Hollow Earth (34 page)

It crouched on its haunches on the edge of the table.

‘Greetings,
mes chers
.’

It was Tanan’s voice.

‘Get out of there, Em!’ screamed Matt.

SIXTY-NINE

E
m leaped from her ledge. When she hit the moss-covered slate, her legs slid out from under her, and she landed on her hip, yelping in pain. The demon whirled around to face her, rolling its head from side to side, rubbing its scaly hands together. The way out was blocked. But the monster’s scales radiated a distinctive animated sheen, giving Em better visibility than she’d had a few minutes ago.

Matt looked as if he was backing down his own hidden tunnel. Lunging for what was left of the computer screen, Em threw it like a frisbee. The demon raised its claw, catching the screen before it whizzed by and crushing it against its scaly body. It took a step towards Em, then another. Em threw herself under the trestle tables, scuttling along the floor to the opposite side of the cave.

She wasn’t fast enough.

The monster took two long strides and waited for her at the other end of the cave. Em backed up against the sharp rocks of the wall. Frantically, she scanned the chamber, looking for a way to reach her brother – when she felt a tingling in her fingers. The sensation spread painfully across her palms. Within seconds, her entire hand was burning. Looking down, she watched in astonishment as a gleaming Viking longsword took shape in her hand, morphing itself securely into her grasp. Without hesitation, Em clamped her other hand over the sword’s hilt, hoisted the weapon above her shoulder and plunged the blade into the demon’s thigh. The demon shrieked.

Matt tore up his sketch instantly. It wasn’t a good idea to leave the demon with a weapon. The blade ruptured down the centre of its shaft, then exploded into shards of golden light, blinding the monster for an instant.

Taking full advantage of the blast, Em darted across the room and on to the couch, reaching up to the tunnel where her brother was waiting. Matt grabbed her wrists and tried to pull her up. The demon howled in rage, charging across the cave.

‘Draw something to block the entrance!’ yelled Em, her legs flailing.

The demon lunged at her, seizing one of her feet before slowly dragging her back out of the tunnel. She screamed.

‘C’mon! C’mon! You need to get all the way inside!’ yelled Matt.

Em kicked furiously at the monster’s head with her free leg. Twisting around, she could see right into the demon’s jade-coloured eyes.
Tanan’s eyes
. He had animated the demon in the same way that Matt had animated the caladrius.

The demon was tightening its grip with one skeletal fist while it batted away her kicks with the other. The more Em struggled, the more amusement she saw in its cold, green eyes. She felt like a ball of wool in the paws of a very intent cat.

Behind you.

An aerosol can rolled against her back. Grabbing the container, Em sprayed mace directly into the demon’s eyes. It howled, loosening its grip.

Get inside now! I’m drawing a barrier across the entrance.

Em slid her foot out of her boot, dragging herself all the way into the tunnel within a breath of a steel door slamming down over the opening like a guillotine. Instantly, the demon started clawing at the earth under the barrier, trying to dig itself another way in.

‘That’s not going to stop it for very long,’ said Matt, wriggling around to face forward. ‘Let’s see where this tunnel goes.’

Em’s hand was on fire, blisters forming across the pads of her fingers where she’d gripped the animated sword. Matt glanced at her apologetically.

‘Sorry about your skin. But I had to be sure the sword animated directly into your hand, or the demon might have reached it first.’

‘It’s okay. It worked.’

Scuttling forward on their hands and knees, they climbed deeper into the island. The composition of the tunnel was changing as they crawled on, and Em thought the air smelled like rotting leaves.

After only a few minutes, the twins heard the monster punch its fist into the rock and yank the steel plate out like a loose tooth. There was a clang of metal as the animation dropped on the cave’s slate floor. Looking back, the twins saw the demon leap up into the opening and sit there for a second, its massive girth filling the space. Then it elongated itself into the tunnel, slithering after them.

Draw a cave-in!

That could bring the whole tunnel down on top of us, too!

Em’s hip throbbed with every movement she made. Matt’s knuckles were bleeding again. With each snorting breath, the monster’s black tongue flicked far out from its scaly mouth, stinging the bottom of Em’s stockinged foot.

Em was terrified. What if there were venom in the demon’s tongue?

One minute there was solid earth underneath them. The next minute, nothing. They were tumbling through darkness …

SEVENTY

S
imon had managed to reduce Mara’s emotions and his own panic about the twins to a dull throb at the base of his skull. Finding Renard’s emergency key for the box that controlled the shipping beacon in the Abbey’s utility room, he unlocked the switch box in the boathouse and stripped the wires so he could change the signal. He could only hope that Zach remembered his Morse code.

With every long and short pulse of light he had flashed, he had willed Zach to be looking at the tower. Then, after ten minutes of sending the same message – hide – Simon had looked for the speedboat to get over to the island himself.

But the boat was gone.

Mara
. He had to get her to animate a way across the bay. Simon prayed that his connection with Mara as her Guardian would be enough to bring her to her senses.

He sprinted across the lawn to Mara’s studio. The closer he got, the more intense the pain in his mind and his body. By the time had reached the studio steps, he was buckled over in anguish.

‘Mara,’ he croaked. ‘Are you in here?’

The studio looked empty, but Simon sensed her presence. Hobbling inside, the first thing he noticed was the mess – the smashed crates, the layers of broken glass everywhere. In the midst of the chaos stood an easel, displaying a small canvas.

Simon reeled. In the days before he disappeared, Malcolm had been infatuated with Duncan Fox and this painting, his appreciation for it something that no one else understood. Simon hadn’t seen the picture for years. It had lost none of its power.

A jolt of pain pushed Simon to his knees. And then he heard Mara’s soft sobbing from the corner behind the kiln. Simon looked up – and froze.

‘Who did this to you?’

Mara was leaning in front of
Witch with Changeling Child
, her arm fused into the painting. The evil crone grinned out at Simon as she clutched Mara’s hand in hers.

‘Tanan,’ Mara sobbed. ‘I thought … I thought we were partners. I thought we were helping each other. I was doing it all for Malcolm.’

Simon was appalled. ‘Tanan bound you like this?’

‘He’s a very powerful Animare, but he’s not strong enough to bind an entire person on his own.’

Simon took Mara’s other hand. His touch calmed her immediately. This in turn reduced a little of Simon’s pain. ‘But what does Tanan want?’

‘He wants Malcolm back. We thought he was bound in that copy of Fox’s painting and that only the twins could release him.’

Mara’s sobs racked her body again. Simon closed his eyes, struggling to find strength to settle his Animare. It was difficult. Mara’s anguish was coming from a place inside her that was full of bile, bitter and angry.

‘Why you, Mara? Why would you try to hurt Matt and Em?’

Her eyes blazed. ‘Because I love Malcolm. Even before Sandie came along, I loved him. I would do anything for him. He needs us to use the twins …’

‘Surely even Malcolm would not have hurt his own children!’ Simon protested.

Mara looked coldly at him. ‘Those children were a means to an end for Malcolm from the day they were born. He believed when they were older and stronger, they would be the doors to Hollow Earth. That’s why Sandie stopped him. We knew she had done something to him, but we never fully understood what until a few weeks ago.’

There was no more time to waste on Mara’s pain.

‘Mara,’ Simon said, using the last vestiges of his Guardian power on her. ‘Animate something to get me across to Era Mina. When we return, the twins can free you from this painting.’ Finding a scrap of paper on the floor near the kiln, he set it and a marker on Mara’s lap. ‘Do it now!’ he commanded. ‘It may already be too late.’

SEVENTY-ONE

T
he twins did not fall far, but they landed hard. Em had been following so closely behind Matt that when they dropped off the end of the tunnel she landed on top of him. He broke her fall, but the yell he gave convinced Em that she had broken his arm. He rolled on to his side, clutching his elbow and grimacing.

‘That hurt.’

Em pulled off her sweatshirt, knotting the sleeves behind Matt’s back and fashioning a sling. Gently she eased his arm through the hoodie, taking some of the pressure off the injury.

‘Where are we?’ she asked in a trembling voice.

Matt was afraid that he would cry if he tried to speak.

Directly above their heads, an amber glow filled the end of the tunnel from which they had fallen. The demon was still there, its tongue flicking out into the empty air, leaving a trail of light in the darkness.

Tanan’s trying to figure out where we went.

We can’t give ourselves away with a light.

As quietly as they could, the twins scuttled backwards until they hit the cold rock of the cave wall.

Close this end of the tunnel and we can trap him in the wall.

Like when we left London. Give me the paper and pen.

I don’t have them. They must have fallen when we did.

Em started running her hands in a circle around her, stretching her body as far away from the wall as she dared in her attempts to find the pad and pen. Above them, the demon leaned out over the precipice, its head twitching and nodding as if deciding on the best moment to come in to fetch its prey.

The charcoal you used to draw the blanket. Do you still have it? We can use the wall.

In a blur of golden light, the demon jumped. It landed on its haunches in the middle of the cave. As it uncoiled itself to its full height, the sheen emanating from its scaly skin illuminated the entire chamber.

The twins gasped. The wall behind the demon was covered from top to bottom by a stunning cave drawing of a two-headed dog, a hellhound, like the gargoyles on the Abbey walls.

They had found Solon’s Cave.

The stories Renard had told them about the monk’s young apprentice, who had saved the monastery during a Viking raid, had been the basis of their own presentation for the tourists on Auchinmurn. And now they were here.

The demon began scuffing and scratching the cave floor with its foot, like a bull about to charge.

Then it pounced.

Em gripped her brother’s hand, squeezing her eyes shut. Matt threw himself in front of his sister, trying to protect her. But in mid-air the demon exploded, bursting into thousands of projectiles of copper light that ricocheted off the cave walls, showering the twins in a layer of thick red dust.