City of the Falling Sky (41 page)

“
Hey, hey, hey,” Coralle
said affectionately. “Don’t worry, love. She’ll be here in a
moment.”

Seckry shot up. “
What?
”

“
Hey, calm down. You need to
lie down. She just went to get a drink, that’s all. She’s been in
here all night with you. I told her she needed to get some water,
she looked so dehydrated, the poor girl. She’s been worried sick
about you.”

“
Eiya’s alive?”

“
Of course she’s alive.
She’s been reading a book to you. Gedin knows why she thinks you’d
want to hear it, though. Some awful thing about a monster and a
load of pus.”

Seckry laughed the happiest laugh of his
life.

“
She’s alive,” he said
again, and tried to sit up.

It was only then that he realised where he
was. He was in a hospital bed, surrounded by beeping machines, and
with a few nodes strapped to his bare chest.

“
Hey, hey, lie down” his mum
said. “I’ll go and get Eiya for you. You obviously want to see her
pretty badly.”

His mum left the room.

When the door reopened, Eiya’s eyes shot wide
open. She threw her things down and flung herself around him, her
can of pop piercing on the floor and spraying a fountain of fizz
into the air.

Seckry squeezed her tight. It felt as though
the life was filling back into him. Her cheek was wet from tears.
She was pressing her whole body so close to him that Seckry could
feel her heart beating fast against his chest.

“
How are you here?” Seckry
said. “The innoya all died, didn’t they?”

“
I don’t know. I mean, they
died, yes, all of them. It doesn’t make any sense. But I’m here.
I’m here, aren’t I? I thought I was just dreaming, that I was dead
and I didn’t realise it.”

“
You’re definitely here,”
Seckry said, and he touched her face. It was as real as anything
he’d ever felt. Soft and smooth and hot and wet.

“
Seck,” she sobbed. “When we
were in that chamber and Darklight smashed the gimmypug blood I
thought that was it. I’d thought I’d never see you again, I thought
I’d never see anything again. And then when you fell back out of
that gateway and lay unconscious on the ground I thought you were
dead.”

“
What happened to me after I
disappeared?” Seckry asked.

“
You were only gone for
about two or three minutes, and then you were flung back out of the
gateway and you just lay still on the floor. Vance had regained
consciousness and he took you in his arms as Jenniver led you both
out of the front entrance of the building where they got you into
an Endrin van and drove you straight to this hospital.”

“
Are the others okay? Tenk,
Tipps and Loca?”

“
Yeah,” Eiya said
reassuringly. “They’re fine”

“
What happened to Danney?”
Seckry asked her. “And Darklight?”

“
After dropping Darklight’s
body to the floor, Danney just sank to his knees and stared into
space, as if there was no energy left in him. He just remained
still the whole time as everyone moved around him. Jenniver called
a team of people to take him away and keep him safe for a while,
away from the press and anything else. She’s got a team of people
working now to clean his body of toxins from the drugs Darklight
was giving him, and to remove the shocking devices from underneath
his skin. With Darklight, Jenniver called up a couple of patrol
officers that she knew weren’t corrupt and they arrived within
seconds to cuff him and take him away. He had to go to hospital
first too but they’ve released him already. He’s been sentenced to
life imprisonment for mass murder.”

“
He’s already been treated?
How long have I been here for?”

“
A week.”

“
A week!” Seckry said,
aghast.

“
Seck, you’ve been in a
coma,” Eiya said softly, and her eyes welled up with tears
again.

“
And the innoya. Their
bodies . . .” Seckry said. “What happened to them?”

“
Jenniver’s trying her best
to arrange some kind of proper burial and funeral for
them.”

“
And Endrin?” Seckry asked.
“What’s going to happen to them now that Darklight’s been
arrested?”

“
It’s still going to run.
All of the blame is on Darklight. But I get the feeling it’s going
to be in slightly safer hands.”

“
Really? Who’s in
charge?”

“
Jenniver. She was voted in
by a senior panel of Endrin head office. And Sanfarrow has agreed
to return to work. He’s going to continue work into finding
alternative energy supplies for the city. Eco friendly ones, that
is. Also a hundred and sixty Skyfall Patrol officers have been
charged with corruption. It’s still going on, they’re saying it’s
going to take weeks, maybe months to find everyone involved in the
bribery scandal.” Eiya took a breath. “So Seck . . . what happened?
Did it work? Did you go back to the year zero?”

Seckry had been so consumed with relief and
bewilderment about Eiya still being alive that he hadn’t even given
himself time to consider what happened on the other side of that
gateway.

“
Yeah . . .” Seckry said. “I
went back. To the very point that Darklight wanted.”

“
Did you see Seckraman?”
Eiya asked, fascinated.

Seckry began to speak a couple of times but
his words were struggling to come out. He swallowed and took a
breath.

“
Eiya . . . I
am
Seckraman.”

It took a few moments for Eiya to understand
what Seckry was telling her, but when she did, her eyes widened so
big that Seckry could see his own reflection in them.

“
The glove,” Seckry
explained. “It had all that power stored up from when I stuck those
frayed wires in it just before I got sucked into that gateway. I
couldn’t get the glove off but I could feel that the power was
gonna burst out of it, so I just aimed it towards the sky where
there were no people in the way. Eiya, I think I destroyed the
meteor. Everyone around me was asking me if I had been sent from
Gedin. I tried to tell them no but they weren’t
listening.”

“
So that’s why that really
old painting of Seckraman had him wearing white robes with the
Divinita Project symbol on it,” Eiya said excitedly. “And that’s
why everybody at Endrin were insisting that the symbol was an
original design invented by them. They were telling the truth. They
had never seen that painting, had they? Seck, that was a painting
of you, wearing the Divinita Project protection suit.”

They locked gazes for a few moments and then
burst into fits of disbelieving laughter.

“
All these years I’ve been
wondering how I’ll ever live up to a name like Seckraman,” Seckry
said, “and that Seckraman was me!”

“
A whole religion . . .”
Eiya said distantly. “A whole religion that worships
you.”

“
Well, what they worship is
something that never existed. Gedin’s son.”

Seckry had to stay in hospital for the next
three days so the doctors could monitor his condition, despite his
persistence in reassuring them he felt okay.

Tenk, Tippian, Loca and Kimmy all came to
visit him, and brought with them two tickets to an upcoming over
eighteen’s Friction match, one for Seckry and one for Eiya, which
raised Seckry’s spirits considerably, but they also brought news
that Mr Gobbledee had been allowed to return to school as the
headmaster, which Seckry wasn’t sure if he was comfortable about.
He had gotten on well with the man, but if what they knew was
correct, he had murdered someone.

His mum was surprisingly calm about
everything, which made Seckry feel uncomfortable. He kept expecting
her to explode and tell him what an idiot he had been to get
himself involved in such dangerous things, but she didn’t. When he
asked her if she was mad, she shook her head gently and said, “Mr
Vance has explained everything to me, love. You did what anyone
would have done. You fought to save the one person that mattered to
you in the world more than anyone. Now, if I had been here to stop
you then I would have done. But maybe it’s for the best that me and
your sister were away. Maybe it was fate, eh?”

Seckry also apologised for cutting her and
Leena’s work trip short.

“
Oh, that’s not something
you’ve got to apologise for, love,” Coralle said enthusiastically.
“Your sister was doing my bleeding head in. I’m feeling a lot
happier since we got back.”

In fact, his mum seemed to be in a very happy
mood, and Seckry wondered what had happened to her. It was only
when Seckry and Eiya visited Vance that he found out.

“
Your mum and I spoke about
your father, Seckry. She was angry, so angry at him for leaving.
But she listened to the story I told you, and I think . . . I think
she’s beginning to believe it’s a possibility.”

They sat and talked with Vance for an hour
and a half, in which Seckry explained everything that had happened
on the other side of the gateway that night.

“
Of course,” Vance said, his
eyes darting around as if they were following an invisible fly.
“Those paintings are of you . . . Seckry, this . . . this is
incredible.”

“
Who would have thought it?”
Seckry said light heartedly. “The great Seckraman was just an
ordinary boy who happened to be in the right place at the right
time.”

But Vance shook his head.

“
Seckry, it may seem to you
that you’re an ordinary boy but you are not. There is something
within you, some hidden strength that kept you alive. Since the
incident happened, I’ve been researching everything about
Hindglubber’s theories and . . . it shouldn’t have worked. Humans
aren’t supposed to be able to travel through the time illusion.
Travelling through time should have ripped you to pieces. But it
didn’t. You travelled through time and came back again. Seckry, you
are a . . .
very
extraordinary boy.”

As they were leaving the school, they came
across Mr Gobbledee, who was sorting out some papers in the
corridor.

Seckry and Eiya tried to avoid his gaze.
Seckry felt like he couldn’t look at him in the same way
anymore.

“
Seckry!” the headmaster
said. “Eiya, too. How did your final weeks of term go? I hear
you’ve become quite the famous faces around here. You are a brave
lot, I can tell you that. Much braver than I.”

“
We’re fine, sir,” Seckry
said dismissively, and continued walking.

“
Uh . . . I actually need to
get both of your signatures at some point, to confirm that you’ll
be staying with us here at Estergate next year. Would you like to
do that now?”

Seckry sighed.

“
We may as well get it out
of the way,” Eiya said quietly.

“
Sure,” Seckry said to the
headmaster, and followed him into his office.

Seckry and Eiya both remained standing. They
had no intention of staying longer than they had to.

“
I realise it’s going to
take quite some time for me to regain your trust,” Gobbledee said,
sadly. “Here, it’s just these small forms.”

Seckry stared at the paper in front of him,
but even though his eyes were reading it, his brain wasn’t. All he
could think about was Gobbledee murdering someone.

“
Did you do it?” Seckry
blurted out, without thinking. “Is that why you have these
outbursts? Because you were given the chlorocalm injection? Did you
murder someone?”

Gobbledee sat down very carefully and took a
breath.

“
It’s not something I want
to discuss, I’m afraid, Seckry, I–”

“
Don’t we have a right to
know?” Seckry said. “You’re our headmaster.”

Gobbledee swallowed.

“
Would you like to sit
down?” he said.

Seckry and Eiya sat down quietly and waited
for an answer.

It took Gobbledee a few moments to speak.

“
It was when I was a young
man. Twenty two at the time. Back then I was living in a run-down
area known as Heathhollow, over in the west partition,” he said.
“There was trouble every day. Muggings, shootings, stabbings, you
name it. It was awful, but I didn’t have the money to live anywhere
else. I’d see things happening in the street through my window, and
most of the time I’d let it pass, but one time . . . one time was
different.”

Gobbledee cleared his throat.

“
There was this homeless
girl who wandered the streets, begging for money from passers by.
She must have only been around twelve at the time. I saw her every
day. She looked awful. Cheekbones sticking out of her face because
she was so gaunt with hunger. I could just about afford to feed
myself, but whenever I could spare something, I’d give it to her.
And many a time I’d take her out a hot drink to warm her up on a
cold winter’s day. And then . . . one night I could see her across
the street, begging a group of drunken men for money. They were
laughing at her and grabbing her tattered jumper. And then . . .
and then one of them began dragging her into an
alleyway.”

“
Oh no,” Eiya said softly.
“They weren’t?”

Gobbledee sighed. “I grabbed a kitchen knife
and ran after them, hoping to scare them away. But they were drunk
and without any fear. They attacked me and tried to wrench the
knife out of my hands . . . and that’s when it got stuck in the
stomach of the one who had a hold of her.”