Vengeance Child (28 page)

‘There's nowhere to run, Archer. Don't waste your time.' Wilkes followed at a stroll. ‘Don't you realize it's time to get this over with?'

Archer ducked between the bars of the fence to find a square grille that was no larger than the door of a domestic oven. It covered a circular opening cut into the ground.
This is the castle well
. He remembered Victor had explained its purpose when he showed them round. It used to go a long, long way down but now it had been partially filled with debris. And at this moment the beam of sunlight shone down through a rent in the cloud to illuminate the build-up of dirt in the well. There, foil gum wrappers glinted on the soil plug like so many silvery eyes.

‘Game's up,' Wilkes announced as he approached the safety fencing.

Archer saw that the stonework that formed a ring around the well opening had been eroded. A chunk had crumbled away, so there was a gap between the grille, which stopped people falling in, and the edge of the well. As fast as he could the boy used his tiny build to his advantage. In seconds he squirmed feet first into the gap. The iron edge of the grille scraped his chest, while the rough corners of the stone retaining blocks gouged his back.

But he was through.

‘Come here, you little cretin.' Wilkes leaned through the fence to grab Archer by the hair. Hooked fingers snagged the curls. The boy forced his skinny torso through the gap. His feet kicked free as he dangled in thin air, hanging on to one of the iron bars of the grille. Then before the man could grab his wrist he let go.

Damp air gusted by him as he dropped into darkness.

When Victor saw him standing on the shore he realized this was how it was meant to be. He'd gone in search of Jay. The boy, however, had waited for the man. The mist had thickened, so Jay cut an ethereal figure there on the beach; a shadowy apparition, rather than a living being. Victor knew he was entering the second stage of the illness, yet at this moment his mental function appeared normal. He remembered, perfectly, what had happened in the last forty-eight hours. The cool wash of air kept his senses alert.

The boy regarded him with the almond-shaped eyes. ‘Have people died of the sickness?'

He nodded. ‘Completely innocent people that had nothing to do with the sinking of the
N'Taal
.'

‘Didn't these people elect governments that did nothing to help the people on the ship?'

‘Some will have voted, but they didn't have a say in whether the governments helped those refugees or not.' Victor moved toward him. There was an alien quality about the expression, as if another intelligence occupied the boy's mind. ‘You know Solomon was here.'

‘The policeman from Africa. He died.'

‘Did you . . . ?' Victor stopped himself. Accusations would be futile. He had to take a different approach. ‘You are an eleven-year-old boy, Jay. Don't let this thing, whatever it is, use you. You have a right to a childhood and to grow up into a man. It's wrong for you to be used as a weapon.'

‘Do you know how many children under the age of thirteen died on the
N'Taal
?' The voice could have emanated from skeletons that clung to each other in a rusting hulk. ‘One hundred and seventy.'

Victor's heart pounded. ‘Fight this thing, Jay. Don't let it use you.'

‘One hundred and seventy children. In all three hundred and ninety men, women and children.' When he stepped backwards, pebbles scrunched under his feet. The sound of bones being stirred by the tide.

‘If Solomon was right, then you're a victim of the ship's passengers, just as they were victims of all those countries that prevented them from entering their ports.'

‘Do you know how many babies under twelve months drowned, Victor?'

‘If it was a million there's nothing you can do to bring them back to life.'

Shapes emerged from the mist. Shaggy, beast-like shapes. For a moment Victor wondered if Jay had conjured something monstrous. Then Victor realized these were trees that had been washed up after the tidal wave. He noticed that amongst the mud-smeared branches there were more fishing lines of the type he'd found earlier on the beach. Hanging from those lines were entire bunches of fishing hooks. Big glittering ones with fearsome barbs. There must have been hundreds of the hooks. One bunch had trapped a gull that hung there lifeless, its beak partly open.

‘Keep away from the trees, Jay,' he warned. ‘Can you see the hooks? Once they stick into your skin the barb holds it in there. You can't just pull it out.'

Jay retreated along the beach. ‘When this is over I'm going to a town, then I'm going to a city. I'm going to keep doing this, Victor. I know how to make people suffer and die . . . lots and lots of them.'

‘Do you want Laura to die?'

‘She's leaving anyway. You're going to marry her . . . you'll take her from us.'

‘So you can control this talent for curses, then.' Victor became angry. ‘You have free will. You may be the Vengeance Child, but you can decide who lives and who dies.'

‘No . . .' He shook his head, yet Victor saw doubt in his face.

‘Come on, Jay. You understand what it means to grow up. You're eleven years old. Growing up means you take control over your actions. When a baby is six months old it can't decide when to pee or take a dump. By the time it's three it can. So, I'll tell you what I believe. OK, until recently you had no control over this power inside of you . . . this power that puts a curse on people . . . a curse that causes bad things to happen. It just happened spontaneously, like a sneeze, but now you do know how to control it. Sometimes, if you like a person, you hold the curse back. If you don't, for example when Max bullied you, then you take out the hex; you wind it up, let it go. You went to town hurting Max, didn't you? You got him so scared, he tried to kill himself. I'm right, aren't I?'

A sheen of perspiration gleamed on Jay's face. He'd retreated into himself as he worked through what Victor had told him.

‘Also this other thing, Jay, where you take people into past events of their lives. That's a new talent you're developing, isn't it? You look into our heads and see the big, big things that happened to us, then you exploit it.'

‘Ghorlan.'

‘Yes, like Ghorlan. You knew she's my wife.'

‘
Was
your wife. She's dead.'

‘Yes, I know. She drowned out there.' Angry, he pointed at the river.

‘No. She didn't go in the water.'

That's what you say!' Victor knew he was losing self-control as he advanced on the boy. ‘You're going to torture me, aren't you? How did she die, then? Just burst into flames, I suppose? Are you going to inflict nasty scenarios on me?'

Jay continued to walk backwards. Behind him a tree emerged from the mist. From lines tangled in the branches hooks by the dozen glinted. Jay turned, then he ran full pelt at them. Victor raced after Jay and managed to stop him short of the branches with their arsenal of steel barbs.

‘You can stop this epidemic, Jay, like you can stop inflicting all this pain on innocent people.' He caught his breath. ‘So, Jay, what do you intend to do?'

‘Do?' Jay gave a little chuckle. ‘Intend to do?' The boy's expression suggested someone slipping into a trance. When he spoke, it was in a breathy, sing-song way. ‘What I intend to do, Victor, is show you things . . . we're going for a little walk.'

Thirty-Seven

Archer thought, I've broken all my bones. I can't breathe . . .

The eight-year-old lay at the bottom of the shaft, on his back, staring up at the metal grille. Each inhalation made him whimper. Squares of light formed by the grille changed as a figure leaned over it. He knew that Mayor Wilkes looked down at him.

‘Bigger drop than you thought, eh?' the man grunted. ‘You might have just saved me a job.' The silhouette vanished. Archer gazed at clouds through the criss-cross pattern formed by the bars. A shaft of light shone down from the sky to fill the well. Sheer walls rose up all around him, lined with smooth stone. Then the sunlight vanished. It seemed even darker than before. When Archer drew breath his chest ached so much.

Then came loud grating sounds.
Is he opening the grate so he can get at me?
Only when blocks of darkness appeared to blot out part of the criss-cross pattern did he realize what Wilkes was doing. Slowly but surely the man was sliding heavy pieces of masonry over the grille. Especially over the gap that Archer had slid through. These, the hunks of stone stored in the yard for the restoration work, were being used to entomb the boy.

‘This will keep you in your place,' Wilkes barked. ‘You won't be able to shift these in a hurry. What do you say to that?'

Breathing hurt so much Archer couldn't reply even if he had wanted to. Meanwhile, Wilkes brusquely tossed sentences at the boy. They weren't meant as consolation. Anything but. ‘The island's under quarantine. Let me explain. That means nobody can leave the island, nobody can come on to the island. We're cut off from the mainland. Therefore, the castle will be closed to the public for the foreseeable future. I have the spare set of keys. Besides that, my word is law. No one will come here for at least a week.' His eyes burned down through the grille. ‘Do you understand what that means for you? You will wallow in that stinking pit of yours, by yourself, for seven days, and seven very long nights. Without food or drink. No doubt you will do a lot of yelling. Go ahead, be my guest. But seeing as we're at the tip of the island no one will hear.' He laughed. ‘It looks like rain, too. Did I mention that when it rains the well fills with water again? It's customary to wish a chap in peril good luck, but it isn't good luck I'll be wishing you. Goodbye, Archer.' Footsteps receded across stone cobbles, then the door in the wall slammed shut.

It took a long time. Eventually, however, the pain eased in Archer's chest. He realized he'd been badly winded, that was all. What was more, when he moved his limbs he knew he hadn't broken any bones. From what he could tell, the surface he'd fallen on consisted of old dry leaves. This soft mulch had broken his fall, not his legs.

‘Gotta get out, Archer,' he murmured. ‘Show Victor the bracelet. He'll know what to do.'
Get out, Archer?
Easier said than done. The walls were smooth. Most of the time he couldn't see because the cloud made it so dark. Occasionally, though, a beam of light would break through. The intense sunshine would reveal the yellow stonework. It also revealed something else that made his heart leap.

He should have been pleased. He should have yelled, ‘Yes!' then punched the air. However, dread gripped him in its implacable fist.
You've done this, Jay. You've brought me back here to frighten me.
For there, just at arm's length, half-hidden by shadow, was a chilling sight. A stone archway. One just high enough and wide enough to wriggle through. Not for a second did he believe it led to safety. But he couldn't sit for ever at the bottom of the well. Mayor Wilkes said it would flood when it rained. Archer couldn't swim. Anyway, after seven days, what then? If he was alive the mayor would return to ensure that Archer never told anyone what had happened.

With a deep sense of foreboding Archer crawled through the opening. Ahead it was completely dark. Worse, it didn't open out into a room; instead it narrowed down into a tight little tunnel. In olden times it might have been a kind of water pipe that carried water from the well to stop it overflowing into the yard if it rained heavily. Archer couldn't even crawl. He had to worm his way forward on his belly with his arms out in front, and sort of push along with his feet. He heard them scraping behind him. His back hurt where he'd gouged it on the rough stone when he'd slithered through the grille to escape Mayor Wilkes. Now this. Being here terrified him. His heart pounded. Blood roared through his head. The sides of the tunnel squashed his chest. The pressure made his ribs hurt again. It was hard to breathe. A heavy fungus smell filled his nostrils. The further he wriggled the colder it became. The boy feared the tunnel would narrow to the point he became stuck.
Nobody will ever find me. I'll be trapped for ever . . .
Grimly, he pushed forward. Ahead, it was completely dark. What if he encountered an obstruction? Or rats? They could bite him to death. Trembling, he imagined furry snouts, with bristly whiskers, then teeth munching into his face. He shouted when something feathery stroked his face. Shaking his head to free himself from its clutch, he raked at it with his fingers.

Light soft stuff on his skin? A cobweb, that's all. He struggled to prevent panic engulfing him. At that moment he realized if he started screaming he'd never stop.
Onward, onward, onward . . . that's the only direction.
Now it would be impossible to squirm backwards to the well. He'd have to carry on. Archer believed in all kinds of monsters. What if a hand grabbed his face? It could sink its fingers into his eyes. Archer nearly choked with fear. Even to breathe was difficult. All his body hurt from head to toe. Normally, he'd go into emotional shutdown at times of stress. Only this time even that escape wasn't open to him. He remained clear-headed. He knew the danger he was in. People die in situations like this.
I've got to save myself. No one will come. Not Lou. Not Laura. I'm all on my own.
Taking a deep breath, he squirmed forward. In that darkness it seemed as if he pushed himself down a tube that shrank ever smaller around him. That smell: rich, heavy, a raw mushroom odour. For a long time he struggled forward, his skin chafed from being scraped by stone walls. He moved a hand from side to side as a kind of antenna to get some sense of where the sides of the tunnel were – and what might be lying in wait to bite his face. He knew he'd become weaker. The walls pressing against his body leached their cold through his clothes into his skin. More cobwebs ahead. He didn't see them but he certainly felt them. Probably spiders in there. With big black, bristly legs. He slashed at invisible cobwebs with his hand. When he'd done this before his knuckles had struck the tunnel wall with a painful knock. This time his hand swung outward into nothingness.