The Curse of the Silver Pharaoh

by Pip Ballantine

  She raised her hands in a wide shrug. “These students are exceptional. I wanted to make an impression.”

  “Your ‘impression’ shattered several windows in the cafeteria, and cracked the walls of the northwest passage.”

  “Well,” Mrs Seddon said with a wink, “I wanted it to be a lasting impression.”

  The screams from the academy made the headmistress spin on her heels. An alarm bell began to chime.

  “Get back to your classroom!” Miss Delancy snapped before she unexpectedly and uncharacteristically sprinted back to the main building.

  Verity could hear Mrs Seddon calling her name, but she was following in the headmistress’ footsteps. She could also hear other students from her class joining her in running back up to the academy. Verity heard another scream and ran down the hallway, following a long crack which had not been there the week before. She silently took back all her thoughts of Mrs Seddon. That truly had been quite an impression she had just made.

  At the end of the long, inch-wide fissure in the wall, the stone and plaster cracked and crumbled, then puckered out and burst, revealing what had been buried into the wall. It had been human, once upon a time. Two arms, a torso, and a slumped down head drooped out of the space apparently hollowed out for the corpse. Perhaps the most horrifying trait of this poor soul was the skin. Instead of a healthy pink, or even a pallid tone indicative of death, the body’s skin was a pale blue grey, and drawn tight against the skeletal frame giving the corpse the semblance of a prune or dried date.

  Verity let out a gasp of her own. The hair atop the body’s head was a shocking white with

  traces of light blue. Like electricity.

  “Oh my God,” whispered Miss Delancy as she approached the body, “it’s Heather von St James.”

  Chapter Ten

  A Corpse in the Wall, and an Urchin on the Rooftop

  Ten students and three faculty gathered in front of the newly-discovered missing student. Miss Delancy immediately set the staff to retrieving the corpse. Heather’s remains were taken to the Biology lab where Professor Halestone, a coroner in his previous profession, would investigate the cause of death.

  Miss Delancy had teachers stand at each end of the hallways, to keep other students out of the way. As luck, fortune, and high explosives would have it though more students were curious as to what caused the large mushroom cloud from the cricket pitch.

  While that was going on, the witnesses were shuttled into the auditorium.

  “Hope we don’t get stuffed into any walls,” Julia giggled to Verity, who took no comfort from that.

  Miss Delancy stood on the front of the stage, along with a polished gentleman, bespectacled, wearing a very smart suit. He was definitely not part of the faculty, and he carried a clipboard. Verity did not like people with clipboards.

  “You are the only students, faculty, and staff witness to this terrible event,” Miss Delancy began, her hands wringing nervously, “and considering what we saw—what we all experienced—I want to be crystal clear we are well enough to move on.” She took in a deep breath, shaking her head. “An incident like this can truly draw unwarranted attention, perhaps even damage the reputation of a school. Discovering the carcass of an elk, perhaps the antics of some subversive pagan cult when this school was first built, is truly shocking.”

  Verity furrowed her brow, and looked over to Julia and Emma. They were there. It was not some dead animal they unearthed. The dead body was Heather von St James.

  “Such a terrible sight can make young fragile minds confused. This is why I put a call into town.” She then motioned to the stranger in the smart suit. “Doctor Jacques R Hood is a physician from Quinne Asylum, and will be interviewing you all. I just want to make sure we all saw the same thing—a sad animal trapped within the walls of our fine academy—and that our minds aren’t playing tricks with us.” She paused, and stared down at her trembling hands. “I would so hate to refute any nasty rumours. Repeated refutations would, of course, indicate the pressures of the Delancy Academy have pushed you beyond the brink of sanity. This is why I have called in Doctor Hood here. He is most anxious to speak with you all.”

  “Bloody clever,” Emma whispered.

  “This woman’s got some Scots blood in her,” Julia added.

  A brilliant play on Delancy’s part, and it would take all of her focus to fool this asylum doctor. “Emma, you alright?”

  “I don’t think this Doctor Hood is here to find out what makes us tick. He’s here to make sure we all tell the same story.” Emma sat up and nodded gently. “And that is precisely what I mean to do.”

  Verity blinked. “Are we just going to play Delancy’s game?”

  “Telling the truth is not going to bring this James girl back from the dead,” Emma whispered. She then fixed Verity with a look. “And if I do, then it’s off to Quinne Asylum…where I will wish I were dead.” She looked back up to the stage. “No, thank you.”

  This was the cost of survival then. Just as it was in the streets of London. Look away. Turn a blind eye. Otherwise, you become part of the problem. It is not a matter of eventually being removed from the problem. You will be removed. You will be forgotten. To survive, you have to look away. As Emma did.

  As she did when talking to Doctor Hood from Quinne Asylum.

  After wandering the library to lose herself in decades of literature and the comforting smell of old books, just to clear her mind and avoid any further discussion of the matter with either Emma or Julia, she finally returned to her room, hoping to enjoy some solace.

  “Hey there!” Emma was sitting on Verity’s bed, swinging her legs and chomping on an apple she had undoubtedly stolen from the kitchens.

  “Chew with your mouth closed,” she replied, even though she knew it was a lost cause.

  Emma blissfully ignored her. “What’s the matter?”

  Verity raised her eyebrow. “Well apart from the body in the wall, Henry has made himself invisible too. How can such a tall young man hide so completely?”

  “Oh, he’s on the roof,” Emma told her, pushing her curls out of her face so she could chew the remains of the apple right down to the seeds.

  Verity let out a long sigh. “I should have known.” She held a hand out towards the younger girl. “Please, stay here. I am sure you don’t want to hear more arguing with Henry.”

  Emma rolled her eyes. “You’re right on that one.”

  Though astronomy was not Verity’s cup of tea, she did appreciate the view the Observatory provided of the surrounding moors. She climbed the spiral stairs upward, opened the heavy door leading to the roof, and took in the autumn breeze with delight. Yes, this academy was an incredible learning place, but it was also somewhat claustrophobic. The wind caught at her hair and tugged it loose from her braid. It nipped at her ears and nose with its chilliness, but she didn’t mind.

  Apparently neither did Henry. He had his back to her, and she was unsurprised to see he was fiddling with his ornithopter.

  Normally she wouldn’t have been able to sneak up on him, but he was so engrossed, she was able to reach out and tap his shoulder. Seeing him jump was rather satisfying.

  “Verity,” he said, the alarm etched into his face melting into a scowl, “have a care. This is delicate.”

  Fingering the fabric of the wing, she gave a shrug. “It shouldn’t be. Winds here look considerable. I’m sure you’ll make the necessary adjustments.” She watched him for a moment, waiting for him to ask about what happened. He appeared lost in his work. “I only came up here to get your report on the Boys’ Wing. Have you found anything out?”

  “Not much,” he replied over one shoulder. “Found one curiosity though. Apparently all the staff are new. Only arrived last month—even tha’ terrifying Mrs Pyke. Delancy fired the previous bunch and got a whole new lot in.”

  Verity shrugged. “I can see her doing that if someone put their foot out of line.”

  Henry just grunted, but Verity deliberate
ly ignored his signals that he wanted to be alone. Going to the edge of the roof, she leaned against the crenulations and peered out in the direction of the farmhouse where the rest of the Seven were staying. The blue-grey of the clouds made the scene seem very ominous.

  Verity turned around and stared at Henry’s back as he worked. She had some ideas on exactly where the ornithopter needed adjustments, but with his rather cavalier attitude towards the Ministry, a gracious benefactor if there ever was one, she chose not to offer suggestions. She already knew how that would go.

  “Did you hear about the dead body?” she asked conversationally, since she couldn’t think of anything else to break the silence.

  Henry nearly dropped the left wing. “The what?”

  “So you didn’t hear?”

  “I knew about the explosion from the cricket pitch, but Seddon is a bit cracked in the head. But you’re saying she killed someone?”

  “Yes,” and then she shook her head. “I mean, no—I mean…ugh…the dead body was a girl who has been missing for two weeks. She had been buried in the wall. I don’t think Seddon killed her.”

  “A missin’ girl buried in a wall?” Henry said, twirling a wrench in his grip. “Well, guess Agent Thorne’s sent us to the right place then, now didn’t he?”

  Verity crossed her hands in front of her and stared at him. “What is wrong with you, Henry? It was a girl, a student like both of us, just stuffed in there.”

  He gave a shrug. “I didn’t know her, neither did you. She’s just a name and a mystery to me.”

  All the frustration she’d been feeling building up against Henry in the last few weeks began to boil over. Verity’s cheeks grew hot, and despite where they were, she couldn’t let him get away with this.

  “Henry Price,” she said in a low tone, “what on earth has happened to you?” When he merely blinked at her, it only increased her outrage. “You didn’t used to be like this!”

  His jaw clenched, but she’d obviously hit a nerve because he couldn’t let it lie. “That’s rich that is! Coming from you, with all your secrets and lies. You never used to be like this either!”

  “Well,” she said, advancing until she was toe to toe with him, “at least I’m not so cold that a girl’s death doesn’t affect me at all.”

  His eyebrows drew together, and his features grew as stormy as the moors. “We’ve been on the streets a long time. We’ve seen more deaths than we’ve had hot dinners.”

  “But this one is different!”

  “Like you is what you really mean.”

  They stared at each other for a moment. Verity tried to calm herself, but it was very hard. Finally, she replied as evenly as she could, “What if it were me, Henry? What if it were me stuffed in that wall? You need to practice this little thing called empathy now and then.”

  “Always with the fancy words,” Henry muttered, and it was obvious he just wasn’t going to understand here and now.

  Rather than biting his head off, she took a deep breath. Her words were, even to her ears, incredibly controlled. “We have a job to do.”

  “I know.”

  “Then do it.”

  Henry finished tying up his ornithopter and hefted it over one shoulder like a rucksack. “Just remember something, Verity. We’re family. Beat up, squabbling, hand to mouth, but family. We come before the Ministry. Always.”

  For a moment she wondered if he could read her mind, but she nodded. “I know that.”

  “Good,” he said, walking away from her back to the stairs, “let’s go shake things up and find this bloke. We need to get out of this damn school before we all get too used to it.”

  Verity tilted her head, and the words escaped her before she had a chance to think about it. “Would that really be so bad?”

  The look Henry shot her blazed with fury. “Yes it would, Verity. London is home, not this academy. We don’t belong here.” He stuffed the ornithopter back into its bag, leaned it against the wall, and moved some boxes over so it was out of sight of both the doors and windows.

  As she turned and followed him back down the stairs, she did manage to keep the words, Well you don’t at least, unspoken, otherwise the argument would have raged well into the morning, and she simply didn’t have the energy for that, right now.

  Chapter Eleven

  A Friendly Little Chit-Chat

  “Right then,” Christopher whispered, “she’s asleep. Nommus.”

  The four boys took long, low strides. No floorboards creaked underfoot. Nothing stirred in the dark, but for the three of them. Christopher reached for the Starlights, and hissed as the lenses clattered softly against one another. His heart hammered in his ears as he looked in the direction of Mrs Summerson’s room. It was hard to know what would and wouldn’t wake up the old crone.

  Someone tapped Christopher on the shoulder, and from the height of the shadow, he could tell it was Liam. Christopher untangled the two pair of goggles and passed them on to him, slipped the remaining pair across his own eyes, and flipped the switch. Basic details of the room slowly came to view as well as the ghostly images of Colin, Jeremy, and Liam who was motioning with his head to the door.

  This was going to be the tough part.

  Slowly Christopher hooked his fingers underneath the door latch and lifted it. When it rattled like a ghost with chains, he was convinced the whole place was conspiring against them.

  Liam nudged him in the back, and with a final glance over his shoulder, Christopher opened the door wide enough for all four of them to slip out into the dark.

  The cold cut through their clothing, and Christopher whispered under his breath a curse as he made his way to the barn, a dim lantern light serving as his beacon. He rapped his knuckles twice, waited, then rapped twice again. The latch lifted up from the inside and the door was pushed open to reveal Jonathan.

  Christopher beckoned the other three boys into the barn. With a final glance over his shoulder, he slipped through the door and shut it as tight as its thick, wooden latch would allow.

  The man could hear them moving around him. Now they were in the barn and out of earshot of the formidable Mrs Summerson, Christopher and the lads didn’t have to worry about the noise. Their prisoner’s head flicked back and forth trying to track their movements. The bag over his head kept him in the darkness which suited them for the time being, but that was about to change. The game and its players would be revealed.

  “Go on,” Christopher said, motioning to the man stirring before them. “Boys, be ready.”

  Liam and Colin both nodded to one another and raised a pair of clubs that, from the looks of them, had been ripped free of an old chair from somewhere.

  Jeremy slipped the sack from the man’s head, and immediately recoiled as the man’s head swung in his direction. He was blinking wildly, breathing deep through his nose. Against the wad of fabric in his mouth, he grunted. Christopher could only assume from the rough, gravelly texture of his growl he had screamed himself raw. From the looks of the knot on his head, Jonathan had clocked him once or twice to keep him compliant.

  Christopher looked around the barn. “Hold on. Jonathan, where did you get that gag?”

  Jonathan whispered to Jeremy. Jeremy whispered to Liam. Liam said, “You don’t wanna know, mate.”

  That’s what he was afraid of.

  With a quick wiggle of his fingers, Christopher took hold of the wad of fabric in the man’s mouth and yanked. The sniper exhaled and then coughed a bit. He shook his head slowly as he took in a few deep breaths.

  “Jeremy, roll him up,” Christopher ordered. “Jonathan, give ‘im a bit of water.”

  No one moved. Christopher looked over his shoulder at the twins and furrowed his brow. Go on, he mouthed. With a slight grimace from both of them, Jeremy pushed their prisoner upright while Jonathan took up the small mug of water from the worktable and offered refreshment reluctantly. The man glared at the young boy, and then acquiesced with a slight nod. He took a few gulps and then p
ulled away, giving another growl which made the twins scamper away like scared cats.

  “Just lovely,” the man grumbled, “When I get pinched, I get pinched by the Artful Dodger and his gang.”

  “Don’t know any Dodger bloke,” Christopher said, pulling the stool from the workbench and placing it in front of the man, “but I do know you are up to no good out there in them moors. Thought we could talk about it, all civilised, ya know?”

  He looked at each of them, and Christopher watched as a smile slowly crept across his face. A few moments later, he started laughing. “Is this an interrogation? Really?” He tipped his head back and let out a long sigh. “Something hit me in the noggin, I am still out cold somewhere on the moors, and all this is a dream. Has to be.”

  “Tug on them bonds keeping your hands and feet tied together,” Christopher pressed, “an’ tell me you’re dreamin’, mate.”

  The smile faded.

  “Now, how about we talk about where we met?” It took the bloke a moment and before he could respond, Christopher nodded. “That’s right. That was us. So, we were out there, keepin’ an eye on friends. That’s what we were doin’. What about you? Got friends out in those parts?”

  “Really? You think that’s how this works? You just ask me a few questions, and then I start chatting with you like—”

  The bat cut through the air and struck the sniper’s knee. Colin didn’t swing with sufficient force to break bone, but the wood struck sharply enough that Christopher flinched and the sniper’s breath caught in his throat.

  “Wot—are—you—doin’, Colin?” Christopher snapped.

  Colin pointed at the sniper with his club. “He was sittin’ up a bit straighter. I thought ‘e was lungin’ for ya!”

  “How can he lunge at me? His ankles are tied together! It’s not like he’s dangerous!”

  “He’s a sniper for the Illuminati! Of course he’s dangerous!”

  Christopher groaned. “That’s right, and neither Henry, Verity, or Emma know what these lot are about. Right now, it’s just us, ain’t it? We got the upper hand.”