Evil Star

door?"
    "There!" Morton twitched his head and Matt looked past him to a strange, wooden door set in the stone wall. What was strange about it? It took him a few moments to work it out. It was too small, about half the size of all the other doors in the church. He assumed it must Horowitz, Anthony - [Gatekeepers 02] - Evil Star lead out into the street. It was set underneath a stained-glass window with gloomy paintings on either side. Looking more closely, he saw that there was something carved into the wood. A symbol. A pentagram. A star with five points.
    "What about it?" Matt asked.
    "It's why I chose this place to meet. It's in the diary."
    "That's not possible." Matt tried to work it out. The diary had been written in the sixteenth century, four hun-dred years ago. Parts of this church were older. Parts of it were quite modern. Either way, how could the monk have known about the existence of a single door?
    "Of course it's not possible," Morton agreed. "But that doesn't matter. I want you to go through the door and I want you to bring me something from the other side. It doesn't matter what it is. Whatever you choose will prove to me that you are . . . who they say you are."
    "What's on the other side?"
    “You tell me. Bring me whatever you find. I'll wait for you here."
    "Why don't you come with me?"
    “You really do know nothing," Morton said. Suddenly his voice was urgent again. "We don't have time to argue. Do as I say. Do it now.
    Or I'll leave and you'll never hear from me again."
    Matt sighed. He didn't understand any of it. But there was no point in answering back. He wanted this to be over. This was the only way. He glanced one last time at the book-seller, then went over to the door. Slowly he reached out, his hand resting on the iron handle.
    It was only now that it occurred to him that although the door was too small for the church, it was perfectly in proportion with his own Horowitz, Anthony - [Gatekeepers 02] - Evil Star height.
    It had been built for a child.
    He turned the handle. Opened the door. And stepped through.

    ************************************
    While Matt and William Morton had been talking, neither of them had heard the front door of the church open again. Nor had they seen the man who had come in. He was dirty, dressed in rags, with a beard and a broken nose. Matt had noticed him in Cannon Street when he had come out of the pub, pretending to be drunk.
    The man stood for a moment, allowing his eyes to become used to the gloom, then moved down toward the apse. It didn't take him long to find the bookseller. Morton was standing next to a half-size door, shifting his ample weight from one foot to the other as if he were waiting to go into the dentist. There was a square parcel, wrapped in brown paper, held in his hand.
    The diary .. .
    It seemed that the boy had gone. But the boy wasn't important. The man with the broken nose had been paid to kill Morton and take the book. If the boy was there, he would die, too. But he wasn't and the man was secretly pleased. Killing children was occasionally necessary but always unpleasant.
    He reached into the pocket of his raincoat and took something out.
    The knife was only about ten centimeters long, but that didn't matter.
    The man knew how to use it. He could kill with a knife half that size.
    The man noticed the altar ahead of him and briefly crossed himself, Horowitz, Anthony - [Gatekeepers 02] - Evil Star using the blade of the knife. The point touched his head, his chest, both his shoulders.
    Then, with a smile, he continued on his way.

    ************************************
    It was too hot.
    That was Matt's first thought. When he had gone into the church, it had been a normal London summer's day. That is, it had been sunny but cool, and most people had been glad it wasn't raining. He had only been in the church for a few minutes, but in that time the sun seemed to have intensified. And the sky was the wrong color. It was an intense, Mediterranean blue. All the clouds had disappeared.
    And that wasn't the only thing that was wrong.
    Matt hadn't been sure what he would find on the other side of the door. He had been half expecting to step back out into Cannon Street. Instead he was in a cloister, a cov-ered walkway forming a square around a courtyard with a fountain in the middle. Well, there was nothing surprising about that. Lots of churches had cloisters. It was where the priests went to walk and to think about their next sermon or