Venn stared around. He was the only thing here that moved. Birds hung in flight. A cloud half blurring the sun did not even make the slightest drift of shadow.
He rubbed a weary hand over his face. Then he walked to the edge of the filthy platform. There was Sarah, her face caught in terror, her arm flung out toward him.
Beyond, half lost in the still people, he could see David, twisting aside. Gideon was there with them, and a whole host of fairground sideshows and food stalls, stopped in mid-sizzle, the sausage flipped from the pan, the playing cards half rippled.
There was total silence.
It was the silence that scared him most.
Wanting to fill it with anything, he raged, “Summer! Is this your doing?”
No one answered. But somewhere out there, in that mass of bodies that hung and balanced at impossible angles, something glinted.
Tiny. Brief.
The flicker of sunlight on a shiny surface.
He held his breath, stared out. Every eye was on him, but none of them could see him anymore; as he scrambled away from the bloody blade, no gaze followed him. They were living, but lifeless, and for a moment he thought of them as a great mass of waxworks, as if the time-stop had changed them from humans to a tangle of beings neither dead nor alive.
Again. A tiny sparkle.
Venn took a step to the rail. “Who are you? Who’s out there?”
His voice was harsh with fear. He made himself stand firm, surveying the crowd one by one, face by hideous face.
Was he trapped in some timeless world forever, alone? Was there really anyone else here but him?
Then, unmistakably, he saw the light move. It reflected from a pair of round blue spectacles, covering the eyes of a man in the crowd. A man not frozen in some off-guard pose. A man standing casually, calm and interested, his arms folded, gazing up at Venn.
A man who was breathing.
Almost with relief, Venn’s voice went steely. “So it’s you.”
For a moment Janus did not answer. Then he nodded, and that movement was a shock in this timeless place. “Who else?”
Venn was suddenly furious. “How can you stop time! How the hell can you do that?”
Janus shrugged. He began to move carefully through the crowd, edging between the rigid bodies, ducking under the stiff punched fists. “I doubt that’s what annoys you, Venn,” he said softly.
“What?”
“What annoys you is that by stopping time I have saved your life.” Janus reached the steps to the platform and climbed the first of them. He stood there, a small man in a gray uniform, leaning on the rail and gazing up. Venn caught the flash of the sun on the lenses that hid the man’s eyes.
“And that must be so difficult for you.” Janus nodded, as if to himself. “Oberon Venn would probably have found it more heroic to go fearlessly to the guillotine than be saved by his enemy.”
Venn folded his arms. “If you think that, you don’t know me.”
Janus smiled. And in his lapel, tucked in safely, Venn saw the purple flower.
He tried not to show by the least tightening of a muscle what it meant, but Janus smiled as if he had noticed. “Actually,” he said, “I just wanted to talk. I did try to come through to your Abbey, but . . .”
“I kept you out.”
“With such unnecessary dramatics. Besides, it was Maskelyne who barred my way.” He tapped a finger thoughtfully on the wooden rail. “What do you know about our friend with the scar, Venn? Very little, I expect.”
Venn frowned. That was true enough.
“For instance, did you know that he is a being who has lived many lifetimes? Beware of him. He worked with me, or will work with me, far in the future. Beware of the scarred man, Venn. He’s there now, in your house, with the mirror, which is all he cares about. Can you trust him?”
“More than you,” Venn growled. “What do you want?”
This time Janus laughed. “We want the same thing, you and I. The safety of the mirror.”
Venn’s eyes narrowed. “There’s no way we’re the same.”
“I think so.” Janus glanced over at Sarah, frozen in her fear. “And that girl . . . look, that escaped invisible girl of mine, she’s the one who is our enemy.”
“No.”
“Yes.” The tyrant’s voice was soft. “I need what she has, Venn.”
“Which is?”
“The coin.”
“The half coin? Sarah’s got it?”
“She stole it from Summer. Didn’t you know? The right side of the broken face of Zeus. Stole it and has been hiding it in your very house. What a treachery that is. Don’t you think so? How it must upset you, to know that.”
They looked at each other for a moment, a moment open with strange possibilities.
Then Janus said, “We’ll make an agreement here and now. I allow you to escape death. I allow you to complete your work, to rescue your beloved Leah. In return, when you have finished, you give me the broken coin.”
Venn stood still. His voice was flint hard. He said, “You really want it, don’t you. Anyone would think you know where the other half is.”
A flicker of alarm passed over Janus’s face like a ripple over the mirror, but Venn saw it, and it was more than alarm. It was fear. As if he had guessed right.
Fierce joy filled him, revenge warmed him. He snapped, “I don’t make agreements with tyrants.”
Janus said nothing, but took the flower from his buttonhole. He twirled it in his fingers, the purple petals held in their undying beauty. “I was afraid you might say that. But you must remember that I still have this. Just imagine, Venn, if after your unfortunate death under the guillotine Summer and I should become allies. Imagine that!”
He didn’t want to. “Summer is no one’s ally.”
Janus shrugged, turned, began to descend. “Well, we’ll see about that, shall we?”
Venn leaped after him, but even as he touched the ground a peculiar shiver moved among the still bodies as if a flame had run along a trail of gunpowder. Behind the crowd a creature like a wolf rose up, its pelt flame-red. It growled, alert, its eyes watching him, dark as coals.
Janus said, “Get the broken coin for me. In return I give your life. Agreed?”
Venn was silent.
He could say yes and then break his word. If he had Leah, what would he care anymore about the mirror? But he had promised Sarah she could do what she wanted with it. And besides, he loathed this small, sly man who seemed to hold all of the future in his hands. Centuries of Venn arrogance rose up inside him. He raised his head and stared Janus down. “I told you. I don’t make agreements with tyrants.”
Janus stepped onto the blood-soaked ground and sighed.
“I have to say I expected it. You are a very tiresome, and if I may say, ungrateful man. Good-bye, Venn.”
He lifted his hand.
Time jumped back.
The crowd exploded into screaming bedlam.
Before Venn had time to know he was back under the blade, it slammed down.
“Okay. So what’s the plan? Do we storm the house?”
“You tell me. You’re the sergeant major, mortal.”
Wharton frowned. It was true he had done ten years as an NCO, but in all that time he had never had to face an enemy as wispy and unpredictable as the Shee.
“Anyway,” Piers muttered, “just crashing in is too dangerous. It looks like the whole crazy Host is flitting around in there.”
They lay flat in the long grass of the overgrown lawn, watching the building.
Wintercombe Abbey was a riot of music and dance. Every window blazed light. Every door was wide. Inside, the Shee-songs echoed, far and sad and strange. Lights shimmered, purple and blue and green, glimpsed in tantalizing fragments through the smothered windows.
&nbs
p; To Wharton the whole shape of the building had been lost; it was part of the Wood now, a green branching structure of leaves and moonlight.
“Maskelyne and Rebecca will be holding out,” he said
“Oh, let’s hope so.” Piers sounded worried. “Because that lot must have crawled and flitted everywhere. Kitchens, corridors, cellars. The whole place is infested.”
Wharton let his eyes range across the dark ridges of roof and chimney, turret and towers. For a moment he thought he saw movement up there on the east wing, but then a cloud of bats rose in a silent swirl and he pulled a face and said, “Okay. Points of entry. Cloister door?”
“You must be joking!”
“Up the ivy into the attic.”
“No chance.”
“West wing coal chute.”
“If you want them to shovel you onto the fire.” Piers’s voice was gloomy in the dimness.
Wharton twisted to look at him, irritated. “Look, you know this place. You’re the goblin in the bloody cottage. Give me some help here!”
Piers sighed. He twisted over and lay flat on his back, staring up at the stars. Finally he said, “There’s only one way you can get in and that’s down the river.”
“The Wintercombe?”
“Where else? It’s running water. They hate running water. Get in it and swim down the ravine, and you’ll end up in the gorge below the Monk’s Walk. Then it’s a question of climbing up the cliff, and squeezing in through the old windows—only a few have any glass left in them.”
Wharton blew out his cheeks in dismay.
Piers grinned up at him. “Too much for a clapped-out old squaddy?”
Wharton thought maybe it was. But there was no way he’d say that to this little mocking creature. He shrugged. “Walk in the park, Piers. Walk in the bloody park.”
Moll’s diary.
Of course I knew the old sod was never up to it.
I’d got him the bracelet and there was the mirror, but Lord what a palaver and a mess he made of it. Everything so careful, so scaredy-cat. And me with this plan growing in me like the beanstalk in the story; because he couldn’t see what you could do.
“Get rich JHS!” I told him. “You could be lord of the whole universe with this!”
But he never had the guts.
So, finally, yes, okay Jake, I nicked the bracelet and went off with it. Betrayed him. I felt a bit bad about that, so after the first job we pulled, I sent a wad of dosh.
Never thought he’d do anything so stupid, though.
When I heard about the explosion I went straight round there. Great scorch marks down the walls.
Sad really.
House was all locked up, but easy as pie to get into, and there it was. The obsidian mirror. Leaning all cool and arrogant against the burnt wallpaper, among all that black charred mess.
I knew then the old fool had journeyed without the bracelet.
Idiot.
So, anyway, that was the start of it, Jake. We borrowed the mirror. Couldn’t leave it there, could we? Took it out at night in a hansom cab. And so I commenced my life of crime, and what a mad bit of fun it’s been, and all them jewels I’ve had away and the times I’ve seen, Lord, Jake, you wouldn’t believe.
But I was always really looking out.
For you, Jake.
And when I saw David, I knew it was time to come and get you.
22
I have had some experience of life. I believe myself fully capable of offering an excellent example to the boys of a sound moral outlook and the importance of hard work.
George Wharton, letter of application to Compton’s School
SARAH STARED.
In the blink of an eye, Venn disappeared.
Then, before she could move he was back, the blade already falling, the crowd screaming with joy.
She screamed too.
But a trapdoor burst open under Venn’s feet; he crashed down and the blade sliced only air.
The scaffold shuddered. The crowd surged back.
Sarah stood stunned, unable to believe what she’d seen, but the next moment Venn had picked himself up, scrambled out, and was right there next to her, grabbing her arm. “Run! Let’s go!”
They hurtled through the packed people. She yelled “Jake!” and saw him ahead, waving her on. With a great rattle of wheels, a dark carriage drove around the corner of a building and thundered toward them, the horses whipped to fury.
Women scattered with screams of panic.
Long Tom hauled on the reins; the doors flew open.
Moll was already leaping up onto the box beside him. “In!” she screamed. “Everyone!”
Jake pushed David on; his father flung out a hand and held the door and hauled himself up. Jake scrambled after, but before Gideon could follow, the crowd had grabbed him and torn him down; they fell on him. For a sickening moment all Jake saw was his pale face lost in a sea of hands.
Suddenly, Venn and Sarah were there. Venn snatched a sword and swung it at the flinching men. “Get back!”
Jake jumped down; Gideon scrambled up. They turned to face the mob.
The three of them stood at bay, all in a line, while behind, Sarah clung in the doorway.
“God,” Venn muttered, seething with fury. “I’d like to take the whole lot of them on right now.”
For a wild moment Jake was totally with him.
Gideon said, “It would be so much like . . . being alive—”
But Moll’s voice cut like acid through their ardour. “Nice heroics, cullies, but no time. Get in or we go without you!”
The horses reared. Jake turned, and Venn and Gideon crashed on top of him. Then the carriage was galloping at speed, and someone was picking Jake up and he realized he was on the worn leather bench with someone’s arm thrown casually around his shoulders, and it was his father’s arm. And all he wanted to do was shout and scream and stamp for joy.
Instead he leaned back while Venn picked himself up and Sarah smiled and Gideon dusted down his silver coat and watched with green envious eyes.
“Well,” David said calmly. “If that’s a plan, I’d like to see what chaos is.”
“Will you take it easy!” Wharton slid down the remaining mud of the bank and fetched up against a dark granite boulder. “I’m nearly there.”
Piers was braced above, a white face against the moonlight. “Okay. Letting go now.”
“No! Wait! I’m not— Piers!” But Wharton was already slithering, the moon-pale rope dissolving around his waist back into the cobwebs Piers had made it from, and feet-first, he cascaded over the steep bank and plunged deep into the roaring black water.
God, it was icy!
Hitting the bottom with his feet, he crumpled, pushed, rose in a cloud of silt, and burst back to the surface as a frozen man, white and gasping.
A boulder rose up; he slammed against it.
“Piers!”
Water took his words, swallowed them, spat them out. He fought to keep his head above the surging current, but the river was incredibly fast; it crashed him against rocks, ducked him, battered him, sucked him down. In the deepest dark he was so cold he was warm, and for a moment was back in the summery wood lying on the green grass in the sun.
Then he was drowning deep in the green leaves of a van Gogh painting, which seemed, oddly enough, to be growing on an elder bush in the ravine. He spat and coughed until Piers said in his ear, “Time to climb up now.”
He opened his eyes. He was clinging desperately to a barren cliff, and beside him on the rock a warty green toad was watching with emerald eyes.
He looked up. “My God!” he breathed.
Wintercombe Abbey soared above like a gothic nightmare. Bats showered from it; the moon balanced on its topmost turret. It was black and smooth as the mirror. He could never
climb up there.
He gave orders, but his body refused to obey. Instead it clung obstinate and shivering to the bank.
He took a breath; it was a knife in his throat.
“Scared, mortal?” The words were a sly croak in his ear. “I’m not surprised. The Shee always say the big men are the ones who crack first.”
Wharton growled. He reached out, grabbed a rock. Hauled himself up onto it.
The toad hopped onto his shoulder. “See you up top. I’ll have the kettle on.”
A wet flop of tiny hands on his head. He roared with fury and pulled himself out of the river.
Immediately the warmth of the summer night enfolded him. He sighed with relief, water running from his clothes, trickling and dripping. Then he was climbing, hands and feet splayed against the rock face, and the surface was dry and crumbly in places, and in others clotted with great cushions of plump emerald moss.
He was halfway up when he felt something.
A dread in his nerves and muscles. A gathering of darkness.
He risked a quick look at the sky.
Were they birds or bats? Hard to tell. They were rising in a great spiral from the towers of Wintercombe, and whatever their shape, he knew they were Shee.
“Piers!” he whispered. “Piers, look.”
No reply. He cursed silently, intently.
Then he climbed faster.
But the row of windows of the Monk’s Walk was far above when the cloud dissolved, and came down around him like black rain. Not birds but things shaped like the grotesque gargoyles of the house; crazy patchwork creatures of bat-wing and gryphon-beak and mermaid-tail and human eyes. They perched on the rocks and slithered onto the slanted slabs of the cliff-face, and in the roar of the waters they sat and looked at him, and all their eyes were hollows of silver, and all their claws as sharp as the pain in his bruised fingers.
He scowled, grabbed for the next rock. Instead his fingers closed around a small, white bare foot.