‘Quiet, you,’ I said. ‘How are you actually alive?’
‘All right,’ he said. ‘I’ll admit, I was lying about having four lives. Just a bit of a fun, trying to lighten the mood—’
I squeezed a little harder. ‘Having fun now?’
‘If you must know,’ said Freeman, with some difficulty, ‘it was your little girl.’
I frowned. ‘What?’
‘Tara,’ said Freeman. ‘She brought me back to life. Just as she did you. She didn’t mean to, of course, but—’
‘You knew she was my daughter,’ I said.
‘Not at the time,’ said Freeman. ‘I found out later. All I know is that one minute I was dead, the next I was getting to my feet, fatal chest wound very much in absentio.’
‘Well,’ I said. ‘Fancy that. Good girl, Tara, I guess. Right, well now we’ve got that out of the way, I’d like you to tell me some more stuff. Starting with why the Angel Group came to my door demanding to know where you are, then followed by everything you know about what’s going on.’
Freeman shook his head defiantly. ‘This is not the way things are supposed to go. You’re notgaarrgh–’ I flipped him roughly around and moved him over to the window, which I opened with my brain. Slowly, I began to slide him through, face first, inch by inch.
‘I’m going to drop you out of the window,’ I said. ‘You probably won’t enjoy it.’ I relaxed my grip on his windpipe and he gasped. ‘And Tara’s pretty far away. I doubt she’ll be able to inadvertently save your worthless hide this time.’ I could sense that Daryl wasn’t entirely comfortable with the bad cop routine I was working. To be honest, I was a little surprised myself at how easily it was coming.
Gotta be done, though.
I think.
‘What d’you reckon?’ I said. ‘Going to co-operate? Or is that about all we’ve got time for from Mr Freeman?’ What am I saying? What am I doing?
God, shut up. I’m not actually going to drop him.
The anxiety in his slack face had graduated to full blown fear. He was trembling. ‘Stanly,’ he said, ‘if you kill me, you’ll be crossing a line. It will change you. Forever.’
‘From what I’ve been hearing,’ I said, ‘lines and suchlike are the least of my worries.’
He was beaten. I’d broken his power, and now he was just a pathetic man with no chips left to play. ‘Fine,’ he said, almost in a whisper. ‘I’ll co-operate.’
‘Good.’ I brought him back from the window and placed him gently in a chair. ‘Right. Now. I’m guessing you heard about the blue dog the size of a truck that appeared yesterday.’
Freeman nodded.
‘It tore its way up out of the ground. Right underneath me. We fought.’
‘It was one of the biggest I’ve ever seen,’ said Daryl. ‘Remember Prague? Bigger than that.’
Prague? What the hell happened in Prague?
I really need to hear this long story sometime.
‘My God.’ Freeman stroked his chin. It was interesting seeing intrigue and anxiety co-existing on the same face. ‘That means that the walls between this world and theirs have weakened considerably. Dangerously.’
‘Theirs?’ I said. ‘“They” being . . . ?’
‘The monsters,’ said Daryl. ‘They’re from another world?’
‘Of course,’ said Freeman, as though Daryl were several stops past dense. ‘Where did you think they came from? Monster Island?’
‘Well, I did ask you about . . . hmm . . . about several thousand times, but in case you’ve forgotten, you’ve always been pretty good at never, ever answering questions properly.’
‘Why are they here?’ I said. ‘How have the walls been weakened?’
‘The Angel Group,’ said Freeman.
‘What? How? Is that why they’re looking for you? What do you know?’
‘Stanly,’ said Daryl, a new note in his voice. ‘There’s something wrong.’
‘What?’ I snapped, too harshly. God’s sake, we’re finally getting somewhere . . .
‘I don’t know,’ the dog said, standing up from where he’d been sitting. ‘I can just . . . there’s something. Out there . . .’
I turned towards the window, just as the grenade sailed through it. SHIT. I blasted it back through the window with my mind, spun and flew through to the kitchen, psychically dragging Daryl and Mr Freeman after me, along with one of the armchairs to act as a barricade. The explosion came a second later, deafening, shaking the whole building and filling the living room with fire. Glass broke, walls and furniture were demolished and hot rubble hailed down on us.
I stumbled to my feet, dazed, ears ringing, vision blurring, gagging on smoke. What remained of the living room was a mess of fire and debris, unrecognisable, and where there had once been a wall and a window there was now a gaping hole into the cold city night. Smith. Son of a—
‘They’re here for me,’ choked Freeman, his voice muffled by the ringing in my head. He clawed at my chest imploringly, his eyes wide with terror. ‘Please help me, Stanly! Please! I will tell you everything you need to know, I will help you as much as is humanly possible, I swear, but please don’t let them take me! You have no idea what they’ll do to me!’
It wasn’t a difficult decision to make. ‘All right,’ I said. ‘Who is it? The Angel Group? Morter Smith?’
‘Yes! I—’
‘Freeman!’ yelled a voice, amplified by a megaphone. ‘Stanly Bird! We have orders to take you out! Don’t bother resisting!’
‘Oh God,’ said Freeman.
‘Shut it,’ I said. ‘And come with me.’ I headed down the hall, hopping over burning detritus, thought the door open before I got to it and stepped out into the main corridor. All clear. I ran past the elevator to the stairs, Freeman and Daryl in tow, and psychically pushed the button for the ground floor, hoping it might work as a distraction if there was anybody waiting for us downstairs.
Turned out that there was. As we emerged in the lobby I saw four men entering, clad in black body armour and weird, vaguely insectoid helmets with blank face masks, machine guns at the ready. They looked like what I imagined SWAT teams might look like in ten years. Mr Freeman drew a revolver but I got in before him, knocking the four guys back through the main doors with a wave of brain energy. No killing if at all possible. ‘Back door,’ said Daryl.
We ran, shouts and machine gun fire echoing behind us, through the back door and out into a side alley. I made a quick calculation. ‘Can’t fly yet. We need to get clear . . . in case they have snipers or something . . .’ Plan forming . . . possibly an excellent plan . . . going to be hard, though . . .
Excellent? Try MENTAL.
Why don’t you try MENTAL?
‘Stay as close to me as you can.’ I shoved a massive rubbish skip in front of the door to barricade it and headed out towards the main street, ignoring Daryl’s protests. Another calculation. There were more solders with guns out here, and lots of parked cars. So far so good. Concentrating all of my adrenaline, anger and other spare emotions into one action, I picked up four cars and brought them hurtling towards me, flipping three on their ends and forming a protective ring around my body, with the fourth on top as a roof. That was easier than I thought it would be. I moved one car to the side to create a door, and yelled back towards the alley. ‘Come on!’
Freeman and Daryl dashed over to join me inside the ring of cars, and I shut the ‘door’ and began to move us down the street, taking care to keep the vehicular coat as tight around us as possible, with no gaps for stray projectiles. I could hear shots hammering against the outside of our makeshift armour and hoped that none of our attackers had automobile-piercing rounds in their guns. For good measure, I sent random waves of thought outward to help deflect the bullets. ‘What the hell are you doing?’ screamed Daryl.
‘Improvising!’ I yelled. Also,
sorry, I can’t hear you over the sound of how AWESOME I’m being.
No, don’t say that.
‘Improvising?’ said the beagle. ‘This is—’
‘Shut up! I need to concentrate.’ I wish I could see where I’m going. I risked stopping, turned and opened the suit of cars a crack, enough to see ten guys running towards us firing non-stop. I kept moving backwards as fast as possible and tried to tune out the sounds of screams and crashes and gunfire. ‘Daryl,’ I said, as calmly and clearly as I could manage, ‘can you tell if anyone is firing from behind us, or are they all coming from the direction of the building?’
‘I think they’re all coming from that way.’
‘OK. Let’s hope you’re right.’ I closed my eyes and spent a whole second focusing. These are my powers, this is my mind, this is what I’ve been waiting for, even if I didn’t count on quite this many bullets. I can do anything with my brain if I want it enough.
Except maybe this.
Shut up.
With a roar that at least felt like it helped, I psychically threw two of the cars towards our attackers, spinning them so as to catch as many bullets as possible. The cars crashed into the road and skidded, shedding sparks, and the gunmen all dived for cover. Some might have been hit, but I didn’t have time to care. Maim or be maimed. Without wasting a second I grabbed two more cars and yanked them in to replace the two that we’d lost. Hopefully all these people are insured. ‘Right,’ I said. ‘Now for the tricky bit.’ I wrapped my concentration around myself, the cars, Mr Freeman and Daryl so that to all intents and purposes we were one object, braced my body and flew us straight up, gaining height as rapidly as possible. The sounds of fire and guns slipped away, and when I was quite sure that we were completely out of range of any pesky bullets – or nearby helicopters – I allowed us to stop, opening our suit of cars like a flower and re-arranging them as a platform on which to stand.
The three of us took a second to look around. We were suspended far, far above the ground, surrounded by curtains of midnight-blue sky studded with fiery white stars. Safety. Nobody said anything for what probably wasn’t very long but felt like it. Daryl was the one who broke the silence. ‘Christ on a bicycle,’ he said. ‘If there’s such a thing as a Chosen One, I reckon you’re probably it. Or at least on the reserve list. That was ridiculous.’
Mr Freeman seemed to have lost the power of speech. I didn’t bother talking, I just sat down and crossed my legs and tried to control my breathing. I felt numb, drained. ‘Stanly?’ said Daryl. ‘You OK, chief? What’s the plan?’
He’s asking me what the plan is? I don’t know! I don’t know what’s going on . . .
Did I really just do what I did?
I’m not built for this. It’s too mad. This makes Blue Harvest look like . . . I don’t even . . .
Connor and Sharon and Eddie were right, should have . . .
Oh God, Connor and Sharon . . . Eddie . . . what if they’ve been . . .
No, don’t think about it . . . not yet, not until . . .
What if they go after Tara?
What if . . .
Keep it together, boyo. You’ve started so you’ll finish.
Focus.
‘Stanly?’
I looked around at the beautiful, freezing night, letting the cold air and the moon give me energy, my skin hardening against the wind. Not the time to fall apart. In fact, possibly the worst time in the history of falling apart to fall apart. ‘Freeman,’ I said. ‘Why are they after you?’
‘Because they know that I’ve got all the information you need to turn their plans upside down and burn them to the ground,’ said Freeman, his voice shaking. Wow, he really hates them now.
Finally, something we have in common.
‘Oh,’ said Daryl. ‘Is that all?’
‘I can get you inside,’ said Freeman. ‘Give you everything you need.’
‘I thought they had connections everywhere,’ I said. ‘Surely I can’t destroy them alone.’
‘All the political strings in the world aren’t going to help them if you really set your mind to taking them out,’ said Freeman. ‘They . . . they’re not who they were when I worked for them. There’s a man . . .’
‘Smith.’
‘Yes. How do you know about him?’
‘He wants me dead too.’
Freeman nodded. ‘Well. That certainly makes sense. For the last few years, Morter Smith has been slowly but surely taking control of the organisation’s most secret, most dangerous operations, and from what I’ve been able to work out he has a plan that we really don’t want to come to fruition.’
‘This plan . . . that’s why the dog got out? Why the . . . what did you say . . . why the walls between here and there are breaking down?’
‘Exactly.’
I nodded. ‘Fairish.’ Great Scott. This is heavy.
‘The Angel Group,’ said Freeman, ‘and Morter Smith in particular, do not have the good of mankind at heart. Not any more. You have never met a liar like Smith. In all my time with the Group, few ever worried me. Smith frightened me. He is a ruthless, back-stabbing, self-serving psychopath, and he has the most powerful organisation on Earth at his disposal. You, the other empowered, everyone in London, everyone in the world is in danger now.’
Everyone in the world?
Holy balls.
Why am I trusting him?
Look at him. All his smugness is gone. He’s terrified. He’s not lying.
Plus, all those guys with machine guns and grenades.
Maybe . . .
Everyone . . .
Tara.
Kloe.
‘I have to get Tara out of London,’ I said. ‘If the Angel Group are making their move now, if they’ve decided that we’re liabilities, then that means they might try to take her again. And that’s not happening.’ Plus the fact that monsters are breaking loose.
‘Understood,’ said Freeman.
‘All right then. Where will you two go while I get her?’
‘Don’t worry about us,’ said Daryl. ‘Take us down, drop us somewhere quiet and go and get her. We’ll start formulating some kind of plan while you’re gone.’
‘Are you sure?’
‘Hey,’ said Daryl. ‘Just because you can throw cars around doesn’t mean you’re everybody’s bloody saviour. I took care of that dog pretty sharpish.’
‘True.’ Good. Almost a plan.
I took us down to a scrap yard, a silent wasteland of old metal, dead cars and rusty shadows. ‘How am I going to contact you when I get back?’
Mr Freeman pulled out a mobile phone. ‘The boring way, I’m afraid.’ We swapped numbers and for a moment I wanted to laugh. I was swapping phone numbers with someone who had almost got me killed, someone who I was ready to throw out of a window less than twenty minutes ago. My life is not the same as most people’s lives. I gave him Eddie’s number as well.
‘Contact him and tell him what you’ve told me,’ I said. ‘I’m going to call him on my way to get Tara, but I won’t have time to go into it all. He probably won’t be too happy, which is the understatement of forever, but if you explain . . . he’ll understand. Hopefully. Be prepared to maybe get punched in the face a couple of times.’
Freeman nodded. Half-grudgingly, I shook his hand. ‘I’ll be back soon.’
He nodded. ‘Be careful.’
‘You too.’ What am I saying? I bent down and patted Daryl on the head. ‘You be a good boy, now.’
‘Screw you and the cars you rode in on. I ain’t nobody’s pettin’ horse, fool.’
OK. Let’s-a-go.
I took off, way past caring who saw me, and flew as fast as I could through the city, between skyscrapers and through underpasses and tunnels, dodging cars and pedestrians, a ghost in the chilled air. I thought my phone into my hand
and called Eddie, and he picked up after one ring. ‘Stanly? Where the hell—’
‘I don’t have time to talk,’ I said. ‘So please, listen. I’m taking Tara out of London. It’s not safe.’
‘What do you mean, not safe? Stanly—’
‘It’s not safe for her, or for any of us. You, Connor, Sharon, you all need to be ready. I was just nearly killed by the Angel Group. Soldiers with guns.’
‘What the hell? Are you all right? How did—’
‘I’m fine, Eddie, please, I don’t have time to explain. Just get Connor and Sharon and Skank, warn them, get together in case you need to fight. I don’t know how much longer your homes will be safe, find somewhere you can all hide. I’m getting Tara and taking her away. I’ll be back as soon as possible. You need to tell Hannah and anyone else the Angel Group might go after, tell them to get out of town.’
I knew he was fighting with himself, wanting to tell me off and ask me questions and order me back, but his common sense prevailed. ‘OK,’ he said.
‘Good. Thanks. I’ll contact you as soon as I’m back.’
‘All right.’
‘Did . . . Connor told you everything I guess?’
‘Yes.’
‘I’m sorry, Eddie. But there’s no time to discuss it now.’
‘I know.’
‘You should expect a call from Mr Freeman.’
‘The arsehole is alive, then.’
‘He is. He’s alive, and he’s in as much trouble with the Angel Group as we are. I know this is pretty screwed up, but we’re going to need him. He should be calling you any time now.’
‘Stanly—’
‘I have to go. Take care of everyone.’
‘You take care. You need to make it back in one piece so I can administer the arse-kicking of a lifetime.’
‘Roger that.’ I hung up, and immediately called Nailah and told her as quickly as I could what was going on. I said that she was going to have to try again with Lauren, explain that things were going to hell in a hand basket, get her on side. ‘I’ll be back soon,’ I said. ‘Just need to sort some things out. Tell everyone you know, everyone that you can trust anyway . . . the Angel Group are moving. The danger’s real.’
Ace of Spiders Page 13