The Burning (25 page)

“We’re here,” he said.

He jumped from the van as soon as Jean-Bernard had killed the engine, slid back the doors and helped the others out. Nobody seemed in much of a hurry, but Gabriel was very patient: unusually relaxed, Rachel thought. The change in his mood had been almost instantaneous. A calm had taken hold of him the second his feet had touched the ground.

Rachel felt her own mood change just as quickly, but not for the better. It was almost pitch-black and freezing. Huge boulders loomed out of the darkness and it was hard to take so much as a step without tripping on the uneven ground.
Were it not for the fact that they were breathing clear and ice-cold air, they might have stepped out on to the surface of the moon.

“Where are we?” she asked.

Gabriel bent to pick up a stone, rubbed off the dirt and rolled it over in his palm. “We’re among the dead,” he said.

“B
ut … I thought Seville was a big city,” Morag said.

Gabriel walked round to the back door of the camper van. He produced torches and handed one each to Morag, Adam and Jean-Bernard. “It is. We’re still an hour or so away from Seville.”

“It’s cold,” Morag said. “Can I get back in the van?”

“Course you can. Stay warm.”

“What do you
mean
?” Rachel said.

“Mean by what?”

“Where on earth
are
we?” Adam asked.

Rachel took the torch from Morag and shone it in Gabriel’s face. “‘Among the dead’?”

“One question at a time would be good,” Gabriel said. He turned his face away from the glare and Rachel let the torch drop. The children waited. By now all the torches were shining in Gabriel’s direction. “This place is called Sierra Norte,” he said. “It’s a protected site. It’s … very special.” He turned and pointed, though for the life of her
Rachel couldn’t understand how he could see anything. She could barely make out a thing. “There’s a Bronze Age necropolis a kilometre or so in that direction. A city of the dead.”

“Perfect,” Adam said. “You know, with it being so dark and spooky and everything…”

Gabriel turned again and lifted his face up, like he was trying to catch the scent of something. “There are caves too,” he said. “With prehistoric remains. Neolithic paintings. Like I said, it’s a special place.”

Rachel took a step towards him. “So why are we here?” She looked into his green eyes, shining in the torchlight, and knew the answer. “You’ll be needing the Triskellion then.”

“I won’t be very long,” Gabriel said.

As soon as Rachel had retrieved the amulet from her backpack and handed it over, Gabriel began to walk away. Adam waved the torch around and shouted after him. “Hey, what are we supposed to do?”

“Make a fire,” Gabriel shouted back. “Weren’t you in the, what d’you call them, Boy Scouts?”

“Cub Scouts,” Adam said. “And I never got as far as making fires.”

“So rub some sticks together.” Gabriel’s voice was growing fainter. “Or maybe some old
bones
…”

Adam couldn’t see Gabriel any more. He raised the torch anyway and shouted into the darkness. “Very funny.”

*  *  *

Laura Sullivan watched as Kate Newman turned on to the corridor that led to her room. Laura saw her avoid all eye contact with the security personnel and scientific staff she passed as she moved through the building. Watched her keeping her head down.

Though Kate was not at liberty to leave the premises, she was no longer held under lock and key in her room, and the drugs had been withdrawn. Clay Van der Zee had made it clear, however, that the dosage could be reinstated at any time. Especially if there were other incidents like the one in Mr Cheung’s kitchen, or like the hour she had spent hammering on his office door in the middle of the night, kicking and screaming, until she’d had to be forcibly restrained by guards.

“I cannot have you endangering yourself,” Van der Zee had said. “Or any member of my staff.”

Kate had assured him, and Laura, that there would be no further episodes of that sort.

Now, as Laura Sullivan watched this woman walk, slowly but surely, towards her room, she felt that she would still be unwilling to get too close, if Kate Newman was holding anything hot … or sharp.

Laura had to time it carefully. She needed to reach Kate just as she was going into her bedroom. Laura knew that, given the chance, Kate would not let her in the room at all.

God knows, Laura would not have blamed her.

She put on a burst of speed over the last few metres of floor space and got there just as Kate was opening her bedroom door.

“What the
hell
—?” Kate said.

Laura all but shoved her through the door and closed it behind them both. She held up a hand when Kate turned and raised her arms, ready to fight. “Please, stop and listen, Kate. You’ve got to
listen
.” Laura tossed a canvas bag down on the bed.

Kate glanced across at the bag, unwilling to take her eyes off Laura for longer than she had to. “What’s in there?”

“A change of clothes; some essentials.” Laura took a second to control her breathing. Her heart was pounding. “Your passport.”

Kate’s eyes narrowed. “What’s going on?”

“You need to trust me, OK?” Laura waved away the objection, the abuse she knew would be forthcoming. “Please … you need to do
exactly
what I tell you, or this won’t work. I’m taking you out of here.”

Kate swallowed hard. Her voice dropped to a whisper. “How? How can you?”

“I’ve got security clearance,” Laura said. “Highest level. I can get us out of here. But I need to take you out now.
Tonight
.”

“Take me where?”

“To your children.”

*  *  *

Jean-Luc and Jean-Bernard spent ten minutes watching Adam gather twigs and leaves. Then spent five more sniggering as he cursed in frustration and rubbed uselessly at stones and sticks before Jean-Luc casually tossed across the lighter that had been in his pocket all the while.

“Whoops,” Jean-Bernard said. “Forgot we had one of those.”

Adam looked like he was about to explode.

Rachel laughed, until she remembered that she also had a lighter tucked in a pocket of her backpack; she’d bought one during their trip to the hypermarket back in Calais. She and Adam watched as Jean-Bernard and his brother got the fire going.

“I guess we’re not very good at this,” she said.

Morag and Duncan had crawled off to sleep under blankets in the camper van. Once the fire was well established, Adam, Rachel and the French boys sat around it and began to relax a little. They drank coffee from old-fashioned flasks that Señor Abeja had given them and dipped into some of the supplies he had sent with them. Tinned fish and biscuits. Strong cheese and huge, juicy oranges.

Jean-Bernard and his brother spoke about their lives: a sequence of unhappy foster homes and years spent in care or in trouble with the police.

“There was nobody else around to look after us,” Jean-Luc said. “So we had to do it ourselves.”

Jean-Bernard shrugged and spat an orange pip into the fire. “But we always had each other. Always.” He gestured towards Rachel and Adam. “Same as you two, yes?”

Adam and Rachel nodded. “We’ve got our mom, too,” Adam said. “And our dad… Wherever he is.” He stared across the flames at Rachel.

They told Jean-Luc and Jean-Bernard about their visit to Triskellion and about the time they had spent at the Hope Project. They explained that they may have been allowed to escape so that their movements could be tracked, describing all those who had been on their trail ever since. The French boys listened, showing no emotion, even when Adam described what Gabriel had done to the gold-painted statue or when Rachel spoke – unable to keep the tremor from her voice – about the sinister monk they had run into on the underground train in Paris.

“These people,” Jean-Luc said, “whoever they are, will find things a lot harder from now on.”

“Right.” Jean-Bernard stuck a cigarette between his lips and leant forward to light it directly from the flames. “Because now they are up against all of us.”

“You understand?” Jean-Luc said.

Rachel and Adam said that they did and they both shook the proffered hand when it was stretched out towards them. It was a strangely formal gesture, a little awkward perhaps, but the French boys’ hands felt strong and warm against their own, and the handshake was only broken at
the sound of something howling in the darkness.

Adam tried to look unconcerned. “Wild dog?”

Jean-Luc shook his head. “A big cat, I think.”

His brother agreed. “A lynx, maybe.”

“Maybe?”
Adam turned to Rachel. “I don’t suppose you remembered to pick up any silver bullets…?”

There was a lot more laughter around the fire after that, but Rachel no longer found the notion of monsters as ridiculous as she might once have done. After all she had seen, all that she now knew existed, was it really any more ludicrous to believe in werewolves or vampires or three-headed, blood-sucking zombies?

Even if it was, Rachel knew very well that there were plenty of ordinary monsters at large in the real world. Far more dangerous and a lot harder to spot.

Nobody could say for sure how long Gabriel had been gone, but suddenly he was back with them again, sitting around the fire and drinking coffee as though he’d never been away.

“I know you’re good at coming and going real quiet and sneaky,” Rachel said, “but sometimes I think you do it just to try and make me jump.”

“I think you’re right,” Gabriel said. He grinned, seeming delighted to see the two sets of twins getting on so well.

“We bonded over making the fire,” Adam said. He winked at Jean-Luc and was pleased to get a wink in return. “So, you … made contact or whatever?”

Gabriel nodded. “We will meet two more friends tomorrow in Seville.”

“Spaniards?” Jean-Luc shook his head, grimaced at his brother.

“I’m afraid so.” Gabriel smiled and closed his eyes, beginning to make himself comfortable.

“We are going to Seville tonight, though?” Rachel said. “Right?”

“No need,” Gabriel said. “Everyone’s eaten, haven’t they? We’ve got a good fire going.” He raised a hand and began to wave it around. “It’s nice here. It’s…”

“‘Special’, I know,” Rachel said. “Only you kind of forgot to mention the big cats.”

Gabriel sat up and looked at her. “We’ll be safe here, I promise.”

She believed him. There had been a time when believing him would have been automatic but now it required more of an effort.

Safe for one night, perhaps. For a few hours in the middle of nowhere. But as far as the rest of their lives went, how ever long or short they might prove to be, Rachel would need some convincing that any of them could ever really be safe again.

Señor Abeja tucked his mother in for the night. He sat with her while she prayed, just as he always did, then leant forward to kiss her goodnight.

“It was nice to have visitors, Salvador,” she said.

“I know,” Abeja said.

“I prayed for them.” The old woman turned on to her side. “I prayed that they stay safe.”

Abeja turned the light off in his mother’s room and walked slowly down the stairs towards the courtyard. He liked to check on his bees last thing; to sit outside if it was warm enough and enjoy half a glass of red wine and perhaps a piece of dark chocolate before going to bed.

It was a lovely evening, and from the balcony on the first floor, he could see the lights of Madrid stretched out below him. At the bottom of the stairs, he reached up to take a lemon from the tree that was growing in a large pot. It was perfectly ripe. He would have it with the fish he was planning to cook for dinner the next evening.

Halfway across the courtyard, he stopped. He never bothered to switch on any lights – he knew every inch of the place – but even in the semi-darkness he could see that something was wrong.

It was the shape of the hives.

They had been pushed to the ground … trampled. Abeja rushed across and dropped to his knees. He scooped up the fractured pieces of each honeycomb; the muddy print of a large boot clearly visible against the delicate skein of honey. He gently laid each piece to one side and began using the edge of his hand to brush away the bodies of the crushed bees, while those that were still alive crawled across his arms and legs.

“Abeja.”

The voice came from behind him. He stood and turned, frozen in terror, as the figure moved out of the shadows. “What … what do you want?”

The man wore a wide-brimmed black hat, and his eyes were obscured by a carnival mask. His voice was slightly muffled by the red silk scarf tied across his nose and mouth. “You should have stuck to putting honey in jars,” he said. “Then there would have been no need for this.”

Abeja recognized the man’s long, yellow jacket, embroidered with flames and dancing devils. He knew what it meant and his knees began to buckle beneath him.

“Then no harm would have come to your bees.”

There was nowhere for Abeja to go. His back was pressed hard against the courtyard wall and he knew that the man coming towards him was a lot bigger and stronger than he was.