Obsidian Pebble (34 page)

Oz felt the temperature drop as they entered, but only had seconds to register the fact that it was because the sash window was wide open and freezing night air was pouring in before chaos erupted. The hunched figure jerked its head towards them, and Oz saw a pinched, filthy face and yellow teeth bared in animalistic terror. But his mind also, impossibly, registered the sleek body and banded head of a human-sized polecat shimmering around the matted fur coat the thing wore. It was only a momentary realisation as the creature let out another screech, the noise of a wild animal suddenly cornered.

Oz reached out a hand. “It's okay. We're not here to harm…”

The thing shifted abruptly, and from behind him Oz heard Ellie shout, “Look out, it's going to attack!”

She leapt towards it with her foot outstretched and kicked away the arm it had thrust towards Oz. There was another scream, and before anyone could move it scurried towards the open window and leapt out into the night air.

“God, Ellie,” Ruff said in a harsh whisper, “now look what you've done.”

“NO!” Another wail, this time from the standing figure. It was a cry full of hopelessness and desperation that pierced Oz's heart. The figure rushed to the window, choking back a sob. It stood for two long seconds, staring out into the night, before turning back to them with an expression of such hate that it appeared almost as inhuman as the wretch that had just leapt out. The eyes that stared up from the gaunt face were a girl's eyes, but they burned with such a terrible, feverish brightness that for a moment Oz couldn't place the features, so distorted were they by anguish and loathing.

But then recognition kicked in. Suddenly, Oz knew why the polecat creature had attacked them as they'd walked home from the park that night. There was no denying that the face they were now looking at and the distorted features of the creature had been molded from the same genetic clay. Oz only had a fleeting second to register all this, because his eyes darted between the hammer that wavered in one of the girl's shaky hands and the smooth dark objects she held in the other—the obsidian pebble and the black dor. Oz felt a pressure at his back and realised that Ruff and Ellie were close behind him, but all he could think of was that insane look in the girl's eyes and the hammer in her hand.

“You!” Lucy Bishop screamed. “This is all your fault.”

“What was that thing?” Ruff asked in a very shaky voice from behind Oz's left ear.

“That was her brother,” Oz said without turning around.

Lucy Bishop threw back her head and let out an anguished wail.

“What?” said Ellie.

Oz didn't take his eyes off Lucy Bishop as he spoke. “It went for us in the park because it was hungry. She was going to feed it…”

“Not an it!” hissed Lucy Bishop. “Edward, his name is Edward, and you've ruined any chance we had. Blundering, meddling kids.”

“What are you talking about?” demanded Ellie.

Lucy Bishop thrust out her hand and the pebble and the dor it contained. “Don't pretend,” she spat. “Thought you could hide them, didn't you? But I found them. Go on, deny it. Deny that you were hiding them from me.”

“They're Oz's, and you've got no right to steal them,” Ellie said, pushing Oz aside to face the distraught girl.

“His?” Lucy Bishop let out a sneering laugh. “These aren't possessions to be bought or sold. They choose their keepers.” She kept her eyes on Oz and slowly raised the hammer, pointing it at him. “This is your curse, boy.”

Next to him, Oz felt Ruff flinch as he leaned in and whispered, “She's gone stark raving bonkers.”

“My dad sent me the pebble,” Oz said, wishing Ruff would keep his thoughts to himself.

Lucy Bishop glared at him in utter disdain, but she didn't reply, merely stood with the breath heaving in and out of her chest.

“What's wrong with your brother?” Ellie asked abruptly.

Lucy Bishop's eyes widened and she half-fell backwards, putting her hand out to the wall for support, as if the words had struck her a blow. Glancing back out of the window, she said in a choked voice, “Edward…”

“Is he ill?” Ruff asked.

Lucy Bishop let out a strangled sob, which turned into a derisory laugh as she swung back towards them. “
Ill
? He isn't ill. He's possessed. A demon has him in its clutches. A demon that has twisted his mind. Turned him into a wild creature.”

“I'm really sorry,” said Oz, “but that doesn't give you the right to steal the pebble for Gerber.”

“Yeah, we know you're working for him,” Ruff said.

“Gerber,” she cackled. “That monster. Never…” She trailed off in a sob.

“Was it you in here the other night?” Ellie asked suddenly. “We heard your footsteps.”

The question threw her. “I've never been in this accursed room before.”

“But we heard you…” Ruff began.

“What you hear is the house. It feeds on the innocent and the gullible. It's cursed. Like you. Like these abominations.” She looked down at the pebble and the dor, her voice now a barely whispered moan of hopelessness. “I tried. I tried to use them to help Edward…” Her breath moved in and out in staccato bursts. “But it's no use.”

Her eyes came slowly back up and fixed on Oz. “But somewhere in this house is a place where these things are vulnerable. I have to find it. They must be destroyed before they ruin another life.” “No,” Oz yelled, but it was too late. Lucy Bishop fell to her knees and threw the artefacts to the floor. In one smooth movement, the hammer in her other hand fell. Oz saw it plummet, driven by Lucy Bishop's mad strength. But when it hit the pebble, there was no noise except the whoosh of something heavy flying through the air and Lucy Bishop's arm swinging back as if made of rubber.

“Cursed!” she screamed. “Cursed! You see! You see!” Time and again, she brought the hammer down and time and again, there was no smashing noise of splintering metal, just the whoosh of the hammer flying back up as if it were bouncing off a trampoline. After a while she stopped and sat back, sobbing, her sweaty hair over her face like a damp curtain. She looked up again, and this time her expression had moulded into an ugly mask of real hate. “But perhaps I'm doing this all wrong. Perhaps it isn't the artefacts I need to destroy. Perhaps it's you and this cursed house.”

With a banshee wail she flew at Oz, the hammer held high. Oz dived to his right just as her arm came down and the hammer smashed into the door frame. He scrambled forward, half-stumbling and taken off-guard by the ferocity of Lucy Bishop's attack. The torch flew from his hand and rolled over the floor. He turned to see her dark shape coming for him again, brandishing the hammer high above her head.

But then he saw a shadow beside him, and saw it move lithely to stand between him and the deranged young woman. There was a whirl of limbs and an unpleasant-sounding thud as a foot connected with something soft. Oz scrambled for this torch and shone it towards the middle of the room just in time to see Ellie's foot connecting once again in a helicopter whirl with Lucy Bishop's head. It snapped back and Lucy Bishop staggered backwards towards the panelled wall. There was a sickening thud as she connected with the solid wood, and then she slid down like wet wallpaper, the hammer clattering heavily to the floor at her feet.

“Oz, are you okay?” Ellie asked.

Oz got to his feet and wiped dust from his knees. “Yeah, thanks to you.”

“Told you she was a ham roll short of a picnic,” Ruff said shakily, staring down at the crumpled form of Lucy Bishop. But Oz's attention was elsewhere. He'd gone over to the corner where Lucy Bishop had tried smashing the pebble and the dor. To his utter astonishment, they weren't smashed to smithereens. In fact, they weren't smashed at all.

“Ruff, Ellie, look at this.” Oz held out the pebble and the dor for them to see.

“But I saw her pulverise them with the hammer,” Ellie said.

“Yeah, but there was no noise, was there?” Ruff said.

“But what does it mean?” Ellie demanded.

“I have no idea,” Oz said, shaking his head, “but I think now would be a good time to call someone. Come on.”

They went back to the passage and made their way to the gap between the walls. Oz led, but just when he arrived at the top of the steps leading to the library, he heard a voice.

“Hello? Anybody there?”

A head appeared above Oz, squinting into the torchlight.

“Tim? Tim Perkins? Is that you?”

“Heard a funny noise. Seemed to be coming from the library, and then I found this door open and…”

“You won't believe how glad we are to see you,” Oz said with relief. “It's Lucy Bishop, she's…”

“Had an accident,” Ruff said quickly.

“An accident?” Tim asked, concern clouding his face.

“Yeah. Down here.”

Quickly, they backtracked, leading Tim to the room where Lucy Bishop lay. He knelt and felt for a pulse in her neck.

“Is she okay?” asked Ellie anxiously.

“Out cold. But what's all this about?”

Oz, Ellie and Ruff looked at each other and then Oz said, “It's a long story. Lucy stole something from me. We heard a noise and stumbled on this passageway, which led us here.”

“We think she's gone a bit weird,” Ruff said. “Something to do with her brother.”

“What did she steal from you?” Tim asked, looking perplexed.

“Just some old stuff my dad sent me.” Oz held out the pebble and the dor for Tim to look at, and his response was refreshingly honest.

“They don't look very valuable.”

There was a very pregnant pause before Ellie said, “They're not. They're just historical artefacts.”

“Well,” Tim said, standing up, “we'll put her in the recovery position, and I vote we get out of here and call an ambulance straight away.” He lay Lucy Bishop down on her face and then moved swiftly across the room with the other three in tow. But when he got to the passage, he hesitated. “Oh, one thing. Could you two just check to make sure she hasn't got anything like lighter fluid, or matches? We don't want her waking up and setting fire to the place, do we?”

Oz waited while Ellie and Ruff quickly went back into the room, and Ellie patted Lucy down while Ruff searched the corners.

“No,” sang Ruff, “there's nothing here.”

“She doesn't have anything on her eith…”

Ellie's voice was suddenly cut off. Tim had shoved Oz hard so that he stumbled forward into the passage, banging his head painfully against the wall. At the same time, Tim followed Oz out and pulled the door shut. Within seconds, he had some thick plastic ties wound around the iron handle and the wooden surround so the door couldn't be opened from the inside. Oz heard the muffled protests from within.

“Oy, let us out,” yelled Ellie.

“What do you think you're playing at?” Ruff demanded.

Then Oz found his voice, too. “Tim, what are you doing?”

“Keeping your meddling friends out of the way,” he said, and there was something about his voice that made Oz's stomach do a backflip. Suddenly, he was grabbed roughly by the arm and shoved forwards along the passageway.

“Very convenient of you to turn up with the very things I've been scouring this mausoleum for three months for.”

“What are you talking about?” Oz said. But all he got in reply was another shove. They were heading in the opposite direction to the one which took them back to the library now, deeper into the orphanage block.

“Your name isn't really Tim, is it?” Oz asked, though he didn't need to. He already knew the answer. Suddenly, it was all blindingly obvious.

“No, it's not. And I'm not a student or a repair man, either.”

“Then who are you?” Oz demanded.

“Your worst nightmare. The name's Rollins.”

Rollins made Oz go first. He stumbled onwards, his heart sinking abysmally with each step. The walls pressed in on all sides and the air smelled increasingly of damp and decay. There was nowhere to run to even if he'd been able to, and Oz knew that he was in deep, deep trouble.

“Keep going,” Rollins whispered, and all pretence at the smarmy politeness Perkins had exuded every time he'd spoken to Mrs. Chambers had disappeared.

“Where are we going?” Oz asked as he shuffled forward.

“At the end of the passage, take a left.”

Once again, Oz found himself shuffling sideways, the surfaces rough on his face in front and his jeans behind. They were descending now, the gradient slight but definite.

“Keep moving,” Rollins ordered. “At the end are some iron rungs. Climb down.”

Oz slowed down as the floor petered out. The light from Rollins' torch was sporadic and shaky. He found the rungs more by touch than sight, but eventually managed to clamber down unsteadily until he hit a stone floor again.

“Go right,” Rollins said.

“How do you know about these passages?” Oz asked, moving crablike through the space.

“Cleaning gutters and fixing medieval wiring has its advantages. The inside measurements don't tally with the outside. It's simple maths. I knew these passages were here long before I found them.” His voice was dispassionate, and as cold as the stone against Oz's flesh.

“Gerber must be very pleased with you, then,” Oz said.

Rollins didn't answer.

“I know his real name is Tanner,” Oz said, “and that he's after this house and the artefacts.”

“I'm not interested in what you think you know. Now move.” Fingers jabbed at Oz's shoulders, urging him on.

In the darkness, he shuddered.

They descended another set of rungs, and Oz sensed a change in atmosphere. It was colder and damper, and he felt a moist trickle under his reaching fingers on the wall ahead. He was nudged forward into a small stone chamber guarded by a heavy door. Rollins went to a lever on the wall and pulled it. The door opened with a groaning creak. He stepped forward, flicked on some lights and then turned back to pull Oz in after him. The sudden brightness caused Oz to squint, but after a few seconds recognition dawned, and he realised that they had descended to the orphanage basement.