Lair of the Grelgoroth

by Ruth Fox

  “Do I take this to mean that we can use lethal force?” asked Miles.

  “The Grotto needs to be protected. Don’t kill too many of them—we need them, after all—but let them know that South Silvershine is ours, and we’ll defend it if we need to.”

  “Yes, of course,” said Miles, and turned for the door.

  Donovan hoisted herself onto the bench, perching there as she picked at her plate with her fingers—Zach realised, belatedly, that Brother and Sister hadn’t given her a fork, spoon, or knife, but she didn’t care; in fact, she seemed practised at eating without cutlery, scooping the sticky rice into her mouth and licking the sauce from her hands. “Tell me how you came to be here, Zach.”

  “I’m—I’m not sure,” said Zach. He was still reeling from the shock of finding out that the monsters and humans were practically going to war. “It’s all a bit of a blur.”

  It was a truthful answer.

  “You haven’t been Tested, have you?”

  “Tested?” He pretended not to know what that was. “No.”

  “Hmm,” she said. “That’s just as well. I have a feeling you would . . . rate highly. But I think I have other uses for you—this food is undeniably delicious!”

  The easiness of her tone was confounding. It was as if they were sitting in a café, having lunch while they talked about the weather. “I like to cook,” was all he could think of to say.

  Donovan tipped up the plate and licked the last of the juices from the bottom. “I used to cook,” she said. “I had this marvellous plan. I would open a kitchen and meals service for the poor and underprivileged. I was going to fill their bellies with nutritious food. I would save them. I’d cure the world of hunger!” She sighed. “Oh, yes, such were my ambitions. Everywhere I looked, I saw scarcity and need. But no matter what I did, it wasn’t enough to make a difference. That’s why I became a nurse. I worked with people who had little hope of recovery, people with illnesses of the mind.”

  “My mum’s a nurse,” Zach said.

  Donovan looked pleased. “A worthy profession! But it still wasn’t enough. Those people needed help that they couldn’t get from me, or the drugs they were prescribed, or the rooms they were locked into. They needed something to ease the blights and bruises and wounds in their brains. They needed . . . oh, I found exactly what they needed, when I heeded the call of the Grelgoroth!”

  She was looking at Zach intently now. Her eyes, which were just a little bit too bright, were blazing with feeling.

  “It was long ago. The mayor’s Opening of the Wall had not happened, not yet. In fact, the mayor was looking for some Grand Gesture to perform, to win the people over to his side, for the next election. He proposed a reopening of the silver mines. My husband was contracted to begin the drilling. He didn’t find any silver, but he did find this.”

  Donovan held up her wrist, so that Zach could see a silver wristband.

  “It’s not just a piece of jewellery. It’s a symbol of power. A Cingulum. I put it on, and instantly, I felt there was something about it, something special, something that called to me. I asked my husband to take me to where he found it. And I . . . heard something there, something beautiful. A voice—a voice that told me that I was wanted, needed, that I should come . . .

  “So I did. I went back to the tunnels, alone.

  “But I wasn’t alone. There was the voice! That wonderful voice. When it spoke, my Cingulum glowed brightly and grew warm.

  “I walked for a long time, following the light of the Cingulum on my wrist through those maze-like caves. They’d been hollowed out by picks and shovels, long ago when the silver mines were first dug. The ceiling was crumbling in places, and the walls were damp.

  “I knew I must have come farther underneath the Wall. I was deep under the South Side by now. Then I saw it, written upon the wall ahead of me—the same symbol that was on my Cingulum. I felt a tingle in my fingers. It spread right through me! Then the door rolled aside. It revealed a huge cavern beyond—the Grotto, for which the Silver Works was named—and I felt as though I had stepped into another world. The true world, the one I had been missing all these years! The Grelgoroth welcomed me like a long lost child—or servant.”

  Zach tried to keep himself from fidgeting. He was itching to ask questions, but he was afraid she’d stop talking if he did.

  “He told me what I could do. How I could help. All I had to do was build a hospital. A special hospital, one that would take in those people who weren’t wanted and wouldn’t be missed. They would be given a roof over their heads, a bed, and care. And they would be Tested. If they were suitable, they would be given a very special treatment. They would be taken to the Other Side, and the Grelgoroth would cure them.

  “I built the Donovan Institute. I had hatches installed that led into the mine tunnels, so no one would ever know what I was doing—the relatives and friends of the people I was helping had abandoned them, but can you imagine the fuss if they found out what was happening? They wouldn’t understand.” She shook her head sadly, then continued.

  “I restored this old silver works facility—coating all the electronics with silver so the smog didn’t affect them and outfitting it for our use with kitchens and living quarters. I fixed the tunnels up so that the patients could be transferred to the Grotto without any interference. Without anyone knowing, except for a few close colleagues of mine. The Grelgoroth was pleased with me. It decided to grant me long life—a privilege it doesn’t grant just anyone, mind you. Only a very few, in the past, have had this privilege—and they’re all long dead, now. The Grelgoroth can take that gift away just as quickly as give it.”

  Zach couldn’t hold it in anymore. The question burst out of him—the question he wasn’t sure he wanted the answer to. “Did the Grelgoroth cure them?”

  She looked surprised, as if she’d just expected that he already knew. Then she jumped off the edge of the bench and picked up the little silver filament she’d been working on in one hand. She held out the other hand to Zach. “Come on! I’ll show you!”

  Zach looked at her in alarm. Only a few hours ago he’d been a prisoner. Now Donovan was treating him like an old friend. “Um . . .” he said, standing up. “Where are we going?”

  “Oh, Zach,” she tutted. “I’ve been living amongst monsters for forty years, now. It’s wonderful to talk to someone human again. And once you see it, you’ll know how important the work we do here is. You’ll want to help. I can tell.” She grinned. “Besides, there’s someone I want you to meet.”

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  The elevator car clanked downwards, and when it finally stopped, the flickering light hovered behind the button for L19. Zach’s mouth was dry. They were very far down now.

  Brother and Sister trailed behind, waiting to be dismissed, but Donovan seemed to have forgotten about them. She jigged up and down on her toes.

  “Come on, come on,” she said when the doors opened at last, and Zach stepped warily after her into a wide room. This was entirely different to the other levels he’d seen. There were large reinforcing girders and concrete pillars holding up the ceiling, which, he supposed, would otherwise collapse under the weight of the floors above.

  These were the Testing Chambers.

  The atmosphere felt different down here, too. It was as if the air was humming quietly. As though there were bees in the walls—but it wasn’t a noise so much as a feeling, one that made his skin itch and his ears ring.

  Fluorescent lights hung from the ceiling, but none of these flickered. Like Donovan’s laboratory, this room was lined with blinking and whirring computers. Cables snaked across the floor towards three metal hospital beds, over which two other monsters hovered. They were wearing white lab coats and one held a clipboard in one hand, clutching a pen awkwardly in the other—he had no fingers and it looked as though he was we
aring mittens made of grey skin. The other was standing in front of a large glass container mounted on a stand, fiddling with knobs on the front. The whole room looked cleaner and neater than any room in the facility he’d seen so far.

  At the back of the room, where there was another door, there were cages.

  They looked strong. Their edges were reinforced with steel braces. The padlocks on the front were as big as Zach’s fist, and fitted with keyholes in the same shape as those on the elevators and doors. They would only open to a Cingulum. He could see shapes crouched and slumped inside.

  Zach didn’t want to look any closer.

  Instead, he edged closer to the beds. Two of them were occupied, each by a girl. Their faces looked slack and pale. Their eyes were closed. Red and green wires trailed from sticky white patches on their foreheads, and tubes were feeding into their wrists. Thick nylon bands ran around their chests and ankles, binding them to the bed. One girl’s hand hung from the side of the bed limply. He edged closer, his heart thumping. It was Fiona.

  Zach turned the other way. Forced himself to look at the other girl. It had to be Lex.

  The girl’s face was ashen. Her blonde hair curled around her ears and across the mattress. A thick blanket was draped across her lower legs. She was wearing a red-and-white skirt and the maroon polo shirt with the golden crest that was the Middleview Hills Academy uniform.

  It was Ida.

  ❖ ❖ ❖

  “Don’t just stand there,” Donovan urged. “Come over here, Zach. You can help me set this up. You two—” she motioned to Brother and Sister. “You get over here, too, would you? Put on your coats.”

  Donovan marched over to the beds, and brushed aside the monsters who stood there. “How are you progressing with the latest adjustments?”

  The first monster, the one with the mitten-hands, looked nervous. “We’re still having trouble with the readings. What we’ve caught in the retainer”—he gestured to the glass container. Zach could see that there was something inside that looked a little bit like water, but it didn’t sit in the same way water did. It sort of fritzed, like static on an old TV screen—“It’s not pure. It’s just too hard to predict—”

  “I don’t want excuses,” Donovan cut him off. “I want results. Accuracy is crucial. We don’t have time for any more mishaps.”

  “Yes, of course, ma’am,” said the monster.

  Donovan held up the filament she’d been soldering in her laboratory. “We’ve got a new circuit to try. I’ve made it out of pure silver wire, stretched so thin and wound so tight it will conduct every trace of energy. This is the moment we’ve been waiting for. Stand back!”

  She barked this last command and the two monsters, as well as Brother and Sister, who had pulled on white lab coats and were standing obediently nearby, jumped back immediately. Zach did too, but Donovan grabbed his arm. “Not you. You’re going to help me place the filament.” She glanced over her shoulder at the monsters, then back at Zach. “You see, as good at obeying orders as these . . . monsters . . . might be, they’re hopeless at the more delicate tasks.” She said this with such disdain that Zach was sure that at least one of the monsters would burst out with an angry retort. He thought of Monster-boy, and how he’d looked when he’d punctured the bag of flour in Zach’s kitchen—hopeless, frustrated, annoyed, embarrassed. But none of them said anything and Zach realised exactly how much power Donovan had here.

  Donovan took Zach’s hand in hers and turned it over, putting the filament into his palm. “Human fingers are capable of creating so much,” Donovan went on in a crooning voice. “We don’t appreciate them enough. And your hands, Zach . . . yes, I can see your hands are capable of doing great things.”

  Zach felt a little awkward, and Donovan seemed to sense it. She stared into his eyes, forcing him to look at her.

  “Tell me what you’re thinking, Zach,” she said.

  “I—I,” Zach began. He kept his eyes on Donovan’s, trying not to look at Ida. He didn’t want to see her lying there like that. How much had they taken out of her—was there anything left? Was she a Sleeper? Was she even still alive?

  “I was just wondering if what you said can be true. I mean, it’s just that I haven’t done much with my hands so far, except to cook and make model aeroplanes and type up homework assignments. I can barely even hook a fish in Mr. Majewski’s stupid fishing game at the Opening Day Fair! Mum and Dad always want me to be my best, but I can’t really imagine doing anything worthwhile. Or being anyone important.”

  “Hm,” said Donovan with a small smile. “Perhaps that’s exactly why you will be.”

  Abruptly, she turned to face the beds. “The other girl shows promise,” she said, pointing towards Ida. “She’s creative in some way, I imagine. The creative ones prove most suitable. Something about the way the brain is formed—its energies are stronger, more . . . potent.”

  Zach gulped. Ida was always looking at things, taking photos of them, and when she wasn’t, she was looking for things to take photos of. Was this what the Grelgoroth wanted? To steal what made Ida . . . Ida?

  “Then maybe—maybe you should test it on the other girl,” said Zach desperately. “To make sure it works properly.”

  Donovan turned again and gave him an inscrutable glance. He wondered for a moment if she had guessed what he was doing, but then her small smile widened. “This is the kind of suggestion I would have expected from you, Zach,” she said. “Practicality and forward thinking is just what we need. Very well. You there!” she said to the mittened monster. “Monitor the respiration. You, the heartbeat. Keep an eye on all the readings. I want everything recorded.”

  The monsters hurried to obey her.

  “Now, Zach,” she said, “I want you to remove the red wire and replace it with the silver one. Do it carefully.”

  Zach looked down at Fiona as he realised what he’d just done. Yes, he’d saved Ida for now—but he’d offered up Fiona in her place. He felt aghast at his own actions. And yet . . . his mind quickly made up excuses. After all, he didn’t know Fiona as well as Ida, did he? He’d never passed notes with her in class, or given her a little gold locket.

  It felt like something inside him was going rotten.

  Donovan was watching him. This was a challenge, he realised. A test. She wanted to see if he would do it. And if he didn’t . . . what then? Would he be sent back to the freezer? Would he be strapped to one of the beds himself?

  He had to think about the bigger picture. He was the only one who was in a position to rescue the Vanished kids. If he refused to do this, none of them would ever get out of here.

  He lifted the sticky patch on Fiona’s temple. It left a bright red mark like a burn—just like the marks he’d seen on Tommy Granger. He pulled the red wire free and put the silver one in its place, twisting the end around the contact points on the back of the patch. He replaced the patch on Fiona’s head.

  He closed his eyes for a second. That humming seemed to grow slightly louder now, as if right inside his head; it was hard to think. Had he just signed Fiona’s death warrant? What were they going to do to her?

  “Excellent,” said Donovan with noticeable satisfaction. She unplugged the red wire from the monitor next to the bed, and with deft fingers pried the plug from the end and slipped the wire inside, wrapping the delicate wires tight with a strip of tape that she had in her pocket. She pushed the plug into the machine, completing the connection. The line on the screen fritzed, then began to waver. Zach didn’t know what that meant, but evidently whatever it was, it made Donovan laugh with delight.

  “Respiration is elevated,” said one of the monsters.

  “Pulse is rising!” said the other.

  Sister called out, “I can see the energy now. Extraction has begun.”

  Donovan dashed across to the computer banks and s
curried between them, checking readings and hitting buttons, shoving the monsters out of her way. “Oh, this is brilliant! Look at the nuances—yes, we can certainly use this—the extraction is going to be so much cleaner! Brilliant work! Brilliant!”

  She looked over her shoulder at Zach, and, seeing the maniacal gleam in her eyes, he realised there was no doubt about it: Donovan was completely stark-raving crazy.

  ❖ ❖ ❖

  There was a long, low, keening moan. Zach jerked back in surprise as Fiona started to jerk spasmodically. She strained against the bands holding her in place, and the noise coming from her mouth was an unconscious utterance of pain. It was possibly the worst sound Zach had ever heard.

  Donovan was shouting orders at the monsters, and rushing about excitedly. “We’re harnessing more than we’ve ever done before!” she cried.

  There was a flash of blue light from the glass container to Zach’s left. The stuff inside that he’d thought looked like water now looked more like mist. Little flickers of tiny lightning flashed inside it as it swirled and eddied.

  He was horrified.

  And fascinated.

  “Can you see it?” said a voice from just behind him. He jumped. He hadn’t even heard Donovan coming up behind him.

  “Uh, yes,” he said. “What is it?”

  “Zach, Zach, Zach,” she shook her head in mock disappointment. “I know you know the answer to that.”

  Zach realised, with a sickening lurch, that he did know what it was. This was the stuff they were taking out of kids.

  “It’s their life force,” Donovan confirmed. “It’s the stuff inside you that makes you think and listen and feel.”

  Zach stared in amazement. The things that made them learn and act and create and play and . . . and live. It was what Tommy Granger and Miranda and all those other Sleepers locked up in the freezer had been drained of.