But Crane was drawn to this poster for reasons of his own.
1955 had been a significant year.
It had been the year when visitors from a little further afield had come to the United States…
In the polished glass, Crane watched his smile disappear. He felt a tingle at the ends of his fingers. He felt it spread across skin that had been harvested from the dead years before and grafted on to his own flesh.
He had known this moment was coming, of course. It was necessary. It was part of the scheme of things. The presence of these two … no three … children, while a threat, was certainly a necessity – for without them the show Crane had planned for a few days’ time could not take place. It was to be the best and biggest show of all. And they were a vital part of the bill.
Ezekiel Crane’s smile reappeared, spectacular as ever. He lifted up his dark glasses and winked at himself in the glass, before going to join his closest disciples backstage. Crane did this before every meeting. It was not so much a prayer meeting, but a pep talk to get his team ready to go out and work the audience up to fever pitch before he appeared on stage.
“May you use this energy – my gift to you – and pass it on to the people so that they may feel it too,” Crane intoned in a dramatic voice. “Let them sing it from their hearts and believe it in their souls. I want to see eyes burning with zeal and mouths speaking in tongues. Reach out to every man, woman and child in the hive and let them know that they are the chosen few, the faithful remnant; they are my workers and my drones and their work has not been in vain. Let them know that I will deliver them. Amen.”
In unison, the circle of Crane’s closest followers mumbled “Amen.”
Crane waved a vague blessing at his devotees and they hurried away to prepare for the show while he returned to his dressing room with Brother Jedediah to put the finishing touches to his wig.
“Biggest crowd I ever seen out there, Pastor,” Jedediah said. He grinned obsequiously and rubbed his sweaty palms together.
Crane grunted. He knew the theatre would be full to capacity; tonight was going to be very special. He sat down in the padded make-up chair and rolled up his sleeve. He double-looped a rubber band round his arm, just above the elbow, and tapped his skin with two fingers, trying to raise a vein.
Jedediah was already going about his work; with hairspray and the pointed end of a styling comb, he was teasing the back of Crane’s hair into a blond roll over his high collar. “Got a new supply of venom coming in tomorrow,” he said. “Top quality stuff from Mexico.”
“Glad to hear it, Brother Jed.” Crane flashed his teeth. “I’m going to need all the strength I can get in the next few weeks.” He found a blood vessel and stuck the needle in, letting out a long sigh as he pushed down the plunger and the bee venom raced into his veins…
In the auditorium the band was playing a song. Drummers beat out the rhythm of a ticking clock, punctuated by stabs of brass and organ. The audience clapped as one and sang along:
“Tick-Tock, the day has come,
Tick-Tock, we are as one,
Tick-Tock, we’re rising up,
To drink from Ezekiel’s Cup.
“The Gathering, we will ascend,
The Gathering, our souls will mend…”
As the song ended, the jewelled curtain rose and the band struck up again with organ chords and a great blare of brass. Flash-pots exploded and pyrotechnics lit up the stage with bright-white light and smoke. A spotlight revealed the figure of Ezekiel Crane at the top of a flight of steps, his pale blue cape blowing in the breeze from a wind machine.
Shrieks and whistles tore the air. Men shouted and women screamed – some of them fainting or frothing at the mouth. Arms waved wildly and people jumped up and down on the spot. Others broke rank and ran around in the aisles, punching the air, their tongues lolling from their mouths as they chatted gibberish.
Savouring the moment, Crane slowly descended the staircase to more applause, eventually coming to a stop at a lectern at the front of the stage. He allowed the adulation to continue for a few seconds longer then raised his arms. The crowd fell silent.
“Brothers and Sisters, the day is nearly come,” he said. “But first we must bury our dead…”
The main lights dimmed, and as a small choir was revealed by a spotlight at the back of the stage, a lidless white coffin was carried on from the wings. The pall-bearers walked slowly in step across the stage and laid the coffin down on a raised platform that was draped in the Triple Wheel flag. The choir lowered their voices and Crane began to speak.
“You are the lucky ones,” he said. “You will be there when the day of the Gathering dawns. But others, such as our brother here, will not be so fortunate.” He walked across the stage and stared down at the body in the casket, shaking his head and wiping away what might have been a tear. “He has been taken just a few days too soon. Just a few days before the world will change for ever. We mourn the loss of one of our own, and we wish him well on his journey – we know he will be watching when the great day comes.” There were gasps and muffled sobs from the crowd and Crane walked back to the lectern. “Now, let us bow our heads,” he said. “Let us remember a valued member of our hive…”
As one, the congregation did as Crane asked. He bowed his own head and closed his eyes – but not before he had glanced into the wings and smiled at the thumbs-up Brother Jedediah had given him.
“Thank you,” Crane said to the crowd, opening his eyes. He held out his arms and raised his voice. “Now, which of you is burning to share? Which of you is hurting? Which of you is sick?”
There followed an hour or so of testimony and healing. One by one, members of the audience stood up, waiting, while one of the Triple Wheel support staff hurried across the theatre with a microphone. Each “witness” talked about how the Triple Wheel had changed his or her life or else gave details of the particular ailment that was blighting it.
Ezekiel Crane invited them all up on to the stage and laid his hands on them while the band played and the voices of the choir echoed around the auditorium. He eased the pain of bad backs and migraines, and caused those with walking frames to move unaided. A woman with failing eyesight claimed that the moment Crane touched her, she could see “clear to the back of the room”. Another fell to her knees and announced that all her pain had “melted away” beneath the pastor’s fingers. One old man joyfully threw away a pair of walking-sticks and all but ran back to his seat, dancing for joy and singing the virtues of Pastor Crane and the Triple Wheel.
The audience watched, spellbound and thrilled.
It was as great a performance as the Fox Theatre had ever witnessed.
“The three wheels are spinning mighty fast and powerful in here tonight,” Crane said, chuckling. He was once more alone on stage, save for the body of the dead man in the coffin behind him. “I know that when my workers move among you with the collection buckets, you will feel that power. I know that you will dig deep into your pocketbooks and your purses. I know that… I know that…”
Crane stopped, his gaze fixed on a small boy three rows from the front: on the pale skinny arm that the boy had raised in the air.
The room fell silent; all eyes were on the boy.
“We’ve done with the healing for tonight, son,” Crane said. His voice was weak suddenly; a tremble in it he could neither control nor explain. He could only watch as the boy pushed to the end of the row and began walking towards the stage.
“Maybe next time,” Crane said. He tried and failed to summon up a nice big smile. “Give your name to Brother Jedediah…”
But the boy kept coming, burly Triple Wheel devotees stepping aside as he got closer, marching up the steps and walking across the dimly lit stage until he stood a few metres away from Ezekiel Crane.
Crane’s mouth was dry and he could feel beads of sweat running down his face and trickling beneath the collar of his shirt. He wondered if he was coming down with something. Food poisoning, maybe
…
He stared at the boy. He saw a mop of blond hair that hung down, almost obscuring the boy’s bright blue eyes. He saw an open, easy smile. He saw a face which looked innocent – angelic even – but which made Crane feel as if he were on the edge of an abyss, or standing too close to an open fire.
It was exactly the face that Gabriel wanted him to see.
Nearly seven thousand kilometres away a dog named Merlin began to howl in the grand lobby of Waverley Hall, a stately home on the outskirts of the small English village of Triskellion. Upstairs, the master of the house – and its sole occupant for many years – woke and looked at the clock. It was 2.15 a.m. Muttering curses, he climbed out of bed and pulled on his dressing gown, and then, in between the cries of his Irish wolfhound, heard the ringing of the telephone.
Commodore Gerald Wing came down the stairs faster than a man with a false leg and nearly eighty years behind him was entitled to. He switched on the lights in the lobby and walked over to where the old Bakelite phone sat ringing on the polished oak table opposite the front door.
Merlin was waiting for him, sitting proudly next to the table, his job done.
“Good boy.” The old man rubbed the dog’s ears, then picked up the phone. “Wing,” he said. There was a crackle and a pause before a woman said something he could not understand. “What?”
“My name’s Angela Scoppetone,” the woman repeated.
“Do you have any bloody idea what time it is?”
“I’m terribly sorry if I woke you, sir, but I’m ringing from the New York City Police Department. It’s pretty important.”
The police? Commodore Wing felt as though he had been punched in the stomach. He cleared his throat and stood up straighter, preparing himself for the news. “It’s Hilary, isn’t it?”
“Excuse me? Hilary who?”
“My son,” Wing said. “He’s … missing.”
The commodore’s only son had been involved in a terrible motorcycle accident a little more than two years ago, and in truth, the old man could no longer be sure if he was alive or dead. Wing’s heart started to beat a little faster as he remembered the events leading up to the crash. It had been the summer the children were in the village: the one when the lives of a great many people, his own included, had been turned upside down. Exactly what had happened after the accident was a mystery. Hilary had vanished, and though the two of them had been far from close, the commodore was still deeply troubled by the fact that he had not heard a word from his son since that day.
It had been the day his own life had as good as ended – the day Celia Root had passed away; the day Gerald Wing had lost everything.
“I’m not calling about that,” the woman said.
Wing tried to clear his mind, to focus on the conversation. “Sorry, what did you say?”
“This is not about your son.”
“Is it the children, then?”
“Which children are we talking about here?”
“Rachel and Adam.” The commodore felt a wave of regret, of shame, wash over him as he spoke the names of the grandchildren he had never acknowledged as his own flesh and blood. It had been because he was frightened; he had known what their presence in the village would mean. The uncovering of secrets so long buried had been painful, and costly.
“I’m calling about a woman called Kate Newman,” Scoppetone said. “I know she was born there and I know that her mother was named Celia Root.”
“That’s correct,” Wing said. His voice was weak and hoarse.
“The rest of it’s a bit of a mystery. It says FATHER UNKNOWN on Ms Newman’s birth certificate, so…”
“Go on.”
“Well, I don’t know much about how these villages work over there. I mean it’s not New York, I know that much.” Scoppetone chuckled. “So I used my initiative and called the local pub…”
“The Star.”
“Right. Got the landlord out of bed too. He said you were the right person to speak to.” Scoppetone paused, taking a drink of something. “He gave me your number.”
“He was correct,” Wing said. “I am the right person.” He pulled a chair away from the table and sat down. He took a deep breath. His voice echoed in the gloomy old hall as he said something he should have done a long time ago: “Kate Newman is my daughter” – it felt good to say it – “so how can I be of help?”
“I’m sorry to tell you this, but your daughter is wanted for murder.” Scoppetone paused again, this time for effect. “She killed a man. Shot him dead.”
Wing struggled to find the right words. “There has to be some mistake. I mean, surely…”
“No mistake, sir.”
“Where did this happen?” It had been more than two years since that terrible day when Celia had died and Kate and the children had left the village. He hadn’t seen them since the funeral, and their whereabouts had been as unknown to him as Hilary’s.
“In Australia,” Scoppetone said. “But she was here in New York this morning. Now she’s on the run.”
“And what do you think I can do about it?”
“You can contact me immediately if Kate turns up over there. Or if she gets in touch. Tell her it’s me, OK? We’re old friends, and things’ll go a damn sight better for her if I’m the one who brings her in. Make sure she understands that, sir.”
“She won’t get in touch with me,” Wing said, sadly. “No reason she should.”
“Well, if she does, you know what to do.”
Wing muttered a vague yes, but he was barely listening any more. His mind was racing as he scribbled down the contact details the detective gave him.
“Thanks for your help,” Scoppetone said. “I hope I didn’t disturb you too much.”
Wing was struggling to see how he could feel any more disturbed. “It’s fine,” he said.
“I’ll let you get back to sleep.”
Commodore Wing dropped the phone back into its cradle and pulled the dog close to him. He knew that sleep would now be impossible. It was cold, and he felt more alone, more helpless, than at any other time in his life.
The crowd of Triple Wheelers was becoming unsettled. They had never heard Pastor Crane remain silent for so long. He looked smaller, diminished somehow by the golden-haired boy who faced him on stage.
Crane croaked a “Welcome”, knowing instinctively that he had to do something to salvage the situation. He swallowed hard and opened his arms wide.
Brother Jedediah began to applaud from the wings, grateful that the dreadful silence had been broken. A flutter of applause went through the band and began to spread across the stage to the choir. The clapping continued into the front rows and then crashed like a wave across the rest of the assembly. Triple Wheelers began to echo Crane’s words. “Welcome, welcome, welcome.”
Gabriel walked to the front of the stage and raised his hands. A spotlight was trained on him, making him appear to shine. He lowered his arms and the crowd fell silent.
“Thank you for your kindness to me tonight,” he said. “I come here to testify. I come here to tell you more about the day that you know is coming, and I come here to tell you the truth…”
Crane did not like what the boy was saying. He edged forward and clicked his fingers at the lighting gallery, instructing them to put a spotlight on him. It quickly appeared, but the boy’s light burned twice as brightly.
“The truth…” Gabriel repeated.
“Amen to that,” Crane said, putting an arm round the boy’s shoulder. “We all know the truth… That’s why we’re here today, Brothers and Sisters, and I’d like to thank this young man for coming up here today and testifying. Amen.”
“Amen!” the Triple Wheelers shouted.
Crane seized his chance to try and usher the boy from the stage, but Gabriel was not finished. He threw Crane’s arm off his shoulder.
“Leave me alone,” he said.
Crane nodded to his bodyguards in the wings. The men came forward and began to crowd around Gabriel
, trying to edge him off the stage.
“Leave me alone,” Gabriel said again, and threw his arms back.
The men screamed and fell to the floor as if they had been electrified. Gabriel’s eyes burned with a new zeal and he strode back to the front of the stage. “I’ll tell you the truth,” he said. “What you have seen today are not miracles. What you have seen are party tricks, performed by a charlatan.” He pointed at Ezekiel Crane. “By a fake.”
The audience began to shout, “No! No!” and Crane nodded in desperate agreement with them.
“This man will lead you to disaster!” Gabriel said. “He does not know what he is dealing with.”
Crane strode across the front of the stage, and the Triple Wheelers began jeering at this boy who dared to say these things about their leader. They stamped the floor and yelled until the theatre was full of a noise like thunder.
Suddenly, Gabriel’s voice boomed out, high above the noise. “If you want a miracle, I’ll show you a miracle.”
He clenched his fists and the spotlight on him glowed brighter still. High in the upper balconies of the theatre, bulbs began to pop and fizz, showering sparks into the air. They went out one by one until the only light came from the spotlight over Gabriel.
Gabriel walked over to where the open coffin stood. He closed his eyes and clenched his teeth together, summoning up all the strength he had. A light went on over the coffin, giving it an eerie glow.
The audience fell completely silent.
Then there was a sound.
A noise came from the coffin. A low groan like a wounded animal. Then a movement: a white hand raising itself, trembling, into the air.
Triple Wheelers threw their hands over their faces while gasping and crying out.
Ezekiel Crane drew back in horror as the dead man’s body hauled itself up from the silk-lined casket.
Triskellion 3: The Gathering Page 11
