The Sacrifice (34 page)

Nicola put a hand on his knee.

‘So you’re looking for two small
boys and a girl who were trying to get to Buckingham Palace?’

‘That’s where we reckon they
were headed.’

‘Funny thing is, Ed.’ Nicola
gave him a knowing smile. ‘I think you know the guy in charge there as
well.’

‘Do I?’

‘Boy called David.’

‘David?’

‘DogNut certainly seemed to know him.
From back in the day.’

Nicola occasionally tried to use slang and
it didn’t sit right, like she was trying too hard. It was wasted on Ed. He’d
never been exactly street.

‘It was a long time ago,’ he
said. ‘I don’t remember any David.’

‘Serious boy,’ said Nicola.
‘Acts a lot older than he is.’

‘Wait a minute.’ Ed was amazed.
‘Did he have a lot of kids with him who used to wear red blazers?’

‘Still do.’

‘
That
David. Jesus.
He’s in charge at Buckingham Palace?’

‘I’m afraid so.’

‘Do you have any dealings with
him?’ Ed asked.

‘We have a sort of alliance with the
palace.’

‘You guys are really organized.’
Ed laughed.

‘We have to be,’ said Nicola.
‘Or we’d all be dead.’

‘So if you have dealings with David at
the palace then
maybe you know whether Sam’s mates ever made it
there?’

‘Sam?’

‘Small Sam, the boy we’re
looking for.’

Nicola looked thoughtful. ‘I do know
that a group turned up from Holloway not long back. One of David’s guys had found
them, persuaded them to come to the palace. David made a big deal of them. How they were
the “greatest fighters in London”.’

‘Yeah, that fits.’

‘It was a bit embarrassing for David,
though, because he wound them up the wrong way and I don’t think they stayed
long.’

‘Why’s that?’

‘David’s weird,’ said
Nicola. ‘Not everyone takes to him. He lays it on a bit heavy and a lot of kids
don’t like it there, but he’s trying to build up an army, so he’s
desperate to get more fighters.
Too
desperate. Like a sweaty boy at a party
coming on too strong. He puts people off.’

‘What’s he want an army
for?’ Ed asked.

‘Wants to rid London of every oppo and
unite all the kids.’

‘Oppo?’

‘Is what we call grown-ups.’

Ed put his head in his hands and sighed.
‘This is too much to take in right now.’

They’d been very isolated at the
Tower. Secure in their own little world. He’d had no idea that there was this
whole other life going on out here, so close, if only they’d ever braved the no-go
zone. It had become like the Middle Ages, when someone could spend their whole life in
one village and never even visit the next one up the valley. Well, he’d
crossed the mountains now and discovered not another village on the
other side, but whole towns full of busy people.

Nicola stood up, tugged her jumper down
automatically.

‘I think I can trust you,’ she
said. ‘So let’s go and talk to the Cabinet. I told them to get ready in the
House of Lords.’

‘The Cabinet? Right.’

Ed hauled himself up off the sofa. It
wasn’t the most comfortable piece of furniture he’d ever sat on, but he was
tired and sitting down for a while had been bliss.

He walked alongside Nicola as they made
their way back downstairs. She kept close to him and he made no attempt to move away. In
a different life he might have flirted with her. It was clear she liked him. But these
days he didn’t think about stuff like that. Boy-girl stuff. He kept himself to
himself. Concentrated on what needed to be done. Girlfriends were a distraction. He
didn’t need anyone else to worry about. Couldn’t fight with a girl hanging
on his sword arm.

Besides, since he’d got his scar
he’d lost all confidence in that department.

And yet … 

No, Ed, put it out of your mind. Like
Brooke.

Ryan was still there, sitting sprawled on
the plush red benches of the House of Lords with his hunters. A sea of black leather.
Thankfully they’d chained their noisy dogs up outside when they’d come
in.

The rest of Ed’s crew were there as
well, comparing their wounds and reliving the day’s events. There were also about
ten of Nicola’s kids. All three groups were sitting apart and chatting among
themselves.

Nicola gave a quick round-up of what she knew
and what Ed wanted.

‘It was definitely them,’ said
Ryan when she’d finished.

‘Who?’ Nicola asked, sitting
down with her kids.

‘The ones who rocked up at the palace.
They was definitely from Holloway. That raggedy-arsed kid in the disco coat, Jester,
found them and brought them in like you said. About two weeks ago they all left in the
night. David don’t want no one to know about it. He’s got a well red face
over that one. Everybody knows he’s trying to fit up an army and they was bare
good fighters is what I hear.’

‘Where did they go?’ Ed
asked.

‘Natural History Museum is what I been
told – same as your man DogNut. Ain’t heard nothing about them since. Is been well
quiet over that way. With all that’s going down these last days, we ain’t
been near the place.’

Kyle settled back in his seat and leant over
towards Ed. ‘Seems you’ve got to take us on an outing to the museum,
boss.’

‘Seems so.’

A boy with a buzz cut and no front teeth
stood up and called across the floor to Ed.

‘Can I ask a question?’

‘Fire away.’

‘Did you really come through the City
of London?’

‘Yeah. I wouldn’t advise it,
though.’

‘Did you know there were all these
oppoes about?’

‘No. Yes. Well, no, we knew
there’d be more of them in there, knew it wasn’t exactly going to be fun,
but we had no idea just how bad it was going to be. No way did we expect all these new
arrivals to be out on the streets in the daytime.’

‘I told you, soldier,’ said Ryan.
‘We don’t even go in there.’

‘We weren’t overjoyed about
it,’ said Kyle.

‘It’d be interesting to know
what goes on there,’ said Buzz Cut. ‘Specially now with all these oppoes
heading that way.’

‘So nobody round here goes into that
part of London neither?’ said Kyle.

‘No,’ said Buzz Cut. ‘The
Aldwych, Holborn, that’s about our limit. I mean, we sometimes get one of the
Greens come out, but you can never trust what they say.’

‘What do you mean?’ Ed sat up
straighter, something tugging at his thoughts. ‘Who are the Greens?’

‘This bunch of kids that live in St
Paul’s Cathedral,’ said Buzz Cut. ‘They got some screwy religion, cult
type thing going on. They used to send out what they called missionaries; holy rollers
trying to convert other kids and take them back to join in their prayer meetings.
Ain’t seen one of them for a long while. Probably cos a couple of them faked it,
came out as missionaries and, what’s the word? Deserted?’

‘Defected,’ said Nicola.

‘That’s it,’ Buzz Cut went
on. ‘We got an ex-Green here. Come out of St Paul’s singing hymns, done a
bunk, moved in with David for a bit and when he’s found that’s worse than St
Paul’s, he’s come here.’

‘Why do you call them the
Greens?’ Ed asked.

‘They all dress in green,’ said
Nicola. ‘It’s part of their cult.’

This wasn’t good. Ed’s brain was
grinding, trying to make sense of this new information. The facts were rearranging
themselves into a new pattern.

‘Who’s in charge there?’ he
said. ‘Who runs the show?’

‘Guy called Matt,’ said Buzz
Cut.

Mad Matt. All this time he’d been
there, at St Paul’s, just a mile away from the Tower. Ed felt sick. He’d got
it all wrong. An image came into his mind of Sam and The Kid sitting in the pub at the
Tower while he told them about the Lamb and the Goat. Memories came barging in. Matt
coming out of the smoke with his visions and crazy ideas. Matt causing the boat on the
Thames to sink. Floating off on a piece of wreckage. The kids at the Tower whispering
about Sam and The Kid. Matt’s wonky banner. Tish’s friend, Louise, slumped
in the doorway, her hand cut off, her throat slashed. Blood on her green clothes.

Green like Tish, who he’d put in with
Sam and The Kid in the Casemates.

Green.

They all dressed in green.

Shit. Shit. Shit
. He was in the
wrong place. Sam hadn’t been heading for the palace at all. Tish must have been
taking him to St Paul’s, whether he knew it or not.

Ed stood up.

‘I’ve got to go there,’ he
said.

‘Go where?’ Nicola looked
surprised.

‘St Paul’s. I’ve made a
mistake. The boy you were talking about – the Green, the missionary, the defector,
whatever – I need to see him.’

‘Here we go again.’ Kyle clapped
his hands together. ‘The game is on.’

The Kid was worried that Wormwood was going
to get stuck. It was OK for him, scurrying around down here in the tunnels; he was
skinny as a pin. The Green Man was a bigger deal, though, and had that round tum on him.
He had to slither along on his front. Now and then The Kid turned round to check on him.
Shining the flame on to him and making him squirm. He’d ferreted a slim candle out
of his hairstack – not much bigger than the ones people used to put on birthday cakes.
It was already burnt down to a stubbins. But there was still just enough flame left in
it to show him the fuzzy green naked skin of the man, his bulk filling the tunnel from
side to side and top to bottom, his arms reaching out, long fingernails waving,
stretched face leering at him, gums bright and shiny, little silvery-grey teeth.

The way his skin was pulled tight made him
look like he was smiling the whole time as he shifted slowly along, inch by squeezed
inch. The Kid was scared to stop and wait for him to catch up, though, because the
damned bogeyman wasn’t smiling. He was hungry. If The Kid let his guard down he
was going to feel those nasty sharp little teeth in his backside.

He just hoped they’d reach the end of
this tunnel soon.

It had taken him ages to find a way out of
the cellar, but
he’d done it in the end, like he knew he would.
These places usually had drains of some sort and there had been one there, hidden under
years of dust and rubble and God knows what bits and bobbins. He’d searched the
floor, over and again on his knees, feeling with his hands, sniffing for fresh air
currents, the reek of sewers, anything that would give him a clue to another way to
escape this dungeon than by the big black iron-hard door.

He only had the one candle and he’d
been saving that. So he worked in the dark, talking, talking all the long while, making
sure the Green Goblin kept his mind off his supper and his eyes on the target. He wanted
the troll to forget about ribs and loin and thighs and breast, and think instead on
freedom and fresh air and a change of scenery.

Twice as he’d searched, The Kid had
flicked on his Bic and, in the bright sudden flare of light, he’d seen that
Wormwood had got up and was creeping across the floor towards him. Then The Kid would
kick up a storm and roar and yell and threaten the bogeyman with bright fire and remind
him that he was getting them both OUT OF THERE.

Then, grumbling and moaning and rubbing his
swollen, aching belly, Colonel Bogey would shuffle off back to his bench and sit down
again, arms at his sides, teeth bared, waiting.

The Kid liked to talk; he had a lot of words
stored up in his head, every one he’d ever heard it sometimes seemed, but he was
running out of chat by the time he found the drain hole. Sensed it was there in the
dark. He scrabbled and cleared the doobries away. And then, just as his fingers found
the metal bars, he felt hot breath on his neck, rolled quickly aside and screamed blue
nuns at Wormwood. Spun
the flint on his lighter and there he was,
crouching over him, dribbling.

‘Can’t you get it into your fat
head?’ he’d shouted, dancing with that hot lighter in his hand. ‘That
if you eat me you will never be gone from this place?’

‘I’m sorry,’ whined
Wormwood. ‘It’s not my fault. It’s not me. It’s the other. The
falling star, a million years old, that’s not me, how could it be? That’s
what you said. I’m Mark Wormold. I work for Promithios.’

‘We been over this a million
times,’ The Kid protested. ‘I don’t want no more excuses. I want you
to fix on this: I am your Salvation Army. Now put those gnarly claws of yours to good
use and dig this drain hole clear.’

Wormwood had been obedient. He’d got
to his naked knees and grovelled and scratched away at the rubbish until he’d
cleared the grille that covered the hole. Just big enough to fit through. Only just.

The Kid had had a lot of experience of
grilles like this. It was an old friend. Old and rusted. It was easy enough to smash it
to smithereens with a wooden shelf he ripped from the wall. Then he slipped down to
investigate. There was a short drop into a long brick-lined tunnel with cables running
along the side of it.

The Kid had lit his candle then. Taken a
good look-see, going on hands and knees like a newborn. Maybe once upon a time this had
been a sewer, and then, as they made new sewers, these old tunnels found new uses. The
Kid knew from experience that the ground under London was riddled with such tunnels, all
now carrying cables and wires. He went far enough to check it wasn’t blocked any
time soon, then scurried back for Wormwood.

Found him dangling down through the drain
hole,
upside down, arms out, fingernails combing the air. A dangling
bogey.

‘Hey, Struwwelpeter!’ The Kid
had snapped at him. ‘You wait for me and do as you’re told.’

‘I’m stuck.’

‘No, you ain’t. Go back up and
then come down feet first.’

It was easier said than done, but done it
was, eventually, and Wormwood had joined him in the tunnel.

Which is where they still were. Making slow
progress. They struggled and sweated and scraped along, and the stink of the Green Man
made The Kid want to throw up his guts.