by Gill, J. G.
The only thing you can do now is pull yourself together and get on with what you came to do in the first place.
I knew I had to find Bede before Demarge handed him over to the police. I stood up again, brushed myself down, and began walking slowly down the stairs. I had only taken a few steps when I thought I heard something, or someone, moving around on the stairwell just above me. My stomach did a back flip of guilt. Had Daden followed me after all? If so, I at least owed him an explanation for why I’d left the Slipworld.
I grabbed the banister and began quickly winding my way up the spirals. I was concentrating so hard on balancing on the thin end of each step that it took me a couple of seconds to notice that the noise above me had stopped. It was only as I was rounding the final corner, to arrive at the middle step, that I caught the glimmer of a black hem slide across the marble. My pulse stopped mid-beat.
“Demarge!”
I started backtracking down the stairs, slowly, softly, using only the balls of my feet.
You’re okay, he didn’t see you, I tried to reassure myself.
Suddenly I heard footsteps coming towards me, growing steadily faster and faster. The time for reassurance was over, I knew I was in serious trouble. I turned and began pelting down the stairs in a blind panic. My boots clattered like hailing rain against the marble, but I didn’t care. As I rounded the final corner, the square doorway to the atrium loomed in front of me. I leapt through it and began running frantically towards the huge wooden doors of the Cathedral.
The footsteps behind me were now closing in. Suddenly, out of the corner of my eye, I caught a glimpse of a black blur. I was almost at the door when a tall figure suddenly stepped in front of me. Before I had time to think, let alone stop, I’d ploughed straight into him. The figure reacted just in time, catching my shoulders in his black-gloved hands. I instantly recoiled, as Demarge arched his right eyebrow, smiling triumphantly.
“Leave me alone,” I said, struggling to keep my voice as level as possible.
“That’s not very polite, especially after you accepted my hospitality just a few days ago,” he said.
I held Demarge’s gaze, as I began inching backwards away from him. To my relief, he didn’t try to narrow the gap. Instead, he just stood there, looking at me as if he was examining a bug under a microscope. So far, so good. Once I figured I was far enough away to make a decent run for it, I turned and bolted for the altar at the far end of the Cathedral. I was directly under the dome, the transepts stretching out to either side of me, when all of a sudden Demarge appeared again, out of nowhere.
“Come Clare, surely Min-Isis has told you who I am by now,” he said.
“So?” I said, sounding painfully like one of those kids in the playground who tries to tough it out with a bully, knowing all the while that they’re about to get their head kicked in. Demarge smiled. He was playing with me now.
“So you’ll know it’s pointless trying to outrun me.”
“I don’t know what you want from me,” I said.
Demarge gave a sceptical snort.
“Oh, I think you know perfectly well what I want,” he said. “Min-Isis and Thomas will have told you that much, I’m sure.” He shook his head, thoughtfully. “In fact, they never would have sent you back if they hadn’t warned you about me.”
“They didn’t send me back,” I blurted out, cursing myself the minute the words had left my mouth. Now was definitely not the time to start acting like I’d taken a powerful truth serum. For some reason though – I had no idea why – there was something about Demarge that made me tell him far more than I ever intended to.
He smiled slyly. “So they don’t know you’re here?” It was more a statement than a question.
I glared at him, determined this time not to say any more than I already had.
“I wonder what could possibly make you disobey Min-Isis and Thomas like that?” Demarge sounded genuinely interested, his eyes gradually clouding with smugness. “It’s your brother, isn’t it? You know I have him.”
“If you’ve hurt Bede…” I trailed off, as the futility of making any sort of threat suddenly slapped me in the face. God versus Clare. No prizes for guessing who was going to win that one.
“You’ll what? Strike me off your Christmas card list?” Demarge’s cruel, hard, laugh reverberated off the walls of the atrium.
“Just tell me he’s okay, that you haven’t handed him to the police, or…” I struggled to find the right words.
Demarge smiled patiently, waiting for me to continue. He was clearly enjoying himself way too much.
“Done anything to him,” I finally managed to stammer, my voice wavering like a badly trained tightrope walker.
“Your brother is perfectly well,” said Demarge. “He could, of course, be a lot better if you co-operated.”
“What?” I said, as a cold shiver rippled through me.
“I’m offering you an opportunity, Clare,” said Demarge coolly. “Agree to join me and you can have your brother.”
“What do you mean?” I said.
“The police will hunt Bede until they find him and when they do, he’ll be charged with murder. Clare, he will be convicted, I’ll make sure of it. We both know the penalty he’ll be lucky to see the light of day again.”
I felt the colour drain from my cheeks. “But he’s innocent,” I said, weakly.
“So save him,” said Demarge.
“You’re blackmailing me into joining you?”
Demarge shrugged. “Everyone has a price, even you.”
“You’re sick,” I said.
“No Clare, just honest.” Demarge arched his right eyebrow mockingly.
“You don’t know anything about me,” I said.
“To the contrary,” said Demarge. “I think you’ll find I know you better than you know yourself.”
I shifted uncomfortably on my feet. He couldn’t possibly be right, he’d only just met me. At the same time though, what did I really know about anything any more? It was only a few hours ago that I’d discovered my whole world was a hoax, dreamt up by the psychopath standing in front of me. I had to admit, there was a good chance I was deluded about a lot of other things too. I could feel my head start to spin as I tried to make sense of it all. But no matter how hard I tried, my thoughts kept crashing into each other like dodgems, rather than fitting neatly together. I took a deep breath, determined to get a grip on myself. Whatever the truth was, I could work it out later. Right now I had to find a way of escaping.
“Whoever you think I am, you’ve got the wrong person,” I said.
Demarge shook his head slowly, smiling at me as if he was humouring a small child.
“There is no mistake, Clare.”
I stared at him, remembering what Min and Thomas had said to me in the Valley of Flowers, about being a Shard and having more light than many others. It still didn’t make any sense, but if it meant helping my brother then fine, I was happy to play along.
“So what do I have to do before Bede will be safe?” I said.
Demarge smiled. “See? I knew you’d come to your senses.”
“I haven’t agreed to anything,” I said, trying to regain whatever ground Demarge thought I’d conceded. “I still don’t understand what you want me to do.”
“It’s very simple” said Demarge. “You can start by showing me where the entrance to the Slipworld is.”
“I can’t, I don’t know where it is,” I said. It wasn’t a complete lie, given how hopeless it had been trying to find my way back.
Demarge looked at me sceptically.
“Then you can show me exactly where you came out on the stairwell. I’ll take it from there.”
I glared at him, desperately wracking my brains for a way to stall for time.
“Come on, think, Clare!” I said to myself. But rather than helping, it just seemed to make my mind go even blanker. I took a step backwards, catching a glimpse of the sign for the underground crypt.
“I don’t remember,” I said. “It all happened so fast.”
Demarge frowned, his eyes narrowing to razor blades. Before I could say another word he lunged towards me, making me jump back in shock. His cool breath skittered lightly across my cheek as he leaned in close to my ear. The warm scent of sandalwood enveloped me completely and for a second all I could think about was closing my eyes and breathing it in.
“Don’t toy with me, Clare,” he whispered. Each word was an ice-cube sliding down my back. I shuddered and stepped away from him. “Shards like you have come and gone for centuries: scientists, explorers, philosophers, even self-professed prophets. They all thought they could defy me and they were all wrong. Every last one. Please Clare, don’t make the same mistake.”
I continued to back away from Demarge, slowly but surely. Glancing behind me, the top of the stairwell to the crypt was now tantalisingly close. Was it worth making a run for it? Could I even make it? There was only one way of finding out.
I turned and fled, hurling myself down the steps with everything I had. My feet skidded sideways under me but I barely noticed. All I could think about was reaching the room at the bottom that housed the ancient graves. Behind me, Demarge’s calm, deliberate footsteps rang out across the atrium like a death knell.
“So you want to play cat and mouse do you? Don’t you know that the cat always wins?”
Demarge’s voice sliced through my panic and into my chest like a cold spike. Deep down I knew he was right. Whatever I did, I was simply delaying the inevitable. Eventually he would find me and drag me up the staircase, and there was nothing I could do about it. But delaying things, even for a few seconds, was still worth it if it meant that Min and Thomas had more time to find Bede and get him safely into the Slipworld.
The stone arch of the crypt was now directly in front of me. I lurched through it, into a square chamber where I was instantly confronted by rows and rows of sarcophagi.
In the dim light, the white marble tubes reminded me of insect larvae, as if the crypt was some sort of hatchery for zombies. I cringed. The crypt had always given me the creeps, ever since I had first visited it with my mother and Bede when I was little. But creeps or no creeps, there was no time to think about it now – I desperately needed a place to hide.
The obvious solution was to find a couple of sarcophagi with a decent amount of crawl space between them. As I ran down the first aisle, I realised it was going to be harder than I thought. Some of the coffins were packed so tightly that there was barely enough room for a cat to squeeze into, let alone a person. By the time I reached the fourth one I was starting to panic. Demarge would be here in no time and I’d be completely out in the open.
Then, just as I was drawing alongside the fifth and sixth sarcophagi, my luck began to turn. Unlike the others, these ones were mounted on a small plinth and there seemed to be a bit more room between them. I jumped up the small flight of stairs, and edged around the front of the two rectangular stone boxes. Each was the height of my hip, giving me enough room to crouch down without being seen. I was about to crawl into the gap between them when I noticed that one of them had a large chunk of its stone lid missing. I could now hear Demarge’s footsteps fast approaching the entrance to the crypt.
“Coming, ready or not,” he called in a sing-song voice.
I froze, staring stupidly at the doorway for a couple of seconds. Any moment now, a long black coat would come swooping into the room and it would all be over. I glanced down at the damaged sarcophagus and sized up the gap in the lid. Then, without stopping to think, I quickly climbed in. It was much tighter than I’d realised, and for a horrible moment I really thought I wasn’t going to make it. But, with a bit of panic-fuelled scraping and shimmying, I finally managed to cram myself in. The thought of lying alongside someone else’s bones made me feel nauseous. I swallowed hard, trying to calm my stomach, and ducked under the lid just as Demarge entered the room.
“You can’t escape, Clare. Wherever you are, come out now and I won’t hurt your friends.”
I held my breath, petrified that even the slightest noise might give me away, as the metallic clip of Demarge’s boots slowly sauntered down the aisle towards me.
“Very well then, if it’s games you want to play…”
There was a loud sizzling noise, like live electricity, followed immediately by an explosion so violent that my stone hideout vibrated on its stand. I jumped in shock, almost hitting my head on the underside of the lid. It took me a couple of seconds to work out exactly what had happened. Then I realised – Demarge must have destroyed one the sarcophagi, looking for me. The sizzling sound started up again and I peered through one of the cracks in the coffin. A jagged bolt of light was snaking its way towards the second sarcophagi, striking it with a lethal blow. I covered my head in my arms as a hailstorm of stones and bones clattered against the slate floor and ricocheted off the lids of the surrounding sarcophagi. If Demarge was going to keep this up I’d have no choice but to surrender. That, or end up being a crispy critter in someone else’s coffin. The third sarcophagus was now exploding and I peered through the crack again to see someone’s skull rolling across the floor, the empty eye sockets glaring at Demarge accusingly.
“Yes?” he said, glaring back at the skull.
He turned suddenly and for a second I felt his eyes bore into me. Had he seen me? I ripped myself away from side of the coffin, my heart beating like a mallet in my chest.
“This is becoming a very boring game, Clare. The longer you make me play it, the worse it will be for you when I do find you.”
Demarge was now just one coffin away from blowing me to smithereens. I had to decide what to do. Fast. If I hung on for another couple of seconds, I could always surrender after Demarge had demolished sarcophagus number four. But what if he didn’t hear me shouting over the sound of falling rubble? Or, what if I was too slow getting out of the coffin and Demarge ended up blasting me without realising that I’d actually surrendered? That really would be a cruel twist of fate, being so uncoordinated that I literally couldn’t save my own life. I realised that there was only one thing I could do, and that was to give myself up immediately. I still had no idea exactly how I was going to talk my way out of showing Demarge the entrance to the Slipworld. I just hoped I’d be able to figure it out once I was back in the atrium.
I quickly shifted my legs so I could crawl back out through the lid, only to find that instead of striking the solid floor of the sarcophagus, my foot was suddenly pawing empty air. I glanced down and noticed something very strange. Not only was the sarcophagus empty, but half the bottom of it was actually missing, so that instead of creamy-grey stone there was just a yawning black void. As my feet, then my knees, tipped over the edge I felt my toes touch something solid. It took me a couple of seconds to register that I was now dangling part way down a staircase.
“What the..?” I breathed to myself.
The walls of my sarcophagus were suddenly buffeted by the aftershock of another explosion and I realised that I was now at the front of the queue for being turned into rubble. Even if I moved at super-human speed, there was no way that I’d now be able scramble out in time. My only option was to get to the bottom of the stairs as fast as I could.
I scurried backwards on my hands and knees until there was just enough space to stand up, and ran until I hit a shallow puddle at the foot of the stairs. Water was trickling down the walls and the place smelt of musty damp moss. As I peered down the long, dark tunnel that stretched out in front of me, the only light was that of fireflies clinging to the ceiling like tiny sequins.
Suddenly, a large chunk of stone crashed down behind me, making me jump, and I turned to see a mound of disintegrated crumbs decorating the stairs. Demarge had now destroyed the sarcophagus I’d been hiding in and it wouldn’t be long until he’d worked out where I’d gone. I turned and ran blindly into the darkness, neither knowing, nor caring, where I was going.
***
Upstairs in
the crypt, Demarge studied the dust clouds swirling up from the fifth ruined sarcophagus. Usually mortals were not this stubborn in the face of such obvious odds. There was something not right about this at all. He caught a chunk of stone that was rolling off the plinth and turned it in his palm, bringing it slowly to his lips. He closed his eyes and breathed deeply.
“So, you decided to hide here?”
A smile spread across Demarge’s face as his eyes flickered open again. He jumped lithely into the dark hole where the sarcophagus had been, landing soundlessly on the floor of the tunnel below. As he rolled up his sleeve, a green snake peered at him with hooded eyes.
“Track her Arius, she can’t get far. I want to know exactly where she goes. In the meantime, I expect I have some guests on their way.”
CHAPTER XXII
I had no idea how long the tunnel was or exactly when I turned the first bend, but I did know that every minute I could force Demarge to lose was another minute that Bede could use to escape. My lungs were burning and my legs felt like lead, but I tried to distract myself by imagining that each of my footsteps was a second on a clock and that if I just kept putting one foot in front of the other the minutes would eventually add up. The bottoms of my jeans were now soaked and I could feel the denim, cold and clammy, sucking against my calves. I had hoped that the tunnel would eventually lead to drier ground, but if anything it was getting wetter. Large puddles shimmered like mini lakes in front of me, isolating small, moist islands of concrete dotted in between. Ordinarily, I would’ve tried island hopping to avoid the water, but not today. Not when I had a psychotic megalomaniac on my tail.
As I rounded another bend I began to think my eyes were playing tricks on me. In the distance, at the end of the corridor, I could see what looked like a door. I blinked a couple of times, but my eyes kept reporting the same information. Soft grey light streamed through it, making criss-cross patterns on the floor. As I drew closer I realised that the top half of the door was covered in an iron mesh. I grabbed the handle and tried to wrench it open, but it wouldn’t budge. I swore, took a deep breath, and tried again. This time the thing creaked. Slightly. Third time lucky I thought as I threw my whole weight behind it.