The Set Up (16 page)

‘Hurry up.’ Dylan swore.

‘I’m going as fast as I can,’ I hissed back.

Shouts sounded inside the house.

‘Oh, crap,’ Dylan said.

‘It’s okay, I can do it.’ I breathed out and focused again. The safe sailed upwards. ‘Let’s go.’ Behind us lights were going on inside the house, spilling out onto the stone path.

We ran, hard. Seconds later we reached the steel gates. I teleported the safe up and over the top as Dylan climbed. I held it for a second, then hurled it down with my mind. It landed with a soft thud in some bushes.

Dylan leaped after it like a cat. I followed, up and over the gate in a few swift moves. I jumped down and pulled Dylan into the bush that hid the safe.

I peered over the top of the bush, just as the side door to the house opened. Light spilled out. Fergus appeared, his silhouette dark in the door frame.

Beside me, Dylan stiffened.

‘Nico!’ Fergus looked round. ‘Dylan . . .? Ketty said you were here too. Please . . . we should talk.’

I could feel Dylan trying to peek through the bushes at him. I pushed her down.

Ketty rushed out beside Fergus. ‘I thought he would wait.’ Her voice broke as she spoke.

My heart leaped into my throat. Ketty looked round. The light from inside the house lit up her hair like a halo. The wind ruffled the top curls.

Fergus shook his head and muttered something I couldn’t hear. He went back inside and the door swung shut. Ketty wandered further away from the house, towards the gates. She was coming closer. This was my chance to speak to her again.

‘You go on ahead,’ I urged Dylan.

‘No way,’ she whispered. ‘Fergus could be calling the police right now.’

‘I don’t think he’d—’

‘You don’t
know
what he’ll do,’ Dylan insisted. ‘Come on. We need to run and I need your help with the safe.’

I bit my lip. ‘You can manage.’

‘I
can’t.
You saw. It’s too heavy.’ Dylan swore. ‘Nico, will you—’

‘Sssh.’

The side door was opening again. A different silhouette. Male, but shorter and younger than Fergus.

I strained my eyes, trying to see who it was. The boy walked towards Ketty. As he moved away from the house and into the moonlight I recognised him. Ed.

What was
he
doing here?

Ketty was almost at the gates now. As Ed reached her, he put his arm round her. She broke down, sobbing, and he pulled her into a hug.

Jealousy coursed through my body.

I gritted my teeth as he whispered something in her ear.

Ketty looked up at him. ‘I’m so glad you’re here,’ she sniffed.

What?
My throat constricted.

‘Yeah, well, me too,’ Ed said gruffly. He put his hands on her cheeks, wiping away her tears. Then he lowered his face. I held my breath.
No.

They kissed.

A light, soft, sweet kiss.

I stared at them, forgetting the safe at my feet, the wind in my face, even Dylan, crouching beside me.

Ed lifted his head and smiled. Together, he and Ketty walked back into the house.

I couldn’t register what had just happened. Ketty and
Ed
?

‘Nico.’ Dylan tugged at my sleeve.

I barely heard her. I was still numb, unable to take it in.

‘Nico, there’s every reason to go, right now. And there’s no reason to stay. Come
on
,’ Dylan insisted.

I stared at her. Her green eyes glittered in the moonlight, all concern and confusion.

She was right. There was no longer any reason to stay.

I nodded. ‘Let’s go.’ The numbness I felt curled itself round my heart. I switched my focus back to the safe.

Dylan crept out of the bushes and, keeping close to the trees that lined the road, she broke into a jog.

Without looking back at the house, the safe hovering just above my hands, I followed.

The safe – apparently made from a steel alloy containing both tungsten and lutetium – was finally open and Jack and Dylan were examining the contents at the kitchen table.

It was late Saturday afternoon and the light was fading. I stood by the window, watching a steady rainfall in the courtyard. The mews house was silent, apart from the occasional excited exclamation from Jack.

‘Look at this bit,’ he kept saying, and: ‘This is fantastic. Far more than I expected.’

It had been a long and mostly silent journey home from Scotland. Dylan and I had grabbed a few, unsettled hours’ sleep at Edinburgh station, then caught an early-morning train back to London. We’d kept a lookout for Fergus – or the police – the whole time, but no one stopped or even approached us.

‘I don’t get it,’ Dylan had said. ‘Why hasn’t he come after us?’

I thought about it. ‘Maybe he tried and Geri Paterson stopped him. Everyone says how powerful she is.’

‘Everyone’s right.’ Dylan looked away. ‘I met her months ago, when Jack found me. She flew out to Philadelphia to talk to me. I mean, Jack was great – he was my dad’s friend and I wanted to get to know him – but Geri just has this air about her – like whatever she wants, she gets. I was desperate to get away from my aunt anyway, but Geri made it sound like coming here would be the most exciting thing that would ever happen to me . . .’ She tailed off.

I frowned. ‘How was visiting your relatives in London for two weeks and hanging out with Jack a few times going to be so exciting?’ I said.

There was a long pause. ‘I can’t explain . . .’ Dylan hesitated.

‘Can’t explain what?’

She shook her head. I stared at her, an uneasy feeling in the pit of my stomach. There was something Dylan wasn’t telling me. Something to do with Jack and Geri and the arrangement she’d made with them.

Something to do with why she’d come to London.

‘So where do these relatives you’re staying with over here live?’ I asked.

But Dylan closed her eyes and turned, pointedly, away from me.

We didn’t speak much for the rest of the journey. Most of the time I laid my forehead against the cold train window and stared out at the changing landscape, while Dylan slept – or pretended to.

As we travelled on, my thoughts drifted away from Dylan and whatever she was hiding from me back to Ketty and Ed. As I remembered their kiss, the reality of it gripped me like a claw, piercing through the numbness I’d felt earlier.

The pain got worse and worse. Whatever I saw – fields, trees, houses – the only image on my brain was Ketty and Ed kissing. Even the sound the train made seemed to mock me.

Ketty and Ed
, went the engine.
Ketty and Ed
. . .
Ketty and Ed.

By the time we got to King’s Cross I was in such a state I couldn’t begin to lift the safe any more. Dylan had to get a porter with one of those flat trolleys to get it off the train. She threw me a few weird looks, but said nothing as the porter loaded us and the safe into a taxi.

When we reached the mews houses, I’d recovered enough to teleport the safe inside, though I was scared I’d lose my focus at any moment.

Jack didn’t seem to notice the mess I was in. He was there when we arrived – Dylan had phoned ahead to tell him everything – and full of praise for us both. A week ago I’d have lapped this up, but right now all I cared about was Ketty.

What was she doing with a geek like Ed, anyway? I mean, Billy Martin had been bad enough. But what on earth did she see in Ed?

I pressed my fingers against the French windows that led from the kitchen to the courtyard, tracing the outline of a raindrop that was trickling down the outside of the glass.

‘Come and see this, Nico.’ Jack’s insistent voice brought me back to the kitchen.

I wandered over to the table. It was covered with the papers from inside the safe. There were masses of them . . . some typed, most handwritten. Loose pages had been shoved inside notebooks. I opened one at random. The handwriting was that old-fashioned sort with big loops hanging off every letter. The words were clear enough but the meaning was way beyond me. I scanned the page quickly, picking up only a few recognisable words:
maternal
. . .
blood pressure
. . .
strand
. . . in amongst all the bewildering jargon. The file kept referring to
low molecular weight proteins
and
antigen processing genes.
What on earth were they?

‘Not that, this.’ Jack pushed another notebook under my nose. It was typed. The open page was headed:
Cobra. 07/08. Third recipient of Gene DR61-alpha. Processed: 08/Dec. Live birth 10.18 a.m., 07/August.

Cobra.
That was the code name Geri had told me I’d been given. And
07 August
was my birth date. I read down the page. It was a list of dates – medical appointments by the look of it – with a record of blood pressure and temperature readings – plus a bunch of other medical data that I didn’t understand.

I looked up at Jack. ‘This is all about me being implanted with the Medusa gene, isn’t it?’

He nodded, all excited. ‘Yes, plus William’s record of his check-ups on your mother. Both William and Fergus Fox claimed William destroyed all this. It’s an amazing find.’

‘Great.’ I tried to summon up some enthusiasm. ‘So is the information on Viper here?’

Jack’s face fell. ‘I haven’t found much about her identity yet, other than that she was female, which we already knew. At least I have a birth date for her now. That’s more than I had to go on when I was tracking Ed.’

‘What’s his code name?’ I asked, interested.

‘Sidewinder,’ said Jack. ‘It’s a kind of rattlesnake.’

I nodded. That figured. Ed
was
a snake, too. Stealing my girl from under my nose.

But even in the midst of my misery I knew that wasn’t fair. Ed had no idea how I felt about Ketty. In fact . . . with a jolt I remembered how I’d told him she liked
him
the evening we all went to the casino bar. He would probably never have had the confidence to talk to her if I hadn’t encouraged him. Which meant . . .
oh my God
. . .Ed and Ketty being together was
my
fault.

‘Hey, Jack.’ Dylan held up another dog-eared notebook. This one had an old-fashioned computer disk taped to the page. It was square and made of black plastic. Nothing like the CDs or mini-disks I was used to. Dylan peeled the disk off the notebook and turned it over.

The word
Medusa
was written in red felt pen along the back. ‘D’you think this’ll have anything on it about Viper?’ Dylan asked, eagerly.

Jack leaped up. ‘I’m going to try it in my old PC.’ He glanced down at the papers spread over the table. ‘Don’t move a thing.’ He rushed off.

I wandered back to the window. The rain was still beating down outside – the only other sound was the low hum of the fridge in the corner.

Dylan cleared her throat. ‘So, Nico . . . that girl in Fergus’s house . . . Ketty. Does she know how much you like her?’

I turned round. Dylan was leaning back in her chair, head tilted to one side. As I stared at her, she raised her eyebrows.

‘Well?’

I hesitated. I was so miserable that part of me was actually tempted to tell her the whole sad story. And yet that sardonic glint I’d seen before in Dylan’s eye made it impossible.

‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ I said evenly.

Dylan rolled her eyes. ‘For God’s sake. I saw the way you looked at her yesterday. And you’ve been acting real lame ever since we left that house.’

I shrugged and turned away again. A rustling of papers told me Dylan was, once again, looking at her dad’s notebooks.

I don’t know how long I stood at the window. It was certainly at least half an hour before Jack reappeared. His mood had changed from excited to edgy. He paced round the kitchen as he spoke.

‘Okay, well the disk’s got the information we need. Er . . . unfortunately it looks like Viper will be harder to track down than I thought.’

‘Why?’ I asked.

‘I don’t have time to explain,’ Jack said. ‘I’m taking the information to Geri now. Will you guys be okay till I get back?’

Dylan stretched her arms and yawned, catlike. ‘Sure.’

I looked up. ‘I think I’m going to go back home . . . to school . . .’

Jack frowned. ‘Okay, if that’s what you want. But I’ll be back in a couple of hours. We could go out for a meal, later, the three of us?’

I shook my head. Eating out with Jack in this edgy mood and Dylan casting me sly, knowing glances about Ketty was the last thing I wanted.

Anyway, I’d been away over twenty-four hours, with my phone switched off that entire time. I was in enough trouble as it was . . . not only had I run away when I was supposed to be grounded, I’d also stolen those notes from Fergus’s safe.

At least if I got back before Fergus returned, maybe I could talk my way out of the worst.

‘Er . . . sorry, but could you lend me a few quid for the tube?’ I said. ‘I used the last of my cash getting to the station to meet Dylan yesterday – and Fergus took away my Oyster card when he grounded me.’

‘Fine, I’ll leave some money for your journey back on the hall table,’ Jack said distractedly. ‘I’m going to dash, it’s going to be impossible getting a taxi at this hour. Just pull the door shut when you leave.’ He locked the Medusa papers away and rushed out.