The Unknown Spy (4 page)

“Are you okay?” Les asked. “Did something happen at home?”

“No, nothing,” Danny said; then, seeing Les’s skeptically arched eyebrows, he admitted, “Nothing much, anyhow. I don’t want to talk now. I’ll tell you when I’ve had a chance to think about it.”

“Fair enough,” Les said. “In the meantime, we’ll get you back to the Roosts and let you have a bit of a nap. Things could get a little busy around here. If Devoy sends for you I’ll hold him off.”

They emerged from Ravensdale into the main building and took a side exit into the gardens. The snow lay
thick and undisturbed on the lawns and shrubberies. The air was cold and stung Danny’s lungs when he breathed, but it felt fresh on his tired eyes. A robin alighted on a snowy twig near them and followed their progress across the gardens. When Danny saw the treetop dormitories in front of him, he had a sense of belonging, a sense that increased when they climbed up the stairs and the warm, fuggy odor of the place hit his nostrils (as did, it has to be said, a faint aroma of boys’ socks). The iron stove in the center of the room glowed dull red. Danny sank down in his bed gratefully.

“See you later,” Les said with a grin. Danny took his shoes off and pulled the blankets up around him. He knew he should undress, but the bed was soft and the room was warm. An image of the woman who had pretended to be his mother drifted into his head, but he pushed it away bitterly. She had no claim on him now. This was his home, and his friends were his family. Within minutes he was fast asleep, the room around him quiet and peaceful.

F
ar away, in the house Danny had left, it was also quiet, but it could not be said to be peaceful. All morning the woman Danny had known as his mother had felt a sense of dread that she could not account for. There was no sign of the car that had chased her and her partner the night before. The countryside was dead silent, the cold lying on it like a weight. The ravens had left that morning, as they always did, to scavenge what food they could find.

Agent Stone was sleeping peacefully. The woman had
given him antibiotics and some morphine for the pain. She sat down at the fire, her eyes grainy with fatigue, her heart heavy. She could not remember a time when she hadn’t been on duty, all to do with Danny. She was Agent Pearl now, but once upon a time she’d had a real name—she had been Alison, a young woman with a life and ambition. The ambition had led her to this job, a vital job, she had been told. But for many years now she and Agent Stone had had little contact with their mystery employers, apart from checks in their bank accounts every month and emails every so often with terse instructions.

Danny, she thought tiredly, remembering the look of utter betrayal on his face that morning. At the start Danny had been only a job, and he had been an easy child to look after. But he had become more than a job. Tucking him in at night, cooking for him, worrying about him when he was out of her sight … sometimes Agent Pearl started to think of Danny and Agent Stone as her real family. She felt a pang of guilt. If that was the case, then she hadn’t been a very good or attentive mother.

She sighed. Months earlier she’d been told in an anonymous email that Danny was to be going away to school and she was not to ask any questions. But she couldn’t help wondering where he’d gone. He had seemed changed when he came home for the holidays, more confident, and yet unsure, like someone who had been handed a great responsibility but didn’t know what to do about it. What were they doing to him? Where was he now?

A fiercely protective feeling swept over her. Danny
thought he had left home secretly, but Pearl had watched from her bedroom window as he walked away from the house toward Fairman’s waiting taxi. Her heart had ached to see him go, and she had longed to call him back, yet she knew that wherever he went, he would be safer than he would be at home.

A sudden fall of soot down the chimney made her jump. She frowned and went to the window. The countryside was empty, the snow untracked, yet the ominous feeling had grown.

She went to the kitchen and took a revolver from her handbag, checking to see that it was loaded. She went to Agent Stone’s room. He was sitting up in bed looking haggard, a gun in his hand.

“You feel it too,” she whispered. He nodded. Stone was the brains of the partnership, the one who had worked so hard trying to draw together the complex pieces of Danny’s history. He had found himself in many dark and dangerous places over the years.

“Check outside,” he whispered.

Carefully Pearl went down the corridor, unlocked the back door and stepped out, gun in hand. The crunch of her feet on the snow was too loud, her grip on the revolver too fierce. The hairs on the back of her neck were too tight. Yet nothing stirred; there was no sign of danger. Forcing herself onward, she made a full circuit of the house, peering into the garage and the toolshed. When there was nothing more to search, she let herself back into the house and went to Agent Stone’s bedroom.

“Nothing,” she said. “I can’t see anything.”

But she hadn’t looked up when she was outside. It was probably just as well that she hadn’t, that she had not been caught in the open, for she would have been cut to shreds. They were waiting for her. If she had glanced over her shoulder, there would have been no time to scream. Lining the eaves of the house, like a flock of loathsome vultures, wings folded behind their backs, were Conal’s Seraphim, their eyes cold and their bright metal blades by their sides.

Agent Pearl locked the front and back doors and closed and bolted the wooden shutters upstairs and down. She stood in the hallway, looking around for other possible entry points. Her eyes were drawn to the huge window at the stair return, a beautiful stained-glass version of the
Eve of Saint Agnes
, the cold light setting its colors afire. As she looked, the colors appeared to darken, dim and suddenly go out. With a huge crash the window splintered into a thousand pieces, and there in place of a window stood a man—was it a man?—tall, very tall, with lank gray hair and burning yellow eyes. Pearl felt her insides turn to water as she saw two huge wings spread wide on his back.

She backed away and the Seraphim Conal threw his head back and emitted a terrible shriek of triumph. He launched himself and glided forward, more of the creatures taking his place in the window.

Before Pearl had a chance to raise the gun, Conal had her pinned against the wall. She could feel his weight against her chest. His eyes were burning and his breath was cold and foul.

“Where is he?” Conal said. “Where is the boy?”

She heard a shot, and over Conal’s shoulder saw one of the Seraphim falter in the air, then plunge to the ground. Conal spun around. Stone stood in the bedroom doorway, pale and bloodstained, the gun in his hand. Pearl ducked under Conal’s wing and ran to her partner. The air of the hallway was full of wings, great swooping blades that would stun her if she collided with them. She reached Stone. Together they backed into the doorway. Despite his wound, Stone’s eyes were bright with excitement.

“What are they?” Pearl gasped.

“Seraphim!” he said. “The old books talk about them, but I never thought they really existed. This changes everything.”

The Seraphim had landed and were standing in a crescent facing the agents. Pearl recoiled from the threatening figures.

“Where is the boy?” Conal growled again. “Where is the Fifth?”

“He’s not here,” Stone said. “You won’t find him.”

Conal gave a signal. Half of the Seraphim took to the air and sped up the staircase. Others made for the ground-floor rooms. There was great crashing and rending as doors were burst open and rooms searched.

“He isn’t here,” Pearl insisted, “and we won’t give him up to you.”

“You think not?” Conal sneered and took a step closer. Pearl raised her revolver, but as she did so the shutters in the bedroom behind them splintered into a hundred pieces and a tall female Seraphim entered and flung a
spear. It struck Stone a glancing blow on the forehead. He cried out and fell to the ground.

“How many bullets do you have in that gun?” Conal taunted. “Six? Do you think you can kill all of us? Throw down the weapon and give yourself another few hours of miserable life. Others have survived the Ordeal of Memory; you might too!”

The female Seraphim had a ghastly grin on her face. Another spear thudded into the wood of the door. Pearl whirled round and in a second the female was on her, her wings flapping about Pearl’s face, hands like talons gripping her arms and a rancid smell overwhelming her. She felt consciousness start to swim away, but as it faded she heard a cry.

“The ravens! The ravens are coming!” As she sank into oblivion, she wondered why the Seraphim should be so afraid of the ravens.

THE BUTTS

D
anny woke at lunchtime, feeling ravenous. He went out onto the balcony of the Roosts and looked down to where his friends were using a battered old sled on the slope behind the shrubbery. A door to the side of the building opened and a group of what at first looked like pensioners came out, dressed in woolly hats and ancient-looking tracksuits. They peered around anxiously as if afraid of being watched; then a small female figure emerged from the door.

“All right, ladies and gents,” she cried out in a shrill voice, “you know what to do. Remember, it’s Wing Hygiene Week!”

Grumbling, the group unfolded rather dusty wings and began flicking snow into the feathers and rubbing
them together. Danny grinned. The Wilsons Messengers were elderly and very self-conscious about their wings.

“They would die of embarrassment if they knew they were being watched,” a quiet voice said. Danny turned. The head of Wilsons had been standing quietly against the wall of the Roosts.

“Master Devoy.” Danny was taken aback.

“I thought I’d let you sleep,” Devoy said, “but now there is an urgent matter we must discuss. First of all, was anything different during your stay in the Upper World, any untoward happenings?”

Untoward? Danny felt a stab of pain as he remembered his mother’s face, but he put the thought away.

Danny told Devoy quickly about how his father and mother had been pursued home under fire and how his father had been wounded. He didn’t tell the headmaster that he had learned that his parents were agents. People don’t have to know everything about me, he thought.

Devoy nodded.

“The fabric of things is starting to come apart. I hope your parents are safe.” Danny looked at him, startled. It hadn’t occurred to him that they would still be under threat.

“I’ll see you at five in my study. Some things should not be talked about in public.”

Danny watched Devoy descend from the Roosts and cross the snowy lawn. A sudden gust of wind blew across the surface snow, and Devoy disappeared within the mini-snowstorm as if he had never been there.

* * *

T
he four cadets played in the snow all afternoon, using the sled, building a snow effigy of Brunholm and throwing snowballs at Vicky the siren when she appeared at the lawn. The siren climbed out of reach and bestowed a small cold smile on them. Danny wondered if it was altogether wise to provoke her. Vicky was very beautiful but also very malicious, and she had a long memory.

But they didn’t care. There was a sense among them that soon there would be little time for being silly and playing games, and they were determined to make the most of it. There was a great freedom in having the school to themselves with no teachers or other pupils about, and this too would not last. It took Vandra to point out to Danny that it was almost five o’clock. He threw a few last defiant snowballs, but in the end he put his head down and trudged off as the others headed to Ravensdale for muffins and hot tea.

Brunholm was waiting in the hallway to take him to Devoy’s office. He took off at pace with Danny running to keep up. They went through the silent Gallery of Whispers and through a maze of corridors, up past the library of the third landing and on to the treacherous stairs to Devoy’s office, where Danny kept an eye out for piano wire—Devoy was fond of stringing it at neck height to catch unprepared visitors.

Master Devoy’s office was decorated with spy paraphernalia from through the ages, such as miniature
cameras and poison-tipped umbrellas. Devoy looked completely at home in it, a spymaster of the old school.

Danny sensed the tension in the room the moment he entered. Although Devoy had trained himself to appear absolutely emotionless no matter what the circumstances, the manner in which he turned from the table was a little too swift, his greeting a little too warm. He regarded Danny for a moment, then shook his head.

“You learn too quickly, young man. You have sensed my anxiety. And yes, I am anxious, and for good reason. More than anxious. I believe the Ring are moving with speed and aggression. Everything we have worked for is in jeopardy.”

Devoy lifted a deadly stiletto from the mantel and tested the point with his finger.

“They intend to break the treaty and take over the Upper World,” Brunholm said, smashing a fist into his palm a little too vehemently, Danny thought. Was he acting?