The Burning (37 page)

“What?” he said. “Did you think you were dreaming?”

It was the man they had seen on the Underground in Paris; the man who had demanded the Triskellion. She had not seen him since, but, looking at him now, she sensed that he had been with them all along. There had been many moments when she had felt as though she was being observed, and staring into the blackness, where a face should have been, she was in no doubt that he was the man – if he
was
a man – who had been watching them.

“I’d ask if you slept well,” the man said, “but it’s obvious that you didn’t.”

The voice was as cracked and low as Rachel remembered, and yet there was something else about the intonation that she recognized … but couldn’t quite place. She slid away from him and pulled herself upright in the bed. “Who are you?”

“Well, this will all be over soon,” he said. He raised his twisted hands, blistered and claw-like, and gently drew back his hood. “So I don’t suppose there’s any harm…”

Rachel strained to see in the half-light, then gasped.
Her hand few to her mouth. She felt faint, but was unable to tear her eyes away from the man’s face.

What was left of it.

What had once been his nose had been burned away, leaving a large hole in the middle of his face, divided by a sliver of bone. Taut wings of skin, that had once been the lids, dragged at the corners of his eyes. His mouth was a thin purple gash that widened when he smiled to expose the row of large, yellow teeth. The ears were completely gone, save for two twists of scar tissue on either side of his head, while all that remained of his hair was one or two long strands that caught the early morning light as they lay plastered across his skull.

As the man leant close to her, Rachel could see that the livid skin of his face still wept beneath a transparent plastic mask that added an artificial sheen to the raw and angry flesh. Knotted ropes of tendon appeared to be all that held the reptilian head up and, when he spoke, she could clearly see the cartilage of his windpipe move beneath a translucent membrane of freshly transplanted skin.

“I am Hilary Wing,” he said.

It was nearly a minute before Rachel could speak. “But … you
died
,” she said. “Back in Triskellion … there was a motorbike crash.”

The purple gash of Wing’s mouth widened. “Well, I think part of me certainly died,” he said. “The strange thing is that, despite … everything, and trust me this is even more painful
than it looks … I’ve never felt better in my life. Never felt
stronger
.”

“What do you want?”

“We’ve been through this already, I think. You know very well what I want.”

Rachel stared at the terrible face and tried hard not to let her eyes slide away to the corner of the room. To the bag that contained the Triskellion.

“I’m not here to take it,” Wing continued. “Not now at any rate. I know that if I bide my time there’s a bigger prize just around the corner.”

Despite the terror that held every inch of her frozen, Rachel felt a strength begin to spread through her: the same sense of power she had felt when the Triskellion had burned through her skin in Marrakesh. “It doesn’t belong to you,” she said.

Wing leant forward suddenly. “You
stole
it,” he snapped. “You took it from where it belonged and I intend to … restore the natural balance of things.”

“You’re a liar,” Rachel said. “You talk about the Triskellion like it’s some precious bit of family silver, but really you just want the power.”

Wing sat back again. “Yes, if I’m being completely honest, I want what it can do. Triskellion was a village where people didn’t get sick, where the crops never failed. It made us different …
special
. So, of course, I’m trying to imagine what
two
of them could do. That’s one part of it…”

“What’s the other?”

There was a sucking noise as the plastic mask tightened across Wing’s face. “I need to make sure that you, and those like you, don’t get it.”

Rachel felt a little more power kick in; a surge of anger in spite of the fear. “It belongs to people like me. If the Triskellion… If both of them are family heirlooms, it’s
my
family they belong to.”

“Oh I know very well where these things came from,” Wing said. “They’re clearly capable of very wonderful things, but I’m afraid allowing your kind to exist is simply too dangerous. You can’t be … tolerated.”

“I think you’re forgetting that we’re actually part of the same family.” Rachel smiled and could see that Wing was taken aback.

“I’m not forgetting anything.”

“Your father; my grandfather—”

Wing jumped to his feet and raised a scarred hand as though he was about to slap her. “I am not the same as you. Don’t make that mistake…” He pulled up his hood and moved slowly across to the bedroom door. “We may not get the chance to talk again,” he said. “I suspect we’ll all be rather busy over the next day or two.”

“Get out.”

“Where’s your brother, by the way? Dead already?”

“Get out!”

“I’ll put in a word when I get home,” Wing said. “Perhaps
they’ll lay on a memorial at the village church. Say a prayer for you both…”

He closed the door behind him without a sound.

Rachel counted to twenty before jumping out of bed and pulling on her clothes, the scream rising up from her before she’d even got the door open.

She tore down the corridor, past the rooms where the French and Spanish twins were sleeping. Laura stepped out of her room and held out a hand, but Rachel brushed it aside and raced further on, round the corner and into Gabriel’s arms.

“It’s OK,” he said.

Rachel could not remember the last time she and Gabriel had been so close. She pressed herself against him as the tears came and, although he was no more than a boy, no taller and not much stronger than she was, she felt safe.

T
hey were less than an hour into their journey and Rachel was exhausted. Lack of sleep made her feel light-headed and the terrible images from the night before haunted her, flooding her mind with horror, draining her of energy.

Ali had organized a couple of donkeys. One was loaded down with bags and the supplies that he had put together, while Duncan and Morag rode happily on the other. The first kilometre had been easy going, along a flat beach which had stretched out from the town walls of Mogador as far as the eye could see. Eventually, the beach had sprouted rough patches of vegetation – grasses and bushes – which in turn had swelled into windswept dunes, the soft sand making it hard to walk with any speed.

There had not been a great deal of idle chat as they’d walked, other than repeated comments about how hot everyone was getting, and Inez and Carmen reminding each other what a nice guy Jubby had been.

Ali was leading the expedition, coaxing the donkeys along through the desert landscape and whistling a strange, sad tune. He wore a long, deep-blue robe, with boots and camouflage-print trousers sticking out incongruously underneath.

“I like your top,” Rachel said, by way of conversation. “Great colour.”

Ali grinned. “It is the colour of my tribe.”

“So the Berbers are not just one tribe?”

“No, there are many. We have tribes all across North Africa and beyond. But we believe
our
tribe is the oldest. We are where it all started.” Ali closed his fist and thumped his chest, as if to demonstrate that he was the one who started it all.

“Started what?” Rachel was genuinely intrigued.

“Mankind.” Ali said it casually, as though he were telling someone the time. “We believe that the Berbers were the original inhabitants of North Africa, long before the Romans or anyone else came here.”

“How long are we talking about?”

“Prehistoric times. Like cavemen. Neanderthal man. We worshipped the sun, the moon and the rocks among which we lived.”

“Really?” Rachel said. An image was beginning to form in her mind. “So how do you know how to find these caves?”

Ali tapped his head. “It’s all in here. My father told me, same as his father told him. He didn’t tell Mahmoud. Now you see why.”

“I don’t get that,” Rachel said. “He seemed so nice, so … generous.”

“Oh yes, Mahmoud has very nice manners. And, of course, he has plenty of money, which he earned in England. But the way he earned his money …
not
so nice. That’s why he didn’t earn our tribal tattoo. He got in with bad people in the hippy days in Mogador. English people.”

Rachel shuddered as she remembered the night before. She thought about all the English people she had met, the worst of whom was, without doubt, her own relative. But surely Mahmoud could never have known Hilary Wing. Could he?

Rachel had not spoken of her horror, nor tried to explain the monstrosity that had visited her in the night, to anyone other than Gabriel. She had not wished to scare the others, but she had also felt that Gabriel was the only one capable of understanding, and of protecting them all from whoever –
whatever
– it was that Hilary Wing had become.

Adam knew that they were on the move.

From inside his cubicle in the mobile unit, it was difficult to get a sense of direction, or speed. But his instincts told him that they were going somewhere, and from the subtle changes in motion, he thought that they might be on water.

He looked down at his wrists. They were still strapped to the gurney, but the bruises had nearly faded completely and he felt almost smug about his rapid recovery rate. There would be no marks.

He was pleased that they had not been able to break him. He had told them nothing, and he had felt no pain. The most horrifying part of his ordeal had been seeing the look of guilt on Mr Cheung’s face as he had given up trying. A man whom Adam had once trusted and whom the Hope Project had considered their toughest interrogator. A man over whom Adam had gained the upper hand through his own strength of mind.

He was winning.

“Welcome aboard,” Clay Van der Zee said, opening the door to the cubicle and releasing the straps from Adam’s ankles and wrists. “Come with me.”

He led Adam up on to the interior deck of a large motor launch. Adam had been right: they were on water, and his cell had been slotted neatly into the hold. He heard the engines fire up and glanced through a tiny porthole to see that they were motoring out of a harbour.

“Where are we?” he asked. “Where are we going?”

Van der Zee didn’t answer immediately. They walked up a flight of steps to a control room, where several Hope operatives, wearing dark glasses and inhibitors, tensed as Adam entered.

“With any luck,” Van der Zee said, “we’re going to see your sister.”

Adam focused, pushing out all other thoughts until, in his mind’s eye, the image of a cave began to form.

*  *  *

As Ali spoke, the picture in Rachel’s head was becoming clearer, like images from a dream coming into sharp focus: a cave, a beach, men in boats. She clutched the Triskellion that now hung on a leather thong round her neck. Then she became aware of another set of thoughts chiming with hers.

Adam.

Rachel’s heart leapt and a warm feeling crept through her tired bones, renewing her energy. The connection was faint, but she knew now that her brother was alive and within her range. It was too early to raise her mother’s hopes, but she felt sure that Adam was on his way.

They pushed on over scrubby desert until the landscape developed into sharp, grey rocks. Half a kilometre ahead, a craggy incline led up to a path that wound along the cliff top.

Ali pointed to the top of the path. “We can take the donkeys up that far, then we will have to leave them and carry the supplies.”

The French boys grumbled, looking at the heavy bags on the donkey’s back. Inez and Carmen agreed reluctantly, checking the soles of their flat shoes which would doubtless be wrecked by the rocky path that lay ahead. Laura and Kate trudged on, uncomplaining, while behind them Gabriel looked around to make sure that they weren’t being followed, watching the sky as if checking his bearings.

All the while, in Rachel’s mind, Adam’s voice was growing stronger: telling her not to worry, that he was not far away.
She looked across at Ali. “You and Mahmoud are twins,” she said, “so, are you … like us?”

Ali sucked his teeth and considered a moment. “I suppose so, yes, up to a point. There is a legend that says a man came from the sun at the beginning of time and created our people from the primitive cavemen.”

Rachel nodded. She remembered the runes in Triskellion. They had told more or less the same story.

Ali pointed a finger skywards and cast a glance back towards Gabriel before continuing. “They say that the man from the sun accounts for the blond and red hair and the green eyes that sometimes occur among the Berbers. It is said that these people are a genetic throwback to the visitors who came to this coast.”

Rachel was suddenly excited. Pieces of a bigger jigsaw were beginning to come together. “So you’d be genetically linked to the … visitors, the Travellers, who came here. Like we are to the one who came to England?”