Necropolis (8 page)

Sometimes

I thought of it as a punishment for what I'd done — or hadn't done — and part of me figured that I deserved it. I was resigned to my life there. I knew it was never going to get any better and at least I was able to create an identity for myself. I could be anyone I wanted to be.

I bunked off school. I was never going to pass any exams, so what did I care? I stole stuff from local shops. I started smoking when I was twelve. My friend Kelvin bought me my first packet of Marlboro Lights — although, of course, he made me pay him back twice what they'd cost. I never took drugs. But if I'd stayed with him much longer, I probably would have. I'd have ended up like one of those kids you read about in the newspapers, dead from an overdose, a body next to a railway line. Nobody would have cared, not even me. That was just the way it would have been.

But then along came Jayne Deverill, and suddenly everything changed, because it turned out she was a witch. I know how crazy that sounds. I can't believe I just wrote it. But she wasn't a witch like in a movie. I mean, she didn't have a long nose and a pointy hat or anything like that. She was the real thing: evil, cruel, and just a little bit mad. She and her friends had been watching me, waiting for me to fall into their hands because they needed me to help them unlock a mysterious gate hidden in a wood in Yorkshire. And it seemed that, after all, I wasn't just some loser with a criminal record who'd gotten his parents killed. I was one of the Five. A Gatekeeper. The hero of a story that had begun ten thousand years before I was born.

How did I feel about that? How do I feel about it now?

I have no choice. I am trapped in this and will have to stick with it until the bitter end. And I do think the end will be a hard one. The forces we're up against — the Old Ones and their allies around the world —

are too huge. They are like a nightmare plague, spreading everywhere, killing everything they touch. I have powers. I've accepted that now, and recently I've learned how to use them. But I am still only fifteen years old — I had my birthday out here in Nazca — and when I think about the things that are being asked of me, I am scared.

I can't run away. There's nowhere for me to hide. If I don't fight back, the Old Ones will find me. They will destroy me more surely and more painfully than even those cigarettes would have managed. After I was arrested, I never smoked again, by the way. That was one of the ways that I changed. I think I have accepted my place in all this. First of all, I have to survive. But that's not enough. I also have to win.

At least I'm no longer alone.

When this all began, I knew that I was one of five children, all the same age as me, and that one day we would meet. I knew this because I had seen them in my dreams.

Pedro was the first one I came across in real life. He has no last name. He lost it — along with his home, his possessions, and his entire family when the village in Peru where he lived was hit by a flood. He was six years old. After that, he moved to the slums of Lima and managed to scratch out a living there. The first time I saw him, he was begging on the street. We met when I was unconscious and he was trying to rob me. But that was the way he was brought up. For him, there was never any right or wrong — it was just a question of finding the next meal. He couldn't read. He knew nothing about the world outside the crumbling shanty town where he lived. And of course he could hardly speak a word of English.

I don't think I'd ever met anyone quite so alien to me…and by that I mean he could have come from another planet. For a start (and there's no pleasant way to put this) he stank. He hadn't washed or had a bath in years, and the clothes he wore had been worn by at least ten people before him. Even after everything I'd been through, I was rich compared to him. At least I'd grown up with fresh tap water. I'd never starved.

Almost from the very start, we became friends. It probably helped that Pedro decided to save my life when the police chief, a man called Rodriguez, was cheerfully beating me up. But it was more than that.

Think about the odds of our ever finding each other, me living in a provincial town in England and him, a street urchin surviving in a city ten thousand miles away. We were drawn together because that was how it was meant to be. We were two of the Five.

Pedro is pure Inca: a descendant of the people who first lived in Peru. More than that, he's somehow connected with Manco Capac, one of the sun gods. The Incas showed me a picture of Manco — it was actually on a disc made of solid gold — and the two of them looked exactly the same. I'm not sure I completely understand what's going on here. Is Pedro some sort of ancient god? If so, what does that make me?

Like me, Pedro has a special power. His is the ability to heal. The only reason I'm able to walk today is because of him. We were both injured in the Nazca Desert. He broke his leg, but I was cut down and left for dead…and I would have died if he hadn't come back and stayed with me for a couple of weeks. It's called radiesthesia, which is probably the longest word I know. I've only managed to spell it right because I've looked it up in the dictionary. It's something to do with the transfer of energy. Basically, it means that I got better thanks to him. And as a result, Pedro is more than a friend. He's almost like a long-lost brother — and if that sounds corny, too bad. That's how I feel.

And then came Scott and Jamie Tyler.

They really were brothers…twins, in fact. Formerly the telepathic twins, performing with The Circus of the Mind at the Reno Playhouse in Nevada. While Pedro and I had been fighting (and losing) in the Nazca Desert, they'd been having adventures of their own, chased across America by an organization called the Nightrise Corporation. They'd also managed to get tangled up in the American election and were there when one of the candidates was almost assassinated.

Scott and Jamie are more or less identical. They're thin to the point of being skinny, and you can tell straight away that they have Native American blood — they were descended from the Washoe tribe.

They have long, dark hair, dark eyes, and a sort of watchful quality. Physically, I would have said that Jamie was the younger of the two, but when they finally reached us — they traveled through a doorway that took them from Lake Tahoe in Nevada to a temple in Cuzco, Peru — he was very much in charge.

His brother had been taken prisoner and tortured. We're still not sure what they did to him, and Pedro has spent long hours alone with him, trying to repair the damage. But Scott is still suffering. He's withdrawn. He doesn't talk very much. I sometimes wonder if we'll be able to rely on him when the time comes.

It's been more than four months since I faced the Old Ones in the Nazca Desert, and I still haven't recovered from my own injuries. I'm in pain a lot of the time. There are no scars, but I can feel something wrong inside me. Sometimes I wake up at night and it's as if I've just been stabbed. Even Pedro still has a limp. So between the four of us, I certainly wouldn't bet any money on our taking on unimaginable forces of darkness and saving the world. I'm sorry, but that's how it is.

Jamie is very bright. He seems to see things more clearly than any of us, mainly because he was there at the very start. It's too complicated to explain right now, but somehow he traveled back in time and met us…before we were us. Yes. There was a Matt ten thousand years ago who looked like me and sounded like me and who may even have been me. Jamie says that we've all lived twice. I just hope it was more fun the first time.

Four months!

We've all been hanging out in this house near the coast, to the south of Lima. It belongs to a professor named Joanna Chambers who's an expert on pretty much anything to do with Peru. The house is wooden and painted white, constructed a bit like a hacienda, which is a Spanish farmhouse. There's a large central room that opens onto a veranda during the day and a wide staircase that connects the two floors.

Everything is very old-fashioned. There are scatter rugs and a big open fireplace and fans that turn slowly beneath the ceiling, circulating the air.

We've passed the time reading, watching TV (the house has satellite and we've also shipped in a supply of DVDs), and surfing the Net, looking out for any news of the Old Ones. The professor insists that we do three or four hours of lessons, although it's been ages since any of us went to school and Pedro never stepped into one in his life. We've played football in the garden, passing the ball around the llamas that wander onto the grass, and we've gone for hikes in the desert. And, I suppose, we've been gathering strength, slowly recovering from everything we've been through.

But even so, there have been times when it all seems unreal, sitting here, doing nothing in the full knowledge that somewhere in the world the Old Ones must be spreading their power base, preparing to strike at humanity. They'll be making friends in all the right places… As far as we know, they could be all over Europe. Their aim is to start a total war, to kill as many people as possible, and then to toy with the rest, maiming and torturing until there's nobody left. Why do they want to do this? There is no why.

The Old Ones feed on pain in the same way that cancer will attack a healthy organism. It's their nature.

Sometimes, in the evening, the six of us will play perudo, which is a Peruvian game, a bit like liar dice.

Me, Richard, Pedro, Scott, Jamie, and the professor. We'll sit there, throwing dice and behaving as if nothing is happening, as if we're just a bunch of friends on an extended holiday. And secretly I want to get up and punch the wall. We're safe and comfortable in Nazca. But every moment we're here, we're losing. Our enemy is gaining the upper hand.

What else can we do? The Old Ones have disappeared. And even if we knew what they were doing, we're not yet strong enough to take them on. Only four of the Gatekeepers have come together. There have to be five.

And now there are. At last we've found Scar.

It's hard to believe that today I actually held a picture of her in my hands. Now she has a name —

Scarlett Adams. We know where she lives. We can actually reach out to her and tell her the truth about who she is — or was.

Ten thousand years ago, she was in charge of her own private army. Jamie actually met her and fought with her at the final battle when the King of the Old Ones was banished and the first great gate was constructed. She must have a power — we all do. But he never found out what it was. When he met her, he said she was brave and resourceful. She could ride a horse, fight with a sword, lead an army of men who were at least twice her age. But she never did anything that looked like magic… at least, not anything that he noticed.

Very soon, we will leave Nazca. I really want to see England again.

And now I'm going to bed.

Richard is worried that Scar turning up is the start of a new phase. The Old Ones have left us alone, but now they'll have been alerted. If they were planning a move against us, this is the time when they'll make it.

But I don't care. There are five of us, and that means that soon this whole thing will be over. We'll get together and do whatever it takes to bring it all to an end. After that, I'll go back to school. I'll take my exams. I'll have an ordinary life.

That's all I want. I can hardly wait.

SEVEN

Last Night in Nazca

Twenty-four hours after the fax had arrived, Professor Chambers organized a dinner. It was her way of saying good-bye. The following day, Matt, Richard, Pedro, Jamie, and Scott would be leaving for England — the professor had arranged passports for all of them — and at last she would have the house to herself.

Joanna Chambers had spent most of her life in Peru, studying the Incas, the ancient Moche and Chimu tribes and, of course, the Nazca Lines. She was an expert on a dozen different subjects, a qualified pilot, a good shot with a rifle or a handgun, and a terrible cook. Fortunately, the meal had been prepared by the local help: creole soup, followed by lomo saltado — a dish made with grilled beef, onions, and rice.

There were two jugs of pisco sour, a frothing, white drink made from grape brandy, lemon, and egg white — it tasted much better than it looked.

Richard Cole was sitting at the head of the table. He had changed in the past few months. His hair had been bleached by the sun and he had grown it so that it fell in long strands over his collar. He had a permanent desert tan, and although he didn't quite have a beard, he looked rough and unshaven. Tonight, he had changed into jeans and a white linen shirt. Normally he slouched around in shorts and sandals, and if the house had been nearer the sea, he might easily have been mistaken for a surfer. He started every morning with a five-mile run. He was keeping himself in shape.

Scott and Jamie Tyler were sitting on one side of the table, together as usual. Matt and Pedro were on the other. There was one empty seat, and someone had placed the article with the picture of Scarlett Adams on the table in front of it, as if she were there in spirit.

All six of them were in a good mood. The food had been excellent, and the drink had helped. Upstairs, their suitcases were packed and ready in the various rooms. Professor Chambers waited until the food had been cleared away, then tapped a fork against her glass and rose to her feet. Matt had never seen her wearing a dress, and tonight was no exception. She had put on a crumpled safari suit and there was a small bunch of flowers in her buttonhole.

"We ought to go to bed," she began. 'You have a long journey to make tomorrow — but I just want to wish you bon voyage. I can't say I'm too sorry that you're finally on your way…" There were protests around the table, and she held up a hand for silence. "It's been impossible to get any work done with all your infernal noise, football games out on the front lawn, four boys clumping up and down the stairs, and all the rest of it.

"But I will miss you. I've enjoyed having you here. That's the truth of it. And although it's wonderful that Scar has finally turned up, I can't help wondering what lies ahead of you." She stopped for a moment. "I feel a bit like a mother sending my sons off to war. I can only hope that one day I'll see you again. I can only hope that you'll come back safe."