‘Use your uncertain nature to hide us, so we can start the plan,’ I said carefully.
‘How am I supposed to do that?’ said Johnny. ‘My unique nature only works on people, not things. The effect I have on the world is a consequence of what I am, not what I can do.’
‘Oh … shit,’ I said.
‘That’s it?’ said Lex. ‘Your great plan has gone wrong already?’
He glared about him, his hands clenched into fists, ready to take on anything that moved.
‘Easy, big boy,’ I said. ‘We’re not in any danger just yet. See how still and quiet everything is?’
‘I did warn you not to depend on me,’ Johnny said sadly.
‘It’s not your fault,’ said Lex.
‘That would make a nice change,’ said Johnny.
‘What are we going to do?’ said the Ghost.
I thought hard and then turned to Annie. ‘Are you sure you’ve charmed all of the security systems?’
‘It’s just one big system,’ said Annie. ‘And right now it loves me more than life itself.’
‘Weird,’ said Johnny, shaking his head. ‘Really weird.’
‘You’d know,’ Annie said coldly.
‘Exactly!’ said Johnny.
‘Please don’t upset the only member of the crew who can hide us from the weapons of mass destruction,’ I said. ‘And I can’t believe I actually needed to say that.’
‘It’s just bullets,’ Johnny said sulkily.
‘Inside voice …’ said Lex.
‘Right now, we’re completely hidden from all forms of surveillance,’ said Annie. ‘They’re doing everything they can to please me, which is more than anyone on this crew has ever done. So even if we do have problems with Hammer’s outer defences, no one inside the museum should have any idea that anything is happening.’
‘I’m not feeling any poltergeist activity,’ I said slowly. ‘The book said we would know if the attack dogs were anywhere near. And I don’t see any golem guards.’
‘I’m surprised there aren’t any human guards patrolling the area,’ said Annie.
‘Probably too dangerous for them,’ said Lex. ‘And there’s always the chance the book could be wrong when it comes to the demon dogs. We can’t depend on getting any kind of warning.’
‘It’s a bit late to start disbelieving the book now!’ I said.
‘I never trusted it,’ said Lex. ‘It’s just someone’s word, and the only thing you can be sure of with people is that they’ll always let you down.’
‘If you don’t believe in the book, what are you doing here?’ I said.
He met my gaze squarely. ‘You promised me a chance for revenge on Hammer.’
‘And you’ll get it,’ I said. ‘OK, people, let’s head for the museum.’
‘After you,’ said Annie.
‘No,’ said Lex. ‘I go first. I have armour.’
‘Don’t put it on unless you absolutely have to,’ I said. ‘Hammer could have special measures in place, triggered to activate the moment they detect your armour.’
‘They won’t stop me,’ said Lex. ‘Nothing will. Let’s go.’
‘Wait a minute,’ I said.
I took out my map and unfolded it, and reminded everyone of where the curses were buried.
‘Look for landmarks near the safe paths,’ I said. ‘And fix them in your mind.’
‘Why didn’t you bring the journal with you?’ said Annie. ‘It might have had more details.’
‘I couldn’t risk the book falling into Hammer’s hands,’ I said steadily. ‘So I put it back in the original Sable’s safe deposit box. For some other thief to find – and work out a better plan than ours if we don’t come back.’
Annie nodded slowly. ‘Because hurting Hammer is what matters.’
‘Yes,’ said Lex, ‘it is.’
‘There’s a safe path right in front of us, heading straight to the museum’s front door,’ I said. ‘Just stick together, people, and we’ll be fine.’
‘There you go with that optimism thing again,’ said Johnny.
I nodded to Lex to lead the way, and he set off along the invisible path. We all followed after him, careful to walk only where he walked. The sound of our footsteps seemed very small in the great open space, as though we were barely there.
For a long time, nothing bad happened, and I think we were all starting to relax a little when Lex got a little too close to one of the standing stones. It suddenly began to rock back and forth on its base, as though it was about to topple over. Everyone backed away, and I had to yell at them to remember the curse mines and stay on the path. The stone of the monolith cracked and splintered, as parts of it broke away to form arms and legs and a blunt head.
‘It’s a golem guard!’ said Lex.
‘We have to do something before it wakes all the other stones up,’ said Johnny.
‘This must have been covered in the missing pages.’ I turned to Annie. ‘Can you charm it?’
‘My gift only works on machines!’ She looked quickly around at the dozens of other stone monoliths. ‘You mean all of them could be golems?’
‘Wouldn’t surprise me,’ said Lex. ‘Probably triggered by human proximity.’
‘What do we do?’ said the Ghost.
‘I’m all for saying nuts to this and heading back to the dimensional door,’ said Johnny. ‘This heist went very bad, very quickly. Can’t help thinking that’s an omen.’
‘Stand where you are, Johnny,’ said Lex. ‘We can handle this. Trust me.’
‘You can’t see what’s powering them,’ said the Wild Card.
‘Golems usually have activating words written on their forehead,’ I said. ‘Wipe off the mark and the golem will stop working.’
‘This one doesn’t have a mark on its forehead,’ said Lex. ‘And even if there was a hidden mark, I still wouldn’t be able to reach that high, would I?’
The golem raised a single fist, like a massive stone maul, and its blunt face turned slowly back and forth, as though uncertain who to kill first. And then it lurched forward, its stone feet pounding heavily on the cavern floor.
‘Scatter!’ I said. ‘Don’t give it a single target.’
The sheer weight of the stone golem made it ponderously slow, giving us more than enough time to spread out and form a circle around it. The golem stopped abruptly, as though unable to choose between so many targets, and Lex used that moment to put on his armour. The halos at his wrists glowed fiercely, and then the light and the dark swept over him in a moment, sealing him off from the world and all human weakness. Just like that, there was a new presence in the cavern, something so heavy it could break the world merely by walking on it.
None of us could bear to look at the armour directly. Johnny had to close his eyes and turn his head away, because he could see what the armour really was.
The golem guard went straight for Lex, its blunt stone feet slamming down on the cavern floor. Clouds of dust flew up with every impact. The golem loomed over Lex and raised its massive stone fist. The Damned stood his ground, motionless as a statue. The fist came down like a hammer and shattered into pieces against Lex’s armoured head. The golem stopped and looked at the broken stone where its hand used to be, as though this eventuality hadn’t been covered in its operating instructions. Lex took a step forward, and the golem fell back a step. Lex went for it.
I couldn’t see his face inside the armour, but I just knew he was smiling his terrible cold smile, relishing the chance to strike back at Hammer, even if only indirectly.
Lex punched the golem in its stone chest with incredible force, and jagged cracks radiated out from the blow, but the golem didn’t break apart and it didn’t fall. Instead, it grabbed Lex by the shoulder with its one remaining hand, to pull him forward into its embrace. Lex dug his armoured heels into the cavern floor, but they just left runnels in the dusty stone as he was dragged forward anyway. Lex stopped fighting the pull and moved in close with the golem, doing his bes
t to wrestle with it. He set his armoured arms against the guard, straining furiously, but the golem’s sheer inertia made it hard to move or resist.
‘Lex!’ I said suddenly. ‘I’ve got an idea!’
‘Better be a good one,’ he said, not looking round as he fought to hold off the golem’s relentless strength. ‘This overactive boulder doesn’t seem to have any weak spots.’
‘There’s a buried curse, about ten feet to your left,’ I said. ‘Throw the golem at it!’
Lex broke the thing’s hold with an effort, grabbed the stone shape and lifted it off its feet. I pointed at the nearest buried curse, and Lex hurled the golem on to it. There was a sharp flash of light, and the golem melted down into a pool of bubbling magma. I winced away from the terrible heat coming off it, even at a distance.
Annie and the Ghost looked quickly around for more stone guards, while Johnny looked thoughtfully at what had been a golem guard. I glanced at the museum, but there was nothing to indicate they’d heard anything.
‘You’d better lose the armour, Lex,’ I said. ‘Just in case.’
The light and the dark disappeared in a moment, and Lex reappeared. He flinched back a step, as the heat from the magma hit him.
‘Hot time in the old cavern tonight,’ he said solemnly.
‘The whole of the cavern floor is covered with these Trojan golems,’ said Annie. ‘The sneaky bastards.’
‘This is Fredric Hammer’s domain,’ said the Ghost. ‘We must have been mad to think we could take him on his own territory.’
‘Just because we’re mad, doesn’t mean we can’t win,’ Johnny said reasonably.
‘We go on,’ I said. ‘Keep to the safe path and stay away from the standing stones, and we should be fine. Lex, lead the way.’
He didn’t even look at me, just headed straight for the museum. And we went after him.
The cavern was almost unbearably still, as though everything was holding its breath to see what would happen next. The blind concrete walls of the museum drew steadily closer, and then Lex stopped abruptly and looked off to one side, frowning, as though struggling to make out something. We all stopped with him and looked where he was looking, but there was nothing there.
I moved in beside him. ‘What is it, Lex?’
‘There’s something up ahead, to one side,’ he said quietly. ‘It feels like the tension you get on the air just before a storm breaks.’
‘It’s the poltergeist attack dogs,’ said Johnny.
We all looked at him.
‘How can you be sure?’ said Annie.
‘Because I can see them,’ said Johnny.
I strained my eyes but still couldn’t see or feel anything. The Ghost looked uneasy, and Annie was trying to look in every direction at once. I turned back to Lex.
‘What are you seeing, exactly?’
‘It’s like a mirage on the air, only without the mirage,’ he said slowly. ‘A disturbance in the way things should be. Whatever it is, it’s getting closer. I think it knows we know it’s there. How am I supposed to fight something I can’t even see?’
‘Allow me,’ said Johnny.
He snapped his fingers at the way ahead of us, and three poltergeist attack dogs appeared out of nowhere. Dark swirling clouds of elemental energies, shot through with flashes of lightning, radiating hostility. All three of them bumped along the cavern floor, heading straight for us.
‘Now you’re seeing the world the way I do,’ said the Wild Card. ‘Can you honestly say you’re any happier for it?’
The attack dogs surged forward, as though they’d picked up our scent. I could feel their presence now, like fingernails scraping down the blackboard of my soul.
Annie stepped behind me and peered over my shoulder. ‘How dangerous are those things?’
‘According to Sable’s journal, very,’ I said steadily. ‘The forces they control could tear us apart in a moment.’
‘Wasn’t there anything in the book about how to deal with these things?’
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Set the Ghost on them.’
‘Right,’ the Ghost said happily. ‘Not a problem.’
He strode forward to confront the approaching entities, and we all stayed exactly where we were and let him do it.
‘I’ve seen things like this before,’ the Ghost said over his shoulder. ‘When the book called them poltergeist attack dogs, I was expecting some kind of demon … But this is just spiritual bad weather, given shape and a purpose. Nothing at all to worry about.’
He walked right up to the spitting, crackling energy things, and all three of them slammed to a halt. The Ghost glared at them, and his presence suddenly became unbearable. Death was with us, blunt and uncompromising. The end of all things in a human shape.
Lex’s halos sparked and sputtered at his wrists, uncertain whether to manifest his armour. Johnny was frowning, as though seeing something unexpected for the first time in ages and not liking it. Annie grabbed hold of my arm with both hands. I put a hand on top of hers and hoped I’d been right about the Ghost.
The poltergeist attack dogs retreated quickly in the face of something they couldn’t bear, disappearing as they went. Because they couldn’t stand to exist after what they’d been shown. Once they were gone, the Ghost turned back to face us, and once again he was just the friendly figure we’d thought we knew. It was easy to forget, sometimes, that he really was dead and all that such a thing entailed.
‘They were only guard dogs,’ he said mildly. ‘And dogs have always been frightened of me. I don’t know why.’
I just nodded. I wasn’t going to be the one to tell him. I turned to Lex.
‘The longer we spend out here, the more chance we’ll run into something we can’t handle. You’d better run interference and get us to the museum as quickly as possible.’
‘No,’ the Ghost said sharply. ‘I should go first, because I can see where the curses are buried. I can see other things, too. So much is becoming clearer to me now … as though I’ve been asleep and dreaming.’
‘All right,’ I said. ‘You’re on. Everyone else, stay close. Annie, you can let go of my arm now.’
She quickly took her hands away, not looking at me. The Ghost set off towards the museum, and we all followed him. And that was when every single stone monolith suddenly woke up. Jagged cracks split and splintered the solid stone as they took on their human shapes, and then they all came lurching forward from every direction at once to block our way and surround us. The Ghost stopped, and we all stopped with him.
‘Did I do that?’ he said. ‘I didn’t mean to do that.’
‘They must have been triggered when we got too close to the museum,’ I said. ‘An army of unbeatable, undying guards …’
‘You must have a plan!’ said Annie. ‘You always have a plan!’
‘Just the one,’ I said. I took out my ballpoint pen. ‘Grab hold of my arm again, Annie, and hold your breath.’
We both took a deep breath, and I hit the button on the pen. Time crashed to a halt, just for the two of us. The world took on a deep reddish tinge, as though the pen had slowed down light itself, and all sound stopped. In the eerie silence of the unmoving world, a glance at the map showed that all of the golem guards had frozen in place. I indicated to Annie the guns on top of the museum, and she nodded quickly but gestured back at me that we’d have to get a lot closer before she could take control of their computer targeting systems. It was good to know the old mind-reading connection was still there. We pressed forward together, forcing our way through a world that resisted our every movement, both of us already desperate for air that wasn’t there.
The museum seemed impossibly far away. Every step was an effort, every foot gained a struggle. The world did everything it could to hold us back, but we wouldn’t be stopped. Annie stuck close beside me, matching me step for step, and her strength gave me strength. We had to get all the way to the front door before Annie indicated we were close enough and I could hit the button again
. We crashed back into Time, gasping for breath and leaning on each other for support. I gestured urgently at the roof, and Annie seized control of the guns. The long barrels whined loudly as they changed position, locking on to new targets. And then they all fired at once, and every single golem guard was blown into a hundred pieces.
The rest of the crew all but jumped out of their skins, as the rain of pebbles fell to the cavern floor. And then they almost did it again when they realized Annie and I weren’t where we had been just a moment before. I motioned for them to come and join us, and they hurried forward.
‘You used the pen, didn’t you?’ said Johnny. ‘You must let me try that some time.’
‘You’re dangerous enough as it is,’ I said.
Johnny beamed at me. ‘Why, thank you, Gideon. That’s the nicest thing you’ve ever said about me.’
I couldn’t believe no one inside the museum had heard all the guns firing at once. The concrete walls must be really thick. I looked back across the cavern, at all the ground we’d covered and the threats we’d faced, and grinned suddenly.
‘What?’ said Lex.
‘This was supposed to be the easy part …’ I said.
‘What do we do now?’ said Johnny, looking interestedly at the solid steel front door. ‘Knock loudly and tell them we’re carol singers?’
‘Hush,’ I said. ‘I’m thinking.’
‘Can’t you open it with your skeleton key?’ said Annie.
‘First things first,’ I said. ‘Ghost, I need you to stick your head through that door and tell us what’s on the other side.’
The Ghost looked at me and then at the door. ‘I don’t like to. What if there’s something nasty waiting? What if it grabs hold of my head and rips it off?’
I looked at him. ‘How likely is that?’
‘There might be,’ said the Ghost. ‘You don’t know. I have to think about things like this, because no one else will.’
‘Ghost,’ I said, with great patience, ‘there is no one waiting on the other side of this door. The book says so.’
‘Then why do you need me to take a look?’ the Ghost said craftily.
‘Because I need to be sure!’
The Best Thing You Can Steal Page 16