Necropolis (36 page)

The dragon was a typhoon.

Tai fung.

The words meant "big wind," but they went nowhere near describing the most powerful force of nature

— a storm that contained a hundred storms within it. The typhoon would travel at over two hundred miles an hour.

Its eye might be thirty miles wide. The hurricane winds around it would generate as much energy in one second as ten nuclear bombs. To the Chinese, typhoons were also known as "the dragon's breath," as if they came from some terrible monster living deep in the sea.

Since 1884, the Hong Kong Observatory had put out a series of warnings whenever a typhoon had come within five hundred miles of the city, and each warning had come with a beacon, or a signal, attached.

Signal One was shaped like a letter T and warned the local populace to stand by. Signal Three, an upside-down T, was more serious. Now people were told to stay at home, not to travel unless absolutely necessary. Later on came Signal Eight, a triangle, Signal Nine, an hourglass, and finally, most terrifyingly, Signal Ten. Perhaps appropriately, this took the shape of a cross. Signal Ten meant devastation. It would almost certainly bring wholesale loss of life.

And that was what was on its way now.

But there were no warnings. Nobody had been prepared for a typhoon in November, which was months after the storm season should have ended. And anyway, no typhoon could possibly have formed so quickly. It would normally take at least a week. This one had reached its full power in less than a day.

The whole thing was impossible.

Nor was there anyone left to send out the signals. Hong Kong Observatory had been abandoned. Many of the scientists had left. The others were too scared to come to work as the city continued its descent into sickness and death.

Unseen, the dragon rushed toward them. The sky-scrapers were already in its sight. Suddenly they seemed tiny and insubstantial as, with a great roar, it fell on them. By the time anyone realized what was happening, it was already far too late.

***

The chairman of the Nightrise Corporation was wondering how many people had died in the last twenty-four hours and how many more would die in the next. He could imagine them, sixty-six floors below, crawling over the sidewalks, begging for help that would never come, finally losing consciousness in a cloud of misery and pain. He himself would leave Hong Kong very soon. His work here was almost finished. It was time to claim his reward.

The Old Ones were going to give him the whole of Asia to rule over in recognition of what he had achieved. Even Genghis Khan hadn't been as powerful as that. He would live in a palace, an old-fashioned one with deep, marble baths and banquet rooms and gardens a mile long. The world leaders who survived would bow in front of him, and anyone who had ever offended him, in business or in private life, would die in ingenious ways that he had already designed. He would open a theatre of blood and they would star in it. Anything he wanted, he would have. The thought of it made his head spin.

He was behind his desk in his office on the executive floor of The Nail, and he was not alone. There was a man sitting on the same leather sofa that Scarlett Adams had occupied just a week before. The man had traveled a very long way, and he was still looking crumpled from his flight. He was elderly, dressed in a shabby, brown suit that didn't quite fit him. It was the right size, but it hung awkwardly. The man was bald, with white eyebrows and two small tufts of white hair around his ears. He looked ill at ease in this impressive office. He was out of place, and he knew it. But he was glad to be here. It had been a journey he had been determined to make.

His name was Gregor Malenkov. For many years he had been known as Father Gregory, but he planned to put that behind him now. He had left the Monastery of the Cry for Mercy for good. He too had come for his reward.

"So how do you like Hong Kong?" the chairman asked.

"It's an extraordinary city," Father Gregory rasped. "Quite extraordinary. I came here as a young man, but it was much smaller then. Half the buildings weren't here, and the airport was in a different place.

All these lights! All the traffic and the noise! I have to say, I hardly recognized it."

"A week from now, it will be completely unrecognizable," the chairman said. "It will have become a necropolis. I'm sure you will understand what that means, a man of your learning."

"A city of the dead."

"Exactly. The entire population has begun to die. In just a matter of days, there will be no one left. The corpses are already piling up in the street. The hospitals are full — not that they would be of any use as the doctors and the nurses are dying too. Nobody even bothers to call the cemeteries. There's no room there. And soon things will get much, much worse. It will be interesting to watch."

"How are you killing them?" Father Gregory asked. "Would I be right in thinking it is something to do with the pollution?"

'You would be entirely correct, Father Gregory. Although perhaps I should not call you that, as I understand you are no longer in holy orders." The chairman stood up and went over to the window, but the view was almost completely obliterated by the mist that swirled around the building, chasing its own tail. There was going to be a storm. He could just make out the water down in the harbor. The water was choppy, rising into angry waves.

"There has always been pollution, blowing in from China," he continued. "And the strange thing is that the people here have tolerated it. Coal-fired power stations. Car exhausts. They have always accepted that it's a price that has to be paid for the comforts of modern life."

"And you have made it worse?"

"The Old Ones have added a few extra chemicals — some very poisonous ones — to the mix. You've seen the results. The elderly and the weak have been the first to go, but the rest of the city will follow if they are exposed to it for very much longer. Which they will be. An unpleasant death. We are safe, of course, inside The Nail. The air is filtered. We just have to be careful not to spend too long in the street."

Father Gregory pressed his fingers together. His sty had gotten much worse. The eyeball was jammed, no longer able to move. Only his good eye watched the chairman. "I have to say, I'm disappointed," he said. "I was looking forward to meeting — to actually seeing — the Old Ones."

"The Old Ones have left Hong Kong. They have a great deal of work to do, preparing for a war that will be starting very soon. As soon as they heard that Matthew Freeman had been taken, they went."

"I don't understand why they don't show themselves to the world," Father Gregory said. 'You have two of the Gatekeepers. So surely nothing can stop them…"

"It's not the way they work. If the Old Ones told the world that they existed, people would unite against them. That would defeat the point. By keeping themselves hidden, they can let humanity tear itself apart.

That is what they enjoy."

There was a moment's silence. Father Gregory licked his lips, and something ugly came into his eyes. "I want to see the girl," he said. "I still can't believe that she managed to break free when I had her. I had plans…"

'Yes, that was most unfortunate," the chairman agreed. "Well, right now they are together. The boy came all this way to find her, so I thought it would be amusing to let them spend one day in each other's company."

"Is that safe?"

"The two of them are locked up very securely, and nobody knows where they are. The boy has certain abilities that make him dangerous. But as for the girl…"

"What is her power?"

"It seems that she drew the short straw. I'm afraid Scarlett Adams is not quite the superhero one might have imagined." The chairman smiled. "She has the ability to predict the weather. That's all. She can tell if it's going to rain or if the sun is going to shine. As she will never see either of these things again, it will not do her very much good. We are sending her away tonight. To another country."

'You can't kill her, of course."

"It's vital that both children are kept alive. In pain, but alive. We are going to bury them in separate rooms, many thousands of miles apart. They will be given limited amounts of food and water, but no human contact. The Old Ones have asked me to blind Matt Freeman, and that will be done just before Scarlett leaves. We want her to take the horror of it with her. In the end, she will probably go mad. It will be one of the last memories that she has."

"Excellent. I'd like to be there when it happens."

"That may not be possible."

Father Gregory was disappointed. But he continued anyway. "What about the other boy?" he asked.

"Jamie Tyler?" The chairman was still standing at the window. "He is somewhere here in Hong Kong.

We haven't yet been able to find him."

"Have you looked for him?"

The chairman blinked slowly. Far below, two Star Ferries were crossing each other's paths, fighting the storm as they made their way across the harbor. Where had the storm come from? It seemed to be getting stronger. He was surprised the ferries were still operating and looked forward to the time when they finally stopped. It had always annoyed him, watching them go back and forth.

A boat will be the death of you. And it will happen in Hong Kong.

A prophecy that had been made by a fortune-teller. Well, soon there would be no more boats. There would be no more Hong Kong.

"Jamie Tyler can't leave the city," he said. "Unless, of course, he dies in the street and gets thrown into the sea. Either way, he is of no concern to us."

There was another silence.

"But now, my dear Father Gregory," the chairman said. "It is time for you to go."

"I am a little tired," Father Gregory admitted.

"It has been a pleasure meeting you. But — please — let me show you out…"

There was a handle on the edge of one of the windows, and the chairman seized hold of it and pulled.

The entire window slid aside and the wind rushed in, the mist swirling round and round. Papers fluttered off the desk. The stench of the pollution filled the room.

Father Gregory stared. "I don't understand —" he began.

"It's perfectly simple," the chairman said. "You said it yourself. You let the girl escape. You let her slip through your hands. You don't really think that the Old Ones would let that go unpunished?"

"But… I found her!" Father Gregory was staring at the gap. "If it hadn't been for me, you would never have known who she was!"

"And that is why they have granted you an easy death." The chairman had to shout to make himself heard. "Please don't waste any more of my time, Father Gregory. It's time for you to go!"

Father Gregory stared at the open window, at the clouds rushing past outside. A single tear trickled from his good eye. But he understood. The chairman was right. He had failed.

"I've enjoyed meeting you," he said.

"Good-bye, Father Gregory."

The old man walked across the room and stepped out of the window. The chairman waited a moment, then slid it shut behind him. It was good to be back in the warmth again. He wiped some raindrops off his jacket.

The storm was definitely getting worse.

SIGNAL THREE

The Tai Shan Temple was very similar to all the other temples in Hong Kong.

It was perhaps a little larger, with three separate chambers connected by short corridors, but it had the same curving roof made of dark green tiles, and it was set back behind a wall, on the edge of a park, in its own private world. Inside, it was filled with smoke, both from the coils of incense that hung from the ceiling and from the oven, which was constantly burning bundles of paper and clothes as sacrifices to the Mountain of the East. There were several altars dedicated to a variety of gods who were represented by standing, sitting, and kneeling statues — a whole crowd of them, brilliantly colored, staring out with ferocious eyes.

Despite the bad weather, there were about fifteen people at prayer in the main chamber, bowing with arm-fuls of incense, muttering quietly to themselves. They were many different ages, men and women, and to all appearances they looked exactly the same as the people who came daily to Man Mo or Tin Hau. And yet there was something about them that suggested that religion was not, in fact, the first thing on their minds. They were too tense, too watchful. Their eyes were fixed on a single entrance at the back of the building — a low, wooden door with a five-pointed star cut into the surface.

The worshippers — who were, in fact, no such thing — had very simple instructions. Any child who passed through that door was to be seized. If they resisted, they could be hurt badly but preferably not killed. The same applied to any young person coming in from the street. They were to be stopped before they got anywhere near the door. The people in the temple were all armed with guns and knives, hidden beneath their clothes. They were in constant touch with The Nail and could call for backup at any time.

This was the ambush that Matt had feared. It was the reason he had refused to take the shortcut to Hong Kong. He had been right from the very start.

The fifteen of them stood there, muttering prayers they didn't believe and bowing to gods they didn't respect. And outside, gusts of wind — growing stronger by the minute — hurled themselves at the temple walls, battering at them as if trying to break through, tearing up the surrounding earth and the grass, whistling around the corners. A tile slid off the roof and smashed on the ground. A shutter came loose and was instantly torn away. The rain, traveling horizontally now, cut into the brickwork. The traffic in the street had completely snarled up. The drivers couldn't see. There was nothing they could do.

The wind rushed in, and the flames inside the temple furnace bent, flickered, and were suddenly extinguished. Nobody noticed. All their attention was fixed on the doorway. That was what they were there for. Ignoring the storm, they waited for the first of the Gatekeepers to arrive.

SIGNAL FOUR

Scarlett was in a dark place, but someone was nudging her, trying to draw her back into the light.