Strawbones raised himself from the chair, standing up straight. A change came over his face – his eyes appeared to be turning completely green, and when he spoke his voice was stronger. ‘Yes . . . we, Julius and Strawbones Luther-Ross, the Eleutheroi, the legends, the Liberators, will rise to power. Long have we waited in the dark places, long have we hidden ourselves from the light of the world, this corrupt, filthy, heaving world of barbarians. We will make them see what it is to be untrammelled by restraints, to act on every impulse, every desire, without fear, without consequence.’
The friends watched Strawbones lift his arms out as if he were crucified, or flying, and Perkins remained kneeling, mumbling something, some kind of chant. His chant rose higher and he threw his head up and Strawbones was lit by strange fire. Then Perkins’ voice dropped, and Strawbones, relaxing, sat back in his chair. Perkins got quietly to his feet.
‘There is no obstacle,’ said Strawbones gently, and then he said, even more quietly, ‘except the Koptor. Did you find the Koptor?’
Miranda gently nudged her brother. Ivo tensed, its coldness in his hand. They are so close to it, he thought, and they don’t know. This made him feel strong, and powerful.
Perkins muttered inaudibly.
‘I’m sorry, I didn’t hear you. I asked you if you had found the Koptor. Did you?’
‘No.’ Perkins said no more.
‘Well, that is depressing. Honestly, Perkins. We charge you with one easy little task like finding the Koptor and you can’t perform it. What will we do with you?’
There was a pause. Felix, Miranda and Ivo held their breath, sure that any sound they made would be picked up.
‘Find it,’ barked Strawbones, and suddenly his voice was old, and full of blackness, and then he began to laugh. He picked up a long walking stick that had lain by his side, and banged it three times on the ground. The knocks echoed, and as if in immediate answer a tapestry was flung off one of the walls to reveal a doorway, out of which poured a riot of people. Felix, Miranda and Ivo drew further back into the shadows, watching the throng flowing in, rushing like a stream, gurgling and foaming. There were thirty or forty of them, and Ivo could see that they ranged in age from the teenage to the elderly. Some were clapping cymbals together, some were pounding sticks on the floor, some were shouting. They surged around the chair where Strawbones was reclining, and formed an unruly circle, baying and hooting like animals. Strawbones stood up suddenly, quick as a salmon leaping. He basked in the Acolytes’ attention, and as Ivo watched him he felt Strawbones’s charisma boil outwards from him like a stellar force.
Don’t give in to it, he thought. He hoped Miranda and Felix would be able to resist too. He turned to look at them, and saw the swift spark of interest in Felix’s eyes. Perturbed, but unable to do anything about it, he turned his gaze back to Strawbones.
‘Do we have another recruit?’ shouted Strawbones above the din.
There was raucous laughter; a murmuring of voices, and then one came out louder than the rest: ‘Yes, O Liberator, we do.’
‘Good. Where is he? Or she?’ Strawbones’s voice was cold, thought Ivo, but somehow deeply attractive: it made you want to please him.
‘Here!’ said a woman’s voice, strong and clear. Somebody stepped into Ivo’s line of vision, and he saw that she was about forty, very well dressed, in a business suit, with hair impeccably arranged, and diamonds shining in her ears.
‘Ah, excellent!’ said Strawbones. ‘Now what is your name?’
‘Jennifer Brook,’ said the woman brightly.
‘And are you committed to our cause?’
There was no pause, indeed his words were barely finished as she shouted, ‘Yes!’
‘She has performed the test?’ asked the Liberator. ‘Show me the proof!’
Jennifer Brook opened her handbag and rummaged in it, and then pulled out something which looked to Ivo from a distance like a long, thick piece of string. Except that it wasn’t. Ivo realised what it was just before Jennifer said, ‘The tail of a cat! Slaughtered for you, O Liberator!’
She flung it into the air and Strawbones caught it, and held it high above his head. Every mouth in the room was open, revealing crimson, cavernous throats and pinkish, worm-like tongues hollering.
Juniper, thought Ivo. She killed Juniper.
‘Then we shall begin. Acolytes!’ Strawbones’s voice now was full of richness, of enticing undertones. There was a roar from the rabble. Felix and Miranda, Ivo noticed, had exchanged a glance at the mention of Jennifer Brook. Taking advantage of the noise, Felix leaned into Ivo’s ear, and whispered, ‘She knows our mother!’
They watched as the herd of people danced round in a circle with Jennifer Brook in the centre of it.
Then a voice cried out, ‘Eeyoh! Eeyoh!’ It was filled with elation, with joy, with the vibrant, bursting, chaotic sensation of life. It was intoxicating, and it promised freedom. Ivo felt as if he were part of the world itself, as if he could feel things growing, and he felt as if he understood everything about the universe. But Ivo recognised it – he felt, on the edges of perception, what he’d felt on the underground. Glancing at Miranda and Felix, he saw their mouths trembling, laughter threatening to spill out. Controlling himself fiercely, he clamped his hands over their mouths and stuffed a huge amount of his jumper into his own, biting down like an animal.
‘Eeyoh! Eeyoh!’ came the cry again, and the Acolytes danced more wildly.
Ivo could see Jennifer Brook standing in the middle of the circle, and he saw the bliss in her eyes. She undid her hair, which tumbled around her shoulders, and tore off her shoes, flinging them out, not caring where they landed.
The Acolytes began to chant: ‘O Eleutheros. O Liberator. Swallow-Feather, Nightfall, Abandoner. Clash of Cymbal, Prince of Deer, Stone Eater.’ Jennifer Brook joined in, screaming over the top of them: ‘I will join! I will join! Free me, O Liberator, free me, Prince of Deer!’ Round and round the Acolytes danced, faster and faster and faster, and Ivo was sorely tempted to run out and join them. But he held on to Miranda and Felix, feeling them strain.
‘I am Eleutheros!’ proclaimed Strawbones. ‘I am freedom!’
The crowd pounded the floor with their feet. A haze of dust flew up from the carpets.
‘I am Liberator!’ he shouted. ‘I free you from your selves!’ Again they beat the floor, twirling round and round, like dervishes whirling.
‘I am the swallow’s feather! I am the bringer of night!’
Incessant, his followers spun in a vortex around him.
‘I make you abandoned! I am the clash of cymbal! Swift as deer, destroyer of stone! I am the Liberator!’ His voice rocketed around the hall.
‘I will join!’ Jennifer Brook yowled.
‘Eeeyoh! Eeeyoh!’ Strawbones gave voice and then a very bright light enveloped the room and seemed to Ivo to become part of everything. He watched the light descend upon Jennifer Brook, and she was lifted up into the air, her mouth open in ecstasy.
The cry was reverberating around them, cannoning around the room like a living creature. The air smelled rich, everything was sharper. Ivo pressed his jaw fiercely closed, feeling Felix and Miranda shaking beneath him, tensing and shivering. The Acolytes slowed now, and some stopped entirely; Jennifer Brook stood in the centre, her eyes shining.
‘So near!’ she cried. ‘So near!’ Her voice was thrilling with energy.
‘You see,’ came the voice of Strawbones, the Liberator, ‘what will be yours! You are now an Acolyte, bound to the Liberators! Swear to me!’
‘I swear to you, O Liberator! My life is yours!’ Jennifer Brook stood, ecstatic, her arms out wide, as if she wanted to embrace the universe; and then she bowed, and dropped to her knees, her head almost touching the ground. A figure came and stood before her – Ivo thought that it was a man, and that he was wearing
a long fur coat, and that bones were hung all over it – and placed his hand on her head; he was holding a staff, which Ivo saw was glowing. The figure held his hand on Jennifer Brook’s head for a second, and then she screamed, and he released her. She stood up, and even from a distance Ivo could see that she had been transfigured, and that her eyes were empty.
The other Acolytes let out a clamour of approval, clapping and jumping.
‘Follow me!’ yelled the Liberator, and they all, dancing, stamping, some making sounds like animals, some singing, some shouting ‘Eleutheros! Eleutheros!’ went in a clamorous rout out of the room through the door behind the tapestry. Perkins, luckily, went with them.
Ivo noticed that Jennifer Brook’s discarded shoe lay near to them; for some reason it appalled him. He removed his hands from Felix and Miranda’s mouths. They were gasping furiously for breath. Felix’s face was in an angry snarl of rage.
The roar died away as the Liberator and his followers clanked further away from the room. Ivo, Miranda and Felix slipped out in silence, back up the corridor to the statue of the tiger, and they did not stop until they had cleared the park gates and had the width of Oxford Street between them and it.
They fled through the streets to Charmsford Square, bounded up the stairs of the Rocksavages’ house, and went to Miranda’s room and collapsed on her sofa.
‘There’s an invitation on the mantelpiece in the drawing room, shaped like a vine leaf. It’s to the National Gallery party. We’ve all been invited,’ Miranda said.
‘Yeah, I was really looking forward to it,’ said Felix.
‘I keep thinking about Perkins . . .’ said Miranda, rubbing her arms as if she were shivering. ‘He looked mad.’
‘Yeah, he’s not even like that when I haven’t done my Greek,’ said Felix, trying to make a joke out of it. He didn’t laugh.
‘Liberation,’ said Miranda, and the word hung, strange and fiery, between them. Felix was as white as Ivo. Miranda was curled into the sofa, heavy blankets around her, despite the central heating being on full blast.
Ivo was thinking about Strawbones. He had dismembered Blackwood on the tube. Strawbones had murdered somebody in the most savage way possible, in broad daylight, he’d dulled the passengers on the tube with madness. It made him feel nauseous.
Felix suddenly said, ‘You know I was enjoying that.’ He held his head up, as if expecting to be shouted down.
‘What do you mean?’ Ivo said. ‘How?’
‘Didn’t you feel it? Couldn’t you feel what it would be like? It would be amazing.’ He flung his head back on to the sofa. ‘To be totally free –’
‘How can you say that?’ interjected Ivo. ‘Didn’t you see what they did to Juniper – and they killed Blackwood.’
‘So what do we do?’ moaned Miranda, from inside her protective shell of blankets, her head peeking out like a tortoise. ‘They’ve got some plan about the National Gallery, it sounds like they’re going to . . . to liberate everybody who’s been invited . . . and we’ve seen what that means. Did you see Jennifer Brook? What are we going to do?’
‘We can’t tell anyone. Ma and Pa would never believe us. Police wouldn’t either.’ Felix was matter of fact, decisive.
‘And I can’t tell Lydia and Jago – I mean, Lydia’s painting Strawbones, for Christ’s sake, she’s actually arranging the whole shebang with Julius!’ Ivo made a gesture of despair, and there was a silence in which nothing could be heard but the rumble of the outside world.
A thought struck them all at the same time, and Felix said carefully, ‘Do you . . . do you think that she knows about it? Lydia, I mean. Do you think she’s involved?’
Ivo considered for a moment, letting the silence fill the room, and said, blowing his cheeks out, ‘No. I think Lydia just enjoys this sort of thing. She loves parties. She’d never believe anything against Julius, anyway. She’s completely in love with him. And with Strawbones, I think.’
‘Does Jago mind?’
‘I don’t think he notices. What about your parents? Do you think they know?’
‘I don’t think they know about it,’ Miranda replied. ‘Honestly, I really don’t. I mean, Ma’s an interior decorator. She’s not likely to be part of some, like, terrorist thing, is she? And Pa – well, Pa is Pa.’
‘The thing is, are you sure?’ said Ivo.
‘Well, are you sure about Lydia?’ asked Felix angrily.
‘What are you suggesting?’ Ivo too was in a temper, and it felt as if everything that had happened to him was now suddenly boiling up in him, all ready to blow up.
‘Just that your aunt might have more to do with it than you think! I mean, she has Julius and Strawbones over all the time. Don’t you think that they might be, like, influencing her? They might have made her into an Acolyte.’
‘She can’t be! And what about your parents – your mother’s friend was initiated, we saw her, why can’t your mother be too?’
‘Don’t you dare say that about my mother!’ Felix stood up. He was much taller than Ivo, but Ivo didn’t care and threw a punch at him; he heard the impact, and Felix was knocked back but quickly jumped to his feet and lunged at Ivo, thumping him in the stomach and winding him; Felix had him in a headlock, and Ivo was being crushed; he summoned up all his strength and broke free, and aimed his fist at Felix’s nose; Felix yelled out, blood spurting from his face, and kicked Ivo savagely in the shins; they knocked over a table and a vase of roses came crashing down to the floor. The deep crimson flowers lay splayed on the ground, soaking in wetness, and still the boys fought each other among the shards.
‘Guys! Guys! Stop it! Stop it!’ Miranda’s voice rose high above the melee. ‘Stop it, you idiots – what the hell are you doing? Stop it!’
The door swung open and Olivia Rocksavage came bursting in. She surveyed the scene of destruction, and tightened her lips. Miranda ran to her; Felix released Ivo and snarled at him, a pure, animal noise. Ivo put his hand to his lip and tasted blood. They looked, all of them, at Olivia, expecting a tirade of anger; but she merely said, ‘That’s enough. Clear this up, you two. And don’t be late for dinner. Ivo, you won’t be staying?’
‘No,’ he said, in a subdued manner.
‘Well then,’ said Olivia Rocksavage, and departed.
Felix and Ivo sat staring at each other glumly. Miranda rushed to her brother to give him some tissues, which he took roughly and pressed to his nose.
‘I’ve got an idea,’ said Miranda.
‘What?’ asked Felix, in a depressed lilt. He had lost the burst of anger that had overtaken him, and now felt like a deflated balloon. He also felt ashamed.
‘Hunter. Tomorrow we’ll use the Koptor to call her. We should tell her about Perkins’ plans and the National Gallery.’
Felix and Ivo looked at each other, and, despite themselves, they both smiled.
‘You got me pretty badly,’ said Felix, touching his nose with care.
‘Yeah . . . sorry . . . my father taught me how to throw a punch once, he needed to learn how to fight when he was going around Central Asia and stuff.’
‘Cool!’
‘Yeah, pretty cool,’ said Ivo.
‘Good,’ said Miranda.
Having shaken Felix by the hand, and hugged Miranda, Ivo slipped downstairs and out of the house, and went back across to the Moncrieffs’. It had stopped raining, and he was feeling stronger in his heart, now that he was aware of the dangers he faced. The rest of the city, he thought, was moving blindly towards Christmas, the festival of light in the darkness, the shining beacon fire in the black wilderness of winter. Lights went up everywhere; trees appeared and presents were laid out; and all were unaware of the madness that lurked beneath the very streets they trod.
.
Chapter Eleven
Above the three of them
a helicopter hovered, its blades slicing through the air, splitting the dim rays of light as they fell to the ground. An alarm was ringing in the distance, agitating the air with its high-pitched screams. It was a crisp day, winter sunlight washing the world, the day after Ivo had punched Felix.
‘Felix,’ said Ivo dreamily, ‘kopto means break, doesn’t it? Or cut? In Greek, I mean.’
‘Yes,’ Felix replied, looking at him from over a newspaper. They were sitting on some swings in a deserted playground, somewhere near Holland Park. They’d gone there on the grounds that it was far enough away from Marylebone and Mayfair, and nearer to Kensal Rise.
‘And helios – it means sun? You know, like Helios the sun god,’ Ivo continued.
Felix pushed back on his swing, nodding, the rusting chains making a not unpleasant creak. He twisted round and round, until he could twist no further, and then suddenly let go, spinning quickly, mimicking the movement of the helicopter’s blades, letting out a yelp of excitement. He came to a breathless stop facing Ivo, and grinned at him wolfishly.
‘So does helicopter mean a sun-cutter?’ said Ivo, watching the machine’s blades as they cut through the sunlight, making stripy shadows in his eyes, the chugging, constant sound filling his ears. He was still a little wary of Felix, of the energy coursing in those skinny limbs.
‘That’s a nice idea,’ said Felix, coming to rest next to Ivo. ‘But it means something different – winged screw, I think. Pteros means wing, and helix means screw. Like in DNA, you know, double helix. Double screw.’ He stretched his legs out, thin as wires, and scraped the soles of his shoes across the ground.
‘Oh,’ said Ivo, swinging back gently. Sun-cutter. It had seemed a beautiful way of naming a machine – to give this ugly, unnatural monster that tore through the skies a poetic label would have been somehow glorious; to find out it was just as bland as anything else was disappointing.
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