‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I’ve kept tabs on you and your ability since it first came to light a few months ago. That’s how I recognised you. Telekinesis is an amazing and powerful skill.’
My heart thudded. Was that really it?
‘Does Avery know about your work?’ Dylan asked.
‘No.’ McMurdo looked genuinely shocked.
‘And you seriously want to send Nico to kill some gangster?’ Dylan demanded.
‘Yes. I’ll explain the full situation in a minute,’ McMurdo said. ‘You can decide how to approach the task while we’re on the way.’
‘I’m not killing anyone for you,’ I said, trying to keep my voice steady.
‘Then you will die . . . and so will Cal and Dylan.’
McMurdo’s voice was completely unemotional. I didn’t doubt for a second that he meant what he said. Surely this man couldn’t be my father?
‘How can I do what you’re asking without having my Medusa power back?’ I said.
‘I told you the effects of the Medutox will wear off,’ McMurdo said. ‘But make no mistake, if you attempt to double-cross me, the person left behind will die. Now which one of these two do you want to take with you?’
‘I can’t choose,’ I said. ‘You can’t make me do this.’
McMurdo cocked his gun. ‘We don’t have time for hissy fits, Nico. Pick either Cal or Dylan . . . or I pick one of them for you . . .’
I glanced desperately from Cal to Dylan. I had no idea exactly what I would be required to do . . . I could barely get my head around the idea that McMurdo was attempting to force me to kill someone, let alone how he expected me to do it . . .
Whatever . . . I tried to focus on which one of the two others would be most helpful in aiding our escape.
Dylan would be useful because once her force field was engaged she couldn’t be harmed. Yet McMurdo had a fail-safe way of undoing that force field – which made Dylan’s gift redundant.
Cal, on the other hand, could fly. Once he was out of range of McMurdo’s antidote, he’d be able to make his way back to Avery and tell the others where we were. I weighed the risks of Cal betraying me. They were surely low. Yes, the more I thought about it, the more certain I was that whatever Avery had meant when he said: Nico doesn’t suspect a thing . . . neither he nor Cal had anything to do with McMurdo’s trap.
‘Hurry up, Nico,’ McMurdo said. ‘Choose.’
‘I’ll take Cal,’ I said.
I looked at Dylan, trying to communicate that I would come back . . . that I wasn’t abandoning her.
She nodded her understanding – a fierce jerk of the head.
‘Right,’ McMurdo said. ‘Let’s go.’
A few minutes later Cal and I had been bundled into the darkness of the back of the van and we were off again.
We sat in silence as the horror of our situation fell heavily on me. My choice was simple. Kill – or die.
What on earth was I going to do?
18: The Hit
I spent most of the journey discussing the options for escape in a low voice with Cal. We agreed that whatever happened, as soon as Cal was free from the influence of the Medutox, he should fly back to Avery, Ed and Ketty and sound the alarm. Hopefully, the police would be able to reach Dylan before McMurdo. As for me . . . I’d just have to take my chances.
After we’d talked everything through, there was a heavy pause.
‘Hey, Nico?’ Cal said. He hesitated.
‘What?’ I said.
‘I was kinda surprised that you chose to bring me instead of Dylan on this mission,’ he said.
I shrugged. ‘I just thought you’d be able to get away easier than her.’
Cal nodded. I got the distinct impression there was something else he wanted to say, but the moment passed and a minute later McMurdo brought the van to a halt.
It was dark outside. As McMurdo opened the back doors, light from a nearby street lamp flooded across his face. I could see the anxiety in his eyes.
We were in a busy street, presumably somewhere in Sydney, though it didn’t look like the smart areas I’d seen before. The buildings were set close together – a collection of shops and bars and diners. People were spilling out of doors . . . talking loudly, laughing, arguing. It felt rough and hard, like the sort of area Fergus was forever telling me to avoid at all costs.
‘So who’s the target?’ I said.
McMurdo held up his phone. It showed a picture of a man – much younger than I’d expected – with a flat-top haircut and a gold necklace showing under his open-necked shirt.
‘Dan Keirnan – known locally as Diamond,’ McMurdo explained. ‘He’s got fingers in lots of pies . . . gambling rackets mostly.’
‘Is that why you owe him money?’ Cal said. ‘From gambling?’
‘It doesn’t matter how or why I owe Diamond,’ McMurdo snapped. ‘All you two need to know is that this is the only way left to deal with the problem. Diamond’s no hero. You won’t be taking the life of an innocent man.’
I swallowed. ‘How exactly are you expecting me to . . . to kill him?’
McMurdo shrugged. ‘There are lots of options. He’ll have a gun. All his gang have guns . . . and knives. Just take one and use it with your telekinesis. Cal can help.’
I stared at him. Did he seriously think I was capable of handling a gun or a knife . . . and using it in cold blood?
‘Remember,’ McMurdo said, ‘if you double-cross me, then Dylan dies and I will track you down and kill you.’
‘Why don’t you just kill Diamond yourself?’ I said.
‘I wouldn’t get near him. You probably won’t either – his men will see you and capture you. But that’s kind of the point.’
‘What d’you mean?’ I said.
‘If you get captured, you’ll be taken to Dan Kiernan. Then you can use your telekinesis to find a way to kill him.’
I shook my head. This was the craziest mission I’d ever been sent on. Cal and I had no idea exactly how many people we were up against and, once we reached our target, I was supposed to do the most extreme thing possible to him – and get away afterwards.
Except . . . it struck me that Cal and I getting safely out after the murder wasn’t part of McMurdo’s plan at all. As far as I could see, the chances of that happening were between low and impossible. Not that McMurdo cared. He just wanted someone to do his dirty work for him.
‘Time to go,’ McMurdo said. He pointed to one of the smarter looking bars a few metres down the road. It was called The Diamond.
‘That’s Dan’s bar,’ McMurdo said. ‘He’ll be in the back room probably . . . It’s where he does a lot of his business.’
‘How long do we have before the Medutox wears off and we get our Medusa abilities back?’ I said.
McMurdo checked his watch. ‘Just another couple of minutes. Now go.’
There was clearly no point talking any further. Cal and I set off along the street. We passed several groups of people as we walked – men and women clearly focused on having a good night out.
My heart beat fast. I wished more than anything that Ketty was here. Not that I wanted to put her in danger, but her presence always made me feel calmer – and I was certain she would have had a practical suggestion about what we should do now. As it was, I was certain of only one thing.
‘I’m not killing this Diamond guy,’ I hissed as we neared The Diamond bar.
‘I know,’ Cal said. ‘We have to find some way of getting away without McMurdo seeing us.’
I glanced over my shoulder. McMurdo was leaning against his van, his dark eyes fixed intently on us.
‘He’s watching,’ I said. ‘I think we should go inside the bar and head straight for the back door . . . or find some side window we can jump out of. If he thinks we’re inside, it’ll buy us enough time to rescue Dylan then get back to Avery, Ketty and Ed.’
Cal nodded. His face was very pale.
We reached the front door of The Diamond. Through the glass w
indow I could make out a mass of people inside. ‘Looks crowded,’ I said.
‘That’s good,’ Cal said. ‘It should be easier to slip away without anyone noticing.’
I held out my hand to test my telekinesis on the door. It opened easily. Well, at least I had my Medusa power back.
I followed Cal through the open door. The bar wasn’t just busy, it was noisy . . . full of people – mostly in their twenties, I was guessing – sipping drinks and chatting loudly. The music, one of those old-style mixes, dipped and soared in the background. The bar area itself was full of glass and metal, with chairs and tables set in small groups across the floor.
We stood at the door. No one appeared to have noticed our arrival, though it struck me that if we weren’t careful, we might be stopped and asked for ID.
Cal pointed to a corridor that led off the bar at the end of the room. It looked like our best bet for finding a way out of the building that wasn’t overlooked by the street – where McMurdo was waiting for us.
I headed towards the corridor, my spirits lifting slightly. Maybe this wouldn’t be so hard after all. I mean, we just needed to get to a fire door or a toilet with a window . . . anything that would take us outside again.
We reached the corridor. I kept my head down and my walk at stroll-speed, trying not to draw attention to myself. Cal did the same thing.
The men’s toilet door was clearly marked just a few metres up ahead. Cal had clocked it, too. I sped up just a fraction. We were almost there.
A hand slammed down on my shoulder.
‘Gotcha,’ said a deep, male Australian voice.
Rough hands pushed me round to face the man who had caught me. My heart pounded. The man stared at me, his sunburnt face shiny in the dim corridor light.
‘Stone me, they’re just kids,’ he exclaimed to another man, walking towards us.
My heart sank. I glanced at Cal. He looked as terrified as I felt.
The second man reached us. He was small and wiry with mean, dark eyes.
‘What are you doing here?’ he barked. ‘We saw you with that creep McMurdo outside . . . he’s got two days left to pay . . . Has he sent you in with Diamond’s money?’
I shook my head.
‘Then what were you doing with him?’ the first man asked. ‘And why are you in here?’
I opened my mouth, determined to deny all knowledge of McMurdo, but before I could speak Cal was talking.
‘We’ve come to see Diamond,’ he said, his voice strained with anxiety. ‘McMurdo sent us with a message.’
What on earth was he doing? I flashed a furious glance at him.
‘We need to see Diamond,’ Cal hissed under his breath. ‘It’s our only chance.’
Man, he was suggesting we tried to talk our way out of the situation. From the hard look of his henchmen, I very much doubted Diamond would be prepared to listen.
Cal turned to the sunburnt guard. ‘We want to talk to Diamond,’ he said.
The guard raised his eyebrows.
‘You boys wanna talk to Diamond?’ he said. ‘Well, isn’t that handy . . . cos he really wants to talk to you.’
19: Diamond
If the ground-floor corridor had been gloomy, the stairs to the basement were barely visible beneath my feet. The stone steps got darker and darker as we descended. I felt my way along the wall – it was made of bare brick: rough and cold.
I shivered as we reached a black door. Light glimmered underneath it and round the sides. Beside me, Cal trembled.
I’d considered using my telekinesis, but in this darkness I couldn’t be sure of getting rid of both the guns trained on us before the men holding them fired.
One of our guards rapped on the door three times and a gruff voice barked at us to enter. As the door swung open, I strained to see past the bright light inside. The room we were ushered into was some kind of office – all black and chrome furniture with splashes of purple in the wall hangings and cushions. A naked light bulb hung low from the centre of the ceiling, the only – incongruously – bleak element in the room.
One guard had stayed outside. The other stood beside me as I peered past the brightness of that central light bulb, searching for the person who’d called to us to enter. He was sitting in a chrome-backed armchair in the far corner of the room. I recognised him straight away: Diamond.
He stood up and walked towards us. He was shorter than I was expecting – only a few centimetres or so taller than me and Cal – and dressed in an open-necked shirt similar to the one in the picture McMurdo had shown us. His hair was neatly gelled and he wore a heavy gold chain round his neck. A diamond earring glittered in his right ear.
He narrowed his sharp eyes as he took us both in.
‘So McMurdo sent you.’ His accent was strongly Australian. ‘D’you have my money?’
‘No, sir,’ Cal blurted out.
I shot him a look, trying to communicate that he needed to shut up and let me do the talking, but Cal’s eyes were fixed on Diamond’s face.
Diamond nodded at our guard, who pressed his gun against Cal’s temple. I gulped. Diamond turned to me.
‘Let’s cut to the chase,’ he said, a tight sound to his voice. ‘Tell me why you’re here or your mate gets it.’
I thought fast. Now my telekinesis had come back and we were in a brightly lit room, it should be perfectly possible for me to disarm the guard with the gun, knock out Diamond and get Cal and me past the other henchman who was still outside the room.
I focused my attention on the guard’s gun and twisted my hand. The weapon teleported easily out of the man’s hand, clattering to the floor.
As the guard, a shocked expression on his face, took a step towards it, I lifted him a fraction off his feet so that he tripped and fell.
Open-mouthed, Diamond stared at him.
I grabbed Cal’s arm. ‘Run!’ I yelled.
In seconds we were through the door. Arm outstretched, I teleported the man standing guard in the corridor up in the air. With a wave of my hand, I flung him against the wall. He slumped down. I ran past, Cal at my heels.
‘There!’ Cal pointed at the fire door at the end of the corridor. It was only a few metres away. We could reach it. We would reach it. Just another three seconds.
Two.
One.
Telekinetic energy flowed out of me towards the door . . . the bar pressed down . . . I reached out with my hands to push it open.
And then a shot fired behind me and Cal slumped to the ground.
I spun around. Cal lay crumpled on the floor beside me. I blinked. His eyes were shut. I couldn’t see any blood. I looked up. Diamond was staring at me, his arm outstretched, a gun in his hand.
‘Your mate just fainted,’ Diamond snarled. ‘I was aiming at the wall.’
I followed his gaze to a bullet hole in the wall by Cal’s head. Sunlight from the open door sent a ray of yellow across the dark corridor, highlighting the dent in the plaster.
Two men – clearly more bodyguards – raced up the corridor behind Diamond and the sunburnt guard. Diamond waved them back and they stopped. Each one carried a gun.
Trying to force away my rising panic, I weighed the situation up in my mind. I could teleport Cal, then turn and run outside, using telekinesis to slam the fire door shut. But I doubted very much if I’d be able to move fast enough to dodge all the weapons behind me.
I could get rid of the guns telekinetically, of course, but only one at a time. And even if I could take Diamond and the new guards by surprise, that would still leave the sunburnt guard I’d disarmed earlier. I knew from experience that once people had had their weapons torn out of their hands through telekinesis, they tended to hold on much tighter to them afterwards, even if they didn’t understand exactly what had happened.
Diamond cocked his gun and levelled it at my face as the sunburnt guard – a wary look on his face – walked right round me and pulled the fire door shut. I was right; he was gripping his gun so hard his knuckles were
white.
‘How did you take my gun earlier?’ he demanded.
‘Quiet,’ Diamond ordered ‘I’m asking the questions. And the first answer I want is about McMurdo.’
My legs shook. With the fire doors shut, the corridor was dark; light from the room we’d just run from sent spooky shadows along the wall. Diamond’s earring glinted in the gloom.
‘Talk,’ he ordered. ‘Why did McMurdo send you here if it wasn’t to pay me?’
My panic rose further, whirling in my throat and up, inside my head. I couldn’t think of a lie that would work. I couldn’t think of anything to say except the truth.
‘McMurdo sent us here to kill you,’ I stammered. ‘To get you alone and kill you.’
Diamond let out his breath as a low whistle. Then, to my surprise, he smiled.
‘Kill me how exactly?’ he said. ‘Neither of you are armed. You’re both kids.’
‘What about what happened in the office, boss?’ the guard protested. ‘The gun I was holding . . . I think this boy somehow ripped it out of my hand.’
‘Or you dropped it,’ Diamond said with a sneer.
At my feet, Cal stirred. He let out a soft groan. Heart pounding, I stared back at Diamond.
‘You’re not going to take my gun,’ he said. ‘Or pull the trigger.’
‘Actually, I am.’ Not stopping to think, I teleported the gun out of his hand and balanced it in the air, turning it to face Diamond’s head. He froze. The other guards started.
‘Do it,’ Cal whispered at my feet. ‘Take the shot.’
I concentrated on the gun. I knew I only had seconds before the guards rushed me or before Diamond ordered them to shoot me. Just a few precious moments when everyone was too startled to move or speak.
I focused my attention on the trigger. The gun was already cocked. I’d seen how revolvers like this worked. I just had to pull the trigger back using telekinesis and the gun would fire into Diamond’s temple.
Take the shot.
Take the shot.
The next second seemed to last an eternity and then I faced what I’d known all along.
I couldn’t kill him. Certainly not like this, in cold blood.