Anthony Horowitz - Evil Star

Pedro was already halfway across the room.

“Wait!” Matt whispered.

Pedro stopped and watched in dismay as Matt began to search the desk. It was an ugly piece of furniture, heavier and bigger than it had any right to be, with a leather square let into the surface and gold rings on the drawers. Matt tried one of them. It wasn’t locked but it made so much noise as it was opened, wood creaking against wood, that it could surely be heard throughout the house.

“Que estas haciendo?” Pedro hissed. What are you doing?

“The diary…” Matt replied and Pedro understood. The word was almost the same in English and Spanish.

Pedro went over to the side of the room, where a number of shelves stretched above a modern photocopier. Some of the shelves contained books, but before he could examine them, he noticed a sheet of paper, in the top of the machine.

“Matteo,” he called.

Matt abandoned the desk – most of the drawers were empty and the rest contained nothing of any interest. He came over to the photocopier and took the paper. It was covered in writing, possibly made with an old-fashioned pen or even a quill. Could it have been taken from the diary? Matt cursed quietly. The words were in Spanish. He couldn’t understand them. And Pedro couldn’t read, so he wouldn’t be able to translate them. How much more useless could this break-in have been?

He folded the paper and slipped it into his pocket. Maybe he would be able to make sense of it later.

There was a movement at the door.

Pedro had seen it first. He stopped where he was, his eyes widening in disbelief. Matt saw the look on his face, turned round and froze. A shiver, as tangible as an electric shock, ran through him. He felt it travel through his arms and up the back of his neck.

He couldn’t see the man who was standing on the other side of the doorway, shrouded in darkness. But he could make out his shape and knew at once that his head was impossibly large, twice as long as it should be, monstrous. The man was holding onto the frame of the door and Matt understood why. He needed help to stand up straight. His neck simply wasn’t strong enough to support his head on its own.

“I thought it was you,” the man said. He was still speaking in English. His voice sounded strained, as if someone were strangling him. “I heard you on the veranda as you went past. But it wasn’t just that. I knew you were there. I have been feeling your presence all evening, just as I feel it now. One of the Five. Two of the Five! Here, in my hacienda! To what do I owe the pleasure of your company? What do you want?”

There was no point denying who he was. The man had seen right through Matt’s disguise. He seemed to know everything about him.

“Where’s Richard?” Matt demanded.

“Your friend, the journalist?” Matt could see the lips twist into something that resembled a smile. But this was a face that would never smile properly. “What makes you think I have him? Why should he be here?” Salamanda looked genuinely puzzled. “How did you even find your way to me?”

Matt said nothing. There was no point in answering.

Salamanda turned to Pedro. “Como te llamas?” he demanded.

Pedro spat. Whatever he had been asked, that was his reply.

“What fun I’m going to have with the two of you,” Salamanda muttered. “It’s almost too good to be true. A gift, if you like – and perfectly timed. A week from now, it will all be over. The gate will have opened and not one but two of the Gatekeepers will be mine. I never thought it would be so easy.”

Salamanda stepped into the light and Matt saw his colourless eyes, his babyish mouth, his blotched, horribly stretched skin. It was enough.

“Go!” Matt shouted.

Pedro didn’t need encouraging. The two boys turned and ran, away from the door and out through the window, back towards the outer courtyard. They had no plan. Their only desire was to get away – from this house and from the monster that inhabited it. But even as they jumped down from the veranda and made for the main gate, the church bells sounded, metal striking metal and echoing into the night. Searchlights that they hadn’t even noticed sprang to life, turning black to white and half blinding them in the glare. At the same time, they were aware of guards, half a dozen of them, closing in from all sides. Two of them had Alsatians, straining on thick chains, snapping at the air. Captain Rodriguez had reappeared at the side of the house, watching in anger and disbelief. The strange thing was that nobody seemed to be in a hurry. Two intruders had been discovered. The alarm had been raised. But the guards were almost strolling towards them, deliberately taking their time.

Matt understood why. With a growing sense of hopelessness, he realized that they had nowhere to go. Even if they could escape from the immediate compound, there was a five-mile walk back to the main town, with no other building in sight and nowhere to hide. They could run all they wanted; they would simply be hunted down like rats. Matt swallowed, recognizing the bitter taste of defeat. He had been warned not to come here but he hadn’t listened and as a result he had doomed them both.

He began to raise his hands in surrender – but then everything changed. He saw it first on the faces of the guards, heard it a moment later himself. There was the roar of an engine and as he turned round, a car burst through the gateway and into the courtyard. For a moment, Matt assumed it must belong to Salamanda, another of his men cutting off their last way of escape. But at the same time he knew that something was wrong. The guards had stopped in their tracks. Rodriguez had taken out his gun and was shouting orders.

The car slid to a halt.

“Get in!” a voice called out through the window, first in English, then in Spanish. “Suba al coche!”

There was a burst of gunfire and suddenly it was as though Matt was back in Lima, on his way from the airport. He had never been shot at in his life. Now it had happened twice in the space of a week. Two shots had been fired from the watchtower that he had seen earlier. One bullet hit the ground, kicking up a cloud of dust. The other hit the bonnet of the car. That told him everything he needed to know. Whoever was in the car was on his side.

Matt ran forward. There were more shots. The guards seemed to be shooting at the car rather than at Pedro and himself. Were they obeying instructions from Salamanda? It seemed they were wanted alive. Then he saw that the dogs had been released. They were bounding forward, their eyes aflame, their jaws wide open to reveal white, vicious teeth. He and Pedro might not get shot, but if they didn’t reach the car soon they would be torn apart.

“Faster!” the driver shouted.

Pedro got there first. He opened the back door and threw himself onto the seat. Matt dashed for the passenger door. And despite the guns still firing all around him, despite the dogs bounding ever closer through the brilliant, electric light – he froze.

He knew the driver of the car.

The slightly feminine face. Long eyelashes. A thin face with sculpted cheeks, covered by the beginnings of a beard. A half-moon scar next to one eye.

It was one of the men who had kidnapped Richard.

“Get into the car or you will die!” the man shouted.

Two more bullets slammed into the metalwork. A third smashed one of the mirrors. Matt didn’t need any more telling. He dived forward and at the same time, the man slammed the car into reverse, skidding backwards and taking Matt with him. Matt was half in and half out, the door still open. Pedro was sitting, surprisingly calm, on the back seat. The car continued backwards. Matt saw a guard raising his gun. There was a terrible thump and the guard disappeared.