Samara let out a gasp. “What? You can’t do that!”
“I can, and I will,” said Quinn. “I’ve been able to recalibrate the Spectral Disruptor to open a doorway. All those ghosts who are stuck on this side? They’ll all be sent to where they belong, whether they like it or not. No more hauntings. No more disturbances. No more ghosts.”
Denzel felt Samara stiffen beside him. “But … we can’t just interfere in the Spectral Realm. It’s far too dangerous. It goes against everything we’re supposed to stand for.”
“With all due respect, director, it’s against the rules,” said Boyle.
“With all due respect, Boyle, if I wanted your opinion I’d ask for it,” Quinn spat. “I’m director. I set the rules.”
“You’re only director of this chapter,” Samara said. “The Elders wouldn’t approve of this. I want to talk to them.”
“Do you? Do you really?” Quinn sighed. She thrust a hand towards Samara. Samara opened her mouth to speak, but all that emerged was a faint croak. “Let’s see you talk to them now,” Quinn told her.
“You don’t want to do this. I’ve seen what happens. You’ll destroy the world!” Denzel demanded.
“Nonsense. I will save it,” said Quinn.
“No! I’ve seen it, and you won’t!” Denzel insisted. “What about the old woman with the octopus head? And the broken gems I saw. What are they for?”
Quinn looked a little taken aback again. She smiled thinly. “You are full of surprises, young man. The gems act as … a battery, let’s say, for the disruptor. Without them, the machine can’t access the necessary frequency to open the doorway. And, as for the Corporeal … I dissected it. The knowledge I gained from it proved most invaluable.”
“That’s why they’re afraid,” Denzel realised. “You’re hurting them.”
“Ridiculous,” Quinn said. “They’re not alive. They don’t feel anything.”
“They do!” Denzel insisted. “And they’re terrified of your machine. It hurts them. Or … they’re scared it’s going to hurt them, or something.”
“Enough of this nonsense. Of course it doesn’t hurt them or scare them. They feel nothing,” Quinn said. “Boyle, get them both out of my sight. Lock them up. I’ll deal with them later.”
Boyle adjusted his grip on his gun. He swung the barrel in Denzel’s direction, but hesitated. Samara looked at him imploringly. She tried to speak, but her voice was barely even a whisper.
“What if he’s right?” Boyle said. “What if they do feel?”
“They don’t,” Quinn said.
“But what if they do?”
Quinn’s face flared purple. “So what if they do?” she roared, and her voice shook several of her books from their shelves. “Hmm? So what if they do feel? So what if it does hurt? They’re creatures. Things. No, they’re less than that. They’re nothing.”
A wind whipped up around her like a mini-tornado. She curved her fingers into claws, and snakes of energy crackled in the spaces between them. “Now, do as you are told, like a good little soldier, and get them out of my sight!” she hissed.
Boyle looked pained as he turned the gun on his partner. “I’m sorry, Samara,” he whispered.
“Boyle, don’t,” Samara pleaded.
“I’m afraid I’m going to have to ask you to duck.”
Samara blinked. Her eyes went wide. She dropped on to her front just as Boyle squeezed the trigger. Denzel felt a movement in the air beside him. He heard Quinn cry out in surprise, then turned in time to see her sliding backwards across the floor. She leaned forwards, one arm out in front of her like a rugby player racing for a try. The other arm drew back, a ball of blue fire forming in her palm.
Samara coughed as her voice returned. “Look out,” she warned, sweeping her hands in front of her just as Quinn let fly with the fireball. A patch of air shimmered, then went solid. The fireball exploded against it, and the shield was quickly consumed by the blue flames.
Boyle adjusted a lever on the side of his rifle, then took aim again. He squeezed the trigger and a long, thin beam of white energy shot from the barrel like water from a fire hose.
Quinn raised a hand and the beam stopped half a metre ahead of her. The electrical glow cast flickering shadow across her face, wrapping her features in ominous darkness. She regarded the beam with something like amusement, then began conjuring another fireball in her other hand.
“Brace yourselves!” Samara warned.
Denzel looked at Quinn. He looked at Boyle. Lunging forwards, he grabbed Boyle’s gun and jerked it upwards. The beam cut a trench up the back wall and across the ceiling, before hitting the chandelier directly above Quinn’s head in a shower of sparks and shattering crystal.
The director looked up just as the chandelier dropped down. She raised her hands, but too late. The floor shook as the enormous ornate light fitting smashed down on top of her.
The echo bounced around the office, then faded until the only sound was the rasping of Denzel’s panicky breathing. Boyle gave Denzel a curt nod. “Good call with the chandelier.”
“Thanks,” Denzel panted. “What do we do now?”
In the middle of the room, the chandelier vibrated, then began to rise into the air. Samara caught Denzel by the arm. “Now,” she said, “we run!”
Denzel stood at the back of the lift, where he’d been forcibly shoved by both Samara and Boyle in turn. Samara knelt just inside the door, hands raised, ready to unleash some serious magic on anyone unlucky enough to be waiting on the other side of it. Boyle was behind her, the butt of his rifle pressed against his shoulder, his sights trained on the door as the lift sped towards the surface.
“Why don’t we just tell everyone what she’s up to?” Denzel asked. “You said messing with the spirit world or whatever was against the rules, right?”
“Right,” said Boyle. “But we’ve got no proof. Everyone would take her side.”
“And even if they did believe us, Quinn’s a twelfth-level Oberon. There’s no saying we’d be able to stop her,” Samara added. “Even all together.”
“So we just run away and leave her to it?” Denzel asked.
“We make a tactical withdrawal,” Boyle said. “And get backup.”
“We can try to contact the Elders,” Samara said.
“Right. Fair enough, then,” said Denzel. “Who are the Elders when they’re at home?”
“They founded the Spectre Collectors,” Boyle explained.
Denzel frowned. “Didn’t you say it was hundreds of years old?”
“Yes,” said Samara. “Yes, I did.” Before she could say any more, the lift jerked to a sudden stop.
“That can’t be good,” Denzel muttered, struggling to keep his balance.
“They’re on to us,” Boyle said. He smashed the stock of his rifle against the metal covering surrounding the lift’s only two buttons. At once, the lift began to plunge downwards.
“Wah!” Denzel yelped, clinging to the walls as the sudden g-force shoved his cheeks up into his eyes. “What did you do that for?”
Boyle swung again, slamming the butt of the weapon against the metal covering. A corner buckled and he dug his fingers underneath. “Wasn’t me,” Boyle said. “Trying to fix it.”
“Hurry!” Samara urged, raising her voice above the sound of the air whistling around the lift as it streaked downwards.
“Can’t you magic it or something?” asked Denzel.
“‘Magic it’? No, I can’t ‘magic it’. It’s protected against hexes.”
“But it’s going to stop at the bottom, right?”
“Definitely going to stop at the bottom,” Boyle said. “Very abruptly and with a spectacular amount of damage.”
Denzel swallowed. “Oh. Great.”
Boyle yanked on the metal plate, tearing it free and revealing a spaghetti of electrical wires. He plunged his hands inside and began pulling connectors apart.
“Getting near the bottom,” Samara warned.
“Almost … got it,” Boyle said, frantically disconnecting and reconnecting the wiring. “There!” he announced.
Denzel and Samara shot upwards and slammed against the ceiling as the lift accelerated rapidly. Down, down, down it plummeted, picking up speed as it raced towards the floor of the shaft somewhere not too far below.
Boyle clung to a clump of wiring, his legs flapping up somewhere around the ceiling. “W-wait,” he grimaced. “Red wire, not blue.”
“Hurry!” Samara cried.
Boyle twisted two wires together. Denzel and Samara slammed against the floor as the lift screeched to a stop, then started back upwards again.
“This can’t be good for you,” Denzel wheezed, as the increase in gravity pressed him against the floor. “I feel like a pancake.”
“We could always try the alternative,” Boyle grimaced.
“What’s that?” asked Denzel.
“Smashing into the ground at high speed,” Boyle said.
Denzel gritted his teeth. “Let’s stick with this for now.”
Fighting against the g-force, Boyle reached back into the tangle of wires and fiddled with a few connections. The lift slowed enough that they were all able to stand up.
“When we stop, stick close to us,” Samara told Denzel.
“No worries on that front,” said Denzel. “You’re the ones with the guns and magic and all that.”
“Yeah, but everyone who’ll be coming after us has those, too,” Boyle pointed out. “We’ll have to move fast.”
Denzel glanced around them. “Can’t we just disable the lift so they can’t get up?”
“Do you really think we’ve only got one lift?” Boyle said, scowling. “Billions of pounds of technology down there, and you think there’s only one way in and out?”
He pressed his rifle to his shoulder and took aim at the door again. “Fact is, they’re probably already up there. This might just be the shortest escape attempt in history.”
The lift lurched to a shuddering stop. Samara and Boyle took their positions, hands and gun raised. “Stay back, Denzel,” Samara whispered.
“Way ahead of you,” said Denzel, ducking behind Boyle.
Samara beckoned with one finger and the door swung inwards, revealing empty space beyond. Boyle pressed a button on the side of his gun and leaned forward, sweeping the barrel across the entrance of the lift.
“Picking anything up?” Samara asked.
“No,” said Boyle. “You?”
Samara shook her head. “Clear, I think. Let’s go.”
Boyle and Samara stepped out of the lift and scanned the area around them. The alleyway behind the church was clear. “Come on,” Samara urged, and Denzel hurried out of the lift to join them.
At the corner of the church, Boyle made an elaborate hand movement that Denzel guessed was either a signal to stay back, or an extremely rude gesture. Boyle spent several seconds scanning with his gun, and glancing around at anything someone might feasibly be hiding behind.
“It’s too quiet,” he whispered. “It looks too safe.”
“Can it ever really be too safe?” Denzel asked.
“Too safe usually means it isn’t safe at all,” Samara said. She reached into the folds of her robe and pulled out what looked like a toy version of the van she and Boyle had been driving earlier.
Taking aim, she tossed the toy underarm out into the car park. It bounced once on the tarmac, then landed on its wheels. Samara mumbled below her breath. There was a sound like two balloons rubbing together, and where the toy had stood was now a full-sized van.
“What are you doing?” Boyle hissed. “They’ll follow.”
Samara nodded. “That’s the idea,” she said. She waved her hand and the van’s engine started up. With a screeching of tyres, it raced out of the car park and skidded on to the road.
Denzel watched the van drive off. “Should we… Aren’t we meant to be in that?” he asked, but Samara pressed a finger to her lips.
There was a thud as the front doors of the church were thrown wide. Half a dozen silver and blue motorbikes roared out from within, a Vulteron leaning low in the saddle of each one. They pulled wheelies across the car park, then banked on to the road and set off in pursuit of the van. Samara looked pleased with herself as she watched them speed away.
“Ah, the magically-controlled-decoy-van technique,” she said, leading the others out from their hiding place behind the church. “Oldest trick in the book.”
A blast of energy punched a basketball-sized hole in the wall just ahead of her. Boyle turned, snapping up his gun. “Don’t!” Knightley warned. She stepped out from behind a parked car, a scary-looking handgun in each hand. One of the guns was trained on Samara, the other on Boyle. Denzel was quite pleased to find he’d been left out.
“Drop your piece, Boyle,” Knightley instructed. She shot Samara a sideways glance. “Keep your hands where I can see them, and don’t even think about twiddling those fingers, Princess.”
There was a rippling in the air behind her. A hook-nosed figure in an Oberon robe stepped out of empty space, dusted himself down, then pointed his hands vaguely in the direction of Denzel and the others.
“Rasmus,” Samara said, spitting the word out as if it left a nasty taste. “Knew you wouldn’t be far away.”
“Samara,” said Rasmus, drawing out the S like a snake. “You’ve really managed to get yourself in trouble this time.”
“Enough with the chit-chat,” Knightley said. “Drop your weapon, Boyle. I won’t tell you again.”
“You’re not going to shoot us, Knightley,” Boyle said.
Knightley’s eyes narrowed. “Is that right?”
She pulled the trigger. Denzel saw something blue streaking towards Boyle. Boyle raised his forearm and a semi-transparent shield flicked up in front of him, deflecting the energy bolt towards the sky.
Knightley opened fire with the other gun. Samara ducked and part of the wall behind her exploded into the church. She clapped her hands together and something that looked like a tidal wave of wind raced towards Knightley and Rasmus.
Rasmus raised both hands and the air turned to crystal in front of them, deflecting the wind-wave.
“Take cover in the church,” Boyle growled, raining laser-fire on the crystal shield.
Denzel hopped from foot to foot. “Shouldn’t I, you know, help you guys?”
Samara and Boyle both shot him a withering glance. Denzel smiled weakly. “Fair point. I’ll hide in the church.”
Ducking through the hole that Knightley had blasted, Denzel scrambled over a mound of fallen rubble. He slid up and over a big chunk of masonry, then looked around for a place to hide.
The layout of the church was confusingly un-church-like. He’d expected a big room with lots of wooden benches and an equally wooden Jesus at the far end. Instead, he was in a long corridor with doors leading off from both sides. He hurried along it, realising that the church wasn’t actually a church at all, but part of the Spectre Collector HQ buried deep below.
A side branch ran off from the main corridor. Denzel glanced back at the hole in the wall. Colourful lights flickered and flashed. Stuff went fzzt, brrrm and wssssht, though not necessarily in that order. Something exploded, imploded, then exploded all over again. Even from Denzel’s limited point of view, the battle outside looked like the Lifetime Achievement Award showreel of a Hollywood special effects artist.
Denzel ducked down the side corridor. There were another two doors standing directly across from each other, but he didn’t know what lurked beyond them, so decided it was safer not to chance it.
At the end of the corridor, just before it stopped at a solid wall, was a little alcove. It wasn’t very deep, but it was just big enough for him to tuck himself inside. He squashed himself against the back wall, angling his feet so his toes didn’t poke out into the corridor.
There were some shouts from outside. Something went pu-plllushk and Denzel’s hair stood on end like he’d been ele
ctrocuted. The church walls trembled. There was a sound like a disappointed firework.
And then there was nothing but the wheezing of Denzel’s breathing, and the rhythmic thud-thudthudding of his heart.
Several long moments crept by. Denzel peeked his head out of the alcove then immediately pulled it back in. He saw nothing, although he realised that was probably because he’d moved far too quickly, and had been blinking quite rapidly at the time.
Steeling himself, he tried again. This time, he leaned out from his hiding place much more slowly. Relief washed over him when he spotted the familiar Vulteron and Oberon uniforms approaching.
It drained away again just as quickly when he recognised the people wearing them.
“You can come out of there, Denzel,” Knightley said. “We can see you.”
She’d been looking directly at him, but Denzel pressed himself back into the shadows anyway. He couldn’t really think of anything else to do. At least, nothing that didn’t involve soiling himself and fainting, which he wasn’t ruling out at this stage.
Knightley and Rasmus stopped in front of him. Denzel smiled awkwardly. “Oh, hey,” he said. “Sorry, were you talking to me?”
“Samara and Boyle are in custody,” Knightley said. “Come with us. We’re taking you to Director Quinn.”
Knightley had her guns lowered, and Rasmus was doing nothing but sneering down his long nose in Denzel’s direction. Neither of them considered him a threat, and that, Denzel decided, would be their undoing!
He clenched his fist.
He raised his arm.
“Flereous!” he cried, pointing the ring at them.
Nothing happened.
Denzel tutted and lowered his arm again. “Oh well. It was worth a try.”
Knightley turned to Rasmus. “Would you consider that resisting arrest?”
Rasmus nodded slowly. “Oh yes. Definitely. Strongly resisting arrest.”
Knightley thumbed a switch on the side of one of her pistols. It hummed ominously. She raised it until it was pointed right at the middle of Denzel’s chest.
“Yeah, that’s what I thought,” Knightley said. Something mean glinted behind her eyes. “Brace yourself, Denzel. This is probably going to hurt.”
Too Ghoul For School Page 11