"Woodside, twelve eleven ninety-two, pink building, can't miss it." He turned back to Myra. "Maybe not, maybe I should take you to church." He called back to the driver, "Forget that. You know Santa Pedro church on Alameda Los Angeles?"

"Sure. In Burbank right?" "Right. Let's go there." He settled back in the rear seat. "They got Ogam on the fucking altar stone there. You know why?"

"Because the church was built over an older site."

"Too fucking right it was. Same all over. All over this country you find churches on old Celtic sites. The Celts were here three thousand years ago. Maybe more. They could write. They could write Ogam, before the fucking Persians were scratching Cuneiform over everything they touched the Celts were writing on stones. When the archaeologists started turning up Ogam all over New England the historians said it was scratches made by ploughshares. Fucking ploughshares. Later they put it down to scratches made by sharpening spears and arrows. They can't think outside the box these pricks. Anything to protect their precious concepts. Heavens, if something new is to be learned, they might have to change their tiny minds, and put their stupid fucking dignity at risk. Assholes."

"Are you always so expressive, or is this for my benefit?" "Your fucking benefit lady? It ain't just for your benefit. It's for every fuckers' benefit. History is for everybody. Science is for everybody. No fucking political horseshit. No posing, no standing on dignity. 'There's no such thing as patriotic art, or patriotic science.' Goethe, I think."

"No, you misunderstand me. I meant are you always so forceful in presenting you're findings?"

"What's not to be forceful about? When you learn that the Celts were in North America building solar heated houses and writing on the rocks to tell us about it three thousand fucking years ago, of course you're forceful. It's fucking exciting."

"Where did you study archaeology?"

"Study archaeology? I studied archaeology all over the fucking world. I studied physics and chemistry all over the world. I studied psychology and astronomy, and mathematics. I never stopped studying mathematics. I'm still working on a theorem. Why stop? What's to stop for? Learning is what we're here for. Don't you want to learn?"

She was still unsure of this guy. Was he a fraud, or a dreamer? Did he have any formal education? "Yes, of course, but where did you earn your degree. Which university did you attend?"

"Oh that shit. Edinburgh gave me a bachelors, and Cambridge awarded me a masters, but I didn't collect it."

"Why not?"

"They wanted fifty quid at the time and I didn't have it. Or I did have it, but I wanted it for something else. Cheapskates."

The cab pulled up outside a small Spanish church barely noticeable between a large, double fronted Citibank, and an external escalator heading into a cine complex. "Here it is. Cummin' here. I'll show you some stuff in here." He was off across the sidewalk. Myra paused, paid the cab, and hurried after him. Inside he was already in the apse, on the floor lifting the altar cloth. "Here," he called. "Cummin' here and see this." He showed no reverence for where he was, or for the people seated in the rear pews. "Over here. Look at this."

She decided to attend to him quickly, trying to limit the disturbance. The altar stone was much bigger than she expected, it was deeper, about a metre or more, and a metre high, and at least two metres long. He was sitting on the floor with the altar cloth over his head. "Here, see? Here, here, and here. Fucking Ogam."

It was clear. There were lines, deeply etched into the corners and were as close to Ogam markings as she had ever seen. Even more impressive was the fact that the stone itself was obsidian. Solid, black obsidian, and older than anything else in the church.

She found herself on her hands and knees crawling around the altar, when there was a new voice. "Hello Peter. I see you have a new student." She looked up to see a slim man of slightly under average height in a grey suit with a blue vest and white dog collar. He looked freshly scrubbed with bright clear eyes narrowed in amusement.

"Oh, excuse us father. Uh, Peter, here, was showing me some interesting engravings."

"Yes. If only he could do it with less enthusiasm. He disturbs what few parishioners I have."

Peter by now had moved around the altar stone, oblivious to the conversation. "And here. Look here at this lot. Can you read Ogam? If you could read Ogam, we would know when this stone was laid."

She stood, straightened her clothes, and was about to tender further apolgies when the priest motioned her aside to a small office behind the apse. "Are you a friend of Peter's?"

"Not really. I didn't know his name was Peter until you mentioned it. I just met him. In fact he rather ambushed me. He learned of my interest in the ancients and whisked me up here to see some old writing."