Equinox

by Michael White

  'The middle one,' Laura said confidently, and they followed a narrow passageway just wide enough for Philip to pass through without his shoulders grazing the walls. It sloped downhill, and at the far end they emerged into a circular room with a domed ceiling. Placed evenly at six points around the room were six archways. To the left of each they found the usual discs. Each disc contained a different symbol representing the planets listed in the incantation. The opening labelled with the symbol for Venus was second to their left.

  Philip took off the rucksack and passed the water bottle to Laura. As she drank, he checked his watch. It was 10.43. He unzipped another pocket in the bag and tried his mobile.

  'No signal, of course,' he said and stuffed it back inside.

  Laura checked hers. 'Ditto. Not a great surprise. There must be — what? Eighty, ninety feet of rock over our heads?'

  Philip shouldered his rucksack. 'OK?' he asked.

  Laura nodded.

  'Ever onward, then.'

  The corridor was extremely narrow at first. Philip had to take off the rucksack again and his elbows scraped painfully against the jagged rock face. But after about ten yards the passage widened and there was enough room for them to walk side by side.

  Here the crystal lights were more densely clustered along the ceiling, and the tunnel was much brighter than the others had been. They quickened their pace. Immediately ahead they could see an archway leading to another chamber. Philip stopped abruptly and peered down at the ground. Laura was a few yards behind and she could see him looking at something on the dirt floor. He began to walk slowly forward, half crouching to the ground while studying the marks. 'Hey, look,' he called back to her. 'Some writing in English. It says. .'

  Laura heard the swishing sound before she saw anything move. It seemed to be coming from inside the wall to their right. Then came three more thuds. Something hit Philip and two other speeding objects flashed past him and struck the wall to their left. He fell to the floor and the sounds stopped immediately. Laura dived to the ground and crawled along until she reached him. 'You OK?'

  'I think so. What the hell happened?'

  On the floor to his left Philip could see two shattered arrows, each one just a few inches long. Two more were stuck in his rucksack. 'Stay low,' he hissed, as they crawled slowly towards the opening.

  On the other side of the archway Philip sat up slowly and pulled out one of the arrows. 'That could have been a bit nasty,' he said and threw it to one side.

  'Looks like that rucksack saved your life.' Laura examined the sharp tips of the other arrows. 'What were you looking at on the floor?'

  'Some words in English. In gold letters: "Only the pure may pass.'"

  Laura stared into his eyes and was about to say something when they both felt rather than heard a low rumble. For several long seconds the walls seemed to vibrate. They scrambled to the far wall, clutching at each other. Dust fell from the ceiling and powdered their hair. Before the sound died completely they felt a wave of air rush past them, and it seemed as though every molecule of oxygen was being sucked from the room. A massive block of stone crashed down from the lintel of the archway, landing squarely with a thump on the dusty floor. They were sealed in.

  Chapter 41

  Oxford: 30 March, 10.38 p.m.

  Monroe looked at the clock on the wall of his office and watched the seconds click by. He had just sent out a dozen officers to three different locations in Oxford to try to track down Malcolm Bridges — his tiny flat on Iffley Road, Lightman's house in Park Town in the north of the city, and his office at the Psychology Department. He had little hope that the man would be found at any of them.

  So, Bridges had been at the scene of the second murder. He had no watertight alibi for the time of that murder, but he did have one for the first, which meant that he had to be working with someone. But to Monroe this instinctively felt wrong; and besides, there was absolutely no evidence to support the idea.

  So what was the situation? Another murder, four separate incidents, six dead kids, and what did he know for sure? Bridges was involved somehow, but couldn't have been working alone, and another

  murder was due to be committed tonight, just after midnight. How would he be able to stop that unless he had Bridges? And, even then, would the man's arrest stop the killing? Rubbing his eyes, Monroe suddenly felt incredibly tired.

  The phone rang. 'Monroe,' he said wearily.

  'It's Howard.'

  'I hope you have some good news for me.'

  'Well, I do have some news,' Smales replied. 'But I don't really know what to make of it. It's just, well, the sample has thrown up a. . how shall I put it? A rather sensitive ID.'

  Chapter 42

  Oxford: 30 March, 10.43 p.m.

  Laura and Philip were in total darkness. There were no crystals in the low ceiling of this chamber, and when the stone had crashed down it had blocked out the meagre light that had penetrated from the corridor. Philip swung his rucksack off his shoulder and found the main zipper. Slipping his hand inside, he felt around for the torches. He flicked them on in the bag and pulled them out, handing one to Laura. They both sat back against the wall and trained the spots of light around the room. Then Philip stood up and went to inspect the place where until a few seconds earlier the doorway had been. He ran his torch's beam over the smooth rock surface. In this light he could see no trace of a join. The stone block must have fitted almost perfectly.

  Laura walked over to the far wall and ran her torch beam over the surface, then across the floor and

  ceiling. The room was no more than twelve feet square and the ceiling was very low. She wondered suddenly if they might run out of air. And then, with a jolt, she spotted an anomaly in the otherwise smooth rock. It was an inscription, the now familiar phrase: ALUMNUS AMAS SEMPER UNICUM TUA DEUS.

  'Philip, look.' She bent down to examine the markings more closely, feeling the letters with the tips of her fingers. The words were made of metal, raised a millimetre or two above the surface of the rock. As she touched them they sank into the wall, springing back when she removed her fingers.

  'Curiouser and curiouser,' Laura said.

  Philip pushed a few of the letters and watched them rise up again. 'Do you think it's some sort of lock, a combination lock?' he mused. 'If we get the right sequence maybe we can find a way out.'

  'I bloody well hope so,' Laura replied grimly. 'But how on earth can we figure out the combination? We can't guess — there are literally billions of possibilities.'

  'Well, no, obviously we can't just take a guess. The words must have some hidden meaning. "Adept, Love Always Thy God" must have something to do with it.'

  Laura pinched the bridge of her nose and closed her eyes. When she opened them again her eyes were bloodshot and Philip realised how hard she had been pushing herself.

  'OK, we have to figure something out. How long before we suffocate?' Laura asked.

  'I thought the same thing the moment the stone came down,' Philip replied. 'Did you feel the air rush out? I reckon we could last hours in here if that hadn't happened. But, to be honest, I feel the air is getting pretty thin already'

  'I do too.'

  'We have to try to slow our breathing and stay calm. The last thing you want is to increase your heart rate.' He looked round at Laura; he thought she looked pretty frayed.

  'I am calm,' snapped Laura. 'OK, let's concentrate on this darn inscription.'

  Methodically, she tried a series of different combinations. Nothing worked. Suddenly she felt a tightening in her chest, and before she knew what she was doing she was punching viciously at the metal. 'Damn you!'

  Philip was next to her in a second and pulled her hands away from the letters before she could injure herself. Laura collapsed into his arms, sobbing. He held her to him and kissed her gently on the cheek. He could feel her shaking and knew that he had to let her get it out of her system. After a few moments, he guided her to the wall close to the sealed doorway and lowered her
to the floor before sitting down next to her.

  'We're not going to get out of this one, are we?' she sobbed.

  'Of course we are, you daft-'

  'Philip … the air is going. It's going, I can feel

  it.'

  He couldn't deny it. In just the past minute or two, the air seemed to have grown much thinner and he was finding it harder to draw breath. He pulled her closer.

  They were quiet for a moment. Laura stopped sobbing but kept her head close to Philip's chest. 'I really am sorry, you know,' she added quietly.

  'Sorry for what?' he replied, but he knew exactly what she was referring to.

  'You know what I'm talking about, Philip. I don't need to spell it out, not to you.'

  He said nothing.

  Laura pulled her head away from his shoulder. 'I … I just thought it was the right thing to do at the time. I didn't think we had a future. I was wrong. I should have stayed. I should have married you.'

  Philip suddenly felt lost. For days the two of them had been preoccupied with solving the mystery of the killings and then they had been put through the wringer here in this stinking hole under the Bodleian Library. But it took no time at all for the old emotions to come flooding back. For almost twenty years he had tried to bottle them up, and for the most part, he told himself, he had succeeded. But every time Laura had come back to England or he had gone to New York the same old wounds had reopened. He hated it — but then, he simply could not go through life without seeing Laura and Jo whenever possible. For a moment, he was lost for words. What could he say?

  He studied Laura's face. In the sparse torchlight he could see the streaks of her tears. They had made her mascara run. Then, suddenly, her mouth was on his and he could feel her melt into him, feel her hair brushing his cheek, feel her warmth, her familiarity. He had missed that so much. Then, all too quickly, she pulled away and they looked into each other's eyes.

  'What. .?' he asked.

  'I just wanted to steal your air.'

  Philip laughed. 'You're welcome, Laura.'

  She put a finger to his lips and smiled. Then she leaned forward to kiss him again.

  A second later she yelped, her lips still fixed to Philip's. 'That's it.'

  Without saying another word, Laura walked over to the far wall, crouched down and began to stab at the letters. She hit five of them, her hand moving quickly from left to right until she reached the 'M' in 'UNICUM'. She drew her hand back and punched at the letter with a grandiose gesture. Philip couldn't suppress a small laugh.

  For long, agonising moments they waited. Then there was the faintest squeak followed by another creaking sound in the wall perpendicular to the original opening. A few nervous heartbeats later, the first crack began to appear in the wall and gradually two huge slabs of rock started to slide upwards into recesses in the ceiling. Philip grabbed the rucksack and they scrambled through the new doorway as quickly as they could.

  Chapter 43

  Oxford: 30 March, 10.45 p.m.

  Just as Monroe put down the receiver there was a knock at his door. He was so amazed by what he had just heard that for a few seconds he could barely focus on the bulky form of PC Steve Greene as he walked up to his desk.

  'Sir, this arrived about an hour ago. Chatwin apologises … he forgot about it. . busy night … he just gave me it… Courier dropped it in, apparently'

  On the front was typed: DCI Monroe, Oxford Police Station . Below that was the word URGENT, written in red capitals. Seeing this, Monroe sighed and shook his head. Then he ripped open the envelope. Inside was a single sheet of paper. He glanced quickly at the illustration showing a complex array of interlocking lines like the schematic for a complex electrical current. Beside this was a jumble of Latin words and bizarre-looking symbols. He began to read the message written in English at the top of the sheet.

  Chapter 44

  Oxford: 30 March, 11.10 p.m.

  They stood in the corridor, bent almost double with their hands on their knees, trying to breathe normally again.

  'How did you do that?' panted Philip.

  'It was obvious really. . Gold.'

  'You may have to be a bit more precise.'

  '"Aurum", the Latin word for gold. It was spelled in the Guardian's mysterious statement. ALUMNUS AMAS SEMPER UNICUM TUA DEUS. A and U in "ALUMNUS", R in "SEMPER", U and M in "UNICUM".'

  'You're a genius, Laura,' Philip said.

  'I know'

  'And it's nice to know that your mind was on the job back there.'

  'I'm a woman, Philip, I multi-task,' she replied, with a grin.

  Ahead of them, some twenty yards away, stood a door. It was slightly ajar and light spilled out into the corridor.

  Reaching the wall to one side of the opening, they peeped inside.

  The room was lit by a cluster of candles in a chandelier that hung from the centre of a domed ceiling. At the far end stood a huge gold pentagram. It was at least seven feet across and rested on a platform a short way from the far wall. To the right of the pentagram Laura could see a glass door set into the wall. It looked like a huge refrigerator, the glass opaque with ice.

  Two men stood close to the pentagram. They were wearing long black robes, their hoods thrown back. The man to the right was leaning forward, making adjustments to the metal structure.

  Laura was about to turn to whisper something to Philip when the torch that she had been holding suddenly slipped from her grasp. It clanged across the floor. She stepped back quickly and cursed under her breath.

  'Laura, I'm so pleased you could join us,' came a familiar voice from the chamber.

  She felt a jolt of horror pass through her, a definite physical reaction, immediate and powerful. She turned to Philip, who looked stunned. Closing her eyes, Laura felt the pain of realisation sweep through her. Philip thought she was going to cry, but instead she turned on her heel and walked into the chamber.

  James Lightman looked ridiculously relaxed, as though they were meeting in the drawing room of his house or at a tea shop on The High. He stood with his hands clasped in front of him and appeared to be filled with self-confidence and energy. His intense brown eyes glinted in the candlelight. Beside him stood Malcolm Bridges, his eyes expressionless. The shadows that fell across the young man's face made him look like the Grim Reaper.

  'You've arrived at a most auspicious time,' Lightman said.

  Laura felt sick to her stomach. 'What the hell is this?' she demanded, her face flushing. 'How could you. .?'

  With a hint of a smile, Lightman said: 'Surely you suspected, Laura? With your vivid imagination?'

  'I could have believed it of him ' She glared at Bridges who returned the look with blank eyes. 'But you, James? Why on earth?'

  'Why on earth would I want eternal life, Laura? Now, let me think.'

  'But occult rituals. .?'

  'It would be a dull world, would it not, if we all believed in the same things? But come. . enough. I must congratulate you both on passing the tests of the Guardians. Few have ever managed it. I would have been keen to see the document that you used to guide you, but I no longer need such things. My task will soon be complete.' He gestured towards the Pentagram.

  'As you know from your intrepid investigations, this evening the final organ will be in my possession and the real work will then begin. The final piece will soon be here.'

  Laura was about to say something, but Lightman raised his hand. 'I'm sure what you have to say is very important, Laura my dear, but please, let me just finish what I was starting to explain. I think you'll consider it of value. You see, the two of you' — he glanced briefly at Philip — 'will never again see the light of day. It is impossible to retrace your steps through the tunnels of the Guardians and there is only one other way out. That is the route that takes us from here to the library, and only I have the map.' He tapped his breast.

  'The route created by John Milliner,' said Laura.

  'My predecessor in more ways than one.'

&nb
sp; Laura looked puzzled.

  'Ah, another piece of the jigsaw puzzle that the two of you missed,' Lightman said. 'John Milliner was not just a Professor of Medicine at the University, he was also Chief Librarian. The Chief Librarians of the Bodleian have been leaders of my order, the Order of the Black Sphinx, for at least a dozen generations. Each of us has added something to the vast network of tunnels beneath the library. Building work stopped a long, long time ago, but we have each added decorations or some other refinement. My contribution has been this ingenious refrigeration unit.'

  'And I suppose he's been your executioner.' Laura nodded towards Bridges.

  'Oh no, my clever Laura,' Lightman said. 'I'm afraid that there you are quite wrong. Malcolm here has many talents, but he is not your killer. That is the responsibility of another young colleague. He has used many aliases over the years, but the university authorities knew him as Julius Spenser. Officially, he's a high-flying psychologist who is now working in America. At least, that's what the police know of him. I'm afraid poor old DCI Monroe has been less than inspired in his efforts of late. . But as it happens, dear girl, there is something I would like to explain about my colleague.'

  Lightman took a step back and pulled a revolver from under his robe. Pointing it directly at Bridges, he said coldly: 'Malcolm, maybe you could tell us something about your role in all this.'

  The room was as still and silent as a mausoleum. Situated as they were, some hundred feet beneath the Bodleian Library, all the usual sounds of the everyday world were excluded: the rumble of traffic, the noise of people — all these things had been left on the surface. The four of them could have been transported back in time. Ignoring Lightman's refrigeration unit, they might have been standing in this room when Milliner was surveying it for the first time, or when Newton was studying an entirely different set of human organs.