by David Gilman
It’s a chateau, Bobby Morrell had told him. Well, it wasn’t as fancy a building as Max had imagined. It was unfussy, stark and surrounded by this fortification. It was more like a state-built monolith. The moon cast a sallow glow across the landscape and then disappeared as clouds tumbled across it.
There were no grounds to speak of, as beyond the wild bushes and defensive wire the scenery was scooped out and shaped into a golf course. Distant low-level security lights from the clubhouse helped illuminate some of the undulating land. It seemed as though the chateau’s owners had sold off whatever they had owned and retreated behind the grassy embankments that surrounded the house. Max stood in the eerie shadows. An iron gate barred the way. The only sound was the surf crashing a few hundred meters away.
Max’s fingers traced the gate’s framework, hoping to find a bell. His hand brushed a thick chain and then found the padlock binding the gate closed. As he reached through, someone grabbed his arm and yanked him forward, banging his head against the bars. No time even to cry out! Something sharp pressed under his chin. A cloud shifted away from the moon; light glinted on a broad-bladed kitchen knife that now stung his skin. Blood trickled down his neck. He gagged. He was held fast, unable to move. A leathery face pressed against the bars, eyes narrowed in suspicion. An old woman, her twisted hair covering her features. Moonlight. Clouds. The image of a witch.
Her rasping voice hissed in his ear. “I told you, there’s nothing more! Nothing!”
Then, as if from heaven, lights flared. A figure ran, blurred by the powerful beams. Max could only see out of the corner of his eye; the woman still had him jammed into the railings. Then a familiar voice. Bobby Morrell.
“It’s OK! He’s my friend I told you about! Comtesse! Let him go!”
The grip loosened; the blade pulled back. Max pushed away from the gate and held a hand up to his eyes to ease the glare. Bobby reached the other side of the gate and stood next to a strong-looking woman. She was short and bony; thick, unkempt gray hair fell down to her shoulders. She wore what looked to be a kaftan, or a nightdress. Max couldn’t tell. In truth, he didn’t care. He looked at the dribble of blood on his fingers from the nick. The old woman turned on her heel and merged into the light.
Max felt Sophie at his shoulder. She glanced at the bloodied fingers. He shook his head. It was nothing.
Bobby opened the gate. “Sorry, pal. It’s Gran, she gets a bit confused at times.”
Max and Sophie stepped into the chateau’s courtyard, the chain rattled through the iron bars and the padlock snapped closed.
“Truth is,” Bobby said as he tested the chain, “she’s as crazy as a loon. Definitely one sandwich short of a picnic.”
“And you let her out?” Max said.
“Only when there’s a full moon.”
Max noticed that Bobby didn’t smile when he said that.
Max shuddered. It felt as though he were being ushered into a prison.
Or a lunatic asylum.
8
The kill, when it came, would be swift, silent and merciful. The victim would feel a searing, numbing pain from his neck, down through his chest, into his heart and lungs; splintering ribs, puncturing vital organs. The cold shaft piercing his body from the sky would stifle any cry of pain.
The hunter’s name was Fedir Tishenko-Fedir meaning “a gift from God.” His Slavic mother, Olha, had cherished him; she had desired a child for many years and God had finally blessed her. She worshipped her son as much as she feared his father, Evgan. Fedir would soon learn to share her fear. His father was a warlord. Barbaric, cruel and powerful, he ruled clans across three Slavic countries. Despite national boundaries, there existed stronger tribal loyalties, forged in blood. This was a society closed to anyone who had not taken the same oath.
Fedir was raised to be his father’s son, a life of violence unfolding rapidly. Evgan groomed him for succession by teaching him endurance, the fighting skills of a warrior, the cunning of a predator and the ability to withstand pain. Fear, he had told him, must always lie in the other man’s heart. A man born to rule must scythe dissent as the wind gods destroy the wheatfields. Appease the gods, worship the ruler-or die. Evgan and his men reveled in their reputation for causing havoc.
Ancient folklore told of men from the northern Neuri tribe who could transform themselves into wolves. These dread legends were kept alive by peasants and villagers during their festivals, when men known as vucari, or “wolf men,” hid their faces behind wolf masks.
And the threat of the real vucari was the power behind Evgan and his clansmen.
The gods and spirits of the mountains were one thing Fedir’s parents agreed on. His mother nurtured Fedir’s respect for ancient ways. Steeped in mythology, the Slavs worshipped pagan gods, and one day a terrifying event confirmed all her beliefs. It was the day men came to fear the son more than the father.
When Fedir was twelve years old, he returned home from the village school to find his mother lying beaten on the floor. A storm raged outside, one of the worst in living memory. Fedir confined the chaos within himself until his mother was comforted. Then, stepping back into the malevolent tempest, he set out to kill his father. Evgan had always expected that one day his son would challenge his authority and leadership-but not this soon. He watched the boy climb the steep hill towards him, saw the strength in his legs and the power of his shoulders. He could almost smell the stench of hatred from his son. It made no difference though, he was just a boy. Time for another beating.
Fedir charged his father. The man cuffed him aside; Fedir went down, blood trickling from his nose. But the power to avenge his mother for the constant fear and pain his father had inflicted upon them surged him back into the fight. He landed a blow, catching the man off guard, and then another. His father laughed and struck him again.
The clansmen jeered. This pup of a boy tackling an old fighter like his father! Why, they’d seen their leader kill men with his bare hands, men three, no, four times the boy’s strength. Alcohol fueled their chanting. The boy just wouldn’t stay down. He was battered, the rain-lashed wind washing his wounds. Fedir spat blood-clotted phlegm. But still his hatred drove him on.
With sudden sleight of hand he pulled a knife from a man’s belt.
The men hushed. A knife fight. The boy’s father knew this was a skill the boy had learned well, taught by the master. Himself.
If he did not end it now the boy would come at him every day of his life. Even he had to sleep. It had to be finished. He unsheathed his own knife.
“I shall take you from this life, boy! I gave it! I shall take it! Last chance!” his father shouted above the howling wind.
A thunderclap smashed down the hillside. The shock wave pulled at his father’s clothing; the men ducked as if a mighty hand had knocked them down. But Fedir did not flinch. He lunged. His father twisted, blocked the attack, smashed the blade from the boy’s hand with a savage, bone-breaking strike.
The men heard it. The snap. But the boy did not cry out as he sank to his knees. Pain sucked the strength out of him, rushing like water from a burst dam. He looked up into the swirling sky. Dust, leaves and debris danced in a whirling mockery of his failure. He felt his father grab a handful of his hair. The knife ready to strike, as if for a sacrifice.
Time froze. The men were transfixed. The knife swooped down. The boy screamed.
“Perun! Save me!”
The clansmen swore for the rest of their lives that the moment the boy cried out to the god of lightning, thunder tore through the blackened clouds, wrenched them apart and threw a spear of lightning down into their leader.
The explosion flattened them all. The sky fire scorched the earth and the thunderclap deafened them. The charred remains of Evgan lay twisted in the blackened hole where the bolt had struck. The corpse smoldered, unrecognizable. A few meters away Fedir’s blast-thrown body was scorched from head to toe.
But he was alive.
It took two years for the herb
s and medicines to restore his strength. His mother took control of the clans, honored by the men for bearing an indestructible son. And the boy’s legend, like his strength, grew stronger every day. What did not change was his scarred body. The lightning had burned off his scalp and withered his skin like a reptile’s, crinkled with a scalelike texture. His mother had ordered that a wolf be slain and skinned. Its skull cap, still moist with blood, was pulled onto her son’s face to try to heal the raw skin.
When it came time to remove the wolf’s pelt, part of the membrane had grafted onto one side of Fedir’s face, giving it a partial covering of fur.
Fedir wore his disfigurement like a badge of honor. If anyone averted their eyes in repulsion, they learned the harsh reality of his cold, unyielding will.
Death was a given if Fedir Tishenko was displeased.
From the age of sixteen he began a reign that changed the face of Eastern Europe. No one stood in his way. His single-minded determination destroyed enemies and rewarded friends. An empire was built-Perun Industries. The company logo, a white on black, disruptive, scattered pattern, did not symbolize anything obvious to a casual onlooker, but to those who knew, it was chain lightning-in honor of his savior, the lightning god.
The land Fedir ruled harbored deep treasures of energy beneath the surface-oil and natural gas deposits that gave him wealth and even greater power. By the time he was twenty-five years old he was one of the richest men in the world. He influenced stock markets and had politicians and governments at his beck and call. He sought no publicity, he bought no football teams, he became as mysterious as the legend surrounding him. And when he was thirty-one years and one day old, he sold everything to the powers that be.
And disappeared.
That was five years ago.
Now he hunted in the silence of the night. It was his creed to calmly punish disloyalty and incompetence. Lessons had to be taught so that others would learn. This boy he hunted had made a grave error. In a town near where Zabala had lived, the boy had got drunk and spoken about the smuggled animals. Tishenko’s new private world, this mountain kingdom, could have been compromised. There was only one punishment.
The sounds of Tishenko’s hunting wolves were far behind the boy. His strength gave him confidence as he ran across the hard-packed snowfield. He would outrun them, he was certain of it. He knew the landscape, and where the glacier crept down the mountain pass, there was a way up the side of the ice. The wolves could never follow him.
Tishenko could see his victim’s plumed breath, watched as the boy kept looking over his shoulder, perhaps unable to believe his good luck that he was not being pursued, that the deadline for escape had been achieved, that he might live. Freedom beckoned. That was the most wonderful gift for a frightened mind-hope. But he had failed to look into the night sky behind him.
Tishenko eased the black-winged paraglider into position.
Moon glow sprinkled the snow. Tishenko’s muscles tightened, his breathing steady as he watched his fractured shadow steal up behind the boy, who had only seconds to live.
The specially made titanium hunting bow needed strength and skill to draw, hold the target and release the arrow to kill effectively. Tishenko did not wish to cause undue suffering. Fear was torment enough.
With barely a whisper through the air, his darkened wings made him a creature of the night, gliding between moon and victim. A hurried sigh and the broadhead-tipped arrow flew in the night air and plunged into the running target.
The boy dropped instantly, prone, arms outstretched, without any conscious thought of what had struck him. A puddle of blood darkened in the cream-tinted snow. Death took only seconds. His last sensation was feeling the rough, wet crystals against his face and being drawn down into the cold, embracing ground.
The wolves would pick up the blood scent. The body would be devoured. Tishenko knew others would need watching before his plan to harness the most powerful force in nature could be completed. When that was done, a new order would be created out of the destruction.
As Tishenko turned the paraglider across the desolate but hauntingly beautiful snowfields for the place that was now his home, deep inside the Swiss Alps, a raven flew across the face of the moon. Ravens do not fly at night, nor should they cross such desolate areas.
It was an omen. Of something unexpected.
The boy, Max Gordon?
Time would tell.
Like a dark angel, Fedir Tishenko drifted beyond the killing ground.
Max’s room in the chateau was basic. An old iron bedstead, a worn mattress, a duvet, bare floors and hand-painted wooden shutters across drafty windows. A spindle-backed chair served as a clotheshorse. Almost like home, he thought. He had wrapped the duvet around him: this was his first opportunity to have a proper look at the newspaper cuttings he had taken from Zabala’s scrapbook. With little help from the bare, forty-watt lightbulb, he scrutinized the French reports, getting his brain to think in the other language.
Twenty-three years ago Zabala had caused a furor by claiming that a catastrophic event was going to take place in southeastern Europe. He had, it seemed, little evidence that pointed to a disaster. Everyone scoffed. Zabala was ridiculed, accused of dabbling in astrology, the predictive, unproven art, instead of keeping within the discipline of astronomy.
So that was what he was-an astronomer.
Zabala’s riposte to his critics was that in ancient times Egyptian, Greek and Persian cultures had embraced celestial attributes and associated them with major events in history. Zabala refused to disclose his research and insisted that Lucifer-
Max gasped. Zabala was talking about Lucifer all those years ago! The last word he said before he died. That moment of terror on the mountain persisted with startling clarity in his mind.
Lucifer would return, bringing cataclysmic destruction, Zabala had insisted in the newspaper. The journalists’ articles derided Zabala rather than offering any facts. Perhaps there were none to report. They didn’t even mention where he worked, so Max decided that the man had become something of a figure to poke fun at. However, Zabala insisted throughout that he would provide definite proof, that his research was not yet finalized, but that all the signs were there.
Signs? The newspapers scorned him.
It was getting late. Max clambered onto the bed and switched off the light. The old house creaked from the wind sneaking under its floorboards and rafters. Despair whispered through the run-down building. The shutters, edged in fuzzy half-light, pushed and pulled, moaning from the breeze.
Maybe this was all a wild-goose chase. An obsessed man, demented by a half-baked prediction, forcing himself from society into the mountains because of something that didn’t happen. He had turned his back on the world and become a reclusive monk. If Zabala had raised the alarm all those years ago, had been proved wrong because nothing happened, then from a rational point of view Max was getting caught up in an old man’s fantasy.
Max checked his thoughts. Someone had attacked, pursued and killed the elderly monk. That wasn’t a fantasy. Stark terror had strangled them both in the moment before Zabala’s death. But Max had hung on. Had done everything to save him, just as Zabala had done for him. Just as his dad would have done.
One of the articles made a final, sober statement. Zabala was nothing more than an unknown, publicity-seeking, third-rate scientist, possessed by the demon of failure. He had become a religious zealot who should carry a placard telling the world The End Is Nigh.
Max lay in the gloom. Someone padded barefoot along the corridor-candlelight seeped around the doorframe-paused, then moved on.
He slipped out of bed and put the chair under the door handle. A crazy woman with a knife had nearly cut his throat. He didn’t want her, or anyone else he was unaware of in this crazy place, coming back to make sure he was all tucked up for the night.
Sleep tugged at Max’s mind. He fingered the stone pendant and dismissed the whispers of doubt that plagued him about Zabala’s
sanity. The only way to find the killer was to have something he wanted badly enough. Zabala had found Lucifer’s secret and Lucifer had taken his revenge.
Max would find the secret.
And Lucifer would come for him.
9
The chateau was no less stark in daylight. Two huge balconies hung precariously from the art deco building. A turret that looked like a small bell tower peeked above the castellated roof terrace. The roof’s eaves were rotten and most of the big windows were boarded over. At the turn of the nineteenth century it had taken four hundred men twelve years to build an aristocrat’s dream. Its grim history of bad debt, misery and sadness had by now soaked into the neglected structure.
Max had slept badly: the mattress was lumpy, the room drafty and the ancient water pipes kept up a constant groaning. As he wandered through the corridors towards the voices and the smell of coffee and bacon, he noticed that there was barely any furniture anywhere. And when he finally reached the main living room, it looked more like a city squat than a French chateau. Bobby Morrell, his two surfing friends and Peaches sat with Sayid and Sophie. They lounged with plates of food on their laps on big, overstuffed chairs that looked as though they came from the Second World War. A big dining table, once beautifully polished but now scratched and burned by innumerable pots of hot tea being placed on its surface over the years, teetered on thin legs, supporting fresh bread, jars of honey, jam and marmalade. There were bacon, eggs, coffee, fruit-just about anything anyone could want to eat.
Peaches’s laughter, as always, threw light into the room, and Bobby nearly choked as he laughed with her.
“Hey, Max,” Bobby called. “Good sleep? Help yourself, pal. Look who’s here!”
“Hiya, Max!” Peaches said, giving a girly wave. She sat knee-hugging on the old sofa next to Bobby and Sophie.
Max nodded and smiled. Everyone seemed more interested in Sophie and Peaches than in his arrival in the room, as their chatter, fractured with gestures and shrieks, amused Bobby and his friends.