by Matt Whyman
“Bravo, we have a bead on you. Do you copy?”
“Billy, are you trying to be funny?”
“Oh, right . . . sorry. OK, Blaize, we can see you clearly. Have you located our M.I.A.?”
Blaize scowls, and touches her mouthpiece. “What did that stand for again?”
“Missing in action. He still hasn’t radioed in, Blaize, so we have to assume he’s still on his way back to the bunker. You can’t miss him, though, and sadly nor will Aleister unless you can reach him first. The flight case strapped to his back is as big as a coffin.”
Blaize stands on the corner of a building overlooking the square. It’s busy down there, she observes, and the height has made her knees go weak. People mill this way and that, flitting under the lanterns between market carts, perfume emporiums, barber shops and karaoke lounges.
“This kid,” she mutters into the mouthpiece. “You say he’s carrying a box with a secret chamber?”
“That’s correct. It opens up as soon as you close the external door.”
“Never mind that,” replies Blaize. “I’m wondering if he’s made himself disappear. I can’t see him anywhere!”
“We see him now, Bravo, don’t panic. Coming in at two o’clock. Looking like he could use some help down there.”
Ignoring Billy’s way with words, Blaize drops down to a crouch and scans every corner of the square. This time, she sights the target. He’s wearing a vest and blue camouflage combats, but stands little chance of blending in. Not with a load like that on his back. Cupping her mouth with both hands, Blaize calls out to get his attention. It’s busy out here, however, what with the traffic and the city hum. Deaf to her appeal, the boy struggles onwards. In a panic now, because he’s halfway across the square, Blaize looks around the rooftop in search of a quick way down.
“Billy, I need some help here.” She moves around the ledge as she speaks into the mouthpiece, cat-like in her stride. “I need to get to ground level and fast. What would Yoshi do?”
“The parkour? Something crazy, most probably. Looking at your position now, I’d say Yoshi would attempt to run and jump across to the adjacent building.”
Blaize locates the leap in question. A side road runs between the two buildings, which makes the gap just too far for her liking. On the opposite wall, however, a fire escape zigzags to the ground. She pushes her hair back and holds her hand there, grimacing in desperation.
“What do you think, Billy?”
“Bravo, don’t even think about trying to clear it. You need proper training. We’re talking aerial magic, with no strings.”
“Fine,” snaps Blaize. She turns to face the square once more, and flexes her fingers. “Then we’ll do it my way.”
“Easy, Bravo. We’re not liking the sound of that. Your sister’s looking a little stressed here. Don’t do anything foolish.”
The kid might be too far away to hear the girl on the roof of the building. What he can’t ignore is the fireball that slams into his flight case. This flaming missile practically knocks him off his feet, and sends the crowd around him scattering.
“Hey!” He spins around, unhurt but a little shaken, only to dive aside when a second fireball arcs towards him, trailing smoke all the way. This time, he spots the perpetrator. A figure on a parapet up there, weighing yet another flaming missile in hand. With the sun behind his assailant, he is forced to look away. Taking refuge behind the flight case, he cowers low and tries his faulty radio pack one more time.
“Billy? Please say you can hear me. I’m under attack! Some lunatic is setting fire to things and chucking them at me. Request assistance, right away—”
His appeal is cut short by yet another impact. It causes him to squeak and look around for help.
Which is when he sees the man in the white mink coat, striding purposefully towards him. He can’t ignore those tight blue eyes, nor fail to recognise him as the brute who has been hunting around town for Yoshi and the new recruits.
Once again, he gives his radio pack a hefty whack, and says: “Billy, the loony on the roof has just become the least of my troubles. If you’re watching, I don’t think a magic trick is going to get me out of here. What I need is a miracle!”
23
A FLUX IN THE FAERIE RING
Both Mikhail and Livia face Yoshi in astonishment. They’re standing in a grimy tunnel through which a lost river flows. As discoveries go, that’s nothing compared to what’s in the passage they can see through the ventilation holes here.
“Could that really be the Queen?” asks Mikhail, and narrows his eyes. “I’m not so sure.”
Their view of her may go no higher than the knees, but the corgis and the sign on the wall seem to spell it out to Yoshi and Livia. Just then, the nub of her cigar hits the floor, and is viciously extinguished under the sole of one slipper.
Up ahead, Julius turns and winks at the trio. From the gleam in his eye it’s clear that this is the kind of subterranean sightseeing he has enjoyed down here for years.
“Tourists would pay millions for this,” observes Livia. When Yoshi doesn’t respond, she turns to find him looking a little tuned out. “Are you OK?”
“I’m fine,” he assures her, despite the fact that his ears have filled with a strange sound like radio interference. “Never felt bett—” The flash before his eyes serves to silence him as well as the noise in his ears. Then, as his vision clears and his mind’s eye opens at last, he has only one thing to say to them both. “Oh dear.”
“What is it?” asks Mikhail, concerned all of a sudden.
“It’s his vision thing,” confirms Livia, studying his blank gaze. “Better late than never, I suppose. What do you see, Yoshi?”
With their voices rising, Julius flaps his arms to command their attention, and gestures for them to be quiet. In the silence, the sound of that same tube train with the squealing breaks continues to filter through. Yoshi seems not to hear it, so consumed is he by the image in his mind.
“I see pigs,” he tells them.
Mikhail tuts and sneers at him playfully. “Are you sure they’re not pink elephants? For a street magician, you need to crank up the humour a bit.”
“They’re pigs,” he asserts one more time. “And they’re charging through this tunnel as I speak.”
Once again, that squealing sound rings out of the blackness. This time, with Yoshi’s psychic warning in mind, it no longer sounds like a train in need of a service. Even one of the corgis picks up on the distant racket. The dog is drawn towards the vent, where it sniffs and then yaps abruptly.
“Shut it, Burrell!” the woman in the slippers can be heard to snap. “All one asks for is a moment’s peace! Must you keep doing one’s head in like this? You really are an irritation.”
Up ahead, Julius cringes visibly. As the dog continues to show an interest in the vent, the old man slips back to where the others are standing.
“What’s going on?” asks Mikhail.
Yoshi blinks several times, and then looks at them as if he’s just emerged from a dream. “You’ll never guess what’s coming our way,” he says.
“Actually, I had a feeling this might happen,” replies Julius, shepherding the three of them back to the bend in the tunnel. He glances along the open stretch, illuminated by the shafts of light from the corridor. Not only are the squeals continuing to rise, it’s unmistakeably coming from the black circle at the far end. “It means we don’t have far to travel now.”
“Well, that’s good news,” says Livia dryly. “Would you care to tell us if we’re going to make it alive?”
Julius sighs, like he doesn’t have enough time to explain himself.
“Is it a trick?” asks Mikhail. “I’m always on the lookout to build my repertoire.”
“In some ways it is a trick,” admits Julius. “It just isn’t the kind of magic you’ve mastered.”
“So why don’t you tell us,” replies Mikhail, “and I’ll see if I can work out how it’s done.”
&n
bsp; “Very well,” says Julius, and urges them to step back a little further. Once they’re out of earshot from the dogs and the cigar-chomping lady in the slippers, he begins. “As you know, I have devoted a great deal of time to charting and exploring the ley lines and waypoints that form this ring. Should you stand in the field of such a massively powerful conductor, it’s no surprise to witness the odd flux of energy whizzing around every now and then. Sometimes it can be pure energy. An invisible bolt that races from one waypoint to the next. When you see a burst water main on street level, chances are the Faerie Ring has surged. If you’re on the path of a ley line, as we are now, you’ll find it creates so much static your hair stands on end.”
Even as he speaks, Yoshi senses the back of his neck begin to prickle. “Do you feel that, too?” he asks the others, who nod, and look to Julius. “So how does that explain the pigs?”
“On rare occasions,” he continues, speaking hurriedly now, “you’ll find such a charge adopts the form of something that may have crossed its path. A swarm of rats is not unusual. They aren’t real rats, of course. To the seasoned eye, it’s clearly just a spark of earth energy because the forms are strangely transparent.”
“Wait a minute!” says Livia, halting him there. “Are you saying there are live hogs down here?”
Julius shrugs. “Like I told you both earlier, it’s surprising what’s at large in the sewers.”
“Don’t start him on the alligator,” Yoshi whispers to Mikhail. “It’s his pet subject.”
Mikhail takes a moment longer to digest what he’s just heard. By now, the noise of scrambling pigs has excited more than one corgi. Judging by the barrage of curses and swearing that fills the air, the woman in the corridor is struggling to maintain her authority. Yoshi peers along the tunnel stretch one more time.
“Is it just me, or is it getting brighter up there?”
Instead of a black circle, the far end seems filled
with an eerie light not unlike the one surrounding Livia. Julius smiles to himself, looking a little nervous nonetheless. “Get ready, my friends. Here they come.”
“Then we have to get out of here.” Livia rounds on the old man, sloshing about in the water. “They’ll trample us!”
“Have faith,” he smiles, just as the squealing matches the barking dogs in volume. “The show is about to begin.”
The corgis go crazy when the first pig takes shape. It rockets out of the blackness, luminous pink with prehistoric-looking tusks, squealing wildly. Within a blink, dozens more pour out in its wake. Through the slanting bars of light they splash, with the dogs chasing alongside in the corridor above, and bear down on the party at the far end.
“Brace yourselves!” cries Yoshi, as Livia clings to him.
“I’m braced,” yells Mikhail, backed against the brickwork now. “But after this I might need a change of underpants.”
“Here we go!” Julius faces them dead on, standing square with his staff.
By now, the tunnel is filled with a bounding mass of beady eyes and snouts and trotters. Yoshi screws his eyes shut and prays the old man knows what he’s doing. A headwind hits them first. He feels water kick up all around, as if peppered by invisible missiles, and then just as swiftly both the wind and water calm. As the pigs round the corner, squealing as they go, the party in this lost river are left to look at one another in both awe and sheer relief.
“OK,” says Mikhail, struggling to be heard over the corgis up in the passageway. “I give up. How is that done?”
The dogs are scrabbling at the last vent now, desperate to get into the tunnel. Julius gestures at everyone to remain quiet, just as the woman out on the corridor commands a silence herself by shouting at the top of her voice.
“What did one just say, Burrell?” she can be heard to yell. “Are you deaf, daft or both? C’mon! Let’s be having you!” At the same time, a pair of hands grabs one of the corgis by the scruff, and then yanks it clear. The dog yelps on slamming into the opposite wall, but it’s enough to calm the rest of the pack.
Down in the tunnel, Yoshi, Livia, Mikhail and Julius stay quite still in the shadows. None of them dare blink as this commanding figure tuts and mutters to herself. This is followed by a rummaging sound, which makes sense when an open handbag drops between her feet, and a series of bleeps suggest a call of some kind is underway.
“Phil? . . . It’s Liz. There’s vermin in the Walbrook, and I’m not talking about paparazzi. One would go down there oneself, but one’s wearing slippers. Can you have special branch comb this section? I know it’s a job for pest control, but they only carry spray guns. The royal boys are packing laser-sighted snipers and these critters must pay for disturbing one’s peace . . . No, not tomorrow. Are you having a laugh? I don’t care if you’re in the stable with the fillies. I want real men down here right away!”
Aghast, the party in the tunnel turn and face one another.
“What now?” mouths Yoshi, as the figure up on the corridor drops to her knees, muttering something about doing the job herself. “She’s going to see us.”
“Now is the time for my kind of trick,” whispers Mikhail. “We make ourselves disappear.”
“He’s right,” agrees Julius, and fires up his head torch. “We should be on our way.”
Through the vent behind him, the woman can be seen dropping to her hands and knees. For a moment, she seems alarmed by what sounds like movement in the water again, only for the corgis to go into a frenzy once more. This time, there is no controlling the pack as they race away from her, towards the far end of the corridor. Indeed, only a closed door stops them in their tracks. They don’t let up with their din, however, until the sound of splashing footfalls in the river tunnel has faded into the distance.
24
FALL OF THE FIERY ANGEL
Blaize watches the last of her fireballs rain down on the flight case. It causes a flash and a bang, and serves to clear the last of the tourists from the square. The one thing it fails to do, however, is draw the cowering boy from his cover so she can alert him to the situation back at the alley mouth.
Breathless now, she rests her hands on her knees. Summoning any kind of psychic force could quickly become exhausting. Pyrokinesis was perhaps the most draining. Cooking up all that heat left you feeling weak and dizzy for quite some time. Even so, there’s no way now that she’s going to give up. Standing tall once more, Blaize calls out to the figure whose feet she can see peeping from behind the case.
“Get away from here! It isn’t safe!”
This time, a head pops up from behind this makeshift barricade. She sees the boy shield his gaze against the sun now, and then drop it when he recognises her.
“Too right it isn’t safe!” he cries. “First you try to barbecue me, and now this!”
“What?”
The boy gestures at something down there on her nearside, and then scrambles backwards. Billy is babbling in her ear from The Bridge, but this is more important. She peers over the lip of the building, sees nothing of note in the deserted square, and then a shiny bald pate floats into her field of vision. Aleister. Crossing the cobbles with a purpose.
“Help me!” cries the boy, as the brute advances towards him. “Do something!”
A static pop in her ear brings Billy to her attention.
“Bravo, I repeat. Evacuate now! Get out of there, Blaize.”
“OK,” she breathes into the boom mic. “This is the plan. I’m going to distract Aleister with one more fireball. The fact is that’s about all I can muster. It’ll give our M.I.A. a chance to get away. All I have to do is zip back over the rooftops and into the bunker like this never happened.”
Blaize holds out her palm, and moves her fingers around as if rotating a ball. She only pauses when Billy crackles through the airwaves.
“That is a very negative no, Bravo. There is a tango stationed in the alley.”
“What?”
“Your stepfather,” Billy reports after a pause. “He�
�s perched on a bin, waiting for Aleister to come back. It means that way is blocked. You’ll have to find another escape route.”
“But it’s the only way onto this roof,” she says, sensing herself to be trapped.
By now, Aleister is bearing down on the boy. He simply kicks the flight case from his path. The boy tries to run for it, only to stumble and fall to the ground.
What draws Blaize’s attention away from the scene unfurling in the square is a sudden rise in temperature and light just beside her. She glances at her hand, and is almost surprised to find a fireball burning brightly. Her first thought is to shake it off, but then the boy appeals for her help again. With no time to think ahead, she tosses it up and down in her hand, like a pitcher preparing for a strikeout, and hurls it at her target with all the strength she can muster.
The last thing Aleister expects, as he reaches down to grab the boy, is to find himself under ambush. The fireball catches him on the behind, causing him to jump with a grunt and twist around. As the smoke clears, he looks across the deserted square, and then up at the figure on the parapet.
“At last,” he smiles to himself, and smoothes his hands down the snake draped around his shoulders. “Now why don’t you come on down?” he calls out to the twin with the blue braids. “There’s somebody waiting just around the corner who’d be delighted to see you once again.”
“Yeah, right,” she scoffs. “Since when has Otto ever shown an interest in our lives?”
“He’s here for you, my dear.”
“I don’t think so,” Blaize replies. “He’s here to take in as much of this town as he can, and my guess is you’ll be picking up the tab. Our stepdaddy’s using you, Aleister, just as he hoped to profit from our pyrokinetic powers.”
The brute frowns sharply. “Your stepdaddy?”
“Aw, c’mon! Did you think we could be related to that buffoon by blood? Otto has more genetic links to pond life than he has to Scarlett and me.”
Aleister finds himself nodding sympathetically, but quickly gets a grip.
