Beyond the Knock Knock Door (19 page)

He was alive … and kicking!

He lashed out with his boot as he slipped about in stomach acid and bile. He punched and flailed, scrabbling to find his sword in the darkness. However, instead of a slow, painful death squeezed through the creature's intestines, he paused when he heard the library echo with laughter.

Lots of laughter.

‘Leave them alone or I'll –'

‘Or you'll what, Luke Bowman?'

Michael slowly stood up and yelped after he collided with metal. He wasn't inside the creature's belly. He hadn't even been swallowed.
Clang!
He was trapped within a cage, and the long dark teeth were iron bars.

‘How do you know his real name?' Samantha demanded fifteen metres away, captured by another cage and just as surprised to hear the monster talk.

‘I know all your names, Sam,' the same male voice answered from above in a smooth and delicious tone.
‘Or should that be Samantha? How horrible it must be to wake up every morning and find that beard stuck to your face. No boy will find you attractive now.'

More laughter bounced around them.

‘Who are you, creep?' she shouted into the darkness. ‘Show yourself!'

There was no answer. No laughter. No splashing through the water. No rocking chains. Just dripping.

Then –
slam!
– feet landed on Michael and Samantha's cages and hands reached through the bars to grab them. Luke screamed to let them go as they were stripped of their swords.

The struggle ended when a dark figure landed, cat-like, on a fallen boulder. With a snap of his fingers, blue electricity sparked in his hand and dazzled off his smiling gold mask. He wore a black and red cloak, a three-cornered hat and a rooster pin.

‘
Wark! Wark! Wark!
' announced a second voice. ‘Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, heroes and zeroes – the black harlequin!'

‘Surprised?' he asked, clicking his fingers again. A mess of lights stuttered throughout each level and lit up the lair. What was once a library was now rigged as a giant trap. Scores of metal cages hung from the roof by chains – some with floors, others with none. The last of these were positioned near the front and rear entrances. If any intruder wandered inside then –
bang!
– they were snared just like Michael and Samantha.

‘Don't you dare hurt them!' Luke shouted from his cage, suspended in the middle of the fourth floor. He'd been stripped of his jetpack and pouches, which lay on the roof of his prison.

Watching from the different levels, the rest of the harlequins chortled: the yellow, the purple, the white, the blues, the moon and the sun, the red Lady of Hearts, the green shark hypnotist, three Fireflies and the Vulture himself.

‘Out!' the Lady of Hearts demanded, dragging Samantha from her cage.

‘What are you going to do to us?' she answered, bucking in the harlequin's grip. ‘Feed us to the monster?'

‘A nice idea but unfortunately an impossible one, my dear,' the black harlequin said, leaning against his ebony walking cane. ‘We
are
the monster.'

Stunned, she shouldered off the Lady of Hearts. ‘You? And these circus rejects? Who'd be scared of you?'

With mild amusement, he hummed behind his gold mask. ‘Everything is theatre, my girl. Until the lights came on, you too believed the monster had fangs and claws, and a hunger for young children cowering in their beds. You heard the rumours. You felt the prickle of fear. It's so hard to know what is real when everybody else is telling the same story.' Suddenly, he swivelled and pointed his cane. ‘Seize him!'

Escorted from his cage, Michael waited for the right moment then elbowed the green harlequin in the guts. He bolted for the front doors, desperate to find Aurelio.
He glanced behind him, only to see no one chasing him. He quickly learnt why. As he surged between the two main staircases, the unbroken statue holding the scroll leapt in front of him and kicked his chest. Michael crashed backwards into the putrid water.

‘You disappoint me, young master Bowman,' the black harlequin said, as the statue harlequin hauled Michael to his feet and shoved him into a new, floored cage containing his sister. ‘My spy here has been following you for these past few weeks, and not once did you recognise him.'

Michael glared at the human face of the statue harlequin and burned. How stupid of him! Of course. He looked like a statue at the Piermarini Theatre or the round belltower or that carving above Oriana's observatory. The spy could have been disguised as any number of statues throughout the city.

‘Then again, we are the best spies in the galaxy.'

A blue harlequin locked their cage door.

‘So you're telling us the monster's not real?' Michael said. ‘That you just made it up?'

‘Correct.'

‘Then what about that noise?'

‘You mean this noise?'

SHHHRRRIIIEEEKKK! SHHHRRRIIIEEEKKK! SHHHRRRIIIEEEKKK!

The painful screech pierced the corners of the great library, bouncing the triplets against their cages. The harlequins chuckled again as the blues arrived upstairs to winch Samantha and Michael into the air.

‘That noise – it's a recording, isn't it?' Luke said, shaking clear his head. ‘You've got a microphone and speaker in your mask.'

‘In all our masks,' echoed the harlequins.

‘I can talk through my own mask,' the black harlequin said, also climbing the staircase.

‘Or this one,' the moon-face harlequin said in the same voice across from them.

‘Or even the Lady of Hearts.' Bored, the red harlequin looked their way as she rolled three glass balls on her fingertips.

‘But the monster in the forest – the leaves, the wind –'

‘Mere special effects. A wire here. A laser sensor there. We just let your minds make up the rest. It works so well, in fact, that the natives think these mountains are haunted.'

The black harlequin stopped at their level then joined the Fireflies.

‘You're some kind of secret police, aren't you?' Michael said. ‘You spy on people during the day then kidnap troublemakers by night.'

‘And no one suspects it's you because everyone's too busy looking for some sort of monster,' Samantha said. ‘The perfect disguise.'

‘Thank you,' the black harlequin said, bowing.

‘What have you done with Guido, Isabelle, Cavalli and Pasquale?' Michael demanded.

‘Don't worry. Your friends are still alive. We sent them away on – what would you call it?'

‘Work experience, boss,' the Vulture offered.

‘Ah, yes. Work experience.'

The harlequins laughed.

Their leader leant over a gaping hole in the floor where a boulder had punched through and summoned the green harlequin. ‘Radio our contact. Tell them I want these children off-world come nightfall.'

‘
Where are you sending us?
' they shouted.

‘People know we're here,' Michael said. ‘They'll come looking!'

‘Really?' the black harlequin said. ‘Who? Your parents? Your piper friend who's walking into a trap? Or maybe the Hall of Heroes? Ah, but you're not actually from the Hall, are you? You're just three children from a planet no one knows exists.'

As he shifted position, a string of electric lights buzzed and flickered before blacking out. He pressed a button on his walking cane and they powered up again. This wasn't lost on Michael. He'd seen this before.

‘So it was you who broke into the palace. It was you who chased us through the city and from that church. And it was you who scared the horses from their stalls. We never saw you – only heard you – so it was easy to mistake you for a monster.'

‘If you had spotted me, then you too would have disappeared.'

His vivid blue eyes shone with a mixture of malice and cheek. ‘Oh, and thank you for returning this,' he said, rolling the dead man's ring across his knuckles. Michael removed his gauntlet, only to find the ring
stolen. ‘I've been searching for this for some time now. A certain member of the Jewellers' Guild was very crafty to pass it on to you, hoping it would lead you to me. Pity, like the thief who pawned it to him, he also lost his freedom. The last thing we want is for one to fall into the hands of our enemies.' He turned and glowered at the sun harlequin.

‘Hey, goldie!' Luke yelled out. ‘Who does this remind you of?' He opened his jaw and rolled his head left to right like a carnival clown. ‘Anyone been busy putting ping-pong balls down your big, ugly mouth?'

The black harlequin shook his head. ‘Lady of Hearts, teach our guest some manners.'

A glass sphere shattered against Luke's cage and released yellow gas. Against his will, he started sobbing.

‘Oh no, my lady,' the black harlequin added. ‘Not tear gas. The noise is atrocious. How about something more cheerful.'

She lobbed a second globe. Blue vapour seeped from it and turned Luke into a giggling madman.

‘Stop it!' Samantha screamed. ‘You're poisoning him.'

‘Just like a rat,' the black harlequin quipped.

He glanced up when the purple harlequin called out from a balcony. ‘Boss, take a look at this.' He held both Michael and Samantha's swords in his hands. They shuddered in his grip the further he moved away from the cages. Michael's armour shook too. ‘It's just like the boy's jetpack.'

The Fireflies cupped their hands and vaulted their
leader to the top level. ‘Interesting,' he said, testing the swords himself. ‘Whose handiwork is this?'

‘What should I do with them?' the purple harlequin asked. ‘They might fly back into the children's hands.'

‘Chain them to a column. Make sure they have no chance of slipping out. Come dusk, it won't be our problem.'

‘And this?' he asked, holding out the conch.

The black harlequin dropped it on the boulder below and watched it shatter. ‘Their friend has his own problems.' The triplets protested as he turned to the others in his troupe. ‘The rest of you, to the skysled. Time to make an appearance at the Queen's party.'

‘Leave Oriana alone!' Michael yelled. ‘She's done nothing to you!'

The black harlequin laughed as the others started leaving behind him. ‘Don't worry, Michael Bowman. Your little doll is quite safe. Why would I kidnap the Queen and bring the wrath of Pacifico upon us? A secret police cannot operate if it's not a secret.'

‘
Wark! Wark! Wark!
' the Vulture sang. ‘Be good little birdies, won't you?'

‘Why are you even on this world?' Michael pressed. ‘Pacifico is peaceful. It shouldn't need people like you.'

‘But it does, as all cities do,' the black harlequin said, descending to their level. ‘There are always secrets to uncover and secrets to protect. Your beloved Pacifico is not as perfect as it pretends.'

‘What secrets?'

‘You don't want to know, little knight. No one does. If they did, then the nobles would think twice before accepting money from the government to produce their operas and plays.'

Samantha gripped the iron bars. ‘“Who suffers to let Pacifico live in peace?”'

‘What?' Michael asked.

‘Remember what Cavalli said before they kidnapped him? He warned us that the city's food, money and clothes came from someplace other than Pacifico.'

‘The Broken Isles!'

‘Clever children,' the black harlequin said. ‘Now push yourselves. You're putting the puzzle together.'

‘Something must be valuable here – something that you're protecting at all costs,' Samantha said.

‘In the warehouse,' Luke said, between laughing fits, ‘I found drills and mining equipment.'

‘Go on,' the black harlequin urged excitedly. ‘Say it. We're mining the Broken Isles for –'

There was a moment of defeat until Michael saw the light reflect off the black harlequin's mask. It was the same substance Lady Isabelle had found Guido holding while asleep in his study. ‘Gold,' he whispered.

Michael staggered away from the bars, embarrassed at how ignorant he'd been. They'd been surrounded by it since arriving at the capital. The palace was furnished with it. Metalworkers made trinkets from it. Mansions and carriages were bought with it. Only one group seemed to miss out on it.

The black harlequin delighted in their shock. ‘So
if the nobles are too lazy to work, and the rest of the Pacificans are unwilling to do manual labour, who do you then force to mine that very same gold?'

The question hit like a second punch. They all cowered from the answer.

Finally, Samantha broke the silence: ‘Slaves.'