community of mostly miners that endured the conditions there, it was an icy hell.
For the other creatures who had chosen it as their home, it was perfect.
Stone breathed the still, freezing air, gazed up at the stars twinkling in the vast black sky and, just for an instant, he almost envied a human’s capacity to appreciate beautiful things. Almost.
A black Mercedes four-wheel drive equipped with snow chains had been waiting for him and his escort at the airfield. It had driven them far out into the wilderness, a single black speck on an endless expanse of frozen tundra overlooked by the towering Putoran Mountains. No human would have built a road where they were going.
At the outer limit of where a car could travel, they were met by a small procession of snowmobiles and skimmed at speed over the white landscape to a place where no human would willingly venture. Another civilisation dwelled here, far from the eyes of the world.
Stone left the convoy on foot. The wind howled and eddies of ice whipped around him as he walked alone to the base of the gigantic mountain that was his destination. He soon found the cave entrance, almost completely blocked by snow, and made his way downwards through winding icy tunnels carved twenty centuries ago. He was excited about the meeting that was about to take place, but though he would never have admitted it, certainly not to any of his circle and barely even to himself, mingled somewhere within that sense of excitement was an emotion that Gabriel Stone had very seldom experienced in his very long existence.
He was afraid. His Masters had that effect on him.
As he approached the citadel hidden deep inside the mountain, the ice tunnels were draped in red satin and the ornate crystalline sculptures on the mirror-polished ceilings, higher and more grandiose than in any human cathedral, depicted mythological scenes from the Old Times. As he’d done on his previous visits, he made his way to a cavernous ante-chamber on the outer ring of the citadel. The chamber was bare except for a semicircle of red satin-covered thrones. He sat and waited there, listening to the whistle of the wind around the ice walls and going carefully through the report he was about to make.
Before long, one of the Masters arrived. Stone recognised him as one of the Elders, a creature whose age couldn’t easily be counted. The tall, thin figure was draped from head to foot in a hooded robe. Stone got to his feet and bowed formally as he entered the chamber. The robe’s sleeve fell away from a long, bony hand as the Master gestured for him to stay seated. The clawed fingers reached up and slowly peeled back the hem of the hood.
The pale, translucent, blue-hued skin of the Master’s bald skull was lined with veins and wrinkles. The ears were long and pointed. When the Master sat on the throne beside his and turned that dark gaze on him, Stone was reminded of how tiny he’d always felt in the presence of such deep, terrible wisdom. He had spent a great deal of time learning from them but, even so, their magnificence was humbling to him. A human would simply, instantly, die of terror in such a place. For Stone, it was a religious experience.
They exchanged the traditional greetings in the guttural, harsh tones of the Old Language.
‘My heart sings to see you again, Krajzok,’ the Master said, using an expression that translated roughly as ‘Young One’.
‘You honour me,’ Stone replied graciously.
‘Later we will feed. First, Young One, tell me. How does your task progress?’
‘I hope you will be pleased to hear that the plans are well underway.’ Stone carefully ran through the account of the destruction of the Terzi plant, the acquisition of the pharmaceutical stockpiles, and the slaying of many enemy agents. Use of the heretical term ‘Federation’ was something to be avoided when referring to the opposition, knowing that even its mention would invoke fury. The fury of the Masters was not something Stone wanted to witness.
‘Now the traitors are weak,’ he said in summation. ‘Before long, we will strike against them using their own weapons, and finish them.’
The Master reflected a while. ‘I am not alone, Young One, in finding your use of these abominable technologies deeply discomforting. Is there no other way?’
Stone was very careful in his reply. ‘I share your sense of unease, Master. Yet I find the irony somehow appropriate. Let the filth perish by the same means they employed against their own, more worthy, kin. Once the task is fully accomplished, you may rest assured that these evil creations will be consigned to history along with their creators.’
The Master nodded slowly. ‘You are not unwise, Young One. You have repaid our trust in you. Thanks to your noble efforts, our nation will soon reclaim its rightful place.’
‘Ever your servant,’ Stone replied, bowing his head.
The Master peered deep into his eyes. It was as though a searchlight were scanning his mind.
‘I sense you have more to tell us,’ the Master said with a thin smile. ‘Something important.’
All throughout the long journey to Russia, as he’d lain there in his box, Stone had been debating furiously with himself as to whether he should mention the possible discovery by a human of the cross of Ardaich. To do so would entail explanations that he preferred to avoid. He’d allowed the human to escape him, and that was a sign of weakness he couldn’t afford to display.
‘Well?’ the Master said, waiting.
‘I have told you all there is to tell,’ Stone lied, using all his mental powers to conceal his true thoughts. Inwardly, he was cringing. The Master was a powerful mindreader and his wrath would be beyond imagining if he discovered he was being deceived.
‘You are sure?’
‘I am sure.’
The Master seemed satisfied. He laid his clawed hand on Stone’s shoulder.
‘Come. You have a long journey back. Feed with us a while before you leave, and let us discuss our plans further.’
Chapter Forty-Five
It was dark outside Bill Andrews’s office window at the private Rothwell Clinic outside Wallingford. In front of him on his desk were Kate Hawthorne’s case notes. He’d been staring at them long enough for the words to start to float before his eyes. He took off his glasses and rubbed his face. Fatigue was making his head spin and his brow prickled with cold sweat. He reached for the little bottle of pills in the breast pocket of his white coat, gulped one down.
It had been a ghastly afternoon. Most of it had been spent on the impossible task of trying to console the Hawthorne family. He’d had to listen to Gillian weeping uncontrollably, while struggling to come up with a semi- plausible explanation as to how their lovely, healthy daughter could have just faded away for no apparent reason, in just a matter of days.
The fact was, he was completely stumped.
‘Start from the beginning, Bill,’ he muttered. He flicked back to the first page and began scrutinising the case notes for the thousandth time, determined to make sense of them.
But how could you make sense of something that seemed scientifically impossible? She was healthy. Normal. All the tests were negative. Technically, there was nothing wrong with Kate Hawthorne — other than the fact that she was lying dead on a steel tray in the main building across the way from his office.
Even more perplexing were the lesions on the girl’s neck. When Gillian had first called him out to the house, they’d been livid and ugly, the flesh around them mottled and purple. When he’d caught a glimpse of Kate’s dead body under the sheet this afternoon, the marks seemed to have virtually gone.
He frowned. Not even a healthy patient could have healed so fast. How could someone who was dying? It just didn’t make sense.
Could he have imagined it? A trick of the light? Too distracted by the chaos and the scenes of grief going on around him?
‘Damn it,’ he said out loud. ‘Let’s take another look.’ He got up from his desk, left the office and walked through the neon-lit corridor that led to the main building. The mortuary was located in the basement of the east
