by Sam Christer
Methodically and unemotionally, he clears his head by deciphering the journals. By late evening finds he’s able to translate automatically, rather than writing out the symbols first. He reads how Nathaniel believed followers of the Sacreds were saved from the outbreak of Asiatic Flu, Russian Flu, in 1889, when a million people were killed. Similarly, how they avoided the 1918 Spanish Flu outbreak – a virus that went on to claim the lives of almost fifty million people. It was the same in 1957, when Asian Flu swept the world and wiped out almost two million people. And in 1968, when Hong Kong Flu killed a million and again in 2009, during the deadly outbreak of Swine Flu, the H1N1 virus. None of the Followers perished.
Gideon is sceptical but fascinated by the claims. He guesses it’s possible. A psychosomatic reaction to the stones brought on by powerful beliefs. Lourdes springs to mind. From what he can recall, more than two hundred million people have made pilgrimages there. His atheist’s mind equates the two. The healing powers of the stones versus those of the waters of a grotto in the foothills of the Pyrenees. Both as equally incredible as each other.
He looks at his watch. It’s almost one a.m. He’s hungry and exhausted. Too tired and anxious to go downstairs or make anything to eat. He vows to look over just one more page and then turn in for the night.
He wishes he hadn’t. The passage he’s focused on makes his blood run cold:
Gideon knows only that his mother had a fatal illness. The single good thing about the word ‘cancer’ is that it scares off further interrogation, especially in a child. I hope he goes through his entire life not knowing that it was CLL, never realising that it was hereditary. I put my trust in the Sacreds, in the bond I make with them, in the clear blood of mine that I pledge to purify that of my child.
He reads it again. His brain pounds as he tries to take it in. Only the key words – cancer, hereditary, CLL – stay sharp in his mind.
CLL.
What is it? Does he have it?
Will it kill him?
43
The Henge Master walks in the comforting dark circle of the Sacreds, his eyes turned to the pin-prick stars. The night sky is an avalanche of black soot, a limitless mystery, a dark hurricane hurtling towards the sleeping heads of the ignorant. It is his duty to look for them. To understand for them. To save them from their own folly.
In the unseen currents and dark streams above, he senses the shift, the wheeling constellations, the lethargy of the Lyrids, the impatience of the coming and deadly Delta Aquarids. He feels the pull of the tides, the shift of winds across oceans, the growing cracks in the core of the earth.
As always the innocent will come running to the summer solstice, their heads beaded, their hands clasped. Their vaunted hopes of wild lovemaking and drug-induced euphoria. They will choke on their own naivety. Every last one of them. Even those who think they are wise have no idea, no understanding that the important thing is not the solstice and the sun. It is the full moon that follows.
Balance. Always balance. So many only ever see the obvious. Just as the greatest magicians fool us by distraction, so do the gods. Only the chosen can see beyond the cosmic illusions. Let the blind prostrate themselves and pose in the dazzling show of light at the equinox. Redemption lies in the twilight. The moon is rising to its most powerful apex.
The Master knows the importance of the unseen. Farmers since time began have learned this primary lesson. The crop we see depends on what we cannot see. The darkness in the earth must be respected, it must be loved as much as the brightness in the sky. The ancients knew – and their children know – the earth’s unseen powers of growth need to be nourished. They need blood meal, the richness of bone, the coolness of the grave. Scientists say blood on soil provides vital nitrogen, but it obliges with much more than just chemicals. Blood contains something else. Soul. And the more the soil has, the more it wants.
In forty-eight hours the summer solstice will bring tens of thousands to Stonehenge. The ignorant will jibber-jabber like baboons. They will clamber like cavemen on the stones. They will claim to be touched spiritually by an energy they have yearned to feel.
If only they knew the truth. The brutal truth. Because by then the circle will be empty. The Sacreds will be in the Sanctuary.
The Master smiles as he walks away. Tomorrow he will return and begin his pilgrimage. He will supplicate himself before each and every god and absorb their divine spirits. He will be their vessel, their portal through the black earth to the ancient temple below.
44
Eric Denver has been head of security for the Lock family for almost twenty years. Husband, wife and now daughter. Guardian angel to them all. Thom Lock is a self-made multimillionaire. When he was made Vice President of the United States, he had no choice but to accept Secret Service protection for himself. But he put his foot down when it came to Caitlyn. He was determined that his only child would have something more personal and private. Hence Eric. Given her wild behaviour, it’s a good job he signed him up. Tongues would certainly wag in Washington if the smileless ones in the corridors of power knew half the things she gets up to under cover of completing her studies in the UK.
Eric gives the VP daily reports, but he leaves stuff out. The kid’s got to have room to breathe. Even he can see that all the attention and private scrutiny suffocate her sometimes. So occasionally, like now, he turns a blind eye when things get a bit loose.
Just before midnight, six of Caitlyn’s girlfriends roll in and all but fall down the corridor outside her apartment. They’re clutching handbags and bottles of champagne. On their slim faked-tan arms are six muscled youths straight out of an army poster. Big, brawny heads, biceps like rugby balls, eyes glazed from booze and dope.
Eric and Leon, his number-two, step forward and block the march of the dirty drunken dozen. ‘Homework club’s cancelled, kids,’ he says, recognising a couple of the girls’ faces. ‘You need to be getting off now.’
The tallest of the youths – blond-haired with the kind of physique few would want to test – swaggers forward. ‘Hey, we don’t want no trouble, brother. We just come to party with Caitlyn.’
Eric raises an eyebrow. ‘Brother’ is not a term he takes easily from a white kid. ‘No partying tonight, my friend. Miss Lock already has an important date – with a cup of cocoa and a TV show.’
Blondie’s about to push his luck when Caitlyn opens the front door. Four of the girls scream with drunken excitement and rush her. The guys start to follow but the two bodyguards block the door. Music explodes from a Bose system rigged into the walls. Black Eyed Peas’ ‘Rock that Body’.
The guys are having a stare-out when two of the women briefly reappear from the apartment. One of them jumps into Eric’s arms and tries hard to kiss him. He pulls her away and puts her down. She smoothes out her sparkling blue cocktail dress. ‘Please let us all in Eric, pleeeze. You can’t keep Caitlyn cooped up like this. She needs some fun.’
The girl smells of booze and perfume, mouth-fresheners and spray-on deodorant. ‘C’mon Janie, you and these friends of yours need to go home, you know the score. Caitlyn had her fun the other night.’
The situation changes in a second. One of the youths spins and shouts, ‘Fuck him, Janie, we’re outta here.’ He and his friends tow a couple of the girls back to the lifts. ‘C’mon, let’s go to China’s.’ The call brings the others from the apartment. One of them giggles then stumbles and breaks a heel. Leon helps her up and she hobbles off holding the shoe in a hand.
As the apartment door bangs shut, Caitlyn’s voice screams through the wood: ‘Thanks a-friggin lot.’
Eric smiles and listens to the lift ding, then goes back to the apartment door and knocks lightly. ‘Caitlyn, we’re just looking out for you.’
‘Screw you. I’m going to bed.’ Another door slams deep inside the apartment. He looks at Leon. ‘Could be worse.’
‘How so?’
Eric grins again. ‘We could have let them in. Then we really would have had troubl
e.’
45
They hail taxis in the road outside Caitlyn’s apartment and head north of the river into the frothy wash of endless partyland. Eric and Leon make coffee in their adjoining apartment and watch a TV among a bank of monitors linked to security cameras on the landing, lifts, stairways and outside areas. They relax now that Caitlyn’s sulking in her room and they’re not traipsing around Soho or the West End watching her back. Neither really fancied another late night. Tomorrow they’ll think differently. Tomorrow they will know that amid all the shouting, kissing, comings and goings, they both missed something. Something significant.
Caitlyn.
The angry voice from inside the apartment wasn’t her voice. It was Abbie Richter’s. The young American is now snuggled up in Caitlyn’s king-size bed, ready for a good night’s sleep and no doubt a tongue-lashing from Eric in the morning when he finds out they switched.
Caitlyn is in the front seat of the VW Campervan Jake Timberland has hired for this very special occasion. He looks across from the well-worn steering wheel. ‘Vintage Type 2,’ he brags, adding ironically, ‘Whopping 1.4-litre engine that will whisk you to your secret destination at a dizzying sixty miles an hour. Check out the rock ’n’ roll rear seat.’
Like a small child, she scurries from the front to explore the back of the van. She finds cupboards stacked with snacks, a DVD player, flatscreen TV, fitted oven and fridge full of champagne, strawberries and three different types of ice cream. ‘Yay!’ she shouts as she inspects the flavours and eyes up a back seat that converts into a double bed.
Caitlyn returns to the front and pecks him on the cheek before sitting back down. ‘I love it. Love it, love it.’
‘Glad I could please.’
‘I’m so sparked up! So, where are we going?’
‘Somewhere you’ve never been. Where few have trod but many have dreamed.’
She play-punches him on the arm. ‘Cut it out. Tell me.’
He laughs. ‘No. It’s a surprise.’
They cross the river and head west out to Hammersmith, past Brentford, north of Heathrow then south down a river of endless black tarmac. They stretch their legs at a service station near Fleet, then climb back in and Caitlyn soon falls asleep.
Jake drives for another hour, fighting off tiredness by listening to the radio and taking occasional glances at the sleeping beauty in the passenger seat. Sometimes he lifts her hand. Just to hold it. His mind running away with him. Imagining their relationship is already more than it actually is. Finally he sees the sign he’s been looking for and pulls off the road. He parks up, kills the engine and retreats into the back to pull out the bed.
The sudden stillness causes Caitlyn to stir. He leans close and strokes her hair as he whispers, ‘We’re here.’
She murmurs. Her eyes flicker open but she’s having trouble fighting the pull of sleep.
‘Come and lie down in the back. You can sleep better for a while.’
She gets it together enough to stumble through to the bed he’s laid out. She curls up quickly and he lies next to her and pulls the quilt over them. Her eyes closed, she asks, ‘Where are we?’
‘Wait until sunrise,’ he says, kissing her lightly.
46
Lee Johns has lost track of time. He doesn’t know how long he’s been slipping in and out of consciousness. It could be hours or days. He’s only aware of those long moments when pain is clamping his limbs and screams are climbing his throat.
Left naked face-down on the floor of the Great Room, he’s been close to death and has lost several pints of blood. The icy Slaughter Stone under him has chilled his body to hypothermic levels.
He wakes. Feels a deep, rhythmical bludgeoning in his head. But is glad to be alive. He can move a hand. The bindings have been cut. Two robed and hooded Helpers see him stirring and step forward. They carefully lift him from the floor and wrap blankets around him.
It’s over.
Johns is stiff and barely able to walk. His senses are peculiarly heightened. He has no feeling in his feet but can hear loud echoes from his own footsteps like he’s walking on the surface of a giant drum. The Helpers support him as he sways unsteadily down the cold, shadowy passageways. ‘We are taking you to the cleansing area,’ says a distant voice. ‘You’ll be washed and dressed, then instructed.’
The words seem to leave an imprint in the air, like a sound wave on a recording screen. Johns strains over his shoulder and sees the syllables trailing behind him like the fluttering tail of a multi-coloured kite.
They must have drugged him. He’s hallucinating, that’s all.
They take him to a deep stone trench being filled by a roaring waterfall. It’s red. Blood red. And it’s steaming on the floor like a pan of spilled tomato soup. Johns stands naked, terrified, frozen to the spot.
‘It’s all right, trust us.’ A Helper holds his own hand under the cascading blood and as it touches his skin it becomes transparent. Crystal clear. As pure as a mountain stream.
Johns steps in and closes his eyes. The steam from the shower smells like rusty iron. It feels like a thousand needles are being jabbed into his scalp. His heart bucks hard as the hot spray spikes into his head like thorns.
Slowly his cold-numbed nerves come tingling to life beneath the warm downpour. Finally, he opens his eyes. He looks at his hands and body. The water is running clean. No blood. Everything’s normal.
The Helpers stand at the edge of the trench, holding towels for him. He steps out, leaving wet footprints as he pads across the slate floor, mist drifting from the cleansing area. In front of him are his own clothes and a rough sack robe. It is his. He is a member of the Craft. He’s been accepted.
There’s a full-length mirror in the corner. He twists his body to see the extent of the wounds caused by the Master. Strange. He twists his right forearm and then his left arm to inspect the initiation cuts. He checks the mirror again.
‘What’s going on?’
Those around him say nothing.
‘I was bleeding. But I can’t see any scars.’ He angles his body again in front of the mirror. ‘There’s nothing. Not a mark.’
A cloaked shape fills the doorway.
Johns looks across and recognises the rugged face beneath the hood. Sean Grabb, Serpens, his Craft brother.
Proud mentor smiles at protégé. ‘Get dressed, Lacerta. There are important duties to be done.’
47
SATURDAY 19 JUNE
Just after four a.m. the sky begins to lighten. Jake gently wakes Caitlyn.
She is jelly-legged as he helps her from the Campervan and starts to shiver in the cool morning air. He rushes back for a couple of blankets and the bag of goodies he’s packed up from the fridge.
‘Where are we?’ she mutters as he snuggles her beneath his arm and the warm wrap. ‘I still can’t see anything.’
‘You will in a minute. It’s a piece of old England. Tomorrow, it will be flooded with thousands of hippies like you, but this morning, right now, it’s ours. Just yours and mine. I booked it.’
‘Booked it?’
‘Everything is buyable these days. Others had paid to tour the site but I paid them off. Bought them out. Just for you.’
She’s too touched and tired to say anything.
They shuffle across the damp grass in the receding darkness and gradually she starts to see it. Something huge. Rising out of the rosy warmth of the breaking dawn. Her pupils pulse wide as she stares at the monumental shape. ‘Jesus, what is it? It’s like some weird space ship.’
And it is. It’s just like a massive stone UFO crashed into the ground. Jake throws open his arms in a grand gesture. ‘Welcome to Stonehenge.’
‘It’s … awesome.’ She skips and takes in the heady scene, then wanders back into his arms and kisses him deeply. They hold each other beneath the fading constellations and block out everything that exists except themselves.
‘Come on.’ He takes her by the hand. ‘Let’s go to the centre
.’
They run together and she can’t remember when she last felt like this. So free. So energised.
Jake stands back to take photographs. Snaps on an old pocket Nikon and knows he’s going to keep the images for ever. One day when they’re both old, he’ll dig them out and they’ll remember today. History in the making.
Caitlyn pauses, breathless, wraps her arms around one of the sarsens. She looks like a child clinging to the leg of a giant. She laughs and poses for him.
Click.
She scoops a hand behind her hair and pouts.
Click.
She kisses the stone and strokes it.
Click. Click. Click.
‘One more!’ he shouts and she obliges, leaning against the stone and blowing a kiss right down the lens.
Click.
He stops shooting and gives in to another urge to kiss her.
They lock together. Her back against the giant stone, him pressed hard against her soft warm body. Raw sexual energy rushes through them both.
She closes her eyes and goes with it. Rises like a bird on the hot thermals of his passion. She yields to the invasion of his hands beneath her clothes, the conquering of her flesh. The mystery and magic of his romantic surprise have overwhelmed her.
He spasms against her. It’s not as passionate as she hoped. In fact it’s off-putting and embarrassing. Less of an orgasmic peak, more a sudden and awkward crash of his forehead against hers. Caitlyn flinches and grabs her bruised head. Jake pulls away from her.
‘Ow!’ she exclaims, mad that the moment has been ruined.
