2041 Sanctuary (Let There Be Light) (63 page)

The man nodded, unable to speak as he struggled to breathe.

‘And from what I hear you also enjoy sexual assault.’ Winter stood up and his expression darkened. ‘Any last words?’

Fear crept into the man’s dying eyes and Winter pulled out his pistol to wait for an answer that never came. The man had already gone.

Winter stared down at the dead man, his emotions mixed.
One less fucker in the world
, he thought,
fifty million to go
.

‘Sir.’

He looked up.

‘We’ve found tracks leading off into the mist. The terrain looks tricky. Some kind of tar pits.’

‘Single file,’ Winter said, ‘stay alert, they could be close.’

The woman saluted and moved away.

Captain Winter raised his visor with the touch of a button and stared out into the gloom. ‘Where are you, Director?’

Chapter Eighty

Richard Goodwin gasped for air. His eyes flared open and he heard Rebecca call his name before he was sucked back into nowhere. His thoughts wandered and images flashed in front of his mind’s eye like a strobe. Faster and faster the abstractions came, bombarding him, mind, body and soul. Screaming without a voice, Goodwin fled from the onslaught, his spirit lost to insanity’s insidious caress.

A figure appeared through the fog of despair – a white light in a dark abyss. The women held out a hand and the black fled from her presence like insects before a storm. Goodwin remained cowering until her warmth had driven the ice from his heart. He reached out and felt strength flow through his being, filling it with the essence of life. She whispered to him to follow, telling him there was nothing to fear, not here. Knowing she told the truth he let her lead him into safety and … LIGHT.

Goodwin felt his disconnected form drop into the whirlpool of a black hole, sucked down into a scene from a forgotten past. An Anakim warrior walked straight through Goodwin’s translucent, shimmering aura and knelt before the great throne of gold and its titanic, silver God. Two crystalline statues crouched on either side of the golden seat, their sphinx-like shapes shimmering in the shadows. The giant man bowed to the god and placed a silver sword on the floor before retreating. The vision swirled into a chaos of colour and Goodwin found himself before the massive frieze where the same Anakim man lay on the pentagonal altar, his eyes glowing blue in the gloom. He could feel the man’s fear and taste his terror – he wanted to run, to flee, but something controlled him, trapping him on the metal plinth, his massive limbs bound by invisible bonds. A procession of robed figures approached, the tallest of which held the same shining weapon the man had just offered up to his God. The blade rose, its tip sparkling like a star. From its zenith the sword fell and blood flowed. The Anakim’s life force gushed from his veins, pumped out by his dying heart. The flow of dark red ran around the altar’s outer channel and down onto the floor. Fire blazed and Goodwin was transported again, this time to a frozen lake – no – it was the frosted crystal sea behind the great throne. Nothing stirred and Goodwin could feel the cold spreading up his legs and back into his heart. He walked forward, approaching the sunken alcoves in the icy wall. Wisps of super cool air hung in the blue glow that permeated every atom and every direction. Compulsion drove him to wipe away the frost that covered the back of the tomb-like aperture. Cold gripped his fingers as he slid them across the frosted surface to reveal the clear crystal beneath. His eyes drew him inside the hidden chamber beyond. He could feel … something … something inside, something that became aware of his intrusion into its domain. Eyes opened and Goodwin screamed.

Horror returned, shimmering and spinning, weaving its web of pain. A black mist seeped into his mind, stalking Goodwin’s prone form. It was his body that lay on the altar now, held fast by an unseen force. The shadowy figure approached and Goodwin was unable to move. Gripped by terror, eyes swivelling, he fought back with pure fury. Suddenly the chains released and Goodwin leapt at the shape, wrestling it into the black in a fit of ferocious fear. Straining every sinew, every muscle, he fought the dark being that sought his soul. Driving it back he fled for the distant light, the dark mist clinging to his spirit with talons of ice.

‘Richard!’

Goodwin’s eyes flew open and he scrabbled to his feet. Adrenaline and terror coursed through his system like an out of control freight train. He sucked in great gulps of air and stumbled back to the ground, exhausted.

Rebecca grasped his face. ‘Speak to me!’

‘I’m … okay,’ he said, wheezing. ‘I’m okay.’

‘That’s the second time you’ve scared me half to death.’

Goodwin looked up into her anxious eyes.

‘You’ve got nine lives, Director,’ Walker said, standing close by.

With some semblance of sanity returning, Goodwin struggled to his feet and looked round to see the still form of Lieutenant Manaus on the ground a few yards away. Her helmet had been removed and her eyes were closed as if in prayer.

A look of shock crossed Goodwin’s face when he realised she must be dead. ‘What happened?’

‘She got a shock trying to free you from the stone. I think her heart gave out.’ Rebecca wiped a tear from her eye.

Goodwin glanced at the dormant megalith that had trapped him in its electrical grasp. How he’d survived he didn’t know, but one thing was for sure, he’d been lucky, very lucky.

A sense of guilt and sadness swept over him as he gazed down at the peaceful features of the Darklight officer.
Another person dead because of me; how many more will it take before the end comes?

A wave of nausea made him stumble and he grabbed on to Rebecca for support.

‘This place is a death trap,’ Walker said, ‘and unless anyone wants to risk touching that thing again we’re no closer to finding a way to the surface than we were before.’

‘Someone will try it again,’ Priest said, hefting his rifle, ‘and soon, I guarantee it.’

Goodwin blocked out their chatter as something tried to push its way to the forefront of his mind, a sensation of remembrance he knew was important – he just couldn’t recall it.

‘What’s wrong?’ Rebecca said. ‘Do you need to sit down?’

He waved the suggestion away. ‘I saw things, real things from their past.’

‘Whose past?’

‘The Anakims’, at least I think they were real. It felt like the truth, like it happened, or was happening. I don’t know, it seemed so—’

‘So what?’

‘So real?’ Walker said, his tone sceptical.

Rebecca shot Walker a withering look before turning back to Goodwin. ‘What did you see?’

‘The throne, a warrior and …’ his eyes grew wide.

‘What is it?’

An image of the Anakim warrior returned from memory and Goodwin could see his torment, but most of all he could see the blue glow that flickered over the iris of his eyes.

A sense of dread settled on his heart and Goodwin’s eyes darted over the crystalline crater and its soil laden basin. ‘Where’s Joseph?’

Rebecca spun round.

The lad was nowhere to be seen.

‘Joseph?!’ Rebecca said. ‘JOSEPH!!’

Chapter Eighty One

‘Get out of my way!’

‘No.’

Rebecca screamed and attempted to force her way past Priest and his men. A soldier pushed her back and Goodwin tried to help, but Priest slammed the butt of his gun into his head, sending him sprawling to the ground in pain.

Rebecca kept fighting until one of the soldiers backhanded her to the floor.

‘Please,’ Rebecca said, with tears in her eyes, ‘let me find him.’

‘The boy’s no use to us,’ Priest said. ‘We need to find a way out, and the clock’s ticking.’

Rebecca put her hand to her mouth and a sob escaped her lips. ‘Please …’

Priest remained stony-faced, the pleas falling on deaf ears.

Goodwin got back to his feet. ‘You must let us go; you don’t understand.’

‘Enlighten me,’ Priest said.

Goodwin wasn’t quite sure what he knew himself. ‘The boy,’ – he shook his head in an attempt to clear it – ‘Joseph, he’s not himself.’

‘If that’s your argument,’ Walker said, ‘it’s not very convincing.’

‘No, you’re not listening to me! It’s his eyes; he had the same blue light as the Anakim warrior.’ Goodwin’s frustration mounted as the answer he sought seemed to stay just out of his grasp. The men before him remained unimpressed and he looked at Rebecca. ‘Did you see that the statue had moved, or did Joseph?’

Rebecca stared at him, distraught.

‘Rebecca,’ – he gave her a shake – ‘this is important. Think; after I activated the throne the first time, was it you or Joseph that noticed the statue had moved.’

‘I don’t know. I saw its head was in a different position.’

‘But did Joseph point to it first?’

‘No, but … he does this thing when he wants me to go somewhere, he leans into me to make me go in the direction he wants.’

‘So he pushed you towards the statue?’

‘Yes, I think so. Why – why does that even matter? He’s out there alone!’

Goodwin turned back to Priest. ‘Joseph also helped me uncover the frieze in the city. And he fired the gun that uncovered the globe.’ Something struck him as the puzzle came together. ‘How did he get out of the camp? The lieutenant said he must have followed her. How? He had no spectral enhancement to see in the dark. How did he evade the patrols? How did Manaus, a highly trained reconnaissance operative, not see him following her? A mentally disabled man wandering around in the dark, who just happens to end up with us, you don’t think that strange?’

Priest remained impassive.

‘For God’s sake, man!’ Goodwin gestured at the megalith. ‘The boy knew how to operate the stone. Can’t you see?!’ Goodwin felt groggy and he paused for breath.

‘So what are you saying?’ Walker said.

A recollection of Joseph playing with his transparent bottle of water in the Anakim city bubbled up from Goodwin’s past. The lad hadn’t been able to comprehend why the level inside stayed on a horizontal plane regardless of how he tilted it. And he’d demonstrated his discovery to Goodwin many times over.
Did he help me get through the challenge in the lake, too?
Goodwin wondered.
Without that knowledge I wouldn’t have known which way was up inside the black oil and I would have drowned
.

‘I’m saying,’ Goodwin said, ‘Joseph was the only one left in camp to touch the stones and to see the entity – the light – and live to tell the tale.’

‘Apart from you,’ Walker said.

‘Yes, apart from me.’ Goodwin frowned at the thought. ‘What if the stones and my discoveries were all designed to bring us here?’

‘Richard, you’re scaring me,’ Rebecca said. ‘What are you saying?’

‘What if everything the creature has done was for a purpose? Hilt said it had to be highly intelligent to get past our defences, to deceive us as it did. What if it had a plan, an end game, beyond taking Susan?’

Priest’s eyes narrowed. ‘And what’s that?’

Goodwin rubbed his eyes. His head hurt – badly. ‘I don’t know, but Joseph was with Susan when the light took her. Why did it leave him? Why didn’t it take him, or just kill him? Why didn’t it kill me when it had the chance?’

It was all making sense to him now – everything that had happened.

‘I think the light showed itself to me and Kara that night on purpose,’ he continued. ‘It wanted to draw attention to itself. I think we’ve been controlled – manipulated from the start. This thing thinks ten moves ahead, not just five.’

No one spoke while Goodwin paced back and forth in agitation. ‘In my dream, the vision, whatever it was, the Anakim man, I could feel his fear. I could sense his thoughts. He couldn’t control his own body. They sacrificed him and his own mind held him captive as they did it. I think …’ – he looked at Rebecca in anguish – ‘I think the light is controlling Joseph. I think …’ – he looked down at the rash on his wrist, his worst fears becoming a reality – ‘I think it’s controlling me.’

Rebecca shook her head in dismay. ‘No, that can’t be.’

‘I saw the mark the blue stones left on Joseph’s hand. They must be toxic – possess some sort of mind-altering properties.’ Goodwin held up his wrist to show them the red inflammation that encircled it. ‘This is where I wore the bracelet Susan gave me, made up of the same blue stones.’

‘So everything you’ve done hasn’t been you?’ Priest said. ‘That’s what you’re saying?’

‘If that’s the case,’ Walker said, ‘how can we trust what you’re saying now?’

‘And even if you’re right,’ Priest said, ‘what can the boy do?’

‘Are you not listening to me? Joseph’s being controlled! We need to find him – NOW!’ Goodwin saw Priest hesitate, but doubt and suspicion remained the dominating power and Goodwin turned away in disgust.

‘Richard,’ Rebecca said, the tone of her voice drawing his full attention, ‘you said Joseph is being controlled.’ She held out a wadge of folded paper. ‘Do you remember these?’

Goodwin leafed through the pages he’d given to her for safekeeping before he’d first entered the lake.

‘Joseph’s drawings,’ she said, ‘he really wanted you to have them.’

He peered at the crude shapes which had been coloured in with black charcoal on a white background. The abstract forms were each accompanied by meaningless lines that cut across empty spaces. ‘I don’t understand,’ he said, looking at her.

‘He did many other drawings,’ Rebecca said, ‘some he did with Susan. I didn’t think anything of them at the time, but now …’

‘Tell me.’

‘He was drawing shapes; many were of the same thing. Susan drew them too.’

‘What sort of shapes?’

‘Pentagrams.’

‘What?!’

‘I know – I know, I should have said something at the time when we found the one in the city, but I thought it would sound stupid. I thought it must have been a coincidence.’

Goodwin looked again at the pictures, while some of Priest’s men edged closer, their curiosity getting the better of them. Laying the papers out on the globe, around two dozen in all, Goodwin noticed a pattern emerge. All the drawings had a single line sandwiched between areas of black. Like he had with the map of the lake, he tried matching one of the drawings to the rest.