The Burning (34 page)

A young Moroccan boy who had obviously overheard their conversation grinned at them. “Djemaa el-Fna? Main square? I take you.” He winked, and the girls, grateful for a little guidance, followed him. Five minutes later, having pressed a few coins into the boy’s hand, they found themselves back in the hubbub of the square.

They walked briskly back in the direction they had taken an hour earlier, worried that they were going to be late. They hurried past the cages of reptiles and walked diagonally towards the spot where the coach was parked.

“Hey! Photo! Monkey?”

A familiar man stepped out in front of them, grinning his toothless smile and holding the monkey on a chain. Other men were starting to surround them, some with monkeys, and others – they saw to their horror – with snakes.

A circle began to form as other hawkers saw their opportunity. Sunglasses, toy serpents, wooden drums, fake watches were all thrust under the girls’ noses. Suddenly, the crowd was three deep around them, and Inez and Carmen began to panic; their fear bouncing from one to the other and escalating by the second.

“Photo! Monkey!” The first man shouted in Carmen’s face, holding the Barbary ape so close to her that the scabby animal was able to put a long arm round her neck and tug at her beads.

“I don’t want your … monkey!” Carmen shouted. “It’s wrong; it’s cruel,” she bawled, adding a very rude phrase which she only knew in English, but which was universally recognized.

Suddenly the crowd went quiet. The toothless man in the filthy djellaba looked offended by Carmen’s words and, spitting on the ground at her feet, he uttered a curse of his own.

Somewhere in the crowd a huge dog began to bark. The monkey grabbed hold of Carmen again, looking straight into her face and baring his yellow teeth.

Inez reached into her handbag. “We’ll give you money,” she said. “Just let us go.”

Carmen shrieked as the monkey pulled her hair, but Inez screamed louder when she saw several long black snakes slithering from their baskets and moving quickly across the ground towards her feet…

R
achel made her way slowly through the crowded, narrow alleyways. Many of the stalls that pressed in on her from either side sold almost identical goods, so it took longer than it might normally have done for her to realize that she had walked past the same ones several times: she was lost.

And she had no idea where Carmen and Inez had got to.

She had heard a few different languages as she’d moved through the lattice of small streets and alleys: Arabic, French, a smattering of Spanish. She’d been able to understand them all, so decided to ask for directions. She stopped at a stall selling leather goods. The stallholder moved quickly across to her and began pointing at bags.

“These are top quality. Finest leather. You English? American?”

Rachel told him that she was American, that she did not need a new handbag, then asked, in perfect Arabic, for directions back to the main square. The stallholder looked
taken aback. He raised an arm and pointed, seeming eager to be rid of her.

Rachel smiled and thanked him, “
Shukran bezzaf.”

Walking back across the main square, Rachel tried to reach out to Carmen and Inez with her mind. She knew straight away that something was terribly wrong. She could sense their panic and confusion; the ragged pattern of distorted thoughts could only mean one thing.

Fear.

She turned at the scream coming from somewhere behind her and began pushing people aside, hurrying towards the far corner of the square where a small crowd had gathered.

Now, through the white noise of dread and helplessness, a simple message was coming through. Two words battering at the sides of Rachel’s skull as she picked up speed.

Help us…

She smelled the animals before she saw them; something pungent came from each one that made her very afraid. They were ready to attack; to kill. It was in every creature’s eyes too: a naked aggression that Rachel saw as the last onlooker stepped to one side, revealing the terrible trouble that Carmen and Inez were in.

The girls caught sight of Rachel and began to shout for help, their voices all but drowned out by the barking of the dogs, the terrible shrieking of the apes and the noise of the crowd.

I’m here
, Rachel said with her mind.
Try not to be afraid
.

It was easy enough to say, but there were two big dogs,
straining at leashes that looked set to snap at any moment. The apes had bared their fangs, and one was pinning Carmen to the ground while two others dragged their owners across the cobbles in their desperation to reach the girls. Snakes had begun to coil round the girls’ ankles and there were plenty more wriggling towards them, along with the lizards and scorpions which were starting to slip free from bags and wicker baskets at the edge of the crowd.

Please, help us…

Rachel closed her eyes, emptied her mind and focused. She pictured a thin beam of light: created it in her mind and sent it out. She moved it across the square and wove it around the animals that were surrounding Carmen and Inez. She called them away; called them to her.

The barking and the snarling stopped immediately, then, one by one, each animal turned and started to move. The apes yanked their owners in the opposite direction, as did the dogs. The snakes and lizards slithered and skittered, turning towards the girl standing at the edge of the crowd with her eyes closed.

Rachel drew the circle of light in tighter.

And, as each animal got to within a metre or so of her, it dropped to the floor, as though waiting to be told what to do next. Gasps went up from the crowd as dogs settled on their bellies and began to whimper, as snakes curled up at her feet and as each vicious Barbary ape lay prostrate, its head down and its long arms outstretched.

Rachel waited a few seconds before stepping slowly through the crowd of animals and hurrying across to Carmen and Inez.

“Thank … you,” Carmen stammered.

Rachel nodded. “We need to go.”

She took each girl by the hand and began to back away. They made slow progress. Every face in the square was trained on them and Rachel watched as onlookers stepped aside, lowering their heads and muttering oaths: terrified.

They had almost reached the coach when an old man appeared in front of them and began to shout in Arabic. Rachel heard and understood and, without knowing why, began to slowly raise her hand and turn her palm towards him as he continued to shout.

“The evil eye! She has the evil eye.”

She did not know exactly what was happening. She felt the pain of it, saw the thin ribbon of smoke rising from her hand, but it did not seem to matter. She felt powerful suddenly, enjoying the look of terror on the old man’s face when he saw her palm, then he turned and scuttled away.

Inez grabbed her by the wrist. “Your hand…”

Rachel turned her hand over and stared down at it. The shape had risen up through the skin, burned its way into her flesh: bright red and livid, and still smoking against her pale palm.

“Triskela,”
Carmen said.

Some words did not need to be translated.

*  *  *

In the mobile unit’s office, Clay Van der Zee rummaged in the back of a drawer until he finally brought out the bottle of whisky he’d hidden away. He sat down and poured himself a glass.

Hadn’t he always known it would come to this? After all, he knew what the people who funded the Hope Project were like; what they were capable of.

So why did he need a drink –
several
drinks – so badly?

He felt the warmth of the whisky spreading through him as it went down, and thought about the conversation with the man from New York. He remembered a day when he would never even have considered …
this
. When he had been an eager young scientist ready to change the world, every bit as full of fire and optimism as Laura Sullivan.

That eager young scientist would have hated the man he had become.

He took another drink.

You have lots of nice, shiny equipment in that fancy mobile unit of yours, right?

Science could be a ruthless business, he accepted that. He knew very well that sometimes, if you wanted to get anywhere – to make
real
breakthroughs – then normal rules did not apply. Hadn’t he said more or less the same thing to Laura Sullivan? With an end as … monumental as this in sight, then all means could be justified.

Even hurting children.

Van der Zee looked down at the whisky and realized that he’d finished it. He returned the empty bottle to the back of the drawer and slammed it shut.

The phone rang and he snatched it up.

“Yes?”

“Doctor? Your visitor from HQ has just arrived. Shall I bring him across?”

Van der Zee blinked and wondered what that younger, more innocent version of himself would say.

“Yes, that’s fine. Can you just give me a few minutes first…?”

When he put down the phone, Van der Zee noticed that his hands were shaking.

R
achel, Carmen and Inez hurried back towards the coach. As inexplicably as it had appeared, the mark on Rachel’s palm had vanished.

“Has that happened before?” Carmen asked.

Rachel shook her head. She told them that it had made her feel … powerful. She thought about the group that Gabriel had gathered together, about some of the things she had witnessed, and began to wonder why they all seemed to have different capabilities.

“Why didn’t you do something yourselves?” she asked. “Back there, with the animals? Why couldn’t you make them stop?”

Inez looked a little embarrassed. “I did it once, years ago to a dog that was trying to bite me. But this was different. I was so … scared that I couldn’t do anything. It was like the fear took away the power, you know?”

“It was the same for me,” Carmen said.

Rachel nodded, understanding. It was a lesson she’d need
to remember, although fear was not normally something she, or anyone else, could control.

“There is something else you must not forget,” Inez said. “We are not the same as you. None of us are.”

“I don’t understand.”

“We are older, yes, but you are stronger. You and your brother.”

They reached the part of the square where the coach was parked. Carmen squeezed Rachel’s hand. “There is so much more
you
are able to do…”

Jean-Luc and Jean-Bernard were still busy beneath the bonnet of the coach. Jean-Luc looked up when the girls approached, winked and wiped an oil-stained sleeve across his face.

“More or less fixed,” he said.

“What was the problem?” Rachel asked.

Jean-Bernard raised his head. “Well, that’s the funny thing, because—”

There was a sudden shout from the alleyway behind them. Everyone turned and began running towards it. Rachel led the way. She had recognized her mother’s voice.

She turned into the alleyway and stopped, as shocked as her mother had clearly been to see Mahmoud pressed up against the wall, a knife against his throat.

“Ali, stop!” Rachel shouted.

Ali did not bother to turn round. “Stay out of this.”

“Help me!” Mahmoud said.

Rachel knew that she’d been right to take such an instant dislike to Ali. She remembered what Carmen had said: she was obviously sensitive to such things.

“I’m going to kill him,” Ali said calmly.

Mahmoud pleaded for help again, but Ali only pushed the tip of the knife harder against his neck, drawing blood.

Rachel took half a step towards the brothers, then stopped when she saw Mahmoud knock the knife away and wrestle his brother to the ground. They began to exchange vicious blows, screaming at each other in Arabic, until they reached a deadlock, each with an arm wrapped tight round the other’s neck, their heads pressed together as though they were Siamese twins.

Rachel moved a little closer. “Ali, you need to let go of your brother.”

He shook his head.

“He’s gone mad!” Mahmoud shouted. “He just attacked me for no reason.”

“He’s lying.”

“No,
he’s
lying…”