Powerstone (32 page)

The first steps were terrifying,
with the current thrusting against her legs and the shocking drop tugging her
down, but Irene pushed on, sobbing her fear. She could hear the noise behind
her, the constant curses from the youths and the sound of blows, but she dared
not turn back.

‘I’ve not finished with you yet.’
The knife girl had followed, lifting her legs high as she traced the lip of the
fall.

Irene turned just as the girl
lunged forward with her face contorted and knife slashing wickedly. Irene
ducked, swayed and nearly fell as the current smashed against her thighs. The
roar of the waterfall increased, white water cascading smoothly down to explode
in a welter of froth and spray. She saw a bus passing over the bridge above and
for one surreal moment she wondered what the passengers would think about two
females fighting on the lip of a waterfall in the early morning.

‘Come here you cow!’ The girl
jumped at Irene, screaming to her friends to help her. Irene cowered under the
ferocity of the attack, jerked back to avoid the knife and yelled as the girl
swung a roundhouse punch that smacked against her cheekbone. She reeled and
swayed sideways, facing the drop as the current surged around and between her
legs. She watched, horrified, as a tree branch hurtled end-over-end downward
before it was trapped in a mini-whirlpool, circling for eternity at the base of
the fall.

‘You little bitch.’ Irene was not
sure if it was the sting of the punch or the horror of that drop that shocked
her into retaliation. She turned around, flinched as the girl spat at her, and
instinctively pushed outward. The girl lost her balance, and sat heavily in the
foaming brown water, screeching profanities.

‘I’ll kill you!’ The girl kicked
out with one foot, raising a cloud of water and spray but not making any
connection.

Irene ducked back, slipped, and
looked down. Again she saw the swoop of brown and white water and the suck and
surge fifteen feet below.

‘Come on! Get her!’ The second
girl hauled her friend upright and pushed her toward Irene, a pair of sodden,
baseball-hatted youths that screamed obscene hatred as they tottered along the
lip of the waterfall. Turning, Irene fled.

There was a stone ledge at the
opposite side of the river, and above that the cliff-like face of an old mill
building, since converted into flats. Wincing at the re-awakened pain in her
ribs, Irene dragged herself onto the ledge, kicked backward at the nearest of
her pursuers and felt the satisfaction of solid contact. She plunged ahead,
into a patch of tangled shrubbery that clawed at her face and body. Swearing,
she swung the sceptre in a desperate effort to escape, squealed as something
wrapped around her ankle and plunged on, sobbing.

‘Irene!’

She heard Drew’s voice behind her
but did not turn around, scrabbled up a wall by her fingertips and nearly fell into
a neatly groomed garden complete with a line of washing. Scrambling over a low
railing with a locked gate, she flinched when the sceptre caught between the
rails. Tugging frantically, she jerked it free and emerged into the street
opposite Drew’s flat. Ignoring the familiar dog-walker, she turned right and
ran uphill and onward until she was stumbling down a steep hill of terraced
Victorian houses. After a few minutes she turned round but there was nobody
following her, and little traffic. She leaned against a lamp-post, gasping to
catch the breath that burned in her chest.

Keeping the coat secure around the
sceptre, Irene walked solidly downhill, knowing that people were staring at
this sodden creature plodding through
Edinburgh
’s conventional morning. When a group of business-suited
women at a bus stop deliberately stared, Irene knew that she must find
somewhere to hide and collect her thoughts. She stopped at the top of a street
that swooped downward to a gothic palace of spires and turrets. Trees lined the
road, stretching backward into what Irene decided must be a public park,
somewhere that promised concealment from the inquisitive.

Hugging the sceptre to her side,
she passed through the park’s empty space and entered the adjoining
Royal
Botanic Garden
. After the last hectic hour, she felt as if she had
entered an oasis of calm, with copses of seclusion and shaded corners for
sanctuary.

A fine group of greenhouses
offered a combined asylum of warmth and shelter, so Irene paid the entrance
fee, forced a smile when the attendant asked if she had fallen in the pond, and
moved to the warmest of the environments. Almost immediately steam began to
rise from her clothes. Golden fish swam languidly among placid water lilies.

‘Sweet Lord, how did I get into
this situation?’ Irene leaned against the bole of a palm tree and took deep
breaths to control the racing of her heart. She looked down at her dripping
denims and sodden sneakers. What had happened to the woman who shopped at
Herald Square
, who treated Macy’s like her
neighbourhood store and was on first name terms with the manager of Gucci on
Fifth Avenue
?

It seemed forever since she had
walked in the shadow of the
Empire
State
Building
or dodged the
Times Square
traffic. She missed the
Manhattan
skyline and the cosmopolitan bustle of
Queens
, the look of an Armani suit on a
downtown city trader and the nasal sting of a
New York
accent. Even more, she hated this running, wondering whom
she could trust and where she could go.

For one moment Irene pondered
sending the sceptre back to the castle and returning, tail between her legs, to
relative obscurity. Surely as a runner up in
The Neophyte
she could land
a well-paid job at home, something that would provide security and a
comfortable life style. She touched the jacket, feeling the hard shaft of the
sceptre, the smoothness of the crystal ball and sensing the latent power. No;
Irene shook her head; she had come too far to give up now, she must continue.

She thought of Ms Manning’s
expression when she saw the sceptre. There would be surprise, astonishment,
delight and finally admiration. Ms Manning would extend her hand in
congratulations and open wide the door of opportunity. Ms Manning would eject
Kendrick from his position and install her as the new neophyte, with all the
honours and advantages that the position held. Within ten years, perhaps within
five, she would be installed as the new owner of the Manning Corporation, with
more power than most people could ever comprehend.

Again Irene ran her fingers over
the sceptre. This was her ticket to security; all she had to do was transport
it over to the
United
States
. It was only
then that the next horror struck her. She had recovered her true passport from
the secure locker at the railroad station, and thrown it casually in her bag,
but now that bag, and all its incriminating contents, was lost. The youths at
the waterfall would have it.

‘Oh shit,’ Irene felt the familiar
slide of despair. ‘Oh dear God!’

Hearing footsteps, she hastily
replaced the cover on the sceptre and looked up, but the short man in the black
jacket was far too busy stealing samples from a plant to pay her any attention.
Holding the sceptre close, she fought to control the trembling of her body.
Where could she go from here? Sensing somebody beside her, she glanced upward.

Drew adjusted his sleeve so it
covered his watch. He was smiling as he looked at her, his head tilted to one
side. ‘You’re a hard woman to keep tabs on.’

‘Drew!’ Hugging the covered
sceptre close, Irene struggled to her feet. ‘What are you doing here?’

‘Following you.’ Drew said
quietly. ‘It looks like you’re in trouble.’

She shook her head instinctively.
‘No, no. I’m fine. I just panicked, that’s all.’ Reaching out with her left
hand, she touched his arm. ‘Look, thanks for your help back there. I…’ she
forced a stutter, ‘I didn’t know what to do.’

‘I think that there’s more than
that.’ Drew’s look was as level as any Irene had seen in her life. Ignoring the
curious glance of the man in the black jacket, he knelt down beside her and
spoke quietly. ‘Half the world is searching for the object you are holding so
tightly.’

‘What?’ Irene pulled the jacket
closer to her side.

‘The sceptre,’ Drew said quietly,
‘from the Honours of Scotland.’ His sudden grin put her off balance. ‘It’s all
right, Irene. I’m not going to tell anybody. It’s nothing to do with me.’

Holding the sceptre so tight that
her hand ached, Irene dragged herself to her feet.

‘Come on. Let’s go home and we can
discuss all this.’ Although Drew only placed the tip of one finger on her
shoulder, she squirmed at the touch. ‘You need some dry clothes anyway. And
your passport.’ Opening his very-conservative jacket, Drew allowed her to see
the bulge of documents in the inside pocket. ‘It’s quite safe.’

Irene nodded, feeling a fresh
surge of relief. Drew always seemed to be available when she needed him, like
some guardian angel. She looked up. ‘Could I have it, please?’

The passport was in the front of
the bundle of documents that Drew placed in her outstretched hand. ‘But now
you’re wondering if you can trust me,’ he voiced her thoughts.

Irene nodded; the shaft of the
sceptre was hard beneath the coat.

‘Can you afford not to?’ He held
the stare of a uniformed attendant until the man dropped his eyes. ‘Come on,
Irene, and I’ll tell you all about me. My favourite subject.’

Irene nearly smiled as she allowed
him to guide her out of the greenhouse. She still held the sceptre close but
did not complain when Drew’s arm wrapped around her shoulder.

Changed and dry again, Irene was
uncertain whether to feel defeated or glad when she placed the sceptre on top
of the kitchen table. They both looked at it without speaking, and eventually
Drew ran his finger up the shaft onto the crystal ball near the tip. ‘That’s
some machine,’ he said.

‘Beautiful, isn’t it?’ Irene
agreed.

‘Were you part of the robbery? Or
did you just happen to find this lying in the street.’

‘I was part of the robbery,’ Irene
confirmed. She waited for the condemnation.

Instead, Drew sat opposite her,
his face concerned. ‘Do you want to talk about it?’ When Irene shook her head,
he smiled. ‘As you wish.’

‘I don’t know what to do, Drew.’

He nodded. ‘Aye, so I can see.
Running through
Edinburgh
in wet jeans with this little
beauty bundled under your arm is not the answer. Neither is hiding in the Botanics,
waiting for better days. I take it that you had intended to escape in that
yacht the Navy caught?’

‘Yes, but it all went wrong.’
Irene fought the tears that threatened to overwhelm her. She wanted desperately
to tell Drew everything, but knew that she should not. ‘I don’t know what
happened, but I ended up with the sceptre and all the rest were killed.’

‘I see.’ Drew leaned back. ‘So
what is your plan now? Do you have a plan now?’

Irene shook her head. ‘No. Not
really.’

‘So why not just dump this thing
and get home? As far as I can see, the police do not know about you. They are
chasing a completely different woman.’ Drew placed his hand on the sceptre. ‘It
all depends on how badly you want to keep this.’

Irene put her hand beside his and
gripped tightly. ‘I have to have it.’ She was surprised at the determination in
her own voice. ‘It means everything to me.’

‘Everything?’ Drew did not
relinquish his grip. ‘Think about what you really want before you make a
decision. People have already died because of this bit stick. Does it mean
enough for you to risk your life too?’

Irene considered. What were her
alternatives? She had come so far and actually had the sceptre in her hand. If
she returned it to Ms Manning, her future would be assured. If she gave up now,
what would the remainder of her life hold? She would always be seen as
The
Neophyte
loser. At best she would be offered a position in middle
management in some mediocre organisation. If she were lucky she would be in
New York
or
Chicago
; if unlucky she would be in Nowheresville, some hick town
at the back of beyond. But people had died because of her; that realisation
made her sick. She straightened her back, knowing that she could not bring them
back.

‘Yes,’ Irene answered slowly. She
had cleared her mind of doubt. She needed this sceptre to create the life that
she wanted. ‘Yes, I am prepared to risk my life for this artefact.’

‘Right then.’ Drew nodded. ‘That’s
the first point. Second point: what do you intend doing with it? I take it that
you don’t want to keep it as a souvenir of
Scotland
.’

‘I intend to sell it.’ Irene felt
her chin rise.

‘Very good. It will not be easy to
sell on the open market as its image has been transmitted across the world. I
doubt that there is anybody, anywhere who is not aware of the theft.’