The Ghost Roads (Ring of Five) (22 page)

He forced himself to sit down on a step and tried to work through his choices, quickly realizing that he had none. If cornered, he could surrender, or he could use his power. There was nothing else. The power was strong within him. He could use it sparingly, perhaps, control it.… No, that was a lie. He didn’t have the strength to control it.

Suddenly a speaker burst into life above his head.

“Good afternoon, Danny,” a voice said, its tone warm, almost amused.

Longford.

N
ala was bewildered. He looked down at his clothes. They were covered in blood. But he hadn’t hurt anyone, or had he? He could remember the elegant woman coming to his cell and waking him. Still half asleep, they had made their way out into the corridor. There was no sign of any guard. She had smiled at him, encouraged him, been kindly. And he had done well, picking lock after lock with one of her hairpins. They had almost made it. At the last door he could smell the fresh night air outside. But then what had happened? Lights, noise, men shouting, the sound of a gunshot. He had woken on the ground, blood on his shirt, a gun in his hand.

After that, there had been running. But a strange thing had happened. He had arrived at a metal fence on the edge of the prison compound. It was tall, but the
strands weren’t very thick, and Nala thought he could squeeze through. There were signs on it like lightning bolts, but Nala didn’t know what they meant. He was about to lift the first strand, but as he did so, a raven flew into his face, its sharp claws drawing blood. Nala reeled back in pain and confusion. Suddenly there was a flock of ravens about him. They were carrying a piece of wire underneath them. As if at a prearranged signal, they dropped it onto the fence. There was a bright blue flash and a burning smell. When Nala climbed through the wire the ravens did not try to impede him, but the wire was hot in his hands.

Now he was on his own, moving blindly across country, pursued by soldiers and dogs. The ravens harassed him all the way, or so he thought. He had stopped by a stream to take a drink. He had taken off his socks and shoes to bathe his feet and a raven swooped from nowhere, grabbing one of his socks. He had thrown a stone at it, but it was no good. The sock was gone, and now he limped along, one foot blistered and bleeding.

Nala could not know what had happened to his sock. There was a dog team on his trail: German shepherds, moving fast and silent across the country. The raven had landed five hundred yards in front of them, just where Nala had crossed a stream. In what looked like a strange, raggedy dance, the raven had started to sweep the sock across the ground with its beak, moving backward. It covered a few hundred yards; then another raven took over, and so on in relays. When the dogs got to the river, they found a false scent trail leading along the banks. They
followed the trail for miles up into the mountains. The ravens were nothing if not thorough.

So Nala made his weary way across country, guided in a thousand small ways by the ravens. One night he made his way toward a train station. He saw a freight wagon with its door standing open (although he hadn’t seen the ravens slip the holding pins away from the door). He climbed in, and when the train lurched to life, he fell into a deep sleep on a pile of cardboard boxes in the corner of the boxcar.

Deep in the night the engine driver saw a shadow in the engine headlights. A man! He slammed on the brakes, cursing. Nala was thrown against the bulkhead violently. Instantly he was on his feet. The train driver strained against the brakes, but the man stood on the track without moving. The train would not stop in time. Sparks flew from the protesting wheels. It was no good. The train bore down on the figure, but just before it struck, to the driver’s amazement, the figure flew apart, black shapes disappearing into the darkness.

The shapes converged on Nala’s carriage, filling it with the beating of their wings, crowding about him and pushing him toward the door as he cursed and flailed at them. Only after he had jumped from the carriage and the train had creaked into motion did they leave him alone. Exhausted and dazed, he climbed over the high wall beside the track and found himself in a graveyard.

The dead held no fears for Nala. He found an empty crypt, crawled into it and fell back to sleep.

D
anny tried to shut out the voices. Whatever Longford was going to say, it wasn’t going to be good news.

“Danny,” Longford went on, “you have my congratulations. You showed great resourcefulness in getting this far. But I know your heart, my boy. I knew you would long for revenge. I have always held that you were bad at heart, although poor Nurse Flanagan disagreed with me. But there is too much Cherb in you. And once a Cherb, always a Cherb.”

Danny listened. He heard murmuring in the stairwell below him. He had to move, but Longford’s voice held him. He stood up, but then stopped stock-still.

“It’s about time for a short history lesson, my young friend. Your parents. Everyone is a little coy about what happened to them, but I know, my dear Danny, and I will share the information with you. Your father was a worthy adversary, and your mother, well, she was bright for a Cherb, and brave as a lion.”

Danny’s heart was beating like a hammer. To hear Longford speak about his parents made the rage rise in him.

“Your father was a brilliant spy, but he died screaming like a baby. I saw it.”

Danny felt as though the sea were roaring in his ears. His teeth were clenched, the stairwell charged with electricity.

“So did your mother, for that matter. Never mentioned your name, either of them.”

Danny felt the power surge to his fingertips. A vision formed in his mind of the building around him crumbled to dust. Flames shooting into the sky. People screaming.… He remembered the S
& G
ring being placed in his jacket. It was the cold, dead hand of his father or mother that had placed it there as he and his friends had roamed the Butts endlessly.

Now there were shouts in the stairwell below him, but around him, the paint on the wall started to bubble, the fabric of the building to crumble. Longford would die, and then it would be Brunholm’s turn. The murmurs below Danny turned to panicked shouts.

Then, just before he lost control, the voice that plagued him, the voice of Spy Danny, spoke in his head. It was cold and malicious and pierced the fog of destruction in his head.

Why did Longford contact you through the speakers? Everyone in the building will have heard. Think, Danny, what’s he up to?

What was he talking about?
Everyone in the building will have heard
.… It meant that Longford did not intend anyone in the building to survive, so it didn’t matter what they heard.

It’s a great idea
, Spy Danny sneered.
He gets rid of the prime minister and the government, blames it on you and gets to start his war
.

Longford had to have an escape plan—and Danny knew what it was. He started to run up the stairwell, clearing the stairs three at a time.

He burst out onto the roof just as Conal took off from the parapet, Longford on his back.

“Fly, Conal! Fly, you vulture!” Longford cried. Conal’s great wings beat slowly with the added weight. Longford turned with a snarl on his face.

“Your parents,” he goaded, “the terrible things that were done to them. Danny, remember?”

But Danny knew now what Longford intended him to do: destroy the government and start the war. He raced toward the parapet and, just before Conal flew out of reach, he grabbed the Seraphim’s leg to pull him back.

“You’ll come back here and roast with the others, Longford,” Danny snarled in a voice he barely recognized as his own. Longford smiled thinly.

“I don’t think so. Conal?” With two powerful beats of his wings, the foul creature pulled clear of the building. Danny was pulled off his feet and found himself dangling a hundred feet above the ground.

“What would the filth that spawned you think now?” Longford crowed. “I can see the power, Danny. I can feel the air shiver with it. Drop him, Conal. Let the power consume him!”

A jolt of knowledge ran through Danny’s body like electricity. There was a tone in Longford’s voice that he had heard before. All was revealed to him, all made obvious. He looked up. The power roared until he was aware of nothing else. The sky had turned black. The Lost Boys, he thought, and let go.

SEE. SEE. SEE!

L
es couldn’t explain it except to say that everything about Wilsons felt
wrong
. It was as if something had been holding the place together all along, and that something had weakened, if not disappeared altogether. He started to notice how shabby the place had become. It had never been particularly spick-and-span, but now there was rubbish blowing across the lawns at the back of the school, and broken guttering spilled water down the side of the building. The damage to the Gallery of Whispers had not been repaired, and there was green mold on the walls where the damp had gotten in. Even Ravensdale, the mysterious village that functioned as a canteen for the cadets, seemed unkempt, with weeds growing in the streets and ivy crawling up the walls.

“Is it me, or are there fewer cadets here every day?” Dixie asked one afternoon in the Roosts.

“It’s not you,” Vandra said. “Parents are taking their children out of the place. They’re all saying that Wilsons’s days are over, that it stood for something once, but the world has moved on.”

“What do you think?” Les stared moodily out a window.

“I think we need to find out what’s going on,” Vandra said firmly, “and for that we need to know what happened the last time there was no treaty.”

“I’ve tried to talk to Master Devoy,” Toxique said, “but every time I get close, Brunholm or one of his crew of telltales stops me.”

“I know,” Vandra said. “I asked Duddy and Spitfire about him, but they just said they never get to see Devoy either.”

“It’s up to us,” Dixie said. “If we can’t get answers from the living, we’ll get them from the dead!”

They all turned to look at her, and she moved rapidly from one part of the room to another in an annoying, fidgety manner.

“What do you mean?” Vandra asked.

“If we’re going to find out who the Lost Boys are, who else are we going to ask?”

“Er, we could ask Devoy, or Brunholm, or McGuinness. Or we could go to the library and look it up. That might work.” Les had no desire to go among the dead again.

“Did I hear someone mention the Lost Boys?” an unexpected voice said. It was Miss Duddy.

“Why, do you know something about them, Miss Duddy?” Les said eagerly.

“The Lost Boys was a game when I was a girl,” Duddy said. Les looked at her, disappointed. They weren’t going to find out anything from a girls’ playground game.

“How did you play it?” Dixie asked. Duddy stepped into the light. She had always looked a bit eccentric, but today she just looked shabby. Her long graying hair needed brushing and her spectacles were askew.

“Oh dear,” Duddy said, “can I remember? Yes.…
Dum de dum de dum.…
Hold up your hands, Dixie. It’s a clapping game, very complicated.…
Dum de dum.…
Put up your hands like this.” Duddy started playing the game with Dixie, showing her the moves. It was a schoolyard game such as children everywhere play, and Dixie was good at it, picking it up fast, Duddy dum-dumming at top speed. It was the end that took Dixie by surprise. The game got faster and faster, and when they got to the last part, instead of clapping Dixie’s hands smartly the way she had done before, Duddy swung, right, left, right again, each time a stinging blow to Dixie’s face.

“Ouch, ouch, ouch!” Dixie gasped. “What was that?”

“Fun, wasn’t it?” Duddy grinned.

“Great fun.” Les looked amused.

“Fun, but it doesn’t get us anywhere,” Vandra said.

“Hang on a moment,” Toxique said, “where’s the rhyme?”

“What rhyme?” Vandra said crossly.

“These games always have a little rhyme that goes with them.”

“He’s right, you know,” Duddy said. “Let me think how it goes.… I got it.”

She put her hands up again, but Dixie looked at her askance.