Entangled (21 page)

Brindle jumped into the conversation: ‘War party going out anyway, Ria. Still seven hundred Uglies living in outlying camps, remember? They in great danger now. Have to bring all of them back to Secret Place before Illimani reach them.’

‘Not that part of mission I oppose,’ interjected Garn. ‘Don’t like taking Ria back to Clan, that’s all. Not necessary. Just asking for trouble.’

Again Ria could only agree. Brindle’s plan
was
asking for trouble. Never mind the Illimani. If the Clan caught her with fifty Uglies there’d be a fight.

But now others were also expressing their views.

She recognised two brothers, twins with identical bushy brow ridges, prominent pock-marked noses and goofy buck teeth. They’d joined Brindle in disobeying her in the near-disastrous ambush yesterday. They stepped forward one after the other and hugged her. She sensed that, in their clumsy way, they were trying to apologise. ‘I am Trenko-wirtagorn-marny-apciprona,’ said the first. ‘I am ‘Krisko-wirtagorn-marny-apciprona’, said the second. ‘We are your friends and we are for the mission.’

Next it was the turn of a small fat Ugly with a bushy red beard and wrinkled leathery features. ‘I am Oplimar-sendo-wulshni-atrinkam and I am for the mission.’

‘I too.’ This time it was Grondin who spoke. ‘Ria is one of us now.’

‘Yes, one of us!’ declared a tall gangling brave with a badly broken nose. ‘I am Brigly-jengle-jarlsteed-wulprasnik and I am for the mission.’

‘And I …’

‘And I …’

Garn turned slowly where he stood, glaring at each of the braves as they spoke up for Ria. ‘She is
not
one of us,’ he protested. ‘Can’t you see that? She is
not
our friend. She is Clan! Why should we risk our lives for any woman of the Clan?’

‘Yesterday Ria saved
my
life,’ Brindle said. ‘Fought on side of Uglies, very brave, very clever. Last night she ate the Little Teachers with us. Today we bring her safely home. Hope she will make strong rope between Clan and Uglies. Good things come from good things, so I am for the mission.’

By now many of the Uglies had linked arms and there was a strange mood in the air. Some began to make the low hooting sighs they used when they were trying to reach a group decision or heal the sick.

Garn’s chest puffed out, his face swelled with anger and for a moment it seemed that he might burst like an overfilled water-skin. Instead he exclaimed ‘Enough of this!’ He turned his back and stamped off, soon disappearing from view on the path amongst the terraces.

‘What happened?’ Ria asked Brindle. ‘Why did he just give up like that?’

Brindle shrugged: ‘Nothing else for him to do. Whole group against him. Uglies not good at being different.’

The little fat guy called Oplimar fell into step behind Ria, and the twins Trenko and Krisko took up station on either side of her, as the war band set off uphill to the cave system connecting Secret Place to the outside world.

The entrance, from which they had emerged last night in darkness, was low and mean, little more than a slit in the rock. Beyond lay the vast and confusing labyrinth of corridors and passageways, echoing galleries and dark deadfalls, but Grondin was as sure-footed guiding them out as he had been bringing them in.

It was afternoon when they emerged amongst the undergrowth on the other side and made their way out on the hidden path, covering up its opening with branches and leaves as they exited so that it was once again invisible to passers-by.

Yesterday they’d thought only two men were following them but ended up having to kill four. Were there others coming behind? Perhaps even preparing an ambush for them right now?

Had the spirit of Brindle’s father spoken true when he’d said there were thousands of these ‘Illimani’?

The sun was still high overhead when they approached the tract of thick woodland halfway down the mountain’s flank. After the fight here last night the Ugly wounded and dead had been brought to Secret Place but the bodies of the Illimani had been left where they’d fallen at the edge of the trees.

The bodies were no longer there.

At once Ria heard Brindle’s thought-voice: ‘Looks like trouble.’

‘If it comes to a fight,’ she reminded him, ‘show no mercy.’

Brindle grimaced but said nothing as they entered the shadow of the trees. If there was to be an ambush it would be soon. But instead of the stealthy approach of enemies they heard shouts and screams, faint at first but horrible and utterly blood-curdling. Grondin and Brindle stopped in their tracks and the whole war party of Uglies came to a halt.

‘What do you make of it?’ Ria asked.

‘Don’t know,’ Brindle replied. ‘Gives me bad feeling. Has to be Illimani. Better get out of here fast.’

‘Let’s go,’ Ria agreed – no point in seeking out violence when it could be avoided – and at once the Uglies were off again, threading through the trees, the sound of their footsteps muffled by the covering of brown pine needles lying ankle-deep on the forest floor.

The screams rose in volume and soon Ria was getting glimpses, a few hundred paces to her right, of the edge of the very large grassy clearing they’d crossed yesterday. Whatever was happening was happening there. All she had to do was ignore it and she’d be home free.

But as they hurried away she began to feel restless and uneasy: ‘I’m sorry, Brindle,’ she said at last. ‘I’ve got to find out what’s going on.’ She ran back, quiet and fast. Just before the edge of the clearing she dropped onto her belly and wriggled forward.

What she saw were twenty Illimani performing a bizarre circular dance and shouting in their barbaric language. The nearest of them were two hundred paces from her. They all carried the familiar wooden spear-throwers slung across their backs but they were otherwise naked. Many were smeared with blood. All of them seemed furious and agitated. The whole scene was charged with an atmosphere of unspeakable violence and savagery.

Ria wriggled forward a little further.

She could see now that two men were tied to stakes, facing one another about ten paces apart in the midst of the circling mob. One was struggling to break free. The other, the source of the screaming, had been gutted like a fish. As Ria watched, a huge savage, towering head and shoulders above the rest, thrust his arm deep into the man’s open belly, shouted with glee, and began to haul forth his glistening entrails to the sound of more horrifying screams.

Ria crept forward again, and risked breaking cover by rising to a half-crouch because a dreadful suspicion had dawned on her.

Was that screaming voice Rill’s?

She peered out from the edge of the clearing and suddenly she was sure. It was her own dear brother Rill who was being murdered before her eyes. The man tied to the other stake was Hond.

Keeping low, Ria stepped out into plain view, reached into the pouch Merina had given her, selected two of the perfectly balanced quartz hunting stones, and began to run towards the dancing mob. They were all so focused on the torture that they failed to notice her at first, but
she was still more than a hundred paces out, much too far for a sure kill, when the executioner, his arm drenched to the shoulder in Rill’s blood, snatched a long flint knife from his waistband and turned on Hond.

There was no time for fine judgements. Closing the gap at breakneck speed, Ria drew back her arm for the throw of her life.

The UC Irvine campus is a sprawl of modern low-rise buildings laid out across rolling terrain in a series of concentric rings around the green bull’s-eye of Aldrich Park. In one of the outer rings, off Academy Way and Medical Plaza Drive, lies the Department of Health Sciences, dominated by the futuristic Biomedical Research Center. A few minutes’ walk west of the Center, across California Avenue, is the University Research Park. It was here, in a white-painted two-storey rectangular block backing onto the San Joaquim Hills Toll Road, that the DMT project was housed.

While David waited in the Chevy, Bannerman showed Leoni to her room on the upper floor of the block. It had a small window overlooking the green lawns of the research park. There was a simple pine-framed single bed, a matching desk and chair, and a small cupboard for hanging clothes. She didn’t have her own bathroom and would have to share communal facilities down the hall.

Leaving her bag, Leoni followed Bannerman out into the hallway and down by the stairs to the lobby floor of the research block. As they walked he said: ‘I’m going to introduce you to two colleagues who’re running the DMT project with me. In fact, they’re here a good deal more than I am so they’ll be looking after you when I’m gone.’

‘Gone?’ Leoni was a little stunned. Until now she had assumed that Bannerman would personally supervise her participation in his project from beginning to end.

‘Yes, I’m afraid so. I have to divide my time between the research and UCLA Med Centre. The deal is I put in four days a week there and three days a week here, but I have to return to LA right now – I’m already running late – and I won’t be able to get back to Irvine until Friday.’

‘What day is it today?’

‘It’s Tuesday.’

Leoni thought about it and began to put the recent high-speed blur of her life into some sort of order. Last Friday night she got wired on cocaine, drunk on vodka, had bad sex with some rich nonentity, and was arrested by the California Highway Patrol. Saturday afternoon she overdosed on Oxycontin. Saturday evening and night, while she travelled out of body to the realm of the Blue Angel, John Bannerman battled to save her life in the ER. Sunday night was Mom and Dad’s visit to her hospital room in UCLA. Monday morning she was abducted to Mountain Ridge. Monday night she tried to escape, was treated to an involuntary ketamine experience and had another visit with the Angel. Tuesday morning, bright and early, John Bannerman arrived to rescue her.

Today was therefore indeed Tuesday, and, in fact, it was still morning: ‘Tuesday … Wednesday … Thursday … Friday … That means I have to sit around here doing nothing for three days until you come back?’

‘Not necessarily.’

Leoni was beginning to realise this was one of Bannerman’s favourite phrases. ‘What do you mean, “not necessarily”?’ she mimicked.

‘Well, for example, you could just go ahead and have your first round of shots, guided by one of my colleagues. They’re both very good at this work.’

As he spoke he led her into a conference room where an earnest young male with fresh features, extremely thin lips, a crew-cut and tiny glasses was waiting beside a large, lumpy olive-skinned female in her mid-forties with a prominent nose and three dark hairs growing out of her chin. Bannerman introduced the woman as Dr Shapira and the man as Dr Monbiot.

Shapira’s manner was brusque, verging on unwelcoming, and she seemed nervous. ‘John’s told us all about your recent near-death experience,’ she said as soon as Leoni was seated, ‘and we’ve agreed – under duress – to accept your late entry into our DMT programme. But I have doubts about your candidacy and it’s my responsibility to put them on record.’

‘Sure,’ said Leoni, not really knowing how she was expected to respond. ‘Go for it.’

Shapira leaned forward, planted her elbows on the table, and arranged her thumbs and fingers into a triangle: ‘DMT is a blunt instrument for breaking open certain areas of the mind that might be better kept closed. It can lead to disturbing experiences. It can be terrifying.’

‘Yes … ?’

‘So my question to you, so soon after you’ve gone through a full-blown NDE, is whether you’ve thought through the risks of plunging yourself back into such realms again?’

‘Risks?’ Leoni cast a puzzled glance at Bannerman. ‘What risks?’

Shapira’s stare locked onto her. ‘Some people, and from what John has told me you are one of them, have a strong inborn ability to make contact with “spirit worlds” and “spirit beings” – whatever these things are. An effect of DMT can be to open them up even further to these other realms – perhaps real, perhaps illusory, we do not know – to the point where they become vulnerable. Some begin to wonder if they are going mad and if they will ever be able to live a normal life again.’

‘But in all fairness,’ interrupted Monbiot, ‘they
don’t
go mad and they
are
able to lead normal lives again.’