Raven's Gate

RAVEN'S GATE

So it came to this.

Matt was tied down, surrounded, helpless. In a few moments he would be killed. The ferocious heat of the nuclear reactor would weaken the gate, bringing it to the point when it could be finally smashed. And then the knife would plunge into his heart. Somehow his blood hitting the floor would be enough. At that moment Raven’s Gate would open.

Richard couldn’t do anything. Even if he managed to break free, he would never reach Matt in time.

But there was still the power.

Twice Matt had tried to find it inside himself. Twice he had failed to make it work. He had one more chance. But how…?

The villagers had begun to chant. It was a sound that Matt had heard before. They began with the same words that had haunted him when he had been alone at Hive Hall:

“NODEB… TEMOCMOD… EMANY… NEVAEH… NITRA.”

But now that he was so close to them, Matt could make out what they were saying. And suddenly he understood. He had assumed they were speaking in Latin or Greek but it was much simpler than that. It was an old witches’ ritual. They were reciting the Lord’s Prayer backwards.

Matt tried to ignore them. He was aware of the growing energy beneath him as the nuclear reactor reached critical mass. He knew he had to close his mind to all of it. Why hadn’t he been able to break the vase in Richard’s flat? Why couldn’t he open the door when he was Mrs Deverill’s prisoner? What was he doing wrong?

The murmuring filled the room, rising above the soft hum of the ventilation system. Sir Michael held the knife tightly in both hands, waiting for the moment when he would bring it down. Despite all his efforts, Matt found himself transfixed by the silver blade. This whole business had begun with a knife – the one that Kelvin had used to wound the security guard. It seemed that it would end with one too.

Think about the knife. Concentrate on it. Make it stop. Lying on his back, Matt tried to unlock the power that he knew was inside him. But it was no good. Sir Michael was in control. He was smiling to himself as he whispered the words of the invocation. Matt could see the sweat on his upper lip. He was going to enjoy this. His whole life had built up to it.

Far underneath the ground the control rods moved slowly upwards. As they left the core of the reactor, the neutrons rushed around the enclosed container, travelling at hundreds of miles per second, smashing into each other, releasing incredible heat.

And as the control rods rose, so did Raven’s Gate.

Richard had managed to free one hand but the other was still trapped and he was fighting desperately with the rope. But seeing what was happening, he stopped, totally shocked.

The great stones, destroyed centuries ago, were rising out of the floor like monstrous plants. There were eighteen control rods. And there were eighteen stones, each one sliding up in the exact position that it had once occupied. They were ghosts, passing through the floor without touching it. But even as Richard watched, they shimmered, becoming more solid as they grew taller. Already they were towering above the villagers, forming a new circle behind them. In a few seconds they would be exactly as they had been. And Richard knew with a terrible certainty that it would be then that the knife would fall. The Old Ones would break free.

Matt saw all this and closed his eyes. The more he was drawn into the events around him, the less control he would have. Was there nothing he could do? He had smashed the jug of water. It hadn’t been a dream. He had done it. But how? Desperately he tried to remember how he had felt when he was in the detention centre. What had made him different? Why had it worked then?

The whispers grew louder. Now something even more incredible was happening. The colour of the floor inside the circle had changed. The black and white checks had been washed away by a glow of red that seemed to be shining through, from underneath. The glow became brighter, the colour more vivid, until it was like a vast pool of blood. Suddenly a crack, deep and black, cut a jagged path across the reactor cap. The gate was breaking up.

Matt opened his eyes one last time. There was Richard, standing outside the circle, still struggling with the rope. There were Jayne and Claire Deverill, watching with something close to ecstasy. The ceiling – harsh, industrial lamps and silver pipes. The observation room with the villagers pressed forward, watching through the glass. The flames of the black candles, flickering and swaying. And the floor…

A speck of darkness had appeared in the red. Matt craned his neck so that he was looking down the length of his body and beyond. The floor had become transparent. He was looking through it, into another world. The speck moved. It was climbing, flying, swimming upwards, moving at an incredible speed. For a second he could make out a shape, some sort of creature. But it was too fast. The blackness welled up, blotting out the red, thrusting it aside in a chaos of swirling bubbles. A brilliant white streak seared across the surface of the pool. The black thing brushed it away and with a shudder Matt saw what it was: a huge hand. The monster that owned it must have been as big as the reactor itself. He could see its finger-nails, sharp and scaly, and he could make out the wrinkled skin of its webbed fingers. It had placed its fist against the barrier and the crimson bubbles were exploding around it as it searched for the strength to punch its way through.

Matt closed his eyes. And suddenly, out of nowhere, the answer came.

The smell of burning.

That was what had triggered his power. He had smelled burning when he was sinking into the bog. The same smell had been there in the detention centre when he broke the jug. And even before that… long before that. Now he remembered. His mother had burnt the toast on the morning of the accident that had killed her. Somehow that tiny incident had become the trigger. He had smelled burnt toast the moment before the security guard had appeared in the warehouse. He had known what was about to happen.

He stopped trying to influence the knife. He stopped trying to turn something on inside himself. Instead he thought back to six years ago. He was eight years old again, sitting in a kitchen in a south London suburb. For just a second, a single frame in a film, he saw the yellow painted walls. There was the kitchen cupboard. The teapot shaped like a teddy bear.

And his mother.

“Come on, Matthew. We’re going to be late.”

He heard her voice and smelled it once again. The toast burning…

Inside the nuclear reactor the whispering had stopped. The great stones of Raven’s Gate had returned. They stood, almost touching the dome of the power station. Their worn, flinty surface – thousands of years old – the metal plates, the pipes and machinery that surrounded them. Sir Michael Marsh raised the knife. His fists, clutching the hilt, tightened.

“No!” Richard shouted.

The knife plunged down.

It had less than an arm’s length to travel. It would slice easily into the boy’s heart. The tip reached Matt’s shirt and it pricked his skin. But that was as far as it went. It stopped, as if caught by an invisible wire. Sir Michael uttered a strange, strangled moan, pulling down with all his might. He stared at Matt, knowing that the boy’s power had finally awoken, and with that knowledge came the first whispers of fear and defeat.

“No…” he muttered in a broken voice. “You can’t! Not now! You can’t stop me now!”

Matt looked at the knife and knew that he was in total control.

Sir Michael screamed. The blade was glowing molten red. The hilt was burning the palm of his hand. His skin crackled and smoke rose, but he couldn’t drop it. With a last effort he managed to bring his arms down and the knife tumbled uselessly to the floor. Whimpering, he spat on his wounded hands. At the same time the straps that had been holding Matt smouldered and snapped. Matt rolled off the altar and got to his feet.

He took a step forward and stood on the surface of the pit, daring the villagers to come close. Nobody moved. Even the creature beneath, although it was a hundred times his own size, cowered and backed away. A streak of poisonous green rippled outwards in a brilliant stain. Matt turned to face the villagers. Nobody tried to stop him. He broke through the circle and ran towards Richard. The metal railing behind the journalist snapped. Instantly he was free.

“Follow me!” Matt ordered in a voice that was barely his own.

Too stunned to do anything but obey, Richard followed him. By the time the villagers had absorbed what was happening, they had disappeared through the one door of the chamber that was still open.

Mrs Deverill recovered herself. With a howl of fury she launched herself after them. Mr Barker, the chemist, tried to follow her. But he had left it just too late. He had only taken three paces across the chamber when the ground in front of him broke apart, fragments of metal and concrete flying upwards. Orange flames roared and a dense cloud of white smoke poured out, smothering him. Screaming, he collapsed to the floor and lay still.

A siren wailed and lights set all around the dome began to flash. A radiation warning. The levels were already lethal and were rising with every second that passed. “Stay in the circle!” Sir Michael bellowed. He was sobbing, still cradling his ruined hand. “The radiation has broken free. But we’re protected in the circle!”

The orange flames climbed up, higher even than the stones, licking against the ceiling. Smoke belched out, forming a living carpet. A sprinkler system had come on automatically and thousands of litres of water were showering down, soaking and blinding the villagers. Still, it wasn’t enough to put out the fire. Not this fire. The flames leapt through the water, hissing and crackling. The whole building began to shake.

Claire Deverill was the first to break. With a panic-stricken cry she threw up her arms and ran between two of the stones, making for the same door that her sister had taken. But the moment she was outside the magic circle she was no longer protected. The heat of the flames blasted into her and her clothes caught alight. The smoke grabbed at her legs, dragging her down. She screamed and tried to scream again. But there was no air in the room, only smoke and fire. Her face contorted and her eyes went white. She fell and lay there, convulsing on the floor.

“Stay in the circle,” Sir Michael repeated. “The doors are locked. They can’t escape.”

Beneath the floor the gigantic creature punched and punched again at the invisible barrier. But it couldn’t break through. It had ritual. It had fire. But the blood of the child had been denied it, and it didn’t have the strength.

And that was when Sir Michael noticed the knife. The tip had penetrated Matt’s shirt and skin. Matt’s power had stopped it, but not before it had drawn blood. There was a single red drop at the very tip of the blade. Sir Michael’s eyes widened. With a cry of pleasure he leapt forward and snatched up the knife. The blood was still wet. It glistened beneath the arc lamps.

Sir Michael laughed and brought the knife crashing down towards the gate.

The power was surging through Matt and nothing could stand in its way. Locked doors were torn from their hinges as if struck by a tornado. Steel plates bent and crumpled as he approached. Omega One was a labyrinth but he seemed to know exactly where he was going. Down a flight of metal stairs, along a corridor, through an archway and on towards a set of automatic doors that hissed open as he approached. It was as if he had worked here all his life.

Richard was close behind him. The journalist no longer knew where they were going but he could tell that their general direction was down. Already they had to be well below ground level. The warning sirens were still sounding all around them, and lights flashed red and white at every corner. Steam hissed out of pipes. Water cascaded down from the sprinkler system. The whole power station seemed to be trembling, on the verge of breaking up, and he was worried that they were going to trap themselves. There couldn’t be an exit under the ground. But he knew that this was no time to argue. He kept his mouth shut, following Matt in grim silence.

They passed through a room stacked from floor to ceiling with banks of machinery, then down another corridor. A door at the end flew open, beckoning them on.

It led to a metal gantry above a tank of water. But it was like no water that Richard had ever seen. Pausing to catch his breath, he leant over it. The water was blue – a fluorescent, unnatural blue – and it was crystal clear, without so much as a speck of dust on the surface. The tank was square and about three metres deep. At the bottom was a row of metal containers, each one stamped with a series of numbers. Half of them were empty. Half contained twisted bars of metal, packed tightly together.

Richard knew what he was looking at. This was where the radioactive waste from the reactor was stored to cool. It wasn’t water in the pool, but acid. The boxes beneath the surface contained the deadliest substance in the world. With a shiver he stepped back. Matt was waiting for him, his face set with a strange determination. It was hard to tell if he was asleep or awake.

“OK. I’m coming,” Richard said.

The blow took Richard completely unawares, crashing into the back of his head. If he hadn’t been moving forward, it might have broken his neck. He fell to his knees. A woman brushed past him and stepped on to the middle of the gantry, facing Matt. It was Mrs Deverill. Richard tried to get to his feet but he was barely conscious. All the strength had drained away from him. He could only kneel there, helpless, as Mrs Deverill walked towards Matt, an iron bar clasped in her hands.

“He didn’t listen to me,” she spat. Her face was distorted by fury, her eyes livid, her mouth an inhuman grimace. “We should have locked you up, starved you, kept you weak. But it’s over now, isn’t it? The power’s gone. You don’t know how to control it. Now I can kill you and take you back.”

She raised the iron bar. Matt looked around him. He had nowhere to run. On one side there was a wall. On the other, a low railing to stop him falling into the tank of acid. The gantry was only two metres across. Mrs Deverill was standing between him and Richard. Even if he could have run away, it would mean leaving his friend at her mercy and he couldn’t do that. He had no choice. He would have to fight.

She swung the bar through the air. As quick as a panther, Matt leapt aside, then lurched back as Mrs Deverill thrust the pointed end at his stomach. She was moving incredibly quickly for a woman of her age but her fury had lent her strength. Matt fell against the railings as she threw herself at him. There was nothing he could do. She was taller than him. She was armed. And she was quite mad. Grunting with anger and exertion, she pressed the bar against his chest, pinning him against the side with such force that Matt thought she would crack his ribs.

He wished he could use his powers against her, but she had been right about that too. The power was no longer there. He had exhausted himself getting this far. There was a faulty switch inside him and now it had turned itself off. He was an ordinary boy again. And she was beating him.

Mrs Deverill lifted the bar so that it slid over his chest and under his throat. Now she was using it to crush his windpipe. Her pinched face, with its jagged cheekbones, was very close to his. Her eyes were burning with hatred and indignation. Matt felt the floor slipping away beneath his feet. He was being forced over backwards. The railing pressed into his spine and his neck bent back until he could see the pool behind him, upside down. With a gasp he brought his knee up, crashing it into the woman’s stomach. Mrs Deverill screeched and stepped back. Matt twisted to one side.

The bar slammed down again. Matt ducked. A rush of air swept past his cheek as the bar smashed into the railing. Sparks flew up. Then he jumped behind her, trying to take her by surprise. But she had been expecting the move. She lashed out with one foot, tripping him up. Then he was on his back, staring up as Mrs Deverill raised the bar with both hands. She was going to use it like a spear, crashing it down into his chest.

“You’re still mine!” she gasped. “I’ll have your blood. I’ll tear out your heart and take it back with me.”

Her fingers tightened. She took a breath.

And then she pitched forward, crying out. The iron bar missed. Matt looked past her and saw that Richard had recovered enough to make one last effort. With all his strength he had pushed her from behind. Jayne Deverill had lost her balance. For a moment she tottered, then with a shriek she fell over the railing and toppled into the tank.

She sank like a stone, plunging into one of the crates. With bubbles erupting from her mouth, she tried to reach the surface. But it was already too late. The acid was eating into her. Richard peered down and saw that already much of her face had gone.

“Don’t look, Matt,” he warned.

Mrs Deverill was no longer recognizable. Her flesh was peeling away and her hair had come out. Richard closed his eyes. Witches had been burned in the Middle Ages, he knew, but it could never have been as ghastly as this.

Matt stumbled to his feet. “This way…” he said, quietly.

There was a door at the end of the gantry and another flight of steps going ever further down. The walls were suddenly different. Instead of the paint and smooth plaster of the upper corridors, these walls were cut out of solid rock and were covered with patches of damp moss. The iron steps were rusty, descending into darkness. Richard could hear the sound of rushing water. The underground river!

The steps ended at a small, triangular platform. Just below them, the black river swept through miles of underground caverns, beneath the woods. The cave system was like an underground pipe, filled almost to the roof with freezing water. There were no banks or towpath to walk on. There was no other way out.

“Hold on to me,” Richard said. Matt hooked his arms around the journalist. “Just hold on.”

They jumped.

The reactor chamber of Omega One was breaking up. The flames had burst through almost everywhere. The heat was so intense that the heavy pipes and platforms were melting. The ground was buckling and breaking. A crack had appeared in one of the walls and the night air was feeding the flames, fanning the smoke.

Sir Michael Marsh stood alone beside the altar, the wind and smoke curling around him. The villagers, mad with fear, had attempted to flee. But outside the protection of the magic circle they had been incinerated instantly, swallowed up by the inferno. Now the observation box exploded, shards of glass and metal splinters cascading into the chamber, a rain of death.

The metal tower at the far end of the ring wavered as a new spasm seized the floor. With a sickening screech and an eruption of sparks it keeled over, tearing through a wall. Another window burst, a fireball shooting through it like a bullet from a gun.

Sir Michael leant against the sacrificial slab. Beneath him, underneath the smoke and fire, the black hand of the creature that he had summoned hammered one last time against the gate. The ancient stones had almost gone. They were crumbling away, dust pouring out of the gashes that had formed in them. Omega One was in the grip of an earthquake of its own making, the walls vibrating, the metal ladders and platforms shaking loose and crashing down.

Then with one last cry, a cry such as the world had not heard for a million years, the creature, king of the Old Ones, broke loose. The gate shattered. A single drop of Matt’s blood had been enough to weaken it. The hand stretched out.

“We’ve done it!” Sir Michael cried, his eyes widening. “You’re here! You’re free!”

The huge hand unfolded. All the light in the chamber was blotted out as the giant fingers stretched.

The hand was all around the scientist. He let out a thin scream of delight, which in an instant turned to terror as he realized what was about to happen. The hand closed on him and crushed him. Sir Michael Marsh died horribly, in the grip of the creature he had served all his life.

And then the reactor, pushed beyond its limits, disintegrated. A blinding, searing, fantastic light burst out, as bright as the sun itself: the light of an atomic explosion.

A huge mushroom cloud sprouted out of the ground. Man’s most dreadful creation ran wild. Spiralling upwards, it rushed towards the night sky, carrying with it enough deadly radiation to destroy half of England.

But the gate was open.

The vacuum had to be filled.

The atomic energy recoiled, drawn back into the gate that it had itself helped to open. The mushroom had risen far above the ground but now it was pulled down again, while at the same time the smoke and deadly gases were dragged back into the chasm that had been broken between the two worlds.

The creature itself was engulfed, flailing helplessly as it was sucked down like a spider into a gigantic plughole. It was trapped in a torrent of pure light that swirled round and round it, forming a whirlpool from which there could be no escape. A curtain of molten red flooded across, then dimmed and died away. Slowly the black and white squares of the reactor floor shimmered and began to reappear. The creature was gone. The gate had been resealed.

Two miles away, Richard and Matt, coughing and shivering, were spat out of an underground cavern and, reaching the bank, pulled themselves on to dry land. On the horizon, a ripple of pink spread across the night sky as the sun began its climb over the edge of the world.

At last, it was over.