“My head hurts,” Tim added, rising from the other side of the room in a mess of mucous, wires and his crystal helmet.
“Where’s the King?” Jon asked as he reached for Neon, his legs unsteady but determined. He felt for her arms, her hands, her head, every inch of her, just to make sure she was truly there.
“Oric?” He smiled as he hugged her, planting a kiss on her wide forehead. “Oric, we’ve done it!” he repeated. “You’ve done it!”
But the boy didn’t answer.
And it was then Neon noticed the frail body at the foot of her bed. Oric, the brightest among them - the crippled boy who could hear her thoughts a world away.
The Seeker who’d saved her.
“Oric! Oric!” the children cried, falling over themselves as they reached his delicate frame, wiping the milk from his face, his mouth, only to discover red marks around his neck.
Oric had been strangled.
Chapter Thirty-Six
THE SUN was beginning to rise over Albion, sparrows trilling and dappled light creeping in through the open window of the jailhouse where Sir Wilfred Justice was stirring, naked, on a cell floor.
“Good morning,” Tucker yawned as he entered through the partition door of the sheriff’s office, a steaming mug of coffee in his hand. His head was heavily bandaged, his hair sprouting out of the top, his face and arms patterned with black bruises.
“Man, when you run out of booze you really throw yourself a party, don’t you?” he grinned as Sir Justice hastily pulled at the remains of a blanket. A bunch of keys and all his weapons lay scattered beyond his locked door.
“Shut up, sock head, and pass me my guns,” he growled, a puff of feathers spilling from a perforated pillow below him. Scraps of clothing and bed sheets, all little more than rags, littered the cell, the walls of which were splintered.
What the hell’s happened here? he thought dimly.
Tucker laughed and kicked the sheriff’s holster under the bars, his heels clicking against the wooden floor.
Sir Justice remained seated as he checked the weapons, desperately trying to recall the events of the previous night. He couldn’t but he didn’t want Tucker to know that.
“So, how did you get on over at the barracks, Mister Tucker?” he asked eventually, and then, “Wait a minute, are you wearing my spurs?”
Tucker looked down at the metal spikes he’d clipped to the back of his trainers as the door to the jailhouse flew open. It was Eleanor, the King’s Guard, her arm in a sling and a thick plaster across her forehead.
“Well stick my arse in an oven and call me a couched potato, is that a King’s Guard I see before me?” Sir Justice said happily. “I thought you were down in the sewers, Eleanor? How did you get out of that one?”
The guard took one look at him, the blanket barely concealing his modesty, and turned to Tucker. “We’ve searched all over the castle, the stables, the grounds. There’s no sign of him.”
“No sign of who?” Sir Justice said as he drew the cover further across his legs, then, “Hey, Mister Tucker, are you wearing my badge?”
Tucker ignored him. “What about the farm, Captain? His royal allotments?”
“Allotments?” the sheriff repeated. “Captain?”
“Good idea, Deputy,” Eleanor nodded. “I’ll organise my troops.”
“Deputy?” The sheriff laughed as she left. “That was just my wee joke, Mister Tucker, I wasnae serious! And where’s Carol?”
“She’s dead.” Jon Way spoke from the door of the office, his face and clothes streaked in what looked like white paint. “And I wish you’d be quiet, Wilfred, the children are trying to sleep in here. What in hellfire have you been up to anyway? Where’s your cast?”
Sir Justice looked down at his bare limbs, the broken leg seemingly set, the plaster in pieces, strewn across his cell. “Well, I, er,” he rubbed his head, “I seem to have gotten better,” he mumbled, before looking up to see Buckley sweeping in through the open window.
The falcon screeched, her wings beating white, the streaming vortex swelling from her chest, until...
POP!
Princess Serena stepped forward, the bird flapping behind her before clumsily perching on a metal locker.
“He’s nowhere, Jon,” Serena’s words came in a rush as she embraced her husband. “I’ve looked everywhere - the castle, the farm, the industrial quarter - he’s completely vanished,” she cried. “How could he do this to us?”
The sheriff’s frustration was mounting. “Would someone please tell me what the bastard bollocks is going on?”
Serena turned to him, her bronze skin stained white like her husbands. “Sir Justice I need you to put out a warrant. A warrant for the arrest of my father, the King.”
Sir Justice swept his long filthy hair back over his head. “Okay, Deputy,” he said to Tucker. “I think you’d better get me a drink.”
Minutes later they had all crammed into the sheriff’s office with the Seekers, some of them asleep, others, like Neon, bleary eyed as she sat on her father’s knee.
Sir Justice was at his desk, dressed in his familiar leather jacket, its stitching stretched and the leather loose and baggy. He sipped at a tumbler of whisky. “Right,” he said, “let’s start at the beginning. What happened to Carol?”
“She died trying to save Six,” Tucker began. “She was one of them, one of the conspirators...”
“Hold on, boy, slow down,” Sir Justice held up his hand. “Knight Six then, is she alive? Did you kill the wolf?”
Tucker nodded. “Yeah, between us we did,” he smiled, his grin proudly displaying a missing tooth. “You were right. He had her tied up under the barracks in the sewers.”
“The monster’s body is being examined by the Professor in his laboratory,” Jon added. “Though it’s no longer a monster, Wilfred, it’s a man.”
“He’d been torturing Six, trying to find out who killed Lord Truth. He wanted to know what happened, just like us.” Tucker said, a silver deputy’s star pinned to his chest.
“Only he was seeking revenge, working with the spirit that held Neon’s soul captive,” Serena’s eyes bore into the sheriff’s. “Captive in a place called the Other Worlds. Using her powers to help pinpoint the conspirators.”
“It was only together, when we entered into a trance in Neon’s hospital room,” Jon added, smiling at his daughter, “that we managed to reach her.”
“Okay,” Sir Justice nodded uncertainly and finished his drink. “What about our little conspiracy then? How do we now know Carol was involved?”
“Six reckons she saw one of the diamonds from her insignia in Parliament,” Tucker answered. “We think she must have snuck in and set the trap during the party the night before the mission.”
Sir Justice reached into his jacket for his pipe. “The party in Lord Truth’s honour at the castle, you mean?” he mulled the idea over as he pulled a pouch of tobacco from his drawer. “Aye, that would make sense. But there were two monkeys, Mister Tucker, the bomb and the trigger. The one that Giles had and the other that the watchmaker designed,” he shook his head. “It would have been too dangerous for Carol to release both.”
“So maybe Eddie released the other one?” Tucker frowned. “Either way, Carol had her hands full. Her monkey probably attacked her before she placed it in the vault with the trip-wired machine gun, and the insignia came off in the fight.”
“She certainly had a motive,” Serena agreed. “Lord Truth had publicly spurned her, kicked her out of his knights, and she was now in a relationship with my father...”
“Let’s come back to him later,” Sir Justice interrupted, packing his pipe. His head was spinning and half his thoughts were still tied to the state of his cell. Besides, the King was an old friend and certainly, he reasoned, no killer.
“Okay, so that’s Carol, Mister Tucker, remind me,” the sheriff said, stalling for time. “Who else do we have?”
Tucker looked tired as he counted the murderers
off on his fingers, each of them now victims of the werewolf. “Carol, Edwin Manifold the city clerk...”
“Aye, the organiser of our secret society. He brought them all together, the postman Giles spotted in his kitchen,” Sir Justice poured himself another drink. “Go on.”
“Pa Coven the farmer, Terry Callier the watchmaker...”
Sir Justice nodded. “He was the engineer who built the second monkey, the trigger, parts of which you discovered in his workshop. Pa Coven paid him for his trouble, no doubt, but both of them would have done well from Lord Truth’s demise. And what about the first monkey? Who stole it?”
“Eddie,” Tucker answered.
“Correct, the only person other than yourself, Six, Al or Giles to have the code for the safe, and the intelligence gatherer for the mission itself. He obviously liked Lord Truth as much as you did,” the sheriff wagged his finger at the boy.
Tucker said nothing, his head low.
“So, between those five the trap was conceived and then it was left to Carol and Eddie to set it.” Sir Justice nodded before bringing a match to his pipe and glancing around the room in triumph. “And what do you know, there were no telepaths involved!”
“I’m afraid that’s where you’re wrong, Wilfred,” Jon said bluntly. “The King, he,” the magician stuttered, “he has powers.”
“Since when?” Sir Justice exclaimed, almost spitting the pipe from his mouth before he could light it.
“That’s what we’ve been trying to tell you!” Tucker moaned, his face drawn and haggard as he lent over the desk. “The King. He was in control of everything.”
“He always has been,” Serena shrugged. “How else do you think this place ever got built? A TV studio and theme park in the middle of nowhere? Haven’t you ever wondered?”
“His telepathic skills are more potent than any of ours, Sir Justice,” Neon said, glancing around the room at the Seekers. “And more subtle. He’d been using them to block us, to stop us from finding out about his conspiracy, you see? Only Oric realised...” she trailed off.
“The wee boy told you this?” Sir Justice asked.
“He was speaking to me as I returned from the Other Worlds,” Neon nodded, tears gathering at her eyes. “I’m sure of it. And then, when we got here...”
“He was strangled,” Jon Way said, wrapping his daughter in his arms as she began to sob. “We brought them here because we just didn’t know where else to go, Wilfred. He killed an innocent child.”
“But why, Jon, why would the King do that?” Sir Justice pulled on his pipe, smoke puffing from its bowl. “What proof do you have? And what evidence is there that he helped kill Lord Truth?”
“Well none, Wilfred, but...”
“But it makes total sense!” Tucker yelled, his temper breaking. “You said it yourself, how else could this conspiracy have worked without anyone knowing? And when he found out Oric knew he must’ve panicked.”
“My skills are so limited, Wilfred,” Jon Way added. “I can only try to tune my mind into that of another. If his abilities are so acute there’s no reason why he couldn’t use them to dampen others thoughts, mine included. Besides,” the magician pleaded, “he was the only one left in the room.”
“Aye, because you were all asleep,” Sir Justice muttered.
Their arguments stalled, the room quietened until Tim, the freckle-faced boy with the curly hair, sniffed. “We took Oric to the doctors but it was too late.”
“We couldn’t save him,” Makoto added, blowing her nose.
Almost all the children were crying now. “Oh Oric!” Amber wailed, her red bow drenched white and hanging low in her hair.
“Please, Sir Justice, can’t you help us?” Neon asked, her tears causing pink tracks to line her smudged face. “You saved me from that lake. We trust you.”
“But what can I do, little princess?” Sir Justice replied, exasperated. “Besides messages from beyond the grave, you’ve no proof!”
“But I don’t want my grandfather to be a murderer,” Neon cried. “I love him.” She looked around the room at the other Seekers, her parents. “And I betrayed everyone here, just as he did. I drew that spirit towards us and kept quiet because I thought he could save us,” her head dropped. “I made a mistake. Maybe the King made a mistake too?”
“But he killed Oric!” Tim started.
“I must admit, I thought you’d be more understanding than this, Wilfred.” Jon gathered Neon in his arms as the Seekers began arguing. “Come on Serena, let’s take the children to the school house, they’ll be safe there.” The magician then caught his wife’s worried glance. “We’ll stay with them,” he added.
Tucker watched them go before turning on the sheriff himself. “What’s wrong with you? We’ve finally got a chance of cracking this conspiracy and you’re giving up?”
“We find the King, we bring him in for questioning,” the sheriff sighed, “but there’s no proof,” he repeated, his eyes never leaving the whiskey bottle.
“And until then you’re just gonna get drunk again, without even checking the crime scene or anything?”
“I’m tired, Mister Tucker,” the sheriff groaned as he poured himself another glass. “I need some time to think.”
“You’re pathetic, a joke,” Tucker slid from his chair and unclipped his badge. “And I’ll tell you what else. I think all of them, everybody, they all died for nothing. I’ll bet there never was an antidote to the blood plague. Why should there be?”
The door slammed and Sir Justice was alone, his mind whirling as he gazed at the metal star left on his desk. He drank in an attempt to quell the chaos raging within him. The antidote? He shook his head. Was that just another lie too? I hadn’t even thought of that. There’s so much I don’t know, father, he gazed at the picture of The Justice Family on his wall. So much...
Testing his leg with his weight, he stood. There was barely any pain from the break, as if the bone had completely healed. He ambled back to the cells, inspecting the scratched walls and ripped sheets. Did I really do all this?
A knock on the jailhouse door made him jump. “Go away Mister Tucker!” he bellowed, and then he watched a shadow rap on the murky glass again.
“Bobbins Miss Robbins!” the sheriff began, striding over to the door and swinging it open. And there was an old man covered in a blanket, a fading pot plant in his hands.
“What the hell is that?” Sir Justice said as the bent figure shuffled inside, the shawl falling from his velvet suit and craggy face. His cheeks were wet with tears.
The King forced a gap-toothed smile. “Hello Wilfred,” he said, a white flower wilting within the pot. “I hear you’re looking for me?”
.............
Six stood in the office above Al’s Bar, the cracked pair of sunglasses in her hands. Lord Truth’s sunglasses. The ones whose location she’d been protecting in the sewers, more out of stubbornness than hope.
You may need them to see things differently, Six pulled on the sleeves of her thick hockey sweater as she remembered Lord Truth’s words, so long forgotten since Parliament. Well, I guess there must be something in it, otherwise why on earth would the wolf have wanted them so badly? she thought.
She gently turned the spectacles over, trying to examine them from all sides. They were exactly the same as she remembered them - the same weight, the same black plastic rims. Six put them on but the world looked no stranger seen through them, just darker. Even the split in the left lens made little difference to her vision.
They were just an ordinary pair of dark glasses.
The Devil’s glasses.
Six bit her lip. Could Lord Truth really have caused the end of the world? she wondered. Is that why they wanted to kill him?
Moving her bruised limbs slowly, she picked up a gold magnifying glass from Al’s desk and switched on the standard lamp beside it. The office had been cleared since the last time she’d burgled it. The cushions were back in place, the books and the trinkets.
/> It’s almost as though nothing’s changed, she thought sadly.
Under the light she could see that each of the spectacles’ lenses came in two pieces - with a plastic shell at the front and a thicker glass lens at the back. But that didn’t seem too out of the ordinary. It wasn’t until she peered through the magnifying glass that she discovered a small hole, cast in metal, under the right arm.
What’s that? she thought, before she was interrupted.
“Oh hello,” Giles said quietly behind her. “I didn’t realise you were up here.”
Six stood frozen. She didn’t know what to say or where to begin, even where to look. The cook seemed to frown as he noticed her swollen eyes and bruised cheeks, her bloody lips.
What could I even say to him? Six wondered. Thanks for abandoning me when I was attacked by a rabid werewolf? Thanks for helping a bunch of people plot to kill me, and Tucker, and all the knights, and Lord Truth?
As she struggled for words the old man began rustling through a dresser behind a dusty trombone. As if thwarted in his search, he then tried another drawer before finally locating his prize. Six watched as he pulled out a set of earphones complete with a mic and a small controller, already adapted to run off a crystal.
“Here,” he said, before fishing a blue gem from his pocket and attaching it. His hands shook as he handed them over. “This might work?”
“Thanks,” she said.
He moved forward to hug her, but she stepped back.
Six watched her grandfather leave, his shoulders hunched, before properly inspecting the bundle. The headphone jack was tiny and looked the perfect fit for the small hole. She plugged it in and put the headphones on before locating a switch on the control unit.
Well, here goes nothing, she thought.
Six pushed the button and the glasses burst into life. She was so shocked she almost dropped them as a fine line of light from the back of the spectacles began tracing her frame, mapping the contours of her body before a fanfare of music blasted through the headphones, the lenses themselves transformed into two identical screens.
The Last Days Page 30