The Ghost Roads (Ring of Five) (30 page)

“Seraphim, Seraphim!”

Danny hesitated, but Nala took him by the arm and dragged him away.

THE GREATEST SPY

T
he two boys raced past the ballroom and into Valant’s hallway. They went to the front door and looked out. The air was full of Seraphim, almost all of them carrying a Cherb, and more Cherbs were making their way across the front square in twos and threes. Nala singled out one on his own who was wearing a ragged coat and a battered top hat.

“Wait,” Nala said. He walked out the door and called to the Cherb. For a moment Danny thought Nala was going to betray him. He watched as Nala took the Cherb by the arm and led him toward a small group of shrubs growing at the edge of the square. They entered the shrubs together, but when Nala emerged a minute later he was alone, carrying the Cherb’s coat and top hat under his arm. He presented them to Danny.

Danny pulled the coat and hat on. Immediately he looked like one of the disreputable Cherbs. Together he and Nala slouched across the front of the Wilsons buildings. Seraphim were dropping Cherbs onto ledges and windowsills on the apothecary floor, and there was the sound of muffled shots. Rufus Ness stood on the gable of the boys’ Roosts bellowing curses and threats at his troops. Danny and Nala made for the masters’ entrance. Just as they reached it there was an explosion and a rumble of falling masonry.

“One of Toxique’s bombs,” Danny said excitedly. The apothecary window was obscured by smoke. The Seraphim scattered into the sky, but as the smoke cleared, Danny could see that the defenders had achieved their respite at a cost, for part of the wall had collapsed, exposing the interior to attack.

Nala pushed Danny through the masters’ entrance. Inside they saw the same dereliction that had overtaken the rest of the school. Rubbish was piled in corners, and lights were either flickering or out altogether, which gave a nightmarish quality to the climb upward. Bluebottles buzzed in corridors, and there was a smell of decay. Danny could see the whites of Nala’s eyes in the gloom.

As they approached the masters’ quarters, Nala’s nose began to twitch.

“Fresh coffee?” Danny said, puzzled. They entered the masters’ quarters and crept along the bedroom corridor. The smell of coffee got stronger. Danny could even smell toasted muffins. Nala looked at him in wonder.
Wilsons was under deadly attack, but someone was having coffee and muffins.

“In case you’re wondering,” a familiar voice drawled, “there’s hot chocolate as well, if you don’t like coffee.”

They stepped into the masters’ sitting room. Marcus Brunholm was sitting at the fire, holding a toasting fork. He smiled unpleasantly at them.

“Well, well, look who it is. The Fifth, with his treacherous little pal in tow.”

“Danny!” The second voice came from the barred window in the little cell on the right-hand wall of the sitting room.

“Master Devoy!” Danny said.

“Once again they have made me prisoner in this school,” Devoy said. “Tell me what’s happening.”

“The Cherbs are attacking. Longford and Rufus Ness are here.”

“Then I must get free!”

“You won’t free him, Danny,” Brunholm said, his eyes fixed on the boy. “I think you are now beginning to discover the complexities of our world, how things are never as they seem.”

He’s right!
The voice of Spy Danny was a whiplash in his head. A revolver had appeared in Brunholm’s right hand.

“Danny, please. Allow the better part of you to triumph. Wilsons hangs by a thread.” Danny felt his feet move forward. He no longer knew which part of his mind was in control.

“You won’t shoot me,” he sneered at Brunholm in the voice of treacherous Spy Danny, but it appeared that his actions were his own as he moved jerkily to the door of the prison and reached for the key. Brunholm had an odd smile on his face.

“No,” he said softly, “I will not. Indeed, I cannot. And one part of you knows that. But which part? I wonder.”

The key clicked in the lock and the door swung open.

“Will you shoot me, Marcus?” Devoy asked as he stepped forward, his face as unknowable as it had been the first time Danny had seen him. Before Brunholm had a chance to react, Nala, who had been edging around behind him, snatched the gun from his hand. Devoy, moving with great speed, smashed the glass case on the wall and seized the blowpipe and the poison darts that hung there.

“Perhaps you would step into the cell, Marcus?” Devoy slipped a dart into the blowpipe and waved it vaguely in Brunholm’s direction. Brunholm got to his feet, a grim smile on his face. He brushed past Danny.

“Which Danny are you?” He turned in the doorway and gave a mock salute to Devoy.

“It’s over,” Devoy said. “All over.”

“Yes, it is, for better or for worse, Narcusus,” Brunholm said.

“Don’t close the door!” It didn’t sound like Danny’s voice. Everyone in the room froze. Devoy turned to Danny. For the first time since Danny had met him—for
the first time in many decades—Devoy’s face changed expression. His mouth widened, the corners turned up.

Devoy smiled.

There was a hissed intake of breath from Brunholm.

“What was it that gave it away?” Devoy said.

“It had to be the least likely person,” Danny said. “Why is Wilsons no longer the power it once was? Why have Longford and the Cherbs known everything about what was happening here? You allowed me to go to the Ring of Five, thinking that they would turn me, make me one of them, and remove a danger to your plans. When you were ready, you could use me. Only you knew that I would try to rescue my moth—rescue Agent Pearl, and that I would use the power. There were too many things. And then Les told me what he found at the mansion.”

“Ah, the late Mr. Knutt,” Devoy said. “He could not have escaped the fire I set. It was fun watching them trying to find a way out. You must have met him in the Butts. Of course, he forced me to hide myself during these last days. The Slug of Somnolence he put in his bed bit me.”

Devoy held up his hand. There was a nasty suppurating wound on it.

“But there was something else,” Devoy said, “something just now.”

“Your name,” Danny said. “Les said he found letters spelling ‘arcus’ on a satchel in the boys’ bedroom. He thought it was part of Marcus Brunholm’s name.”

“I see,” Devoy said. “And then you heard Brunholm use my first name.”

“Narcusus,” Danny said. “The letters were part of
your
name.”

“But why not Brunholm?”

“Because only a great spy could penetrate Wilsons, and a great spy would not be so obviously wicked as Mr. Brunholm.”

“Flattered, I’m sure,” Brunholm murmured. Devoy pointed the blowpipe toward Danny.

“Not so fast, Danny.” Devoy’s voice was soft, almost inaudible. “There’s many a twist to your tale, and perhaps another. Why did Brunholm use my first name? In all our long acquaintance, he has never once spoken it. Unless … unless …”

Devoy turned to look at Brunholm. His mirthless smile broadened, giving him the look of a skull. “Unless the greatest spy of all is in our midst. Let me put my theory to the test.”

Before anyone could move he put the blowpipe to his lips, but instead of aiming the dart at Brunholm, he turned and fired straight at Danny.

“No!” Brunholm shouted. Faster than Danny would have believed possible Brunholm flung himself across the room, diving in front of Danny. The dart, aimed for Danny’s heart, struck Brunholm in the shoulder. With a groan he fell to the ground. Nala struck the blowpipe from Devoy’s hand. Devoy snarled at him and cuffed him across the face, the blow sending the Cherb reeling across the room. Devoy ran to the window and flung it open. He crouched on the windowsill as Danny ran toward him, his face twisted in a hideous rictus, as though the stored
hatred and bile of years had come to the surface. With a screech of triumph he flung himself from the window. Danny saw him fall through the darkness, falling without hope, until, from nowhere, Conal, still bearing Longford on his back, swept beneath him, catching him in his long, thin arms and carrying him to the ground.

Brothers! Danny thought as he wheeled around to Brunholm. The Lost Boys!

Nala had already reached Brunholm and was gently easing the dart out of the man’s shoulder. He looked up at Danny and shrugged. Brunholm was very pale.

“Keep the dart,” Danny said. He knelt down. Brunholm’s face had changed. His cheeks were no longer puffed out arrogantly. His eyes didn’t dart here and there as though seeking an advantage. Even the bushy mustache had drooped. His eyes met Danny’s.

“My coat looked good on you,” he whispered. The voice was even; Brunholm’s sly, double-dealing tones had gone.

“Who … who are you?” Danny said, although with every fiber of his being he already knew.

“You know, don’t you?”

“A great spy?” Danny said slowly. “Perhaps the greatest of all … Steff Pilkington …”

“Yes, my boy …” The man flinched in pain as the poison moved through his system. “Your father.”

T
hings weren’t going well for the Wilsons defenders. The next bomb made by Vandra and Toxique had been too
powerful and had blown a large section of the wall away. The Seraphim were swooping in, trying to land Cherbs on the teetering floor of the apothecary. Several had fallen and lay motionless on the steps of the building, but Rufus Ness drove them on from the Roosts, heedless of the casualties. The skeleton of the Messenger fell from the ceiling and lay in a pile of bones, and when three Seraphim made a concerted attempt to land Cherbs, Valant seized a razor-sharp wing bone from the pile and bravely drove them back.

“We’re running out of ammo,” the Storeman said. Vandra raced out of the back room with a handful of homemade tear-gas bombs. The bombs were very effective in momentarily driving off the Seraphim, but within minutes the wind had changed, driving the gas back into the defenders’ faces so that they coughed and choked.

“We can’t hold it anymore,” McGuinness said. “Back!” A falling piece of timber struck Starling on the temple and her knees buckled. McGuinness put his arm around his wife and backed toward the inner ward of the apothecary. The air was full of wings. The defenders stumbled and fell, wings beating around their faces, wings …

Black wings.

The air was alive with ravens. Furious, cawing, they flew with savage courage against the Seraphim and the Cherbs, clawing and pecking at faces. Groups of young ravens descended on a female Seraphim and in seconds stripped the feathers from her left wing. With a shriek, the Seraphim plunged toward the ground. Another male
Seraphim, in a desperate attempt to escape, flew straight into the wall of the building with a sickening fleshy thud. On the gable of the Roosts, Rufus Ness flailed savagely at the ravens, which flew at him by the dozens. Without Ness driving them on, the Cherbs faltered, and the Seraphim lost their appetite for battle. One by one they peeled off from the attack. In five minutes the sky was empty save for a circling and vengeful flock of ravens.

EYEBALL DYE

D
anny had realized at once that his only hope of getting his father—his father!—to the apothecary, and to Vandra, was to go through the Butts. Through the window he could see the whole front square thronged with Cherbs and Seraphim. There was no way through there.

“Let’s get him downstairs,” he said to Nala. “We have to get into the Butts.”

Nala, small though he was, scooped the semiconscious Steff Pilkington into his arms. They walked down the corridor toward the staircase. Nala stopped at one of the bedrooms and cocked his ear. He nodded toward the door. Danny flung it open. Vicky the siren, who appeared to have been listening at the door, sprawled back onto the floor.

“What are you up to?” Danny demanded.

“None of your business,” Vicky snarled back. She looked around Danny at Brunholm. “What’s wrong with
him
?”

“He’s been poisoned,” Danny said. “We have to get him to the apothecary.”

“Good luck,” Vicky said, studying her nails.

“We’re going through the Butts,” Danny said, “and you’re guiding us.” To his surprise Vicky got to her feet.

“All you had to do was ask,” she said, and set off in front of them. Danny looked at Nala. Nala shrugged.