by D. J. McCune
‘You know why you were allowed to go to school, Adam. To give you a grounding until you were able to become a Luman. I have watched you over the recent months and you have come on so well. The change is remarkable. I’m proud of you, you know. So is your mother, even if she doesn’t say it.’
There was a tight lump at the back of Adam’s throat. He thought it was something to do with the way his father was looking at him, the pride and affection on his face. There was a time when Adam would have given anything to get that look from either of his parents. Now, to his shock, he realised he didn’t want it. He didn’t want the weight of expectation it carried. ‘But I can still go to school. I can keep doing call-outs as well. As soon as I get home I can be on duty.’
‘No, Adam.’ Nathanial was shaking his head.
‘I can share the jobs with Luc,’ Adam said, trying to pretend it wasn’t happening. It wasn’t that he hadn’t believed Auntie Jo; it was just that it was different imagining something from actually hearing the words said out loud. ‘He can do the jobs when I’m at school and I can do them once I get home. And next year, when I’m in sixth form, I get study periods so I can do all my homework in school and at the weekend. I can work all night if I have to on call-outs.’
‘No, Adam.’ Nathanial was shaking his head and his jaw was rigid. Adam might have felt sorry for him if he hadn’t been too busy feeling sorry for himself. Nathanial looked, for just a moment, old and tired. ‘We have given you as much time as we could. Maybe we were wrong to let you stay in school this long but given the mistakes of the past –’
‘The mistakes?’ Adam stared at his father, feeling any sympathy evaporate. ‘Is that what Uncle Lucian was? A mistake?’ And there it was, the spectre at the feast; the shadow on the family name. Lucian – Nathanial and Auntie Jo’s older brother. The man who should have inherited the keys to the Kingdom and been the High Luman of Britain, but who instead had taken his own life so he could walk through his Light and be free of a Luman world he wanted no part in. It was only Auntie Jo’s fear that Adam might walk the same terrible road that had persuaded Nathanial to let him stay in school this long. And now that he wasn’t throwing up every time he guided a soul or getting a nosebleed every time he swooped, they thought he was ready to leave his sanctuary behind and become the Luman he was meant to be.
‘That’s not fair, Adam!’ Nathanial looked angry – and hurt.
He was right. It wasn’t fair. ‘I’m sorry,’ Adam said.
His father sighed. ‘For what’s it worth, I’m sorry too. You won’t have to leave immediately; we don’t want to create any suspicion. Your mother and I were thinking that when you have your holiday in December, that would be a good time. You have a few months yet. You can explain to your friends that we are moving and you have to change schools. Maybe you can say we’re leaving the country.’ Nathanial passed a weary hand over his face. ‘I’m sure you can think of something more convincing than that. We’ve never had to do this before. It was much easier with the other three. They just finished primary school and we told their teachers that we would be homeschooling.’
Adam was only half listening. December. It sounded ages away. It usually felt like ages away, when Adam was standing at the cold, dark bus stop in the mornings and his friends were bewailing their homework and looking forward to the Christmas holidays. But the days and weeks would blur together and then one morning Adam would wake up and realise that this was it. The last day of school. The last day with his friends. The last day with Melissa. The last day of his own life, the life he would have freely chosen.
Nathanial opened the top drawer in his desk and pulled out a slim, white envelope. He held it out for Adam. ‘I hope this might go some way towards softening the blow.’
Adam took it, opened it and silently reached inside. He studied the deep maroon cover, tracing his finger across the ornate golden crest. He turned to the laminated page at the front, studying the clipped capital letters: his name, his date and place of birth. His photo stared unsmiling from beneath his messy, sandy hair. His passport. He’d thought it was all he had ever wanted. He was wrong. It wasn’t enough. It wasn’t nearly enough. ‘When did you get it?’
‘Just this morning. You were rather heartfelt in your appeals last week. I had already passed on the paperwork to our friends in the relevant places. Once I gave them the go-ahead they were more efficient than I had predicted.’
Adam tried to imagine the ‘friends’ that Nathanial was speaking of; an invisible network of discreet bureaucrats, routing payments and paperwork through overseas bank accounts and front companies, making sure taxes were paid and updating records while keeping the Mortsons and their assets in the shadows. ‘You told me it was too risky.’
‘I was assured that when you’ve finished with it your passport will be “lost”, cancelled and disappear without a trace.’
‘OK.’ So that was that. He didn’t know why he was bothering but he couldn’t help himself. ‘I thought you wanted me to lie low when Darian’s here. What’s he going to think about a trip overseas?’
Nathanial pressed his fingertips together. ‘I’ve been thinking about that. Before you go to Japan with your school you’re going to go there with me. I want you to meet Hikaru, the High Luman of Japan. I know you’ve come across him before on call-outs but you’ve never met him properly. The fast-response Lumen in Japan have a long and honourable history because of their unfortunate geological positioning. I think you can learn from them. So, I will say that we have found a way for you to attend your school trip and get to know more about Japanese culture. Hikaru has daughters.’
Adam blinked. ‘You’re going to pretend I’ll be getting betrothed?’
‘Of course not, Adam.’ Nathanial looked faintly irritated. ‘These matters are far too sensitive to be used as some kind of cover. But there’s nothing wrong with wanting to learn more about other Luman societies, even if you’re doing it in a rather more unorthodox fashion.’
Adam was sceptical but there was no way he was going to talk himself out of the Japan trip. He stood up. ‘Thanks for the passport.’
‘You’re welcome, Adam.’ Nathanial looked like he wanted to say something more but stopped himself.
Adam was reaching for the door handle when he found himself turning back. ‘Is this all because of Darian? Making me leave school now? Because I thought you would let me finish and then be a Luman. So making me leave now … Is it because of Darian? Because he’s watching us?’
Nathanial sighed. ‘No, Adam. It’s not as simple as that.’ He stood up and walked over to the window, looking out into the dusk. Surveying his castle in his very own Kingdom; the Kingdom Adam knew his father had never wanted but had taken on to save the family from complete ruin. Nathanial rested his head on the window pane for a moment, before turning back to face his son. ‘Our world is changing, Adam. The friends we’ve had … people who watched over us. They won’t be here forever. And I won’t be High Luman forever. So now it’s time for you and Luc to work hard and come of age. I want you both to be Marked as soon as possible. Once that’s done it doesn’t matter what I do. Your futures will be more secure.’
Adam tried to make his face puzzled but he knew more than his father thought. Nathanial was talking about Heinrich. Heinrich wouldn’t be there to protect them forever and if Darian found evidence of a rogue in the Kingdom of Britain Nathanial could lose everything. They all could, unless they played their roles to perfection. ‘OK.’
Nathanial came over and opened the door for him. He rested his hand on Adam’s shoulder and squeezed it briefly. ‘Give the Luman world a chance, Adam. In time, I believe you will grow to love it the way I do.’
After the drama of the day, Adam felt exhausted as he dragged himself up the stairs. It was one of those days when he felt as though all his worlds were colliding together. School, home, Caitlyn, the Luman world … Everything was conspiring together to make his life more complicated than ever. He was looking forward to flin
ging himself onto his bed and just having some quiet relaxation time.
He was therefore dismayed to find his bed already occupied. Luc was lying back comfortably, head resting on every pillow and cushion in the room while he leafed through Adam’s chemistry textbook. ‘What is this stuff? Is it even in English?’
Adam glared at him. ‘What are you doing?’
Luc lowered the book and pretended to study him. ‘I’m trying to figure you out. Because most of the time you’re just running about going to school and doing your homework and being a dweeb. And we’re all looking at you thinking you’re kind of stupid but cute, like one of those dancing cat videos online.’ He sat up suddenly and swung his feet off the bed. ‘Only then today you go for a little walk with our “cousin” and when you come back you’re handing her back her tights. So now you’re more like one of those videos with a talking dog and I’m thinking, What’s he up to?’
Adam scowled. ‘It wasn’t like that.’
‘What was it like?’ Luc tilted his head and put on his best agony uncle face. ‘Tell me all about it.’
‘There’s nothing to tell.’ It wasn’t often that Adam managed to get one over on Luc but he had a feeling that this was one of those golden moments. He intended to make the most of it. ‘Get off my bed.’
Luc didn’t move but studied him through narrowed eyes. ‘Nothing happened, did it? Like you actually didn’t do anything, did you?’ He gave a sudden hoot of laughter. ‘You are such a loser!’
‘I didn’t want to do anything,’ Adam said, ignoring the irritating voice at the back of his head calling him a liar.
Luc sighed and spread his hands in a despairing gesture. ‘Look, here’s the thing. Don’t ask me how, don’t ask me why, but Caitlyn has turned into a smokin’ hot fox. And again – don’t ask me why – she likes you. And just in case you hadn’t noticed you’re going to have to get betrothed – and you are never going to do better than that. So whatever she’s offering, you’ll want to be taking it.’
‘Why are you so interested?’ Adam sat down at his desk, eyes flicking across his textbooks, wondering which one he should tackle first. ‘If you like her so much, why don’t you get betrothed to her?’
‘Maybe I will,’ Luc said carelessly. He smirked at Adam’s startled look. ‘Things are changing round here, in case you hadn’t noticed.’ His smile turned into a frown. ‘Seriously? All that stuff about Darian just coming for a lovely visit. Do you think a Curator just comes and stays with a High Luman for the fun of it? The Concilium are watching Father. Watching all of us. And if someone has screwed up in the Kingdom of Britain we won’t be able to take our pick any longer. So I say again: if anyone half decent is on offer, take her. While you still can.’
He sauntered to the door. ‘Oh … and I have a feeling I know why you didn’t go for Caitlyn. You’re still seeing that girl, aren’t you? The one from Cryptique? What’s she called again?’
‘Melissa,’ Adam said without thinking, then cursed himself as Luc gave him a knowing grin. ‘She’s just a friend. I’m not seeing her.’
‘Yeah, of course you’re not Adam. And of course you weren’t sneaking off to meet her over your holidays or anything.’ Luc rolled his eyes. ‘Seriously, you think I wouldn’t notice something like that? But you know what – let’s just pretend you’re telling the truth and you’re just friends. Well, that’s great, little brother. That’s brilliant. Because you have exactly no future with her.’ Luc studied him, not unkindly. ‘You know that, right? And you know then that you would be a complete mentalist to turn down Caitlyn, yeah? Have a little think about it.’
Adam watched speechlessly as Luc sidled out of the room, easing the door closed behind him.
Chapter 11
hings settled down at school the way they always did: as though no one had ever been away. Over the next two weeks the weather stayed hot and most people couldn’t wait for the last bell to ring. As Adam walked through the Bonehill corridors, he overheard cheerful plans for barbecues and outdoor gigs. There was a buzz of good humour in the air, in spite of the mountains of homework his year were being given.
And he had one reason to smile at least. He had finally handed in his passport and consent forms for Japan. As he gave the envelope to Fenton he imagined choirs of angels dancing gospel-style in the sky above. The fact that his form tutor took the passport with barely a grunt made him scowl. Fenton had no idea of the amazing strings that had been pulled to get it!
So, Adam was definitely going to Japan. He wanted to be happy about it but he had so many other things weighing on his mind, each of them a potential catastrophe in the making.
First of all was the constant worry about Darian. There had been no sign of the Frenchman in the Kingdom of Britain – or if he had been lurking, Nathanial wasn’t telling anyone. Adam was determinedly ignoring the few whispering premonitions he received. He knew how to block them out; he’d been doing it for years and school was always a welcome distraction. He tried not to think about the people he was condemning to death.
One premonition was still troubling him – the image of Melissa’s mum. Usually his doom sense flared because someone was about to die, fairly close to where he was. The more people were going to die, the further away he could feel them. But this one was completely different. He’d known about it months ago, before he was even going out with Melissa. But her mum seemed to be responding well to her treatment, apart from the setbacks when she caught infections. There was no reason to think that she was going to die.
Adam gave up trying to figure it out. It was a mystery but it wasn’t something he could solve. His other premonitions had given him a chance to do something – change things in some way. But what could he do about cancer? Not unless – and here he felt inspired – it was some kind of weird sign from the universe that he was supposed to stay on at school and become a doctor. Maybe he would be an oncologist.
The more pressing issue was worrying about his own potential death. Yes, he was going on the Japan trip – but so were both The Bulb and the Beast. There still hadn’t been any moves by his nemesis but Adam had no doubt he was planning something terrible. The fact that the Beast was showing so much self-control was more of a worry than anything else. He was obviously saving himself for something horrendous.
Dan was becoming obsessed with it too. ‘We need another Wonderfish. Something to distract him.’ It was break on Friday and the weather was scorching. Most people were outside lapping up the sun so the library was cool and quiet. He turned to Archie. ‘Can’t you send him some of your pictures? Then he’ll think there’s a Japanese Wonderfish waiting for him. He’ll be too busy taking more photos of himself to worry about torturing us.’
‘He’s not getting any more of my pictures.’ Archie’s voice was flat.
‘He wouldn’t fall for it anyway,’ Spike muttered. ‘Thanks to big mouth practically telling him the whole thing was a fake.’
Archie scowled and coloured his picture hard enough to dent the page. ‘Well, why don’t you do something about it?’
‘Too busy,’ Spike mumbled. He closed his laptop and yawned. ‘There’s this group I found out about. They’re like mega-hackers. Ultra-hackers. And I want in. But I’ve got to pull off something major. Plus I’m having to waste way too much time stringing The Bulb along.’
‘String along how?’ Adam didn’t want to think about The Bulb. It was bad enough worrying about The Bulb’s psycho son.
‘He’s driving me mad emailing the Sensai. I ignored him for months – I pretended the Sensai was on some ninja retreat in the mountains – but he’s getting pretty crazy now. Emailing all the time, begging to know when they’ll meet up. So I’ve had to start emailing some crap to keep him happy. It’s all right though. I told him I’ll leave him a clue at the Supercomputer Convention so we’ll definitely be going there.’
‘Genius.’ Dan nodded admiringly. ‘Can you tell him there’ll be another clue at the RPG Exhibition?’
Spike shoo
k his head. ‘No, can’t do it. But it’s all right. I’ve seen the itinerary and they’ve kept a free day for us to go to all these different places. Turns out Fenton is into the whole cos-con comic thing.’ He looked at Adam. ‘That’s probably why he looks so rough on Monday mornings. Spends his weekends LARPing. Pretending to be a knight and drinking mead.’
Adam grinned. ‘More like pretending to be a cosmonaut and drinking vodka.’
Dan was beaming. ‘This is going to be the best trip ever.’ His face fell. ‘Assuming the Beast lets us live long enough to enjoy it.’
Archie spoke up. ‘Who is this Murai guy? Why’s he being so nice to us? I mean, he’s paying for pretty much the whole trip. How can he afford it?’
Spike snorted. ‘He’s got so much money he could send us to the moon and back. He owns the airline we’re flying on. He owns a train company and a coach company. He owns computer companies and nuclear power plants and department stores and hotels. He pretty much owns a big chunk of Japan.’ At their raised eyebrows he rolled his eyes. ‘You didn’t think I wouldn’t find out everything about him? Seriously? I wanted to make sure we weren’t going to be sold into slavery or something. Anyway, turns out he probably wants us for our minds, not our bodies. He likes having foreign workers. Thinks it makes his teams more creative.’
‘We’re going to have to get creative ourselves,’ Dan said, looking gloomy. ‘Otherwise the Beast is going to ruin everything.’
No inspiration came to Adam over the weekend. He’d been dreading Darian popping in for a cup of tea and a bit of murderous conspiracy but the Frenchman stayed away. In some ways it was good but everyone was on edge, especially his mother. Adam tried to keep out of her way as much as possible. He spent most of his days off up in his bedroom, catching up on his homework and trying to make some revision notes.
Japan was still the one, big thing he had to look forward to – although it was in danger of being contaminated by the Luman world. During lunch on Sunday Nathanial brought it up quickly, while Elise was distracted. ‘Adam, I’ve been in touch with Hikaru to try and arrange a meeting. He’s a busy man so we’ll have to go whenever is convenient for him. I’m just warning you now in case you have to miss some time at school.’
