Evil Star (19 page)

"Qué estas haciendo?"
Pedro hissed.

"The diary..." Matt replied, and Pedro understood. The word was almost the same in English and Spanish.

Pedro went over to the side of the room where a num-ber of shelves stretched out over a modern photocopier. Some of the shelves contained books, but before he could examine them, he noticed a sheet of paper in the top of the machine.

Horowitz, Anthony - [Gatekeepers 02] - Evil Star

"Matteo ..." he called out.

Matt abandoned the desk — most of the drawers were empty and the rest contained nothing of any interest. He came over to the photocopier and took the paper. It was covered in writing, possibly made with an old-fashioned pen or even a quill. Could it have been taken from the diary? Matt cursed quietly. The words were in Spanish. He couldn't understand them. And Pedro couldn't read.

Even if Matt read them out loud, he wouldn't be able to translate them into English. How much more useless could this break-in have been?

He folded the paper and slipped it into his pocket. Maybe he would be able to make sense of it later.

There was a movement at the door.

Pedro had seen it first. He stopped where he was, his eyes widening in disbelief. Matt saw the look on his face, turned round and froze. A shiver, as tangible as an electric shock, ran through him. He felt it travel through his arms and up the back of his neck.

He couldn't see the man who was standing on the other side of the doorway, shrouded in darkness. But he could make out his shape and knew at once that his head was impossibly large, twice as long as it should be, monstrous. The man was holding on to the frame of the door and Matt understood why. He needed help to stand up straight. His neck simply wasn't strong enough to support his head on its own.

"I thought it was you," the man said. He was still speak-ing English.

His voice sounded strained, as if someone were strangling him. "I heard you on the veranda as you went past. But it wasn't just that. I

knew
you were there. I have been feeling your presence all evening, Horowitz, Anthony - [Gatekeepers 02] - Evil Star just as I feel it now. One of the five.
Two
of the five! Here, in my hacienda! To what do I owe the pleasure of your company? What do you want?"

There was no point in Matt denying who he was. The man had seen right through his disguise. He seemed to know everything about it.

"Where's Richard?" Matt demanded.

"Your friend the journalist?" Matt could see the lips twist into something that resembled a smile. But this was a face that could never smile properly. There was too much of it. "What made you think
I
had him? Why should he be here?" Salamanda looked genuinely puzzled. "How did you even find your way to me?"

Matt said nothing. There was no point answering.

Salamanda turned to Pedro.
"Cual es tu nombre?"
he demanded.

Pedro spat. Whatever he had been asked, that was his reply.

"What fun I'm going to have with the two of you," Salamanda muttered. "It's almost too good to be true. A gift, if you like — and perfectly timed. A week from now, it will all be over. The gate will have opened and not one but two of the gatekeepers will be mine. I never thought it would be so easy."

Salamanda stepped into the light and Matt saw his col-orless eyes, his babyish mouth, his pale, horribly stretched skin. It was enough.

"Go!" Matt shouted.

Pedro didn't need encouraging. The two boys turned and ran, away from the door and out through the window, back into the outer courtyard. They had no plan. Their only desire was to get away —

from this house and from the monster who inhabited it. But even as they jumped down from the veranda and made for the main gate, the Horowitz, Anthony - [Gatekeepers 02] - Evil Star church bells sounded, metal striking metal and echoing into the night. Searchlights that they hadn't noticed sprang to life, turning black to white and half blinding them in their glare. At the same time, they were aware of guards, half a dozen of them, closing in from all sides. Two of them had Alsatian dogs, straining on thick chains, snapping at the air. Captain Rodriguez had reappeared at the side of the house, watching in anger and disbelief. The strange thing was that nobody seemed to be in a hurry. Two intrud-ers had been discovered. The alarm had been raised. But the guards were almost strolling toward them, deliberately taking their time.

Matt understood why. With a growing sense of hopeless-ness, he realized that they had nowhere to go. Even if they could escape from the immediate compound, it was a five-mile walk back to the main town with no other building in sight and nowhere to hide. They could run all they wanted. They would simply be hunted down like rats. Matt swal-lowed, recognizing the bitter taste of defeat. He had been warned not to come here but he hadn't listened, and as a result he had doomed them both.

He began to raise his hands in surrender — but then everything changed. He saw it first on the faces of the guard, heard it a moment later himself. There was the roar of an engine — then, as he turned round, a car burst through the gate and into the courtyard. For a moment, Matt assumed it must belong to Salamanda, another of his men cutting off their last way of escape. But at the same time, he knew that something was wrong. The guards had stopped in their tracks. Rodriguez had taken out his gun and was shouting orders.

The car slid to a halt. The passenger door swung open.

"Get in!" a voice called out, first in English, then in Spanish.

"Consiga en el coche!"

Horowitz, Anthony - [Gatekeepers 02] - Evil Star There was a burst of gunfire and suddenly Matt was back in Lima on his way from the airport. He had never been shot at in his life. Now it had happened twice in the space of a week. Two shots had been fired from the watch-tower that he had seen earlier. One bullet hit the ground, kicking up a cloud of dust. The other hit the trunk of the car. That told him everything he needed to know. Whoever was in the car was on his side.

Matt ran forward. There were more shots. The guards seemed to be shooting at the car rather than at Pedro and him. Were they obeying instructions from Salamanda? It seemed the boys were wanted alive.

Then Matt saw that the dogs had been released. They were bounding forward, their eyes aflame, mouths wide open to reveal white, vicious teeth. He and Pedro might not get shot, but if they didn't reach the car soon, they would be torn apart.

"Faster!" the driver shouted.

Pedro got there first. He opened the back door and threw himself onto the seat. Matt lunged for the front door. And despite the guns still firing all around him, despite the dogs bounding ever closer through the brilliant, electric light, he froze.

He knew the driver of the car.

The slightly feminine face. Long eyelashes. A thin face with sculpted cheekbones, covered by the beginnings of a beard. A half-moon scar next to one eye.

It was one of the men who had kidnapped Richard.

"Get into the car or you will die!" the man shouted.

Two more bullets slammed into the metalwork. A third smashed one of the mirrors. Matt didn't need any more persuading. He dived Horowitz, Anthony - [Gatekeepers 02] - Evil Star forward at the same time the man slammed the car into reverse, skidding backward and tak-ing Matt with him. Matt was half in and half out, the door still open. Pedro was sitting, surprisingly calm, in the back-seat. The car continued backward. Matt saw a guard raising his gun. There was a terrible thump and the guard disap-peared.

"The door —" the driver warned.

There was a hideous snarling, and Matt turned just in time to see one of the Alsatians leap at him. It landed on his leg and he felt its teeth snapping, inches away from his thigh. With a cry, he drew back his other leg and kicked out. His foot slammed into the dog's head. The dog screamed and fell back. Matt drew himself into the car and pulled the door shut. The driver had already changed gears. The car shot forward.

But it wasn't over yet. As if afraid of losing them, the remaining guards all fired at once and Matt yelled out as glass and bullets exploded over his head. Next to him, the driver jerked in his seat and Matt felt something wet splat-ter across his face. He wiped his cheek with the back of his hand and looked down. His fingers were covered in blood.

He hadn't been shot. It was the driver. It was Lima all over again, except that this time the roles had been reversed. The man with the scar wasn't firing at them, he was helping him. And he was wounded. He had been hit twice: in the shoulder and the side of the neck. There was blood on the seat and on the dashboard. More blood was spreading rap-idly down his shirt. But he was still gripping the wheel, his foot pressed on the accelerator. The car swerved round the courtyard and into the darkness. The driver reached out and turned on the headlamps. The car bounced and rat-tled back down the lane.

Horowitz, Anthony - [Gatekeepers 02] - Evil Star

"They'll follow us!" Matt said. He expected to see Salamanda's men already following in cars or trucks.

"I don't think so." The man was trying to keep the pain out of his voice, but Matt could tell he had been badly hurt. The blood had spread all the way down to his chest. Soon the whole shirt would be red. He muttered a few words in Spanish. Pedro leaned down. When he sat up again, he was holding a handful of wires and fuses. Matt smiled. Somehow the man had reached the hacienda ahead of them.

And he had disabled all the vehicles he could find.

"Who are you?" Matt demanded.

"My name is Micos."

"How did you find us? Where's Richard?" There were a dozen more questions Matt wanted to ask.

"Not now. Later..."

Matt fell silent. He understood. Micos didn't have the strength to drive and to talk at the same time.

It seemed to take them forever to reach the end of the lane. It was completely dark and the headlights illuminated only a small area ahead of them. Matt only knew they were back on the main road when the wheels began to turn smoothly on an asphalt surface. A few moments later, Micos pulled over to the side and stopped.

"Listen to me," he said, and with a jolt of alarm Matt saw that he had been even more badly wounded than Matt had feared, that Micos had very little time left. “You must go to Cuzco." Micos coughed and swallowed with difficulty. More blood appeared, on his lower lip. "On Friday . . . the temple of Coricancha. In Cuzco. At sunset."

He seemed to take a deep breath, as if preparing to tell them more.

Horowitz, Anthony - [Gatekeepers 02] - Evil Star

"Please, tell Atoc . . ." he began. But that was all. He was sitting still, his eyes fixed on something in the distance. Matt realized he had just died.

In the backseat, Pedro whimpered.

"We can't stay here," Matt said. He didn't care if the other boy understood or not. "Salamanda will come after us eventually. We have to go."

The two of them got out. The car was parked right on the edge of the road with a slope leading into brushwood. For a brief moment, Matt wondered if they could get back in and drive away. He couldn't drive, but Pedro . . . ?

He glanced at the other boy. As if reading his mind, Pedro shook his head. Well, if they couldn't use it, they had to get rid of it.

Otherwise, Salamanda would know they were nearby and on foot.

Matt turned out the headlamps and released the hand brake. He signaled to Pedro, and the two of them began to push the car. It rolled off the road, out of sight.

The moon had come out, showing the way ahead. Ica couldn't be more than half a mile away.

"Are you ready?" Matt asked.

“Yes." Pedro had understood. And he had replied in English.

Together they set off along the road.

Chapter 12 The Holy City

Once again, Matt and Pedro found themselves in the main square at Horowitz, Anthony - [Gatekeepers 02] - Evil Star Ica, and this time they were even more nervous than they had been before. It was half past five in the morning, but there were already plenty of people around. It seemed to Matt that life began early in Peru. Even so, everything was quiet. There were no tourists yet. The money changers hadn't come out. If anyone came looking for them, they wouldn't be too hard to find.

Matt was fairly sure that nobody would be looking for them here. As far as Salamanda knew, they could be a hun-dred miles down the Pan-American Highway — the single road that ran the full length of the country. But he wasn't taking any chances. He had left Pedro to buy the bus tick-ets for the next leg of their journey while he squatted in the shadows. He was crouching on the edge of the pavement, his arms wrapped around himself, pretending to be asleep. It wasn't all pretense. He was exhausted. He wasn't sure how much longer he could keep going.

Pedro returned with the tickets and sat down next to him.

"Cuzco," Matt said.

"Cuzco," Pedro agreed, and showed him the two slips of paper.

Matt hadn't been certain that he would really buy them. He knew that Pedro would have preferred to continue south to the city of Ayacucho — where Sebastian and his friends would be waiting. As he took the tickets, Matt glanced at the other boy. Pedro wasn't looking happy about what he had done but he had evidently come to a decision and would stick by it.

Matt and Pedro ate a quick breakfast of rolls and coffee bought from a stall, then crept on board the bus at the last moment. Almost every seat was taken and they had to sit apart.
Not that it matters,
Matt Horowitz, Anthony - [Gatekeepers 02] - Evil Star thought to himself. When they were awake, they couldn't speak anyway.

Cuzco.

It meant nothing to him. A name spoken by a dying man. It was a town ... a city ... it could be anywhere in Peru. He guessed it must be far away because the tickets had cost almost half their remaining money. As they set off, jolting through the half-empty main square, Matt looked across the aisle at Pedro, who was sitting, cramped, next to the win-dow on the other side of a plump, sweating man.