Paul was looking really stressed now, like he might become a burster. Well, that’d be a grand finale all right, if he did a full body burst and splattered all over the fancy carpet. Covered John and Carl with gunk.
But he didn’t burst. Nothing happened. John got up. ‘This is dumb,’ he said. ‘Me and Carl are going to St James’s.’
Paul broke concentration, gasped and fell to his knees. Carl raised his eyebrows at him.
‘Nice try, Kermit.’
‘Wait,’ said David. ‘Wait. We can prove it …’ He threw a look at Jester.
Jester shrugged. ‘Prove what exactly?’
‘I want to show that Paul can talk to them.’
‘Get the royals in,’ said Jester and he helped Paul to his feet. ‘Can you talk to them again?’
‘I think so.’
‘Good boy.’
‘Not in here!’ David squealed in protest. ‘They’re filthy.’
That was the least of Jester’s problems. He really wished David would stop pushing this. Anything could happen with Paul. He was seriously unstable and was in and out of the sick-bay with nosebleeds, fits and fevers. As far as Jester knew, he’d gone nuts after a stranger killed his sister, and now for some reason he blamed other kids for what had happened. Jester had been told by one of the girls who worked in the sick-bay that he had a nasty bite on his neck that wasn’t properly healed. He was a tall, thin boy with very pale skin who always wore a greasy black roll-neck jumper – presumably to hide the bite.
OK, he’d made some kind of link to the royals before. Could he do it again?
‘You sure about this?’ Jester asked David.
‘We’ll carry on the demonstration upstairs.’ David gave Jester a sour look and walked out. The others had no choice but to follow, Paul shuffling along behind in a trance.
When they got out into the hallway, John and Carl peeled off.
‘We’ve seen enough,’ said Carl.
‘For God’s sake!’ David stopped and turned on them angrily. ‘It’ll take five minutes. I mean, what else are you going to do? What else is there to do? What have you got in your diary that is so important? What is planned for your busy day? Have you got a three-hour session of sitting around scratching your arse booked in? A talk on nose picking? A seminar on dozing off?’
Jester could see that John was about to lose his cool.
‘Just think,’ he said, stepping in. ‘If we could communicate with the grown-ups. Tell them what to do.’
‘Do what?’ said John. ‘They’re useless.’
‘Help us,’ said David. ‘Ask yourself – what do you want? What do I want? We all want the same thing. We want to deal with those arrogant bastards at the museum, Justin’s snotty nerds, the Holloway kids … Achilleus.’
‘That bastard,’ said John.
‘You want to be in control of London, yes?’ said David.
‘Sure.’
Like David, John had been humiliated by the Holloway kids. Jester doubted he’d ever forgive Achilleus for defeating him in single combat.
‘Just think,’ said David, back in control, selling his gold-plated bullshit. ‘Our own army. Isn’t that what we’ve always wanted? To be strong enough to rule London? To tell everyone else what to do?’
‘Right,’ said Carl, who was brighter than John. John had mean street smarts, but that was about it. Carl understood the world a lot better than him.
‘Let’s pretend for a moment your pet monkey actually can talk to the walking pus-bags,’ said Carl. ‘Who’s to say they’ll do what we want? That don’t follow.’
‘It does,’ said David, beaming at him. ‘What do the strangers want?’
‘Dunno,’ said John. ‘Don’t care.’
‘They want the same as us,’ said David. ‘To destroy the snotty museum kids and that gimp Jordan Hordern from the Tower of London, strolling over here like he owns the place. We can pull them all down and put them in their place. Because all the strangers have ever wanted to do is kill kids. But if we can make some kind of alliance, some kind of truce with them …’
‘How d’you make a truce with zombies?’ Carl scoffed. ‘They don’t think. They’re nothing.’
‘Not all of them,’ said David. ‘They have a leader – the one Paul’s made contact with – St George.’
So we’re all going along with that, are we? thought Jester. Contact with the big kahuna. How quickly David could spin things his way.
‘He’s clever, St George. He controls the strangers. If we can make this link with him stronger then …’
‘If you can,’ said John and he spat into an ornamental vase on a stand. ‘But there ain’t no proof of it.’ He at least had seen through David’s fog.
‘I’m giving you proof,’ said David and he grabbed Paul by the shoulders.
‘You’ll do it, won’t you?’ he said, but Paul looked dazed and confused.
‘I am God,’ he said quietly, almost a whisper.
‘He’ll do it,’ said Jester, taking the pressure off Paul before he cracked.
They went up the ornate grand staircase, past the black statue of Perseus holding the severed Medusa’s head. John and Carl looked around admiringly.
‘When you gonna invite us to come and live here in comfort?’ said John.
‘I thought you preferred your camp,’ said David.
‘Yeah, but you got some nice stuff here. Ain’t it nice, Carl?’
‘It’s nice.’
At the top they made their way up a second, less elaborate staircase to the royal apartments, the smell of the royal family getting stronger with every step. Even John and Carl, who, quite frankly, stank, wrinkled their noses and made crude jokes about farting and worse.
As ever, there was a boy guarding the door to the royals’ bedroom. He looked bored and sleepy. David said a few words to him while John and Carl pointed at a painting of two nude women and sniggered.
The boy opened the door and the stench hit them like a physical wave. John groaned. The royals were a terrible sight. There were only five of them left, their clothes hanging off them in rags. An older woman, a younger woman and three younger men. They were the healthiest of the ones they’d found hiding here when they’d arrived. Very minor royals. Jester had long ago forgotten who they were exactly. They had so many sores and boils on their faces they didn’t even look human. Jester no longer felt disgusted or disturbed by them, and they certainly couldn’t scare him. They were too feeble and degenerate.
They lived like animals in a zoo, crapping on the floor and eating scraps from tin bowls.
The four boys stepped carefully into the room, careful of what they might tread in.
‘OK,’ said John, sneering at Paul, who looked paler and more feverish than ever. ‘It’s show time.’
Paul sighed, took a deep breath and fixed his eyes on the royals. ‘What do you want them to do?’ he asked.
‘Anything!’ David shouted. ‘Do anything! Do something! Show us.’
‘He can’t do nothing,’ said John. ‘He’s just a nutter. This is a big waste of time.’
But before he’d finished speaking the royals dropped to the floor, like puppets with their strings cut, and John’s eyes went wide. Paul’s own eyes had rolled back in their sockets and he was shaking and muttering, jerking about like he was possessed.
The royals groaned. One of the younger ones held his head in his hands and rocked from side to side on the carpet. And then they all fell still.
‘That wasn’t him,’ said John. ‘A fluke.’
One by one the royals slowly raised their ruined faces to look at John and Carl. And then they started shuffling on their bellies towards the two boys, drooling brown spit over their swollen lower lips on to the carpet.
‘OK,’ said John. ‘You can stop ’em now.’
Jester was impressed because, for the first time ever, John was impressed. More than impressed. He actually looked scared.
‘You can call ’em off now, brother.’
> The royals kept on coming, wriggling and sliding on their bellies. John and Carl stepped back and now the royals got up on to their knees, bowing down to them, pressing their foreheads to the floor. The older woman, whose lidless eyes were surely blind, raised one hand towards Carl, opened what was left of her mouth and a sound came out, something like speech, something like a sick animal, something horrible. Then she turned one hand round. It was twisted and gnarled, the joints swollen, her little finger missing.
‘What’s she doing?’ said John.
Slowly the woman made a fist and then painfully extended her middle finger.
Jester was laughing. John wasn’t. He’d gone white.
‘She’s saluting you, John,’ said Jester, and he clapped Paul on the back. ‘She’s giving you the finger.’
41
Shadowman was up in the tower at the old cinema again. Watching the sicko army. He felt at home. This was what he did best. Watching. Waiting. Following. Alone. No one else to get hurt. No one else to slow him down and put him in danger.
Always best to be alone.
He had his pack. His food. His water. His weapons. And from here he could see almost the full extent of St George’s army. Now maybe twice as big as it had been. More sickos had arrived from all points of the compass, trudging in on that awful morning. Reports had come in from the east, from the Tower of London – Jordan Hordern had a very efficient communication system. And, earlier today, Shadowman had managed to get up to see Saif. Saif had confirmed that more sickos had come in from the north. Shadowman had seen for himself the ones coming over the bridges from the south. Most, though, the largest group, had come from the west. And that had been the group who had taken Yo-Yo. No chance that she might still be alive. He hadn’t tried to lie to himself about that.
The best way was just not to think about the girl at all.
Concentrate on the sickos.
So many questions that needed answers.
They were all down there, all the new ones, mixing with St George’s original army. What were they doing? What were they waiting for? Why had they gathered? What where they eating? How were they surviving at all? Did they really have a plan of some sort?
What Shadowman wanted more than anything was to get down there, right among them, but it was too dangerous. He’d tried it once and had had to make a quick exit, running as fast as his still weak leg would allow. He’d only just made it. If the sickos hadn’t been slow and sleepy and reluctant to leave their nesting ground he’d surely have been caught and swamped. He was being much more careful now.
That had at least answered one question.
He’d thought he might be carrying around a monster death wish, but when he found himself running for his life he knew it had passed. It wasn’t his fault what had happened to Yo-Yo. He’d had to tell himself that. Ryan had been just as responsible.
The thing was – nobody could have predicted the arrival of a massive new army when the streets had been so quiet.
You had to tell yourself these stories to stay sane, to stay alive. If you let your mind go soft you were done for. To survive you had to stay strong in the head. Head, heart and hand. If any of them failed you, that was it. There had been a spell after Yo-Yo was killed when Shadowman’s heart had been hurt. But he’d slowly built a fresh wall around it. He’d moved away from other kids, and now he was back where he belonged, with his sickos.
He was happy to be here. Happy to watch and wait. Hard of head, hard of heart, hard of hand …
He sucked in his breath and held it. There was a change. Black figures were moving out into the main road, heading south. First one or two, then clumps of them, then larger groups, finally a flood filling the whole road, like oil flowing into a channel. Greasy and filthy and rotting.
It reminded Shadowman of match days. Football fans coming down the streets. Slow and purposeful. Massing. Expectant.
St George’s army was on the move.
It was starting.
42
‘You’re looking better. I really think you are.’ Fish-Face ran her fingers down the Green Man’s arm and then returned to her work. There was a nasty click and then a rattle as one long fingernail dropped to the floor.
Maxie shuddered. Fish-Face was using a pair of heavy-duty kitchen scissors to cut her father’s nails. Creepy. Personally she wasn’t sure about Fish-Face’s judgement. Did Wormwood look less green? Was the evil fungus that covered him going away? He still weirded Maxie out. His pale eyes. The way he always seemed to have some hidden thought brewing in his brain. The way you caught him looking hungrily at you, and if you held his stare he dropped his gaze like a shamed dog.
Fish-Face had done her best to make him normal. She’d managed to cut his hair and now she was getting rid of his horrible long fingernails. She’d also got him to wear clothes, a baggy T-shirt and tracksuit trousers, even though he complained that they hurt his skin. No shoes. He stuck at that. And he still always had his blanket wrapped round his shoulders and his ridiculous green bowler hat jammed on his head. So he was a long way from normal. Was he better physically, though? Was he healthier at all? Was it just Fish-Face’s improvements that had made him look more human?
What a couple they were. Maxie wasn’t sure she’d ever get used to the two of them. The way Fish-Face loved the old freak. Maxie knew that Einstein was experimenting on him. Using him as a guinea pig to try out the antidotes he was working on – made from Small Sam’s blood. At least Einstein hadn’t killed him, like he had the mother on the lorry. He’d made a safer new serum, had tried a tiny, tiny amount at first. Had been building the doses up since. Maxie didn’t pretend to understand the mechanics of it, but something must be working.
She’d come to the birds gallery where the Twisted Kids hung out with Wormwood, to try to find Skinner. He was the easiest to talk to and he could translate Fish-Face’s more peculiar outbursts. She still seemed to be getting messages from her friend Trinity who had gone out west with Ed.
Maxie needed to know if there was any news from them. Was Ed coming back? She didn’t know Ed well, but what she’d seen of him had impressed her. Plus, he’d taken three of their key fighters with him – Kyle, Lewis and Ebenezer. Morale at the museum was disastrously low since Achilleus was refusing to fight. If Ed came back he might help rally the kids. At the moment, apart from a hardcore group here at the museum and most of Maxie’s crew, it was only the guys from the east who were prepared to go into battle, and she wasn’t really sure how much use the crazy greens from St Paul’s were going to be. They were enthusiastic enough – manic, fanatical even – but they weren’t exactly fighters. She’d seen them practising in Hyde Park. Their tactics seemed to involve a lot of prayer and chanting and music and not a lot of combat. Maxie knew grown-ups well enough to know that if the greens went into battle armed only with violins and trumpets they’d be massacred.
There was no God to protect them. Despite what they thought. Maxie had seen enough of the misery in the world to know that. But if Ed came back it would really help.
She had to interrupt this touching scene.
‘Is Skinner around?’
‘He’s up with the smaller kids,’ said Fish-Face, without looking up from her work. She was so shy, poor girl.
‘Can I help?’ she said, twisting her long neck so as not to look at Maxie.
‘Maybe.’ Maxie explained what she wanted.
‘I haven’t heard anything for a while,’ said Fish-Face when she’d finished. ‘At least nothing clear. It’s all been too confused, with those new grown-ups going through. And there’s so many of them, they block the signals. It’s just static out there now, white noise, soup, a thousand voices all shouting at once. You can’t make anything out. I’ll tell you as soon as I know anything. I will … but Maxie?’ Finally she looked up at Maxie and there was pleading in her huge, wide-set eyes.
‘Is everything going to be all right?’
‘I don’t honestly know,’ said Maxie. ‘If we can?
??t get everyone back on board and united I don’t know what’s going to happen. Nobody wants to fight.’
‘Is there anything I can do?’ said Fish-Face.
‘Can you turn back time?’
Fish-Face shook her head.
‘No chance of going back and stopping Jordan taking Paddy’s dog then. How about you take us into an alternative universe where the disease never happened?’
Fish-Face smiled shyly and shook her head again.
‘Then you’re as helpless as me, I’m afraid,’ said Maxie. ‘Even some of my Holloway kids won’t fight without Achilleus – but I don’t know what we can do.’
‘We could just hope the sickos never attack,’ said Fish-Face.
‘We’ll get the St Paul’s crew to pray for it,’ said Maxie.
There was shouting from outside and the two girls looked round towards the door.
‘What is it?’ said Fish-Face anxiously.
‘I’ll go see.’
Maxie hurried out and went along the wide corridor with the sea monster fossils down either side, towards the main hall. There were kids milling around the diplodocus skeleton, excited, waving their arms, voices raised. As Maxie got closer, she spotted Blue, who seemed to be at the centre of it all. She speeded up and went straight to him. As soon as he spotted her, he broke away from the other kids and took her to one side. He looked serious, trying to keep the stone face on and failing. Something heavy was up.
‘They coming,’ he said.
‘Who? What?’
‘The army’s moving. We have to get out there. Jordan wants us to make sure the sickos head towards Hyde Park. We have to drive them.’
‘Shit.’
This plan had been discussed at length. The kids had spent day after day building barricades and laying down a firewall to try to direct the grown-ups to Jordan’s chosen battleground. But they hadn’t nearly finished getting ready. The danger was that the army would simply spread out and advance down all the streets. Or even just go the other way entirely. Nobody really had any idea what their plan might be.
And since Achilleus had thrown his tantrum the kids’ army had started to fall apart. They had only half the number of fighters to call on.