PRELUDE
KNIGHT, DEATH, AND THE DEVIL
Maya reached out and took her father’s hand as they walked from the
Underground to the light. Thorn didn’t push her away or tell Maya to
concentrate on the position of her body. Smiling, he guided her up a
narrow staircase to a long, sloping tunnel with white tile walls.
The Underground authority had installed steel bars on one side of
the tunnel and this barrier made the ordinary passageway look like
part of an enormous prison. If she had been traveling alone, Maya
might have felt trapped and uncomfortable, but there was nothing to
worry about because Father was with her.
It’s the perfect day, she thought. Well, maybe it was the second
most perfect day. She still remembered two years ago when Father had
missed her birthday and Christmas only to show up on Boxing Day with
a taxi full of presents for Maya and her mother. That morning was
bright and full of surprises, but this Saturday seemed to promise a
more durable happiness. Instead of the usual trip to the empty
warehouse near Canary Wharf, where her father taught her how to kick
and punch and use weapons, they had spent the day at the London Zoo,
where he had told her different stories about each of the animals.
Father had traveled all over the world and could describe Paraguay
or Egypt as if he were a tour guide.
People had glanced at them as they strolled past the cages. Most
Harlequins tried to blend into the crowd, but her father stood out
in a group of ordinary citizens. He was German, with a strong nose,
shoulder-length hair, and dark blue eyes. Thorn dressed in somber
colors and wore a steel kara bracelet that looked like a broken
shackle.
Maya had found a battered art history book in the closet of their
rented flat in East London. Near the front of the book was a picture
by Albrecht Dürer called Knight, Death, and the Devil. She liked to
stare at the picture even though it made her feel strange. The
armored knight was like her father, calm and brave, riding through
the mountains as Death held up an hourglass and the Devil followed,
pretending to be a squire. Thorn also carried a sword, but his was
concealed inside a metal tube with a leather shoulder strap.
Although she was proud of Thorn, he also made her feel embarrassed
and self-conscious. Sometimes she just wanted to be an ordinary
girl with a pudgy father who worked in an office-a happy man who
bought ice-cream cones and told jokes about kangaroos. The world
around her, with its bright fashions and pop music and television
shows, was a constant temptation. She wanted to fall into that warm
water and let the current pull her away. It was exhausting to be
Thorn’s daughter, always avoiding the surveillance of the Vast
Machine, always watching for enemies, always aware of the angle of
attack.
Maya was twelve years old, but still wasn’t strong enough to use a
Harlequin sword. As a substitute, Father had taken a walking stick
from the closet and given it to her before they left the flat that
morning. Maya had Thorn’s white skin and strong features and her
Sikh mother’s thick black hair. Her eyes were such a pale blue that
from a certain angle they looked translucent. She hated it when
– well-meaning women approached her mother and complimented Maya’s
appearance. In a few years, she’d be old enough to disguise herself
and look as ordinary as possible.
They left the zoo and strolled through Regent’s Park. It was late
April and young men were kicking footballs across the muddy lawn
while parents pushed bundled-up babies in perambulators. The whole
city seemed to be out enjoying the sunshine after three days of
rain. Maya and her father took the Piccadilly line to the Arsenal
station; it was getting dark when they reached the street-level
exit. There was an Indian restaurant in Finsbury Park and Thorn had
made reservations for an early supper. Maya heard noises-blaring air
horns and shouting in the distance-and wondered if there was some
kind of political demonstration. Then Father led her through the
turnstile and out into a war.
Standing on the sidewalk, she saw a mob of people marching up
Highbury Hill Road. There weren’t any protest signs and banners, and
Maya realized that she was watching the end of a football match. The
Arsenal Stadium was straight down the road and a team with blue and
white colors-that was Chelsea-had just played there. The Chelsea
supporters were coming out of the visitors’ gate on the west end of
the stadium and heading down a narrow street lined with row houses.
Normally it was a quick walk to the station entrance, but now the
North London street had turned into a gauntlet. The police were
protecting Chelsea from Arsenal football thugs who were trying to
attack them and start fights.
Policemen on the edges. Blue and white in the center. Red throwing
bottles and trying to break through the line. Citizens caught in
front of the crowd scrambled between parked cars and knocked over
rubbish bins. Flowering hawthorns grew at the edge of the curb and
their pink blossoms trembled whenever someone was shoved against a
tree. Petals fluttered through the air and fell upon the surging
mass.
The main crowd was approaching the Tube station, about one hundred
meters away. Thorn could have gone to the left and headed up
Gillespie Road, but he remained on the sidewalk and studied the
people surrounding them. He smiled slightly, confident of his own
power and amused by the pointless violence of the drones. Along with
the sword, he was carrying at least one knife and a handgun obtained
from contacts in America. If he wished, he could kill a great many
of these people, but this was a public confrontation and the police
were in the area. Maya glanced up at her father. We should run away,
she thought. These people are completely mad. But Thorn glared at
his daughter as if he had just sensed her fear and Maya stayed
silent.
Everyone was shouting. The voices merged into one angry roar. Maya
heard a high-pitched whistle. The wail of a police siren. A beer
bottle sailed through the air and exploded into fragments a few feet
away from where they were standing. Suddenly, a flying wedge of red
shirts and scarves plowed through the police lines, and she saw men
kicking and throwing punches. Blood streamed down a policeman’s
face, but he raised his truncheon and fought back.
She squeezed Father’s hand. “They’re coming toward us,” she said.
“We need to get out of the way.”
Thorn turned around and pulled his daughter back into the entrance
of the Tube station as if to find refuge there. But now the police
were driving the Chelsea supporters forward like a herd of cattle
and she was surrounded by men wearing blue. Caught in the crowd,
Maya and her father were pushed past the ticket booth where the
elderly clerk cowered behind the thick glass.
Father vaulted over the turnstile and Maya followed. Now they were
back in the long tunnel, heading down to the trains. It’s all right,
she thought. We’re safe now. Then she realized that men wearing red
had forced their way into the tunnel and were running beside them.
One of the men was carrying a wool sock filled with something
heavy-rocks, ball bearings-and he swung it like a club at the old
man just in front of her, knocking off the man’s glasses and
breaking his nose. A gang of Arsenal thugs slammed a Chelsea
supporter against the steel bars on the left side of the tunnel. The
man tried to get away as they kicked and beat him. More blood. And
no police anywhere.
Thorn grabbed the back of Maya’s jacket and dragged her through the
fighting. A man tried to attack them and Father stopped him
instantly with a quick, snapping punch to the throat. Maya hurried
down the tunnel, trying to reach the stairway. Before she could
react, something like a rope came over her right shoulder and across
her chest. Maya looked down and saw that Thorn had just tied a blue
and white Chelsea scarf around her body.
In an instant she realized that the day at the zoo, the amusing
stories, and the trip to the restaurant were all part of a plan.
Father had known about the football game, had probably been here
before and timed their arrival. She glanced over her shoulder and
saw Thorn smile and nod as if he had just told her an amusing story.
Then he turned and walked away.
Maya spun around as three Arsenal supporters ran forward, yelling at
her. Don’t think. React. She jabbed the walking stick like a javelin
and the steel tip hit the tallest man’s forehead with a crack. Blood
spurted from his head and he began to fall, but she was already
spinning around to trip the second man with the stick. As he
stumbled backward, she jumped high and kicked his face. He spun
around and hit the floor. Down. He’s down. She ran forward and
kicked him again.
As she regained her balance, the third man caught her from behind
and lifted her off the ground. He squeezed tightly, trying to break
her ribs, but Maya dropped the stick, reached back with both hands,
and grabbed his ears. The man screamed as she flipped him over her
shoulder and onto the floor.
Maya reached the stairway, took the stairs two at a time, and saw
Father standing on the platform next to the open doors of a train.
He grabbed her with his right hand and used his left to force their
way into the car. The doors moved back and forth and finally closed.
Arsenal supporters ran up to the train, pounding on the glass with
their fists, but the train lurched forward and headed down the
tunnel.
People were packed together. She heard a woman weeping as the boy in
front of her pressed a handkerchief against his mouth and nose. The
car went around a curve and she fell against her father, burying her
face in his wool overcoat. She hated him and loved him, wanted to
attack him and embrace him-all at the same time. Don’t cry, she
thought. He’s watching you. Harlequins don’t cry. And she bit her
lower lip so hard that she broke the skin and tasted her own blood.
(Continues…)
Excerpted from The Traveler
by John Twelve Hawks
Copyright © 2005 by John Twelve Hawks.
Excerpted by permission.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
Doubleday
Copyright © 2005
John Twelve Hawks
All right reserved.
ISBN: 0-385-51428-X
