Necropolis

FATHER GREGORY

The cell was tiny – less than ten metres square – and there was nothing in it at all, not even a chair or a bench. The walls were brick with a few traces of flaking paint, suggesting they might have been decorated at some time. The door had been fashioned out of three slabs of wood, fastened together with metal bands. There was a single window, barred and set high up so that even for someone taller than Scarlett, there wouldn’t be any chance of a view. From where she was sitting, slumped miserably on the stone floor, she could just make out a narrow strip of sky. But even that was enough to send a shiver down her spine.

It was dark. Not quite night, but very nearly. She realized that it would be pitch black in the cell in just a couple of hours as they hadn’t left her a candle or an electric light. But how was that possible? It had been around two o’clock when she had entered St Meredith’s and the sun had been shining. Suddenly it was early evening. So what had happened to the time in between?

Scarlett was shivering – and not just because of the shock of what she had been through. It was freezing in the cell. There was no glass in the window and no heating. The bare brickwork only made it worse. Fortunately she had been wearing her winter coat when she set off on the school trip and she drew it around her, trying to bury herself in its folds. She had never been so cold. She could actually feel the bones in her arms and legs. They were so hard and brittle that she thought they might shatter at any time.

Desperately, she tried to work out what had happened. For no reason that she could even begin to imagine, a man she had never met had grabbed her and thrown her into a cell. Could she have strayed into a secret wing of St Meredith’s, somewhere that no one was meant to go? The single strip of sky told her otherwise. That and the freezing weather. She remembered that the monk had spoken in a foreign language.

She was no longer in London.

It seemed crazy but she had to accept it. Maybe she had blacked out at the moment she had been seized. Maybe they had drugged her and she had been unconscious without even knowing it. Everything told her that this wasn’t England. Somehow she had been spirited away.

With a spurt of anger, she scrambled to her feet and went over to the door. She wasn’t just going to sit here and wait for them to come back. Suppose they never did come back? She might die in this place. But she quickly saw that there was no way through the door – not unless it was unlocked from the other side. It was massive and solid, with a single keyhole built for an antique key. She tried to squint through it but there was nothing to see. She straightened up, then hammered her fists against the wood.

“Hey! Come back! Let me out of here!”

But nobody came. She wasn’t even sure if her voice could be heard outside the cell.

That left the window. Could she possibly climb up, using the rough edges of the brickwork to support herself? Scarlett tried but her fingertips couldn’t get enough grip, and anyway the bars at the top were too close to squeeze through, even assuming she could drop down on the other side. No. She was in a solid box with no trapdoors, no secret passages, no magic way out. She would just have to stay here until somebody came.

She sank back into a corner, trying to preserve what little body warmth she had left by curling herself into a ball. The strange thing was, she should have been terrified. She was completely helpless, a prisoner. This was an evil place. But she still couldn’t accept the reality of what had happened to her and because of that it was difficult to feel scared. This was all like some bad dream. Once she had worked out how she had got here, then maybe she could start worrying about what was going to happen next.

An hour passed, or maybe two. Finally there was a rattle of a key in the lock, the door swung open again and two monks came into the cell. Scarlett couldn’t say if they were the ones who had grabbed her in the corridor as all these people were dressed the same way. Their hoods were up and they were skeleton-thin. Even if you stood them up against a wall, it would have been difficult to tell them apart.

One of them barked out a command in the strange, harsh language she had heard before and when he saw that she didn’t understand, made a rough gesture, telling her to stand up. Scarlett did as she was instructed. Her face gave nothing away but she was already thinking. If they took her out of here, maybe she would be able to break away. She would run back down the corridor and find the nearest exit. Whatever country she was in, there would have to be a policeman or someone else around. She would make herself understood, somehow find her way home.

But right now, the two monks were watching her too closely. They led her out with one standing next to her and the other directly behind, so close that she could actually smell them. Neither man had washed, not for a long time. As they reached the corridor, Scarlett hesitated and felt a hand pushing her roughly forward. She turned left. The three of them set off together.

Where was she? The place had the feel of an old palace or a monastery, but one thing was certain – it had been abandoned long ago. Everything about it was broken down and neglected, from the peeling walls to the paved floor, which was slanting and uneven with some sort of mould growing through the cracks. Naked light bulbs hung on single wires (so at least there was electricity) but they were dull and flickering, barely able to light the way. The air was damp and there was a faint smell of sewage.

Scarlett noticed an oil painting in a gilt frame. It showed a crucifixion scene, but the colours were faded, the canvas torn. An antique cabinet with two iron candlesticks stood beneath it, one door open and papers scattered on the floor. The three of them turned a corner and for the first time she was able to see outside. A series of arches led onto a terrace with a garden beyond. Scarlett stopped dead. Her worst fears had been realized. She knew now that she definitely wasn’t in England.

The garden was covered in snow. There were trees with no leaves, their branches heavy with the stuff. The ground was also buried and, in the distance, barely visible in the darkness, she could see white-topped mountains. There were no other buildings, no lights showing anywhere. The monastery was in some sort of wilderness – but how had she got here? Had she been knocked out and put on a plane? Scarlett searched back in her memory but there was nothing there… nothing to indicate a journey, leaving England or arriving anywhere else. Then one of the monks jabbed her in the back and she was forced to start moving again.

They came to a hallway, lit by a huge chandelier, not electric but jammed with rows of candles, at least a hundred of them, the wax dripping slowly down and congealing into a series of growths that reminded Scarlett of the sort of shapes she had once seen in a cave. Some of it had splattered onto a round table beneath. An empty bottle lay on its side along with dirty plates and glasses, mouldering pieces of bread. There had been a dinner here – days, maybe weeks before. There were no rats or cockroaches. It was too cold.

Several doors led out of the hallway. The two monks led her to the nearest of them. One of them opened it. The other pushed her inside. He had hurt her and Scarlett spun round and swore at him. The monk just smiled and backed away. The other man went with him. The door closed.

She turned back and examined her new surroundings. This was the only half-way comfortable room she had seen so far. It was furnished with a rug on the floor, two armchairs, bookshelves and a desk. It was warmer too. A coal fire was burning in a grate and although the flames were low she could feel the heat it was giving out and smell it in the air. More paintings hung on the walls, also with religious subjects. There was a window, but it had become too dark to see outside.

A man was sitting behind the desk. He also wore a habit, but his was black. So far he had said nothing but his eyes were fixed on Scarlett and, with an uneasy feeling, she walked over to him. He was the oldest man she had seen – at least twenty years older than the others, with the same bald head and sunken eyes. There were tufts of white hair around his ears and he had thick white eyebrows that could have been glued in place. His nose was long and too thin for his face. His fingers, spread out across the surface of the desk, were the same. He was watching Scarlett intensely, and as she drew closer she saw that there was a growth – a sty – sitting on one of his eyes. The whole socket was red and dripping. It was as if, like the rest of the building, he was rotting away. Scarlett shuddered and felt sick.

The man still hadn’t spoken. Scarlett drew level with him so that the desk was between them. Despite everything, she had decided that she wasn’t going to let him intimidate her. “Who are you?” she demanded. “Where am I? Why have you brought me here?”

His eyes widened in surprise. At least, one of them did. The diseased eye had long since lost any movement. “You are English?” he said.

Scarlett was taken by surprise. She hadn’t expected him to speak her language. “Yes,” she said.

“Please. Sit down…” He gestured at one of the chairs. “Would you like a hot drink? Some tea should be arriving soon.”

Scarlett shook her head. “I don’t want any tea,” she snapped. “I want to go back where I came from. Why are you keeping me here?”

“I asked you to sit down,” the monk said. “I would suggest that you do as you are told.”

He hadn’t raised his voice. He didn’t even sound threatening. But somehow Scarlett knew it would be a mistake to disobey him. She could see it in his eyes. The pupils were black and dead and slightly unfocused. They were the sort of eyes that might belong to someone who was mad.

She sat down.

“That’s better,” he said. “Now, let’s introduce ourselves. What is your name?”

“I’m Scarlett Adams.”

“Scarlett Adams.” He repeated it with a sort of satisfaction, as if that was what he had expected to hear. “Where are you from?”

“I live in Dulwich. In London. Please, will you tell me where I am?”

He lifted a single finger. The nail was yellow and bent out of shape. “I will tell you everything you wish to know,” he said. His English was perfect although it was obvious that it wasn’t his first language. He had an accent that Scarlett couldn’t place and he strung his words together very carefully, like a craftsman making a necklace. “But first tell me this,” he went on. “You really have no idea how you came here?”

“No.” Scarlett shook her head. “I was in a church.”

“In London?”

“Yes. I went through a door. One of the people here grabbed hold of me. That’s all I can remember.”

He nodded slowly. His eyes had never left her and Scarlett felt a terrible urge to look away, as if somehow he was going to swallow her up.

“You are in Ukraine,” the man said, suddenly.

“Ukraine?” Everything seemed to spin for a minute. “But that’s…”

It was somewhere in Russia. It was on the other side of the world.

“This is the Monastery of the Cry for Mercy. I am Father Gregory.” He looked at his guest a little sadly, as if he was disappointed that she didn’t understand. “Your coming here is a great miracle,” he said. “We have been waiting for you for almost twenty years.”

“That’s not possible. What do you mean? I haven’t been alive for twenty years.” Scarlett was getting tired of this. She was feeling sick with exhaustion, with confusion. “How come you speak English?” she asked. She knew it was a stupid question but she needed a simple answer. She wanted to hear something that actually made sense.

“I have travelled all over the world,” Father Gregory replied. “I spent six years in your country, in a seminary near the city of Bath.”

“Why did you say you’ve been waiting for me? What do you mean?”

The door suddenly opened and one of the monks came in, carrying a bronze tray with two glasses of tea. Scarlett guessed that Father Gregory must have ordered it before she was brought in because there was no obvious method of communication in the office, no telephone or computer, nothing modern apart from a desk lamp throwing out a pool of yellow light. The monk set down the tray and left.

“Help yourself,” Father Gregory said.

Scarlett did as she was told. The liquid was boiling hot and burned her fingers as she lifted the glass. She took a sip. The tea tasted herbal and it was heavily sugared, so sweet that it stuck to her lips. She set it down again.

“I will tell you my story because it pleases me to do so,” Father Gregory said. “Because I sometimes wondered if this day would ever come. That you are sitting here now, in this place, is more than a miracle. My whole life has been leading to this moment. It is perhaps the very reason why I was meant to live.”

Scarlett didn’t interrupt him. The more he talked, the more passionate he became. She could see the coal fire reflected in his eyes, but even if the fire hadn’t been there, there might still have been the same glow.

“I was born sixty-two years ago in Moscow, which was then the capital of the Soviet Union. My father was a politician, but from my earliest age, I knew that I wanted to enter the Church. Why? I did not like the world into which I had been born. Even when I was at school, I found the other children spiteful and stupid. I was small for my age and often bullied. I never found it easy to make friends. I did not much like my parents either. They didn’t understand me. They didn’t even try.

“I was nineteen when I told my father that I wanted to take holy orders. He was horrified. I was his only son and he had always assumed that I would go into politics, like him. He tried to talk me out of it. He arranged for me to travel around the world, hoping that if I saw all the riches that the West had to offer, it would change my mind.

“In fact, it did the exact opposite. Everything I saw in Europe and America disgusted me. Wealthy families with huge homes and expensive cars, living just a mile away from children who were dying because they could not afford medicine. Countries at war, the people killing and maiming each other because of politicians too stupid to find another way. The noise of modern life; the planes and the cars, the concrete smothering the land. The pollution and the garbage. The people, in their millions, scurrying on their way to jobs they hated…”

Scarlett shrugged. “So you weren’t happy,” she said. “What’s that got to do with me?”

“It has everything to do with you and if you interrupt me again I will have you whipped until the skin peels off your back.”

Father Gregory paused. Scarlett was completely shocked but didn’t want to show it. She said nothing.

“I entered a seminary in England,” he continued, “and trained to become a monk. I spent six years there, then another three in Tuscany before finally I came here. That was thirty years ago. This was a very beautiful and very restful place when I first arrived, a refuge from the rest of the world. The weather was harsh and, in the winter, the days were short. But the way of life suited me. Prayer six times a day, simple meals and silence while we ate. We cultivated all our food ourselves. I have spent many hundreds of hours hacking at the barren soil that surrounds us. When I wasn’t in the fields, I was helping in the local villages, tending to the poor and the sick.

“A holy life, Scarlett. And so it might have remained. But then everything changed. And all because of a door in a wall.”

Father Gregory hadn’t touched his tea, but suddenly he picked up his glass between his finger and thumb and tipped the scalding liquid back. Scarlett saw his throat bulge. It was like watching a sick man take his medicine.

“It puzzled me from the start. A door that seemed to belong to a different building with a strange device – a five-pointed star – that had nothing to do with this place. A door that went nowhere.” He lifted a hand to stop her interrupting. “It went nowhere, child. Believe me. There was a brief corridor on the other side and then a blank wall.

“The monastery was then run by an abbot who was much older than me. His name was Father Janek. And one day, walking in the cloisters, I asked him about it.

“He wouldn’t tell me. A simple lie might have ended my curiosity, but Father Janek was too good a man to lie. Instead, he told me not to ask any more questions. He quickened his pace and as he walked away, I saw that he was afraid.

“From that day on, I became fascinated by the door. We had an extensive library here, Scarlett, with more than ten thousand books – although most of them have now mouldered away. Some of them were centuries old. I searched through them. It took me many years. But slowly – a sentence here, a fragment there – a story began to emerge. But in the end, it was one book, a secret copy of a diary written by a Spanish monk in 1532 that told me everything I wanted to know.”

He stopped and ran his eyes over the girl as if she were the most precious thing he had ever seen. Scarlett was revolted and didn’t try to hide it. The eyes underneath the white eyebrows were devouring her. She could see saliva on the old man’s lips.

“The Old Ones,” he whispered, and although Scarlett had never heard those words before, they meant something to her; some memory from the far distant past. “The diary told me about the great battle that had taken place ten thousand years ago when the Old Ones ruled the world and mankind were their slaves. Pure evil. The Bible talks of devils… of Lucifer and Satan. But that’s just story-telling. The Old Ones were real. They were here. And the one who ruled over them, Chaos, was more powerful than anything in the universe.”

“So what happened to them?” Scarlett asked. Her voice had almost dropped to a whisper. Apart from the flames, twisting in the hearth, everything in the room was still.

“They were defeated and cast out. There were five children…” he spoke the word with contempt. “They came to be known as the Gatekeepers. Four boys and a girl.” He levelled his eyes on Scarlett and she knew what he was going to say next. “You are the girl.”

Scarlett shook her head. “You’re wrong. That’s insane. I’m not anything. I’m just a schoolgirl. I go to school in London…”

“How do you think you got here?” The monk pointed in the direction of the corridor with a single trembling finger. Some sort of liquid was leaking out of his damaged eye, a single tear. “You have seen the monastery and the snow. You know you are not in London now.”

“You drugged me.”

“You came through the door! It was all there in the diary. There were twenty-five doorways built all around the world. They were there for the Gatekeepers so that when the time came, they would be able to travel great distances in seconds. Only the Gatekeepers could use them. Nobody else. When I pass through the door, I find myself in a corridor, a dead end. But it’s not the same for you. It brought you here.”

Scarlett shook her head. Nothing she had heard made any sense at all. She didn’t even know where to begin. “I’m not ten thousand years old,” she said. “Look at me! You can see for yourself. I’m fifteen!”

“You have lived twice, at two different times.” He laughed delightedly. “It’s beyond belief,” he said. “Finally to meet one of the Gatekeepers after all these years and to find that she has no idea who or what she is.”

“You mentioned there was an abbot here,” Scarlett said. “I want to talk to him.”

“Father Janek is dead.” He sighed. “I haven’t told you the rest of my story. Maybe then you will understand.” He nodded at her glass. “You haven’t drunk your tea.”

“I don’t want it.”

“I would take what you are given while you still can, child. There is much pain for you ahead.”

Scarlett’s tea was right in front of her. Briefly, she thought about picking it up and flinging it in his face. But it wouldn’t do much good. It was probably lukewarm by now.

“The discovery of the diary, along with all the other fragments, changed my life,” the monk continued. “I began to think about the reasons why I had come to the monastery in the first place. Did I really think that religion – prayer and fasting – would help me change the world? Or was I just using religion to hide from it? Suddenly I knew what had brought me here. Hatred. I hated the world. I hated mankind. And praying to God to save us was ridiculous. God isn’t interested! If He was, don’t you think He’d have done something centuries ago?

“My whole life had been devoted to an illusion. All those prayers, the same words repeated again and again. Did they really make any sense? Of course not! The cries for mercy that would never come. Kneeling and making signs, singing hymns while, outside in the street, people were killing each other and trying to make as much money as they could to spend on themselves and to hell with everyone else. Do you never read the papers? What do you see in them except for murder and lust and greed, all day, every day? Do you not see the nature of the world in which you live?

“There is no God, Scarlett. I know that now. But there are the Old Ones. They are our natural masters. They deserve to rule the world because the world is evil and so are they.”

He paused for breath. Scarlett looked at him with a mixture of pity and disgust. She had already decided that this wasn’t about God or about religion. It was about a man who had nothing inside him. The years had hollowed out Father Gregory until there was nothing left.

“I will finish my story and then you must be taken back to your cell,” he said. “You will not be staying with us very long, Scarlett. You have a long journey to make. You will not return.”

Scarlett said nothing. She knew that he was trying to frighten her. She also knew that he was succeeding. A long journey… where? And how would they take her there? Would they force her through another door?

Father Gregory closed his eyes for a few seconds, then continued.

“When I came here, there were twenty-four brothers at the Monastery of the Cry for Mercy,” he explained. “Some of them, I knew, felt the same as me. They were disillusioned. Their life was hard. There were no rewards. The local people, the ones they were helping, weren’t even grateful. Gradually, I began to sound them out. I shared with them the knowledge I had discovered. How many of them would abandon their religion and turn instead to the Old Ones? In the end, there were seven of us. Seven out of twenty-four. Ready to begin a new adventure.

“We could of course have left. But I already knew that was out of the question. We were here for a reason, and that reason was the door. It had been here long before the monastery existed. Indeed, why was the monastery built in this place at all? It was because the architects knew that the door was in some way magical even if they had forgotten what its true purpose was. Do you see, child? The monastery was built around the door just as you will find holy places connected to the other doors all over the world: churches, temples, burial sites, caves.

“The seven of us agreed that we would stay here and serve the Old Ones. We would guard the door and should a child ever pass through it, we would know that we had found one of the Gatekeepers and we would seize hold of them just as we have taken hold of you…”

“What happened to Father Janek and the other monks?” Scarlett asked, although she wasn’t sure she wanted to know.

“I killed Father Janek,” the monk replied. “I crept into his room while he slept and cut his throat. Then we continued around the monastery and did the same to all the others. Seventeen men died that night and in the morning the corridors were awash with blood. But don’t mourn for them. They would have died happily. They would think they were going to Heaven, into the embrace of their God.

“We have been here ever since. Of course, with so few of us, the monastery has fallen into disrepair. Once, the villagers brought us food because they revered us. Now they give it to us because they are afraid. We have survived a very long time, always waiting, always watching the door. Because we knew that you would come. And recently we realized that our time had come. We were expecting you.”

“How?”

“Because the Old Ones have returned to the world. Even now, they are gathering strength, waiting to take back what was always theirs. Their agents have contacted us. Very soon, we will hand you over to them. And then we will have our reward.”

“What will happen to me?”

“The Old Ones will not kill you. You don’t need to be afraid. But they will need to keep you close to them and you still must pay for what you did to them so many years ago.”

“I didn’t do anything. I don’t know what you’re talking about…”

He nodded his head sadly. “A great pity,” he murmured.

“I had expected more of you. A warrior or a great magician. But you really are nothing. A little girl, as you said, from school. Maybe the Old Ones will let me torture you for a while before you go. I would like that very much. To pay you for the disappointment. We will see…”

He stood up and went over to the door. He walked with a limp and it occurred to Scarlett that as well as the diseased eye, he might have a withered leg. It took him a while even to cross the room and she briefly wondered if she might be able to overpower him. But it wouldn’t have done any good. When he opened the door, the two monks who had brought her there were waiting on the other side.

“They will take you back to your cell,” he said. “They will also bring you food and water. I imagine you will be with us a few days.”

Scarlett stood up and walked past him. There was nothing else she could do. For a brief moment, the two of them stood shoulder to shoulder in the doorway. Father Gregory reached out and stroked her hair. Scarlett shuddered. She didn’t even try to hide her revulsion.

“Goodbye, Scarlett,” he said. “You have no idea how glad I am that we have met.”

Scarlett let the two monks walk her away. She didn’t look back.