Hidden Among Us (23 page)

He looked at Joe. “Well now. And what’s this?”

“Leave him alone!” My voice rang out, echoing around the cave. “This has got nothing to do with him.”

And the Swan King said to me, “Well, you do learn quickly.”

I managed not to flinch. “What are you talking about?”

“Perhaps I’m not so cruel as my son would have you think. I will let mankind die quickly, and the poison I’ll brew with your blood, child, will spread faster even than the fear of it. You brought me the means to test the poison.”

“No,” I said. “No! You have to let him go. You must. He’s done nothing wrong. It’s not his fault humans killed Larkspur’s mother. The ones who did it have been dead hundreds of years, please—”

The Swan King stepped closer, closer, till we were standing face to face, except he was taller and looked down on me, black eyes blazing with hatred. He reached out and lifted my chin with one ice-cold finger so I had no choice but to meet his gaze, and I swear I felt it then: centuries of grief, of anguish and hatred. I would have done anything to turn away, not to look, not to feel his misery, but I couldn’t move.

By the time he let me look away, I knew why he hated humans so much. He had wanted Larkspur’s mother every day for nine hundred years. He was condemned to spend eternity without her. She was gone for ever.

When he finally spoke, his voice was soft, almost gentle. “All mortals have done wrong. The oceans are empty of fish, and still they cast out nets. The great ice melts year by year, and still they burn the skies. They all must die.” He looked across at Tippy. “I could poison the girl, but she’s tainted with immortal power. I’m afraid the sickness would not take, and there is little enough to waste.”

I stared at him, not looking away. Everyone was watching us. I could feel it.
They like tricks and riddles
, Tippy had said. I thought back to Virgie Creed in the church at Hopesay Edge:
They will offer you your heart’s desire, but take care how you pay
.

“I’ve given you my blood,” I said, quickly. “You owe me something in return.”

The Swan King smiled, ferocious. “I gave you life; without me, you would be nothing.”

“But I didn’t choose that. Don’t I have the right to choose the price of my own blood?”

He laughed. “You are hardly in a place to strike a bargain, although I do admire you for trying.”

No. This had to work.

Larkspur looked up, still on his knees. “If it’s taken by force and not given freely she might curse every drop of blood in her body.”

Thank you, Larkspur, thank you—

“Be silent.” The Swan King’s voice stung the air like a slap. “She wouldn’t know how. She hasn’t lived among us long enough.”

This time, I smiled. “No, but I could try.”

“Very well. Name your price, daughter.”

“A life,” I said. “Just one life.”

The Swan King looked at me hard. “Very well. The bargain is made, and it is done.”

Joe didn’t lift his gaze from the floor.

I’d made a mistake. The worst.

I should have asked for two lives. Now it was too late. I had nothing left to bargain with. Every drop of my blood was spoken for.

“Remember your sister,” Joe mumbled, still not looking up. He was so brave. He didn’t deserve to die. None of this was anything to do with him.

“Choose the life you will save,” the Swan King said.

The silence stretched on for ever. I had to break it.

“Connie.” I spoke so quietly, ashamed to look at Joe. “My little sister. She’s sick in hospital. She might even be dead. Please make her well again. You can have my blood if you make Connie better.”

The Swan King reached out and pushed the hair away from my face, hooking one cold finger beneath my chin, tilting it so that once again neither of us could look away. My eyes filled with tears. “Daughter,” he said, “if she is dead then there is nothing even I can do.”

Joe just carried on staring down at the floor, which was fine because I couldn’t look at him.

He’d come to help me and I’d as good as killed him.

37

Dad, Miles and I sat in silence as the SUV shot down the motorway. Miles was in front of us, just behind the driver and another boring-looking suited-up guy doubtless carrying so many unpleasant weapons he would have caused an airport metal detector to explode. Dad and I shared the back seat. You could have cut the air. It was pretty tense. Silence – real silence – is unnerving. Nine times out of ten, someone cracks and mentions the weather, in even the most awkward situations. Not this time. Not one of us said a single word. The grey leather interior of the SUV smelled of vanilla air freshener. I was filthy, wearing the blood-soaked clothes I’d slept in: cold and itchy at the same time. I could have been unconscious in that steel prison a whole twenty-four hours and I wouldn’t know. It was raining outside and the driver had the windscreen wipers working full speed, but still it was hard to see in the rain, in the dark. We had left London hours earlier, and this part of the motorway wasn’t lit.

It felt like hardly any time at all since I’d driven this way with the journal on the passenger seat, dodging that grey Alfa Romeo. Now here I was again, a prisoner. They’d won. I’d pretty much abandoned Joe to his fate with only that stupid knife. Joe wasn’t the type to use it. I could tell. Stupid idiot, getting me out of the man-trap. He should have left me there, walked back into Hopesay Edge and caught the first train home.

Miles’s head lolled against the immaculate upholstery. He’d fallen asleep.

“Dad,” I said, speaking as quietly as I could. I didn’t want the driver or his henchman to hear us. “The Hidden have got Lissy. Are we really going to close this Gateway and just leave her there?”

Dad sighed, leaning his head back against the seat. He looked suddenly a lot older. “We don’t have much choice.”

“What do you mean? We can’t just let them take her. In the meeting you said that we have to protect her and bring her home. You’ve already screwed things up with the Fontevrault Group, massively – why should you do what they say? If we shut the Gateway, she’ll be trapped for ever—”

“Rafe, listen.” Dad sounded totally desperate, completely at the end of his rope. “The Hidden made a bargain with your mother. They promised to return Lissy – but only for fourteen years.”

“But why? Why fourteen years? None of this makes sense.”

“Listen. It does make sense when you know the full story. The Hidden knew we’d try to keep Lissy. There was a curse. It’s lucky for you they’ve already got her.” Dad glanced at his watch. “You and Connie would both be dead by midnight otherwise. Either Miriam took Lissy back to the Reach, or all her other children would die.”

“A curse? Come on. You know how this sounds, don’t you, Dad? Like a fairy tale. And fairy tales aren’t true.” Even so, I still felt an extra level of cold and uneasy fear: I was cursed to die. And the Hidden shouldn’t be real, but I’d still seen them.

“It might sound like a fairy tale but Connie is in hospital. They don’t know what’s wrong with her.” Dad shook his head. “I don’t trust the Hidden not to let Connie die, even though they’ve got Lissy. Just to punish us. They’re malicious, and they never forget a thing.”

I just stared at him. I didn’t even know where to start.

“I knew all along, in case you’ve been wondering,” Dad said, breaking the silence. “Your mother had guessed when she was pregnant that the baby wasn’t mine.” He half smiled, looking away. “Miriam went to the clinic for the three-month scan and Lissy arrived two weeks later. I wanted to leave the Reach as soon as I knew, but Miriam was too ill: it was extraordinary, Rafe. When your mother was pregnant with Lissy, she grew by the hour, like watching bread rise. She could hardly move – she was totally drained. When Lissy was born, the doctors just said she’d got the dates wrong, but the dates weren’t wrong. So she told me. Of course, I believed her. I’d been initiated into the Fontevrault Group a few years earlier. I knew all about the Hidden. I knew Miles had become too obsessed with them, too, wasting his time with that idiot Virgie Creed from Hopesay. What I couldn’t believe was how stupid and selfish Miles had been, opening the Gateway.”

What was I supposed to say?

“I thought I’d hate the baby when it was born,” Dad went on. “But I didn’t.”

“You didn’t tell the Fontevrault Group what Lissy is, even though you’re one of them.”

Dad shook his head, staring out of the window at the streaming rain. “How could I have done? Lissy wasn’t my child, but I loved her just the same as you and Connie. For fourteen years, I’ve been trying to hide Lissy’s true nature. Particularly from them. The Group was founded to keep humans and the Hidden apart, to protect them and us. I swore an oath to uphold that purpose. I tried my best to keep it, but unfortunately for the Fontevrault Group, I was in love with your mother. And the rest you know.” He turned to look at me. “I still don’t know if keeping all this from you was the right thing. It was easy enough installing protective software on your laptop and phone, but every time you did a web search about the Hidden on a school computer, I had to delete the evidence before anyone else saw it. Miles aways said we should tell you the truth.”

“But why did you swear to keep humans apart from the Hidden? Why all the secrecy? It’s not like anyone would believe they even existed now, anyway.”

“It’s a hereditary position, Rafe. I didn’t choose to be part of the Fontevrault Group. Humans and the Hidden don’t mix well; we envy their immortality, the undying power of their king, they envy our biological capability to reproduce. And the fact is, the Hidden do exist. If they were to move freely in our world, sooner or later people would come to believe in the evidence of their own eyes. Think of all the fairy stories that exist in almost every single culture around the world. The seed of the idea is already there. If powerful men could harness the Hidden trait of immortality, think about all the tyrannical rulers who would still be alive today.”

“Hitler. Stalin. And if the Hidden could have as many children as they wanted—”

Dad nodded. “They don’t die a natural death: the hybrids would overrun us, if we hadn’t already been destroyed by some crazed human despot with the power of immortality. And Lissy was just a little girl like any other. The Fontevrault Group would have insisted on testing everything about her – she would have ended up in a laboratory. Somehow we managed to keep it all secret – your mother’s affair with the Swan King, and Lissy’s true nature. I knew if I tried to stop you finding out about the Hidden, you’d only look harder for the truth. You’re not easily fooled, Rafe. A dangerous personality trait, sometimes.”

“What’s going to happen to Connie now then?”

Dad didn’t answer.

Her name hung between us in the silence. I don’t know about Dad but I was thinking about the last time I’d seen Connie, a small humped shape on a stretcher, Mum scrambling into the ambulance, Nick running to his car.

She couldn’t die. I wouldn’t let her. She was only eight years old.

“The Hidden have got Lissy now,” I said. “So that means this curse isn’t going to happen. Connie’s going to be OK, isn’t she?”

I’m not going to die either. Am I?

Dad just looked at me. “The Hidden can’t be trusted. They cheat. They change the rules.”

So Connie could still die. I could die too.
Not if I can Christing well help it
.

I had to say something or I was going to explode. “You don’t hate Mum, after everything she’s done? That’s just pathetic, letting her make a fool out of you.”

Dad just looked away again. “No one talks about mercy any more. It’s an underrated quality.”

We were still a long way from the Reach, but with every mile I was closer to the ultimate betrayal. I knew what was in Dad’s briefcase. Iron crosses. One for every window, one for every door.

We were going to trap Lissy in another world. For ever. I don’t even know if I would have sacrificed my own life to save her.

All I knew was that I couldn’t sacrifice Connie.

38

I could hear Lissy and the Hidden creature breathing, but everything was black. The little kid was crying. It was a lonely sound in the darkness. I reached out and my fingertips brushed cold wet rock.

I was glad I couldn’t see. How are you meant to look anyone in the face when you know you’re going to die?

When I knew I was to blame for all of this
.

I didn’t want to be poisoned without ever seeing my mam and dad again. I didn’t want to die in some hole without trying to make it right.

“Joe,” Lissy whispered. “Joe, I’m really sorry—”

“It’s my fault,” I said. “About Connie.”

No one spoke. It just went quiet. I heard water trickling somewhere.

Then Lissy said quietly, “Joe, what are you talking about?”

I squeezed my eyes shut, even though it was dark. “It happened before you got to Hopesay. They were looking for Connie upstairs; it was time for her tea. She was in the yard, though. In the rain. Talking to that
thing
— The girl with white hair.”

For a moment, there was nothing but the trickling water and the disjointed jerky rhythm of our breath.

“She did something to Connie,” I said. “I’m sure she did. I should have told your mam I’d seen her, but she looked so harmless—”

“You don’t know that, Joe.” Lissy’s voice had an edge of kindness. “And even if it’s true, you couldn’t have guessed how dangerous Rose is. I mean, she hardly looks it.”

“He’s speaking the truth,” Larkspur said, quietly. “It was part of the covenant I made with your mother, Lissy. If you weren’t returned, she had to pay with the lives of her other children.”

“Connie,” Lissy whispered. “Rose poisoned Connie – like a warning to Mum that her time was running out?”

I felt dizzy. This was my fault. “So Rose used Connie as insurance. To make sure Miriam didn’t try and get out of the deal?”

“Yes,” Larkspur said, simply. “Your brother’s life is forfeit, too, Lissy.”

The silence went on and on.

So I had pretty much put Connie in hospital myself by not speaking up when I should have. If Miriam had known, if she’d seen Rose, maybe there would have been time to negotiate. But I’d said nothing, and instead Connie was taken away in an ambulance.