The Beast Awakens

by Joseph Delaney

  Eventually, after what felt like miles of passageway, they thrust Crafty into a cell. It was bare but for a heap of straw in one corner, and it smelled as if somebody had died and they’d forgotten to remove the body. There was another smell too – even worse than the soldiers’ latrines downwind of the castle barracks.

  ‘Where am I? You can’t just leave me here!’ he cried.

  But his pleas fell on deaf ears. Worse still, when the guards left him, they took the torch – Crafty couldn’t even see his hand in front of his face. It was terrifying, and claustrophobic. He lay down on the floor, and was disturbed to find that it didn’t make any difference whether he had his eyes open or closed.

  But then, after a while, he did begin to see things. His imagination began to conjure up apparitions – or at least he hoped it was his imagination. At one point he thought he could see Old Nell. Her neck had been twisted and stretched by the hangman’s noose and she gave him an evil grin. He even thought he heard her malevolent cackle. He shook his head to make the vision disappear.

  He’d had no supper but he didn’t feel the slightest bit hungry. Fear, combined with the stink in the cell, would have spoiled anybody’s appetite. All this, he thought, just for trying to do the right thing.

  He knew he’d never trust Ginger Bob again, not like before. He’d thought him reasonable, maybe even kind – certainly compared to Viper, but his reaction proved that he had as little regard for the gate grubs as everyone else.

  Crafty tried to sleep, but it was bitterly cold and he kept shivering. At last he drifted off and was immediately plunged into a nightmare. He was back in the cellar, trapped in the Shole again.

  His brothers were whispering …

  ‘Crafty! Crafty! Crafty!’

  He knelt down and put his ear close to the floor, trying to catch what they were saying. Suddenly four thin bony arms sprouted from the soil and reached out for him. They gripped his shoulders, their fingernails sharp, like talons; he could feel them cutting into his flesh.

  He tried to fight them off, but they dragged him down into the mud. Why were they doing this? Why would Brock and Ben want to hurt their own brother? he wondered. Down and down they dragged him. Crafty’s mouth was filled with earth, and he choked.

  Suddenly he realized what they wanted. They’d been buried for months – they must be hungry. They were going to eat him!

  Crafty woke up abruptly, trembling, relieved to find that it had only been a nightmare. But he was too scared to go back to sleep. He didn’t want a repeat of that terrible dream.

  After a while he calmed down, but each time he was on the verge of sleep he’d hear a scream in the distance and jolt awake again. He wasn’t sure if it was his imagination or not. Did they torture people down here? Or were those the cries of aberrations being studied and cut up for research?

  Then he heard something new – something outside his cell door; something slithering across the flags. All at once the sound stopped, and Crafty wondered if it had just been his imagination again. He listened hard, and eventually heard another distant cry echo down the corridors towards him.

  That seemed to be the signal for the slithering to start up once more. It sounded louder. Was it getting nearer? Was it approaching the door of his cell? Now the slithering stopped and there was a new sound: a scratching, like sharp claws against the stout wooden door. Was something trying to get in? Surely the door was too thick? he told himself. What could it be?

  Crafty’s mind darted about as he wondered how something that slithered could also have talons. It had sounded like a snake, but it also had arms. That was no longer impossible; not with the coming of the Shole. This creature could well be an aberration – something that had escaped from the laboratories or the Menagerie.

  The scratching went on and on, getting more and more frantic. Could the beast gouge its way through the wood? Crafty’s heart was beating fast and the cold sweat of fear was running down his forehead to sting his eyes. It suddenly occurred to him that there might be a gap under the door. If the aberration was like a snake, it could slither underneath …

  Suddenly the scratching noise stopped. Then he heard the slithering again – though it was getting fainter, moving away from the door.

  At last there was silence, and very slowly Crafty’s racing heart returned to its normal speed. But he didn’t sleep again that night.

  In the morning the guards took a dishevelled and thoroughly miserable Crafty back to the Chief Mancer’s room.

  Ginger Bob stared coldly at Crafty from the chair behind his desk; this time he didn’t invite him to sit down.

  ‘What do you have to say for yourself, Benson?’ His tone was like ice.

  Crafty knew that he wanted him to apologize, and although he didn’t think he had much to be sorry for – indeed, he thought the mancer should be apologizing to him – the thought of another night in the cell made him only too eager to oblige.

  ‘I’m really sorry, sir, if I spoke out of turn. It won’t happen again.’

  ‘Indeed it won’t, Benson. Another incident like this and you will immediately be returned to the Shole. Of course, I felt professionally obliged to tell Mr Vipton about your accusations. He was far from pleased. You owe him an apology too. Go back to your room and clean yourself up. Then report to the Waiting Room.’

  Crafty could tell that the Chief Mancer was still furious with him; he wouldn’t forget this breach of etiquette in a hurry.

  Back in his room, Crafty washed himself thoroughly, trying to scrub the horrible stink of the cell off his skin. He noticed that a clean uniform had been laid out on the bed for him. This was surely Ginger Bob’s work – he seemed to think of everything. He’d known that Crafty would be dirty and smelly from his night in the cell and would need fresh clothes; that was kind of him. But then he’d felt it necessary to inform Viper about his complaint; he’d been ‘professionally obliged’ to do so.

  Now there would be consequences.

  Viper was certain to want revenge.

  When Crafty had eventually cleaned himself up, he went down to the Waiting Room – and got a shock.

  There were two people already sitting there, both dressed in the uniform of gate grubs.

  He was relieved to see that one was Lucky. The other was a girl.

  Lucky was sitting further up the table, four chairs away from her. The girl was reading a book, its jacket covered in brown paper so that the title wasn’t visible. Her hair was cut short like a man’s – Crafty had never seen a girl with a haircut like that. She looked about Lucky’s age, or maybe a little older. She had a pert nose and an intelligent expression that was also cold and aloof.

  Crafty sat down just one chair away from the girl. Lucky caught his eye and shook his head at him. Crafty wondered what he meant by that. It seemed like some kind of warning – but the girl was surely friendly enough? They were all gate grubs together now, after all.

  ‘Hello,’ Crafty said, introducing himself. ‘My name’s Crafty. What’s yours?’

  Very slowly the girl raised her head from the book, frowned, and fixed him with a gaze of intense displeasure.

  ‘I don’t speak to boys. I don’t like boys. Go and sit with your ugly friend and leave me alone!’

  Crafty didn’t need telling twice. He was astonished! So much for being friendly. By the time he’d stood up, the girl’s nose was already back in her book.

  Crafty went and sat beside Lucky. He knew he hadn’t deserved such treatment, but he felt even more annoyed on Lucky’s behalf. It wasn’t his fault that his nose was broken and squashed. It was cruel to call him ugly.

  ‘I did try to warn you!’ Lucky murmured. ‘At least she said something to you – she’s just been ignoring me. So, how did it go when you spoke to Ginger Bob? How did he react?’

  Although Lucky had kept his voice low, Crafty suspected that the girl could still hear them. Maybe she was only pretending to read that book? Was she listening to every word they spoke – spying … but fo
r who? Viper? Crafty decided that, if this was the case, she probably already knew what he was about to tell Lucky anyway.

  ‘When I complained about Viper, he was annoyed, to say the least,’ Crafty replied. ‘He said it was “a breach of professional etiquette” for me to question Viper’s methods. I spent the night in a pitch-black, smelly dungeon. What’s even worse, he told Viper about my complaint.’

  Lucky screwed up his face as if he’d been punched. ‘Now it’s even more urgent to carry out my plan! If we don’t, you won’t last the week.’

  Crafty’s blood ran cold. He was very afraid of what Viper might do to him. He looked at the girl again, and then, on impulse, spoke to her. ‘I’d like to give you a warning. There’s a gate mancer called Vipton who’s more than likely to take you out on your first job. He’ll leave you in an extremely cold place, and you’ll think you’ve been abandoned to freeze to death. But don’t be afraid. Just keep calm. He’ll be back. He has a twisted sense of humour – it’s a trick he plays on all new gate grubs.’

  The girl didn’t even bother to look up. ‘I’m quite capable of looking after myself,’ she replied coldly, ‘and I certainly don’t need any advice from you,’ she added, her eyes never leaving the page.

  Then, as if on cue, Viper came through the door at the end of the room.

  ‘You!’ he called out, pointing a finger at his prey. ‘New girl! Come with me. I have a job for you!’

  Crafty inwardly gave a sigh of relief. He’d expected Viper to be thirsty for revenge and choose him first. He watched the girl wriggle into her greatcoat and push the book into the right-hand pocket. She hadn’t made the same mistake as him, then. At least she’d be a little warmer, depending on how long Viper kept her waiting before he returned to collect her.

  The mancer turned and walked down the length of the table, the girl following him. But just before he reached the door, he paused, turned again and pointed at Crafty.

  ‘I have a job for you too, Benson, but it’ll be later in the afternoon. I look forward to the pleasure of your company then,’ he added with a little smirk.

  Crafty’s heart sank. So he hadn’t got away with it after all.

  After the door had closed, Lucky leaped to his feet and began to pace up and down. ‘You know what “later in the afternoon” means, don’t you? It gets dark much earlier in the Shole. By then it’ll be very dangerous. He’s obviously hoping to find some excuse to leave you there – or maybe watch you get eaten by aberrations!’

  Crafty knew his friend was right, but could see no way out of it. ‘Well, there’s nothing I can do about it, is there?’

  ‘If it came to it, would you fight him?’ Lucky demanded.

  ‘Of course I would, if it was possible! But he probably won’t give me the chance. He’ll either choose to slice me with the guillotine blade when I enter or leave the gate, or, as you say, he’ll put me in a situation I can’t hope to get out of.’

  Lucky gritted his teeth in frustration, then asked, ‘Did you do as I asked – did you think it through? Did you use that crafty brain of yours to work out the best way to kill Viper?’

  In fact Crafty had thought about it during his long night in the cell, but he still paused before telling Lucky. After all, it was a serious step; they were talking about murder. But suddenly he remembered poor Donna, and how she had died. He didn’t want that to happen again – not to him or to Lucky. Also, if he was dead, who would look for his father?

  So, with a sigh, he told Lucky his plan.

  ‘We need to take him by surprise and drag or push him through the gate and into the Shole. Then, from this side, I can make the gate go opaque. He’d be left behind, and the Shole would soon have its effect.’

  ‘Not bad, Crafty!’

  ‘But I haven’t had time to work out the practicalities,’ countered Crafty. ‘He’s bigger than me. A lot would depend on where he stands in relation to the gate. And I’d need an element of surprise. Then there’d be the problem of explaining to the Chief Mancer what had happened and convincing him that it was an accident.’

  ‘A combined operation, when we’re all in the field, might be our best chance,’ Lucky said. ‘If the gates were far enough apart, the other mancers wouldn’t be able to see what was happening – we could all help to push or pull him through. If Donna was still here, it would certainly be possible, but that new girl might be a problem …’

  Crafty thought about it. ‘A combined operation. That’s a good idea. That might work,’ he said.

  He’d actually already thought of this, but he let Lucky take the credit. Of course, he hadn’t foreseen the arrival of the girl. Lucky was right. She might be a problem.

  ‘Why did you warn the girl about Viper?’ Lucky asked, and Crafty was pleased to change the subject. ‘She didn’t deserve our help.’

  ‘If we try to be kind to her, then perhaps we can win her round,’ Crafty suggested. ‘And if she works with Viper and sees how he behaves, she might be on our side.’

  Lucky gave him an evil grin. ‘Don’t be too sure about that. They’re both nasty pieces of work! Maybe they’ll get on well together!’

  The girl came back a couple of hours later. She removed her coat, pulled her book out of her pocket and started to read again. Not one word did she say to either Crafty or Lucky, and she didn’t seem perturbed in the slightest. She wasn’t even shivering.

  The boys had just finished a game of draughts but, instead of putting the pieces back into the box, Crafty turned to the girl and asked, ‘Would you like a game?’

  ‘I prefer reading,’ she said, not bothering to meet his eyes. ‘Besides, draughts is far too easy. I prefer chess.’

  After that they ignored her. The afternoon dragged on, and Viper left it very late to collect Crafty.

  Lucky mouthed a ‘good luck’ as he left the room, and Crafty could tell that he was really worried about him. The girl didn’t look up from her book.

  Once they were in his office Viper pointed to the chair in front of the black curtain, so Crafty sat down. He could see a few faint stains on the tiles there. Was that Donna’s blood? he wondered.

  Don’t think about that, he told himself. You’ll drive yourself mad.

  Viper didn’t strap him in, but Crafty noticed that, before drawing back the curtain, he unlocked the guillotine with his foot. Crafty’s mouth went dry.

  ‘We’re going to a fixed location,’ Viper said curtly, the dial clicking as he turned it.

  Seconds later the swirling clouds within the frame of the gate vanished to reveal a place that Crafty recognized immediately. It was Winckley Square in Preston, where they’d gone to rescue the Duke’s son – and where Donna had died.

  ‘You know where you left the tools, Benson,’ Viper said with a sneer. ‘Go and find them and bring them back.’

  Clearly, the spades and the pruners could have been collected at a safer time, but Viper had deliberately brought Crafty here now, when it was almost dark. Those fanged beasts would be waiting in the houses beyond the garden wall, and he had to cover at least fifty yards to recover the tools.

  Wasting no time, Crafty buttoned his greatcoat to the neck, then clambered through the silver frame and out into the freezing air of the Shole. He quickly followed the sloping path down through the trees, noting that the gloom was already darkening into full night. He soon reached the swampy hole from which they’d freed the Duke’s son, tucked the pruners into his coat pocket and picked up the three spades. They were heavy and cumbersome, and it would be hard to move fast when carrying them by himself. The sooner he got back to the gate the better.

  As he turned towards the gate, Crafty heard the first screeching howl. He began to run, but the three spades were hampering his progress, and as he sprinted up the slope he tripped over a tree root and fell headlong. Scrambling to his feet, he grabbed the spades and raced onwards, straining to see the blue shimmer of the gate. What if Viper had abandoned him already?

  But there was the gate. He forced hims
elf on, hoping that it wouldn’t wink out. As he drew near, he glanced over his shoulder and saw a dozen of the cat-like beasts bounding along, closing in on him rapidly.

  Ahead, through the gate, he saw Viper smirking at him. ‘Hand the spades to me one at a time, Benson!’ He took great delight in taking each one as slowly as possible.

  Behind Crafty, the howling of those hungry beasts was getting ever louder. Was that what Viper wanted – to allow one of them to leap through the gate with Crafty so that he could chop them both with the guillotine? That way it would look like an accident.

  When Viper had finally taken all the tools, he beckoned to Crafty. Sweating and shaking with fear, Crafty saw that Viper’s foot was positioned over the guillotine pedal, ready to bring it down into his flesh and bones. He could almost feel the blade.

  But now the beasts were almost upon him. His heart pounded as he scrambled through the gate, expecting to hear the guillotine coming down at any moment –

  Then he was there. He slumped on to the chair and turned in relief – and saw fierce open jaws almost filling the frame before him, slaver dripping, the eyes above glittering with blood-lust.

  Desperately he willed the clouds to return … and then the danger was over. But, looking down, Crafty saw that one of his feet was still under the blade of the guillotine! He quickly pulled it back, but not before Viper had caught his eye and smirked.

  ‘Stand up!’ the mancer commanded, his face becoming stern.

  Crafty obeyed, his legs still wobbly.

  ‘Go over there, away from the chair! There – in the centre of the room.’

  As Crafty stumbled over, his heart slowly returned to its normal rhythm. Viper couldn’t hurt him now – could he?

  The mancer began to circle him slowly, like a predator considering the best moment to leap upon its prey. In his right hand he was holding what looked like a length of black string – Crafty suddenly realized that it was a shoelace.

  All at once Viper struck him with it twice across his right shoulder. Flick! Flick!