Blue Dome (The Blue Dome Series) (8 page)

“Your father’s body?”
said Morana.

Bede nodded dully.

“
Stanley
took care of it. He’s what we call, our ‘Cleaner,’ aren’t you
Stanley?”

Stanley
blushed with pride. He wasn’t used to receiving acknowledgement
from a woman as beautiful as Morana.

“Ahem,” said
Stanley
, clearing his throat, “yes, that’s
right, ‘the Cleaner’.”

“And the writing in
blood?” said Bede.

“Ah yes,” said Morana,
“again, the work of
Stanley
. It
certainly added a touch of authenticity, didn’t it?”

“This is so screwed up,”
said Bede. “Arlene, Dad’s dead. Your husband is dead!”

“I think we established
that about ten minutes ago,” said the man at the desk wearily. “It was a
regrettable turn of events. There is some outstanding business that I still
need to discuss with you, but right now I have some very important work I need
to finish. I’d be grateful if you wouldn’t mind waiting?” He turned towards Morana.
“Can you show our guest to the visitor’s lounge please?”

“Certainly,” Morana
smiled. “This way.” She nodded at the door on the far side of the man’s desk,
opposite the one where Bede had entered the room.

“I don’t want anything to
do with your filthy business,” said Bede, “and nor does my sister.” He turned
to Morana. “You know, my sister, Clare, your
stepdaughter
, the little
girl who used to look up to you? Well she actually needs me right now, so if
you don’t mind, I’ll be going.”

Bede started to backtrack
to the entry, only to find that
Stanley
was blocking the doorway. Bede turned to Morana with a confused
expression.

“It’s not really an invitation, Bede. Like Demarge says,” she nodded
towards the man sitting behind the desk, “he still needs to have a little talk
with you. Now, if you wouldn’t mind following me?” Her question was clearly
rhetorical.

“What choice, do I have?”
said Bede, irritated by Morana’s faux politeness.

He began following her
towards the door on the far side of the room, his feet dragging in a residual
show of protest. There had to be a way of getting out of there. Whatever the
weird guy in black had to say to him, Bede was pretty sure he didn’t want to
hear it. Morana had almost reached the door to the lounge, when he decided to
take his chance. With her back towards him, Bede suddenly turned on his heel
and ran towards
Stanley
,
plunging his fist deep into the man’s fleshy stomach.
Stanley
gave a winded “oomph” and slumped to the ground.

“I, I can’t breathe,” he
gasped.

Bede snatched the door
handle and twisted it in one sharp movement. Before anyone in the room had time
to react, he fled down the stairs and ran from the building.

“Why, that little...” Morana
was incandescent with rage.

The man at the desk,
however, seemed unconcerned.

“Let him go Morana. He
can’t get far. Besides, it’s not him I need, it’s the girl.”

“Of course,” Morana
replied quietly. “I know you’re right. It’s just that I’ve already had enough
disrespect from that boy. I was looking forward to turning the tables a little.”

“And so you shall,” said
the man. “All in good time.”

Vince got ready for
school with unusual enthusiasm. His meeting with the boss the night before had
put him in an extremely good mood. Not only had he landed himself a job that
paid a lot of money, but the work itself was a doddle. He stood before the mirror
in his towel, rubbing the hair putty in his hands to warm it before smoothing
it into his freshly-showered scalp.
Looking good
, he thought to himself,
separating the curls with his fingers. He turned his head to catch a better
view of his profile. His Mum’s boyfriend had left his aftershave in the
bathroom cabinet. Vince popped the lid and splashed the contents around his
neck.

“Chicks love this stuff,”
he said to the mirror. His reflection smiled in agreement.

Vince grabbed a fresh
shirt from the drying rack, and his trousers from the back of the chair where
he’d slung them the night before, and dressed quickly. Passing through the
kitchen on his way out, he grabbed a wedge of cold pizza from the fridge and
his school bag from the counter and headed out the door. He couldn’t wait to
get to school.

Arriving at the gates,
Vince ran into one of the BBTs. He leaned in to kiss her on the cheek.

“Hey babe, what’s up?” he
said. She gave a simpering giggle. “Seen Thomas?”

“Thomas? Doubt it,” she
replied. “He’s probably still running home to Mummy, or whoever it is he lives
with.” She laughed. “Man, that was funny yesterday.”

“Yeah,” said Vince
distractedly. “I’ve got to find him, so if he turns up let me know, yeah?”

Vince hurried up the school
stairs and began scouring the classrooms and corridors. Being a nerd, there was
a good chance that Thomas had arrived early and was already studying somewhere.
If so, there was no point wasting a perfectly good lunchtime trying to track
him down. But Thomas was nowhere to be seen. It wasn’t until halfway through
English that he finally arrived, dragging his bag dejectedly into the classroom.
The teacher simply nodded as he walked in and made his way down the back.

From the corner of his
eye, Thomas could sense that Vince was staring at him with scalding intensity. He
tried to ignore him, concentrating instead on the back wall. After what seemed
like miles, Thomas eventually made it to his desk. He dropped his bag and quietly
breathed a sigh of relief – so far today no one had tried to trip him up or
make a fool of him. As he pulled his book from his bag he glanced across at the
desk in the opposite corner of the room. Clare’s place was empty.

Several desks up, Vince
had begun scribbling on a piece of paper and was now folding it in half. He
turned to Justin who was sitting directly behind him.

“Hey man, pass this to
Tom, Tom,” he whispered. Justin shrugged.

“Whatever,” he said.

The note passed through
several more pairs of feverish hands, eventually landing on Thomas’s desk. He
rolled his eyes forward, cringing at the sight of his name on the paper – there
was no mistaking that it was for him. He stared at it for a couple of seconds
before finally reaching out and opening it.

Hey, I need to talk to
you
, it said.

Thomas recoiled when he
saw the signature:
Vince
. The last thing he needed was to talk to him. Thomas
tried to concentrate on the lesson, but the note continued to stare at him
ominously from the corner of the desk. It was only too soon before the bell sounded
for the next class.

Vince quickly shoved his
things into his bag and pushed his chair back, turning to wink at Justin.

“Watch and learn, my
friend, watch and learn.”

Justin shook his head. “C’mon
man, leave it, we’ve got better things to do.”

Vince replied with a sly
smile and continued towards the back of the room. Thomas was hunched over his
desk, packing books away. He sensed that someone was standing in front of him
and slowly lifted his eyes until they came to rest on a pair of denim-covered
legs. He knew instantly that it was Vince and started shovelling his books even
faster.

“Hey, Thomas did you get
my note?”

Thomas nodded slowly without
looking up.

“About yesterday, man, I
was out of line. I shouldn’t have given you such a hard time.”

Thomas paused. Had he
heard correctly? Was Vince really apologising?

“Yeah, I’m really sorry,
it just got out of hand.”

“Okay,” said Thomas,
slowly. There had to be a catch.

“So, friends?” said
Vince.

“Sure, yeah, whatever,”
said Thomas. He began to shift uncomfortably in his seat.

The fact that Vince was
apologising in the first place was weird enough. But wanting to be friends? Something
wasn’t right. Thomas pushed his chair back and flung his bag onto his back.

“I’ve got to go,” he
said.

“Hey, about being
friends, I mean it.” Vince smiled as he reached for Thomas’s shoulder. “Look, I’ve
just started this part time job and the guy I’m working for is looking for more
people. The work’s easy and he pays a bomb, no kidding. How about we meet after
school and I can take you to meet him?”

Thomas flinched under
Vince’s grip. “Why don’t you ask Justin?” he said.

“Justin already works for
him,” said Vince. “I got him the job. It’s what I do for my friends, help them
out.”

“Oh,” said Thomas. He
stepped towards the door, but unfortunately Vince wasn’t ready to move.

“So how about it? You
interested? Look, it’s totally no obligation on you or my boss, I’m just trying
to make up for what happened yesterday and to help a couple of friends out.” Vince
smiled again.

“What kind of work is it
exactly?” asked Thomas.

“Errands mainly. Picking
things up, dropping them off. Kind of like a courier service. It’s easy.”

A voice in Thomas’s head
screamed
thanks but no thanks
, but something made him stop. He had been
trying for months to make friends and fit in at this strange new school. Being
a small, quiet, plain-looking guy, and arriving at a time when everyone already
had their friends had made Wiltsdown High a pretty lonely experience. Trusting
someone like Vince was obviously a massive risk, but it was the only invitation
he’d had since he’d started.

“Well, okay then,” said
Thomas. “I’ve got to be home by five, but I guess it couldn’t hurt just quickly
meeting your boss first.”

“Great, how about
3:15pm
at the school gates? I’ll meet you there,”
said Vince. He could almost feel the money in his hands.

It was only once Mick had
given up trying to break the door down that the strange woman in the blue dress
let go of my arm. My heart thudded like a hammer in my chest and although I needed
to get back out onto the street and find Bede, I had to catch my breath first. I
turned to the woman who was calmly standing a couple of paces away from me.

“Thanks so much, I
thought I was done for,” I said. Saying the words out loud made me realise just
how relieved I was to be safe, and also just how angry I was at Bede. “It’s so mental,
my stupid brother decided to nick a loaf of bread and got found out so we had
to run for our lives. It really annoys me when he does stupid,
stupid
things like that. Honestly. Do you have brothers? I wouldn’t recommend them.
They can be
such
total boneheads sometimes. Anyway, thanks for your help.
I’d better get going and try to find the idiot.”

I reached for the door,
but the woman somehow managed to slide between me and the handle, barring the way.
Thin ribbons of light poked through the wooden slats so I could now see her
face properly. She had fine, aquiline features and clear, blue eyes. Her hand
was spread against the door, the pale fingers unusually long and delicate. I
wondered how she’d possibly managed to hold me as tightly as she had with
fingers like that.

“Umm, excuse me,” I said,
trying for the door again. The woman didn’t move.

“You can’t leave,” she
said softly. It was the first time I’d heard her speak. Her voice sounded
musical, like tiny bells, and she had an accent which was impossible to place.

“You are in great danger
Clare, you have no idea.”

I stared at her. “How do
you know my name?” I said. “And what do you mean ‘great danger’?” Then I
twigged. This had to have something to do with my dad.

“Do you know Philip de
Milo?” I asked.

“I know of
him. But
your father is not the reason that you are in danger right now,” the woman
replied.

“How did you know he’s my
Dad then? And what do you know about him anyway? Where is he?” I said.

“We can’t talk here, it’s
not safe,” said the woman. “You have to follow me.”

“Who
are
you?” I
said, as I gave her a sceptical look.

“A friend,” she said, as
if that answered my question. “Come now, there’s really no time to lose. Every
second we’re standing here gives him time to sense our presence.”

“Gives
who
time?”
I said.

Ignoring my question, the
woman grabbed my arm and began pulling me towards the opening of a dark tunnel
that began just to the right of the door. I didn’t like the look of it and I
certainly didn’t want to go anywhere near a tunnel with this strange woman. She
was really starting to freak me out.

“I think you should let
me go,” I said, trying to pull away from her. But the woman pulled back even
more strongly and I lurched towards the tunnel. It was clear that, physically, I
was no match for her and that I would need to try another approach if I had any
hope of escaping.

“Can you at least tell me
where we’re going?” I said.

“No, not here. He’ll know.”

“He? Who’s he?”

“I’ll tell you as soon as
we’re safe. But right now, you have to take a leap of faith and follow me.”

“This doesn’t make any
sense,” I said. “You’re asking me to follow you – a complete stranger – into
some big dark hole, when I’ve got a brother running around outside looking for
me.” I really hoped that the last bit was right and that Bede would find me
soon.

“Please don’t make me
force you,” said the woman. I felt a chill run down my spine. Despite the soft,
musical lilt of her voice, the threat was obvious, like a cold iron bar hiding
just below the surface of a warm bath.

I weighed up my options. Going
back outside (assuming I could even escape from this crazy woman) meant running
the risk of bumping into Mick before I had a chance to find Bede. I had to face
it, I had absolutely no idea where he’d gone or where to find him. On the other
hand, I could follow this possibly homicidal woman, down a long dark tunnel. Neither
option was great but I really wasn’t a fan of long dark tunnels.

“Look, I know you’re just
trying to help me and all, and in fact you really have helped, but, if it’s all
the same to you, I think I’ll be on my way now. Thanks again,” I said.

I tried to back towards
the door again, but this time the woman was much less polite. She clenched my
arm, and yanked me towards the tunnel. I screamed, and tried to wrestle myself
free but her grip was too tight. Before I knew it, the woman had pulled me into
the darkness and I realised I was powerless to stop her.

“Hang on don’t you know
about human rights?” I shouted. “You can’t just drag me off somewhere because
you feel like it!” I knew I was right, we’d just done a module on it in social
studies. “Not even the police can just drag you away like this, for no reason…”
I trailed off as I remembered the stolen bread incident. “Well, okay, maybe the
police could question me about being an accomplice to bread theft, but you’re
not the police.”

Annoyingly, my protest
seemed to make no difference to the woman, as she continued to haul me down the
tunnel. The small wisps of light coming from the door were growing weaker and weaker,
while the path beneath my feet was getting much more difficult to see.

“Where are we going?” I
said.

The woman paused and
turned towards me, the whites of her eyes gleaming in the dark.

“Hush,” she whispered. “I
will tell you everything once we are safe, I promise.”

“Fine, but it would make
it easier to follow you if you let go of my arm,” I said. The woman looked at
me and smiled, although not unkindly.

“No, you’ll run away.”

No kidding
I thought.
Unfortunately, I knew sarcasm was unlikely to help
the situation.

“Can you at least tell me
your name then?” I said.

“It’s Min-Isis,” said the
woman. “My friends call me “Min.”

I suddenly noticed that
the tunnel was starting to become slightly lighter. Glancing around, I could
see that burning torches had been bracketed to the walls at regular intervals. They
were secured by wrought-iron holders that had intricately sculpted into the
shape of a snake eating its own tail. Still gripping my arm, Min reached up and
took one of the torches. The floor of the tunnel instantly bloomed a dusky beige
colour through the darkness. I had no real idea where we were, although I
figured it had to be somewhere below the streets of the
Old
Town
. All I really knew was that the tunnel was sloping downwards and
that we seemed to be going deeper and deeper.

“Come on Clare, we need
to hurry,” said Min, lengthening her stride as she dragged me alongside her.

“Err, yeah,” I said,
limping as fast as I could go. Min paused.

“Are you injured?”

“Kind of,” I said. “I
twisted my ankle last night and it’s still really painful.”

“Hold this.” Min thrust the
torch into my hands and crouched down beside me, taking my right foot into her
lap.

“What are you doing?” I
said nervously.

I glanced down and saw
that Min’s eyes were closed and her hands were cupped around my ankle. Soft,
blue light was now pouring into my foot, making it feel cool and slightly numb.

“See if you can put some
weight on it now.”

Min set my foot back down
on the floor and I shifted my weight onto it. I started slowly at first, the
shooting pains still fresh in my memory, but it wasn’t long before I was
standing perfectly normally again. The pain had completely gone.

“How did you do that?” I
said. “Are you one of those homeopathic healers?” Min smiled.

“Just a trick I learnt at
home,” she said. “We really must be going.”

She stood up, took my
arm, and we began running down the tunnel again. This time it was much easier to
keep up. We had only been running for a few minutes when it suddenly became
lighter up ahead and I was sure I could see the end of the tunnel. As we drew
closer it looked as if it came to a dead end, the mouth opening up into an
octagonal chamber that was about half the size of the school gym. The wall on
the far side of the room was comprised entirely of a series of stone archways,
all linked together. It was impossible to tell if they had doors, or if their
black hollows were just empty space.

“We’re almost there,”
said Min. She paused to place the torch back into one of the holders. “Okay,
we’re almost safe.” She seemed visibly more relaxed. I was relieved too; at
least I might now get some answers from her.

I followed Min across the
threshold into the chamber, and was instantly overwhelmed by the beauty and
vastness of the room’s stained glass windows. They started from midway up the
stone walls and rose as far as the eye could see, high above our heads. The
panes were made of thousands of tiny pieces of glass in pretty much every
colour imaginable – greens, reds, and purples – which together formed a rich
mosaic of fruit, flowers and woodland animals. As I gazed at the sheer wonder
of the glass I could see other things as well: insects with fine, spindly legs,
inhabiting golden corn fields that stretched into vast blue horizons, and pearly
green water filled with jumping silvery fish. I found myself so lost in it that
I was literally speechless.

“This is the Consus Room,”
said Min. “The part we’re in now is very deep below the ground, but the windows
can still be seen from the street above. Passers-by would just think they’re windows
in the basement of an old house.”

“What’s the room used
for?” I asked.

“It was first used in
ancient times, and well into the middle ages, to store grain for the city. Beautiful
isn’t it?”

I nodded dumbly. “I can’t
believe I’ve lived in Wiltsdown my whole life and never seen it before,” I
said.

“No one knows it’s here,”
said Min. “It’s been a well kept secret for many, many years.”

I continued to stare at
the stained glass, mesmerised by the colours and patterns, when I suddenly noticed
how cold I was. So cold in fact that I’d begun to shiver. I crossed my arms,
drawing my coat around me closely. As I glanced at Min I could tell that she
was shivering too. For some reason, she also looked extremely worried.

“We have to get out of
here now,” she said, grabbing my arm and starting to haul me back up towards
the mouth of the tunnel.

“I don’t understand, we
just got here,” I said, stumbling after her.

We had only taken a
couple of steps when a man’s voice called out behind us.

“Going somewhere?”

The voice had a cold, sharp,
arrogant edge. It was the type of voice that my Dad had sometimes described as being
like ‘cut glass’. I’d never really understood what he meant, until now.

Min and I turned to face
the stranger, who was standing under one of arches on the far side of the room.
He was tall – easily taller than me – and dressed completely in black, from his
long, winter coat down to the heels of his boots. The thing I noticed most of
all were his eyes; from a distance they were as black as his clothing. He was
staring at us in the same way that a butterfly collector might use pins to stick
specimens to a board. Except that I didn’t feel as if I’d been pinned to the
spot, I felt as if I’d been nailed there.

The man began to stride
purposely towards us, each footstep swallowing up large swathes of the floor. As
his boot’s struck the ancient slate-grey cobbles of the Consus Room, the sound
rebounded off the walls like a ceremonial gong. The late morning light was now
pouring in through the stained glass windows, covering the man in a riot of colours
which made him look like a fantastical creature out of a story book.

He stopped immediately in
front of us, ignoring Min entirely, but looking me up and down as if he was
pricing furniture. His eyes were even more extraordinary up close. Set wide
apart, they owned a perfectly equal share of his face, each a slightly
asymmetrical leaf-shape, framed with long, black eyelashes. Most startling of
all, though, was that each eye was a different colour: his right was a deep, dark
hazel, flecked with black, while his left was darkly blue-green. It was almost
as if each eye should have belonged to a different person and yet, at the same
time, the combination seemed so completely right for the face they were in.

My gaze shifted slowly to
the rest of the man’s features. He had high, sharp cheek bones that gave his
face an angular look, softened slightly by the way that stray pieces of his dark
hair that had managed to escape from being tied back. His jaw framed a mouth
that I suspected had had a lot of experience of saying things that made people
jump.

The man’s clothing was
immaculate, down to the minutest detail. He wore a black suit, with a vest embossed
in fine, squiggly lines that ran down the entire length the satin. Beneath the
vest, the man’s black, silk shirt was fastened at his throat with a tiny
emerald cross. As I studied the strange figure, I also began to notice a
distinct perfume in the air that was strangely familiar. It was a delicious,
woody mix of warm cinnamon and sweet spices. I knew I’d smelt it somewhere
before, I just couldn’t place it. Then I remembered. It was exactly like the
sandalwood soap my mother used to buy when I was little.