But Hickory always has a plan.
He unravels the bounty hunter’s whip, spins around and lashes it out. Roth blocks the blow. The whip wraps around his forearm, and he just stands there, eyes blazing.
Hickory salutes him and smiles. ‘Sorry, boss.’
He tosses the whip handle. It catches on a passing chandelier, snagging Roth like a fish on a line, yanking him back, taking out a whole line of Leatherheads behind him as the train speeds on. He doesn’t manage to free himself till he’s hanging over the last carriage.
He rolls and tumbles, clings to the end just in time.
Hickory’s given us one hell of a break.
The train speeds into a different, high-vaulted corridor. We’re on the second carriage now. Smoke and steam trails through the air around us from the engine car up ahead. Two more jumps and we’re there. Dad’s limping badly, soldiering on. The girl’s holding her own in a fist fight with a bounty hunter, having lost her gun. Hickory sprints ahead and drops out of sight between the carriages. He’s gonna separate them, and it’s a good thing, too, because Roth’s charging towards us now, bowling over any Leatherheads stupid enough to get in his way. He’ll be on us any second.
The carriage jerks. We stumble. Hickory’s done it. The engine car and first carriage are already pulling away. The girl disposes of her bounty hunter with a roundhouse kick, and the three of us make the jump, our longest yet. Dad cries out when we land on the first carriage, nearly slips over the edge, but I grab him. He’s sweaty, shaking, face screwed up in pain.
‘What’s wrong?’ I ask. ‘Are you hurt?’
‘I’m okay,’ he says. ‘Compared to your singing, it’s nothing.’
‘Okay, that’s – wait, what? You hate my songs? “Bluebird in the Basement”? “Scraps for Tea”? “The Coconut Song”? “Rat Poo in the Corner on a Sunshiny Day”?’
‘You’re many things, Jane.’ He winks at me. ‘A great singer ain’t one of ’em.’
I’ve never been so insulted in my life, which is saying something.
‘We’ll discuss this later,’ I tell him, and he chuckles.
We clamber down to Hickory by the carriage door, us and the girl. Watch as the rest of the train slowly falls behind us. Three metres. Five metres. Sparks from a dangling chain scatter along the tracks between the carriages. Seven metres. Ten. I’m about to breathe a sigh of relief when we see him – Roth – coming right for us. Dad and Hickory empty their guns, spraying him with bullets that might as well be flies. The rat-a-tat-tats blast our ears.
‘He can’t make it,’ I say.
‘He won’t try it,’ the girl says.
But he does.
THE SPIRAL ROAD
Inside the carriage now. Some sort of armoury, I think. We lock the door behind us just as the force of Roth’s impact buckles the rusty roof above our heads.
He made it.
‘Great,’ I say, ‘what now?’ But nobody has a chance to answer because there’s a noise outside, a whistling squeal.
Hickory says, ‘Uh-oh,’ and the train takes a hard, constant right, the force of the bend throwing us against the left-hand wall of the carriage. A blur of stone through the small, circular windows at our backs. Across from us, nothing but empty space. I leap-crawl towards them, fog the glass with my breath and wipe it clear again. ‘Bloody hell …’
We’ve hit the spiral road.
An enormous domed ceiling above us. A cavernous circular shaft below that’s so wide and deep I can’t even see the bottom. The train-tracked road winds down its side, past arches and doors, and the whole shaft’s lit by thousands of torches flickering to life, looping around and down, getting smaller, getting hazier, till they’re swallowed by the gloom. We’re headed the same way. Already picking up speed, sparks flying. Hickory and Dad were right. We’re gonna derail.
‘You know, it really is a pity you destroyed the brakes,’ I tell the girl.
And that’s when Roth swings down in front of the window.
He smashes his fist through the glass, grabs my tunic. The rancid air hits us and we choke and cough. My skin prickles. My eyes water. Dad tries to pull me away. The girl punches Roth’s arm, but it’s useless. He pulls me right up to the broken window, right up to his half-masked face, the air between us alive with his heat-shimmer breath. His icy eyes meet mine for just a second, and I can feel it. I know it. Somehow he knows I have the key.
I shove a leg against the wall and push. My tunic tears and we all fall back in a spluttering heap. Roth slips out of sight, back to the roof, heading for the door, but Hickory’s already there, throwing his weight against it. The door shakes and trembles as Roth tries to pound his merry way inside. The grimy window shatters. The metal bulges. I’m about to leap over there when I notice a pool of blood on the floor. A dark red stain spreading down Dad’s leg. A gash across his thigh.
A Leatherhead must’ve got him with its blade.
I try to help him but he swipes my hand away.
‘It’s nothing,’ he says, even though it’s definitely something. ‘Go. I’m fine.’
I throw my weight beside Hickory and tell the girl to hurry. She’s searching through the crates stacked further down the carriage. She finds another gun, checks the ammo. The door shudders. The lock snaps off and rattles past our feet. Roth forces the door open, just enough to get an arm in. I figure we’re all done and dusted when the girl shoulders her rifle and heaves something else from the crate. Loads it, rests it on her other shoulder and aims.
It’s a goddamn bazooka.
‘Move,’ she shouts, and me and Hickory dive clear.
She pulls the trigger the moment the door flies open.
The rocket blasts through the carriage, a loud streak of smoke.
Roth ducks just in time and it explodes on the wall outside. A deafening blast that rocks the carriage and topples Roth off the back. I cheer and shove a fist into the air, but then I swear because we haven’t lost him yet. He’s bouncing along the tracks, clinging to the dangling chain. Hauling himself closer, hand over hand, back towards the carriage.
Doesn’t this guy ever stop?
‘Come on,’ the girl yells, throwing the bazooka aside. She opens the forward door and we’re assaulted by wind, smoke and steam. The chugging of the train. The whoosh-whistle of passing archways. There’s a coal compartment on the back end of the engine car. The girl leaps onto it, turns back, leans down between the carriages and tries to disconnect them.
Hickory runs to help, telling us to move it or lose it.
I lend Dad a shoulder. We run-stumble after them as the train tilts dangerously, the right-side wheels leaving the tracks for a second before crashing back down. We bump into a barrel. Dad cries out, tightens his grip on my shoulder. Glancing back, I catch sight of Roth’s hand reaching up through the sparks, grabbing onto the train. I pick up the pace.
We’re almost there. Three metres. Two. We get to the door and Dad collapses. I try to pull him up, but he pulls me down instead. Shouts in my ear, ‘Jane. No.’
‘Yes,’ I shout over him. ‘You can do it. You have to.’
Roth’s heaving himself up now, getting to his feet. The girl aims her gun at him, thinks twice. Aims it down between the carriages instead.
‘Get your butts over here!’
She pulls the trigger. The chain snaps, cables fly. Both she and Hickory reach down to unlatch the carriages. I tell them to wait.
‘Elsa,’ Dad shouts into my ear, but I can barely hear him over the noise. ‘When I found – in the Grip, she – a hiding place – river – of waterfalls.’
Why is he talking? We need to go, need to jump. The pin’s been pulled, jolting the carriage. We’re slowing down, falling back. Hickory and the girl scream at us, tell us to jump.
Roth’s charging through the carriage now, but Dad just pulls me closer.
‘You need both keys – open the Cradle. Find Elsa’s – only way – the second key.’
He’s saying goodbye, I can s
ee it in his eyes. ‘No, Dad –’
‘Get to the Cradle – slow you down. I love you, Jane.’
Then he catches me off-guard. Cries out, stands up, lifts and throws me from the carriage with every bit of strength he can muster. I catch a glimpse of Roth leaping over a barrel. Of sparks and the spiral road speeding by. Of Hickory and the girl reaching out, grabbing me, pulling me onto the bed of coal. We fall back, a flurry of limbs and shouting.
Hickory has me in a headlock. The girl’s arms are around my waist. I try to break free, but it’s useless. We’re already speeding away from the carriage. All I can do is watch as Dad turns around in that shrinking rectangle of a door to face Roth, and it’s like I’m back at the base of the Sacred Stairs with the mayor holding me back, watching his men go after him with guns.
Only this is worse. Much worse.
Dad throws himself into Roth. I feel the fear, the panic, the anger swelling inside me.
The engine car trembles. I can feel the spiral road shaking beneath us.
I’m causing another quake. Another big quake.
And we’re surrounded by stone.
That’s when she does it. When the girl pulls out a knife and digs it into my bandaged palm, reopening the wound, spilling the furious tide. She grabs my left wrist with both hands and holds it over the back of the train. My blood catches in the wind. The pain’s excruciating, blinding. Somehow I can feel every drop of blood hitting the spiral road, ripping it apart in our wake. Feel the stone bending the tracks behind us, making Dad’s carriage sway – first towards the void of the spiral, then rocking back the other way.
It lurches, tips, derails. Crashes and skids along the outside of the road, smashing through pillars and archways, exploding through the stone.
Hickory pulls us back. We collapse onto the coal, and I catch a glimpse of Roth through my tears, leaping from the carnage with Dad slung over his shoulders. Through an upturned window, out of sight. Our little engine car sways, but sticks to the tracks. We chug on, careering down the spiral, away from the wreckage. I bunch my tunic into my fist, try to stop the blood, try to stop crying, but I can’t. Roth still has Dad, and this chase ain’t over yet.
That’s the problem with spirals. What goes around comes around.
The road beneath the derailed carriage is littered with rubble and debris from the crash, and we’re looping round the bend, already speeding towards it. Hickory and the girl yell, ‘Hold on,’ and we crash through fallen chunks of rock, through boulders, over scraps of metal. I’m thrown forward through the coal, my head hits something hard, and then –
Nothing.
NOT THE GIRL SHE REMEMBERS
Time does strange things in the Manor, Winifred told Violet before she climbed the Sacred Stairs. Be patient with Jane. She will not have aged as we have aged. She will not have suffered as we have suffered. Nevertheless, she needs your help. Protect her.
Violet locks the door now. Takes a breath. Turns and runs again. Her hands are shaking. Adrenaline, yes, but something else too. Winifred warned her about the first few kills, but she never said there would be so many. None of this feels real. The prison camp. The train. John. Roth. The Cradle and the keys. Seeing her again. Those eyes again. This strange hero of her childhood who left without saying goodbye.
Jane Doe in the flesh.
Hickory is behaving but Violet cannot take any chances. Jane is slung over his shoulders, bandaged hand soaked red, dripping a trail. Winifred once told Violet that Jane would be the greatest weapon she would ever use. And the most dangerous.
Spill her blood, she said. But only if you are ready to face the consequences.
Violet will need to dress the wound properly, sooner rather than later.
‘Any idea where we’re going?’
‘Away.’ Hickory opens another door. ‘Anywhere. Fast.’
They fled the train as soon as it had slowed enough to jump, just as the Leatherheads appeared, firing flares and rifles. All they can do now is run and hide. Violet prays the rooms are shifting. But she cannot forget the wildcard, the traitor, the fiend. Even if they outrun the army, she will still have to deal with Hickory. He may have fooled Jane, but Violet knows this trickster’s secret. Knew it as soon as she saw him in the cage. Now she adjusts the coil of rope looped around her shoulders, a handy find from the engine carriage.
She considers her options. In the end, there is only one.
Detain and question, Winifred would say. Take control.
WAKING
Eyes open on the girl, leaning over me, wiping my cheeks with her sleeve. Blurry. Fuzzy at the edges. When she speaks it sounds like three people talking at the same time.
‘Don’t worry. We’re off the train. We’re safe.’
We’re in a candlelit room. A small chamber carpeted in black sand. I’m sweating and shivering, tongue tripping over words. Something about Roth taking Dad. How we need to find him, get him back, even though he said I’m a terrible singer and he never liked my songs.
I try to move. The girl grabs my shoulders and gently holds me down.
‘Calm down,’ her voice echoes. ‘Try to relax. Hold this.’
She tucks the key into my hand, just like Winifred did once upon a time. I manage to untangle a sentence then. Something about a door back home, I think. I’m not sure why.
‘Rest,’ the girl says, and I sink back into the soft, soft sand.
Back to my floating cocoon.
THE FATE OF BLUEHAVEN
‘We enter the Manor at will. We enter the Manor unarmed. We enter the Manor alone.’
The girl’s picking at a fingernail with her knife, sitting in the black sand that probably isn’t supposed to be here, just like the snow and the grass and the hungry goddamn forest. She glances up at me, and I quickly pretend to inspect a tear in my tunic because I’ve been staring at her for a while, and I’m sure of it now: she’s unmistakably Violet. Her eyes, her chin, the way she chews her tongue when she concentrates. But then there’s, well, everything else. Her height, hands and shoulders. The girl has boobs, for cripes’ sake.
‘Before you passed out again,’ she says, ‘you told me to prove I’m me. Asked what used to hang above our front door. The Three Laws. And if that doesn’t convince you, I know you can’t swim, you taught yourself to read and write, and you once made me promise not to tell anyone about the time my mum locked you out of the house, and you got stuck trying to climb back through the basement window because a stray dog started humping your leg.’
‘Oh.’ That’s all I can say. Like I’ve just been told it’s raining outside or something.
I try to stand, but my legs are too wobbly.
‘Take it easy,’ the-Girl-Who’s-Violet-After-All says. ‘You need to rest.’
I swear and slip back to the sand. ‘How long was I out?’
‘A few hours, maybe.’ She gouges a chunk of grit from her nails. Sniffs it and shrugs, flicks it away. ‘Do you remember what happened?’
‘You mean do I remember derailing a train? No, not at all.’ I hold up my freshly bandaged hand. The sucker’s definitely gonna scar. ‘I remember this, though.’
‘Yeah,’ I-Can’t-Believe-It’s-Violet says, ‘sorry about that. Ran out of options.’
‘Since when was slicing my hand open an option?’
‘What was I supposed to do? Take on Roth with a coal shovel and a gun? I cut you to give us some time, and it worked. We got away.’
The scene has played out in my head a hundred times since I woke up. Dad in the carriage, falling behind, left behind, slung over Roth’s shoulders as the train crashes.
I lost him again. I can’t believe I lost him again. Part of me wants to scream and shout and punch the walls, but if I start I doubt I’ll ever stop. Besides, I’m too weak.
‘You mean some of us got away,’ I say.
I-Still-Can’t-Believe-It’s-Violet finally stops picking at her nails. ‘Your dad chose to stay behind, Jane. He knew he’d only slow us down and he
knows Roth will keep him alive so long as we’re running around the Manor – so long as we’re a threat.’ She flips the knife, tucks it into one of her boots. ‘We have the upper hand. We have the first key, not him.’
I hang my head. As much as it kills me, I know Giant Violet’s right. Finding the second key is the most important thing now. Getting to the Cradle before Roth. It’s the only way to stop him, to save Dad, to save everyone, including ourselves. And it isn’t just another needle-in-a-never-ending-haystack situation anymore, either. It’s a race against an army.
‘No sign of him, then?’
‘Roth? No. We ran a fair way. I locked every door behind us. The rooms shifted at least once.’ Violet points at the door beside me. ‘That’s locked, and we’ll know someone’s coming down any of those’ – she points at three dark arches across the room – ‘if the corridors light up. I haven’t got many bullets left but I’m pretty good with a blade. I’m sure we could use the odd booby trap to our advantage, too. And don’t worry about Hickory.’ She nods at the glowing arch beside her. ‘Got him tied up down there, in front of another locked door. I roughed him up, but I think his ego’s hurt more than any – okay, what is it? What’s wrong?’
‘Nothing.’
‘You look drunk. You’re staring at me.’
‘Of course I’m staring at you. Listen to you. Look at you. You’re all … old.’
‘I’m not old. I’m pretty much the same age as –’
‘Me, exactly, which is a darn sight older than you were a few days ago. How is this even possible? Winifred said time can get all weird in the Manor, but this – this is just’ – I plough my fingers into my knotted hair – ‘I dunno what this is.’ And then it hits me. ‘Oh crap, please don’t tell me I’ve been away from Bluehaven for, like, ten years.’
‘Okay, I won’t.’ Violet pauses for effect. ‘You’ve been gone six.’
‘Six years?’
‘Calm down, Jane.’
Jane Doe and the Cradle of All Worlds Page 17