The Key (43 page)

Hearing the shot, Gabriel looked over his shoulder and saw his father fall forward, knocking Hyde to the ground.

All the scenarios from his youth when he’d imagined what he would have done to save him flashed through his head. In the end it had been his father who had saved him.

He saw Hyde roll his father’s inert body off him and bring the weapon back to bear. Then a blur of movement flashed across him as a rider galloped straight through Hyde, the horse kicking the gun away as it fired, trampling him beneath its hooves.

Gabriel didn’t wait to see if he got up again. He kept on running, straight through the doors of the nearest building, carrying Liv to safety.

Inside, the building was deserted. The only sounds came from the great arc of water pattering down on the roof and the hum of air-conditioning.

Gabriel found the sick bay at the end of a long corridor and kicked the door open. Gently he set Liv on an examination table, feeling her neck for any improvement in her pulse. It was steady but still low. Her eyes rolled open but failed to focus. Her mouth formed words that were barely whispers. ‘Did we make it?’

‘I think so. Just hold on.’

The words of the prophecy prickled in his mind: …
within the full phase of a moon, Lest the Key shalt perish
.

He opened a cupboard-full of dressings and sterile gloves. Gabriel was field-trained in combat first aid, which was mostly about pain relief and stopping blood loss, neither of which applied in this situation. The next cupboard was locked. Obviously where they kept the good stuff. He raised his leg to kick it open just as the door opened behind him.

Gabriel spun round ready to fight and saw a medic standing in the door.

‘Help her,’ he said, grabbing the man’s elbow and steering him towards Liv.

The man slipped immediately into doctor mode, checking pulse, temperature and reflex response in the same time it would have taken Gabriel to find and unwrap a Band-Aid.

‘She’s dehydrated and appears to be suffering from shock,’ the medic said. ‘Nothing serious. I’ll put her on a drip and keep her mildly sedated.’

Gabriel nodded. More footsteps outside in the corridor, heading their way. He palmed a scalpel from an instrument tray and tensed his muscles ready to fight. His father was still out there, probably bleeding out from the bullet wound. He needed to get back to him.

The door to the sick bay opened and he saw he was too late: the same rider who had trampled Hyde to the ground was now carrying his father’s body in his arms. Gabriel felt a twist of guilt: it should have been him, not this stranger.

The rider laid John Mann down on the second examination table and stepped aside as the medic took over. He cut away the blood-soaked shirt clinging to his chest and revealed a neat bullet hole that sucked and bubbled each time he breathed. This was the sort of injury Gabriel was more familiar with. The sucking meant the bullet had punctured the lung. It would gradually be filling with blood, effectively drowning and suffocating him. The colour was draining from Mann’s face, and his lips were already turning blue. The medic grabbed an oxygen mask and held it over his gasping mouth. Gabriel stepped forward and took over, leaving the medic free to clean the wound and prepare an occlusive patch to try to re-inflate the lung. He leaned in low over his father’s face, saw the eyes flicker open and focus on him.

‘I’m sorry, my son,’ John Mann said. ‘One day you will understand. One day I hope you will forgive me.’

The grey eyes closed and the wheezing stopped. Gabriel looked at the chest wound – no longer sucking air, no longer moving at all. The medic grabbed the oxygen mask and held it tightly over his face with one hand while the other clamped down on the wound. The chest inflated and air hissed from around his hand, but when he took it away it sank again and all the air rushed out. The lungs had stopped working. He was gone.

The rider who had brought him in turned to Gabriel. ‘
Ab?
’ he asked.

Gabriel nodded. ‘Yes. He was my father.’

‘He was good man.’

‘Yes,’ Gabriel replied. ‘Yes, he was.’ He looked across at Liv. She was still unconscious, but there was colour in her cheeks and she was breathing deeply. He moved to her bedside and kissed her forehead. Her skin was cool and her breath warm on his face. He turned to the rider, pointing at the AK-47 slung across his back. ‘Could I borrow that?’

The rider handed it over without question.

‘Thanks. Stay here and watch over them – both of them. I’ll be right back.’

As it turned out, the rifle wasn’t necessary.

Outside in the compound all resistance had been abandoned. Everyone was too distracted by the miracle they had witnessed to do anything other than marvel at it. They were gathered in circles, standing around the fountain of water gushing from the oil well. To the east, the sun had begun to peep over the rim of the earth and was filling the air with rainbows.

Hyde was staring too, but he saw nothing. He was lying on his back with both eyes open, the left one bloodshot and dilated below the deep dent in his skull where the horse’s hoof had caught him. Gabriel looked down at him and felt nothing. He had always wanted to find the man who had killed his father, and imagined the pure righteous rage that would fuel his vengeance. Now that he had found him, he felt empty. His father was not the man he had imagined him to be – and neither was his end. He had grieved for him too long on a false assumption and now death had come for real there was nothing left to give – nothing except forgiveness.

He took Hyde’s M4, slung it over his shoulder then gazed at the surreal desert scene playing out around him, the water rising up from deep in the ground and falling back down as rain. This dry scrap of desert, marked by a map that kings and emperors had waged wars to possess.

The last piece of the puzzle.

It didn’t take him long to find the locked door of the operations room. He stood back, fired a short burst into the lock from the M4 then kicked the door open and stepped inside.

There was a large topographical map of the area pinned to the wall with various markers showing all the dig sites and a table in the centre covered with seismic charts and old fragments of ancient tablets. There were also copies of the same Iraqi military intelligence documents Washington had shown him. But none of this was what he was looking for.

The Starmap lay in a drawer of its own, nestled in a solid block of foam rubber cut to fit its irregular shape. It was black granite, cracked and chipped at the edges, but the symbols on it were still solid and clear. Dr Anata had been right. At the centre of it was the same T shape he had seen on the
Imago Mundi
from the British Museum. The central reference point was the same: the ancient city of Babylon near modern day Al-Hillah. Everything else was relative to it. He studied the markings, recognizing the dots that outlined the constellation of Draco. They pointed the way to a simple cluster of symbols denoting where the garden stood: a tree, some markings he assumed must relate to distance, and a simple stick figure of a human.

Gabriel lifted the stone, feeling its weight. It was no wonder his grandfather had been unwilling to jump into the moat with it. He could also feel more symbols on the back and turned it over. The reverse of the stone was filled with dense text in what looked to be two distinct languages, neither of which he recognized. It was surrounded by clusters of dots showing other constellations.

He produced his phone from his pocket and took photographs of both sides. He also took pictures of the room, the maps and the documents on the table. Finally he took a picture of the Dragonfields logo, then bundled the whole lot into a file and attached it to an email. Then he stepped outside where the signal was strongest and waited until the message had been sent.

Over by the lagoon a horse dipped its head to drink from a pool that had started the day as a pit full of oil. It was a scene he could have witnessed on any given day since the dawn of time. In the sky the moon was now gone, wiped away by the brightness of the coming day. He breathed deep, filling his lungs with the moist air. It didn’t even smell like an oil drilling platform any more. It smelled natural and fresh, like oranges.

…
within the phase of a moon –
the prophecy had said. And by God they had done it – but only just. No one knew what had just been averted … or almost no one.

He shielded the phone from the misting rain and dialled a number.

Athanasius was in the Prelate’s quarters, rinsing out a fouled dressing, when he felt the phone vibrate in his pocket. He looked over at the figure strapped to the bed. Dragan had been delirious since the Lamentation overtook him. Even so, the Sanctus still had moments of clarity, when all his hate came bubbling forth. He would have to be careful.

He set aside the cloth and moved quickly across the room towards a window that overlooked the walled gardens. The gardens remained out of bounds so there was no one there to see him. The inhabitants of the Citadel were either attending to the numerous sick wards that had been set up throughout the mountain, or lying strapped to a bed, trying to break free so they could scratch themselves to death. Even so, Athanasius scanned the orchard for any sign of movement before taking the phone from his pocket and finally answering it.

‘Hello?’

‘She’s home,’ Gabriel said.

Athanasius closed his eyes in relief. It was over. ‘Thank God,’ he said. ‘I feared when I failed to find the map all might be lost. Tell me. What does Eden look like?’

‘Nothing like you would imagine.’

‘But you’re sure it’s the right place?’

‘I’m positive.’

A wail echoed through the room as Dragan strained against his bindings.

‘What was that?’ Gabriel asked.

‘A poor soul struck down by the blight.’

There was a pause on the end of the line. ‘What blight?’

‘It’s some kind of … infection. The first case was reported about forty-eight hours ago. There have been new ones almost every hour since. So far, no one has survived it. We have attempted to contain it through quarantine. We now know that an infected subject only becomes infectious themselves after the first symptoms have manifested. By this method we have managed to isolate those who have become infected and slowed the spread of it. But now the Sacrament has been returned. So, according to the words of the prophecy, the blight shalt no longer prosper. It will stay here, locked in the Citadel.’

‘What are the symptoms?’

‘Every victim reported a strong smell of oranges followed by a sudden and violent nosebleed.’

Silence stretched out on the other end of the line.

‘Hello?’ There was no answer.

Athanasius looked at the phone. The screen was blank. The battery had died. He slipped it into the pocket of his cassock as another moan drew him back to the bed.

Dragan was dreaming, his eyes moving beneath the blackened lids. He seemed to be whimpering, saying something in his sleep. Athanasius leaned down to try to catch what it was. He recognized snatches from the Lord’s Prayer, repeated endlessly in a pitiful chant.

… forgive us our trespasses … as we forgive those …

… forgive us our trespasses … as we forgive those …

Athanasius took a damp cloth from a bowl by the bed and laid it across Dragan’s hot forehead. ‘I forgive you,’ he said.

The red eyes sprang open and focused at the sound of his voice. ‘You,’ Dragan said, ‘always you. The Sacrament will return – then we will see.’

Athanasius shook his head. ‘The Sacrament has returned to its rightful home,’ he said. ‘It will never again return to the Citadel.’

Dragan stared up at him, then his face crumpled. ‘In that case it’s over,’ he groaned. ‘You have done for us all. The end of days is upon us.’

Gabriel stared out through the drifting rain, running through the details of his phone conversation.

First case reported forty-eight hours ago.

He had been inside the Citadel much more recently than that, after the blight had already taken hold.

He remembered the chilling cry that had risen up from the depths of the mountain and how Athanasius had hurried away to tend to it.

He wondered now if his bone-deep tiredness and aching body might be the result of something more sinister than fatigue, and all that he touched might be tainted too.

He looked back at the main building and pictured Liv inside, lying on the examination table: fragile and vulnerable.

Was he infected? Had he infected her?

Every part of him wanted to go back in there and sit by her bed, hold her hand until she woke, but he knew he could not. He had to put her safety first – he had to put everyone else’s safety before his own.

We have attempted to contain it through quarantine
, Athanasius had said,
an infected subject only becomes infectious after the first symptoms have manifested … a strong smell of oranges followed by a sudden and violent nosebleed
.

He wiped the back of his hand across his nose. There was no blood, but the smell of oranges was almost overwhelming. But he had only just started smelling them. The symptom was fresh, so there was still a chance of containment.

Without pause for thought, Gabriel walked directly to the transport shed, giving everyone he saw a wide clearance. He grabbed a couple of canteens of water and a ration pack from the cab of a truck, and headed back out to the holding lagoon.

The horse looked up as he approached. He held out his hand and stroked it, talking softly as he loaded his few supplies into the saddlebag and fitted Hyde’s M4 into a saddle holster. He thought of his father, lying on the bed next to Liv in the sick bay, and finally understood the sacrifice he had made. He hoped one day Liv would forgive him too for what he was about to do, just as he now whispered his own belated forgiveness to his father.

The horse splashed through the mud and pools of water until the dry earth began.

Gabriel fixed his eyes on the horizon. He did not look back.