20 Years Later (4 page)

It was the nearest that Zane had ever been to the Red Lady's territory, and he was shivering despite the warmth of the summer night. Dev had posted him on the corner of Northington Street where it met Gray's Inn Road, the best place to watch for the patrol that guarded her and the inner territory. From his position, he could see the large gates, shut fast, and the white-washed walls that shone silver blue in the moonlight. Interspersed at regular intervals were long banners of silk that
billowed gently in the summer breeze, stretching from the top of the wall down to the ground, some forty feet or so in length and about ten feet wide. Dev had described them to him on the way, in the moonlight they looked black, but he knew that they were blood-red.

The street that ran along her walls was completely clear of debris and wreckage, just like the areas around his own home and the Boys' territory too. But the street seemed even cleaner here, like it was swept regularly, and the walls were immaculate.

He held a piece of string that he fed through his hands from a ball that he cradled to his chest. Dev had tied the end around his wrist, and given Zane instructions on what to do. One sharp tug if Zane caught sight of a guard on top of the wall, two if the guard was looking in Dev's direction. Three sharp tugs for a guard at street level and that would bring Dev back and abort the mission. One slow pull on the string was agreed as an all-clear.

He watched Dev inch along the wall, crouched, staying in its shadow. His attention flicked between his friend creeping towards the closest banner and the top of the wall. When Dev was about halfway, Zane caught sight of one of the Red Lady's men appearing at the edge of it and gave one urgent tug on the string. Dev froze and crouched even lower as Zane watched the man's silhouette carefully. He could make out the drawn bow and the notched arrow, and the size of the man's muscles even in the dim light. However, the guard didn't look down at Dev's position and simply walked slowly along the wall, occasionally glancing into the street below, but nothing more. Finally, when he turned away at the end of the wall to patrol another edge of the perimeter, Zane finally let out his breath and gave a slow pull on the string to indicate the all clear. Dev began to creep along again.

Dev reached the first banner and turned to give Zane an eager grin and thumbs up. Dev seemed to detach the bottom of the fabric from something obscured by the darkness, then stood and gripped the dark material tightly. The silk rippled and creased as his fists grasped it, then after a brief nod back to Zane, he pulled down with all his strength in an effort to detach it swiftly and cleanly.

The sound of several tinkling bells rang out into the night and both Zane and Dev gasped in shock. The banner didn't detach, despite Dev's desperate attempts. Even hanging all his body weight off it, the jangling only got louder with each wrench.

Zane gave two sharp tugs on the string as he watched three heads appear above the banner that Dev grappled with. In an instant, arrows were trained on him and Zane tugged urgently on the string, the code forgotten in his blind panic. He heard the heavy bolt of the gate slide slowly open and saw more guards spill out onto the street only metres away from where Dev was standing.

Dev, panicking, began to sprint back to Zane's position as arrows rained down, hitting the ground where his ankles were but moments before. The string went slack, and Zane dropped the ball as he began to back away, not being able to tear his eyes away from the disaster befalling his friend. He could see the Hunters on the ground gaining on him easily, and then in one horrible moment, he heard an agonised cry erupt from Dev as one of the arrows fired from above hit its target and the Boy tumbled to the ground. One of the Hunters jumped on Dev, his drawn sword gleaming in the moonlight, and Zane froze as the man noticed the string trailing from Dev's arm. The Hunter's keen eyes followed it in moments, all the way back to where Zane stood, mouth agape, his face the colour of the moon.

Then he was running, not daring to look behind him as arrows began to hit the corner of the building he darted behind. He pounded down Northington Street, his heartbeat booming in his ears. The footsteps of his pursuers echoed off the walls of the street, this one filled with rusting car wrecks, drifts of dust and debris. Cold sweat beaded on his forehead as the arrows whipped past him. He threw himself around the corner at the end of the road into John Street, chest heaving.

He knew the Hunters were gaining on him, and that knowledge pushed him to run headlong down the street not thinking about where he was going, only about getting away. He was so fixed on the end of the road that he didn't notice that the door of one of the dark buildings was slightly ajar. Nor did he see the arm reach out from it as he shot past to grab him firmly by the wrist and pull him into the black entranceway.

It happened so fast that he fell as the door behind him was shut silently. A sour smell assaulted his senses; it seemed the person who had grabbed him didn't wash often. A malodorous hand clamped over Zane's mouth before he could yell out and a voice breathed into his ear with a scent of something sweet on it.

“Don't speak, don't move.”

There was a lilt in the male voice, sounding like no-one that Zane had ever met before. Shaking violently from fear and exertion, he did as he was told as the Hunters ran past the doorway.

“My name's Callum,” the voice whispered. “Do as I say and you'll live to see your mother again. You've upset some strong people there, my lad. Now we stay hidden and silent, until the storm has passed. Understand?”

Zane nodded, blinking into the inky darkness around him. The building was cold, the floor felt dirty and littered with rubbish, and its windows were too filthy for any moonlight to penetrate. He couldn't see what his rescuer looked like, but his
deep voice sounded kind.

“Can't do anything for your friend now. Let's get somewhere more safe, then you can sleep.”

The smelly hand left Zane's mouth and moved to his shoulder, then patted down his arm to catch hold of his left hand. He was pulled to his feet and then guided slowly across the room, blind as a newborn mouse, deeper into the abandoned building.

It was late in the evening of the next day by the time that Zane was returned to his mother. The sun had coloured the sky a deep red that reflected off the taller buildings of the square, the same colour as Miri's puffy, bloodshot eyes.

She was waiting outside the house, twisting a handkerchief in her hands. After the initial panicked search of the house and garden that morning, she had gone to Jay's square, only to find him searching for Dev. They both suspected the worst. Jay had sent Boys out searching the edges of the territory, even in the hospitals, despite Miri's insistence that they couldn't be there. In the end Jay had told her to wait, that they would come back, as it was too risky to push out into no man's land or the enemy territories.

The waiting was the worst. She had tried to keep busy, tried to focus on the garden, but found herself grinding to a halt, seized by terrible thoughts and imagined scenarios where his body had been found. All afternoon, the slightest sound had brought her running to the edge of the garden, until she had given up altogether and just stood there, waiting, simply incapable of doing anything else. She had spent fifteen years worrying about Zane's safety, but this was the first time she'd thought he could be dead.

When she saw him emerge from the far side of the square she ran to him and crushed him to her, as if trying to absorb him back into her own body. She didn't even see Callum who stood back respectfully, and neither did Zane notice Jay and Grame lurking near his house. For a good minute or so Miri clutched him tightly, and then held him at arm's length, tears streaming down her cheeks as she checked him for injury.

“I'm not hurt, Mum,” he mumbled, trying hard not to cry. Zane had also wept that day, both for his dead friend and for his mother, who he knew would be distraught.

“Where were you what were you doing why did you go without telling me?” The questions gushed out of Miri's mouth as fast as the tears sprang from her eyes. Zane just stood there, unsure of what to say. A tiny gasp escaped from his mother as she saw his new friend.

“Mum, this is Callum. He looked after me.”

Miri looked uncertainly at the man who stood a few metres back. Callum was fairly tall, but it was hard to tell the size of his frame as he wore so many layers of filthy clothing that all stank of sweat and dirt. His face was mostly obscured by a huge, matted beard that reached down to the middle of his chest. At the edges it tangled with his long, wild hair that had clumped together into long knots, in places looking less like hair than dirty grey rope. His kind eyes, sparkling like wet polished slate, were incongruous with the sheer mess of him. The beard twitched slightly, and from the crinkling around his eyes Miri deduced that he was smiling at her.

Pale and shaken, she simply nodded at him and said “Thank you” in a wavering voice, pulling Zane towards the house where she could lock the door and keep her son close.

Callum gave a brief nod back, acknowledged Jay with a quick raise of his bushy eyebrows, and then shuffled out of the square. Jay touched his own forehead briefly with his right hand in a curt salute to the old man and then focused on Zane as he was steered towards the house.

“Was Dev with you?” he asked, and frowned as he saw the tears well in Zane's eyes. “He coming back?”

Zane simply shook his head, allowing Miri to guide him into the house. Jay's right fist clenched into a tight ball and he began to follow them in, but Miri stopped him. “Tomorrow, Jay, we'll talk tomorrow.”

Jay's jaw tightened as he fought back the urge to just push past Miri. But he respected territory and after a moment nodded in capitulation.

“Zane, I want answers first thing tomorrow,” he said and turned on his heels, beckoning Grame to follow.

Miri shut and locked the door, steered Zane to the sofa, and went into the kitchen wordlessly. In moments she returned with a bowl and served some of the soup from the pot hanging over the fire into it. As Zane began to eat, she went into her room and re-emerged with a blanket from her own bed to wrap around him.

She sat in the armchair opposite and watched him devour the soup, not saying anything as she filled it again for him and watched him eat that too. He scraped the spoon around the bowl, scooping every last chunk of carrot and potato into his mouth. Only when he was finished did Miri say, “Tell me what happened.”

And Zane did, his voice croaking and faltering as he related what happened to Dev. He could barely bring himself to look at his mother's face, her lips and cheeks whiter than he had ever seen them. He broke down as he told her how he had abandoned Dev's body and ran, thinking only of himself and his own survival.

Miri went to his side and wrapped her arms around him, rocking him gently as if he were a small child again, and let him sob into her hair. As his distress subsided, she moved away from him to look into his eyes.

“Zane, there was nothing you could have done. You were right to run. Dev made his choice and knew the risk–there was no point losing you too.” He wiped his eyes and nodded weakly. “Where does this Callum come into it?”

“He pulled me off the street when the Hunters were chasing me. He knew the building really well, actually quite a few buildings. He knew how they were laid out by heart and could
move around them in the dark and everything. And he knew how to move between buildings in a clever way, through really narrow places, like it was between gaps in the walls. It meant that we could hide off the street until they stopped looking. He smells terrible but he's actually really nice. He just doesn't have you to look after him.”

Miri seemed distant for a moment and then asked urgently, “They don't know it was you, do they, Zane?”

Zane shrugged nervously. “I don't know … it was dark.”

Miri chewed her lip, frowning down at the rug in the centre of the room. “No … if they suspected you they would have come here today. They must just assume that you were one of the Bloomsbury Boys. I need to go and speak to Jay about this right now as there may be retaliation.” She stood and grabbed her shawl from the armchair. “Light the candles. It'll be dark by the time I come back. Lock the door after me, and do not leave the house, do you hear?”

Zane nodded, not used to such a stern tone of voice from his mother. Just as she was about to turn the handle of the front door he called to her. “Mum?”

She turned to look at him, her mind clearly focused on her task, “Yes?”

“Are you angry with me?”

She sighed. “I was, but now I'm just glad that you're home and safe. Promise me you won't do anything that stupid ever again.”

“I promise.”

Zane didn't leave the house for a couple of days and either Grame or Mark was always present at the edge of the garden square, watching over Miri, as all feared some kind of retribution. But no Hunters from the Red Lady were sighted, and so the tension gradually subsided into a quiet grief. Jay checked on Miri personally at the end of each day, only
stopping by for a quick conversation as he was reluctant to leave the Boys for too long on their own. They'd only end up fighting, mucking about or trashing something, and he needed to make sure their energy was focused on survival, not seeing who could pee the highest up a wall.

On the third day Zane finally went outside and helped his mother in the garden. He was still withdrawn, but Miri was relieved that he was at least starting to get on with things again. They worked close to each other, comfortable with the silence between them filled by the birdsong, the sound of digging, and the pulling up of weeds as they harvested the latest crops and herbs.

When the sun hit the corner of the garden, they paused for mid-morning tea as usual, made from a blend of herbs created by Miri that was both refreshing and restorative. Later that day, as they were about to lay down tools, they heard a sound that froze Zane and spurred Miri into action. It was the alarm from the Boys' square that was only sounded in the worst kind of emergency: a Gardner attack.