The Midnight Mercenary

by Cerberus Jones

  CONTENTS

  TITLE PAGE

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  COPYRIGHT PAGE

  A bolt of lightning streaked across the sky outside the window, and for a split second Amelia could see the hotel lobby around her. Then, just as quickly, it was utterly dark again, and a thunderclap almost deafened her.

  Amelia stood rigid, blinking in the dark, hating the storm, hating the blackout, and knowing there was nothing she could do about either.

  ‘Sonic boom!’ Charlie cheered. ‘That was the closest one yet! I hope –’

  He was drowned out as lightning and thunder hit the hotel simultaneously. Amelia felt sick. She also felt something soft rub against her leg, and bent down to scoop up her puppy, Grawk.

  It’s only a storm, she told herself. But she knew there was nothing only about being in a building hit by lightning. A hundred million volts of electricity striking at a temperature of twenty-eight thousand degrees Celsius was the exact opposite of only.

  Charlie shrieked in excitement. Amelia could hear him jumping around like a lunatic. A lunatic who, for some reason, was singing ‘Another One Bites the Dust’. There was a bang and a sudden yelp of pain.

  Another flash of lightning gave Amelia a glimpse of Charlie holding his forehead and standing a bit too close to the corner of the reception desk. She snorted with laughter despite herself, but stopped short at the peal of thunder that rolled over them. The chance of being hit by lightning was only about one in ten thousand, she reminded herself, breathing deeply.

  On the other hand, the chance of winning the lottery was less than one in forty-five million, and yet people still thought it was worth buying a ticket …

  Charlie groaned. ‘Did you hear that? A gap between the lightning and thunder. It’s going past already! What a rip off.’

  Amelia just shook her head.

  A beam of electric light appeared at the end of the corridor, and flashed around the lobby before settling on them both. Amelia’s dad had finally found a torch in the kitchen.

  ‘Don’t worry about missing out on the storm, Charlie,’ he said, walking over. ‘This whole headland is so strongly magnetic, it acts like a kind of … well, magnet for electrical storms. There’s a good chance this one will circle back to us.’

  ‘Awesome!’

  Amelia shuddered. ‘You’re mental, Charlie.’

  Dad put his arm around her. ‘Don’t worry, cookie. We’ve got lightning rods at every corner of the hotel. We’re safe as houses.’

  ‘Yeah, I know. It’s just a bit …’ She glanced in Charlie’s direction. ‘A bit boring with the blackout.’

  Dad squeezed her to him. ‘I’m on it. I found the fuse wire, a torch – only one, I’m afraid – and Tom is going to show me where the fuse box is. We’ll have the lights back on in no time.’

  Charlie booed.

  ‘In the meantime,’ Dad went on, ‘I’ve found a box of matches, too. Take them through to your mum and see if they’re any better than that dud lighter she’s been struggling with.’

  He shone the torch on the matchbox so Amelia could take it, then gave her a kiss and walked out the main doors of the hotel to the pounding rain beyond. The lobby seemed twice as dark as before.

  ‘Come on, Charlie, let’s go to the library.’

  There was no reply.

  ‘Charlie?’ She waited. ‘OK, ha ha, Charlie, very funny. Where are you?’

  But the lobby was silent. Had Charlie slipped out behind Dad? Amelia thought she would have seen him go – an extra shadow, an extra flicker of movement against the thin torchlight. He might have used the distraction to slink off somewhere else altogether. Amelia had no idea what for, but she’d given up trying to figure out how Charlie’s mind worked sometimes.

  ‘All right, then, Grawk,’ she said. ‘Just you and me. Library.’

  The puppy blinked solemnly at her, his molten gold eyes glowing softly in the darkness. OK, so maybe Grawk wasn’t technically a puppy – he wasn’t any kind of Earth dog at all. He’d appeared a week or so ago in the caves under Tom’s cottage – an accidental ‘blowback’ through one of the wormholes that had connected with the gateway. And from the moment Amelia had seen him, had taken him in her arms and felt him snuggle his velvety head under her chin, she’d known he was trusting her to keep him safe.

  Charlie still wasn’t convinced. They’d met several kinds of aliens since coming to the Gateway Hotel – a tall, fearsome reptile woman, a whole army of tiny pink and purple bear-like warriors, and Leaf Man, who could leap like a grasshopper. But no matter what size or shape they were, whether furry or scaly, all those aliens were undoubtedly people. Grawk was the first alien they’d met who seemed to be an animal. Yet Charlie had his suspicions, and whenever Grawk did something even slightly wonderful or extraordinary, he’d narrow his eyes coldly.

  Amelia didn’t care. It was just jealousy, right?

  She bent down to stroke his head. ‘Can you see in the dark, Grawk?’

  He made an odd grinding sound, halfway between a purr and a growl, stood up and turned away from her so that her hand was on the tip of his tail rather than his head. As soon as Amelia held onto his tail, he trotted happily across the lobby to the library, not wavering, not bumping into anything. Amelia stumbled along behind.

  In the library doorway she called out, ‘I’ve got matches!’

  ‘Thank goodness,’ said Mum. ‘Stay where you are, I’ll come to – ow!’

  ‘I’ll come to you,’ said Amelia, and Grawk led her daintily around the desk, past the old fireplace, between the chairs, and over to the shelf where Mum had lined up all the candles.

  It was a huge relief to see some light, and the warm candlelight was a lot more comforting than the grey beam of Dad’s torch. As Mum lit one candle after another the library began to reappear from the gloom, and Amelia could see James sprawled on a sofa, and Charlie’s mum Mary fitting yet more candles into holders. One good thing about living in an ancient, spooky hotel that everyone in town said was haunted: they had a lot of candelabra.

  ‘Where’s Charlie?’ asked Mary.

  ‘I don’t know. He disappeared when Dad said he was going to help Tom get the power back on.’

  Mary made a cross noise. ‘If he’s outside in all this rain …’ she muttered to herself. ‘If he gives himself pneumonia … If he thinks he’s getting out of school …’

  Amelia had never heard her finish one of these sentences. She wondered if even Mary knew how they should end.

  ‘James,’ said Mum. ‘Do you want to take a couple of candelabra and light the lobby for Dad?’

  ‘Not really,’ said James. He lay back, one arm draped over his eyes, the other dangling to the floor.

  Mum’s smile tightened. ‘Let me rephrase that: James, take a couple of candelabra to the lobby.’

  James sighed and heaved himself off the sofa. He thudded over to the candelabra, took one in each hand, sighed again, and thudded out to the lobby.

  Mum and Mary shared a look, and Mum called after him brightly, ‘Thank you, James!’

  Amelia rolled her eyes. She didn’t know how her parents could stand it, but she was totally over her brother. He was always moping around. And grumpy. And sarcastic. And not funny, clever sarcastic like he used to be. Now he was just mean.

  She was still glowering when James came back into the library and slumped onto the sofa as though exhausted by the effort of walking fifteen metres. He reached over to a shelf beside him and pu
lled down a book. He was flicking through the opening pages when Lady Naomi stepped through the doorway and looked around at them all. She beamed at Amelia, and Amelia smiled back, her heart lifting. No matter how ferocious the storm outside, if it meant a chance to hang out with Lady Naomi, it was worth it.

  Even though Lady Naomi lived at the hotel, and her room was only metres away from Amelia’s, they hardly ever saw her. Apart from one memorable evening they had spent with her in the hotel’s kitchen, Lady Naomi was always off doing some sort of ‘research’. But what she did or where she did it, Amelia had never found out.

  Yet here she was, dressed exactly as she had been the last time Amelia saw her. Her plain black singlet top left her arms bare, showing a terrible scar that ran from one shoulder all the way to her wrist. On anyone else, Amelia thought, an injury like that would look disgusting or ugly. Somehow it just made Lady Naomi look even more mysterious and cool.

  Lady Naomi walked over to the sofa and sat next to James – so close that James shied away in surprise.

  ‘Hey, watch –’ he began, only to choke off when he saw who it was.

  ‘Hi, James,’ said Lady Naomi. Her voice was husky, and a little bit breathy. Like she’d been running up and down the stairs. Not that Amelia could imagine Lady Naomi getting puffed.

  Grawk pricked up his ears and stared at her.

  ‘Um. Uh …’ James coughed. ‘Hello.’

  Even by candlelight, Amelia could see he was blushing. James had been obsessed with Lady Naomi since before he’d even met her, but this was the first time she’d shown any particular interest in him.

  Lady Naomi smiled at James – a wide, wicked smile that crinkled her nose. ‘James, I was thinking …’ she said, and leaned over to him. She was much shorter than James, and had to reach up to whisper in his ear. ‘Tomorrow, after this storm passes, maybe you and I could …’

  Amelia’s mouth dropped open. She couldn’t make out what Lady Naomi was saying now but as she watched, the stunned look on James’s face gradually shifted to wonder, to a dawning, impossible happiness, and then –

  Lady Naomi gave a great snort and began laughing helplessly, slapping her knee in a way that caught Mary’s attention immediately.

  ‘Is that you, Charlie?’ his mum called hesitantly. Then, ‘Karolos Floros!’ followed by a torrent of angry Greek.

  On the sofa, Lady Naomi reached up to her neck. A moment later, her whole body flickered and disappeared, and Amelia saw Charlie sitting in her place, a small brass object clutched between his fingers.

  It was a holo-emitter – one of the devices Tom used to disguise all the alien guests who stayed at the hotel.

  So he’s finally worked out how to use it, Amelia thought. Great.

  ‘Oh, Charlie,’ said Mum sadly, but she was looking at James.

  James stood up, his face red again, but this time with fury. Charlie was still laughing to himself, ignoring his mum and apparently quite unaware that James was about to go volcanic.

  Amelia had never seen James so mad. He drew back his fist as though he were about to punch Charlie, but – though Charlie almost deserved it – he lowered it again and yelled instead.

  ‘You pathetic, thieving scumbag! You went into my room? You went through my things? You stole that –’ He broke off, making a grab for the holo-emitter.

  Charlie twisted away, but he finally stopped laughing and looked up at James. It seemed to take a second or two for him to work out just how mad James really was. Amelia watched Charlie’s face slide from confusion, to surprise, to a certain wide-eyed realisation that clearly said uh-oh …

  But rather than yelling at Charlie again, James turned instead on Mum. ‘You see?’ he bellowed. ‘You dragged me out to Bum-Crack Bay, away from all my friends, away from everything good for this?’ He pointed at Charlie in disgust.

  Mum was silent.

  Amelia ground her teeth. James was doing the same thing he’d been doing ever since they’d first arrived here: getting angry as an excuse for ignoring the facts. Nearly a month in the hotel, a month surrounded by alien technology and alien wormholes – not to mention the aliens themselves – and James had spent the whole time trying desperately to convince himself that none of it was actually happening. Bizarrely, he’d even spent a few days tinkering with this holo-emitter as a way of distracting himself from reality.

  And now he was doing the same thing all over again, concentrating as hard as he could on the one thing he could deal with (they had moved house) to avoid facing the truth: that he had just seen genuine alien technology at work.

  Charlie, meanwhile, was sitting frozen, as though hoping that if he stayed still enough, James would forget he was there. Amelia didn’t know who to feel sorrier for. On the other hand, it was also hard to tell who was being the bigger jerk.

  But before things had the chance to escalate any further, a flash of lightning lit up the room, making their candles seem pale for an instant, and Amelia saw the face of a grizzled old man through the glass of the library’s French doors. He was streaming with water, his grey hair flat to his head, and his black eye-patch stark against his skin. As the thunder boomed, he knocked three times using a hand that was missing a finger. He looked like the ghost of a drowned sailor.

  Mary spun about with a little squeal of surprise.

  ‘Oh, for goodness sake,’ said Mum. ‘Tom!’

  ‘Quickly, Amelia,’ said Mum. ‘Let Tom in.’

  Charlie, who was quick to recognise a good distraction when he saw one, had leapt off the sofa and was already halfway to the doors. Tom, although under the shelter of the hotel’s veranda, was standing in the middle of his own personal puddle. Water dribbled off his trousers.

  ‘Come in, Tom,’ said Mum. ‘Dry off before you catch your death.’

  Tom twitched at the words, although Amelia knew they only meant that Tom shouldn’t risk a cold. ‘No time,’ he said gruffly. He went to keep talking but stopped and frowned at Charlie beside him, and then at Amelia.

  ‘Can you get the power back on?’ Mum asked. ‘Scott’s usually faster than this with a fuse box.’

  Tom rubbed his nose with the back of his hand and didn’t answer.

  ‘Well?’ Mum prompted.

  Tom glanced at Charlie and Amelia again, and raised a helpless eyebrow at Mum.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she said briskly. ‘You came here to tell us something, not to be pestered with questions. What was it you needed?’

  ‘We’ve got guests coming,’ said Tom.

  A shiver sparked up Amelia’s back. If Tom knew about the guests first, that meant they were aliens, travelling through a wormhole in space and arriving at the gateway in the caves under his cottage.

  Mum sighed. ‘How many of them?’

  ‘And how long until they arrive?’ Mary added.

  According to hotel rules, off-world guests were supposed to send Tom a message at least a day or two in advance, to give Dad time to sort out the strange foods some aliens needed, and Mum and Mary time to sort out any special arrangements for the rooms.

  ‘An hour or two,’ said Tom apologetically.

  ‘What?’ said Mum.

  ‘And there will be about twenty of them.’

  ‘How many?’ said Mary.

  ‘Mostly children,’ said Tom. ‘Sorry.’

  ‘In a blackout!’ Mum almost yelled. ‘Trekking through the rain and mud in the middle of the night, and we can’t offer them so much as a cup of hot tea, let alone a bath!’

  Lightning flashed into the room, but no thunder followed. Amelia looked at Charlie, who quickly put his hands behind his back.

  ‘Yeah …’ Tom looked awkward. ‘It was a bit of a last-minute thing …’

  ‘How can moving twenty-odd children across space be a last-minute thing?’ Mum really was yelling now. ‘Why on Earth would anyone leave plans like that until the last –’ She caught herself, realised something, and shook off her temper. ‘Right. Sorry, Tom,’ she said calmly. ‘I just had a tiny little
mental overload there for a second. I’m back now. So, what do you need us to do?’

  ‘I’m afraid I don’t know,’ he said warily. ‘There were no other details given.’

  ‘Right,’ said Mum. ‘Very good. Thank you, Tom.’

  As Tom turned to go, Amelia saw Charlie slip out into the lobby.

  Not so fast, Charlie, thought Amelia. He might be able to sneak off on the two mums, and maybe even outrun James for a while, but Amelia wouldn’t let him go so easily.

  The lobby was eerie in the half-dark. The candelabra that James had left lit up the reception desk well enough, but that only made the rest of the room feel darker, more echoing. Amelia looked instinctively toward the twin staircases, as though she might be able to see Charlie there, if only she looked hard enough. Her eyes ached with the darkness. She’d never realised how tiring it was to not see.

  Behind her, she heard the main doors to the hotel creak open, and the sound of the rain grew louder. Charlie was going out?

  Grawk made that rumbling sound again, and Amelia followed the faint glow of his eyes toward the door. Standing on the threshold, not sure whether to go out into the night, she heard a voice call, ‘Tom! Tom!’

  Amelia gasped. It was her mother.

  ‘Yes?’ Tom called back, and Amelia heard his boots coming closer along the wooden veranda. ‘What is it, Skye?’

  ‘Just one thing,’ Mum said. ‘You didn’t want to say anything about the power. Why? What’s wrong?’

  Tom sucked in his breath, and for a long pause there was nothing but the sound of the rain. Amelia strained her ears as much as her eyes.

  ‘Skye, I don’t know how to say this, but …’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I couldn’t say anything in front of the kids …’

  ‘What?’

  ‘It’s everything we feared, Skye.’

  This time Mum’s voice was shaky. ‘What?’

  ‘Keep the kids inside. Don’t let them out of your sight for a moment.’

  ‘Why?’ Mum sounded like a kid herself.

  ‘Another wormhole connected this evening, a couple of hours ago, and someone came through. It was –’ Tom faltered. ‘Well, I’ve just received confirmation – it was Krskn.’