S*W*A*G*G 1, Spook

by Jill Marshall

  Chapter 17 - The Gates of Hell

  It was astonishing to consider that both she and Jack had been through something like this before. Churning earth spat up beside them, plastering itself to the walls of the tunnel so that it smoothed and grew into a towering castle turret around them. The opening they’d climbed into vanished into a pin-prick of light as they tunnelled ever deeper; tree roots and grubs simply evaporated under the devilish spinning of the SPIsan; mulch and moistness increased into a fine mist and then a dense fog and then a liquid, running in rivulets down their skin until they were passing through the beds of underground lakes and even oceans, ploughing ever onwards.

  ‘Doing okay, Jack?’ she screamed into the vortex that whirled around them, unsure whether her words would whip around to him or would simply disintegrate in the roar of wind that swallowed them up.

  In response, Jack pressed down with both elbows where their arms were interlinked.

  She laughed. ‘Twice for yes!’

  There it was – one, two distinct feelings of pressure on her elbows as he signalled to her.

  If she was honest, Janey was glad he was there. This kind of adventure had been fairly commonplace for her at one time, but since she de-spied everyone, it had been a while since she’d travelled on anything more adventurous than a roller-coaster at the fairground. And she was also just bringing to mind that the last time she had done this particular journey, she had bored her way through the molten core of the earth, protected only by her spysuit … and a helmet? Surely she’d had some kind of helmet? Otherwise her face would melt, wouldn’t it? Maybe she should warn Jack that his face might liquefy like a burnt-down candle …

  Then it struck her, firstly that Jack seemed to be fairly relaxed about passing through solid structures of any kind, including car engines and fireplaces, and secondly that theirs was a different destination to the one she’d been travelling to before. Then she’d been zooming off to Australia. This time they were just winding east to a more distant part of Europe. A very distant part of Europe, by all accounts.

  No sooner had she clarified this in her mind than the Lazy SPIsan slowed, rotated backwards for a moment or two to slow down, then tipped them on their side as it drilled out an underground tunnel far beneath the earth’s surface, under France and Holland according to her Gogs, then parts of the Czech Republic and goodness only knew where else. It was an even stranger sensation being on her side, and Janey was just starting to feel rather queasy when she noticed they were slowing down again, not by rotating in reverse this time, but in a steady decline in speed that suggested they were reaching their end point. A few moments later, the SPIsan erupted through the earth’s crust so that they emerged feet-first, plopping out onto the grass like a couple of gophers.

  Jack leapt up immediately, offering Janey a hand to help her stand. It was shaking slightly.

  ‘Were you really okay?’

  ‘Yes, honestly, done way worse,’ he whispered, but as soon as he’d helped her to her feet, he shoved her slightly behind him, dog ears swivelling back and forth at an alarming speed.

  ‘Then what’s wrong?’

  ‘It … it’s this place.’ He growled deep in his throat. ‘There’s something very odd about it. And I’ve--'

  ‘You’ve been in some very odd places,’ finished Janey. ‘It’s probably just shock after that journey, but … I know what you mean.’

  Instinctively the pair moved themselves into the back-to-back position as they checked out their surroundings. There wasn’t really anything sinister in the immediate vicinity – just a village that appeared to be fairly affluent and well-kept, judging by the lights gleaming out through polished windows, even though it was hard to see in the dark.

  ‘Jack!’ hissed Janey suddenly. ‘Why is it dark?’

  She could feel him shaking his head. ‘I don’t know. I can only hope that the sun rises later than at home. Two hours later. Otherwise there really is something very wrong here.’

  ‘Sunrise, Transnordia.’ Janey waited for her Ultra-Gogs to inform her, and then relayed it to Jack. ‘According to my Gogs, sunrise should be in about ten minutes.’

  ‘Good. Then I suggest we wait until then to go and investigate. Maybe they’ll have disappeared by that time.’

  ‘Who will?’

  Jack tossed his head upwards, and Janey followed his line of vision. At the peak of a craggy mountain above the village, a castle clung to the cliff edge, brooding and black. Even more brooding were the shapes that swooped across the skyline.

  ‘Are they bats?’ Janey tried focussing her glasses on them but they were too far away for the Gogs.

  ‘If we’re lucky,’ said Jack ominously. It didn’t sound as if he expected much luck.

  Scampering into a small wooded area while they waited for sunrise, Janey crouched down and ran her fingers through the earth. Maybe they should dig some up and cover the Lazy SPIsan hole …

  As she bent, however, she felt something sharp beneath her feet. It was an iron arrowhead. She scanned ahead of her. A trail of them lead to a row of hills behind the village, and from deep within them, they could hear the clank of machinery. Last time she’d heard that sort of sound she had uncovered the ruby factory. Maybe this was another one? She gestured to Jack and they crept forward.

  This time it wasn’t a factory. It was a mine of some kind, with a network of railways and tracks winding up into the air and vanishing into the heights of the mine. Upon them, trolleys carted tonnes of ore in great chunky nuggets up to an enormous furnace at its centre.

  ‘Do you think that’s the rock we’re supposed to collect?’ said Jack.

  ‘I don’t know, but … oh. I don’t think that’s it.’

  The dark, gritty iron ore was obviously just feeding the furnace. Maybe it was coal, not ore. But Janey had spotted what was coming out of the tunnels at the other side of the mine.

  ‘I think that’s probably the rock,’ she said with a sigh as she turned Jack’s shoulders in the right direction.

  What was emerging from the fiery depths of the mine was something else entirely.

  It appeared to be solid gold.

  ‘Ohhhh,’ whispered Jack, in a tone that said both ‘Wow’ and ‘Bad news’ at the same time.

  Her heart sank a little. She had really hoped that Gideon was going to prove to be less predictable. He obviously just wanted things that created more money – or madness. Ruby rings, antique rifles, and now lumps of gleaming gold freshly hacked from the Transnordian mines – that was all he was after. Presumably, there was something about Tilly at the Games that would bring him a fortune too – winnings, perhaps, or maybe his investment would bring him dividends from all that sponsorship the duo had been talking about on TV. Whatever the case, Janey wasn’t at all sure that she wanted any further part in it.

  ‘Let’s get it over with,’ she said, suddenly sick of the whole set-up … because that was what it felt like. A set-up. Flynn just getting them to do his dirty work for him. ‘Can you turn back into Jack with hair instead of Jack with fur? You might frighten the miners otherwise.’

  Ever obliging, Jack concentrated hard, bringing down his anxiety level sufficiently to grow back his own fresh face topped with fair hair. ‘I don’t know how long I’ll last,’ he said. ‘This place makes me very nervous, for some reason.’

  ‘Me too,’ she told him. ‘We’ll grab the rock and get out of here.’

  Pale fingers of sunlight stroked the treetops as she and Jack crouched low and ran around to the far side of the mine. They had quickly agreed to take one clump of the ore and one of the rough bricks of gold, as they didn’t actually know which rock Gideon was after. As soon as they’d seen a couple of the miners move away behind the machinery, they separated. In synchronised movements, Janey scuttled to the golden lumps piled high on a nearby trailer, as Jack skirted the vast clanging machinery and made for the carriages filled with the unidentified grey stone.

  Ducking behind the trailer, Janey checked t
hat nobody was looking and then grabbed a small chunk of the golden rock. Not only had Gideon failed to say what rock he wanted; he’d also omitted to tell them how much he needed. She chose a medium-sized piece that she decided to call Goldilocks because it was “just right” and turned to make her way back to the entrance of the mine.

  As she half-stood, she glanced across at Jack. With his back to her, he was inspecting the trays of metallic ore, studying them as she had done to select the best piece. He was concentrating so hard that he hadn’t noticed the miner creeping up behind him with a large shovel raised above his head. If she didn’t do something quickly, it would clang down on Jack’s crown so hard it might split it in two, and while she didn’t know if that would damage him much, she knew it might startle him so much that the whole mine would come running.

  The spade was being heaved into position, just as Jack was nodding over his piece of rock and moving to stow it in his pocket. Janey had no choice. In an action that looked very much like the miner’s, she raised Goldilocks-the-lump-of-gold above her head and whammed it across the mine, shouting ‘Jack!’ as the missile cracked into the skull of the villager. Jack whipped around in time to catch the poor miner as he fell forward, his face a picture as he saw the gold lying beside the man. He laid the miner across the trailer he’d been inspecting and dropped the gold into the other pocket. ‘He’s okay,’ he mouthed. ‘Just unconscious.’

  Unfortunately, though, the miner had been missed – either that or Janey’s shout had been overheard - because suddenly men were appearing from all sections of the mine, yelling and brandishing their functional but very deadly weapons: shovels, picks, axes and vicious balls of metal ore.

  Janey and Jack ran for the door, meeting at the entrance, then looked left and right. The path was blocked on either side by armed villagers streaming towards them, throwing missiles of stone. Gritty rock and gold rained down on Janey and Jack; she batted it away as best she could, but then grabbed Jack’s elbow as the villagers got nearer.

  ‘Head for the castle!’ she hollered as the clang of metal clubs rang out around them. ‘We’ll get lynched if we go back towards the village.’

  By some miracle, Jack had managed to hang onto his boy appearance, but immediately he heard Janey’s suggestion, he pelted straight forward for the trees, his body lengthening even as he ran. Janey flanked him, matching his loping stride step for step with the aid of her Fleet-Feet, the cries of the miners fading only slightly as they lunged into the forest and slowed for a second to get their bearings.

  It was no use – the villagers knew the terrain better than they did and were pouring through the trees towards them. Jack took one look at the advancing horde and transformed instantly into Doghead.

  ‘Need a hand?’ he growled softly, nodding towards the clifftop.

  Janey grinned. ‘No, thanks. I’ll run.’

  ‘See you up there.’

  As if they’d agreed it beforehand, they set off in two different directions, Janey zig-zagging through the trees as G-Mamma had once taught her, cutting straight across the forest to confuse the villagers and allow Jack to make his escape, before stamping on her heels and leaping in just a few enormous bounds towards the scree-covered lower slopes of the mountain. A hundred metres away, Jack was surging upwards through the shingle, his tread barely leaving a mark as he ploughed on through boulders and gnarled, bone-dry trees as if they weren’t there.

  Before long, Janey had cleared the scree and was now forced to clamber, hand over foot, up the face of the mountain. She gripped with her Girl Gauntlet and found, to her relief, that it held fast so that she was able to reach out with the other, searching for a suitable grip. It was hard work and she didn’t have the equipment for it, and even Jack, she could see, was starting to struggle, his feet disappearing into the rocky surface as his ability to evaporate through solid objects turned rapidly into a curse. Where was Tilly and her broomstick when they needed her? At this rate, they were going to fall, and with the Spisan passage probably blocked off to them now, she wasn’t at all convinced they’d ever get back.

  Then suddenly, just above her outstretched right hand, Janey spotted a hole. It was a perfect circle so it appeared to be man-made, which would suggest that it might be a drainage tunnel of some sort. With some effort, she leaned back and trained her Ultra-Gogs on it.

  ‘X-ray,’ she called, and the Gogs’ viewers penetrated the rock-face.

  Good. The tunnel ran from the surface of the mountain to … well, she wasn’t sure exactly where, but probably somewhere inside the castle. She viewed the skies above her head. The enormous circling bats had disappeared, she was very glad to see, and suddenly the castle seemed much less scary.

  ‘Over here,’ she called to Jack, before levering herself into the mouth of the tunnel.

  It was as she’d suspected: liquid pooled around her feet and she detected the aroma of something sweet - fruit perhaps - in the air around her. With any luck, that would mean that it ran to and from the kitchens, where they could emerge without too many eyes on them. The tunnel ran upwards in a very gentle slope that even Jack should be able to manage without disaster.

  He slid into the passage mouth behind her, the lower half of his body buried deep in the cliff. Jack thrust his hands down flat and heaved himself fully into the space, as if he were climbing out of a swimming pool. ‘Good call,’ he said, crouching to fit beneath the roof. ‘I was beginning to go backwards.’

  They trotted up the tunnel as far as the height would allow, then belly-crawled for the last few hundred metres to where a gloomy light funnelled its way towards them by way of an iron grille. Janey pulled herself towards it and peered out.

  ‘Some kind of staircase,’ she whispered. ‘Stone. There’s a door up to the right and another below us. Nobody on the stairs. Honestly, it’s like something out of Robin Hood,’ she said, grinning at Jack.

  Suddenly, though, he frowned. ‘Did you see that?’

  Janey peered out onto the staircase. ‘What—' she was about to ask, when she did see something – a shadowy figure running down the stairs, swiftly followed by another. ‘Yes. I saw that.’

  But she didn’t get an opportunity to say what she’d thought it was, because before she could gather her thoughts again, the grille beside her clattered to the ground and a pair of skeletal yet powerful hands grabbed her by the wrists. With very little effort on her captor’s behalf, Janey was yanked out of the aperture and onto the stairs. The person who’d pulled her out, an immensely thin and startlingly tall man whose skinny frame matched his hands, waved to Jack to climb out voluntarily. Jack did so, sniffing suspiciously.

  ‘I must get that tunnel sealed up, forsooth,’ said the person behind her assailant. ‘People are always jumping out of there. And other … things.’ This was obviously aimed at Jack.

  ‘Am I allowed to stand?’ said Janey, and the person peeked around the tall man in surprise.

  ‘Gadsbudlikins,’ he said, ‘you’re a girl.’

  ‘It’s obvious she’s a girl, isn’t it?’ said Jack, his muzzle wrinkling with scorn. ‘I would have thought the outfit and the hair would give it away.’

  ‘We’re dressed in quite a similar fashion, I’m afraid, my canine-headed sir, so it wasn’t obvious at all,’ said the boy addressing them.

  They both turned to look at him properly, and Janey saw that what he said was true. His outfit consisted of tight-fitting velvet trousers that ended just below his knee and segued neatly into a pair of white stockings finished with buckled shoes, and a matching velvet tunic that reached to his thighs. It could easily have been a spysuit. The boy’s hair was long and flowing – or at least it would have been if it wasn’t tied back in a neat ponytail.

  ‘Are you a scientist?’ he asked politely. ‘I tie my hair back for those purposes.’

  Janey shook her head. ‘No, I’m …’

  There was no explaining what she was, actually, and there was definitely no explanation for what Jack was, although n
either the boy nor the man seemed particularly perturbed by him. If anything, it was the other way round. With his lip curled in distaste, Jack’s eyes were darting between them as if they might vanish before him in a puff of poisonous smoke.

  ‘I’m Jane Blon-Brown,’ she said in the end, and stuck out her hand as she’d seen Jack to at the reception.

  ‘La!’ cried the boy, quite delighted with this turn of events, although he simply stared at her hand as if it was a specimen in a display before turning to Jack. ‘And who is your friend?’

  ‘Jack Bootle-Cadogan,’ she said as Jack simply growled. ‘Actually, Lord Jack Bootle-Cadogan.’

  ‘Gadzooks, more royalty!’ the boy exclaimed.

  The tall, skeletal man clapped his hands. ‘More royalty, my prince!’

  This was getting stranger by the second. ‘Are you … royalty, then?’

  The boy stepped forward and bowed his head slightly. ‘My apologies, fair lady. I am royalty, indeed. Prince Stein of the Huckenbeck Dynasty, once of the fair shores of England and now of Transnordia. This is Lord Viggo. Do you hail from England?’

  ‘Um, yes,’ said Janey.

  ‘And you, Lord Bootle-Cadogan? Are you from England, or perhaps the land of the Nile?’

  Jack scowled. ‘Yes, both of them, actually.’

  ‘I thought so,’ said Stein with a studious expression. ‘I have seen you in one of my books. I have many books,’ he added as if he needed to expand on this, ‘and have studied widely for many, many years.’

  He looked about thirteen, so Janey suspected this was the kind of exaggeration normally saved for parents and teachers.

  ‘Would you like a tour of the castle?’ he then asked politely. ‘That would be acceptable, Viggo?’

  ‘Indeed! The pom juice is drunk, and all is well among the ramparts. Come!’

  The man gestured down the stairs, and as the prince hopped merrily after him, Janey and Jack followed.