Her clawlike hands reached out for them. The rats and bugs in her flesh writhed in anger and pain, and her mouth was twisted in some deeper agony.
Jack acted instinctively, drawing back his feet. The woman’s fingers grasped for his toes, but missed. She fell back down the walkway, rats screeching and her hands scrabbling for a grip. But she failed, sliding over the edge without a cry, her staring, all-white eyes fixed upon Jack and Jaide as she fell into darkness.
Jaide hugged her brother with her one free arm. He shifted his position to be more secure, then hugged her back.
Around them, the storm was fading. The wind had changed direction, and there were patches of clear sky opening up to show starlight and the promise of light from a still-hidden moon.
But the storm had left its mark. Water surged up the river and spilled onto Main Street on both sides. The lights in the town were off again, save for the distant hospital and the sweep of the lighthouse.
A moth flew up against Jack’s face and he flinched. But it was just a normal insect, drawn by the light.
Jaide’s plan had worked. The Evil had left Portland.
‘We did it,’ she said, staring at the graffiti they had turned into the East Ward. The silver light was fading from it now, and soon it would look no different from any other graffiti, but they knew it was special, and that it would last.
‘We sure did,’ said Jack, grinning like a loon.
The twins butted their foreheads together in their ancient and time-honoured ritual of triumph.
‘Ow,’ complained Jaide. The only problem with the ritual was that someone’s head always hurt more than the other’s.
‘Brr,’ said Jack, feeling the cold more than the pain in his skull.
‘We need to get back and check on Grandma and the cats,’ said Jaide.
She looked over at the door to the lamp room. The walkway was now a good three feet under it, slanting down to a gaping hole, and was slippery and wet.
‘Do you think we should try to reach the door?’
‘We have to,’ said Jack. ‘We can’t hang on here all night.’
‘I can’t do anything with the wind now,’ said Jaide. ‘If we fall . . . we fall.’
Jack examined the walkway very carefully the next time the light came around.
‘It’ll be okay,’ he said. ‘We can hold on to the bottom of the window frames. They stick out.’
‘I guess,’ said Jaide.
‘You’re the climber,’ Jack pointed out.
‘All right.’
Gingerly, they both left the ladder and, holding on to the window frames, managed to clamber to the door and get inside.
Jaide shut the door behind them. It clicked, and the slight sound was immediately followed by an incredibly loud explosion that rattled all the windows, while a simultaneous flash of lightning blinded the twins. An almost horizontal stroke of electricity struck through to the lamp itself.
That’s not right, thought Jack. There’s a lightning rod up top, and lightning doesn’t go sideways, and . . . oh no!
He grabbed Jaide and pulled her down.
‘The Evil!’ he shouted, even as his vision cleared.
Thunder answered him, rolling out across the bay.
‘No . . . no . . . it can’t be,’ said Jaide.
‘It would be wrong,’ said a voice, ‘to think you’ve ever seen the last of The Evil. But in this case, it might be gone for a while.’
Both twins looked up. There was a man crouched on the top of the lamp, smoke rising from his clothes. More amazingly still, they recognised his voice.
It was Jack who put the impossible into words.
‘Dad?’
HECTOR SHIELD SWUNG HIMSELF down from the top of the lantern and landed with a light thud on the platform next to the twins. His hair was even wilder than it normally was, and his flapping coat was singed. He looked as though he had come down a chimney. There was a wild light in his eyes as he embraced the twins, drawing them into a very tight and smoky hug.
‘I came as fast as I could, my dear troubletwisters,’ he said. ‘When a ward fails, there is an alarm. The signal reached me just after I arrived in Venice, where the weather was annoyingly fine. Luckily things were stormy at this end or I might have been even longer. Am I the first here?’ He looked around and, without giving them the chance to say anything, said, ‘Good. Are you all right? Where’s your grandmother?’
The twins didn’t realise for a second that it was their turn to talk, and their reply was a rather jumbled account of everything that had happened in the previous days.
‘Hmmm,’ he said. ‘Mother is even tougher than she looks, and it is not unusual for a Warden to fall into the kind of sleep you’ve described when they have overtaxed their Gifts. Speaking of Gifts, it looks like yours have really been going to town. All perfectly normal, but perfectly worrying, too.’
‘Dad,’ said Jaide, slightly muffled by his shoulder, ‘why didn’t you tell us about being a Warden? And us being troubletwisters and all?’
‘Didn’t your grandmother explain that to you – that it’s dangerous to know too much too soon?’
‘Yes,’ said Jaide. She felt angry now, almost as much as she was relieved to see him. ‘But you should have told us!’
‘Would you have believed me?’
Their father smiled in his lopsided way. His nose was just a little too large, which made his face seem slightly unbalanced.
‘Yes,’ said the twins. ‘Of course.’
‘Um,’ said their father, looking contrite. ‘Well, the truth is that Warden parents are usually the worst— ah!’
He stopped and suddenly went to the window. The twins joined him and followed his gaze downward. A long, muscular shape was loping across the car park. The lighthouse flash gleamed off sharp, curving teeth. Jack gasped. It was a sabre-toothed tiger!
It disappeared from sight, but a second later there were three loud cracks from below, followed by a booming thud.
‘Padlocks,’ said their father. ‘And the door. Not subtle, not subtle at all.’
The metal staircase below them rang like a crazy xylophone as the tiger ascended.
The twins looked at their father. They had no fear left in them now, just a kind of incredibly weary anxiety.
Hector chuckled with something that sounded very much like relief.
‘I should’ve known Custer would be next. Don’t be frightened. Tiger-shape is just how he gets around – and it’s a deal more comfortable than lightning, I bet.’
Heavy footsteps reached the lamp room, but what emerged onto the hatch wasn’t a tiger of any kind, but a high-cheeked man with long, flowing blond hair. His eyes were close-set and intense. He was dressed entirely in brown suede and leather, with a fur collar. He was, against all odds, perfectly dry.
‘I received the signal,’ he said. ‘But the ward is up?’ Taking in the contents of the lamp room, he performed a double take on seeing Hector. ‘What are you doing here?’
‘Never fear, Custer,’ said the twins’ father. ‘It’s all under control. These two just got themselves in a bit of a tangle.’
‘Not surprising, if you were lurking about.’
‘No, I swear. All I did was answer the alarm.’
Custer’s stiff disapproval eased slightly.
‘Well, lucky you came in time to bring everything under control, Heck.’
‘What?’ said Jack. ‘He didn’t do anything.’
‘It was us,’ said Jaide, her indignation a match for his. ‘We replaced the East Ward!’
‘Replaced? I hardly think so.’ Custer chuckled, patting her heavily on the head. ‘All’s well that ends well, I guess.’
‘Yes,’ said Hector. ‘The ward’s fine,’ he announced, almost as if he’d fi
xed it himself. ‘That’s what matters.’
Jack and Jaide swelled up in outrage.
Before they could say anything further, however, there was a bright flash outside, and a twisting, golden tendril of light grew out of the new ward, shot past the open door and Custer, split into two, and plunged into the hearts of the twins.
Jaide felt her Gift return in a rush and reached out to the wind around the lighthouse, welcoming it back. Jack felt energy pouring into him, fierce and uncontrollable, and had an overwhelming desire for the calming surrounds of darkness. The lighthouse’s lamp suddenly dimmed, and even the stars above seemed fainter.
‘Whoa,’ said Hector, reeling them back into his tight embrace. They felt his Gift warring with theirs, trying to bring them under control. For a moment it looked as though he might lose, even with a father’s strength and determination, until Custer put his hand on Hector’s shoulder.
The men strained against the wild, fierce power of the twins. Custer’s hand grew thicker, stronger. A tiger’s paw dug into Hector’s shoulder, prompting a wince of pain. Blood trickled down the inside of Hector’s shirt.
Slowly, the adult Wardens prevailed. The wild wind around the lighthouse calmed, and the darkness receded. Jack and Jaide felt their Gifts settle back into place, raw and ready to rise up at the slightest provocation, but contained. For the moment.
‘That ward’s amplifying things rather too much. Let’s damp that down a little, shall we?’ said Custer. ‘Now, where has she put that pesky thing?’
He went outside and leaned across to tap the shining graffiti with one neatly trimmed fingernail. The light flickered and faded away. ‘There’s been quite enough excitement around here for one night, by the look of things.’
‘Indeed,’ said Hector, adding significantly but without explanation: ‘Twins, eh?’
‘Aye.’ Custer nodded. A look of intense sadness flickered across his face, and then vanished.
‘Well, I’d better get the kids home, where they belong, and just make sure my mother is all right,’ said Hector. ‘Will you watch here, for the moment? Tidy up whatever you can?’
‘All right.’
‘Thanks for coming so quickly.’
‘Anytime, my friend.’
‘And if anyone should ask, you didn’t see me, okay?’
Custer tapped the side of his nose with old-fashioned solemnity.
Hector ushered the twins down the stairs ahead of him. It was difficult to talk over the ringing echoes of their footfalls. Manic moths, confused spiders and cockroaches, and a few bewildered mice made their descent even more unpleasant. By the time they reached the bottom, the twins were too exhausted to think of much beyond their longed-for beds.
But they still had questions.
‘Where did you come from again?’ asked Jack.
‘I told you. Venice.’
‘The Venice? In Italy?’
‘Is there any other?’
‘There are lots of Portlands,’ said Jaide.
‘Ah, but none like this Portland.’
With a hand on the small of their backs, he guided them across the car park and through the headstones. The rain had started again, but it was only a drizzle, and the icy chill of it had eased.
Though he’d said he wasn’t worried about his mother, Hector kept up a cracking pace, and the closer they got to the house, the quicker he walked, the twins having to really stretch out to keep up.
‘It’s good to see you both,’ Hector said as they half-jogged, half-walked through the drizzle. ‘Even under such circumstances. I’ve missed you.’
‘So why did you go away?’ asked Jack.
‘And why can’t anyone know you’re here?’ asked Jaide.
‘It’s the curse of being a Warden,’ he said, ‘and the parent of troubletwisters. Your Gifts can give you amazing powers, but they are not safe and easy, and rarely can be used without consequences, particularly with other Wardens around. You have to be careful. More troubletwisters have died or fallen as a result of mishandling their own Gifts than have been simply taken by The Evil, and parents are often, inadvertently of course, the cause of that. Until your Gifts are under control, you could harm yourselves, each other, or those you love.’
The twins nodded thoughtfully. They were beginning to understand that – and to have a clearer idea of exactly what had happened the day their house had exploded.
Their Gifts had awakened, drawing The Evil to them, and when Hector had intervened those very same uncontrolled Gifts had nearly killed them all.
‘But why didn’t you tell us before?’ asked Jaide again. ‘Why didn’t we come to Portland until now?’
He sighed. ‘That was your mother’s choice, and my mistake. When we met, she didn’t know what I was, and I didn’t tell her. It wasn’t until you two were on the way that I knew I had to fess up. Your mother wasn’t happy, and she was afraid for you. She wanted a normal life. She wanted nothing to do with my world . . . with all this.’
He waved a hand, encompassing the night, the dissipating storm, and the house ahead.
‘I tried,’ he said. ‘I really tried, but nature can’t be repressed, and a Warden’s work is never done. It was bad luck that I returned from a Warden quest when your powers were full to bursting – but something would have happened eventually.’
‘And The Evil would have come,’ said Jack, remembering the staring white eyes in his parents’ bedroom.
‘Yes. It always comes, whenever it can find a chink between its world and ours,’ said Hector. ‘We must always fight it off, for our sakes, and for the sake of your mother and the billions like her. Almost there!’
Behind them, the beam of light from the lighthouse suddenly flashed on and swung over the town. Hector and the twins glanced back, and Hector smiled.
‘You know, I broke my leg in that old lighthouse when I was your age. I’ve still got the scar.’
‘But you always told us you were flying a kite,’ said Jaide indignantly, who had heard the story a thousand times and knew a sudden change of subject when she heard it. ‘You never mentioned the lighthouse!’
‘I was flying a kite, more or less,’ he said. ‘But I never told you before about the electrical storm we . . . I summoned. I was lucky I only broke my leg. I could have been electrocuted – or caught by The Evil. My lightning weakened the ward, and it . . . The Evil had been waiting for that opportunity.’
Jaide thought about this and felt a stab of guilt. Had she and Jack done something to weaken the ward in the first place? For Jack this was already a familiar anxiety, having had it suggested to him by The Evil. He was thinking back to his father’s arrival. It wasn’t the first time Hector’s reappearance was associated with a thunderstorm.
‘But you learned to use the lightning?’ he asked his father, full of wonder. Moving in shadows was pretty good, but it was nowhere near as excellent as travelling by lightning, all the way from the other side of the world.
‘Yes. It’s not easy and it has its risks. Don’t even think about trying it,’ Hector cautioned as they ran up the front steps and into the house. ‘In fact, I want you to promise me something. It’s not terribly fair of me to ask you this, since I was never very good at it myself, but it’s important, and I hope you’ll do it for me.’
‘What is it?’ asked Jack and Jaide together.
‘Let me just check on Mother and then —’
‘I’m fine, Hector, thank you,’ said Grandma X. Her sudden appearance at the top of the stairs made Jack and Jaide jump nervously. She started to come down, a cat on either side of her. Ari’s tail stood up like an aerial apart from a one-inch kink at the end, and Kleo’s back fur was frizzed as though with static electricity. The wildness of Grandma X’s hair was a match for the look in her eyes.
‘I’m not sure it is wis
e of you to visit,’ continued Grandma X. ‘Given the troubletwisting that has already gone on —’
She stopped and cocked her head to one side and the cats’ ears flicked up.
A moment later they all heard the squeal of tyres as a car turned in to the wet, cobbled road.
‘Ah, I expect that will be Susan,’ said Grandma X.
Hector looked at the door, indecision obvious on his face.
‘She can’t know what happened,’ said Hector. Grandma X nodded, and he hurried Jack and Jaide through the back door and into the yard. He stood with them for a moment under the trees and put a hand on each of their shoulders.
‘Now, that promise . . . I want you to do everything your grandma says, no matter how weird it sounds. Do you understand? I ask you both as your father and as a Warden. Your lives – and the life of our family – depend on it.’
‘So she’ll teach us about becoming Wardens?’ asked Jaide.
‘Yes, and you’ll teach her a thing or two, I bet.’
He smiled, but Jack wasn’t willing to laugh just yet.
‘I wish you could teach us.’
‘So do I, but having me around would only throw you off. And the lessons are hard to learn, and often the teacher has to be very strict. I’m not sure I have the stomach for it, to be honest. I’d want to protect you . . . both of you . . . and that’s not the way it works.’
He might have said more, but Susan’s car was already skidding to a sudden halt on the gravel drive.
‘Promise me!’ said Hector urgently.
‘All right,’ said Jack.
‘Jaide, what do you say? Quickly!’
She had never seen her father so agitated. ‘Yes, I promise, but —’
‘I love you both.’ He kissed the twins on their foreheads and backed away. ‘Remember that, and stay where you are. You might want to cover your eyes, too.’
Neither twin so much as blinked as their father pulled a pitted metal rod with a sharp end from his coat pocket. They both recognised it as the one they had found in his suitcase that fateful day when their Gifts had woken. Holding it in his right hand, Hector made several quick passes across his body, each of which left a pale blue line hanging in the air. The lines formed a complex sigil that, once completed, began to shimmer like heat haze. The purple glow returned. Hector Shield raised the rod above his head with both hands and braced himself.