“Who are you?” Kat seemed torn between fear and uncertainty, and David remembered that she was new to this house. She must be half expecting surprise encounters all the time. But he wondered whether it was wise to tell her his name too soon.
“I’m a good friend of Eddie’s. I’m very worried about him. I think he’s in trouble, and I want to help.”
Kat’s expression hardened — fear was overcoming the uncertainty in her eyes. She turned to face David directly, one hand searching for a long-handled something that he could see sticking out of the sink behind her. He had to act fast to keep control of the situation.
“It’s Kat, isn’t it? Can I call you Kat? Eddie told me about you. Is Kat short for something? Katherine?”
“Katrina.” This was said with a gulp and a slight tremor. “Who are you?”
“Before I tell you my name, let me tell you two things first. It’s important. You seemed scared of me, Kat, but I want you to understand that you don’t need to be. Okay … I mean, all right?”
She gave a jerky little nod.
“The first thing is that someone impersonated me in order to hurt Eddie. Someone incredibly dangerous,” David said. “I didn’t do anything to harm him. And second …”
This is it, he thought.
“… second … everything you think you know about ghosts might not be true.”
“David!” Kat’s mouth was almost too dry to speak. “Oh, my God.”
“Kat, please, don’t be scared.” David stepped in front of the hanging sheets, doing everything he could to radiate goodwill. “Yes, I am David. But more than that, I really am Eddie’s friend.”
“Get away from me!” Kat cried, and she flung the long-handled object. Before David could move he sensed it pass right through him and clatter against the wall in the corridor outside. It was clear that Kat would have screamed if fear hadn’t constricted her throat. David had to act fast — he was losing her.
“Kat, please, look at me. We’re about the same age, I think, like Eddie. He’s your friend too, isn’t he? I’m not what you think I am. I’m not a real phantom, I’m just a boy who needs your help. Please don’t be scared of me.”
Kat had gone very still, though the moment of abject terror seemed to be passing. But now David had a cold, hard stare of intense mistrust to deal with.
“Ghost! Monster!” Kat cried suddenly. “You are a devil. Eddie told me about you — you wanted to kill him, to make him a spirit like you. I’ll never tell you where he is, even if you bring all the demons of hell. Now get away from me!”
She was shouting loudly, and it would only be a matter of time before someone heard and came to check on her. And then what would David do?
“Kat, I swear to you that I’m not a devil or a monster. I’m not even a dead person from hell, if that’s what you mean. But there is a monster out there, someone who wants Eddie dead. He’s the devil, not me. I’m on the side of the angels, I promise. Look, Eddie has some very special friends.” And he beckoned out into the corridor.
Misty stepped into the room and lifted back the hood of her cloak, letting her lustrous hair spill out once more. Her face caught the mean little light from the electric bulb and threw it back around the room like the gleam of firelight on gold. The grubby walls and linen baskets seemed to shrink back in shadow as she gave Kat the full benefit of a bewitching smile.
Kat had clearly forgotten to breathe. When she could finally speak, nothing coherent came out, but David was just pleased that the hostility had gone from her face.
“Kat, will you help us to help Eddie?” He spoke cautiously, hoping to avoid breaking the spell he’d guessed Misty would cast over someone like Kat. “He’s in terrible danger. Maybe you are too. But you and Eddie have friends now, powerful friends.”
Kat couldn’t turn her eyes from Misty. David tried to imagine the effect the hologram was having. For Kat, with her scrubbing brush and washboard life, beauty and glamour were a distant, probably unobtainable dream. Misty must seem to her like a vision from another world, a world of miracles. As, in a sense, she was.
“Are … are you an angel?” Kat asked Misty, her hands clasped together.
“Er, sort of,” said David hurriedly, before Misty could answer. He didn’t want the moment ruined by the computer’s difficulty with little white lies. “Kat, we don’t have much time. Please, take us to Eddie. We need to get him away from London as soon as possible, away from danger.”
Kat stepped forward, her eyes still drinking in the beauty of the apparition before her. Then, finally, she looked at David again.
“Someone is after Eddie. But how do I know I can really trust you?”
“Kat,” said David, indicating Misty, “my beautiful friend here always tells the truth. Ask her why we are here. She’s incapable of lying.”
The girl looked at David, and then back at Misty, her face a mix of emotions.
“Eddie’s a good person.” Kat spoke calmly now, but there were tears in her eyes. “I haven’t met many of those in my life. But now my brother’s disappeared, and I don’t know … I … all I want is to do the right thing. Angel, have you come to help us?”
There was a pause, and David prayed that Misty wasn’t being taken too near an untruth. Would the computer even realize that Kat was addressing her?
“Yes,” said Misty at last. “I like to be helpful.”
At the sound of Misty’s pearl-drop voice, the last shades of mistrust left Kat’s face.
“All right,” she said. “I’ll take you to Eddie.”
Eddie sat alone in the attic after the strange boy named Adam had left, trying to decide what to do.
You mustn’t go out, said the voice of his doubt, and this is what Kat had said too. Stay here. Hide. You mustn’t go out …
But Eddie wasn’t so sure. He looked again at the page in his notebook where he’d scribbled his way through the options. There was now only one thing left that was legible:
Silence. Only David can appear in utter silence.
The conclusion was obvious, even if he’d been deliberately avoiding it: The boy called Adam was a ghost like David. If ghost was the right word.
You promised Kat that David wouldn’t find you here! The words rang in his head. If David and Adam are the same, then a ghost has found you here. You have broken your promise …
Eddie shut his book. That was right, wasn’t it? So there was only one thing he could do now. He stood up and grabbed his satchel, putting his few possessions inside. He’d go back to Paddington, study the timetable again. He’d get to his aunt’s house, even if he had to sleep in the waiting room until a train became available. But as he was putting his satchel over his shoulder, he heard a sound far below.
The stage creaked loudly.
People had entered the theater, as Adam had said they would, people much bigger than either Kat or Tomkin.
Eddie quickly dragged a stool to the spot under the hole in the roof. His injured ankle and weak lungs meant he hadn’t used this way out since the night he arrived, but there was no time now to worry about aches and pains. He grabbed the edge of a freezing, rotten beam, heaved himself up, and looked out across the roof.
With the last dregs of light in the sky, Eddie saw the silhouettes of two men in overcoats on the roof of the building next door. One of them had his arm raised, the unmistakable shape of a revolver in his hand.
Eddie dropped back into the attic and looked around wildly. The only other way out was to go down, but already he could hear someone climbing up to the trapdoor. The top of the ladder was bouncing against the edge of it with the weight of an adult. Eddie ran to the hatch and looked down.
In the beam of a flashlight shining up from the stage far below, a face peered back at him — a face with a thin mustache.
“You aren’t friends of Tomkin’s.” Eddie felt foolish saying this, but he needed to hear his own voice.
“No,” said the man. “No. But I do have business here, that much is true.”<
br />
“Business?” Eddie backed away. He was breathing so fast that his damaged lungs burned. “Who are you?”
The man reached the top of the ladder and looked over at him.
“My name is Grinn — Charlie Grinn — and I’m nobody’s friend. Someone wants you rubbed out, Eddie, and I’m the man who’ll get it done.”
Grinn climbed out of the trapdoor and reached into his pocket. He pulled out a bone handle and released the knife’s blade with a wicked snick. He stepped toward Eddie.
“But why?” Eddie’s voice went high with fear.
Grinn shrugged.
“Does it really matter?” he said. “No funny business, now. How much this hurts is up to you.”
Eddie backed farther into the theater attic and grabbed the nearest object, a papier-mâché Roman helmet. He flung it at Grinn, but the gangster simply swept it aside. Eddie reached again, but there was nothing there of any use, nothing at all — even the stage swords were just painted balsa wood. Grinn was only a few paces from him by now, already pulling back his arm.
Then he was obscured from view.
Something — no, someone — was suddenly standing between them, facing the gangster.
Grinn’s jaw dropped with astonishment. An apparition had just risen up through the solid wooden floor! He stepped back in shock, tripped over the thunder-sheet hearth, and let go of the knife.
“Run, Eddie — run!” shouted a voice Eddie knew.
“David?”
Grinn started to get up again, but fell back at the mind-numbing sight of more figures rising into the attic through the floor, and another one floating down through the beams of the roof. And then Kat was there too, climbing off the top of the ladder. Grinn seized his knife and scrabbled back across the floor, staring in fear and confusion at the group of people suddenly there.
“David!” Eddie said again, rubbing frantically at his spectacles. “Is that really you?”
“It is, it is,” said David. “At last, I’ve found you.”
“That man wants to kill me. But …” Eddie took a step back again. “… isn’t that what you want?”
“No! Eddie, it would take too long to explain now, but we’ve been looking for you ever since the fire at your house. Someone does want you dead, Eddie, someone extremely dangerous, and he must know where you are or his knifeman wouldn’t have come. We have to get you away.”
“There are men on the roof with a gun, and more downstairs …” Eddie began, but David shook his head.
“The ones downstairs have run off, scared out of their wits, and we’ve dealt with those on the roof too. Being ghostly can be quite useful sometimes.”
“But, David, what are you? Are you really a ghost?” Eddie felt his mind racing, and on an impulse he swept his hand at David. It passed right through him as if he weren’t there at all.
“Later, Eddie.” David was grinning. “We’ve come a long way to help you, but time is against us.”
“It’s true,” cried Kat, coming over to Eddie. “At least, I think it’s true. David and his friends are here to help you, Eddie, and they even have an angel!”
Eddie looked back over at Grinn, who was crouching in the corner of the attic like a frightened animal, staring up in terror at the three figures who stood over him.
“An angel?” he said. “So that would explain …” And he pulled his notebook from his satchel and started flicking through the scribbled pages. Yes, that would fill in a lot of blanks. “David, are you an angel?”
“Don’t answer that!” said a voice, and Eddie saw one of the three figures hurry over. She was a tall, dark girl in her mid to late teens, with a foreign accent. “You mustn’t tell him anything, David. The second rule, remember?”
“But, Dishita …” David began.
“No names!” snapped the girl. “Eddie, I’m sorry to present you with all these mysteries, but you will need to work all this out on your own. You must leave the city immediately. We have cleared your way out of the building, but you are in terrible danger if you stay here. Come with us now, and we’ll guide you. Can you drive?”
“Drive?” Eddie was surprised. “I’ve never tried, but I understand the principles.” He pushed his glasses firmly up his nose. “The internal combustion engine …”
“Warning!” called out a clear voice, and everyone turned to look at the figure in the long cloak who was still standing over Grinn. She had raised her hood.
“That’s the angel,” whispered Kat to Eddie, whose eyes were boggling.
“What is it, Misty?” asked David. “What’s happening?”
“Adam. I have detected Adam. He is coming. We …”
Misty stopped speaking, her face frozen in midspeech. Her final syllable rang out in one continuous, squealing vowel sound. A long black stick was protruding from her chest. Before anyone could act, Misty dissolved, falling to pieces in countless tiny points of light that skittered across the floor and flickered away to nothing. She was gone, and standing in her place, his cane still raised, stood Eddie’s mysterious visitor.
Adam.
For the first time, David found himself in the same room as both his grandfather and the boy who wanted him dead. He stepped protectively in front of Eddie, who was clinging on to Kat, but he also wondered what Adam would do, what he could do. After all, no dreamwalker, no matter how strong, could actually touch Eddie.
“Adam,” Dishita said, “you’ve failed. We’re taking Eddie now, and your only ally in this time is over there, cowering on the floor. It’s finished.”
Adam snarled. Then he turned to Grinn. “Get up, you idiot!”
The gangster stood slowly, with his knife held out in front of him.
“Mr. Adam,” said Grinn in a hoarse voice, “for God’s sake, what is all this?”
“Ghosts, Grinn, nothing more. No one here can harm you; they can’t even touch you. But you, Grinn, are no ghost. You can still kill the boy. Now stop gibbering and grab him! Finish the job!”
Grinn took a small step forward.
“Stay where you are!” called Petra in a voice that was terribly altered. She rose off the ground, her hair rippling out from her head like a Gorgon’s snakes. She gave Grinn a pitiless look that should indeed be petrifying. Sure enough, the gangster stepped back again, white as a sheet.
“Ignore her!” shouted Adam. “Close your eyes if you have to. She can’t touch you. No one here can. Kill the boy!”
Some kind of realization seemed to come over Grinn. A dreamwalker was a terrifying thing if you didn’t know any better. But the moment you understood they were actually powerless over the physical world, everything changed. And unfortunately, it looked as if Adam’s words were finally getting through to Charlie Grinn. Adam had to be silenced.
It was clear that Dishita thought the same thing.
“Now!” she shouted at Petra, and Petra swooped back toward her. The two girls stepped into each other and began to combine, their separate dreamselves rapidly blending as they brought their forces together. Alarm passed across Adam’s face.
“No you don’t!” he cried, and he leaped forward, raising his cane to try and hit them first.
For the briefest moment David had a clear image of the two dreamwalkers merged into one. The combined figure they made was primarily that of Dishita, yet Petra was there too, and their double-dreamself crackled with mental energy, filling the attic with a high-power sound. And when the figure moved to counter Adam as he smashed his cane down, it was as if four arms lashed out, not two.
There came an ear-ringing smack and crack as the dreamwalkers clashed. David saw Adam flung back, his face a blank of pain, his whole dreamself faint and rippling. He was turned head over heels in the air by the doubled force of Dishita-Petra and sent spinning straight through the wall at the end of the attic with a cry of dismay.
Dishita-Petra stood in triumph in the center of the room, facing the wall in readiness, her multiple arms raised.
Nothing came back through
. Adam was gone.
But David had seen exactly what happened, and he knew that Adam had managed to strike too. As he watched, the principal half of the double-dreamself began to fade, and two of the arms fell. The part that was Dishita toppled forward, separating out from Petra, who seemed to be trying to hold her up. But still Dishita continued to fade as she fell through Petra’s arms to the floor. Petra knelt beside her.
“Dishita? Can you go on? Can you hear me? Dishita?”
Dishita stared up at nothing.
“It hurts … I can’t … I …”
Then she faded away to nothing.
“No, no!” Petra was distraught. She turned to David. “Dishita was in front. She took the full force of it. It was bad, David, very bad — Adam really meant it.”
“And Adam?” David asked. “Did you hit him hard enough?”
“I … I don’t know. We didn’t have time to combine properly. I just don’t know.”
David looked back to where Dishita had just been. She was gone, her dreamwalk brought to a sudden and brutal end. What would be happening back at Unsleep House? Hundreds of miles and nearly eighty years away, was Dishita’s mindless body being wheeled out of the Somnarium?
“Misty!” David called. “Misty!” But Petra was shaking her head.
“Misty’s gone too. And without her, even the Metascape Map is useless,” she whispered, glancing across to where Kat and Eddie were huddled beneath the hole in the roof, one looking fearful and confused, the other taking every detail into his quick mind. “We’re on our own.”
“Then we have to get Eddie out of here.”
“David.” Something in Petra’s voice made him turn.
Charlie Grinn was firmly on his feet now, looking at them with new resolve. He tossed his knife in the air and grabbed it back. Then he walked toward Eddie.
“Eddie, Kat — get out!” David said. Petra rose off the floor and swooped down at Grinn, her hair wild once more. But this time the gangster stood his ground. He lashed out, and his knife went straight through her.
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