Blind School (20 page)

Ellis’s jaw set tight as he clicked off, the decision made. He turned to Lyle and pulled out his gun, aiming it only inches from Lyle’s face.

‘Where, Frank?
Where
? I don't have time to play your fucking games.’

   ‘What?’ Lyle smiled crookedly. ‘And give up your last chance of finding the girl? We also both know the other reason you won't pull that trigger.’ He looked to one side for a second, distracted as the other agent moved in with a taser-like gun. ‘The first place Abaddon will head for is
you
.’

Josh Eskovitz frantically checked the readings on his containment gun.

Ellis looked down at the floor for a moment, bit his lip. Then looked back squarely at Lyle.

‘Yeah. Only trouble is – that's the second time today someone's pulled that bluff on me. And that's one time too fucking many.’ He shifted his gun a fraction and blasted Lyle's shoulder.

Lyle was thrown back, almost stumbling, clutching at his bleeding shoulder. Startled at the audacity more than horror on his face. Ellis pointed the gun at Lyle's head.

From Ryan’s perspective,
Abaddon’s
aura faded and flickered for a moment, and Josh was looking at his taser readings again as he held one hand out, desperately pleading.

‘Don't, Ellis.
Don't
!’

But Lyle quickly recovered from the shock, and Ryan saw the
Abaddon
aura holding firm again.

‘Nice Mutt and Jeff routine you got going there,’ Lyle said. ‘But maybe you should take more notice of your partner. Kill me and you'll
never
find the girl in time. Or maybe that's what
Abaddon
wants. You lose the girl and he gets you. Double whammy.’

The three way stand-off was electrifying. But after a final stare down, Ellis looked away. He knew Lyle was right, but that didn’t make it sit any easier. The second time his bluff had been called: he felt totally defeated.

But Ryan was bristling with burning anger in the background. They couldn’t possibly let it rest there, let this monster win! He looked round desperately, eyes falling on the shovel Lyle had left by the wall at the side of the room.

He leapt across and picked it up. Within two paces was upon Lyle, swinging wildly.

‘Where, you fucker, where?... where...
Where
?'

And with each
where
, he smashed the shovel into Lyle's injured shoulder, careful not to hit his head and knock him out.

The pain of the blows to Lyle’s shoulder was excruciating, but he was also off balance with the surprise of the attack and stumbled sharply back. Something worrying too in the boy’s eyes that he hadn't seen in Ellis Kendell’s. He held one hand up defensively as the shovel swung at him again.

The blow knocked him off balance, and he only caught a glimpse of the stone coffee table in his side vision as he fell towards it. He would have reached out to break his fall, but with his shattered shoulder he couldn’t move his arm that side.

The bone-jarring crunch as Lyle’s head connected with the edge of the table reverberated through the room.

As Lyle’s eyes flickered with a last shred of consciousness and a trickle of blood ran from his ear, suddenly the readings were right.

Josh Eskovitz moved in and drew
Abaddon
from him – Lyle's body convulsing wildly with the shock. As Lyle's body finally settled back, prone, lifeless, Ellis shook his head.

‘Not good,
not good
.’

Any chance of them finding out where Lyle had the girl were now gone. He looked morosely at Lyle’s body; it was a moment before he was hit with a fresh thought. He turned to Josh Eskovitz
.

‘How many girls now gone missing in the area?’

‘Seven, if you count the girl missing now four days.
Eight
with Jessica.’

Ellis took out his communicator, patched back to the chopper.

‘That orchard. How many trees in it?’

‘Oh, a good thirty or so.’

‘And any that look freshly planted?’

The pilot lapsed into thought for a second.

‘Yeah. Now you mention it. There are some look a lot smaller than the others. Just saplings.’

‘How many of those?’ Ellis clenched a fist at his side in expectation.

Another pause as the pilot checked the orchard below.

‘Eight.’

Ellis nodded towards Josh and Ryan. ‘Think we might have it!’

They raced out towards the orchard.

TWENTY-EIGHT

Tommy Rawlton  was on a long scaffold plank fifty floors up halfway out the open side of the building, with Brad Milford, Jed and Stevie stood on the other end of the plank.

Tommy held a scaffold-pole crossways to keep balance as
Milford
prodded him further out with another pole. Tommy was terrified and
Milford
's pals were now seriously worried.

‘I just love those old pirate films,’
Milford
said. ‘Walking the plank while sharks circle below for their next meal.’ He prodded again with the pole. ‘Errol Flynn... Johnny Depp.’

A strangled whimper rose from Tommy's throat. ‘I... I can't keep balance out here much longer.’

‘Sure you can. If a circus guy can keep balanced on just a thin wire –  certainly you can on a big wide plank like this.’

But as Tommy swayed uncertainly, almost losing his balance, Stevie piped up hesitantly:

‘Come on, Brad. It's enough. Let's go.’

‘Don't you go wimping out on me now.’ He smiled crookedly. ‘Besides, if you step off the balance goes and he falls anyway.’

But Jed was also rattled, had had enough.

‘Yeah, Brad. He's got the message not to mess with you again. Let him come back in now.’

Milford
turned with an icy glare, lashing back with his elbow to Jed’s jaw.

‘He'll come back in when I say so!’
Milford
snapped.

But with the jolt, Jed stumbled off the plank, and
Milford
also partly lost his balance.

The plank shifted precariously – and suddenly fearful that he was going to fall, Tommy leapt desperately for the building edge. Though in righting his sudden imbalance, his pole swung wildly the other way, catching
Milford
on the shoulder.

Tommy made the edge,
just
, his stomach connecting first and taking half the air out of him; but he was past the crucial balance point and scrambled desperately the remainder and swung his legs up.

Milford
wasn’t so lucky. With the pole hitting him as he swayed precariously, he lost his last grip on balance.

A suspended moment as he frantically wind-milled to get his balance back, then a caught-breath gasp turning to a curdling scream as he fell.

   Brad sailed inexorably down as his friends looked on in horror, and halfway down
Berith
emerged from him, swirling up to desperately try and reach a new victim.

But
Milford
rapidly passed that thirty-yard point, and
Berith
fell short eight feet from the three boys before sinking back and fading into the ether.

Marisa Culverton walked as if in a daze, the words still burning through her mind:
My, if the rumours are true about me offing the old man – then little bro would be a sheer, personal pleasure...

To the bedroom side-drawer where Joseph always kept his gun, then back along the hallway to the study door where she’d heard those words.

She should have trusted her initial instinct:
a mother knows her sons
. She might have been able to save Joseph’s life, and now John was under threat too.

The agents visiting Alex had left only moments ago, thought not from anything said between them from what she’d discerned through the closed door. It appeared to be a phone call received which had made them leave in such a rush.

Marisa raised the gun as she opened the study door, though it wasn’t until she took a step closer towards Alex that he finally seemed to register her presence.

He looked at her and the gun with an incredulous smile, as if it was unreal, a
joke
. Then he saw the burning intent in her eyes and his smile quickly faded. He held a hand up.

‘Mom, no...
no
. You've got it wro –’

Marisa fired twice, watched him fall.

Then she moved in close and coolly, dispassionately put another bullet through her son's head.

Alex's fish-cold eyes stared back at his mother in disbelief, and a second later
Hezekaal
lifted from him towards her.

John Culverton didn’t hear the two shots from where he was. He was too far away at that point, swinging his car in through the mansion's main gates at the end of the sweep driveway.

It was a fine, sunny day and he looked smug with himself at that particular moment: not only had he cheated death, but also managed to turn it round on his adversary.

He was still smiling with that thought as he pulled up in front of the house.

Thirty feet away in the study,
Hezekaal
hovered by his mother Marisa for a moment, unable to find a place there – then swirled swiftly outside as John Culverton got out of his car.

TWENTY-NINE

Darkness.

   Only the sound of fractured, laboured breathing inside the cramped coffin space.

Then suddenly it stopped.

Ellis, Ryan and Josh Eskovitz frantically dug at the ground with the help of another two agents.

The freshest-planted cherry tree they’d ascertained was four along. They’d taken the shovel from Lyle’s farmhouse and grabbed additional shovels and a pick-axe from his outbuildings.

They desperately hacked at and shovelled the earth and had gone almost two foot down before the hollow thud of hitting wood bounced back at them.

Not a full grave, not shallow, Ellis considered: just enough weight of earth to prevent the coffin lid being pushed off if opened.

They leant in and frantically shovelled and scraped away the remaining earth.

Josh Eskovitz wedged the pick-axe underneath the lid and prised it open, and Ryan’s breath caught in his throat as Jessica came into view.

But she wasn’t moving. Her eyes didn't register the fresh light breaking in and she looked a pale shade of blue.

‘Jessica!’ Ryan screamed. He leant over and started shaking her, tears streaming down his face. ‘God's sake, Jessica. No...
no
!’

But she remained lifeless, no response. Not even a faint eye-flicker. And as he realized she wasn’t breathing, he leant fully over, clamping his mouth over hers, desperately pumping her chest in between bursting fresh breath into her and repeated pleas:

‘Jessica... Jessica....
Pleeaaaase
!’