Erebos (25 page)

‘A valuable piece of information. Thank you.'

The messenger's smile is almost warm.

‘Now hurry. Whoever brings me a golden hawk's feather will be richly rewarded.'

‘What golden hawk?' Sarius inquires, but the messenger has turned his back on him and leaves the room without another word.

Sarius finds his way by asking. At the baker's he's informed that he should head south and to watch out for the sheep. The first mistake in this world, Sarius thinks. Sheep!

A beggarwoman on whom he bestows a piece of gold reveals to him that he should keep an eye out for a pink-coloured hedge. It's hard work, and slow, but after more than an hour Sarius has finally collected enough information to take to the – hopefully right – road. He's promptly interrupted. As usual it's the outside world that gets in the way.

His phone.

Jamie.

Sarius ignores it. He has stuff to do; he has to leave the city. Hopefully his sword is sturdy enough to stand up to a golden hawk.

After another hour he knows better. He's been heading in the direction the gatekeeper at the city wall indicated to him. To the south. He's gone further and further without finding either sheep or a hawk. Instead, the hawk finds him. Unexpectedly, without any warning, an enormous gleaming golden bird swoops down from the sky, glowing like a meteorite. Sarius dives for cover, but he doesn't have a chance. He's standing in the middle of open country, and the hawk grabs him with its claws, lifts him a little way into the air and then drops him. Most of his belt goes grey, then black.

Crawl away quickly, before it's too late. The shrill cries of the bird of prey and the excruciating screeching triggered by his injuries blend together. Sarius clenches his teeth – he still has healing potion, he just has to get to his inventory before the hawk strikes a second time.

But his adversary doesn't give him time; it has circled up into the air like a gleaming dragon and is readying itself for another nosedive. Sarius draws his sword; he sees the hawk swooping towards him, blindingly bright. He won't survive another serious injury.

The impact is hard and metallic; the injury tone becomes unbearable, but at least it's still there. That's good, it means life. Now, however, the hawk is preparing for the third attack, which will also be the last. A mosquito bite would be enough to kill him in his present condition.

No, please no. Frantically he tears open his inventory. There's the healing potion – quickly, the bird is still ascending, perhaps there's enough time, quickly . . .

But the potion only works slowly. Bit by bit the colour is restored, the tone is slowly, slowly becoming softer. In the meantime the hawk has regained sufficient height and is getting itself into position. Even though there's no point, Sarius attempts to crawl towards the nearest tree while the hawk rushes towards him, filling more and more of his vision.

‘Should I hold it off?'

The messenger. He's appeared from nowhere, as always.

‘Yes please, quickly!'

Fantastic, Sarius is going to live. He knew he could rely on the messenger.

‘But you must do something for me.'

‘Of course. Gladly.'

Sarius has said yes, so why doesn't the messenger drive the creature off? It's already rushing down, and it's so fast . . .

‘Do you promise?'

‘Yes! Yes! Yes!'

The messenger raises his arm in a casual gesture, and the hawk performs a sharp turn to the left, beats its wings several times, climbs higher and gradually disappears from Sarius's view.

‘Then come with me.'

The healing potion has begun to take effect. Sarius's belt is almost completely restored; the tone is hardly more than a buzzing. The messenger leads him to the nearby tree and they stand in its shade.

‘The higher you rise, the more challenging the tasks will be that I set you. That makes sense, does it not?'

‘Yes.'

‘This time it is a task that Nick Dunmore is to fulfil. If he acquits himself well, you will become a Seven. That would put you in exalted company.'

‘Great.'

‘This is the task. Nick Dunmore is to ask Brynne Farnham on a date. He is to make sure she feels comfortable and see to it that she has a pleasant evening. He is to convince her that he likes her.' Brynne? But why? What does this have to do with Erebos?

Sarius hesitates before answering. He doesn't understand the point of the task, and the thought of it fills him with dread. Everyone would find out. Emily would definitely find out because Brynne would tell everyone about it.

‘Well? Why aren't you answering?'

‘I'm not sure I understand properly. Why Brynne? What's that supposed to achieve?'

It's as if a cloud has moved in front of the sun. The world becomes grey.

‘Your behaviour is ill-advised, Sarius. I detest curiosity.'

‘Fine, all right,' Sarius hurries to say. ‘I will do it. Agreed.'

‘Do not return until your instructions have been carried out.'

Just as before, when he was driving off the hawk, the messenger raises his hand. This time darkness descends.

Brynne! Nick rubbed his face with both hands and groaned. Why couldn't it be Michelle at least? Or Gloria? Any of the nice normal girls. But oh no, he had to endure Brynne and her silly affected behaviour.

If he did what was being asked of him, he would never get rid of her again – that much was obvious. Besides, she would spread it round – she always did – and Emily would turn her back on him. Although to do that she would have had to turn to him in the first place.

Nick stared helplessly at the black computer screen. What did the messenger gain from giving him such pointless, annoying instructions? Did he want to punish him? Or test his obedience?

Assuming he went through with it, what sort of a date was it supposed to be? Sitting in a cafe and making small talk? Eating burgers at McDonald's? A walk along the Thames with hand-holding thrown in? Or – God forbid – the cinema, where there was no possibility of escape and he would pass out in Brynne's cloud of perfume.

Okay, cafe plus small talk. At least then there'd be a table between them. He would let her ramble on, nod appropriately and maybe even smile. ‘Make sure she feels comfortable and see to it that she has a pleasant evening.'

One level was nowhere near enough reward for that, Nick felt. He rummaged for his phone and found to his astonishment that he actually had Brynne's number stored on it. He pressed ‘call' but hung up again while the phone was still connecting. He didn't feel like it. Tomorrow was soon enough. Why should he ruin this evening?

Should he maybe return Jamie's call instead? Yeah right, so he could go on at him again with his concerns about Erebos.

No.

The only thing he wanted to do was play, and he could forget that – again.

Nick grabbed his iPod, plugged his ears and thought of Emily. A date with her – now that would have been a good task for him.

The thing with Brynne was occupying Nick's thoughts so much that the Chemistry assignment had faded completely into the background. It was only after dinner that Nick remembered he had to hand it in tomorrow. He sat down at the computer, typed up the handwritten sentences, searched for the rest of the information and a few images on the internet, and added them in at the end. Then he printed the whole thing out and hoped against all reason that Mrs Ganter would bestow an A on his scribblings. He hated Chemistry.

And Brynne, not to forget Brynne. He hated her too. After Chemistry the next day he intercepted her, taking care to ensure that Emily wasn't in sight.

‘Hey,' he said. His whole face hurt from the fake smile. ‘I wanted to ask you something.'

Brynne's eyes were big blue headlights, full of anticipation. ‘Yes?' she breathed.

‘Maybe we could . . . meet after school today, what do you think? We go could to a cafe, for example.'

‘Oh. Yes, sure. Amazing.' Nick got the impression she'd spoken the last word more to herself than to him.

‘Cafe Bianco, for example. We could go there straight after school,' Nick suggested.

‘Well actually I'd like to go home and get changed beforehand.'

Oh, hell. She'd spend two hours painting and polishing and squeezing herself into the tightest and shortest skirt she could find. ‘You know what, Brynne,' he said, deepening his smile till his bones hurt, ‘I don't think you need to. Let's go straight there. Once I get home,' he rolled his eyes, ‘I might be so dead tired that I just collapse into bed. I haven't been getting that much sleep recently.'

Did that sound like an excuse to her? Evidently not.

She giggled and winked conspiratorially. ‘You think I have? I barely know the meaning of sleep any more.'

They agreed to meet at the Underground station after Art class. Nick hoped that no-one would see them together in the crush.

Three minutes later he spotted Brynne outside the Physics classroom gesturing as she babbled to Gloria and Sarah. What it was about would have been obvious – even if they hadn't constantly looked over in his direction.

Later – when Nick was sitting by himself in the furthest corner of the canteen, stuffing a tuna sandwich into his mouth without much enthusiasm – Jamie came up to him. They hadn't talked to each other yet that day, and if Nick was honest, it was mainly his fault. The Chemistry assignment and the Date With Brynne had got under his skin so much that he wasn't particularly keen to have an argument with Jamie.

But who actually said there would be an argument? They were old mates – just because they didn't agree about one thing didn't mean it had to ruin their friendship. Exactly. He would make that clear to him.

Jamie was white-faced and looked serious. ‘It's a pity that you didn't return my call yesterday,' he said.

‘I had a lot to do.'

‘Yes, of course.'

‘What else is up?' Nick tried to steer the conversation onto safe ground. ‘Did you talk to Darleen? You were going to.'

‘No. Nick, I'd like to show you something.'

Show? That sounded fine. It didn't sound as if Jamie was going to try to talk him out of the game again.

‘Okay. What is it?'

Jamie pulled a tightly folded-up piece of paper out of his trouser pocket and thrust it into Nick's hand. ‘I found that jammed into the luggage rack on my bike yesterday.'

Nick unfolded the paper and thought for a moment he was having deja vu. There was a gravestone drawn on the piece of paper, not drawn well, but recognisable. The inscription read:

JAMIE GORDON COX
DIED OF CURIOSITY AND UNWELCOME INTERFERENCE.
MAY HE REST IN PEACE.

The artist had painted trails of blood next to the letters, thick drops that were running down the gravestone.

‘That's a pretty stupid joke,' Nick said. ‘Any idea who it's from?'

‘No. I think you know that scene better than I do.'

He wasn't going to let himself be provoked by Jamie's sniping. ‘The writing doesn't look familiar, I couldn't even say if it's from a girl or a —'

‘Don't you get it? It's a threat.' Jamie interrupted him. ‘A death threat, and quite an obvious one at that. I'm not supposed to interfere, and I'm to keep my nose out of your game, or —' He made a beheading gesture with the flat of his hand.

‘You're not taking it seriously are you?' Nick asked. ‘It's a stupid joke! Tell me, who is supposed to kill you?'

Jamie shrugged his shoulders. He did look upset.

‘Who says it even has anything to do with . . . well, you know what? You can't possibly be sure about that.'

It was too bad that Nick himself was very sure. There was no doubt that the dubious artwork came from someone who had gone for a night walk in the Erebos graveyard at some time.

‘I'm not that stupid,' Jamie snorted. ‘Tell me, what else could it possibly be about? What do you think is meant by “unwelcome interference”? That I complained in the canteen because there's not enough salt in the spaghetti?'

‘Okay, but you're not going to take it seriously, are you? It's nonsense, nothing more. Someone wants to frighten you and you're letting yourself be scared. You don't need to, honest.'

Jamie looked at him for a long time before he spoke again.

‘So what was up with Aisha? Why did she scream the other day? And the girl from Year 7, Zoe? What about her?'

‘No idea. Go ask her.'

Jamie smiled bitterly. ‘That's exactly what I did. I talked to both of them and asked them what it was that frightened them so much. Guess what? They're saying nothing. Keeping completely mum.'

‘Probably they realised ages ago that someone was playing a stupid joke on them.'

‘No. They're scared. Yesterday I found two people who've been chucked out of the game. They don't want to talk about it either, at least not yet. But I think one of them is considering it. Maybe he'll go to Mr Watson; at least that's what I suggested to him.'