by Ransom Riggs
“I’m sure one of the ymbrynes can help,” said Emma, starting to come out of her grogginess.
“Oh, for dog’s sake, it’s just a bloody toy,” said Addison.
“Thank you,” Enoch agreed, and the girls all glared at them. “Now, can we worry about how you light-eaters are supposed to get anywhere near Caul? If he so much as touches you . . .”
His eyes cut to Julius.
“No one promised this would be easy,” said Sebbie.
“Exactly,” said Millard. “That’s why there are seven of you.”
“We’re expendable,” Julius murmured.
Horace shot an evil look at Enoch. “You’re not.”
I heard a strange noise coming from Emma. One I couldn’t remember her making before. She had started to cry.
“Oh, Miss Emma.” Bronwyn slid close and put an arm around her.
Emma sniffed and wiped angrily at her tears. “I’m so tired of fighting,” she said. “So very tired of it.”
“Me too,” said Millard, slumping against one of the stones stacked behind us. “It seems our trials will never end.”
“They will,” said Horace. “For good or ill, in victory or death . . . soon enough, they will.”
“It’s looking more like death with every passing hour,” said Enoch. “Your life took a bad turn when you found us, American boy. You should never have stayed on. Look what it’s got you: a no-return ticket to the graveyard.” He nodded his head at the stones behind us, which weren’t just slabs of rock, I realized, but dozens of weathered grave markers. They were tilted in long rows against the tree’s trunk, greening with moss and so old the names had been worn away. “If Caul has his way, we’ll soon be as forgotten as them. And all of the hard, horrible things we’ve had to do will have been for nothing.”
Seeing Enoch so hopeless scared me. He was insufferable most of the time but unsinkable, too, and until then I hadn’t realized how much I’d come to count on his indomitable spirit.
Noor ran her hand along the time-smoothed stones. “Just because no one remembers your name doesn’t mean your life wasn’t worth something.”
“But if Caul wins and becomes the ruler of the peculiar world,” said Enoch, “then it was all a damned waste.”
“What are you suggesting?” Emma said sharply. “That we should give up? Go and surrender to save our own lives?”
“No! I’m just saying we’ll be dead.”
“It won’t have been a waste, even then,” Millard said, “because we’ll be the ones who fought. Years from now, when whatever peculiars Caul decides to keep alive have to pledge allegiance to his evil empire, they’ll gather in private to tell the story of the ones who fought to stop him. And perhaps it will inspire them to try again.”
Enoch sighed. “That is some icy-cold comfort, Nullings.”
“‘’Tis better to have fought and lost, than never to have fought at all,’” Addison said, reciting again.
“‘Better to burn out than to fade away,’” said Emma.
“Hey hey,” I said.
“My my,” she replied.
* * *
◆ ◆ ◆
“We can’t stay here much longer,” I said. “If Caul was able to find us in that busy train station, he’ll find us here, too.”
“But Julius and Horatio—” Horace protested.
“I can walk,” Julius said. But he still looked weak. And Horatio was out cold.
“I can carry the wight on my back,” Bronwyn said.
“We don’t even know where we’re going yet,” said Addison.
“To the safe house,” said Horace. “Just as Miss Peregrine instructed.”
“You sound like Claire,” said Enoch, “and no, I don’t think I’ll be doing that. Miss Peregrine is brilliant at protecting us, but rubbish at planning battles. You can’t win a war if you refuse to put your soldiers in harm’s way.”
With a sudden cry, Horatio woke up. His eyes flew open and he gasped like someone who had been holding his breath for minutes. Emma and I scrambled to him. He sat straight up, his body rigid as a board. He was mumbling fast but seemed to be speaking Hollow.
“We can’t understand you,” Emma said.
He went quiet for a second. He seemed haunted, possessed. And then he began to speak, disjointedly, in English. “When that hollow had me in its mouth . . . I nearly died.” His eyes narrowed. “Did die.”
“Welcome back,” said Enoch, arching one eyebrow.
Bronwyn hissed at him to shush.
“My mind . . . and the hollow’s . . . merged.” His eyes searched the air. He seemed briefly confused. “They are all one. All their minds. A great, writhing hive.”
He paused. Gently, I prompted him. “You said he showed you something.”
His eyes narrowed again, then closed. He nodded. “I know where they are. Caul’s army of hollows. They’re close.”
“How close?” I said. “Where?”
He grimaced and pushed a knuckle into each of his temples. “They were born in the Library of Souls,” he said. “They were supposed to go through a door . . . but the door was blocked. So they left on foot. Walked through a desert to a sea, where they were loaded onto a ship. That’s where they are now.”
“On their way here,” Noor said. “On a ship?”
Horatio nodded. “They won’t be long, either. They’re plying down the Thames as we speak.”
“My God,” Millard said. “They must have tried to come through the Panloopticon. But they couldn’t because the ymbrynes shut it down.”
Emma shuddered. “And thank the birds they did. If they hadn’t, the battle would already be lost. They would have overrun everything.”
“Instead they had to go the long way,” Millard said, “and leave the Library by its actual loop entrance—wherever that is—and travel here via ship. Which bought us time enough to collect you light-eaters.”
“We’ve got to intercept that ship before it reaches central London,” I said. “And sink it.”
“Cracking plan,” said Enoch. “The Thames is crawling with boats—shall we sink them all?”
“If we have to.”
All of a sudden Horace jumped up, moaning and stumbling as if drunk. Bronwyn leapt to her feet and caught him before he could fall. “What’s the matter, Mr. Horace?”
He squeezed his head between his hands and shook it. “I’m having intense déjà vu,” he said. “I dreamed this conversation—dreamed it exactly—the boat, the hollows, Horatio on the ground, just like that . . .” He looked up, eyes sharp. “What we need are—”
“A fast boat and a lot of explosives?”
We whipped around to see Sharon striding toward us, his vast black cloak ripping in the breeze. I thought for a moment I was dreaming.
“Sharon!” Emma cried. “What are you doing here?”
He marched up to Horace and put a bony hand on his shoulder. “This boy came to me in a most agitated state yesterday.”
Horace was shocked. “I did?”
“You told me to meet you by the Hardy Tree in St. Pancras’s churchyard, have my fastest boat at the ready, and bring a load of powerful explosives.”
“But I don’t remember that at all!”
“Horace, you must have been sleepwalking,” Emma cried.
“And did you?” Horace said, blinking into the black hole of Sharon’s hood. “Did you do what I asked?”
“I did. You were quite adamant. You said all our lives depended on it, and that I must keep it a secret.” A rat poked its head out of his sleeve and squeaked, and Sharon replied, “No, of course not, Daddy keeps nothing secret from you, Percy.”
Horace broke down in grateful tears, and Bronwyn enveloped him in a massive hug.
“But how did you get out of the Acre without being seen?” Emma asked
Sharon.
“My boat has a stealth mode, you’ll remember. I’ve been sneaking in and out of Devil’s Acre for my whole long career.” Sharon pretended to check a nonexistent watch on his wrist. “You should know there are a lot of nasty peculiars roving not far from here, and I’m fairly positive they’re looking for you. They’ve been making rather a mess of the city, too. We should get on with whatever it is you need me for.”
“We need to intercept a boat on the Thames and sink it,” I said.
“And I have rough idea of where that boat will be,” said Horatio.
“Stellar, but what does it look like?” asked Sharon.
Horatio said, “It’s pink and green and has an, uh . . .” He traced an S in the air with his finger, but struggled for the exact words.
“An . . .” Enoch copied his gesture as sarcastically as possible. “Are you sure you aren’t describing an ice cream van?”
Horatio glowered at him. “No. It’s a ship. I saw it through the hollow’s own eyes.”
“If you say so.” Enoch gave an I-give-up sigh. “In any case, I won’t be coming with you.”
“What?” Emma said. “Why not?”
“I’d be of more service to the cause by staying in this churchyard to raise an army of the dead. Or at any rate, a small squadron of them. And when I have, I’ll meet you at the Acre. Also, I get sick on boats.”
“Don’t be daft, we can’t split up now,” Horace said.
“My boat is quite small,” Sharon said, surveying our group doubtfully.
“A big group will only make this task harder,” Millard said. “You’ll need to move quickly and silently, not as a traveling circus.”
“What do you mean, you’ll need?” said Horace. “You’re not thinking of splitting off, too?” He grabbed at what he thought was Millard’s arm, but missed.
“I’m afraid so. I’ve been in regular contact with a detachment of invisibles in Croydon. They’ve been waiting for my call to action, and I think it’s time I went to round them up.”
“And I know of some local grimbears who would just love to sink their teeth into Caul’s minions,” said Addison.
“Some of you should go directly to the safe house,” said Emma. “Sophie, Sebbie, Julius. We’ll meet you there when the ship’s sunk. Horatio, you’ll come with us?” She glanced at the wight; he nodded. Then she turned to Noor. “And, Noor, I think—”
“No way,” Noor snapped. “No way I’m sitting this out.”
Emma knew better than to argue.
“It’s probably better not to have all of us light-eaters in one place,” said Sebbie. “Just in case—”
“I don’t like this splitting-up business one bit,” said Bronwyn with a sigh. “But I’ll go wherever I’m most needed.”
And as much as I would’ve loved to have Bronwyn with us, it was more important for her to protect the other light-eaters, and I told her so. “I think you should take Sophie and Julius and Sebbie to the safe house and guard them until the rest of us get there.”
“And me?” Horace said miserably.
“Why don’t you come along with me,” Millard offered. “I could use a good lookout.”
Horace cast a regretful look at Julius.
“This isn’t goodbye,” I said. “This is ‘see you after we kill a dozen hollows.’”
I saw Horatio wince at my guess. The real number was probably a lot higher.
“Don’t worry about us,” Emma said.
“That’s like telling us not to breathe,” said Bronwyn.
Sharon tilted his head sharply and crouched to a normal person’s height. “We mustn’t linger,” he said, low and urgent. “Enemies are near.”
“In that case,” Enoch said, looking around, “I’ll catch a cab to Highgate. Draft as many of its residents to our cause as I can.”
We said a hurried goodbye and split: Millard and Horace to a suburb to find invisibles; Bronwyn to the safe house with the two light-eaters and Sophie; Enoch to Highgate Cemetery across town; and Addison in search of grimbears. After so long traveling in a big group we were suddenly half our number, and it felt like we were missing limbs. We remnants took off running after Sharon—Emma, Noor, Horatio, and me. We hugged a series of shadowed walls, leaving the churchyard a different way than we’d entered.
I moored the boat by the Temple of Satan,” Sharon said as we approached a clutch of squat buildings. Emma gasped.
“Yes, people are often surprised when they learn I’m a vegan.”
“A what?”
We were jogging past a restaurant with tie-dyed curtains. The sign on its awning read THE TEMPLE OF SEITAN. “The Acre’s meager selection of dining establishments are all practically swimming in animal blood,” Sharon explained as he ran, “so I used to sneak out here in my fast boat, when I wasn’t ferrying passengers thus and fro, to prevent myself from starving to death. Hullo, Steven!” He waved to a guy with a ponytail who was leaning in the doorway, and to my amazement the guy waved back as we passed.
We proceeded down an alley between the Temple of Seitan and the building next to it. At the end appeared a hidden bend of the canal. We stopped at the edge of the bank.
“Your chariot awaits,” Sharon said.
We stared at the murky water. There was no boat.
“Are you having us on?” Emma said.
“My mistake. One moment.” He extended his arm and said, “Where’s my dongle?” A rat popped out of his sleeve with a key ring in its mouth, dropped it into Sharon’s open hand, and disappeared again. On the key ring was a small black object about the size of a modern car door remote. Sharon pushed a button and an electronic chirp sounded from the canal. Sharon’s boat materialized into view, moored to the closest bank.
It was a strange, steampunk marriage of an old wooden boat, slightly larger than the one he’d used to ferry us through the Acre, mated to an engine that looked like it belonged on a speedboat in Miami Vice. In the back a wooden crate was tied down under a tarp. My guess was that it contained the explosives Horace had requested.
We hurried down steps built into the bank, hopped on board with Sharon’s help, then slid into two rows of bench seats. “This craft has seat belts,” Sharon said as he settled into the captain’s chair. “I suggest you use them.” He clicked his remote again, and after another chirp the air around us rippled. Though we could still see the boat, Sharon explained it had become invisible to everyone else. He turned a key and the engine roared to life, and then he pushed the throttle forward so hard our heads snapped back. We shot away from our mooring, a five-foot wake slapping the canal walls behind us.
We whipped around bends in the canal so quickly the world blurred. On my left, Emma clenched her jaw and went pale. Addison hid himself under his seat. After a few nauseating minutes we exited the canal into a body of water so wide it was almost a sea by comparison: the River Thames. Horatio squatted next to Sharon and shouted directions in his ear. He was doing remarkably well considering his injuries, and it made me wonder again if wights weren’t part robot. Mother Dust’s dust was powerful stuff, but it didn’t work that well.
We flew down the river, shredding past barges and cargo ships, tourist cruises and yachts, while Horatio scanned the water ahead. Our path straightened and my nausea faded. I thought of the friends we’d left behind in the Acre. Claire and Olive, both probably paralyzed with worry. Hugh and Fiona, who had vowed to sneak out of the Acre and rouse a fighting force in the way only they could; I imagined them riding into battle on a wave of attacking bees and marauding trees. Their lives all depended on us, and whether we could stop a ship filled with hollowgast from reaching the Acre. It was a task so monumental and so unlikely that I couldn’t imagine what it might entail, even though my brain was always racing ahead to grapple with future impossibilities and demoralizing worst-case scenarios.
This time, I did
n’t have long to wait. After just a few minutes, Horatio stiffened and raised his arm to point at something. I had to blink a few times to make sure I was seeing clearly. He had said it would be pink and green, but somehow I’d forgotten that detail and had been picturing a cross between a ragged pirate’s galleon and some kind of rusted-out ghost barge. Anything but what Sharon was steering us toward now: a cruise ship the color of a piña colada with a huge spiraling waterslide rising from its main deck. (There it was: the S Horatio had traced in the air.) Emblazoned across one side was the name Ruby Princess.
“The hollows got here on a cruise ship?” Noor said. She leaned forward to ask Horatio: “Are you sure?”
He nodded. “I saw it very clearly in that hollow’s mind.”
“Of course they did!” Emma said, laughing coldly. “It’s the last place you’d expect to find them.”
“It’s a classic wight move,” I agreed.
The closer we got to the Ruby Princess, the taller it seemed. It had to be five stories high and several hundred feet long. Which meant . . . damn.
“Guys, we have a problem,” I announced. “Explosives won’t blow up a ship that big. Just sink it.”
“And?” Emma said.
“Hollows can swim.”
Her face fell. “Right.”
“We’re going to have to board the ship, find where the hollows are being kept, and blow that up,” I said.
Horatio turned to face us. “They’re in a dark place. All together. I caught a brief glimpse of it, before that hollow’s head got smashed.”
“Sounds like a cargo hold,” said Sharon.
“Yes,” said Horatio. “I believe so.”
We talked through the plan, which was alarmingly light on detail and depended altogether too much on chance and luck. We would climb the ship’s emergency ladder, find the cargo hold, toss in the explosives, and run like hell back to Sharon’s boat. Oh, and avoid heavily armed wights along the way.
Sharon cut the engines to a putter as we got close to the ship, a green-and-pink monolith that towered vertiginously above us. We could see no activity on board, no faces in its rounded stateroom windows, no life at all. Our boat rolled sickeningly as we rounded the stern and crossed the big ship’s boiling wake, and then we sped up briefly until we pulled even with the emergency ladder. It was bolted to the hull and nearly reached the water. It climbed several stories to a rickety platform, and from there metal steps led up to the lower deck. Just following it with my eyes gave me a touch of vertigo, my old fear of heights rearing its head at the worst possible time, as usual.
