‘S-s-she?’ I manage to say.
Si stops swooping.
‘Mary,’ he says. ‘She was the only one with the power to break your fall.’
I look up at Mary. She is hovering above my reunion with Si, giving me a strange stare I can’t understand.
I hear a squeal and see that Stacey – the cage of ice reformed around her – is clapping.
‘Weirdy boy fly again! Weirdy boy fly again!’
‘But…’ I say, trying to work this out. ‘Mary’s also the one who just blasted me off the building.’
Mary drops lower, until she’s floating in front of me.
‘Is it true?’ she says. ‘What your friend Simon says? That you know how a ghost can take over a living body?’
My purple specs almost fall off again.
‘What!?’
‘Daniel, I had to tell her something!’ Simon is grinning desperately. ‘I had but moments, and so… I told her.’
I can’t believe my ears. So this is why she saved me?
‘When you help ghosts over to the Hereafter,’ Mary continues, ‘they pay you with their memories? Is this true?’
‘Well, yeah,’ I say. ‘Not all of their memories, obviously. Just a few useful skills or experiences.’
‘But what if they did give you all of their memories?’ Mary is getting closer. I don’t like the glint in her eye. ‘What would happen to you?’
I switch on the grin. I’ve often wondered this. How much of other peoples’ memories could I take on before I stop being myself, and become, well… them?
I have no idea. But I also have no intention of finding out. That’s why I keep it simple: one ghost helped = one memory paid. Job jobbed. And cheap at the price too, considering what I do for them.
‘Look, thanks for saving me and all that, but you’ve got the wrong end of the stick,’ I say to Mary. ‘I know how I get paid to help ghosts, yeah? But I don’t know how to get you into Stacey’s head.’
‘But I don’t want to get into Stacey’s head,’ says Mary, dangerously sweetly. ‘Not any more. You were right all along. She’s just a little child. Whereas you…’ Mary’s eyes light up with glee. ‘You are near full-grown. And a boy!’
‘Er, yeah.’ I manage to keep the grin in place somehow. ‘Last time I looked. Unless something’s dropped off with the cold…’
‘I felt such freedom when I dressed as a boy,’ Mary continues, in a dreamy voice. ‘Now I can put on the ultimate disguise. Your body is the body I need. And you even know how to give it to me.’
‘Woah, let me stop you there!’ I’m backing away. ‘Hey, Si – thanks mate!’ I call over to where Simon is floating.
‘Forgive me, Daniel!’ he wails. ‘It was the best I could do. But at least I managed to buy you a few more seconds of life. Now you can have one of your amazing plans.’
‘I will live again,’ Mary croons, advancing towards me. ‘And this time, I will be a boy! A slightly sickly looking one, it’s true, and with stupid hair…’
‘Oi!’
‘… but a boy all the same. I will be free!’
‘Look, Mary…’ I say, backed right up against the ice sheet at the edge of the platform now, with nowhere else to go. ‘I can still fight you, you know. If you try to get into my head. I can still resist.’
Mary laughs. She’s so close, and crackling so brightly, that I have to close my eyes even behind my shades.
‘You can always try,’ she says.
I let my shoulders sag. I mean, who am I kidding? Mary is gaining power by the minute, whereas I’m exhausted after everything I’ve been through. What chance do I have against her?
So much for coming up with an awesome plan. I see Simon’s still looking at me expectantly, but there’s nothing I can do, not now Mary’s made up her mind. Except, maybe there’s one thing…
‘Okay, Mary, okay,’ I say, putting my hands up in defeat. ‘But if I let you do this, then you don’t need Stacey anymore, do you? You can let her go.’
Mary shrugs, then snaps her fingers.
An arc of electricity dances over Stacey’s ice cage, destroying it in a cloud of glittering ice particles.
‘Oooh!’ says Stacey holding her hands out to catch them.
There’s a ‘hmmm hmmm HMM!’ sound, and I see that Venn and Ned are still prisoners of the ice too.
‘And the others?’ I say. ‘You’ll let them go as well?’
‘It is already done.’ says Mary.
A second arc shatters the ice that’s holding Venn, and then Ned. Venn falls in a heap, but springs to his feet.
‘Ohmygodohmygodohmygod!’ he cries, half hysterical. ‘Ohmygod! Ned, are you getting this? We are going to be rich! Please say you’re getting this!’
Ned staggers over to him, the camera still on his shoulder.
‘Yes sir, I’m getting it, all right,’ he says. ‘I think I’m finally getting it loud and clear.’
Ned takes the camera off his shoulder and brings it crashing down onto Venn’s head. Venn hits the concrete, out cold. Then Ned drops the power pack and cables, scoops Stacey up in his big bodyguard arms, and dashes off down the stairs to safety.
Mary doesn’t even turn round to look at any of this. Her eyes are boring into mine.
‘Relax, boy,’ she says, lifting one hand to reach for my face. ‘Just think of this as your payment for helping me, that’s all. I’ll try not to make it hurt.’
The tendrils of power creep over my scalp once again.
I hold up my finger to say one last witty thing that will stop all this madness and put the world to rights. But I don’t even get the first word out. With a flash of light, Mary starts to fry my brain.
17
ABOUT VOLTS
‘Fight her, Daniel! Fight!’
That’s Si’s voice saying that. And, despite what I said to Mary about surrendering, I decide I should at least try to defend myself. Somewhere inside my blasted brain, I put up my mental dooks and get ready to rumble.
But it’s no good. Mary’s spirit invades my mind like a bulldozer in a china shop and I’m simply barged to one side. In a second it’s all over.
If my body is a spaceship, then Mary is now in the captain’s seat, twiddling her fingers over the fancy buttons, wondering which one to try first.
And me? Well, weirdly, I’m still in there somewhere, squashed in a corner of my head, helpless. Mary becomes aware of me, and blasts at me again and again, but for some reason she can’t get rid of me entirely. Maybe it’s not possible to completely evict someone from their own brain. Not that it really matters. As far as my body’s concerned, Mary is now calling all the shots.
As I watch, helpless, through eyes that used to be mine, I see my arms raise as Mary lifts her new hands to inspect them.
‘Boy’s fingers,’ she says, wonder in her voice. ‘On boy’s hands. I’m alive again! And I’m a boy!’
Mary starts to chuckle. Then, from my tiny hiding place in the corner of what used to be my mind, I sense my whole body start to quake with triumphant laughter.
‘I’m back! I’m alive! And this time I won’t be pushed around. This time it will be different, so different…’
She raises her right arm and gestures into the air. An arc of electricity springs from my – sorry, her finger tips, and explodes the peak of one of the Shard’s spires with a BOOM of destruction. Amidst the roar of the wind and the sound of crashing glass, there is a piercing scream.
It’s Mary, doing the screaming. Using my lungs and vocal cords, of course, but the pain is all hers. She raises the hand that just fired the electricity and we both see it is bloodied and charred.
Hey, that’s mine! I shout out in my mind. I can’t feel any pain now I’ve lost control of my body, but boy, that’s gotta hurt! There’s still smoke coming out of it.
‘No,’ gasps Mary aloud. ‘It’s mine! But it burns, aagh…!’
What did you expect? I shout again. Living bodies and lightning don’t exactly go together.
You have to leave your powers behind, Mary. You can’t use them now you’re alive.
‘Silence!’ Mary screams. ‘This body is mine! But it’s your fault if its flesh is weak. So, I will harden it with fire.’ And she raises her hand again.
No! I shout, suddenly panicked. If I do ever find a way to get my body back, I’d like it to be returned in the condition I lent it out in, not charred to a crisp. But Mary isn’t listening to me. She’s too busy screaming as she flings a new bolt of electrical energy from my bloodied hand, taking out another chunk of the Shard. My hand is a blackened claw now, and my sleeve is on fire.
Oi! I shout. You’ve damaged my coat!
‘I… don’t understand…’ Mary gasps through the pain.
You’ve won, Mary. I hate to admit this, but it’s true. You’ve got your new life, your second chance – take it. This is what you wanted, isn’t it? Leave your spook powers behind, stop hurting people and just… live!
Mary is on her knees now, sobbing. And that’s not nice because all I can hear is me. Then she raises both her hands, and her whole body tenses.
Mary, what are you doing? Mary?
‘Just… living isn’t enough,’ she says through gritted teeth. ‘I need to be stronger than everyone else. Stronger even than grown men! I need this power for revenge…’
Mary, stop!
I can feel a massive electrical charge building around us now. Small arcs of energy are creeping up the remaining spires of the Shard and discharging into my body. My hair is standing on end, and the air feels like it will explode.
Mary!
‘I will… make… this body… STRONG!’ Mary gasps, and then screams a scream beyond anything I have ever heard before as she releases enough electrical power to light up Belgium. The summit of the Shard explodes as my body erupts into light.
And I’m a bit cross now. I mean, I basically gave her my body – and the rest of its life – for free! And here she is, a few seconds later, turning it into toast. All because she can’t bear to give up her supernatural powers and accept normal life again.
Unfortunately, since the body of a fourteen-year-old boy isn’t meant to be used as a light bulb, it looks like we’re both about to die in its ashes. And for Mary, this’ll be the second time.
Ah, crapsticks.
Well, at least I can’t feel anything.
I only ever wanted to help you, I say in my head, while I still can. But Mary doesn’t answer.
And that’s when I notice she’s gone.
From my mind, I mean. Gone! The captain’s seat is vacant! In a moment I’m back in command of own dear mind and body again, and…
PAIN
Somehow I manage to open my eyes…
PAIN
I slump down onto my back, in a cloud of smoke and the smell of a badly singed psychic detective. My ruined, burnt-out fuse of a body won’t move, but at least the electricity has left me now. Instead, it’s lifting Mary’s ghost up into the storm above, wreathing her in electrical fire. She reaches down to where I lie in the twisted ruins of the spires, but she’s already too far away.
In fact, with the top of the building now completely destroyed, Mary can no longer be said to be on the Shard at all. And if Si – and the Great Poojam – are right that it’s the building giving Mary all this extra power, then that means…
With a shocking suddenness, the electrical charge dissipates, and darkness falls over the summit of the Shard. The wind whistles through steel wreckage and shattered sheets of glass and ice. The snow swirls around Mary’s ghost. She floats in the night sky above me, a slim teenage girl once again, with a look of sadness and confusion on her face.
As I watch, there’s a sudden ripple in the ectoplasm of Mary’s spirit. I recognise the signs.
‘What’s happening?’ she says. ‘I feel so… I feel… nothing.’
‘You couldn’t have what you wanted,’ I manage to croak. ‘In the end. A new life wasn’t enough for you. Not if it had to be an ordinary one. So now there’s nothing left to keep you here. You’re free, Mary.’
‘Free?’
‘Wasn’t that what you really wanted all along?’
‘I’m fading?’ she says, looking down at herself. She seems quite calm about it, but then they always are. ‘Why am I fading?’
‘I’m happy for you, Mary,’ I say, still lying on the concrete platform. ‘Really. It must have been horrible stuck here on earth all those years, after everything they did to you. But you can go now. To the Hereafter. You deserve it.’
Mary’s ghostly hair ripples in an invisible wind that’s got nothing to do with the weather. She’s already getting hard to see.
‘But what will I find there?’
I shrug. And yowzers, it hurts!
‘I have no idea,’ I say. ‘That’s not my department. But it’s where we all go in the end. It’s where you should be. Rest now, Mary. Goodbye.’
Mary’s ghost looks at me.
‘Dan,’ she says, using my name for the first time. ‘I’m so sorry.’
And she smiles – a proper, genuine, warm smile this time. It’s the first time I’ve seen her do that too. Then the spectral wind takes the little wisp of golden light that remains of her ghost and whips it away to nothing.
‘Ah, don’t be,’ I croak to the empty sky above. ‘It’s all in a night’s work.’
Which is a pretty cool thing to say in the circs. Shame there’s no one there to hear it.
‘I’m here, Daniel.’
Si floats over me, looking distraught.
‘That’s good, Si.’ I barely manage to whisper the words. ‘Because I’m not sure I will be for much longer.’
And I close my eyes at last.
18
SIMON’S SECRET
DUBBA-DUBBA-DUBBA…
That’s a funny noise. But it does sound like something I’ve heard before.
DUBBA-DUBBA-DUBBA…
Then I remember that if I open my eyes, I might be able to see what it is.
I open my eyes.
‘Daniel!’
I see Simon leaning over me, relief radiating out from his ghastly face. The roof beyond him is curving and white, and there are boxy units of hi-tech kit and monitors.
DUBBA-DUBBA…
‘Where am I?’ I manage to whisper.
Before Simon can answer, a young woman in an orange jumpsuit marked ‘paramedic’ leans into view and says, ‘You’re in an air ambulance. Don’t worry, you’re going to be fine.’
So that’s what the DUBBA-DUBBA is – the throb of helicopter blades.
Cool.
Then I remember what happened to put me in here.
‘You came back for me, Si,’ I croak up to my sidekick. ‘Thanks, buddy.’
‘Er…’ says the woman in orange, who obviously thinks I’m talking to her. ‘Just try to relax. You’ve had a double shot of morphine for the pain. If I were you, I’d try to get to some sleep.’
Simon waits for her to stop speaking before answering me.
‘Of course I came back. I was never very far, Daniel, you should know that.’
‘I’m sorry I said those things,’ I say, remembering our argument in the ruined flat. ‘I’m sorry I shouted.’
The paramedic says, ‘Hey, I’d have shouted too if I’d been struck by lightning. That was one freak storm. It took the point of the Shard clean off.’
‘It is I who should be sorry.’ Si gives one of his most impressive bows, so I know he means it. ‘I should never have lost faith in you, Daniel.’
‘But you were right,’ I say. ‘About Mary. She really was too far gone. I wish I could have helped her, Si.’
We both look at the woman in orange, to see what she’ll do. She shakes her head and looks away. I guess she thinks I’m just talking to myself, what with the shock of everything that’s happened and the morphine, and all. And that suits me and Si just fine.
‘But you did help her,’ Simon says, now that we have the conversation to ourselves a
gain. ‘Against all the odds, you got her over to the Hereafter. That wouldn’t have happened if you’d given up. And you saved Stacey and Ned. ’Tis a triumph, Daniel!’
‘And Venn Specter?’ I say. After everything that’s happened, I find I’d like to have saved everyone, even the annoying star of Venn Specter Investigates.
‘See for yourself,’ says Si. ‘For behold, the window of wonders!’
And he steps back, sweeping his arm towards a small TV screen in the corner of the air ambulance. It looks like the news is on, and – huddled in a silver foil blanket – Venn Specter is being interviewed.
‘Ohmygodohmygod!’ he says, his eyes wild. It looks like he might have thrown up a little on his bottle-green pullover. ‘There was a ghost! An actual ghost! I can’t believe it!’
‘I’m sure your viewers would want me to ask, Mr Specter,’ says the voice of an interviewer, ‘why you seem so surprised to have seen a ghost? After all, your whole reputation has been built on your claim to be able to see ghosts all the time.’
‘You don’t understand.’ Venn grabs the man by the lapels. ‘It was a real ghost! And we got it on film. It was recorded…’
I tune out of the TV and look at Si, one eyebrow raised. After all, as far as I can tell, the whole crazy incident on the Shard was broadcast to the nation via Ned’s camera. It must be causing an international sensation.
‘As for that,’ Simon says, with a mischievous grin. ‘Ned’s camera broadcast almost nothing.’
‘But…’ I blink at him. Even that hurts. ‘What do you mean?’
‘I don’t pretend to understand your twenty-first century ways, Daniel, but the words “static” and “interference” are being used to explain it. The last thing that the audience saw on the big screen was a close-up of that keyring in the Shard’s souvenir shop. After that, the picture went fuzzy. DazzleTV was forced to broadcast last year’s Venn Specter Investigates Christmas Special instead.’
I can’t help laughing. So much for Venn’s precious proof. But I stop laughing when I feel the dull ache it causes throughout my body.
Then something glittery catches my eye, and I look back at the TV screen. There’s a close up of Stacey there now, wiping her nose on the back of her hand.
Dan and the Shard of Ice Page 8