I grabbed a still-smoking magazine in each hand and carried them over, walking carefully so that the last bit of flame smouldering around their edges wouldn’t blow out. When I was in arm’s reach of the buzzing sphere, I waved the magazines, wafting smoke towards it. Ordinary bees hate smoke, and it seemed magical ones did, too. A narrow gap opened up.
“This way. Quickly!” I said.
Beale lurched forwards, stumbled through the gap, and collapsed on the ground. I dragged him as far away as I could.
He looked up at me through narrow gaps in his swollen eyelids. “I guess I was wrong about you, Hyacinth. Now go. Stop her.”
“I’ll have better odds if I know everything you know. Did your father really try to take control of London Bridge?”
He nodded, then winced, as if even that slight motion hurt. “I was just a child. I looked up to him so much – and then he betrayed his country. That taught me not to trust anyone. And it taught me that children are fools. Let’s hope I was wrong, because you’re all that’s left.”
“I know how hard it must have been,” I said, and I meant it. “But I kind of need more practical information right now.”
“In ancient times, they would display the severed heads of criminals and traitors on London Bridge. The history books said it was as a deterrent. But my father figured out that there was an additional purpose. The steady dripping of blood kept the bridge charged and powerful. My father was a police officer. He had access to a morgue. But if this girl is getting her hands on severed heads, I don’t know where they came from.”
I thought I knew the answer. “She didn’t need them. That’s why her first theft was from the Roman amphitheatre. The sewer system there – so much blood flowed through it, it must be charged to this day. So she and her accomplice filled it with water and soaked the very first stones they took in it. That must have … I don’t know … activated them, magically speaking. But how do I stop her?”
“Use the —” His eyes began to flutter shut. He fought to open them again. “Use the shield. That’s how they stopped my father.”
“What shield? The concrete one? The bees ate it.”
“No. The…” His eyes shut, and this time they stayed closed. “The Roman one…” he murmured, and slumped down into a faint.
There was nothing more I could do for him. “Get him a doctor,” I ordered the Corkers.
Then I headed after Minnie.
CHAPTER 58
At the end of the platform, where the train would normally leave the station, the cage that surrounded the building blocked the way, but Minnie had tunnelled a hole in the floor under it.
I squeezed through the hole and onto the railway bridge beyond. “Stop!” I yelled. For some reason, Minnie wasn’t interested in advice from me, her friendly neighbourhood arch nemesis. Instead, she turned around and shot a fireball at the concrete pillars that supported the bridge.
The bridge shook and lurched downwards, creating a lovely and inviting ramp straight into the river. Gravity, as thoughtful as ever, knocked me down and sent me rolling straight into the water.
The current spun me around and around as it swept me forwards under modern London Bridge. It straightened me out for a moment, giving me a prime view of the deadly waterfalls plunging through Minnie’s Old London Bridge. The roar was deafening.
The supports of Minnie’s bridge loomed up before me. I grabbed frantically at the nearest one, but my hands were too wet to hold on.
An explosive current whipped me through an arch. I felt like a bullet going through a gun barrel, except that gun barrels are smooth metal instead of rough stone, and bullets don’t bleed.
And then I was through the arch, and for a moment, I had a view of the river before me – and below me, thanks to the change of water level.
Then the torrent of water shoved me down, all the way to the river’s murky bottom. I would have been fine if I had taken a deep breath before going under, but instead, I had emptied out my lungs with all the important screaming I had to do. By the time I could point myself back towards the surface and start swimming, I could already feel myself running out of air. I clawed frantically at the water. My lungs strained as desperately as my arms. The water should have been getting lighter as I went up, but everything was going dim.
Finally, I broke the surface, gasping and sputtering, and sucked in enough air to make everything bright again.
I wasn’t more than twenty feet from the bank of the river. I took a deep breath and started swimming. I could barely paddle my arms. I could barely kick my legs. But paddle and kick I did, with all my might, and when my limbs stopped listening to me, I lifted up my head to see how far I had got.
I was still twenty feet away from the bank. The current had me trapped.
I had been shot at and handcuffed. I had been attacked by living rubble and by a bascule bridge. Through it all, I had never even considered defeat – until now. My muscles were giving up. Maybe I should, too.
“If I stop kicking,” I said to the Thames, “I can sink quietly down. Everything is peaceful at the bottom of you. Why shouldn’t I be, too?”
Splash, answered the Thames.
No, not the Thames. It was a life preserver landing in the water next to me. I grabbed it first and wondered where it came from second. The rope attached to it tightened, pulling me towards the shore. On the other end of the rope, I could see a figure reeling me in, but it wasn’t until I got closer that I could see who it was:
Dasra.
And behind him was Hungerford, jaws clenched around the rope.
The river didn’t let me go easily. For every two feet Dasra and Hungerford pulled me forwards, I slipped back one. And every once in a while, Hungerford would forget himself and roar encouragement, letting go of the rope and leaving Dasra to fight the Thames on his own. But eventually, I was close enough to grab an iron handle protruding from the embankment. Dasra reached down and pulled me up.
I lay panting and shivering on the ground. Dasra handed me Excalibrolly. “You left this behind.”
“Thank you,” I said. “And not just for the umbrella. You saved my life.”
Dasra shrugged. “I still owed you a third of a life. Now you owe me two thirds of one.”
“No, but really,” I said. “I was ready to give up. It’s harder to keep fighting when you don’t have a friend by your side. So thank you. Both of you.”
Dasra was a human being and the grandson of a lady. Hungerford was a lion and made out of stone. But they had one thing in common: they were both English. If I hadn’t noticed that before, the way they responded to a moment of intense emotion made it obvious.
“Well,” Dasra said.
“Hrm,” Hungerford said.
“That’s, um,” Dasra added.
“Indeed, it’s quite, quite, quite…” Hungerford agreed.
There was a long pause.
“Mustn’t keep the others waiting,” Dasra said.
“Oh, yes, there’s a, a, a big battle going on,” Hungerford said, with obvious relief. “Hop, hop on.”
Dasra climbed onto Hungerford’s back, and I climbed up behind him.
“The sun’s going down and you’re freezing,” Dasra said. “Do you want my shirt?”
“No, I’d only soak it through,” I said. “I’ll just get close to you. You’re nice and warm.” As soon as I said it, I felt myself blushing, which at least had the benefit of warming me up. Now it was my turn to fumble awkwardly for the right words. “I mean, you’re – I – um… How about that battle?”
CHAPTER 59
Minnie’s bridge loomed high above us, but there was no direct path onto it from river level. Hungerford ran instead through a paved courtyard, up a flight of stairs, and onto Lower Thames Street.
In front of us stood an old church with an iron gate leading into a courtyard that opened onto Minnie’s bridge. Mom and Little Ben and Oaroboarus and a dozen Coade stone statues were arrayed on the ground in front of the gate, blocking
access to the church. And above them, Coade stone birds and angels swooped, blocking access to the air. In front of them, Minnie stood, hurling stones of all sizes but unable to break through.
As I climbed down off Hungerford, a voice called to me from the bushes. “Pssst!” Mr Champney peered out at me. “I believe I can break this stalemate, but all this violence is rather frightening. Can you get me into the churchyard?”
I nodded at a Coade stone naval captain, who stood aside to let us pass. “This way,” Mr Champney said, leading us through an archway beneath the church’s bell tower. On the inside of the archway, two metal bands held an ancient piece of wood against the stone wall. Next to the wood was a tiny door, barely up to my waist.
Mr Champney placed a small device on top of the wood. A tightly coiled spring stuck out of the bottom of the device, and an antenna protruded from the top. He produced a key, unlocked the tiny door, and swung it open, revealing an extraordinarily narrow flight of stairs.
He knelt down and squeezed through the door. I followed, with Little Ben and Dasra close behind me.
“What was up with that piece of wood?” I asked.
“It’s from the ancient Roman river wall,” he said. “Wood is not my speciality, of course, but I’m guessing that, as it once held back the river, so it now helps this tower hold back the river’s power.”
“So you believe in magic now?”
“And what was that gizmo?” Little Ben asked.
“And where’d you get the key?” I added.
“In a moment,” Mr Champney said. “First, what do you notice about the staircase?”
“Obviously, it’s tiny,” I said.
“Much tinier than the tower,” Dasra said.
I started to see where Mr Champney was going with this. “So that leaves a lot of room in the tower for something else. But what?”
“Allow me to show you.” We had reached the top of the steps, which ended at another tiny door. Mr Champney opened it up and squeezed himself out.
We followed him through it, onto a balcony halfway up the bell tower. We had a lovely view of the river, but it was the fight below that attracted my attention. The Coade stone statues had backed Minnie up against the side of an office building across the street. She still had a wall of rock around her, but the statues were pounding at it, and Minnie was drooping. The battle would be over soon.
Mr Champney didn’t seem particularly interested in the fight. He gazed thoughtfully at the big clock that stuck out of the middle of the tower, a few feet below our level. It was as big as a car, painted in black and dark brown, with the numbers on the clock face in gold. “The road to London Bridge used to run past this very tower,” Mr Champney said, “and this clock has been here for centuries. Think of what it must have seen.”
Reaching into his pocket, he pulled out what looked like a small remote control. He took a deep breath, as if he was steeling himself for a big decision. That, together with the sad but determined look in his eyes, sent a sudden chill down my spine, and I remembered the gizmo he had put on the Roman plank. The antenna must have been there to receive the signal he was about to send, and the spring must have been to push the plank out of its holder.
But the plank held back the powers of the river. Knocking it out of place was something the Precious Man would do. And that couldn’t be Mr Champney. The Precious Man was Minnie’s father, and Mr Champney was too old for that. Besides, his daughter had died in a fire.
But had she? “They both survived … initially,” he had said. If his daughter had come out of it alive, that would still have been true.
“That’s why Minnie doesn’t talk much,” I said. “She’s your daughter. Her lungs were damaged by the smoke.”
CHAPTER 60
Instead of answering, Mr Champney pushed the button on the remote control.
Down below us, I heard a SPROING. The side of the tower that faced the street swung open and water gushed out, sweeping towards the statues.
“Stop!” I cried, leaping for him, but he gestured, and Little Ben, Dasra, and I were thrown backwards, held against the wall of the tower.
Below us, Hungerford leapt forwards, crashing into the last bit of Minnie’s stone shield, and it crumpled –
– as the water flowed out onto the street, burbling past the Coade stone statues. It was ankle height, and most of its force was spent, and for a moment, they didn’t seem to notice.
Then they began shaking, like somebody who had touched a downed power line. They collapsed and lay there motionless.
Mom and Oaroboarus now stood alone. With a wave of her hand, Minnie sent two nearby rocks crashing into their heads, knocking them out instantly.
“Ah, that’s a relief,” Mr Champney said. “I knew the city kept a magical reservoir in this tower. I knew stones absorbed magic. I thought that a sufficiently big charge would be enough to overwhelm any statues who stood in our way, but I wasn’t positive. That’s why I had to let them exhaust themselves in battle first, to make sure their defences were down.” He leaned over the edge of the balcony and called down to Minnie. “Carly, sweetheart, are you OK?”
Carly? My fierce tattooed magical nemesis was named Carly? That was such a friendly name. I thought she would have been something like … I don’t know … Circe. Or Boadicea. Not that a Hyacinth was really in a position to demand mighty-sounding names.
Mene Tekel/Minnie Tickle/Carly gave her dad a thumbs-up. “Why don’t you get the sheep?” Mr Champney called down to her. “I’ll keep an eye on our guests.”
As Minnie busied herself below, Mr Champney breathed a sigh of relief, and his body sagged, as if releasing some strong tension. Clearly, he thought he had won. If I was going to find out what he was doing, this was my last chance.
I knew that if there was one thing historians loved, it was talking about their research. Mr Champney had made an amazing discovery – how the original Mene Tekel got her powers – and then had to keep it a secret. He must have been aching to tell the story. I just had to give him a push.
“You’ve betrayed everything you stand for,” I said. “You’ve destroyed a thousand years of history.”
He bit his lip. His face wasn’t as expressive as Chapel’s, but in his sad, watery eyes, I thought I could see the need to explain building up. I pressed on. “You should be ashamed!”
“Don’t speak to me of shame,” he burst out. “Do you know who started the fire that killed my wife and nearly killed my daughter? I did. I was smoking in bed, and I fell asleep. I was alone most of my life, and when love found me in my old age, I destroyed it. That is shameful.”
“So you’re going to punish the world,” I said.
“No!” he said. “I’m going to save the world.” The words were pouring out of him now, as quickly as the water had poured out of the tower, as if they, too, had been stored in a reservoir for years. “Decades ago, when I was first rising to prominence in my field, Lady Roslyn sought my help. I told her everything I knew about the legends associated with London Bridge. That’s what I thought they were, at the time – legends. After she left, the newspapers reported strange things, about an implausible plot by a man named Beale, and I began to wonder if the legends had some truth in them. But I couldn’t abandon the foundations on which my entire life was based.
“When I sat in the hospital, watching my wife and daughter hover between life and death, I could feel those foundations crumbling. It was precisely the sort of thing that does make you want to believe in magic. The legends Lady Roslyn had asked me about revolved around a book with the secret of eternal life, hidden in a place that could only be reached by a magical journey across London Bridge. So I tracked her down and demanded the truth. My wife and daughter were near death, and she gave me nothing but evasions and half answers. If she knew secrets that could save lives, how dare she keep them to herself?”
I didn’t have an answer to that. But Dasra did. “Some information is too dangerous to share.”
Mr Cham
pney didn’t look convinced. “Too dangerous for me, but not too dangerous for her? That seems awfully convenient.”
Down below, Minnie rounded the corner, a herd of sheep milling in front of her. Their fleece looked oddly smudged, like it was a hastily scrawled drawing. It’s fog, I realized. Every sheep was surrounded by a little cloud of fog, clinging to them as they trotted.
Mr Champney continued, “If she wasn’t going to tell me, I was determined to find out on my own. I threw myself into my research, but I didn’t succeed in time. My wife died. Carly survived. Finally, a year ago, in a centuries-old manuscript long believed lost, I found the full testimony of the original Precious Man. Like me, he had weighed the world in the balance and found it wanting. From his text, I learned how to inscribe words of power on my body.”
Without lowering the finger that he had pointed at us, he rolled up his sleeve, revealing a tattooed arm.
“They look different from Minnie – I mean, Carly’s,” I said.
“You’re very observant,” he said, looking pleased that I had got the right answer. The historians I knew were always happy to see people learn things, and apparently that included evil historians. “Yes, my tattoos are cruder and less effective. If you learn a language as a child, you can master it far more effectively than if you wait until you’re an adult. That also applies to words you place on your body. That’s why I had to bring Carly into it; my powers were insufficient for the task at hand.”
“You put her in horrible danger,” Dasra said.
Mr Champney nodded. “I did. But not by giving her magical abilities. By bringing her into this cruel, dangerous world as a mortal human. That’s why I have to find that book – it’s her only chance for true safety. And once I’ve given it to her, I’ll share the secret with all mankind. Everlasting life for everybody! Never again shall anyone know the sadness I have.”
“I am so sorry for what you suffered,” I said. “But what you don’t know is, there’s some sort of horrible consequence to immortality. For every life you save, you unleash a terrible force into the world.”
The City of Guardian Stones Page 17
