The Ghost Roads (Ring of Five) (2 page)

WANTED.
EXTREMELY DANGEROUS.

D
anny’s life had changed forever on the night that the same black cab had appeared at his door, supposedly to take him to ordinary boarding school, but in fact to sweep him away to Wilsons Academy of the Devious Arts in the Lower World. From being an unhappy student at an inner-city school, he had been plunged into a world of spies and winged messengers, intrigue and betrayal. The skinny boy with the triangular face and two different-colored eyes had been inducted into the Ring of Five as the fifth member in his first term at Wilsons. He was supposed to be there as a spy acting on behalf of Wilsons, but part of Danny Caulfield’s soul belonged to the darkness, longed to betray and hurt. The members of the Ring could join their minds to read each other’s thoughts, and would have spotted Danny as a double
agent were it not for the fact that he was partly one of them. He had broken away from the Ring eventually, but still, at night, when the lights of Westwald, the city of the Ring, could be seen across the turbulent waters of the sound, he could feel the warm, treacherous allure of his old allies. The presence of Ambrose Longford, head of the Ring of Five, was a shadow at the edge of his consciousness. He did not know that Longford was at that very minute plotting to capture him, but deep down he felt that the man’s attention was somehow focused on him.…

But today the sun was shining, and the ancient school looked rather less brooding than it usually did. In fact, Danny thought, it felt like home, more than anywhere else he had ever lived. Part of him wished he could stay there forever—the good side of him longed for home and family and security. But the other side of his mind, the part that plotted and spied, knew that this was only a lull, and that the Ring of Five was restless and dangerous.

For the moment, his attention was on more immediate matters, for he found himself perched precariously on the roof of an old summerhouse, pleading with a very pretty but very dangerous siren named Vicky. She was examining a globe about the size of a tennis ball.

“Vicky, please, it’s not mine. Dixie will kill me.” The roof flexed under Danny’s small frame.

“Oh, you took it from her, did you?” Vicky said with an unpleasant grin.

“I just borrowed it to check something.”

“A likely tale,” Vicky said. Her eyes narrowed. “You’re up to no good.”

“No, I swear, I was just looking at it.”

“I know what you were doing,” Vicky said. “You were trying to find your way out of here.”

“No,” Danny said crossly, although that was exactly what he had been doing. The glass ball was a Globe of Instant Positioning, which could be used in the way a GPS in a car was used. He had borrowed it (at least, that was the word he had chosen) from his friend Dixie’s bag and had brought it to the quiet little summerhouse in the woods to study it. He had left it on the windowsill for a moment, and when he turned back, he found that the siren had made off with it.

He saw movement on the path behind her.

“That dress is very pretty, Vicky,” he said.

“Thank you,” she said, “but you’re not going to butter me up like that.”

“No, really,” he said. “Sets off the color of your hair.”

“You think so? Well, that’s very nice, ’cause it’ll make it a lot easier for me to sell this globe in Tarnstone.”

“I don’t think so.”

“Why not?” Vicky sneered, holding up the glass ball. Behind her a figure shot through the air and a hand grabbed the globe. Startled, Vicky fell backward, slid down the roof and landed with an enraged shriek in a gooseberry bush.

“Thanks, Les,” Danny said as his good friend landed
at his feet, holding the globe. Les folded his wings, dusted the sleeve of his threadbare coat and looked at Danny, his gray eyes somber in his thin face.

“Yes, well,” he said, “I’ve been practicing that move with the wings. Might come in useful in this war everybody says is coming. But what are you doing with Dixie’s globe?”

“I kind of borrowed it,” Danny said.

“ ‘Kind of borrowed’ means ‘kind of stole.’ ”

“Maybe,” Danny said, “but, Les, I’ve got to be able to move between the Two Worlds on my own!”

“You’re a spy, not a thief, Danny.”

“I know that.”

“So give it back.”

“I will.” Danny looked into the depths of the globe. He could see the summerhouse and the bulk of Wilsons Academy of the Devious Arts half a mile away through woods and shrubbery. Farther to the north was the town of Tarnstone, and beyond that, the sea inlet that separated Wilsons Island from the Ring of Five and Cherbs on the other bank of the Sound of the Lower World. If you looked south, however, you could see only darkness, the darkness of time and space that separated the Lower World from the Upper.

“What’s wrong?” Les said.

Danny shook his head. He didn’t want to talk about the two people who had pretended to be his parents for years but who had turned out to be secret agents, paid to look after him. (How much had he been worth? he wondered.)
Now he knew that his real parents were the spy Steff Pilkington and a Cherb woman, both dead before he’d had a chance to know them.

His bogus parents, Agent Stone and Agent Pearl, said they had learned to care about him. Danny didn’t trust them, but they were the only way he had of finding out what had happened to his real parents and how he had ended up in the agents’ care. He
had
to talk to them again!

But first he had to find them.

In the globe he saw two small figures standing by the summerhouse, and a few hundred yards away, the retreating figure of the siren. Then he froze.

“What is it?” Les said.

“Stay very still,” Danny said. “Don’t move a muscle.” He passed his hand over the surface of the globe, making it zoom in on the summerhouse.

“There,” he whispered. Behind them, in the trees, something moved, and there was a flash as though sunlight shone on steel.

“Armed?” Les whispered.

“Looks like it.”

“What do we do?”

“Wait.” Danny got the globe to zoom in farther. The watcher in the trees was clear now, sitting astride a bough. A boy, Danny thought. He couldn’t see the face, but there were leaves in his hair, and he had a large tear in his coat. In his hand was a long knife.

“Can you do what you did to Vicky?” Danny said. As
he spoke, the boy in the tree turned to look behind him, as though sensing that he was being watched. Les drew a sharp breath.

“A Cherb!” he exclaimed, for he had seen the face of their bitter enemy, with its one blue eye and one brown, its pointed chin and ears—very similar to Danny’s own appearance.

“I’ll take care of him, don’t worry,” Les said grimly. His parents had been killed by the Cherbs in the last of the many wars between Wilsons and the Ring of Five, the Cherbs’ masters. Before Danny could stop him, or warn him about the dangers of an armed Cherb, Les shot off the ground like a bullet and crashed through the leaves and branches, sending twigs and leaves flying. There was a thud of bodies meeting, followed by a loud grunt. Two shapes plummeted through the foliage, the Cherb hitting the ground first, rolling and coming up with the knife in his hand. Les landed beside him, dazed, and Danny could see he was in trouble. He felt frantically in the pockets of his overcoat for the old revolver concealed there, but the Cherb sprang toward Les, caught him by the hair and pulled his head back, exposing his throat. The knife flashed.

“Nala!” The word exploded from Danny’s mouth. The Cherb halted.

“Nala, no! He’s a friend.”

“No Cherb is a friend of mine,” Les said. Nala looked at him.

“Nala, please,” Danny said, inwardly cursing Les. The Cherb met Danny’s eyes. He looked weary, frightened.
Slowly he lowered the knife, pushing Les’s head away and spitting on the ground. Les stared at Danny, puzzled.

“You making friends with Cherbs now?”

“I didn’t tell you—I met Nala on the last mission. He helped me.”

“I hate Cherbs,” Les said. “They killed my parents.”

“I know, that’s why I didn’t tell you.”

Les got to his feet, eyeing the Cherb with hostility. Nala raised his knife again.

“Cut it out, both of you,” Danny said. “There’s something strange going on.”

“You can say that again.” A voice cut across him. It was Vandra, a small, pale girl with two pointed incisors just visible on her lower lip. She looked like a vampire, but she was the opposite. The fangs were used to inject antidotes and medicines rather than to steal blood, for a physick was a healer. Vandra had been a friend to Danny from the start, and once he had gotten over her intimidating looks, he’d found her warm and loyal.

“Is this the Cherb you and Dixie met on your mission?” Vandra said.

“Everyone knew but me?” Les said.

“Never mind that now,” Vandra said. “What’s he doing here?”

“Probably trying to kill us in our beds,” Les said. Nala kept his gaze fixed on Danny.

“Stop it,” Vandra said. Danny walked toward Nala, ignoring the deadly blade. The Cherb had backed away when he saw Vandra, until he was against a tree.

“What
are
you doing here, Nala?” Danny asked. “Why have you come to Wilsons?”

“Nowhere else to go,” Nala said. His look was hard, but Danny could hear the fear in his voice.

“Why?”

“They try to kill Nala.”

“Who’s trying to kill you?” Vandra said. Despite her sometimes fearsome appearance, she was full of compassion, even for a deadly enemy.

“Cherbs, Ring, they hunt Nala. Nala make friends with Danny and Dixie. Is not allowed.”

“What isn’t allowed?” Danny said. “To befriend an enemy?

“No,” Nala said, “friends not allowed.”

“How do they stop people being friends?” Vandra asked.

“Not people,” Les said. “Cherbs.”

“If friends with other Cherb, they cut off hand,” Nala said. “For friends with people, they kill.”

There was a long silence. Danny knew how vicious the Cherbs could be, but this was the first he had heard of these laws.

“Nala has nowhere else to go.”

“That’s not our problem,” Les said.

“It’s my problem, Les,” Danny said, “if my friendship caused what happened.”

“He can stay in the summerhouse for the time being,” Vandra said firmly. “I’ll get some food for him later on.”

“You’re not serious?” Les said.

“I am.”

“You’re on your own, then,” Les said. He glared at Nala and stalked off.

“Go inside,” Vandra said. “You’ll be safe here.”

That’s what you think, Vicky mused. The siren had heard the commotion and doubled back to hide in the shrubbery. A Cherb at Wilsons! She hugged herself in delight. This was a juicy morsel of information, a very juicy morsel indeed!

PESTERING THE DEAD

L
ooking out the window of the library of the third landing, Master Devoy, the principal of Wilsons, had never seen the school so busy. An air-raid shelter had been built on the lawns beside the school and its windows sandbagged. The Storeman had gathered all the weapons in the school and was cataloging them so they could be distributed. Starling (her real name was Cheryl Orr, but everyone thought of her by her spy name) and Master Brunholm, the vice principal, came and went at all hours of the day and night, trying to gather information on when an attack might come. The treaty between the Two Worlds had been broken, and only Wilsons stood between the Upper World and the Lower World, with the Ring of Five and their Cherb armies. There had been reports of Cherb raiding parties on the outskirts of the nearby town of Tarnstone.

Devoy glanced upward as a raven fluttered through the rafters of the library of the third landing, engaged in some business of its own. The ravens of Wilsons went their own way, paying no attention to human affairs. Down below, Devoy saw Danny come out of the shrubbery and cross the parade ground at the back of the school. The boy was the key to everything. He was the Fifth, the final member of the Ring. He was also possessed of extraordinary destructive power, coveted by the Ring and its allies. Devoy understood that good and evil, fidelity and treachery, waged war within the boy, and all their fates might depend on the outcome of that struggle. Danny was inching closer to the truth about his birth and upbringing, and Devoy knew that the truth might well turn him toward the Ring.