Once she’d returned to Newark, got her head straight and her memory back, she would call him; then they could talk. She had so many questions, about what had happened in the Citadel, but also about him. She hardly knew him and yet, in the midst of all the darkness and strangeness of the past few weeks, it was to him that her mind had constantly returned. He shone through it all, like the lights she now looked down upon.
The plane shuddered slightly as the higher winds caught it and below her those same lights started to disappear, winking out one by one, as though the city was being switched off a block at a time.
She turned on her reading light. It made the dark symbols on her hand stand out against her pale flesh, mocking her again with their mystery. She pulled the book from the seat pocket in front of her and looked at the cover. It was called The Mystery of Lost Languages. Maybe she would find some answers in here.
Eight rows back a large man in a business suit sat jammed in an economy seat built for someone half his size. His eyes were fixed on Liv’s blonde hair, glowing in the gloom of the cabin. She was looking down at something, reading. He wondered what it was. He liked books. They were full of words, and words were a kind of magic to him. It was how he had got his nickname during his first spell in prison: Dick, short for Dictionary. Sometimes people tried to make fun of his name, as if it meant something dirty, but not for long. He could tell which people said it properly and those who were calling him something else — a prick, a cock, a penis. That was the problem with language. It had such power, but it was slippery. You had to focus on the words and use them correctly to convey what you wanted. That’s why he liked strong words. Pure words. Words that only had one meaning. The word he was currently savouring was one of these:
Ser-en-dip-ity
When the jailhouse hit had gone wrong, he’d been told his mission was over. Not his fault, just one of those things. He was too recognizable and the witness had got away. So he had been reassigned.
He’d gone to his hotel room, picked up his stuff and put on the baggy business suit that covered up all his tattoos and was specifically tailored to disguise his shape. Then he’d neatly combed his hair and headed off to the airport looking like any other nondescript, out-of-shape businessman on his way to who knows where. But God had known. He had made all this happen so that Dick ended up in exactly the right place at the right time. The perfect solution had presented itself, as if by accident.
Ser-en-dip-ity
If everything had gone to plan in the cell block he wouldn’t have been at the airport and the girl would have got away. And she was the most important of the three targets. The girl was the most dangerous to the Church and needed to be silenced. And silence was the greatest power anyone could have over another person, the ability to take away their words. He’d learned that in prison. Whenever they had wanted to punish him, they had taken his books. But they could never take away the words in his head. Not unless they killed him. And he had such words inside him, the best words. They had been given to him by Isaiah — the name of a prophet and also of the old trustee who had wheeled the library cart round the corridors of E Wing.
‘You like words,’ he’d said one time as he’d shuffled past his cell. ‘Well, take a look at this. All the words you’ll ever need.’
Dick had never read the Bible before. It had never occurred to him. But he’d read it now, hundreds of times, until the words flowed through him like the blood in his veins. He had even scratched some of the more powerful ones on to his own skin, so he was like a book himself, anointed with spells to ward off evil when he was asleep and his tongue was still.
Deu-ter-on-om-y
Re-ve-la-tion
Ne-pha-lim
That’s what he was — a Nephalim — one of the giants of legend, mentioned in Genesis. A creature of God. A watcher.
He was watching now in the dimness of the cabin, as the armrests dug into his legs and his knees rubbed against the seat in front. Once the girl was home, she would feel safe; and that was when he would strike.
That was when he would take away her words and silence her for ever.
35
Gabriel sprinted headlong down the street towards the hospital. The moment Arkadian had told him the passenger manifest had already been searched he knew. The Church’s dark forces were making a coordinated move to tidy up their loose ends: first him, then Liv — next his mother.
He concentrated on the rhythm of his feet pounding the tarmac, driving him closer, step by step. He reached a corner and turned into Asklepios Street. Running through the streets like this wasn’t the safest thing to do now his picture had appeared on the news, but he had to balance caution with haste. He reached a turning a third of the way down and rounded it, keeping tight to the houses. Ahead of him the street ended at a junction where the new extension block of the hospital rose up, shining with rain and reflected light. He scanned the upper windows, slowing as he neared the junction, wary of breaking cover into a main road that might have police patrols stationed on it. He stopped a few metres short and looked up from the safety of the shadows.
The main hospital building stretched along the full length of the street. At one end it joined the stone walls of the original building and at the other a covered walkway connected it to a smaller stone building that resembled a castle. This was the old psychiatric wing where the receptionist had said his mother was being kept.
A car swished past and he used the hiss of its tyres to mask his own splashing steps as he dashed to the other side of the street. The ground-floor windows were all boarded up along with a large doorway that had once served as the entrance. High up on the side of the building a scaffold platform jutted out. It was the sort of thing workmen used to hoist materials on to, but there were no ropes hanging down that might help him gain access, they were all curled up and secured to the scaffold poles. The windows to the side of the platform were mostly dark — but not all. Two glowed with light — one in the middle of the row and another at the very end — both on the fourth floor. The hospital receptionist had said his mother was being kept in room 410. His money was on the middle window. He continued to gulp air, relaxing slightly now he had at least located his mother.
Then he felt the vibration.
At first he thought it was thunder, rolling down from the clouds, but when the ground started to shake and a sound like trains in a subway rumbled up from beneath his feet, he realized what it was.
He stepped away from the nearest building, his legs unsteady on the quivering ground as the earthquake took hold of the city. He stopped in the middle of the road, away from any falling debris, his legs planted apart, and looked back up at the fourth-floor window. The shaking increased and the rumbling was joined by the high-pitched wail of hundreds of car and burglar alarms as the quake triggered them. Then, just as the noise and the tremors reached their peak, all the lights in the city went out.
Inside the hospital the sudden darkness was followed by frightened screams that echoed down the corridor from the main building.
Ulvi had managed to jam himself in a doorway and was hanging on to the edge of a wall that was trying to shake itself free from his grasp. There was a crash from way down the hallway as something heavy fell over in one of the partially renovated wards. Outside, car alarms shrieked through the streets like a beast on the loose. To Ulvi it was the sound of opportunity.
Once the earthquake ended, everyone would be busy and disorientated. No one would come running if an emergency alarm suddenly sounded all the way over here. And accidents happened all the time during quakes — falling masonry, broken glass, electricity sparking from severed cables. It was perfect. He just needed to get rid of the cop. He held on until the building finally shook itself still. The distant screaming seemed louder in the sudden quiet and it had been joined by the wail of alarms from various pieces of medical equipment throughout the building.
Ahead of him Ulvi saw the figure of the cop let go of a doorframe and step into the dust-filled corridor. He was looking towards a soft glow of light at the end of the corridor where most of the noise was coming from. The emergency power was clearly working in the main building, but the corridor remained dark.
‘You think we should check out the lights?’ Ulvi said, moving up the corridor towards the light. ‘Someone must be able to get the power back on for us.’
