Evil Star (34 page)

— the entire sky blazed — and in that instant their shapes changed.

Now they were skeletons, on skeleton animals. Another flash and they were ghosts, creatures made up of smoke and air. They made no sound and moved like shadows, rippling across the desert surface. Once again they seemed to shim-mer and become solid and stood in a semicircle, waiting. It was colder than ever. Their breath was turning white, curl-ing around their lips.

At last the King of the Old Ones rose out of the desert floor.

Matt trembled. The king was larger than any of the creatures that had appeared so far. If he had wanted to, he could surely have stretched up and touched the clouds. Each one of his fingernails would have been larger than Matt himself. It was difficult to see very much of him. Dark-ness clung to the terrible creature like a cloak, hiding him. The King of the Old Ones was too gigantic to be seen, too horrible to be understood.

Very slowly, he became aware of Matt, sensing him in the same way that a poisonous snake might sense its prey. Matt felt the creature Horowitz, Anthony - [Gatekeepers 02] - Evil Star turn its eyes on him. He began to search for any of the power that might still be inside him even though he knew he would never have enough. There had to be five of them.

Matt got to his feet.

"Go back!" he shouted. His voice was tiny. He was noth-ing more than an insect. “You have no place here."

The King of the Old Ones laughed. It was a hideous sound, deep and deathly, like thunder, echoing all around.

A quarter of a mile away, lying beside the helicopter, Pedro heard the sound and turned to where he knew Matt must be standing.

"Matt. . ." he whispered.

Matt heard him. The prophecy had been wrong. He wasn't quite alone after all. Pedro was nearby, and if there were two them, that doubled his power. With renewed strength, he got to his feet and lashed out, sending all the energy that he had left toward the huge creature that was standing in front of him. The whole desert rippled.

The King of the Old Ones screamed and fell back a step. All the other creatures, feeling his pain, screamed, too. Later it would be said that the sound had been heard all over Peru, though nobody had been able to say what it was or from where it had come. It seemed to Matt that he was win-ning. The Old Ones were withering in front of him, shriveling like scraps of paper in a bonfire. Pedro was with him and if the two of them could just continue a few sec-onds more ...

But Matt had taken his power to its limit, and it was burning him up.

He saw two suns, searing his eyes. Some-thing huge and black, bigger than the night itself, rushed in on him and struck him down.

He was thrown backward, crashing into the ground. Blood trickled from his nose and out of the corners of his eyes.

Horowitz, Anthony - [Gatekeepers 02] - Evil Star The King of the Old Ones, badly wounded and weak-ened, took one last look at the limp body. Then, calling his hordes around him, he folded himself into the night.

Chapter 21 The Healer

The doctor was a small, neat man with light brown hair and glasses.

He was holding a scratched and battered leather case that was too full to close properly. His name was Christian Nourry and he wasn't Peruvian, but French, working with the Red Cross in some of the country's poorest towns.

"I'm sorry, Professor Chambers," he said. "There's nothing more that I can do."

"Is the boy dying?"

The doctor shrugged. "I've already told you — this is outside my experience. Matthew is in a deep coma. His heartbeat is far too slow and there seems to be very little activity in his brain. My guess would be that he is unlikely to recover. It would help me if you could explain how he got himself into this state."

Chambers shrugged.

"Well, in that case, I can't say for sure what's going to happen. There is one thing I am sure about, though: He'd be a lot better off in a local hospital."

"I don't agree. There's nothing a hospital can do for him that we can't do here. And we prefer to keep an eye on him."

Horowitz, Anthony - [Gatekeepers 02] - Evil Star

"You mentioned another boy. What about him?"

“Pedro” He
is
in hospital. He broke his ankle and they
had to put it in a cast. We're expecting him back this afternoon."

"What have these two young people been doing? Fight-ing a war?"

"Thank you for coming, Dr. Nourry."

"Well, call me day or night. I'll come immediately." The doctor sighed. "I think you should prepare yourself. It seems to me that he's hanging on to life by a thread, and that thread could snap at any time."

Professor Chambers waited until the doctor had gone, then went back into the house. Inside, everything was cool, the air circulated by fans in every room. Slowly, she climbed a polished wooden staircase and went into a large, square room with rash mats on the floor and bright plaster walls. Two open windows looked out over the garden. There was a sprinkler just outside, rhythmically pumping water out over the lawn.

Matt was lying in bed with his eyes closed, covered by a single sheet. There was an oxygen mask strapped to his face, and a plastic bag hung over him with a saline drip connected to his arm. He was very pale. The rise and fall of his chest as he breathed was so slight as to be almost imper-ceptible. Professor Chambers thought about what the doctor had just said. Matt didn't just look close to death.

For all intents and purposes, he looked dead already.

"What did the doctor say?" Richard asked.

The journalist had been sitting beside the bed for the past thirty-six hours, apart from a few hours in the early morning when the professor had forcibly sent him to get some rest himself. He had Horowitz, Anthony - [Gatekeepers 02] - Evil Star aged ten years since the two of them had driven out to the desert and found Pedro, lying in the wreckage of the helicopter with a broken ankle and the beginnings of a fever, and then Matt, sprawled facedown in the dust. There were deep lines in his face and his eyes were bloodshot. Nobody knew what had hap-pened in the desert but it was obvious to Chambers that Richard blamed himself for allowing the two boys to set off on their own.

"It's not good news," Chambers said. "He doesn't think Matt's going to make it."

Richard let out a single breath. He could see Matt's con-dition for himself but he had been hoping against hope for good news. "I should never have let him come to Peru," he said. "He didn't waat to come. He didn't want any of this."

"You should get some lunch. It's not going to help Matt, making yourself ill."

"I can't eat. I don't have any appetite." Richard looked down at the silent boy. "What happened to him out there, Professor? What did they do to him?"

"Maybe Pedro will be able to tell us." Chambers glanced at her watch. "I'm going to the hospital to pick him up this afternoon."

"I'll stay with Matt." Richard ran a hand across his cheek. He hadn't shaved for two days and he had the begin-nings of a beard. "When I first met him, you know, I didn't even believe him. I thought he was just a kid with an overac-tive imagination. So much has happened since then. And now this ..."

There was a commotion outside in the garden. While the two of them had been speaking, a car had drawn up and the driver was unhappy about something. He was shouting and one of the gardeners Horowitz, Anthony - [Gatekeepers 02] - Evil Star was trying to calm him down. Professor Chambers went over to the window and looked out. The car was a taxi. The driver was demanding payment. She frowned.

"It's Pedro," she said.

The two of them hurried out of the room, reaching the stairs just as Pedro came in through the front door, support-ing himself on crutches. He was still wearing hospital pajamas. There was a brand-new plaster cast on his left foot.

"Que tu estas haciendo aqui?"
Professor Chambers exclaimed. She spoke fluent Spanish. "What are you doing here? I was coming for you this afternoon. . . ."

"Donde esta Matteo?"
Pedro demanded.

It seemed to Richard that Pedro, too, had been changed by whatever had taken place in the desert. The boy had always been quiet; he had no choice when so much of the conversation had been in English.

But he had also seemed detached, somehow on the edge of events.

Now, for the first time, he was in command. He knew exactly what he was doing. He had marched out of the hospital and into a taxi. He had persuaded the driver to bring him here. He knew what he wanted, and he wasn't going to let anyone stand in his way.

Professor Chambers must have sensed this, too.
"Matt esta aqui,"

she said, pointing at the stairs. Then, realizing that Pedro would never make it on his own, she held out an arm. Pedro gathered up his crutches, and the two of them began to climb up awkwardly together. As he went, Pedro turned and glanced briefly at Richard, and in that moment Richard felt a sense of relief that he couldn't begin to understand. Suddenly, he was sure that Matt was going to be all right.

Horowitz, Anthony - [Gatekeepers 02] - Evil Star Pedro rested briefly against the door of Matt's room. He took everything in very quickly. Professor Chambers wanted to go in with him but Pedro shook his head, then muttered a single word in English, "Alone."

Chambers hesitated. But there was no point arguing. She watched as Pedro dragged himself into the room. The door closed behind him.

• • •

He still wasn't sure what had brought him here, and now that he had arrived, he didn't know what he was meant to do. The English boy looked dead. No. That wasn't quite true. His chest was moving, and Pedro could hear the rasp of his breath behind the oxygen mask.

Aside from the last day and a half, Pedro had never been in a hospital in his life and the sight of the medical equipment unnerved him: the metal cylinder pumping out its carefully measured quantities of air, the liquid dripping down the plastic tube into Matt's arm.

He knew that he had to be here. The two of them had spoken, of course. Pedro asleep in the hospital. Matt uncon-scious here. They had met one last time, and Matt had urged him to come.

"I need you, Pedro. "

But why? What could he possibly do?

Pedro limped over to the bed and sat down on the edge, letting his crutches slide gently onto the floor. Now he was leaning over Matt, who was spread out beneath him, under-neath the white sheet. The oxygen hissed. The plastic mask briefly misted. Otherwise Horowitz, Anthony - [Gatekeepers 02] - Evil Star everything was silent and still.

Pedro reached out.

He knew. It was as if someone had given him a book of his entire life and he was reading it and understanding it for the first time. He had once told Matt that he had no special powers .. . but he knew it wasn't true. After the flood, when his parents and entire family had been killed, he had been aware of something inside him. A new strength. And over the years it had grown.

He was a healer.

Living in Poison Town, there were so many diseases. People were getting ill and dying all the time. But not those who lived close to him. They were never sick, and Sebastian had often remarked upon it. He had said as much when Matt was there.

"There is no illness in this house or in this street. Nobody

understands why. ..."

And he had been aware of it again when Matt had been brutally beaten up by the policemen at the hotel in Lima. After just one day together, all of Matt's bruises had gone. The cracked ribs had somehow healed themselves. Pedro hadn't done anything. He hadn't needed to. Just being there was enough.

Gently, Pedro placed a hand on Matt's chest. At last he was fully aware of his power. Now he was going to use it.

But would it work? Had he left it too late?

Pedro closed his eyes and let the energy flow.

************************************

Horowitz, Anthony - [Gatekeepers 02] - Evil Star The sun was beginning to set over the town of Nazca, and the air was heavy and warm. Professor Chambers came out of the house, carrying a jug of iced lime juice and four glasses. She had lit a barbecue and the flames were leaping up, filling the garden with smoke and the smell of charcoal.

Richard, Matt, and Pedro were waiting for her, sitting around the table in wicker chairs. Pedro's crutches were lying on the grass. He would need them for a couple more weeks, though his ankle was already on the mend. But it v 'as Matt's recovery that had been all the more remarkable. He had woken up just a few hours after Pedro's return. A day later he had been eating and drinking. And now, here he was, sitting as if nothing had happened.

Richard found it impossible to believe, even though Professor Chambers had tried to explain it to him. "Thaumaturgy," she had said, as if it had been something she had been expecting all along.

"What's that?"

"Faith healing. Of course, in this day and age, few peo-ple believe in it anymore. But ancient civilizations relied on it. The Incas, for example. They used it all the time. Thaumaturgy is the ability to treat sickness using some sort of inner, psychic ability."

"And Pedro . . . ?"

"Well, the Incas seemed to think he was one of their own. So I suppose it's no surprise he has the ability." She shook her head.

"What does it matter how it happened?" she exclaimed. "He saved Matt's life. That's all we need to know."

Now Richard watched as Professor Chambers put down the tray and went over to the barbecue. The coals had begun to glow. She spread Horowitz, Anthony - [Gatekeepers 02] - Evil Star four steaks over the grill and went back to the table.

Nobody spoke while the meat cooked. In the days that had passed since Matt's recovery, they had all gotten used to his long silences.

Matt still hadn't told them what had happened at the place of Qolqa, and they knew not to ask. Everything would be said in its own time.

Sometimes, still, Richard worried about him. Matt wasn't quite his old self. The pain had changed him, and now and then Richard could see it; the evidence was in his eyes.