by Ransom Riggs
“Go on,” she said to Addison. “What happened to Claire?”
“The wights marched off with her. Gagged her two mouths and tossed her into a sack.”
“But she was alive?” I said.
“And biting, as of noon yesterday. Then we buried Deirdre in our little cemetery and I hightailed it for London to find Miss Wren and warn all of you. One of Miss Wren’s pigeons led me to her hideaway, and while I was pleased to see that you had arrived before me, unfortunately so had the wights. Their siege had already begun, and I was forced to watch helplessly as they stormed the building, and—well, you know the rest. I followed as you were led away to the underground. When that blast went off, I saw an opportunity to aid you and took it.”
“Thank you for that,” I said, realizing we hadn’t yet acknowledged the debt we owed him. “If you hadn’t dragged us away when you did …”
“Yes, well … no need to dwell on hypothetical unpleasantries,” he said. “But in return for my gallantry, I was rather hoping you would assist me in rescuing Miss Wren from the wights. As unlikely as that sounds. She means everything to me, you see.”
It was Miss Wren he’d wanted to snatch away from the wights, not us—but we were the realistic save, farther from the train, and he’d made a snap decision and taken what he could get.
“Of course we’ll help,” I said. “Isn’t that what we’re doing now?”
“Yes, yes,” he said. “But you must realize, as an ymbryne, Miss Wren is more valuable to the wights than peculiar children, and thus she may prove more difficult to free. I worry that, if by some miracle we are lucky enough to rescue your friends …”
“Now wait a second,” I snapped. “Who says she’s more—”
“No, it’s true,” Emma said. “She’ll be under heavier lock and key, no question. But we won’t leave her behind. We’re not leaving anyone else behind, ever again. You have our word as peculiars.”
The dog seemed satisfied with that. “Thank you,” he said, and then his ears flattened. He hopped up onto a seat to look out the window as we pulled into the next station. “Hide yourselves,” he said, ducking down. “There are enemies near.”
* * *
The wights were expecting us. I glimpsed two of them waiting on the platform, dressed as police officers among a scattering of commuters. They were scanning the cars as our train pulled into the station. We dropped down below the windows, hoping they’d miss us—but I knew they wouldn’t. The one with the walkie-talkie had radioed ahead; they must’ve known we were on this train. Now all they had to do was search it.
It came to a stop and people began filing on board, though not into our car. I risked a peek through the open doors and saw one of the wights down the platform, speed walking in our direction as he eyeballed each car.
“One’s coming this way,” I muttered. “How’s your fire, Em?”
“Running on empty,” she replied.
He was getting close. Four cars away. Three.
“Then get ready to run.”
Two cars away. Then a soft, recorded voice: “Mind the closing doors, please.”
“Hold the train!” the wight shouted. But the doors were already closing.
He stuck an arm through. The doors bounced open again. He got on board—into the car next to ours.
My eyes went to the door that connected our cars. It was locked with a chain—thank God for small mercies. The doors snicked shut and the train began to move. We shifted the folding man onto the floor and huddled with him in a spot where we couldn’t be seen from the wight’s car.
“What can we do?” said Emma. “The moment this train stops again, he’ll come straight in here and find us.”
“Are we absolutely certain he’s a wight?” asked Addison.
“Do cats grow on trees?” Emma replied.
“Not in this part of the world.”
“Then of course we aren’t. But when it comes to wights, there’s an old saying: if you’re not sure, assume.”
“Okay, then,” I said. “The second those doors open, we run for the exit.”
Addison sighed. “All this fleeing,” he said disdainfully, as if he were a gourmand and someone had offered him a limp square of American cheese. “There’s no imagination in it. Mightn’t we try sneaking? Blending in? There’s artistry in that. Then we could simply walk away, gracefully, unnoticed.”
“I hate fleeing as much as anyone,” I said, “but Emma and I look like nineteenth-century axe murderers, and you’re a dog who wears glasses. We’re bound to be noticed.”
“Until they start manufacturing canine contact lenses, I’m stuck with these,” Addison grumbled.
“Where’s that hollowgast when you need him?” said Emma offhandedly.
“Run over by a train, if we’re lucky,” I said. “And what do you mean by that?”
“Only that he came in quite handy earlier.”
“And before that he nearly killed us—twice! No, three times! Whatever it is I’ve been doing to control it has been half by accident, and the moment I’m not able to? We’re dead.”
Emma didn’t respond right away, but studied me for a moment and then took my hand, all caked in grime, and kissed it gently, once, twice.
“What was that for?” I said, surprised.
“You have no idea, do you?”
“Of what?”
“How completely miraculous you are.”
Addison groaned.
“You have an amazing talent,” Emma whispered. “I’m certain all you need is a little practice.”
“Maybe. But practicing something usually means failing at it for a while, and failing at this means people get killed.”
Emma squeezed my hand. “Well, there’s nothing like a little pressure to help you hone a new skill.”
I tried to smile but couldn’t muster one. My heart hurt too much at the thought of all the damage I could cause. This thing I could do felt like a loaded weapon I didn’t know how to use. Hell, I didn’t even know which end to point away from me. Better to set it down than have it blow up in my hands.
We heard a noise at the other end of the car and looked up to see the door opening. That one wasn’t chained, and now a pair of leather-clad teenagers stumbled into our car, a boy and a girl, laughing and passing a lit cigarette between them.
“We’ll get in trouble!” the girl said, kissing his neck.
The boy brushed a foppish wave of hair from his eyes—“I do this all the time, sweetheart”—then saw us and froze, his eyebrows parabolic. The door they’d come through banged closed behind them.
“Hey,” I said casually, as if we weren’t crouched on the floor with a dying man, covered in blood. “What’s up?”
Don’t freak out. Don’t give us away.
The boy wrinkled his brow. “Are you …?”
“In costume,” I replied. “Got carried away with the fake blood.”
“Oh,” said the boy, clearly not believing me.
The girl stared at the folding man. “Is he …?”
“Drunk,” said Emma. “Soused out of his brain. Which is how he came to spill all our fake blood on the floor. And himself.”
“And us,” said Addison. The teens’ heads snapped toward him, their eyes going wider still.
“You goon,” Emma muttered. “Keep quiet.”
The boy raised a trembling hand and pointed at the dog. “Did he just …?”
Addison had said only two words. We might’ve played it off as a trick of echoes, something other than what it seemed, but he was too proud to play dumb.
“Of course I didn’t,” he said, raising his nose in the air. “Dogs can’t speak English. Nor any human language—save, in one notable exception, Luxembourgish, which is only comprehensible to bankers and Luxembourgers, and therefore hardly of any use at all. No, you’ve eaten something disagreeable and are having a nightmare, that’s all. Now, if you wouldn’t mind terribly, my friends need to borrow your clothes. Please disrobe at once.”
Pallid and shaking, the boy started to remove his leather jacket, but he’d only wriggled one arm free when his knees gave out and he fainted to the floor. And then the girl began to scream, and she didn’t stop.
In an instant the wight was banging at the chained door, his blank eyes flashing murder.
“So much for sneaking away,” I said.
Addison turned to look at him. “Definitely a wight,” he said, nodding sagely.
“I’m so glad we put that mystery to rest,” said Emma.
There was a jolt and a squeal of brakes. We were coming into a station. I pulled Emma to her feet and prepared to run.
“What about Sergei?” Emma said, whipping around to look back at him.
It would be hard enough to outrun a pair of wights with Emma still recovering her strength; with the folding man in my arms, it would be impossible.
“We’ll have to leave him,” I said. “He’ll be found and brought to a doctor. It’s his best chance—and ours.”
Surprisingly, she agreed. “I think it’s what he’d want.” She went quickly to his side. “Sorry we can’t take you with us. But I’m certain we’ll meet again.”
“In the next world,” he croaked, his eyes slitting open. “In Abaton.”
With those mysterious words and the girl’s screams ringing in our ears, the train came to a stop and the doors opened.
* * *
We weren’t clever. We weren’t graceful. The moment the train doors slid open, we just ran as fast as we could.
The wight leapt out of his car and into ours, by which time we had dashed past the screaming girl, over the fainted boy, and onto the platform, where we struggled against a crowd that was streaming onto the train like a school of spawning fish. This station, unlike all the others, was heaving at the seams.
“There!” I shouted, pulling Emma toward a WAY OUT sign that glowed in the distance. I hoped Addison was somewhere at our feet, but so many people were flooding around us that I could hardly see the floor. Luckily, Emma’s strength was returning—or a rush of adrenaline was kicking in—because I don’t think I could’ve supported her weight and threaded the human stampede, too.
We’d put about twenty feet and fifty people between us and the train when the wight burst out of it, shoving commuters and yelling I am an officer of the law! and Get out of my way! and Stop those children! Either no one could hear him over the echoing din of the station or no one was paying attention. I looked back to see him gaining, and that’s when Emma started tripping people, sweeping her legs left and right as we ran. People shouted and fell into tangles behind us, and when I looked back again the wight was struggling, stepping on legs and backs and getting swats with umbrellas and briefcases in return. Then he stopped, red-faced and frustrated, to unsnap his gun holster. But the gulf of people between us had yawned too wide now, and though I was sure he’d be heartless enough to fire into a crowd, he wasn’t stupid enough to. The ensuing panic would’ve made us even more difficult to catch.
The third time I looked back he was so far behind and swallowed by the crowd that I could hardly see him. Maybe he didn’t really care whether he caught us. After all, we were neither a great threat nor much of a prize. Maybe the dog had been right: compared to an ymbryne, we were hardly worth the trouble.
Halfway to the exits the crowd thinned enough for us to break into an open run—but we’d taken only a few strides when Emma caught me by the sleeve and stopped me. “Addison!” she cried, spinning to look around. “Where’s Addison?”
A moment later he came scampering out of the thickest part of the crowd, a long piece of white fabric trailing from a spike on his collar. “You waited for me!” he said. “I became entangled in a lady’s stocking …”
Heads turned at the sound of his voice.
“Come on, we can’t stop now!” I said.
Emma plucked the stocking from Addison’s collar, and we were off and running again. Before us were an escalator and an elevator. The escalator was working but very crowded, so I steered us toward the elevator instead. We ran past a lady painted blue from head to toe, and I had to turn and stare even as my legs carried me onward. Her hair was dyed blue, her face caked with blue makeup, and she wore a skin-tight jumpsuit, also blue.
She’d only just passed out of sight when I saw someone even more freakish: a man whose head was divided vertically into halves, one bald and burned to a crisp, the other untouched, hair moussed into a dapper wave. If Emma noticed him, she didn’t turn to look. Maybe she was so used to meeting genuine peculiars that peculiar-looking normals hardly registered. But what if they aren’t normal? I thought. What if they’re peculiars, and instead of the present we’ve ended up in some new loop? What if—
Then I saw two boys with glowing swords battling by a wall of vending machines, each sabre clash sounding with a thin plasticky thwack, and reality came into sharp focus. These strange-looking people weren’t peculiars. They were nerds. We were very much in the present.
Twenty feet away, the elevator doors opened. We poured on the speed and hurled ourselves inside, bouncing off the back wall with our hands while Addison tumbled in on tripping legs. I turned just in time to glimpse two things through the closing doors: the wight breaking out of the crowd and coming at us in a full run, and back by the tracks where the train was pulling away, the hollowgast leaping from the roof of the last car to the station ceiling, swinging like a spider from a light fixture by its tongues, its black eyes burning at me.
And then the doors closed and we were gliding gently upward, and someone was saying, “Where’s the fire, mate?”
A middle-aged man stood in the rear corner of the elevator, costumed and sneering. His shirt was torn, his face was crosshatched with fake cuts, and strapped to the end of one arm, Captain Hook–style, was a bloodstained chainsaw.
Emma saw him and took a quick step back. “Who are you?”
He looked mildly offended. “Oh, come on.”
“If you really want to know where the fire is, don’t answer.” She began to raise her hands, but I reached over and stopped her.
“He’s no one,” I said.
“I thought I was making such an obvious choice this year,” the man muttered. He arched an eyebrow and raised his chainsaw a little. “Name’s Ash. You know … Army of Darkness?”
“Never heard of either,” said Emma. “Who’s your ymbryne?”
“My what?”
“He’s just doing a character,” I tried to explain, but she wasn’t hearing me.
“Never mind who you are,” she said. “We could use an army, and beggars can’t be choosers. Where are the rest of your men?”
The man rolled his eyes. “L-O-L. You guys are funny. Everyone’s in the convention center, obviously.”
“He’s wearing a costume,” I whispered to Emma. Then, to the guy: “She doesn’t see a lot of movies.”
“A costume?” Emma scrunched her brow. “But he’s a grown man.”
“So what?” the man said, looking us up and down. “And who are you supposed to be? Walking Dorks? League of Extraordinary Dingleberries?”
“Peculiar children,” said Addison, whose ego wouldn’t allow him to be silent any longer. “And I am the seventh pup of the seventh pup in a long and illustrious line of—”
The man fainted before Addison could finish, his head knocking against the floor with a clonk that made me wince.
“You’ve got to stop doing that,” Emma said, then grinned despite herself.
“Serves him right,” said Addison. “What a rude person. Now quick, nick his wallet.”
“No way!” I said. “We’re not thieves.”
Addison snorted. “I daresay we need it more than he does.”
“Why on earth is he dressed like that?” said Emma.
The elevator dinged and the doors began to slide open.
“I think you’re about to find out,” I said.
* * *
The elevator doors split open and lik
e magic the day-lit world spread before us, so bright we had to shield our eyes. I drew a welcome lungful of fresh air as we stepped out onto a swarming sidewalk. There were costumed people everywhere: superheroes in spandex, zombies shambling in heavy makeup, raccoon-eyed anime girls wielding battleaxes. They congregated in unlikely bunches and spilled into a street blocked off to traffic, drawn like moths to a large gray building where a banner proclaimed: COMIC CONVENTION TODAY!
Emma recoiled toward the elevator. “What is all this?”
Addison peered over his glasses at a green-haired Joker touching up his face paint. “Judging by their attire, it appears to be some sort of religious holiday.”
“Something like that,” I said, coaxing Emma back onto the sidewalk, “but don’t be scared—they’re only dressed-up normals, and that’s what we look like to them, too. We only need to worry about that wight.” I failed to mention the hollow, hoping we’d baffled it by vanishing into the elevator. “We should find a place to hide until he’s gone, then sneak back into the Underground …”
“No need for that,” Addison said, and he trotted into the crowded street, nose twitching.
“Hey!” Emma called after him. “Where are you going?”
But he was already circling back.
“Huzzah for fortune!” he said, wagging his stubby tail. “My nose tells me our friends were brought out of the underground here, via that escalator. We’ve gone the right way after all!”
“Thank the birds!” Emma said.
“Do you think you can follow their trail?” I asked.
“Do I think I can? They don’t call me Addison the Astounding for nothing! Why, there isn’t an aroma, a redolence, a peculiar eau de toilette I couldn’t nose from a hundred meters—”
Addison was easily distracted by the topic of his own greatness, even when pressing matters were at hand, and his proud, booming voice had a tendency to carry.
“Okay, we get it,” I said, but he steamrolled on, walking now, following his nose.
“… I could find a peculiar in a hollow-stack, an ymbryne in an aviary …”
We chased him into the costumed crowd, between the legs of a dwarf on stilts, around a pack of undead princesses, and on a near-collision course with a Pikachu and an Edward Scissorhands, who were waltzing in the street. Of course our friends were brought this way, I thought. It was perfect camouflage—not only for us, who amidst all this looked downright normal, but also for wights abducting a herd of peculiar children. Even if some of them had dared cry out for help, who would’ve taken them seriously enough to intervene? People were play-acting all around us, improvising staged fights, growling in monstrous costumes, moaning like zombies. Some strange kids yelling about being kidnapped by people who wanted to steal their souls? Wouldn’t raise an eyebrow.