Haunters (9780545502542)

by Taylor, Thomas

  Eddie’s eyebrows jumped above his spectacles, and David could almost hear the smooth machinery of his mind whirring as it seized hold of this new piece of information. David knew he’d just said too much, that he had probably just broken a rule of dreamwalking or something, but he didn’t care anymore.

  “David —” Eddie began, but his words were cut off.

  Something dark reared up into the space between them. Eddie stumbled back in surprise. A shape like a man was suddenly blocking David’s view and towering over Eddie. Eddie let out a cry and missed his footing. The shape moved and David could see Eddie again, his arms reaching out for balance as his left foot slipped off the guttering.

  Five stories up, Eddie Utherwise fell backward off the roof.

  Eddie vanished from view, and David heard a dull impact below. Then something struck David and he was thrown back across the roof, exploding with pain.

  “At last!” cried Adam, standing on the edge of the building and raising his fists in triumph. “At last!”

  “Adam?” David picked himself up and stared, frantic. “Eddie!”

  Adam turned. He snarled when he saw David.

  “But if you’re still here …” he began, then he shot over the edge of the building where Eddie had fallen. David flew out after him.

  Eddie was sprawled on a narrow ledge, just one floor down from the roof, visible only because of the reflected glow of nearby firelight. The slightest movement could send him toppling the rest of the way to the ground, but Eddie wasn’t moving at all. David swooped down beside him, searching desperately for signs of life.

  Adam was already there, raging over Eddie’s body.

  “Why won’t you just die?” he cried. “Curse you, Utherwise! Curse you!” He scrabbled at Eddie’s neck, his spectral fingers clawing at the boy but having no effect whatsoever.

  David took his chance and lashed out at him with every shred of mental energy he had. It was his first mind pulse, and he thrilled at the sense of power it gave him and at the sight of Adam being flung back from Eddie’s body.

  “Get away from him!” David shouted. “Why can’t you just leave me and my family alone?”

  Adam turned in the air and braced his dreamself, shrugging off the effect of David’s attack. He produced his cane out of thin air and rushed at David with a wild shout. But before he could reach his target, Petra caught Adam in midair, locking her arms around him and carrying him off at a crazy angle. Together they spun down into the shadows of the passage. David was about to go down after them when he heard Petra cry out. She came flying back, faint and out of control. Adam rushed up after her, his cane raised. By the time David reached the roof, Adam was already standing there, and Petra was lying at his feet.

  “So close.” Adam was hardly coherent with fury and frustration. “It shouldn’t be this difficult! But once I’ve crushed you two, I’ll finish him. I’ll find one of Grinn’s men … I’ll finish the Utherwise family for good.”

  Petra slipped back out of Adam’s reach and shot around behind him, forcing Adam to turn his back on David. David didn’t need to be told this was a deliberate move. He rushed at Adam, leaving the tiles and crossing the space between them like a rocket. Adam turned back only just in time, and stepped to one side. David swore as he flew straight past him and came to land about twenty paces from Petra.

  “Eddie’s hurt.”

  “I know,” Petra called back. “But we can’t help him now. Kat and Tomkin are his best hope. Our job is to destroy Adam; nothing else matters.”

  “But the professor said …”

  “Forget what the professor said,” said Petra. “We have no choice. And you know what we have to do, don’t you?”

  Adam was between them again, his eyes swinging from one to the other, radiating hateful intent.

  “I know what you’re thinking,” he said. “And you know I can’t let you combine. But if you don’t, you also know you cannot defeat me. And so …”

  In midspeech, Adam flung himself at Petra with astonishing speed. Petra shot up from the roof, her dreamself blurring with effort, only just avoiding Adam’s grasp. She arced across the space between herself and David and reached out for him as she did so. David jumped toward her, eager to bring together their mental power. He felt her dreamself touch his own and blend into him. He had a sudden overwhelming sense of her fiery, untrammeled mind and all it was capable of, and an intoxicating mix of rebellion, determination, and sadness. It was the very essence of Petra. David felt the power of his own mind grow with the strength of it.

  “Gotcha!” cried the voice of Adam, and David felt Petra’s presence leave him just as suddenly as it had arrived.

  “No!” David jumped after Petra, but Adam lashed out at him with his cane, sending him flying back. In his other hand he held Petra fast, though she struggled so much he could hardly keep upright. But Petra’s dreamself was already beginning to fade as Adam crushed her mind with his.

  “I’m stronger than any of you,” he purred to himself, before shouting, “any of you!”

  David shrugged off the effects of the hit and launched himself at Adam with what strength he could find. But Adam was ready for him. He threw his cane at David, and although it was a weak, distracted mind pulse, it was still enough to send David staggering back. David tried yet again to recover, desperate to reach Petra. Adam had her in both hands now and was raising her above his head.

  “David, run!” Petra shouted.

  Adam brought her crashing down over his knee. She cried out and was gone, her dreamself broken in two and cast aside in a cloud of spectral scraps. Before David could do anything, Adam was standing alone, facing him, his cane back in his hand.

  David felt a weakness like he’d never known before, a numbing fatigue of the mind. He’d been hit several times, and he wondered how much of his ability to withstand Adam was down to the pills Petra had given him.

  Petra.

  At the thought of her and what he’d just seen happen, despair almost overcame him. He was alone now, in 1940, facing Adam with no help and with his own grandfather unconscious on a ledge, inches from falling to his death. He forced himself to ignore his feelings for Petra and concentrate. Could any help come now? Surely Jiro had seen where they’d all been on the Map before Misty went down. Why wasn’t help coming? When Adam spoke, it was as if he could read David’s mind.

  “There’s no one left, Davy boy. I’ve seen to that. Unsleep House wanted a showdown, and by God, the Haunting’s given them one. I doubt there’s anyone left capable of dreamwalking right now. And by the time they recover and get Misty going again …” Adam began to advance on David. “Well, they won’t get her going again. Edmund Utherwise will be dead before then, and those half-wits and do-gooders you work with will have been wiped from the face of history.”

  “I’ll stop you!” David shouted back. “I’m still here! Tell that to the King of the Haunting!”

  Adam looked amazed for a moment and faltered.

  “My, my, someone’s been doing their homework. So you’ve heard of the king, then?”

  His tone was mocking, but there was something in his face and voice that he hadn’t been quick enough to hide. And suddenly David saw what it was.

  “You don’t know who it is, do you?” he cried. “You’re working for him — doing all this — but he hasn’t shown his face. Even he doesn’t trust you …”

  “Shut up!” Adam roared. “It doesn’t matter, anyway. The Haunting have been useful to me, sure, but I’m playing for bigger stakes than even they can dream of.”

  “I’ll kill you for what you did to Petra.” David’s voice was diamond hard, but as he tried to summon the strength he’d need, he knew that his mind wasn’t. Adam merely laughed.

  “You sad little boy. You Utherwises are so pathetic.” Adam came closer, pointing his cane. “Your grandfather, so proud of himself and his work — well, look at him now. You — untrained, unwanted, and stuck here all alone. Even your father was an easy
kill in the end. What a family!”

  David had been poised to throw himself at Adam, but at those words he stopped.

  “What did you say?” he demanded. “My father … a what?”

  Adam looked surprised again, but then gave a sudden, mad laugh.

  “I see I’m not the only one who isn’t trusted. They didn’t even tell you the truth about that? Oh, priceless! I thought it was revenge keeping you here, but no, that idiot Feldrake didn’t even bother to tell you how your own father died.”

  “You … you killed him?”

  “Of course I did. You don’t think a man like that would just fall down a flight of stairs without being pushed, do you?”

  David wanted to shout something back, but his mind was frozen with horror at what he was hearing.

  “Of course, Feldrake didn’t actually know himself until I left the Project, and then only when I admitted it. Bunch of losers! I actually feel quite sick when I think of all the years I wasted on them, all that tiptoeing through history and ‘leave no stone turned’ crap. To think I didn’t discover my full potential until it was almost too late.”

  “But why?” David found his voice again. “My dad … why?”

  “Your old man may have been great in some ways, Davy boy, but he was as unimaginative as the rest of them. Always the first to call on your precious Dreamwalker’s Code. ‘Don’t tell anything, don’t scare anyone, blah, blah.’ Pathetic! But he was smart enough to see I wasn’t satisfied. He wrote a report on me, recommending I be retired early, saying I’d become unstable. Me? Retire early? When I was only following his advice? ‘Anything you dream you can do, you can do,’ he said. Well, is it my fault if my dreams were greater than anyone else’s? Is it? I made sure that report never reached Feldrake, and I’m afraid Daddy had to go.” Adam grinned and began to advance again. “But don’t worry, Davy boy. Once I’ve found one of Grinn’s men and put a bullet in little Eddie’s head, all this pain of yours will just wash away. It’s almost an act of kindness.”

  “But Dad was right about you!” David yelled, grief and fury raging in him. “Listen to yourself — you are insane! Who are you to decide who gets to live or die? You’re barely older than I am! You’re just a … a kid, not a …” But David couldn’t bring himself to say it.

  “Not a what?” Adam’s eyes glittered like black fire. “Were you about to say god?”

  Adam began to grow.

  David stepped back in astonishment as his enemy swelled and stretched, his dreamself rising and extending impossibly, expanding until it towered above the rooftops, blotting out the air-raid sky. Within moments Adam was astride the city, a colossus, bending back toward the earth through banks of cloud and smoke. His face filled David’s field of vision, and his laughter ruled the sky. David almost fell to his knees.

  Then, in a moment, the terrible vision passed. Adam was once again on the roof, the size of a mortal man. But the impact of what David had just been shown was undeniable. He knew that it had been nothing more than a dreamwalker’s trick, an illusion spun out of the power to control one’s own dream, but the sight had been truly terrifying.

  Adam advanced on him again, his voice rich with manic delight.

  “Even now you don’t get it!”

  David began to retreat.

  “The power to save those who died before their time? The power to kill those who should have lived? Can’t you see? If I can choose who lives and dies, if I can reshape history, then I am a god. And when your family is obliterated and I have my time over again, that is how the world will know me. With all of history at my feet, I’ll find believers enough. The Romans perhaps, or the ancient Chinese, or …” Adam stopped. He raised one long pale finger to point into the clouds above, to where the deep stop-start drone of the bombers shook the heavens.

  “Yes! The people who sent those planes know how to worship. Just think what I could tell them!”

  David was so bewildered and wretched he didn’t notice that he’d retreated off the edge of the roof and drifted out into space. He looked down at Eddie lying still on the ledge and tried to think clearly. Adam seemed unstoppable, but surely even now there was something he could do. If he could just find another dreamwalker to combine with, he’d wipe the smug grin off Adam’s face, then smash him again and again, once for each of David’s family and friends that Adam had hurt in his selfish quest for power. But there was no other dreamwalker there. His only option appeared to be a desperate solo attack followed by inevitable oblivion. At least then the nightmare would end.

  “Little Davy, all alone,” said Adam in a mocking voice as he rose up off the roof and raised his cane. “It’s time to say good night.” And he swept down.

  David darted to one side, only just avoiding the zinging cane that sliced through the night air. He was desperate to escape, but his mind was also alive with a sudden idea. Adam’s words had reminded him that he wasn’t alone, not entirely. There was still someone here who could help him, someone who was already unconscious.

  Eddie.

  And according to Dishita, Eddie had had the dreamwalker’s gift too.

  David’s mind raced. He’d never actually called up a dreamwalker’s door before, but he had got back to this time on his own, and Petra and the others had always said it was easy. He just needed to know where to go to, that’s all. And there was only one place he could imagine Eddie’s unconscious, dreaming mind would be right now. After all, where else would a hurt and frightened boy want to be?

  David’s door, when it appeared, was set in the wall of the building right beside Eddie’s stricken body. David threw himself toward it as Adam turned and came for him again. Willing himself across the space as fast as he could, David kicked open the door and shot through, twisting around to slam it shut. There was a moment of intense pressure pushing against him, but he felt the door close firmly. It dissolved to nothing.

  David slumped down, but he couldn’t rest yet. He forced his head up and checked that he was where he’d planned to be. He was crouching in a room with patterned brown wallpaper. There was a brass bedstead and a desk beneath a window. On the desk were pens, a lamp, and a pile of crisp new notebooks. It was Eddie’s bedroom, just as it used to be before the fire. In front of the desk was a chair, and sitting on the chair was Eddie, his head in his hands. Beside him stood a woman. She was stroking his hair.

  “Eddie!” David cried. “Eddie, I need you.”

  Eddie glanced up and gave his friend a confused look.

  “Who is this, Mother?”

  The woman gave Eddie a gentle smile but said nothing. She ignored David completely.

  “Eddie, you’re dreaming,” David said. “None of this is real. It’s just a dream.”

  “A dream?” Eddie looked uncertain. “You’re … you’re David, aren’t you?”

  “Yes! But don’t you remember? This place was destroyed; your house got burned down.”

  “I … don’t want to think about that.” Eddie shook his head and his mother made a there-there sound.

  “Wait.” He looked up again. “David, wasn’t I talking to you just a moment ago?”

  “Yes, but then you fell off the roof. Oh, come on, Eddie, you must remember! You were knocked unconscious. Now you’re dreaming, stuck inside your own head. Don’t you see?”

  “I suppose I must be,” said Eddie, not sounding very interested. “Dreaming about you. It’s just a dream.”

  David stared at his friend and wondered how long it would be before Adam worked out where he’d gone. He’d been collected from his own dream by Petra on several occasions, but each time he’d been prepared for what was about to happen. Eddie, however, knew nothing about dreamwalking or Unsleep House or anything, and David couldn’t tell him what he needed to know without breaking the Dreamwalker’s Code. He could have cried out in frustration.

  Instead, he came to a decision.

  He picked up a pen and a notebook from the desk.

  “There’s no such thing as ‘just
a dream’ for people like me and you, Eddie,” he said, and he could see that he finally had Eddie’s full attention. “You want to know what I am? You want answers, to know what’s been happening to you? Well, you of all people deserve the truth.” And as Eddie sat and stared, David opened the notebook and in a few quick lines he wrote out the secret of dreamwalking.

  David opened a second door close to where he’d made the first one at almost exactly the same moment he left. He stepped out into the night air just in time to see Adam throw himself against the first door. David pulled Eddie’s dreamself out after him.

  Eddie gasped, staring across the space above the back street.

  “This is your secret?” Eddie was blinking furiously. “Projected consciousness … through dreams?”

  Then he caught sight of his own body sprawled on the cold stone, blood pooling beside it from the knife wound.

  “Oh. I don’t look very well over there, do I?”

  “It’s not your body you have to worry about right now, Eddie,” said David. “It’s your mind we need if we’re going to finish this for good. Look!”

  But David needn’t have pointed. The dark form of Adam’s dreamself was sharp and sinister in the gloom as he turned to face them. The look on his face was all bewilderment and fury.

  “No!” Adam snarled. “No, no, no!” And he flew at them, his cane raised.

  David grabbed Eddie and pulled him straight into the air, ignoring his startled protests. There was no way to make this easier, no time to introduce him gently to the miracle of dreamwalking as David had been. Adam missed but turned in a second and rocketed after them. David pulled Eddie’s dreamself higher and higher into the sky. The ledge fell back below, but Eddie’s crumpled body could still be made out, lying there like a broken doll.

  “Eddie, we are ghosts now, you and me, right?” David gasped as he strained upward, racing ahead of Adam.

  “Right, right,” Eddie managed.