Knightley and Son (9781619631540) (31 page)

Knightley looked up, his eyes trying to focus. “No . . . ,” he said. “It’s the
book
. . .” He turned to Darkus. “We have to get out of here, Doc.”

“We’re not finished,” said Underwood, raising his pistol, but the vibration made it impossible to aim.

“The book’s more than just a trick of the eye. The Order was right—it brings death and damnation,” Knightley rattled on, as if to himself. “Don’t you see? It always does!”

“It’s a train,” repeated Presto, a little too vehemently.

“You’re only its custodian, Morton,” shouted Knightley. “It’s an ancient evil. Can’t you see? It’s protecting itself!”

The curved station walls started shaking. The gray switching box came off its hinges and fell to the floor, narrowly missing Tilly, who was sleeping soundly from her concussion. A gust of wind crept in, ruffling clothes and hair. Underwood spun around. The door in the center of the wall flew open, exposing the train tracks beyond the platform, where the eastbound and westbound tunnels met side by side. The gale picked up strength, whirling dust and tearing gray paint flakes from the walls.

Darkus shielded his eyes, picked up the stiletto knife, and cut through Knightley’s bindings.

Presto looked down at the book, which was now thumping and bouncing in his hands. Without warning, his fingers went rigid, as if the manuscript were on fire. “Ouch!”

He dropped it with a dull thud and started blowing on his hands, in a parody of a man searching for a bucket of cold water. He screamed and kicked the book toward the open door.

“No . . .” shouted Underwood.

The manuscript seemed to fly out through the doorway, picked up by the wind, which was swelling into a tornado.

Knightley staggered to his feet as the chair was knocked over and blown clattering across the room. Presto didn’t wait around to witness any more. He dashed for the side door and vanished through it.

Underwood stared into the central doorway, entranced, his eyes bigger than ever. The wind rippled his clothes, as if something inside him was tearing and struggling to get out.

“N-no—” he muttered, and went after the manuscript, descending a short set of metal stairs onto the tracks.

“Morton!” Knightley shouted after him.

But his old friend didn’t listen. Underwood’s face was that of a man possessed. He had the same slack-jawed expression that characterized the faces of miners during the gold rush, or politicians eyeing the seat of power. It was an age-old expression of greed and avarice, and it made Darkus realize that Underwood was deeper under the book’s spell than anyone else.

The manuscript bounced lightly along the tracks like a paper bag in the breeze. Underwood stumbled after it, crossing from the siding onto the main track.

The seismic rumbling through the earth reached a deafening climax as an eastbound train sped through the tunnel, past the room and within inches of Underwood . . . decimating the manuscript.

Underwood was thrown to the ground by the force of it, the lenses in his glasses shattered, and he began crawling along the opposite set of tracks. He struggled to his feet, hopelessly grasping at the strewn pages.

Knightley shielded Darkus’s eyes as the rumbling continued unabated—they both knew full well what was coming next. Darkus peered through his father’s fingers.

A split second later, the Knightleys flinched in unison as a westbound train sped past in the opposite direction, running over the book a second time and soundlessly swallowing up Underwood—leaving no trace of him in its wake.

The manuscript pages flew around the tunnel like a crazed flock of sparrows, soaring and diving. The tails of both trains vanished into the tunnels, leaving a whirling tower of paper, like the column of a storm. For a moment, it seemed to take on the appearance of a gaping skull.

The Knightleys stood together, braced against it, their clothes and hair windblown. Darkus pinned his hat onto his head with one hand. The rumbling died down and the wind abated, only to go into reverse, like the thrusters of a jet engine on landing.

“Hold on!” shouted Knightley over the mounting roar. “It’s not over yet—”

Darkus’s hat took flight and billowed through the doorway onto the tracks.

Knightley held Darkus tight as the air was sucked out of the room and down the tunnels by the departing trains, threatening to take them with it. Their shoes slid over the concrete floor, carrying them toward the doorway and the same fate as Underwood.

The dust and paint flakes dislodged by the first gale were now swirling around them as debris was vacuumed into the tunnels. The switching box clattered and rolled across the room, then took flight. Tilly regained consciousness as she began to travel across the floor after it. She immediately extended her feet and wedged herself into a corner.

The Knightleys weren’t so fortunate, finding themselves in the eye of the storm, drawn toward the doorway, deprived of oxygen and unable to breathe.

“Dad?”

“Close your eyes, Doc,” Knightley shouted over the din.

Darkus obeyed him without question and clamped his eyes shut. It was at that moment—in the reddish blackness of his closed lids—that his mother’s words returned to him.

“
Evil doesn’t exist unless you believe in it.
”

He heard her voice clearly. He could almost see her holding her mug of tea.

“
If you don’t believe in it, it has no power
.”

Darkus repeated the phrases over and over in his head above the roar. He felt his father’s arms around him, and his mother’s words in his head, and although they were being pulled toward certain doom, he felt safe. In his world, at that moment, there was no room for evil.

At the same moment, the signal lights over the train tracks flicked from green to red. With a series of loud mechanical clicks, the same thing happened all along the line. The tunnels that stretched into the distance were suddenly bathed in a warm glow. The rumbling receded to an eerie stillness; the wind reduced to a soft breeze.

Tilly got to her feet, rubbing her head, unsure of what had just happened. Darkus opened his eyes to find the tracks empty. There was no sign of the manuscript, or of Underwood. The station was deathly quiet once more. He looked up to his dad for confirmation.

“Let’s go home,” said Knightley, taking Darkus’s hand in one of his, and Tilly’s in the other, and leading them out.

They made their way to the end of the platform and followed a faded sign that read:
to the street
. An artistically rendered arrow led to a tall spiral staircase with a well-preserved cartouche that read:
way out
. After one hundred and three steps, they reached a doorway to the outside world.

Chapter 29

Quality Time

The remaining half of the semester proceeded without incident. The hoodies continued to lurk at the back of the room, making disparaging remarks about Darkus’s name. Darkus continued to deflect them, practicing peaceful engagement. It was as if the recent events involving shadowy crime organizations, and possibly supernatural forces, had never happened.

And so, with the inevitable pomp and expectation, Christmas rolled around. Despite heavy snowfall, buses and trains were still running, and most people had forgotten about the freak tornado that had affected parts of the Piccadilly line several weeks earlier. The phenomenon was put down to an air-pressure problem in the Underground rail network, and the relevant transport safety organizations assured the public that repairs were under way. Rumors of passengers seeing people, including children, playing by the tracks around the time of the incident were put down to urban legend, although one of Darkus’s female classmates happened to be on the Tube at the time and swore she caught a glimpse of someone matching his description. Darkus laughed off the idea, but wasn’t sure how convincing he’d been.

Meanwhile, consumers who were scouring bookstores in search of the popular bestseller
The Code
were disappointed to find that stocks had inexplicably dried up. Even e-book readers found only a dead link. A week later a newspaper reported that a lawsuit had indefinitely suspended publication of the book due to a copyright issue. Ambrose Chambers could not be reached for comment. However, the publisher would not rule out the possibility of a sequel.

On the home front, Darkus tried to return to some semblance of “normal.” His father was living at his office on Cherwell Place, being well fed and cared for by Bogna, who was also taking a self-defense course in her spare time. Darkus wasn’t happy about being returned to his former domestic situation and had the nagging suspicion that the investigation with his father was a one-off that wouldn’t be repeated. They had never spoken about the case again. They had never discussed whether the book was responsible for the disturbance in the tunnel, or whether it was just the trains. (Darkus already knew what his father’s answer would be, and there wasn’t sufficient evidence to prove it either way.) They also hadn’t talked about the fact that Presto and Chloe were still unaccounted for. Nor the fact that Tilly would not stop until she found every member of the Combination and exacted her punishment. More than ever, Darkus understood that this was less the end of one case than the beginning of another.

He could at least relax in the knowledge that his father was alive and well, and only an hour and a half away by London cab.

Clive continued his efforts at self-improvement, this time from a court-ordered stay at a trauma clinic in Staffordshire, practicing what Jackie diplomatically referred to as R & R. A junior presenter was standing in for him on
Wheel Spin
, and the official reason for his being off the air was a cranial injury sustained during a high-speed test-drive.

Tilly willingly returned to Cranston as a day pupil and completed her coursework with flying colors, defying her teachers’ expectations. She was even rumored to be in the running for student council. Miss Khan never reported the theft of the asthma inhaler, fearing accusations that she had inadvertently put her pupils’ welfare at risk. Instead, Tilly negotiated a plea bargain, in which she apologized to Miss Khan for the theft, suggested future improvements, and they agreed to keep it their secret.

Without consulting each other, Darkus and Tilly returned to keeping a safe distance between them, which seemed easier than reliving the disturbing events of the case ad nauseam.

At noon on Christmas Day, a fully laden black Fairway cab pulled up outside Clive and Jackie’s house.

Darkus, who had been watching the street for most of the morning, quickly deserted his vantage point at an upstairs window and raced down the stairs to greet their guests. He reached the front door, took a breath, straightened his blazer, and opened it.

“Hello, Dad.”

Knightley stood on the doorstep in an immaculate tweed ensemble. “Hello, son.” He gave Darkus a hug, as Jackie appeared in the entrance hall.

“Hello, Alan,” she said, fixing her hair a little.

“Jackie.” He nodded, and took something from behind his back. “Merry Christmas.” He handed her a handwoven wreath made of cones, bark, and mistletoe.

“Still got the old magic,” she said, accepting it.

“It didn’t take too long,” he explained. “You know, I find it quite relaxing.”

“Well, you’d better come in . . .”

Jackie looked over Knightley’s shoulder to see Bogna helping the somewhat reduced but still significant bulk of Uncle Bill out of the back of the cab. One of his legs was still in a cast, but it was hard to tell which because both legs were wrapped in thick cream-colored socks with tartan garters. Bill appeared to be wearing a traditional Highland kilt that ended at the knee—which wasn’t the most flattering garment on him—and as Bogna loaded him into a wheelchair for the trip up the driveway, it bordered on undignified.

As Knightley stepped into the entrance hall he saw the back of Clive’s head, crowned with a red party hat, watching a Christmas special on TV.

“Hello, Clive.”

Clive raised a limp hand by way of reply. Knightley glanced at Darkus, who shrugged, then continued into the kitchen.

Tilly looked up from stirring a large punch bowl. “Hi, Alan.” Her hair was dyed a particularly festive red, with what appeared to be green lowlights. “Drink?”

“What’s in it?” he asked.

“That would be telling.”

“I’ll chance it,” said Knightley.

Jackie automatically put the kettle on and got a new packet of chocolate digestives from the cupboard for Uncle Bill, who, judging by the creaking, shuffling sounds, was evidently approaching the kitchen. She marveled to herself how much it felt like old times.

As is customary, everyone ate and drank too much, particularly Uncle Bill, who even sneaked a turkey leg in his pocket when he wheeled himself out to “get some air,” then promptly returned and slept for the rest of the afternoon. Bogna put a blanket over him and confided in Tilly that she found the Scotsman extremely “charmings,” but admitted the language barrier could be a problem. Clive ate mechanically without saying a word, except to compliment Jackie on the stuffing. Tilly helped Jackie set and reset the table.