Peter and the Sword of Mercy (39 page)

“Somebody’s coming up the stairs,” said Peter. He grabbed the satchel from Neville and dropped the stone into it. “Who’s going to carry this?” he said.

“You should,” said Wendy. “If the rest of us get caught, you can fly away.”

“I’m not going to leave anybody,” said Peter.

“
Yes you are,”
said Wendy firmly. “If we don’t keep the stone from von Schatten, all of this will have been for nothing.”

Tink chimed again.

“We have to go,” said Peter. Holding the satchel, he ran for the door, with the others right behind. When they reached the hallway, it was still empty, but they could hear loud footsteps coming from the hallway to the right, the same one they had used to come up to the third floor.

“This way,” said Peter, running to the left, with Tink zooming ahead.

As he reached the far stairway, Peter looked back. Three figures had reached the top of the other stairs. In the dim lighting, Peter couldn’t see them clearly, but somehow he knew they weren’t museum guards. Whoever they were, they had spotted Peter and the others and were running toward them.

“Hurry!” Peter shouted, starting down the stairs. He glanced back. Wendy and Patrick were right behind, followed by Ted, followed by Neville, who was moving more slowly on the stairs. Peter turned back to help, joined by Ted; each took one of Neville’s arms so he could move a little faster. But the three pursuers were gaining. Peter heard footsteps thundering close behind as he and the others reached the ground floor. Two corridors met here; Patrick pointed at one and said, “This way!”

The other four followed him as he ran down the corridor. He jogged right, then left; Peter realized he was leading them along the rear of the building, back toward the door through which they had entered. Peter stayed at the rear, the heavy satchel banging against his legs.

They rounded a corner, and Patrick, still in the lead, stumbled over something. Peter heard gasps, then saw what had tripped Patrick: a museum guard. He lay on the floor, hands and feet bound, eyes wide with fear. He was trying to say something, but all that came out was “He…he …”

Wendy knelt to untie the guard. The sound of running feet grew louder.

“Wendy,” said Patrick urgently, “we don’t have time.”

Reluctantly, Wendy rose. Patrick started running again, followed by the others, with Peter the last to leave the terrified guard. The man looked in the direction Peter’s group was going, then met Peter’s eyes, shook his head, and said, “No. No.” Peter hesitated.

“Peter, come
on!”
called Wendy.

Peter turned and ran, haunted by the look in the guard’s eyes.

They continued to follow Patrick through the maze of hallways, turning left, then right, then left again. The last turn brought them into a long corridor. Peter’s hopes rose as he recognized this as the corridor they’d been in when they first entered the museum. At the far end was the exit door—and escape.

Led by Patrick, they started running toward it.

Tink, flying just above Peter, emitted a sharp chime.

Suddenly, Patrick stopped.

Peter froze as he saw the reason. A dark figure had just stepped out of a shadow at the far end of the corridor. It was a man wearing a cloak with a hood that shrouded his face. But Peter had seen that awful face, and felt the excruciating pain that the man could inflict with the merest touch of his clawlike hands. Remembering that agony, he felt his legs weaken, his stomach roil.

The hooded man started walking toward the group. Behind them, they heard the sound of their pursuers, getting closer in the maze of corridors.

“What do we do?” said Ted.

“There’s only the one in front of us,” said Patrick. “We can rush him. He can’t stop us all.”

Yes he can,
thought Peter. But he kept silent, ashamed to show his fear.

“The important thing is the stone,” said Wendy. “Peter, you must escape. Fly if you can. Leave us behind if you have to. Just don’t let him get the stone.”

Peter nodded, staring at the oncoming figure.

There were shouts behind them. Peter looked back. The pursuers had entered the long corridor. Peter saw there were two large men and a woman.

“Now!” shouted Patrick. He started running toward the hooded man, followed by the others. Behind them they heard the shouts of the three pursuers. As they neared the hooded figure, Peter caught a glimpse of the face—more skull than face—and the lone yellow eye. Somehow Peter knew the eye was looking straight at him.

They were twenty feet from the hooded man…Ten …

The man’s left claw-hand shot out, reaching for something on the wall.

The corridor went completely dark.

Peter ran into Ted, who had stopped. They both stumbled forward. An urgent chime came from Tink. Peter felt Ted’s body stiffen, then heard Ted scream, his voice impossibly high-pitched. Peter knew why. He turned and crawled the other way in the blackness, still holding the satchel. Footsteps—the three pursuers—clattered toward him, past him, the pursuers missing him in the blackness. He huddled against the wall. Behind him he heard shouts, grunts, yells, the sounds of struggle. He could make out Patrick’s voice, and Neville’s. He debated what to do. He remembered Wendy’s words.
Leave us behind if you have to. Just don’t let him get the stone.

He started to crawl back the way he and the others had come, away from the struggle. Slowly, he rose to his feet and shuffled forward, feeling for the wall in the utter blackness. Behind him the shouts continued. He heard Wendy scream. And then an odd sound, a deep rumbling, then a fearsome roar. The sounds of struggle increased, a confusing mix of shouting and banging. Peter listened for a minute, paralyzed, then again started shuffling away from the noise.

STOP!

Tink’s urgent chime was right in his ear. Peter froze.

Close your eyes.

Knowing what was coming, Peter shut his eyes tight. Through his eyelids he saw the brilliant flash. He opened them just as the flash ended, and saw the reason for Tink’s alarm.

The hooded man was in front of him, not three feet away.

His back was to Peter.

Either he had been looking the wrong way, or he had somehow known that the flash was coming. It had not blinded him.

He was turning around.…As the last of Tink’s light faded, Peter saw the gaping hole where a mouth should have been, the empty socket, the lone yellow eye …

The claw-hand reaching out…

Peter screamed, and turned. In the blackness, he stumbled away from the hideous thing. He started running blindly. He fell over something; it moaned, and he realized it was a person. He struggled to his feet. Strong hands grabbed him, and he screamed.

“It’s all right, Peter,” said a gruff voice. “It’s me.”

Magill.

The big man held Peter’s arm and half pulled, half carried him down the corridor, then through the door.

“This way,” said Magill, taking off at a run. He led Peter away from the museum through a maze of streets, Peter running behind, his mind too numb to think about anything except putting one foot in front of the other. After ten minutes they ducked into an alley so dark that at first Peter didn’t realize there was anyone else there. As his eyes adjusted, he could just barely make out the silhouettes of five figures—Wendy, Patrick, Neville, Ted, and the huge, hairy figure of Karl, in an overcoat and hat.

“Found him,” said Magill.

“Thank goodness!” said Wendy. “Peter, we were so worried!”

“A very close thing,” said Neville. “If Magill here hadn’t appeared …”

“I thought I’d follow you—just in case, as Lord Aster would say,” said Magill. “But it was Karl here, old as he is, who turned the tide.”

“Indeed!” said Patrick. “Karl is a good man—that is, bear—to have on your side in a fight.”

“But who
were
those people?” said Ted. “They clearly weren’t museum staff. What were they doing there?”

“I’ve been thinking about that,” said Wendy. “I think they were there for the same reason we were.”

“To get the Mansfield Stone?” said Patrick.

“Precisely,” said Wendy. “They must have been sent by von Schatten.”

“If that’s true,” said Ted, “we got there just in time.”

“Yes,” said Wendy. “It was a near thing, but the stone is ours.”

Peter cleared his throat, and when he spoke, he could barely choke out the words.

“I…I don’t have it,” he said.

“What?”
said Wendy.

“The stone,” said Peter. “I dropped it when he…when he …” He looked down, his eyes burning.

The dark alley fell into a silence that, to Peter, seemed to go on forever. It was Ted who finally spoke. “Don’t be hard on yourself, Peter,” he said softly. “I felt just a little of the pain that thing could cause, and I screamed like a baby. Nobody blames you. You’re a brave person; you’ve shown that many times.”

Not tonight,
thought Peter. Tonight I
was a coward.
He looked around at the group. He saw that Wendy was looking at him, but in the darkness he couldn’t see her expression. He looked down again, willing himself not to cry in front of everyone.

There was another uncomfortable silence, and then Patrick, trying his best to sound cheerful but not quite succeeding, said, “I suppose we should make our way back to the hotel. We’ll get some rest, and we’ll come up with a new plan in the morning.”

“Follow me,” said Magill. He started toward the entrance to the alley, the others following.

“Wait a moment,” said Peter. “Where’s Tink?”

“Isn’t she with you?” said Wendy.

“She was,” said Peter, “but she…that is, I thought she must have …”

“Must have what?” said Wendy. “She’s always with you, isn’t she?”

Peter’s mind went back to the terrifying moment when Tink had flashed in the museum. The flash would have left her weak, perhaps unconscious.
Of course.
He should have grabbed her, should have protected her the way she had protected him. But he had been too terrified to think of saving her, or the stone. He had thought only of himself.

“Oh no,” he whispered.

“Tink’s a strong little lady,” said Ted, patting Peter’s shoulder. “I’m sure she’ll turn up.”

“Nothing to be done about it now,” said Magill. “We have to go.”

They started out of the alley, Ted holding Peter’s arm. All the way back, Peter’s eyes searched the sky, looking for the familiar darting point of light. He saw only darkness, and the occasional streetlamp, blurred by his tears.

T
HE
V
ELVET
S
ACK

R
EVILE, HIS WIDE FACE CLAMMY
with the sweat of fear, stood outside the door to the king’s chamber. His left hand was in his coat pocket. He raised his right hand toward the door, made a fist, then let it fall. He took several deep breaths, trying to work up the courage to knock.

“Enter.”

Revile jumped. Somehow von Schatten had known he was outside the door. There seemed to be nothing von Schatten
didn’t
know.

Revile entered the chamber. As always, it was almost dark, lit only by a candle burning on the king’s writing table. Von Schatten stood next to the table. The king was nowhere to be seen.

“Do we have the stone?” said von Schatten.

“Yes, Baron,” said Revile. “The Skeleton and his people took it to the Underground. But there was a…That is, we
did
get the stone, but there was an unexpected development.”

Von Schatten took a step closer, almost touching Revile. Revile felt a horrible coldness creep into his chest. He tried to step back, but found he could not.

“What unexpected development?” said von Schatten. By the flickering light of the candle, Revile saw his own terrified face reflected in von Schatten’s coal-black eyeglass lenses.

“There were other people at the museum. They got there before the Skeleton. And they had the stone.”

The dull-red glow appeared at the edges of von Schatten’s glasses. “Who were they?” he said.