Blue Dome (The Blue Dome Series) (10 page)

“The guest wing.” He held
out his wrists, twisted them slightly, and there was a loud clicking and
clacking as the locks snapped open. The door swung inwards, revealing a room
that was almost completely devoid of light. “Please, step this way.”

I frowned. “Did you
seriously open that door just by twisting your wrists?” I said.

“Seriously,” said the man.

I was still trying to
figure out how he’d done it as I peered inside. The darkness made it impossible
to see anything. I glanced at the man uncertainly.

“I can’t go in there,” I
said.

“Don’t tell me, afraid of
the dark?” he sneered.

“No,” I lied.

I quickly scanned the sides
of the staircase to see if there was any way I could skim past him and escape. It
was impossible. He was completely blocking the way. The only opening was the
one directly in front of me, leading straight into the dark room.

“Oh come now,” said the
man, getting impatient. “Do I really need to wake Arius from his sleep? He
won’t be at all pleased.”

I glanced from the room,
to the man, then back to the room again. There was nothing I could do. I’d have
to let myself be imprisoned, then try to find a way to escape once I was in
there.

I walked slowly through
the doorway, the heavy wooden planks closing almost immediately behind me. My
stomach felt like I’d just swallowed a lead sandwich, as I listened to the
bolts being driven back into their shafts. I was now in total darkness. Surely there
was still a slim chance that someone, somewhere might hear me? I began battering
on the door with my fists, and screaming as loudly as I could. It was only once
I’d completely exhausted myself that I slumped in a heap against the wall and
bawled my eyes out.

It was amazing how fast a
school day could go by when there was a good rumour flying around. Someone had
seen Vince talking to Thomas in an almost friendly way, causing tongues to wag
among the cool and the uncool alike. It was fine for either group to hang with
those in the middle – the semi-cool (or semi-uncool, depending on how you
looked at it) – but no one felt comfortable when the mix was more extreme than
that. It upset the natural order of things. Which might explain why one of the
BBTs had scrawled an urgent note to Vince in the middle of last period:
What’s
this about you and Thomas being friends now?!!
Vince hadn’t reacted. He
knew it would all make sense to the girls once they saw how much cash he had.

Thomas arrived late for
his meeting with Vince.

“Sorry. Got held up in
English,” he said, half wondering if he was about to get punched.

“Yeah, no problem,” said
Vince. “Just glad you decided to make it.”

Thomas breathed a sigh of
relief, although he still flinched instinctively as Vince gave him a friendly
cuff on the shoulder.

“Hey, no need to be so
jumpy!” Vince laughed.

“Sorry,” said Thomas quickly.

“C’mon, it’s this way.”

Vince took the lead,
striding down the willow-lined street that ran alongside the school. The remaining
daylight filtered through the leaves of the trees, casting patchy shadows on
the asphalt. They arrived at the corner just as the bus was pulling up.

“Good timing,” said
Vince, swinging himself up the stairs. Thomas followed, treading carefully on
each step to avoid tripping. They made their way down the aisle to the back seat.
Vince slung his bag down.

“It’s good to be rid of
that,” he said.

“So where exactly is your
boss’s place?” said Thomas uneasily.

“Not far from the
Old Town Square
,” said Vince. “We’ll be
there in no time.”

There was an awkward
silence, as Thomas gazed anxiously out the window. After about twenty minutes,
Vince began pointing to a street lined with shabby, old warehouses.

 “See, there it is, told
you it was close.”

“That’s it?” said Thomas,
catching a glimpse of the street as the bus rolled past. The warehouses weren’t
exactly the kind of offices he’d imagined a businessman using.

Vince shrugged. “Cheap
rent I guess,” he said.

They got off at the next
stop and walked back. After several blocks they were standing outside the
oldest and most derelict of the warehouses. It was also the most deserted. The
few buildings that were left standing around it were all boarded up. They’d clearly
been abandoned for years. Outside on the street, a couple of burned-out cars had
been jacked up on blocks, their wheels long since stolen. In the distance, a
couple of cats exchanged pre-fight screams.

Thomas glanced around
nervously. He had suddenly started to feel very cold, even through his thick
coat. Vince noticed he was shivering.

“Don’t worry, we’ll be
inside in a minute,” he said, lifting the large, brass door knocker.
Stanley
answered.

“Hey kid, the boss is
expecting you.” He shifted his gaze to Thomas, looking him up and down. “Both
of you, come with me.”

Thomas and Vince followed
Stanley
to a metal staircase
and began climbing the narrow flights of stairs. By the time they’d reached the
fifth flight,
Stanley
was
sweating profusely. Even Vince had asked to stop so he could take his coat off.
For some reason though, rather than feeling warmer, Thomas was now freezing
cold. He was beginning to wonder if this had been one of his better ideas. Before
he could change his mind, they had arrived at the final landing.

“The boss needs to talk
to you first,”
Stanley
said to
Vince. He turned to Thomas. “How about you take a seat out here kid?”

Thomas shrugged and sat
down. He really hoped it wouldn’t take long.
Stanley
knocked, then pushed the door open, as Vince followed closely
behind. The man in black was once again sitting at his desk, but this time
there were no papers to distract him. Vince had his full attention.

“So, you’ve brought me
the new candidate?”

“Yeah boss, he’s
outside.” Vince could hardly wait to sniff the crisp, new notes of his pay
packet.

“So, tell me a little bit
about him,” said the man.

“Well…he’s small and
could easily fit through the window of a house,” said Vince.

The man nodded
approvingly. “What’s his name?”

“Thomas,” said Vince.
“Thomas Winter.”

The man smiled broadly.
“Perfect.”

Vince frowned – it seemed
odd that his boss would make a comment like that – but he decided to let it go.
He was getting used to his boss saying strange, unexpected things. Besides,
what did he care? As long as he got paid, that was the main thing. The man
looked at him, his eyes glowing in the candlelight.

“Good, you’ve done
exactly as I’ve asked.”

“So do I get paid now?”
said Vince.

“Of course.” The man
opened the top drawer of his desk and pulled out a thick wad of bank notes. He
peeled off a single note and placed it on the table in front of Vince. “The
remaining money from your first task,” he said. He then peeled a further
twenty-one notes from the roll and placed them on the table. “And your payment
for the second task.” The man put the rest of the bank roll back into the
drawer, firmly closing it, as Vince leant forward and snatched the money from
the table.

“Nice doing business with
you,” he smirked.

“Now, if you wouldn’t
mind, I would like to speak to your new colleague,” said the man. “Wait in
there.” He nodded at the door to the left of his desk.

“Sure,” said Vince. He
walked towards the door, counting and recounting the bank notes as he went. It
was more money than he’d ever been paid in his life. He gripped the brass door
handle and, without looking up from the money, entered a small lounge. The man
waited to hear the click in the latch before turning to
Stanley
.

“Show him in,” he said.

Stanley
went to the door, opened it, and beckoned the waiting visitor
inside. Thomas stepped over the threshold, taking a couple of seconds for his
eyes to adjust to the candlelight. He took one look at the man and screamed in
horror.

“You!

I had no idea how long I
cried for, but it felt surprisingly good. I cried because I was trapped and
alone, with no obvious way out; I cried because I’d lost my dad and the good
things I’d once loved about him were no longer true. I cried because I’d lost
Bede somewhere in the
Old
Town
and I had no way of contacting him. I
even cried about Arlene, my stepmother who would be as worried about Dad as I
was.

I was still sobbing when
I heard the unmistakeable clicks and clacks of the giant door unlocking. There
were muffled voices too – the man’s icy tones were instantly recognisable, but who
was with him? I brushed the hair back from my face, wiped the tears away, and
quickly stood up. Any time the door opened was a potential opportunity to
escape.

I crouched in the shadows
and waited. I wasn’t exactly sure what my plan of attack would be, but I
figured that if I could make like a cat and slide through a gap in the door, I
might be able to catch the man off-guard. My heart thudded nervously in my chest
as slowly, very slowly, the door began to shift.

“Now!” I thought,
pouncing towards the light.

My body smacked straight
into a solid dark shape. I looked up to see the man about to break into a
thunderous laugh.

“Did you really think I
would be
that
stupid?” he said, grasping my shoulders and pushing me
back firmly into the room. He was still holding me as he turned to the man
behind him.

“
Stanley
, you’ll need to lock that one up. I can’t afford to have him
running about.”

A short, bald man entered,
heaving under the strain of a wriggling sack on his back. He disappeared around
a corner of the room that I hadn’t even realised was there.

“Your new roommate Clare,”
said the tall man in black. “You may know him already.” He gave a nasty smile.

I flattened my palm
against the wall and guided my way along its curved surface until I’d turned
the corner. The dim light made me blink, as I glanced up to see a small window
set high in the brickwork above our heads. A sudden thud drew my attention back
to the sack-carrier.
Stanley
had now emptied its contents onto the floor and a small person was struggling
to break free from the bindings around his wrists and ankles. I tried to see if
I could recognise the prisoner but Stanley was in the way. As I craned my neck,
trying to see around him, I heard the heavy, dull clank of iron hitting iron.

“Done boss, shackled him
good!”
Stanley
clambered
awkwardly to his feet, like a new-born elephant figuring out how to use its knees.
He brushed past me and I listened to the two sets of feet walking back towards
the door. Suddenly, the taller of the two men paused.

“If you try to escape
like that again Clare, I’ll be forced to shackle you as well.”

I shuddered and drew back
into the shadows, listening to the bolts of the locks being driven into their
sockets. I turned nervously towards the small figure that was crouched against
the wall.

“Are you all right?” I
said.

There was no response, just
a guttural, grunting noise that made me wonder if whoever it was had been gagged.
At least it would explain why he or she hadn’t been screaming the place down. As
I moved closer I could see that the person was actually a boy. One that looked
shockingly familiar.

“Thomas?” I said.

He glanced up at me from
under his floppy blonde fringe, pleading with his eyes for me to remove the
strip of fabric that was preventing his mouth from working. I ran to him and
began working at the knots. Whoever had tied them knew what they were doing. Finally,
after about five minutes, the gag fell away in my hands.

“What on Earth are you
doing here?” I said.

“I could ask the same of
you,” he said. “It’s not exactly the maths room, is it?”

I couldn’t help but
smile. The maths room? Given the last couple of days I’d almost forgotten that I’d
ever actually been to school. It seemed to belong to a completely different
life that some other girl called Clare was busily having.

“This is so weird,’ I
said as I slumped myself down next to him. “I thought it had something to do
with my dad being…” I trailed off, catching myself just before I started spilling
the beans. “Why are you here? It doesn’t make sense. And why have they done
that?” I said, pointing to the wrist shackle which was fastening him to the
wall.

Thomas gave a long sigh.

“Sorry. I’m ranting,
aren’t I?” I said, suddenly remembering how Bede told me that I did that when I
got stressed. “It’s just that…well, this whole thing is so crazy.”

“Yes, it is quite difficult
to explain,” said Thomas, in a tone that didn’t sound anywhere near as freaked
out as I felt.

I looked at him
suspiciously. “What do you mean?” I said slowly. “Do you know what’s going on?”
Thomas always had been a bit….well, different at school, but this was a whole
new level.

“Not entirely,” he said,
laughing nervously. “But let’s just say that I probably know more than you do
at the moment. We’d hoped to tell you in slightly different circumstances, but
unfortunately events have conspired against us.”

“What?” I said. He was
making no sense at all now. “Who exactly is ‘we’ and what do you mean about
needing to tell me something? This isn’t some weird thing to do with what
happened at school the other day is it? You know, with Vince and the BBTs?”

Thomas laughed so hard he
actually snorted.

“Them? No, I’m afraid not.
That would make things much simpler. Unfortunately, this is slightly more
serious than the size of Vince’s biceps or whether or not the rain turns the
BBTs’ hair frizzy.”

I smiled, surprised by
his sarcasm.

“How funny, I had no idea
we thought the same way,” I said.

“Really?” said Thomas,
raising his eyebrows. “From where I was sitting they weren’t exactly friends of
yours either.”

I felt myself blush as I remembered how
cringe-making it was having “ging-er” screamed at me
.

“Well no,” I agreed. “But
if I’d known you thought the same thing, maybe it would have been, I dunno,
funnier somehow. I might have been able to laugh about it then, rather than
feel like I was going to die with embarrassment.”

Thomas did laugh then.

“So, who you were talking
about?” I prompted again.

“Me, and one of my
colleagues who I believe you’ve met. Min-Isis?”

“You know Min?” I said.

 “Yes, very well as it
happens. She and I go back a long way.”

“Oh right, like she’s
your aunty or something?” I said.

“No, not exactly.” Thomas
paused for a couple of seconds, biting his bottom lip as if he wasn’t quite
sure what to say next. Or how to say it. “Min and I are actually the same age.”

“
What
?” I said,
yet again. It was lucky I wasn’t paying for word usage. “Umm....that doesn’t
really make a lot of sense. Min looks like she’s the same age as my
stepmother.”

Thomas laughed, but this
time he sounded bitter. “She almost is,” he said.

Now I was really
confused. “Hang on, how do you even know who my
stepmother is?” I said. Thomas had definitely never been to my house and
Arlene’s allergy to teenagers meant that she’d definitely never been to my
school. “Either I’m stupider than I thought, or you’re just not making any
sense
at all
,” I said.

“You’re far from stupid,”
said Thomas. “I’m just not explaining this very well. I should start again.”

I readjusted the leg I’d
been sitting on, catching it just before it fell asleep on me, and waited for
Thomas to continue.

“I guess the first thing
you need to know is that not everything is entirely as it seems,” said Thomas.
“For instance, I am not actually a teenager.” He paused, allowing the words to
sink in. “I am, in fact, much older than that.”

“What, like forty or
something?” I said.

Thomas smiled. “Err, not
quite. More like…many thousands of years old.”

I laughed and rolled my
eyes.

“Yeah, right. Me too,” I
said.

“No. I mean it,” said
Thomas. I waited for his face to crack and for him to start laughing, but he
didn’t.

“You can’t seriously
expect me to believe that?” I said.

Thomas ignored my
question. “Tell me, how’s your ankle, the one that Min repaired?” he said,
suddenly catching me off-guard.

“
You
, of course. Surely
you’ve noticed me watching you?”

“How do you know about
that?” I said. Thomas just shrugged. “C’mon, this has got to be some sort of joke,
right?” I continued.

“This, a joke?” said
Thomas, glancing around and the gloomy, dank walls of the prison. “Look, you’ve
got every reason to think I’m crazy, I know that, but please, just hear me
out.”

I cast him a sceptical
look. On the one hand, the things he was saying were clearly insane. Yet on the
other, he knew stuff that he had no logical or obvious way of knowing. I
couldn’t help but be curious.

“So how come you look
younger than Arlene and Min if you’re all supposed to be the same age?”

“We have a choice as to
the form we take in this world,” said Thomas. “It depends on what we need to be
at any given time.”

“In
this
world?
This
is
the world” I said.

“It’s the world you know
Clare, but it’s not the only one”.

I sighed and shook my
head wearily. “Don’t tell me this is something you’ve seen on ‘science-geek’
TV,” I said. Bede loved all that kind of thing too.

“No, I’m serious. This
world that you think you know is only a small part of a much wider picture.”

“Okay,” I said slowly. I
could have said that he was making absolutely no sense, but I’d already said it
so many times that by that stage that I was beginning to sound like a broken
record. Instead I said, “why do you need to be a teenage boy?”

Thomas squirmed slightly.

“Well…because…I needed to
go to a high school,” he said.

“Any high school? Why
choose ours?” Wiltsdown High wasn’t exactly on the league table of ‘No.1 Great
Schools’.

“I was sent to look for
someone.”

“Who?” I said.

Thomas paused. “I would
have thought that was slightly obvious by now,” he said.

“It’s about as obvious as
ancient hieroglyphics,” I said, frowning.

“What?” I said,
defensively. In the pit of my stomach though, I knew exactly what Thomas was
talking about. That day in the maths room, when I’d caught him staring at me
before the BBTs had gone on a rampage, was just one example. I edged away from
him subconsciously. “You’re seriously creeping me out,” I said.

“I’m sorry, I don’t mean
to,” said Thomas quickly. “Like I said, I was sent. I’ve just been doing my
job.”

“That doesn’t actually make
it any less creepy,” I said.

“Clare, I’m on your side,
so is Min. You are in extreme danger while we remain in this cell.” His voice
was low and flat.

“Okay,
not
reassuring!”
I said.

“Look around.” Thomas’s
voice was soft, apologetic. “Do you really think this is some sort of
accident?”

“I don’t know what to
think,” I said. “All I know is that my dad’s mixed up in something pretty bad
and he’s gone missing, my stepmother is nowhere to be found and, in the process
of looking for them both, I’ve lost my brother somewhere in the
Old
Town
.”

Thomas’s mouth was set in
a thin line. “Clare, you’ve got to understand that this is very different from
anything you know and it’s dangerous.”

I gulped. “So, who
exactly was that guy that brought us down here then?” I said. “Min called him ‘Demarge’?”

Thomas nodded. “He’s the
arch-enemy of Min and I and anyone else like us.”

“She fought with him in
the Consus Room,” I said. “I thought I saw…” I trailed off as I realised how
crazy the next words would sound if I said them out loud.

“I know what you saw,”
said Thomas.

“How?” I whispered.

“Min and I are close. We
can sense certain things about each other.”

“So, how do you explain
it then?” I said. “I mean, I saw her literally
disintegrate
. How can
that possibly happen?”

Thomas took a deep
breath, exhaling heavily. “If I told you, you wouldn’t believe me. Not yet,
anyway. Let’s just say, it’s a trick with light.”

I frowned. That
definitely wasn’t a good enough answer.

“But…”I began.

Thomas swiftly
intervened.

“We will explain it to
you, just not yet,” he said.