The Book of Beasts (24 page)

Auchinmurn Isle
The Middle Ages

The temperature inside the cave was dropping steadily. Carik was shivering, huddled against the far wall, but Matt's adrenaline was keeping his body temperature up despite the fact that his father had stripped him of his coat before locking him into his machine. Matt's fingers were tingling; his feet had gone to sleep. The throbbing in his head was getting louder and beginning to worry him.

Could a healthy thirteen-year-old have a stroke?

Matt opened and closed his hands as best he could and wiggled his toes, forcing some circulation into his extremities. He peered through the slit in the iron mask at his father.

Malcolm had hardly moved since sending Solon to fetch the book. His arms hung loosely over his crouched legs, as if ready to pounce on his prey at any moment. His fingers seemed scalier and more claw-like than ever. Drops of inky liquid continued to ooze from the deformed side of his mouth, puddling in the dirt with a strange phosphorescent glow. Malcolm was becoming the monster on the outside that he already was on the inside.

Matt watched his dad stir, his tongue flicking out into the air. It was thin and slick and forked, like a reptile's. He licked his fingers.

Without warning, Malcolm sprang towards Carik, dragged her across the dirt and dropped her in front of the carved mechanical monster.

‘Don't hurt her!' Matt shouted, struggling in vain against his bindings. ‘Solon will bring you the book! He'll bring it!'

‘He's been gone too long,' Malcolm snarled. ‘I am starting to think he has abandoned you both to your fates.'

‘I don't care!' said Carik, scrambling away from Malcolm's reach.

Malcolm laughed, deep and throaty and animalistic. ‘You're a terrible liar, girl. You fear for his safety more than your own.'

He casually seized Carik's wrist and squeezed. Matt watched as she struggled, slowed and slumped over the clawed feet of the machine into a deep, inspirited sleep.

‘My patience is wearing thin,' Malcolm hissed. ‘We must begin soon.'

Auchinmurn Isle
Present Day

The two figures that had burst into the cottage dropped their torches at the sight of Em and the crofter wrestling on the ground.

‘Don't just stand there!' The crofter's guttural accent had changed, grown more refined. Em detected a gentle French accent. ‘Get her off me and secure her quickly!'

One of the figures grabbed Em and pulled her to her feet. Gasping, Em looked into a pair of cold green eyes.

Dressed in black with a stocking cap pulled low on his forehead, Tanan looked like a Ninja warrior. Em recalled with a shudder how he had chased her and Matt through the caves on Era Mina in the summer. She couldn't even bring herself to look at Mara, who had once pretended to be their friend.

Surely the presence of such a powerful Guardian and two strong Animare would have triggered the Abbey's defences? It must at the very least have made an impression on Renard's imagination. It
must
have.

The crofter was pulling off his cap. The straggly wig came next, followed by the bushy eyebrows, and the capped teeth.

Em knew at once who she was looking at.

A wave of terror washed over her, making her hands clammy and her chest tight. A dull, dizzying pain throbbed behind her eyes. Her grandmother Henrietta de Court was such a strong Guardian that her powers battered viciously at Em's mind. The firewall Renard kept around his own Guardian powers had never caused Em any pain. Henrietta de Court clearly didn't bother with such particulars.

In the shock of Em's realization, Tanan quickly and efficiently bound her hands again. Em screamed inside her head and out.

Zach!
‘Help! Mum!'

Before she could scream again, Tanan morphed into a demon right before her eyes. He rose up on thick haunches, every tendon and muscle on his body visible beneath a layer of reptilian scales, and gripped Em with long sharp claws, his hairless head twitching, his tongue flicking. He had become the demon who had trapped her and Matt in the caves.

It was her own fear that had conjured Tanan as the demon again, Em knew. But it was still terrifying.

Get a grip
, she admonished herself.

The demon flared its nostrils and then, in a flash, was human again. Tanan again. Em closed her mouth without another word.

‘That's better,' Tanan said. ‘Much easier for all concerned if you cooperate.'

Em stomped down hard on his foot, then bucked upwards, her head smacking into Tanan's chin. She enjoyed his yell of pain.

‘Stupid girl!'

Cursing, Tanan tossed her on to the bed. Em swallowed back her tears. She would not let this man-demon see her cry.

Henrietta de Court loomed above Em now, studying her. Em could smell pipe smoke and a strange metallic odour.

‘Why are you doing this?' Em whispered.

‘Because you and your brother are an important part of a plan. A plan that will finally and forever allow us Guardians to control you Animare. No longer will we remain in service to your ridiculous aesthetic whims. It is time for
you
to serve
us
. Those Animare who help us achieve our new order will be rewarded handsomely and given positions of great importance.' Her grandmother smiled coldly at Tanan and Mara.

Em wriggled, fighting hard against her bindings. ‘We'll do nothing to help you or your plan! Get away from me!' she yelled, pushing back against the wall so the sharp edges of the stones jabbed into her back.

Henrietta flicked a beringed hand. ‘Gloves, Tanan. We can't have her animating with her nails on that wall.'

Tanan rolled gloves on to Em's bound hands. Em exhaled slowly, calming herself. Doing her best to keep her fears at bay, to keep Henrietta out of her head.

Zach! Please, please wake up.

Silence.

Stay calm
, she thought.
Focus
.

If help wasn't coming, she would have to help herself.

Auchinmurn Isle
The Middle Ages

Jeannie watched until Solon and the peryton were just a speck in the sky. Then she climbed down the rope ladder she had animated on the side of the pencil tower and stood for a moment on the beach, taking stock of her surroundings. The fresh air tasted good.

She set off round Era Mina, heading for the north shore. She had not seen the caves on that side of the island since Matt, Em and Zach had turned them into their hide-out, but she had heard the details from Vaughn. Knowing Era Mina like the back of her hand, having spent her childhood and most of her adult life exploring inside and out, it had made Jeannie chuckle to hear the twins and Zach plot and plan as if they were the first children to have ever explored the place.

That's as it should be,
she thought.
Each generation discovering anew… Mattie deserves to be part of his own future.

Ignoring her arthritic hips, her swollen wrists and all the screaming muscles in her body, Jeannie began her ascent of Era Mina's north face. The island's topography may have changed over the centuries, but its internal architecture was timeless. She knew this. Jeannie had sent the peryton to the cave opening at the cusp of this cliff to rescue Matt and Em once before. This time, she would have to do the rescuing herself.

The opening to the caves was easier to access than she remembered; the ground cover and the bramble less dense and overgrown. Her limbs were trembling from exhaustion and hunger was making her dizzy, but she had no time to stop and rest or eat. Tearing away the bushes from the spot, Jeannie animated a shovel and started to dig.

She worked hard for about ten minutes before a thunderous bellow erupted from the Devil's Dyke on Auchinmurn opposite. The noise created an exodus of animals towards the shore and birds to the sky. A quake rippled across the hillside, knocking Jeannie, who was still feeling weak, to the ground.

Matt had roused the Grendel, just as she had told him to.

Close to the peak and near the standing stones, the ground bulged as if it was being inflated. There was a long chilling howl. Then, as if the air had been sucked from it, the bulge collapsed, leaving a sink-hole in the hillside. The Grendel was moving underground and it was hungry.

Picking up her digging pace, Jeannie finally found the opening to the cave of drawings. She cleared the clods of dirt and roots away from the hole, and thought about shining a torch into the darkness to see how far the drop would be, but decided she couldn't risk alerting Malcolm to her presence. Feet first, Jeannie wriggled down into the chamber, hoping she wasn't too late.

Auchinmurn Isle
Present Day

‘She's too quiet,' said Henrietta, sitting on the edge of the bed and touching Em's temple with one of her fingers.

Em recoiled. But she couldn't get away from her grandmother's hand. Her head felt terribly heavy and the headache was pounding much too loudly.

She was so tired.

‘What are you plotting in that colourful little head of yours?' Henrietta mused.

‘We won't help you,' Em repeated stubbornly.

‘I find that hard to believe,' said her grandmother briskly. ‘You see, you have already helped us immensely. One might even say that all of this is down to you in the first place. Tanan? The tapestry.'

Rolled in a heavy canvas tarp, Tanan dragged the tapestry from its place against the back door. Then he unfolded a large sheet of plastic and spread it across the stone floor. Together, he and Mara donned gloves and gently, slowly, with great care, unrolled the bulky, fragile fabric. Then they kneeled beside it with an almost religious reverence.

The images on the tapestry sent a biting chill through every part of Em's body. For a fleeting moment she was drowning and she couldn't get a breath.

‘Astounding, isn't it?' said Henrietta, clasping her hands together in ecstasy.

Vaughn had told them Henrietta had stolen the tapestry. He had even anticipated that the woven image had changed in some way. But nothing could have prepared Em for this. She was looking at the same scene she had painted in the central panel of her triptych.

Like her painting, the tapestry depicted a central figure riding the black peryton, long hair covering part of his face. Em felt more certain than ever that the figure was Malcolm. The peryton's tack was more detailed than she had painted it: a black face plate studded in silver beneath the beast's blazing eyes, a red collar embroidered in gold with many of the mythical beasts that Em recognized from the strange rings that had circled the Era Mina several days earlier. The peryton's saddle looked like flames licking across the red and gold fabric. Malcolm was clothed in the same armour Em had painted, wings forged high on his shoulder plates and the silver spiral on his chest.

In the tapestry, the hideous army of half-faced knights trailing behind Malcolm were captured in lush black and silver threads. The Grendel dominated the narrative, its grotesque presence looming over the scene.