Evil Star

by Anthony Horowitz

  The monk spoke to him. But not in English. Listening to the strange language, Matt thought it might be Spanish or Italian. The monk didn’t sound angry. He was trying to be friendly – although he was obviously puzzled.

  “Do you speak English?” Matt asked.

  The monk held up a finger and a thumb, almost touching. The universal symbol for “a little”.

  “I have to go,” Matt said. He pointed at the door. “I have a friend…”

  The monk didn’t try to stop him. Matt opened the door and went through.

  He was back in St Meredith’s.

  But William Morton wasn’t there.

  Matt looked around, feeling increasingly foolish with the flower in his hand. It seemed that the bookseller had been playing a trick on him. While Matt had been out in the cloister, Morton had made his getaway. He had never intended to hand over the diary. It was all for nothing.

  And then the woman screamed.

  She screamed once, her voice so loud and high-pitched that surely it must have been heard all over Shoreditch. The scream flew up into the church, to be joined by a second and then a third, each scream becoming an echo of the other. Matt turned and saw her, an old woman wrapped up in black, standing a few metres away, pointing. At the same time, he saw the blood on the cold, stone floor.

  He ran forward.

  William Morton was lying on his back, one hand clamped to his stomach, trying to hold shut the wound made by the knife. There was a lot of blood. At first Matt thought he must be dead. The woman was still screaming. None of the other worshippers had come near, although Matt could hear them whispering, murmuring, afraid to show themselves. Then the bookseller opened his eyes and saw Matt, saw what Matt was holding. Despite everything, he smiled to himself. It was as if Matt had brought flowers to the funeral he was about to have.

  “You are…” he began.

  Just two words. Then he died.

  At the same time, the doors were flung open and half a dozen men ran in. Matt looked up and saw police uniforms. So the Nexus hadn’t been lying to him. There really had been a protective ring around the church. It was just that it hadn’t worked. The police had arrived too late.

  He was surrounded. More people were screaming. The police were trying to keep them back. Other officers came through the door. Matt recognized one of them. It was the Assistant Commissioner. He looked grim.

  Richard Cole arrived a few minutes later, bursting in with Fabian. By now the body had been covered. The congregation had left. More policemen had come. Matt was sitting on his own, holding the flower, which had already begun to wilt. He was very still. There was blood on one of his trainers.

  “Are you OK?” Richard asked. His face was filled with horror.

  “Yeah. Sure.” Matt wondered if he was in shock. He didn’t feel anything. “I didn’t get the diary,” he said. “Whoever killed him took it.”

  “How did they know he was here?” Fabian muttered. “Nobody knew about the meeting. He told only us.”

  “Somebody knew,” Matt said. He waved a hand in the direction of the dead man. “They took the diary. He had it with him when we met but just now I looked and it wasn’t there.”

  “To hell with the diary,” Richard said. “You were with him. You could have been killed too.” He paused and frowned. “What happened?” he asked. “Did you see who it was?”

  “No. I was out in the cloister. He made me get him this.” Matt held up the flower.

  Now it was Fabian’s turn to look puzzled. “What cloister?” he asked.

  “The church has a cloister,” Matt said. “Morton asked me to go there. He said it was some sort of test, but I think he was lying.”

  “This church has no cloister,” Fabian said.

  “It’s through there.” Matt looked in the direction of the door.

  “Let’s go out,” Richard said. “You need some air.”

  “There is no cloister,” Fabian insisted.

  Angrily, Matt stood up and walked over to the door. “It’s through here,” he said.

  He opened the door. And stopped dead.

  There was no cloister on the other side. There were no flowers, no fountain and no monks. Instead, he found himself looking at an alleyway lined with dustbins and, on the other side, a grimy backyard filled with rubble and broken concrete.

  He looked at the flower in his hand and then threw it down as if it were scalding him. It lay, floating in a puddle, the only colour in a world of grey.

  DANGER AREA

  In the end, it all seemed too easy.

  Matt didn’t want any part of it. He would have liked to forget the Nexus, the Old Ones, William Morton, the diary, the second gate and all the other weird things that had somehow closed in on him and taken over his life. Certainly he had no great desire to visit Peru. And yet, here he was at midday, sitting on a British Airways jumbo jet on the runway at Heathrow Airport, on his way to Lima via Miami. Once again, he got the feeling that he hadn’t chosen to be here. It had just happened.

  After the death of the bookseller at St Meredith’s church, there had been another meeting of the Nexus – and that was when they had put it to him.

  “Matt, we want to send you to Peru.” This time, Miss Ashwood had done most of the talking. Maybe they felt she knew him best. “We’ve lost the diary. It wasn’t your fault but it’s a catastrophe. It means that whoever was bidding for it in South America probably has it, or will have it soon. The diary will show them how to find the gate. Worse than that, it may show them how to open it.”

  “There’s nothing Matt can do,” Richard said. “You sending him all the way across the world … what’s the point?”

  “I can’t really answer that, Mr Cole. How can I explain? Imagine this was a game of chess. Losing Morton was like losing a pawn. Now, sending you to Peru, it’s as if we’re advancing a knight. In the end, it may be too late. It may not help. But at least it shows we’re still on the attack.”

  “The boy and the gate are linked,” Nathalie Johnson said. Matt could see that the American woman had already made up her mind. “He’s part of it. Something is going to happen in Peru and whatever it is, he should be there.”

  “Well, Peru’s a big country. Where’s he supposed to begin?”

  “In the capital. Lima.”

  “Why there?”

  “We may have one lead,” the Assistant Commissioner explained. “William Morton had his mobile phone with him when he was killed. Fortunately for us, his killer left it behind. I’ve looked at it and it seems he made a dozen calls in the week before he died. Some of them to us, of course. But three of them were to a number in Lima.”

  “We’ve traced the number to Salamanda News International,” the Frenchman said.

  “What’s that?” Richard asked.

  “It’s one of the biggest businesses on the whole darned continent,” Nathalie Johnson explained. “And the man who fronts it, Diego Salamanda, is one of the richest. I’ve had dealings with him in the past. I’ve never met him. I’ve heard he’s disabled in some way and he keeps himself very much to himself. He runs newspapers, TV and satellite stations, publishing houses and hotels and he does it out of an office in Lima.”

  “Was he the one trying to buy the diary?”

  “Perhaps,” she continued. “We can’t know for sure. But not much happens within his organization without him knowing it so it probably comes down to the same thing. If it’s Salamanda we’re up against, that’s bad news. He’s powerful. But on the other hand, maybe it’s good that we know who the enemy is. At least it tells us where to start.”

  “OK.” Richard nodded. “So you send Matt to Lima. What does he do then?”

  “He stays with me as my guest,” Fabian replied. “You will both be welcome in my home. I told you already that I have a house in Barranco. It is a quiet part of the city where many artists and writers live. I’m not far from the beach. You will be safe there.”

  “William Morton thought he was safe. And loo
k what happened to him!”

  “We don’t know what went wrong,” Miss Ashwood admitted. “None of us knew the meeting place until the day before, and of course we didn’t tell anyone. We can only assume he must have been followed. However, I agree with you. Your safety is of paramount importance – which is why we’ve decided to take extra precautions. Nobody must even know you’ve left England.”

  “What about passport control?” Richard asked.

  “Exactly!” Miss Ashwood agreed.

  “I’m seeing to that.” The Assistant Commissioner had taken over. “I’m going to arrange false passports for you. This man – Salamanda – may not have any agents at Heathrow Airport but he’s sure to have people on the lookout when you arrive in Lima. So you’ll both travel under assumed names. Nobody outside this room will know who you are.”

  “It still sounds crazy,” Richard said. “Your plan is that you don’t have a plan. Go to Peru! End of story!”

  “No,” Matt interrupted. It was almost the first time he had spoken and the thirteen adults in the room all turned to look at him. “I think Miss Ashwood is right. We can’t just walk away. Not after all that’s happened. The second gate is in Peru. It’s going to open. We have to be there.”

  Three days had passed since then. Now, sitting in the plane, Matt wondered why he had been so decisive.

  Maybe the twelve members of the Nexus had been right. His life was completely tangled up with the second gate and there seemed to be no escaping it. Or was there part of him that genuinely wanted to help, to fight back against an ancient enemy? Matt wasn’t sure. All he knew was that he was sweating and felt sick. As the engines began to roar in the build-up to take-off, he was certain they would fall off the wings. And how could this huge machine with its six hundred passengers, suitcases, meal trolleys and all the rest of it possibly stay up in the air? Matt had only ever flown twice in his entire life and that had been short hops to Marseilles and Malaga with his parents, when he was young. This flight was going to last seventeen hours! He wasn’t afraid of what he might find in Peru, but he was certainly afraid of flying there.

  Twenty minutes later, the 747 was well above cloud level, already leaving behind the west coast of England. A stewardess came up to them with a menu.

  “Would you like a drink, Mr Carter?” she asked.

  It took Matt a moment to realize that she was talking to them. Paul and Robert Carter. Two brothers travelling together. Those were the names on the false passports they had been given.

  “I’ll have a beer, thanks,” Richard said.

  “Just some water for me,” Matt added.

  They were travelling in business class, close to the front of the plane. The tickets had cost thousands of pounds, but then the Nexus had been ready to pay millions for the diary; they obviously weren’t short of cash. Matt settled back in his seat. He had a personal TV with a choice of about ten films as well as a selection of computer games. Richard had also bought him a book and some magazines. But he didn’t feel like doing anything. Sitting there, suspended in the air somewhere above the Irish Sea, he felt empty, disconnected.

  “So do you want to talk about it?” Richard asked.

  “What?”

  “The door. What you saw on the other side.”

  Matt shook his head. “I don’t know,” he said. “I’ve been thinking about it. William Morton chose the church because of something he’d read in the diary. He used the door as a test, to prove I was who he thought I was.”

  Richard nodded. “If anyone else went through the door, they’d find themselves standing in a puddle in East London.”

  “But I went somewhere else. I’m not even sure I was in England.” Matt thought for a moment. “Do you remember what it said on that news programme? The one we saw on the DVD? It said something about an Internet within the church…”

  “It was one of the things in the diary.”

  “Well, maybe that’s what it meant. When you sit at a computer, you can click a mouse and go where you like. You can link up with another computer anywhere in the world. Maybe it’s the same sort of thing … only for real.”

  “That’s great!” Richard smiled. “So all you have to do is find another church door in Peru and maybe you can go home without having to pay for the return flight.”

  The stewardess came with the drinks. Sunlight was streaming in through the windows and the smell of lunch was already spreading through the cabin from the galley just behind them. Only four months ago, Matt had been living with his aunt in Ipswich, failing at school, struggling from Monday to Friday and wasting time at weekends. And now he was here. It was hard to believe.

  Richard seemed to pick up on his thoughts. “You didn’t have to do this,” he said.

  “I think I did, Richard.” Matt gazed out of the window. There was nothing to look at. Just the clouds in an empty sky. “Miss Ashwood knew it. Even William Morton. I’m part of this and I think I always have been. I tried to pretend otherwise and I nearly got a whole lot of people killed.” He sighed. “You don’t have to be here. But I think I do.”

  “Yeah, well, you’re not going anywhere without me.”

  “Then we’re stuck in it together.”

  The flight seemed endless. Matt watched one film, then another. He read part of his book. He tried to sleep but without success. The noise of the engines was all around him and he couldn’t forget the fact that he was hanging in space with the ground far too far away. They landed at Miami and spent two hours in a characterless transit lounge while the plane refuelled. By now Matt’s inner clock was telling him that it was late in the evening – but it was still light outside. The entire day had been stretched out of shape and he felt exhausted.

  They took off again and suddenly the weather turned bad. The sky was dark and a fork of lightning cracked downwards, flashing against the silver skin of the 747. They hit a patch of turbulence and Matt felt his stomach heave as the floor momentarily disappeared from beneath his feet. Inside the business section, the lights had been dimmed. A soft, yellow glow illuminated the passengers, sitting in their seats, trying to look relaxed but at the same time gripping the arm rests with all their strength. Nobody was talking. But as every buffet of wind made the plane shudder, and the tone of the engines rose and fell in the swirling air pockets, one or two of them swore softly or even muttered a silent prayer.

  And somehow, in the middle of all this, Matt finally managed to fall asleep. Not that it felt that way. One moment he was next to Richard, half concentrating on yet another film and counting the minutes until they were back on the ground, the next he was somewhere else.

  The island. He recognized it at once and knew it so well that he had to remind himself that he had never actually been there, only ever visited it in his dreams. There was the tower of black, broken rock. And there was the sea, as ugly as liquid tar, spreading out all around it. There was no wind, but the clouds were still racing across a darkening sky. Matt wondered what it all meant. Why was he here? Why did he so frequently return?

  He looked down and saw the strange reed boat that had been making its way towards him the last time he came here. It had reached the edge of the island and sat, abandoned, on the grey sand.

  “Matt!”

  Someone had called his name. He turned round and saw the boy from the boat, standing on a rocky shelf just below him. The two of them were about the same age but the boy was smaller and thinner than him, wearing clothes that were little more than rags. Matt opened his mouth to answer. He knew who the boy was and why he was there. He had come to collect him, to take him to the three others who were still waiting on the mainland, just half a mile away.

  But the words never came. There was a scream. Matt looked up just in time to see the swan plunging out of the sky, its neck straining forward. It came at him with all the power of a plane crash. Even as he looked, the swan drew closer, its gaping beak filling his vision as if it were about to swallow him whole.

  The other boy cried o
ut. Matt felt himself falling.

  There was a bump and he opened his eyes.

  Richard was sitting next to him.

  They had arrived in Lima.

  It seemed to Matt that Aeropuerto Jorge Chávez was only half built. After the bright lights and bustle of Heathrow, with its crowds milling between the duty-free shops as if every day was Christmas, he had arrived at a bare, cheerless space where the passengers were invited to queue up at a row of cubicles manned by border guards in black-and-white uniforms. The ceiling of the arrivals lounge was missing tiles and none of the fans were working. A few potted plants sat wilting in the sticky heat. It wasn’t so much welcome to Peru as welcome to nowhere in particular.

  Matt was feeling tired and grimy as he waited in line with Richard – looking just the same – next to him. But there was something else. As he watched the passengers moving ahead of him and heard the clunk of the passport stamps as they were admitted into the country, he began to feel nervous. It was only now that he realized that he and Richard were committing a criminal offence. They were travelling with false passports. He supposed the Nexus knew what it was doing, but even so it suddenly seemed less of a good idea.

  The two of them reached the front of the queue and found themselves facing a tired-looking official with suspicion etched on his face. Presumably that was his job. To be suspicious of everyone. But Matt felt his heartbeat quicken as Richard handed over their documents. He glanced away. Part of the hall was held up by scaffolding and there was a large sign hanging below: NO CRUZAR. ÁREA DE PELIGRO. Richard had followed his eyes.

  “Don’t cross. Danger area…” he translated.

  Matt nodded, wondering if the words might be prophetic.

  The border guard had run both the passports through a machine and was studying a monitor. Now he looked up. “What is the purpose of your visit?” He must have asked the same question ten thousand times.

  “We’re here on holiday,” Richard lied.

  The stamp came down twice more. That was it. They were through and Matt was annoyed with himself for being even slightly worried in the first place.