Evil Star

There's no choice but to fight back.

Matt's fate - and the fate of the world - is tied to
four other kids across the globe. The second is a
Horowitz, Anthony - [Gatekeepers 02] - Evil Star
street kid in Peru. He and Matt have never met;
they don't even speak the same language. But
destiny is going to throw them together as the
threat of the Old Ones grows, a strange and
insidious villain beckons, and another Gate
suddenly comes into play....

************************************

fire. The sun had already begun to set behind the mountains, and

the shadows were closing in. Far away, a huge bird — a condor —

wheeled round in a lazy circle before plunging back down to earth.

And then everything was still. The night was just a breath away.

"He will come, " the old man said. He spoke in a strange lan-

guage, known to very few people in the world. "We have no need

to send for him. He will come anyway. "

Supporting himself on a walking stick carved from the branch of a

tree, he got to his feet and made his way to the edge of the stone

terrace where he had been sitting. From here he could look down

into a canyon that seemed to fall away forever, a fault line in the

planet that had given way perhaps a million years ago. For a min-

ute he was silent. There were a dozen men behind him, waiting for

him to speak. None of them dared interrupt him while he stood

there, deep in thought.

At last he turned back.

"The boy is on the other side of the world," he said. "He is

fourteen years old."

One of the men stirred uneasily. He knew it was wrong to ask

questions, but he couldn't stop himself. "Are we just going to wait

Horowitz, Anthony - [Gatekeepers 02] - Evil Star

for him?" he demanded. "We have so little time. And even if he

does come, how can he help us? A child!"

"You don't understand, A toe," the old man replied. If he was

angry, he didn't show it. He knew that Atoc was only twenty years

old, barely more than a child himself, at least in the elder's mind.

"The boy has power. He still has no idea who he is or how strong

he has become. He will come here and he will arrive in time. His

power will bring him to us."

"Who is this boy?"someone else asked.

The old man looked again at the sun. It seemed to be sitting,

perfectly balanced, on the highest mountain peak. The mountain

was called Mandango . . . the Sleeping God.

"His name is Matthew Freeman," he said. "He is one of the five."

************************************

Chapter 1 Big Wheel

There was something wrong about the house in Eastfield Terrace.

Something unpleasant.

All the houses on the street were more or less identical: red brick, Victorian, with two bedrooms on the first floor and a bay window on either the left or the right of the front door. Some had satellite dishes. Some had window boxes filled with brightly colored flowers.

But looking down from the top of the hill, one house stood out immediately. Num-ber twenty-seven no longer belonged there. It was as if it had caught some sort of disease and needed to be taken away.

Horowitz, Anthony - [Gatekeepers 02] - Evil Star The front garden was full of junk and the garbage can beside the gate was overflowing, surrounded by plastic gar-bage bags that the owners had been unable to stuff inside. This wasn't uncommon in Eastfield Terrace. The net cur-tains were permanently drawn across the front windows and, as far as anyone could tell, the lights were never turned on. But even this wasn't particularly strange. What was unusual was the way the house smelled. For weeks now, there had been a rotten, sewage smell that seemed at first to be coming from a blocked pipe but which had rapidly gotten worse until people had begun to cross the street to avoid it. Whatever was causing it seemed to be affecting the entire place. The grass on the front lawn was beginning to die. The flowers had wilted and then been choked up by weeds. The color seemed to be draining out of the very bricks.

The neighbors had tried to complain. They had knocked on the front door, but nobody had come. They had tele-phoned, but nobody had answered. Finally, the borough council at the Ipswich Civic Center had been called . . . but of course it would be weeks before any action was taken.

The house wasn't empty. That much they knew. They had occasionally seen the owner, Gwenda Davis, pacing back and forth inside. Once — more than a week ago — she had been seen scurrying home from the shops. And every evening the television was turned on. '.

Gwenda Davis was well known on the street. She had lived there for much of her adult life, first on her own and then with her boyfriend, Brian Conran, who had worked occasionally as a milkman. But what had really set the neighbors talking was the time, six years ago, when she had inexplicably adopted an eight-year-old boy and brought him home to live with her. Everyone agreed that she and Horowitz, Anthony - [Gatekeepers 02] - Evil Star Brian were not exactly ideal parents. He drank. The two of them argued. And, according to local gossip, they hardly knew the boy whose own parents had died in a car accident.

Nobody was very surprised when the whole thing went wrong. It wasn't really the boy's fault. Matthew Freeman had been nice enough when he arrived, but a bit of time spent with Gwenda and Brian had soon had an effect. He had started missing school. He'd been hanging out with the wrong crowd, known for a whole range of petty crimes. Inevitably he had gotten into trouble with the police.

Dur-ing a robbery at a local warehouse, just around the corner from Ipswich Station, a security guard had nearly died, and Matthew had been dragged out with blood on his hands. As punishment, he'd been sent away on some sort of foster-ing program. He had a new foster mother, somewhere in Yorkshire. And good riddance to bad rubbish.

That was the general view.

All this had happened three months ago. Since then, Gwenda had gradually disappeared from sight. And as for Brian, no one had seen him for weeks. The house was silent and neglected. Everyone agreed that soon something would have to be done.

And now it was half past seven in the first week of June. The days were stretching out, holding on for as long as they could. The people in Eastfield Terrace were hot and tired. Tempers were getting short.

And the smell was as bad as ever.

Gwenda was in the kitchen, making supper for herself. She had never been a very attractive woman, small and dowdy with dull eyes and pinched lips that never smiled. But in the weeks since Matt's departure, she had rapidly declined. Her hair was unbrushed and wild. She was wear-ing a shapeless flowery dress and a cardigan which, like her, hadn't been washed for some time. She had Horowitz, Anthony - [Gatekeepers 02] - Evil Star developed a nervous twitch and was constantly rubbing her arms as if she were cold or perhaps afraid of something.

"Do you want anything?" she called out in a thin, high-pitched voice.

Brian was waiting for her in the sitting room, but she knew he wouldn't eat anything. She had preferred it when he'd had his job down at the milk depot, but he'd been sacked after he'd gotten into a fight with one of the manag-ers. That had happened just after Matt had been sent away. Now he'd lost his appetite, too.

Gwenda looked at her watch. It was almost time for
Big Wheel,
her favorite television program of the week. In fact, thanks to cable, she could see
Big Wheel
every night. But Thursdays were special. On Thursday, there was a brand-new program — not a repeat.

Gwenda was addicted to
Big Wheel.
She loved the bright lights of the studio, the mystery prizes, the contestants who might win a million pounds if they got enough questions right and dared to spin the wheel. Best of all, she loved the host — Rex McKenna — with his permanent suntan, his jokes, his perfect white smile. Rex was about fifty years old, but his hair was still jet-black, his eyes still glimmered, and there was a spring in his step that made him seem much younger. He had been on the show for as long as Gwenda could remember, and although he hosted two other quiz programs as well as a dancing competition on the BBC, it was on
Big Wheel
that Gwenda liked him best.

"Is it on yet?" she called out from the kitchen.

There was no reply from Brian. He hadn't been talking very much lately, either.

She reached into a cupboard and took out a can of beans. It wasn't exactly what you'd call a feast, but it'd been a while since either of Horowitz, Anthony - [Gatekeepers 02] - Evil Star them had earned any money, and she was beginning to feel the pinch. She looked around the kitchen for a clean plate but there wasn't one. Every surface was covered with dirty crockery. A tower of soiled plates and bowls rose out of the sink. Gwenda decided she would eat the beans out of the tin. She plunged her hand into the brown, filthy water and somehow managed to find a fork. She wiped some of the grease off on her dress and hurried out of the room.

The lights were out in the living room, but the glow of the television was enough to show the way. It also showed the mess that the room had become. There were old news-papers scattered across the carpet, overflowing ashtrays, more dirty plates, old socks, and underpants.

Brian was sit-ting on a sofa that had looked ugly and secondhand the moment it had left the shop. There was a nasty stain on the nylon cover. Ignoring it, Gwenda sat down next to him.

The smell, which had been bad throughout the house, was worse in here. Gwenda ignored that, too.

It seemed to her that things had gone from bad to worse since Matt had left. She didn't quite know why. It wasn't as if she had actually liked him. On the contrary, she had always known there was something weird about the boy. Hadn't he dreamed his mother and father were going to die the night before the accident had actually happened? She had only taken him in because Brian had persuaded her — and of course, he'd only wanted to get his hands on the money that Matt's parents had left him. The trouble was, the money had gone all too quickly. And then Matt had gone, too, taken away by the police as a juvenile delin-quent. All she'd been left with was the blame.

It wasn't her fault. She'd looked after him. She'd never forget the way the police looked at her, as if she were the one who'd Horowitz, Anthony - [Gatekeepers 02] - Evil Star committed the crime. She wished now that Matt had never come into her life. Everything had gone wrong because of Matt.

"And now, on ITV, it's time once again to take your chances and spin . . . the Big Wheel!"

Gwenda settled back as the
Big Wheel
theme tune began. Fifty-pound notes twisted and spun across the screen. The audience applauded. And there was Rex McKenna walking down the flashing staircase with a pretty girl holding on to each arm, dressed in a bright, sequined jacket, waving and smiling, happy as always to be back.

"Good evening, everyone!" he called out. "Who knows who's going to win big-time tonight?" He paused and winked straight at the camera. "Only the wheel knows!"

The audience went wild as if they were hearing the words for the first time. But of course Rex always began the show the same way.

"Only the wheel knows!"
was his catchphrase, although Gwenda wasn't quite sure if it was true. The wheel was just a big piece of wood and plastic. How could it know anything?

Rex came to a halt and the applause died down. Gwenda was staring at the screen in a kind of trance. She had already forgotten her baked beans. Somewhere in the back of her mind, she wondered how it was that the television still worked when the electricity in the house had been turned off two weeks ago because she hadn't paid the bill.

But the back of her mind was a very long way away and it didn't really matter. It was a blessing. How would she get through the nights without
Big Wheel?

"Welcome to another show where the spin of the wheel could mean a million pounds in your pocket or a return ticket home with Horowitz, Anthony - [Gatekeepers 02] - Evil Star absolutely nothing!" Rex explained. "And what a busy week I've had. My wife woke me up at six o'clock yesterday morning to remind me to put the alarm on. The alarm went off at seven and it still hasn't come back!"