Nightrise

opened.
    ELEVEN

    June 25th
    Nazca,
    Peru
    The jeep seemed to be on fire. As it tore across the plain, it trailed a cloud of dust and sand which, in the moonlight, could have been smoke. The headlights were on but they were almost ineffectual in the great emptiness of the Nazca Desert, and the moon itself was a better guide. It was three o'clock in the morning on the twenty-fifth of June, the day after Inti Raymi. The night was unusually cold, even in a desert where the temperature could drop ten degrees with the setting of the sun. And there was something strange about the light. It had a hard, almost unnatural quality — as if there had just been a terrible storm.
    A woman was driving. Her name was Joanna Chambers and she was a professor of anthropology, a world expert on the wonder known as the Nazca Lines. She was large and slightly eccentric in appearance. She enjoyed playing the mad professor and she could be outspoken, even rude at times. But right now she was tight-lipped, her hands clutching the steering wheel. She was gazing ahead with a real dread of what she might find.
    She was not alone. There was an Englishman in the passenger seat next to her. He was Richard Cole, the journalist who had been with Matt Freeman — the first of the Five — when he had discovered the secret of Raven's Gate in Yorkshire and who had then chosen to travel with Matt to Peru. He was looking exhausted, more gaunt and bedraggled than ever. Richard had come a long way — in more than one sense — since he and Matt had met in a run-down newspaper office in Greater Mailing. At the time, Richard's work had mainly involved writing about weddings and funerals…and he wasn't sure which he found more depressing. But Matt had introduced him to a world of impossibilities: dinosaur skeletons that came to life, witches, and demons, lost civilizations and cities hidden in the mountains of Peru. And now this. It seemed that their adventures had come to a sudden and sour end. Matt might be dead. This time, they hadn't won.
    "We're almost there," Professor Chambers said. She glanced briefly at Richard, who didn't even seem to have heard her. "I feel this is my fault," she went on. "If only I'd been able to work it all out sooner, maybe we'd have had more time…"
    "It's not your fault. It's mine." Richard took a deep breath. "I should never have let them go into the desert alone. Matt and Pedro. They're just kids, for heaven's sake!"
    "It was a two-seater helicopter and there were three of them in it anyway. There wasn't room for anyone else."

    "I shouldn't have let them go. The Incas warned us. They said that one of them would be killed…''
    "They said one of them might be killed. And you know that Matt is no ordinary child. He's one of the Five. Pedro too. I think you should have more faith in them."
    But as they drove on, it became clear that something terrible had happened. The ground had been torn up, the entire landscape broken apart. An earthquake had already been reported on Peruvian radio but both Richard Cole and Professor Chambers knew that was only part of the truth. Matt had taken off to intercept Diego Salamanda at his mobile laboratory in the desert…but it seemed that he hadn't arrived in time. The second gate had opened. Richard would have known it even without looking at the upturned desert floor. He could sense it in the air. There was a sheet of lightning pulsating in the far distance, behind the mountains. It burned into his eyes. He was beginning to feel sick.
    "There!" Professor Chambers exclaimed and swung the wheel.
    The jeep's headlights had picked up the wreckage of a helicopter, half buried in the desert floor. Two of the rotors were missing and the other two were buckled and broken. The tail had snapped in half and the cockpit was a mess of shattered glass and dangling wires. Now that they were closer, they could smell fuel in the air. Professor Chambers slammed on the brakes but Richard was already out and running before the jeep had come to a halt. He had seen a boy, lying with his back against the wreckage, his legs stretched out in front of him. One of them was bent at an impossible angle.
    It was Pedro.
    "What happened? Where's Matt?" Richard shouted out the questions before he remembered that Pedro didn't speak a word of English. Pedro looked at him quizzically and Richard felt ashamed of himself. He had been so worried about his friend, he hadn't stopped to consider how the other boy must be