The memory of Gabriel weeping in front of the glass cylinder in the lab at Alamogordo popped into Rachel’s head, and in a sudden, clear vision, she could see that that cylinder was now empty.
The figure in front of them had formed fully, jagged scars visible on its wet, naked body, its head fine and domed and its eyes almond-shaped. The same shape as Gabriel’s.
She heard Gabriel’s voice clear in her mind: You weren’t the only one looking for your father, Rachel.
I’m so glad you found him.
I’m sorry that your search turned out the way it did.
It’s not your fault.
Goodbye, Gabriel said. I…
Rachel did not need to hear these words to know what Gabriel meant. Me too, she answered with her mind.
Then the buzzing started. Bees in their billions were flying over the building, forming a throbbing black cloud that threw the tower into darkness. The only illumination left was coming from the wheels of light created by the Triskellions.
Gabriel embraced the figure in front of him, and one of the Triskellions span a halo round their heads, joining them together, spiralling down their bodies until it reached their ankles. The second amulet did the same, weaving another ring round their chests.
Laura suddenly rushed at them, breaking through the bands of light and clinging on to Gabriel as the third Triskellion also bound them together. The three amulets spun faster and faster, the wheels rushing laterally and vertically until the figures were contained within a ball of tangled light moving so fast that it appeared to be in flames.
High above, the swarm began to regroup, creating a hole in the black cloud through which a shaft of bright white sunlight shone.
Like a door being left open.
Rachel could still just make out the three figures contained within the sphere. She saw the smiles, clear through the glare, just before a surge of power threw her to the floor. Just before the jagged stream of energy flew from the sphere and shot around the room’s steel frame, dancing across the building’s vast metal wings, arcing between them like a bolt of lightning.
Suddenly the sphere was taken. The orbs followed it; all were sucked out of the tower by a huge vacuum. They popped and dispersed like bubbles of light in the slipstream.
Finally, the bees flew through the hole they had created and within seconds were all gone. It was as if they had evaporated or drifted away like dust into the beautiful blue sky that now stretched over the entire city. Bright as a summer’s day, even though it was night.
Detective Angie Scoppetone had had better days. Earlier, she had received the news that Kate Newman had been mysteriously released from prison, which would mean one less collar on her record. On top of that, her working day had been pretty much screwed thanks to the tens of thousands of fruitcakes and other sad cases who were clogging up the city for some sort of festival or other. Now, like every other cop in the NYPD, she was being asked to do glorified traffic duty and help the self-same idiots who had flooded into Manhattan find their way out again safely.
All this came on top of rogue swarms of freaking bees and the weirdest weather that anyone could remember. It was enough to give anyone an ulcer.
She stood in the centre of Broadway, shouting at stupid drivers, ushering pedestrians towards the subway stations and trying to keep the sea of people moving.
“Excuse me…”
Scoppetone turned round to see a family standing in front of her: a husband, wife and two children. They looked lost and bewildered, and like most of the people she had been dealing with for the last hour or so, their hands and faces were covered with beestings. She grunted, “What?”
“My name’s Bob Anderson,” the man said. “We’re trying to get back home. I know it sounds stupid, but we can’t remember where we left our car…”
Scoppetone sighed and started talking, unaware that another family was emerging on to the street from the building behind her: an old man, a woman and two sixteen-year-olds.
“It seems … calm somehow,” Kate said.
They stood and watched for a minute or so. Sirens were wailing a few streets away on the other side of the building, and Rachel guessed that the emergency services must be in attendance where the bodies of Hilary and her father had landed. She shuddered.
“I’m starving,” Adam said. “Can we eat?”
Just like her stupid, wonderful brother, Rachel thought. After everything they had seen and felt, after everything they had lost, he was still thinking of his stomach, or pretending to. He was still putting on a brave face.
Commodore Wing nodded. “Yes, let’s find somewhere. We’ve got a great deal to talk about…”
Rachel watched her mother slip an arm through her grandfather’s.
They began to walk.
A few hundred metres along the street Adam and Rachel had pulled ahead of the others. “What did Gabriel say?” Adam asked.
“When?”
“Up there.” Adam gestured back up towards the huge metal wings that dominated the skyline above them. “He whispered something at the end. What did he say?”
“Same thing he said back in Australia.” Rachel walked a few more steps, looked sideways at her brother. “Same thing Levi said that first day. ‘They’re coming.’”
Zzzzz … dnk. Zzzzz … dnk. Zzzzz…
The bee thumped lazily against the French windows and finding them open, buzzed out across the lawn and down towards the wild flowers by the lake.
“Looks like Jacob’s hives are getting healthier,” Adam said.
Rachel, who was stretched out on the sofa, lifted her head from the book she was reading and gazed out into the sunny garden. “Hmm,” she said. She looked at the sunlight streaking in through the window, at the millions of tiny specks of dust caught in its beam, and breathed deeply. She caught the smell of dust, the freshly mown grass beyond and the comforting musty odour of the old house.
All were smells to which she had suddenly become ultra-sensitive.
They had been back in the village for two months and already their grandfather’s house felt like home. The trauma of what had happened in New York, the memories of their father, were receding thankfully fast.
It was an ability they had used before.
Rachel heard the chink of teacups and their mother pushed the door open, then put a tray down on the floor by the sofa.
Kate sat down and stroked Rachel’s hair. “You look pale, baby,” she said. “Have some cake, or a sandwich. Get your sugar levels up.” She began to pour the tea. “We’re having roast beef for dinner when Granddad gets back from the cricket, so don’t eat all the sandwiches, Adam.”
Adam strolled over from his chair by the TV and took a stack of sandwiches. He kissed his mother on the head and she smiled at him indulgently.
“I’m going to start peeling the veg,” she said, stroking her daughter’s cheek before she went back to the kitchen.
Adam waited a moment. “When are you going to tell her?”
Rachel sipped her tea and frowned at her brother. “She’ll know soon enough,” she said. “She’ll see it.” She adjusted a couple of cushions behind her, then lay back and closed her eyes, stroking her stomach.
She heard another bee buzzing somewhere in the roses just outside the room – a monotonous buzz hypnotic and restful – and she realized that she had never felt happier in her life.
And as she drifted into a light sleep, she felt the two new lives stirring inside her.
MARK BILLINGHAM is one of the UK’s most acclaimed and popular adult crime writers. His series of London-based novels featuring DI Tom Thorne has twice won him the Theakston’s Crime Novel of the Year Award as well as the Sherlock Award for Best Detective. His debut novel, Sleepyhead, was chosen by the Daily Telegraph as one of the hundred books that defined the decade, and each book in the series has been a Sunday Times Top Ten bestseller. A television series based on Mark’s crime novels is currently in production and will star David Morrissey as Tom
Thorne.
www.markbillingham.com
PETER COCKS is an acclaimed television writer, performer and children’s author. He has performed in and written many BAFTA-nominated shows, such as Globo Loco, Basil Brush, Ministry of Mayhem and The Legend of Dick and Dom. He is currently working on a new series for young adults, the Eddie Savage thrillers, the first of which will be published by Walker Books in spring 2011.
www.petercocks.com
For Ten Things You Didn’t Know About Mark and
Peter, competitions and much, much more, visit:
www.triskellionadventure.com
WILL PETERSON is the pseudonym of Mark Billingham and Peter Cocks. Mark is the bestselling author of a number of adult crime novels while Peter is a popular children’s TV writer and performer. Mark and Peter have worked together previously on many much-loved TV programmes such as Maid Marian and Her Merry Men, Knight School, Big Kids, The Cramp Twins and Basil Brush.
For our children, again
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the authors’ imagination or, if real, used fictitiously. All statements, activities, stunts, descriptions, information and material of any other kind contained herein are included for entertainment purposes only and should not be relied on for accuracy or replicatedas they may result in injury.
First published 2010 by Walker Books Ltd
87 Vauxhall Walk, London SE11 5HJ
Text © 2010 Mark Billingham Ltd and Peter Cocks
Cover design by Walker Books Ltd
The right of Mark Billingham and Peter Cocks to be identified as authors of this work has been asserted by them in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, transmitted or stored in an information retrieval system in any form or by any means, graphic, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, taping and recording, without prior written permission from the publisher.
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available from the British Library
ISBN 978-1-4063-3121-9 (ePub)
ISBN 978-1-4063-3122-6 (e-PDF)
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Triskellion 3: The Gathering Page 24
