Necropolis

his neck in the fall."
    "What about the other two?" Matt asked.
    "One cut off the fingers of his left hand on the first step and chose not to continue. The other bled to death."
    "This is insane!" Richard couldn't restrain himself anymore. "Matt isn't claiming to be your Buddhist Messiah or whatever you want to call it."
    "He is claiming to be one of the Gatekeepers. If he is who he says he is, he has nothing to fear."
    "And if we say no? If we refuse to perform your little party trick?"
    "Then I will not help you. You will leave Macao. And the girl will die, slowly, on her own."
    Richard swore under his breath. Jamie came forward and stood next to Matt. "I don't mind giving it a try," he said quietly.
    "Thanks, Jamie," Matt replied. "But I brought us here. _ I think this one's down to me."
    He took a step closer, but Richard held out a hand. "Forget it, Matt!" he said. "You don't need to do this.
    There are plenty of ways we can get into Hong Kong without this maniac's help."
    "We can't go in on our own," Matt said. "One of us has to try."
    "You're going to cut yourself to pieces."

    "After the first finger, I promise I'll stop."
    He went over to the ladder. Any hope that it might not be as dangerous as it looked vanished at once.
    The swords were fixed rigidly in place by the wires. The blades were pointing toward each other so that as he climbed up, the hilts and the points would be on alternate sides. The swords had been sharpened until they were razor-thin. He rested a finger on one and almost cut through the skin just doing that. If he had dropped an envelope onto it, he would have sliced it in two.
    Could he do it? Every instinct told him that he couldn't, that it was impossible, that he was being asked to mutilate himself. He closed his eyes. Was there any way out of this? Did they really need this man's help? Hong Kong was only fifty miles away. They could get on a Jetfoil and take their chances. Why would they want to involve themselves with gangsters anyway?
    But he knew he was fooling himself. Scarlett was in trouble. If he'd wanted to go into Hong Kong on his own, he could have done it a week ago. There was no other way. He opened his eyes. "All right," he said.
    "Remove your shoes," Shan-tung commanded.
    "Sure," he muttered. "Shame to waste good leather." Right then, he was wondering if he would ever wear shoes again. He took them off, and his socks as well, for good measure. He could feel the wooden floor, cool against the soles of his feet. He flexed his toes.
    "Matt…" Richard tried one last time.
    "It's okay, Richard."
    Matt didn't look at him. He didn't look at any of them. He knew there was only one way this was going to work. He had to focus completely on the task ahead of him. Nineteen steps. He had once seen people walking on hot coals on television. And in India, fakirs did incredible things with their bodies. Matt remembered what he had done in the Nazca Desert. He had taken a bullet in full flight and turned it back on the person who had fired it. Mind control. That was what this was all about.
    He reached out and gently took hold of one of the swords. He felt the blade cut through his skin. It hurt.
    Blood welled out of the palm of his hand.
    "That's enough!" Richard exclaimed. "You can't do this."
    "Yes. I can."
    Matt gritted his teeth. He knew the mistake he had made. He had been thinking too much about the impossibility of what he was supposed to do. When he moved things without touching them, it never occurred to him that he couldn't do it. That was how the power worked. It was part of him, and he could use it anytime. This task might seem different, but the principle was just the same. Nineteen steps. He wasn't going to hurt himself a second time. He was a Gatekeeper. He had nothing to fear.
    He forgot Richard. He forgot where he was. The balcony above him — that was all that mattered. He let the swords blur in front of him. They were no longer there. He reached out with one hand. At the same time, he lifted his left foot and rested his bare sole on the first blade. There was no going back now.
    Richard had seen many unforgettable things in his time with Matt, but this was the most incredible of all. He watched Matt begin to climb, one sword at a time, resting his entire weight on edges that were clearly razor sharp. He seemed to be in a self-induced trance, moving steadily upward as if he were levitating. Already he was halfway up, and he hadn't cut himself at all. Next to Richard,