The Ghost Roads (Ring of Five) (29 page)

“What’s going on?” Vandra whispered.

“Wilsons is more than a building,” Toxique said. “It needs the will of the ravens and perhaps the will of the staff and students to hold it together. That’s what I think. But there’s an evil will working on it as well, somebody speeding up the decline.”

Ahead of them they saw a small shape skipping along the corridor.

“Vicky!” Vandra said. “What’s she up to?”

“Nothing good, at any rate.”

The siren was pausing at each window and putting a telescope to her eye, looking toward the Sound of the Lower World, where any enemy might be expected to first appear. Then she became aware of Vandra and Toxique, turned the telescope on them, emitted a shrill burst of laughter and skipped off into the gloom up ahead.

“Mad as a hatter,” Vandra said.

“Yes, but she can still do harm,” Toxique said.

They reached the apothecary without incident. The rooms of the healer looked like the aftermath of a battle:
groaning and complaining Messengers lay everywhere, and tired men and women of the teaching staff sat silently in corners. Once Vandra and Toxique had spoken to Pearl, McGuinness drew them aside. They told him what had happened to the ravens.

“Thank goodness they’re healing,” McGuinness said. “I don’t think any of us realized how much they did for this place.”

“But what’s happening?” Vandra said. “I mean, the way the place is falling apart …”

“There is a guiding intelligence at work here,” McGuinness said, “and the feeling of a game long-played coming to a conclusion. We must be alert and ready to fight for our lives.”

“I had better go to Jamshid,” Vandra said. “He’ll need me for the Messengers.”

“No!” McGuinness said sharply. “The Messengers are getting better without you. Save your strength. If only we could contact Master Devoy. Agent Starling is out in the field; she may be able to bring us some news of him.”

But the news Starling brought two hours later was not of Master Devoy. Vandra wheeled around as Starling crashed through the door. Her clothes were torn and there was a streak of fresh blood on her temple.

“Cherbs,” she said hoarsely. “Rufus Ness is in the building with a gang of Cherbs. We need to get defenses up around here.”

“Perhaps we could negotiate,” Duddy said nervously.

“Negotiate?” Starling said, staring at her. “The Cherbs call themselves the blood drinkers. They’ve
already been in Tarnstone, and blood drinkers isn’t just a name.”

“Block the staircase,” McGuinness said. “They can’t get at us from above.”

“We’re very low on weaponry,” the Storeman said, “very low indeed. I did an inventory, typed in triplicate, indeed according to caliber and lethal capacity—”

“What have we got?” McGuinness cut him short.

“Two rifles, three sidearms, six boxes of ammunition, three swords, two cudgels and a crossbow.”

“Against a gang of bloodsucking Cherbs!” Duddy moaned. Spitfire lifted a sword and swung it through the air with a thoughtful look on her face.

“Move!” McGuinness said. “What can we use for a barricade?” The teachers joined him in dragging tables and cupboards to the top of the stairs.

“Come with me, Vandra,” Toxique said. “We’ve got work to do.”

“Where are we going?” Vandra asked. Toxique pushed open the door of Jamshid’s stores. There were rows of glass chemicals in jars, barrels of powders and tables covered with mortars and glass tubing.

“Let’s get to work,” Toxique said. Vandra didn’t question him. Toxique had changed.

“What’s happened to you?” Vandra asked. “You’re not, well, frightened of everything anymore.”

“The closer you are to death, the less you fear it.”

“What do you mean … the gift?” She had forgotten about Toxique’s Gift of Anticipation.

“I feel it,” Toxique said simply.

“No, please …”

“Stop it, Vandra. If I don’t fear it, then neither should you. As a healer, you live in the shadow of death. You know better. Now, our friends need us.”

The first attack came at nightfall. The Cherbs had tasted blood and were eager for more. These soldiers seemed to be larger than most Cherbs, howling and cursing as they charged the barricade without thought. A fusillade of shots from the defenders was enough to break the charge and send them back down the stairs, carrying their wounded. A few Messengers came forward to fight, but most huddled in their beds, moaning.

“I wring their necks,” Jamshid said fiercely, forgetting his status as a healer, “like chicken!”

“They’re just frightened,” McGuinness said. “The Messengers are brave if they are led.”

The defenders settled down behind the makeshift barrier. Jamshid had rigged up one of his autopsy lights so that it shone down the stairs, blinding attackers. Every so often a Cherb crossbow bolt would strike the barrier, “just to remind us that they’re out there,” Master Exshaw, the most ancient of the teachers, said as he drew a cleaning rag through his revolver.

The next crossbow bolt that struck the barricade carried a burning rag. The defenders extinguished it quickly, but soon the burning bolts were coming thick and fast, the air filling with smoke as the defenders struggled to carry enough water to the barricade to put the flames out. After half an hour they were exhausted, but still the bolts came, with the smoke making it harder to see where
the flames had gotten a grip. Each time a defender rose to throw a bucket of water over the piled-up furniture, another crossbow bolt would whizz close to their head. It was only a matter of time before someone was hit. The defenders knew they couldn’t hold out indefinitely, and by the sound of the jeering and whistling coming from below, the Cherbs knew it too.

Once more the Cherbs charged, crashing into the barrier and scrambling over. McGuinness fired calmly into the smoke, picking his targets carefully. The Storeman and Spitfire stood shoulder to shoulder, waiting for the first Cherb to get over the wall. Docterow and Bartley attempted to load the crossbow but looked more likely to lose a finger in the powerful mechanism. Suddenly a huge Cherb appeared on top of the barricade, a knife between its teeth. With a howl of triumph it flung itself down onto Bartley. McGuinness froze. He couldn’t get a free shot. The Cherb whipped the knife from its mouth and raised it. Bartley raised his hands. The Cherb’s eyes flickered. A barrel of amputated finger bones crashed down on its head. With a groan it slumped sideways and fell to the ground. Blackpitt looked down on him with satisfaction.

“The ale flows from the barrel, but when it is dry, the bones weigh more,” Bartley said shakily, easing himself out from under the Cherb’s body, the finger bones crunching under his feet.

And still the attackers came, the air full of cries, muzzle flashes and woodsmoke. Time and again the defenders repulsed the attack, but each time a little more wearily. It wouldn’t be long before an arrow or spear hit home. The
Cherbs wore no uniforms, merely a mixture of prison rags and clothes they had stolen in the town of Westwald.

McGuinness reeled back, temporarily blinded from a handful of dust flung by a Cherb. Pearl stepped into the breach and fired at a grizzled old Cherb wearing a stolen bus conductor’s uniform and a woman’s flowery hat. The barricade could not hold under the weight of the attackers. Behind them the face of Rufus Ness appeared, threatening, bullying, driving them forward. Spitfire slipped and fell. Duddy, wielding a cutlass, parried a spear thrust and got her to her feet again.

“This is where Wilsons falls, after all the centuries,” Jamshid said, blood from a cut running down his face.

“Not if I can help it,” Spitfire said, fighting bravely.

“There are too many!” Duddy cried.

“Get out of the way!” a voice called from behind. “Move!”

The defenders scattered. The Cherbs howled in triumph and surged forward. Vandra dashed out of the apothecary storeroom and swiftly laid two planks against the barricade. Toxique, wearing a handkerchief over his mouth, came behind her, rolling a small barrel that hissed and fumed. He propelled the barrel toward the ramp Vandra had created. As it picked up momentum, he let go.

“Get down!” he shouted. The barrel hit the ramp and flew upward. Every eye was on it as it hung in the air over the attacking Cherbs—and then it exploded.

The concussion of the explosion was enough to shatter the wooden staircase, sending those standing on it
tumbling into the abyss that had opened below. But that was not all Toxique had planned. A jet of foul, choking gas shot down the stair opening. Those Cherbs left standing fled, tearing at each other in their panic, their screams echoing as they faded.

The defenders got shakily to their feet, coughing from the fumes in the air.

“That was just in time,” McGuinness said.

“I had to make sure the fumes were directed down the tunnel,” Toxique said. “It’ll take them hours to recover.”

“But they will recover,” McGuinness said.

“They won’t be able to get up the stairs,” Duddy pointed out.

“They’ll find a way,” Starling said. “Rufus Ness is in charge. He won’t care how many Cherbs he has to sacrifice to get control of Wilsons. They might be afraid of us after this, but they’re more afraid of him. They’ll be back.”

“What’s that? Someone’s calling,” Vandra said.

“Our nemesis and our saving,” Toxique said.

“What does that mean?”

“I don’t know—the gift … it just came to me.”

“Quiet!” McGuinness said.

“Hello? Vandra? Jamshid? Is there anybody up there?”

“It’s Danny!” Vandra’s face shone. “Quick! Quick! We have to help him.”

McGuinness lay on the floor and looked down. Danny and Nala were standing in the fallen debris on the next floor.

“Here,” Jamshid said, handing McGuinness a rope. McGuinness lifted a coil, then took his hand away in distaste. The rope was covered in old blood.

“Er, I used a bit in an autopsy, forgot to cut it off.”

McGuinness looped one end of the rope around the remaining post of the staircase and lowered it to Danny. Slipping and slithering on the greasy rope, Danny climbed up, Nala scrambling up after. Vandra grasped Danny’s hands. Pearl stayed in the background, unsure of her welcome, but there were tears on her cheeks.

“You’re back, then,” McGuinness said, looking deeply into his eyes.

“Yes,” Danny said.

“You look fine, Danny,” Vandra said.

“Thanks, Vandra, but I don’t feel it. What happened here?”

“Cherbs led by Rufus Ness,” Starling said.

“Where’s Brunholm?”

“We don’t know. We think he’s holding Devoy in the cell in the teachers’ quarters.”

“Danny, I’ve got some bad news,” Vandra said. “We can’t … can’t find Les and Dixie.”

“I found them,” Danny said.

“Great!” Toxique said, but Vandra stared at him.

“Where—” she began, but before she could finish her sentence a flaming bolt shot over their heads and embedded itself in one of the roof beams.

“We need to build up the barrier,” McGuinness said, “and we could do with more of those weapons.”

“And we need them quickly,” Spitfire said from the
window. Danny ran over. Three Seraphim were wheeling in the air above Wilsons. As Danny watched, a squadron of the vile creatures flew high and fast over the school, banked and landed on the roofs of the Roosts.

“They don’t need a staircase,” Danny said.

“Look!” Duddy said. A troop of Cherbs marched across the lawn toward the Roosts.

“We’re not going to be able to hold them off,” Starling said.

“It’s hopeless,” Duddy moaned.

“Not hopeless,” McGuinness said. “There is one chance, if we can use it. Danny’s power.”

The power! Danny waited for the gnawing sensation to rise in him, the power welling up, demanding to be used. But it wasn’t there!

“It’s … it’s gone!” he stammered.

“How can it be gone?” Spitfire said.

“Wait,” Jamshid broke in, “how did you get here?”

“What do you mean?”

“From the Upper World to the Lower. How did you get here?”

“By the dark stream,” Danny said. The others stared at him.

“Then the waters of the dark stream have absorbed your power, Danny. It is gone.”

“Gone? How can it be gone?” Anger rose in Danny, but this time the anger was not accompanied by power. Part of him felt relief, but Spy Danny raged, a wordless shriek in his head.

“Danny?” There was concern in Vandra’s voice.
She touched his arm and then snatched her hand away as though burned, the healer in her detecting the rage within.

Go away, he thought. Leave me alone!

The fury was driven from his mind as Spitfire shouted and dived away from the window. As if in slow motion, the glass exploded inward. A huge Seraphim landed lightly on the windowsill, a Cherb clinging to its back. As those inside ran for cover, the Cherb unleashed a hail of crossbow bolts. Spitfire rose from the debris and took her blackboard eraser from her handbag. With deadly accuracy she flung it across the room. The Seraphim staggered backward as the eraser ricocheted off its temple, and fell from the windowsill.

“Danny, get to the teachers’ quarters and find out what’s happening with Devoy and Brunholm,” Vandra said.

“Go, Danny,” Duddy said. “We can’t hold out much longer. We need help. Take the … the young gentleman with you.”

Danny got to his feet, and suddenly a voice filled his head. Longford! And Danny did not have to look out the window to know that Longford, on Conal’s back, was circling overhead.

It’s not too late, Danny
, came the voice, seductive and reasonable.
Save your friends. I promise you Wilsons will be spared.…

It seemed too much to bear. Danny’s face creased in pain. A warm hand was laid on his arm. He looked up into Pearl’s face.

“You can do it, Danny,” she said. “Come home safe to me.” He nodded dumbly, the sincerity in her voice making Longford’s sound shrill and insincere. Nala looped the rope around him, and the others lowered him down into the aperture left by the shattered staircase. When he had reached the bottom, Nala quickly shinned down after him. Looking up, Danny saw a circle of faces, then heard another crash and a cry.