Acolyte (32 page)

Tess nodded.

‘How do we even know we can kill him?' said Jonah.

Tess looked at him. ‘It nearly died the last time, in the fire. It was frightened. It hates you, I could feel it. I could—' Fear returned to her face; her hands went to her mouth. ‘Oh God, I could
feel
it,' she said, still looking at Jonah. ‘What if it sensed me? What if it
saw
me? If they found Silva's shadow, what if they can find the Elder I carry? Maybe that's why it's been so afraid. Afraid of being seen.' She turned to Kendrick, panic rising. ‘I could feel it! What if they're coming?
What if they're coming for us?'

Kendrick threw Jonah a look; if the team who'd taken Silva had been found through the presence of the shadow, what did that mean? They couldn't know what was possible. ‘Nothing's coming, Tess,' said Kendrick. ‘You woke up disoriented, that's all. There's
no need to panic. If they could trace the Elder, they'd have found you long ago.'

Tess shook her head. ‘I don't know,' she said. ‘I don't know. But it felt like something was
close.
Watching me.'

Kendrick stood and went to the hall, Jonah and Never following him. ‘OK,' he said. ‘We need to keep calm. She's had a scare, so it's natural for her to feel spooked. But she's got me spooked too. Maybe they can find the Elder, maybe they can't, but we've done all we can here and it's time to move on. Agreed?' Jonah and Never nodded. Kendrick stepped back into Tess's room. ‘Forty minutes, then we're going,' he said. ‘We don't take the chance.' Tess nodded back, relieved.

With little to pack, Jonah and Never threw on sweatshirts and a coat then stood in the kitchen waiting, Never keeping one eye trained on the monitor that showed the feeds from the external CCTV.

‘This is just a precaution, right?' Jonah said.

‘Of course it is,' said Never, not moving his eyes from the screen.

Soon, Tess came down the stairs with a small backpack. It was another fifteen minutes before Kendrick joined them, with a large black carryall that gave a heavy thump as he put it on the kitchen table. ‘Two more bags from the cellar,' said Kendrick. ‘Ten minutes, twenty at most. Then we're out of here.'

‘There's, uh, a van approaching outside,' said Never, pointing at the CCTV monitor. ‘On the road.' He flinched a little under the stare Kendrick aimed at him.

‘I told you not to
panic
,' said Kendrick. ‘It's a public road. Even at this time of night we get vehicles passing.'

‘This one's going
very
slowly,' said Never.

They looked at the screen and watched in silence as the vehicle drew closer to the house, curiously slow, reaching the end of the driveway. Every breath in the room was held.

The van continued past, speeding up. Jonah breathed out, feeling the relief. Kendrick's expression, however, had darkened.

‘Get the generator started,' he said to Never, urgency in his voice. With a nod, Never headed to the basement. Kendrick turned to Jonah. ‘Check the shutters are secure upstairs,' he said. ‘I'll check down. Tess, keep an eye on the cameras.'

Jonah turned to move just as the lights dimmed momentarily. They all shared a look, then Kendrick reached into the carryall on the table. He pulled out a flashlight and a gun and offered them to Jonah.

Jonah took the flashlight but declined the gun. ‘Is that even any use?' he said.

‘Sure,' said Kendrick. ‘Against people.' He handed the gun to Tess.

As Jonah went upstairs he heard the purr from below as the generator started. The sunlamps around the house started to glow, switched at a low setting. In each room he checked that the shutters had already been put in place. Everything seemed fine.

He went back down to the kitchen. ‘All secure upstairs,' he said, then got close enough to Kendrick for Tess to be out of earshot. He kept his voice low. ‘If it's them, we don't stand a chance, do we?' All he could think of was the sound of Kendrick's team under attack, a group of trained professionals defeated in seconds.

‘There's always a chance,' said Kendrick. ‘And anything you do that buys you time is worthwhile.'

‘Time? For what?'

Kendrick's smile was almost a grimace, and there was more than a hint of crazy to it. ‘You'll see,' he said.

The sunlamps suddenly faded, then brightened again.

‘It's OK,' said Kendrick. ‘It's just a little jittery when it's started up.'

The sunlamps faded completely and the purr of the generator stopped dead. Then the main house light dimmed, almost to nothing. Flashlight beams pierced the gloom.

‘Stay with Tess,' said Kendrick. ‘I'll help Never.' He ran to the cellar.

A few seconds later they heard the generator splutter, coming back on but sounding uneven. The lights and sunlamps came back, brightening slowly. Relieved, Jonah switched off the flashlight.

There was a thump from upstairs. Jonah and Tess looked at each other. They waited for a few seconds, listening, but there was silence. ‘Stay here,' said Jonah. ‘I'm going to check. It's probably nothing.'

‘If it's nothing,' said Tess, wary, ‘then ignore it.'

But Jonah was already bounding up the stairs. He was fired up by the need to prove to himself that something had simply fallen over, maybe something he'd knocked when he was checking the shutters, because whatever Kendrick said about buying time, if they'd really been found, there was no hope for them.

‘Jonah,' Tess called, unnerved.

‘I'll be two seconds.' He went from room to room, and each shutter was exactly as it had been. The house was still secure.

He was in his own bedroom when the sunlamps darkened again; the main house lights dimmed and flared before going out. His bravura suddenly seemed like a terrible idea, his feet feeling heavy now. He put his flashlight back on and went to the corridor. As he backed towards the stairs, the sound of smashing glass came from behind him: the bathroom, its door wide open.

He swung the flashlight. The bathroom window had no shutter, but it was miniscule, two iron bars running vertically within the frame. There was a hole in the glass, now. Jonah strode over and closed the door, unable to shake off the paranoid sense that he'd felt something
scuttle
past him.

He swung the beam of the flashlight left and right. The filament of the sunlamp above his head glowed a fraction then brightened. He could hear the wheezing splutter of the struggling generator, and the house lights came on again.

He ran downstairs to the kitchen.

‘Everything OK?' said Tess, looking anxious. ‘I heard something smash. And the lights keep—' The lights dimmed on cue but came up again. Tess raised her eyebrows. ‘
That.
I wish that'd stop.'

Jonah suddenly felt cold. Dear God, he felt cold. He could feel it. It was in the room with them.

‘Tess,' he said. Panic was close to overpowering him. He tried to stay calm, to move slowly. ‘I think we should get to the cellar.' His eyes darted around the room, then settled on Tess. She nodded, seeing the fear in his eyes.

As she stood, all the lights went out. In the flashlight beam Jonah saw it scuttle forward from the darkness near his feet, crossing the floor to behind Tess. Then it
unfolded
, opening out into a creature the height of the ceiling, all in the space of a breath.

It was huge, larger than the one Torrance had sent at them. It had just been waiting for the dark to return. For its chance to come.

Jonah stared, frozen. Tess could see the look on his face, see where his eyes were fixed. She turned and saw, and moved to run.

But it had her. One vast dark arm swept her off the ground, held her despite her struggling, the hand of the shadow clamped over her terrified face. Jonah thought of Mary Connart, and of the horrifying wounds these creatures could give by touch, but Tess tore free briefly to call his name and her face was unmarked. The hand seemed only there to silence her cries. The creature didn't want her dead.

‘Kendrick!'
Jonah screamed, his inertia overcome.
‘Get the lights back on! Get them on full power!'

The creature stepped towards him. It paused. For a moment Jonah thought it was wary of him, the way Torrance's shadow had been. And perhaps it was, but only for an instant. It came, striding, Jonah seeing the sheer terror in Tess's eyes; it swept him aside and he felt the pain of its touch the instant before he was slammed against the wall.

He heard the generator roaring to life. Sunlight exploded
around him. Barely able to see in the glare, he stood again. The creature halted momentarily, screeching as the intensity of the light took its toll, the shadow flesh seeming to boil at its surface, tendrils of black, living smoke streaming away from its body. With each instant it seemed diminished, yet it still stepped forward, strong enough to keep its hold on Tess.

Jonah ran to it, seeing it weaken, its frame almost skeletal now. He kicked out at one of its legs, pulling away a moment too late as it spun and lashed out, connecting and sending him sprawling back. Yet as he regained his feet, he felt hope. The creature was being torn apart before his eyes. Ahead he saw the front door, the bolts in place.

He ran at the creature, and had almost reached it, emboldened by its weakened state. All he had to do was slow it down, all he had to do was …

Hope died.

The front door crashed open, forced from outside. The devastated shadow stumbled onwards and out, taking Tess along with it.

And through the door came another shadow, even more imposing than the first. Jonah halted, feeling the gaze of this second creature squarely on him, watching the boiling shadow flesh leech from it in the intense light; yet it seemed unfazed.

Jonah stepped back as the creature's arm rose. It held something in its hand: a slat from the fencing at the front of the house.

‘Shit,' he said, knowing its intent.

Hissing in triumph, the creature swung out and smashed the first of the sunlamps.

It came towards him, taking out the bulbs one by one. Jonah backed away, despairing.

From behind came gunfire: four rapid shots painfully loud in the confined space. Jonah could see where the bullets tore through the creature, pulling a shriek from it but not slowing it down.

He felt a hand on his shoulder.

‘Come on!' Kendrick ordered. Jonah turned and followed. Kendrick directed him through the door to the basement, down the steep wooden staircase lined with blazing sunlamps. Jonah stood at the base of the steps and watched Kendrick lock the upper door behind him, as a huge crash came from just outside it.

‘I think that was the kitchen door,' Kendrick said. ‘Go on, we won't have long.'

There was more smashing; the lamps in the kitchen being taken out.

At the base of the steps was a steel door. Jonah went inside, seeing Never standing by the noisy generator in the far corner, looking agitated.

‘This will hold long enough,' Kendrick said, pushing the steel door closed and locking it. ‘Kill the power to the upper circuit,' he called to Never. ‘Before it occurs to them to overload the whole damn thing.'

‘On it,' said Never, hitting a switch. He looked at Jonah. ‘Tess?'

‘They took her,' said Jonah. ‘One of them got inside, it just
grabbed her. But it was
working.
The light was
working.
What the hell happened? The power kept fading. What were you
doing
?'

‘We put the generator on full as soon as we could,' said Never, visibly stung by Jonah's tone. ‘The mains power going wasn't our fault.'

They could hear the continuing impacts on the upper door.

‘What do we do?' whispered Never.

‘We do the only thing we can,' said Kendrick. ‘We die.'

Jonah and Never glanced at each other, then Never shook his head. ‘Shit plan.'

‘Look around you,' said Kendrick. ‘You know how much fuel there is in here?'

They looked. There were jerrycans everywhere. ‘Way too much?' said Never.

‘You know why?'

It took a few seconds before Never's face fell. ‘Now hold on, I can think of better ways to go than burning to death …'

Kendrick shook his head and looked at Jonah. ‘I told you we just had to buy time. So give me a hand.' The floor was flagstone. Jonah stepped over as Kendrick threw him one of two short metal pry bars. Jonah set his flashlight down and together they lifted a stone near the corner, pushing it to one side.

Underneath was a hole; there was a smell coming from inside it that Jonah found worryingly familiar.

The smell of death.

Kendrick knelt and began to heave up a large black plastic sack, nodding for Jonah to assist. As Jonah took hold, he recognized what kind of bag it was. He dragged it to the centre of the room, while Kendrick called for Never to help with a second body bag.

One by one, they unzipped them, tipping the corpses onto the stone floor: Hopkins and his colleague.

‘For what it's worth,' said Kendrick. ‘A decoy, when they go
through the ashes in the morning. They'll think we're dead, for a few hours, at least. Longer, if we're lucky.'

Jonah knew enough about what a fire could do to a body to know that if the blaze Kendrick planned was intense enough, fragments might be all that remained. Identification could take days.

Kendrick walked to the side and knelt, reaching behind some of the jerrycans. He pressed something that let out a short tone.

‘The clock is ticking,' Kendrick said. He picked Jonah's flashlight up from the floor and passed it to Never, then pointed to the hole he'd taken the bodies from.

‘Down. Go a few metres into the tunnel. Leave enough space for Jonah and me to follow. Then we'll seal it.'

‘Tunnel?' said Never, casting his light into the dark, looking warily at the dank earth below.