good. We are sending her away tonight. To another country.”
“You can’t kill her of course.”
“It’s vital that both children are kept alive. In pain, but alive. We are going to bury them in separate rooms, many thousands of miles apart. They will be given limited amounts of food and water, but no human contact. The Old Ones have asked me to blind Matt Freeman and that will be done just before Scarlett leaves. We want her to take the horror of it with her. In the end, she will probably go mad. It will be one of the last memories that she has.”
“Excellent. I’d like to be there when it happens.”
“That may not be possible.”
Father Gregory was disappointed. But he continued anyway.
“What about the other boy?” he asked.
“Jamie Tyler?” The chairman was still standing at the window. “He is somewhere here in Hong Kong. We haven’t yet been able to find him.”
“Have you looked for him?”
The chairman blinked slowly. Far below, two Star Ferries were crossing each other’s paths, fighting the storm as they made their way across the harbour. Where had the storm come from? It seemed to be getting stronger. He was surprised the ferries were still operating and looked forward to the time when they finally stopped. It had always annoyed him, watching them go back and forth.
A boat will be the death of you. And it will happen in Hong Kong.
A prophecy that had been made by a fortune-teller. Well, soon there would be no more boats. There would be no more Hong Kong.
“Jamie Tyler can’t leave the city,” he said. “Unless, of course, he dies in the street and gets thrown into the sea. Either way, he is of no concern to us.”
There was another silence.
“But now, my dear Father Gregory,” the chairman said. “It is time for you to go.”
“I am a little tired,” Father Gregory admitted.
“It has been a pleasure meeting you. But – please – let me show you out…”
There was a handle on the edge of one of the windows and the chairman seized hold of it and pulled. The entire window slid aside and the wind rushed in, the mist swirling round and round. Papers fluttered off the desk. The stench of the pollution filled the room.
Father Gregory stared. “I don’t understand…” he began.
“It’s perfectly simple,” the chairman said. “You said it yourself. You let the girl escape. You let her slip through your hands. You don’t really think that the Old Ones would let that go unpunished?”
“But… I found her!” Father Gregory was staring at the gap. “If it hadn’t been for me, you would never have known who she was!”
“And that is why they have granted you an easy death.” The chairman had to shout to make himself heard. “Please don’t waste any more of my time, Father Gregory. It’s time for you to go!”
Father Gregory stared at the open window, at the clouds rushing past outside. A single tear trickled from his good eye. But he understood. The chairman was right. He had failed.
“I’ve enjoyed meeting you,” he said.
“Goodbye, Father Gregory.”
The old man walked across the room and stepped out of the window. The chairman waited a moment, then slid it shut behind him. It was good to be back in the warm again. He wiped some raindrops off his jacket.
The storm was definitely getting worse.
The Tai Shan Temple was very similar to all the other temples in Hong Kong.
It was perhaps a little larger, with three separate chambers connected by short corridors, but it had the same curving roof made of dark green tiles and it was set back behind a wall, on the edge of a park, in its own private world. Inside, it was filled with smoke, both from the coils of incense that hung from the ceiling and from the oven, which was constantly burning bundles of paper and clothes as sacrifices to the Mountain of the East. There were several altars dedicated to a variety of gods who were represented by standing, sitting and kneeling statues… a whole crowd of them, brilliantly coloured, staring out with ferocious eyes.
Despite the bad weather, there were about fifteen people at prayer in the main chamber, bowing with armfuls of incense, muttering quietly to themselves. They were many different ages, men and women, and to all appearances they looked exactly the same as the people who came daily to Man Mo or Tin Hau. And yet there was something about them that suggested that religion was not, in fact, the first thing on their minds. They were too tense, too watchful. Their eyes were fixed on a single entrance at the back of the building – a low, wooden door with a five-pointed star cut into the surface.
The worshippers – who were, in fact, no such thing – had very simple instructions. Any child who passed through that door was to be seized. If they resisted, they could be hurt badly but preferably not killed. The same applied to any young person coming in from the street. They were to be stopped before they got anywhere near the door. The people in the temple were all armed with guns and knives, hidden beneath their clothes. They were in constant touch with The Nail and could call for backup at any time.
This was the ambush that Matt had feared. It was the reason he had refused to take the shortcut to Hong Kong. He had been right from the very start.
The fifteen of them stood there, muttering prayers they didn’t believe and bowing to gods they didn’t respect. And outside, gusts of wind – growing stronger by the minute – hurled themselves at the temple walls, battering at them as if trying to break through, tearing up the surrounding earth and the grass, whistling around the corners. A tile slid off the roof and smashed on the ground. A shutter came loose and was instantly torn away. The rain, travelling horizontally now, cut into the brickwork. The traffic in the street had completely snarled up. The drivers couldn’t see. There was nothing they could do.
The wind rushed in and the flames inside the temple furnace bent, flickered and were suddenly extinguished. Nobody noticed. All their attention was fixed on the doorway. That was what they were there for. Ignoring the storm, they waited for the first of the Gatekeepers to arrive.
Scarlett was in a dark place, but someone was nudging her, trying to draw her back into the light. Unwillingly, she opened her eyes to find a boy leaning over her, shaking her awake. She recognized him at once and knew that the fact that he was with her, that he was bruised and dishevelled, could mean only one thing… and it was the worst news of all. He was here because of her. The Old Ones must have tricked him into coming to Hong Kong and now the two of them were prisoners. Scarlett felt a sense of great anger and bitterness. She had been drawn into this against her will. And it was already over. She had never been given a chance.
“Matt…” she said.
At last the two of them were together. But this wasn’t how she had hoped they would meet. She drew herself into a sitting position and rubbed her eyes. They had given her back her own clothes but her hair, cut so short, still felt unfamiliar to her. At least she had lost the contact lenses. She had taken them out the moment she had been left to herself.
“Are you OK?” Matt asked.
“No.” She sounded miserable. “How long have I been asleep?”
“I don’t know. They only brought me here an hour ago.”
“When was that?”
“About eight o’clock.”
“Night or day?”
“Day.”
Matt examined his surroundings. They were in a bare, windowless room with brick walls and a concrete floor. The only light came from a bulb set in a wire mesh cage. From the moment the door – solid steel – had been closed and locked, he’d had to fight a sense of claustrophobia. They were deep underground. The policemen who had brought him here had forced him down four flights of stairs and then along a corridor that was like a tunnel. Ordinary policemen. The same as the ones who had arrested him. It seemed that the shape-changers, the fly- soldiers and all the other creatures of the Old Ones had decided to leave Hong Kong. He wondered why.
Despite everything, he had been relieved to find Scarlett. She looked very different from the photograph he had seen of her. He couldn’t imagine what it must have been like for her, being stuck here on her own.
