The Midnight Mercenary

by Cerberus Jones

  Amelia trudged through the grass, utterly defeated. How stupid not to be able to do anything. How ghastly if all they could do was sit back and let Krskn do whatever he wanted.

  ‘Isn’t there something we can do?’ Charlie asked.

  ‘You?’ Tom said. ‘No. But –’

  ‘What about my mum?’ Amelia interrupted.

  ‘What about her?’

  ‘Whatever she’s doing – is it helping?’

  Tom wheeled around to face them both. ‘Skye’s out here? Alone?’

  ‘She came out here to help you!’

  He made an angry grunt. ‘I thought she was the only one of you with a bit of sense. Come on.’ He turned back and kept walking, muttering something about fish in a barrel.

  Just as they reached the main steps to the hotel, Grawk gave a low growl.

  ‘What is it?’ Amelia bent to stroke him, and felt that all the fur on his back was bristling. ‘Grawk?’

  Without another sound, he shot off down the hill and disappeared. Amelia would have called out to him, but Tom had already wrapped a hand over her mouth.

  ‘Come on – now,’ he hissed furiously. And taking them each by an arm, he dragged Amelia and Charlie up to the library’s doors and knocked on the glass.

  Mary was there in a second, the heavy poker from the fireplace in one hand and a desperate look on her face. She unlatched the door and when Tom shoved Amelia and Charlie through the gap, she broke into tears. ‘Where have you been? You could have been killed!’ she sobbed, hugging Charlie, shaking him hard, and hugging him again. ‘And you,’ she said, pulling Amelia into the huddle.

  ‘If they step foot outside this hotel again, I’ll kill them myself,’ said Tom. ‘You got that?’

  Amelia nodded, too overwhelmed to speak.

  ‘Tom, what on Earth is going on?’ said Mary. ‘What is all this about?’

  Tom snorted. ‘Do you want the good news, or the bad?’

  ‘Both! Just tell me the truth.’

  ‘The good news is, I’ve heard that Krskn isn’t here to murder, torture or get revenge on anyone.’

  Mary nodded, waiting for him to go on.

  ‘The bad news,’ Tom went on, ‘is that he’s here to kidnap as many of our guests as he can. And he’ll do whatever it takes to get the job done – including murder and torture, if anyone gets in his way.’

  Amelia heard this and was numb. Between shock and grief for her dad, fear for her mum, and the loss of Grawk a second time, Tom’s news was too much to absorb. She looked over at the sofa. There was James, a book still in his hand, not paying attention to anything that was happening. Anger flared inside her.

  It must be nice to be a total brain-dead jerk, she thought. Very relaxing.

  While James sat in the corner and read, Tom gave Amelia, Charlie and his mum the first sliver of hope they’d had all night.

  ‘Now, as I was trying to tell you,’ he said gruffly, ‘someone’s coming. If we can just hold out a bit longer, we won’t be on our own with Krskn.’

  ‘Control is sending an agent?’ asked Charlie.

  ‘Those bureaucrats!’ spat Tom. ‘No. We’re waiting for someone with actual power.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘A Keeper,’ Tom said impressively.

  There was a pause, and Charlie said, ‘A what?’

  ‘A Keeper of the Gates and Ways,’ said Tom, emphasising the importance of each word.

  Amelia and Charlie swapped a look. OK …

  ‘And this – this gatekeeper person,’ said Mary. ‘You’re saying they’re a match for Krskn?’

  Tom looked as though he’d like to correct her phrasing – but then suddenly, from outside, came the sound of boots and voices – lots of both, and no-one trying to be quiet.

  ‘The guests!’ said Mary. ‘I almost forgot them in all this chaos,’ and she dashed out to the lobby to open the main doors.

  Amelia followed, carrying with her another candelabra in each hand to bring a bit more light to the gloomy entrance.

  There, tramping through the doors with mud smearing the floor behind them, wet and shivering under their backpacks, was a troupe of Scouts about Amelia and Charlie’s age. A couple of worried-looking adults waved them through, counting heads. So many heads that Amelia found herself joining in – past twenty, past thirty until they stopped at forty-five Scouts. Another three adult leaders brought up the rear.

  Mary was astonished. ‘But we only had a booking for twenty-two!’

  Two of the Scout leaders took off their packs with great groans of relief, and glanced at each other. ‘Yes, sorry about this …’ the older one began. ‘A bit of a disaster, really …’

  But before he could go on, a third Scout leader stepped over and clapped him heartily on the back. ‘Nonsense! We all made it here, didn’t we? Just a bit more adventure than we expected, isn’t it?’

  ‘You can say that again …’ the older leader muttered.

  ‘What’s going on?’ Mary asked faintly.

  The cheerful Scout leader reached over and shook her hand with both of his. He smiled gratefully and as he moved into the candlelight, Amelia saw that he was extremely handsome.

  ‘Hello, I’m Derek,’ he said. ‘It’s so good of you to take us on such short notice. Or, as it turns out for half of us, with no notice at all!’

  Mary laughed nervously, one hand still in Derek’s, the other stealing up to touch her throat. ‘Half of you?’ she echoed weakly.

  ‘It was the strangest thing.’ Derek’s eyes twinkled as he smiled. ‘You couldn’t make this stuff up. There we were, our camp site flooded, and no option but to take off through the bush and look for shelter. No idea where we were going – the maps were ruined, and our compasses went haywire.’

  That crazy magnetism under the headland, thought Amelia.

  ‘We were completely lost,’ Derek continued, ‘and then – what happens? We bump into another mob of Scouts in exactly the same predicament! Incredible!’

  ‘Two groups of Scouts?’ Mary said, and Amelia knew what she was thinking. Had the alien guests from the gateway bumped into a troupe of real human Scouts on their way up the hill and decided to copy the uniforms with their holo-emitters?

  Or – and this would make things triply complicated – had two groups of human Scouts really been out camping at the same time, and just decided to make for the nearest shelter? In that case, there would still be aliens on the way, and they could end up with over seventy guests for the night. All in the one library …

  She looked at Tom for a clue, but he was gazing at the Scouts in amazement. ‘I don’t know,’ he said when Mary raised her eyebrows at him. ‘They’re a bit early, but …’

  Amelia knew what he was unable to say in front of visitors: the wormholes had been increasingly unpredictable lately, and it was harder and harder for Tom to match up his old timetables with the actual arrivals at the gateway. He hadn’t expected the aliens to arrive yet, but they could have …

  ‘I’d, uh, better go and check,’ he said, and limped out into the dark.

  Amelia wondered how Charlie’s mum was going to deal with all this, but before Mary could even open her mouth, Derek was solving problems for her.

  ‘Look, I’m sorry to inconvenience you like this, but I promise we can take care of ourselves. We’ve got dry clothes in our packs, and can bunk down anywhere you’d like to put us, uh …’ He paused, and then smiled in embarrassment. ‘I’m sorry, I don’t even know your name.’

  ‘Mary,’ she said, sounding strangled, and reached up to tuck her hair behind her ear. It was rather girlish and Charlie gave her a sharp look.

  ‘Mary,’ Derek repeated. ‘We’re at your mercy. Point the way.’

  James was not at all happy to have fifty wet, smelly Scouts march into his quiet library. He was even less impressed when about half of them immediately started pulling off their muddy boots, peeling off filthy socks and waggling their wrinkly, blistered toes around. They rummaged through their packs for
something dry to wear, but then one of the boys caught sight of Amelia, and froze.

  ‘It’s all right,’ said Amelia. ‘There’s a little annexe through here – look.’ She slid open a panel door to reveal a narrow room with bookshelves along one wall and a row of framed pictures on the other. ‘You can take turns.’

  There was a great deal of jostling and noise as the Scouts organised themselves into warm clothes. Although, not all of them. Amelia noticed that half of them seemed content in their wet gear. She nudged Charlie, who nodded. She was pretty sure the aliens were here. Either they only looked wet, and were perfectly dry and comfortable under their holo-emitter disguises, or they were the kind of aliens who didn’t mind being cold and soggy.

  Mary had bustled James off to get towels from the upstairs linen press (she wasn’t letting Charlie or Amelia out of the library again), and had brought out a massive plastic container of Dad’s homemade biscuits. Soon the Scouts had pushed back the chairs and table, made space on the floor, and were sitting in a wobbly circle, passing the biscuit box from hand to hand.

  Dad’s biscuits were a bit of a gamble. Some were perfectly normal choc-chip cookies, using a perfectly normal recipe. Others had been tweaked a bit – like adding crushed mint candy canes to the double-chocolate brownies. And some were straight out mad-scientist experiments, like the rock cakes made with Vegemite, sultanas and curry powder. As the biscuits went around the group, it turned into a game of cookie roulette – in the candlelight, no-one really knew what they were picking. Each time a Scout took a biscuit, everyone held their breath, waiting for the reaction to the first bite.

  Sometimes, the Scouts would chew a few times, then smile and say, ‘Custard and strawberry jelly,’ and the rest of the group would sigh in disappointment. Then around the box would go: coconut-ice slice, butterscotch shortbread, gingersnaps, and then just as everyone was getting a bit bored, the next Scout would splutter and gag and gasp, ‘I don’t even know – gherkin and apricot jam?’ The room would erupt in a roar of delight, and around the box would go again.

  Charlie was down there with them, grinning broadly as the girl next to him spat a mouthful of cookie into her hands and shuddered. Amelia, though, sat back from the group and only watched. She was glad the Scouts – humans and aliens alike – were having a good time, but she’d had too much stress tonight to shrug it off and play. The behaviour of the Scout leaders wasn’t helping her relax, either.

  Two of them, Kev and Lorraine – she guessed they were probably the humans – were trying to figure out how far back in the bush their abandoned camp site was, and how long it would take them tomorrow to trek back to recover their equipment. Two others, Barry and Terry, were almost silent. They nodded or grunted in agreement or sympathy every now and then when Kev or Lorraine tried to include them in the conversation, but mostly they just stared at the kids with bleak, exhausted eyes. Only Derek showed any interest in the kids’ game.

  As Amelia watched, he slid off his chair and squashed into the circle to take his turn at the biscuit box. He smiled and laughed along with the kids, and when the box reached him, every kid was wide-eyed, waiting to see what he chose. He bit into his cookie with a grand flourish.

  ‘Mmf, my favourite!’ he mumbled through his full mouth.

  All the kids groaned.

  ‘Toenails and woodlice!’ Derek went on. ‘Crunchy and nutritious!’

  The kids all screamed in disgust.

  Despite herself, Amelia smiled. That was what a real leader should be like – helping everyone relax and have fun. Sitting around at a separate table, complaining or silently freaking out wasn’t helping anyone.

  As if he felt her looking at him, Derek turned and smiled at Amelia.

  ‘Are you going to have a go?’ he asked, taking a biscuit out of the box and offering it to her.

  She shook her head and blushed slightly.

  ‘Ah, very sensible of you.’ He passed the biscuit to the Scout sitting next to him instead. ‘You can never be too careful, can you?’

  Even as he said so, the Scout next to him dropped the biscuit to the floor and gasped. Everyone howled with laughter.

  ‘What was it, Len?’ a boy shouted over the din. ‘Mustard and rhubarb?’

  The boy had his back to Amelia, but across the other side of the circle, she saw another Scout’s face drop with shock.

  ‘Look!’ She pointed. ‘He’s choking!’

  Horribly, it took her three or four tries to get anyone to listen, and by the time the rest of the Scouts realised there was a problem, Len had collapsed sideways onto the floor and was shaking all over. Derek crouched over him, his eyes wide.

  ‘Len!’ Terry yelled from the leader’s table. ‘What happened?’

  ‘Oh, my word!’ Lorraine leapt to her feet. ‘He’s frothing at the mouth!’

  ‘It’s an allergic reaction,’ said Derek calmly. ‘He ate a peanut-butter cookie.’

  James, for the first time all night, threw aside his book and came to see what was wrong.

  ‘He needs a shot,’ he said. ‘He can’t breathe – look! Where’s his medicine?’

  ‘Medicine?’ said Barry. ‘He doesn’t have any –’

  ‘I’ll get the first-aid kit!’ James rushed to the other side of the room.

  ‘But he’s not –’ Barry and Terry looked at one another in panic. ‘Len needs –’

  ‘I know what he needs.’ Derek eyed them both steadily. His face was a remarkable combination of authority and confidence. ‘I know exactly how to keep him safe. How to keep him healthy.’

  It seemed to Amelia that Derek had said that awkwardly – he was putting all the importance on the word keep, instead of on safe and healthy.

  He said, ‘You look after the others. I’ll keep Len with me.’

  There it was again, and this time, Barry and Terry blinked in wonder and just nodded obediently.

  Keep, Amelia thought. Tom said something about a Keeper. Could Derek be …?

  She gazed at him, and perhaps he guessed what she was thinking, because just as James rushed up with the red first-aid bag, Derek said to her, ‘It’s water Len needs. Can you get me a bucketful? As much as you can carry.’

  ‘I can do that,’ said Charlie, grabbing another candle and pelting out of the room.

  By now James had unzipped the bag and was rifling through bandages and swabs looking for the emergency shot of adrenalin, but Derek interrupted him.

  ‘We need to move him now.’

  James shook his head. ‘What? No! As if we have time to –’

  ‘Now,’ Derek repeated. ‘Without delay. Into the annexe.’

  Amelia was disturbed. Was Derek really going to make Len wait for his shot while they moved him to another place? It didn’t make any sense, but arguing would only slow them down further, so she ran to the annexe door and slid it open. Derek and James carried Len inside.

  In the pale light of the candelabra, they laid the limp Scout on the floor. Thick green mucus was bubbling out of Len’s mouth. He was on one side and lay utterly still, with no sign that he was breathing.

  ‘You’re crazy!’ James fell back and stared at Derek. ‘I think he just died and you wasted his last seconds. You killed him!’

  In that moment, Charlie staggered in with a bucket slopping water over the edges. Derek nodded in satisfaction.

  ‘Close the door, please,’ he said to Amelia. Taking the bucket from Charlie, he poured the water over Len’s head. He nudged Len with his foot so Len rolled onto his back, and Derek made sure the rest of the water fell onto Len’s face and into his open mouth.

  ‘And now you’re drowning him?’ James gasped.

  But rather than drowning, Len’s whole body jolted. He twitched, writhed on the floor in apparent agony, and then sneezed so violently a wad of green froth spattered the floor and wall.

  Almost instantly, there was a hard bang against the wall behind them. Turning, Amelia saw her brother had stumbled backwards, hitting his head and shoulder. H
is face was white with terror; he was staring fascinated and horrified at Len.

  To be fair, Len was quite a surprise for anyone.

  The sneeze had dislodged his holo-emitter, which now lay sparking on the annexe floor. Len himself, uncloaked from his holographic disguise, was now unmistakably alien – a giant slug, translucent and glistening, with a mouth wide enough to engulf James’s whole head. Two green hearts could be seen beating deep inside his body, while his digestive system made an oddly beautiful squiggly line through his middle, shading from purple to blue to black. His antennae were retracted miserably into his head, and he trembled as yet more green mucus foamed out of his mouth.

  ‘It wasn’t a peanut allergy at all, was it?’ said Amelia. ‘It was the salt in the peanut butter that made him sick. Just like an Earth slug.’

  ‘Correct,’ said Derek grimly. ‘You’re a clever kid …’ He paused.

  ‘Amelia.’

  ‘Amelia,’ he nodded. ‘Well, Len should be OK in a couple of hours. He just needs rest to get over the trauma, and he’ll need to stay here, now his holo-emitter is broken.’

  Len didn’t say anything. He just shuddered.

  There was a soft choking noise, but it wasn’t Len. Amelia gazed at James coolly.

  ‘What’s wrong with him?’ said Charlie. ‘Does he have a salt allergy too? I can get another bucket of water.’

  ‘H-how …?’ James stammered. ‘W-what …?’

  ‘That’s right, James,’ said Amelia. ‘He’s an alien.’

  ‘A Lellum,’ Derek added. ‘One of the few to escape his dying home world. This little group tonight are almost all that is left of the whole Lellum race.’

  James struggled to his feet, disgust twisting his face. ‘But that’s not … you can’t … I won’t …’ He clapped both hands over his mouth and stared again. He looked at Len’s gelatinous grey body, the trails of silver slime that sparkled in the candlelight where Len had thrashed around, and the undeniably freaky sight of one of Len’s eyeballs telescoping out of his head on its antenna and swivelling around to look at James.