The Desolations of Devil's Acre
Page 15
“Oh, it’s awful!” wailed Bronwyn, covering her eyes.
She could see it, too. So could Emma and Miss Peregrine, who gaped at the distant creature in fascination and horror.
We could all see it. And I had only just started to feel its presence, which was worryingly late considering how close it was.
“It’s horrible,” said Emma, twisting her lip. “If I’d known they were that ugly, I would’ve been even more terrified of them.”
I gathered my courage and tried to prepare myself for a fight. “I’ll take care of it,” I said.
I was about to tear away from the group when Miss Peregrine latched on to my arm. “It’s you he’s come for,” she said. “You and Miss Pradesh. You’d be walking right into Caul’s trap.”
“It’s going to kill someone!” I protested.
“He is only interested in killing the two of you.” She relinquished my arm. “Right now it’s the home guard’s job to deal with this, not yours. And since they can see this one, their task will be that much easier.”
Bronwyn uncovered her eyes. “But why can we see it?”
“Perhaps it’s an inferior species of hollowgast that my brother was keeping in reserve somewhere,” Miss Peregrine guessed. “In any case, we can trade theories after it’s dead.”
She pointed out three home guards who had appeared at the edge of a rooftop near the hollowgast. They were pushing a heavy piece of machinery toward the edge. “A harpoon gun,” Miss Peregrine noted. “It’s modern, steam-powered, and fires a razor-sharp mesh of wire designed specially to kill hollows.”
The gun was so tall it nearly overshadowed the three seven-foot men pushing it. Working quickly, they rolled it into place at the edge of the roof, swiveled the barrel around on a tripod, and took aim.
“They’re only going to make it angry,” I warned.
“It’s not angry now?” said Noor, and we turned to see her standing behind us on the footbridge.
“It’s barely even cross,” said Emma.
“I asked you to stay inside,” Miss Peregrine growled.
Noor did a double take. “Should I be able to see it?”
“Yes, we can all see it, now please go inside,” Miss Peregrine snapped.
Noor stared at the hollow, ignoring her, and gagged a little. “God, he’s ugly.”
“Please, just let me handle it,” I said. “I know they can see it, but I can control it. They’re going to get hurt.”
“Absolutely out of the question!” Miss Peregrine was close to fully losing her temper.
The guards were still aiming. The hollow leapt from the bridge onto a barge, lashed a large crate, and sent it arcing through the air like a discus. The guards saw it coming toward them and ducked; it crashed down on the rooftop not far from them.
“They’d better hurry up,” Bronwyn muttered, “or they’re going to be cat’s meat.”
The guards stood up again, then—finally—fired their weapon. There was a puff of white smoke as the harpoon gun made an explosive report. A cloud of metal wire zipped across the Ditch, expanding as it went, but flew clear of the hollow to splash down in the filthy water. A moment later, a man who’d been standing in its path collapsed to the ground, diced into a dozen pieces.
Noor and Emma gasped, and Miss Peregrine winced and muttered some quick, prayerful-sounding phrase in Old Peculiar under her breath.
“They blew it,” I said. “Now it’s my turn.”
She grabbed my arm again. “Absolutely not,” she repeated, but more weakly than before.
The hollow was on the move, jumping to the flat deck of another barge before tearing down a flimsy bridge made of planks.
“If it wants me, it’ll follow me,” I said, “and that means I can lead it to a less-crowded area. How easily can they move that harpoon gun?”
“Easily enough, if I help them,” Bronwyn said.
Miss Peregrine frowned. She was losing this battle. “What do you mean to do?” she said to me.
“There’s a tunnel near here, right?”
“There’s the bridge tunnel that leads out of the loop,” Emma said.
That was a half mile away down the Ditch, if not more. “I need something closer.”
“There’s the tunnel underneath Shank Hill,” said Miss Peregrine, and she reluctantly let go of my arm to point it out in the distance.
“I have to go,” I said, backing away. “Before anyone else is killed.”
For a moment Miss Peregrine squeezed her eyes shut. When she opened them again, she had given up fighting me. “Go, then,” she said. “I’ll let the guards know you’re coming, and that you need their harpoon. Take Miss Bloom with you, and Miss Bruntley.”
“And me,” said Noor.
“Not you!” Miss Peregrine said, latching on to Noor’s arm in place of mine.
“She’s right,” I said, “you’re too important to risk.”
“So important I’m useless,” Noor grumbled. Then, low and serious and close to my ear: “Come back in one piece.”
* * *
◆ ◆ ◆
With a running start Miss Peregrine leapt into the air. She transformed in a blurred burst of feathers and was winging off toward the rooftop before her empty clothes had even touched the ground.
The guards had not fired their gun again. Maybe they were too horrified by what they had done. Or maybe, I thought with a sinking feeling, they’d only had one shot, and they’d wasted it.
Bronwyn and Emma followed me as I broke into a run. The rudiments of a plan were only beginning to take shape in my mind. The main thing was to get close to the hollow and try to tap into his brain. If this really was some lesser form of hollowgast, I thought, it shouldn’t be difficult. Then again, assumptions like that had only ever deepened whatever trouble I was in.
We crossed the rickety footbridge to the other side of the water and ran along the bank toward the hollow. Peculiars were fleeing in the opposite direction. Leo’s four goons, pale and panting. Dogface and the boy with the pulsating boil, who both looked more amused than scared.
“Go get ’em, Jake!” Dogface cheered without slowing.
“Cowards!” Emma shouted after them.
The hollow let out a scream that echoed down the street, scaring one girl so badly that she gave up running and leapt into the water. Dogface, to his credit, saw what happened and turned back to fish her out.
We reached the confluence where our filthy tributary flowed into the main Ditch. Here the streets were totally deserted. The hollowgast had clambered up to the third story of a building, and was hanging from a ledge, its tentacles sampling the air like a gourmand. Miss Peregrine had been right. It was looking for me. Smelling for me. And no doubt for Noor.
We entered the hollow’s halo of destruction and dodged a shattered crate, from which a lifetime’s supply of pungent bleu cheese had spilled across the cobblestones. Only peculiars would use bleu cheese as survival rations.
“I’ll draw it toward that tunnel entrance,” I shouted over my shoulder. “Bronwyn, how fast can you get that gun from the roof down to the street?”
She glanced up at the building, a block away. “Two minutes,” she said, reassuringly certain.
The tunnel entrance was several blocks beyond that and down a side street. “One minute would be better,” I said, “but Emma and I will buy you as much time as we can. I need you to get that gun through the tunnel before me. Post yourself at the far end and aim it back the way you came. Then wait for us.”
“I hope you know what you’re doing, Mr. Jacob,” she said, and split off down an alley.
Emma and I kept running until we had drawn even with the hollow, which was now directly across the Ditch from us. I had assumed it would see me right away and run in our direction, and indeed it was already climbing down from the building—but not bec
ause of me. There was a woman on its side of the street: the cowgirl with the long braid over one shoulder and a rifle in her hands.
Her voice echoed off the bricks and the water. “Hold it right there! I got you in my sights!”
“Get out of there!” Emma called. “You’ll be slaughtered!”
The woman ignored us. She pressed the rifle stock to her shoulder and sighted down the barrel. The hollow paused halfway down the building and gave her a vaguely curious look, as if it had never been threatened by a human before and wanted to see what she would do next.
The woman fired. The shot was loud and echoing, and the recoil threw her shoulder back. She slid the bolt on her rifle with a smooth and assured motion, lowering the barrel as the hollow began to climb down again, then fired a second time. The hollow reached the street and began walking toward her almost casually, like someone out for an after-dinner stroll.
The cowgirl held her ground and began reloading. Maybe she’d never seen a hollow in action before. Maybe she didn’t know what she was up against. Maybe she was suicidal. Regardless, I didn’t want her blood on my hands.
“Hey!” I shouted. “Asshole!”
The hollow froze. And then the cowgirl started firing. She got off six shots with remarkable speed, cocking and aiming between each trigger pull.
And then she stopped, out of ammo. There was a breathless moment where everyone waited to see what would happen—whether the hollow would fall down dead. Instead it calmly reached up its withered hand and, in a motion like removing lint from a sweater, plucked eight bullets from its chest and flicked them away.
“Jesus Jehoshaphat,” the cowgirl said, lowering the rifle. “That was a thirty-aught-six.”
The bullets hadn’t even punctured its skin. It roared and lurched toward her again, faster this time, as if determined to kill a pestering fly. The cowgirl had fallen back a few steps, the first hint of fear she’d betrayed, and was fumbling to pry fresh bullets from a pocket with one hand.
“It’s useless, you idiot!” Emma shouted, and began rubbing her hands together. “RUN!”
Emma worked up a fat ball of fire between her palms and launched it across the Ditch. The hollow had all three tongues out and was reaching for the woman when the fireball landed a few feet shy of it, and the hollow stopped dead in its tracks.
“Great shot,” I yelled, and Emma clapped her flaming hands with glee.
“Over here!” I waved my arms at the hollow. “Come and get me!”
The hollow turned to look at us. The cowgirl swallowed her pride and ran. I shouted a command in Hollow across the water—Swallow your tongues—in the hope Miss Peregrine was right, that this hollow was so inferior that I might be able to establish control over it from a distance, without having to get close and knead its mind into submission while it tried to disassemble me.
No such luck.
I felt a quickening in the hollowgast as it recognized me, let out a scream that split the air, and spat the dead horse’s head in our direction. It sailed most of the way over the Ditch, then landed short and splashed us with foul water.
“It’s not working?” Emma asked, trying not to sound panicked.
“Not yet. I probably just need to get closer.”
“Probably?”
I shouted, Sleep, lie down! in Hollow, but the hollow didn’t react. It was turning left and right, looking for the quickest way across the Ditch to us.
“I do need to get closer.”
“No way, Jacob. Promise me you’ll exhaust every other option before you let that thing near you.”
It was waiting for us to make a move. And now I’d stalled too long, and doubt was creeping in. Doubt that I could do this. Doubt that this was a hollow that could be controlled at all. And suddenly I didn’t want to get within a hundred feet of it.
“Okay,” I promised her. “It’s a last resort.”
We took off running down our side of the Ditch. The hollow bolted in the same direction, easily keeping pace with us.
“It’s going to cross,” I said. “We need to get inside somewhere . . . out of the open . . .”
Emma pointed to a rickety tenement. “In there!” The building was just beyond the bridge of barges. If we didn’t get there before the hollow crossed it, we’d be cut off.
“We’ll lead it through the building, try to slow it down once we’re inside to buy Bronwyn some time, then lead it to the tunnel entrance,” I said. “Get your hands as hot as you can, and stay near.”
“Way ahead of you,” she said, match-flames leaping from her fingers.
“Fast as fast can be,” I said, panting, and we broke into a sprint.
The hollow matched us, propelling itself with all three tongues toward a traffic jam of boats that stretched across the water; an easy bridge.
We reached the tenement door just as the hollow leapt onto the first boat. I let Emma run inside first, making sure the hollow saw where we were going. There was no question: It was heading for us like a moth to a lamp.
The building’s interior was an uninhabitable wreck of slumping walls and half-caved ceilings, and we navigated the rubble as nimbly as we could, running around some piles, scrambling over others. When the door behind us smashed open and flew off its hinges, I knew we were in the hollow’s company.
I didn’t look back, didn’t need to. I could feel it now, my inner compass finally shuddering to life. It had taken a long time to generate any kind of connection to this hollow, way longer than was normal, and the feeling itself was different, I noticed, the compass needle shivering at a higher frequency. But there would be time to parse this later . . . if we made it to later. Suffice to say, I was starting to think this was no inferior hollow. This was something new, and more terrible, than before. I prayed it was killable, and that I was not leading my friends into a death trap.
We were helped by a bit of dumb luck: The crumbling tenement had plenty of trash for us to throw in the hollow’s way. As we fled, we toppled an enormous wardrobe and a jumbled pile of broken chairs behind us, which slowed it some. Near the exit we led it down a short, debris-choked hallway, and while the hollow itself was slender enough to fit through any gap that Emma or I could, its slashing tongues got tangled in something, which hung him up just long enough for us to escape outside into an alley and get a healthy head start toward the tunnel.
The tunnel wasn’t much taller or wider than me, and it bored through a wall where the street dead-ended ahead of us. It was not lit inside, and as we approached I couldn’t tell whether Bronwyn and the guards had already entered, but I hoped to God they had.
“Emma—” I started to say, but she was one step ahead of me, as usual, flames already leaping from her hands to light up the dark.
A howl echoed off the walls of the alley behind us. The hollow was outside of the building now, and there was only open ground separating us.
We ducked into the tunnel and forged into blackness. Tree roots hanging down from the tunnel’s raw ceiling slapped our faces.
A voice echoed from deeper inside the tunnel: “Mr. Jacob, is that you?”
Bronwyn. Bronwyn was ahead of us.
“It’s us!” Emma shouted. “Emma and Jacob!”
We rounded a slight curve and a glow appeared in the distance—the tunnel exit. Silhouetted in the glow were four stooped figures dragging a harpoon gun. They’d been forced to turn it on its side to fit it into the tunnel.
Behind us, the hollow reached the tunnel entrance. The feeling grew more present, as if the shape of the tunnel had compressed and focused it.
We stumbled and ran and stumbled and ran, which was the best we could do hunched over like that. Then we came to a place where, mercifully, the tunnel was higher, and we could stand, and really move our legs.
The noise the hollow made was all-encompassing. We dared not look back. We just ran.
If this plan had any hope of working, I was going to have to find a way to slow the hollow down. I told Emma to stay with Bronwyn, to defend her, if it came to that.
“You won’t be able to see it in the dark if I don’t come with you!”
“I can feel it,” I said, “and maybe that’s enough.” If the hollowgast didn’t need eyes to hunt me, maybe I didn’t need eyes to hunt it, either.
“And how do you mean to fight it?” she was saying, but I wasn’t really listening now—I was turning away, steeling myself to make a run toward the hollow, when I felt someone run past me, down the tunnel.
“Hey!” I shouted, and Emma held up her flame too late, so that all we saw of the mystery sprinter was her back and a bobbing head of messy hair.
Hugh came running up from behind, arms wheeling as he skidded to a stop. “Did you see Fiona?” he said, panting for air. “We snuck out to help you, and a moment ago she just took off running.”
“Oh God,” I said, “she’s going to get herself killed . . .”
I turned and shot into the dark toward the hollow, Emma and Hugh on my heels. I shouted Fiona’s name, my eyes searching farther than Emma’s flame-light extended. I couldn’t see the hollow but I could feel it, feel the gap between us closing fast. I ran with my palms thrust out to part thickets of hanging roots, a forest of long swaying fingers that dragged across my head and my shoulders, exploring me—
We all heard the scream. Sharp and high, a girl’s voice. It was joined an instant later by the hollowgast. And then Emma’s light caught them, dimly at first, brightening as we closed in.
I thought we would find Fiona between the hollow’s jaws, but that was not, thank God, what we discovered. Fiona and the hollow were forty or fifty feet apart and facing each other like duelists. Fiona stood with her feet spread and her hands poised in the air like an orchestra conductor before the first notes of a symphony. We came to a stop and surrounded her, and while Hugh made sure she was unharmed, Emma held her flaming hands out toward the hollow and took a few warning steps toward it. I didn’t understand why the hollow had stopped, couldn’t see it well enough through the latticework of swaying shadows cast by the roots, didn’t have an answer yet from Fiona, who was immovable despite Hugh’s efforts to pull her back, away from danger.