There was more pain, as though his head were about to explode. Quite suddenly it stopped, and he found that Drake and Chester were leaning over him.
“OK?” Drake asked.
“Sure,” Will said, although his mouth felt bone dry and his arms ached.
“I thought you were going to burst my eardrums with all that screaming,” Chester said quietly. “You spat the hand-kerchief out and nearly blew the roof off. Thank God you’re all right!”
Will noticed how pale his friend was. “Why? What happened?” he asked. “And where’s the Professor?”
“You’ve been out cold for about ten minutes,” Drake told him.
The Professor appeared — he’d evidently been downstairs. “Ah, he’s come around. So we won’t be needing the smelling salts or the first-aid kit,” he said tetchily.
“You had us worried,” Drake said. “The Styx must have put more programming into you than I’d anticipated. We’ll probably never know what it was now that it’s been weeded out.”
Chester curled his lip as if he’d tasted something unpleasant. “You were speaking Styx — it was so creepy.”
“What? Me, too?” Will said. “Weird. I really don’t remember anything.”
Then it was Chester’s turn to be treated with Danforth’s Purger, as they’d begun to refer to the apparatus. At first he hardly broke into a sweat, but then his face was streaming and he, too, cried out and began to babble away in what sounded like Styx. And he was barely conscious at the end of the treatment.
“Suppose that means they stuck something in my head, too, while they had us in the Hold,” he said, once he’d drunk some water and had a chance to recover.
“I’m afraid so. They don’t miss an opportunity, do they?” Drake said. “The only consolation is that your reaction was less severe than mine or Will’s, so I assume you had less of it than we did.”
“Power down,” Danforth announced, as he turned off the last box on the trolley, and the humming faded away to nothing. “A very satisfactory outcome, I’d say.”
As they were leaving the Professor’s house, Drake turned to the peculiar little man. “And what about Jiggs — is he around?” he asked.
“We’re not talking at the moment,” Danforth replied. “He’s probably watching us from those trees over there. He spends the night up in them now, you know, like some baboon. He still can’t abide being cooped up after his tenure at Wormwood Scrubs.”
“Right,” Drake said, as if none of this came as a surprise. “Give him my best if you do happen to bump into him.”
“Not likely,” the Professor replied, closing the front door.
As Will and Chester trailed after Drake on the way back to the Land Rover, they were peering at the area of woodland and wondering what Jiggs had been in prison for, and also what sort of man would sleep in a tree.
“You won’t spot him, you know. Not even if he was ten feet away from us,” Drake said without looking at the boys as he strode over to the car. “That’s what Jiggs does. He hides. And he’s very good at it.”
BARTLEBY HAD FAILED to return for two full days, and Will and Chester went on yet another outing to look for him, this time accompanied by Mrs. Burrows.
“He could be anywhere,” Chester said, walking on the muddy path beside the bulrushes at the edge of the lake. He stopped to peer at the water. “And if he’s fallen in and drowned, we’ll never find him. He might have been after the fish.”
“He’s not that careless — and anyway, he can swim. I’m sure he’s OK, wherever he is,” Will said hollowly. He was trying his best to remain positive, but Chester was unconvinced.
“If you say so,” he murmured.
Will was nodding slowly to himself. “I bet he just shows up at the house again, like nothing’s happened.”
“No,” Mrs. Burrows said abruptly.
Both boys looked at her as if she was about to deliver some bad news, but she was referring to her new sense, which she’d been using in an attempt to shed some light on the Hunter’s whereabouts. “Maybe a few echoes of where he’s been before, where he’s marked his territory, but I’m not picking up anything fresh.”
Turning to the east, Mrs. Burrows held her head high and then moved it slowly around until her unseeing eyes were gazing out at the island in the middle of the lake. She was wearing a long dress of white cotton that Parry had found in a trunk of clothes in one of the spare bedrooms. As the breeze caught it and also ruffled her hair, there was something saintly about her, standing there on the bank.
“So you don’t think Bartleby just dumped Colly and ran for the hills?” Chester posed. “He’s a cat, after all, and cats are sort of unreliable.”
“Like husbands,” Mrs. Burrows replied distantly, then suddenly turned her head to the west as if she’d heard something.
The boys waited, hoping she’d picked up on the Hunter’s scent, but she remained silent.
“Mum, is it him?” Will asked eventually.
“Something else . . . a long way off . . . can’t tell . . . maybe deer,” she said quietly.
Chester took hold of one of the bulrushes and broke it off. “Parry said Old Wilkie’s drawn a blank, too, while he’s been doing his rounds.” Chester was thoughtful for a second as he tapped the brown seed head against his open hand. “Say . . . you don’t think he might have had something to do with it?”
“There might be insects in that,” Will said mischievously, knowing his friend’s almost phobic fear of anything that crawled. “And what do you mean? Why would Old Wilkie do anything to harm Bart?”
Chester immediately dropped the bulrush and rubbed his palms together, then examined them carefully. “Well . . . Parry said Old Wilkie’s spaniel went missing, and you just know who was to blame for that.”
Will was dismissive of the idea. “You think he’d lie to Parry? Old Wilkie’s worked for him for years. That’s not likely.”
Mrs. Burrows was still facing in the same direction, to the west where the pine forest covered a small mountain like a green blanket. Where the Limiters had had their observation post. “Yes . . . deer . . . must be deer,” she decided. “I’m going back now,” she announced, turning toward the house and starting up the slope.
“OK, Mum,” Will said. “We’ll try a few more places.”
Chester waited until Mrs. Burrows was out of earshot, then spoke. “You know this is a total waste of time, Will. We’re not going to find him. Why don’t we lure him back with a rabbit or a chicken? Or we could tie a live goat up in front of the house and wait for him to sniff it out. That would get him home fast enough.”
“I’ve got a bad feeling about all this,” Will replied, not giving his friend’s suggestions any credence. “Let’s take a quick look up that hill.” He set off along the side of the lake, to where the land rose sharply.
Chester’s face on the monitor contorted. As the boy screamed so loudly that the sound track broke up, Elliott shifted in her chair. She crossed her arms and hugged herself, massaging a shoulder with her fingertips.
“Is this hard for you to watch?” Drake asked, pausing the film.
“No, it’s not that,” Elliott answered. “My back’s been a bit uncomfortable recently.”
Elliott had been the last to be treated with Danforth’s Purger, although it had produced no reaction in her whatsoever, establishing that the Styx had never used their mind control on her. Everyone else on the estate had been purged, with three exceptions. Drake was concerned that it would be too traumatic for Mrs. Burrows after the excessive Darklighting she’d received in the Colony, so he excused her from it. And nothing on Earth would induce Parry to undergo it — he told Drake he’d never let anyone near his brain, not even Danforth, whom he trusted implicitly. And Jiggs, because nobody knew where he was.
Drake had brought back c
opies of the footage taken in the Professor’s attic, and he and Elliott were now reviewing them on a monitor he’d set up in the billiards room. Danforth had made two versions of each clip; one was a straight recording, while the other played in reverse because the more intensely Darklit victims, including Drake and Will, appeared to be speaking backward.
“It’s so weird hearing Styx coming from Chester and all of you,” Elliott said.
They’d already been through the films of Drake’s, Will’s, and Colonel Bismarck’s sessions with the Purger, but Elliott hadn’t been able to glean much more than a few highly garbled and completely meaningless sentences. Certainly nothing that gave a clue about the nature of their programming.
“OK if we go on?” Drake asked.
Elliott nodded.
Drake pressed the remote, and they listened to the rasping Styx words emanating from Chester.
“It’s just rubbish.” Elliott gave a small shrug. “Mostly odd words, and even when there’s more, it still doesn’t make any sense,” she said as she listened carefully. “It’s like someone talking in their sleep.”
Drake took a deep breath. He’d resigned himself to the fact that the recordings weren’t going to reveal anything significant. “We’re coming to the end of Chester’s session anyw —”
“Wait!” Elliott shouted, sitting bolt upright. “Rewind that!”
Will and Chester had climbed high enough up the hill that they could look across to the house, although it was far in the distance.
“Bart! Are you there, Bart?” Will called as Chester dawdled along behind him.
They heard a squeak, and someone stepped from behind a large oak.
“Stephanie!” Chester burst out.
She had a cell phone in her hand and was wearing a dark blue trench coat with the collar turned up. She’d tied a ribbon around her lustrous red hair to keep the wind from blowing it about. Will noticed that she was wearing a pair of black high heels, which seemed more than a little incongruous, given that they were in the middle of nowhere.
“Oh, hi,” she said begrudgingly, trying to conceal the phone behind her back. “What are you doing up here?” She nodded. “Wait — I know — you’re searching for this dog thing Parry’s lost. Gramps has been looking for it, too.”
“We are,” Will replied. “The dog thing’s gone missing.”
“Well, I haven’t seen it,” Stephanie said indifferently. She looked the boys over with a slight suggestion of a sneer, then whisked her head away from them as if they had no right to be there.
“And what are you doing here?” Chester said, in an effort to be friendly.
She didn’t reply, glaring at him as if it was impertinent of him to ask.
“You were using your phone, weren’t you?” Will said in an accusing tone.
Realizing she’d been caught out, Stephanie’s manner softened. “I’m trying to get a signal on this stupid thing,” she confessed, producing her cell from behind her back. “Gramps is, like, totally unreasonable — he says Parry has these enemies, and that phones are totally forbidden on the estate.” She shrugged. “And I’m, like, who do I know who’ll even care?” She gave Will and Chester a coy look. “You won’t tell Gramps, will you? Or Parry?” she added, as if she’d already won them over and her secret was safe.
“Course not,” Chester agreed readily.
“So who were you calling?” Will said, his eyes narrowing with suspicion.
“I’m trying to pick up texts from my friends, but the signal’s so weak. There’s this, like, massive party in London tonight — they’ll all be there, and I’m, like, stuck here in this . . .” She trailed off, as if it was unnecessary to say what she thought of the estate.
“A party?” Chester said.
“Yes. Some cool guys we know from Eton are coming. And also some from Harrow. Can’t believe I’m totally not going.” The despair in her voice had pushed it up an octave. “Where do you both go?” she asked quickly.
“School?” Chester said. He was starry-eyed as he spoke to her, finding it very difficult to string more than a few words together.
“Highfield,” Will told her.
She frowned, moving her hand as if describing an area on a map. “That’s sort of north . . . north of London, isn’t it?” She bit her lower lip as if she pitied the two boys.
“No, not there.” Will laughed. “It’s really pronounced Highfeld. It’s in Switzerland.”
She looked confused. “In Switzerland? I haven’t heard of —”
“No, you probably haven’t,” Will interrupted, puffing his chest out. “It’s a bit, like, exclusive. And sort of, like, expensive. It’s a totally cool place — we have skiing every morning before lessons.”
“Really? My parents have never taken me skiing,” she admitted with a glum expression. “I really want to go.”
Unseen by Stephanie, Chester was frantically shaking his head and mouthing “No!” at Will. But Will wasn’t to be stopped.
“And my friend here is, like, a megastar on the slopes. Our ski teacher thinks he’s so awesome at the downhill slalom jumps, it’s a dead cert he’ll be on the next Olympic team.” Will made a swooshing sound and moved his arms in the way he’d seen skiers do on television.
“Really?” she squeaked, spinning around to Chester so quickly she almost caught him gesticulating at Will. “Downhill slalom jumps! That’s, like, awesome!” She fluttered her eyelashes at the bemused boy. “Now I can say I’ve met an Olympic skier.”
“Um, I’m not really that good,” Chester mumbled. “And we’ve really got to go now.” He grabbed hold of Will’s arm and yanked his friend down the hill with him. “What’d you say all that for?” Chester asked. “Why did you lie to her?”
“She’s so stuck-up. Eton. Harrow. She thinks we’re useless just because we don’t go to those places. Actually, the truth is we don’t go to school at all, because an army of homicidal crazies that, like, live in the ground want to tear our heads off. Would you rather I’d told her that?” Will argued. “Do you think that would, like, be better?”
“Stop saying ‘like’ all the time, will you?” Chester said in a long-suffering voice. “I think she’s nice.”
Will looked over his shoulder to find that Stephanie was still watching them. He waved, and she waved back enthusiastically. Will bent his knees and swayed from side to side as if he was on skis, making more swooshing sounds. Stephanie laughed shrilly, but not unpleasantly.
“And bloody stop that, too!” Chester huffed, stomping off down the hill.
Once Elliott had reviewed the last of the films for Drake, she’d made her way back to her room. As she sat at the glass-topped dressing table, she ran her eyes over the items Mrs. Burrows had badgered Parry into buying for her. There was something so gratifying about the little bottles of nail polish, which she now began to arrange beside her eyeliner, foundation, and lipsticks. And there was the bottle of Mrs. Burrows’s own perfume that she’d given to Elliott.
Elliott held the molded glass bottle so it caught the light, then sniffed at it. Of all the items on the dressing table, the perfume meant the most to her. It evoked memories of her mother, who always made such an effort with the rather unsophisticated scents sold at the perfumier’s shop in the South Cavern. Elliott smiled, remembering how she’d had mixed feelings about the Colony perfumes after being told by the perfumier’s son, a boy her age, that they were prepared by blending fermented fungal juice with Hunters’ urine. To this day she didn’t know if he’d been telling the truth.
Putting the perfume bottle down, she yawned and stretched. Her time in the Deeps seemed like an age ago, and after this recent sojourn at Parry’s house, she felt like a completely different person. She’d had a respite from the life-or-death struggle that had been her existence for so long, of not knowing what lay around the c
orner, be it a hostile renegade, a Styx, or some predator on the prowl for its next meal. Topsoilers took so much for granted, living their lives in such a benign environment, with all the food they could eat.
But, above all else, the months at Parry’s house had allowed Elliott the opportunity to be clean. After all the years of grime and filthy clothes, she might have overdone it with her long baths, which she sometimes took two or three times a day, but it was a luxury she’d never experienced before.
And she’d always known, deep down, that this couldn’t last.
That eventually something would come along to disrupt it. And that something was trundling inexorably toward her, Will, Chester, and every one of them right now, and she had no choice but to switch back to her old self. For her own sake, and for the sakes of those she loved.
With a sigh, her gaze drifted to the long rifle propped beside the dressing table. She reached over to retrieve it, working the bolt to make sure the chamber was empty. Through her bedroom window she had a view of one of Parry’s statues on the lawn at the back of the house, a reproduction of Saint George in his mortal struggle with the dragon. She put her eye to the scope, adjusting it to compensate for the range, then settled the crosshairs on the dragon’s head. There was a click as she dry-fired the rifle.
“This is all I know,” she said, as she lowered the weapon to her lap. She ran a finger over the dented barrel and the numerous nicks in the wooden stock. Many of these marked moments of peril, challenges over which she’d managed to prevail.
So far.
She twisted around on her seat to take in the Elliott in the dressing-table mirror, the one with tidy hair and spotless skin, dressed in a red angora sweater and a knee-length skirt. As she continued to stare at her reflection, it did seem as though there was another person there. Someone who wasn’t she.
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