Pull

by Anne Riley

  Dan is shaking his head. “That’s ridiculous. He did all that with a knife? No way. It’s impossible.”

  Albert looks at him. “Not necessarily. Not if he’s desperate for something.”

  “Desperate for what?” Casey says.

  “No idea, but I think we’d better find out.”

  I brace myself on the seat in front of me. I don’t really care how my brother was taken hostage; I just care about finding him.

  “Where did they go?” I say, my voice gritty.

  Isaac shakes his head. “Nobody knows. The ambulance was found a few miles away, parked on the side of a highway. There’s no trace of the man or your brother.”

  For a moment, the only sound in the car is the soft hum of its tires on the road. I stare out the window, my eyes burning with tears. They spill over and drip silently down my cheeks.

  “This isn’t over, Rosie.” Albert puts his hand under my chin and pulls it around so that I’m facing him. “It’s not over, not by half. Okay? We don’t know for sure what they’re planning to do with him, and we’re going to find him. Right now.”

  “How?” I say. “We don’t know where he is. We don’t even know who the white-haired man is. Does he look familiar to you?”

  “From the heath, you mean?”

  “No. From…somewhere else.”

  Albert shakes his head. “I have no idea who he is or what he wants with us. But we’re going to figure all this out. We’ll find Paul. I promise.”

  “You can’t promise me that. You have no idea—”

  “Rosie, you need to calm down.” His voice is low and even.

  “Don’t tell me to calm down. My brother is supposed to be in the hospital, but he’s not.” I reconsider. “Actually, he shouldn’t be there because I should have taken better care of him. I should have worked harder to get him to stop hanging out with Max and Luther. I should have realized that SPARK wasn’t what it seemed. I should have told Mom and Dad about him going to that stupid pub. I should have—”

  I stop short. I can’t believe how obvious this is.

  “I know where he is,” I say. “He’s at the pub.”

  Albert frowns. “Which pub?”

  “The Black Swan! Remember when I told you what Paul said about it? How he heard the word ‘Mortiferi’ there? Maybe he— they —went back. I know he’s been there with Max and Luther before, and if they’ve been turned into Mortiferi, maybe that means something.”

  Isaac and Albert exchange a look in the mirror.

  “So that’s where we’re going, then?” Isaac asks. “The Black Swan?”

  Albert nods. Casey pulls a U-turn and presses the pedal to the floor.

  THIRTY-THREE

  THE BLACK SWAN SITS IN A GLOOMY CORNER OF Lewisham, surrounded by elm trees and nearly lost in darkness. The only light comes from one streetlamp on the corner, but it’s too far away to illuminate much of the building. Most people probably don’t even know it’s there. It’s the kind of place mothers tell their children to avoid if they happen to realize it exists. No respectable man would find himself ordering a pint at this bar.

  Of course the Mortiferi use it as a gathering place. It oozes with secrets and shadows.

  We drive past it first to get a good look at the outside. The wood is rotten in several places, and the red door, which might have been charming once upon a time, is covered in dents and stains. I’m afraid to speculate on what those stains might be.

  The door is closed and the windows are dark. We drift farther down the street until Casey finds a place to turn around. I check my phone. It’s after one in the morning.

  And I have fifteen missed calls.

  “Crap!” I clap a hand to my forehead. “I left it on silent!”

  Albert looks at the phone over my shoulder. “Your parents?”

  “Yes! They probably think I’m dead!”

  “You should call them before we go in,” he says, and I don’t like the note of finality in his voice because I know what it means—depending how things go, this could be my last conversation with them.

  “What am I going to tell them?” My heart feels like it’s slowly being pinched in two. I try to take a deep breath, but my lungs won’t expand all the way.

  Albert’s eyes droop with sympathy. “That’s up to you.”

  I nod, trying to keep my hands from shaking. Mom seems like the safest option right now, so I call her cell, holding my breath.

  But it’s Dad that picks up after half a ring.

  “Rosie!” he shouts in a voice that’s half-anger, half-relief. “Where have you been? We’ve rung you a million times!”

  “I know. I’m so sorry.” My voice strains against the sudden tightness in my throat. “I put my phone on silent and forgot.”

  “You forgot. Of course you did.” He huffs. “Well, I hope you’re close to home, at least. Are you okay?” There’s a rustling noise, followed by my mom’s voice in the background. “Yes, yes, it’s her!” Dad says in a muffled voice.

  “I am close to home,” I tell him as we approach the pub again.

  “And you’re okay?”

  I hesitate.

  “Rosie, tell me what’s going on. Where are you? Are you still with James? And have you heard from your brother? He’s missing. Must have snuck out of his bedroom window. He’s not answering his phone.”

  I close my eyes and grip the back of my neck. “I’ve… sort of heard from him, yes.”

  “What does that mean? Do you know where he is? Is he okay? Why aren’t either of you home yet?”

  I take a couple deep breaths. “Dad, something happened tonight. Paul’s in trouble.”

  There’s a pause. “Trouble,” Dad growls.

  “I can’t tell you the details, but I’m going to take care of it. I’ll be home soon.” I close my eyes tight, hoping I’m telling the truth. “I gotta go, Dad. I love you.”

  “Rosemary—”

  I hang up and press the power button until my phone cuts off.

  “Keep it on you,” Albert says, his face grim. “We might need it.”

  I nod and slip the phone into my pocket. Casey gives me a sympathetic look from the driver's seat.

  Albert snakes an arm around my shoulders and leans close to my ear. “I can’t promise everything will be okay,” he says. “But I can promise I’ll do everything I can to get you and your brother home safely tonight.”

  I meet his eyes, and he gives me a sad smile.

  “Thank you,” I whisper. “I hope you’re right.” I look from him to Casey, then to Dan, and finally up to Isaac. “You guys—” I begin.

  “We know,” Isaac says, a smile transforming his face. It’s the first time he’s shown any kind of positive emotion toward me, and I’m caught off guard by the comfort it brings.

  “We do?” Dan asks.

  Casey widens her eyes at Dan. “You don’t have to say it, Rosie. We’re in this together.”

  “But you don’t even know my brother!”

  “We risk our lives for strangers all the time,” Dan points out.

  “Sure,” I say, “but do you walk into places that might be swarming with Mortiferi all the time?”

  There’s a beat of silence.

  “Nah, we tend to avoid those,” Dan says lightly. “Although, now that you mention it, this is more efficient than trying to take them out one by one.”

  Casey pulls into a gravel driveway and we crunch our way to a grassy unloading area behind the pub. A black van is parked there, but the front seats are empty. Casey steers us past the van and parks behind a couple of rusted blue garbage bins.

  “We don’t know that anyone is here,” Albert reminds me. “We might go in and find an empty building.”

  “Yes,” I say, “but then what?”

  “We keep looking. We’re with you, Rosie, whether you like it or not. Oh—we better take the guns.”

  Stretching over the center console, he opens the glove box and pulls out the gun Casey used, then another one.
The first, he keeps; the second, he offers to Isaac.

  “I don’t get one?” Casey says in a scandalized tone. “Do I need to remind you who broke you out of prison tonight?”

  Albert gives her a wide-eyed stare. “Do I need to remind you that you SHOT A BLOODY POLICE OFFICER?”

  Her gaze falters, but she says nothing.

  Everyone unbuckles their seatbelts and climbs out of the Fiat. I follow them slowly, guilt and apprehension tangling in the pit of my stomach.

  The beam from Albert’s flashlight dances over the back of the pub and then focuses on the crooked wooden back door. While the front door is a worn shade of red, this one looks like it used to be painted green, but the color has faded and peeled down to the bare wood in most spots. When Dan pulls it open, the hinges squeal in protest and one of the lower corners drags in the dirt, creating a fan shape in the scrubby grass.

  We stare into the dark pub. The space stretches in front of us like a black hole, empty and silent.

  I let out a breath. He’s not here.

  Albert shifts next to me. “We should go in anyway. Maybe we’ll see something that will lead us to Paul.”

  “Are you sure we have to go in the back way?” Casey asks, eyeing the thick cobwebs that hang from the doorframe.

  “Unless you’d like to get arrested for breaking and entering,” Dan replies. “Seems you’d be a bit more inclined to lie low, after what just—”

  “I know what I did,” Casey snaps. “No need to keep bringing it up. If we’re going in, then let’s go.”

  We stand outside the open back door and stare into the inky interior, none of us eager to be the first one inside. Albert shines his flashlight into the pub, illuminating mismatched wooden tables and chairs, a bar with several stools clustered around it, and a dartboard in the far corner. The whole wall behind the bar is covered with shelves of liquor bottles.

  The light travels up, revealing a low ceiling with exposed wooden beams; then down to the wide-plank floor. The walls are paneled with wood that, at some point in the distant past, was painted a deep shade of maroon. Just like the back door, a lot of the color is chipped and faded.

  The flashlight continues its slow trek around the room. A cockroach scurries away from the circle of light and vanishes behind the bar.

  “Charming little place, isn’t it?” Casey mutters behind me.

  Isaac grunts.

  “All right, chaps, we don’t have all day.” Albert holds the flashlight high and looks back at the rest of us. “I’ll go first. Nobody wanders off on their own.”

  “Don’t have to tell me twice,” Dan says.

  The scuffing of our shoes along the wooden floor echoes loudly in the empty pub. Albert swings the light left to right. Something chatters to our left and we all jump. Albert aims the flashlight into the corner just in time to see a mouse’s tail vanish into a small hole in the baseboard.

  “Bloody hell,” Isaac says in a low voice. He turns to me, and in the dim light, all I can see is the outline of his features. “Are you sure this is where your brother has been coming?”

  “That’s what he told me,” I say with a shrug.

  Nobody speaks for a few moments.

  “Empty,” Albert finally says. He looks at me. “Totally empty.”

  My chest feels like it’s caving in.

  “What now?” Casey asks.

  “Let’s think of another possibility,” Albert says. “Could he be somewhere else? At SPARK?”

  I shrug. I feel so helpless. “I guess that’s the next best option.”

  Albert moves toward the back door and holds it open while Casey, Dan, and Isaac slip outside. I stop as I pass him, leaning close so that the others won’t hear me.

  “I don’t want to risk everybody’s lives,” I whisper, locking my eyes onto his. “I’m desperate to save Paul, and I’d gladly sacrifice myself. But you? Casey, Dan, and Isaac? What if we save Paul, but lose one of you?” I shake my head. “I need you guys, but I’m terrified someone’s not going to get out of this alive.”

  He leans close to me. “No one’s forcing us to do this. We could bail at any moment.”

  “But you won’t.”

  “That’s our choice, not yours.”

  Just as I’m opening my mouth to reply, I hear a strange sound coming from the outside of the building. I frown at Albert and he does the same at me. Slowly, we move into the night and Albert lets the door fall shut. It’s almost more of a feeling than a sound—a distant pulse in the ground beneath our feet.

  Following my train of thought, Albert points down with a questioning look on his face. I nod.

  Dan calls from the direction of the garbage bins, where the car is parked. “Al! Rosie! What are you doing?”

  The three of them are watching us with confused expressions. Isaac already has the driver’s door open. We wave them over.

  “Listen,” I say as they reach us. “Do you hear something?”

  They stand still, concentrating, until Casey speaks up. “Is it a sort of drumming?”

  “Yes!” I whisper.

  “Yeah,” Dan says. “I feel it more than I hear it.”

  Albert nods. “It’s coming from below us.”

  “Could there be a staircase inside that we didn’t see?” Dan asks, rubbing his chin.

  I eye the black van. “It’s not coming from the van, is it?”

  Dan hurries over to it and listens. He turns around, shaking his head.

  “What’s that thing over there?” Casey points past all of us into the darkness.

  On the ground, leaning against the building, is a square shape. As we approach it with the flashlight, details come into view: two metal doors with rusty handles hinged onto a stone foundation.

  “Looks like a storm shelter or something,” I say when we reach it. The drumming is stronger over here, although it’s still just slightly more than a vibration in the ground.

  “Or a bomb shelter.” Albert curls his fingers around one of the handles. “Want to check it out?”

  No one replies. Finally, I grab the other handle. “Let’s do it.”

  Albert gives me a stiff nod. “On three. Ready? One… two…three!”

  We yank on the handles, but they only rattle against each other.

  “Locked,” Albert says.

  “Hope the kit’s still in your car, mate,” Dan says to Isaac.

  Isaac nods. “It is.”

  “I’ll get it,” Albert says.

  “What kit?” I whisper, but he’s already jogging through the darkness in the direction of the Fiat, carrying the flashlight with him. We wait in almost complete darkness while the beam dances around the car’s interior. He returns about a minute later with a silver briefcase in his hand.

  “Hope I put the key back in after last time,” he says, opening the case. He hands the flashlight to me, and I crouch next to him as he removes things from the case and places them on the grass. There’s a square piece of cardstock covered in coms, two small sets of binoculars like the ones I saw in the closet at his house, several switchblades, a couple of sleek black cigarette lighters, bandages, antiseptic cream, a roll of gauze, and another flashlight. When he reaches the bottom, he says, “Aha. There it is.”

  He picks up a black velvet bag and loosens the drawstring around it. When he holds it upside-down over his palm, a long, narrow piece of metal falls out.

  “What is it?” I ask.

  He holds it up for me to see. “Skeleton key.”

  I lean closer. It’s silver, with a Victorian-style loop design at one end and a single metal tooth at the other. The middle part is smooth, made to slide easily into almost any lock. “It looks ancient.”

  “That’s because it is. But so is this lock.” He creeps toward the metal doors and motions for me to hold the light over his shoulder. “The great thing about London is—” he lines the key up with the mouth of the lock “— everything tends to be really old—” he wiggles it in until the lock swallows it almost up to
his fingers “—which means this skeleton key can get us access to almost anywhere, as long as the locks haven’t been modernized.” He twists the key and the lock groans open.

  “Okay then,” he says, tugging the key until it pops back out. “Let’s take some of this stuff with us and see what we can find.”

  He hands a switchblade to each of us. Dan grabs the extra flashlight and turns it on.

  I put a switchblade in my pocket and sidle up to Isaac, trying to keep my voice steady. “Am I supposed to kill them?”

  “You can if you need to,” he says, “but the blades are mostly to distract them. Don’t kill unless it’s unavoidable.”

  “Why not?”

  “Gotta burn them alive,” he says. “It’s the only way. Kill the body without fire, and the remains of the sorcery inside will escape and possibly infect someone else. That’s why the white-haired man shot that Bestia on the heath before we could get to her. He knew we’d erase the black magic inside her, and he wanted it to find a new home inside an innocent person.”

  I stare at him with my mouth open, stomach churning.

  “Burning them is a bit disturbing the first few times you do it,” he says, looking a little sheepish. “Sorry. Shouldn’t have said it so bluntly.”

  “No, no, it’s fine. I’m—fine.” My mouth tastes like bile. “Fire. Got it.”

  I watch Albert drop the skeleton key into his pocket, along with a switchblade and a lighter. He picks up the square covered in tiny black coms and walks over to me.

  “If you get separated from me—which I won’t let happen, but just in case it does—you need to wear a couple of these.”

  He peels off one of the black dots and eyes my neckline for a minute. “I hate to say it, but I think Casey might have the right idea for you girls.” He slides the collar of my shirt to the side and sticks the com to my bra strap. “Your shirt will help keep the com in place, but you’ll be able to reach it quickly if you need to.”

  I nod, but his eyes don’t meet mine. “And this one,” he says, sticking a second com into my ear. His face hovers close to mine, and his fingers graze my jaw as he pulls his hand away.