Alchemist (79 page)

He watched the meter ticking. The driver was a bald black man with the frame of a Sumo wrestler; the steering wheel in his massive paws looked like a toy and he slouched as he drove with an easy, lazy confidence. ‘Forecast heavy fall tonight. Gonna be a mess tomorrow, yup, sure is.'

Conor saw the man's eyes in the mirror and nodded in acknowledgement. Daylight was starting to fail and most vehicles had their lights on now.

‘Gonna be a real mess, yessir,' the driver repeated.

Conor's forehead twinged suddenly and his focus blurred. He closed his eyes then opened them again, startled, feeling a little giddy. They were accelerating down a slip and joining the Beltway, heading north, moving fast. Snow tumbled towards the windscreen at a sharply raked angle and the wipers clouted it away.

It was the snow that was making him feel giddy, he realized, relaxing a little; it was twisting and turning through the battery of tail lights ahead like a kaleidoscope. A truck thundered past, chucking up slush which hit the windshield with a heavy slap, then he was thrown sideways in his seat as the taxi swerved violently to avoid some unseen obstacle.

He turned and peered through the rear window, but the lane behind was clear. ‘What was that?'

There was no response from the driver.

‘What was that you swerved for?' Conor asked.

The driver said nothing.

Something was going on up ahead, in the distance. Strobing
lights. Brake lights were coming on. A truck two hundred and fifty yards or so ahead of them was braking sharply. The taxi started accelerating.

Conor frowned, wondering what the driver was doing, waiting for him to jam on the brakes; but he just kept accelerating.

‘Hey!' he said, alarmed. ‘Hey, you OK?' He looked up at the mirror. The driver's eyes were fixed dead ahead, expressionless, as if he was in a trance.

They were accelerating even harder.

The traffic ahead had come to a complete standstill.

Conor felt a damburst of cold fear. ‘Hey!' he yelled. ‘
Stop
– for God's sake!'

Accelerating.

Hurtling towards the tailgate of the truck. Two hundred metres. One seventy-five. One fifty.

Conor was on a nightmare fairground ride. The truck was still not moving. The gap was closing. Frantically he scrabbled for the passenger handle, yanked it, threw his shoulder against the door, heard the roar of air, felt the velocity against his skin then in one desperate lunge threw his entire body weight against it.

Was he falling? Or was he flying? Tumbling in freeze-frame slowness into the darkness.

A tremendous thump in his chest punched the wind straight out of his lungs as if the entire road had risen up to strike him. He was rolling; rolling. A horn blared. Lights hurtled past him; he felt the heat of an exhaust poisoning his face. Giddy, rolling, rolling. Had no idea where he was. The tarmac trampoline rose up and slammed him in the stomach, then punched him up in the air. It came at him again, smashed him in the chin, then the knees, then the side of his face.

There was a tremendous metallic bang.

He lay still. Two bright lights high above him, bearing down out of the darkness. Coming for him. Angels? No, the hiss of air brakes, the harsh slithering of rubber on wet tarmac. Then total darkness and an echoing roar as if he had entered a railway tunnel; he clutched his hands to his head, pressed himself into the hard road surface in terror as a tractor-trailer hurtled over him.

Then it was gone. And he was still there.

More vehicles were coming. He had to get out of the way; a car slithered past him so close its door brushed his jacket. After it had disappeared, he hobbled across the lane on all fours, like an animal.

‘Conor!'

The voice of his mother calling out in the darkness.

‘Conor!'

He saw a door swinging open, an interior light; a car had stopped beside him.

‘Conor! Get in, get in!'

He crawled over the sill like a drowning man heaving himself on to a life raft. Felt the soft leather of the passenger seat; collapsed into another world. Just the glow of the dashboard and the plush smell of the hide, the warm air of the Mercedes' heater.

Ahead, through the wiper and its arc, he could see cars and trucks skewed all over the road; shards of broken glass everywhere. Headlamps were shining on the tailgate of the stationary truck he'd seen half a century ago. Something was sticking out of it like a half-eaten fish in the jaws of a predator. In the arena of lights he could see clearly it was the cab he had just been in. It was wedged, almost up to the rear window, beneath the rear fender of the truck, the roof sheared off and hanging like the lid of a sardine can.

He turned to face his mother, too queasy to speak.

‘I thought I was too late,' she said quietly. ‘I thought you were dead.'

As she heard the distant slam of the front door, Monty regarded the silent cats, the burning candles, the spitting fire, and felt like the spectre at the feast. Only she hadn't actually found the feast bit yet, she reminded herself.

It's starting, I can feel it. I have to go to him
.

What was starting?

Curious, she walked round the interior of the house, hoping to spot pictures of Conor as a child, of his father, or anything that would give her further clues about Tabitha Donoghue.

Throughout the living areas, even in the huge modern kitchen, she met the same almost institutional theme of the abstract paintings and the bizarre figurines.

Going through an alcove, she came into an office that was filled with a battery of hi-tech equipment. She saw a rack of computer hardware with a laser printer and monitor, and in the centre of the room what looked like a light-box built into a metal stand the size of a coffee table. Four swivel chairs were arranged around it. A chart lay on top, pressed between two sheets of glass; and suspended directly above it, on a fine thread attached to a hook in the ceiling, was a quartz-crystal weight, the point of which was only inches above the glass.

It was a pendulum, she realized. This must be where Conor's mother did her dowsing.

Feeling a little guilty at snooping, she continued her tour of inspection. Opening a door at the far end of the house, she discovered what she presumed to be the master bedroom, dominated by a king-size two-poster.

Two framed photographs sat on a table by the window. One was a graduation shot of Conor in his cap and gown. The other was a black and white wedding photo showing a younger Tabitha Donoghue beside a shy-looking man in a tuxedo.

Monty was disappointed to find no obvious likeness to Conor. By inheriting his mother's looks, she decided, Conor had definitely got the cream of his parents' gene pool – assuming this was Mr Molloy. Then she shuddered as she looked again and pictured this poor man plunging through the window of an eleventh-floor office and landing at Conor's feet.

Jesus!

Leaving the office, she saw a narrow passageway with a closed door at the end. Telling herself that all their lives were at stake and she had put herself in the hands of strangers, she
decided she owed it to herself and her father to do whatever felt right, and she opened the door.

It was pitch dark and she was greeted by the musty smell of a room that is seldom used. She groped on the wall and found a switch. A weak red light came on, from inside a paper globe, and she was surprised by what it revealed.

The room's old-fashioned crimson velvet drapes were drawn shut, and a threadbare Persian carpet covered the floor. In the centre was a circular table with six antique chairs. Several artefacts lay on the table, including an ancient clothbound book, a small glass pyramid and an assortment of rock crystals.

Two sofas faced each other from opposite walls, and a collection of more chairs suggested the room was prepared for a group meeting. She noticed the elaborate hi-fi system, and a row of bookshelves.

There was an unsettling, expectant atmosphere, and Monty felt she should not be there, but she wanted to scan the bookshelves before leaving. A vast range of occult and New Age subjects seemed to be covered. Past-life regression, channelling, the power of crystals, black magick grimoires, chakras, herbal remedies, psychic awareness, healing development …

She yawned, feeling a wave of tiredness, aware that apart from fitful dozes on the aeroplane, she'd had no real sleep.

As she turned to leave the room, a sharp pain struck without any warning. It felt as if she had been lanced through the temples with a white-hot rod.

She gasped in shock and doubled up. It worsened, disorienting her. She swayed, stumbled forwards, bashed into a chair and fell headlong with it on to the floor. The pain became even worse as if the rod had been twisted. She lay entangled in the chair legs, clenching her eyes shut. ‘Conor!' she whispered. ‘Conor, help me, please help me!'

A wave of nausea swept through her. She opened her eyes but the room just blurred and tilted at crazy angles. When she tried to stand, it pitched her sideways, unbalancing her.

The pain shot inside the skin of her forehead, into the bridge of her nose and, simultaneously, down the back of her
scalp, into the base of her neck. It felt as if the roots of a tree were growing inside her skull, pushing in every direction, forcing their way out through her eardrums, through her eye sockets, through her gullet. Blinding, deafening, choking her.

Panic gripped her. She couldn't breathe, despite trying desperately to suck in air. ‘Cnnr. Plsh. Hllp.' The roots were drawing up petrol now, consuming it greedily instead of water, filling her head with a foul-smelling vapour that burned every nerve ending. Then it ignited and the whole inside of her skull exploded into a raging inferno.

‘Conor, Conor, Conor, Conor, Conor!' She screamed internally, the pain unbearable. Even so, dimly, she heard a banging sound coming from somewhere. The window. It became louder, frantic. Then she heard voices, laughter. Fighting the pain and the heaving floor, she crawled over, parted the drapes and looked up.

Dr Crowe was standing outside, peering in, his face pressed against the pane. He was telling her to open the window and join him.

In blind panic she tried to scrabble away from him. But an immense force was pulling her towards him, dragging her nearer to the window; nearer; nearer.

Her resistance was fading. She realized now that when she got to the window the pain would stop. Dr Crowe was promising her that. He was there in the darkness beyond the glazing, and had come all the way from England to help her.

‘Miss Bannerman, I can stop the pain for you!'

There was a kindness and gentleness in his face that she had never noticed before. Warmth flooded into her body, and the pain began to ease. She stared at him gratefully.

‘Trust me, Monty, I can stop the pain. Tell me that you trust me, you have to get away from this house; they want to kill you, to sacrifice you. You have to escape. You are in grave danger here.'

She could see in his eyes that he was telling the truth. And she wondered now how she could ever have doubted him. He
knew
the truth, he
was
the truth.

Then the pain came back, worse, far worse. A cry of agony ripped free from her gullet. Her head was filled with starving
ants that were eating her brain; she pressed her fingers into her ears to stop them. But they were attacking her optic nerves now, munching, antennae quivering, biting into the backs of her eyes.

She tried to scream but her throat was blocked with crawling ants. Thank God Dr Crowe was still standing there, so kind, so full of sympathy, her only hope.

‘Listen to me, Monty. Do as I say.'

She nodded frantically.

‘Your father will die unless you can save him. He is feeling the same pain as you; only you can release him from this pain. Are you ready?'

Yes, yes
. She was ready.

‘Get on to the table, Monty.'

Crying with pain, she heaved herself slowly, one leg at a time, on to the chair, then up on to the table; she felt it rocking beneath her weight, and the globe lightshade bumped her face, swaying on its flex.

‘Now stand!' Crowe commanded.

Slowly she straightened one knee, then the next. The pain was shooting down into her body and the ants were deep inside her eyeballs now; she only had a few moments of vision left.

‘Stand! Support yourself with the flex, let it take your weight.'

She steadied herself with one hand, the sole of her left foot flat on the table. Then she pushed, swayed, tottered and was somehow upright, clinging to the flex. The table rocked precariously, almost threw her off, but under Dr Crowe's calming influence she retained her balance.

‘Good girl, you are doing so well, I'm very proud of you. We are all very proud of you, we love you very much.'

The pain eased, just a fraction. Dr Crowe was making it better, and she knew that as it eased for her it was easing for her father.

‘Now, Monty.' He smiled. ‘Now take the flex and wind it three times around your neck.'

She stared at Dr Crowe's face through the gap in the velvet drapes with complete and utter trust, and did what he said.

Israel. 31 July, 1985

The helicopter lifted clear of the high plateau's rocky terrain, hovered, then dipped its nose and clattered out over the basin of the Dead Sea into the vermilion ball of the sinking sun.

At the same time two figures in black jellabas scurried like insects out of a crack in the rock, hastily rolled up the two fluorescent strips that had formed the landing mark and, looking furtively around, retreated back into the rock.

An hour later, at the bottom of the crevasse that cut half a mile down and outwards into the bowels of the mountain, the four sentinels of the Holy Tomb of Satan waited silently around the rim of a natural pool the size of a small lagoon. It was reputed to be three miles deep, and the slate grey surface was unruffled by the cascading water that fell, with the din of thunder, two hundred feet sheer into the shallows of its northernmost point.