The Key s-2

by Simon Toyne

  For the accelerant she’d had to think laterally. Roughly speaking it could be anything that would intensify a fire. She’d found what she was looking for in the hand sanitizer-gel dispenser by the door, the sort used in all modern hospitals. The label told her this particular brand was 40 per cent alcohol. Alcohol evaporated quickly to leave skin dry and had antiseptic qualities of its own. It was also a very effective accelerant.

  She squirted a thick dollop into her hand, scraped it on to the sill then stacked the pile of shredded paper on top of it so it could start absorbing the flammable fumes as they evaporated. The longer she waited, the more saturated the paper would become and the better her chance of lighting it. But she still needed a flame, and for that she needed the sun to come out.

  She lay on her bed, staring out of her window at the bright band of sky between the passing rain clouds and the tops of the mountains. The last time she had lit a fire this way had been on the final trip she had taken with John. It had been one of those spur-of-the-moment things arranged, before Gabriel returned to college and John headed off to Iraq on the dig he would never return from.

  They had spent the day off-season hiking along the Presidential Range in New Hampshire and got caught in a freak storm. By the time they made it to where they’d parked their hire car they were soaked to the skin, only to discover they had a flat battery. They headed back to a Ranger’s hut they had passed on the path where some weekend walker had used up the firewood and not bothered to restock it. She and Gabriel had collected as many fallen branches as they could, but it was all too wet to light. They hadn’t even noticed John had gone until he stepped into the cabin brandishing one of his socks on the end of a long stick, dripping with diesel from the car’s fuel tank. They had piled the wet sticks on top of the sock and waited for the fumes to permeate the stack, the same way Kathryn was waiting now. Liquid diesel doesn’t burn well, but the ether-infused sticks had burned just fine. They had spent the night there, huddling together, warmed by the fire — the last time they were all together. Kathryn smiled as she recalled it, remembering their closeness and their firelit smiles while the storm raged outside. Then she realized that the warmth was not in her mind, it was on her skin and flooding the room. The sun had come out.

  She leapt out of bed and lunged towards the window. Sunlight was filling the street with warm afternoon light. It had dropped below the clouds and would soon fall behind the distant mountains. She needed to move fast.

  She fumbled her reading glasses from the top of her head, and held them over the pile of shredded paper, the magnifying lenses focusing a pinpoint of light on to the top of it.

  A tiny image of the sun appeared on the paper and she held it as steady as her hand would allow. The bright dot darkened. It started to smoulder. The paper curled into ash around the dot, but it did not light. She moved the glasses, chasing the edge of the blackening paper with the bright dot, focusing the heat on the meagre kindling she had made. A curl of red glowed at the edge as the paper turned to ash but still it did not catch. She cupped her hand round it and blew gently across the top, trying not to disturb the pile or blow away the alcohol fumes trapped inside. She continued to blow, gentle and steady, focusing her attention on the red ember until her lungs were empty. Then, just as her breath was almost exhausted, it finally caught and flame started to devour the ripped-up paper.

  She grabbed the diary from the bed and opened it to the centre pages, which she had marked with several more squares of torn paper. She had no idea how long the hidden message might be, but she only had a limited amount of fuel and the flame was burning quickly. She screwed up a square of paper, fed it to the fire, then gently offered up the first blank page to the flame.

  The effect was almost instant. The heat darkened the paper wherever acid ink had soaked into it, creating swirls of symbols that steadily filled the page. The body of text, arranged to form the shape of an inverted Tau, was a mirror of the first prophecy she had grown up with and written in the same ancient script. Kathryn’s eyes scanned the Malan symbols, the language of her tribe, translating them in her head as she read:

  The Key unlocks the Sacrament

  The Sacrament becomes the Key

  And all the Earth shalt tremble

  The Key must follow the Starmap Home

  There to quench the fire of the dragon within the full phase of a moon

  Lest the Key shalt perish, the Earth shalt splinter and a blight shalt prosper, marking the end of all days

  She read it again, trying to dig meaning from the words. It seemed like a warning, but was too incomplete for her to understand.

  There had to be more.

  She grabbed another scrap of paper and fed it to the dying flame. The fire was burning faster than she had anticipated and smoke was starting to fill the room. She turned to the next page in the diary and held it over the flame.

  More darkened text emerged, much more, but the fire was burning so quickly she didn’t even stop to read it. She knew she was almost out of fuel and the smoke levels in the room were getting dangerously high so she kept moving blank pages over the heat, one after the other, feeding the flames until there were none left and the fire shrank to nothing and died in a final curl of smoke.

  Outside she could hear footsteps approaching. In a few moments someone might walk into her room with the priest right behind them. She pulled open the window as far as it would go, scooping up the evidence of the fire and feeding it to the breeze. She left the window open in an effort to dilute the smell of smoke and scrubbed her hands with sanitizing gel while she cast around for somewhere to hide the diary. The room was bare. There were no hiding places. Kathryn lunged towards the bed and hid the diary in the only place she could see and undoubtedly the first place anyone would look. She hid it under the mattress.

  19

  Father Ulvi Simsek sat in the hospital corridor, his fingers working the string of worry beads he always carried, still brooding about the earlier visit from the police inspector. He had been so dismissive and superior, questioning his presence there as if he were nothing.

  If only he knew.

  He counted the beads through his fingers, smooth stones made warm by the heat of his hand. There were nineteen on the black cotton string, each one made from a particular type of amber he had chosen because of its dark, reddish colour. Nineteen beads — nineteen lives, each one recalling a face. He counted in his head, his lips moving slightly as he remembered the names and how each had died.

  Despite the priest’s clothes, Ulvi’s service to the Church was more specialized. He considered himself a soldier of God, trained by his country but now serving a greater sovereign lord. The beads reminded him of his own past — in the west of Turkey, close to the ancient borders with Greece — and while others of his faith said the Rosary to help purge them of their sins, he used the beads to remind him of where he had come from and what he had done. The dark stains on his soul were too deep to be cleansed in this world. And the world was imperfect. Only God was pristine. So he chose not to pretend that he could better himself here, or atone for what he had done. He was what he was, a darker instrument of the Lord’s bright purpose. And God Himself had made him this way; He alone would judge him when the time came.

  Ulvi reached the end of his roll call of remembrance and slipped the bracelet back into his pocket. He heard the clink as it snaked past his mobile phone and down to the ceramic knife beneath it, the blade as sharp as glass but invisible to the metal detector that had swept over him at the start of his shift. Elsewhere in his jacket was a hypodermic syringe with a nylon needle, a small bag of powdered flunitrazepam, and an ampoule of Aconitine poison. He had brought them with him every day since the cops had grown used to him and the routine checks had become sloppy.

  He looked over at the policeman, slumped in his chair, his attention dulled and elsewhere. He was still reading the paper, working backwards from the sports pages like he did every day, slipping so far down in his chair that hi
s chin almost touched the buttons of his uniform shirt. He was clearly cut from the same cloth as his boss. Arrogant. Dismissive. Stupid.

  No matter.

  A bored guard was one who could easily be dealt with. As the night shift wore on, and the hospital grew quiet, Ulvi would offer to make coffee to help keep them awake, and in the small staff kitchen down the hall he would slip the flunitrazepam into the cop’s cup. He could imagine the look on the man’s stupid face when he woke in the morning with a date-rape drug hangover only to discover that all three of his charges were dead in their beds. He’d like to see how that played out. He’d also like to see the look on that snotty inspector’s face, but he would be long gone by then, off on another mission, serving God in his own dark way. He settled back in his chair, calmer now the waiting was almost over.

  By tomorrow morning the message had said.

  He wondered if there were others, agents like himself who had received the same message. The sensitive nature of his work meant he always worked alone so nothing could be traced to his masters if things went wrong. But nothing would go wrong, he was far too experienced for that.

  Ulvi slipped his hand into his other pocket and gathered three loose beads into his palm, each like a solid drop of fresh blood waiting to be threaded on the black string of his rosary. He rolled them between his fingers, reciting the names in his head: Kathryn Mann, Liv Adamsen, Brother Dragan Ruja. He had been surprised when the remaining monk had been included in the mission. But it was not for him to question orders. The monk had already given his life to God anyway — Ulvi was just there to collect it.

  He settled in his chair and reached for the novel he had brought to help pass the time. It was about the Knights Templar — warrior priests like him. He was about to start reading when he became aware of footsteps drawing closer. The cop heard them too and looked up from his newspaper as a nurse appeared round the corner and continued marching towards them. Ulvi checked his watch. It was too early for the evening rounds and she was walking with a sense of purpose and hurry. She must have been summoned by someone in the rooms.

  The nurse arrived at the small table and picked up the signing-in sheet. She didn’t acknowledge the presence of either of the men watching her. There had been tension ever since the hospital staff had been asked to clear out what few patients there were in the old psychiatric ward and stop the renovation work.

  Be patient, Ulvi thought. You’ll have your building back by morning, I promise.

  He watched her write the time, her name, then ‘406’ in the ‘Room’ column. Liv Adamsen’s room. Ulvi picked up the keys from the desk and smiled at the nurse, but she gave him nothing in return.

  So rude, these people, he thought as he walked ahead of her down the corridor. The sooner I’m done here, the better.

  20

  Liv was sitting up in bed, straining to hear the sounds outside in the corridor.

  The footsteps had come from the right, so that was the direction she needed to head when she got out of the room. There was a loud, single rap on the door and she pulled the sheets tight around her neck as it started to open.

  The priest stepped into the room and she immediately felt the dread expand within her. The nurse followed and walked over to switch off the call light that had summoned her. ‘You OK?’ she asked in accented English, automatically pulling a digital thermometer from her pocket and placing it against Liv’s forehead.

  ‘Yes, fine, I think — I just need to ask you something.’ The nurse pressed a button to get a reading and the thermometer beeped. ‘When I was admitted, what happened to all my stuff?’

  ‘Personal items are stored in property office behind reception.’ The nurse studied the display on the thermometer, then grabbed Liv’s wrist to check her pulse.

  ‘So how would I go about getting them back?’

  ‘You sign when you leave.’ She counted the heartbeats then let the wrist drop, looking into Liv’s face for the first time since entering. ‘Anything else?’

  ‘Yes…’ Liv glanced over at the priest, as if embarrassed about what she was about to ask. ‘Can you tell me how I’m doing, you know — medically.’

  The nurse plucked her notes from the wall holder and studied the file. ‘Some hormone imbalance — oestrogen levels very high, but not dangerous. You have high temperature, nausea. Maybe you have some virus. Big concern is memory.’ She flipped to the end and read through the psychiatrist’s notes. Liv had tried to make them out for herself but they were written in Turkish. And much as she wanted to leave this place, there was no point in making a run for it if she was going to drop down dead a hundred metres from the door.

  ‘Psychiatric report is good,’ the nurse said. ‘They only keep you here for observation.’

  ‘What drugs am I on?’

  The nurse scanned the notes and shook her head. ‘No drugs. Just rest and observation.’

  Liv was surprised at this and didn’t entirely believe it. There was far too much weirdness going on in her head for her not to be doped in some way.

  ‘So in theory, I could carry on as normal,’ Liv said, watching the nurse’s face for the slightest twitch of a professional lie. ‘I mean, there’s nothing I should avoid — going on a plane or scuba diving, for example?’

  The nurse glanced at the priest and shrugged. ‘You do what you like.’

  ‘Thank you,’ Liv said, the words coming out like a sigh of relief.

  ‘Not a problem. Anything else?’

  ‘Yes, there is one more thing,’ Liv said, throwing the sheet off to reveal she was fully clothed. ‘I’d like to discharge myself — immediately.’

  Liv had already grabbed a bag from the floor and was halfway to the door when Ulvi’s brain caught up with what was happening. Instinctively he moved to step in front of her, but she side-stepped him and squeezed through the open door.

  Outside in the corridor the police officer rose from his seat and stepped towards her. ‘Back in your room.’

  ‘Why?’ Liv said, looking calmly up into his face.

  ‘Because… you’re not well.’

  ‘That’s not what the nurse just said.’ Liv glanced over her shoulder to where the nurse now stood. ‘And I’m not under arrest, am I?’

  The cop opened his mouth to say something then seemed to think better of it. ‘No,’ he said.

  Liv smiled and cocked her head to one side. ‘So would you step aside, please.’

  He looked down at her, an internal debate raging in his head. He came to a conclusion and stepped aside.

  ‘You must stay here,’ the priest said, his words sounding like an order.

  ‘No,’ Liv said, already walking away. ‘I really mustn’t.’

  She swung her bag over her shoulder and marched quickly away in the same direction she had heard the nurse arriving from.

  Ulvi watched her go, weighing up his options. If he followed her now he could shadow her, wait until she was far away from the crowds, in a hotel room maybe: isolated; unobserved. It was tempting. But the other two targets were still here which meant so was the bulk of his mission.

  He watched Liv reach the junction in the corridor and disappear round it.

  In his mind he played back the events that had just taken place in the room, slowing them down, analysing them, then smiled as he remembered something Liv had said to the nurse.

  She had asked if it was safe to fly.

  He didn’t need to follow her after all. He knew exactly where she was going. He hoped there were other agents in the field with him. His loss would be their gain. He pulled his phone from his pocket and carefully tapped out a text to his controller.

  21

  Kathryn Mann had heard the voices outside, but her damaged hearing had not allowed her to hear who was speaking or what they were saying. Whoever it was had gone away now and she listened to the silence until she thought it safe to retrieve the book from her feeble hiding place.

  The pages whispered in the silence of the room, like hints
of the secrets they kept. She slipped her reading glasses down from her hair, bringing the first page into focus. Please forgive the elaborate form of this message, but you will see why I took pains to ensure only you might discover it. The text I have transcribed here is a copy of something I received several years ago. The origin of it, and the means by which it came to me, are the reasons I kept it from you all these years. I know we never had secrets. Let me explain why this remained the only one I ever kept from you, then hopefully you will understand why I sought to keep it so. The original tablet that contained this message is lost. The only reason I know of its existence is because a photograph was sent to me from an anonymous source a few months after John was killed. On the back of the photograph was a handwritten note saying simply: This is what we found. This is why we were killed. How the person that sent it knew of my existence I have often pondered. Maybe John confided in them, or left it for someone to pass on to me in the event of his death, the same way I am now communicating it to you. I believe whoever sent it to me chose me deliberately because of my peculiar past. I was already dead in the eyes of the Citadel and so passing this dangerous knowledge to me would not put me at any risk. Even the vengeful Citadel would not seek to kill a man who was already dead. Know that I often debated whether to share this information with you. I hated keeping a secret from you, but in the end I erred on the side of caution. If John was killed because he discovered this tablet then even a suspicion that you knew anything about it would place your life in danger. I knew that you would inevitably pass it on to Gabriel. So you see my dilemma. My desire to share this knowledge, weighed against the risk it might pose to the two people I hold most dear in the world. How could I take that risk? I couldn’t — I didn’t. But now I sense the endgame is near. I return to Ruin in the hope that the words of this second prophecy will show us the way after the first has been fulfilled. And if for some reason I cannot pass this on to you personally, then I am writing it here so you may discover it for yourself. If you are reading this then I am dead…