The Key

34

Flight TK 7121

The thrust of the engines pressed Liv into her seat and made the raindrops slip from the window as the plane picked up speed. Beyond the lights of the airport she could see the broken peaks of the Taurus mountains rising up against an inky sky. She watched them until the cabin tilted backwards and the wheels lifted off the tarmac with a bump. At the same moment she felt a tightening in her stomach, as though something inside her was connected to the ground and was now being pulled unbearably tight as the plane accelerated away from it. She gasped at the sensation, doubling over and struggling to breathe. She was aware of the passenger next to her leaning forward, his face clouded with concern. The tightening increased until she felt that it might pull her through the floor of the plane; then something seemed to snap and she gulped air. A wave of nausea followed, along with the same intense pins-and-needles feeling over her entire body she had felt in the departure hall. The mild G-forces of the climbing plane didn’t help. She turned and forced a smile for the person next to her, muttering something about nerves then closed her eyes and breathed deeply and slowly. She was really getting tired of all this. It was as if someone had a voodoo doll of her and was randomly sticking pins in it.

The plane started to bank and the delicate feelings inside her rolled with the movement. She continued to breathe until the sick feeling melted away and she felt safe enough to open her eyes again.

Outside she could see the stars beginning to prick the darkening sky and below them, shining like a bright stain, the lights of Ruin, nestling in the foothills of the mountain. She imagined each light as a person and one of them was Gabriel.

If you get the chance, then go, he had said, as far from the Citadel as you can. Keep yourself safe — until I find you.

Once she’d returned to Newark, got her head straight and her memory back, she would call him; then they could talk. She had so many questions, about what had happened in the Citadel, but also about him. She hardly knew him and yet, in the midst of all the darkness and strangeness of the past few weeks, it was to him that her mind had constantly returned. He shone through it all, like the lights she now looked down upon.

The plane shuddered slightly as the higher winds caught it and below her those same lights started to disappear, winking out one by one, as though the city was being switched off a block at a time.

She turned on her reading light. It made the dark symbols on her hand stand out against her pale flesh, mocking her again with their mystery. She pulled the book from the seat pocket in front of her and looked at the cover. It was called The Mystery of Lost Languages. Maybe she would find some answers in here.

Eight rows back a large man in a business suit sat jammed in an economy seat built for someone half his size. His eyes were fixed on Liv’s blonde hair, glowing in the gloom of the cabin. She was looking down at something, reading. He wondered what it was. He liked books. They were full of words, and words were a kind of magic to him. It was how he had got his nickname during his first spell in prison: Dick, short for Dictionary. Sometimes people tried to make fun of his name, as if it meant something dirty, but not for long. He could tell which people said it properly and those who were calling him something else — a prick, a cock, a penis. That was the problem with language. It had such power, but it was slippery. You had to focus on the words and use them correctly to convey what you wanted. That’s why he liked strong words. Pure words. Words that only had one meaning. The word he was currently savouring was one of these:

Ser-en-dip-ity

When the jailhouse hit had gone wrong, he’d been told his mission was over. Not his fault, just one of those things. He was too recognizable and the witness had got away. So he had been reassigned.

He’d gone to his hotel room, picked up his stuff and put on the baggy business suit that covered up all his tattoos and was specifically tailored to disguise his shape. Then he’d neatly combed his hair and headed off to the airport looking like any other nondescript, out-of-shape businessman on his way to who knows where. But God had known. He had made all this happen so that Dick ended up in exactly the right place at the right time. The perfect solution had presented itself, as if by accident.

Ser-en-dip-ity

If everything had gone to plan in the cell block he wouldn’t have been at the airport and the girl would have got away. And she was the most important of the three targets. The girl was the most dangerous to the Church and needed to be silenced. And silence was the greatest power anyone could have over another person, the ability to take away their words. He’d learned that in prison. Whenever they had wanted to punish him, they had taken his books. But they could never take away the words in his head. Not unless they killed him. And he had such words inside him, the best words. They had been given to him by Isaiah — the name of a prophet and also of the old trustee who had wheeled the library cart round the corridors of E Wing.

‘You like words,’ he’d said one time as he’d shuffled past his cell. ‘Well, take a look at this. All the words you’ll ever need.’

Dick had never read the Bible before. It had never occurred to him. But he’d read it now, hundreds of times, until the words flowed through him like the blood in his veins. He had even scratched some of the more powerful ones on to his own skin, so he was like a book himself, anointed with spells to ward off evil when he was asleep and his tongue was still.

Deu-ter-on-om-y

Re-ve-la-tion

Ne-pha-lim

That’s what he was — a Nephalim — one of the giants of legend, mentioned in Genesis. A creature of God. A watcher.

He was watching now in the dimness of the cabin, as the armrests dug into his legs and his knees rubbed against the seat in front. Once the girl was home, she would feel safe; and that was when he would strike.

That was when he would take away her words and silence her for ever.