Necropolis Read online

  Something in the dreamworld had changed. Scarlett became aware of it very slowly, not seeing anything but sensing it, a sort of throbbing in the air that was coming from very far away, from the other side of the horizon. She heard a faint rumble of thunder and saw a tiny streak of lightning, like a hairline crack in the fabric of the world. Her head was pounding. She noticed the water, the surface of the ocean, begin to shiver. A gust of wind tugged at her hair. The sand, or the grey dust, or whatever it was, spun in eddies around her feet, then leapt up, half blinding her and stinging her cheeks. She backed away, knowing that she needed to hide. She still didn’t know what she was hiding from.

  And then, in a single moment, the ocean split open. It was as if it had been sliced in half by some vast, invisible knife – and the black water rushed in, millions of gallons pouring from left and right into the chasm – a mile long – that had been formed. At the same time, something rose up, twisting towards the surface. At first, she thought it was a snake, some sort of monstrous sea serpent that had been resting for centuries on the ocean bed and had only now woken up. She smelled its breath – how was that possible … how could you smell anything in a dream? – and cried out as it rushed towards her, its eyes blazing, flames exploding around its mouth. It was a dragon! Straight out of ancient folklore. And yet it was horribly real, howling so loudly that she thought her head would burst.

  SIGNAL ONE

  The two words had appeared in front of her. They were written in neon: huge red letters hanging from some sort of frame, the light so intense that they burned her eyes. Where had they come from? They must have risen out of the ground because only a moment before the landscape had been empty. The neon buzzed and flickered as some sort of electric power coursed through it. Scarlett looked down at her hands and saw that they were blood red, reflecting the light. It was as if she were on fire.

  SIGNAL ONE… SIGNAL ONE…

  It flashed on and off. The dragon was there one minute, then gone the next, lost in the darkness, reappearing in the light. But each time she saw it, it was a little closer. The wind was blasting her. If it got any stronger, it would throw her off her feet. She tried to run but she couldn’t move. The dragon opened its mouth, showing teeth like kitchen knives.

  And that was when she woke up and found herself still lying on top of the bed and covered by the two blankets, but with the first, dreary light of the morning creeping in through the window and ice cold all around.

  Scarlett sat up. She was already beginning to shiver. What had that all been about? Signal One? She had never seen the two words written down before. She had no idea what they meant, even if she was certain that they must be important. They had been shown to her for a reason.

  She looked up at the window and guessed that it must be about five or six o’clock in the morning. It was difficult to say without her watch. Presumably the monks would bring her some sort of breakfast. They had made it clear that they needed to keep her alive. Could she somehow overpower them when they came in, fight her way through the door and make a run for it? She doubted it. The monks were thin and malnourished but they were still a lot stronger than her. If only she had a weapon! That would make all the difference.

  Sitting on the edge of the bed, she searched through her pockets. All she had was a blunt pencil, left over from art class, a comb and an Oyster card. The sight of it made her sad. It was so ordinary, a reminder of everything she had left behind. How many thousands of miles was she now from London buses and Tube trains?

  There was nothing she could use. She considered taking off her coat, throwing it in the face of whoever carried in her food. But it was a stupid plan. She still didn’t know there was going to be any food and anyway, it wouldn’t work. They would just laugh at her before they took her away and whipped her or whatever else they planned to do.

  There had to be a way out of the cell. Scarlett got up and examined the door a second time, running her hands over the hasps, pressing against it with all her weight. It was so solid it might as well have been cemented into the wall. That just left the window. There were three bars and no glass. The cell had been built to house a man, not a child – and certainly not a girl. Might it be possible to squeeze through after all?

  She hadn’t been able to reach the window before but maybe these monks, as clever as they might be, had made a mistake. They had supplied her with a table and a chair. Quickly, she dragged the table over to the window, put the chair on top and climbed up.

  For the first time, she was able to look outside. There was a view down a hill, the ground steep and rugged, thick patches of snow piled up against black rocks. A few buildings stood in the near distance, scattered around. They looked like barns and abandoned farm houses which might belong to the monastery but which were more likely part of a village, just out of sight. A series of icicles hung above her, suspended from a guttering that ran the full length of the building. She had forgotten how cold it was but she was quickly reminded by a sudden snow flurry, blowing in off the roof. Her lips and cheeks were already numb. It had to be less than zero out there.

  There was no way down. The bars were too close together and even if she had managed to slip through, she was at least twenty metres above the ground. Try to jump from this height and she would break both her legs.

  She was still in the cell two hours later when the door opened and they finally brought her something to eat.

  Breakfast was a bowl of cold porridge and a tin mug of water, carried in by a monk she hadn’t yet met – for his face certainly wasn’t one that she would have forgotten. It was horribly burned. One whole side of it was dead and disfigured as if he had fallen asleep with his head resting on an oven. Scarlett turned her eyes away from him. Was there anyone at Cry for Mercy who hadn’t rotted over the past twenty years? A second monk stood with him, guarding the door.

  “You … eat … little … girl.” Burnt Face was proud of his English but his accent was so thick she could barely make out the words.

  He set the tray down, and Scarlett moved towards him. Her hands were clasped behind her back and she was clearly on the edge of tears. “Please,” she said. “Please let me out…” Her voice was trembling.

  The sight of the girl, pale and bleary-eyed after the long night, seemed to amuse him. “Out?” He sneered at her. “No out…”

  “But you don’t understand…” She was closer to him now and as he straightened up she brought her hands round and lashed out.

  She was holding an icicle.

  She had broken it off the guttering and she was holding it like a knife. The point was needle sharp. Using all her strength, she drove it into the flesh between his shoulder and his neck. The monk screamed. Blood gushed out. He fell to his knees, as if in prayer.

  Scarlett was already moving. She knew that she had to take advantage of the surprise, that speed was all she had on her side. The second monk had frozen, completely shocked by what had just happened. Before he could react, she threw herself at him, head and shoulders down, like a bull. She hit him hard in the stomach and heard the breath explode out of him. His hands grabbed for her but then he was down, writhing on the floor. She pulled away and began to run.

  According to Father Gregory, there were just seven monks in the Monastery of the Cry for Mercy and she had just taken out two of them. How long would it be before the ones that remained set off after her? Scarlett had to find the door that had brought her here. She knew where it was – a short way down the corridor, only a minute from the cell. With a bit of luck, she would be gone before they knew what had happened.

  It was only when she had taken twenty paces that she knew she had gone wrong. Somehow she had managed to get lost. She was in another long corridor and it was one that she didn’t recognize. There was a picture of some holy person hanging crookedly on the wall. An ornate wooden chest. Another passageway with a flight of stone steps leading down. For a moment they looked tempting. They might lead her out of the monastery. But at the same time, she
knew they would take her further away from the door. The door was the fast way back to St Meredith’s. She had to find it.

  In the distance, a bell began to ring. Not a call to prayers. An alarm. She heard shouting. The second of the two monks – the one she had hit – must have recovered. Forcing herself not to panic, she continued forward even though she knew she was heading in the wrong direction and that the further she went, the more lost she would become. She heard flapping ahead of her, the sound of sandals hitting the stone floor and a moment later another monk appeared. He saw her and cried out. There was an opening to one side. She took it, passing between wood-panelled walls and a great tapestry, hanging in shreds, the fabric mouldering away.

  The passage emerged in a second corridor and with a surge or relief she realized that she knew where she was. Somehow she had found her way back. There was the table with the candlesticks, the painting of the crucifixion. The door was just beyond. There was nobody in the way.

  The noise of the sandals. If the monk had been barefooted, Scarlett might not have heard him. But even without looking round, she knew that someone had caught up with her, that he was running towards her even now. In a single movement she reached out, grabbed a heavy, iron candlestick and swung it round. She’d timed it exactly right. The end of the candlestick smashed into the side of the monk’s bald head, knocking him out. Scarlett hit him a second time, just to be sure, then dropped the candlestick and made for the door.

  Someone appeared at the far end of the corridor.

  It was Father Gregory. He saw Scarlett and screamed something – maybe in English, maybe in his own language. The words were trapped in his throat. The door was now between the two of them, exactly half-way. Scarlett wondered if she could reach it. Father Gregory was dancing on his feet as if he had just been electrocuted. His good eye was wide and staring, making the other one look all the more diseased. Scarlett was about thirty metres away, panting, gathering all her strength for one last effort.

  The two of them set off at the same moment.

  In a way it was weird. Scarlett wasn’t running away. She was actually hurtling towards the one man she most wanted to avoid. But she had to reach the door before he did. She had made her decision. It was the only way home.

  Father Gregory was surprisingly fast. His limp had disappeared and he moved with incredible speed, his fury propelling him forward. Scarlett didn’t dare look at him. She was aware of him getting closer and closer but her eyes were fixed on the door. There it was in front of her. She lunged forward and grabbed hold of the handle, but at the same moment his hands fell on her, seizing hold of the top of her coat, his fingers against her neck. She heard him cry out in triumph. His breath was against her skin.

  She didn’t let go of the door. She wasn’t going to let him drag her back. Instead, she dropped down, twisting her shoulders so that the coat was pulled over her head. She had already undone the buttons and she felt it come loose, falling away. Father Gregory lost his balance and, still holding the coat, fell backwards. Scarlett was free. She jerked the door open and threw herself forward. For a few seconds her vision was blurred. The doorway seemed to rush past. She heard Gregory screaming at her, suddenly a long way away.

  The door slammed shut behind her.

  She was lying, sobbing and shaking on the floor of St Meredith’s. And there was a man standing in front of her, a young policeman, dressed in blue, staring at her with a look of complete bewilderment.

  “Who are you?” he demanded.

  “I’m … Scarlett Adams.” She could barely get the words out.

  “Where have you been? What have you been doing?” The policeman shook his head in disbelief. “You’d better come with me!”

  FRONT PAGE NEWS

  Scarlett had only been missing for eighteen hours but she was a fifteen-year-old student on a school trip in the middle of London, and her disappearance had been enough to trigger a major panic with newspaper headlines, TV bulletins and a nationwide search. Both her parents had been informed at once and Paul Adams was already on a plane, on his way back from Hong Kong. He was actually in mid-air when Scarlett was found.

  Scarlett had begun to realize that she was in trouble almost from the moment she found herself back in St Meredith’s, sitting opposite the policeman who had immediately launched into a series of questions.

  “Where have you been?” he began.

  Scarlett was still in shock, thinking about her narrow escape from Father Gregory. She pointed at the door with a trembling finger. “There…”

  “What do you mean?” The policeman was young and out of his depth. He had already radioed for backup and an ambulance was on the way. Even so, he was the first on the scene. There might even be a promotion in this. He took out a notebook and prepared to write down anything Scarlett said.

  “The monastery.” Scarlett muttered. “I was in the monastery.”

  “And what monastery was that?”

  “On the other side of the door.”

  The policeman walked over to the door and opened it before Scarlett realized what he was going to do. At the last minute, she screamed at him, a single word.

  “Don’t!”

  She had visions of Father Gregory flying in, dragging her back to her cell. She was sure the nightmare was about to begin all over again. But the policeman was just standing there, scratching his head. There was no monastery on the other side of the door, no monks – just an alleyway, a brick wall, a line of rubbish bins. It was drizzling – grey, London weather. Scarlett looked past him. She couldn’t quite believe what she was seeing.

  And that was when she knew that she was going to have to start lying. How could she explain where she had been and what had really happened to her? Magic doors? Psycho monks in Ukraine? People would think she was mad. Worse than that, they might decide that the whole thing had been a schoolgirl prank. She would be expelled from St Genevieve’s. Her father would kill her. She had to come up with an answer that made sense.

  The next forty-eight hours were a nightmare almost as bad as the one she had left behind. More policemen and paramedics arrived and suddenly the church was crowded with people all asking questions and arguing amongst themselves. Scarlett didn’t seem to be hurt but even so she was wrapped in a blanket and whisked off to hospital. Somehow, the press had already found out that she was back. The street was jammed with photographers and journalists threatening to mob her as she was bundled into the ambulance and there were more of them waiting when she was helped out on the other side. All Scarlett could do was keep her head down, ignore the flashes of the cameras and wish that this whole thing would be over soon.

  Mrs Murdoch had been called to the hospital and stayed with Scarlett as she was examined by a doctor and a nurse. The housekeeper was looking shell-shocked. It was obvious that nothing like this had ever happened to her before. The doctor took Scarlett’s pulse and heart rate and then asked her to strip down to her underwear.

  “Where did you get these?” He had noted a series of scratches running down her back.

  “I don’t know…” Scarlett guessed that she had been hurt in her final confrontation with Father Gregory but she wasn’t going to talk about that now. She was pretending that she was too dazed to explain anything.

  “How about this, Scarlett?” The nurse had found blood on her school jersey. “Is this your blood?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  The jersey was placed in a bag to be handed over to the police for forensic examination. It occurred to Scarlett that they would be unable to find a match for it … not unless their database extended all the way to Ukraine.

  Finally, Scarlett was allowed to take a shower and was given new clothes to wear. Two policewomen had arrived to interview her. Mrs Murdoch stayed with her and just for once Scarlett was glad to have her around. She wouldn’t have wanted to go through all this on her own.

  “Do you remember what happened to you from the time of your disappearance? Perhaps you’d like to s
tart when you arrived at the church…”

  The policewomen were both in their thirties, kind but severe. The rumour was already circulating that Scarlett had never been in any danger at all and that this whole thing was a colossal waste of police time. By now, Scarlett had worked out what she was going to say. She knew that it would sound pretty lame. But it would just have to do.

  “I don’t remember anything,” she said. “I wasn’t feeling well in the church. I was dizzy. So I went outside to get some fresh air – and after that, everything is blank. I think I fell over. I don’t know…”

  “You fainted?”

  “I think so. I want to help you. But I just don’t know…”

  The two policewomen looked doubtful. They had been on the force long enough to know when someone was lying and it was obvious to them that Scarlett was hiding something. But there wasn’t much they could do. They asked her the same questions over and over again and received exactly the same answers. She had fallen ill. She had fainted. She couldn’t remember anything else. And what other explanation could there be?

  The interview ended when Paul Adams appeared. A taxi had brought him straight from Heathrow Airport and he burst into the room, his suit crumpled, his face a mixture of anxiety, relief and irritation, all three of them compounded by a generous dose of jet lag.

  “Scarly!” He went over and hugged his daughter.

  “Hello, Dad.”

  “I can’t believe they’ve found you. Are you hurt? Where have you been?” The two policewomen exchanged a glance. Paul Adams turned to them. “If you don’t mind, I’d like to take my daughter home. Mrs Murdoch…”

  They left the hospital by a back exit, avoiding the press pack who were still camped out at the front. By now, Scarlett was exhausted. She had been found mid-morning, but it was early evening before she was released. She was desperate to go to bed and once she got there, she slept through the entire night. Maybe that was just as well. She would need all her strength for the headlines that were waiting for her the next day.