Johnny Mackintosh and the Spirit of London (30 page)

“Is everyone ready then?” asked Bram.

Johnny nodded seriously, as did Clara behind him.

“It will be dangerous,” said Bram. “Just getting me to the Diaquant would be enough. You do not have to come with me.”

“Of course we'll come,” said Johnny. He looked round and saw Clara looking just as determined as he was.

“Well thank you,” said Bram. “Let us get into position.”

Johnny stood up and followed Bram to behind the plican's tank. They watched as the space inside the bridge distorted.
Johnny thought he could feel the warmth and smell the salt air of Atlantis. He could even hear seagulls. “Nearly there,” said Clara. An arch was forming in front of them, blotting out the image of the tower on Sol's viewscreen. “Got it!” squealed Clara, and the gateway solidified.

A bolt of blue lightning shot through the opening, just missing them. “Now!” shouted Bram—he grabbed Johnny and Clara's hands and together the three of them leapt through into … empty space. Johnny somehow managed to stop his momentum and pull himself back, as did Bram. But Clara was swinging from Bram's hand, dangling over the edge of the narrow ledge that they had just landed on and which circled the top of what was a hollow tower. Clara screamed, but was drowned out by something else. The whole tower filled with the most terrible noise Johnny had ever heard—something was in pain. The sound reached inside him like fingernails being scraped down a blackboard. A circle of blue sparks was rushing up the inside of the hollow column beneath Clara. Bram lifted her out and placed her on the ledge. Just in time. The ring of electricity passed in front of their faces and up into a giant parabolic mirror above their heads. From there, the sparks were focused into a shape so bright Johnny couldn't bear to look at it, held in position above a central pillar of orichalcum that descended into the depths. The terrible noise stopped. Johnny glanced behind but the bridge of the Spirit of London was nowhere to be seen. Clara hadn't kept the fold open. He peered over the ledge and saw further rings of blue sparks making their way up the inside of the tower at regular intervals, one every few seconds. Clara had been lucky not to get zapped. Now she stood, with a look of sheer terror on her face, with her back pressed against the inside wall of the tower, unable to look anywhere below her. The screams began again. Clara covered her ears as she looked to Bram to make the heart-wrenching noise stop.

Bram, though, paid no attention. Despite the confined space he fell to his knees, gazing up at the source of the bright light with a mixture of wonder and horror, and talking to himself. Johnny only caught snatches of what he was saying. “All my life … the gods themselves … cruelty … such beauty.” Johnny nudged him a few times but there was no response. Instead he followed where Bram's eyes were looking. It was so bright it was painful. Johnny squinted, shutting out as much of the searing whiteness as he could. Through his eyelashes the whiteness resolved into a doughnut-shaped cage, like a fusion reactor, and at its heart was something alive … sort of. It was bent double and shriveled up into a little ball, unable to move. Flaps of what little skin it had left hung off its frail frame. The unbearable wailing came from its mouth. As Johnny watched, the screams faded again and Clara lowered her hands from her ears. Johnny looked down at Bram, who filled the ledge between him and his sister, and saw he was stretching his arms out toward the figure, completely lost in his own world.

“Don't be afraid, my pretty.” Clara started and nearly fell. Neith, followed by Mestor, had entered the tower through a hidden doorway next to her. Clara looked as frightened of the drop as she did of Neith and, besides, she couldn't move away with Bram's kneeling figure blocking her retreat. And Johnny couldn't get across to help her for the same reason.

“Fetch me the other one,” Neith said to Mestor who, leaning on his staff, began limping in the opposite direction around the narrow ledge that marked the outside of the tower. He was coming for Johnny. The wailing began again—like a wounded animal. Johnny felt hope draining out of him. Neith put her arm around Clara's back, prying her off the wall, and grabbed her blond hair, forcing her to look toward the white light. “Beautiful isn't it, my pretty?” said the Queen. “This is my
Diaquant. You see the more it fights, the more tightly it is bound—and the more energy I take from it.”

“You're evil,” said Clara.

“Yes I suppose I am,” said Neith. She smiled at Clara's remark. “Come with me—I won't hurt you.”

“I won't,” said Clara, ducking out of Neith's reach and sitting down on the floor next to Bram with her back once again pressed against the tower wall. Another ring of blue sparks passed in front of their faces.

“There's nowhere to hide, my pretty,” said Neith, kneeling down next to her. “Khari won't help you now—look at him. If this blabbering idiot is the last of the ancients, I think it's time some new blood was in charge.”

Bram continued to stare, blissfully vacant, toward the Diaquant, and Mestor was already halfway around the tower and coming for Johnny. Reaching inside his tunic for the games console, Johnny took it out and keyed in a simple message: “Don't fight it.” He pressed “send.”

Mestor hesitated, looking at the device in Johnny's hand. When nothing happened, he hobbled closer. “Your trinkets won't help you here,” he said. He peered over the edge and then looked back toward Johnny. “If you don't want to know how far down it goes, you had better come with me.”

“Make me,” said Johnny.

“Don't think that I can't,” Mestor replied. The next circle of blue sparks moved slowly up the tower in front of them. “You will make a fine priest … with the right …
discipline,”
he continued.

“And I thought you'd been trying to kill me,” said Johnny. If he could keep the priest talking, it might buy him some more time to figure a way out.

“You flatter yourself,” replied Mestor, edging ever closer to him. “Of course the Senator must die. But it would be futile for
you to join him. In time you shall worship in the Temple of Neith.”

“Never,” said Johnny. “I'd rather die.”

“Very well,” said Mestor, taking his staff in both hands and pointing a sharpened end toward Johnny.

“How dare you!” screamed Neith, standing upright and rubbing her arm. Johnny glanced quickly around. The Queen had tooth marks in her forearm. Clara's eyes burned blue and silver with defiance. “Enough!” snapped Neith. “I don't have time for these games.”

Another ring of blue sparks moved slowly past them. Very slowly. Johnny hadn't noticed that the dreadful screams had stopped until he heard a different noise. Something was singing. The air vibrated around him like a guitar string as the song filled the empty insides of the tower. He knew there was hope. Mestor jabbed his staff toward him but it was easy for Johnny to move out of the way. The priest repeatedly stabbed at him but couldn't seem to get close. Johnny even had time to watch Clara dodging Neith's lunges just as easily. The next set of sparks rose up level with him in the tower, but slowed to a halt—the soundwaves from the song were blocking it. Then, very slowly at first, the sparks reversed, edging their way back down the shaft. Johnny looked up toward the Diaquant, and saw the electronic bars caging it were slowly unwinding. More and more of the creature was becoming visible. Mestor lunged again at Johnny, who this time pulled the staff easily from the old priest's grasp. He knew what he needed to do. Planting the staff into the central orichalcum column he jumped off the ledge like a pole vaulter, heading for the Diaquant.

Neith saw him and sprang catlike toward the Diaquant, but Johnny knew he had more time … that he would get there first. He took a hand off the staff and plucked the flimsy creature from out of its cage, keeping his momentum going toward the
other side. The singing stopped. The spell was broken. Johnny clattered onto the far ledge, twisting his body so the Diaquant, which felt so fragile that the slightest impact would break it, landed on top of him. He looked back to see Neith caught in the electric bars in the central cage, that were now strengthening again. She looked terrified.

The blue sparks began rising up the tower. Bram, released from whatever spell had been holding him, got to his feet before Mestor could push him over the ledge. The priest retreated and glanced, horrified, up at the cage. Neith screamed a terrible scream. Johnny looked again to see her transforming. Her dark hair was graying, her face and skin becoming wrinkled. She was aging before his eyes. He looked away to see Clara bury her own head in Bram's chest. When Johnny looked back, all that remained of the Queen was a skeleton, that begin to disintegrate even as he watched.

“What have you done?” shouted Mestor at him. The priest's face was contorted with rage. He moved toward Johnny, hurling abuse at him but it was drowned out as the tower itself shuddered and cracked, opening up a gap in the ledge between them. The enormous mirror above shattered, and the roof crumbled away, letting the sunlight pour in. Johnny sheltered himself and the Diaquant from the shards of glass and falling masonry. He heard Mestor screaming and raised his head. The priest was no longer looking at him. Instead, he was staring out over the island of Atlantis. Johnny looked too—it was impossible not to. Mountains of water were rushing toward them from every direction, uprooting anything and everything in their path. More and more of Atlantis was disappearing into shadow and then vanishing under the deluge. A deep rumbling in the distance reached him and began to build. They were so high up at the top of the tower that he could see everything. He looked across toward the spaceport. Next to the golden
Atlantean ships he easily spotted the Spirit of London, with the Sun glinting off its diamond-patterned hull and the trademark dark bands sweeping around it. The rumbling was much louder now. Johnny watched, willing Sol to take off and rise above the water, as a handful of other vessels were doing. The wave was getting closer, plunging the ship into shadow. Sol would take off … he knew it. He couldn't understand what was taking so long. Then the wave hit the spaceport. Everything disappeared underneath the wall of water that was rushing toward him. Johnny stared in disbelief.

“Johnny,” shouted Bram. “Is she safe? Is the Diaquant safe?”

Johnny had almost forgotten he held the Diaquant in his arms. It …
she
 … was just skin and bones and so light he barely noticed her. He looked across the tower toward Bram, standing with Clara, and nodded. He knew the Diaquant was important but she didn't matter in the way Sol and Alf did. They were gone now. Clara and Bram mattered too—but they'd all be gone soon.

“Hang on!” Bram shouted above the sound of the roaring water. Behind them Johnny could see the wave getting very close. It was about to hit the tower. Johnny looked around him—there wasn't anything he could see to hold onto so he braced himself for the impact.

Everything shook. Water surged up the central shaft, spouting out through the open roof. Johnny pressed himself back against what was left of the wall, part of which gave way. He looked to his side and saw Mestor was gone. He must have been washed away when the wave hit. Clara and Bram were still hanging on. Below, the water was subsiding, revealing the destruction beneath them. Almost nothing was left—just the occasional flash of red from a smashed orichalcum roof. As the wave retreated, he tried to pick out where the spaceport had been. He couldn't even recognize the Spirit of London among the twisted wreckage.

“We'll come to you,” Bram shouted. “Clara—can you fold us out of here?”

Clara shook her head slowly. Her face was completely white.

“Be careful,” Johnny shouted across. “I'll come to you too.” He started picking his way along the ledge, parts crumbled and missing, as Clara and Bram edged gingerly toward him. It was slow progress. It felt as though any sudden movement could bring it crashing down. Already more giant waves were returning in the distance, washing in over the wasteland that just a few moments before had been a great city. Johnny wasn't at all sure the tower would survive a second hit. “We've got to be quick,” he shouted across to the other two. “It's coming back in. What are we going to do?”

“We'll think of something,” Bram shouted back. “Maybe the Diaquant can save us?”

Johnny looked at the creature he cradled in his arms. When he'd seen her up in the cage she'd looked the frailest, oldest thing he'd ever seen. Now, in the sunshine, he could see she was wrapped in a watery silver cloth and her skin didn't look quite as wrinkled as he'd thought. And her scalp, that had seemed bald when in the cage, was in fact covered with a very fine layer of short blond hair. Her eyes were shut. He studied her face and decided she looked much less frail than he'd imagined when he'd leapt to her rescue, but he didn't see how she could help them now. And then she was plunged into shadow.

“Look!” Clara shouted, pointing skyward. “It's Sol. She's OK.”

Johnny followed her arm upward. There, hovering above them and blotting out the Sun, was the Spirit of London. He laughed. They were going to be saved—and it
was
funny to see the London Gherkin in mid-air like that. He'd never seen the ship in flight before and couldn't help thinking what a spectacular sight she was.

The next wave crashed against the tower beneath them and Johnny looked around, hoping to steady himself. He found he was staring straight into Mestor's furious eyes. The priest lunged forward from out of a hidden alcove, grabbing Johnny's neck with both hands and carrying them both over the edge. Clara screamed. Holding the Diaquant in his right hand Johnny grabbed desperately for the ledge with his left, finding it with his fingertips. Mestor slid down till he was hanging from Johnny's ankles. Johnny knew there was no way he could hold on. Maybe if he let the Diaquant go and tried with both hands, but he couldn't do that. Worse still, the impact of the second wave was making the whole tower collapse. He could feel himself heading downward, like being in a very slow lift. He looked up desperately. Two little black dots swooped out of an opening in the Spirit of London's side. Mestor was swinging underneath him, pushing off the outer wall with his legs to try to dislodge them both. Johnny was hanging on by just his fingernails and adrenaline. He saw Bram desperately trying to get round the ledge to him. The two black dots were getting bigger. It was Ptery and Donna, flying to their rescue. Johnny knew they wouldn't make it in time.