Free Necropolis by Anthony Horowitz Page B

Cuzco, Peru — he was very much in charge.
    His brother had been taken prisoner and tortured. We're still not sure what they did to him, and Pedro has spent long hours alone with him, trying to repair the damage. But Scott is still suffering. He's withdrawn. He doesn't talk very much. I sometimes wonder if we'll be able to rely on him when the time comes.

    It's been more than four months since I faced the Old Ones in the Nazca Desert, and I still haven't recovered from my own injuries. I'm in pain a lot of the time. There are no scars, but I can feel something wrong inside me. Sometimes I wake up at night and it's as if I've just been stabbed. Even Pedro still has a limp. So between the four of us, I certainly wouldn't bet any money on our taking on unimaginable forces of darkness and saving the world. I'm sorry, but that's how it is.
    Jamie is very bright. He seems to see things more clearly than any of us, mainly because he was there at the very start. It's too complicated to explain right now, but somehow he traveled back in time and met us…before we were us. Yes. There was a Matt ten thousand years ago who looked like me and sounded like me and who may even have been me. Jamie says that we've all lived twice. I just hope it was more fun the first time.
    Four months!
    We've all been hanging out in this house near the coast, to the south of Lima. It belongs to a professor named Joanna Chambers who's an expert on pretty much anything to do with Peru. The house is wooden and painted white, constructed a bit like a hacienda, which is a Spanish farmhouse. There's a large central room that opens onto a veranda during the day and a wide staircase that connects the two floors.
    Everything is very old-fashioned. There are scatter rugs and a big open fireplace and fans that turn slowly beneath the ceiling, circulating the air.
    We've passed the time reading, watching TV (the house has satellite and we've also shipped in a supply of DVDs), and surfing the Net, looking out for any news of the Old Ones. The professor insists that we do three or four hours of lessons, although it's been ages since any of us went to school and Pedro never stepped into one in his life. We've played football in the garden, passing the ball around the llamas that wander onto the grass, and we've gone for hikes in the desert. And, I suppose, we've been gathering strength, slowly recovering from everything we've been through.
    But even so, there have been times when it all seems unreal, sitting here, doing nothing in the full knowledge that somewhere in the world the Old Ones must be spreading their power base, preparing to strike at humanity. They'll be making friends in all the right places… As far as we know, they could be all over Europe. Their aim is to start a total war, to kill as many people as possible, and then to toy with the rest, maiming and torturing until there's nobody left. Why do they want to do this? There is no why.
    The Old Ones feed on pain in the same way that cancer will attack a healthy organism. It's their nature.
    Sometimes, in the evening, the six of us will play perudo, which is a Peruvian game, a bit like liar dice.
    Me, Richard, Pedro, Scott, Jamie, and the professor. We'll sit there, throwing dice and behaving as if nothing is happening, as if we're just a bunch of friends on an extended holiday. And secretly I want to get up and punch the wall. We're safe and comfortable in Nazca. But every moment we're here, we're losing. Our enemy is gaining the upper hand.
    What else can we do? The Old Ones have disappeared. And even if we knew what they were doing, we're not yet strong enough to take them on. Only four of the Gatekeepers have come together. There have to be five.
    And now there are. At last we've found Scar.
    It's hard to believe that today I actually held a picture of her in my hands. Now she has a name —
    Scarlett Adams. We know where she lives. We can actually reach out to her and tell her the truth about who she