Evil Star

read them out loud, he wouldn't be able to translate them into English. How much more useless could this break-in have been?
    He folded the paper and slipped it into his pocket. Maybe he would be able to make sense of it later.
    There was a movement at the door.
    Pedro had seen it first. He stopped where he was, his eyes widening in disbelief. Matt saw the look on his face, turned round and froze. A shiver, as tangible as an electric shock, ran through him. He felt it travel through his arms and up the back of his neck.
    He couldn't see the man who was standing on the other side of the doorway, shrouded in darkness. But he could make out his shape and knew at once that his head was impossibly large, twice as long as it should be, monstrous. The man was holding on to the frame of the door and Matt understood why. He needed help to stand up straight. His neck simply wasn't strong enough to support his head on its own.
    "I thought it was you," the man said. He was still speak-ing English.
    His voice sounded strained, as if someone were strangling him. "I heard you on the veranda as you went past. But it wasn't just that. I
    knew you were there. I have been feeling your presence all evening, Horowitz, Anthony - [Gatekeepers 02] - Evil Star just as I feel it now. One of the five. Two of the five! Here, in my hacienda! To what do I owe the pleasure of your company? What do you want?"
    There was no point in Matt denying who he was. The man had seen right through his disguise. He seemed to know everything about it.
    "Where's Richard?" Matt demanded.
    "Your friend the journalist?" Matt could see the lips twist into something that resembled a smile. But this was a face that could never smile properly. There was too much of it. "What made you think I had him? Why should he be here?" Salamanda looked genuinely puzzled. "How did you even find your way to me?"
    Matt said nothing. There was no point answering.
    Salamanda turned to Pedro. "Cual es tu nombre?" he demanded.
    Pedro spat. Whatever he had been asked, that was his reply.
    "What fun I'm going to have with the two of you," Salamanda muttered. "It's almost too good to be true. A gift, if you like — and perfectly timed. A week from now, it will all be over. The gate will have opened and not one but two of the gatekeepers will be mine. I never thought it would be so easy."
    Salamanda stepped into the light and Matt saw his col-orless eyes, his babyish mouth, his pale, horribly stretched skin. It was enough.
    "Go!" Matt shouted.
    Pedro didn't need encouraging. The two boys turned and ran, away from the door and out through the window, back into the outer courtyard. They had no plan. Their only desire was to get away —
    from this house and from the monster who inhabited it. But even as they jumped down from the veranda and made for the main gate, the Horowitz, Anthony - [Gatekeepers 02] - Evil Star church bells sounded, metal striking metal and echoing into the night. Searchlights that they hadn't noticed sprang to life, turning black to white and half blinding them in their glare. At the same time, they were aware of guards, half a dozen of them, closing in from all sides. Two of them had Alsatian dogs, straining on thick chains, snapping at the air. Captain Rodriguez had reappeared at the side of the house, watching in anger and disbelief. The strange thing was that nobody seemed to be in a hurry. Two intrud-ers had been discovered. The alarm had been raised. But the guards were almost strolling toward them, deliberately taking their time.
    Matt understood why. With a growing sense of hopeless-ness, he realized that they had nowhere to go. Even if they could escape from the immediate compound, it was a five-mile walk back to the main town with no other building in sight and nowhere to hide. They could run all they wanted. They would simply be hunted down like rats. Matt swal-lowed, recognizing the bitter taste of defeat. He had been warned not to come here but he hadn't listened, and as a result he had doomed them both.
    He began to raise his hands in surrender — but then everything changed. He saw it first on the faces of the guard, heard it a moment later himself. There was the roar of an engine — then, as he turned round, a car burst through the gate and into the courtyard. For a moment, Matt assumed it must belong to Salamanda, another of his men cutting off their last way of escape. But at the same time, he knew that something was wrong. The guards had stopped in