difficult. But the world has changed. The collapse of the Soviet Union. Events in Serbia and Yugoslavia. Wars in the Middle East. There are mercenaries and terrorists crawling all over the planet, and finding ones we could do business with was only a matter of time. They too serve the Old Ones in their own way. We’re all on the same side.
“For six months now we have kept the station going, feeding the reactor, priming it for tonight. Believe me when I tell you, the reactor works. Soon I will give the order for the last control rods to be lifted. This will raise the heat to critical levels. And the gate will melt and open.”
“You’ll all be killed!” Richard said.
“Only you will be killed. Because only you are outside the circle.”
“That’s what you think…”
“That’s what I know.” Sir Michael pointed to the symbols painted on the floor. “For centuries magicians have painted circles like this for protection. And they will protect us right now. If the radiation leaks, we won’t be touched by it. The heat, no matter how fantastic, won’t burn us. Only you will die.”
“What about Matt?” Richard demanded.
“Professor Dravid didn’t tell you?” Sir Michael smiled. “The three ingredients of the black sabbath. Ritual, fire and blood. We have inherited the rituals. We have created the fire. Now Matthew will supply us with the blood.”
He picked up the knife and ran a finger along the blade.
“Blood,” he continued, “is the most powerful form of energy on the planet. It is the very life force itself. Sacrifice has always been part of magical ritual because it represents a release of that power. There, once again, is the connection. The medieval witch splits throats. The twenty-first century witch splits atoms. Tonight we shall do both.”
“But it doesn’t have to be him!” Richard insisted. “Why Matt?”
“Because of who he is.”
“But he’s nobody… He’s just a child!”
“That’s what he thinks. But it has to be his blood. This is the moment that he was born for.”
“That’s enough!” Mrs Deverill hissed. “Let’s get on with it.”
Sir Michael looked at his watch. “You’re right. It’s time.”
Matt couldn’t move. The slab was cold against his back. The leather bands held him tight.
Inside the observation room a switch was activated. Far beneath the ground, electromagnets gripped the control rods and began to pull them upwards, centimetre by centimetre. The villagers joined hands, eyes closed. Slowly, the nuclear rods were sucked out of the nuclear pile. Sir Michael walked to the middle of the circle and stood above Matt, the knife in his hands.
It was twelve o’clock on the night of Roodmas. It was time to open the gate.
RAVEN'S GATE
So it came to this.
Matt was tied down, surrounded, helpless. In a few moments he would be killed. The ferocious heat of the nuclear reactor would weaken the gate, bringing it to the point when it could be finally smashed. And then the knife would plunge into his heart. Somehow his blood hitting the floor would be enough. At that moment Raven’s Gate would open.
Richard couldn’t do anything. Even if he managed to break free, he would never reach Matt in time.
But there was still the power.
Twice Matt had tried to find it inside himself. Twice he had failed to make it work. He had one more chance. But how…?
The villagers had begun to chant. It was a sound that Matt had heard before. They began with the same words that had haunted him when he had been alone at Hive Hall:
“NODEB… TEMOCMOD… EMANY… NEVAEH… NITRA.”
But now that he was so close to them, Matt could make out what they were saying. And suddenly he understood. He had assumed they were speaking in Latin or Greek but it was much simpler than that. It was an old witches’ ritual. They were reciting the Lord’s Prayer backwards.
Matt tried to ignore them. He was aware of the growing energy beneath him as the nuclear reactor reached critical mass. He knew he had to close his mind to all of it. Why hadn’t he been able to break the vase in Richard’s flat? Why couldn’t he open the door when he was Mrs Deverill’s prisoner? What was he doing wrong?
The murmuring filled the room, rising above the soft hum of the ventilation system. Sir Michael held the knife tightly in both hands, waiting for the moment when he would bring it down. Despite all his efforts, Matt found himself transfixed by the silver blade. This whole business had begun with a knife – the one that Kelvin had used to wound the security guard. It seemed that it would end with one too.
Think about the knife. Concentrate on it. Make it stop. Lying on his back, Matt tried to unlock the power that he knew was inside him. But it was no good. Sir Michael was in control. He was smiling to himself as he whispered the words of the invocation. Matt could see the sweat on his upper lip. He was going to enjoy this. His whole life had built up to it.
Far underneath the ground the control rods moved slowly upwards. As they left the core of the reactor, the neutrons rushed around the enclosed container, travelling at hundreds of miles per second, smashing into each other, releasing incredible heat.
And as the control rods rose, so did Raven’s Gate.
Richard had managed to free one hand but the other was still trapped and he was fighting desperately with the rope. But seeing what was happening, he stopped, totally shocked.
The great stones, destroyed centuries ago, were rising out of the floor like monstrous plants. There were eighteen control rods. And there were eighteen stones, each one sliding up in the exact position that it had once occupied. They were ghosts, passing through the floor without touching it. But even as Richard watched, they shimmered, becoming more solid as they grew taller. Already they were towering above the villagers, forming a new circle behind them. In a few seconds they would be exactly as they had been. And Richard knew with a terrible certainty that it would be then that the knife would fall. The Old Ones would break free.
Matt saw all this and closed his eyes. The more he was drawn into the events around him, the less control he would have. Was there nothing he could do? He had smashed the jug of water. It hadn’t been a dream. He had done it. But how? Desperately he tried to remember how he had felt when he was in the detention centre. What had made him different? Why had it worked then?
The whispers grew louder. Now something even more incredible was happening. The colour of the floor inside the circle had changed. The black and white checks had been washed away by a glow of red that seemed to be shining through, from underneath. The glow became brighter, the colour more vivid, until it was like a vast pool of blood. Suddenly a crack, deep and black, cut a jagged path across the reactor cap. The gate was breaking up.
Matt opened his eyes one last time. There was Richard, standing outside the circle, still struggling with the rope. There were Jayne and Claire Deverill, watching with something close to ecstasy. The ceiling – harsh, industrial lamps and silver pipes. The observation room with the villagers pressed forward, watching through the glass. The flames of the black candles, flickering and swaying. And the floor…
A speck of darkness had appeared in the red. Matt craned his neck so that he was looking down the length of his body and beyond. The floor had become transparent. He was looking through it, into another world. The speck moved. It was climbing, flying, swimming upwards, moving at an incredible speed. For a second he could make out a shape, some sort of creature. But it was too fast. The blackness welled up, blotting out the red, thrusting it aside in a chaos of swirling bubbles. A brilliant white streak seared across the surface of the pool. The black thing brushed it away and with a shudder Matt saw what it was: a huge hand. The monster that owned it must have been as big as the reactor itself. He could see its finger-nails, sharp and scaly, and he could make out the wrinkled skin of its webbed fingers. It had placed its fist against the barrier and the crimson bubbles were exploding around it as it searched for the strength to punch its way through.
Matt closed his eyes. And suddenly, out of nowhere, the answer came.
