Nicholas Sayre and the Creature in the Case

by Garth Nix

  Nick’s blood.

  Nick struggled furiously for another second, panic building in every muscle. The ropes did not give at all, and the tube was not dislodged. Then, his strength exhausted, he stopped.

  ‘You need not be concerned, Mr. Nicholas Sayre,’ said Dorrance. He moved around to look at the creature, gently tapping Nick’s slippered feet as he passed. ‘I am taking only a pint. This will all just be a nightmare in the morning, half remembered, with a dozen men swearing to your conspicuous consumption of brandy.’

  As he spoke, the light above him suddenly flared into white-hot brilliance. Then, with a bang, the bulb exploded into powder and the room went dark. Nick blinked, the afterimage of the filament burning a white line across the room. But even with that, he could see another light. Two violet sparks that were faint at first but became brighter and more intense.

  Nick recognized them instantly as the creature’s eyes. At the same time, he smelled a sudden, acrid odor, which got stronger and stronger, coating the back of his mouth and making his nostrils burn. A metallic stench that he knew only too well.

  The smell of Free Magic.

  The violet eyes moved suddenly, jerking up. Nick felt the rubber hose suddenly pulled from his wrist and the wet sensation of blood dripping down his hand.

  He still couldn’t see anything save the creature’s eyes. They moved again, very quickly, as the thing stood up and crossed the room. It ignored Nick, though he struggled violently against his bonds as it went past. He couldn’t see what happened next, but something … or someone … was hurled against his table, the impact rocking it almost to the point of toppling over.

  ‘No!’ shouted Dorrance. ‘Don’t go out! I’ll bring you blood! Whatever kind you need—’

  There was a tearing sound, and flickering light suddenly filled the room. Nick saw the creature silhouetted in the doorway, holding the heavy door it had just ripped from its steel hinges. It threw this aside and strode out into the corridor, lifting its head back to emit a hissing shriek that was so high-pitched, it made Nick’s ears ring.

  Dorrance staggered after it for a moment, then returned and flung open a cabinet on the wall. As he picked up the telephone handset inside, the lights in the corridor fizzed and went out.

  Nick heard the dial spin three times. Then Dorrance swore and tapped the receiver before dialing again. This time the phone worked, and he spoke very quickly.

  ‘Hello? Lackridge? Can you hear me? Yes … ignore the crackle. Is Hodgeman there? Tell him “Situation Dora.” All the fire doors must be barred and the exit grilles activated. No, tell him now … “Dora” … Yes, yes. It worked, all too well. She’s completely active, and I heard Her clearly for the first time, speaking directly into my head, not as a dreaming voice. Sayre’s blood was too rich, and there’s something wrong with it. She needs to dilute it with normal blood … What? Active! Running around! Of course you’re in danger! She doesn’t care whose blood … We need to keep Her in the tunnels; then I’ll find someone … one of the servants. Just get on with it!’

  Nick kept silent, but he remembered the dagger at his hip. If he could bend his hand back and reach it, he might be able to unsheath it enough to work the rope against the blade. If he didn’t bleed to death first.

  ‘So, Mr. Sayre,’ said Dorrance in the darkness. ‘Why would your blood be different from that of any other bearer of the Charter Mark? It causes me some distress to think I have given Her the wrong sort. Not to mention the difficulty that now arises from Her desire to wash Her drink down.’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Nick whispered after a moment’s hesitation. He’d thought of pretending to be unconscious, but Dorrance would certainly test that.

  In the distance, electric bells began a harsh, insistent clangor. At first none sounded in the corridor outside, then one stuttered into life. At the same time, the light beyond the door flickered on, off, and on again, before giving up in a shower of sparks that plunged the room back into total darkness.

  Something touched Nick’s feet. He flinched, taking off some skin against the ropes. A few seconds later there was a click near his head, a whiff of kerosene; and a four-inch flame suddenly shed some light on the scene. Dorrance lifted his cigarette lighter and set it on a head-high shelf, still burning.

  He took a bandage from the same shelf and started to wind it around Nick’s wrist.

  ‘Waste not, want not,’ said Dorrance. ‘Even if your blood is tainted, it has succeeded beyond my dearest hopes. I have long dreamed of waking Her.’

  ‘It, you mean,’ croaked Nick.

  Dorrance tied off the bandage, then suddenly slapped Nick’s face hard with the back of his hand.

  ‘You are not worthy to speak of Her! She is a goddess! A goddess! She should never have been sent away! My father was a fool! Fortunately I am not!’

  Nick chose silence once more, and waited for another blow. But it didn’t come. Dorrance took a deep breath, then bent under the table. Nick craned his head to see what he was doing but could hear only the rattle of metal on metal.

  The man emerged holding two sets of old-style handcuffs, the kind whose cuffs were screwed in rather than key locked. He quickly handcuffed Nick’s left wrist to the metal rail of the bed, then did the same with the second set to his right wrist.

  ‘It has been politic to play the disbeliever about your Charter Magic,’ he said as he screwed the handcuffs tight. ‘But She has told me different in my dreams, and if She can rise so far from the Wall, perhaps your magic will also serve you … and ropes do burn or fray so easily. Rest here, young Nicholas. My mistress may soon need a second drink, whether the taste disagrees with Her or not.’

  After shaking the handcuffs to make sure they were secure, Dorrance picked up his still-burning cigarette lighter and left, muttering something to himself that Nick couldn’t quite hear. It didn’t sound entirely sane, but Nick didn’t need to hear bizarre mumblings to know that Dorrance was neither the harmless eccentric of his public image or the cunning spymaster of his secret identity. He was a madman in league with a Free Magic creature.

  As soon as Dorrance had gone, Nick tested the handcuffs, straining against them. But he couldn’t move his hands more than a few inches off the table, certainly not far enough to reach the screws. However, he could reach the pommel of his dagger with the tips of three fingers. After a few failed attempts, he managed to get the blade out, and by rolling his body, he sliced through the rope on his left wrist, cutting himself slightly in the process.

  He was trying to move his left ankle up toward his hand when he heard the first distant gunshots and screams. There were more, but they got fainter and fainter, lending hope that the creature was moving farther away.

  Not that it made much difference, Nick thought as he rattled his handcuffs in frustration. He couldn’t get free by himself. He would have to work out a plan to get Dorrance to at least uncuff him when he returned. Then Nick might be able to surprise him. If he did return. Until then, Nick decided, he should try to rest and gather his strength. As much as the adrenaline coursing through his bloodstream would let him rest, immobilised on a steel operating table in a secret underground facility run by a lunatic, with a totally inimical creature on the loose.

  He lay in silence for what he estimated was somewhere between fifteen minutes and an hour, though he was totally unable to judge the passage of time when he was in the dark and so wound up with tension. In that time, every noise seemed loud and significant, and made him twist and tilt his head, as if by moving his ears he could better capture and identify each sound.

  There was silence for a while, or near enough to it. Then he heard more gunshots but without the screams. The shots were repeated a few seconds later, louder and closer, and were followed by the slam and echo of metal doors and then hurrying footsteps. Of more than one person.

  ‘Help!’ cried Nick. ‘Help! I’m tied up in here!’

  He figured it was worth calling out. Even fanatical Department Thirteen employe
es must have realised by now that Dorrance was crazy and he’d unleashed something awful upon them.

  ‘Help!’

  The footsteps came closer, and a flashlight beam swung into the room, blinding Nick. Behind its yellow nimbus, he saw two partial silhouettes. One man standing in front of another.

  ‘Get those shackles off and untie him,’ ordered the second man. Nick recognised the voice. It was Constable Ripton. The man who shuffled ahead, allowing the light to fall on his face and side, was Professor Lackridge. A pale and trembling Lackridge, who fumbled with the screws of the handcuffs. Ripton was holding a revolver on him, but Nick doubted that was why the scientist was so scared.

  ‘Sorry to take so long, sir,’ said Ripton calmly. ‘Bit of a panic going on.’

  Nick suddenly understood what Ripton had actually been trying to convey with his quick glances back in the guardroom. His uncle’s words ran through his head.

  It is watched over quite carefully, I assure you.

  ‘You’re not really D13, are you? You’re one of my uncle’s men?’

  ‘Yes, sir. Indirectly. I report to Mr. Foxe.’

  Nick sat up as the handcuffs came off, and quickly sliced through the remaining ropes. He was not entirely surprised to see the faint glimmer of Charter Marks on the blade, though they were nowhere near as bright and potent as they’d be near the Wall.

  ‘Can you walk, sir? We need to get moving.’

  Nick nodded. He felt a bit light-headed but otherwise fine, so he guessed he hadn’t lost too much blood to the creature.

  ‘Sorry,’ Lackridge blurted out as Nick slid off the table and stood up. ‘I never … never thought that this would happen. I never believed Dorrance, thought only to humour him … He said that she spoke to him in dreams, and if it was more awake, then … We hoped to be able to discover the secret of waking mental communication … It was—’

  ‘Mind control is what Dorrance thought he could get from it,’ Ripton said, interrupting him. He tapped his coat pocket. ‘I’ve got your diary here. Mind control through people’s dreams. And you just went along with whatever Dorrance wanted, you stupid sod.’

  ‘What’s actually happening?’ asked Nick. ‘Has it killed anyone?’

  Lackridge choked out something unintelligible.

  ‘Anyone! It’s killed almost everyone down here, and by now it’s probably upstairs killing everyone there,’ said Ripton. ‘Guns don’t work up close to it, bullets fired farther back don’t do a thing, and the electric barrier grilles just went phhht when it walked up! As soon as I figured it was trying to get out, I doubled around behind it. Now I reckon we follow its path outside and then run like the clappers while it’s busy—’

  ‘We can’t do that,’ said Nick. ‘What about the guests? And the servants—even if they do work for D13, they can’t be abandoned.’

  ‘There’s nothing we can do,’ said Ripton. He no longer appeared so calm. ‘I don’t know what that thing is, but I do know that it has already killed a dozen highly trained and fully armed D13 operatives. Killed them and … and drunk their blood. Not … not something I ever want to see again …’

  ‘I know what it is,’ said Nick. ‘Somewhat. It is a Free Magic creature from the Old Kingdom. A source of Free Magic itself, which is why guns and electricity don’t work near it. I would have thought that bullets coming in from farther away would at least hurt it, though …’

  ‘They bounced off. I saw the lead splashes on its hide … Here’s a flashlight. You go in front, Professor. Get your key ready.’

  ‘We have to try to save the people upstairs,’ Nick said firmly as they nervously entered the corridor, flashlight beams probing the darkness in both directions. ‘Has it definitely already got out of here?’

  ‘I don’t know! It was through the second guardroom. The library exit might slow it more. It’s basically a revolving reinforced concrete-and-steel slab, like a vault door. Supposed to be bombproof—’

  ‘Is there another way up?’

  ‘No,’ said Ripton.

  ‘Yes,’ said Lackridge. He stopped and turned, the bronze key gleaming in his hand. Ripton stepped back, and his finger whipped from resting outside the trigger guard to curl directly around the trigger.

  ‘The dumbwaiter!’ Lackridge blurted out. ‘Dorrance has a dumbwaiter from the wine cellar below us here, which goes up through his office to the pantry above.’

  ‘What time is it?’ asked Nick.

  ‘Half eight,’ said Ripton. ‘Or near enough.’

  ‘The guests will be at dinner,’ said Nick. ‘They won’t have heard what’s going on down here. If we can take the dumbwaiter to the pantry, we might be able to get everyone out of the house before the creature breaks through to the library.’

  ‘And then what?’ asked Ripton. ‘Talk as we go. Head for the office, Prof.’

  ‘It’s not a Dead thing, so running water won’t do much,’ said Nick as they broke into a jog. ‘Fire might, though … If we made a barrier of hay and set it alight, that could work. It would attract attention at least. Bring help.’

  ‘I don’t think the sort of help we need exists around here,’ said Ripton. ‘I’ve never been up north, but I know people in the NPRU, and this is right up their alley. Things like this just don’t happen down here.’

  ‘No, they don’t,’ said Nick. ‘They wouldn’t have happened this time, either, only Dorrance fed his creature the wrong blood.’

  ‘I don’t understand,’ Lackridge said, puffing after them. Now that they were heading for a possible exit, he had gotten more of a grip on himself. ‘I didn’t believe him … but … Dorrance thought the blood of one of you people with the Charter brand would rouse the creature a little, without danger. Then when we got you to come in for the Forwin Mill investigation, he saw you had a Charter Mark. The opportunity was too good to resist—’

  ‘Shut up!’ ordered Ripton. As Lackridge calmed down, the policeman got more tense.

  ‘Dorrance worships the creature, but I don’t think even he wanted it this active,’ snapped Nick. ‘I can’t explain the whole thing to you, but my blood is infused with Free Magic as well as the Charter. I guess the combination is what got the creature going so strongly … but it was too rich or something; that’s why it’s trying to dilute it with normal blood … I wonder if that means that the power it got from my blood will run out. Maybe it’ll just drop at some point …’

  Lackridge shook his head, as if he still couldn’t believe what he was hearing, despite the evidence.

  ‘It might come back for a refill from you as well,’ said Ripton. ‘Here’s the office. You first, Professor.’

  ‘But what if the creature’s in there?’

  ‘That’s why you’re going first,’ said Ripton. He gestured with his revolver, and when Lackridge still didn’t move, he pushed him hard with his left hand. The bulky ex-boxer rebounded from the door and stood there, his eyes glazed and jowls shivering.

  ‘Oh, I’ll go first!’ said Nick. He pushed Lackridge aside a little more gently, turned the door handle, and went into Dorrance’s office. It was the room he’d been in before, with the big leather club chairs, the desk, and the liquor cabinet.

  ‘It’s empty—come on!’

  Ripton locked the door after them as they entered the room, and then he slid the top and bottom bolts home.

  ‘Thought I heard something,’ he whispered. ‘Maybe it’s coming back. Keep your voices down.’

  ‘Where’s the dumbwaiter?’ asked Nick.

  Lackridge crossed to a bookshelf and pressed a corner. The whole shelf swung out an inch, allowing Lackridge to get a grip and open it out completely. The beam of Nick’s flashlight revealed a square space behind it about three feet high and just as wide: a small goods elevator or dumbwaiter.

  ‘We’ll have to go one at a time,’ said Ripton. He slipped his revolver into his shoulder holster, laid his flashlight on the desk, and dragged one of the heavy studded leather chairs against the door. ‘You first, Mr S
ayre. I think it must have heard us, or smelled us, or something; there’s definitely movement outside—’

  ‘Let me go!’ Lackridge burst out, darting toward the elevator. He was brought up short as Ripton whirled around and kicked him behind the knee, bringing him crashing down, his fall rattling the bottles in the liquor cabinet.

  Nick hesitated, then climbed into the dumbwaiter. There were two buttons on the outside frame of the elevator, one marked with an up arrow and one with a down; but as he expected, neither did anything. However, there was a hatch in the ceiling, which when pushed open revealed a vertical shaft and some heavily greased cables. The shaft was walled with old yellow bricks, and some had been removed every few feet to make irregular, but usable, hand and footholds.

  Nick ducked his head out and said, ‘It’s electric, not working. We’ll have to climb the—’

  His voice was drowned out as the metal office door suddenly rang like a bell and the middle of it bowed in, struck with tremendous force from the other side.

  ‘Fire!’ Nick shouted as he jumped out of the elevator. ‘Start a fire against the door!’

  He rushed to the liquor cabinet and ripped it open as the creature struck the door again. This second blow sheared the top bolt and bent the top half of the door over, and a dark shape with glowing violet eyes could be seen beyond the doorway. At the same time, Ripton’s flashlight shone intensely bright for a second, then went out forever.

  The remaining flashlight, left in the elevator, continued to shine erratically. Nick frantically threw whisky and gin bottles at the base of the door, and Ripton struck a match on the chair leg, swearing as it burst into splinters instead of flame. Then his second match flared and he flicked it across to the alcohol-soaked chair, and there was a blue flash and a ball of flame exploded around the door, searing off both Ripton’s and Nick’s eyebrows.

  The creature made a horrid gargling, drowning sound and backed away. Nick and Ripton retreated to the wall and hunched down to try to get below the smoke, which was already filling the room. Lackridge was still slumped on the floor, not moving, the smoke twirling and curling over his back.