Kylie fires up the iPad and browses the internet, searching for snippets of information about her daughter. She shouldn’t. The web gossip is bitter. Twisted. Cruel. There is already a virtual tombstone, spray-painted with messages from fans. Mostly boys.
But she has to read it. All of it. She has to tune in to everything and anything to do with Caitlyn. Because deep down, deep inside her, she feels something she can’t explain.
Something instinctual. Maternal. Her nerves are jangling. Something bad is happening to her baby. She just knows it.
166
The sound is the one Caitlyn has been dreading.
Metal on metal.
A worn key turning in an old lock. The cell door is opening. They have come for her. The ritual is about to begin. She is going to die.
Gideon puts his arms around her. ‘Be ready,’ he whispers. ‘Whatever I do, whenever I do it, be ready to fight for your life.’
He can feel her heart hammering against his chest. She is trembling from head to toe.
‘It is time,’ says an impatient voice by the door.
Caitlyn clings to Gideon.
‘Be brave. Be strong.’ He peels her off him, holds her hand. ‘I’ll be with you.’
She takes a deep breath, tells herself to keep her wits about her. Don’t fall apart now. It would be the worst thing to do. The fight isn’t over until all hope is gone.
From somewhere deep inside, she finds courage, pulls her hand free from Gideon’s and walks towards the two robed men waiting by the cell door.
Draco nods to Gideon, gestures to the letters on the girl’s bunk. Gideon understands and rushes to collect them.
They walk the corridor of death, flames crackling from burning torches fixed to the walls and reach the cleansing area.
Caitlyn is pulled from Gideon, undressed and manhandled into the deep stone trench. Clear, cold mineral water powers down on her from the channelled inlets set in the rock ceiling. She shivers, fighting for breath.
Gideon turns away as the Cleansers pull her from the water, dry her and dress her in the long sacrificial robe. One of the Lookers walks over and talks quietly to him. ‘Come with me, Phoenix. You must stand for her in the Great Room. The circles of light are lit. They await her there.’
Gideon doesn’t want to leave her side. He feels a tug on his elbow and looks back at Caitlyn as they walk. He can’t see her face, he wants to see her face, make some human connection with her. But he can’t. Too many people around her.
In the Great Room, he looks helplessly around the chamber, smells the newly warmed wax of the candles. He looks up and sees that the star shafts are open. The sunless sky is grey and edging towards twilight.
Time is running out.
His eyes fall to the Slaughter Stone, the spot where Caitlyn will be strapped down and the marks of the trilithons opened up on her legs, arms and spine. There is a noise outside. Footsteps. They are bringing her in. The ritual is about to begin.
Draco’s hooded head appears in the doorway. His dark eyes fix on Gideon. ‘Come with me, now! The Great Room must be cleared. There’s a change of plan.’
167
‘Is there no other way round, Jimmy?’
The DS shakes his head. ‘Bulford’s a horror. You’ve got half the bloody army out here: 3rd Mechanised, the Rifles, Royal Logistics, even the RMP.’
Finally, they edge past the slow-moving convoy of squaddies and Jimmy works the car hard down Marlborough Road, takes a right into Hubert Hamilton Road, then a left into Harrington. At last they’re in the road where Lee Johns lives.
They slew to a halt, get out and sprint through a communal garden, up white concrete steps to a run-down flat. Megan keeps her finger pressed on the button while Jimmy shuffles along the small balcony to bang on the lounge window.
There’s no answer.
She crouches and shouts through the letterbox. ‘Lee, it’s DI Baker and DS Dockery. We need to talk to you. Urgently.’
Still nothing.
‘Put the door in.’
Jimmy hesitates.
‘Put it in, Jimmy, or I’ll do it.’
He steps back, plants a kick below the handle. His foot bounces off the lock but the door doesn’t break. He steps back again and delivers a firmer thump with his heel. This time it swings open and they pile in.
Jimmy runs through the lounge into the small kitchen. Megan takes the bedroom. Then the bathroom. Nothing. He isn’t here. She goes back into the bedroom. Opens the wardrobe and the chest of drawers. Full of clothes. Into the bathroom again. She finds his toothbrush. No sign of a hurried exit.
They wander outside, thinking about where next to hunt. Forty metres down the street Megan notices a thin man holding a newspaper in one hand and a sandwich in the other.
It’s him.
Johns sees them on the stairs. And starts to run.
He’s quick too. Much faster than Megan expected an ex-junkie to be. He makes a break for the fields behind Harrington Road. She barrels after him. Jimmy jogs back for the car, hopes to head him off as he comes out on Marlborough Road.
Megan is catching him.
Johns glances over his shoulder and sees her gaining. He also notices Jimmy is not there. It doesn’t take a lot of working out to figure he is following in the motor.
Johns peels away from Marlborough Road. He’s not going for the open fields. He’s not that stupid. Instead he goes north towards a dense copse. With any luck, he’ll lose her in there.
But he doesn’t make it.
Megan finds an extra burst of energy just as his tank runs empty. She takes him down metres from the edge of the woodland.
They are both breathing heavily but the DI is fitter and stronger. She grabs his wrist and twists his arm hard up his back.
He kicks a little but his lungs are on fire.
‘Don’t even think about it, Lee.’
168
Six Followers, led by Draco and Musca, briskly escort Caitlyn and Gideon back to their cell.
She is terrified by the men’s haste, their infectious nervous energy.
‘What’s going on?’ Gideon asks Draco.
‘Wait a minute.’
The Lookers push the sacrifice inside and Draco pulls him away from the bars. ‘The Master has changed the plans for the ritual. He has been to the henge and he has himself become a vessel for the Sacreds. The gods are within him. He is in the Great Room right now, allowing them to take their places in the Sanctuary.’
‘He is switching the location for the ritual?’
‘That’s right. He believes it safer to take place here, than out in the open.’
‘And that accords with tradition?’
‘It does. The henge in the Great Room comes from the same tabernacle stone as those on public display. In many ways it is a holier site.’
Gideon realises the implications of the switch. They’re not going to take her outside. He will have no chance to help her escape. He looks through the cell bars. She will be put to death just a short walk from where she is now.
‘I have to see my father. I must speak with him.’ He tries to push past him.
Draco blocks his way. ‘That’s not possible.’
‘I must.’