Blue Dome (The Blue Dome Series) (29 page)

Stanley
peered at her with his little squinty eyes. “Tell that to my boys
here. I think you’ll find you don’t have a lot of choice.”

“Oh yeah? Well try
getting both of us to go with you when we’re biting, kicking and screaming,”
said Calix.

“Ooh, I’m frightened,”
said the blond man.

“Good one Len,” the other
one pitched in.

“Leave them alone, it’s
me you want,” said
Troy
.

“No, it
really
isn’t,” said
Stanley
. He
flashed me a horrible, yellow-toothed smile. “It’s Clare we need. Just a shame
we’ve now got to take her ratty-looking friend with us.”

“Ratty?” said Calix.
“Have you looked at
yourself
in the mirror lately?”

Troy
shot her a warning glance – insulting
Stanley
about his looks was hardly going to help us.

“Get her,”
Stanley
said to Morris, nodding in my
direction. Before I could move,
Troy
stepped in front of me.

“You’ll have to get
through me first,” he said. Morris shrugged.

“Yeah, whatever.”

He swaggered towards us,
his arms swinging from side to side like straps of leather that had been nailed
to a rolling barrel.

 “C’mon!” I screamed,
grabbing the back of
Troy
’s
shirt and trying frantically to pull him away.

Troy
held his ground. He was now so close to Morris that he must have
been able to smell the guy’s breath. As Morris reached round to snatch at me,
Troy
lunged at him, balling a fist into
the middle of his stomach. There was a howl of pain, but unfortunately it
wasn't Morris.
Troy
pulled back
his limp hand, the thing sagging from his wrist as if it was broken. He was
still trying to rub the life back into it when Morris simply swatted him across
the tunnel, his body hitting the wall with a sickening thwack.
Troy
was now lying in a crumpled heap on
the ground as I ran across to check on him. Calix was seconds behind me.

“Are you okay?” I said.

Morris’s heavy footsteps
were now thudding towards us. I glanced over my shoulder to see how far away he
was when Calix suddenly flew at him, sinking her teeth into his bare arm. He
howled in anger.

“Get her off me!”

Len stepped forward and
prised Calix away from Morris. She wriggled, kicked and gnashed her teeth, just
like she’d promised.

“Let me go,” she
screamed. “Go top up your perm, Creep Show!”

Len looked at her with
disgust. “Stop it or I’ll break your arm.”

Calix struggled a bit longer
to make her point, before finally accepting it was futile. Glancing up,
Morris’s huge, hulking frame was now looming over me. I was completely trapped.

“Don’t touch me, I’ll
come quietly,” I said, as he reached forward to grab my arm.

“I doubt you’ll be going
anywhere for a while,” said Morris, curling his lip mockingly at
Troy
. “We’ll come back to teach you a
lesson once we’ve dealt with the girls.”

“You leave them alone!”
Troy
shouted in a small, winded voice.

Morris looked at him as
if he was an irritating piece of gum stuck to the bottom of his shoe, before
wrenching my arm and dragging me into the tunnel. I tried to wriggle free but
it was hopeless, his hand was like a vice. Calix was now walking next to me,
Len’s fist circling her arm.

“Okay, I’m coming, you
can let me go now,” she said.

“No,” he said. “Don’t
trust you.”

“Arse,” muttered Calix
under her breath.

I caught her eye, silently
communicating our mutual frustration, as we trudged in time to the sound of Stanley’s
coughing and spluttering.

A fierce wind tore at the
bars of the window as Bede stared out at the dark, hollow landscape. The moon
hung low in the sky, hovering protectively above the heads of the distant
houses. He turned back to the fire where Justin was lying on his stomach, his
head resting in his hands as he watched the flames.

“I think there’s going to
be a storm tonight,” said Bede.

Justin turned his head.
“Yeah, I can feel the wind from here.”

“How’s your back?” said
Bede, collapsing next to Justin by the fire and spreading his palms towards the
heat.

“Okay…a bit sore. Skin
feels like someone’s stuck huge strips of sellotape on it.”

“The state you were in,
man it was gruesome.”

Justin rolled slowly onto
his side and propped himself up on his elbow.

“Hey, chuck me that lump
of bread?” he said, nodding at a dry piece of crust on the far side of the
hearth.

Bede reached across,
grabbed it, and pitched the small white square to Justin.

“Thanks.” Justin paused.
“Is this the last of it?”

Bede nodded. “Yeah, but
go on, I’m not hungry,” he lied.

Justin glanced from Bede
to the crust. “Nah, me neither.” He set the bread down in the middle of the
hearth, as if sealing an unspoken pact between them.

“I’m still trying to work
out who actually left it here,” said Bede. “It’s got to be someone who works
for Demarge, which I guess is a good sign – he must want to keep us alive.”

“Well that’s comforting,”
said Justin sarcastically. Bede laughed.

“I guess it’s being
grateful for small mercies and all that.”

“Grateful for small
mercies?” said Justin mockingly. “Where’d you get that from?”

“Mum I guess. She used to
say it to us when we were kids,” said Bede.

“Yeah, my mum’s got a few
of those old sayings as well,” said Justin.

 “You guys close?”

Justin nodded. “Yeah. Real
close. You?”

Bede stared into the
fire. “My mother died a long time ago. Car accident. We were pretty young at
the time. Dad married again about three years ago.”

“Is she all right?”

Bede snorted. “No.” He
could feel Justin looking at him, waiting for an explanation. “Turns out that
she – Arlene – is actually Morana.”

“What?” Justin laughed.
“C’mon man, you can’t expect me to believe that!”

“It’s true, seriously,”
said Bede.

 “And you never knew?”
Justin’s scepticism simmered beneath the words.

“Nup.”

“Your dad must have
known?”

Bede shook his head.

“Really?” said Justin.
“It’d be pretty hard to hide something like that.”

“Well she did. Right up
to when...” Bede looked away as he began to feel the tears prickling his eyes.
“She killed him.”

“No way,” Justin
breathed.

“I didn’t want to believe
it at first, I couldn’t. But I know it’s true. Especially after what you said
about Vince.”

“Man, I’m really sorry,”
said Justin.

“Yeah, me too,” said Bede
quietly. “We’ve got to find a way out of here so I can find Clare. I’ve
searched this room for hours but there are no loose bricks, nothing. The place
is solid.”

“Do you know where we
are? Can you see anything out of the window?” said Justin.

“Nah, I’ve tried,” said
Bede. He stood up, wandered back to the small, barred square in the bricks, and
began staring at the grim line of the horizon. “The only thing I know for sure
is that we’re up high. Everything else is just flat and dark.” He paused, his
voice diminishing into a distracted whisper. “Everything except…”

“What?” said Justin.

“It’s weird, there’s a really
bright light out there. It’s like a shooting star or something.”

“That’s probably what it
is then,” said Justin.

“Maybe, but shouldn’t it
be getting smaller, not bigger? And the colour, it’s changing. Come and look,
it’s like a ball of red light, heading straight for us.”

“It’s probably nothing.”
Justin rolled over and closed his eyes. “In fact, it’s probably just something
that happens every day, but we don’t notice it, living in the city where
there’re so many other lights.”

“No, seriously, this is
different,” said Bede. “I’ve never seen anything like it.”

Justin sighed. “I’m going
to sleep. Catch you tomorrow.”

Bede continued to stare
at the red light drawing closer and closer towards the window. It was now so
vivid that he was squinting to keep track of it. He tried to shield his eyes
with his arm, but even that wasn’t enough to block out the searing brightness.

“What the…?” Bede tore
himself away from the window and flattened his back against the adjacent wall.
“Get down!” he screamed.

Justin glanced up just in
time to see a burning ball of red light hurtle through the window and slam
against the far wall. Boiling sticks of iron twisted like the branches of
tortured trees on the windowsill where the bars used to be.

“What’s that?” said
Justin, staring at the pulsing orb at the end of the room.

Bede was too stunned to
speak. The light was now a dull red and more like a solid block of plastic than
a fuzzy ball.

“I think it’s cooling
down,” he eventually stuttered.

“And changing shape. It’s
like it’s growing arms.” Justin pointed to the nodules budding at the corners.
A fifth was also now starting to sprout.

“Don’t tell me that’s a
head,” said Bede, horrified.

The light continued to
stretch and morph until it clearly had a nose, then a mouth. Two bumps later
and a pair of eyes flickered open. Within minutes a fully formed man was
standing in the middle of the room.

“Apologies for the
dramatic entrance,” he said. “I’m Daden.”

Bede and Justin exchanged
bewildered glances.

“Daden?” Bede repeated
dully.

“That’s correct.”

“Who…or
what
…the
hell are you?” said Bede.

 “Let me guess, one of
Demarge’s thugs?” said Justin. “Nice act, by the way. I guess they taught you
all that stuff at stunt school?”

Bede shot Justin a
warning glance – getting sarcastic with a guy who could melt iron didn’t seem
like such a smart move.

Daden smiled. “No, I
don’t work for Demarge. Quite the opposite. I’m here to help you get out.”

“Whoa, hang on a minute,
I think you’ve some pretty serious explaining to do first,” said Bede.

“Like I said, my name’s
Daden. The rest I can explain once we’re out of here.”

“How exactly do you plan
on doing that?” said Bede.

“Through the window. I’ll
carry you.”

“Righto,” said Bede
sarcastically.

“What if we don’t want to
go with you?” said Justin.

“Then you can take your
chances with Morana.”

“Morana? What do you know
about her?” said Bede.

“You mean, aside from the
fact that she’s the Angel of Death?”

“The Angel of Death?”
said Bede, repeating each word slowly.

“Yes. You and your sister
were lucky to escape from her,” he said.

Bede seized on his words.
“How do you know my sister?”

“I’ve met her, briefly.”

“So you know where she is
then?”

“Not at this precise
moment, no. My friend is currently trying to find her in the
Old
Town
. We need to hide her somewhere safe.”

“Is she in some sort of
danger?” said Bede.

Daden looked away
evasively. “You are all in danger. It’s why we need to get you out of here, as
soon as we can.”

He’d barely finished
speaking when a dark shadow fell across the floor, drawing everyone’s attention
to the window. A curtain of long, black feathers drooped like eyelashes across
the sash, shining oily purple-green in the glow of the hearth.

A figure slipped deftly
over the twisted iron stumps and landed noiselessly in the room. Her
harp-shaped wings folded neatly against her back and her long, wavy black hair
fell loosely around her face. The woman’s pale skin was flushed from the cold,
making her eyes even more luminously green.

“Well, well, if it isn’t
Daden.” The woman’s voice was like silk, shot with a lot of black thread.

“Morana.” Daden’s eyes
narrowed warily.

“Daden, Master of the
Understatement, if not quite the Universe.”

He ignored the jibe. “I’m
taking the Shards, Morana, they’re ours,” he said.

“They’re yours? Really? How’s
that?”

“The light they carry.
It’s ours. We both know that.”

Morana shrugged. “Fair
enough.” Her hand slid inside her leather jacket, drawing out the largest carving
knife Bede had ever seen. The thick blade glistened coldly silver-grey, as
Morana ran her eyes down the length of it admiringly. “If it’s the light you
want, let me
cut
it out for you.”

“You don’t need that,”
said Daden softly.

Morana smiled. “True. I
could just reach into their chests and rip their hearts out.”

Justin shot Bede a
terrified look, which Morana caught in mid-flight.

“Justin.” She shook her
head sadly. “It’s a shame you had to betray Demarge. You could have had a
wonderful career with him, but that’s all history now. Still, call me a softy,
but I won’t make you the first to meet my lovely knife.” She turned to Bede,
her voice hardening like tempered steel. “After all, I’ve wanted to kill this
one for a long time.”

Bede could no longer contain
himself. “You evil bitch!” he shouted.

Morana calmly tilted the
knife, allowing the firelight to glance off the metal and bounce playfully
around the walls.

“Why don’t you come over
here and say that?” she said.

Before Bede could answer,
Daden stepped forward, blocking Morana’s path.

“Well that’s hardly fair,
Daden,” said Morana. “I should at least have one of them.”

“You’ll need to get
through me first,” he said.

Morana yawned, shielding
her mouth with the knife in mock politeness.

“I can see what Demarge
means about Aeons – always the hero.” She turned to Justin and Bede. “Well
boys,” she said brightly, “at least it will be a spectacular show before you
die.” She thrust the knife back inside her jacket and began to walk towards
Daden. “I wonder Daden, if you know that your two little Aeon friends are
currently buried under a huge amount of heavy tungsten?”

“Not any more they’re
not,” said Daden. “Their light’s travelling with me.”

Morana raised her eyebrow
inquiringly. “Oh, well done. I imagine finding them used quite a bit of energy,
even for a strong body like yours.” She smiled flirtatiously and took a step
towards him, her face now so close to Daden’s that he could feel her breath. “I
must say, I do feel lucky. There are far less attractive people to have a
little ‘arm-to-arm combat’ with,” she said.

A volley of sparks
suddenly flew from her fingers, striking Daden in the chest at close range,
like bolts from a stun gun. He fell backwards, scattering Bede and Justin to
either side of him. Morana laughed.

“Give it up Daden, you’re
no match for me,” she said. “Take Min-Isis and Thomas back to the Slipworld,
but leave these two where they belong.”

Daden recovered quickly,
cupping his hands around an orb of iridescent red light.

“I’ll never give them
up,” he said, hurling the missile at her.

Morana jumped back, but
not quickly enough. The light hit the side of her head, burning a large chunk
of hair from her scalp. It fell to the floor in a fibrous clump.

“You’ll suffer for that,”
she snarled, her eyes narrowing to thin slits. A large cluster of coppery
sparks sprung from each of her palms, writhing like worms. She threw one, then
the other, the two arcs of gold each destined for a human target.

“Get behind me!” Daden
shouted.

A curtain of diaphanous
red light blossomed under each of his outstretched arms, shielding Bede and
Justin. The sparks hissed into oblivion as they struck it, like water against a
hot plate. Suddenly there was a yelp of pain.

“I’ve been hit!” Bede
cried, instinctively snatching his ankle where a small, black squiggle had
burrowed itself in his flesh, just above the bone.

Daden glanced at the
wound but there was no time to help – Morana was now running towards him at
full pelt, her long black wings unfurling from her shoulders. She rose from the
ground, eyeing Daden like an eagle would a rabbit.

“Get down!” Daden
screamed, crossing his arms protectively above his head. A canopy of light
billowed where his elbows met, spreading like a dome over him, Bede and Justin.
Morana recoiled as if an umbrella had just opened in her face. She screamed in
fury.