Gabriel saw the concern on the man’s face. “What have you got in mind?”
Once the others were packed, they all followed Abeja down to an old wooden garage at the back of his house. It was filled with ancient beekeeping equipment and crates of honey, ready to be shipped. In the middle sat a large vehicle of some sort under a dusty, black tarpaulin.
“This is the best way,” Abeja said. He whipped away the sheet to reveal a grubby, blue camper van. “I have had this since I was a young man,” he said. “I used to make lots of deliveries.”
“That would explain the … decoration.” Adam pointed to the large, flaking painting of a beehive on the side of the van and at the huge plastic bee on the roof, just above the windscreen.
Abeja nodded. “The engine is still good. It will get you to Seville. I have no real use for it any more.”
Rachel saw the sadness in his eyes as he spoke and remembered what he had told them the night before about the bees dying out. She wondered how much he had suffered financially; how much longer he would be able to stay in business. She walked across and slipped an arm through his. “Thank you,” she said.
He seemed to brighten up suddenly. “You are more than welcome.” He pointed at the van. “It’s not exactly inconspicuous … but it’s the best way.”
“Who’s going to drive?” Adam asked.
Duncan’s arm shot into the air. “I don’t think so,” Gabriel said.
The French boys were muttering to each other, and after a few moments Jean-Luc spoke up. “We can drive,” he said. “We can take it in turns.”
“What are you? Sixteen?” Adam asked. “That the legal age in France?”
Jean-Luc shrugged. “Legal, illegal, what’s the difference? We are good drivers.”
Gabriel nodded and the children started loading up their stuff and clambering into the camper van. As they bickered about who was going to sit where, Abeja hurried back to the house, insisting that his mother would want to see them off. When the two of them returned, there were tearful goodbyes: Morag sobbing her heart out as the old woman hugged her and stroked her hair; Rachel fighting to control the quiver in her lip as she thanked Abeja once again. Even Adam had a lump in his throat as the camper van pulled out on to the side street that led back to the main road, and everyone craned their necks to wave goodbye to the beekeeper and his mother.
“Which way?” Jean-Luc asked. He was taking first turn at the wheel.
Gabriel began unfolding the large map that Señor Abeja had given him, then stopped when Duncan cleared his throat in the seat behind him.
Morag leant forward and tapped Gabriel on the shoulder. “We don’t need a map.”
“Head for the Paseo de Santa María de la Cabeza,” Duncan said. “After half a kilometre, take the exit towards Toledo, then two kilometres after that, turn on to the A-42. Exactly the same distance later, turn on to the service road and take exit six towards the M-40, then…”
Adam, Rachel and Morag were starting to giggle. Jean-Luc held up a hand. He waited for Duncan to stop, then leant towards the dashboard and began fiddling with the old radio to try and find some music.
“Just tell me where to turn,” he said.
Two hours later, they were making good progress along the main motorway that twisted through Andalucia. The road was busy, and the landscape grew greener and more hilly as they went, becoming warmer and bathed in honey-coloured light as the sun began to drop in the late afternoon sky. On the back seat, Rachel gazed out of the window and let her mind wander; her thoughts dancing to the rhythm of the engine’s incessant sputter. Voices echoed in her head, blending into one another like a twisted tape-loop.
Her mother. Abeja. Gabriel.
I’m fine, though, baby. I promise.
You have a great responsibility.
Are you ready to fight?
It was quiet in the van. Bar the odd snippet of conversation, nobody had said much once they had negotiated their way out of Madrid and into open country. Rachel had been especially struck by how quiet Morag was. She sensed enormous apprehension radiating from the two youngest, and wondered if this was the longest time they had spent in any vehicle since that fateful journey with their parents five years before. Rachel knew that, if she looked hard enough, she would be able to see the pictures in the minds of Morag and Duncan, but it would have felt invasive, somehow. If she was right, she knew what they would be thinking.
Dark water and green weed, and the lights of a car tumbling down into the depths. The silent screams for help.
Adam had tried to generate a little enjoyment. He’d told them about the games that he and Rachel had played during long drives with their parents. The silly quizzes and competitions on road trips from New York to Connecticut or down the East Coast. “See who can spot the most cars of a particular colour, like blue and red. First one to get ten red and ten blue cars is the winner, OK?”
“What do we win?” Morag had asked unenthusiastically.
“It’s just for fun,” Adam had said. “Remember, fun?”
Adam had started counting the cars out loud, but had given up when nobody had seemed willing to join in and Morag had lain down across the seat. Half an hour later, when Adam had been dropping off himself, Duncan had suddenly begun talking. “We’ve passed seventeen blue cars and fourteen red ones, and that includes lorries and coaches. There were thirty-six other vehicles of assorted colours – the most common of which was white.” It had been when he had began reciting the individual number plates that Adam had announced he was the winner and undisputed champion. That had been the last time anyone had spoken.
Rachel must have drifted off to sleep. When she opened her eyes she was cold and the sky was full of stars. They were driving along an unlit, deserted road. Jean-Bernard was now at the wheel, and with the van’s interior in virtual darkness, she could not be sure if anyone else was awake. Then she heard Adam sigh, and up front, Jean-Luc whispered something to his brother.
“Where are we?” Rachel asked sleepily. “Are we lost?”
In front of her, Gabriel raised an arm and pointed. “Follow that,” he said.
“Follow what?” Jean-Bernard asked.
“The star…”
Jean-Bernard peered up through the windscreen and Rachel leant forward to do the same. One star was far brighter than the rest and, as she watched it, it seemed to drift a little. She closed her eyes for a few seconds and looked again. Jean-Bernard began shaking his head and muttering in French.
Adam nudged her. “Bit early for Christmas, isn’t it?”
“Follow it!” Gabriel said. “It’s not far now.”
Rachel looked out of the window but could see nothing. Not far to what? she thought.
The Englishman stared at the screen on his laptop. He reread the email from one of his followers, followed the link to El Telegrafo website and studied the news story from the local paper. The picture showed that the car involved in the accident had been badly damaged, but the report made it clear that nobody had been hurt.
A shame. That would have saved him a lot of trouble.
The sender went on to detail the children’s movements for the rest of their stay in the city, such as he had been able to piece together. It was all a little late now, of course, but the Englishman had not expected it to be easy.
He remembered how close he had been on the Métro in Paris. The look on the face of the boy with the green eyes. The defiance, even after he had been warned…
He glanced at the bottle of painkillers on the desk. The agony was almost unbearable in the evenings, but he left the bottle unopened. There were times when the pain was useful. It reminded him of what had been done and it helped take his mind off minor disappointments.
So he had missed the Newmans in Madrid; he would pick up their trail quickly enough. His followers were growing in numbers and the more there were, the harder they would be to avoid. Once he had put the word out, they would deal with the interfering Spaniard.
There would always be those who tried to help these children; to offer them protection. They were foolish, of course, and the Englishman would make it his mission to put them right. They would be made to pay.
An hour and a half later, the camper van began rattling across a track that felt as though no vehicle had travelled on it for a long time. The wheels tossed stones up against the underside of the van as it bumped and lurched. Staring out of the windows, Rachel could still see nothing beyond a sea of blackness, a jagged line of mountains silhouetted against a dark grey sky and the solitary star.
They hadn’t seen a single sign of life for many kilometres.
It was getting colder inside the van. Morag and Duncan were huddling together and Adam had wrapped a jacket round his shoulders. Rachel could see Jean-Bernard shiver as he leant forward, straining to see past the camper van’s headlights, to catch a glimpse of what lay ahead of the weak, milky beams.
On Gabriel’s instruction, he had slowed the van to a crawl. The engine spluttered, as though it might die any second. Rachel was on the verge of asking where the hell they were going, when Gabriel turned round and smiled, reading her thoughts.
“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.
“But … 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.
&nb
sp; 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?
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