The Aztecs had their own apocalyptic myth in which the return of Quetzalcoatl heralds the end of the world and the planet being torn apart by earthquakes. As for the big dog chasing him, that’s Fenrir, the giant wolf of Norse legend. Fenrir is seriously bad news and even kills the god Odin during the events of
Ragnarök
, the battle at the end of the world that heralds the Twilight of the Gods of Asgard.’
    Ursula shakes her head in my direction, as if in disbelief. “I’m quite clearly losing the plot here aren’t I? I’m a vicar of the Church of England yet when I dream of the Apocalypse, I don’t see angels or devils. No, what I witness is some kind of multi-cultural, multi-ethnic, multi-denominational equal opportunity Doomsday! What is this, political correctness gone mad?
    “In my dream,” she continues, “the next thing to happen is we catch sight of another winged creature slowly emerging out of the murk and gliding towards us. This one is different. It has the size, shape and form of a winged woman and comes to a halt, floating in mid-air, a few feet away from the parapet of the church tower. For one moment I think it may be a miracle and an angel sent to rescue us, afterall that is what is supposed to happen to the Righteous in The Bible. But then I see the angel is clad in black, not white samite, and instead of being made of feathers, her wings are leathery, like