Anthony Horowitz - Necropolis

The first of them was Lohan. He went straight over to Scarlett. “Are you OK?” he asked.

Scarlett was relieved to see him. “How about you?” she asked. “What did you do with the pendant?”

“The pendant is on a flight to Australia. Hopefully the Old Ones will follow it there.”

“I’m glad you’re OK.”

“And I will be glad when you have gone.”

He gestured at the man who had come with him. He hurried forward, carrying a canvas suitcase about the size of a weekend bag. This man was quite a bit older than the others, wearing a crumpled cardigan and glasses. He placed the suitcase on the floor and opened it to reveal scissors, hair brushes, lots of bottles, pads of cotton wool. There were clothes packed underneath.

It was time for Scarlett to change.

Jet dragged one of the crates over and Scarlett sat down. The older man examined her for a moment, using his fingers to brush her hair back from her face. He nodded as if satisfied, then reached for the scissors.

Scarlett would never forget the way he cut her hair. She wouldn’t have said she was particularly vain, but she had always taken care of how she looked. There was something brutal about the way he attacked her, chopping away as if she had no more feelings than a tree. She looked down and saw great locks of her hair hitting the ground. Although she knew that it was necessary and that anyway it would all grow back soon enough, she still felt like a victim, as if she were being assaulted. But the man didn’t notice her distress – or if he did, he didn’t care.

He kept cutting and soon she felt something she had never felt before: the cold touch of the breeze against her scalp. He finished her hair with a scoop of Brylcreem, then set to work on her face, turning it first one way, then the other, his fingers pressing against her chin. There was absolutely nothing in his eyes. He had done this many times before. It was his business and he did it well. He just wanted to get it over with as quickly as possible.

He painted her skin with a liquid that smelled of vinegar and stung very slightly, then added a few splodges with a thin brush. After that, he set to work on her eyes. Just when Scarlett thought he had finished, he muttered something to Lohan, the first time he had spoken. His voice was completely flat.

“He wants to put in contact lenses,” Lohan explained. “They’re going to sting.”

They did more than that. The man had to clamp Scarlett’s head while he pressed them in, the lens balanced on the end of his finger, and when he backed away the entire room was out of focus, hidden behind a blur of tears.

“Now you must get dressed,” Lohan said.

They didn’t allow her any privacy. The four men stood watching as she stripped down to her underwear and then the man in the cardigan dug a white, padded thing out of his case. Scarlett understood what it was. The boy whose place she was taking must have been quite a bit fatter than her. She slipped the pads over her shoulders and saw at once that she had a completely new body shape and that the slight curve of her breasts had gone. The man handed her a shirt, linen trousers, a blazer and a pair of black leather shoes that added about three centimetres to her height. Finally he gave her a pair of glasses. The disguise was complete.

“Look in the mirror,” Lohan said.

They had brought a full length mirror out of the kitchen. Scarlett stood in front of it. She had to admit that the transformation was incredible. She barely recognized herself.

Her hair was now short and spiky, held rigidly in place by the Brylcreem. Her eyes, which were normally green, were now dark brown, the colour magnified by the spectacles which were clumsy and old-fashioned, in plastic frames. There was a touch of acne around her nose. She had become one hundred percent Chinese; a slightly pudgy thirteen-year-old who probably went to an expensive private school and dressed like his dad. She even smelled like a boy. Maybe they had put something in all the chemicals they had used.

“Now you must practise walking,” Lohan said. “Walk like a boy, not like a girl.”

For the next two hours, Lohan kept her pacing up and down with slouching shoulders, hands in her pockets. Scarlett had never really thought that teenage boys were so different in the way they walked, but she was sensible enough not to argue. Finally, Lohan was satisfied. He crouched next to her. “It is time for you to leave,” he said. “But there is something I must tell you before you go.”

“What?”

She was alarmed, but he held up a hand, reassuring her. “There is a boy who is coming to meet you,” he said. “He is on his way already, travelling from England.”

Her first thought was that it was Aidan – but that was ridiculous. Aidan knew nothing about what was happening.

“His name is Matt.”

The boy out of her dream! The boy who had led her through the door at the church of St Meredith’s. Scarlett felt a surge of hope and excitement. She didn’t know why, but if Matt was on his way then she was sure that everything would be all right.

“He is not coming to Hong Kong,” Lohan went on. “It is too dangerous here. But he will be in Macau. He is being protected by the Master of the Mountain. He will remain there until he knows that we have been successful and that you have escaped. Then he will follow you and our work will be done.”

“Who is the Master of the Mountain?” Scarlett asked.

“He is a very powerful man.” That was all Lohan was prepared to say. He straightened up. “Don’t speak until you are on the boat. If anyone tries to talk to you, ignore them. When you are with your new parents, hold your mother’s hand. She alone will talk to you and you’ll smile at her and pretend that you understand. When you are on the Jade Empero r, she will take you straight to her cabin. You will remain there until the ship leaves.”

“Thank you,” Scarlett said. “Thank you for helping me.”

Lohan glanced at her and just for a moment she saw the hardness in his eyes and knew that whatever else he was, he would never be her friend. “You do not need to thank us,” he said. “Do not imagine that we are helping you because we want to. We are obeying orders from the Master of the Mountain. You are important to him. That is all that matters. Do not let us down.”

They opened the warehouse door and, remembering her new walk, Scarlett went out. She found herself in a concrete-lined alleyway. It was after five o’clock and the light was already turning grey. As she stood there, a car drove past and she flinched, afraid of being seen. But she was a boy now: the son of Chinese parents. Nobody was going to look at her twice. Jet and Sing had joined her. The three of them set off together, making their way towards the main road.

The alleyway came out at the very tip of Kowloon, where the Salisbury Road curved round on its way to the ferry terminals. The harbour was in front of them. Scarlett could see all of Hong Kong on the other side of the water with The Nail, the headquarters of Nightrise, slanting diagonally out of the very centre where it seemed to have been smashed in.

“Walk slowly,” Jet whispered. “If you see anyone looking at you, just ignore them. Don’t stop…”

They walked down the Salisbury Road, passing the Hong Kong Cultural Centre, a huge, white-tiled building that looked a little bit like a ski slope. The weather had changed again. The sky was clear and the evening sun was dipping down, the water shimmering silver and blood-red. Despite the horror of the last thirty-six hours, everything looked very ordinary. There were several groups of tourists on the promenade, enjoying the view. Crowds of people were pouring out of the terminal for the Star Ferry, on their way home. Young couples holding hands walked together. Newspaper and food sellers stood behind their stalls, waiting for business. A fleet of ships, all different shapes and sizes, were chugging back and forth.