Erin wore black jeans in addition to her leather jacket. She stood to my right. “The ones who abducted you were quite easy to track down,” she said softly. “I just went back to the place where you said you escaped from and soon enough, I saw the lanky one wandering around. He was trying to conceal himself, but I was able to track him fairly quickly. They have been going out and about in this area.”
Gareth stood to my left. He was wearing an olive green sweater, the type of kit the British commandoes wore, along with combat trousers and military boots. He looked like an extra in a war movie. “The last time I heard about the museum in the news, they were having an exhibition of Aztec artifacts. I think they may be in there because of that mirror you possessed, lad.”
I still wore my blue hooded pullover and had the black-and-pink women’s trainers on my feet. I had wanted to try and grab a new pair of shoes but there was no time. I couldn’t help but feel self-conscious about it. “Do you think they might be carrying my mirror with them?”
“I didn’t see anything other than their weapons,” Erin whispered. “If one of them has it, then it must be in their pockets.”
Yob Ollie was standing behind one of the Roman columns by the side of the museum entrance, apparently keeping a lookout. Then he suddenly turned and walked into the dark interior and was soon out of sight. That was our cue. The three of us started moving towards the stairwell. The outer walls of the building that we were in hadn’t been constructed yet, and the whole place was nothing more than a concrete superstructure.
Gareth gave me a small hand torch. “Here you go, lad. Don’t turn it on unless you have to. If you do then you’ll be spotted in an instant.”
“It’ll probably be pitch dark in there,” I said as we started down the stairs. “How am I going to see anything?”
He had a sword sheathed in a scabbard and a pistol belt strapped to his waistline. “Well, if you must use it then keep it pointed to the floor; if you shine it about then people will notice.”
I pointed towards the weapons he had on his person. “How come I don’t get to have a gun or something?”
Gareth shook his head as we made it to the ground floor. “You’ll need training in order to use a weapon properly, lad. We don’t have the time right now. Leave the fighting to me and Erin.”
As we got to the ground floor, I noticed that Erin was unarmed as well. As Gareth looked around, I touched Erin’s elbow. “Where’s your weapon?”
She raised her fists. “You’re looking at them.”
“Get ready,” Gareth hissed. “Go!”
We quickly dashed across Great Russell Street and ran through the open gate. There really wasn’t any cover so we just kept running across the museum’s empty grounds until we got to the open entrance. We stayed hidden behind the tall columns as we caught our collective breaths. There was light coming from the inside of the building.
Gareth glanced through the doorway. “They must have turned on the emergency generators. Not all the lights are working so try to use the shadows to your advantage.”
I silently nodded. As I caught my breath, I noticed that Erin was just casually leaning behind one of the pillars. It didn’t even look like she was tired at all. That was when I began to wonder if there was something extraordinary about her. Gareth made a silent gesture at his daughter and they both stood along the sides of the doorway. Erin glanced inside and then gave the thumbs-up sign to us before slipping in past the entryway. I followed right behind them as we sneaked inside.
It had been a few years since my parents last took me in for a visit, but the British Museum was as grand as ever. As we stood in the foyer, I noticed a stack of folded up wheelchairs that were stashed along the right side, near a set of closed doors. Two opened double doors at my left led into the small gift shop, and then the Middle Eastern galleries were beyond. Right in front were three entryways that led into the Great Court, the museum’s central quadrangle.
“Right,” Gareth whispered as he checked to make sure his pistol was loaded. “I believe the Aztec displays were set up just behind the Great Court. I’m going to make my way over there.”
Erin glanced at the stairs to the right. “I’m going to check the upper floors, just to make sure.”
I looked around. “What about me?”
“Just stay here for now, lad,” Gareth said. “Once we’ve neutralized those thugs, either Erin or I will come back here and give you the all clear. For now, stay out of sight, please.”
I bit my lip as the both of them made their way out of the lobby area. Erin looked up at first to make sure nobody was looking down from the top of the stairs before making her way up. Gareth sprinted silently to the side of the triple entryway before finally going off into the shadowy quadrangle of the Great Hall. I wondered what I was supposed to do. Should I just stand there and muck around? After a few minutes of utter boredom, my legs got the better of me and I began to wander. I walked over to the unlit gift shop and stared at the shadowy trinkets, key chains, postcards and toys that were still on display. I felt like maybe reading some of the archaeology books, but the only light that was still on was coming from the gallery in the adjoining room. I took a random book off one of the stacks and proceeded to where the light was. The succeeding hallway apparently housed the Assyrian displays, as stone lions and effigies of bearded men with winged, animal-like bodies stared down at me. I could see stone statues of Egyptian pharaohs up ahead but as I turned to my side, I noticed a sign near the edge of another entryway that said the museum café was up ahead. Since I was feeling a little hungry after all my exertions, I put the book down beside a glass display case holding an ancient Greek urn and proceeded down another unlit corridor full of pots and old jewelry. Just as I made it past the third gallery, my hip bumped into one of the glass displays and it made a shrill grinding noise as its base shifted by a few inches. I must have missed it since the corridor was dimly lit and it was made of glass. I leaned along a side wall to wait the pain away.
The adjoining passage had two sets of stairs, one leading down to the toilets and the other going up to what looked to be the café. Just as I was about to go up, I realized what a stupid idea it was since the place would obviously be closed. I turned my heels and doubled back, making sure not to bump into that nearly invisible glass display again. But just as I was about to turn towards the cloakroom, I heard some sort of whistling behind me. I quickly moved in between a couple of the display cases and wedged myself into the darkened alcove. Since the gallery I was in was unlit, there was a good chance I would remain unseen. As I stayed in the shadows, all I could see was the darkened displays all around me and the distant illumination coming from the adjoining hall.
For a minute nothing happened. Just as I was about to move back out from between the cabinets, a shadowy form passed within inches of me and I instantly froze in surprise. The man was in silhouette so I could only see his outline, but it was obvious that it was Yob Ollie. He had apparently just come from the toilets downstairs and was making his way through the exact same galleries that I had just ventured into. As he kept on going I silently exhaled in relief. If he had turned his head just for a second before passing by the display cabinet, he would have certainly noticed me. This was actually a stroke of luck as I had been able to spot him without being detected, so I stayed low as I began to follow silently behind him.
Ollie casually made his way through the Egyptian department. I continued to sneak along the sides of the galleries, occasionally ducking behind one of the statues since the thug would occasionally glance behind him to check if there was anybody there. I made sure that there were several stone displays in between us as I darted to and from the corners in order to keep him in my sight. As he got to the end of the sculpture and stone gallery he turned right and proceeded into an adjoining wing. When I followed him inside I nearly recoiled as I crouched down and ended up staring closely at an Egyptian wrapped mummy. A sudden sense of fright made me lose my balance and I landed on
my bottom on the stone floor. The sudden noise behind him made Ollie turn around.
“Oy, you!” he said as he turned and started running at me.
I yelped as I got up and ran the other way.
Within seconds, I could hear Ollie getting closer behind me as I sprinted back to where the Egyptian monuments and columns were. “I know you! You’re that blasted little worm that got away from us! Not this time, you little bugger!”
He was right. I could feel him gaining on me. There was another entryway to my right so I made a quick pivot and ran into the side gallery. Unfortunately there weren’t any lights active in it and I must have missed a smallish glass display near the door. My left foot collided with the lower part of the cabinet and it upset my balance. I fell sideways, nearly hitting my head on an Assyrian stone pillar as I landed beside it. I must have stubbed my toe as pain shot up my leg, and my ribs were hurting from the fall as well. As I twisted my torso to see where he was, I could see Ollie’s silhouette bearing down on me, less than ten feet away.
I shuddered as he stood over me. Ollie twisted his right leg back as he prepared to deliver a football kick right to my head. “This is for making me have to run after you, arsehole!”
But just as he was about to knock my head in, there was a sudden blur to the side of him. In less than a second, Ollie was lying on the floor in front of me, doubled up in pain. Erin stood over the both of us, holding out her hand. “Come on,” she said.
I took her hand and slowly got up. The sharp pain in my toe had subsided to a dull ache, but it was still painful if I led with it. My right side felt tender so I grimaced. “Thanks, you got over here just in the nick of time.”
Erin took a short length of rope from her jacket and pushed Ollie’s face down onto the floor, tying his hands behind his back. Then she searched him, taking out a pistol and a torch from underneath his tracksuit and throwing them across the floor towards the other end of the gallery. “You were told to wait by the entrance,” she said. Her voice carried a note of obvious irritation.
I sheepishly rubbed the back of my neck. “I got bored waiting out there so I just decided to wander around for a bit, that’s all.”
“And you nearly got your head kicked in for doing that,” Erin said as she grabbed Ollie by his shirt collar and started to drag him backwards along the floor. “Come on, my dad got the other one and he’s waiting for us by the Great Court.”
I shrugged and followed her.
Ollie groaned, then struggled for a bit as Erin dragged him along the floor like a nylon sack. He quickly stopped trying to resist when Erin tightened her grip around his collar. “Who the bloody hell are you?”
Erin’s face was like a mask of stone as she effortlessly pulled her captive along with one arm. “Are you going to tell us what you’re doing here or do I have to beat it out of you?”
I caught up to them and kicked Ollie in the leg. “Hey, where are you keeping my friend Mark?”
“Piss off, you little knob,” Ollie sneered as we passed through a set of double doors.
Erin stopped, then she crouched down and grabbed him by the throat. “Answer him and tell the truth, or I’ll squeeze your scrawny little neck so hard that your eyes are going to pop.”
Ollie yelped as his eyes started to bulge out from the iron vise around his throat. “Alright …Twaine the Yardie took him. Argh, they need…they needed to find out…about that bloody mirror!”
Erin let go and stood back up. Ollie put his head down, coughing hard. This was bad news. Now we would have to take on the Pleasant Firm if we were going to rescue Mark. It was a good thing Amy didn’t go with us or she would have been in hysterics by now.
I bent down so my face was closer to him. “What about the mirror, does the firm have it too?”
Ollie looked up at me with painful contempt. It must have been very shameful for him to be trussed up like that and to have to answer questions from a woman and a boy. “What do you bloody think? Of course they have it! We’re not stupid, you know!”
Erin snorted as she started dragging him again. “Oh yeah, you’re not stupid, you’re just a moron.”
Ollie was about to say something to her, but thought better of it and just kept quiet instead. After a few minutes, we made it to the Queen Elizabeth II Great Court. This central atrium was at the heart of the museum, and its tessellated glass roof had an undulating shape which curled above the circular Reading Room structure at the center of the quadrangle. Not all the lights were active, but it was enough to make sure that the whole room was illuminated. There were deserted cafes along the sides of the enclosed courtyard and gift shops lined the circular walls of the Reading Room, just below the stairs.
Lying on a steel bench by the statue of a marble lion was Raver Dan. Like Ollie, he was bound, with his hands tied behind his back. Gareth was standing over him and he acknowledged us as we made our way over to them. Erin dragged Ollie until he was lying beside the bench, then she took a step back and stood beside her father.
Gareth glanced in my direction as I walked on over. “I’m afraid Amy’s boyfriend is with the firm. He got taken away a few hours after you escaped, laddie.”
Erin nodded. “Yeah, that’s exactly what the other one said.”
“I can’t believe you bloody talked, Ollie,” Dan said, shaking his head. “You dirty little grassing bastard. And you let a woman and that little poof take you down too.”
Ollie sneered at him. “Oy, that girl’s stronger than she looks! And she blindsided me! And don’t you call me a nark, you bloody talked too, you snitch!”
“Shut it, both of you,” Gareth said. “Just answer our questions truthfully, and you won’t get hurt.”
Dan looked at him disdainfully. “What lunatic asylum did they get you out of, you old geezer?”
He stopped sneering and instantly cried out in pain as Gareth placed a boot in between his legs. “Now then,” Gareth said. “I’m going to ask you where the firm is located. Where are they hiding out?”
“Alright…I’ll tell you,” Dan gasped. Gareth withdrew his foot and the curly-haired gangster breathed a sigh of relief. “B-Belasco Hall. In Surrey. If you get to Cobham, you can’t miss it.”
Gareth nodded. “Well then, that wasn’t so hard, was it? I can see that both of you are not members of that firm so there’s no need to be so loyal to them.”
“We wants to be members of that firm, they’re the only ones that are allowed to live as they please by the Formies now,” Ollie said.
“Shut up, Ollie,” Dan said.
Erin placed her hands on her hips. “How many men does the firm have?”
Dan shook his head as he looked down. “We don’t bloody know, they don’t tell us that.”
“Take a guess,” Erin said.
Dan looked up at the ceiling. “Since we know of only a few, I would say no more than two dozen, tops.”
Gareth scratched his chin. “And I assume they are all armed adequately, yes?”
“You’re bloody right they’re armed,” Dan said. “They got a lot of stuff from the military since all those soldiers were killed and there were plenty of guns and army kits just lying about. If you think you can do to them what you did to us, you’re in for a great big surprise.”
Gareth gave a slight smile. “Let us worry about that, lad. Now tell me, what were you two doing in here? Where you looking for clues about the mirror in the Aztec exhibition?”
Ollie had a confused look on his face. “Aztec? What the bloody hell is that? We was trying to get access to the basement, over at the research area—”
“Shut up, Ollie!” Dan snapped.
Erin stepped forward and grabbed Dan by the throat. He immediately started to choke. “Allow him to talk,” she said tersely.
Ollie’s eyes were darting all over the place. “I don’t really know, we was trying to open up the upper galleries so we was walking around, looking for keys. Somebody locked up the rooms upstairs so we needed them opened.”
> I instantly recalled the time when I did an essay on the museum for school. I remembered from their website that the upper galleries contained artifacts from Britain’s medieval period. “That’s it! You’re looking for torcs aren’t you? You know the Fomorians will leave anyone who wears a torc alone so you’re here to steal them, yeah?”
Gareth looked at me. “That was a brilliant deduction, laddie. But how do we know if those Fomorians could tell the difference?”
Dan had a disappointed expression as he stared up at the ceiling. He shook his head slowly but then his eyes suddenly widened as if he had noticed something. “What the bloody hell is that up there?”
I turned and looked up. While the countless small windowpanes up in the glass ceiling were opaque, the light that reflected from the inside of the courtyard revealed a giant shadow behind the glass above us. Suddenly, there were sounds of grinding metal and the breaking of crystal as a Fomorian tore through the skylight and landed on the floor, less than twenty feet away from us. I staggered backwards, as the creature’s huge feet had cracked the marble flooring the moment he dropped down.
Everyone screamed in shock and surprise. The Fomorian was almost fifteen feet tall and had a hole for a nose. It had dark green, scaly skin and three eyes in a triangular pattern on its sloping forehead. Long manes of coarse black hair hung limply down to the creature’s shoulders. Its arms and legs were as large as tree stumps. It had no chin and gobs of thick saliva dripped down from its fanged mouth. The monster’s torso was covered with a loincloth, while its big, stubby hands could probably wrap themselves around a grown man’s body without effort. It bellowed at us and the sound was like a cross between a lion’s roar and a mule’s bray.
The Fomorians Page 9
