Syren

Chapter 10 Out of the Stew Pot

  W e've gotta get out of here," Wolf Boy whispered, heading for the kitchen door. He grabbed the handle and pulled - the doorknob came off in his hand and sent him flying backward. There was a clink as the spindle fell out on the other side of the door. Wolf Boy stared at the door - how were they going to open it now?

  "Leave it, stupid!" hissed Lucy. "Come on!" She grabbed Wolf Boy's hand - the one that did not hold a disgusting tentacle tip - and dragged him across the sodden kitchen, through the mush of garbage and past silent, Watching cats. They had just reached the cellar door when the ladder began to shake. Wolf Boy glanced around and saw the unmistakable spikes of the Witch Mother's boots appear through the hole in the ceiling. He did not resist when Lucy pulled him through the door.

  Wolf Boy closed the door and began pushing the huge bolt across it.

  "No," whispered Lucy. "Leave it open. Like it was. Otherwise they'll guess we're here. "

  "But - "

  "Come on. Hurry. " Lucy pulled Wolf Boy down the cellar steps. With every step he felt more trapped - what was Lucy doing?

  At the foot of the steps they were met by a sea of filthy water heavily populated by pulsating brown toads. Wolf Boy was shocked - was this where Lucy had been kept prisoner? He stopped for a moment, wondering how deep it was. He really didn't like water - it always seemed to turn up in his life when things were bad. Lucy, however, was unperturbed. She waded in and, to Wolf Boy's relief, the water only came up to her knees.

  "Come on," said Lucy, kicking a toad out of the way. "Don't just stand there gawping like a stuffed herring. "

  In the kitchen above, the Coven streamed off the ladder. The sound of their boots hitting the ground sent Wolf Boy plowing through the toad-strewn water. Wading frustratingly slowly, as if he were in a bad dream - a really bad dream - he followed Lucy across the cellar, trying to avoid the well-aimed spit of the toads. At the far end of the cellar, Lucy stopped and proudly indicated a few missing bricks in the wall.

  "It's the old coal chute. They bricked it up. But look at the mortar, they got the mix wrong, it's all powdery. " Lucy demonstrated, but Wolf Boy's attention was not on the quality of the mortar - he was listening to the heavy thumps coming from above. Lucy took out a couple of bricks and handed them to Wolf Boy.

  "Oh, gosh, hang on, I forgot," said Wolf Boy, realizing he was still clutching the tentacle tip. He quickly shoved it into the leather wallet that Aunt Zelda had made him wear around his waist; then he took the bricks and quietly put them in the water.

  "I spent all yesterday and today doing this," Lucy whispered. "I was nearly out of here when that spiteful cow came and grabbed me. " Quickly she removed a couple more bricks. "We can get out through here onto the pavement. Good thing you're thin. I'll go first and then I'll pull you up. Okay?"

  The voices of the Coven in the kitchen were getting loud and angry. Wolf Boy helped Lucy up to the hole. She wriggled in, and soon all he could see of her were the wet soles of her boots - and then she was gone. Wolf Boy peered in, and a shower of dust fell. He wiped the dust from his eyes and grinned. Far above he could see Lucy's grubby face looking down and behind her was a small chink of blue sky.

  "Come on," she said impatiently. "There's a weird nurse person wanting to know what I'm doing. Hurry! "

  Suddenly a howl of rage came from the kitchen. "Blood! Blood! I smell Grim blood. Blood, blood, I taste Grim blood!"

  "Oooh!" This was from Dorinda.

  And then: "The blood - it leads to the cellar. They've taken our Grim to the cellar!"

  A thunder of feet pounded across the kitchen toward the cellar stairs.

  "Hurry up! What are you waiting for?" Lucy's voice came from far above. Wolf Boy was not waiting for anything. With the sound of footsteps clattering down the stairs, he pulled himself up into the hole. It was not as easy as Lucy had made it look. Although he was thin, Wolf Boy's shoulders were broad and the coal chute was a tight fit. He raised his arms above his head to try to make himself narrower and, skinning his elbows and knees, he pushed up through the rough bricks toward the light. Lucy's helping hands reached down to him, but Wolf Boy could not reach them. Try as he might, he could not move.

  From the coal cellar came Linda's furious yell. "Double-crossing little toe rag! I can see you. Don't think you can get away with this, you - you GrimKiller. "

  Now came the sound of splashing. Linda was wading across the cellar and fast. Desperate, Wolf Boy thought feral. He was a wolverine trapped in a burrow. The owner of the burrow, a Forest night creature, had woken beneath him. He must reach daylight now. Now. And then suddenly Lucy's hands were in his, pulling him up, up toward the light, dragging him out of the burrow while the night creature snapped at his heels and dragged off his boots - yelping as the toad spit burned into her hands. Wolf Boy lay prone on the pavement, shaking dark, wolverine thoughts from his mind. But Lucy would not let him be.

  "Don't just lie there, stupid," she hissed. "They'll be out here any minute. Come on. "

  Wolf Boy did not resist as Lucy dragged him to his feet and pulled him, barefoot, along with her as she fled down the street in the late afternoon sunshine. Behind him Wolf Boy was sure he could hear the locks and bolts of the Coven's door being opened and feel the eyes of the Darke Toad following him.

  The Coven - minus Linda - were out the door before Lucy and Wolf Boy had turned the corner. Dorinda hung back, unwilling to risk her towel unwinding in a chase. The rest set off in pursuit, but the Witch Mother got no farther than the front step of the house next door before she gave up. Her boots were not made for hot pursuit. That left Daphne and Veronica to go clattering down the road, running in their very own peculiar knees-together-feet-out style. It was not an efficient way of covering ground, and Dorinda knew they would never catch Wolf Boy and Lucy. Dorinda might not have bothered with this had not the sight of Wolf Boy and Lucy fleeing hand-in-hand made her feel very jealous. And so Dorinda scuttled off to the cellar to find Linda. Linda was out the door in a flash - literally. The Coven did not do broomsticks - no one did broomsticks anymore - but they did do some FlashBoard riding, and Linda did it particularly well. A FlashBoard was a simple idea but a dangerous one. It required nothing more than a small slab of wood and a slow-release StunFlash. The StunFlash was harnessed to the wood, which the rider balanced on as best she could. Then the rider set off the slow-release StunFlash, trusting to luck and no one being in the way. Generally Linda found that no one ever did get in her way on the FlashBoard. Dorinda and the Witch Mother watched admiringly as, with a roar of flame shooting from below the board (which was, in fact, the top of Dorinda's dressing table), Linda careered off down Fore Street, scattering a group of old ladies and setting fire to the cart of the Port and Harbor Daily News delivery girl. In a Flash Linda overtook Daphne and Veronica as they tripped girlishly around the corner and sent them tumbling down the basement steps of the local fishmonger. They emerged sometime later covered in fish guts.

  To Linda's irritation, there was no sign of Lucy and Wolf Boy, but that did not deter her. Linda was an expert at tracking down fugitives from the Coven. Using her own foolproof system, she began to systematically cover the warren of streets leading down to the harbor. In this way, Linda knew that her quarry must always be in front of her. It was, she thought, like herding sheep into a pen - sheep that were soon going to be acquainted with mint sauce and roast potatoes. It never failed.