The Midnight Mercenary (4 page)

The beam flashed over a wall of different dials and meters, as well as a ruined fuse box, but what grabbed Amelia's attention were the
legs
in the far corner of the room. Dad's legs. His feet were tapping the ground to make sure she found him – but where was Dad's
body?
Above his waist was nothing but blackness and shadows.

For one horrifying second, Amelia thought her father had been sliced in half, and Krskn had left only the legs behind, somehow still nightmarishly alive. But then she realised that Dad's body had been glued to the wall by an enormous band of what looked like tar. It bound his arms to his sides and pressed him hard into the corner, holding him flat against the bricks, and covering him right up to his nose. He could still breathe, hear and see, but apart from tapping his feet he was helpless.

‘Dad!' Amelia cried, and started toward him, but before she could touch him, he kicked the wall violently and glared.

Amelia stopped short and stared at him, confused. He started tapping on the floor again. ‘Dad?'

He kept tapping.

‘He's doing morse code!' said Charlie. ‘The tapping!'

Now Amelia listened properly, she could hear the repeating rhythm too. ‘What's he saying?'

‘GO,' said Charlie. ‘Just: GO, GO, GO.'

‘No.' Amelia looked at Dad. ‘Grawk brought us here to save you. We're not leaving you.'

Her dad tapped again, slowly and clearly so Charlie could follow. ‘GO … NOW… KRSKN … HERE … DANGER … no, wait, DANGER
OUS
… FOR … YOU.'

‘I don't care,' said Amelia.

Dad tapped.

‘What?' said Amelia, as Charlie paused and grimaced.

‘PLEASE, COOKIE.'

Amelia couldn't move. She had found her dad – how could she just walk away and leave him to Krskn? It wasn't possible.

She was still standing there, wondering what to do, when she heard branches snapping outside and the heavy thud of boots. She lurched around, the torch flashing over Charlie's horrified face before dazzling the burly figure pushing through the bushes to reach them.

‘Put that down,' the figure said gruffly. ‘Want to blind me?'

‘Tom?' Amelia dropped the light from Tom's face and waited for her heart to restart in her chest. Grawk, she noticed, was sitting calmly beside her. Obviously Tom hadn't taken
him
by surprise.

‘What are you two doing out of the hotel?' Tom hissed. ‘I know you heard me, Amelia – Krskn's
here
somewhere.'

‘And now I know where my dad is!' she hissed back.

‘So what? You can't undo the binding tar, so you're no use to your dad. All you're doing is handing yourselves to Krskn for free, and what good is that going to do anyone?'

Brutal as ever. Amelia couldn't argue with Tom, though. As usual he was right, but she refused to leave just yet. She turned to Dad. ‘Does it hurt?'

He tapped.

‘NO,' said Charlie. ‘NOT … AT … ALL.' And then, as Dad kept tapping, he went on, ‘BUT … I … HAVE … A … TERRIBLE … ITCH … ON … MY … NOSE.'

Amelia tried to smile as she stepped forward to scratch the end of Dad's long nose. It was hardly a hug or a kiss or even a proper goodbye, but it was all she could do right now.

He tapped again.

‘GO,' said Charlie. ‘GO … NOW. QUICKLY.'

‘Come on,' said Tom. ‘This door made enough noise to wake the dead when you opened it. It got my attention anyway, and I was halfway down the hill. It's almost certain Krskn knows we're all here.'

That got Amelia moving. She didn't feel any better about leaving Dad, but she couldn't stand it if Charlie was kidnapped because of her. She set the torch on the floor so that it pointed at the roof, lighting up the whole meter room with an electric glow that was getting fainter by the minute, but was hopefully better than nothing.

She followed Charlie and Tom back into the gardens. The moon was still trying to shine through the clouds, but thunder was starting to rumble again in the distance. Every now and then a cloud flicked on like a giant lamp as lightning sparked inside it.

Amelia trudged through the grass, utterly defeated. How stupid not to be able to do anything. How ghastly if all they could do was sit back and let Krskn do whatever he wanted.

‘Isn't there something we can do?' Charlie asked.

‘You?' Tom said. ‘No. But –'

‘What about my mum?' Amelia interrupted.

‘What about her?'

‘Whatever she's doing – is it helping?'

Tom wheeled around to face them both. ‘Skye's out here? Alone?'

‘She came out here to help
you
!'

He made an angry grunt. ‘I thought she was the only one of you with a bit of sense. Come on.' He turned back and kept walking, muttering something about fish in a barrel.

Just as they reached the main steps to the hotel, Grawk gave a low growl.

‘What is it?' Amelia bent to stroke him, and felt that all the fur on his back was bristling. ‘Grawk?'

Without another sound, he shot off down the hill and disappeared. Amelia would have called out to him, but Tom had already wrapped a hand over her mouth.

‘Come on –
now
,' he hissed furiously. And taking them each by an arm, he dragged Amelia and Charlie up to the library's doors and knocked on the glass.

Mary was there in a second, the heavy poker from the fireplace in one hand and a desperate look on her face. She unlatched the door and when Tom shoved Amelia and Charlie through the gap, she broke into tears. ‘Where have you
been?
You could have been killed!' she sobbed, hugging Charlie, shaking him hard, and hugging him again. ‘And you,' she said, pulling Amelia into the huddle.

‘If they step foot outside this hotel again, I'll kill them myself,' said Tom. ‘You got that?'

Amelia nodded, too overwhelmed to speak.

‘Tom, what on Earth is going on?' said Mary. ‘What is all this
about?
'

Tom snorted. ‘Do you want the good news, or the bad?'

‘Both! Just tell me the truth.'

‘The good news is, I've heard that Krskn isn't here to murder, torture or get revenge on anyone.'

Mary nodded, waiting for him to go on.

‘The bad news,' Tom went on, ‘is that he's here to kidnap as many of our guests as he can. And he'll do whatever it takes to get the job done –
including
murder and torture, if anyone gets in his way.'

Amelia heard this and was numb. Between shock and grief for her dad, fear for her mum, and the loss of Grawk a second time, Tom's news was too much to absorb. She looked over at the sofa. There was James, a book still in his hand, not paying attention to anything that was happening. Anger flared inside her.

It must be nice to be a total brain-dead jerk,
she thought.
Very relaxing.

While James sat in the corner and read, Tom gave Amelia, Charlie and his mum the first sliver of hope they'd had all night.

‘Now, as I was
trying
to tell you,' he said gruffly, ‘someone's coming. If we can just hold out a bit longer, we won't be on our own with Krskn.'

‘Control is sending an agent?' asked Charlie.

‘Those bureaucrats!' spat Tom. ‘No. We're waiting for someone with actual power.'

‘Who?'

‘A Keeper,' Tom said impressively.

There was a pause, and Charlie said, ‘A what?'

‘A Keeper of the Gates and Ways,' said Tom, emphasising the importance of each word.

Amelia and Charlie swapped a look.
OK …

‘And this – this gatekeeper person,' said Mary. ‘You're saying they're a match for Krskn?'

Tom looked as though he'd like to correct her phrasing – but then suddenly, from outside, came the sound of boots and voices – lots of both, and no-one trying to be quiet.

‘The guests!' said Mary. ‘I almost forgot them in all this chaos,' and she dashed out to the lobby to open the main doors.

Amelia followed, carrying with her another candelabra in each hand to bring a bit more light to the gloomy entrance.

There, tramping through the doors with mud smearing the floor behind them, wet and shivering under their backpacks, was a troupe of Scouts about Amelia and Charlie's age. A couple of worried-looking adults waved them through, counting heads. So
many
heads that Amelia found herself joining in – past twenty, past thirty until they stopped at forty-five Scouts. Another three adult leaders brought up the rear.

Mary was astonished. ‘But we only had a booking for twenty-two!'

Two of the Scout leaders took off their packs with great groans of relief, and glanced at each other. ‘Yes, sorry about this …' the older one began. ‘A bit of a disaster, really …'

But before he could go on, a third Scout leader stepped over and clapped him heartily on the back. ‘Nonsense! We all made it here, didn't we? Just a bit more adventure than we expected, isn't it?'

‘You can say that again …' the older leader muttered.

‘What's going on?' Mary asked faintly.

The cheerful Scout leader reached over and shook her hand with both of his. He smiled gratefully and as he moved into the candlelight, Amelia saw that he was extremely handsome.

‘Hello, I'm Derek,' he said. ‘It's so good of you to take us on such short notice. Or, as it turns out for half of us, with no notice at all!'

Mary laughed nervously, one hand still in Derek's, the other stealing up to touch her throat. ‘Half of you?' she echoed weakly.

‘It was the strangest thing.' Derek's eyes twinkled as he smiled. ‘You couldn't make this stuff up. There we were, our camp site flooded, and no option but to take off through the bush and look for shelter. No idea where we were going – the maps were ruined, and our compasses went haywire.'

That crazy magnetism under the headland,
thought Amelia.

‘We were completely lost,' Derek continued, ‘and then – what happens? We bump into another mob of Scouts in exactly the same predicament! Incredible!'

‘Two groups of Scouts?' Mary said, and Amelia knew what she was thinking. Had the alien guests from the gateway bumped into a troupe of real human Scouts on their way up the hill and decided to copy the uniforms with their holo-emitters?

Or – and this would make things triply complicated – had two groups of human Scouts really been out camping at the same time, and just decided to make for the nearest shelter? In that case, there would still be aliens on the way, and they could end up with over
seventy
guests for the night. All in the one library …

She looked at Tom for a clue, but he was gazing at the Scouts in amazement. ‘I don't know,' he said when Mary raised her eyebrows at him. ‘They're a bit early, but …'

Amelia knew what he was unable to say in front of visitors: the wormholes had been increasingly unpredictable lately, and it was harder and harder for Tom to match up his old timetables with the actual arrivals at the gateway. He hadn't expected the aliens to arrive yet, but they
could
have …

‘I'd, uh, better go and check,' he said, and limped out into the dark.

Amelia wondered how Charlie's mum was going to deal with all this, but before Mary could even open her mouth, Derek was solving problems for her.

‘Look, I'm sorry to inconvenience you like this, but I promise we can take care of ourselves. We've got dry clothes in our packs, and can bunk down anywhere you'd like to put us, uh …' He paused, and then smiled in embarrassment. ‘I'm sorry, I don't even know your name.'

‘Mary,' she said, sounding strangled, and reached up to tuck her hair behind her ear. It was rather girlish and Charlie gave her a sharp look.

‘Mary,' Derek repeated. ‘We're at your mercy. Point the way.'

James was not at all happy to have fifty wet, smelly Scouts march into his quiet library. He was even less impressed when about half of them immediately started pulling off their muddy boots, peeling off filthy socks and waggling their wrinkly, blistered toes around. They rummaged through their packs for something dry to wear, but then one of the boys caught sight of Amelia, and froze.