The shop was blackened and burnt. It had collapsed in on itself. And there, half-buried in the debris, was Twig. He wasn’t moving. He looked...
“No!” she cried.
“Rae.”
She turned at the sound of her name. A man stood amongst the rubble. Pale, blond, worried.
The museum man.
“Rae, it’s time you came with me.”
CHAPTER TWELVE
The Girl
NICHOLAS WAS RELIEVED TO BE BACK at Aileen’s. After a restless night’s sleep filled with thrashing gargoyles, Sam had fetched him from the hospital and driven him back to the safehouse. The landlady crushed him to her bosom and made a great fuss before she let him trudge wearily up to his room.
Isabel’s absence was a yawning hole. He was surprised at how much he missed her and blamed his vulnerable state. He needed to get back out there and find out if she was okay. He had to know that she wasn’t dead.
He remembered her limp body tumbling through the tree and shuddered.
Laurent was planning something. The attack in the Abbey Gardens had been an act of war. It couldn’t have been a coincidence that he had found Nicholas in the park. Nicholas was quickly coming to the conclusion that coincidences didn’t exist. He was lucky to be alive.
A wave of tiredness made him dizzy and he shuffled toward the bed, catching his reflection in the mirror as he went. His face was a patchwork of scratches and an ugly bruise coloured his jaw. He drew his T-shirt up to expose his belly. More bruising. A watercolour blend of blue and green. No wonder he ached.
He got onto the bed and propped himself up, unable to find a comfortable position with his arm in the sling. After a while, he finally drifted off. He slept dreamlessly. But then...
The woman in red was dancing. She stared at him as she swept the crimson folds of her dress in silky ripples, swaying to some unheard music.
Nicholas couldn’t move. Thorny restraints snared his limbs, and though he battled against them, they refused to yield.
The woman sashayed closer and he could smell her. The fresh tang of blood. And something else that he couldn’t place. A scent so familiar it made his arm hairs bristle. The woman stretched out long fingers and stroked his cheek. Sharp pain cramped his stomach, but he couldn’t resist her. Blood trickled over her face and her hot breath caressed his lips...
Nicholas awoke with a gasp. He was slick with sweat and he had a crick in his neck. And he wasn’t alone. Startled, he sat up, quickly regretting the sudden movement. He’d forgotten about the broken arm and the bruises. He cursed under his breath and the girl sitting in the chair in the corner fidgeted nervously.
“Uh, Aileen wanted me to bring you these,” Dawn mumbled. She spoke so quietly he could barely hear her. She couldn’t hold his eye for long, either. The purple mascara twitched agitatedly and she looked down at the tub in her hands, which she placed on the bed beside him.
“Brownies,” Nicholas said appreciatively, peaking under the lid. “Nice.”
“She said you could use some sugar,” Dawn murmured. She was skittish as a mouse. Everything about her was purple, too – her hoody, her trousers, the colour in her brown hair. Even her rosy cheeks looked vaguely violet as she blushed.
“Cheers for bringing them up,” Nicholas said, the girl’s obvious unease fuelling his own. “Er, you want one?”
She shook her head. Contemplated the floor.
“I know who did this to you.” Her lips barely moved as she spoke. The words seemed to whisper straight from her mind into the air.
“You do?”
“He calls himself Laurent.” Dawn shrugged and pulled at the sleeve of her hoody, staring at the frayed threads.
Nicholas had to stop himself lurching upright for a second time. “What do you know about Laurent?”
She blinked at him and Nicholas saw something in her face that surprised him. Pain.
“Did he hurt you, too?” he ventured. She didn’t look physically injured, but he had a feeling Laurent enjoyed toying with people in a lot of different ways. Eventually, Dawn nodded and the hair fell across her face. Her voice came out between the mousy fringes and she picked at her chipped nail polish.
“It started with my parents,” she said. “They’re, um, not around anymore, but when they were, I went everywhere with them. They were sort of crazy about travelling, exploring, experiencing different cultures. They didn’t think a Sentinel should stay in one place. Dulled the senses, they said.” She shook her head. “Anyway,” she continued, as if struggling to stay on point. “We went everywhere. Tibet. Rome. Australia.”
“I still don’t–”
“There was this guy,” Dawn cut in, her voice rising only slightly. Nicholas smiled; maybe Dawn had a backbone after all. “We were in Cambodia with the Khmer Loeu people, a hillside tribe. Mum wanted to study their spiritual rituals; they were pretty radical. The leader of the tribe had met somebody who called himself Samnang. It means ‘good fortune’. He’d travelled up from New Zealand. He was a wanderer. I... didn’t like him.” Nicholas saw her shudder. “Neither did Dad. There was something cold about him. He didn’t seem right, like he thought he was better than everybody else. But the leader of the tribe let him in; he was desperate. A young woman was showing signs of possession and nothing had worked. Samnang performed a ritual and the woman seemed to recover. Samnang left and that was that. A week later, all the men in the tribe were gone, including Dad.”
“Gone?” Nicholas asked.
Dawn nodded, but didn’t look at him. “There was only ash left. In their beds, on the street, wherever they had been when... Nothing but ash. He burned the village to the ground. Mum and me, we... Well, she’s not been the same since.”
“When was this?”
“Six months ago.”
“I’m sorry.” He didn’t know what else to say. He remembered one of the images from his vision. Fire and people running in fear. Had he seen that Cambodian village? He remembered the other images. The burning red triangle. Elvis Presley. The raven pendant. Three objects like pods. The well bathed in moonlight. And Malika drenched in blood.
“So... who was the man?” he continued. “Who was Samnang?” He asked, but he already knew the answer.
“Now, he calls himself Laurent,” Dawn said softly. “After what happened in Cambodia, Mum was brought back to England. She’s still in hospital. She... kind of lost it. Before Nan forced me to stay here, I stole Mum’s credit card and tried to find out who Samnang really was and why he’d targeted the Khmer Loeu tribe. I went to the museums in London, even caught a few flights to Europe.”
Nicholas was surprised that somebody as quiet as Dawn was so resourceful. She’d probably seen more of the world than he had.
“And?” he asked.
“He had different names everywhere he went, but people always remembered him. It was difficult to forget him after the things he did. He wanted power, that’s the main thing. Whatever he did to people, he did it for power.”
She broke off for a moment, seemed to attempt to gather the story back into a coherent form. “He let something slip one night when we were with the Khmer Loeu people. Before he killed them all. He’d drunk something the tribal leader had brewed and it seemed to loosen him up. He told us a story he’d heard on his travels. There would be a boy and a girl and they’d bring about the end of the world.”
Nicholas frowned, unnerved. The way Dawn looked at him, it was clear that she thought he was that boy.
“He... Later that evening, I was walking alone and he came up to me. I think he thought... Well, I don’t know what he thought. Maybe I was the girl from his story. He put a hand on my head and then walked away. I had a headache for days.”
“What does he want?”
“The Dark Prophets,” Dawn whispered. “Everywhere I went, there were folktales similar to the one Laurent told us; the boy and girl who would destroy the world.” She snuck a curious look at Nicholas. “The more I looked, the more I realised L
aurent had twisted the story’s meaning. Maybe to scare people, maybe because he was delusional.”
She became animated suddenly, reaching into a backpack on the floor beside her chair. She drew out a battered laptop and brought up a photograph of an old scroll.
“This was in the Kolkata Museum in West Bengal.” The soft paper bore faded, beautiful images. A star being delivered to Earth, and from the star emerged two figures. “Ancient Indians told that the heavens would deliver two children to the Earth, and they’d save mankind.” She clicked open another image, this one of hieroglyphs chipped into golden stone. “The Egyptians said that the children would wipe out humanity and usher in a new beginning.”
Nicholas felt lightheaded. Could this really be about him? Civilisations all over the world seemed to have foretold his birth centuries ago. He’d think it was ludicrous if he hadn’t become accustomed to such bizarre developments.
Dawn brought up a final image, this one of runes on a crusty stone tablet. “The Anglo Saxons give the clearest telling of the story,” she continued softly. “Two children will enter the world and bring with them destruction.”
Nicholas thought of Orville.
Dawn continued, “Then they say that the children will be responsible for a resurrection; for bringing the ancient gods back into the world. That’s the bit Laurent was most interested in.”
“He wants to bring back ancient gods?”
“The Prophets. The boy and girl in the stories, I think they’re meant to revive the Trinity. But Laurent wants to use them to bring the Dark Prophets back. I figure he thinks they can do both.”
“You think I’m the boy,” Nicholas said. “Why?”
“Laurent only turned up when you did,” Dawn said softly, though she blushed again. He wondered if she wasn’t telling him something.
“There’s a flaw in the theory.” He raised his cast arm. “Laurent tried to kill me. He obviously doesn’t think I’m any use.”
“If he wanted you dead, you’d be dead,” Dawn said. The certainty in her voice chilled him. “Besides, in all the stories, the children had different gifts. The boy always had vision, emotion. The girl had fire and strength. I wonder which one Laurent values more.”
“This girl, who is she?” Nicholas asked. This was what Esus wanted; it had to be. He couldn’t believe that Dawn had already stumbled onto the information that he needed. His coincidence theory was already being put to the test.
“I have an idea,” Dawn murmured.
She opened another file on the laptop. It was a blurry collage of primary colours.
“I have a thermographic camera,” she explained. “Er, heat-sensing. I was messing around with the settings a few weeks ago, just filming people in the park, and then...” She pointed at a bright red outline. “That’s a girl in town. At first I thought something had gone wrong with the camera, but then I kept filming and it was always the same. She runs hot. Dangerously hot. She’s, uh, pretty mean, too...”
She clicked something and the colours of the image reversed, became a paused shot of a teenage girl.
“I’ve seen her, she was at the school before,” Nicholas said, recognising the dark-skinned girl who had been watching them.
“Only one other person looks like that when I use the heat-capture setting,” Dawn said. She looked sheepish as she opened another photograph. It was a high shot, possibly taken from her bedroom window, of Nicholas walking through the town. She must have taken it the afternoon he’d bumped into her outside the house.
Without a word, Dawn clicked something and the image turned into a blur of colours. Nicholas became a bright red blob, just like the girl.
He couldn’t help swearing.
“There’s one other thing,” Dawn said. She opened a new browser window and showed him a news page on the Bury Free Press website. The headline read: BOMBER IN BURY? It was accompanied by a picture of a burnt-out building with its front wall missing. It looked like somebody had let off an explosive device inside.
“What’s this?” Nicholas asked uneasily.
“This happened yesterday. Or, I think she happened to it.”
“The bomb site?” Nicholas peered at the photograph of the shop with renewed interest. “She did this?”
“Fire and strength, remember? She obviously has some kind of power. I’d say she doesn’t know how to control it yet – the shop was probably an accident. The police found a couple of bodies in the wreckage, they’re still trying to ID them.”
“That’s one hell of an accident. You think she survived the explosion?”
Dawn shrugged.
Nicholas suddenly understood Esus’s urgency. If the girl was capable of this kind of destruction, she needed to be found and isolated as soon as possible.
“She’s a ticking time bomb,” he murmured. “We have to find that girl. And Isabel.”
“Isabel?”
“My cat. Sort of. It’s a long story.” He eased himself off the mattress, wincing at the pain, and went to the door.
“You’re going out?” Dawn asked.
“Didn’t you hear what I just said?”
“Um, but you’re sort of a wreck.”
Nicholas opened the door. She was right, he was a wreck, but he was a wreck capable of walking. He couldn’t give up.
“Wait,” Dawn called, hurrying after him. “I’ll come with you.”
*
Sam had just settled Nicholas into his room when he found Liberty in the kitchen. The Sensitive leaned against the doorframe, her black braids trailing almost to her waist.
“Liberty,” he uttered in surprise.
“Ah, here he is, dear,” Aileen trilled. She was sitting at the kitchen table polishing knives. A selection of daggers were spread out before her like doctor’s implements and the landlady tended to them the way she might her posh crockery.
“Dinner at Aileen’s is always eventful.” Liberty winked at him, squeezing his arm affectionately. “Good to see you. How’s Nicholas?”
“He’ll mend.” Sam noticed two other figures in the kitchen. A bearded, thick-set man sat with Aileen at the table. His sinewy shoulders were hunched as he brooded over a cup of tea, and his heavy brow considered Sam momentarily before he checked on the monstrous dog at his side.
“Sam, this is Benjamin Nale,” Liberty said. “The dog’s Zeus.”
“It’s been a while since I met a Hunter,” Sam murmured, instantly curious. Hunters were elite Sentinels; the Olympic fighters of the community. They operated in packs – strange that this Nale fellow was alone.
Nale didn’t say anything. He wore a khaki green jacket despite the heat and Sam wondered what his story was.
“Nale has something for us,” Liberty said. She gestured at the man, who reached for a bundle off cloth on the table that Sam hadn’t noticed before. Thick fingers untangled the cloth and Sam glimpsed silver. He took a step closer. The breath caught in his throat.
A strange metal device rested on the tabletop. A gauntlet. He’d seen the Harvesters using them in the temple beneath the cemetery.
“My goodness,” Sam breathed. He kept his distance, half expecting the gauntlet to twitch to life and go for his throat. “Where did you find it?”
Liberty nodded at Nale. “Nale here took it from a Harvester. A good thing, too. It’s ridiculously powerful.”
“Took it?” Sam murmured.
“Malika attempted to, shall we say, engage Nale’s services,” Liberty said. “She tracked him down, tried to turn him.”
I should have known she’d be involved somehow, Sam thought.
He contemplated the shaggy-haired man at the table. “A personal visit from the snake-haired witch. I wonder how many others can attest to that.”
Nale didn’t move. He merely returned Sam’s stare until the old man blinked and considered the gauntlet once more. The Hunter hadn’t uttered a single word. Was he hiding something? Sam hoped Aileen had already used her ‘bad egg’ test on him.
“Do you kn
ow what it is? Who made it?” Sam asked.
“I attempted to read the gauntlet,” Liberty sighed. “It’s protected. There’s a barrier around it. But I have a lead.” She crossed to the table and bundled the gauntlet up. “Aileen, do you have somewhere safe for this? We wouldn’t want it falling back into the wrong hands.”
“Just a moment,” Sam said, tapping his chin. “This thing’s a weapon of sorts, no? Would it not be advisable to use it? For protection, at the very least?”
“Dangerous.” Nale’s voice grumbled like thunder. The dog – an Irish Wolfhound, Sam thought – began panting and its ears pricked up.
“He’s right,” Liberty said. “This thing is seriously juiced. I wouldn’t want to risk it until we know what it’s really capable of.”
Sam nodded. He really was desperate if he was considering using a weapon crafted by the agents of the Dark Prophets. If it levelled out the playing field, though...
“Aileen?” Liberty said.
“Nowhere safer than a safehouse, dear,” the landlady said, easing herself up from her chair. Under her breath, she added, “Or that’s how it used to be.” She hugged the bundle of cloth containing the gauntlet to her bosom and disappeared into the pantry.
“I was hoping to take you for a drive,” Liberty said to Sam.
“Anywhere nice?”
“That’s open to interpretation.”
They were on the road within five minutes. Liberty’s Volkswagen was old and she drove in the same way she did everything. Calmly and with humour, swearing casually at bad motorists but never getting angry. Gusts of stifling summer air came in through the open windows.
Sitting up front with Liberty, Sam snuck a look in the rear-view mirror. Nale and his dog filled the entire back seat. The man’s head bumped the roof every time they hit a pothole.
“We’re going to Cambridge, by the way,” Liberty said. “Sorry to disappoint you.”
“I trust it’s important.”
“Dr Adams got in touch with me when she couldn’t find you. Remember our friend Dr Snelling?”
“I wish I didn’t.”
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