Necropolis

LAST NIGHT IN NAZCA

Twenty-four hours after the fax had arrived, Professor Chambers organized a dinner. It was her way of saying goodbye. The following day, Matt, Richard, Pedro, Jamie and Scott would be leaving for England – the professor had arranged passports for all of them – and at last she would have the house to herself.

Joanna Chambers had spent most of her life in Peru, studying the Incas, the ancient Moche and Chimu tribes and, of course, the Nazca Lines. She was an expert on a dozen different subjects, a qualified pilot, a good shot with a rifle or a handgun and a terrible cook. Fortunately, the meal had been prepared by a local help: creole soup, followed by lomo saltado – a dish made with grilled beef, onions and rice. There were two jugs of Pisco Sour, a frothing, white drink made from grape brandy, lemon and egg white – it tasted much better than it looked.

Richard Cole was sitting at the head of the table. He had changed in the past few months. His hair had been bleached by the sun and he had grown it so that it fell in long strands over his collar. He had a permanent, desert tan and although he didn’t quite have a beard, he looked rough and unshaven.

Tonight, he had changed into jeans and a white, linen shirt. Normally he slouched around in shorts and sandals and if the house had been nearer the sea, he might easily have been mistaken for a surfer. He started every morning with a five-mile run. He was keeping himself in shape.

Scott and Jamie Tyler were sitting on one side of the table, together as usual. Matt and Pedro were on the other. There was one empty seat and someone had placed the article with the picture of Scarlett Adams on the table in front of it, as if she were there in spirit.

All six of them were in a good mood. The food had been excellent and the drink had helped. Upstairs, their cases were packed and ready in the various rooms. Professor Chambers waited until the food had been cleared away, then tapped a fork against her glass and rose to her feet. Matt had never seen her wearing a dress and tonight was no exception. She had put on a crumpled safari suit and there was a small bunch of flowers in her buttonhole.

“We ought to go to bed,” she began. “You have a long journey to make tomorrow – but I just want to wish you bon voyage. I can’t say I’m too sorry that you’re finally on your way…” There were protests around the table and she held up a hand for silence. “It’s been impossible to get any work done with all your infernal noise, football games out on the front lawn, four boys clumping up and down the stairs, and all the rest of it.

“But I will miss you. I’ve enjoyed having you here. That’s the truth of it. And although it’s wonderful that Scar has finally turned up, I can’t help wondering what lies ahead of you.” She stopped for a moment. “I feel a bit like a mother sending my sons off to war. I can only hope that one day I’ll see you again. I can only hope that you’ll come back safe.”

She lifted her glass.

“Anyway, here’s a toast to all five of you. The Five, I should say. Look after yourselves. Beat the Old Ones. Do what you have to do. And now let’s get some hot chocolate and have a final game of Perudo. You have an early start.”

Later that night, Richard and Matt found themselves standing on the veranda outside the main room. It was a beautiful night with a full moon, an inky sky and stars everywhere. Matt could hear classical music coming from inside the house. Professor Chambers had an old-fashioned radio that she liked to listen to while she worked. Scott and Jamie were sharing a room on the first floor. Pedro was probably watching TV.

“I can’t believe we’re going home,” Matt said.

“England.” Richard gazed into the darkness as if he could see it on the horizon. “Do you have any idea what happens when we get there?”

Matt shook his head. “I don’t know. I’ve thought about it. I’ve tried to work out some sort of plan. Maybe it would be easier if we knew what the Old Ones have been doing all this time.” He thought for a moment. “Maybe we’ll know when the five of us get together. Maybe it will all make sense.”

Matt stared into the darkness. The nights in Nazca were always huge. Even without seeing it, he could feel the desert stretching out to the mountains. There seemed to be five times more stars in the southern hemisphere than he’d ever seen in Europe. The sky was bursting with them.

“What you said yesterday…” He turned to Richard. “About the Old Ones…”

“They were looking for kids with special powers,” Richard said. “That’s how they found Scott and Jamie. If Scarlett went through the door at St Meredith’s, they’ll know about it. They’ll have read the article too.”

“You think they’ll be waiting for us?”

“Scarlett’s being watched by the Nexus. Her father’s with her. She took a couple of days off school. So far everything seems OK. She doesn’t seem to be in any danger.”

Richard had been in constant touch with the Nexus, the strange collection of millionaires, politicians, psychics and churchmen who knew about the Old Ones and had come together in a sort of secret society to fight them. It had to be secret because they were afraid of being ridiculed. How could they admit that they believed in devils and demons? The Nexus had made it their job to look after Matt and the other children. At one stage, they had paid for him to go to a private school. They were still paying for everything while the four of them were out here.

And they were also protecting Scarlett Adams. They had moved in the moment she had been identified in the national press, hiring a team of private detectives to watch over her night and day. They were lucky that she lived in England. That made things easier. One of the Nexus members was a senior police officer called Tarrant and he had arranged for all her calls to be monitored. Meanwhile, Scarlett had gone back to school. Her father was still with her in London and there was a Scottish helper living in the house. By now, Richard knew a great deal about her. She was in the school play. She had a boyfriend called Aidan and she regularly beat him at tennis. She seemed to have a happy life.

Richard and Matt were about to rip all that up. Somewhere inside him, Matt felt guilty about that – but he knew he couldn’t avoid it. She had been born for a purpose. His job was to tell her what that purpose was.

Somewhere, an owl hooted in the darkness. The house was on the outskirts of Nazca but the two of them could make out the lights of the town, twinkling in the distance. Everything was very peaceful but they knew that it was an illusion. Soon the whole world would change.

“I’m not sure you should go,” Richard said, suddenly.

“What do you mean?” Matt was surprised. Everything was ready. The tickets had been bought.

“I’ve been thinking about it… this trip to England. You and Pedro and Scott and Jamie… all on the same plane. Suppose the Old Ones have got control of American air space. They could smash you into the side of a mountain. Or a building.”

“They don’t want to kill us,” Matt said. He was fairly sure about that. “If they kill us, we’ll all be replaced by our past selves. That’s how it works. And what good will that do them? They’ll only have to start searching for us all over again. It’s easier for them to keep us alive.”

Richard shook his head. “They could still force the plane down somewhere and capture you.”

Matt considered the possibility. The trouble was that the Old Ones had been silent for months. They seemed to have slipped into the shadows, as if they had never existed at all. Richard had been scouring the Internet, waiting to hear of a news event, some horror happening somewhere in the world that might suggest that the Old Ones were involved. There were plenty of stories. The war in Afghanistan. Ethnic cleansing in Darfur. Misery and starvation in Zimbabwe. But that was just everyday news. That would happen even without the Old Ones. He had been looking for something worse.

“What do you think they’re doing?” Matt asked. “Why do you think they haven’t shown themselves?”

Richard shrugged. “I guess they’ve been waiting,” he said.

“Waiting for what?”

“Waiting for Scar.”

There was a movement on the veranda and Matt tensed for a moment, then relaxed. He could tell it was Professor Chambers, even without turning round. The smell of her cigar had given her away and sure enough, there it was. She was clutching it in one hand with a glass of Peruvian brandy in the other.

“Are you two going in?” she asked. “I’m putting on the alarms.”

The house was completely surrounded by a security system that had been installed shortly after Richard, Pedro and Matt had arrived. There were no fences or uniformed guards – the professor had said she couldn’t live like that. The system was invisible. But there was a series of infra-red beams at the perimeter, and the garden itself had pressure pads concealed in different places under the lawn. Most sophisticated of all was the radar dish mounted on the roof, sweeping the entire area. It could pick up any movement a hundred metres away. That was how they had been living. It might look as if they were free, but they had all been aware that they were actually in a state of siege.

“We were just talking about tomorrow,” Richard said.

“It’ll be here soon.” Chambers blew smoke. “It’s after ten. Shouldn’t you be in bed?”

Richard tapped Matt on the shoulder. “After you.”

The three of them went inside. Matt said goodnight to Richard and climbed the stairs to the small room which he had chosen at the back of the house. He liked it there. When he was lying in bed, his head was directly underneath a slanting roof with a skylight so, lying on his back, he could look up at the stars. His case – a small canvas bag – was already packed and sitting on the floor. He wasn’t taking much with him. If he needed anything in London, he could always buy it there.

Matt undressed quickly, washed and slipped between the sheets. For the last few months, he had been searching for Scar in the only way that he could – in his dreams. Time and again he had visited the dreamworld. He had been there so often that he knew the landscape well: the shoreline stretching along a great sea with everything dead and grey, the island where he had once found himself trapped.

The dreamworld baffled him. Was it a dream or was it a real world? That was the first question. And was it there to help him or to throw him off balance? On the one hand it was a frightening place, conjuring up strange, violent images that he couldn’t understand: giant swans, walking statues, guns and knives. But at the same time, Matt didn’t think he was in any danger there. The more he visited it, the more he felt it was on his side. He wondered if anyone actually lived there – or was it simply there for the Gatekeepers, its only inhabitants?

At any event, he had gone back there almost every night, floating out of the bed, out of the room, out of himself. Then he had begun to travel, searching for Scar. Sometimes he would see a flicker of lightning, an approaching storm. Once, he found footprints. Another time he came upon a grove of trees, which at least proved that the place wasn’t entirely dead, that things could grow there.

But there had never been any sign of Scar.

There was no point in searching for her tonight. In just twenty-four hours he would be meeting her anyway. But even so – maybe it was just habit – he found himself back in the dreamworld almost at once. As usual, he was on his own. He was climbing a steep hill, but it took no more effort than if he had been walking on level ground. Far behind him, the wilderness stretched out, wide and empty.

And then he noticed something strange. The ground underneath his feet had changed. He knelt down and examined it, brushing aside the grey dust that covered everything. It was true. He was standing on a path fashioned out of paving stones that had been brought here and laid in place. He could see the joins, the cement gluing everything together. Even though he was asleep, Matt felt a surge of excitement. A man-made path! This was completely new and confirmed what he had always thought. The dreamworld was inhabited. There might be buildings, even whole cities there.

He looked up. The path had to lead somewhere. There could be something on the other side of the hill.

But he wasn’t going to find out – not then. Suddenly he was awake. Someone was shaking him, calling his name. The lights were on in his room. He opened his eyes. It was Richard.

“Wake up, Matt,” he was saying. “There’s someone here.”