Evil Star

up.
    He saw two suns, searing his eyes. Some-thing huge and black, bigger than the night itself, rushed in on him and struck him down.
    He was thrown backward, crashing into the ground. Blood trickled from his nose and out of the corners of his eyes.

    Horowitz, Anthony - [Gatekeepers 02] - Evil Star The King of the Old Ones, badly wounded and weak-ened, took one last look at the limp body. Then, calling his hordes around him, he folded himself into the night.

    Chapter 21 The Healer
    The doctor was a small, neat man with light brown hair and glasses.
    He was holding a scratched and battered leather case that was too full to close properly. His name was Christian Nourry and he wasn't Peruvian, but French, working with the Red Cross in some of the country's poorest towns.
    "I'm sorry, Professor Chambers," he said. "There's nothing more that I can do."
    "Is the boy dying?"
    The doctor shrugged. "I've already told you — this is outside my experience. Matthew is in a deep coma. His heartbeat is far too slow and there seems to be very little activity in his brain. My guess would be that he is unlikely to recover. It would help me if you could explain how he got himself into this state."
    Chambers shrugged.
    "Well, in that case, I can't say for sure what's going to happen. There is one thing I am sure about, though: He'd be a lot better off in a local hospital."
    "I don't agree. There's nothing a hospital can do for him that we can't do here. And we prefer to keep an eye on him."

    Horowitz, Anthony - [Gatekeepers 02] - Evil Star
    "You mentioned another boy. What about him?"
    “Pedro” He is in hospital. He broke his ankle and they had to put it in a cast. We're expecting him back this afternoon."
    "What have these two young people been doing? Fight-ing a war?"
    "Thank you for coming, Dr. Nourry."
    "Well, call me day or night. I'll come immediately." The doctor sighed. "I think you should prepare yourself. It seems to me that he's hanging on to life by a thread, and that thread could snap at any time."
    Professor Chambers waited until the doctor had gone, then went back into the house. Inside, everything was cool, the air circulated by fans in every room. Slowly, she climbed a polished wooden staircase and went into a large, square room with rash mats on the floor and bright plaster walls. Two open windows looked out over the garden. There was a sprinkler just outside, rhythmically pumping water out over the lawn.
    Matt was lying in bed with his eyes closed, covered by a single sheet. There was an oxygen mask strapped to his face, and a plastic bag hung over him with a saline drip connected to his arm. He was very pale. The rise and fall of his chest as he breathed was so slight as to be almost imper-ceptible. Professor Chambers thought about what the doctor had just said. Matt didn't just look close to death.
    For all intents and purposes, he looked dead already.
    "What did the doctor say?" Richard asked.
    The journalist had been sitting beside the bed for the past thirty-six hours, apart from a few hours in the early morning when the professor had forcibly sent him to get some rest himself. He had Horowitz, Anthony - [Gatekeepers 02] - Evil Star aged ten years since the two of them had driven out to the desert and found Pedro, lying in the wreckage of the helicopter with a broken ankle and the beginnings of a fever, and then Matt, sprawled facedown in the dust. There were deep lines in his face and his eyes were bloodshot. Nobody knew what had hap-pened in the desert but it was obvious to Chambers that Richard blamed himself for allowing the two boys to set off on their own.
    "It's not good news," Chambers said. "He doesn't think Matt's going to make it."
    Richard let out a single breath. He could see Matt's con-dition for himself but he had been hoping against hope for good news. "I should never have let him come to Peru," he said. "He didn't waat to come. He didn't want any of this."
    "You should get some lunch. It's not going to help Matt, making yourself ill."
    "I can't eat. I don't have any appetite." Richard looked down at the silent boy. "What happened to him out there, Professor? What did they do to him?"
    "Maybe Pedro will be able to tell us." Chambers glanced at her watch. "I'm going to the hospital to pick him up this afternoon."
    "I'll stay with Matt." Richard ran a hand across his cheek. He hadn't shaved for two days and he had the begin-nings of a beard. "When I first met him, you know, I didn't even