acts and homicide; his subsequent escape from custody; the manhunt that ensued with her picture and name next to his. After that there was nothing. The only more recent stories relating to Ruin were medical ones concerning an outbreak of what some of the more tabloidy sites were calling ‘a plague’.
Liv clicked on the top result, her heart racing at the implications of this. She remembered the symbol she had seen on the Starmap, the circle with the cross through it that made her think of disease and suffering. Was this what it predicted – the event that would result in the end of days?
The article opened and she speed-read it, her mind pulling out the facts as her eyes skimmed the words: outbreak centred around the Citadel – eighteen dead, eighty-six in isolation – the whole city of Ruin in quarantine and under police control.
She opened another window and searched for RUIN POLICE. Skype was already installed on the desktop and she opened this too, logging in through her own account that thankfully still had some credit on it. She copied the number of the switchboard into the keypad, adding the international dialling codes for Turkey then hit the key to boost the speakers as the number dialled and started to ring.
It rang for a long time, long enough for her to read another article about how the infected had been transferred from the Public Church into the Citadel itself. There was a link to a news clip but someone answered before she could play it.
‘Ruin Police,’ a voice said, with chaos sounding in the background.
‘Hi,’ Liv said in fluent Turkish, ‘could you connect me to Inspector Arkadian?’
‘Name please?’
‘Liv Adamsen.’
‘One moment.’
The line switched to musak and Liv flipped back to the news site, scrolling through another article about the outbreak. It featured apocalyptic photos of empty streets and people standing by the public gate to the Old Town wearing full contamination suits. The Citadel soared up in the background, so terrible and familiar. Seeing it in this context made something click in Liv’s head and she pulled the folded piece of paper from her pocket and smoothed it flat on the desk while the tinny hold tune continued to play. She scanned the symbols again, her eyes settling on the beginning of the second line.
The symbol for disease followed by …
She looked back at the photo on the screen, the man in the contagion suit with the sharp outline of the mountain behind him.
… of course …
The second symbol represented the Citadel and the disease had started there and was now spreading. The next part of the prophecy was coming to pass.
The musak cut out.
‘Liv?’
‘Arkadian.’ More noise in the background, like he was on a street full of children. ‘Are you OK? I just saw the news about the outbreak.’
‘It’s chaos here. People are scared. I’m scared. We’re evacuating the children from the city. Where are you?’
She looked out of the window at the distant movement of people working on the hill as they dug the new grave. ‘Still in the desert,’ she said. ‘We found it.’
‘I know. Gabriel told me.’
Liv felt the world shift. ‘Gabriel! You spoke to him?’
‘Yes.’ Another pause filled with the babble of children. ‘Just before he was taken into the Citadel.’
Liv felt like all the air had been sucked from the room.
‘He was sick, Liv, he had the virus – but he was not as sick as the others.’ She gripped the sides of her chair and reminded herself to breathe. ‘Most of them go mad when the disease takes them, but not Gabriel. He rode all the way back here because he knew he had it. He didn’t want it to spread. It was Gabriel who insisted the disease be contained inside the Citadel. He wanted to take it back where it came from. He wanted to beat it. And if anyone can do it, it’s him.’
Liv tried to speak but couldn’t. In her ear she could hear Arkadian still speaking but she didn’t hear his words. Her eyes dropped down to the red stained piece of paper and scanned the second line again, a terrible new meaning emerging from it in the light of Arkadian’s revelation.
Disease
Citadel
A knight on horseback – Gabriel
She remembered the words on the note he had left her, telling her that leaving her was the hardest thing he had ever done. And now she knew why. He must have known he was infected. He’d known that and had still ridden all the way back to the Citadel, just to protect her.
She looked at the remaining symbols on the second line of the prophecy, hoping she might find something hopeful in them, but all she saw was more misery.
She knew what it meant now. The T was her, the circle confinement and the moon and chevron told her how long it would all last.
Nine moons – Eight months.
She clicked on the video clip embedded in the news article. It had been filmed from a news helicopter at night so the quality wasn’t great. A bright searchlight picked out a procession of patients strapped to stretchers and being carried to the mountain. She studied the faces, all looking straight up into the sky. Even through the grainy images she could see the masks of pain their faces had become. Tears started to run down her cheeks then the light swung away, settling again on the last stretcher to emerge from the church. She hit the space bar to pause it just as Gabriel looked straight up at the camera. It was like he was staring straight at her, like he was saying goodbye. Her love. Her life – being carried away on a stretcher, and into the heart of the hateful mountain.
Franklin finished his cigarette and flicked it out of the window. ‘You ever been married, Shepherd?’
‘No.’
‘And you don’t have kids, do you?’
‘No, I don’t.’
They were on the outskirts of the town now with widely spaced
