Anthony Horowitz - Necropolis

“So what do we do now?” Pedro asked.

“I don’t know, Pedro.” Matt got out of bed and pulled on a fresh T-shirt. “We’ll have to meet and decide.”

“Will we still go to England?”

“Yes.”

Pedro hadn’t spoken very much about the journey and Matt suspected that he was finding it difficult to get his head around it. He had never been out of Peru in his life. Even the notion of getting on a plane was completely alien to him. He had only flown once and that had been in a helicopter which had crashed. The thought of spending fifteen hours in the air and landing in a completely different world unnerved him.

“I am sad that the professor is dead,” he said. “She was very kind.”

“I know.” Matt wondered if he could have saved her. Was her death his fault? It seemed to him now that she had been doomed from the moment they had arrived, although he knew she would never have seen it that way. Even so… It had been two days since they had received the fax with the news about Scar. He wished now that they had all left at once.

There were now just five of them remaining: Matt, Pedro, Scott, Jamie and Richard. They met outside, sitting at a wooden table in the shade of a silk-cotton tree – a kapok, as it was also known. Professor Chambers had liked taking the boys around her garden, showing them all the different plants and talking about them. This one had somehow found its way out of the rainforest, she had said, and she couldn’t understand how it was growing here at all. The table had been set up in the shade, the umbrella-shaped canopy and creamy white flowers of the kapok shielding them from the sun.

They might have been safer in the house but they could hardly bear to look at it, the ruin that it had become. Somehow, it didn’t seem likely that the Old Ones would return… not in the daylight. And anyway, the Incas were somewhere close. There was no danger of a second attack. Richard had brought out a tray of iced lemonade and a plate of empanadas, the little cheese pastries that they had often devoured. But nobody was hungry. They were exhausted and unhappy. Nobody knew what they were supposed to do.

One thing was sure. They couldn’t stay here much longer. The house still had water and electricity and they might even be able to repair the roof. But there was no alarm system. The Incas couldn’t protect them indefinitely. And – more to the point – none of them wanted to be here. The moment Professor Chambers had been taken from the hacienda, all of its life seemed to have gone with her.

“OK…” It was Richard who was the first to speak and Matt was grateful to him for breaking the silence, for taking control. He was wearing a clean polo shirt and jeans, but he looked completely worn out, as if he hadn’t slept at all.

“This is a council of war,” he said. “Because it looks as if the war has finally arrived. We have to talk about last night. We have to deal with it and put it behind us. And I might as well start by saying that it was mainly my fault.” He held up a hand before anyone could interrupt him. “When Ramon came to the house, I turned off the security system. But I never put it back on again. Not the radar, anyway. Maybe that was the idea. Maybe that was why he was sent to us. A diversion…”

“It was my fault too,” Scott cut in. “Matt wanted me to look into his mind and I did. But somehow he managed to fool me. I thought he was telling the truth.”

“Maybe he was telling the truth,” Matt said. “He brought us the diary… and do you really think he would have just sat there and allowed himself to be killed? Maybe they followed him from Lima. The whole point of last night could have been simply that they wanted the diary back.”

“The question we’ve got to ask ourselves is – what are we going to do next?” Richard said. “It’s been more than forty-eight hours since Scarlett Adams appeared in the newspapers. The Nexus are still watching her but we can’t leave her on her own much longer. On the other hand…” He nodded at Matt. “Matt has lost his passport so he’s not flying anywhere.”

“We can use the door,” Jamie said. “The same one that Scott and me came through. All we have to do is get to the Temple of Coricancha in Cuzco. We walk in… we walk out in London. We don’t need a plane.”

It seemed obvious. It was exactly the reason why the doors had been built in the first place. But Richard shook his head. “We can’t use the doors,” he said. “Think about it, Jamie. Salamanda had the diary and he obviously studied it carefully. If the Old Ones are looking for us – and it seems pretty likely that they are – that’s exactly how they’ll expect us to travel.”

“Maybe they never saw the diary,” Pedro said. “It was in the office of Senor Salamanda. He could never have shown it to them.”

Richard was still unhappy. “It’s too much of a risk. Anyway, they know about the door in St Meredith’s. Scarlett went through it. That’s probably what started all this. They could be waiting for us there. I know it’s boring, but I reckon we’re much safer taking planes.”

“But Matt doesn’t have a passport,” Scott said.

“The Nexus can get us into America,” Richard replied. “I spoke to Nathalie Johnson this morning and she’s sending a private plane. It’s already on its way. And she’s been in touch with John Trelawney. The two of them have enough clout to get us through immigration. They can also get Matt a new passport. After all, they didn’t have any difficulty getting Pedro his. It’ll take a couple of days but we could be in England by Tuesday.”

Scott and Jamie had met Nathalie Johnson before they came to Peru. She was an American businesswoman who had made a fortune out of computers before she had been drawn into the Nexus. John Trelawney was the senator who had been fighting in the presidential election. The result was going to be announced in just one day and he was still the favourite to win. The two of them were powerful friends.

Jamie considered what Richard had said. “All right, then.” He shrugged. “Let’s go.”

“Not all of us,” Matt said.

There was a sudden silence around the table. All eyes were turned on him.

“I think we should separate,” he said.

“Are you crazy…?” Scott began.

“Why?”

“What do you mean, Matt?”

Everyone was talking at once. Matt wasn’t surprised. Even as he had decided what he was going to do, he had known that the rest of them would be against it. They were supposed to stick together. Finding each other, coming together… it was what their lives were all about. Five Gatekeepers. So far, against all the odds, four of them had managed to do exactly that. They were hours away from finding the fifth. It seemed completely mad to split up now.

“We’ve just got to be careful,” Matt explained. “Richard and I were talking about it last night, before we were attacked. If all four of us get onto one plane and the Old Ones somehow manage to get control of it, they’ll have us at their mercy. They’ll be able to do anything with us. All four of us at once.”

“So what are you saying?” Jamie asked.

“We can’t stay here,” Pedro added.

“I’m going to London with Richard,” Matt said. “We’ll meet the Nexus as soon as we can and we’ll meet Scarlett as soon as we know it’s safe.” He turned to Jamie. “I’d like you to come with us.”

Jamie opened his mouth but said nothing. He understood the implications of what Matt had just suggested.

“You’re leaving me behind,” Scott muttered. His voice was low and sullen.

“It’s just for a few days. A week, no longer.”

“Is this because I screwed up last night?”

“You didn’t screw up.” Matt had to choose his words carefully. In a way, Scott was right. He might not be to blame, but he still couldn’t be completely trusted. Matt looked at him, slumped back from the table with his hands in his pockets, and saw the cold anger in his face. And there was something else. A sort of cruelty. When Scott had lived ten thousand years ago, his name had been Flint and it suited him. Sitting in the garden, his eyes were as hard as stone.