History Keepers: Nightship to China (20 page)

With a gleeful clap of his hands, Xi Xiang emerged through the gateway, Madame Fang at his side. Behind them, two soldiers carried a wooden throne, another a small table, some caskets and other paraphernalia. At the rear, more guards accompanied a fifth prisoner – the young man in the blue tunic whom they had followed from the paper factory. The cocky air was gone: he’d been roughed up, given a black eye, and his clothes were spattered with blood.

Xi had thrown a long cape over his peasant disguise. It was encrusted with jewels and trailed along the ground behind him. He wore a matching crown, set at a jaunty angle like some lunatic king. ‘
Electrophorus electricus
,’ he squealed, flicking a limp wrist towards the pool. ‘Electric eels. Have any of you met one of these ingenious creatures before? What a punch they can pack, with their six hundred volts. They can incapacitate an alligator.’ He turned to Jake with a mock grimace. ‘Imagine what they can do to a child . . .’

Jake glared at him, but Xi simply clicked his fingers at two of the guards. They set to work, opening a large box, unpacking a coil of thick wire, casting it across the pool and tightening it on either side like a tennis net.

‘After a hard day’s work planning the destruction of humanity,’ Xi sighed, ‘there is nothing I like more than to relax with a little light entertainment – and tightrope walking is such fun!’ He clapped his hands, and the chair and table were put in position, with the caskets on the table. Xi pursed his lips, swished his cape to one side and sat down. ‘He can go first,’ he said, pointing at the youth in the blue tunic. ‘Teach him to be more careful next time – if there is a next time for him, of course, for my little pets are . . . hungry!’

He sucked his thumb, watching eagerly as the guards seized the youth and pushed him towards the tightrope. Madame Fang held up her blade to make sure he stayed there. The young man turned round, pleading for mercy.

Xi removed his thumb from his mouth to announce, ‘If he reaches the other side, he can walk free.’

The young man trembled as he looked down at the eels gathering below. The water lit up with pulses of electricity as the creatures bumped into each other, reacting in fear to the people around them. He put his foot onto the wire and tested its strength.

‘Wait!’ Xi jumped to his feet. The youth turned, hoping for a reprieve. ‘It’s too easy. Use this as a blindfold.’ He whipped off his scarf and passed it to Madame Fang, who tied it around the man’s head. ‘Tight as you can; we don’t want him peeking.’

When Xi sat down again, Jake studied the pendant hanging from a leather thong around his neck. It was a cylinder of blue crystal, the length of an index finger, engraved with complicated inscriptions. With a jolt, Jake realized what it was. ‘The Lazuli Serpent,’ he whispered in Topaz’s ear.

She turned and squinted over at it, and her eyes widened.

The terrified youth teetered onto the tightrope and set off across the pool.

‘Tolerable . . . tolerable,’ Xi commented, chewing on his thumb in anticipation. The young man decided that speed might save him, and suddenly accelerated, but then he lost his balance and plunged down, slapping onto the water. He cried out as six eels converged on him, delivering a succession of electric shocks, making the pool crackle and his limbs jolt in every direction. But he was still conscious when the fish opened their powerful jaws, pulling off chunks of flesh. His blindfold slipped and Jake saw the terror in his eye; then it glazed over as his heart stilled. The eels continued to feed, and pulses of light shot through the water, which had turned red with blood.

Xi Xiang stood up again, his two good eyes gleaming; even the third, deformed slit shone with delight.

Finally the water was still again. Xi clapped his hands together and, looking round, asked, ‘So who’s next?’

Jake stepped forward, his face rigid. ‘If you tell me what happened to Philip, I will go.’

For a while Xi did not move. Then he tilted his head back, brought up a ball of phlegm and spat it on the ground.

‘I gave that boy everything he desired,’ he proclaimed. ‘Treated him like my own son. But all the time, he was double crossing me, repaying me with betrayal.
Betrayal!
’ he repeated shrilly, so that the word echoed around the walls.

Despite everything, Jake stood tall. This surely confirmed that Philip had been working not
for
Xi, but
against
him; that he had not been a traitor to the service.

Xi ran his finger around the edge of his third eye. ‘He was sent, by
your
people, on that absurd mission to Vienna – when was it: 1689? The Habsburg–Ottoman War; a glorious opportunity for Zeldt to meddle in world affairs.’ He sniggered. ‘And for myself, naturally – it’s amazing how sometimes we all wash up in the same dirty corners of history.’ His smile hardened. ‘But imagine sending a fifteen-year-old boy off alone? To assassinate Zeldt?’ He let out a strangled laugh. ‘Fifteen years old? He was still a child! And they call
me
barbaric!’ Xi paused for a moment before continuing. ‘So he failed – obviously; and that witch Mina Schlitz shot him in the neck with a blunderbuss, left him for dead on the banks of the Danube, swilling around with all the muck from the sewers, prey for the Ottoman forces.’

Jake started. Mina Schlitz! He had run into the young assassin on his first mission, and remembered the whip she used to strangle her enemies. So she had used a
blunderbuss
on his brother . . .

‘I saved him, carried him away on my back – Schlitz and Zeldt are no more friends of mine than you lot are – I took him to my lodgings, gave him my bed, sat with him day after day. When he woke from his coma, he didn’t know who he was. I nursed him back to health, and gradually he started to remember . . .’ A tear rolled down Xi’s cheek. ‘I would have let him return to his precious organization. I
liked
your brother, you see. He had character. He was strong’ – he pointed to his head – ‘here, where it counts – not the usual idiots they train up at Point Zero.’ He spat out the name as if it were poison. ‘Yes, I would have let him return, even
I
. But he convinced me – in that sly way of his – that he did not
want
to go back.
They haven’t sent anyone to find me – why should I care about them?
he said. I believed him.’

Xi clicked his fingers at one of his men. ‘I’m dry.’ The minion stepped forward and opened one of the caskets on the table. It contained a jumble of cosmetics. Xi searched around and retrieved a little tube. His eye on Jake, he turned the tube until a purple-brown lipstick, the colour of a bruise, emerged. He applied it right round his mouth, chucked it back in the box, took out some rouge and brushed it onto his cheeks; then he opened the second casket, which was full of white talc. He padded a cloud of it onto his face to seal the make-up.

‘I took Pip – that’s what I called him; Philip didn’t suit him . . . I took him to London. I gave him the keys to my mansion, showered him with gifts, educated him in the arts, introduced him to the wonders of literature. We
haunted
the playhouses. We were dazzled by Richard Burbage as Hamlet. We met Shakespeare, Jonson, Marlowe. I chaperoned him to Rome, to the studio of Caravaggio himself.’ Again Xi’s voice became shrill. There were flickers of lightning every few seconds now as the storm gathered overhead. ‘Yes,
we
were painted by the greatest artist of the day. I gave him all this, loved him like a father. And how does he repay me?’

Xi struck Jake across the face, making his cheek sting. ‘Of course Nanny told me all along that he was not to be trusted; that the Djoneses were devious.’ He turned to Madame Fang, frowning. ‘But I didn’t listen to you, did I?’ He looked back at Jake with an expression of pure hatred. ‘You see, all the time Pip Djones was double-crossing me, waiting for his moment to strike. But
I
struck first. I tortured him – with knives, with water, with needles. I didn’t want to kill him – that would have been too easy; I needed him to suffer – so I locked him in a place where he will never see light! No, he will
never
see light again. He will never see his precious secret service. Or his family. Or another human being. Ever again!’ His voice echoed around the walls. ‘He will die cold, dark and alone.’

All at once, rain started to patter down – huge, steaming drops of it – quickly becoming a downpour. Madame Fang motioned for a servant to hold an umbrella over her and Xi. Within moments, the rain was battering the pool, making Xi laugh with delight, while the eels retreated into the murky depths.

Jake eyeballed him. ‘Tell me where Philip is?’ he repeated, almost shouting to be heard over the deluge.

‘I’m bored of this game,’ Xi said. ‘Bring me the helmet.’ One of the guards was carrying something that looked like a medieval instrument of torture, and he gave a nod. Two soldiers held Jake while the third forced the helmet over his head.

‘Leave him,’ Topaz cried, struggling to help him, but Madame Fang forced her back again. Yoyo pleaded in her native tongue, but received only a thump in reply.

Jake’s head was suddenly in clammy darkness; he could hear nothing but his own breathing. The helmet was lined with rubber, and the collar was fastened tight around his neck.

Xi Xiang stared at Jake through the visor. ‘I apologize for this,’ he purred, ‘but you see, when I take your remains back home, dismembered, to show your brother, he needs to see who it is.’ He patted the metal casing. ‘This should keep your face in one piece – more or less.’

‘You loathsome, spineless—’ Nathan snarled.

Even in the midst of his terror, the phrase jolted Jake:
When I take your remains back home? Back home!
So Xi had
another
place? Was that where Philip was?

‘
Laissez-le tranquille!
’ Topaz pleaded, eyes streaming with tears. ‘
Pour l’amour de Dieu
. . .’ Madame Fang gave her another slap.

Xi Xiang turned to his henchmen. ‘Lower him, headfirst. Slowly . . . we want to enjoy it.’

Jake was dragged over to the side of the pool, his head forced down into the water. Eels attacked the metal casing with the force of battering rams, making his skull ring. Pulses of electricity fizzed around; only the rubber collar kept him safe from the shocks. But for how long? The men prepared to push Jake’s shoulders into the water too – at which point the eels would surely finish him off. He could see only a churning maelstrom of movement, and red eyes darting towards him. As he braced himself for the worst, snapshots of his family appeared before his eyes – his mum and dad, then Philip, starving in a dark dungeon.

Xi Xiang was shaking with laughter, so much so that tears streamed down his face. And Nathan suddenly spotted his opportunity . . .

He cupped his manacled hands together, grabbed the casket of talc and threw it at Xi, blinding him; then he grabbed the jade bottle from Xi’s belt, opened it, and threw the contents at the two guards holding Jake. He reached for his friend, and at the same time pushed the first man into the pool. With a high kick, Yoyo dealt with the other, and the eels immediately set upon them.

Taking advantage of the confusion, Topaz swung round and struck another guard in the jaw with her manacles. As Madame Fang came for her, drawing her sword, Topaz dodged, snapped a stone spear off one of the statues and turned to do battle. They fought around the edge of the pond, metal sparking against stone in the pounding rain.

Nathan and Yoyo followed Topaz’s lead, snapping weapons off the other statues and taking on the remaining guards.

Jake was struggling with the clasp on his helmet, made slippery by the rain. Suddenly Xi Xiang, teeth clenched, came into view through his visor. He was covered in white paste, and the lipstick around his mouth was smudged. He drew a dagger, but Jake head-butted him with the helmet. A vivid red gash appeared across Xi’s forehead and blood streamed down over his eyes.

He let out a shrill cry and stabbed at Jake, catching his shoulder. But Jake had finally managed to pull off the helmet – with which he proceeded to bash his opponent’s skull, harder and harder. Dazed, Xi tottered backwards. Jake took him by the collar.

‘
Where is he?
’ he shouted, half demented. ‘
Where is Philip?
’

Xi hawked up another gob of phlegm and spat it in Jake’s face. Then his mouth fell open and he lost consciousness.

Meanwhile Nathan and Yoyo had overcome the last of the guards: he fell to the ground, breaking his neck with a snap. Nathan snatched the key from the man’s belt and started to unlock his handcuffs, while Yoyo collected up the weapons and rushed to Topaz’s aid, tossing her a sword.

‘
Merci bien
,’ she cried, swapping her stone weapon to her left hand, while catching the sword in her right. She attacked Fang with renewed vigour, Yoyo engaging her from the other side. Even with two young agents coming at her at once, the old woman was a fighting machine, lightning-quick on her feet, eyes pin-sharp, always anticipating the next move. But in the end they were too much for her: they pinned her to the wall and disarmed her.

Fang hissed at them through the warm rain. ‘There’s no escape,’ she taunted.

‘Why will war be declared in two days’ time?’ Topaz demanded, the tip of her sword piercing the old woman’s wizened neck. ‘What’s happening?
Tell me!
’

Fang gave a peculiar smile and stamped her heel. A fresh blade that had been attached to her knee sprang out and she jabbed it into Topaz’s thigh, knocking Yoyo out of the way at the same time. She jumped onto the tightrope and danced across the pool in three steps, before climbing onto one of the statues and throwing herself into the air. The History Keepers watched, open-mouthed, as she caught hold of the eave and somersaulted onto the roof. Topaz launched her sword towards her, and the others followed suit with the extra weapons they had to hand, but Fang was too swift. She scurried away over the tiles, disappearing in the haze of torrential rain.

A moment later, there was a blare of hunting horns. Through the archway Nathan saw a platoon of guards heading towards them. He ran back to the metal gates and pulled them shut, but there was no way to lock them. The soldiers advanced, weapons drawn.