Necropolis (9 page)

She lifted her glass.

"Anyway, here's a toast to all five of you. The Five, I should say. Look after yourselves. Beat the Old Ones. Do what you have to do. And now let's get some hot chocolate and have a final game of perudo.

You have an early start."

Later that night, Richard and Matt found themselves standing on the veranda outside the main room. It was a beautiful night with a full moon, an inky sky, and stars everywhere. Matt could hear classical music coming from inside the house. Professor Chambers had an old-fashioned radio that she liked to listen to while she worked. Scott and Jamie were sharing a room on the first floor. Pedro was probably watching TV.

"I can't believe we're going home," Matt said.

"England." Richard gazed into the darkness as if he could see it on the horizon. "Do you have any idea what happens when we get there?"

Matt shook his head. "I don't know. I've thought about it. I've tried to work out some sort of plan. Maybe it would be easier if we knew what the Old Ones have been doing all this time." He thought for a moment. "Maybe we'll know when the five of us get together. Maybe it will all make sense."

Matt stared into the darkness. The nights in Nazca were always huge. Even without seeing it, he could feel the desert stretching out to the mountains. There seemed to be five times more stars in the southern hemisphere than he'd ever seen in Europe. The sky was bursting with them.

"What you said yesterday…" He turned to Richard. "About the Old Ones…"

"They were looking for kids with special powers," Richard said. "That's how they found Scott and Jamie. If Scarlett went through the door at St. Meredith's, they'll know about it. They'll have read the article too."

'You think they'll be waiting for us?"

"Scarlett's being watched by the Nexus. Her father's with her. She took a couple of days off school. So far everything seems okay. She doesn't seem to be in any danger."

Richard had been in constant touch with the Nexus, the strange collection of millionaires, politicians, psychics, and churchmen who knew about the Old Ones and had come together in a sort of secret society to fight them. It had to be secret because they were afraid of being ridiculed. How could they admit that they believed in devils and demons? The Nexus had made it their job to look after Matt and the other Gatekeepers. At one stage, they had paid for him to go to a private school. They were still paying for everything while the four of them were out here.

And they were also protecting Scarlett Adams. They had moved in the moment she had been identified in the national press, hiring a team of private detectives to watch over her night and day. They were lucky that she lived in England. That made things easier. One of the Nexus members was a senior police officer named Tarrant, and he had arranged for all her calls to be monitored. Meanwhile, Scarlett had gone back to school. Her father was still with her in London, and there was a Scottish helper living in the house. By now, Richard knew a great deal about her. She was in the school play. She had a boyfriend named Aidan, and she regularly beat him at tennis. She seemed to have a happy life.

Richard and Matt were about to rip all that up. Somewhere inside him, Matt felt guilty about that — but he knew he couldn't avoid it. She had been born for a purpose. His job was to tell her what that purpose was.

Somewhere, an owl hooted in the darkness. The house was on the outskirts of Nazca, but Richard and Matt could make out the lights of the town, twinkling in the distance. Everything was very peaceful, but they knew that it was an illusion. Soon the whole world would change.

"I'm not sure you should go," Richard said suddenly.

"What do you mean?" Matt was surprised. Everything was ready. The tickets had been bought.

"I've been thinking about it…this trip to England. You and Pedro and Scott and Jamie… all on the same plane. Suppose the Old Ones have control of American airspace. They could smash you into the side of a mountain. Or a building."

"They don't want to kill us," Matt said. He was fairly sure about that. "If they kill us, we'll all be replaced by our past selves. That's how it works. And what good will that do them? They'll only have to start searching for us all over again. It's easier for them to keep us alive."

Richard shook his head. "They could still force the plane down somewhere and capture you."

Matt considered the possibility. The trouble was that the Old Ones had been silent for months. They seemed to have slipped into the shadows, as if they had never existed at all. Richard had been scouring the Internet, waiting to hear of a news event, some horror happening somewhere in the world that might suggest the Old Ones were involved. There were plenty of stories. The war in Afghanistan. Ethnic cleansing in Darfur. Misery and starvation in Zimbabwe. But that was just everyday news. That would happen even without the Old Ones. He had been looking for something else.

"What do you think they're doing?" Matt asked. "Why do you think they haven't shown themselves?"

Richard shrugged. "I guess they've been waiting," he said.

"Waiting for what?"

"Waiting for Scar."

There was a movement on the veranda, and Matt tensed for a moment, then relaxed. He could tell it was Professor Chambers, even without turning round. The smell of her cigar had given her away and, sure enough, there it was. She was clutching it in one hand with a glass of Peruvian brandy in the other.

"Are you two going in?" she asked. "I'm putting on the alarms."

The house was completely surrounded by a security system that had been installed shortly after Richard, Pedro, and Matt had arrived. There were no fences or uniformed guards — the professor had said she couldn't live like that. The system was invisible. But there was a series of infrared beams at the perimeter, and the garden itself had pressure pads concealed in different places under the lawn. Most sophisticated of all was the radar dish mounted on the roof, sweeping the entire area. It could pick up any movement a hundred yards away. That was how they had been living. It might look as if they were free, but they had all been aware that they were actually in a state of siege.

"We were just talking about tomorrow," Richard said.

"It'll be here soon." Chambers blew smoke. "It's after ten. Shouldn't you be in bed?"

Richard tapped Matt on the shoulder. "After you."

The three of them went inside. Matt said good night to Richard and climbed the stairs to the small room he had chosen at the back of the house. He liked it there. When he was lying in bed, his head was directly underneath a slanting roof with a skylight so, lying on his back, he could look up at the stars.

His small canvas bag was already packed and sitting on the floor. He wasn't taking much with him. If he needed anything in London, he could always buy it there.

Matt undressed quickly, washed, and slipped between the sheets. For the last few months, he had been searching for Scar in the only way that he could — in his dreams. Time and again he had visited the dreamworld. He had been there so often that he knew the landscape well: the shoreline stretching along a great sea with everything dead and gray, the island where he had once found himself trapped.

The dreamworld baffled him. Was it a dream or was it a real world? That was the first question. And was it there to help him or to throw him off balance? On the one hand, it was a frightening place, conjuring up strange, violent images that he couldn't understand: giant swans, walking statues, guns, and knives. But at the same time, Matt didn't think he was in any danger there. The more he visited it, the more he felt it was on his side. He wondered if anyone actually lived there — or was it simply there for the Gatekeepers, its only inhabitants?

At any event, he had gone back there almost every night, floating out of the bed, out of the room, out of himself. Then he had begun to travel, searching for Scar. Sometimes he would see a flicker of lightning, an approaching storm. Once, he found footprints. Another time he came upon a grove of trees, which at least proved that the place wasn't entirely dead, that things could grow there.

But there had never been any sign of Scar.

There was no point in searching for her tonight. In just twenty-four hours he would be meeting her anyway. But even so — maybe it was just habit — he found himself back in the dreamworld almost at once. As usual, he was on his own. He was climbing a steep hill, but it took no more effort than if he had been walking on level ground. Far behind him, the wilderness stretched out, wide and empty.

And then he noticed something strange. The ground underneath his feet had changed. He knelt down and examined it, brushing aside the dust that covered everything. It was true. He was standing on a path fashioned out of paving stones that had been brought here and laid in place. He could see the joins, the cement gluing everything together. Even though he was asleep, Matt felt a surge of excitement. A man-made path! This was completely new and confirmed what he had always thought: The dreamworld was inhabited. There might be buildings, even whole cities there.

He looked up. The path had to lead somewhere. There could be something on the other side of the hill.

But he wasn't going to find out — not then. Suddenly he was awake. Someone was shaking him, calling his name. The lights were on in his room. He opened his eyes. It was Richard.

"Wake up, Matt," he was saying. "There's someone here."

EIGHT

The Man from Lima

Matt heaved himself out of bed, threw on some shorts and a T-shirt, and ran downstairs barefoot. The whole house was awake. There were lights on everywhere and the alarm system was buzzing, warning them that somebody was approaching.

It had already occurred to him that this sudden interruption must be connected to the fact that Scarlett had been found. If all five of the Gatekeepers were now out there and known to each other, that made them a greater danger to the Old Ones, and it was no surprise that they'd want to take action. It was exactly what he and Richard had been worrying about. On the other hand, it could be a false alarm. Over the past four months, there had been plenty enough of those. Sometimes the children came out from the town, looking for food or something to steal. Professor Chambers kept llamas for their wool, and one of them might have broken loose. The system was sensitive. Even a bat or a large moth might have been enough to set it off.

Matt hurried into the main room. There was a computer standing on a table in the corner and it had already activated itself, automatically connecting to the radar on the roof. It showed a single blip moving slowly and purposefully toward the front door. It was half past one. A bit late for a visitor.

Jamie and Scott had come downstairs, fully dressed. Pedro followed them — barefoot like Matt, but then he often preferred to walk without shoes. He was yawning and pulling on a sweater. Joanna Chambers had arrived ahead of everyone. She was wearing an old dressing gown. Matt watched her open the gun cabinet and take out a rifle. So far, nobody had spoken.

"What's happening?" Jamie asked.

"A single figure moving through the garden." She nodded at the computer. "It looks like there's only one of them, but we can't be sure."

Richard went over and examined the screen. "I'd say he's trying not to be seen," he muttered. "Why don't we take a look at him?"

He leaned over and pressed a switch. This was another part of the security system. The entire garden was instantly lit up by a series of arc lamps so bright that it was as if he had set off a magnesium flare.

Matt blinked. It was quite shocking to see the brilliant colors, the wide green lawn, so late at night.

There was a single figure, a man, trapped in the middle of the lawn. He was dressed in a linen jacket, jeans, and a polo shirt buttoned up to the neck. There was a canvas bag across his shoulder. As the lights had come on, he had frozen and stood there with his hands half covering his eyes, momentarily blinded.

He seemed to be on his own. He certainly wasn't carrying any visible weapons. Richard opened the French windows. Professor Chambers stepped outside.

"Stay where you are!" she shouted. "I have a gun pointing at you."

"There is no need for that!" the man shouted back in heavily accented English. "I am a friend."

"What do you want?"

"I want to speak to the boy. Matthew Freeman. Is he here?"

Richard glanced at Matt, who moved forward, stepping through the French windows. He was careful not to go too far. Professor Chambers lifted the gun, covering him. "What's your name?" he called out.

"Ramon." The man cupped his hand over his eyes, shielding them, trying to make him out.

"Where have you come from?"

"From Lima." The man hesitated, unsure what to do, whether to move forward or not. He seemed to be pinned there by the light. "Please…are you Matthew? I am here because I want to help you."

Pedro had come over to the window. He was standing next to Matt. "Why does he come, like a thief, in the middle of the night?" he muttered. Matt nodded. He knew that Pedro was the most suspicious of them all. Maybe it was something to do with the life he'd once led.

Richard agreed. "We can ask him to come back in the morning," he muttered.

But Matt wasn't so sure. "What do you want?" he shouted.

The man hadn't moved. "I will show you when I am inside," he said. He looked around him. "Please… it is not safe for me out here."

Matt knew he had to make a decision. It was something he was finding more and more. Although he was in the professor's house and she and Richard were far older than him, he always seemed to be the one in charge.

Quickly, he turned over the options. They were all supposed to be leaving the house at ten o'clock the next morning, driving up to Lima to catch the flight that would take them to London. This was no time to be meeting with complete strangers. On the other hand, there were six of them and one of him.

Professor Chambers had a weapon. And the man seemed genuine enough.

"All right!" Matt called out. "Come in…"