The Midnight Mercenary Read online

  ‘And me,’ said Amelia.

  ‘No, Charlie!’ said his mum. ‘You’re going to stay right here! You promised me – you both did – that you wouldn’t leave the hotel again.’

  ‘And we won’t,’ said Charlie. ‘We won’t even leave this room, if you think about it.’

  ‘Don’t play the lawyer with me, Karolos Floros!’ Mary’s voice was shrill. ‘This isn’t a game.’

  ‘I’m not,’ he said gently. ‘But you know I’m right. If we sit here and do nothing to help Len, we’re in exactly the same amount of danger. And if we’re going to get kidnapped anyway, I’d rather at least be trying to stop Krskn, not just giving up and hoping he doesn’t notice us.’

  Mary stared at him, speechless, but then her expression softened to one of reluctant pride.

  ‘I haven’t said you can come with me,’ said Lady Naomi.

  But Amelia knew Charlie had won. They’d be safer with Lady Naomi than with his mum, and both the adults knew it.

  ‘What about me?’ said James shakily. ‘What do I do? Am I going with you, too?’

  Lady Naomi frowned at him, and Amelia knew what she saw: a wreck. It wasn’t just the red welts left by the burns, or the way James’s eyes had swollen to painful slits, still streaming tears. No, the real problem was that James had simply been through too much tonight. He was trying to accept reality, but he’d avoided so much of it for so long, it was too big for him to take in one go. He looked about ten seconds away from a total nervous breakdown.

  ‘I need you to stay here,’ said Lady Naomi kindly. ‘You and Mary have to keep the hotel secure and be ready to bring the Scouts back inside whenever they get over their panic. Will you do that for me?’

  James nodded.

  ‘Right.’ Lady Naomi tipped the picture on the wall to the side once more. ‘Stay close behind me, you two. And no more talking once we get into the tunnel, OK?’

  Charlie put a finger to his lips, Amelia picked up the string of Grawk’s containment field, and one by one, they followed Lady Naomi into the darkness beyond the trapdoor.

  It’s all very well for Lady Naomi, thought Amelia. Anyone could be silent and stealthy if they could see in the dark.

  For Amelia and Charlie, though, following Lady Naomi meant feeling their way inch by inch, hands tracing the rough stone walls, feet probing the empty air in front of them for the next step down into the caves. Grawk’s luminous eyes gave off enough light for Amelia to see the texture of the walls beside her, but not enough to show the steps below.

  It was slow, frustrating work, with nothing to hear but her own footsteps, Charlie’s just ahead of her, and the occasional hiss from him when he accidentally bumped one of his welts. From Lady Naomi there came no sound at all. She might as well have been a ghost. Or not there at all. They could be walking into the centre of the Earth all on their own …

  At last the floor levelled out, and there were no more steps to navigate. Amelia felt something touch her and pulled away, but Charlie murmured, ‘It’s me. Here, take my hand.’

  He pulled her forward, and Amelia realised Lady Naomi must be leading him along.

  The narrow stairwell had widened into a cavern broad enough that Amelia could no longer touch the walls beside her. The ground was hard and flat under their feet – like tiles or floorboards – and every now and then, when Grawk’s head turned in the right direction, Amelia thought she could make out shapes in the darkness – the shadowy outline of a workbench or a glint of light reflecting off glass.

  ‘It’s some kind of laboratory,’ breathed Charlie.

  Lady Naomi said nothing.

  ‘It is, isn’t it?’ Charlie pressed. ‘This is where you do your research!’

  ‘Shh,’ said Lady Naomi. Then, ‘No, but if you can’t be silent, go back now.’

  She was quiet, but so fierce that Charlie didn’t dare speak again.

  They kept walking and soon the floor gave way to rough, sandy ground. Somewhere in the distance, Amelia could hear waves crashing. Lady Naomi led them along a winding path, deeper and deeper into … wherever this was. Sometimes there was a drop in temperature for a second, or a louder sound of the sea in the distance, and she guessed there were tunnels branching off in different directions along the way. Without a torch or a map or even a ball of string to guide them back, Amelia knew they’d be completely lost without Lady Naomi.

  She gulped and reminded herself that they’d already proven Lady Naomi was Lady Naomi, and not Krskn with a holo-emitter.

  Amelia blinked, peering again into the dark. Was she imagining things, or could she see slightly? Maybe a whole night without light was making her brain play tricks on her – or maybe she was just seeing spots from the glow of Grawk’s eyes … but no, she could definitely make out the faint grey line of Charlie’s head in front of her. She gazed at the walls. She could see them. The caves were glowing now. Blue and yellow lichens on the rocks were emitting a pale light.

  As they walked, the lichens grew thicker and the light strengthened until Amelia could easily see the ground ahead. She and Charlie dropped hands. They passed into a little grotto where the lichens were especially bright, with feathery pink fronds. It was so beautiful, and somehow knowing they weren’t allowed to speak made it seem almost magical.

  Amelia could see now where the tunnels split off. Often Lady Naomi had to choose between two or three forks in their path, but she seemed to know exactly what she was doing.

  They had walked so far that Amelia wondered which part of the headland they could be under now. Had they gone as far as the hedge maze? As the old magnolias? As Lady Naomi led them around a corner, Amelia saw a carved archway, and beyond it a vast chamber, like a cathedral, bigger than the concourse at the airport. It was set with glass along the walls, and two rows of huge pillars, thicker than palm tree trunks, holding up the roof.

  Stepping through the archway, Amelia noticed a heavy metal door raised up like a guillotine blade and ready to drop closed behind them. An identical door was open in an archway at the opposite end of the chamber, and beyond that, a pitch-black space that she guessed was another tunnel. The sandy ground had given way to a stone floor, not solid, but cut into complicated patterns. It was like one enormous storm-water drain cover, but done as beautifully as a Persian carpet. Overhead, the raw rock had been carved into a handsome vaulted ceiling, archways crisscrossing each other as they spanned the distances between the pillars. Lichen alone couldn’t have lit such a massive space. Behind the glass walls, Amelia saw dozens of glowing glass spheres.

  She started in surprise. Those weren’t glass walls – they were doors. Dozens and dozens of different sized glass doors, each one covering an empty, carved space behind. They were rooms.

  Amelia looked around in amazement. It was dry and empty now, but if you filled all this with water, it would look exactly like the lobby and guest wings of a hotel designed for fish. In fact, looking more closely, she could see metal tubing and blocks of pumice in each room, like giant versions of the air-stones in the aquarium at school.

  Lady Naomi stopped walking and drummed her fingers against her thigh. She padded from one glass room to the next, peering inside. Amelia followed behind, still dragging Grawk in his containment field, and Charlie by her side. So they were all together when Lady Naomi found Len trapped inside a pulsating bubble behind one of the pillars.

  He was hunched into a ball, his antennae retracted, and the space inside the bubble was gradually filling up with foaming green mucus as he tried desperately to protect himself.

  When Lady Naomi spoke, her voice jarred after so much silence. ‘It’s a trap, isn’t it?’

  There was no noise anywhere. No movement. No sign or clue to suggest why Lady Naomi would say such a thing.

  Amelia looked around the chamber wildly. Nothing! But Len was still bubbling away with that vicious, frightened slime …

  ‘What –?’ Charlie started.

  ‘Run,’ said Lady Naomi very quietly.

 
; Before Amelia could even register the word, a jet of black tar hit Lady Naomi in the face and knocked her backward. As she hit the ground, there was another flash of movement – but so fast, Amelia couldn’t tell from what direction – and Lady Naomi began slowly drifting upwards, her entire body enclosed in a transparent containment sphere, just like Grawk’s and Len’s.

  Charlie darted forward to grab the guiding string dangling from the bottom of the bubble. Half a second later, he was floating helplessly next to Lady Naomi in a bubble of his own. He screamed in rage, but Amelia heard only the faintest muffled noise.

  Amelia stood frozen, her mind blank with terror, as Grawk leapt inside his bubble. Amelia could hear only the dim echo of his bark. He glared at something behind her, his ears flat against his head. On pure instinct, she dived in the opposite direction, finding cover behind one of the great stone pillars.

  Panting, she looked back. The place she had been the instant before was now occupied by a huge, empty bubble.

  What do I do? she screamed silently.

  She couldn’t see Lady Naomi or Charlie from here, not without sticking her head out from behind the pillar. Looking one way, she could see the very edge of Len’s containment field. The other way, nothing. She looked up.

  Her heart almost stopped beating. Tucked behind one of the sloping arches in the ceiling was another containment field. It bobbed like a balloon, and inside was –

  Mum. Amelia wanted to cry, but pinched herself hard on the leg instead. Think!

  She scanned the rest of the ceiling. It was a mass of shadows and hiding places, each archway in the vault creating another deep hollow. Each one, for all she knew, housed another containment field, keeping another person prisoner. Maybe her dad was up there by now …

  Then, like something oily and impossible from a nightmare, she saw a body slip out of the shadows and slither weightlessly across the ceiling. Long black legs swivelled in their hips at angles that should have dislocated them. A tail moved sinuously in time with a long neck. A narrow head kept its eyes fixed continuously on Amelia.

  Krskn, Amelia thought.

  He seemed to flow toward her, as though gravity couldn’t touch him. She watched him walk lazily down a pillar, the claws of his back legs gripping to the stone, his body upright as though standing on the flat ground. He reached the floor, and walked over to Amelia without so much as blinking.

  She stared at his lizard-like body. The black rippling skin wasn’t scaly, but matte like velvet, and very soft-looking. Like a salamander. His eyes were deep red, wide open, and snake-ish. From nose to tail, he was long and elegant, but he had broad shoulders, a deep chest, and both his hands and feet were clawed. He opened his mouth and a tongue flickered out between sharp, white teeth.

  He’s gorgeous, Amelia thought. Terrifying, vicious and evil, obviously, but who knew he would also be so … magnificent?

  Krskn looked down at her cringing at the foot of the pillar, and sneered, ‘So good of you to come to me, Amelia. All of you! I was almost ready to leave with just the human female and this one repulsive Lellum.’ He touched a button on the back of his wrist cuff, and all the containment fields wafted gently down to float in a line between him and Amelia. Even Grawk’s string pulled out of her hand and obediently drifted over to Krskn. Five shimmering bubbles in a row.

  Krskn smirked, took a small silver tube from his belt and toyed with it as he spoke. ‘Now look at all my prizes! The Lellum specimen I was contracted to acquire, but also an infant grawk – honestly, I’m doing you a favour taking him off your hands, I really am. You have no idea what you’d be dealing with when he’s full-grown – ’

  He walked along the row and peered at Charlie and Mum. ‘Two humans – the small one might be sold as a pet once I remove his tongue; the adult, though … is this your mother, Amelia? I thought so. She’s very clever, isn’t she? She caught me going down one of the other access tunnels and followed me nearly the whole way here before I realised. Marvellous. In fact, a pity she wasn’t properly armed to deal with my containment gun – I might have actually had a decent fight on my hands.’ He sighed and smiled at Amelia. ‘Oh, don’t worry – I would have won …’

  Amelia shifted into a crouch. When Krskn’s blow finally landed, she wanted to be ready. She half-wished he’d hurry up and end it, but he was having too much fun gloating.

  ‘And you …’ Krskn reached Lady Naomi’s bubble and tapped it curiously. ‘What might you be, my dear?’

  Lady Naomi refused to look at him. The tar covered her mouth and one eye, but she didn’t try to shift it. She balanced on the curved floor of her containment field with perfect composure and gazed at Amelia.

  Krskn flipped the silver tube in his hand and laughed. ‘Do you know, I was almost going to let you go, Amelia. Leave you here to wonder for the rest of your life what I did with your family. But,’ he grinned charmingly, ‘then I remembered I’d left good old Dad in the shed! He looks the type whose heart would break over losing all of you, doesn’t he? So …’ He leaned down, stretched out his neck, put his mouth to Amelia’s ear and murmured, ‘I’m going to trap you and sell you as the pathetic, hairless Earth monkey you really are.’

  She felt hypnotised. Even though he was threatening her and her family in the cruellest and most offensive way he could, the closer he got to her, the more dazed and helpless she felt. Once, she had been made dizzy with joy by some intoxicating alien eggs; this was like that, only worse. There was no pleasure in being mesmerised by Krskn, only the ghastly sense of being frozen to the spot. He was pointing that silver tube at her, and as soon as he fired, it would all be over, and there was nothing she could do. She closed her eyes and waited for the end.

  From somewhere, a vaguely familiar voice said, ‘That’s enough, Krskn.’

  Krskn kept the containment tube pointed at Amelia, but his head whipped around to glare toward the far end of the chamber, where the doorway opened onto an unlit tunnel.

  Amelia’s mind raced. Was it possible that these tunnels led all the way out to the gateway itself? That would make sense – an aquatic alien visitor could hardly come up Tom’s staircase and walk overland to the hotel. But whenever the gateway opened, there was always sound or a smell or a gust of air or a flash of light or something – and Amelia had neither heard nor felt anything to signal the arrival of a new connection. If the gateway were there, it must be closed.

  And yet, out of the darkness stepped a tall, thin, frail-looking figure in a long black coat.

  ‘Leaf Man,’ Amelia gasped.

  Krskn glanced her way, and snorted with contempt. ‘Leaf Man, is it now? How delightful. Well, come on in, sir. Join our little party.’

  Amelia was baffled. The last time she’d seen Leaf Man, he was walking away from the total annihilation of the cyber-rats in their kitchen. Someone had set off a self-destruct program that blew up their central control system, and no-one had ever found out who that someone was.

  Tom trusted Leaf Man, but Amelia had serious doubts. Perhaps Leaf Man had merely been watching the Brin-Hask battle, the same as Amelia, Charlie and Lady Naomi. Perhaps he had killed the rats to help Amelia’s parents avoid trouble with Gateway Control. Or perhaps Leaf Man had been the one to engineer the rats in the first place. Perhaps he was the spy – the very person who had sold Krskn the information about the trapdoor in the annexe. For all Amelia knew, Leaf Man was the one who had contracted Krskn to come here and steal Lellum kids.

  She looked over at Lady Naomi, wishing she could tell Amelia what to believe.

  Amelia thought harder. She remembered the first time she and Charlie had met Leaf Man – he’d told her he was ‘nobody from nowhere’. At the time, she’d thought it was a kind of annoying modesty, or a joke, but what if it had been the truth? What had Tom said about the dangers of the Gateway? That if you got sucked into the space between wormholes, you’d be lost forever in the Nowhere.

  She stared at Leaf Man. If he came from the Nowhere, if it were his natural home
, then he could probably come and go through the gateway without using wormholes at all. In fact, that’s probably what he’d just done right now, slipping out of the void without a sound. And if he could do that, then perhaps that made him …

  ‘The Keeper!’ Amelia said loudly.

  Krskn snarled in disgust, and faster than Amelia could follow, he flicked the containment tube away from Amelia and shot at Leaf Man.

  Leaf Man sprang up, leaping half the length of the chamber, and landed lightly in front of Krskn. ‘I want the prisoners released.’

  Krskn spat. ‘And I want to leave here with seven of you for the Guild – imagine how much I’ll get when I add a human girl and a failed Keeper to my auction list.’

  He pounced at Leaf Man, but Leaf Man jumped again, this time straight up. He sailed up into the shadows of the ceiling and must have clung there, because he didn’t come down again. Amelia peered up after him, but saw nothing. Krskn ran up the nearest pillar and sped across the underside of the vault in pursuit.

  For a second Amelia was too shocked to move, but then she gathered up all five strings and dragged the containment bubbles over to the tunnel leading to the hotel. She’d just made it to the archway when a flurry of noise and movement behind made her turn. She saw a tangle of black and white fall to the ground. Krskn and Leaf Man landed with a thud on the stone floor, a small silver object rolling away from them.

  Without thinking, Amelia sprinted forward and grabbed it. Krskn’s containment tube! Had luck finally begun to turn her way? Straightening up, she had her answer.

  No.

  Where Krskn and Leaf Man had fallen from the roof, where she might have hoped to see Krskn knocked out cold, if not dead from the impact, she saw instead two identical figures pick themselves up, brush themselves off, and look at her with identical expressions on their narrow white faces.

  ‘Two Leaf Men,’ she murmured.

  ‘No,’ said the Leaf Man on her right. ‘Only one of us is a Keeper. The other is Krskn – the one who has imprisoned your entire family.’