Evil Star (4 page)

The streets were beginning to empty by the time Matt got home. The summer months were fast approaching and more tourists were arriving every day. The queues around the Viking museum and The Minster were getting longer. The medieval walls were more crowded. Soon there would be more people visiting York than actually living there, or so it would seem. From city to tourist Horowitz, Anthony - [Gatekeepers 02] - Evil Star attraction. It was a process that was repeated every year.

Matt stood in the narrow, cobbled street called the Shambles and looked up at the flat located three floors above a souvenir shop. He had been happy here for a while. Living with Richard was odd —

the journalist was more than ten years older than him — but after all they had been through together in Lesser Mailing, it had sort of worked. They needed each other. Richard knew that Matt could provide him with the newspaper story that would make him famous.

Matt had nowhere else to go. The flat was just about big enough for the two of them, and usually they were both out all day. On weekends they went hiking, swimming, go-karting. .. whatever. Matt tried to think of Richard as a big brother.

But during the past weeks he had become increasingly uncomfortable. Richard
wasn't
his brother. The two of them had only met by chance and as the memories of their shared nightmare faded, there seemed to be less and less reason for them still to be living together. Matt liked Richard. But there wasn't going to be any Pulitzer Prize-winning scoop, and the simple truth was that he was in the way. That was why he had suggested going back to the LEAF

Project. Despite what Richard had said, an ordinary family somewhere in the country couldn't be so bad. He surely wasn't going to end up with a Jayne Deverill a second time.

Matt wondered if the school had phoned Richard and told him what had happened. There was no reason why they should. Despite Gavin's accusations, none of the teach-ers seriously believed he had been responsible for the explosion in the dining hall. But Matt knew differently. He had felt the power flowing through him. It was the same power that had stopped the knife and snapped the cords when he had been a prisoner, tied down in Omega One. But this time there Horowitz, Anthony - [Gatekeepers 02] - Evil Star had been one difference. It had been directed at someone his own age. Gavin wasn't his enemy. He was just a stupid kid.

He couldn't stay at Forrest Hill. Not now. Another taunt from Gavin, another bad morning with Mr. King and his English class, and who could say what might happen? All his life, Matt had known he was different. He had been aware of something inside him . . . this power . .. whatever it was. Sometimes, when he'd gone to movies like
Spider-Man
or
X-Men,
he'd wondered what it might be like to be a superhero, saving the world. But that wasn't him. His power was useless to him because he didn't know how to use it. Worse than that, it was out of control. Once again he saw the blood oozing out of Gavin's hand, saw the terror in his face. He could have torn the chandelier out of the ceiling. He could have crushed the other boy, buried him under a ton of twisted metal and broken glass. It had almost happened. He had to leave, go far away, before it happened again.

There was a movement behind the first-floor window, and Matt saw Richard, standing with his back to the street. That was strange. The journalist had said he wouldn't be late, but even so, he was never home before seven o'clock. The editor of
The Gipton Echo
liked to keep him in the office just in case something happened — although it very sel-dom did. Richard was talking to someone. Thatwas unusual, too. They didn't often have visitors.

Matt let himself in and climbed up the stairs that ran past the souvenir shop. As he went, he heard a woman's voice. It was one he recognized . . . and it filled him with dread.

"There's a meeting in London," she was saying. "Three days from now. We just want you to be there."

“You don't want me. You want Matt."

Horowitz, Anthony - [Gatekeepers 02] - Evil Star

"We want both of you."

Matt put down his school bag, opened the door to the main living room, and went in.

Susan Ashwood, the blind woman he had met in Manchester, was sitting in a chair, her back very straight, her hands folded in front of her. Her face was pale, made more so by her short, black hair and unforgiving black glasses. A white stick rested against her chair —

but she hadn't come alone. Matt also knew the slim, olive-skinned man who was standing opposite her. His name was Fabian. He was the younger of the two, perhaps in his early thirties, and Matt had also met him before. It was he who had first suggested that Matt continue living with Richard and who had managed to get him a place at Forrest Hill. As usual, Fabian was smartly dressed, this time in a pale gray suit and tie. He was sitting down with one leg crossed over the other. Everything about him was very neat.

Both Fabian and Susan Ashwood were members of the secret organization that called itself the Nexus. As they had made clear from the start, their role was to help Matt and to protect him. Even so, he wasn't particularly happy to see either of them here. He knew they could only be bringing bad news.

Miss Ashwood had heard him come in. "Matt," she said.

"What's going on?" Matt asked immediately.

Richard moved away from the window. "They want you," he said.

"I heard. Why?"

"How are you, Matt? How's the new school?" Fabian smiled nervously. He was trying to sound friendly, but Matt knew the atmosphere was anything but.

Horowitz, Anthony - [Gatekeepers 02] - Evil Star

"School's great," Matt said without enthusiasm.

“You're looking well."

"I'm fine." Matt sat down on the arm of a sofa. "Why are you here, Mr. Fabian?" he asked. "What do you want me for?"

"I think you know." Fabian paused as if unsure how to continue.

Even though he'd changed Matt's life, Matt knew very little about him ... or about anyone else in the Nexus.

"The first time I came here, I warned you," Fabian went on. "I told you that we believed there might be a second gate. You destroyed the first one, the stone circle in the woods outside Lesser Mailing.

But the second one is on the other side of the world. It's in my country. In Peru."

"Where in Peru?" Richard asked.

"We don't know," Fabian answered.

"What does the gate look like?" Richard followed up.

"We don't know that, either. We hoped that after what happened here in Yorkshire, we would have time to find out more.

Unfortunately, we were wrong."

"The second gate is about to open," Susan Ashwood said. There was no doubt at all in her voice.

"I suppose you've been told this," Richard said.

“Yes."

"By ghosts."

“Yes." Susan Ashwood was a medium. She claimed that she was in contact with the spirit world. “You still don't believe me?" she continued. "After what you've been through, after everything you've Horowitz, Anthony - [Gatekeepers 02] - Evil Star seen, I'm frankly amazed. You didn't listen to me last time. This time you must. It's as if winter has come in the spirit world. Everything is cold and dark, and I hear the whispers of a growing fear. Some-thing is happening that I don't understand. But I know what it signifies. A second gate is about to open, and once again we have to stop it if we don't want the Old Ones to return. We want Matt to come to London. Only he has the power to prevent it."

"Matt's in school," Richard protested. "He can't just get on a train and take a week off. ..."

Matt looked out the window. Soon it would start to get dark.

Shadows had already fallen over the Shambles and the streetlamps had come on. Richard reached out and turned the lights on inside, too. Light and dark. Always fighting each other.

"I don't understand," Matt said. "You don't even know where this gate is. Why do you think I can help you?"

"We're not the only ones looking for it," Susan Ashwood replied.

"There has been a strange development, Matt. You would doubtless call it a coincidence, but I think it's more than that. I think it was

meant
to happen."

She nodded at Fabian, who produced a DVD. "Can I play you this?"

he asked.

Richard waved a hand at the television. "Be my guest."

Fabian fed the video into the player and turned the television on.

Matt found himself watching a news report. "We recorded this last week," Fabian said.

The DVD began with a shot of a leather-bound book, lying on a table. It was obviously very old. A hand reached forward and began to turn the pages, showing them to be thick and uneven, covered Horowitz, Anthony - [Gatekeepers 02] - Evil Star with writing and intricate draw-ings that had been made with an ink pen or perhaps even a quill. Matt had seen something very like it at school. The history teacher had brought in pictures of a fifteenth-century book of poetry rescued from some castle. The letters had been drawn so carefully that each one was a miniature artwork.

Many of the pages in the book were the same.

"Some people are already describing it as the find of a lifetime," the commentator explained. "It was written by St. Joseph of Cordoba, a Spanish monk who traveled with Pizarro to Peru in 1532 and witnessed the destruction of the Inca empire. St. Joseph later came to be known as the Mad Monk of Cordoba. His diary, bound in leather and gold, may explain why."

The camera moved in closer on the pages. Matt could make out some of the words — but they were all in Spanish and meant nothing to him.

"The diary contains many remarkable predictions," the voice continued. "Although it was written almost five hun-dred years ago, it describes in detail the coming of motor cars, computers, and even space satellites. On one of the later pages, it manages to predict some sort of Internet, working inside the church."

Now the television program cut to a picture of a Spanish town and what looked like a huge fortress with a soaring bell tower, surrounded by narrow streets and markets.

"The diary was found in the Spanish city of Cordoba. It is believed that it had been buried in the courtyard of the tenth-century mosque known as the Mezquita and must have been unearthed during excavations. It passed into private hands and may have been sold many times before it was discovered in a market by an English Horowitz, Anthony - [Gatekeepers 02] - Evil Star antiques dealer, William Morton."

Morton was in his fifties, plump, with silver hair and cheeks that had been burned by the sun. He was the sort of man who looked as if he enjoyed life.

"I knew at once what it was," he said. His accent was very English, very upper class. "Joseph of Cordoba was an interesting chap. He traveled with Pizarro and the conquis-tadors when they invaded Peru. While he was out there, he stumbled onto some sort of alternative history. Devils and demons . . . that sort of thing. And he wrote down every-thing he knew in here." He held up the diary.

"There are plenty of people out there who said that the diary didn't exist," he went on. "For that matter, there are people who think that Joseph himself didn't exist! Well, it looks as if I've proved them wrong."

"You're planning to sell the diary," the commenta-tor said.

“Yes, that's right. And I have to tell you that I've already had one or two quite interesting offers. A certain busi-nessman in South America — I'm not mentioning any names! — has already made an opening bid in excess of half a million pounds. And there are some people in London who seem very keen to meet me. It looks as if I may have an auction on my hands. .. ." He licked his lips with relish.

The camera cut back to the diary. More pages were being turned.

"If anyone can untangle the strange riddles, the often illegible handwriting, and the many scribbles, the diary could reveal a completely new mythology," the voice con-cluded. "St. Joseph had his own, very peculiar view of the world, and although some think he was mad, others call him a visionary and a genius. One thing is sure. William Morton has struck it lucky, and for him the book is Horowitz, Anthony - [Gatekeepers 02] - Evil Star quite literally pure gold."

The pages were still turning. Fabian froze the image. Matt gasped.

At the very end of the film, the camera had rested on one page with handwriting — hundreds of tiny words com-pressed into narrow lines — at the top and the bottom. But in the middle there was a white space and a strange symbol. Matt recognized it at once.

He had seen it at Raven's Gate. It had been cut into the stone on which he had almost been killed. It was the sign of the Old Ones.

“You see?" Fabian said. He left the image frozen on the screen.

"We believe the diary will tell us the location of the sec-ond gate,"

Susan Ashwood said. "It may also tell us when, and how, it is supposed to open. But as you've heard, we aren't the only ones interested in it."

"A businessman in South America..." Matt remem-bered what the report had said. "Do you know who he is?"

"We don't even know which country he lives in — and William Morton isn't saying anything." Fabian scowled.

“You're the people who he said wanted to meet him in London,"

Richard said.

“Yes, Mr. Cole. We contacted Mr. Morton the moment he went Horowitz, Anthony - [Gatekeepers 02] - Evil Star public with what he'd found."

"We
have
to have the diary," Ashwood said. "We have to find the second gate and either destroy it or make sure it never opens.

Unfortunately, as you heard, we're not alone. This 'businessman,'

whoever he is, got in there ahead of us. Since that video was made, he has quadrupled his offer. He's now offering to pay two million pounds."

"But you can pay more," Richard said. “You've got lots of money."

"We told Morton that the last time we spoke to him," Fabian explained. "We said he could more or less name any price he liked.

But it's no longer a question of money."

"He's afraid," Susan Ashwood said. "At first, we didn't understand why. It seemed to us that he was being threat-ened by whoever he was dealing with in South America. They'd shaken hands on a price and he wasn't allowed to speak to anyone else. But then we realized it was something more than that."