The Sacrifice (13 page)

‘Who’s Alberich?’

‘That statue up there, I know it
ain’t really Alberich. Alberich’s a dwarf. My dear departed grandpa, God
rest his battered soul, was an opera-loving geezer. Piles of old black records filling
his little flat with warbles. Some of it rubbed off on me. One piece I used to listen to
all the time, fierce and loud it was, all clanking and banging.
The Ring Cycle
,
the
Rheingold
, going down into Alberich’s cave in Nibelheim and all the
anvils hammering out a sound to wake up the slumbering hills. The Kid loved that sound,
so he did.’

‘So where will this take us?’
asked Tish, shining her torch ahead down the twisting tunnel. ‘Is there another
way out?’

‘There’s a million. Depends
where you want to go.’

‘OK. Wait.’

Tish stopped walking and the three of them
stood there, crouching down so as not to bump their heads on the tunnel roof.

‘Does it link up with the tube system,
did you say?’ Tish asked The Kid.

‘The train tunnels? Yeah.’

‘Not the tube,’ said Sam and
Tish shushed him before asking The Kid if he could get them to St Paul’s station.
The Kid scratched his head.

‘Which one’s that?’ he
said. ‘The Kid don’t read – he’s not much cop with the old
hieroglyphics.’

‘The Central Line – the red line. We
must be very near it. St Paul’s is on the other side of the Wall. If we go
west.’

‘East, west, north, south, each,
peach, pear, plum. Don’t mean anything to The Kid.’

‘Yeah,’ said Sam. ‘And I
really don’t want to go into the tube tunnels. They’re always full of
grown-ups. Anywhere but there.’

‘What choice do we have?’ said
Tish. ‘The Kid knows what he’s doing. He’s used these
tunnels.’

‘Don’t like them, though,’
said The Kid. ‘Specially not round here. In Nibelheim. This place used to freak me
out of the house. With Alberich’s dwarves up there. Didn’t want nothing to
do with the old Clickee Cult. No, sir.’

‘We’ll go carefully,’ said
Tish. ‘But whatever happens, we’ve got to get back up to street
level.’

‘I suppose so,’ said Sam.

‘Quickest way, I s’pose,’
said The Kid. ‘Easiest for me to remember is along the tracks and up through a
station.’ He squeezed Sam’s hand. ‘You with me or are you with the
Woolwich?’

‘I’m with you,’ said Sam,
and The Kid winked at him
and carried on down the tunnel, humming
again and muttering to himself about dwarves. Sam fell in beside him.

‘I’m sorry about that,’ he
said.

‘’Bout what?’

‘Back there, in the square, having a
go at you. I was just scared.’

‘Forget it, Samphire,’ said The
Kid. ‘If I could speak more clearer I would, but the words get all jumbled and
twisted and convulsive and they don’t come out like I want them to. We did OK,
though, didn’t we? Showed them Clickees who’s the boss. Showed them the old
snickersnee.’

‘Yeah.’ Sam laughed, feeling
slightly hysterical. He knew they weren’t out of danger by a long way. Tried not
to think about going into the tube system.

There was another ladder at the end of the
tunnel. It only led down, deeper underground, rather than up towards the daylight. The
Kid put his torch between his teeth, hopped lightly on to the ladder like a monkey and
dropped into darkness. Tish was less sure of herself and Sam went slowly and carefully,
worried that he might get tangled in his scabbard again.

At the bottom they found a cramped room
filled with electrical equipment. There were two doors.

‘That way leads to more of the
same,’ said The Kid, pointing to one door, and then he pointed to the second door.
‘That way leads to the train tracks.’

‘Which way would be quicker?’
said Sam. ‘To get back up there?’ He looked at the ceiling.

The Kid nodded towards the second door.

‘OK,’ said Tish. ‘We check
it out and if it’s all clear we go. And go fast. I don’t want to stay down
here any longer than anyone else.’

The Kid opened the door and took the others
along a short passageway at the end of which was an oval-shaped opening. He went into a
crawl as he neared the end then lay on his belly and stuck his head out through the
hole, shining his torch around.

‘All clear,’ he said, and
climbed down a third ladder. Soon all three of them were standing on the tracks by the
glinting steel underground rails. There was no sign of any life.

Didn’t make Sam feel any better. His
chest was heaving. This was bringing back too many memories for him. He felt a rising
wave of panic. He’d never been claustrophobic before, but now he was feeling both
trapped and exposed. His legs were shaking and they threatened to buckle at any
moment.

‘Can we get out of here as quick as we
can?’ he said, trying to stop his voice from breaking. Tish took her pack from her
back and fished out the A to Z. On the back was a tube map. She studied it by the light
of her torch.

‘Look,’ she said. ‘It
makes sense that this is the Central Line. We would have been almost directly above it
up in the square. We have to hope it is. And if we go west we get to St
Paul’s.’

‘There’s a tube station at the
Tower,’ said Sam. ‘We could try to get there.’

He grabbed the map off Tish and tried to
make sense of it. And then he felt a cold flush pass through him.

He passed the book back to Tish.

‘We go to St Paul’s,’ he
said, his voice shaking.

‘What’s the matter?’

‘If we go the other way we get to Bank
station.’

‘What’s wrong with
that?’

‘Oh, it comes back to me now,’
said The Kid. ‘That’s the
boneyard; that’s where Sam
was held by the blood-farmers. That old witch, she might still be there. We don’t
want to go back that way.’

‘So which way is St Paul’s
then?’ said Tish.

‘I’m trying to
remember.’

‘I’ve lost all sense of
direction, to be honest,’ said Tish. ‘You must have some idea.’

‘That way,’ said The Kid,
turning to face one way down the tunnel, and then, as the others joined him, he abruptly
turned in the other direction. ‘No, that way.’

‘Which way, Kid?’ Tish was
growing angry.

The Kid peered along the tunnel through
narrowed eyes. ‘I got a sense that that way is hope and freedom and the buzzing of
the bees in the lemonade trees.’ He jerked his thumb back over his shoulder.
‘And that way madness lies.’

‘We’ve got no choice
anyway,’ said Sam miserably and he had to steady himself against The Kid as his
knees gave way.

‘Whassup, doc?’

‘Shine your torch down the
tracks.’

The Kid did as he was told and the beam lit
up three grown-ups, pale-skinned and bald, like cave lizards, with wide dark eyes and
long fingernails. They looked tough and wiry and were moving quickly.

‘Leg it,’ said The Kid and the
next moment the three children were stumbling along over the sleepers, torch beams madly
scribbling a route in front of them.

Sam could hear the grown-ups hissing and
panting behind him. The ones who lived underground tended to be faster and healthier
than the ones up top.

He could only see about thirty metres ahead
as the tunnel went into a curve. He prayed that there would be a platform
on the other side or at least a way out. And he prayed that they
wouldn’t be back at Bank station. The horror of the tube train where he’d
been held prisoner, with its butcher’s carriage full of body parts, had almost
been too much for him.

The curve was agonizingly long so it was a
while before they could see any distance ahead.

‘Yes!’ Sam blurted as they
emerged into a straight section. Tish’s torch beam had caught the edge of a
station platform. What if it was the wrong stop, though?

‘Can you see?’ he gasped.
‘Can you read the name on the signs?’

‘Not yet,’ said Tish.

They ran on a little while in silence and
then Tish cried out.

‘St Paul’s! Yes! It’s St
Paul’s! It’s the right one. Well done, kiddo.’

Soon the tunnel opened out and they were in
the larger space of the platform area. It stank there, a sharp reek of human waste that
caught in Sam’s throat, and there were piles of bones and other rubbish strewn
along the platform.

Apart from the three grown-ups who were
chasing them, though, there didn’t appear to be any others around so far. The
children clambered up on to the platform and looked for an exit sign among the jumble
that hung from the roof. Sam was staring up when suddenly a body came hurtling out of
the darkness and bowled him over. He went down hard, all the air forced from his lungs,
a spray of bright lights in front of his eyes.

Someone had barged into him, but luckily
their momentum had kept them going and they had tumbled over the platform edge on to the
tracks. Sam was too jolted to move
for a moment. He lay there, aware
of movement all around him. The breastplate had protected him a bit, but it had also dug
into him painfully.

He knew he couldn’t stay like this. He
sucked in a lungful of air and struggled to sit up and clear his head. Tish had been
knocked aside in the attack and had dropped her torch; it was rolling along the ground,
lighting the legs of several grown-ups on the platform. The Kid had found the exit and
was yelling at the other two to follow him.

Tish pulled Sam to his feet just as the
three original grown-ups emerged from the tunnel. They were obviously part of a
different group, because a fight immediately broke out between them and the father who
had fallen on to the tracks. A couple of mothers joined him, sliding over the platform
edge.

All this confusion gave the children the
start they so desperately needed. They were off and running again, through the exit and
on to a long frozen escalator. They scrambled up, taking two steps at a time, coughing
as they kicked up clouds of dust. Sam found it hard going, tried to ignore the pain in
his legs. His trousers were wet with blood. He hobbled and limped up the steps, trying
to keep up with the other two. His whole body felt like it had been hammered with a
baseball bat. He was covered in cuts and bruises and there was a stabbing pain in his
chest. He wondered if he was having a heart attack.

Is this what it felt like?

Tish took his hand.

‘Come on, Sam,’ she said.
‘We’re not leaving you behind.’

Sam realized he’d lost his helmet in
the fall. Tears came into his eyes. Behind him he could hear the grown-ups.
Following. Low moans echoing off the walls, the scrape and thud of
their feet.

‘Keep going up,’ Tish shouted.
‘I can see daylight … ’

Sam was sweating and exhausted when they
reached the ticket hall at the top. The other two leapt over the turnstiles, but he
clumsily flopped and crawled. Light was streaming down through the exits to the street,
blinding them. Sam shielded his eyes and ran. Wanting nothing more than to be out in the
sun.

They went to the left, up a short flight of
steps.

And then they stopped.

The folding metal gates had been pulled
across the exit and chained together. The chain was fastened with a padlock.

Sam put his hands to the closed gates and
shook them, swearing. He could see through the dark criss-cross pattern made by the
bars. On the other side was sunshine, an empty street.

On this side … 

There came a whine from the station depths,
coughing noises, a deep rattling groan. The grown-ups had reached the ticket hall.

‘Bloody hell!’ said Sam and he
kicked the gates. There was no way they could force them.

‘I should have thought,’ said
Tish. ‘I forgot.’

‘Now what?’ said Sam, knocking
his forehead over and over against the metal gate.

‘There was another exit,’ said
Tish.

‘We’d have to go back down
there,’ Sam said angrily, pointing down the stairs to the ticket hall. ‘And
what makes you think the other exit won’t be locked as well?’

‘Well, what’s your idea
then?’ Tish shouted back at him. ‘What’s your bloody plan?’

‘You brought us here,’ said
Sam.

‘No, I didn’t,’ Tish
replied. ‘The Kid did. So, Kid, come on, how are we going to get out?’

‘Search me,’ said The Kid.

Now Tish grabbed hold of the bars and she
screamed at the top of her voice. ‘Help! Help us!’

‘That’s no good,’ said
Sam. ‘The only people who’ll be able to hear you are grown-ups. You’ll
just attract more of them.’

Tish ignored him and carried on yelling for
help.

Sam turned to The Kid. ‘Maybe we
could
try the other exit,’ he said, his mouth so dry he could hardly
get the words out. ‘We’ve got to try something.’

They left Tish shouting for help and crept
down the stairs. The first of the grown-ups had reached the top of the escalator. These
were the fitter, healthier ones, five of them, three fathers and two mothers. Luckily
they were having even more of a problem with the sudden bright light than the children
had done. They cowered back, cringing and hissing. Close enough for Sam to get a good
look at them, though.

He could see their red eyes, their rotten
teeth, the scabs and boils on their skin.

He knew it was only a matter of time before
they got bolder. Once a grown-up had your scent nothing would stop it.

He drew his sword from its scabbard.

‘We can’t fight them all,’
said The Kid. ‘They’re just gonna keep coming.’

‘We can fight some of them,’
said Sam, holding his sword tightly. It was heavy in his hand, though, and he felt weak
and useless. Who was he kidding with his bright shiny blade? He wasn’t a knight.
He was a nine-year-old boy. He might cut a few of the grown-ups, but what chance did he
have of killing any? He’d joined in a couple of the training sessions back at the
Tower. He’d enjoyed it. This was different.

This was real.