A Spookies Compendium

by David Robinson

  Pete ran after him, Kevin stood up, got in the way and Pete tumbled, knocking Kevin down again.

  “Forget him,” Andrea ordered. “Kev, where is this bo …” She caught herself in time. “Where’s this faulty spotlight?”

  “Along there.” Kevin pointed back the way he had come, then hurried off the way they had come.

  Pete collared him. “Not so fast. You’ll have to disarm this thing.”

  “Me?” Kevin looked as if he were about to faint. “Are you out of your tree?”

  “You’re the electrical expert.”

  “I dabble with computers, Pete, and if you get me fooling around with bombs, I’ll end up as a late computer dabbler.”

  Andrea checked the nearby crowd to ensure no one had been alerted by Kevin’s use of the word ‘bomb’. “Kevin,” she said, “we need someone like you to at least look at it. They haven’t had time to set up booby traps.”

  “Two seconds is all it needs,” Kevin protested. “One cross wire and shazam, goodbye Ashdale Arena roof, goodbye Kevin Keeley. You can bog off. Both of you. I’m getting … oh for God’s sake, come on.” His capitulation came in the light of their determined stares.

  They hurried along the gallery, the excited fans oblivious to their presence. When they reached the stanchion, Kevin climbed up the ladder and examined the set up.

  It was a simple, LED timer, attached to two wires and a battery. The clock read 16:35, counting down. Ten packs of TNT had been crammed into the corner between stanchion and roof. The wiring was simple: when the timer reach zero, making the electrical connection, the bomb would go off, ripping the roof from its support.

  “The only trouble is,” he muttered to himself, “is the timer making the connection or holding it off?” Fingers shaking, he fiddled with the timer and shinnied back down the ladder.

  “I don’t know what I’m doing,” he told them, “and I don’t have the specialist gear that’s needed to detect the currents.”

  “So you’ve done nothing?” Pete demanded.

  “Trent was in a hurry, obviously,” Kevin said, “so the set up doesn’t look that sophisticated. I advanced the timer to 23 hours. Trouble is, I don’t know how good the battery is in it. If that battery fades and the connection dies, the explosive could still go off, and there’s about ten pound of it up there. Enough to bring this whole section of roof down on these kids.” Kevin waved at the fans, and then faced Andrea. “How quickly can you get the bomb squad here?”

  She took out her mobile. “Ten minutes.”

  “Ten pounds, did you say?” Pete asked while Andrea made the call.

  “I’m assuming it’s in one pound packs. There are ten of them set into the joint between the upright and the roof.”

  “How much time was left before you altered it?

  “Sixteen minutes.”

  Pete scowled. “Then where’s the rest of it?”

  Kevin’s face dropped. “Rest of it?”

  “Ashdale Construction was missing twenty-five pounds.” Pete turned to Andrea, still talking on her phone.

  “Just get your people out here, tosser,” she growled into the phone, “and bring whatever you have. We’ve found one, we don’t know how many more, if any, there are.” She cut the connection. “Arsehole. He’s in the middle of some football match.”

  “A man with brains,” Pete approved. “We’d better check the rest of the stadium,” he said as Sherlock arrived.

  “Hiya Pete, Kev, Ms Keynes. They say we have a problem.”

  “Damn right,” Pete agreed. “Get your people right around the roof. We need to check every support. Every one. Got it?”

  Sherlock, too, was already talking, into a radio this time. He paused to report. “I’m onto it, Pete.”

  Pete turned and hurried off.

  “Where the hell are you going?” asked Andrea.

  “To find Trent,” he called over his shoulder, “and get him to tell me where Sceptre is.”

  *****

  Trent paused to get his breath and his bearings. His years spent controlling unruly schoolboys, doting parents and recalcitrant teachers had robbed him of his sense of reality. He’d spotted Brennan and that policewoman making their way along the top of Sector C.

  Brennan would not yield to a threat of six of the best, he would not cower at the thought of detention. Economic arguments wouldn’t sway him and threats of suspension were pointless. He was determined and dangerous: a combination Trent had never encountered in anyone but Briscoe, and the shock to the headmaster’s system had been so great it compelled him to run.

  It was only a matter of a few minutes and he was already lost in the maze of bare, concrete corridors that formed the arena’s outer shell. The only security officers he had encountered showed no interest in him, but that was hardly a surprise. Brennan and that detective would have alerted them and the search would be on for the rest of the explosives.

  They wouldn’t find them. They were looking in the wrong place. And that mean that the great plan would still go ahead. In (Trent checked his watch) fifteen minutes or so, the bomb beneath the stage would explode, those sluts would be dead and the arena, so long surrounded by controversy, would be fully discredited. Briscoe, his credibility assured, would secure the supply chain again and their income would be guaranteed.

  For now, however, he, Trent, would have to follow Alec Minton and get out of the country. But he first had to get out of the stadium.

  He could hear the cheers as the Wicked Witches finished their song and spoke to the crowd.

  “Good evening Ashdale,” he heard one of them say, and the crowd roared their appreciation again.

  To his left, the stadium wall was open, looking out over the car park. Pausing to get his breath, he looked out and in the distance he could see the flashing blue lights of emergency vehicles. Bomb disposal, he’d wager.

  “Vali.”

  It was the softest of whispers, coming from somewhere behind him. Trent turned. No one there. His imagination. Fear tricking his hearing.

  A green arrow on the wall pointed him towards the exit. He began to run again. He had gone only a few metres when the voice sounded again, louder this time.

  “Vali.”

  Trent stopped and leaned against the open wall. Someone (or something) was playing a joke on him. Vali, like Loki, was a fanciful invention of men from another time, another land, and a dream from the distorted mind of Michael Andersen.

  “Vali.”

  He looked one way then the other and could see nothing. Ignoring it, he turned to move on. There was a staircase ahead of him. It would lead him to the safety of the car park.

  “Vali.”

  Trent stopped. At the head of the stairs a strange mist had risen.

  “Vali.”

  The mist began to approach. His fear rose. This was no hallucination.

  “Vali.”

  Trent backed off. This was not real, this was not real, this was not real. Over and over he repeated the same phrase in his mind.

  “Vali.”

  He ran into the balustrade overlooking the car park. The mist began to surround him.

  “Vali.”

  Now the voice no longer emanated from the cloud. Now it was all around him.

  “Vali.”

  The cold of the grave chilled his bones.

  “Vali.”

  He saw once again the placid face of Gus Nordqvist just before he sank to his knees, his throat torn open.

  “Vali.”

  He heard once again the curse before Nordqvist disappeared forever.

  “Vali.”

  He knew his time was come and the thought filled him with dread.

  “Vali.”

  The mist was all around him. The stadium was no more than a backdrop against the translucent fog.

  “Vali.”

  The gases swirled and choked him, eddies in the gas coalesced, two gaps appeared, then a third beneath them. Strains of mist whirled and pulled into a familiar, pea
r drop shape.

  “Vali.”

  The sound came from the face, but the mouth did not move.

  Trent felt the last of his sanity leaving him. In a moment he would be no more than a dribbling, insensate caricature of a man. He began to weep. The dread of his impending doom consumed him. He knew what Vali wanted. Vali was not the god of revenge for nothing.

  “VALI!”

  The roar filled his ears, drowned out the noise from the arena. With a scream of incoherent madness, Trent turned. Leaned over the balustrade and swivelled over.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Pete arrived on the corridor just as the headmaster bent himself over the balustrade. “Trent. No.”

  Too late. Trent rolled forward and over the wall. His scream echoed away. Pete hurried to the wall and looked over. The headmaster had hit the tarmac thirty feet below, and lay there, his head smashed, a pool of blood around him, and a small gathering of onlookers staring at him.

  “Crap.” Pete snatched out his mobile and rang Andrea. “Trent’s gone,” he said when she made the connection. “Dead. Threw himself over the wall. Where are we up to?”

  “Security guys are checking, but so far nothing,” she replied.

  Pete tried to second-guess the time and quickly gave it up. “If we assume that the two were timed to go off together, how much time do we have left?”

  “Twelve minutes, give or take,” she told him.

  “No sign of Sceptre?”

  “Nope.”

  Pete cursed again. “She’s close to the explosive, Andrea. I know it. She went to the Ashdalean, Trent and his pals caught her, and they’ve left her with the bomb. When it goes up, she goes with it.”

  “Take it easy, Pete,” she soothed.

  “Take it easy, nothing,” Pete snapped. “All she was trying to do was help departed spirits. That might be loopy, but it’s not a crime. As a result, Trent and his pals cornered her and carted her off … That’s a point. Andrea, did you run the check on that Beamer I asked you about?”

  “Yes, and it wasn’t Gus Nordqvist’s.”

  “I never thought it was,” Pete assured her. “Did you find out who owned it?”

  “Sonny Briscoe.”

  Pete was stunned into silence. The gears of his brain leapt into overdrive. What the hell was Sonny Briscoe doing driving away from the Ashdalean following a white van?

  “Pete? Are you still there, Pete?”

  Andrea’s voice permeated his whirling thoughts. “What? Yes, I’m here. Andrea, where the hell is Briscoe? Can you see him from up there?”

  “Nope,” she replied, “but then I don’t have any field glasses.”

  “He’s gotta be on the deck somewhere,” Pete said. “Get onto your people, tell ’em to stop him leaving. Arrest him.”

  “But Pete …”

  “I don’t have time to explain,” Pete cut in. “I’m going down to the bottom level to look for him. If anyone sees him, pull him.”

  He shut the phone off and hurried along and down the stairs.

  *****

  Under the stage, deafened by the noise from directly above her, Sceptre watched the timer click down to 11:59 and trembled.

  The light coming from the stadium was poor but sufficient to let her see, and several metres in front of her, a dark cloud had begun to form.

  For a moment she prayed that it was Vali, come to help, come to do battle for her life, but within the swirling mass, a familiar face began to take shape. The long and pointed chin, a hooked nose almost meeting it, the writhing mass of red hair, and the avaricious, evil grin of Mr Punch. Loki!

  Sceptre’s heart pounded. She wanted to shrink away from that horrible apparition, but there was nowhere to go. She could not even turn away her bindings were so tight. All she could do was direct her gaze elsewhere.

  The giant stood upright, his entire being disappearing above the stage. Few people would even register the apparition. The crowd would be concerned with the Wicked Witches, and even sensitives would imagine it was part of the girls’ act.

  But at least she did not have to look upon him.

  A knee before her crooked. His face appeared alongside hers. His hot breath seared her face.

  “LOKI!”

  The voice bellowed in her ear, drowning out even the noise of the band above.

  Sceptre screamed. No sound escaped the gag.

  *****

  Fishwick had seen the red scar cross the spirit plane, hurtling in like a comet. Loki was already here, preventing access to Milady, so it had to be Vali. Rushing off, Fishwick made the upper galleries in time to see Vali push Trent over the edge.

  Almost immediately, Trent’s spirit form appeared and with a triumphant cry, Vali hurried in on it, ejecting it through The Light.

  “Stop it,” shouted Fishwick. “Just stop it.”

  Vali hovered and angry red. “Vali.”

  “I know you’re Vali.” Fishwick forced himself to be patient. “Look, old chap, I know you can’t communicate. You’re too angry, but you should be able to understand me. Madam is in terrible danger and I can’t get to her.” He pointed down into the auditorium and the spirit of Loki surrounding the stage. “I need help. I need your help to get him out of the way so I can save her.”

  “VALI!” with a roar of fury Vali tore off towards the stage.

  “That’s more like it, me old china.” Fishwick shot off after him.

  Half way across the sports field, Fishwick was surprised, however, when Vali veered to the right towards the exit tunnel, where two men were fighting. Fishwick recognised both men immediately and groaned.

  “Not again.”

  *****

  Pete made the exit tunnel by the security barrier as Sonny Briscoe was ambling along from the field.

  “Hey, Brennan,” he greeted with a broad smile. “I didn’t know you were here.”

  Pete was in no mood for doubletalk. “Where is she, Briscoe?”

  Doubt crossed his dark features. “I don’t follow you.”

  “It’s over,” Pete told him. “We found the bomb under the roof and disarmed it. Trent is history. He threw himself over the outside wall into the car park. Security men are searching the stadium and it’s only a matter of time before they find the rest of the explosives. Just tell me where Sceptre is.”

  A worried frown crossed Briscoe’s face. “A bomb. Jesus, man, what are you on about. If there’s a bomb here, I gotta get the girls —”

  Pete’s gorge rose. “Cut the crap, Briscoe. I saw you driving away from the Ashdalean.”

  Briscoe’s angst disappeared immediately. “You did, huh? Well that’s too bad … for you.” The act was gone. Briscoe spat his cigar out, opened his overcoat and pulled out a broad-bladed hunting knife. “With you dead, once she dies, there’s no one to tell the filth anything, is there?”

  Pete took off his fleece and wrapped it round his forearm. “There’s no need for this. You’re not going anywhere. The place is crawling with cops, Keynes knows everything, and to get out, you’ve first gotta go through me.”

  Briscoe threw off his overcoat. “Let’s see if I can deal with you and dump the blade before the cops find us, huh?” Briscoe came forward in a half crouch, tossing the blade from hand to hand, his face split into a broad grin. “Come on, white boy, let’s see how tough you are.”

  Pete tutted. “Racism, too. That’s hardly PC, is it?”

  “Maybe I don’t choose to be PC.”

  He lunged, Pete sidestepped, the blade sliced thin air. They faced off again. Briscoe came, his blade glinting in the stadium lights, slashing left to right. Pete arched back, raised his protected arm. The blade struck, cutting into cloth. He jabbed a hard right into Briscoe’s ribs. Briscoe leapt back and they circled again, Briscoe rubbing his rib cage.

  A third time, Briscoe leapt, Pete grabbed at the knife wrist. A split second before he gripped it, Briscoe tossed the knife to the other hand and brought it in. Pete twisted, the blade scraped along his lower back. T
urning himself into Briscoe, he yanked and dragged his opponent over and onto the deck. Pete threw himself at the prone figure. Briscoe rolled sideways, Pete hit concrete. Briscoe came to crouch and threw himself at Pete, the knife arcing downwards. Pete rolled away and up to his feet. Briscoe landed, rolled and he too, stood upright, circling again.

  Hurried footsteps sounded along the tunnel. Pete glanced left. PC Wayne Niles bore down on Briscoe. With Pete’s eyes averted, Briscoe lunged. Catching the movement in the corner of his eye, Pete raised his bare arm. The blade sliced through skin.

  “Bastard.”

  The policeman’s arms came about Briscoe. The Wicked Witches’ manager twisted, threw the officer against the wall. The knife slashed sideways. With a gurgle Niles fell to his knees, clutching at his torn throat.

  Briscoe’s back was to him. Pete leapt forward and slammed his fist into the other’s kidneys. Briscoe screamed, buckled, half turned and whipped the knife across. Pete took a jump back. The blade slashed through his T-shirt, and through the upper layers of skin on his abdomen.

  His shirt felt wet. He ran a hand across the wound and came away with bloodied fingers. Briscoe launched himself. Pete backed off and hit the tunnel wall. Briscoe was upon him, the knife coming up from waist level. Pete gripped the wrist to hold it off. With one arm pinning Pete to the wall, the other held lower down, Briscoe could not change hands. There was a moment of eye-to-eye combat, then Pete brought his head forward, crunching it onto Briscoe’s forehead. Briscoe staggered back. Pete came after him. To his surprise, Briscoe landed out with straight leg. Pete took it in the gut and doubled up.

  Briscoe hammered a right to the side of Pete’s head. Pete went down and Briscoe fell upon him, straddling his chest, one hand on Pete’s throat, the other bringing the knife down. Pete gripped the wrist with both hands and held the blade off.

  Blood poured from the wound on his arm. He felt his strength giving. Briscoe released his throat, clenched his fist and smashed it into Pete’s jaw, then into his gut. Pete cursed, removed one hand from Briscoe’s wrist and hammered at his face instead. Briscoe rolled with the punch, brought his free arm to support the other and increased the downward pressure on the blade.