The Midnight Gate (24 page)

“They were from another world?” complained Belladonna. “Another one of the nine? But they were so…”

Burner looked at her, sniffed, and refilled the cup with water again.

“Not everything is what you expect. And there are reasons why movement between the worlds is restricted.”

Steve held out the cup, and Burner filled it again. As he was gulping the third cup down, there was a melodic
ping
and the lift slowed and stopped.

“This'll be me,” said Burner cheerfully, taking the cup from Steve and reattaching it to his belt.

“Will he be alright?” asked Belladonna, glancing at Steve, who still looked decidedly red in the face.

“He'll be fine! It just takes a bit of getting used to, that's all.”

Steve cleared his throat and coughed. A small plume of smoke shot out of his mouth.

“Ah!” said Burner. “Umm … that
could
be a slight allergic reaction.”

“Slight? That was smoke!”

Burner fastened his coat up tightly as the doors slid open to reveal a landscape almost as blasted as the dragon world, but this time the view was not of fire but of ice and snow. A bitter wind swept into the lift and whipped around like a mini tornado, bringing sleet and snow in its wake.

“Yes … smoke. So it was. Well, good luck to you both.”

He heaved the cart of dragon milk out of the lift and into the blizzard.

“Wait!”

“Good-bye!” he yelled as the screaming gale almost drowned him out. “Don't take any more food from strangers!”

And with a cheerful wave he turned and began pushing the cart away across the ice.

Belladonna watched until he had vanished into the whirling snow, then turned back into the lift. She was just about to press the button to close the doors when Steve pulled her away.

“Wait!” he said, his voice sounding almost normal. “Just a sec!”

He dropped to his knees at the door and reached for the snow that was rapidly heaping in a drift against the sides of the lift. Belladonna watched as he made a quick snowball, then stood up and backed away from the doors.

“Okay. Let's go.”

Steve bit into the snowball, filling his mouth with cooling ice. Belladonna hit the button to close the doors, and the lift shot down to the right, then powered away diagonally toward the Land of the Dead.

After about five minutes, Steve's face had resumed its usual color and the snowball had all but melted away.

“Belladonna?” he said.

“Yes?”

“Did you see that smoke?”

“Yes.”

“Probably not a good sign…”

 

17

Coupe de Ville

“DOES THIS SEEM
to be taking a lot longer to you?”

Steve was leaning against the back wall of the lift, watching the numbers or names (or whatever they were) flick by on the display above the doors, and Belladonna had to admit that it was starting to feel as if they'd been standing in the marble box for hours.

“Yes,” she said. “Don't you wonder, though—”

“What it would be like to just stop it and visit one of the other worlds?”

“Yes. Not the Land of the Dead or that place with the light things, but a proper other world with people … or, you know,
inhabitants
who are living entire lives in another place with different countries and languages and everything.”

They watched the lights flick by.

“Well,” said Steve finally, “maybe after we've saved our world
again,
we'll get a chance to go and visit somewhere else instead of just being sent back to school as if nothing had happened.”

“It's funny…” began Belladonna.

“What?”

“The name of the lake. The lake where the Queen of the Abyss lives. Frank said it's called Grendelmere.”

“I know. Like the monster in
Beowulf.
D'you think there might be a monster in it?”

“Probably. It seems like almost everything I thought was imaginary is actually real.”

“Yeah.” Steve smiled. “It's so cool.”

The words were hardly out of his mouth before the lift slowed, juddered a few times, and then came to a halt. Then … nothing.

“D'you think it's broken? It opened right away for Burner.”

“Maybe the Land of the Dead is special,” said Belladonna. “Perhaps I need to say something. You know … like last time.”

“Okay,” said Steve, taking a step back as if there was a one-in-ten chance that she might explode. “Go on.”

Belladonna closed her eyes and was going to wait for the Words to come, but to her surprise she found she just remembered the Ancient Greek for “open the doors.” Was that how it would be? Would she eventually just know the Words right off the top of her head without having to concentrate?

“Arate thyras!”

There was a split-second delay and then the doors snapped open with a whoosh, and Belladonna found herself staring at two familiar faces.

“Mum! Dad!” She flew out of the lift and straight into their arms, and for the first time in what seemed like forever, she felt safe and free as her Dad hoisted her into the air and swung her around. And that wasn't all—for the first time in days, her head wasn't aching.

The familiar vast entrance hall of the House of Mists spun by in a blur as first the grandfather clock, then the massive chandelier, and finally the ornate front door sped into and out of view. It was only when her Dad finally put her down that she was really able to see that, although it was familiar, it really wasn't the same at all. The last time she and Steve had been here, the building had been little more than an empty shell, but now it was a hive of activity. Men, women, and children strode through the hall, up the stairs, and into and out of rooms, with the overly purposeful air of people who are Doing Something Important.

Somehow it wasn't quite what Belladonna had imagined when her grandmother had told her about the Conclave of Shadows all those months ago. She'd imagined elderly people in white robes, sitting in some kind of hushed chamber and being very serious, but nobody here was wearing white robes; they were all dressed in whatever had been fashionable when they died—and not a single one was old. Of course, she thought, there wasn't any reason they would be. Elsie had said that they could pick any age to be, although no older than when they had died, so why wouldn't everyone be young? The general effect of all this youth and color, of course, was that the House of Mists seemed less like a serious organ of government for the Dead and more like a rather grave costume party.

“Oh, Belladonna!” cried her mother, hugging her so tight that she could barely speak. “What have they been doing to you?”

“I'm not really sure,” whispered Belladonna. “But I feel better now.”

Then, as her mother let her go and looked into her face with the kind of genuine love and concern that she hadn't seen since that fatal Tuesday, she felt tears start to sting her eyes.

“Now, then,” said Mrs. Johnson gently, giving her a little shake, “none of that. You've got important things to do. You can cry when it's all over.”

“Why did it take so long?” asked Elsie, ignoring the family reunion.

“There were loads more buttons,” said Steve. “To all the other worlds.”

“Really? Did you see any of them?”

“Just two.”

“Oh.”

“No, but one of them was the place with the dragons! The one the amulet came from.”

“Spiffing! Did you see any dragons?”

“Loads. And this man got on and he
milks
dragons! That's his job—milking dragons.”

“You're joking! Like cows?”

“I suppose. We didn't actually see him do it or anything. But you'll never guess what I did!”

And as Steve told Elsie the story of the dragon milk, they strolled across the hall and out into the sunshine and the gardens. Belladonna blinked away her tears and took a deep breath.

“We met the last Paladin,” she began. “His name is—”

“Edmund de Braes.” Her father smiled in that way he had when he got the answers in television quiz shows before the contestants.

“Elsie told us all about it,” explained her mother.

Belladonna nodded, relieved that she wouldn't have to go over the whole thing again.

“We have to go to the House of Ashes,” she said, trying to sound like the sort of person she imagined would usually have the job of saving the Nine Worlds.

“The House of Ashes?” said Mr. Johnson. “What for? I mean … are you sure there isn't any other way?”

“I don't think so. Whatever the Proctors are doing, it looks like they plan on finishing it on the Day of Crows. That's the second of March—three days away. The rhyme and the nobles are all we've got to go on.”

“The coins that Elsie was talking about,” said Mrs. Johnson. “How are they going to help?”

“I don't know,” said Belladonna, shrugging her shoulders. “But the last one is in the House of Ashes, so we're thinking that the Queen of the Abyss will know what we're supposed to do with them.”

“The Queen of the Abyss!” Mrs. Johnson turned to her husband. “She can't go there!”

“Who is she?” asked Belladonna. “Elsie mentioned her last year when we were here. She said the Queen of the Abyss rules the Land of the Dead, but she didn't help much back then. Is she just a … you know, a figurehead?”

“No. At least I don't think so.” Mr. Johnson had clearly never considered this before. “We haven't actually seen her, though. I heard she comes to the garden parties sometimes, but I think the last time was about fifty years ago. That's her in the carving outside above the front door. John Harbottle told me she rides a chariot drawn by a pterodactyl—”

“Yes, that's what Elsie said.”

“But I reckon that's just a story.”

“Story or not,” said Mrs. Johnson, her voice tense with worry, “the woman is immortal. People like that don't look at life the same as the rest of us. We can't let Belladonna just march into her lair as if she were going to the corner shop! You have to do something! Say something!”

“I don't think I can,” said Mr. Johnson sadly. “It's just … I'm sorry, Belladonna. I can't see any other way. I wish you didn't have to do this. But…”

Belladonna smiled. The idea was so tempting. The thought that she could just turn her back on the whole thing and return to the way things were, worrying about nothing more than being teased at school and keeping up with Math. She could let the Nine Worlds take care of themselves and maybe they'd find someone who was actually grown up to do all the dangerous stuff. Except she knew it couldn't happen. Something had changed in her now that she was the Spellbinder, just as something had changed in Steve—he couldn't help but protect her now, the way he had in the shed, and she couldn't help trying to prevent the Empress of the Dark Spaces from escaping. She might not have all the answers, or know why certain things were happening, but deep inside she knew that it really was all up to her.

“I know. I have to do it.”

“No, you don't,” said her mother, grasping at straws. “Perhaps … perhaps if you explained everything to the Conclave of Shadow, they'd know what to do.”

“Oh, you
are
joking!” said her father disdainfully. “Don't you remember the last garden party? That lot upstairs couldn't organize a booze-up in a brewery, let alone come up with a plan to save the Nine Worlds.”

A man in a toga walked by and made a sort of harrumphing noise.

“Sorry, Cicero, but really! I mean, they put alligators in the lucky dip! Just because you're dead and your hand will grow back doesn't mean you'll enjoy having it bitten off.”

“That's true,” said Mrs. Johnson thoughtfully. “There was an awful lot of screaming. But what about—”

“No, Mum.” Belladonna took her mother's hand. “It has to be me. It's alright.”

“But you're
twelve
.”

“We have to hurry. There's only a few days left to stop them.”

Mrs. Johnson sniffed back her tears and nodded.

“Your granddad brought his car,” said her Dad, smiling. “We should get there in no time.”

“If you can call it a car,” said Mrs. Johnson. “When I think he could've had anything he wanted. He could've had a Rolls-Royce, for heaven's sake!”

“We'll make a day of it.”

Belladonna beamed. It was just like the days out that they used to have, back when her Mum and Dad were still alive and everything was normal. She'd be sitting around doing nothing much when her Dad would bounce into the room and announce that they were going for a drive. There'd be no packing or organizing; they'd just jump into the car and take off, even if it was raining or worse. Her Dad would point the car toward the seaside and they'd park as close to the beach as they could get and eat a picnic of cold sausages, hard-boiled eggs, and fizzy drinks while the rain poured down the windshield in great rivers, and the ocean roiled beyond the sea walls, dashing itself against the stone.

“Belladonna!”

She snapped out of her reverie as Steve poked his head around the front door.

“You have
got
to see this!”

Mrs. Johnson rolled her eyes. “Typical!” she muttered.

“What?” asked Belladonna.

“Go and see,” said her Dad, a twinkle in his eye.

Belladonna left them and ran outside. For a moment she blinked in the unfamiliar sunlight, but as her eyes grew used to the glare, she saw it.

The car.

Her Grandad was sitting in the front seat, but that wasn't the most remarkable thing. The most remarkable thing was the car.

“What d'you think?” gushed Steve, his eyes shining.