Candleman

by Glenn Dakin

  Dr Saint was hauling his slimy bones up on to the balcony rail, his gangling legs finding footholds.

  ‘Norrowmore was deluded.’ Dr Saint smiled with his cracked, crocodile jaws. He was buying himself time, getting used to inching his shattered body along. ‘He dreamt of peace between our warring Societies! I kindly offered it to him!’

  ‘Peace?’ Theo gasped.

  ‘We met in secret,’ Dr Saint gloated. ‘He took my peace proposal away to study. How he must have enjoyed reading it – as my poisoned ink evaporated into him and ate away his flesh!’

  Theo felt sick. But this final revelation only made him more determined to defeat his foe. He had to do it – for Mr Norrowmore, for Chloe, for everyone in the Society of Unrelenting Vigilance who had risked their lives to help him.

  Dr Saint was on top of the balcony railings now, poised there like an enormous squashed spider. Theo trembled on the platform above. He had just had a terrible idea.

  If I jump at him – and cling on tight as we plunge to our deaths, then it’s all over. Candle Man and Philanthropist, the ancient battle over forever. The world free of us both.

  Theo’s heart quailed. He felt lost and confused. Too much had happened to him in too short a time. If I die now, I’ll never see Sam and Magnus again, he thought. Or ever go out on my birthday again – or eat pink cake. Theo gulped. Perhaps this was it – the sacrifice demanded of a true hero. It didn’t seem fair. He had always imagined that heroes got to actually live before they died.

  Clang! He had reflected for a second too long – Dr Saint had sprung from the balcony, and was now crawling up the banisters that led to the top platform.

  ‘I did it!’ he cackled, his body creaking slowly towards them, up the last flight of stairs. ‘I fell to my death – and yet I still came back. It is my will that drives me now. I am beyond human!’

  Theo braced himself for the attack, but the skeletal figure sprang past him, and fell upon the terrified Mr Nicely. Dr Saint gripped the butler by the throat and began to squeeze. Theo got there just in time. He grabbed Dr Saint from behind and dashed his skeletal body to the floor.

  Theo turned to see if Mr Nicely was all right, then gasped at what he saw. One bony hand belonging to Dr Saint had been left behind, still clutching Mr Nicely’s throat. In a flash, Theo smashed it away with his fist. It skittered across the platform and lay twitching. Mr Nicely fell face-first to the floor.

  Theo watched with revulsion as his guardian struggled back to his feet, a demented skeleton in a ragged suit. Theo noticed how slowly Dr Saint’s rickety frame moved – his hideous new power was not without limit. Theo had also noticed something else that gave him great hope.

  ‘Death has made me stronger!’ Dr Saint ranted on, glorying in his eerie power. He pointed at his own ghoulish body, but the gesture was spoilt by the absence of a hand to point with. ‘I am your master,’ he raved. ‘I have always been your master! Look upon me if you dare!’

  Dr Saint was astonished to see his ward did not shrink before him. There was no fear, no doubt in the boy’s eyes. Instead there was a curious gleam, a half-hidden smile – almost as if the boy knew something Dr Saint didn’t.

  ‘I am looking at you,’ Theo replied, his voice surprisingly steady. Theo felt no fear, no doubt as he faced his guardian. ‘And do you know what?’ he continued. ‘I’ve just realised I can see you perfectly. Just like I can see everything around me. Do you know what that means, Dr Saint?’

  For a moment Dr Saint faltered; his one remaining eye looked at Theo, uncertain.

  ‘It means,’ said Theo, ‘that I’m not being blinded by stars any more. It means the golden time has ended!’ He gestured all around him as the last tiny sparks winked out of existence.

  ‘You said yourself it was just a brief spell, when magical things were possible. Well, it’s passed! You failed to produce the tripudon fire – and now your chance is over!’

  Dr Saint gazed around him in shock, his head almost flying off his scraggy neck. It was true. The air was clear. Hatred and revenge had blinded him at the crucial moment. His moment of destiny had slipped by.

  Theo had been moving slowly towards his guardian. He was now only an arm’s length away.

  ‘Goodbye, Dr Saint,’ Theo said, his voice suddenly full of command. Now his guardian was trying to back away – but there was nowhere to go. Just the edge of the platform behind him.

  ‘Remember those old newspapers and books – all the tales of Lord Wickland that you never wanted anyone to see? Well, the words from one of those stories stand out in my mind right now – “Evil melts like wax at the hands of the Candle Man!”’

  Dr Saint aimed a desperate blow at Theo, but the younger man was ready for him. Theo grabbed the bony wrist and held it in his glowing right hand. Sparks flew as the two power-fields collided.

  There they stood, frozen in combat, as the energy they possessed struggled to assert only one as the master. Theo looked at his former guardian and remembered. He remembered every miserable hour of his lonely childhood. He recalled the wretched nights he had lain awake, terrified of a rare disease he’d never really had. He remembered every vile deed this man had performed in the name of Good Works.

  Theo was ready. Beyond fear and anger now, he was sure of what he had to do. With a calm control he had never felt before in his life, he summoned the awesome power within him to come forth.

  Dr Saint stared in terror as his bones were engulfed in a ghostly emerald radiance. Theo raised his left hand, and an explosion of tripudon energy blasted his enemy right through the balcony.

  Dr Saint didn’t even have enough body parts left to scream with as the molten slurry of his body plunged towards the waters below.

  Chapter Twenty-eight

  The Request

  The elements were not happy. Earth, air and water had been summoned in their eternal bargain to create life from the ashes of death. But the fire – the rare tripudon flame – had not been present. The vital spark had been missing. And in the depths of the network, in their vast graveyard, the army of warrior garghoul had been invited back from the darkness to the very brink of existence – then abandoned.

  Now the dark waters seethed, sullen for revenge, seeking the slightest spark to call forth their rage. When Dr Saint’s disintegrating body hit the waters, the alchemical forces recoiled, ripped each other apart and erupted through the chamber with the force of an angry hell.

  In a single moment, the urughoul were blasted into fragments. Minds of ancient malice – unimaginable to humankind – were splintered and evaporated.

  The blast rocked the tower in the Well Chamber – one of its walls sheared away and melted into the fires beneath. Leaping flames engulfed the shattered stone. The platform tilted. Mr Nicely’s unconscious form began to slip towards the edge. Theo grabbed at the control panel with one hand and Mr Nicely with the other. There was a rending noise as the stone ruin began to fall in on itself.

  Theo strained to keep hold of the butler’s sleeve. Through the stinging sweat in his eyes he looked up to see the last fragments of the lift shaft melt away in the air above him. There goes the escape route, he thought. I’m glad Sam and Magnus made it out.

  But rising up through the inferno came a dark figure on smoking wings. Tristus, the last living garghoul, had spotted two helpless figures trapped among the flames. Swiftly, he swooped down and lifted them in his arms as if they were rag dolls. The ancient creature’s heart soared with joy. Yes, one of the figures was the boy. Against all the odds, he had saved Theo.

  Another explosion shook the blazing cauldron below. The Well Chamber shattered, its ancient roof cracked and stonework rained down. Tristus rose up through the shattered dome and into the darkness of the passages above.

  Theo had swooned from the unbearable heat, but soon a cooler air brought him back to consciousness.

  The Something on the Roof, Theo thought, it’s come back to save me. Glancing about him, he recognised the main staircase that he and Ch
loe had crept down just a day before. A lifetime seemed to have passed since then. For a second, he dared to risk the hope: does this mean I’m going to be OK?

  Suddenly dark wings blotted out the shaft above them. Tristus was rocked by the impact of an unseen attacker. His wings were gripped by cruel talons.

  Unable to defend himself in case he dropped his human cargo, the garghoul began to spiral down towards the great staircase. In moments they had collided with the iron steps. Theo and Mr Nicely were hurled across a landing. Theo looked up to see Tristus’s body plunging back into the fumes below, under the black wings of nightmarish birds. And down the staircase above descended the unmistakable form of the Dodo.

  On Larkspur Hill, just behind the Condemned Cemetery, Sergeant Crane of the Metropolitan Police and his special-response unit almost leapt out of their skins as the still of the night was broken by an almighty rumble. It seemed to be coming from below their feet, like subterranean thunder.

  ‘What was that, sir – an earthquake?’ a young recruit in a padded flakjacket asked. There was no time to reply. Crane’s lanky frame suddenly stood out in sharp relief as beyond him, from the cemetery, great plumes of fiery smoke rose up from tombs and drain covers. Marble cherubs were rocked from their pillars. Crooked stones inscribed Rest in Peace tumbled to the ground.

  Crane and his team could also see a rosy cloud arise from within the walled gardens of Empire Hall, just as a powercut plunged the whole mansion into darkness. Sergeant Crane’s radio burst into life and a babbled message made his eyes grow wider and wider.

  ‘It’s going crazy over at Southwark Cathedral,’ he told his men. ‘We’re to move in on Empire Hall now.’

  As the astonished sergeant raced through the stone angels and smoking crypts of the great cemetery, he grinned to himself wryly.

  ‘Chloe told me there was something going on!’ he muttered.

  ‘At last,’ growled the Dodo as he loomed over his captives on the great stairway. ‘This time you will not elude me!’

  Theo was slumped against the wall, a scrawny, bedraggled Caspian Tiger crouched before him. Mr Nicely, still unconscious, was guarded by a single, one-eared Siberian Wolf Rat.

  The Dodo limped awkwardly towards Theo. The old man’s cloak was in tatters, and his hook-nosed face was spattered with blood. A hastily improvised tourniquet was bound around his thigh.

  ‘I have fought my way through half the Society of Good Works to find you,’ the Dodo said. ‘We have unconcluded matters to arrange.’

  ‘What – what’s happened to the garghoul?’ Theo demanded.

  ‘My trained condors – the formidable teratorn – are keeping him amused. Do not fear for him,’ the Dodo replied. ‘A garghoul is close to immortal. You, however, are not.’

  Theo scrambled to his feet. The tiger backed away slightly, baring its gleaming teeth.

  ‘Now, Master Luke Anderson,’ the Dodo said, ‘perhaps you would care to introduce yourself correctly!’

  Among all his troubles, Theo felt particularly aggrieved at having his ability to make an introduction called into question. After his extensive reading of etiquette, he had always felt it was one of his few strong points.

  ‘It’s not easy to introduce yourself when you don’t know who you are,’ Theo said with naive sincerity. ‘I didn’t really know my own identity when I saw you last. But now I do. I am Theo Wickland. The Candle Man.’

  The Dodo winced and his body stiffened, as if he had just taken a dagger blow. His claw-like left hand made unconscious gripping motions.

  ‘Theo Wickland, great-grandson of Lord Randolph Wickland,’ the Dodo breathed. ‘Do you know what you did to me?’ he suddenly screamed.

  ‘I’m truly sorry for that, sir,’ Theo said with respect. ‘I didn’t understand my powers at all then. I doubt I understand them any better now.’

  ‘Understand this, Wickland,’ the Dodo said, almost spitting in Theo’s face as he drew close to tell his story. ‘I was just a normal man when I first met your ancestor. I was a zoologist and rare-breed collector, who trained certain dangerous creatures to be used – for a fee – by the underworld. Assassinations, poisonings, colourful threats and suchlike.’ The Dodo almost smiled at the memory.

  ‘I was not what anyone would call a good man,’ he mused. ‘I may have deserved a jail term of some kind,’ he said, his face darkening with bitter memories, ‘but I did not deserve this!’

  He pulled back his torn sleeve to reveal his gnarled and stunted arm, and jerked a thorny thumb at his own gruesome, birdlike features.

  Theo lowered his gaze. It was hard to meet the wretched stare of those sunken eyes. And he could guess what was coming.

  ‘Your ancestor did this to me – your great Candle Man! Shaped me like wax – misshaped me, I should say. With one touch he ruined me for life, gave me the appearance to match my obsession with rare and extinct animals. And he transfigured my cells, so that I could not die like other men, but live on – in an eternity of weariness!’

  ‘But when I met you –’ Theo began.

  ‘I had almost cured myself!’ Sir Peregrine roared. ‘With my own potions, my own decades of tedious research. I had at last learnt to control my disfiguration – until you came along!’

  The Dodo turned away from Theo, his face tortured, his claw clutching at air.

  And now the Dodo is going to kill me, Theo thought. Because of what my ancestor did. Because of my power. Because the world cannot afford to have a new Candle Man running loose, spreading fear and misery in his wake.

  This was it. The Dodo lowered his huge head and stared into Theo’s eyes. Theo could smell his stale breath, see the trickling sweat dissolving the dark edges of the dried blood on his cheek.

  ‘Candle Man,’ he said in a voice of utter weariness, ‘I want you to kill me.’

  Theo staggered back, utterly astonished. The Dodo stood still, devoid of menace, calm and composed. A tiny bat dropped like a flake of soot on to the rough skin between the old man’s frayed shirt collar and his neck, and nuzzled there. The tiger let out a low, dismal, melancholy growl.

  ‘When Lord Wickland transfigured me,’ the Dodo said, ‘he affected all my cells. I can age somewhat, yet I cannot die. I should have been dead and gone for over eighty years now. Life has become a sick joke to me – a pointless shadow theatre – with no end to give it meaning.’

  Theo didn’t know what to say. Yet in his heart a spring of hope was rushing up. Maybe I’m not going to die today after all. That surge of hope was more painful than any of the suffering he had been through in the last two days.

  ‘Lord Wickland was an arrogant devil,’ continued the Dodo. ‘He loved to hand out his punishments to those he defeated. But you – I sense – are not like him. You do not find the Dodo amusing, do you?’ he asked, shambling awkwardly to parody his own misbegotten shape. ‘Would you mock me, sir?’

  Theo’s answer came readily. ‘I would not – I do not mock you, sir.’

  ‘That is wise,’ rumbled the Dodo. ‘And only you control the energy. Only you can destroy the work of your ancestor and allow me to die as all other men do. After my unnatural preservation I now long for the mystery of extinction.’ With his claw he caressed the head of the Caspian Tiger. ‘I want to go where my beautiful friends are going,’ he said. ‘I beg you, sir – end my horrible existence.’

  Theo looked gravely up at the haggard, dejected old man, and paused to reflect.

  ‘My whole life,’ Theo said in reply, ‘I only saw three people. Those Three controlled my every moment. I came to hate that number, and even all its multiples in the three times table.’ Theo smiled, realising he sounded a little crazy. ‘You were Person Thirteen,’ he continued. ‘Before you, I had only ever met twelve people. When you examined me, I had a feeling that number thirteen might be a lucky number for me. So, Person Thirteen, I suppose you’re OK – deep down.’

  ‘I am not OK, deep down,’ growled the Dodo. ‘I’m looking for death, not salvation.’ He rubbed
his thin hair, bemused. ‘Anyway, how could anyone possibly dislike the number three?’ he muttered. ‘I should have remembered what a peculiar boy you are.’

  Theo put his hands together in a wise gesture of prayer, then yanked them apart, fearing he should turn into Dr Saint.

  The Dodo awaited his answer.

  ‘I want you to help me,’ Theo requested. ‘Please. Help me understand my power. When I can control it without fear of creating further tragedy, then I will do what you ask – if you still request it. I need to know there will be no more horrors, and only a man like you can help me. Is it a deal?’

  Chapter Twenty-nine

  Tristus’s Sorrow

  The garghoul clawed at the creatures upon him – he even flew straight into a wall to crush them between his body and the ancient stonework. Still the teratorn raked at his skin, blotted out his sight with their numbers, tormented him with cruel beaks.

  And yet they did not really try to kill him.

  ‘This is all delay and distraction,’ Tristus told himself, ‘a tactic to separate me from my charge.’

  ‘Theo!’ he suddenly cried aloud. In a desperate manoeuvre, he swooped downwards. Closing his eyes, he plunged into the raging fires that only he could survive, igniting the feathered creatures upon him like fireworks. Trailing sparks, he soared upward.

  When Tristus landed back on the stairway he saw the astonishing sight of Theo raising a hand in a parting wave to the Dodo, who, with his wounded and silent creatures, passed silently away into the shadows.

  ‘Who are you?’ Theo asked. He was still deep in the network, fires raging below, the surface a long way above. But now, in the presence of the garghoul who had rescued him twice, he felt he must be close to safety at last.

  Seeing the creature clearly for the first time, Theo was struck by how much like a man it was in appearance. Despite its horned brow, leathery wings and stony skin, it still looked and felt very close to human.

  Silently the garghoul bent down to study the unconscious Mr Nicely. The creature checked that the human was in no immediate danger of death, then turned to Theo. The exhausted teenager was sitting on the steps, his head bent low, his dark hair wild, a slight smile on his lips.