Necropolis (28 page)

It never did more than ten miles an hour. If anyone had been watching it, the fact that it was moving so slowly would only have made it all the more unlikely that it was being used as an escape vehicle. But very soon it had left the crowds and the police cars behind. In the front, the driver and his assistant gazed straight ahead, their grim faces hiding their joint sense of relief.

For Scarlett, it was less easy.

She couldn't see anything. She couldn't do anything. She couldn't even move. She was lying on her back, trapped in a black, airless space with the lid bolted into place only inches above her head. She was completely at the mercy of her own imagination. Every time the car slowed down or stopped, she wondered if they had been discovered. Worse than that, she imagined a nightmare scenario where something had gone horribly wrong and she really was taken to a cemetery and buried alive. Every nerve in her body was screaming. She could hardly breathe.

After what seemed like an hour, she felt the car stop. She heard the doors open and slam shut. A long pause. And then suddenly a crack of daylight appeared, widening as the coffin lid was lifted off. A hand reached out to help her, and gratefully she grabbed hold of it. Gently, she was pulled out like a corpse returning to life. She found herself trembling. After all she had been through, she wasn't surprised.

Where was she? The hearse was parked next to a fork-lift truck in a warehouse filled with pallets and crates. There were skylights in the ceiling, but it was also lit by neon strips, hanging down in glass cages. One of the men had hit a switch that brought a sliding door rumbling down on castors, but before it reached the floor, Scarlett glimpsed water and knew that they were near the harbor. The smell of gunpowder hung in the air. Normally, she might not have recognized it — but there had been plenty of it around in the building she had just left.

The driver was already stripping off his jacket and black tie. The last time Scarlett had seen him, he had been wiping a bloody machete on a cloth up on The Peak. He had been the one with the backpack —

long hair and glasses — and he was younger than she had first thought, in his mid-twenties. He was wearing a short-sleeved shirt under the jacket, and she noticed a tattoo on his upper arm, a red triangle with a Chinese character inside.

"My name is Jet," he said. Like all the others, he wasn't bothering with surnames. He spoke hesitant English but with a polished accent. "I will be looking after you now. This is Sing."

The other man came over from the door and nodded.

"Where are we?" Scarlett asked.

"Still in Kowloon. This is our warehouse." Jet walked over to one of the crates and pulled off the tarpaulin that half covered it so that she could read the words stenciled underneath. They were written in Chinese and English.

KUNG HING TAO FIREWORK MANUFACTURERS

"Fireworks?"

"It's good business," Jet explained. "In China, we let off fireworks if someone marries and again when they die. The Bun Festival, the Dragon Boat Festival, the Hungry Ghost Festival, and New Year.

Everyone wants fireworks! There are one hundred thousand dollars' worth in this warehouse. I suggest you don't smoke."

"You want Coke?" the man named Sing asked. He still had his walking stick with the sword concealed inside. It had been inside the hearse, but he had yanked it out and carried it with him.

"We have a small kitchen and a toilet," Jet said. "We have to stay here for a while."

"How long?"

"Twenty-four hours. But nobody will find you here…"

"What about Lohan?" Scarlett had been worrying about him. She knew it was her fault that he was in danger.

"He will come. You do not need to be afraid. Very soon you will be on your way out of Hong Kong."

Lohan had spoken of four ways to get out of the city, and he had dismissed three of them: the airport, the Jetfoil to Macao, the Chinese border. What did that leave? Scarlett had seen the harbor. Perhaps they were going to smuggle her out on a container ship. First a car trunk, then a coffin. These people wouldn't think twice about packing her into a crate of fireworks and sending her somewhere in time for Bonfire Night.

Sing had gone into the kitchen, and now he came back with three bottles of water and sandwiches on plastic plates. He was still wearing his undertaker's suit, but he had taken off the tie. The three of them ate, sitting cross-legged in a circle on the floor. It was only when she took her first bite that Scarlett realized how hungry she was. She'd had little breakfast, no lunch, and it was now six o'clock.

"It is not possible to take you out on a container ship." Jet had seen her sizing up the crates and must have guessed what was on her mind. "There's too much security. The ports are all watched day and night

— and anyway, it will be the first thing that they expect. We will take you out in public, in front of their eyes."

"How?"

He glanced at the other man, who nodded, giving him permission to go on.

"Tomorrow morning, a cruise ship arrives in Kowloon. It will dock at the Ocean Terminal on the other side of Harbor City, just ten minutes from here. It spends a day in Hong Kong on its way from Tokyo to the Philippines and then Singapore. That is where it will take you. The ship is called The Jade Emperor, and it will be full of wealthy tourists. You will be one of them."

"How do I get on board?"

"For their own reasons, the Old Ones do not want the world to know that they have taken over this city.

That is good. When

The Jade Emperor ties up, they will have to be careful. There will be security, but it will have to be invisible. They will not want to frighten the tourists. Everything will have to seem normal — and that gives us the advantage. We will smuggle you onto the ship with the other passengers. And once you are there, you will be safe."

"What happens when I get to Singapore?"

Jet shrugged. Sing muttered something in Chinese and laughed. "That is the least of your worries," Jet said. "First of all, you have to survive tomorrow. And remember — there are at least a hundred thousand people who are looking for you. This is a trap, and you walked straight into it. Now that you're here, it's not going to be so easy to get you out."

He wasn't being fair. Scarlett hadn't walked into Hong Kong. She had been deliberately drawn in, and there had been nothing she could have done to avoid it. But she didn't argue. There was no point.

"We will disguise you," he went on. "We will cut your hair and change its color, and we will dress you as a boy. You must learn to walk in a certain way. We will show you. There is a family joining the boat.

Their names are Mr.

and Mrs. Soong, and they are part of our organization. Right now, they are traveling with their twelve-year-old son, Eric. You will change places with him and travel on his passport. By midnight tomorrow, you will be in international water and out of danger. Do you understand?"

"How will you make the change?" Scarlett asked.

"We have arranged to meet in a shop in Harbor City. The shop is also owned by us. It pretends to sell tea and Chinese medicine."

"What does it really sell?"

Jet thought for a moment. He was reluctant to answer the question, but for some reason he decided to.

"Do you really want to know?" He smiled. "Normally, it sells opium."

***

— and she had only been given a couple of thin blankets. Every night is trapped between the day before and the day after, and she had never been so torn between the two.

She thought about the creatures she had seen coming out of the elevators, the flies approaching the tower block, and the people — were they actually living people? — who had followed her onto the roof. How could things like that be happening in a modern city — monsters and shape-changers and all the rest of it?

Then she turned her mind to the people she was with. Despite everything that had happened, she still knew almost nothing about them. There were lots of them and they were well organized. Lohan had spoken about them with reverence, almost as if they were a holy order. And yet she had just been told that they sold opium! Opium was a drug that came from the same source as heroin. Could it be that they were some sort of gangsters, after all? They carried machine guns and hand grenades. And although they were helping her, none of them was exactly friendly.

Finally, she thought about the next day and the dangers it would bring, walking onto a cruise ship disguised as a boy. Would it really work — and what would happen to her if it didn't? As far as she could see, the Old Ones didn't want to kill her. Father Gregory could have done that, and he'd made it clear he had other plans. For some reason, they needed her alive.

Lying on her back, gazing at the skylight, she watched night crawl toward day. In the end, she did manage to sleep — but only fitfully. When she woke up, her neck was aching and she felt even more tired than she had been before. Her two bodyguards were already awake. Sing had made breakfast, a plate of noodles, but she hardly ate. Today was her last chance. She knew that if she didn't get out today, she never would.

Nothing happened for the next three hours. Jet and Sing sat silently, waiting, and for some reason Scarlett found herself trying to remember her lines from the school play. She had lost track of the date but guessed that it would be performed — without her — in a couple of weeks' time. All the parents would be there, along with some of the boys from The Hall. She thought of Aidan. And as she sat there, trapped in a warehouse full of fireworks, Dulwich seemed a very long way away. She wondered when, if ever, she would see it again.

Jet's phone rang. He snapped it open and muttered a few words into it, then nodded at Sing, who went and unlocked the door. They opened it just a little bit, enough for Scarlett to see that it had stopped raining outside. Bright sunlight streamed in through the crack, lighting up the dust that hung in the air.

Two more people came into the warehouse.

The first of them was Lohan. He went straight over to Scarlett. "Are you okay?" he asked.

Scarlett was relieved to see him. "How about you?" she asked. "What did you .do with the pendant?"

"The pendant is on a flight to Australia. Hopefully the Old Ones will follow it there."

"I'm glad you're okay."

"And I will be glad when you have gone."

He gestured at the man who had come with him. The man hurried forward, carrying a canvas suitcase about the size of a weekend bag. This man was quite a bit older than the others, wearing a crumpled cardigan and glasses. He placed the suitcase on the floor and opened it to reveal scissors, hair brushes, lots of bottles, and pads of cotton wool. There were clothes packed underneath.

It was time for Scarlett to change.

Jet dragged one of the crates over and Scarlett sat down. The older man examined her for a moment, using his fingers to brush her hair back from her face. He nodded as if satisfied, then reached for the scissors.

Scarlett would never forget the way he cut her hair. She wouldn't have said she was particularly vain, but she had always taken care of how she looked. There was something brutal about the way he attacked her, chopping away as if she had no more feelings than a tree. She looked down and saw great locks of her hair hitting the ground, and although she knew that it was necessary and that anyway it would all grow back soon enough, she still felt like a victim, as if she were being assaulted. But the man didn't notice her distress — or if he did, he didn't care.

He kept cutting, and soon she felt something she had never felt before: the cold touch of the breeze against her scalp. He finished her hair with a scoop of gel, then set to work on her face, turning it first one way, then the other, his fingers pressing against her chin. There was absolutely nothing in his eyes.

He had done this many times before. It was his business, and he did it well. He just wanted to get it over with as quickly as possible.

He painted her skin with a liquid that smelled of vinegar and stung very slightly, then added a few splotches with a thin brush. After that, he set to work on her eyes. Just when Scarlett thought he had finished, he muttered something to Lohan, the first time he had spoken. His voice was completely flat.

"He wants to put in contact lenses," Lohan explained. "They're going to sting."

They did more than that. The man had to clamp Scarlett's head while he pressed them in, the lens balanced on the end of his finger, and when he backed away, the entire room was out of focus, hidden behind a blur of tears.

"Now you must get dressed," Lohan said.

They didn't allow her any privacy. The four men stood watching as she stripped down to her underwear, and then the man in the cardigan dug a white, padded thing out of his case. Scarlett understood what it was. The boy whose place she was taking must have been quite a bit fatter than her. She slipped the pads over her shoulders and saw at once that she had a completely new body shape and that the slight curve of her breasts had gone. The man handed her a shirt, linen pants, a blazer, and a pair of black leather shoes that added about an inch and a half to her height. Finally he gave her a pair of glasses. The disguise was complete.

"Look in the mirror," Lohan said.

They had brought a full-length mirror out of the kitchen. Scarlett stood in front of it. She had to admit that the transformation was incredible. She barely recognized herself.

Her hair was now short and spiky, held rigidly in place by the gel. Her eyes, which were normally green, were now dark brown, the color magnified by the glasses, which were clumsy and old-fashioned, with plastic frames. There was a touch of acne around her nose. She had become one hundred percent Chinese — a slightly pudgy twelve-year-old who probably went to an expensive private school and dressed like his dad. She even smelled like a boy. Maybe they had put something in all the chemicals they had used.