Bruised, gasping and relieved at the retreat of the hideous creatures, Kingsley dragged himself to his knees.
Evadne was panting hard a few yards away, her back to a pillar. She wiped her cheek with the back of her hand and waved wearily at him. Once he’d established that she was safe, he was able to gawp at the sight before him.
The Spawn had all been knocked off their feet. They were in a great untidy heap on the floor, squealing and gibbering, but they were doing their best to crawl back towards the stairs. Kingsley shook his head, cleared it a little, and looked again. They’re not doing it themselves. It’s being done to them.
The Spawn were clawing at the floor, at the balustrades, at each other, at anything to stop their progress, but their efforts were futile. Slowly but inexorably, despite all their struggles, the Spawn were being dragged by invisible hands as carelessly as if they were old rugs on the way to the rubbish heap. They tumbled down the stairs, shrieking all the way. When an echoing boom came from below, Kingsley realised he was quite dizzy, so he let out the breath he’d been holding and sagged to the floor on all fours.
‘Thank you.’
The voice was low and intense. Kingsley straightened and looked up, ready to modestly decline Mrs Winter’s gratitude, but he deflated when he saw that she wasn’t addressing him. She was addressing the blank, whitewashed wall of the workshop.
Now, that’s odd. What was even more odd, however, was that he was finding it difficult to focus on her. He put a hand to his brow. Concussion. That must be it.
It was the only explanation for his seeing double in such a peculiar way. Mrs Winter was blurred, as if two images of her were overlapping. He went to draw attention to this curious phenomenon when he noticed that his foster father, standing a few paces away from Mrs Winter, was startlingly unblurred.
Still dazed, he went to point it out to Evadne, but she was already looking in the same direction – and with more than a touch of concern. Then he saw that Dr Ward was also a picture of apprehension.
Mrs Winter continued to address the blank wall.
Nothing, Kingsley thought, bemused. She’s staring at nothing.
Then he squinted, shaded his eyes and nearly choked. Was the air twisting in front of Mrs Winter? She faced what looked like a small whirlwind, but a bizarrely slow whirlwind; one that was spinning with the regularity of a metronome, a column of glassiness, hard to see and harder to hold in one’s vision, nearly reaching the ceiling and an arm span wide.
‘We thank you.’
Kingsley shivered. Mrs Winter’s voice was deeper, more resonant, and altogether more present that it had been previously.
‘Thank you,’ Dr Ward and Evadne echoed in a manner Kingsley found unsettlingly ritualistic.
He straightened his jacket and winced at his bleeding knuckles. He was more than happy to acknowledge aid. ‘And who is it we’re thanking?’ he said as he went to Evadne’s side. He was relieved to see that she was unharmed.
‘The lar of this place,’ Mrs Winter said without turning her head, ‘the guardian god, long gone, from when this was a Roman outpost. I opened the way and it performed its duty. It protected us from the intruders.’
‘A god? Here? In our workshop?’ Kingsley said. Evadne’s elbow caught him in the side, where a massive bruise was taking up residence. He managed to turn his yelp into a cough, then he saw his father’s frown. ‘And I’d just like to add my thanks for a duty well done.’
Mrs Winter held her hands up in front of her, palms out. Kingsley once again had the disturbing impression of her duality. He caught Evadne’s eye and she discreetly held up two fingers and raised an eyebrow.
Mrs Winter bowed to the shifting air. She began to speak softly; Kingsley couldn’t make out the words. Then she brought her hands together. The whirling column of air – the lar? – vanished.
Dr Ward hurried to her side and took her arm. He turned her around slowly. She staggered a little, and clutched at him before glaring at Kingsley and Evadne. ‘If it weren’t for Malcolm, I would have let the filthy brutes take you.’
Kingsley held up both hands, apologising – but then he realised he didn’t know what he was apologising for.
‘I’m sorry,’ Evadne said, ‘but what have we done?’
‘Malcolm said your dealings with the Immortals were over. From the appearance of the Spawn creatures, that is evidently not the case.’
In the awkward silence this brought about, as Kingsley grappled with astonishment, bewilderment and hurt and Evadne cleaned her sabre, Dr Ward looked from his intended, to his foster son and the juggler and back again before pursing his lips. ‘I don’t know about the rest of you,’ he declared, ‘but I definitely need a good cup of tea.’
‘No.’ Mrs Winter disengaged herself from him. She brushed herself off and straightened her hat. ‘We must go. Now.’
‘Now?’ Dr Ward. ‘Where?’
‘The Hebrides. You said you wanted to go there for your linguistic research.’
‘I did, but we just arrived here. And – just in case you’d forgotten – we have a wedding to arrange.’
‘That can wait.’
Kingsley felt as if he were stumbling about in a cellar, blindfolded, trying to catch a horde of black cats. ‘You can’t leave so promptly. You’ve only just arrived.’
Mrs Winter glanced at him with a look so ferocious that his wild self immediately wanted to turn tail and flee. She took Dr Ward by the arm. ‘Malcolm. Now.’
‘Now, eh?’ Dr Ward shrugged to Kingsley and Evadne. ‘Mrs Winter had some ugly encounters with the Immortals while in India. I understand why she needs to stay well away from them, if they’re about. We’ll write and let you know when we’ll be back.’ He coughed. ‘We’ll sort this out, don’t you worry.’
Kingsley was having trouble putting words together. He’d just found evidence of his true father, been presented with a potential foster mother he’d never heard of, one who had run up against the Immortals in the past, then he had been attacked by Spawn and rescued by a god. The world was suddenly a much stranger and much more disconcerting place than it had been an hour ago.
Evadne touched Kingsley’s arm as he grappled with his astonishment. ‘Don’t worry, Dr Ward,’ she said. ‘Just let us know if there is anything we can do about the wedding.’
‘Wait,’ Kingsley said. ‘What?’
They were gone and Kingsley was left with his unresolved bewilderment.
Evadne lifted his hand and studied his knuckles. ‘Don’t worry. They’ll be fine.’
‘Didn’t that seem strange to you?’ He ran his free hand through his hair. ‘She just called up a god and overwhelmed a horde of Spawn, then she says we’re awful and announces that it’s time to visit some Scottish islanders.’
‘It’s hard to say if it’s strange. I don’t know her very well. Perhaps she does that sort of thing all the time.’ Evadne shrugged. ‘She could just be a nervous bride.’
‘She didn’t strike me as a nervous bride. And, besides, how is running off to the Hebrides a good way to deal with pre-wedding nerves?’
‘Everyone is different, Kingsley,’ Evadne said solemnly. ‘I thought you, of all people, would appreciate that. Now, let’s get you cleaned up.’
Kingsley looked at the upturned table and the general destruction wrought by the Spawn. ‘You understand, of course, that this suggests that the Immortals are back.’
‘Back and looking for revenge after our efforts last year. Call me foolish, but after all that waiting, I’m actually relieved they’ve shown themselves again.’
Kingsley heaved the table to its feet, then he stooped and searched in the mess. He held up the metal box. ‘The journal’s missing.’
‘It must have been knocked aside in the fight.’
Ten minutes of sorting through papers, books, wires and tools was enough to convince Kingsley. ‘It’s definitely gone,’ he said, and he had that peculiar feeling one has upon finding something one didn’t know was lost – an
d then losing it again.
Evadne slotted a screwdriver into the rack that Kingsley had lifted back into place against the wall. ‘What would the Spawn want with your father’s journal?’
‘The implications of that horrify me, but it’s the other possibility that worries me more.’
Evadne frowned. ‘You don’t think Mrs Winter took it, do you?’
‘All I know is that she didn’t look surprised when the Spawn appeared. Angry, perhaps, but not surprised.’
‘And that’s enough for you to suspect her? Kingsley, you worry me enough as it is. I don’t need the extra burden of worrying if you’re seeing enemies everywhere.’
‘I could be being unfair, but we can’t discount the possibility.’
‘It’s far more likely that the Immortals have gathered their resources and are up and about again. Remember: they want you for your brain.’
Kingsley hesitated. Evadne didn’t always see clearly where the Immortals were concerned. ‘And when they couldn’t get me they took my real father’s journal?’
‘They must have found out it was here. It was a second-best prize. Finding out about your past mightn’t only answer your questions, you know, it might answer theirs about how you gained your wildness, and how you manage it.’
Kingsley wasn’t entirely convinced. He remembered how Mrs Winter had behaved after she’d seen the godling off. The fury in her eyes when she accused them of bringing the Immortals down on her was formidable – and confusing.
‘We’ll get it back,’ Evadne said, mistakenly believing his silence came from concern for Major Sanderson’s journal. ‘We’ll need a plan. But not here, not now that the Immortals know of the place.’
He saw a shiny corner projecting from under a ledger that had been thrown aside in the fracas. He bent and plucked the photograph of his father from the mess. He straightened it and, then, with a forefinger, touched the man who had been his father. He managed a smile. ‘D’you know anywhere safe?’
‘It so happens that I have an underground refuge that is highly secret, filled with alarmingly destructive weapons, and possessing a very fine bath.’
‘Perfect.’
FOUR
Leetha clung to the memory of the smells of her home. The spiciness that hung in the moist, warm air there was different from the metallic coldness that surrounded her in the lair of the sorcerers. The others of her people, the ones who had been taken when she had, looked to her for leadership. Their expectations were heavy on her shoulders. The chill, the dark, the confining walls, nothing was like their home. She wept over it. Leader’s tears, she explained. The others understood.
Leetha had not known that she and her people were small until she was ten years old. That was when her parents let her see her first stranger, one of the big people from the other side of their island. Her mother and father held her hand as they travelled for two days. They ghosted through the thick, lush greenery until they came to the river where the women washed at the stones. Leetha heard the singing first. It made her heart light. She wondered who it was and why they were singing nonsense, words she could not understand. When she saw the singers, she was not afraid; not at first, not hidden as she was in dense undergrowth. Then she felt the hand of her mother tighten on her shoulder. She looked up to see her alert and ready to flee.
The women pounded bright fabric on the rocks, flailing rainbows and laughing when a dog wandered past and was splashed. Then Leetha could see that even the shortest of the washerwomen was twice her own height.
‘Big people,’ her father whispered. ‘Never let yourself be seen by them.’
Using their skill for hiding, they eased back through the bushes. They ignored the path. They hid themselves again in the byways of the jungle until they reached the caves that were their home.
That night, young Leetha, the Leetha who was happy and free, scratched pictures on the stone wall next to where she slept. Charcoal black lines, flickering in the light of the fire she loved so much. One was Leetha, smiling. One was a big person, towering over her. The big person was smiling, too.
She grew and her friends grew around her, but she knew she would never be as tall as the big people. Her people kept to themselves in the rocky, unloved heart of the island. They were few, ten or twenty families, but life was good. The land gave them what they needed, if they listened closely enough. In return, they tended it with their hearts, never taking too much. They were part of the world and they measured their lives in ways foreign to the clocks and calendars she was forced to worship in the lair of the sorcerers.
Her people had three gifts that had allowed them to survive. They could hide, avoiding notice if they chose. They were eternally curious, which meant they learned much of the world around them. And they loved fire and were good at making it wherever they were, from whatever was available. These skills gave her people a place. They were happy in their world, living apart from the big people who spread over most of their island. Safe, secure and hidden.
Then she, and thirty of her kin, were taken away from their home.
Leetha lay in her bed, clutching the sheet beneath her chin and holding onto her memories. She waited for the bell. As every morning, she had woken before it shouted at her but still she was shocked when it yammered. Its metal voice demanded that she rise and report to the factory floor. She sat on the edge of her bunk and watched the others of her kin rise, grumbling and complaining.
She ate while assembling the machine parts. The food had no taste, no texture, no smell apart from the sour odour of paste. While she screwed and tightened, she let her mind wander. She needed to know more about her captors. They made Leetha and her kin work hard with their machines and their electricity. Leetha had learned much about this world, but she knew there was much she still did not know. This hurt. It was a hole inside her that ached, and only by finding out would it be filled. Of course, the more she found out, the more likely she would be able to help her people escape – but finding out was more than that. It was something she needed to do, or else she would be itchy, jumpy, incomplete and on edge.
She sighed and chose another nut to match the bolt she was tightening. She needed to risk much – again – and go exploring.
A guard came and pointed at her with his sparky stick. ‘Report to the testing area,’ he said.
She had never been able to learn the guard’s name, but she called him Glass Face – to herself – for he wore the spectacles to help him see. She had learned that he liked the black sweet called liquorice and often kept some in his pockets. She had overheard that he had a brother, too, and it made her wonder about the rest of his family.
She did not linger at her bench, not even to tidy. She let the bolt fall from her hands. It bounced on the floor then skittered away like a beetle finding a home under a leaf.
With Glass Face and his sparky stick behind her, she trotted on bare feet across the concrete floor. She grimaced. So cold. So smooth.
The big steel doors at the end of the corridor awaited her. She never thought of running away, no matter how her insides folded up on themselves at the thought of more tests. She would last through them as she had the other trials. Some had been hurtful, others harmless. She had once been left in a room, alone, on a chair, with a jug of water and a cup. The door was locked but no-one came, not even when she gathered the courage to call out. When she finished the water, many hours later, the door was opened and she was led back to her quarters. No-one told her what the test meant. Leetha took it as she took a monsoon: something to be endured for the future that lay on the other side of it.
Part of her cried out to know what the tests were for, but the guards never explained. She wanted to know. She wanted to know so hard it hurt.
This time, Glass Face did not leave. After he led Leetha to a bare table, he stood inside the door. The room was small and white, with hardness everywhere in the walls and the floor and the ceiling. Sounds were strange in these places, not like in Leetha’s home where they di
sappeared into distances, or were swallowed by greenery. Here, they bounced and came back sharply, with edges that hurt.
She wondered what the walls were made of, and how they were made, and who made them. Was she happy at what she had done? Had she done it with love? With care?
Two of the big people entered the room through another door. One was female, one had the hairy growths on his face that Leetha had come to understand were normal, not an illness. Gompers was his name and he was a blank. She had been unable to learn anything about him, try as she might.
Gompers studied Leetha for a time. Then he grunted like a bush pig and sat opposite her. He was wearing the heavy garments that so many of the big people did, and like them he was afraid of colour. His clothes were all black, and grey, and white. Perhaps he did not want to draw attention. Or did he not want a mate?
That was a question that needed an answer, but she had learned better than to ask Gompers anything.
Gompers held a packet made of the paper they were so fond of. He tapped it on the table while Leetha sat still, waiting for the test.
Gompers looked over his shoulder at the female who had entered the room with him. She was small for one of the big people, but would still tower over Leetha. She, too, had no colour. She had the lenses on her eyes, like Glass Face.
‘Are you ready to record?’ Gompers asked the lens woman.
She held up a pencil and a slab of paper.
‘We shall proceed.’ Gompers opened his packet. ‘Number One.’
He held up an image, one of the magical photographs of these people. It was a picture with all the colour washed out. Two grey dogs were sitting on grey grass. Their tongues were grey and hung out of the side of their grey mouths.
The Extraordinaires 2 Page 3
