Haunters (9780545502542)

by Taylor, Thomas

  David saw that Adam’s room was identical to his own, except that someone had clearly lived there for a very long time. It was also obvious that the room had been thoroughly searched. There were clothes and personal stuff everywhere, and a mass of printouts teetered in the center of the desk, beside a laptop on standby. It looked as if someone had been working at the desk very recently, probably an investigator from Security. On one wall was an impressive collection of oriental swords, and on another — quite bizarrely — was a series of photographs of a sinister-looking black cat. Something about it seemed familiar.

  “He’s a cat lover?” David had hoped to learn all sorts of interesting things in his enemy’s room, but an interest in small furry animals hadn’t been one of them.

  “Oh, that,” said Dishita. “That’s Adam’s little trick. He’s been perfecting it for years. Most dreamwalkers are restricted to their true dreamselves when they dreamwalk, but Adam can change himself entirely. The cat is his favorite. Nasty, sneaky creature. Like Adam himself.”

  “You remember he made himself look like you?” said Petra. “To lure Eddie home? Most of us would struggle to do something like that, but Adam was always proud of being a shape-shifter.”

  On the floor were two cardboard boxes, shoved to one side as if dismissed. David made a mental note of the cat thing and began to go through them.

  “So, what are we looking for?” said Petra.

  “Anything interesting,” David replied, not really knowing himself. “Anything that tells us what Adam will do next, I suppose. And anything we can use to stop him.”

  “Don’t you think we’re working on that already?” Dishita aimed her flashlight at him, but David didn’t answer. He still felt that all this was intensely personal, and he didn’t trust the man named Roman to do a proper job.

  Petra opened the wardrobe and climbed inside. Dishita went to the desk.

  “David,” she said, “look at this.”

  She was holding a large pile of printed papers. On top was a series of detailed maps showing bomb damage in London during the Blitz, giving precise times and locations.

  “See what I mean?” she said. “Adam is very thorough.”

  “Okay, but we’ve already saved Eddie from that one. If you find a piece of paper marked Plan B, I’d like to see it.”

  David turned back to his cardboard box. It contained a surprising number of books, some of them pretty old, just carelessly tossed inside. And they all appeared to be about ghost sightings and haunted houses.

  “Why would he have all these?”

  Petra came out of the wardrobe.

  “Ah, they’re nothing,” she said with a grin. “We all read those.”

  “But why?” said David.

  “Why do you think? In case we’re in them. You know, being spotted by Victorian chambermaids in the library at midnight, or floating down castle stairways. We try hard not to be noticed but it still happens. I was once seen rising up through a kitchen floor in Renaissance Venice. I’ve never heard so much screaming! It’s probably in one of these books, actually …”

  “We can’t stay here long,” Dishita snapped. “Petra, you can show off your scrapbook later.”

  Petra grinned at David and then began looking under the bed.

  “I bet the best stuff’s under here.”

  David looked around. Where else could they look? Then he remembered the Showing Glass.

  “Can’t we find out what he’s been looking at on this?” he said, raising his hand to activate it.

  “Don’t!” cried Dishita, pulling his hand away. “If you switch it on, you’ll alert Misty. We’re not supposed to be here, remember? Besides, he would hardly keep anything secret on there.”

  David thought about this and was surprised that it reminded him of his mother, of all people. She owned a secondhand bookshop and café, and he was used to seeing tattered old books piled up at home, as well as hearing her low opinion of computers. He grinned when he thought what she’d say if she saw the Showing Glass or heard Misty. He had a sudden pang of homesickness and wondered again what his mum must really be thinking about his disappearance. David turned back to the books, something she had once said to him very clear in his mind.

  “Talking of secrets,” he said, “what’s the best way to keep a secret in the Internet age?”

  Dishita gave him an impatient look.

  “No, seriously,” he said. “How do you keep a secret from a computer hacker? Easy — you write it on a piece of paper.”

  David emptied the books out of the box and onto the bed. There were ten in all. Every title was on some ghostly theme, but one of them caught his eye: Ghosts and Hauntings through the Ages. At least, that was what it said on the dust wrapper. But the dust wrapper, as his mum would certainly have pointed out, was ever so slightly too big. He took it off to reveal the true title hidden on the book itself: The Real Railway Children: The Story of London’s Evacuees.

  “This one’s got nothing to do with ghosts,” said David. Petra and Dishita came over to look. “It is about Eddie’s time, though. But why would Adam be reading about kids and trains?”

  David thought of his mum again and balanced the book on his hand, spine down. It fell open at a place that had obviously been looked at a lot. David closed the book and then let it fall open again. The same thing happened.

  The double page that lay open before him contained a single large black-and-white photo. It showed a railway station with swarms of children in coats, scarves, and caps, grouping up around a train shrouded in steam: evacuees from the Blitz, with boxed gas masks around their necks and blank faces that stared into an unknown future without their parents. It was like so many pictures David had seen in history lessons at school, but as he looked at it he had a sudden idea and began scanning the faces closely, wishing there was more light.

  “Oh, give that to me,” Dishita said. She snatched the book and lit it with a steady beam. After a moment she gasped and held the book out to David, tapping the photo with a long, red fingernail.

  “Who is this, David?”

  He looked into the photo, and his breath caught in his throat. Among the anxious faces and steam clouds was someone he knew.

  It was Eddie.

  He grabbed the book back.

  “There’s no date,” he said. “So maybe …”

  “Maybe nothing!” Dishita pointed again. “Look at him closely.”

  David peered into the photo and, despite the coarse grain, he could see that Eddie’s hair was wild and his face marked with burns. The coat he was wearing looked far too big for him.

  “In the original time line, Eddie and his mother left the city by train the day after their home was destroyed,” said Dishita, speaking quickly. “They went from Paddington station. Obviously we’ve been back to watch that train — it was one of the first places we visited when your grandfather went missing — but Eddie wasn’t there. The station was so crowded we had to give up, and anyway, history had changed, making the Archive unreliable. But this picture proves that he did go to the station at some point shortly after the fire. All we have to do is find out exactly where and when this photograph was taken, and we’ll have him.”

  “But …” David blinked at Dishita. “… but how can Adam have this? I mean, how can Adam have seen Eddie in this picture before he’d done anything to change his history? It doesn’t make sense.”

  “Oh, when will you take that training program, David? In the world of time-travel, common sense gets turned on its head. This photo is what we call a foreshadow. Sometimes, when someone in the present has absolutely made up their mind to change the past, tiny traces of the consequences of that change can already be detected in history, even before the change is made. This is one of the reasons we often get ahead of the Haunting. No wonder Adam tried to hide it. I just don’t understand why Misty didn’t pick up on it, because technically …”

  But David had stopped listening.

  In his head was a vision of E
ddie, walking along the edge of a platform, lost and alone. In the shadows of a nearby railway arch Adam was watching. Beside him crouched the faceless figure of some heartless killer, willing to do Adam’s bidding out of fear or greed. A train was approaching the platform. Eddie stopped to watch it pass, unaware of the movement behind him. All it would take was one quick shove …

  David caught sight of his own reflection in the dark of Adam’s Showing Glass. For a moment, as the flashlight beams moved, he saw himself fade away, just as he would surely do if Adam killed his grandfather. And now it seemed that Adam had succeeded where David had failed: He’d found Eddie. In the Showing Glass there was only blackness now.

  David began to panic.

  “Why are we still standing here?” he cried. “We’ve got to tell the professor!”

  Petra put her hand out to him and was about to say something when the door flew open. Four security men barreled straight in, short batons in their hands. Behind them, filling the entrance, loomed the massive figure of Roman.

  In a silk robe covered with swirly patterns, the professor looked even more out of place in the ultramodern surroundings than he normally did. He was clearly annoyed to have been woken and insisted on dealing with the “break-in,” as Roman called it, in his own office. David, Petra, and Dishita waited beside his desk while the professor stood on the other side, grumbling as he tried to clear a space to sit. The four security men were at the door. Roman loomed over the professor and glared at him.

  “This is a serious security breach, Professor,” said Roman, clearly struggling to express his anger in English. “Hand them over to me. You have other dreamwalkers.”

  “Hardly, Commander,” said Professor Feldrake. “With all those we’ve lost recently, do you really think I’m going to let you start locking up the few we have left, just because you failed to spot a loophole in our security? No. Please wait outside while I have a little chat with these young people.”

  “‘Little chat’? ” Roman spat the words out. “These ‘young people’ treat this place like a playground, while you are the soft schoolmaster with your little chats and your piles of … rubbish,” he added, waving at the scholarly chaos of the professor’s office. He strode to the door, but then turned.

  “This place needs a strong leader, Feldrake. If you want more time for your dusty old books and ‘little chats,’ it can easily be arranged.” And with that he left in a bearlike huff, taking his guards with him.

  “I’m afraid he’s right,” said the professor after the men had gone, “much as I hate to say it. The people who fund this place are getting scared, and may well take things out of my hands. As Head of Security, Roman would effectively be in charge of everything we do. Is that what you three want? Heaven knows there are enough soldiers about the place already. The research program is virtually dead as it is.”

  No one spoke.

  “David, you’ve hardly been here twenty-four hours yet,” said the professor in exasperation. “And Dishita, I’m surprised at you. Petra, less so.”

  “It was my idea,” said David. “I just wanted to know more about Adam. And I have the right — he’s trying to kill my whole family!”

  “But you could have just asked,” said the professor as he finally sat down. “It’s late now, but come and see me in the morning, David, and I’ll try to answer your questions. Now go to bed, all of you, while I think of something to tell Roman.”

  “But I found this,” said David, taking from his pocket the book he’d found in Adam’s room. He handed it over and explained about the dust wrapper. The professor sat down again and looked at the book with interest, then let it fall open. David pointed at the photo.

  The professor’s eyebrows jumped.

  He pressed the book open with a large fossil ammonite and jabbed a button on his desk. In a moment Roman was back in the room.

  “Did you know about this?” said the professor.

  “That book was impounded by Security,” snapped Roman, eyeing the discarded dust jacket. “Of course I knew about it. I went through Adam Lang’s room personally. This is just one of those ghost books the children waste their time on. Nothing.”

  “Oh, it’s much more than nothing,” said Professor Feldrake, removing the fossil and handing the book to Roman, a mixture of triumph and alarm on his face. “I think these ‘children’ have just found what we’ve all been hunting for. And in a ‘dusty old book’ too.”

  Roman grabbed the book, clearly prepared to dismiss it. But then he stopped and stared. Eventually he looked at David, the set of his face completely transformed as if a great weight of stress had just been lifted off it.

  “Misty.”

  “Yes, Commander?” said the honeyed voice of the computer.

  “Analyze.” And Roman held the book up into the air, flat open, gripped with one enormous hand. There was a brief pulse of light from the ceiling.

  “This photograph is not in the Archive.”

  “What!” cried the professor. “But how can that be?”

  “It was removed eighteen months ago as part of routine memory optimization.”

  “Who signed for it?” The professor spoke as if he knew the answer already.

  “It was dreamwalker number one: Adam Lang.”

  The professor slumped back into his chair.

  “Eighteen months!” he said, shaking his head. “He’s been plotting against us that long?”

  “Misty,” said Dishita, “search outside sources. The photograph shows platform one at Paddington station sometime in December 1940.”

  “Connecting to World Wide Web … Please wait … I have it. This photograph was taken on the eighteenth of December, probably with a Leica III due to the photographer’s preference …”

  “Stop!” Roman bellowed. “What time exactly? Analyze!”

  “That information is not available,” said Misty after a moment. “I couldn’t tell you, Commander, even if you asked me nicely.”

  But before Roman could reply, Dishita spoke again. “I’m sorry, Misty. Please estimate the time of taking from available data.”

  “Given that the building has a glass roof,” Misty replied in a vaguely hurt tone, “the angle of visible shadow at the time of year suggests that this photograph was taken between eleven thirty and noon. I hope you’ll agree that this analysis is useful.”

  “Thank you, Misty,” said Dishita. “And it would be even more useful to know if Adam’s been active since he attacked me in the desert. Has there been any sign of him, or any haunter, in London at the time and place this picture was taken?” When this question was met with silence, Dishita added, “Please, Misty.”

  “As you know, Dishita, I often detect Adam’s presence in London, but unless more processing capacity is allocated to me …”

  “I do know, Misty.” Dishita spoke as if she was talking to a child. “But we already give you all we can. Please, try your best. Has Adam been to the station?”

  There was a moment of silence, before Misty spoke again.

  “No,” she said in a small voice, as if failing to simultaneously monitor every particle of data in the Metascape Map was something to be ashamed of. “I have no record of Adam Lang visiting that geo-temporal locale. But that’s hardly my fault. How can you expect me to be useful when —”

  “Thank you, Misty,” the professor interrupted, before turning to the others. “We’ve talked too much. We must act quickly to secure Sir Edmund. There will have been policemen in the station at the moment this picture was taken. If we’re careful, we should be able to use them to get him safely away before Adam and whoever he’s got helping him arrive.”

  “Let him come,” Roman rumbled, his eyes blazing. “When Adam responds to this, we will be ready. We will crush him.”

  “If I really have to, I’d rather use the Inhibitor to block him …” the professor said.

  “No!” Roman was shouting again. “That also blocks us.”

  “I won’t see our founder used as bait,
Commander,” said the professor, jabbing the desk with his finger, “and I won’t have another dreamwalker face Adam. They’re kids, for pity’s sake, not your private army. The hospital is full of broken minds as it is.”

  Everyone, including Roman, seemed surprised by the professor’s outburst. The old man took a deep breath, adjusted his glasses, then spoke in more even tones.

  “Dishita, what leverage do we have with Scotland Yard in December 1940?”

  “From our research into the new sequence of events since Eddie’s disappearance, we know that Eddie’s mother had reported her son missing by the time this photo was taken, so we should be able to use that. If we can find a way to involve only the police who were already present at the railway station, we could arrange to have Eddie picked up without too much disturbance to the time line.” Then she added, with a gleam in her eye, “Are you approving a violation of the Dreamwalker’s Code, Professor? Officially?”

  “What choice do I have? Yes — it’s official. But I don’t need to tell you to be careful, do I?”

  “Then I’ll need to dreamwalk immediately,” said Dishita. “The preparations will take hours, and I couldn’t sleep now anyway.”

  The professor nodded.

  David wanted to speak, but he stopped when he saw Roman. The big man was gazing at some inward scene only he could see, and it was clear to everyone that he was more intent on the chance to attack Adam than on rescuing Eddie.

  The professor sighed. “David found this picture,” he said to Roman. “I think you should thank him. Admit it, there’s more to David Utherwise than you thought.”

  Roman snapped out of his reverie and turned to David. His face began twitching as if he was chewing on something strange that wasn’t meant to be eaten. He said nothing, but with a sudden movement he reached out and gave David a ferocious slap on the back.

  “To work!” he boomed. “Misty, if you smell that dog Adam even near London, you let me know, okay?”

  “Okay, Commander.”

  “When he shows up, we will crush him.” Roman seemed bigger than ever as he left the room.