The Ghost Roads (Ring of Five) (31 page)

Danny’s head was reeling. He had started suspecting Devoy a long time ago, though he hadn’t admitted it to himself. It hadn’t been any one thing—Devoy hadn’t put a foot wrong—but as Danny became more experienced in the art of betrayal, he learned to recognize it in others, and Devoy’s treachery had verged on genius. He had done everything he could to thwart the Ring while all the time making sure that the power of Wilsons decreased from year to year.…

And then there was Steff Pilkington. The man moaned in Nala’s arms. Danny knew that he should feel pity for him, and love, but all he felt was a growing hatred, a turmoil raging within him that was worse than the power that had threatened to tear him apart.

Vicky led them into a dark cellar smelling of earth. Nala looked about suspiciously, fearing a trap, but Vicky took them straight to a small door in the wall. She opened it and stepped through. Danny heard a familiar, eerie sound—the rushing of the dark river.

“It’s all right,” he reassured Nala. The Cherb glanced
at him, then stepped across the threshold, still holding the now unmoving form of Steff Pilkington.

“We’d better get a move on,” Vicky said, eyeing the man skeptically.

They entered not far from the bank of the dark stream, but soon they left its quiet rushing behind and found themselves in the damp and moldering tunnels of the Butts, moving always upward along narrow passageways and treacherous stairs. If the dead watched in the shadows, Danny was not aware of them.

“I reckon we must be nearly under the enemy,” Danny whispered. Vicky stopped and held up her hand to silence them.

“They’re … the dead … they’re close,” she said.

“Close?” Nala said quietly. “Dead are all around.” Danny was suddenly in the grip of an icy chill that penetrated to his very bones. The light faded and a cold fleshy mass pressed against him, jostling and murmuring.

“Go away!” he heard Vicky exclaim. “Leave us alone, mad dead folk!”

The throng around Danny parted and he saw a familiar hideous face. Hinault!

“What are you doing down here, sport?” Hinault said.

“We must get him to the apothecary,” Danny said, pointing to the prone form in Nala’s arms.

“Looks like he’ll be joining us fairly soon.” Hinault peered at Pilkington.

“If you don’t let us go …,” Vicky said.

“No can do,” Hinault said. “Looks like Longford’s
winning the fight up above. Me and the rest of this lot know which side our bread’s buttered on. Longford’ll make it hard on us down here when he takes over.”

“He’s not taking over,” Danny said, with more confidence than he felt.

“Be that as it may,” Hinault said, “you lot are staying with us.” Danny took the Knife of Implacable Intention from his pocket. Hinault started to laugh.

“What are you going to do? Kill us?” His laugh was taken up by the dead surrounding him, a ghostly hooting noise that sent a chill through Danny and a look of pure terror across Nala’s face. Danny could suddenly see the throng around him, men and women, some dressed in rags, others in splendid clothes, much stained and faded. There were ghastly injuries, severed arms, stitched-on heads, hideous disfiguring scars. A cold odor of decay rose from their clothes. Danny tried to move, but he was held in their chilly press.

“Let me go, let me go!” Vicky squirmed in their grasp, but they did not relent. Instead, the throng turned toward a dark staircase leading downward. Danny’s feet were off the ground, his arms pinned to his side. Nala moaned in fear. They would be carried down into the underworld, perhaps never to return.

“Stop!” A familiar voice rang out. Danny’s heart leapt. Les and Dixie stood at the top of the staircase. Les had a long sword in his hand, and Dixie was squinting over the sights of a crossbow, which wavered alarmingly.

“Ha!” Hinault said. “It’ll take more than you two to stop us!”

“I know that,” Les said, smiling. Behind him appeared a silent crowd of children and teenagers, wounded, half starved and ghostly, but carrying clubs and staves and chains. Hinault snarled and stepped forward. His mouth opened and the sound that had terrified Danny burst forth. Nala, still carrying Pilkington, fell to his knees. Even Vicky looked impressed. But Les stepped forward, swung the sword two-handed behind his back, and struck with all his force. The blow caught Hinault at waist level and cut him clean in two. His legs fell one way and his torso toppled the other. The torso rolled across the floor and fetched up against the wall. Hinault looked down at the place where his legs had been.

“That wasn’t very friendly, sport,” he said mournfully. “It’ll take a bit of stitching to put me together again.”

With a loud cheer Les and Dixie’s army charged. There was a twang and a crossbow bolt whistled past Danny’s head and went straight through a severe-looking duke, who stared down at himself in surprise. The children were in among the other dead, swinging at them with their weapons. Where they were too small to carry an implement, they ran among the feet of their foes, tripping them and stamping on their toes.

“Run, Danny!” Les shouted. Danny didn’t need to be told twice. Pulling Nala to his feet, he ran, Vicky fleeing in front of them.

Upward they went, Vicky sure of her way, until they found themselves in a cellar under the floorboards of the
front hall. Above them booted feet clumped and they heard shouting.

“What are they saying?” Danny said.

“They’re going to attack again at nightfall,” Nala said.

“That gives us a few hours,” Danny said, “but how do we get up to the apothecary?”

“There’s a hidden staircase,” Vicky said. “Devoy used it sometimes.”

Danny remembered the attack on Agent Stone when he was in the apothecary.… Devoy!

“Let’s go,” Danny said grimly. Vicky led the way up the staircase, moving so fast now that they could barely keep up. Nala was starting to wilt under the weight of the poisoned man. Danny stopped Nala to check on Pilkington. His color was bad and his breathing was labored.

“Hurry, hurry!” Vicky shouted.

“You can wait a few seconds for an ill man!” Danny shouted back. Nala gathered his strength and began to plod upward again. Danny tried to share the burden, but Nala shrugged him away. Vicky disappeared from view.

Three minutes later they stood at a battered wooden door. Vicky turned the handle, which opened easily. They stepped into a gloomy bathroom hung with cobwebs, unknown substances stuck to the wall. Danny turned his head away from the spectacularly stained toilet bowl and followed Vicky out into Jamshid’s living quarters, which were scarcely any cleaner than the bathroom.

When they emerged into the lab, the defenders spun around, guns leveled at them. There was delight that they
had got back—delight that turned to concern when they saw the injured Brunholm.

“Can you help him, Vandra?” Danny asked anxiously as she examined him.

“If I knew what the poison was …,” she answered. Danny took the dart from his pocket.

“Careful with that,” Toxique said sharply. He took it from Danny and sniffed the point.

“An ancient neurotoxin. It’s gone a bit stale, which might reduce the effect. I think you can bear it, Vandra. Question is, do you want to? You’ll be helpless afterward.”

“It’s Brunholm, after all,” Valant joined in. “He probably betrayed us all.”

“There isn’t time for argument,” Danny said. “He’s dying!” Vandra looked long and hard at Danny.

“Danny and Nala thought it worthwhile to carry him here …,” she pointed out.

Danny wanted to plead with her, but the treacherous part of his mind overrode the feeling part.
He let you down! Let him die!

“Danny?” McGuinness said.

“Let me finish,” Vandra said. “I am a healer. I have no choice but to save him.”

Her two long incisors grew out onto her lower lip. She blushed as she always did when her teeth appeared, knowing how it made her look. Then she bent her head to the man’s neck and bit.

Danny felt hot tears in his eyes. His friend had not
hesitated, but had chosen to save Pilkington, at grave risk to herself.

Fool!
Danny the Spy sneered.
No
, Danny thought,
she isn’t a fool. Leave me alone!
He knelt and took his father’s arm in his left hand and Vandra’s hand in his right, and in that moment, Danny the Spy was banished from his thoughts, to appear again now and then, perhaps, but his influence was gone, like that of the liar who is found out, the traitor who is unmasked.

McGuinness looked down at Danny’s hand clasping the man’s arm. Vandra made a choking sound and fell, her eyes rolling back in her head. Toxique knelt quickly beside Pilkington while Jamshid tended to Vandra.

“She hasn’t gotten enough out,” Toxique said. “The poison is still too strong.…”

“What do you mean?”

“He’ll die, is what it means,” Valant said. No one but McGuinness noticed the whimpering sound that had escaped from Vicky.

“There is nothing to be done, then?” Duddy said sadly.

“Nothing.” McGuinness was watching Vicky closely. Tears welled in her big blue eyes—revealing tears, for as she cried, her left eye turned from the clearest blue to hazel. McGuinness nudged Duddy.

“Eyeball dye!” Duddy exclaimed. As mistress of disguise, Duddy knew how to change eye color with dyes, and also knew that if you were using one you must on no account weep, for tears would wash the dye away.

“She’s a Cherb!” Spitfire exclaimed, leaping to her feet and grabbing a sword. “What have you done with the real siren!”

“There never was a real siren,” the woman said, not lifting her eyes from Pilkington’s face. “All is over now and the truth can be told. I am Grace Pilkington, your mother, Danny. For many years I toiled undercover with my husband working against the Ring, he as Brunholm and I as Vicky the siren. Our work is done now. Devoy is unmasked, and the cost has been … too much.”

There was pandemonium, a dozen voices talking at once. Danny stared. It was too much to take in. He felt numb. Spitfire and Valant had started to argue. Starling and McGuinness were trying to calm people. Then a voice silenced them.

“Out of my way.” Vandra had got to her feet. She looked ghastly, her skin gray, her cheeks sunken. “Out of my way. I haven’t finished my work.”

“No!” Danny said.

“It’s not your decision,” Toxique said. “Let her pass.” Danny, his head reeling, stepped back. He stumbled as he did so, and a pair of hands steadied him. He looked up. It was Pearl.

Vandra bent once more to Steff Pilkington. This time when she finished she fainted dead away, and Pilkington groaned and opened his eyes. He groped for his wife’s hand and found it. She stretched out her hand for Danny’s. Danny hesitated, then stepped away from the sheltering arms of Pearl and took it.

“Very touching,” a familiar voice said, sounding
amused. The defenders spun around. Longford stood behind them, surrounded by Cherbs, each with a crossbow leveled at the attackers. “So at last all our plotting and planning comes down to this.”

“Where’s your brother?” Pilkington’s voice was weak.

“Here.” Devoy stepped out from behind the Cherbs. “Brilliant, Marcus, or should I say Steff? To have kept up such a deception over so many years. Whose was the greater achievement in treachery, I wonder, mine or yours?”

“Or that of the lovely Grace, I might suggest,” Longford added.

“Yes, of course,” Devoy said. “Very gallant of you, Ambrose.” The staff of Wilsons stared in horror.

“M-Master Devoy …,” Duddy stuttered.

“Silence!” Devoy said. “You were always naive to the point of stupidity, Duddy.”

“All along,” Valant whispered, his face pale, “all through the hard years. When I asked you for funds for repairs, for defenses, you said they were all gone.…”

“The coffers of Wilsons are full—positively groaning, in fact,” Devoy said. “I’ll enjoy spending it. And you all should enjoy having witnessed the greatest feat of undercover spying ever seen in the history of the world!”

Danny stood up.

“My … my father’s undercover feat was the greatest because he did it to protect the world, not to take it over!”

“Yes,” Longford said, “a great achievement as a spy, but as a father? To abandon his son? And all those times you were in danger? Not to step forward?”

“Verging on the unnatural,” Devoy said. “But then, our own father was the same, was he not?”

“Yes,” Longford said. “He did not abandon us but set us one against the other, always competing.…”

“For years we secretly plotted, one to control the Ring of Five, the other to control Wilsons. We succeeded beyond our wildest dreams.”

“The Two Worlds teeter on the edge of ruin,” Jamshid said, rising from his position beside Vandra, “all because two boys wanted to prove who was better.” He spat on the rubble-strewn floor.

“Yes,” Longford said.

“And what is the answer, Brother?” Devoy said.

“They will never get to know, anyway,” Longford said. “It is time to say goodbye, my dear Danny. And goodbye to you, Steff and Grace.”

Devoy gestured to the Cherbs. The bowmen stepped forward, slipped bolts into the crossbows and raised them. The defenders looked at each other in horror; the only sounds in the room were Vandra’s labored breathing and the click of each bow being cocked. Danny’s eyes met those of Agent Pearl and held them for what seemed like an eternity.

“Fire!” Longford said. Danny closed his eyes, waiting for the cold steel to plunge into his flesh. Nothing happened.

“Fire!” Longford said again. Danny opened his eyes. The Cherbs had lowered their bows. There was a rustling sound behind them, a sound as if someone with wings was passing through the throng of bowmen.

Gabriel.

The Cherbs parted to let Gabriel through. He smiled at Danny.

“What … what’s going on?” Jamshid stammered.

“Sometimes you have to pay for the evil you do. Not always, but sometimes,” Gabriel said. “When Daisy was killed I flew away to the lonely shore of the sound to mourn. But my tears were interrupted by the cries of the Cherbs abandoned by Rufus Ness on the ruins of the bridge. I flew out to them. At first they were suspicious and hostile. But they had no choice but to trust me. One by one, hour after weary hour, I flew them to the forest beyond the summerhouse. We set up camp there, and they gave their allegiance to Wilsons. I learned that the Cherbs are not the enemy. They wish to be led, and to belong. The Ring led them to evil. Wilsons will do better.”