The Key

95

Baghdad

The asylum stood on the southern fringe of the city, isolated at the end of a street. It looked more like a derelict maximum-security jail than a hospital. Razor wire stretched round the squared-off roof of a solid concrete block, a thick coating of dust covered every surface and at first sight it appeared to be deserted. It was only as they drove past that Liv saw people moving in the shadows — wraiths in the dust with watchful eyes.

Washington had come with them. He said he had business in this part of town, but Gabriel doubted it. Either way, he was glad to have him along. Thanks to Washington’s credentials and stone-faced military demeanour it took them less than ten minutes to gain access to the asylum. Promising he’d be back to pick them up within the hour, he departed for his dubious meeting, leaving them to follow a man in white overalls down bare concrete corridors that smelled of urine, faeces and desperation. An occasional ceiling fan turned lazily above them, just enough to mix up the smells but not enough to cool the air.

They progressed in silence, the state of the corridors and cells getting steadily worse the deeper they got into the stifling building. It was obvious that Zaid Aziz’s lengthy stay here had not earned him any privileges. As they dropped down another level, what natural light there was disappeared entirely. The only illumination came from a string of low-wattage bulbs that had been switched on by the guard as he reached the bottom of the stairs. The patients down here — if ‘patients’ was the right word — clearly spent most of their time alone in the dark with their madness and their demons. The guard stopped in the middle of the corridor and waved his hand in the direction of the last cell on the left where the lights didn’t quite reach. ‘Aziz,’ he said, in a way that sounded as if he was spitting. Then he turned and walked away, clearly unwilling to spend any more time down here than he had to. They listened to his boots scuffing away up the steps, leaving them alone with the remnants of men in the dark. The ‘patients’ heard it too and the basement steadily filled with shuffling sounds and filthy chuckles that slid down the darkness towards them. Gabriel turned to Liv, wishing he had not brought her here, but she just smiled and reached out to take his hand.

Then the corridor erupted in noise.

For a few seconds they stood there, gripping each other as the roar of voices engulfed them and the bars shook violently the entire length of the corridor. There was a loud crash nearby as a man ran at them from the back of his cell and collided with the upright of his door, gashing his head deeply and sending a spray of blood into the air. Opposite, another man had bunched his pants down to his knees and was thrusting his hips violently against the bars, his penis, covered in sores and scars from previous abuse, waving obscenely as he moaned in pain and pleasure. They didn’t notice the figure behind them uncoil himself from the floor until an inhuman shriek split the gloom, instantly silencing the maniacal din and sending everyone scurrying back to the darkest corner of their cells.

Gabriel spun towards the sound and discovered a knife-thin man watching him from behind the bars. He was naked from the waist up and the entire right-hand side of his body was covered with thick scars that looked more like scales than skin. They spread down his arm to a claw of a hand, up his neck and over the side of his head, robbing it of hair and tightening the skin so it pulled his face into a permanently quizzical look. And there was a smell coming off him that was very specific and very disturbing, given the man’s history: it was the smell of smoke.

‘Zaid Aziz,’ Gabriel said, putting his hand to his heart and bowing his head in deference. ‘My name is-’

‘John!’ the figure exclaimed with something close to wonder. His mouth twisted into a smile that became a snarl where his burns began. ‘John Mann.’ He stepped into the light, his right eye white and sightless, the left restlessly darting over Gabriel’s face.

Gabriel took the scrutiny, feeling the steady pressure of Liv’s hand like a lifeline to sanity.

‘But I saw you die.’ Aziz’s voice was rusty from lack of use, and the ruined muscles around his mouth made his English sound strangely formal.

‘I did die,’ Gabriel said, playing along in order that he might utilize the bond of trust his father would have formed. ‘Now I’ve come back and I’m looking for the people who did this to us. I want to pay them back.’

The man’s face curled into another smile-snarl. Then his expression became guarded and he stepped closer to the bars. ‘Then you must kill the dragon,’ he whispered.

‘Yes,’ Gabriel replied. ‘Tell me about the dragon.’

Aziz flinched and cowered on the floor, his white eye staring up as if seeing again the last thing it had witnessed. ‘We heard it first, you remember? A roar in the desert, then the wings beating.’

‘What did it look like?’

Aziz stamped his foot and glared at him. ‘You SAW it!’ he said, with the fury of a man who’d been telling the same story for twelve years to disbelieving ears. ‘Don’t you say it wasn’t there. The others are fools, but you were there. You saw it.’ The anger burned in his face then softened as confusion crept in. He reached up with the claw of his right hand and rubbed a raw knuckle against the molten flesh over his sightless eye. ‘No,’ he said, remembering more. ‘You were down in the dig when the dragon came. You were in the library cave.’

‘Tell me about the library — what did we find there?’

‘So much treasure we found. You should remember.’ He tapped his head. ‘I remember. I remember everything. Sometimes they try to steal my memories with kicks and fists. Sometimes they try to steal them with the electric. But I keep them still. And I remember.’

‘Tell me what you remember. Did the dragon kill everyone?’

Aziz shook his head. ‘It was not the dragon that brought death. It was the white devils, born of its belly. They brought the fire and the fury. They laid us low and burnt everything. Tents. Vehicles. People. It was one of our own who betrayed us. I hid from the dragon and saw him showing the other devils where to look. He was the one who took them to the cave where you were. He was the one who killed you.’

‘Did you see who it was?’

‘He was a white devil, like them.’

‘A Westerner?’

Aziz shook his head. ‘A ghost. They were all ghosts. Only ghosts can ride a dragon. The ghost went inside the cave, brought out boxes and fed them to the dragon, stealing the treasure we had found. Then the earth shook and the cave was gone. You never came out. A white devil saw me and struck me down.’ His hand rose again to the side of his head. ‘The fire woke me when the dragon was gone. The sand made the fire go away. The desert saved me, see — ’ He held out his arm. Grit was embedded beneath the skin. ‘I am part of the land now and the land is part of me. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust.’

‘And after you put out the fire, what did you do then?’

Aziz shook his head. ‘Everyone was dead. Everything was burning. I was afraid the fire might touch me again. I feared the dragon’s return, so I ran. I ran into the desert. But the dragon knows I live still. It wants to finish me — I can feel it.’ He stepped forward and gripped the bars. ‘Find the dragon, John Mann. Kill it for me so I can be free of this place. Only you can tame the dragon now — for you are a ghost too.’