The Shadow Project (15 page)

T
here were eight men in the basement. Six were squatting at the tips of a large six-pointed star painted inside a circle on the floor. Outside the circle was a large painted triangle. The seventh was the man Danny had been following, except that he was now in two places at once. One of him sat cross-legged in the center of the circle, head bowed, looking as if he was fast asleep. His twin was gliding toward him from a closed doorway.

From his hiding place in the depths of a gloomy fireplace, Danny suddenly realized there weren't eight men at all, but seven. The moving figure was the man's energy body, now approaching its physical counterpart. He watched fascinated as the two gently blended and the man in the circle raised his head.

There was an immediate shout from the remaining six. One of them called out something in what sounded like Russian, or possibly Hungarian, but the man in the
center snapped sharply, “In English! While in this country, we speak English always so that it may become our habit.”

The man who had spoken looked suitably chastened. “Yes, Master Farrakhan.”

But another called out at once, “How went the
ilmu khodam,
Master? Did our servant teach our enemies a lesson?”

Farrakhan's posture relaxed as he allowed himself a small, cold smile. “Most successful, Pieter. He carried one of the accursed British agents straight to hell!” There was a burst of general laughter. As it faded, the man Farrakhan added soberly, “But not the girl; and our servant was destroyed in the process.”

His followers nodded solemnly one after another. They looked like hard, ruthless men, accustomed to loss.

“It is of small importance,” Farrakhan was saying. “Now we know this nest of vipers can be penetrated. What we send next will kill the girl.” He gave a thin smile.

What girl?
Danny wondered. His mind was turning somersaults trying to make sense of what he was hearing. These goons had sent a servant to kill somebody. And Farrakhan—obviously their leader—went to find out if the murderer had succeeded. Went to the Project.
But there'd only been one killing at the Project—poor Fran—and nobody's servant was responsible for that one.

What girl?
If it was somebody else in the Project, it had to be Opal. She was the only girl there at the moment. Danny frowned. Opal had been spying on the Skull—he'd overheard them talking about it. Maybe these guys were a Sword of Wrath terrorist cell. Danny watched to see which one was the servant who was supposed to sneak off and kill Opal, but nobody moved.

Farrakhan said, “Are you prepared for
ilmu khodam
? Are you prepared to call our vengeance?”

It had the sound of a ritual question and it certainly produced a ritual response. The others chanted, “We are prepared, Master.” They looked excited, even frenzied, like members of a cult.

Farrakhan stood up and said, “Take your places as Officers of the Conjuration.” Three of the others walked to the points of the painted triangle. There were religious symbols around the edge of that as well. Danny would have given a lot to have a closer look, but he wasn't going to risk it.

“Prepare!” Farrakhan ordered.

There was an immediate scurry of activity, and for a minute Danny couldn't figure what was going on. Two of the men sprinkled the circle thoroughly with water.
Others set lighted candles at the six points of the painted star. Someone else set up a burner and lit several blocks of charcoal with a tiny blowtorch from the pocket of his coat. He blew on the charcoal until it glowed and sparked, then sprinkled it liberally with a granular gray powder. Billows of heavily perfumed smoke began to roll across the room.

When the preparations were over, somebody switched off the electric light. With the only illumination now coming from the candles, the scene looked like a horror-movie set.

Farrakhan knelt down in his former position in the center of the circle, but turned so he was facing the painted triangle. The man he'd called Pieter, a burly middle-aged East European, took up a position directly behind him.

“Begin!” Farrakhan commanded.

The two other men inside the circle began to chant in low, sonorous voices. The sound reminded Danny of the organ note he'd heard when Fran switched on the infrasound. “Deliver thou the scribe Farrakhan, whose word is truth, from the Watchers, who would slay those in the following of Osiris.”

“May the Watchers never gain mastery over me, and may I never fall under their knives!” responded Farrakhan in a high, melodious voice.

Danny watched, fascinated. The one word that jumped out at him was
Osiris.
Osiris was one of the gods in ancient Egypt. He knew that from his history lessons.

Farrakhan was still chanting. “For I know their names, and I know the being, Matchet, who is among them.” He laid extra emphasis on the word
Matchet,
and as he spoke it, all six of his companions, inside and outside the circle, began a wordless howl that was the weirdest sound Danny had ever heard in his life.

As the howl died down, Farrakhan's body arched backward as he called out loudly, “It is I, the scribe Farrakhan, whose word is truth, who calls now on him who watcheth from the Lake of Fire, who feedeth on the living, who devoureth bodies, swalloweth hearts, and voideth filth, himself unseen.”

The big man, Pieter, placed his hands on either side of Farrakhan's neck as if preparing to strangle him. His flat thumbs laced over each other at the base of Farrakhan's skull, where his head joined with his spine.

“His name is Devourer Everlasting,” Farrakhan sang out. “He liveth in the Lake of Unt. Hail, Lord of Terror, who dost feed on the hearts of men! Come now and do the bidding of thy master and thy scribe!”

Pieter grunted as he pressed down with his thumbs so violently that Farrakhan's spine gave an audible crack.
Farrakhan himself convulsed, and his entire body jackknifed forward so that he might have fallen on his face had Pieter not quickly grabbed him by the shoulders. Farrakhan's eyes were blank, his face contorted.

The man stationed at the apex of the triangle began to tremble violently. His eyes were unfocused too. Suddenly he clutched his throat, gasping and gurgling as if he was choking. Then, to Danny's disbelief, he slowly levitated till his feet floated a foot or eighteen inches above the cellar floor.

There was something happening inside the triangle. Out of nowhere, a roiling mist had begun to form. It swirled shapelessly for a moment, then began to take on form. A head appeared, then faded, only to appear again. The mist began to coalesce into the loose outlines of a body.

“Come, Devourer,” Farrakhan shrieked. “Come to us now and feed!”

And suddenly there was something towering over the triangle. It was still indistinct, but it clawed like a beast at a window, as if trying to tear the very fabric of reality to gain access. The thing had horns and fangs and fiery eyes. It was immense, slab-muscled, and still growing. It made the creature that killed Fran look like a Chihuahua. If the thing that killed Fran was some sort of beast, this
thing was the mother of all beasts. It continued to grow larger and more solid with every passing second.

Danny slid back through the wall, his heart pounding.

“E
scaped again,” Michael said. He stuck his head into the cell and looked around to make sure. But the cell was definitely empty.

“I don't see how he could have.” Opal frowned.

Michael came back out into the corridor, biting his lip thoughtfully. “He did it before.”

Opal shook her head. “Mr. Carradine let him escape last time. Daddy told me. But they took away his burglary gear after that, so I don't see how he could have….”

They were walking together back along the corridor when a hand reached out of the empty guard station and dragged Opal inside. She gave a squawk of surprise and Michael spun fiercely before an urgent voice hissed, “You have to get out of here!”

“Danny!” Opal exclaimed. “Danny, they know you didn't—”

“We have to get you out of here,” Danny said. “Michael can come too, if you like, only we need to get moving now before—”

“Hold on,” Michael said. He reached out and firmly removed Danny's hand from Opal's shoulder.

“No, it's all right, Danny,” Opal said. “You don't have to go anywhere. You're not in trouble anymore. They
know
you didn't kill Fran now. They know it was—” She stopped, suddenly at a loss. What
was
it that killed Fran Hitchin? “A wild animal of some sort,” she finished lamely.

“That was no wild animal,” Michael muttered.

“I'm not the one who's in trouble,” Danny said. “You are. And Michael's right—it was no wild animal that killed Fran.”

“Why is Opal in trouble?” Michael asked quickly.

Opal said, “Danny, I know it must have been a big shock for you when you were actually
there
and saw Fran die, and I realize—”

“Don't you ever
listen
?” Danny asked her. “I'm trying to save your life here.”

“Danny—” Michael said warningly, but Opal cut in.

“How did you know about that?” she asked, staring at Danny.

“About what?”

“The Sword of Wrath plot to kill me. You weren't
there when Father told us.”

“We don't have time for Twenty Questions,” Danny said urgently. “I don't know if it's Sword of Wrath or the Hole-in-the-Wall Gang. I just know there's something coming after you that looks like it could eat us all for dinner.”

But Opal was backing away from him. “The only people who knew about the plot were MI5 and Father, until Father told the rest of us. You
couldn't
have known about it—you were in jail.”

“I don't
know
what killed Fran,” Danny said. “And if you don't want—”

“You just turned up here one night, broke in, and we don't really know all that much about you, so how do we know you're not with Sword of Wrath yourself?”

“Because I'm not some bleeding nutcase who goes around blowing himself up, am I?!” Danny shouted. He got himself under control enough to drop his voice. “And you,” he said, “are in big trouble if we don't get you out of this place
right now.
He said he planned to kill the girl and you're the only girl here, far as I know.”

“Just a minute, Opal,” Michael said, his expression worried.

“I'm not going anywhere,” Opal told Danny, ignoring Michael. “Not with you. I suggest we go back and
talk this over with Father and the others, and they can listen to what you have to say and decide what we should do.”

“There's no time!”

“And please don't try to tell me I'm in any danger here. The Project has one of the tightest security ratings of any MI6 operation in the whole of Britain.”

“So tight I managed to break in and Fran got her throat ripped out? Do me a favor, Opal. Get your head out of your backside and introduce it to the real world.”

“I think we should listen to him,” Michael said.

This time Opal didn't ignore him. “You think we should go with him?” she asked. “And not even take time to tell my father?”

“Yes, I do,” said Michael firmly. “You can phone your father after we get out, but that is exactly what I believe we should do.”

After a long, glaring moment, Opal said, “Why?”

Michael took a deep breath. “Because Fran was killed by a demon—”

“Fran was killed by a
what
?” Opal cut in.

“—and Danny is
sohanti,”
Michael finished.

Opal glared at him for a beat then asked, “What's
sohanti
?”

“We don't have time for any more discussion!” Danny shouted.

But Michael reached out to grip Opal's arm. “Walk with me,” he said firmly. “I want to tell you about my father.”

“W
hat happened to him?” Opal asked in a whisper after Michael finished his story.

“Konkon? He died. Actually he was dead when he hit the ground—the spasms seem to have been some sort of nerve reaction, like a frog's leg under electric current.”

Opal found herself moving closer to Michael. She had a thousand questions she wanted answered and did not know where to begin. Eventually she said, “You think your father killed him?”

“I
know
my father killed him. Officially the cause of death was heart failure.”

“Wait a minute,” Opal said. “Couldn't it have been a virus that caused it? I mean, the whole business with your father was dramatic, but couldn't the death have been coincidence?”

“It happened again,” Michael said quietly. He took Opal by the hand and started to hurry her along
the corridor. The look of relief on Danny's face was palpable.

“Your father killed somebody else?” Opal exclaimed.

“No, the appearance of the little bats. I saw it myself one other time and my mother mentioned it just before he died, so I assume she saw it too. It seemed as though Father could, I don't know,
manifest
these creatures when he was in certain moods, notably very angry or upset or perhaps just tense or under threat. Sometimes the things did harm, sometimes they didn't. One of them eventually killed him.”

“Are you serious?” Opal asked, wide-eyed.

“He kept a journal,” Michael said matter-of-factly. “Most of it makes no mention of them at all, but toward the end he started to write about strange things happening when he was under stress and how they were getting out of control. I think he was aware of the insect things. He used an old Dogon word that translates as
pest
and clearly thought they were supernatural in origin. He was certain he had a great deal to fear from them. Then one day he died: heart failure. You may draw your own conclusions, but I believe he was
sohanti
and it got out of his control.”

“These bats are what we call threshold guardians in the Project?”

Michael nodded.

“Have you told anyone?”

Michael shook his head. “Not until now. I've always been a bit—” He shrugged and looked away, as if embarrassed.

Opal stared at him but decided not to push it and asked, “You think Danny is
sohanti
too?”

“I'm certain of it,” Michael said. “According to Mr. Carradine, he can see the little bat creatures when he's not out of the body. None of the rest of us can do that. I think he attracts them, the way my father did. Perhaps he will control them better than my father, use them to better effect. But whatever happens, those creatures make Danny
sohanti
—a natural magician, if you like. We must listen to him when he speaks of supernatural things.”

Opal began to say something else, but stopped as Danny gripped her arm so hard that it was almost painful. “Shut up!” Danny said. He glanced at Michael. “You too. Not another word from either of you. Now it's your turn to listen. I don't know about this
sohanti
business, but I do know what I saw with my own eyes. There's a group of miserable scumbags in a cellar planning how to get you, Opal—
I saw them in my second body, same as you saw the Skull!
They're sending something, the way they sent the thing that killed Fran. Which means that if you want to chat with your boyfriend anymore, you have to
do it outside this building, which is where they think it will find you. Michael, head for that door and
get her out of here
! I'm right behind you.”

This time Michael didn't remove Danny's hand from Opal's arm. “I'll see if I can order a car,” he said. “We can go to my uncle's place—Opal should be safe there until we decide what else to do.”