No matter how incredible Mary’s revelations about the Rod and the Logos Stone were, Blake’s mind was centred on one thing; saving Carla. He twisted in the driver’s seat of his Alfa Romeo and slotted it into reverse gear. Straining his neck, he looked past the dog stretched out on the back seats and began to manoeuvre the car into the tight space outside his house; the smell of dog washed over him like an oily fog. He switched off the engine and reached for the door handle.
‘This is me,’ he said, nodding over to the large terrace house. Seconds later Blake was crashing through the front door, searching for Carla’s summer hat. It was on the kitchen table, exactly where he remembered. He ran back outside with the hat gripped tightly in his hand.
He waited patiently for his passengers to exit the car, half-expecting them to bolt. Under an awkward silence, Blake led the way to his front door. He could sense that Mary was on edge; there was uncertainty in her eyes.
‘Do you have a garden? I feel better outside.’
Blake’s eyes narrowed for a second and then relaxed. ‘Okay,’ he said, nodding over to the gate at the side of the house. He led Mary and the dog down the alley to a small patch of garden at the rear of the property.
With the dusk draining the heat from the summer sky, Blake handed Mary the lime green sun hat. ‘How does this work?’ he asked.
‘I can’t force it. It’s like standing between two opposing magnetic poles. It’s only when you are precisely balanced between them does the energy flow freely. Anything else and you snap back into this world.’
Blake could feel pressure building between his eyes. Time was slipping through his fingers. He swallowed back the feeling. ‘Can you please try?’ he pleaded.
After trading a glance with the dog, Mary shuffled off her coat and squatted down in the middle of the garden. Cradling Carla’s hat in her arms, she tried to clear her mind. Blake looked on with uneasy eyes.
Soon Mary’s thoughts were retreating inwards, rushing through her mind’s eye at increasing speed. Memories streaked across her brain, like paper caught in the wind. Slowly, she felt the tidal pull of a connection leading her forward. The feeling spread through her. She could feel Carla somewhere in the darkness. Mary shivered. Carla’s lifestream was sheathed in a desolate blackness. It made Mary’s stomach clench. She began to tremble. ‘She’s in terrible danger, very weak,’ she gasped.
Anxiety spiked through Blake. ‘Where is she?’
‘Can’t see.’ A spasm shuddered through Mary’s body. Then, like stray pieces of paper being blown against the links of a fence, fragments of an image began to take shape in her mind. ‘There are windows all around. She can see the sky. She is up high.’
Blake was holding his breath, hanging on every word.
‘Glowing letters. I can see red glowing letters.’
‘Letters? What do they say?’
Mary started grinding her teeth. ‘Two words. M A … T S. T O … W.’ Mary gasped. ‘E … R.’ An alien, guttural sound shuddered though her and she fell on her side, panting heavily.
As Blake comforted her on the ground, the meaning of her vision slowly registered. Two words: MATS TOWER in glowing letters. The Mats Tower was the centrepiece of the Mats Academy inner-city educational campus. Providing state-of-the-art educational facilities, the campus had become a nucleus for regeneration in the area. A converted block of flats, the tower was seen by the city council as a shining example of urban renewal, but to Blake it meant something much more sinister.
The founder and major financial donor of the academic establishment had been none other than the late industrialist Ema Mats. Mats had become obsessed with finding Aaron’s Rod and had commissioned two brutal hit men to track it down. Their search had culminated in a shootout in a secret crypt under the great dome of St Paul’s Cathedral. If Mary hadn’t arrived in the nick of time, Blake and Carla would have been killed at the hands of Ema Mats. Mats was shot dead at the scene. Following the incident, there had been much debate about rebranding the tower under a new name, but legal complications had delayed the change, and the red fluorescent sign capping the tower had been left untouched. Just the thought of the Mats name sent a wild feeling of dread through him.
‘You okay?’ asked Blake.
There was a momentary gauzy look in Mary’s eyes. ‘We must be quick; there is blackness all around her.’
‘Did you see anything else?’
‘She is somewhere very high. She can see the disc of the moon.’
‘The top floor of the Mats Tower,’ said Blake with an uncomfortable voice.
Minutes later Blake, Mary and the dog were back in the car. As his foot hit the gas, he had the distinct impression they were heading straight into the heart of a storm.