Blue Dome (The Blue Dome Series) (12 page)

“Depends who it is,” a
voice replied from somewhere above them.

“Shrap, man, your cousin.”

Shrapnel turned to Bede,
gesturing for him to follow up the remaining stairs. As they reached the
landing, the door of a bedroom opened to reveal a man in his early twenties,
dressed in a singlet and red boxer shorts. Like Shrapnel, he was as thin and wiry
as a greyhound, although considerably taller than his cousin. He continued to
pull a battered comb through his wispy dark hair as he looked down at the
visitors.

“Hey, Shrap, long time. What’s
with the visit?”

“It’s my friend here,”
said Shrapnel, nodding at Bede. “He kind of needs your help.”
Troy
squinted in the dim light.

“I know you, don’t I?” he
asked.

“Yeah, I think so,” said Bede.
“We’ve met a couple of times down at the skate park.”

“Oh yeah, Bede isn’t it? So,
what’s it you want?”

“He needs a place to
crash,” said Shrapnel, “just until he gets himself sorted. He’s kind of….well,
fallen on hard times, right Bede?”

“Yeah,” said Bede,
deliberately avoiding any detail.

Troy
looked at them suspiciously.

“Okay, exactly what kind
of ‘hard times?’ Are you hiding from the cops or something?”

“Nah, nah, nothing like
that,” said Shrapnel quickly. “Bede’s a good guy. It’s just, well, he had to
leave home pretty quick, if you know what I mean.”

Bede felt a sharp pang of
guilt chisel at his insides. It was true, he had had to leave home quickly and
he didn’t have anywhere else to go but the squat would also be a great place to
hide from the police. He was still deciding whether or not he should fill in
the gaps in Shrapnel’s story when
Troy
began nodding.

“Yeah, all right, but just
for a short time, okay? It’s not really a place for kids to hang out. There’s
food in the fridge if you’re hungry. We all put in money, so stick a fiver in
the jar on the counter. As for sorting out a bed, it’s pretty casual. Pick a room,
pick a mattress, that’s pretty much it.”

“Thanks
Troy
, I really appreciate it,” said Bede.

“No worries.”
Troy
disappeared back into his room and
shut the door.

“Thanks man, you’re the
best,” said Bede, turning to Shrapnel.

“Hey, it’s nothing,”
Shrapnel mumbled embarrassed. “Look, I’ve got to get going. The olds will be on
my case if I’m not home soon.”

“Okay, later then.”

As Bede watched Shrapnel
disappear down the stairs, his guilt began to gnaw at him. It seemed wrong
somehow, for
Troy
to be doing him
a favour without knowing what he was potentially getting himself into. Bede
sighed wearily. He knew he’d have to fess up once
Troy
got back from work, even if it meant getting kicked out of the
squat.

In the meantime though,
he figured he could at least use the bathroom to get rid of the grime and sweat
that had congealed on his skin. The hot tap refused to heat up but Bede was
beyond caring. He found a bar of soap, plunged himself into the cold bath, and
began scrubbing himself like a maniac. He then turned to his underpants and T-shirt
and washed them too. It was only once he was stepping out of the bath that he
remembered he had nothing to dry himself with. Toilet paper wasn’t a great
option, but it would have to do. Once he was more or less dry, he pulled on his
jeans, jumper and winter coat over his shivering body and took his wet clothing
to find a mattress for the night.

The light coming through
the window high above my head was the strangest I’d ever seen. In all the hours
that Thomas and I had been sitting there, the beams had neither darkened nor
lightened, but remained exactly the same shade of grey. It was as if the world
on the other side of the wall had got caught on a snag between night and day.

“We need to find a way to
break this shackle,” said Thomas, glancing at his wrist.

“How?” I said. The iron
was so thick and heavy it was hard to imagine anything that would be strong
enough to cut through it.

“See if there’s anything
we can use to smash against it. Check every brick, stone and rock – if anything
moves, try to prise it free.”

I stood up and began
checking the walls, spreading my palms and pressing them against the stone has
hard as I could. Nothing budged.

“This is going to take
ages if we have to do the whole room,” I said.

“Just keep going, as fast
as you can,” said Thomas.

Whoever had built the
place had obviously used a lot of cement. I kept moving down the walls, pushing,
pulling and kicking at the bricks until my fingers and toes hurt.

“I don’t think it’s any
use!” I shouted to Thomas. “The place is solid.”

I was about to give up
completely, when something caught my eye. A large iron handle, the shape of a
stirrup, was hanging limply from the inside of the door, its metal clasps
heavily worn. It was the only thing in the whole room that showed any sign of
weakness.

I ran to the door, snatched
the handle with both hands, and twisted it back on itself as hard as I could. The
metal yelped but continued to hold fast. I tried again, this time putting my
full weight behind it and shoving my shoulder up against the wall for extra
leverage. I thought I heard something crack, although it was hard to tell. I tried
again. This time the cracking noise was much louder. Now I knew for sure that I
wasn’t imagining it. I summoned every last bit of strength I had and wrenched
the handle as hard as I could. Suddenly, the entire thing broke away in my
hands. I was so surprised it took me a second to realise I’d actually done it.

“We’ve got something!” I
shouted.

Cradling the handle in my
palm like it was gold, I ran back to Thomas. He looked up at me, his milky blue
eyes as shiny as moonstones.

“Good. Now, to break these,” he said, rattling the chain and nodding
at the shackle.

“I still don’t quite get how this…” I nodded at the handle, “…is
supposed to break that,” I said, pointing at the thick cuff around his wrist.
“It’s just a lump of iron.”

Thomas smiled, the way I was getting used to him smiling when he
knew something that I didn’t.

“Trust me, that handle will be enough.” He waved at me to step
closer. “When I say, hit the shackle as hard as you possibly can, okay?”

I nodded and raised the handle high above my head, waiting for
Thomas to say the word. As I looked down I could see that he was now in deep
concentration, his eyes closed as he cupped his hands around the shackle. There
was just enough space between his fingertips for me to bring the handle down.
I’d have to be dead accurate though, which was not exactly my strongest skill.

Man, I wish it was Bede doing this and not me
, I thought to myself. There was no time to panic though; the next
thing I knew, Thomas was giving me my cue.

“Now!”

I was already so worried about hitting Thomas’s fingers that his
voice made me jump and, without thinking, I brought the handle slamming down on
the shackle. A loud crack reverberated off the walls and a vivid yellow light
blossomed around Thomas’s wrist. The shackle was now lying in two jagged pieces
on the ground.

“How did that happen?” I said.

I glanced up from the shackle to Thomas, who was lying slumped
against the stone wall, his fringe wet with sweat and clinging to his pale
forehead. He suddenly looked very small.

“Are you okay?” I said, leaning across and touching his shoulder.

For a moment there was no reply. Then, just the tiniest of voices
could be heard.

“Yes, I’m fine,” said Thomas, slowly propping himself up on his
elbows. He was breathing heavily.

 “You seem exhausted,” I said.

Thomas gasped a lungful of air. “It’s the darkness. It drains away
Aeon light, robs us of our power.” He picked up a piece of the shattered
shackle and held it up to me. “See this?” he said derisively. “I should have
been able to shatter it without blinking. But here I am, reduced to using an
implement like a mere mortal – no offence – where the most simple of tasks has
almost killed me.”

I ignored the “mere mortal” bit. If Thomas wanted to believe that he
wasn’t human, fine, just so long as he didn’t expect me to buy it. So he’d done
some sort of weird light trick and the shackle had broken, so what? It could have
meant anything. That the iron was weaker than we’d thought; that I was stronger
than I realised, that Thomas had a new-fangled lighter that he carried around with
him for some reason. None of those had anything to do with immortality.

What might have been more believable was the impact that the
darkness was having on him. Every year, after months of winter in Wiltsdown,
I’d always hear people complain about the lack of daylight hours. I think there
was even a study on it once, where someone said it could cause depression. Even
so, it still didn’t completely make sense as far as Thomas was concerned.

“How can the darkness be affecting you so badly?” I said. “You’ve
only just arrived.”

“Demarge and I fought before he brought me down here. I was already
weak and my defences were not as they should have been. This darkness is taking
whatever energy I have left.” Thomas glanced up, his eyes locking onto mine. I
could see the tiny beads of sweat gleaming on his forehead and rolling down the
sides of his face like clear, melted wax. “Clare, whatever you do, you must get
out of here, even if you have to leave me behind,” he said.

I felt a chill skitter down my back. “Don’t say that. There must be
a way of getting out of here,” I said.

I quickly scanned the walls
of the room again, looking for any sign of weakness that I might have
overlooked before. The solid, square blocks of stone stared back at me
defiantly. That left just one possible escape route: the window. I peered up at
it, just able to pick out the iron bars that lined the small open square. It
didn’t look
that
high. Not
really
.

I gently ran my hand over the wall directly beneath it, feeling for
lumpy pieces of rock and allowing the coarse surface to graze my skin. I
figured that if I could find a few decent footholds it might be possible to
climb up and knock the bars out with the iron door handle. It wasn’t the safest
plan in the world, but it was the only one I had.

Kicking my boot against the wall, I soon found a piece of stone that
was jutting out further than the rest. I then began searching for a fingerhold,
finding a small stony nook that was just about at eye level. Good, I was ready
to start. I looped the door handle over my hand and eased it up my arm as far
as it would go, keeping it out of the way while I climbed. I then stepped onto
the rocky ledge, hooked two fingers into the notch in the wall, and pulled
myself up. So far so good, but there was still a long way to go. The tips of my
fingers were now supporting my entire weight and the pain of the rock digging
into my flesh was excruciating. I pawed the rocks below me with my boot,
frantically searching for another foothold.

“Just keep holding on,” I willed myself, screwing up my eyes and
digging my fingers further into the rocks despite the pain. But just as I
thought I might be getting somewhere I began to feel myself slip, my knuckles
skinning themselves on the sharp edges of the rock as I slid down the wall.

“Ouch!” I said, jamming
my fingers in my mouth. The metallic taste of blood spread across my tongue and
I grimaced with disgust.

“This is hopeless, what
are we going to do?” I mumbled through my fingers.

Thomas didn’t reply. He
was too busy staring at something high above my head. I traced his line of
vision to a thin sliver of blue light, drifting slowly towards the window and
curling itself around the iron bars. Further blue tendrils were now joining the
first, decorating the dark iron in a delicate lace. The patterns began to
darken steadily, as if the light was actually solidifying. Soon the bars were
covered in a thick, bright blue foliage of crystals.

“Min, where are you?”
Thomas whispered.

New crystals continued to
appear, filling up every tiny space between the bars. Once all the gaps were
filled, the crystals began piggy backing on the tiny shards of blue that had
already formed. There were so many of them that they started to spill over the
windowsill and down the inside walls of the room towards us. As they drew
closer, the crystals started to melt, their hard edges melding into one
another, as if transforming themselves into a single piece of glossy blue satin.
As it hit the floor, the blue began to collect in folds, spreading into a large
pool.

“Thomas, what’s that?” I
said, a mix of awe and terror creeping into my voice.

The centre of the pool
had now begun quivering like soft rubber, and something scarily hump-like was rising
out of the blue morass. At first it looked like a perfectly smooth ball, but as
it grew I could see that the surface was divided into two halves by a distinct
ridge. The ridge itself was made up of long and short pieces, like the dots and
dashes of Morse code. It took me a couple of minutes to realise that they were
in fact pieces of bone and that the ridge was a spine.

I began to edge away from
the pool, trying to distance myself from whatever freaky thing was about to
emerge. My back hit the wall, the solidness of the stones oddly comforting as I
continued to stare, hypnotised by the arms and legs that were taking shape in
the blue soup. Within minutes, the figure of a dark-haired woman was rising to
her feet, unfolding her arms from around her head, and flexing her shoulder blades.

“Min,” Thomas breathed as
the woman turned to face us. My mouth gaped open as I saw that Thomas was
right. How could he be though, given everything I’d seen in the Consus Room? Before
I could ask, Min was already kneeling at Thomas’s side, cradling him in her
arms as his body began to flood with soft blue light.

“What…how…” A million
questions crowded into my mind, fighting with each other to be spoken first.

“We need to leave as soon
as possible,” said Min.

“Hang on, how did you
even do that ‘melting through the window’ thing?” I said.

“I’ll tell you as soon as
we’re safe,” said Min. “But right now we must hurry. Demarge will be back for
you both before long.”

I watched as she rose lithely
to her feet, her movements reminding me of the liquid mercury I’d once seen in
the science lab at school. She reached down and helped Thomas up. He was now looking
a lot healthier than he had been before.

“How are we supposed to
get out of here then?” I said.

“Through the window,”
said Min simply.

I scanned her face,
alarmed to see that she wasn’t joking.

“But it’s covered in
bars,” I said. “Besides, how are we even going to get up there?”

“Don’t worry, we’ll show
you,” said Min, turning to Thomas. “I may have found a route which will be
harder for Demarge to sense. It won’t be easy, but we may be able to get Clare
into the Slipworld without showing him the way.”

Min raised her arm towards
the window and spread her palm, as Thomas reached up and laid his palm on top
of her’s. They closed their eyes, the tendons in Thomas’s jaw clenching with concentration.
There was a sudden flash of blue and yellow light, so achingly bright that it
made me squint. I could hear the dull, metallic clank of iron clattering
against stone and, as I opened my eyes again, I saw a haphazard collection of
twisted pieces of iron bar, lying on the ground like mounds of dark grey
macaroni. The window was now completely clear.

I looked at them both,
horribly aware that I was about to drop one mighty big fly into their already
less-than-smooth ointment.

“Umm, I know you want to
take me to the Slipworld, or wherever, but I’ve actually really got to find my
brother,” I said. “He’ll already be pretty freaked out that I’m missing. I
can’t just take off and leave him in Wiltsdown somewhere.”

Min and Thomas exchanged
glances, the kind that meant they weren’t about to listen to anything I’d just
said.

“I know this is hard,
Clare, but if we don’t get you to the Slipworld as fast as we can, both you and
Bede will be in serious danger,” said Min.

It was clear that I was
going to need another approach.

“Look, I’m honestly not
trying to be difficult,” I said, “but I don’t even know what this Slipworld
thing is and I really just want to find my brother.”

Thomas threw Min a glance.