“The first what?” Boyle demanded.
“The first ghost,” the leader said. A shudder of excitement passed through him, making the bottom of his robe swish. “Since the Ghostfather.”
All around the cave, the hooded figures dipped their heads and bowed. From the corner of his eye, Denzel thought he saw the blurry shape beside the cult leader bow too. For a moment, it became more solid, and Denzel caught a glimpse of ornate red armour and black hair tied back in a tight bun before it vanished again.
“Who’s the Ghostfather when he’s at home?” Smithy wondered.
“Legend says he was the first ever ghost,” said Samara. “The original supernatural entity to walk the Earth.”
“A real big bad,” Boyle added. “The worst of them all. But it’s a legend. A fairy story.”
“It is no fairytale, I assure you,” said the cult leader, his voice becoming hard and cold. “The Ghostfather is very real. And soon, with the help of the Chosen One, He shall return. We will use the key to open the lock, and then, at last, He shall come back.”
The whispers rose up around the cave.
“He is coming.”
“He is coming.”
“He is coming.”
“And when the Ghostfather walks the Earth once more, all shall tremble before Him.”
Smithy stepped forward and puffed up his chest. “Denzel will never help you!”
“Right!” agreed Denzel.
“He’d rather die!”
“Er, yes,” Denzel said, sounding slightly less convinced.
“He’d rather have his guts ripped out through his eyes and his bones ground into a paste than help you lot!”
“Well…” Denzel began, shifting uncomfortably.
“He’d rather have all his skin flayed off him and his insides boiled in oil, then have a hot metal spike rammed—”
“I think they get the point,” Denzel squeaked. He cleared his throat and tried to disguise the shake in his voice. “Smithy’s right. I won’t help you.”
“Oh, Denzel,” said the cult leader. Although they couldn’t see his face, they could hear the smile in his voice. “You already have.”
He gestured to Tabatha. “Bring him to me. Show your loyalty.”
Tabatha nodded. “OK. But first, let me just check I got everything.” She began counting on her fingers. “Cult of Shantankar, Ghostfather, Chosen One, blah-blah-blah, evil plan, rule the world, et cetera, et cetera.”
She beamed broadly at the cult leader. “Yep. I think that’s all we need for now.”
Leaping sideways, Tabatha caught Boyle and Samara by their arms and pulled. The Spectre Collectors became see-through for a moment and slipped out from the ropes that had been binding them to the stake.
“What? What is the meaning of this?” demanded the cult leader.
“What does it look like, hood guy?” Tabatha asked. She flicked her wrist and her cane went spinning behind her. It hit one of the robed figures with a clonk, dropping him to the floor, then returned to her hand. “It’s a breakout!”
Smithy thrust both hands into the air and cheered. “And the wedding is back on!”
Denzel ducked as a jet of flame erupted from Samara’s fingers, sending cult members scurrying for cover. Boyle lunged after one and brought him down with a well-aimed kick to the back of the leg. He spun and blocked as another of the cultists grabbed for him, then used the man’s own momentum to send him crashing into two more of the hooded figures.
“Raaaaargh!”
The cult leader ran at Denzel, his arms raised, his fingers clawing at the air. Denzel danced on the spot in panic. Chaos had broken out all around him, and there was no way he could jump out of the leader’s path in time.
He was bracing himself for the impact when Smithy barrelled into the leader, sending them both crashing to the floor.
“I’ve got him! I’ve got him!” Smithy yelped, sitting on the man’s head and squashing it against the floor.
“Get off me!” the leader spat. He flailed wildly, but Smithy kicked and slapped at his hands, stopping him from being able to get a hold.
Tabatha came bounding between Smithy and Denzel. They watched as she delivered a flying kick to one of the cultists, then somersaulted over him and brought her cane down on the head of another robed figure behind the first.
Smithy grinned at Denzel and gave him a wink. “See? I knew she wasn’t a bad guy.”
Denzel was about to reply when the thing on the stage came into focus, and he finally saw it for what it was. A tall woman with dark hair and narrow eyes stood there, her polished red armour glinting in the glow of the candlelight.
As Denzel watched, she drew a long Samurai sword from a scabbard on her belt, and twirled it in a way that suggested she not only knew how to use it, but would take great pleasure in demonstrating that fact.
“Um…” said Denzel, as the woman’s eyes locked on his.
He turned to look for help, but Samara, Boyle and Tabatha were all busy fighting the hooded figures, and Smithy was wriggling his bottom on the leader’s head and laughing.
Just before he turned back, Denzel saw a second woman in red appear across the cave. Even over the sounds of the fighting and Smithy’s laughter, he heard the shinkt of her sword being drawn.
Shinkt.
Shinkt.
Shinkt.
The sound came from all around him. More and more of the armoured women appeared, their eyes immediately fixing on Denzel as they drew their long, slender blades. Denzel turned slowly on the spot, trying to count them all. There were ten at least, perhaps more. One by one, they all moved towards him, closing in from all sides.
“Uh, guys!” Denzel cried. “We have a problem!”
He turned in time to find a blade slicing towards him, but not nearly in enough time to avoid it. Instead, he could only screw his eyes shut and brace himself as the sword whummed through the air.
And then, with a clank, it stopped. Denzel opened one eye to find Boyle blocking the sword with his arm. The blade had sliced through his uniform, revealing scuffed metal plating beneath it.
With his other arm, Boyle shoved Denzel in the chest, sending him stumbling backwards. “Get out of here,” he barked.
Denzel watched in horror as the Samurai spun on her heel and arced her sword around. Boyle ducked, and the blade scythed just millimetres above his head. He spun into a sweeping kick, but his leg passed harmlessly through the intangible figure.
Off-balance, there was nowhere for Boyle to go when the Samurai raised her sword above her head and brought it slicing down towards him.
A bolt of magical energy slammed into her, launching her backwards across the cave. Denzel turned to see Samara standing behind him, her fingertips crackling with magical power. All around her, the other Samurai closed in.
“Look out!” Denzel warned, but Samara didn’t turn. Instead, she raised a hand and took aim at his chest.
“Run,” she whispered.
And then, as one of the Samurai-ghosts launched herself at her, Samara fired a glowing bolt of blue energy in Denzel’s direction, and the world unspooled around him.
The world stopped spinning a few seconds later. Denzel, however, did not.
He screamed as he tumbled through darkness, yelped when he bounced on something wet and slightly squishy, then babbled incoherently when he went rolling down a grassy hillside.
At last, after what felt like forever, he slammed into a tree and came to a sudden, jarring stop.
Denzel didn’t think he had ever been grateful for smashing face-first into a tree before, but he’d been starting to worry that he was never going to stop, so this particular tree was a welcome one. Heaving himself up on its bottom branches, he had a quick check for broken bones, then tried to figure out where he was.
Wherever it was, it was dark, grassy, mountainous, and rainy.
Still Scotland then.
Night had drawn in, and the blanket of cloud cover turned the light fr
om the moon into a faint patch of white on the grey ceiling above. He’d lost his torch in the cave somewhere. He couldn’t remember where, and reckoned it didn’t really matter. He didn’t have it now, and that was the main thing.
Cupping his hands above his eyes to shield them from the rain, he looked back up the hillside he’d come rolling down. He couldn’t see the cave entrance anywhere. He couldn’t see any landmarks he recognised, in fact, unless you counted puddles.
Down the hill wasn’t any better. There were a few trees scattered around, the edges of their leaves reflecting the thin moonlight. For a moment, he thought he saw a light somewhere down near the bottom of the slope, but then the rain lashed at his face again, forcing him to turn away.
It was then that he heard it – a sudden movement in the foliage behind him. He spun on the spot, punching wildly at the air, but finding nothing. For the briefest of seconds, he thought the sound must’ve been his imagination, but then an ominous white shape appeared from behind a clump of bushes, and bleak, doleful eyes gazed deep into his own.
Baaaaa.
Denzel leaned against the tree and exhaled. “You almost gave me a heart attack,” he whispered.
The sheep stared back at him, its mouth moving as it thoughtfully chewed on some grass.
Baaaaa, another sheep chimed in from a little distance away. This one was munching on a clump of weeds that sprouted from a puddle of mud.
“Easy for you to say,” Denzel told it. “You’re not the one being chased by—”
Both sheep suddenly shot off down the hill, their feet thundering across the grass and mud. One of them glanced back briefly, its eyes bulging in terror as it stared past Denzel at the hillside above.
Denzel saw them then, three red-clad shapes coming bounding down the hillside, their swords drawn. They’d found him. The Samurai-ghosts had found him. For a few seconds, Denzel flapped in panic and considered his options. He thought about climbing the tree, but it was only about ten feet tall, and it didn’t have many leaves to hide in.
He thought about standing his ground and fighting.
That thought didn’t last long.
With a high-pitched “Wait for me!” Denzel threw himself down the hillside after the sheep. He ran in big, bounding steps, gravity dragging him along just as much as his legs were propelling him. He tripped and stumbled, skidded and slipped, spiralling his arms around in terror as his momentum grew and his legs were forced to run faster and faster to stop himself falling.
The grass and mud became slippery stone shale that was not unlike loose gravel. Denzel’s out-of-control run became an even more out-of-control slide, and he hurtled down, down, down the darkened hillside, picking up speed with every second that passed.
On the one hand, this was good. He was confident that he had to be going faster than the ghosts, which meant he would be pulling ahead.
On the other hand, he would presumably reach the bottom eventually, and he wasn’t sure what would happen then. At this speed, and with no means of slowing down, he was pretty confident it wouldn’t be anything good.
He didn’t have long to wait to find out. The hillside levelled off suddenly, and Denzel’s downward slide became a frantic forward stagger. In the darkness, he saw the ground fall away just ahead of him, and realised with a sinking feeling that he was going to run right off a cliff in five more steps.
Unfortunately, he realised this four steps in, and the final step found nothing but thin air. Denzel fell straight down, his arms flapping, his legs kicking furiously at nothing but empty space. His mouth opened as if to scream, but before he could utter a sound he slammed into a big rock that stuck out from the cliff face, knocking all the air out of him in one painfully brief wheeze.
After the rock came a tree, then another tree, then a second rock, and then a series of increasingly large branches. And then, after all that, came the ground. It was quite soft, as ground went, thanks mostly to the rain. The various branches and rocks had all slowed his fall too, so that when he finally hit the ground he sort of schlopped into it without doing himself any more damage than he already had.
Groaning, he tried to stand, but his body made it clear that it wasn’t ready for that yet, thank you very much, and he had no choice but to lie there in the soggy darkness, waiting for his breath to return.
As he waited, Denzel saw three shapes moving above him. He held his breath and watched as the pursuing Samurai-ghosts went sailing above the treetops and vanished into the darkness ahead.
He kept holding his breath for as long as he could, before finally letting it out in one long, soft gasp.
They hadn’t seen him. The ghosts hadn’t seen him! He’d lost them. He was safe. For now, at least. He started to sit up, then stopped himself.
What if they came back? Or what if this was a trick and they were waiting on the other side of the tree, ready to slice him into several different pieces the moment he got to his feet?
He lay back down and decided to wait where he was for a little longer, just to be absolutely sure that the coast was clear. Three or four hours should do it.
Half a day, tops.
Two and a half minutes later, Denzel was so cold and wet that he reckoned being sliced into variously sized bits would be preferable. He pulled himself out of the mud and spent a few moments listening for any sign that he’d been spotted.
When he was confident that no one was about to swing a sword at him, he set himself to figuring out what he should do next. The cliff face behind him was too steep to climb, even with the rocky outcrops he’d thumped into on the way down. He might be able to climb one of the trees, but even if he reached the top he’d have to jump a large gap in pitch darkness, with the wind howling around him.
He didn’t much fancy that.
If he walked away from the cliff, he’d be following the Samurai-ghosts, which didn’t strike him as a very sensible idea.
That left two directions, both of which ran parallel to the cliff. Neither one seemed any more promising than the other, so he picked one and started walking.
Then he changed his mind, turned round and walked the other way instead.
As he walked, he worried. He worried about Smithy, Samara, Tabatha and Boyle, more or less in that order. He worried about the Cult of Shantankar, and about the Ghostfather. He worried for a good few minutes about the whole “Chosen One” thing, and the idea that he would somehow be responsible for unleashing an ancient evil upon the Earth.
That would be a bummer.
The more he walked, the more worried Denzel became about something else. Something more pressing than Chosen Ones or Ghostfathers.
“Yep,” he sighed, stopping beneath a tree and taking shelter beneath its branches. “I’m completely lost.”
And he was. On his left, the cliff face had become a sloping hillside that was still far too steep to climb. On his right, a few metres of grass and bracken gave way to absolute darkness that he couldn’t possibly see anything through.
The rain had changed from a sideways torrent to a steady downpour of large, fat drops that plinked on the leaves overhead. Even if he called for help, no one would hear him, with the possible exception of the Samurai-ghosts.
He could have navigated using the stars, were it not for the fact that they were hidden by the clouds. And, more importantly, for the fact that he had no idea how.
The rain had found its way inside his jacket and was soaking him to the skin now. As he stood there all alone in the darkness, Denzel began to shiver. Or maybe he’d been shivering for a while. The cold and the rain made it hard to think straight.
The wind whistled around him, making him colder still. He couldn’t stay out here. If he didn’t find cover soon, he wouldn’t have to worry about the Samurai-ghosts killing him – the gathering storm would do it for them.
There had to be somewhere he could go. There had to be somewhere he could hide until the weather and the ghosts had moved on. But where?
As if in answer to that
question, a fork of lightning tore across the dark night sky, briefly painting the landscape in its electric glow.
For a moment, Denzel thought he saw a ramshackle old house just a couple of hundred metres down the hillside, and then the darkness returned to swallow it up.
He fixed his gaze on the spot where he thought he’d seen it, and began an unsteady limp in that direction.
Several times he tripped and stumbled, but he daren’t look down, daren’t take his eyes off the patch of darkness ahead of him. If he lost track of where the house was now, he might never find it again.
Another bolt of lightning cracked the night wide open, revealing a run-down old cottage that seemed to slouch on its foundations as if too tired to stand upright. Moss grew across the whitewashed stone walls. The garden was a tangle of weeds and grass, somehow even more unkempt than the wilderness around him.
But it had walls and a roof, which meant he could shelter there. Probably not until the rain went off – he didn’t think the rain was ever going to go off – but at least until morning.
He was halfway along the path when the door opened. He’d assumed the house was abandoned, and so he let out a little gasp of fright when the door creaked slowly inward on its hinges and a figure in a long white nightdress appeared, the light from a candle she held showing off a road map of wrinkles on her face.
“Now, what in the name o’ the wee man are you doing out in this weather?” the old woman asked him. She stepped aside and beckoned him into the darkened hallway. “Come away in, before you catch your death…”
The inside of the house was not as tired and ramshackle as the outside.
It was worse.
Patches of damp bloomed across the wallpaper that hung in peeling strips from the living-room wall. Slimy-looking mushrooms sprouted from a carpet, the original colour of which was lost beneath a layer of grime.
Most of the furniture was caked with dust, except for a sideboard over by the window, which was covered in hundreds of dead flies.
All things considered, Denzel would’ve preferred to take his chances outside.
“Wild out there, the night,” said the old woman, as if reading his mind. Her voice was soft, with an unmistakable Scottish brogue that would normally have set Denzel at ease, had it not been for everything else going on.
Rise of the Ghostfather Page 5
