Gregory Grey and the Fugitive in Helika

by Stanzin

CHAPTER 7

  Gregory's Day Out

  ‘Argh!’

  He woke with a yell, but there was no giant spectre looming over him.

  He was in bed, in an almost bare room. The large window outside showed it was day. The view was strange, like the sky was filled with soft and fluffy feathers.

  Clouds, he realised.

  Was he flying? Maybe he was in another Zeppelin, but he couldn’t hear any of the deep humming that the huge airships made.

  His chest twinged; he traced the scar he found there…. six inches long, thin and cruel. Someone had stitched him up.

  How was he still alive? How had he escaped that horror? What happened to Mango? How long had it been since that day? Where was he?

  He realised he was being watched.

  Brown eyes looked out at him under an untidy mop of brown hair. The watcher squeaked when his eyes turned on her and spasmed queerly, nearly tumbling off the armchair on which she was perched.

  ‘Cousin!’ she squeaked.

  ‘Cousin? Johanna?’

  Her hair flopped up and down in assent.

  ‘Where am I? Am I at your home?’

  She nodded vigorously, and then frowned. ‘If you’re staying here, it’s your home too. It’s called The Apple.’

  ‘Where’s your father?

  ‘He flew off to fix things. He’ll come back later. He said you were to eat and bathe and rest,’ Johanna said importantly.

  ‘What date is it?’

  Johanna screwed up her face. ‘It’s the 19th of July.’

  Gregory counted the days – twelve. Then what she said struck him.

  ‘Flew? The magic’s back?’

  Johanna nodded.

  ‘When?’ he demanded.

  ‘Daddy said it was exactly one day after magic failed.’

  Gregory had never known relief could be so sweet. He caught Johanna looking at him, and remembered the gift he was supposed to get her.

  ‘Do you know where my things are? Did anyone get them?’ he asked.

  ‘Your trunk is under your bed.’

  Sure enough, his things were all there, and all dry… the Bobbin must have put a water repellent charm on the trunk, he thought absently. There were also a bunch of things he’d never seen before; they looked like fancy clothes.

  He dug out the pack of Monroe’s muffins from his large coat.

  ‘I got these like you said,’ he said, but his cousin was snatching it out of his hands before even he was finished speaking. ‘Sorry if it’s a little squished.’

  ‘It’s perfect,’ his cousin said, looking delighted.

  She offered Gregory a muffin and then sank her teeth into her own, a beatific smile on her face; the muffin left a halo of sugar around her mouth.

  ‘Do you know whose stuff this is in my trunk?’ Gregory asked.

  ‘It’s all yours. They’re your gifts, aren’t they?’

  ‘Gifts from whom?’ Gregory asked blandly. ‘And why?’

  Johanna’s eyes shone.

  ‘From the parents. Coz you’re a Hero!’

  He was sure he heard the capitalisation in that last word, and went a little red around the ears.

  ‘Ah, I didn’t exactly slay dragons or anything for the cookies.’

  ‘You’re blushing. Papa says I look pretty when I do that. You look pretty too,’ she said.

  ‘Right.’

  He’d been the butt of jokes before and he knew what it felt like and it felt like that right now.

  ‘Umm, cousin… Johanna?’

  ‘Ya?’

  ‘I remember a lot of… well, these really scary things – like dead people – only moving and really sick looking. They were a lot of them. Did you see anything like that?’

  ‘You mean the creeps?’

  ‘Yes, the creeps. That’s right.’

  ‘They’re all gone. Or caught,’ Johanna said. ‘There aren’t anymore running around.’

  ‘Johanna, I’m sorry… but I’m a little confused. How am I still alive? The last thing I remember is that a great big claw poked a hole in me.’

  The little girl looked horrified and fascinated at once.

  ‘They said you almost died,’ Johanna said in hushed tones. ‘I’m really glad you didn’t though. They said you killed a really big creep that almost killed you.’

  He had killed that great big shadow? Had he forgotten? Gregory shook his head. Impossible – his torch-holder could not have made any difference against something that size. But Johanna was unlikely to know more…

  ‘I’m really glad I didn’t die too. Listen… there was a girl with me – Mango. Do you know if she’s alright?’

  Johanna’s knowing smile took him aback.

  ‘She’s your girlfriend, isn’t she?’

  ‘What? No!’

  ‘Don’t lie! You kissed! Everyone knows!’

  ‘What do you mean, ‘everyone knows’? And we certainly didn’t kiss!’

  ‘She’s your true love,’ Johanna sang. ‘The kids at the Cavern all saw you kiss.’

  Gregory fought the heat creeping up his ears; he ignored it – there were more pressing matters to address.

  ‘There was another boy – Zachary… do you know about him?’ he asked.

  Johanna shook her head and Gregory pursed his lips in worry; had Zach gotten to safety before nightfall?

  He got dressed, which was to say he put on his big and shabby coat over the pyjamas he was wearing.

  ‘Are you going somewhere? You’re not s’posed to,’ his cousin told him.

  ‘I’m cold,’ Gregory said. ‘Can I have water? I’m thirsty.’

  She led him out of the room: the rest of the house was lavishly decorated in warm colours. Johanna went to fetch him water from a kitchenette as Gregory looked around the room.

  There was an alcove in a corner with a beautiful mural map set into the wall. It was Domremy City, Gregory realised. Dark green lines flowed out of the centre to various places marked in red and blue gemstones. He traced a line with his fingers to a blue gemstone labelled ‘Coffer Street’, which was between two lakes, then snatched his hand back when the stone moved under his finger. The dark line leading to Coffer Street lit up in a bright green glow.

  ‘Here’s the water –’ he heard Johanna say.

  A pleasant ting resounded through the alcove.

  ‘Did you just touch… get away from there,’ Johanna cried out.

  Gregory whirled around.

  ‘Wha-?

  The ground opened up and swallowed him whole.

  Gregory yelled into the pitch-blackness but he was falling faster than his voice could keep up with. There was a burst of light and then a dull roaring all around him… rushing water, though he couldn’t see any. Abruptly, he was caught by a something soft though he couldn’t tell what it was, because when his fingers reached below, they fluttered in empty air… he was moving faster than things could fall, faster than he had ever moved before… and then he was sliding down some slope, and then up a slope, to a far brightness at the tunnel end, which quickly became bigger… he was slowing down… with a rush and a yell, Gregory burst into bright daylight, falling through the air for another second before landing onto a soft platform, where he lay… stunned.

  A part of his brain said firmly: ‘No more touching anything till someone shows you how this crazy place works.’

  Where in the world was he? The blue gemstone had been labelled Coffer Street. Did all the green lines lead to different places around the city? Cool! Could everyone here do that?

  Ignoring the amused stares around him, he stiffly got up. He was in a building with a clear ceiling and there were steps leading down and out of an archway, which he followed till he stood on a street.

  It was late afternoon. Coffer Street was beautiful, and devastated.

  The wide, cobblestoned road had fissured in places in great gaps; an ornate bridge had collapsed into a river; the buildings had cracks zigzagging all over them, some had falle
n over in huge heaps of rubble; signs had fallen off and lampposts and trees had toppled; broken fountains had dried up and there was rubble everywhere.

  There was a commotion and a squeal from the building he had just left. He turned and saw his cousin pattering down the steps, looking scared and excited at once.

  ‘You shouldn’t have done that.’ Johanna said nervously. ‘I shouldn’t have either. We’re not supposed to leave.’

  She looked at him now as if he was supposed to fix everything.

  Gregory bit his lip.

  ‘Why did you come after me again?’ Gregory asked.

  ‘You don’t know Domremy. You would have been lost,’ Johanna said matter-of-factly.

  ‘That was very thoughtful of you. So you know this place?’ Gregory asked, trying hard not to sound sardonic.

  ‘Not that well, but someone who knows me might see me. It’s better to be lost with me than without.’

  Gregory stared at his cousin who stared right back.

  ‘That’s clever,’ he said finally, ‘a very silly sort of clever, but I won’t nit-pick. Come on.’

  A great and constant hammering filled the air of Coffer Street; bands of repairmen in bright lime-green suits scampered about, and others carefully stepped out of their way; groups of mages hovered great big blocks of stones and bricks; there was scaffolding everywhere, and people hung precariously from it… yet, despite all the activity, a cold disquiet pervaded the street. Gregory couldn’t put his finger on it.

  The two children passed unnoticed in racket, and Gregory noticed a lot orange flags at half-mast on the roofs of the buildings; some of them had two orange flags.

  Still, there were shops open. Merchants sold their goods at shaded stalls set up outside their ruined premises.

  They passed by intriguing names like Remick’s Runestones (every square inch of the front seemingly fluttering with square tiles), Anoop’s Allopathics (towers of vials twirling from strings) and Piki’s Pets (a musty smell emanating from the dark doorway).

  ‘I wish we had time to check out the shops,’ Gregory muttered.

  ‘You will. You’re going to school soon. That means shopping. Everyone shops here,’ Johanna told him. ‘Coffer Street usually looks very nice.’

  ‘But half of the place looks closed,’ Gregory said.

  ‘They’ll open again,’ Johanna said firmly.

  ‘No, I mean… look at the ones in white,’ Gregory said, pointing.

  Quite a few doorways, about one in every four, were shrouded in white linen.

  ‘Oh. Yes. Maybe those won’t open,’ Johanna said quietly. ‘White sheets means someone died.’

  At once, Gregory understood the strange disquiet – it was grief, rolling off the white shrouds, and the shoppers’ slumped shoulders; filling the silence caused by the lack of conversation, and slowing the steps of every pedestrian there.

  ‘Johanna, did many people get hurt that day?’

  ‘Yes,’ she said sadly. ‘My friends are all alright, but almost everyone knows someone who died.’

  Gregory squeezed her hand, but when he looked up, the sky fed his dread –that fateful morning he had looked down from The Scheherezade, carpets had seemed to buzz thicker than flies over Coffer Street – now, there were barely any.

  The Spire drew his gaze – the great tower rose on the other side of the river, it’s heights still wreathed in clouds. There were no zeppelins queued to land, and none were taking off. The tower was pockmarked with black patches, remnants of the airships that had crashed and burned on its side… with a shudder, Gregory remembered the falling carpeteers who had also broken their bodies there.

  Zach must be all right, Gregory told himself. He’d seen what those spectres could do; he’d know to stay away. But how far had the corruption spread? Had Reggie, Alf and Mixer fought their own creeps? The three of them could scrap with the best. What about Astrid? His stomach clenched; she couldn’t scrap.

  People didn’t put on white sheets back at home. They lit fires, and the image came to him then, of a hundred pyres, burning at once with his friends among them.

  The street swayed in Gregory’s eyes, and then he felt his cousin squeeze his hand in turn.

  ‘Your friends must be alright,’ Johanna said. ‘Don’t worry.’

  To his great surprise, looking into her earnest brown eyes, he believed her.

  ‘Thanks,’ he said. ‘Let’s go on.’

  Minutes later, at a turn of the street, Gregory thought his eyes were playing tricks on him.

  ‘Why is that boy on the roof?’ Johanna asked, pointing at the figure crouched atop red tiles that sloped up in a cone.

  ‘I don’t know,’ Gregory said, ‘but that’s Zach.’

  It turned out that Zach was in trouble.

  Two boys and a girl jeered and taunted up at him. Zach looked worried, and a bit angry. There was a ladder at his feet.

  A second girl stood apart from them; she looked very uncomfortable.

  ‘Oh, come on,’ she pleaded. ‘He’s done nothing to you.’

  ‘Nothing?’ demanded an angry looking boy. ‘Susannah, do you know what his family does?’

  ‘They’re necromancers!’ spat the other boy.

  ‘That’s just ridiculous-' Susannah began, but the others ignored her.

  ‘What are you doing up there, spawn?’ one of the three, a tall girl, cried out.

  ‘What does it look like?’ Zach yelled down. ‘The whole city’s half-masting for the princess, and I’ll half-mast my shop if I want.’

  ‘What do you care?’

  ‘I’ve actually met her, so gellost! Can you twonks say the same?’

  ‘Watch your facehole, creeper, or I’ll make it filthier than it is,’ said the tall girl furiously.

  ‘You bought your way into the palace,’ yelled the angry boy. ‘Just like your creeper-spawning mother, don’t deny-’

  A red tile sailed through the spot where the boy’s head had been a moment ago; if he hadn’t ducked, Zach’s throw would have cracked his skull open.

  ‘Are you insane?’ the tall girl shrieked. ‘You trying to kill him?’

  ‘Course he is,’ said the second boy. ‘They’re trying to kill everybody aren’t they? Him and his whole family of necromancers.’

  ‘Bring my mother into this and I’ll bust your brains all over the mud, alright?’ Zach roared.

  ‘Come on, let’s get out of here,’ Susannah said again. ‘He’ll stay up there forever… there are better things to do.’

  The others ignored her.

  ‘You should have burned down in the quake. Your place is the ugliest around here,’ said the second boy.

  ‘If you don’t want to shop here, you can move right along,’ Zach shouted.

  ‘You make me sick!’ shouted the angry boy. ‘Good people who’ve been on Coffer Street hundreds of years are moving to Lotown, and you’re moving in on their space! Just coz they’re too poor now to stop you? Why don’t you take your stupid stuff to Lotown instead, and leave the Street for people who really belong here?’

  ‘I was here before the quake, and there’s plenty of people wanting what we’re selling!’

  ‘Coz you’ve got in their heads somehow!’

  ‘You’re corrupting them, making them do bad things!’

  ‘Your mum’s a necromancer, that’s how she doing it. I bet she had something to do with the Voidmark.’

  ‘Then you ought to be right scared of coming round here,’ Zach roared, taking a step down, ‘Not afraid I’ll set the creeps on you?’

  And so angry was he that the others actually stepped back, though the tall girl recovered quickly:

  ‘You don’t know enough magic yet. But maybe you ought to be taken care of before you become like her.’

  ‘Yeah, we can’t let your kind breed,’ said the angry boy – he dashed forward and shook and kicked the ladder, trying to shake Zach off it.

  The scoop of mud sailed into the aggressors face – he fe
ll back, wiping his eyes and sputtering furiously. A split second later, something struck him with a loud and pink puff.

  ‘Who threw that?’ the angry boy demanded. He looked down at himself – he was pink! – from his hair to the tips of his boots.

  ‘What’s this?’ he screamed.

  ‘Sorry, I needed to put that somewhere, and your face looked available, so…’ Gregory said, striding forward; Johanna followed gleefully. ‘And as for your new color…’

  Everyone on the ground looked up. Zach held a strange cylinder in his hand, and it was pointed at the pinked boy.

  ‘What’s wrong with you? Who are you?’ hissed the second boy.

  Gregory ignored him. Instead, he called up the ladder.

  ‘Zach! How are things?’

  ‘Hey! The country bumpkin listens! Who’d have known? I tell you to stay alive, and here you stand. Good boy!’ Zach condescended, but was clearly delighted to see Gregory.

  ‘Says the wannabe ragamuffin,’ Gregory shot back. ‘Couldn’t rough it for even minutes – I remember you bawling, wrestling something half your size.’

  ‘My bawling saved your neck, you ingrate – cowed that little pygmy into submission.’

  ‘More like caused it to die bleeding from it’s ear…’

  The banter came easily; the aggressors looked on with confusion.

  ‘Who are you?’ sputtered the angry and now pink and mud-splattered boy at Gregory. ‘What the blazes was that for?’

  Gregory and Zach ignored him.

  ‘You woke up then?’ Zach said, grinning widely. ‘Good on you. Things are a bit stupid, but better now that you’ve shown up.’

  ‘Come on down, then.’

  ‘I’ll do that.’

  Zach slid down the ladder with his toy.

  ‘What is that thing?’ Gregory asked, and then pointed at the pink boy. ‘How did you turn him pink?’

  ‘This, brother mine, is an Artemis,’ Zach said, holding the cylinder aloft. ‘It’s going to change the world.’

  ‘Is that an instrument?’ Gregory asked, though it was nothing like any instrument he had ever seen. ‘And you just did magic! How?’

  ‘Necromancy,’ spat the tall girl.

  ‘What?’ Gregory asked, puzzled. As far as he knew, necromancy involved blood magic and magical subjugation.

  ‘He steals people’s magic,’ said the second boy coldly, ‘just like the rest of his family.

  The words left an ominous silence in the air, and Gregory stared at Zach.

  ‘You steal people’s magic…,’ Gregory said slowly.

  ‘-that’s right, he does-’

  ‘… and the best you can do is turn people pink?’ Gregory finished, looking very disappointed.

  Johanna giggled; Zach looked offended.

  ‘I can do a lot more,’ he huffed.

  The tall girl strode forward.

  ‘How do you know the creeper, creeper? Who are you?’ she asked.

  ‘Zach here gave me a ride into town. I’m Gregory. And who are you lovelies?’

  ‘You call me Phia. And you’ve made the wrong kind of friend, but maybe you didn’t know any better. His family is evil.’

  ‘Perhaps, but they make really cool airships. Have you ever flown in one? It’s amazing.’

  ‘They stole the how-to from the Orient, everyone knows that,’ spat one of the boys.

  ‘Yeah, and if you’re on his side, then you’re just as twisted as the rest of his family,’ said the boy with mud streaked over his face. ‘Maybe we ought to take care of you too.’

  ‘Hold on, then,’ Gregory said, shucking off his coat and shirt. ‘I don’t have too many clean clothes right now. Cousin, be a darling and take my coat and shirt and sit down to the side?’

  ‘You’re crazy,’ said the second boy.

  ‘And you’re scared,’ Gregory said. ‘Zach, we’ve done this before – just like the creep in the pond?’

  ‘Sure,’ Zach said. He was easily bigger than all of them, and he had a nasty look in his eye, and he kept the strange cylinder pointed threateningly.

  The four aggressors looked at each other unsurely… well, three really, Gregory thought. The second girl had hung back with an unhappy look on her face through all of this.

  Now though, she fixed her eyes on Gregory’s scar excitedly.

  ‘Where’d you get that?’ she demanded.

  ‘Well,’ Gregory said offhandedly, ‘I don’t know if you folks were around, but there was big ruckus around here a little more than a week back. Magic went all wonky and stuff… there were a lot of creeps running about…’

  ‘You’re Gregory Grey,’ she exclaimed, her eyes as round as eyes could get.

  It put Gregory off-balance.

  ‘Err, have we met?’ he asked, but they weren’t listening.

  ‘You’re the Hero?’ asked Phia disbelievingly.

  Gregory felt more confused than ever. First Johanna and now this…

  ‘He can’t be. Look at that filthy coat he’s wearing. He’s bluffing,’ said the mud-faced boy.

  ‘Yes, but you just heard Zachary, didn’t you?’ said the shiny-eyed girl. ‘He just woke up. Look at his face.’

  And they stared at him so intently he was sure their glares were warming his face up. Or perhaps he was blushing again. The would-be bullies whispered fiercely among themselves for a bit and then straightened up.

  ‘Why are you with him?’ the angry pink boy asked. ‘You’re supposed to be on our side.’

  His bitterness threw Gregory off some more.

  ‘Zach saved my life… that crazy day. And how do you know me? And what do you mean your side.’

  ‘Everyone knows you,’ said the girl who had recognised him. ‘Did you just wake up?’

  ‘… yes?’

  ‘You don’t know what’s been happening,’ the girl said, an awed look on her face. ‘Look, word got out about the things you did in the Caverns-’

  ‘The creep saved you?’ Phia cut in, even more disbelieving.

  ‘No he didn’t,’ the first boy said. ‘Everyone knows it was the professors who kept the Hero alive through the night.’

  ‘He saved me before the quake,’ Gregory said, deciding to ignore the ‘Hero’. ‘A creep nearly drowned me before he pulled it off.’

  The foursome shot Zach strange but less aggressive looks.

  ‘There’s better company for you to keep. Ask your girlfriend,’ said the tall girl before turning and leading her little posse away.

  The shorter girl cast Gregory a longing look and he was sure he heard her hiss angrily:

  ‘She’s not his girlfriend!’

  Gregory looked at Johanna and Zach, who were laughing at his bewildered expression.

  ‘What was all that about? And why were they saying Mango is my girlfriend? Coz she’s not.’

  ‘Ooo, you’re cold. She’ll be heartbroken. Tut-tut. Come on,’ Zach said, shaking his head in mock disappointment, and leading them around the building.

  ‘I’m serious,’ Gregory said.

  ‘You heartbreaker you. Ms. Piper deserves better than that, you know?’

  Gregory grit his teeth.

  ‘She’s alright, then?’

  ‘So you do think about-’

  ‘Zach!’

  ‘Keep your hair on. It was you everyone thought was going to snuff it,’ Zach said.

  ‘She’s fine?’

  ‘Yes, she’s fine. Gods, you do have it bad. Gregory’s in luuurve…’

  ‘Shut it. Why is she my girlfriend? And why’d they call me a hero? For that matter… why did you?’ he asked, rounding on Johanna.

  ‘You saved all those people, didn’t you?’ said a voice behind him.

  It was the girl who had recognised Gregory, and she had the pink boy with her.

  ‘Look, can you please turn him back to normal?’ she asked Zach. ‘He can’t go around like this.’

  ‘He nearly kicked me off the roof!’

  ‘And he’s sorry. Aren�
��t you, Suraj?’

  Suraj nodded, his pink lips thin, and his pink jaws clenched tight.

  ‘Fine,’ Zach said coolly. ‘Hold still.’

  The strange cylinder came up: there was another burst of pink: and Suraj was back to normal, save for the mud streaked over his face. Without a word, he stalked off.

  ‘How are you doing that?’ Gregory demanded. ‘You’ve been blooded already?’

  ‘Nope.’

  ‘Then you can’t-’ Gregory cut himself off, and asked warily, ‘You’re not actually stealing people’s magic are you?’

  ‘No, I’m using my mum’s.’

  ‘That’s impossible!’

  ‘Not when you are my mum,’ Zach said proudly.

  Susannah had not followed Suraj.

  ‘Not going with your friend?’ Gregory asked her.

  ‘They’re not really my friends,’ she said hurriedly. ‘Their parents work for my dad, and mum asked them to show me around. I’m new here.’

  They all introduced themselves.

  ‘I’ve met you, haven’t I?’ Susannah asked Johanna.

  Johanna nodded.

  ‘Your father is the Tree Man,’ Johanna said. ‘Papa said your father counts people with magic.’

  ‘Tree man?’ Gregory asked.

  ‘The Blood Tree – my father runs it,’ Susannah said.

  ‘You’re Asclepius Coffey’s daughter?’ Zach exclaimed. ‘My mum can’t shut up about your dad – my uncle had Veles’ Curse!’

  ‘What’s Veles’ Curse?’ Johanna asked.

  ‘It was a disease… it hurt your magic really bad – her father made the antidote, and they made him Top Doc for it, coz no one’s suffered from it since,’ Zach said.

  ‘Daddy can’t shut up about your mother either,’ Susannah said with a smile, before turning to Gregory, saying, ‘Though he’s been raving about you a lot too!’

  Feeling more like the butt of a joke and getting more irritated by the minute, Gregory said testily:

  ‘And why, pray, does your father rave about me? No, wait – tell me how the hell you’re using your mum’s magic… no, wait – you, Susannah – is your father raving about the whole Hero thing too? Why?’

  ‘You saved Professor Flanders’ life without magic,’ Susannah said, and her eyes glowed in admiration, ‘using only basic First Aid. Daddy’s a Healer, and he’s been lecturing people on First Aid forever, but no one ever listens. When he found out what you did, he said it was textbook perfect.’

  ‘Yes, well, I’d read the textbook,’ Gregory said, ears going a little red. ‘But how’d he find out.’

  ‘You and Mango saved all those people at the orphanage, didn’t you?’ Johanna said. ‘It’s all anyone’s been talking about.’

  ‘What people… oh! At the Caverns? That wasn’t …’ Gregory trailed off.

  How did you explain that you were trying to save your own skin, and the rest just happened to be… collateral salvage?

  ‘You and… Mango, you’ve both been nominated Heroes of Domremy,’ Susannah said.

  ‘What does that mean?’

  ‘Knighthood, a very special kind,’ Zach said.

  ‘You’re having me on,’ said Gregory.

  ‘Not a bit,’ Zach said, and he looked completely serious.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Bit slow today, are you?’

  ‘Those things were easy to off once you put a mind to it,’ Gregory said. ‘There must have been any number of people who killed a bunch of creeps.’

  Zach, Susannah and Johanna exchanged consternated glances.

  ‘Right. You don’t know. You just woke up.’

  ‘Don’t know what?’

  Zach put on a face that he must have thought was bracing but looked constipated.

  ‘Look, come in and sit down,’ he said. ‘I’ll tell you all about it in the shop – it’s mom’s by the way.’

  Gregory had never been inside a magical shop before so he didn’t know quite what to expect, but the shop looked strange. It looked like a temple, the walls riddled with cubbyholes. Inside the cubbyholes were cylinders like the one Zach held. A dais of pink stone in the centre of the room had another cylinder on it; the sign beside it said: Shooter Mark III: The Artemis.

  Gregory wasn’t the only one to find it strange; Susannah and Johanna looked equally fascinated, but Zach took them to an inner office, where they sat down around a table.

  ‘Before we start, just curious, but why are you out in that dirty coat and pyjamas?’ Zach asked.

  It took Zach a while to stop laughing, completely ignoring the sour look on Gregory’s face. Even Susannah was smiling.

  ‘How was I even supposed to know?’ Gregory said, annoyed. ‘It’s not like there was a sign: touch the wall and be spit out gods know where.’

  ‘True, true. I’m thinking about all the things you’re going to get wrong from here on out,’ Zach said, finally bringing his chuckling under control. ‘So you need to get back to High Town, was it?’

  Johanna nodded.

  ‘I’ll run up the balloon, then,’ Zach said. He went to the doorway and pulled a lever. There was a thunk. ‘That was to signal out to any passing carpeteer. They’ll see the balloon outside and stop.’

  Gregory was ready to burst with curiosity.

  ‘Seriously, how did you cast magic without an instrument?’ he demanded.

  ‘I’ll get to that, bronto, if you’ll let me. Have this first!’

  Zach thrust chocolate at the three of them, and he started only when they’d all taken a bite.

  ‘I don’t know if I’m the best person to be telling you this… but here goes. You remember how bad the quake was?’ he asked.

  Gregory nodded.

  ‘Well, it was worse than that everywhere outside Domremy. Way, way worse. The quake offed two million people, they think.’

  ‘What?’ Gregory coughed violently as chocolate went down the wrong way. ‘Two million?’

  ‘Yep… all the way from the Saxon Isles to Harappa. They say it was the biggest and worst quake ever,’ Susannah said sombrely.

  ‘That’s insane.’

  ‘Not even the worst of it – which you saw - the creeps.’

  ‘A professor at the Cavern – Rathborne,’ Gregory remembered, ‘he said something had corrupted magic – that’s why every spell attempt conjured creeps. Is that true?’

  ‘Pappa said something changed magical polarity that day, whatever that means,’ Susannah said. ‘Magical polarity was only theory before – no one had actually done it themselves, or seen it for that matter. They’re scared it’ll happen again.’

  ‘They should be,’ Zach said grimly. ‘The creeps killed about three million all on their own – all over the world.’

  ‘What?’

  Gregory stared around the room, appalled.

  ‘You’re not having me on, are you?’

  ‘No. Every master-mage and yogi who’s got an idea about it is meeting in Kashmir. They’re all locked up in a room, studying the creeps that haven’t died out yet. It’s all very hush-hush.’

  ‘But those things were easy to snuff. A whack on the head was all you needed,’ Gregory said weakly.

  ‘Yes, if you had something to hit them with. But as far as I know, most people – mages actually – just… froze,’ Zach said.

  Mango’s voice sounded in Gregory’s memories:

  ‘… she just stood there – that thing screamed and next second it’s on her – and she’s down with that thing through her…’

  Gregory tried to imagine that happening three million times and sick horror coursed through him.

  ‘That corruption – it lasted a whole day,’ Zach went on. ‘Not just here, but over the whole world! If you think three million’s bad... I mean, it was freaking daylight here, so the creeps died out quickly enough – imagine if it had been night! It was night over America, but practically only shamans do magic there, so there weren’t too many creeps.’

  ‘In other word
s,’ Susannah said, ‘we’ve been very, very lucky. Only the creeps born in shadow lived long enough to hurt… to kill people. And mages everywhere got the worst of it.’

  ‘Mages? How come?’ Johanna asked.

  ‘Coz they’re bleeding useless without magic, aren’t they?’ Zach said sadly. ‘A non-mage sees an ugly ghoul running at him, it takes the ugly’s head off with whatever it’s holding. A mage either freezes, or out of sheer habit, casts another spell, which means another creep.’

  ‘Kids everywhere had the worst of it too,’ Susannah said. ‘No one knew right off that the sun killed the creeps. The kids, afraid and looking to hide, ran for the shadows – and that’s where the creeps found them. And I heard a lot of parents died trying to protect their kids. It was like that everywhere, even in Domremy.’

  ‘Except,’ Zach said, suddenly intense, ‘at Gurukul Caverns. You saved them… you and that Piper girl. No one thought anyone would survive in the Caverns. Even I thought you were a goner. But when we found out – when the kids told everyone what the two of you did – well, there was a lot of talk, and everyone more or less decided that you and Mango were gonna be Knighted.’

  ‘That’s not all, though,’ Susannah said. ‘You’ve become something of a celebrity.’

  ‘Not a celebrity… a Hero!’ Johanna said.

  ‘It’s a bit more than that, love,’ Susannah said, eyes shining at Gregory. ‘Mango’s a Hero too, but it’s Gregory people are going ga-ga over.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ Gregory asked, feeling a little hemmed in. He had a vague foreboding that all this was leading to sparkling clothes sometime in the future, whether he liked it or not.

  But Zach and Susannah both looked at a loss to explain.

  ‘Look,’ Susannah said finally. ‘What do you know about the Observant Shamanate?’

  ‘Um… two thousand year old big bully religious organisation with influence over practically every major civilisation except the Reflective ones?’ Gregory ventured. Everyone knew that.

  ‘Right. So those guys have coined a word for the corruption: Voidmark – the first instance of Sentinel wrath,’ Susannah scoffed, ‘with more to come.’

  All Gregory knew of Sentinels were plucked from the Director’s folktales collections, and religious reading was not common in Domremy.

  ‘Sentinel wrath… like the demon Sentinels?’ he asked.

  ‘Yes, and this is going to sound very stupid, but listen anyway,’ Susannah said. ‘The legend goes like this – when the people of the world are corrupt enough, the Sentinels come a-looking for the worst of us to recruit into their army of demonic spirits. They are raising that army to fight Seraphs, who are Gaia’s (the planet Earth’s own spirit) guardian gods.’

  ‘The Shamanate is saying,’ Zach jumped in, ‘that the Sentinels already took many corrupt people in the past – and made them into demon spirits. They’re saying that during a Voidmark, those demon spirits ride into the world on our magic, and use the energy in our spells to give themselves a form – basically, they manifest as creeps.’

  ‘And they’re saying,’ Susannah said, ‘that by killing all the people they did, the creeps cleansed the world.’

  ‘That’s stupid,’ said Gregory. ‘That’s like saying everyone who died two weeks ago was evil.’

  ‘That’s exactly what they’re saying,’ spat Susannah, ‘Now that the world’s cleansed, the Shamanate can better show the people the right path to grace – that is to say, the right path as the Observant Shamanate sees it.’

  ‘We all know its nonsense of course,’ Zach said with a sneer. ‘At least, the Reflective nations do. Observant nations, such as Helika, take it very seriously.’

  ‘What’s this got to do with me being a celebrity?’ Gregory asked.

  Susannah and Zach looked stuck again.

  ‘No, wait, don’t tell me,’ Gregory laughed, ‘Everyone thinks I’m a Seraph for knocking off a bunch of creeps!’

  Susannah and Zach looked at each other, then back at Gregory, and nodded.