“What did he say?” Richard asked.
The journalist had been sitting beside the bed for the past thirty-six hours, apart from a few hours in the early morning when the professor had forcibly sent him to get some rest himself. He had aged ten years since the two of them had driven out to the desert and found Pedro, lying in the wreckage of the helicopter with a broken ankle and the beginnings of a fever, and then Matt, sprawled face down in the dust. There were deep lines in Richard’s face and his eyes were bloodshot. Nobody knew what had happened in the desert but it was obvious to Professor Chambers that he blamed himself for allowing the two boys to set off on their own.
“It’s not good news,” she said. “He doesn’t think Matt’s going to make it.”
Richard let out a single breath. He could see Matt’s condition for himself but he had been hoping against hope for good news. “I should never have let him come to Peru,” he said. “He didn’t want to come. He didn’t want any of this.”
“You should get some lunch. It’s not going to help Matt, making yourself ill.”
“I can’t eat. I don’t have any appetite.” Richard looked down at the silent boy. “What happened to him out there, professor? What did they do to him?”
“Maybe Pedro will be able to tell us.” Professor Chambers glanced at her watch. “I’m going to the hospital to pick him up this afternoon.”
“I’ll stay with Matt.” Richard ran a hand across his cheek. He hadn’t shaved for two days and he had the beginnings of a beard. “When I first met him, you know, I didn’t even believe him. I thought he was just a kid with an over-active imagination. So much has happened since then. And now this…”
There was a commotion outside in the garden. While the two of them had been speaking, a car had drawn up and the driver was unhappy about something. He was shouting and one of the gardeners was trying to sort him out. Professor Chambers went over to the window and looked out. The car was a taxi. The driver was demanding payment. She frowned.
“It’s Pedro,” she said.
The two of them hurried out of the room, reaching the foot of the stairs just as Pedro came in through the front door, supporting himself on crutches. He was still wearing hospital pyjamas. There was a brand-new plaster cast on his left foot.
“Qué estás haciendo aquí?” Professor Chambers exclaimed. She spoke fluent Spanish. “What are you doing here? I was coming for you this afternoon…”
“Dónde está Matteo?” Pedro demanded. Where’s Matt?
It seemed to Richard that he, too, had changed since whatever had taken place in the desert. Pedro had always been quiet. He’d had no choice when so much of the conversation had been in English. But he had also seemed detached, somehow on the edge of events. Now, for the first time, he was in command. He knew exactly what he was doing. He had marched out of the hospital and into a taxi. He had persuaded the driver to bring him here. He knew what he wanted and he wasn’t going to let anyone stand in his way.
Professor Chambers must have sensed this too. “Matt’s up there,” she said, pointing at the stairs, then realized that Pedro would never make it up there on his own. She held out an arm. Pedro gathered up his crutches and the two of them began to climb up together awkwardly. As he went, Pedro turned and glanced briefly at Richard, and in that moment Richard felt a sense of relief that he couldn’t begin to understand. But suddenly he was sure that Matt was going to be all right.
Pedro rested briefly against the door of Matt’s room. He took everything in. Professor Chambers wanted to go in with him but Pedro shook his head, then muttered a single word, in English. “Alone.”
The professor hesitated. But there was no point arguing. She watched as Pedro dragged himself into the room. The door closed behind him.
Pedro didn’t move.
He still wasn’t sure what had brought him here and now that he had arrived he didn’t know what he was meant to do. The English boy looked dead. No. That wasn’t quite true. His chest was moving and Pedro could hear the rasp of his breath behind the oxygen mask. Apart from the last day and a half, Pedro had never been in hospital in his life and the sight of the equipment unnerved him: the metal cylinder pumping out its carefully measured quantities of air, the liquid dripping down the plastic tube into Matt’s arm.
He knew that he had to be here. The two of them had spoken, of course. Pedro asleep in the hospital. Matt unconscious here. They had met one last time and Matt had urged him to come.
“I need you, Pedro. I’ll die without you…”
But why? What could he possibly do?
Pedro limped over to the bed and sat down on the edge, letting his crutches slide gently to the floor. Now he was leaning over Matt, who was spread out beneath him, underneath the white sheet. The oxygen hissed. The plastic mask briefly misted. Otherwise everything was silent and still.
Pedro reached out.
He knew. It was as if someone had given him a book of his entire life and he was reading it and understanding it for the first time. He had once told Matt that he had no special powers but he knew it wasn’t true. After the flood, when his entire family had been killed, he had been aware of something inside him. A new strength. And over the years it had grown.
He was a healer.
Living in Poison Town, there were so many diseases. People were getting ill and dying all the time. But not those who lived close to him. They were never sick and Sebastian had often remarked upon it. He had said as much when Matt was there.
There is no illness in this house or in this street And nobody understands why…
He had been aware of it again when Matt had been brutally beaten up by the policemen at the hotel in Lima. After just one day together, all the bruises had gone. The cracked ribs had somehow healed themselves. Pedro hadn’t done anything. He hadn’t needed to. Just being there was enough.
Gently, Pedro placed a hand on Matt’s chest. At last he was fully aware of his power and now he was going to use it.
But would it work? Had he left it too late?
Pedro closed his eyes and let the energy flow.
A week had passed.
The sun was beginning to set over the town of Nazca and the air was heavy and warm. Professor Chambers came out of the house carrying a jug of iced lime juice and four glasses. She had lit a barbecue and the flames were leaping up, filling the garden with smoke and the smell of charcoal.
Richard, Matt and Pedro were waiting for her, sitting in wicker chairs around a table. Pedro’s crutches were lying on the grass. He would need them for a couple more weeks but his ankle was already on the mend. But it was Matt’s recovery that had been all the more remarkable. He had woken up just a few hours after Pedro’s return. A day later he had been eating and drinking. And now, here he was, sitting as if nothing had happened.
Richard found it impossible to believe, even though the professor had tried to explain it to him.
“Radiesthesia,” she said, as if it had been something she had been expecting all along.
“Radio what?”
“It’s one of many names we have for faith healing. It’s also been called mesmerism, autoscopy … the laying on of hands. Of course, in this day and age few people believe in it any more. But ancient civilizations relied on it. The Incas, for example. They used it all the time. What I’m talking about is the ability to treat sickness using some sort of inner, psychic power.”
“And Pedro…?”
“Well, the Incas seemed to think he was one of their own. So I suppose it’s no surprise that he can do it.” She shook her head. “What does it matter how it happened?” she exclaimed. “He saved Matt’s life. That’s all we need to know.”
Now, Richard watched as Professor Chambers put down the tray and went over to the barbecue. The coals had begun to glow. She spread four steaks over the grill and went back to the table.
Nobody spoke while the meat cooked. In the days that had passed since Matt’s recovery, they had all got used to his long silences.
Matt still hadn’t told them what had happened at the place of Qolqa and they knew not to ask. Everything would be said in its own time. Sometimes, still, Richard worried about him. Matt wasn’t quite his old self. The pain had changed him and now and then Richard could see it; the evidence was in his eyes.
Matt was reading a newspaper. It was several days out of date but Susan Ashwood had sent it to them from England with an article highlighted on page five.
CHURCH DISPUTES DISAPPEARING BOY
Was it a miracle, as some are suggesting, or is there a rational explanation for the disappearing boy of San Galgano, as he has come to be known in the ancient Tuscan city of Lucca?
The facts are these. San Galgano is an ancient abbey just outside Lucca, dating back to the twelfth century. It is occupied by a devout order of Cistercian monks who are unused to the glare of modern publicity. But earlier this week, in the cloisters, one of these monks encountered a young boy who spoke to him in English. The boy picked a flower and then walked through a door and disappeared.
The story may seem ordinary enough until you examine the facts. First of all, the abbey is not open to the public and it would be impossible to enter without being noticed. But more bizarre is the door which the boy used to enter the cloister. This door is not only kept locked. It was actually bricked up a hundred years ago by the abbot.
It seems now that the door has a curse attached to it. According to local legend, the appearance of the boy signals nothing less than the beginning of the Last Judgement! However, a church spokesman, speaking at the Vatican today, insisted that this was more likely to be a simple case of a tourist who had lost his way…
As the professor sat down, Matt folded the newspaper. He knew he was the boy that the monk had seen. He had gone through a door in London and it now seemed that he had come out of one in Lucca, somewhere in Italy. William Morton, the antique dealer who had briefly owned the diary, must have learned of the passageway. That much was clear to him. He had tested Matt by making him walk through the door at St Meredith’s. By returning with a flower plucked in another country, Matt would have proved that he was, indeed, one of the Five.
But how had the doorway worked? Had it been constructed by the same people who had built the gates – and if so, why? These were things that Matt still didn’t understand.
The steaks finished cooking, and Professor Chambers served them with salad that she had grown herself. It was only when they had eaten that Matt began to speak.
“We have to talk about what happened,” he began. His voice was soft and somehow didn’t sound like him. Richard glanced at him, trying to conceal a sense of sadness. Matt’s childhood had ended. He could see it. It was as simple as that.
“The Incas told me that the gate would open and that the Old Ones would come into the world,” he said. “It was their prophecy. And they were right. Salamanda knew it too. I suppose it was written in the diary….”
“Where is the diary?” Richard asked.
“Salamanda had it. Now that he’s dead, perhaps we’ll never find it.”
“Were the Incas really right?” Professor Chambers asked.
Matt nodded. “I thought Pedro and I could stop the gate from opening but now I see that some things can’t be changed. They’ll always happen the way they were supposed to.”
He drew a breath.
“We won the first time, in England,” he said. “We managed to close Raven’s Gate. But this time we lost.”
“No…” Richard began.
“Yes. I’m sorry but it’s the truth. I saw the Old Ones, and although I tried to fight them, even with Pedro helping me I didn’t have enough strength. We have to face the fact that the Old Ones are here, in the world…”
“Then where are they?” Richard couldn’t believe what he was hearing. He didn’t want to believe it. “It’s been a week now. But the world is still the same. Nothing has happened. You must have beaten them!”
“I wounded them. Maybe they’re resting, waiting until they regain their strength. But I can feel them, Richard. There’s a coldness in the air. They’re already spreading out, making their plans. They’re everywhere. And soon it will begin…”
“Well, that’s great!” Richard couldn’t keep the bitterness out of his voice. “So why did we come here? What’s this all been about?”
“We had to come here, Richard. It’s all so difficult but I think I’m beginning to understand things a bit now.”
Matt paused, then continued. “There are five of us. Four boys and a girl. We’re all the same age and we’ve all been born for the same reason. Somehow, we have to find each other. Once there are five of us together, that’s when the real fight will begin.”
“But where are the others?” Richard asked. “They could be anywhere in the world.”
“Pedro is the second of them,” Matt said. “That’s why I had to come to Peru. To find him. And I’ve seen the others – but only when I’ve been asleep. We have dreams which help us. They’re not like ordinary dreams. They’re part of how it all works. And it’s not going to be as hard as you think. Pedro and I came together even though we had completely different lives, thousands of miles apart. I think the others are already looking for us. It’s just a matter of time…”
“But the Old Ones are already here,” Professor Chambers said. “How much time do we have?”
Matt didn’t answer.
A cloud passed in front of the sun and a shadow fell across the garden. And elsewhere, all around the world, the shadows were stretching out too.
Evil star had risen.
The darkness was drawing in.
ACCLAIM FOR RAVEN’S GATE
THE NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER
“A belting supernatural horror story. Not a read for the squeamish!”
The Funday Times
“The Horowitz formula is up to strength.”
The Daily Telegraph
“Gripping, full of suspense and as twisty as an Alpine pass. Matt Freeman’s adventures eclipse even those of the formidable Alex Rider.”
The Scotsman
“Horowitz ratchets things up a notch… A master of edge-of-your-seat writing.”
Booklist, American Library Association
“A supernatural adventure of the most chilling kind… The tension explodes into the sort of chase scenes that makes this author a favourite.”
The Times
“Go. Visit. Have an exhilarating read.”
Kirkus Reviews
“Horowitz’s story glides effortlessly onwards, a delight to read, overshot with genuine creepiness and splashes of horror.”
The New Zealand Herald on Sunday
“If the other four are as good as this one, Horowitz fans are in for a treat…”
The Children’s Buyer’s Guide
Out now…
Scorpia may be defeated, but the
Old Ones are definitely back!
THE POWER OF FIVE
Book Four
The next bestseller from
Anthony Horowitz
www.powerof5.co.uk
Alex Rider – you’re never too young to die…
“Horowitz is pure class, stylish but action-packed … being James Bond in miniature is way cooler than being a wizard.” Daily Mirror
“Explosive, thrilling, action-packed – meet Alex Rider.” Guardian
“The perfect hero … genuine 21st century stuff.” Daily Telegraph
www.alexrider.com
ALSO AVAILABLE AS GRAPHIC NOVELS…
Titles by Anthony Horowitz
The Alex Rider series:
Stormbreaker
Point Blanc
Skeleton Key
Eagle Strike
Scorpia
Ark Angel
Snakehead
Crocodile Tears
The Power of Five (Book One): Raven’s Gate
The Power of Five (Book Two): Evil Star
The Power of Five (Book Three): Nightrise
&nb
sp; The Power of Five (Book Four): Necropolis
The Devil and His Boy
Granny
Groosham Grange
Return to Groosham Grange
The Switch
More Bloody Horowitz (coming soon)
The Diamond Brothers books:
The Falcon’s Malteser
Public Enemy Number Two
South By South East
The French Confection
I Know What You Did Last Wednesday
The Blurred Man
The Greek Who Stole Christmas
ANTHONY HOROWITZ is one of the most popular children’s writers working today. Both The Power of Five and Alex Rider are No.1 bestselling series and have been enjoyed by millions of readers worldwide. Anthony is particularly excited by Necropolis, which he sees as a major step in a new direction. For a start, it’s his first book with a full-blooded female at the heart of the action. It also develops the themes that began with Raven’s Gate and sets up the epic finale which he plans to begin soon. Anthony was married in Hong Kong and went back there to research the book. Everything you read is inspired by what he saw.
The hugely successful Alex Rider series, which has spurred a trend of junior spy books, has achieved great critical acclaim and Anthony has won numerous awards including the Booksellers Association/Nielsen Author of the Year Award 2007, the Children’s Book of the Year Award at the 2006 British Book Awards, and the Red House Children’s Book Award. The first adventure, Stormbreaker, was made into a blockbuster movie, starring Alex Pettyfer, Ewan McGregor, Bill Nighy and Robbie Coltrane.
Anthony’s other titles for Walker Books include the Diamond Brothers mysteries; Groosham Grange and its sequel, Return to Groosham Grange; The Devil and His Boy; Granny and The Switch. Anthony also writes extensively for TV, with programmes including Midsomer Murders, Poirot and the drama series Foyle’s War, which won the Lew Grade Audience Award 2003. He is married to television producer Jill Green and lives, reluctantly, in London with his two part-time sons, Nicholas and Cassian and their dog, Dreary.