City of the Falling Sky

by Joseph Evans

  There was a howl of agony from the Rabbit Man, and the skin on his arms and legs suddenly flashed bright blue, radiating neon light as though there were bulbs inside his flesh.

  “Mum?” he said, louder this time, before roaring in pain once again as his skin flashed blue for the second time.

  He fell to the floor next to Seckry’s window, shaking.

  Seckry and Eiya were motionless, almost too petrified with fear to even think about what was going on. But one single thought was boring away at Seckry’s mind through the fear.

  Was this Danney Plum?

  “Danney?” Seckry said uncertainly.

  The Rabbit Man turned his head and looked at Seckry as though for the first time, his eyes wide with innocent curiosity.

  With a third flash of ultra blue, the Rabbit Man seized up and arched his back in agony. This time the light was stronger. It seemed to be crippling him, electrocuting him. His gargled screams stopped dead as the light cut off, and his head hit the floor.

  He was motionless.

  All Seckry and Eiya could hear now was their own trembling breathing and the oblivious tune of Mrs Plum’s lullaby. Danney’s lullaby.

  Then something happened that made Seckry squeeze Eiya as close to him as he could.

  The Rabbit Man’s limp body began moving, sliding, as though being dragged by an invisible force across his bedroom floor. He slid through the door and reached up a heavy arm, grasping at thin air, and was then dragged around the corner and out of sight. They heard the front door open quickly and the movement of people. Then a van door slamming shut and the furious roar of an engine speeding away.

  Seckry and Eiya both stood shaking for longer than either of them could remember.

  The first thing Seckry said was, “He’s gone.”

  “Seckry . . . I thought that was it. I thought it was going to end there.” Eiya’s nerves finally seemed to let her emotions through and she began crying into his chest, her tears soaking his t-shirt.

  They sat, holding each other all night until neither of them could stay upright any longer.

  After a brief, troubled sleep, Seckry awoke to find Eiya already up.

  “How could he have got in?” Eiya said. “There’s no damage to the door. I’ve checked. Seckry, he had a key.”

  “There’s only one set of people that have keys to everybody’s homes apart from the owners,” Seckry said. “And that’s the Skyfall Patrol.”

  “The Patrol . . .” Eiya said. “The force that are fighting against the Rabbit Man? Who are doing everything they can to track him down and stop him from killing again? They haven’t been trying to track him down, have they? They’ve been giving him access. The Patrol gave the Rabbit Man the key.”

  Seckry said nothing for a moment.

  “Eiya . . . I think the Rabbit Man is Mrs Plum’s son.”

  Eiya nodded softly. “He’s still alive. And she has no idea. And he’s . . . a mass murderer.”

  “He looked like a monster,” Seckry said. “Whatever they’ve done to him, they’ve turned him into this.”

  “Seckry. It’s time for answers isn’t it?”

  “It’s time we stopped this. The Divinita Project, the Rabbit Man murders, everything.”

  “Well, Seckry, look at this . . . I noticed it this morning. I don’t think that music we heard in the old power reactor was living in the memory of the metal. I think it was coming from beneath us.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Eiya held out her mobile phone, displaying one of the photographs she had taken of the glowflies on the night of the ball.

  Seckry peered closer. It was a photo of a swarm of them on the wall, just above the rusted, closed door. Seckry hadn’t noticed it while they had been there, but it seemed as though the pattern they were forming resembled something they had both been looking for for a long time.

  It was the constellation, the musical note of Silversong.

  “I think we’ve found Ropart Sanfarrow,” said Eiya.

  “Could it really be him? Danney Plum,” Seckry said, as they rode the monorail. “Danney Plum became the Rabbit Man . . .”

  “What was happening to him? His skin was going bright blue,” said Eiya.

  “Whoever was outside must have been electrocuting him somehow because he’d let you go. Then they pulled him out of the flat by some magnetic force.”

  They left the station and headed down to the reactor.

  The glowflies were sparse this time, as it was daylight, but there were still a few scuttling on the wall making the faint symbol of Silversong.

  “Seek refuge under the sign of Silversong,” Seckry said, and put his hands on the wheel. Eiya grabbed half of it as well and they both heaved. With a nasty shriek of grinding metal, the thick door began to open, sending rusty orange flakes fluttering to the ground.

  “I guess we both didn’t try hard enough before,” said Eiya.

  The passageway beyond was pitch black.

  “I can’t even see the stairs. We’re never going to be able to find our way down there.

  “Wait, Seckry, remember what the note said.”

  She pulled a printout of it from her pocket.

  “Those trapped in glass will light your way.”

  Seckry fumbled around just inside of the darkness and he felt something cold and smooth sitting on the floor.

  He pulled out a glass jar with a clasp lid.

  “There’s nothing inside except some residue at the bottom.”

  As he held it in front of him a stray glowfly zipped into the jar and settled on the layer of goo. He was just about to shake it out when it suddenly hit him. He sniffed the inside of the jar.

  “It’s ellonberry,” he said. He held the glass into the air and another two glowflies wandered in to it, settling on the bottom. “Sanfarrow put it there to give Kayne light. And that's how he got them to make the Silversong symbol. He must have smeared the shape in ellonberry juice on the wall.”

  Seckry wandered around the chamber, watching as more and more glowflies hovered into the jar.

  As Seckry closed the lid, Eiya whispered, “We’ll let you out as soon as we’re finished. We promise.”

  Seckry held the jar in front of him and in the shimmering blue light he saw that the corridor descended into a spiral grating.

  “Something feels wrong doesn’t it, Seck? Only Kayne was meant to come down here.”

  “I know. We have to find Sanfarrow though, and this is the only way.”

  They made their way slowly across the grating and down the spiral steps, their footsteps echoing around them.

  About half way down, a cockroach scuttled between Seckry’s shoes and he shuddered, swinging the glass jar involuntarily. The light wandered around the chamber and Seckry caught a glimpse of a huge cobweb hanging in one of the corners.

  As they got to the bottom there were a few control levers for the reactor and a huge gaping hole in one of the walls with yellow tape strewn across it which read, ‘BEWARE. HAZARD. DO NOT CROSS.’ Behind it there seemed to be a narrow, coarse tunnel which led into the earth. It was the only way to go.

  “This doesn’t look right,” Eiya said.

  “I bet Sanfarrow wanted it to look as uninviting as possible to anyone that managed to get down here. The only person he wanted down here was Kayne.”

  Seckry ducked under the tape and Eiya followed.

  Seckry held the light as far as he could in front of him and narrowed his eyes. He held out his hand silently and Eiya stopped.

  “There’s something up ahead,” Seckry said quietly. Something . . . red.”

  They waited a while until they were sure it was motionless and then they moved forward.

  As they came closer and closer their fast beating hearts began to relax a little. The glowing red light was an LCD panel hanging from the roof of the tunnel, displaying a large number. The number 3.

  As they approached, they realised that the rest of the tunnel was blocked by a circular, metal
door. But more peculiarly there seemed to be a number of small panels in a ring around the circumference of the tunnel wall.

  “Three . . .” Eiya said musingly. “What does it mean?”

  But Seckry was more interested in the panels around them. He pressed his hand to one and it lit up.

  “Eiya, look at this.”

  “How do we get past?” Eiya said. “There’s nothing else on Sanfarrow’s note.” She scanned the paper. “Just that little logo at the bottom.” Suddenly her eyes shot open. “The logo. Seck, look at it.”

  Seckry peered at the man in the circle again.

  “There are twelve panels around the circle,” said Eiya. “Just like here. It wasn’t a logo at all. It was a diagram. Another instruction to get in. You have to replicate the man in the image.”

  Seckry placed his hand on the panel to his left. “Where does my right hand go?” he asked Eiya.

  “The panel just right of the top one. And your feet go either side of the middle one on the ground.”

  “Here goes,” Seckry said, and he put everything in position.

  There was a bleep and the big red number 3 on the LCD panel switched to 2.

  They both stared at it in silence as Seckry lowered his arms.

  “I don’t think it worked, did it?” Seckry said with a feeling of emptiness.

  Eiya looked at the paper again and she shook her head. “This has to be it, it’s definitely the panels in this tunnel. But you had your hands and feet on the right ones. I don’t understand it.”

  “And it looks like we only get two more tries,” Seckry said. “I wonder what happens if we fail both times . . .”

  After a lot of thinking, they both decided they’d have to try it one more time, assuming that Seckry had accidentally had something on a wrong panel the first time. Seckry placed his hands and feet back in position.

  There was a bleep and the red number changed to a 1.

  “Gedin!” Seckry shouted, and then clasped his hand over his mouth. If they were heard by Sanfarrow he’d know there were intruders.

  Eiya slumped against the tunnel wall with the paper in her hands.

  Suddenly she shot upright. She began glancing back and forth from the sheet to the panels.

  “What is it?” Seckry said.

  “Seckry . . . I know the combination.” She stepped into the ring.

  “No! Eiya!” Seckry said desperately. He tried to grab her but she placed her hands and feet on the panels before he could.

  The was a beep and the red number disappeared.

  Seckry and Eiya were both frozen to the spot.

  And then, slowly, the circular door split into two halves and slid into the cavern walls with a rusty screech. Beyond it was another darkened corridor.

  “Eiya, you gave me the fright of my life,” Seckry said.

  “Sorry,” she smiled innocently.

  “How did you work it out?”

  Eiya gave an incredulous, short laugh. “You know this ancient Klaxion under the logo? Emrorrim Retneot?”

  “It doesn’t mean a love of pig stew?”

  “It’s not even Klaxion,” Eiya said. “When I was leaning against the wall I could see the reflection of the paper in the metal. Take a look.”

  She held the paper adjacent to one of the panels and Seckry strained to read the reflection.

  The words Emrorrim Retneot had been reversed and read toenteR mirrormE.

  Seckry read aloud. “To enter mirror me . . . mirror me to enter.”

  He shook his head in disbelief.

  “I just put my hands and feet in the position of the mirrored diagram,” Eiya said.

  Once they had regained their courage, they followed the cavern slowly and found themselves at another door. But it was nothing like the last. This was a door with no locks or bolts on it, just a rectangular window. Through it they could see the blinking lights of computer terminals.

  “This is it,” Seckry said. “This is where he’s going to be.”

  “What do we say to him?” Eiya said.

  “We’ve gotta tell him we’re not his enemy. That’s our main priority.”

  They stepped closer with caution. As Seckry readied himself, Eiya pressed her face to the window.

  She gasped.

  Seckry froze. “What is it?”

  “Oh no . . .”

  Eiya turned her face slowly to Seckry. “Seckry . . . we’re too late. Take a look.”

  Seckry moved towards the glass. He wiped away the condensation that was being made by their breaths to get a clearer view.

  Lying on the floor was a skeleton. And it was wearing a white lab coat.

  Seckry’s stomach turned to mush. He tried to convince himself that there must be another explanation, some other person that had been down here as well, but he knew he was just kidding himself. He knew the corpse on the other side of the door had to be Ropart Sanfarrow.

  Chapter Twenty Nine

  Project Suffer