The Book of Beasts (15 page)

‘We need to hurry,' said Matt, seeing how a stone hellhound carved into the top of the wall across the courtyard had started to twitch. Was it watching for them? ‘My dad will sense I'm here.'

Tucked close to the wall, the boys ran towards the Abbot's tower.

The monastery had been built as a fortress as much as a place of peace and learning. A high wall surrounded the main buildings with a walkway running all the way round its perimeter. Two towers flanked its corners, facing the sea and the smaller island where the newest tower stood finished, its scaffolding empty of the frenzied activity they had witnessed earlier. Like all the main buildings, the chapel built at the centre of the east wall and opposite the Great Hall was shuttered and closed up.

At the corner of the west and south wall, Solon stopped without any notice. Matt ran into his back, opening the cut above his eye on Solon's shoulder. He cursed. ‘Why did you stop?'

Solon pointed to a long dark shape rising and falling along the wall ahead of them. Mopping the fresh blood from his forehead, Matt slipped the penlight from his pocket, cupping his hand around the beam. He lifted the light towards the dark bulk blocking their progress.

Lined up in a row, like the dead after a battle, were the monks of the monastery, their cloaks covering their faces. Taking the penlight from Matt, Solon ran along the line checking under the hoods of his sleeping comrades for Brother Renard. There was no sign of the old monk.

Solon lifted a dagger and sheath from a sleeping monk's belt and handed it to Matt to use. They were almost at the opposite corner and close to the Abbot's tower when Solon lifted his hand.

Matt stopped. ‘What now?'

‘Listen!'

Matt heard a weighty wooden whirring, like the cogs in a big mechanical clock. ‘What
is
that?'

‘It's coming from the catacombs,' whispered Solon.

Matt spotted an iron grate set at the bottom of the wall. Leaning closer, the noise sounded louder and more regular, and Matt distinguished a whirring noise accompanying the mechanical sounds. The whirring reminded Matt of the gears releasing in a wind-up toy. Then he heard voices. Angry ones. Getting closer.

He made a decision.

‘You go to the Abbot's tower,' he whispered, nudging Solon forward. ‘I'm going to find Jeannie and Brother Renard.'

Solon looked shocked. ‘But we agreed we'd stay together!'

The foreboding Matt had felt emanating from the peryton was pressing heavily on his own chest now. It had something to do with the strange noises coming from the catacombs.

‘
You
agreed,' he said. ‘I just didn't want to argue with you.'

Solon grabbed Matt's arm as he bent to lift the grate down to the tombs. ‘Don't be foolish. It is a treacherous labyrinth down there. Smugglers' tunnels stretch for miles under the bay, cutting into the maze beneath the monastery. You will never find your way alone.'

The hellhound in relief in the wall above the boys stretched its neck and coughed fire into the night. Matt pulled Solon further into the shadows.

Solon was right, he knew. As much as he wanted to find Jeannie, it wouldn't help anyone if he ended up lost below ground. The hellhounds were getting agitated. Soon his dad would know they were wandering in the courtyard.

‘What do you need me to do?' he asked reluctantly.

‘We need to find the book first. I know what to look for, and where. While I search, you can find out if my master is locked in his room.' Solon pointed to a shuttered window at the far end of the monastery. ‘That is his cell. Tell him I will return for him later.'

‘Wait,' said Matt.

Sorry, Mum
, he thought. He still didn't know for sure if his mum or Em were alive. He choked back his sadness. Tearing a piece of lining from his jacket, he began to draw on the tattered fabric. There was a blinding flash of white light as the animation sprang into life.

‘Call me on this if you need me,' Matt said, blinking to clear the dancing particles of light from his eyes and handing one of two animated walkie-talkies to Solon. ‘Just hold down this button here. When you finish speaking, say “over” so I know that I can reply.'

‘Truly you have marvellous things in your time,' Solon said, studying his walkie-talkie in fascination before clipping it on to his belt beside his bronze dagger.

Auchinmurn Isle
Present Day

Em trailed a few steps behind Zach in awkward silence. With more nervous energy than she could contain, she jumped from shadow to shadow, counting them in her head, afraid she'd think or say something that would upset Zach more. She couldn't understand why he was angry with her.

Didn't boys like to kiss?

From now on, Em decided, she'd stick to imaginary snogging with boys in her books.

The closer they got to the gate, the more visible the protective shield on the wall became. It ran along the entire perimeter of the compound wall, emerging in front of Zach and Em when they took the last turn in the driveway.

Em stopped a few metres from the gate in wonder. ‘Wow!'

Thick vines of ivy draped over the wall like parade bunting, the tips of each leaf shimmering in a rainbow of greens. At regular intervals along the wall, the ivy hung so low it touched the ground. Thick green tendrils created a ropey chain threading through the decorative curls and knots of the massive iron gates.

‘Anyone trying to get in here will need a sword to hack through those vines,' signed Em, swooning dramatically in front of Zach. ‘Like in
Sleeping Beauty
?'

‘I got it,' Zach signed without looking at her.

Em walked over to the wall. ‘I've never seen so many shades of green before.'

Reaching up, she touched a cluster of leaves the colour of a Granny Smith apple. Expecting the leaves to be nothing more than an animation of light and colour, Em was shocked when the needlepoint of a leaf pricked her finger.

‘Ow!'

She jumped back as a teardrop of blood splashed on to the leaf and settled like a dot of red paint.

Are you OK, Em?

As Zach bent over Em's hand in concern, the blood spread towards the edges of the leaf, becoming part of the animation. It stretched and moved across to the next leaf, and the one after that, on and on until there were no more leaves left within its reach, reaching deep scarlet fingers up towards the sky like a plant stalk seeking the sun.

The animation was no longer a vine of ivy. Instead, it was a blood-red silhouette of a princess warrior with her broadsword extended in front of her. The protective shield had taken on the form of the last thing Em had drawn.

Zach keyed the code to open the iron gates into the keypad on a small steel casing tucked under the hedge. He hit the last number just as Em caught sight of what was happening. As she gaped at the transforming clumps of ivy above their heads, she grasped a crucial problem.

The shield hadn't de-animated.

She darted between Zach and the wall.

Zach, stop!

But it was too late.

The bloody warrior princess sheathed her sword, lifted her bow and took aim. The air filled with an impossible number of scarlet arrows, their tips shaped like ivy leaves and their fletches like roots, as if formed directly from the earth.

Em screamed and dived into the hedge as the arrows rained down. Several arrows hit her back, but instead of feeling pain, she experienced only a flash of light behind her eyes as they exploded on her skin in puffs of dust. Not one broke the skin on her arms or her legs. In the safety of the hedge, she gazed thoughtfully at the broken skin on her finger.

Zach was nearly all the way under the hedgerow when an arrow tore through the hedge and drove into his calf. He yelled in pain, clutching his wounded leg, and tucked himself deeper into the bushes.

Em suddenly began to crawl out of the hedge again, back into the line of fire. Zach grabbed her.

What are you doing? Get back in here!

Pushing him off, Em crawled on, all the way out of the safe cover of the hedge and got to her feet. She closed her eyes, raised her arms and let the arrows swarm down on her.

The first wave hit Em in a blast of scarlet and exploded against her in robust pops of red light. The second swiftly followed. Wrapped in a red fog, Em's skin felt oddly chilled, as if she had jumped into the sea in winter. Although she felt no pain, her knees started to resemble toffee as the number of arrows mounted: thirty, forty, fifty. She wanted desperately to lie down. She could no longer see the wall through the cloud of red that surrounded her. When she turned to look for Zach, it was like looking down the lens of a kaleidoscope, the scene in front of her fragmenting in slivers of colour. She thought she saw him on his phone, but everything was becoming so red and she was so tired.

She collapsed to her knees. Her eyelids felt like tiny fingers were holding them closed. She shivered, then giggled for no reason. Forcing her eyes open, she lifted her hand to Zach's terrified face. An arrow shot into her palm and disappeared, leaving a tiny print of light on her skin before fading to nothing.

And then as quickly as it had started, the barrage stopped.

Her eyes fluttered shut.

All was darkness.

Can you hear me, Em? Em!

Panicking, Zach shifted Em's head and shoulders on to his lap.

Why did you do that, Em? I would have been OK!

He gently brushed her forehead, releasing a puff of red dust into the air. It smelled of lavender and fresh air, of soap and… and sadness. It smelled of Em.

Through the gravel, Zach could feel the vibrations of a vehicle coming down the lane. The Land Rover skidded to a stop a few feet away, and Simon flew out of the car towards them.

‘Will she be OK?' Zach's hands were trembling so violently he could hardly form the words.

‘We need to get her back inside the Abbey,' Simon answered, his fingers a blur. ‘I de-animated the shield as soon as you left the house, and had no idea it hadn't switched off before you called. Then Vaughn found this, jammed in the shield on the south-west corner of the compound.'

He handed Zach a large medallion. It was identical to the coins Renard had shown them up at the house but for two crucial differences. One side showed a black peryton instead of a white one. The other showed an inverted silver spiral. ‘He says it matches the one that Malcolm stole from the cottage of a dead Animare years ago. Renard believes there were only a handful of them forged in the nineteenth century.'

‘It was enough to disrupt the stream without disconnecting it completely,' Simon signed.

Zach dropped his eyes back to the coin. ‘I don't understand. Who put it there?'

‘Renard sensed it belongs to Henrietta de Court,' Simon signed grimly. ‘Her emotions were so focused when she planted it that he felt their residue on the coin. She's somewhere on the islands. And she has help.'

Zach felt Em's pulse strong and steady beneath his fingers.

‘I think she's asleep, son. We forget how much creative energy it takes for an Animare to animate.' Simon gazed thoughtfully up at the warrior princess, blood-red and quiet, her arrows back in her quiver.

‘Can we move her?' Zach signed.

Simon looked more carefully at Em's arms and legs. ‘She doesn't seem to have any injuries, so I don't see why not. She'd certainly be more comfortable in her bed than on this gravel.'

Zach still felt confused and frightened. ‘But how is it possible she has no injuries? At least a hundred arrows must have hit her body.'

Simon looked again at the warrior princess above them. ‘Em touched the shield, yes?'

‘She cut her hand on one of the leaves.'

Simon nodded. ‘Yes, blood would do it. By touching the shield in that way, Em changed it. It must've absorbed something from her extraordinary imagination.' He paused and smiled at Zach. ‘I've a feeling that in time, we're going to witness a lot more of the impossible from Matt and Em.'