World Walker 1: The World Walker (27 page)

"And what did you do? Said Mahoney.

"I called to Stevie to get some help," said Seb.

"Right after Jack pulled the knife out of his stomach?" said Mahoney. Seb hesitated. He was aware of Dalney shifting forward slightly in her chair. Mahoney still held the notebook but wasn't looking at it. The sunlight was edging across the room and had caught his badge, making spots of reflected light dance on the ceiling.

"I passed out for a while," said Seb, frowning. "But I called out as soon as I could."

Dalney spoke then. "Was Jack Carnavon still alive when you called for help, Sebastian?" In the pause that followed her question, the only sound was the gentle
clack
of Sister Theresa's knitting needles.

"I think so," said Seb, finally. "But I can't be completely sure. I'm sorry."

Mahoney was already closing his notebook. He stood up and glanced over at his partner. Dalney hadn't moved, her clear brown eyes still focused on Seb.

 
"Carnavon was a mean piece of work, one of the worst," she said. "And he was trying to kill you. No one would blame you for waiting a while before calling." She leaned forward a fraction. "Is that what happened, Sebastian?"

Seb looked up at the ceiling. The light had edged in a little further and tiny motes of dust danced under the smoke alarm.
 

"No," he said. "I passed out. When I woke up, I shouted for Stevie." Office Dalney hesitated, then blinked slowly and stood up. She joined Mahoney at the door.
 

"Bad things happen, kid," said Mahoney. "Don't beat yourself up about it." As the door closed behind them, Seb noticed that Sister Theresa had finally stopped knitting.

The New York Office of Chief Medical Officer ruled there was insufficient evidence to implicate any other party in the matter of Jack Carnavon's death. Since Jack had no traceable family and any reporters following up the story were unable to get past the perpetually cheerful but incredibly vague Sister Margaret who handled all their enquiries, the incident was quickly forgotten. Or rather, it was forgotten outside the walls of St. Benet's. Inside, the boys got over the initial shock and took an unspoken decision to act as if it had never happened. Seb received a few handshakes or brief hugs from boys who managed to find him alone, but
en masse
everyone behaved as if Jack Carnavon had never set foot in the building.
 

Seb had no way of knowing what anyone else was thinking or feeling, but for him, the weeks following his return from hospital were the worst of his young life. He knew he wasn't a murderer, but it didn't stop him feeling like one. It was unlikely that Jack would have survived had he called for help immediately, but it wasn't impossible. And, more importantly, the responsibility would have been taken away from him if he had shouted for Stevie. It was the only thing he could have done that might have prevented Jack's death. He had chosen not to do it. And in the philosophy school book he kept going back to, turning to the same page every time, like a tongue worrying the exposed nerve of a rotten tooth, he kept reading the same quote over and over.

"A person may cause evil to others not only by his actions but by his inaction, and in either case he is justly accountable to them for the injury." John Stuart Mill.

Seb decided to talk to Father O.

Father O'Hanoran was an energetic man in his early sixties. He taught English at the school attached to St. Benet's, and was passionate about literature and poetry. His enthusiasm for his subject was such that it had an effect even on those boys who were barely literate when first arriving. Almost everyone taught by him would come to the realization, in later life, that they had been one of a lucky few to experience an exceptional teacher. Apart from his passion for his subject, he also had an undefinable quality - a kind of inner stillness - which bled out into the atmosphere around him. If he set a piece of written work to be completed in the classroom, he would first describe what it was he wanted, then he would sit down and wait for his pupils to complete the task. He didn't read while he waited, he didn't grade papers, he didn't daydream. He was just there. Present. And just his
being there-ness
had a palpable effect on the class. Difficult concepts seemed to become transparent, sentences flowed almost of their own volition, inspiration seemed available even to those who admitted freely to lacking much imagination. He was a pebble thrown into a pond - the ripples would reach you whether you were expecting them or not.

Seb knocked on his office door late one Saturday.

"Enter," said the familiar voice from within. Seb pushed open the door and negotiated the piles of books to find the desk at the far end of the room. The desk was made of heavy, polished mahogany, although it was impossible to see the wood as every square inch was covered in books or papers. The man behind the desk was reading poems by Gerard Manly Hopkins. Father O was the only person Seb had met who read poetry for pleasure. About a year previously, shyly at first, Seb had started doing the same thing.

Father O put the book down and gestured toward the chair opposite. Seb sat, unsure how to begin. The priest removed his reading glasses and rubbed his face, sighing. He pointed at the book.

"Burnt every poem he had written when he entered the priesthood," he said. "He wrote some beautiful stuff later, don't get me wrong, but why would he want to deny his past? He wouldn't have been the man he was without the experiences he wrote about when he was young. None of us would be." He looked up at Seb. "It's ok," he said. "Tell me."

So Seb told him. Everything. He didn't give Melissa's name and Father O didn't ask, but he told him what Jack had done. He told him what Jack had promised he would do next. He told him what had really happened to Stevie. He told him how Jack had stabbed him in the trunk room. Not just stabbed him, but dragged the knife across his stomach, trying to inflict as much damage as possible. He told him how he had defended himself against Jack's final attack. And, finally, he told him how he had let Jack Carnavon die there, in front of him, waiting until he was sure the boy was dead before calling for help.

Father O'Hanoran's expression didn't change throughout. He listened intently, compassionately, but didn't offer any platitudes or words of condemnation. He just let Seb talk. Seb felt his burden of guilt increase rather than lift as he finally told the truth. Father O was a good man. What did Seb expect from him? Forgiveness? He couldn't even forgive himself. How could he expect it from anyone else? Finally, he ran out of things to say. He had laid out his guilt. Now he waited.

Father O sat still for minutes, his eyes closed. Initially, Seb was shaking, but as time went by he became calmer, his breathing returning to normal. The facts were the facts, nothing could change that. But he couldn't carry on like this.

"Have you ever experienced the presence of God?" were Father O's first words after ten minutes silence. Seb felt his mood drop even further. Was that where this was heading? A religious lecture? He felt a spark of defiance rise up as he reached the limits of desperation.

"I'm not sure I even believe in God, Father," he said. Father O didn't react, just looked at him, his expression, kind, concerned but still completely calm.

"Well, for now, let me just posit two possible hypotheses," said the priest. Many boys rolled their eyes when he started speaking like this in the classroom, but Seb usually felt a secret thrill hearing someone use language imaginatively. Now didn't quite seem the appropriate time, but Father O was Father O, and he wasn't about to change his style of communication to pander to the miserable boy sat opposite. "Firstly, can you accept that the God you don't believe in doesn't exist?"

Seb let that one whirl around his forebrain for a few seconds, then nodded cautiously.
 

"Good. Secondly, would you find my initial question easier to ponder if I substituted the word 'reality' for the one you currently find troublesome? Like so: have you ever experienced the presence of reality, Seb?"

Seb caught himself before he went with the impulse to respond immediately in the affirmative. Again, Father O's conversational teaching style was at play here. Socratic dialogue; by asking questions, he hoped to help his interlocutor reach the logical conclusion by answering them fairly. As soon as Seb gave the question more than a brief examination, he found it wasn't quite that simple.

"Um, it depends what you mean by reality," he said.

"How so?" said Father O.

"Well, er, what you experience might be different to me. I could never know really."
 

Father O nodded. "And?"

"And if we can't agree on what reality
is,
I can't really say I've experienced it."

Father O leaned back, the old leather chair creaking under his weight. "Yes," he said, "quite. And much food for thought there. A couple thousand years of academic discourse hasn't solved that one yet. Let's make this a little more pertinent. To experience reality - whatever that might be - purely, would we not have to do so without preconceptions, opinions? Without filters - both cultural and personal?"

Seb thought again. "But how can we do that?"

"We can't," said Father O, and laughed. Loudly.

""Big help," muttered Seb, but Father O just smiled and leaned forward.
 

"Seb," he said, "I want to teach you a technique which will help you experience reality. This technique will not help you to achieve anything. You will never improve at it, because you are already perfect. But it's the work of a lifetime."

Seb looked blankly at him. "You're not making sense," he said.

"Good!" said Father O. "This has very little to do with what our societal consensus would accept as sense. However, I believe it's the calling of every human being."

Seb narrowed his eyes. "Is this some Catholic religious thing?" he said.
 

Father O sighed. "Religion is often a beautiful thing, but it can also be a monster," he said. "Don't think of it as a corrupt institution, however accurate that might be. Try thinking of it as a scaffold around the Truth. Sometimes it can be helpful, sometimes it obscures what it professes to reveal. Perhaps Truth, Reality, God, is ungraspable by human minds. Perhaps we can only be grasped by it. Don't get caught up in the chatter and the display, Seb. It's what's underneath that matters. I, personally, have found my vocation helpful in approaching this Mystery, but that doesn't mean it's right for you. You could equally be a Buddhist, Hindu, Moslem, Atheist. It's all just words. And what I want to pass on to you cannot be taught, only learned. Without words."

"How the hell did you get into priest school?" said Seb. Father O stared it him for a few seconds. Then he laughed uproariously and stood up.
 

"Seb, you're a good person. What you did was wrong. That particular combination will shape your future. But the past is dead. I don't mean to diminish the seriousness of what happened. You rightly feel remorse and I don't think what has happened will ever leave you. I certainly hope not. It will become part of you. And, whatever you believe, God's forgiveness is greater than any human mind can conceive. They taught me that at priest school." He winked at Seb. "Now go and get some sleep. Be here at 6:15 tomorrow morning."

Chapter 27

New York

Present day

The penthouse suite of Manhattan's Keystone Hotel was furnished in such a way that suggested good taste while simultaneously making it obvious only the insanely rich could afford to stay there. There was only one suite on the top floor, a private elevator coded to respond to the thumb print of the current occupant the only way in. Sonia Svetlana was the current occupant, but even the Keystone's paranoid precautions to ensure privacy weren't enough for her. She rented the entire hotel for a year paid in advance. The owner, a career woman who had quietly built one of the biggest property empires in the country, had barely raised an eyebrow when the offer was made. A week later, all but six of the hotel staff left on 12-month sabbaticals, their bonuses generous enough to ensure none of them would have to work until their return.

The Acolytes of Satan moved in the day after the staff cleared the building. Sonia was always amused by the way Americans reacted to the name of her organization. Most assumed it was some kind of European fashion brand, as Sonia's outfits were always handmade. Some thought it must be a death metal band. On one memorable occasion, a conference room had been booked under the name
The acrobats of Santa
. Sonia, often suspected of having no sense of humor, liked to think her response on that occasion proved otherwise. She had only blinded the booking manager in one eye. Actually, the name was the idea of her predecessor, Magnus, possibly his only good idea. He called it 'hiding in plain sight' and his hunch proved to be absolutely correct.
 

"Call ourselves the Deltox Corporation or some such nonsense and we're heading for a fall," he said. "If there's ever a whiff of scandal, a whisper about what really goes on in our board meetings, the media will be all over us. But tell them we believe in the devil and we'll be laughed at, shunned, but never taken seriously. Put up a website, release a quarterly newsletter with small ads selling wizards' cloaks and cauldrons and we'll be dismissed as harmless eccentrics from the old country."

So that's what they'd done. And it had worked just the way Magnus had said it would. They had only ever received one letter from the US Government, and that was to remind them that, as a religious organization, they were entitled to register themselves as a charity and claim tax breaks.

After deposing Magnus in a fashion gory enough to discourage any challengers for the foreseeable future, Sonia had implemented the Light-bringer Initiative. The Initiative was simple, brutal and effective: a systematic wiping out of Manna users powerful enough to present a threat to the Acolytes. There were very few names on the list she compiled. Most Users were barely aware of the potential of their abilities. The Acolytes' successful operations in Australia, Germany and Japan were the culmination of five years of hard work, identifying, infiltrating and finding the weaknesses of these powerful individuals. A month ago, there was only one name left on the list, and a name was still all they had. Mason. Their adversary here had proved to be so obsessively secretive that he was virtually invisible. But if the prophecies were to be fulfilled and Satan returned to his rightful place of power, he would have to be found and sacrificed. So the Acolytes had decamped to America and taken over the Keystone, as the only slight lead they'd found suggested New York was where they'd find Mason. Then, just under a week ago, everything had changed.