Goddess (14 page)

We slid the door open a crack. So much had happened since the oracle telling us to flee, yet it was only just past midnight. A muddy bank rushed alongside us; the blurred tracks flowed underneath. Our progress seemed relentless. But just as I began to think we were trapped the train approached a point where the tracks diverged. The signal was red.

The train began to slow. I slid the door fully open and crouched on the ledge below. I was afraid of the tracks still sliding under me. I wondered if the rails were electrified. I might fall on to them, or under the wheels, and be crushed.
I can do this
,
I told myself.
I can do anything. Artemis is with me.
We seemed to have paused, rather than actually come to a stop, but I couldn’t hesitate any longer. I jumped, landing clumsily on gravel near to the tracks. Aiden followed. With a wheeze and a clank, the train moved on.

When we got to the top of the scrubby bank, we could see the outskirts of a town only a short distance ahead, its streets broken down to dreary bungalows and the giant sheds of abandoned superstores. Most of the places I’d visited in Britain were like the Sanctuary: picturesque, with grand proportions and olde worlde styles. Since leaving the cult, I’d seen another kind of country, a country that was ugly and tired and cheaply made.

The trouble was, although we’d escaped London, we’d got out on the wrong side.

‘Scarlet didn’t manage to leave the city before curfew so won’t get to her dad’s till morning,’ Aiden announced, tapping away at his phone. ‘I’ll text her to say we’ll try and hitchhike part of the way.’

My eyes widened. ‘Won’t that be dangerous?’

He laughed. ‘I keep forgetting you’ve spent your life being chauffeured around in limos. No, hitchhiking’s pretty mainstream these days, especially since petrol prices got so high. And even if we did feel able to risk public transport, there’s nothing running at this time of night.’

First, we stopped at a twenty-four-hour supermarket and petrol station just off the motorway. The place had several security guards as well as CCTV, and
Shoplifters Will Be Prosecuted
signs were plastered all over the windows. As I waited outside for Aiden, I watched a heavily pregnant woman get out of a car and carefully count out a small handful of change. Three or four skinny children pressed tired faces against the window of her battered car.
These are your people
, I said to Artemis.
Give them your protection. Have mercy on us all.

I met Aiden at the back of the petrol station. Furtively, he handed me the make-up he’d bought, and I slipped inside the toilet. The place stank. In the mirror, my tired face looked drained of all colour. White hair, white skin, eyes like glass . . . I didn’t know if I looked like a priestess, but I definitely looked like a fugitive.

I used a heavy foundation and bronzer on my face, and eye make-up to darken my brows and eyelashes, scraping back my hair into a high ponytail. It wasn’t much of a disguise, but I hoped it would reduce my resemblance to any ‘wanted’ images that might be in circulation. After a moment’s hesitation, I took a folded jumper from my bag and pushed it under my hoody, using the gold priestess belt to fix it round my waist. I’d got the idea from the woman outside the supermarket.

It was hard to keep a straight face when I saw Aiden’s expression. The extent of his own disguise was a woolly hat and an up-turned collar. ‘They’re looking for a mentally ill priestess and her partner in crime,’ I said, more breezily than I felt. ‘Not a pregnant teen and her boyfriend.’

‘Sneaky,’ he said. ‘And clever. I like it.’

I tried not to look too obviously pleased.

‘But you’ve smudged your mascara,’ he added. ‘Hold still a sec.’

He leaned in towards me and brushed his thumb under the corner of my right eye. His touch was very gentle, but my whole cheek tingled. Our eyes met. With effort, I moved away.

We walked towards the slip road, and a grassy verge near where the traffic slowed. Lorries thundered past and the wind blew grit into our eyes. I was worried there wouldn’t be much traffic at this time of night. But after only twenty minutes, a beaten-up car screeched to a halt a little way down from where we were standing with our thumbs out. The horn tooted.

Aiden took my hand and this time I let him. We had to look like a couple, I told myself, as the driver stuck his fat mottled face out of the window and bellowed ‘Roll up! Roll up! Baby on-board!’

While I slid into the back seat, Aiden sat in front and made small talk. ‘Yeah, I’m starting work in the morning,’ he explained to our new friend, Terry. ‘Or I hope so, anyhow. I’ve got a mate in construction who says he might have something for me.’

‘Never thought I’d see the day when a well-spoken lad like you had to thumb his way round the country for a job.’

I tensed. Of course Aiden’s voice betrayed his background.

However, his answer was relaxed. ‘Me neither. But things are tough for everyone.’

‘Too true.’ Terry eyed me in the mirror. ‘It’s a hard world to bring a kid into – and you’re hardly more than kids yourselves. Ah well. Maybe the new government will set things right. It’s about time this country found its backbone.’

After a while, he put on the radio. A string of mindless pop jingles was followed by the news. The final item was about the search for the missing priestess from the Cult of Artemis.

As the newsreader proceeded to describe me and Aiden, I couldn’t breathe. But Terry merely chuckled.

‘Sounds to me like there’s been a catfight in the cult. There’ll be more to this business than meets the eye.’

‘I heard they nearly caught the girl yesterday, but she got a tip-off from the goddess and escaped,’ said Aiden.

‘How about it, love?’ Terry glanced at me in the mirror again. ‘Which of the two oracles gets your vote? The bimbo or the lunatic?’

Chapter 13

The Civil Guard, under the command of General Ferrer, has raided addresses across the capital as part of a crackdown on anarchist groups. Up to a hundred people have been taken into custody on suspicion of conspiracy to commit acts of terrorism.

In response to the increasing terrorist threat, the Emergency Committee has announced the creation of a new State Security Agency and the introduction of compulsory ID cards for all citizens.

BBC News

Dawn was just breaking as we arrived in the small market town where Scarlet had arranged to pick us up. We’d hitched two more lifts after Terry’s. The other drivers we met were anxious and unsettled by recent events, but seemed resigned. ‘Nothing we can do about it,’ was the standard response. I was afraid we’d run into another checkpoint, but for now they were only set up in trouble spots and major cities.

There was nothing covert about Scarlet’s arrival. She roared up in a red sports car, music pumping from the stereo, her dark glasses the only attempt at camouflage.

‘Golly, darling,’ she said to Aiden, after kissing him on both cheeks. ‘You do pong.’

Then she looked at my bump. ‘Congratulations. I see you’ve made the most of escaping the nunnery.’

I blushed and mumbled something about the need for disguise. Scarlet laughed uproariously, and I felt even more at a disadvantage. I probably smelled too. I was newly conscious of the cheap make-up smudged around my face.

We weren’t in the car for long, but it still gave me plenty of time to worry about what kind of impression I’d make on Rick Moodie: rock star, revolutionary and, apparently, Artemis’s Number One Fan. Soon we were driving through a wood and on to a wide tree-lined drive that swept up to a sprawling mansion. It wasn’t the stately pile I’d been expecting, but a starkly modernist construction of curved glass panels and blinding white walls.

Scarlet parked the car at a rakish angle and hopped out. ‘Welcome to the madhouse.’

She led the way into the entrance hall, a glass atrium with a black marble floor. There were sliding doors at the end, leading outside to a paved terrace and a swimming pool. Someone was swimming in it with long, slow strokes. Heat rose from the water and steamed gently in the morning air.

As we stood out on the terrace, the swimmer, a thin blonde woman, swam to the steps and pulled herself out of the water. I looked away in confusion, for she was completely naked.

‘Hi, Crystal,’ said Scarlet. ‘Where’s Dad?’

‘Who cares?’ the dripping woman replied indifferently. She took a glug from the bottle of vodka on the side of the pool and returned to her swim.

Scarlet muttered something under her breath and went back into the house. ‘You’d better wait here while I track him down.’

‘Actually, do you have a secure telephone line I could use?’ Aiden asked. ‘I’d like to try and check on the others from the safe house.’

Scarlet told him to come with her. Though I didn’t want Aiden to leave me, I was too proud to cling on and so stayed behind in the atrium. There were elliptical stairs on either side, with mirrored steps that seemed to float upwards. Although music wailed and thumped through the walls, there were no other signs of life apart from the woman in the pool. The place felt too bright, too empty. It wasn’t long before I decided to follow the others after all. I opened the door I thought they’d gone through, and found a lift. The only option was down.

The lift was mirrored too. When the doors opened, I found myself in a basement corridor. The walls were lined with framed concert posters and record sleeves. At least it was quiet here. I looked into a chrome and black leather cocktail bar; it was littered with dirty glasses and bottles, but otherwise empty. The next door opened to an entertainment suite.

A wide aisle ran between rows of plush seats and slanted down to small stage. I supposed there would be a cinema screen behind the black velvet curtains. Small lights set into the floor glowed softly and built-in speakers hummed from the walls. The sound was faint and murmuring; like the sea, perhaps, or wind in trees.

I was about to turn back when the curtains began to part. They drew back to reveal the goddess.

I caught my breath. Just for a moment, I thought it was really her. Then I realised it was a life-sized replica of the statue in the temple. Bow drawn, hair flowing, hound at her side. The screen behind the statue showed a film of sun-parched mountains and cypress trees.

‘Ain’t she a babe?’

A little man had emerged from behind the curtains, and gave the statue’s behind a pat. ‘Real craftsmanship, that,’ he said proudly. ‘No expense spared.’

‘It’s, um, remarkable,’ I managed to say. ‘I’m sorry if I disturbed you. I’m here because . . . well, because I’m –’

‘I know who you are, ducky.’ He kissed my hand with a nod and a wink. ‘Welcome to me humble abode, Honoured Lady.’

The rock star was wearing the same sort of clothes as his daughter: tight ripped jeans, a studded T-shirt. His hair was black and shaggy too. But there the resemblance ended. Rick Moodie was tiny and wizened, with a yellowish face and a goblin grin.

‘This is just a temporary arrangement,’ he explained, waving his wrinkly hands. ‘The plan is to build a proper temple, like the one in London but bigger ’n’ better. Artemis will like it here.
You’ll
like it here. You’ll give more oracles – buckets of ’em. It’s the country air, you see. It’s holy. Purified.’

I nodded politely, and he lowered his voice to a confiding whisper. ‘I’ve talked with the goddess meself, you know. I had an overdose once, and she came to me in a vision. Queen of the freakin’ Beasts. She saved me for me music – that’s what people don’t understand. Like that High Bitch from your old cult. But you understand. You’ve been chosen by her, just like me.’

‘There you are, Dad,’ said Scarlet from the door. ‘Crystal’s been asking for you.’ Then, when he didn’t move, ‘She’s knocking back vodka for breakfast again.’

Rick Moodie reluctantly left the room, though not without blowing me a goodbye kiss. Scarlet lounged on one of the velvet seats and lit up a cigarette. ‘I thought an intervention was in order.’

I cast around for something polite to say. ‘Your father is very . . . enthusiastic.’

‘Nah, he’s just nuts.’ Her tone was indulgent, a parent humouring a wayward child. ‘At least his goddess fetish keeps him out of trouble.’

‘That might change if I’m here.’

She eyed me through the smoke. ‘You don’t think the army’s going to storm the place just to drag you home?’

‘No.’ I said it with more confidence than I felt. ‘I’ve always been free to leave the cult. Its leaders would like to shut me up, that’s all.’

‘Well, Dad can help with that. He’s got the contacts and the cash to make you mainstream. Or a lot harder to shut up anyway.’

‘That’s what Aiden says.’

‘You like him, don’t you?’

She was watching me closely. That was because
she
liked him, I realised. I could – should – have put her mind at rest. But somehow I didn’t feel the need.

‘I’m very grateful to Aiden,’ I said blandly. ‘We seem to have a natural connection.’

‘That’s because he’s always been the bleeding-heart, save-the-world type. So congrats on becoming his latest project.’ She took another drag of her cigarette. ‘You know, I’m totally in awe of you priestess types. A hundred per cent pure in thought, word and deed! It must take superhuman levels of self-control.’