Ned turned to look ahead and as he did so, George suddenly slowed. Ahead of them a pair of gor-balins had just dispatched one of the BBB’s guards, and now turned to face Ned and George.
“Hold on!” said George, who was about to leap at them, his legs flexed in readiness, when Mr Fox stepped out from a doorway. His face was red, angry beyond words, and he lashed out at the gor-balins violently.
“This is my –” the heavy Taser found one of the creature’s necks and it shook in a painful spasm – “COMPOUND!”
Ned had rarely seen anything like it. He was as fast as Monsieur Couteau, with his mum’s flair and training, but the singular purpose with which he used his baton took Ned’s breath away. Every strike was both clinical and violent, and as the gobs fell to a heap, he almost felt sorry for them. A staggered Ned could only wonder at the man as Mr Fox looked away to regain his composure.
“I’m sorry you had to see that, gentlemen. Inside, if you will,” urged Mr Fox.
The BBB’s foremost agent began talking into his earpiece, flicking from one comms channel to the next as his men provided a stream of garbled intel. His expression had completely changed now, the anger all gone. It was replaced by a face carved from marble – expressionless, alert and completely focused on the task in hand. He’d seen that look before and it had been worn by Benissimo. Both men would ride whatever storm to protect their own.
When Ned entered the safe room, he saw his friend and Medic waiting for him.
“Lucy! Have you seen Mum and Dad?”
“No, Ned, but I can ‘feel’ them – they’re alive, I’m sure of it.”
Ned let himself relax, if only slightly.
“She’s right,” said Mr Fox. “The heart of the fighting has been in the top floors and from what I’m being told, your parents and Benissimo have led a victorious counter-attack through the middle. It seems that Barba has, at least this time, underestimated the forces he needed for a proper assault … George, we’d best head up and help the others. I have the codes to get us through once the corridors are shuttered. There’s a party forming to mop up what’s left of the gobs. Ned, Lucy, this room is made of reinforced concrete and stainless steel. Nothing is getting in or out till I lift the lockdown, which will start as soon as these doors close again behind us. Don’t worry, I should think you’ll be out of here within the hour.”
George and Mr Fox then exited the room in a hurry, the automatic door’s pneumatic sliding mechanism opening for them on their way through. As it started to close again, there were two loud crunches from the corridor outside, followed by the unmistakable sound of falling bodies on concrete.
“What was that?” asked a terrified Ned.
He had just seen what Mr Fox was capable of, and he knew that taking George out was an almost impossible feat. The hairs on his neck and arms began to prickle.
“I don’t know.”
Lucy moved quickly, drawing out a dagger that Monsieur Couteau had given her and turned to face the door. Very slowly, the door’s heavy steel mechanism that had been closing started to work backwards.
“Stay behind me, Ned.”
“Shouldn’t you be behind me?”
“Do you have a weapon?”
“Fair point.”
The door slid open and Ned’s nose was hit with a vile and familiar smell. There on the other side was the unsightly bulk of Mo, club in hand and fresh from use, followed immediately by a grinning Meanie.
Instinctively, Ned raised his ring, but even as he did so his face fell. He thought of daggers, of ice and fire, of anything, and the more he tried, the more it fizzled to nothing.
“Gotchi-gotchi, jossy-boy,” boomed Mo.
And he had. Ned wanted to scream – the two clowns were like something from a horror film, all in black but with their same brightly coloured hair and cracked make-up. Their new clothes did little to mask the stench in the windowless room, but it was their smiles that turned his stomach.
“You shouldn’t have come here,” Lucy warned and closed her eyes, readying herself to use her powers when Meanie raised his musket.
“No blinky-tink, twitchy-witch, or I’s shootin’ you deadsie.”
There was literally no escape – not this time. Not even George could burst into the room, because his great protector was unconscious on the floor outside. It was then that another figure walked through the door and sealed their fate.
Sar-adin’s eyes were glowing a fiery red. He was still in his human form, but there was no mistaking the power that rippled across his skin. There were few things Ned hated more than clowns, but one of them was standing in the room right beside them. This was the Demon who had destroyed Kitty in a final furious outburst. Back then, Ned and the old Farseer had defeated Sar-adin in battle. But that was a different time, and a very different Ned.
“Murderer!” he seethed.
“Jossy-boy’s pet blob do murder! Blob kill weenie-Eanie. Only two cloons noo, two ANGRY cloons.”
“Silence!” said Sar-adin, raising his hands. His eyes glowed more brightly and his fingers began to smoke with the smell of burning sulphur.
“You failed! Your gobs are losing and you won’t get away, not this time,” said Lucy, hand gripped firmly on the handle of her blade.
Meanie, the tallest of the clowns, laughed. It was high-pitched and cruel, and Mo smiled greedily beside him.
“We not coomes for de odders. We only coomes for yous two.”
Mo and Meanie closed the gap between them till Ned’s eyes watered from their stench. Ned stepped closer to Lucy and took her hand as they shared a terrified look.
“Now, Sar-ee-dins, crushin’ and smushin’?” begged Mo.
“Yes, now,” said Sar-adin, and his hands erupted in a flash of blinding fire.
For a moment the room turned hot and white, and when Ned refocused his eyes he saw two small piles of burnt soot, smoking on the floor. Ned and Lucy stood speechless. The Demon had turned the clowns to blackened powder before their eyes.
Slowly, the fire playing across Sar-adin’s skin died out and he lowered his arms.
“Repulsive creatures, were they not? Now, I wish to speak with you. Both of you.”
The Enemy of My Enemy is My Friend
he next morning the BBB was alive with the news – Barbarossa’s Demon had risked life and limb to pass the Engineer and the Medic a message: the Darkening King would soon rise. Wounded or not, the Hidden were preparing for battle.
It turned out that Benissimo’s Demon informant and Sar-adin were one and the same and they had let the creature escape so that Barbarossa still believed him to be loyal to his cause. Mr Fox had called an emergency meeting of the Nest’s key decision makers. They all sat at the table and quietly listened to the two friends’ story.
It was the first time Ned had seen Mr Fox since the attack. The young agent had till now been locked in his room and, according to Abi, he’d been heard arguing with Mr Spider on numerous occasions. In front of him were his laptop, a ream of notes in a binder and carefully laid out pens with especially sharpened pencils. He was an entirely different man from the raging machine Ned had witnessed the night before. Behind him was Mr Badger, who stood observing silently with his usual brick-like demeanour.
The rest of the room was barely listening. The Viceroy had not recovered from the attack. The poor man hadn’t just lost men, and his fleet – he’d lost his heart in the crumbling debris that had become of his city.
“What do we have to fight them with? You’ve seen what’s left of my men and our allies,” he said.
“Barba clearly knows where we are and who we’ve sided with,” said Benissimo. “There’s no need to hide our plans any more. I say we put out a call to everyone this time. Every free and able man or woman of the Hidden. They’ll come, Tom – they’ll heed our call.”
For a second the Viceroy quietened, mulling over Benissimo’s words, but what he’d seen at the hands of Demons and their tinpot men would not let him free of its hold.
“You weren’t there. You didn’t see the Demons or their machines – you’ve no idea what they’re capable of. The Hidden will be too frightened to come, and with good reason. This Sar-adin and his visit changes nothing.”
“It does if he can lead us to the beast.”
“But a Demon, for pity’s sake!” cried the Viceroy.
“The same Demon who told us about the Heart Stone in the first place,” roared back Benissimo. “He had every chance to kill the boy, but he took the clowns instead.”
“A ruse to gain their trust, nothing more. Clearly the object houses immense power. What if your brother wants the stone for himself? This could all be part of some elaborate trap. For all we know, Tiamat is in cahoots with Barbarossa, or even the Darkening King himself … By Albert, man, think.”
From the other side of the table, there was a quiet snap from one of Mr Fox’s pencils. Mr Fox did not look up, but his face was turning to a shade of red and he began to hum.
“Humph, hum – hurr.” As he went on, the humming turned into a kind of huffing. “Hruff, rum, rar.”
“Fox?” said the Ringmaster. “By the gods, man, what’s got into you?!”
“Hrumph, frumph, frhur.”
His face became a searing purple and then Mr Fox exploded. He threw his laptop across the room violently, and it shattered where it hit the wall. He grabbed at his remaining pencils and broke them all at once, then threw the contents of his binder into the air. As the sheets of printouts floated to the table, he finally spoke.
“You’re all going to die!” he said. Then his face dropped. “We’re all going to blasted well die, all of us, unless we take action together.”
For maybe the second time since Ned had known him, Benissimo was at a momentary loss for words. He blinked, ruffled his moustache and leant back in his chair. He then cocked his head to one side, taking in the normally controlled agent, and smiled.
“Zeus’s crown, I didn’t know you had it in you, Mr Fox.”
Mr Fox sat back in his chair again and cleared his throat. “My training does not allow for outbursts, but Darklings have attacked my base and I do not like Darklings.”
Which, as far as Ned could see, was abundantly obvious.
“They have killed my men and women, the bravest and truest men and women in the world. I swore an oath not to let that happen and yet it has. We weren’t the only ones attacked last night. There have been outbreaks of violence in every Hidden outpost across the globe. Don’t you see? Your brother has sent us all a very clear message. He intended to strike fear into all our hearts, to break us before the battle even started, and if the clowns had killed the children last night … well, he would have succeeded. Sar-adin stopped that from happening. This is not over. Not yet.”
Olivia Armstrong put a warm hand on Lucy’s shoulder, and addressed them all. “Seeing that he only spoke to Ned and Lucy, shouldn’t they be the ones to decide whether he can be trusted?”
Lucy was the first to speak. “There’s no doubt that Sar-adin is evil. I’ve never sensed anything like it before, not even in Carrion or the Central Intelligence. But as evil as he is, he’s also frightened, and from what I know Demons can’t feel fear. As he tells it, the Darkening King and Barbarossa have made a pact.”
Ned looked to Benissimo and remembered what he’d told him about his brother and their curse.
“Your brother thinks that the Veil will be torn down and that he’ll get to rule over the world in exchange for bringing him back, but he’s wrong and he can’t see it. Sar-adin can. The Darkening King feeds on suffering. If he comes back, he’ll make everyone pay – humans, the Hidden, Darklings and Demons, we’ll all be slaves.” She paused, overcome for a moment.
Ned noticed, and took over. “Sar-adin says he can get us into the fortress – he’ll get a message to us when the time comes. According to him, we have to strike the beast at the precise moment that it forms. Too early, and there will be nothing to kill; too late, and he’ll be too strong.”
“And how long do we have?”
“He rises in three days.” And even as he said it, Ned’s stomach turned.
Benissimo nodded and turned his attentions to the Tinker. “And is what the Demon told them true? Are both Medic and Engineer needed to draw from the Heart Stone’s power?”
The Tinker’s eyes were so bloodshot from tiredness that they’d turned almost entirely red. “Well, boss, it is an object of extraordinary power, there’s no doubting it. I think Sar-adin is quite correct and I have a theory. The Heart Stone has very similar properties to the Source. It focuses magic, that is, it draws it from the earth itself, like a magnet. The Fey have been using it for generations to give them their powers, in the same way that the Veil draws its power from the Source in Annapurna. But they are different.”
“Go on.”
“I believe the First Ones – the ones who built the Source, as well as Lucy and Ned’s rings – based their technology on the stone and the way it works. The lines between science and magic blur often, but we mustn’t forget that the Heart Stone is pure, primal magic, the likes of which we’ll never fully comprehend. Ned and Lucy could in theory connect to the Heart Stone the same way they connected to the Source, but I have no idea what it will do to them if they do, especially if they’re not, um, fully in charge of their powers.”
Ned saw Lucy, his parents and Benissimo exchange a look.
“Well, let’s not worry about that for now,” said the Ringmaster hastily. “Thank you, everyone. Time is indeed our enemy and I suggest we all do what we can to prepare.”
Bananas
eorge, this really is kind, but I’m not hungry.”
Ned was in his room again, hiding away from training and the desperate looks of an entire military base, all praying that he would succeed. Seeing that he needed cheering up, George had made him an assortment of his favourite treats. Sliced and diced banana, banana fried and grilled, honeyed, sugared, caramelised and even George’s old favourite – banana sushi. The great ape piled up so many dishes that they almost filled Ned’s entire table and he had done so with the last of his private stock of “yellow gems”.
“Not even a bite?”
“Sorry, George.”
He nodded politely, though Ned could tell that the ape was disappointed. The oversized gorilla looked at the table and licked his lips nervously.
“What about Gorrn? Would he like some? We can’t just let it go to waste.”
There was a low “Unt” from the floor.
“He doesn’t eat, George, at least not food.”
“Right,” said the ape, all the while his eyes remained glued to the table.
Ned smiled. “Oh, go on then.”
George didn’t need to be asked twice and almost jumped on the plates of food. He gnawed, chewed and devoured in a flurry of furry greed till halfway through he let out an enormous belch.
“Better?”
“Sorry, old bean, nerves make me a bit peckish.”
“A bit!” smiled Ned.
More than half the table had already been devoured in less than a minute.
“I am very nervous.”
“You’re nervous? I can barely muster a puddle and the entire planet’s depending on me!”
“I know, dear boy. It’s you I’m nervous about.”
George’s wrinkled face sagged, despite the recent infusion of bananas. There was no one better than George at cheering Ned up, no one in the world, but even the great ape seemed to have run out of “cheer”.
“George? I thought you came here to … what was it? ‘Lift my spirits.’ You can’t just gorge on—”
But Ned didn’t get round to finishing as just then Olivia Armstrong burst into the room, her eyes as wide as saucers.
“Ned, we have an emergency – come with me quickly.”
George got up to follow but Ned’s mum barred the door.
“Not you, monkey.”
Olivia Armstrong was not a woman to be me
ddled with, and certainly not when it came to her son. But if anyone was up to the job, it was George.
“Madam, step aside.”
“I’ll do no such thing,” said Olivia, eyes piercing like daggers.
George’s chest puffed up and the fur on his back bristled. “If it’s all the same to you, I would rather come, Olivia.”
“He’s my son and I’ll decide what’s best for him!”
George’s eyes changed. Ned had seen that look before and what came after was never pleasant. When the ape spoke next, it was in a measured and slow rumble.
“Olivia, I know you are accustomed to being listened to and we have never had cross words before, but I would like to remind you that I love your boy and am sworn to protect him, and if you try and stop me, do so knowing that I weigh several tonnes and become violent when protecting my own, even when they’re someone else’s.”
Olivia Armstrong looked as though she had just been slapped clear across the face. The gentle giant that was George had threatened her. She was about to launch into one of her tirades when Ned took her arm.
“Mum?”
“Yes, dear?”
“He’s coming.”
“But—”
“He’s coming.”
A minute later, they were rushing through the BBB’s corridors till they arrived at the mirror room.
“Mirrors again, Mum?! What’s happened?”
“There’s no time to explain … We’ve had a tip-off and we need to get there quickly.”
Breathlessly they walked into the room that had led Ned to the taiga. This was to be a different mission altogether.
“Madam, where are we going?” asked George.
Ned’s mum took a mirror-key from the wall and looked to her son. It was an almost apologetic look that made his stomach turn.
“Mum, what is it? Where are we going?”
“Grittlesby.”
Past and Present
ed hadn’t known what to expect when he’d stepped through the mirror, but he definitely wasn’t expecting to find himself in his old bedroom at Number 222 Oak Tree Lane. When he’d left this life behind, he’d had to leave most of his junk here too. Strangely it was all still right where he left it – the abandoned projects he’d built with his dad, the scale model of the solar system, even his stripy old pillowcase and covers. For a minute he thought that he was still the same boy, the same boy who’d never heard of the Hidden or been fused to a ring that now barely worked. But back then he had no mother and had yet to meet a talking ape.
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