by Simon Kewin
“Run!” he shouted. She barely heard his voice over the racket.
The helicopter stopped flying in circles and hovered above their heads, its engine deafening. The light picked them out, tracking them as they ran. Cait expected a voice, or a gun-shot, at any moment. She was exhausted. She'd had enough. What chance did they have? She felt the ridiculous urge to stand and defy the great machine. Shout at it; perhaps try and knock it from the sky as she'd knocked over their attacker in the tunnel. She stopped and turned. She was pretty sure she was screaming, but she heard nothing over the sound of the machine.
“Come on!” Danny's mouth was right next to her ear. He pulled her by the arm. She refused to go.
“Cait!” He stood next to her in the spotlight.
The gale in her face made it hard to keep her eyes open. She imagined someone with a gun up there, taking aim. At him.
She wouldn't let them harm Danny. She ran, pulling him out of the light. Not far ahead, the rough ground ended and the city began again.
A car drove to the end of the nearest street, only a few metres away. It stopped at a bollard, as if the driver was surprised to find the road vanishing. Was it one of them? Were they trapped? Perhaps the helicopter was directing the driver to them. But the car turned around and sped into the night.
They sprinted onto the tarmac of the street. The will o' the wisp caught them up, overtook them again and bobbed down the pavement, moving more frantically now as if held by an invisible runner. The helicopter had to fly higher to avoid the buildings, but still it tracked them.
“What are they waiting for?” asked Danny, his voice ragged with the effort of running.
She didn't reply. She put all her effort into following the bobbing light. The streetlights washed it out; they had to keep very close. It turned up a side-street, then cut into a cul-de-sac. At the end, a narrow footpath led through to a larger road, a dual-carriageway full of traffic.
They hit the pavement of the busy road. The light turned left and darted away, toward a large roundabout.
Cait was about to follow when she saw the riders. Two of them, coming down the opposite carriageway, their gleaming, silver motorcycles unmistakable. The helicopter flew high above, a distant roar above the traffic noise, watching the net being drawn.
The riders stared directly at them as they cruised by. They sped on, but only toward a gap in the fence between the two carriageways down the road. They would soon get through and return.
Cait and Danny ran from pure terror. It hurt to breathe, Cait's lungs prickling with heat. Her thigh muscles burned. The riders would reach them at any moment.
She'd lost the light somewhere up ahead. They reached the point where the road opened onto the roundabout when Cait caught a glimpse of it again, half-way across the lanes of traffic streaming around the island.
The large, irregular roundabout had five roads leading from it. A clump of trees covered it, some of them large, as if a wood had been left in the middle of the city and the roads built around it.
The light didn't stop. It sped into the trees, not bobbing now but moving in a fast, straight line, blurring like a shooting-star. Cait glanced at Danny. He shrugged, too out of breath to talk. The motorcycles rumbled nearer, their deep roars distinctive above the other noise.
Dodging between cars, horns blaring in their ears, they raced after the light, across the road and up a small grassy bank into the trees.
Darkness enfolded them. The noise of the traffic became muffled. Glancing backward, she saw two motorcycles, and then a third, the riders circling them.
They pressed on into the trees, the little light a distant smudge. The wood seemed larger than she would have thought possible. Surely they should have reached the other side by now? Still they walked on, into deeper and deeper darkness.
The light vanished altogether. She and Danny stopped, exhausted, not sure what to do next. Apart from their panicky breathing, the distant whoosh of the traffic was the only noise. Unseen leaves tickled her face.
Another light blinked. This time it was a match, then a candle, held by an indistinct figure, hard to see in the dim, shifting light.
Cait reached for Danny's hand and they stood together, waiting to see who this was, unable to run any farther.
A woman spoke.
“Cait, Love. Danny. You made it.”
Cait fell forward and threw her arms around her gran.
15. Empire Towers
Cait didn't know if she was crying because she was safe or because her gran was safe.
“How did you get out of the library? I thought they'd got you. I thought … I might not see you again.”
Her gran hugged her close, pressing Cait's face into the softness of her woollen shawl.
“Oh, don't worry about me. I called up a few friends for help.”
“But that thing down there. All those soldiers.”
“Jane and I had an escape route planned. I walked out the back door while they came in the front.”
The thought of Jane and the way she'd died was, finally, too much. Everything came out in a confused flood of tears and words. “We've been chased across the city, Gran. Riders on motorcycles. And there was this terrible pile-up on the motorway. Then a helicopter chased us. And a guy attacked Danny with a knife. And they fired at us! They tried to kill us. I was so scared.”
She could get no more words out for the moment. Her gran's hold on her tightened as she stroked Cait's hair, telling her it was all right. They stood like that for long moments.
It was warmer under the trees. Slowly her sobbing subsided. Danny sat down beside her. The traffic became a distant rush in the muffled darkness. From somewhere nearby, an owl made a gentle hooing noise, as though enquiring who she and Danny were.
Cait looked up in sudden alarm. “Gran, they were just behind us, out on the road. They'll find us here. We must get away.”
“No, no,” said her gran. “We're safe for a time here, Cait. This place will protect us.”
“How?”
Her gran released her and stooped to pick up the candle she'd dropped when Cait rushed into her arms.
“Let's sit down and talk.”
She lit the candle with a match, then used it to light others scattered around the grove. Cait and Danny huddled together on a log. Her gran picked up her battered, tartan flask and poured tea into plastic cups.
They sipped at the hot liquid, saying nothing. There were biscuits, too. Her gran had come prepared. The candles hissed and sputtered, enclosing them in a sphere of soft light. The spiny shadows of branches danced around them.
“That flame we followed. It was you bringing us here wasn't it?” said Cait.
“The fetch light, yes,” replied her gran. “It was a brave thing you did, Cait, taking the book and running.”
“We tried to destroy it like you said. But it wouldn't burn.”
“Ah. I wondered about that.”
Her gran turned to Danny, who sat quietly sipping his tea. “And you, too. You're a good friend to our Cait to come with her.”
“Oh well, you know,” replied Danny. “Not much on telly tonight.”
Cait could hear the smile in his voice. Danny liked her gran. He actually flirted with her from time to time, pretended it was really her he had come to see. He could be such an embarrassment.
“Show me your hand,” said her gran.
Danny unwrapped the paper handkerchief to show her the knife-cut. It had stopped bleeding. Her gran took a tube of ointment from one of her pockets and rubbed it on.
“Magic potion?” asked Danny.
“Antiseptic.”
“Gran, that spider's web in the lane,” said Cait. “That cat. That was you, too?”
“Spider's web? No. Tell me.”
“Well, we saw this cat near Danny's house. Two of the bikers were chasing us and the cat created this great web across the lane. To stop them reaching us. It had to be you.”
“Not me, love. I'm not capable of any
thing like that. Something so big while out of body, too.”
“Who then?”
Her gran looked puzzled. “I really don't know. How intriguing.”
“And this place,” said Cait. “How can we be safe here? Why haven't they found us? They're just out there.”
“Oh, this grove has been here hundreds of years. Thousands maybe. You can still find places like it here and there. Magic grows through the wood. There are rooks in these trees smarter than a lot of people I know. When the city reached this far they just built around it, without knowing why.”
“So it's like Stonehenge or something?”
“Something like that. Not so impressive. But it'll keep us safe for a while.”
“That thing in the library. I bet it could get us here,” said Cait. “Or the man in charge of the riders.”
“You met Mr. Nox?”
“Didn't hear his name. The guy telling everyone what to do.”
“That's him. Nasty piece of work. He's hunted us for years, does terrible things to please his masters.”
“His masters?”
Her gran went quiet for a moment, considering where to start a long story. “There's a lot to tell you, my love. A lot you should already have been told, maybe. And I'm not talking about the birds and the bees here.”
“The birds and the bees I know,” she said, ignoring Danny's suppressed snort of laughter. “Tell me who those people chasing us are. And what that creature is. And about this book. And … how you sent that little light to find us in the darkness.”
“Well. The creature is called an undain. You remember I told you it's from the other world, yes? A world close to ours, similar in some ways, different in others?”
“The world Jane came from,” said Danny.
Her gran laughed at that. “Very good. Where Jane came from, yes.”
“And this book is, what, a spell book?” said Cait.
“Something like that. It's half a book that belonged to a sorcerer from the other world. He was a good man at the start, I dare say. Sought wisdom for its own sake. But power corrupted him.”
“He discovered how to summon monsters like that thing in the library?” asked Cait. “That undain?”
“No, not that, love. Something much worse. He learned how to make monsters like that thing in the library. Make them out of normal, ordinary people. He discovered how a person like you or I could become like that.”
“How?”
“It isn't something we talk about much. But it's important you understand. The book describes a ritual where a person gets killed, then resurrected. Only, others are slaughtered too, and their spirit used to fuel the person's return, make them a hundred, a thousand times stronger.”
“So that creature was once a man or a woman?”
“Oh, yes. A long time ago I expect. Now it is an undain. And it has come for the book.”
“Why?”
“I'll tell you the story as Jane told me.”
The tale took ten minutes to recount. “So,” said her gran when she'd finished, “the sorcerer died and the king survived, although the ritual bringing him back to life remained incomplete. I believe the plan was for the king to perform the rite on the sorcerer in turn, but that obviously never happened. And I've always thought there must have been some trickery or treachery involved, from one or both of them, but I don't know what.”
“So the king learned how to do the necromancy,” said Danny. “He used it to create the rest of the undain.”
“That's it,” said her gran. “He got it all from the necromancer. Used the knowledge to create a whole undain empire. But without the book they have to burn the lives of more and more victims to sustain themselves.”
“So why wasn't the book destroyed long ago?” said Cait.
“There was an outside chance we could use it ourselves,” said her gran. “Use it against them. It would be terribly dangerous, of course.”
“So it was kept hidden all this time,” said Danny.
“Hidden and watched. But now they've come for it and it's better we destroy it than risk them having it.”
Cait stood. “Then we should get on and do it. Sitting here won't help.”
“Where were you taking it?”
“The factory where Dad died. We thought we'd throw it in the furnace. If that doesn't destroy it, nothing will.”
“Cait, love, are you sure about this?”
“No. But it's the best plan we could come up with. You'll come with us won't you?”
“Best I don't.”
“But why?”
“Cait, I'm getting old. You'll go more quickly without me. And if I stay here I can keep them distracted for a while, create a few delusions in their minds while you slip away. I'd do anything to protect you, the both of you, but I think it's best you go alone.”
“But we barely made it here, and that was with all the weird lights and cats and stuff helping us. We need you, Gran.”
Her gran stood to hold her tight. “Oh, Cait, love. I know. But this is the best way. Once the book is destroyed it will be different. We can sit down properly and talk about everything. I promise.”
Cait simply nodded. If they destroyed the book would that really be an end to it? What of all the soldiers? The undain? The other world? She'd thought she'd be home for bedtime. Now that seemed unlikely. She said nothing and her gran, perhaps knowing what she felt, said nothing more either.
Danny stood up too. “Well, we should go. They'll be calling in reinforcements to surround us.”
“I'll come with you to the edge of the grove,” said her gran.
They picked their way along a different path, her gran going first with a candle. The roar from the traffic grew louder with each step.
“The factory is only twenty minutes from here,” said her gran. “But the roads will be watched. I don't think they'll have guessed what you are up to, not yet. It might not even occur to them you plan to destroy the book, as it's so precious. If you can get past them you'll have a chance. There's a culvert that runs under the road. It's pretty dry this time of year. Take that and you'll be able to get away.”
“After that we can take a shortcut through the abandoned tower blocks,” said Danny.
“You mean Empire Towers?” said her gran.
“Yeah. A mate of mine used to live there before they boarded them all up.”
“I don't like it,” said her gran. “That's always been a bad place.”
“Well, we'll make it somehow,” said Cait, trying to at least sound brave. “If it means we can get to the factory unseen it's worth it. We did manage to look after ourselves under the motorway.” She still hadn't told her gran exactly how they'd done that.
“Oh, it's not angry young men with knives I'm worried about,” said her gran. “That place is … unquiet. Always has been. I remember the mill they demolished when they put up the towers. Such a vast, grim old building. When the wind howls there you can hear voices in it.”
“You're saying the place is haunted?” asked Cait.
“Maybe. Some lingering anger or fear. Places often have a presence, an atmosphere. Like this grove. Not everyone is really aware of it. But that's the reason those tower blocks were closed. Oh, there was the damp and all the rest, but the fact is no one liked to live there. Without really knowing why.”
“We'll slip quickly through,” said Danny. “We'll be fine.”
“And what about you, Gran?” asked Cait. “Will you be safe?”
“Oh, don't worry about me. A few simple tricks of light, illusions of you flitting through the shadows in the opposite direction, and they'll be fooled.”
“They'll come for you eventually. The undain may come for you. You said it would be able to get in here.”
They were nearly at the edge of the trees. The traffic roared louder. The riders circled, waiting for Cait and Danny to emerge. The growl of their motorcycles struck dread into her heart.
“Well,” said her gran. “If it comes to
it, we'll see how much of a match for me that thing is when I'm here. In any case, I can delay them long enough for you to get away. That's all that really matters, love.”
“And these riders - and the man controlling them at the library - are they all more undain?” asked Cait.
“Some may be. They're from Genera Corporation. The multinational that is the front for Angere in our world.”
Cait nodded, trying to take it all in.
“You should take this,” said her gran. She put her hands behind her head, under her long, grey hair, to unclasp the necklace she wore. Cait had seen it often. The long silver chain held a green stone as large as a boiled sweet. Her gran fastened it around Cait's neck.
“It suits you. Not very Bling Thing I'm afraid.”
“What is it?”
“You've heard of the evil eye?”
“I suppose.”
“A silly myth. Witches casting malignant spells on people by looking at them. As if we haven't got better things to do. But maybe stones like this are the source for such stories.”
“What does it do?”
“It's a seeing stone. You look through it and it helps you see what is really there.”
“I don't understand.”
“It's hard to explain. The stone is old and I don't know everything it does myself. But it helps you see beyond the surface of things, see through the material to what lies underneath. Strong witches don't need such toys; they can see with their eyes closed, with their inner eye.”
“I still don't get it, Gran.”
“Best you just try it.”
Cait held it up to her left eye and, closing her right, looked around.
The woods they'd walked through had been dark, the cars' headlights from the road failing to penetrate. Now they teemed with light. Not just green, as she had expected, but many colours. She could see her gran clearly, glowing a hazy honey colour, her smile bright. Danny was next to her, primary colours compared to her gran's pastels, all red and blue. Beyond them, countless smaller lights: birds in the trees, small smudges on the ground or in mid-air that must be mammals or insects. She began to make them out properly, see the fluttering wings of moths, the scurrying blur of mice's legs.
