A bard. Danyl understood now: Colin was Campbell’s grotesque attempt to replace him. A plan took form in his mind. He stood and clasped Colin on the shoulder and said, ‘You’re not alone now, child.’
‘Please call me Colin.’
‘Sure.’ He tipped his cowl in the direction of the stairs. ‘Come, Colin.’
They reached the seventh floor. Danyl’s old apartment was on this level, on the far side of the building. He passed the stairwell exit without a flicker of nostalgia. He was too close to his goal to be distracted.
But Colin pressed his face against the darkened window and hissed, ‘I see something in there. A light.’
‘Probably just one of the brethren. Onwards and upwards.’
‘It was torchlight,’ Colin insisted. ‘It’s the fat intruder, I’m sure of it.’
‘I doubt—’ Colin ignored him, pushed the door open and stepped into the foyer. He looked over his shoulder at Danyl and whispered, ‘Hurry. We’ll lose him.’
Danyl gritted his teeth and followed him through the door.
‘It was this way.’ They crept down a windowless hall. The only light came from the stairwell. Danyl seethed. Now he was wasting time stumbling through the half-darkness searching for an imaginary fat intruder, while Campbell’s apartment was only one floor above. Should he simply abandon Colin? No, not yet. It might arouse suspicion, and he had a plan for the troubled young poet.
They arrived at a T-junction. Both corridors disappeared into darkness. Danyl said, ‘There’s nothing here. Let’s go.’
Colin shook his head. ‘I definitely saw a light. We’ll split up. I’ll go this way. Good luck, brother.’ He squeezed Danyl’s arm and vanished.
Great. Danyl walked down the hall until he reached the bend. He was almost outside his old apartment. Who lived there now, he wondered? A high-ranking cultist? Maybe no one—the air on the floor felt stale, damp: it tasted of abandonment. He decided to risk a peek. He took his torch from inside his robe and flicked it on.
Dust. Cobwebs. To his left was the entrance to Verity’s old apartment: twenty metres away the hallway turned, leading to Danyl’s door. He ventured down it and rounded the corner.
The door was ajar. Danyl shone his torch on the floor, lighting up footsteps in the dust. They were recent.
He lit up the door. There was a sign posted on it. It was written in crude marker pen, and read, ‘Chambers of the High Hierophant. Absolutely no admittance.’
‘Verity?’
Danyl pounded on the door to her apartment. ‘Verity! Wake up! I need you! Campbell’s unconscious in my bedroom!’
No answer. Unbelievable. ‘Verity!’
He gave the door one last mighty blow, superficially injuring his hand, and then returned to his own apartment at the far end of the hall.
Where could she be? Danyl liked Verity. He liked being with her. He respected her privacy and he didn’t bother her with questions about how she felt, or where she saw their relationship going, or why she occasionally seemed upset or angry. That was her business. But you could only take this privacy thing so far, and Verity had a few questions to answer, especially if she expected Danyl to move in with her. Like, specifically, why she wasn’t in her apartment at midnight on a weeknight when Campbell was in a drug-induced coma in Danyl’s bedroom, and he needed her help. Their relationship needed more transparency in this area.
When he reached his door he heard his phone ringing. It had to be her. He ran through the lounge to his bedroom and grabbed his phone off the dresser. ‘Hello?’
It was Verity. The connection was bad. She said, ‘What happened?’
‘Campbell took the DoorWay drug.’ He crossed over to the bed. Campbell was motionless but his breathing was regular.
‘How much did he take?’
‘I don’t know. A tubeful. Do you know how to take a pulse? I don’t think I’m doing it right.’
‘Don’t take his pulse.’ Verity sounded different. Frightened. ‘Don’t touch him. Just get out of there, now.’
‘I can’t just leave him like this. What if something bad happens?’
‘Something bad is happening. Just go.’
Danyl knelt down beside Campbell. He held his finger below his nostril and detected a faint flow. He said, ‘I feel like you’re not telling me everything here, sweetheart. Where are you, anyway?’
‘There’s no time to explain. Just listen. Get away from—’
‘And I’ve been thinking about us,’ Danyl continued. ‘About our relationship and about how open we are with each other—’
‘Run,’ Verity begged. ‘Just run. Whatever you do—’
Campbell’s eyes flicked open. Danyl cut her off. ‘Oh, he’s awake. I’ll call you back, OK.’
‘Block your ears,’ Verity said. ‘Don’t listen to anything—’
Danyl hung up on her and leaned over Campbell. ‘How you feeling?’ he asked kindly. ‘Did it work?’
Campbell bared his teeth. His hand wrapped around Danyl’s wrist. The phone fell to the floor and rolled beneath the bed.
~
‘Now I have you, fat infidel!’
Danyl screamed as someone seized him from behind and shoved him against the wall. He struggled, his arms flailing, and the light from his torch lurched and spun. The person assaulting him cried, ‘Your sacrilege ends here, tubby!’
It was Colin. Danyl shoved him away and hissed, ‘It’s me, you idiot.’ He pulled back his cowl to prove his identity, then remembered he was in disguise and quickly tugged it back on and shone the torch over his body. ‘Do I look like the fat intruder?’
‘Sorry, brother. I saw the torchlight.’
Danyl smoothed out the rumples in his robe and said, ‘Forget it. Let’s get out of here.’
‘What about those footprints?’ Colin gestured at the marks in the dust leading through the door into Danyl’s old apartment. Danyl regarded the footprints and the darkness beyond the doorway, hesitated and then said, ‘They’re mine. There’s nothing here.’
They walked back to the landing. Colin apologised again for assaulting him. ‘I wanted to make a good impression,’ he said. ‘I don’t fit in here. Nobody talks to me. The DHH calls everyone brother, but he calls me “writer”. I don’t think he likes me.’
Danyl replied, ‘Let me tell you a few things about the Deputy High Hierophant.’ They reached the top of the stairs and began to climb. ‘Campbell sees himself as a genius. A lone hero reaching for greatness, who only needs minions and disciples around to perform lowly, menial tasks. Yet Campbell also knows that nothing truly happens unless it is observed. He thinks there’s no point to achieving greatness if no one documents it. That’s why he needs writers like us around to make his accomplishments real. He needs us, but he fears and despises us.’
‘Us?’ They were almost at the top of the stairs. Colin sounded confused. ‘I thought I was the only writer in the Order. The DHH said that the last writer to live here was a traitor.’
They reached the top landing. The eighth floor. End of the line. Danyl put his arm around Colin’s shoulder and said, ‘Child—’
‘Colin.’
‘Whatever. I feel I can trust you. I have a confession to make.’
‘Confession?’
‘Yes. But first I must show you something.’
They crossed the landing. Danyl held the door open for Colin and followed him into a large, opulent foyer. The floors were tiled with stained wood; the walls were panelled and hung with paintings worth hundreds of dollars. A meeting table and chairs occupied one corner, couches and a coffee table another. A set of double doors in the far wall led into Campbell’s lair. They could hear music, faint and unidentifiable, coming from the rooms beyond.
Colin said, ‘Isn’t this where the DHH lives?’ We’re not allowed up here.’
‘We’re write
rs, Colin. We can go wherever we want.’
‘I doubt the fat intruder could make it this far. He’d never climb all those stairs.’
‘Hush.’ Danyl led Colin across the room. ‘Forget the fat intruder. I’m going to tell you a secret, Colin. Something no one else in the brotherhood knows.’
‘I feel uncomfortable.’
‘Hush. Hush. You see, a year ago something terrible happened in this building.’ They headed towards a small, unremarkable door in the far wall, behind the meeting table. ‘Haven’t you ever wondered what the so-called traitors who betrayed the Campbell Walker wanted? Or what happened to them? Or even if they were on the side of right, and Campbell was wrong?’
‘Not really. I’m pretty new here.’
They stopped outside the door. ‘The answers are all in this room, Colin.’ His voice dropped to a whisper. ‘This is where Campbell’s mad dream ended.’
He opened the door; Colin stepped forward, peering into the darkness. He said, ‘I don’t see—’
Danyl shoved him into the closet, slammed the door shut and wedged a chair under the handle.
Sucker.
He rubbed his hands with glee. Victory. Almost. Now Colin was out of the way, all Danyl had to do was search Campbell’s apartment, find Stasia’s letter and escape.
He headed for the double doors, but the sounds of pounding and yelling broke out behind him. Colin was slamming his body against the closet door and screaming, ‘Help! The fat intruder has me! The fat intruder is here!’
The kid had a hell of a set of lungs and the door seemed to amplify rather than muffle his cries. The noise would bring the entire cult running. In retrospect, Danyl admitted to himself, this had not been that great a plan.
He ran back to the landing and looked down. There was no one visible on the stairs below. He had a few minutes at least. He crossed the foyer to the double doors, took the U-shaped key from his pocket, unlocked them and entered the apartment of the Campbell Walker.
26
In the lair of the Campbell Walker
Mozart. The music was Mozart: Sarestro’s song to Isis and Osiris from The Magic Flute. Danyl knew it well. It poured down the hallway, originating from some distant room deep within Campbell’s lair.
He stood at the end of a brightly lit hall. Lush Persian prayer rugs covered the floor; framed copies of Campbell’s academic and civil achievements lined the walls. Danyl inspected them as he passed. His favourite: ‘World Algorithm Optimisation Championship. Minsk Software Olympics.’ Second place.
The opera was loud enough to muffle his footsteps. He walked to the end of the hall, pressed his back to the wall and peered around the corner.
The hall opened onto a large, open-plan lounge and kitchen-dining area. Medieval weapons hung on the walls; orchids grew from giant terracotta pots. A plasma TV the size of a pool table dominated the far corner of the room. French doors opened onto the deck and a warm breeze danced in the curtains.
Danyl ran across the room, keeping low, and dived behind a faux-giraffe skin couch. He crouched behind it and scanned the area, not quite believing he’d made it this far, or that Campbell wasn’t lying in wait for him here, smiling, surrounded by black-robed henchmen.
But the apartment did seem empty. Which made sense. Campbell was probably running about on some other floor, still searching for the fictional fat intruder, all the while leaving his own inner sanctum defenceless. Danyl grinned. The music soared.
He stood and searched the room. It was spartan; nothing aside from the furniture and the vases. A door in the south wall led into Campbell’s bedroom: also empty. The sheets on the waterbed were rumpled; mounted on the wall above the headboard was a bronze sculpture of two jackals fighting, their teeth sunk deep in each other’s throats. Danyl opened the walk-in wardrobe: a dozen silver-trimmed robes hung beside a dozen black suits and a black trenchcoat.
Next to the bedroom was an unfurnished room that looked like a dance studio, with mirrored walls and a table laden with martial-arts weapons. Danyl flicked on the lights, made sure the room was empty and then paused to contemplate the mirrors and the idiocy of the images they must have
reflected.
He moved on. The laundry was empty. The spare room was empty. Only one room left to search—the room most likely to hold Stasia’s letters. Danyl pulled back his cowl, revealing his face. There was no longer any need for disguise. He entered the library of the Campbell Walker.
The library was huge, twice the size of the rest of the apartment. It ran the full length of the building. The south wall was a floor-to-ceiling window; the lights of the Aro Valley and the suburbs beyond glowed in the outer darkness.
The opposite wall was lined with shelves. A rack of computers hummed in the corner next to a workbench littered with tools and computer components. Megalith-sized speakers were spaced around the room, still blaring opera. The door to Campbell’s ensuite bathroom stood ajar in the far wall.
Danyl headed for the desk in the centre of the room. This was a U-shaped arrangement of tables covered in books, manila folders and a thick stack of papers weighed down with a red-and-black brick-shaped paperweight. Behind the desk was a large telescope set on a tripod, pointed out the window and aimed down at the streets and houses of Te Aro. On the left side of the desk was a bank of filing cabinets extending to the far wall.
Danyl sat in Campbell’s fancy, adjustable leather chair and spun around on it several times. Then he scooted the chair towards the filing cabinets—they were the logical hiding place for Stasia’s letter—but he stopped in front of the telescope.
This was a sleek, grey device with a camera and a laptop attached. Beside it was a large artist’s easel mounted on a steel stand, with a cloth cover draped over it. Curious.
Danyl switched on the telescope. The laptop flickered to life: the screen showed a luminous green night-vision image of Aro Street. He nudged the telescope and the image on the screen jumped: a car drove down the street, its streetlights smearing a trail of pixellated lime-coloured light. He looked out the window and saw the lights of the same car in the distance, turning onto Norway Street.
So this was how the mighty Campbell Walker got his kicks—spying on the good citizens of Te Aro; pleasuring himself while he leered through their windows and into their backyards. Sick.
No doubt the easel beside the telescope was covered in pictures of local girls undressing. Danyl licked his lips and threw back the cover revealing, disappointingly, an aerial map of the Aro Valley. The map showed every street and building in the valley: dozens of houses were circled with red pen and annotated with numbers and symbols.
Odd. And less voyeuristic than he had hoped. Danyl scooted the chair past the map, then stopped when he noticed that his own house was marked with a small cross and the date of the day before yesterday.
The day-before-yesterday. Danyl’s eyes narrowed. He remembered Verity standing in the wreckage of his kitchen. Dozens of houses around Te Aro have been attacked like this. Eleanor got back from holiday and found her baby’s room gutted.
He traced his finger along Aro Street and up Adams Terrace. Eleanor lived in a house on the bend, back from the street. There.
The building was circled and marked with a cross and a date five weeks ago.
Danyl spun around to face the desk. He picked up the red-and-black, brick-shaped paperweight which was, he now realised, a brick blackened by fire. The papers beneath it were black-and-white photos of Aro Valley; the books were old hardbacks written in German. The stolen contents of the box Danyl stole that was then stolen from him when his spare room was destroyed lay spread out before him.
Campbell! Danyl’s grip on the brick tightened. Campbell and his SSS goons stole the box and gutted his room—gutted dozens of rooms around Te Aro. Why?
The answer was obvious. They were searching for the Priest’s Soul.
S
plash.
What was that? Danyl stopped glaring at the brick and looked up. The music still played, but in the silence between the notes he’d heard a sound as if something small but heavy dropped into a pool of water. He listened but heard nothing. Maybe he imagined it? Real or not, it jolted him back to his task at hand. He didn’t have much time. Campbell could return at any minute. Danyl needed to focus. Concentrate. Stasia’s box was somewhere in this study—he had to find it.
He pulled open the desk drawers. Nothing. He scanned the filing cabinets near the desk. Each one was labelled. Those closest to him read: ‘Super-Omega Numbers’, ‘SSS—Personal’, ‘Wizard Robes: engineering specifications, materials and tailoring’.
All intriguing but not what Danyl sought. The cabinets extended to the far wall; he wheeled along on the chair, scanning the labels. As he neared the last cabinet he screwed up his face. The air in this part of the room smelled foul: a wet, eggy stench. Maybe something had died in the walls? He examined the remainder of the cabinets and tried not to breathe.
Ah ha. Three drawers labelled ‘EZ Wellness & S’. The letter had to be here. He reached for the first drawer.
Splash.
Again! This time it was louder. It came from behind him. Danyl rotated the chair to face the old wooden door leading to the bathroom suite.
The door was ajar. Through the gap between it and the frame Danyl saw the washbasin and the mirror mounted above it. Reflected in the mirror were a shower, spa-bath and toilet. Sitting on the toilet, absorbed in a book, his robe around his waist and underpants around his ankles, was the Campbell Walker.
Splash.
Campbell looked up. His eyes met Danyl’s in the mirror.
Both men simultaneously roared and lunged for the door. Campbell stumbled, betrayed by his underwear; Danyl grabbed the handle and slammed it shut.
Unspeakable Secrets of the Aro Valley Page 26