Evil Star

church ... St. Meredith's. And I told him where you were, when you called in from Cuzco. I'm sorry about that. I didn't want you to get hurt — but it was all or nothing."
    Fabian stood up, took a drink from the bottle, then went over to one of the largest screens. Matt had noticed it when they came in. It seemed to be showing some sort of radar signals. There were about a hundred dots, black on white, all of them static. But high up in the left-hand cor-ner, a single dot was moving slowly across, traveling about a centimeter every few minutes.
    "There it is," Fabian said. "Cygnus. The swan. You have to admire Salamanda's genius. I mean, there's a guy with a head on his shoulders!" He laughed briefly to himself. "He's using an artificial star to unlock the gate." There was a time code at the bottom of the screen. It showed 22:19:58 for an instant; the numbers were rapidly changing as the seconds ticked away. "It'll be in place in less than two hours from now and there's absolutely nothing you can do," he mumbled. "Then it'll all be over. ..."
    "We can still stop it," Matt said.

    Horowitz, Anthony - [Gatekeepers 02] - Evil Star
    "No. You see . . ."
    But before he could say any more, there was a crash as a door burst inward and a man reeled into the room. It was Rodriguez. He had obviously been in the thick of the fight-ing. His face was gray, streaked with dirt and sweat. He had a gun in one hand. His other hand was clutching his arm. He had been wounded. There was blood seeping through the jacket of his uniform. Matt would never know if he had come in here to hide or to look for him. Either way, Rodriguez had found him.
    "You!" The single word was spat out with a mixture of hatred and amusement. Rodriguez straightened himself and raised the gun, aiming at Matt.
    Matt said nothing. He was standing just a few meters away. The appearance of Captain Rodriguez had changed everything. He and Richard were defenseless. Fabian wasn't going to help them. There was nobody else in the room. What could he do? A thought flashed through his mind. Forrest Hill. The bully — Gavin Taylor —
    holding a glass in his hand. Matt had used his power. It had been an acci-dent, but still it had been unforgettable. He had made the glass and the chandelier explode, simply by thinking about it.
    Could he do the same now?
    “You got away from me in Lima," Rodriguez said. "And again in Cuzco. But there will be no third time. This is where it ends."
    "Leave him alone!" It was Richard who had spoken, and for a moment the gun turned on him.
    “You are . . . the journalist?" Somehow the policeman had recognized him. "Do you want to die first or do you want to die second? Tell me! I can arrange it. ..."

    Horowitz, Anthony - [Gatekeepers 02] - Evil Star Desperately, Matt tried to focus on the gun. Why couldn't he do it?
    What was the point of having some sort of hidden power if he didn't know how to use it? It should have been easy. A single blast of energy and the gun should have been spinning over to the other side of the room. Along with the man who held it.
    But it wasn't happening.
    Rodriguez was aiming the gun at his heart. Matt could almost feel the policeman's finger tightening on the trigger.
    And then Fabian stepped into the line of fire.
    “You don't have to kill them," he said.
    "Get out of the way!" Rodriguez commanded.
    Fabian was walking toward him. "No, no, no," he was saying.
    "There's no need for this. You don't have to kill any-one. We've won! It's what Salamanda always said. In an hour, the Old Ones will be here and the whole world will be ours. I'm sorry, Captain Rodriguez. I don't care what you say. I'm not going to stand here and watch you shoot a child."
    "Get out of my way!"
    "No!" Fabian had reached him. He was unsteady on his feet. . . from the drink, from exhaustion. But he was between Rodriguez and Matt, his hand pressing down on the policeman's arm. "Salamanda promised me the boy wouldn't be hurt," he said.
    "Salamanda lied!" Rodriguez laughed and pulled the trigger. Matt flinched. Fabian was thrown backward but somehow remained standing. He looked down at his stom-ach. Blood was gushing out of him. His shirt and his trousers were already saturated. He took a step back and collapsed quite suddenly, as if every nerve in his body had Horowitz, Anthony - [Gatekeepers 02] - Evil Star suddenly been whipped out of him.
    Rodriguez took aim at Matt a second time.
    And then there was an explosion, much louder than the