Simon Toyne - The Key

The room shifted as he slid a pillow from behind her head.

Her head lolled to one side and her gaze settled on the door. She was too weak to fight, or run, or even shout for help. She thought of Gabriel, and the pain of never seeing him again. She hoped he would come and find the diary, even if he was too late to save her. Her beautiful boy, so like his father.

Then, as if summoned by her need to see him once more — the door began to open.

Ulvi did not notice at first. He was focusing on the woman’s neck, deciding whether to smother her or just break it for speed.

‘Everything OK in here?’

He looked over and saw the cop.

Ulvi felt a surge of hatred. He had figured the idiot would be out of the way at least until the lights came on, but the damn irritating fool clearly wasn’t even up to sorting out that simple task.

‘All fine,’ he said, adjusting the pillow that had almost become a murder weapon.

The cop regarded him from the doorway, his scrutiny switching between the woman and him. ‘You checked on the monk?’

Ulvi’s hatred continued to simmer. ‘No, not yet.’

The cop nodded slowly as if the answer had revealed something. ‘Well then, maybe you should.’

Ulvi felt such a desire to slit the man’s throat it was almost unbearable, but in this room at least the policeman edged it on jurisdiction. The woman was under arrest and was therefore technically his charge. So he swallowed all the violent feelings he was experiencing and made his way out of the room without another word.

Outside, the corridor was still dark and he had to feel his way along the wall to where the monk’s room lay. He reached it and looked back. The cop was there, watching him. He could see his outline against the distant glow of light coming from the main building. Why had he picked tonight to turn into a proper policeman?

No matter.

The monk needed dealing with too. He would kill him quickly then go back and finish what he had started. And if the cop was there, then he would have to die too. With the girl gone, Ulvi had a spare bead in his pocket.

The fear that had flooded Kathryn when the priest had been in her room was now curdling inside her.

‘You OK?’ the cop asked, stepping in from the corridor and closing the door behind him.

She nodded, forcing a smile that was lost in the darkness.

With the meagre light from the corridor now absent, the room was almost black. Since her hearing had suffered in the blast Kathryn had noticed how her other senses had expanded to fill the gap. She could smell the cop as his movement across the room displaced the air: coffee and fabric conditioner and some kind of disinfectant that had probably leached into the fabric of his uniform from sitting too long out there in the scrubbed corridor.

He appeared by the window, a silhouette against the night sky. A sliver of moon had risen over the rooftops, reminding her of the secret she carried. She felt the weight of it — as her father must have, carrying it alone for all those years. She sensed the air shift again as the cop stepped away from the window and came closer to her bed, bringing the smell of disinfectant with him.

‘I’m not sure about that priest,’ the cop said, almost to himself. ‘That’s why I came back — to make sure.’

A hand flew out of the darkness and clamped over Kathryn’s mouth and nose, cutting off her breathing and preventing her from making any sound. He was wearing surgical gloves — the source of the antiseptic smell.

She tried to twist away, but he was already on her, straddling her body and pinning her to the mattress with his knees. She tried thrashing her head from side to side, hoping to dislodge his hand so she might scream, but the latex glove gripped her skin and held it fast.

He brought his face closer to hers.

‘Shhhh,’ he said, ‘quiet now.’

He yanked her head sideways to expose her neck and she felt something sharp and cold on it. In a panic she threw every ounce of energy she had into arching her back and bucking against the hard hospital mattress, jolting him forward and making his hand slip from her mouth. She shrieked for half a second before the hand clamped down harder and the cop shifted position, grinding his whole weight painfully on to her arms to stop any further movement.

Her head was snapped round again, more violently this time, and she felt the pressure return, biting into her flesh. She had a sudden image of a vampire, feeding on her in the dark and she realized with certainty that she was going to die.

Kathryn thought of the secret she held in her head and wondered what would become of it. The cop — if he was a cop — would know the room would become a crime scene and anything in it would be scrutinized as evidence. The latex gloves showed he was being careful. If he found the book hidden in the bed, then she doubted anyone would ever discover its contents. Everything they had done, all the thousands of years of waiting for the prophecy to come to pass, would be for nothing.

Tears leaked out of her eyes at the injustice of it all. She cursed herself for being too weak to fight back, but destiny had always been stacked against them from the start. She regretted leaving Gabriel, but her father would be there on the other side, and so would John. She would see her husband again. She began to relax into her fate as she felt coldness spread through her neck as if death was already seeping into her.

Then the door to her room flew open and Gabriel surged through the darkness towards her.

Gabriel sprang at the shape on the bed, hitting it full on and driving it into the wall. The man was big and solid and undoubtedly armed, but Gabriel had landed on top, giving him the slightest of advantages.

He grabbed the man’s right hand — the one most likely to be holding a weapon — and smashed his elbow hard into the wrist, shocking the tendons into release. There was a grunt of pain and something clattered away in the dark, too light to be a gun. Gabriel yanked the hand away and caught a glimpse of the man beneath him — not the priest but a cop. He grabbed for his holster, but the cop had got there first. His gun was already halfway out and angling up. Gabriel grabbed it and lunged forward with his head. He felt a wet crunch as the thick bone of his forehead connected with the soft cartilage of the cop’s nose. His grip on the gun tightened reflexively in response to the pain — but there was no shot. Whatever make it was, the gun came with a safety catch, and it was still on.

Gabriel wrenched it more violently now he knew it wasn’t going to fire, jerking it upwards in a series of sharp tugs to twist it away from the cop’s grip. He drove his head forward again, drawing a fresh grunt of pain and feeling wetness on his forehead where blood was flowing from the first blow. With a final violent tug, the cop’s finger snapped and Gabriel pulled the gun from his hand.

The cop cried out in pain and thrashed against the floor in panic, knocking Gabriel forward so his head hit the wall, dazing him slightly while the cop continued to buck beneath him in an attempt to get free. Gabriel had the gun now but was holding it by the barrel. Things were moving too fast to shift it into a firing position so he lashed out instead, using it like a hammer. His first blow glanced off the cop’s head. Then a fist crashed into his side, bruising his kidneys and knocking the wind from him. He drew his arm back again but the cop kicked out and got lucky. He connected with Gabriel’s arm and the gun went clattering away into the darkness.

Now neither of them had it.

The cop seized the opportunity and scrambled to his feet, vaulting over the bed and out of the room. Gabriel rolled after him, pausing by the door and ducking his head outside to scope the corridor, keeping it low in case the cop had a second gun. He needn’t have worried. The cop’s only intention was to get away. Gabriel saw him disappear round the corner leading back to the main building. He considered giving chase, but his legs were too tired from the sprint up the stairs and there was something more serious bothering him.