by Caro King
She laughed. ‘I am Enid Lockheart,’ she said. ‘Remember me.’
Jonas sat up and the room was filled with nothing but early-morning sun. The door banged open and Jik tumbled through, clutching a scrunched-up piece of paper.
‘Yik bikik?’
‘I am, thanks.’ Jonas shook his head, trying to clear his thoughts.
A tall, fair woman dressed in blue appeared behind Jik. Her eyes were golden and her face held an echo of Enid Lockheart. But only an echo. Jonas wondered what sort of Grimm the sisters were, what kind of Fabulous ran in their blood
She smiled at Jonas. ‘I am Elinor, one of those who cared for you last night.’
‘IK,’ said Jik impatiently. He held out the paper and Jonas saw that it was singed around the edges and had writing on it. He took it nervously. It said:
Got her at larst! If ya want to get her back better
move farst!
But DONT go the front way.
‘Skerridge,’ groaned Jonas.
‘Nice of him to send a note,’ said Elinor. ‘Even if it is written in blood. Bogeymen don’t usually bother about the kids after they’ve delivered them.’
‘Blood?’ said Jonas anxiously. ‘Whose blood?’
‘There’s a PS on the back.’
Jonas turned the paper over and sighed. It said:
Skwirrel
The kid in the bed looked insufferably cute, snugged up under the covers with only a tuft of dark hair showing. Skerridge made a gagging face and reached for his sack.
He paused. He had been feeling edgy after the Redstone fiasco and decided on one final check to make sure he had not forgotten anything. Carefully, Skerridge ticked everything off his mental list.
He had spun the memory of the boy out of his mother’s and father’s heads. Tick.
He had paid a visit to both sets of grandparents and spun their heads empty too. Tick. And three of his best friends. Tick. And, just to be on the safe side, he had even done the cat. Tick.
Skerridge frowned. Maybe he had overdone it with the cat. BMs didn’t normally bother with pets, but cats were tricky things and liable to remember stuff when other people forgot. He nodded firmly. Best to be sure.
Next Skerridge had erased all physical traces of the kid, from his favourite toys right through to every photograph of him that had ever been taken. Big tick.
Nope, nothing missed. Satisfied, Skerridge was just about to wake the boy when a chill ran down his spine.
He had forgotten something after all. Something so important, so much a part of the job, that he might as well not have bothered.
He was a bogeyman and bogeymen scared kids, it was in their bones. Normally he took at least a couple of weeks, but this time he had gone straight to the snatch. This time, and this was a ghastly fact indeed, HE DIDN’T EVEN KNOW WHAT THE KID LOOKED LIKE!
Horror brought him out in an icy sweat. He gave a strangled half-sob as the terrible truth dawned. Somehow, during the great chase across the Drift after the Redstone brat, Skerridge, Chief Bogeyman and Champion Kid-Catcher, had lost it. And then things got even worse.
All of a sudden, Skerridge realised that the thought of crouching in a closet and laughing maniacally at a kid was dreary. Hiding under the bed and tickling the backs of their ankles as they sat on the edge of the mattress? Tedious beyond belief. Skerridge moaned and hid his face in his hands.
It was earth-shattering. It was a revolution. It was like a vampire discovering that, actually, sucking blood was a bit of a bore. In an instant his world had turned upside down and he had no idea what to do about it.
After a moment, he looked at the kid again, then up at the window. It was early morning and if he didn’t hurry it would be dawn. Skerridge stared at the pale square of window, just above the humped shape of the sleeping boy. He wasn’t thinking exactly he was just … waiting to see what came next.
A beam of sunshine broke in over the sill. It crept across the bed and on to a red-eyed, bony thing with too many mismatched teeth and a fancy waistcoat. Skerridge blinked.
Then he reached into his pocket and took out the memory pearl that he had just made from the kid’s loved ones and woke the kid up. It gave one brief squawk then shut up as Skerridge scowled at it.
‘Right, kid. Know what I am?’
‘B-b-bogeyman?’ the kid wailed and burst into tears. When it had its mouth open for a particularly loud wail, Skerridge popped the pearl in.
The kid gulped in surprise and swallowed. Thin strands of silver light began to waft away from him. It went on for about half a minute and then faded. His parents would have trouble figuring out where the kid’s things had gone to, nothing Skerridge could do about that, but they would at least remember that they had a kid in the first place.
‘There ya go,’ said Skerridge. ‘Fink yerself lucky ya got me when I was ‘avin’ a crisis. By the way, just as a side issue like, d’you know any scary places round ’ere?’
The kid blinked.
‘’Urry up or I’ll eat yer ears.’
‘T-T-Tanglewood!’ gulped the kid and went back to screaming.
Somewhere down the hall a door was thrown open and a voice called, ‘Mikey? Are you all right?’ followed by the sound of someone hurrying to the room.
Skerridge grinned and left by the window.
All the other bogeymen would sneer at him and say he wasn’t a proper bogeyman if he didn’t want to hide in dark places and scare kids, but quite frankly he didn’t care. There were far more interesting things to do in the world than catch kids for Mr Strood and Skerridge intended to do them. He knew it didn’t do to get curious about the Quick, but it was too late to worry about that now. So he was going to start his new life by finding out if the Redstone girl had been eaten by the Maug. Because Skerridge was ready to bet his fancy waistcoat that she hadn’t.
He found Tanglewood easily enough in a hidden stretch of wilderness, surrounded by overgrown hedges, dark trees and the distant backs of houses. Hurtling through the suspiciously rustling undergrowth, Skerridge found himself back in the Drift in a wood some miles south of the House. Miles are pretty much nothing when you can move at superspeed and in less time than it would take a Quick to walk down to the end of the road for a newspaper or some sweets, Skerridge was back in the garden of the House, looking up at its uninviting face thoughtfully.
The problem was how to get inside. Normally, bogeymen just walked in through the front door, but that was when they were taking a kid to Mr Strood. It would be so weird for a bogeyman to turn up at the House without a kid in a sack that rats might be smelled and questions might be asked.
So, Skerridge had to find another way in. He stared at the house for a few minutes, looking it over carefully. Then he grinned. It was obvious really. It wouldn’t do for a Quick, but for a bogeyman it was near perfect.
He set off towards the house, approaching it from the side rather than up the path, just in case someone was watching. When he got there he avoided the guard at the front door and scurried swiftly up the wall and on to the roof.
Nin was dreaming about darkness that came alive and ate her slowly from the feet up. It was trying to get to her heart and however hard she fought, it kept on, relentless. And then the world began to tremble and shake and come apart around her.
She woke up. It was early morning and a boy was shaking her. For a moment he looked so like her stolen brother that she gasped.
‘Toby?’
The kid stopped shaking her and stared. It wasn’t Toby at all. Toby was only four and this one looked like a very small eight. Although the sun made his hair shine it was really brown, and his eyes were black instead of deep blue. Nin burst into tears.
‘It’s OK. Really,’ the boy sat down next to her. ‘I won’t tell the guards you’re here.’
Nin tried to get her face under control by wiping her eyes on her sleeves and sniffing a lot.
‘How did you get here?’
‘Oh – um – I just – a bogeyman brought me,’ Nin said,
still sniffing.
‘If a BM got you this far, he would have given you to Mr Strood.’
Nin stared at him blankly. ‘Um … he t-tried to feed me to the Maug only it w-went wrong and the guard got eaten, so I ran away,’ she stuttered after a moment.
The boy gaped, then reached out and touched her hand.
‘Here, you look like you could do with some breakfast. I always bring mine down here to eat while I sweep. You can have it. Samfy’ll give me some more later. My name’s Milo,’ he added, pushing a hunk of bread made into a jam sandwich into her hands. ‘I’m one of the up-house servants. And I’m betting you’re Ninevah Redstone.’
Still sniffing, Nin took a bite. ‘You know me?’
‘I know about you. We all do. You’re the girl who gave Skerridge the slip, made a Fabulous and got away from the Hounds. Looks like you escaped the Maug too! Wait till I tell Samfy!’
‘Who’s she?’
‘Samfy looks after me since my mum and dad died. My mum got blown up in the laboratory and my dad got eaten by the Maug.’
‘How … um … old are you?’
‘Ten,’ said Milo, ‘but we aren’t as big as normal human Quicks. We’re part mouse, you see, Mr Strood made us to be timid so we wouldn’t cause any trouble.’ He smiled at Nin. ‘We’re his servants and we keep his rooms clean, serve his meals, do his washing and that. We live in the attic, the one next to the pet tigers. We’re called the up-house staff and we’re run by the housekeeper, Mrs Dunvice. She’s a werewolf Grimm, so you have to watch out. Then there are the down-house servants to look after the servants. And the servants to look after the guards, plus the guards themselves and Mr Strood’s Eyes.’
Nin coughed on a mouthful of juice. ‘Mr Strood’s Eyes,’ she repeated and shuddered, remembering Errol’s last words. ‘And – um – what exactly are Mr Strood’s Eyes?’
‘Oh he made them too,’ said Milo cheerfully. ‘He likes to distil things down to their basic elements then blend them with other things to make … well, creatures really. The Eyes are made from the essence of one of those big blue spiders from the garden mixed with an imp and with liquid crowsmorte for blood. Samfy says Mr Strood can look out of their eyes any time he wants. They run round the house checking everything, but they’re getting old now and they keep exploding and he can’t make any more because there are no more imps.’ Milo smiled. ‘I expect he’ll find a way round it though.’
He glanced out of the crystal wall. The sun was well on its way up the sky by now.
‘Look, I’d better get on. I sweep the Sunatorium in the morning, to get rid of the night’s leaves. Then I go over it again just before Mr Strood takes his afternoon walk. He likes it neat.’
‘The Sanatorium?’ said Nin, puzzled.
‘Sunatorium,’ corrected Milo. He stood and picked up a broom and sack that lay abandoned at his feet. ‘It’s where Mr Strood goes to get the sun, see. You can help if you like?’
So she did. She had nothing better to do. Toby was dead, she was sure of that. She was way too late to save him.
25
The Hound in the Tunnel
linor led Jik and Jonas through the twisting corridors of the hospital until they reached the cellar. There were a couple of lamps and some matches on a shelf by the door, so Jonas lit them both, handing one to Elinor, and they started down the stairs. Jik went first, his eyes cutting red holes in the darkness.
They came out in a cool, dry room stacked with bottles, boxes and sacks. Beyond that, two more held crates and large barrels. Finally came a fourth that held nothing but cobwebs and dank air.
‘I still can’t believe you have a tunnel right into his house,’ laughed Jonas.
‘Many years before Strood took over, even before it belonged to Gan Mafig, the House and its grounds were owned by a sorcerer. This building was where his mistress lived, protected from the eyes of his wife by magical spells. One theory is that he made this tunnel so that he could get here secretly. Of course, it may have fallen in by now. No one has passed this way for decades.’
At the far side of the cellar, Elinor pointed the lamp towards a flight of steps ending in a half-rotten door.
‘Remember, Jonas,’ said Elinor. ‘You aren’t free yet. We have loosened the Storm’s hold on you, but that is all. It is still there and in the end you will have to fight it alone. Hang on to what is yours, don’t let it take your heart.’
Jonas reached out and touched her hand, feeling her cool and slender fingers against his palm.
‘Thank you again,’ he said. ‘I’ll never forget.’ And then, with Jik close behind and the lamp held high, he walked down the steps and through the door into the unknown.
After a while they found some steps up to a low-roofed tunnel that sloped downwards.
There were several twists and turns and one very sharp dip before it rose again, but there were no forks so they had no decisions to make about which way to go. Then they ran into a roof fall. The pile of earth was thigh high, but easy enough to scramble over.
‘Great,’ Jonas muttered, ‘all this effort and what’s the betting it’ll be blocked further up?’
The second fall they came across was bigger. Jik pushed his way through easily, but Jonas had to crawl over it, half-smothered in loose earth and bruised by stones, until he slithered out the other side and fell with a thump on the hard ground. More earth and rocks fell as he did so, blocking the way back. He had lost the lamp as well.
‘Great! Brilliant!’
They paused to let Jonas calm down and get his bearings. Without the lamp they had only Jik’s eyes to rely on and they did not penetrate dark as far or a brightly as the lamp had. Jonas tripped once and bumped his head on a low-hanging bulge in the roof. He snarled under his breath and Jik sent him an anxious glance.
Fuelled by anger and frustration, the Hound inside Jonas began to pace. His eyes started to glow white and even though he didn’t notice, he began to manage more easily in the dark than a mere Quick should have. Jik noticed though and took care to hang back, following a few feet behind so as to keep out of the way.
The third fall fell on them. So did the fourth.
Jonas pulled himself out of the last pile of earth, the white light in his eyes glowing brighter. He growled, then cocked his head. Behind him the debris heaved slightly as Jik began to push his way out, the red lights of his eyes just beginning to show through the loose rubble. There was a rumbling sound as more soil fell, then stone, then more soil until the tunnel was blocked by a wall of earth and the two red glows had been buried completely.
Jonas barely noticed. Voices echoed up the passageway from the darkness ahead. Snarling, he faced the sounds and waited.
Floyd was looking forward to a sit down with a mug of mulled cider. So was his mate, Stanley. They had been on duty all night and their shift should have been over, but Secretary Scribbins had sent them to investigate rumours of a crack in the wall of the east corridor on the graveyard level. As well as the crack, Stanley had spotted a suspicious-looking tunnel at the back of the graveyard and so they were doing more investigating as per instructions.
Stanley swapped his spear from one hand to the other. He wished he was the one holding the lantern they had borrowed from the gravedigger.
‘This ’ere tunnel’s goin’ on a bit,’ said Floyd. ‘Reckon we should go back an’ report it? We might’ve found that Secret Way what’s s’posed to be in the down ’ouse somewhere.’
‘Shhh! There’s somethin’ up there!’
Floyd got ready with his club and Stanley pointed his spear. They crept on further, treading as silently as possible for a goblin-Grimm. Suddenly something moved in the darkness.
Stanley screamed. He would spend the rest of his life trying to live it down. Guards weren’t supposed to scream.
The whatever-it-was snarled at them and Floyd waved his club menacingly at the creature. Its eyes glowed in the darkness.
‘It’s a Quick!’
‘Quicks don�
�� look like that,’ wailed Stanley. ‘Not yer normal sorta Quick anyway.’ He was pointing his spear at the whatever-it-was. The spear wobbled in his shaking hands.
‘Pull yerself together, mate,’ said Floyd in disgust.
Stanley would have liked to pull himself together, but he had never seen anything as eerie as the thing in front of him. It wasn’t the eyes filled with white lightning, or the savage snarl that unnerved him, it was the fact that both of these things were on the face of a Quick.
It paused for a moment, eyeing them up. Then it went for Floyd.
Stanley jabbed at it with his spear and missed. Floyd roared and went over backwards, the thing at his throat. The dropped lantern rolled against the wall sending shadows everywhere. There was a struggle in which Floyd also dropped his club. Stanley grabbed it and whacked as hard as he could.
Floyd roared again.
‘Sorry, mate,’ yelped Stanley.
The bundle that was Floyd and his attacker rolled on the floor to a lot of hideous snarling. Blood spattered on the wall making Stanley gulp. He judged his moment and tried again. This time he got it.
Floyd staggered to his feet, gasping. ‘Blimmin’ thing nearly had me throat out!’
‘I got it!’ Stanley looked lovingly at the club. He was going to trade in his spear, he decided.
Floyd stared at the thing on the floor. Now it just looked Quick.
‘Crumbs. I think ya killed ’im.’
‘It was goin’ for yer throat,’ snapped Stanley. ‘Look at ya, covered in blood!’
‘Ya didn’ need to kill ’im.’
‘Yeah, I shoulda waited to see if it ripped ya t’ pieces first!’ said Stanley sarcastically. ‘Too late now, any’ow. Come on, we carn’ leave ’im ’ere. At least it’s not far t’ the graveyard!’
‘Dead Quick,’ said Floyd dumping one end of Jonas on the ground. ‘Nearly ’ad me throat out!’
‘I saved ’im,’ added Stanley, looking nervously up at the gravedigger towering over them.
The gravedigger raised an eyebrow. ‘What, two hulking great things like you couldn’t catch a Quick without bashin’ its ’ead in! Want me t’ bury ’im?’