Vengeance Child (24 page)

Laura had only just been able to find her voice again after the shock of what happened. ‘Does this happen often?'

‘Rarely, very rarely. The speed that thing was going.' He glared at the ship as it disappeared into the mist. ‘It's as if the captain was drunk, or . . .' He grimaced.

‘Jay.' Laura groaned. ‘I feel as if I'm trapped in a nightmare, and I can't wake up. Tell me I'm asleep.'

‘You're as wide awake as I am.' The cold wind seemed to blow right through his flesh. ‘Jay took me to see Ghorlan. She's been dead ten years, but I found myself back on the day of our first anniversary, she was planting a tree. A cedar. It's a tradition from her village . . .' The words ran from him faster. ‘I saw her. Even though I know she's out there.' He nodded out at the turbulent river. ‘She was angry that I hadn't searched for her. But I had, Laura. Month after month. Beaches, the marsh, up and down the river. Every inlet. And two days ago she damn well bawls me out for not looking!' He realized he was shouting. ‘What did she think I'd been doing? Watching television? Lazing my time away in the blasted pub!' He shook with anger. ‘But how can she have been there, Laura? After ten years in the river there'd be nothing left.'

‘Jay can do this. I've seen what he's capable of.'

‘He's evil.'

‘Little witch is what the others call him. But it's not his fault.'

‘It is, Laura! Jay is responsible!'

‘He's just a frightened little boy.'

‘Yesterday, I stood ten feet from him. He looked up at two airliners. You could see them in the sky, two white lines of vapour. Everything how it should be. As he watched he did something to them, like he did to the captain of that ship, and the planes began to converge. I knew that he'd got into the pilots' heads. He'd make them collide. Hundreds would have died. I was seconds from picking up a rock and smashing his skull to pieces.'

‘Why didn't you?' Laura spoke calmly.

‘Why do you think?' A sudden drowsiness gripped him. ‘I'm not the skull breaking kind . . . unless . . .' He shrugged as bloody images streamed through his mind of a rock in his hand that dripped crimson. With an effort he focused his thoughts. ‘Instead, I told him I was going to marry you.'

‘
Marry me?
' Laura registered absolute shock. ‘What made you say that?'

‘I needed to say something powerful enough to distract him.'

‘Do you know what damage you might have caused?' She walked faster. ‘Instead of making things better you've made them worse.'

‘Hundreds of lives were at stake. Either that or the rock.' Victor kept pace with her. Ahead the village looked sombre as the approaching storm darkened the skies.

Laura paused. ‘Most children I care for would be devastated by news like that. They're emotionally dependent on the staff. To them marriage doesn't mean love, it means that somebody they care about will vanish from their lives. If a carer at the lodge plans to leave or to marry we spend weeks gently introducing the children to the idea. We build in reassurances. We devise methods to compensate for the disappearance of the carer.' She began to walk once more. ‘Jay's fragile at the best of times. This could push him over the edge.' Grimly, she added, ‘Only in Jay's case the devastation goes beyond any trauma he might suffer.'

They moved in silence through the meadows. Victor noticed that apart from the loss of the riverside path, together with a couple of dinghies that had been moored on the beach, the damage hadn't been as great as it might have been. All the houses were built on elevated areas of ground. The flood hadn't touched them. However – a
big
however – a flood of a different kind was poised to devastate Siluria. Whatever was in Jay would deliver a flood of suffering, of fear, of death. Victor had seen it happen. He didn't doubt it was on its way. He shivered as a cold wind blew mournful notes through the telephone wires.

The village streets were empty of people. Leaves swirled like green phantoms. Laura rushed in the direction of the hostel. Angry shouts from children burst from the building with the shocking abruptness of gunshots.

‘I told you,' she muttered. ‘I told you they'd go crazy if they heard the word “marriage”.'

Lou appeared at the doorway to frantically beckon Laura. The normally placid woman was at her wits' end.

‘What can I do to help?' Victor asked.

‘Stay here. If they see you they'll go into meltdown. And as for Jay, God have pity on us.' Laura vanished into the building.

Mayor Wilkes emerged through wraiths of mist. ‘Brodman, have you seen what that bloody ship has done to my footpath? It will cost our entire maintenance budget to replace that. My God, I'm going to find out who is responsible for that ship then I'm going to sue the . . .' Wilkes noticed Victor's expression. ‘What's wrong with you? Seen a ghost?'

‘You've got to get this quarantine lifted. We need help on the island.'

‘In your dreams, Brodman. They've locked us down with a code red health alert. We're not only under strict quarantine rules, we are, as our esteemed GP put it, as good as exiled on the dark side of the moon.'

‘What are you talking about?'

‘Don't you know? That puke and poop bug mutated. A bad belly was only the first stage. Second stage happens up here.' He tapped his head. ‘The virus attacks the brain. People who've had it appear to rally then they start getting forgetful, lose their faculties, they become lethargic, then they fall asleep. Eventually for keeps.' Wilkes stared. ‘Good God, Victor. You've had it, haven't you?'

‘And Mary, and my brother-in-law.' Victor's blood ran cold. ‘Second stage, you say? How long until it starts to take effect?'

‘I'm not the quack.' Wilkes shrugged. ‘A few hours, maybe.'

‘How bad?'

‘Today, so far, nine dead. With all this and the ship nearly ramming the island it's like someone put a curse on us.'

Victor rubbed his face. His skin felt strangely numb.

With a degree of satisfaction Wilkes asked, ‘Are you feeling unwell?'

‘I'm going to stay well until I've finished what I've got to do.'

‘Not those flaming animals? Wait . . . Where are you going? Shouldn't you be home in bed?'

Victor fired back, ‘I'm going to find Jay.'

‘The boy from the orphanage? What the hell for?'

‘It's vital I find him.' Blood pounded in Victor's ears.

‘You're chasing one of those nutty kids? Dr Nazra said all you infected people would go crazy.' Wilkes was delighted. ‘And, boy-oh-boy, is he right!' He chuckled. ‘Brodman, you're away with the fairies!'

‘One day you'll thank me.'

‘Thank you? Yes, I suppose I will but not in the way you expect.' Wilkes grinned. ‘By the way, this boy . . . Jay. He appears to have lost his wits, too. I saw him walking down this very street today. His eyes were blazing like he'd glimpsed paradise. And he was chanting names. Barking mad, if you ask me.'

Victor's heart lurched. ‘What names?'

‘Oh, I can't remember now.' Dismissive, Wilkes waved his hand. ‘Totally nuts, though.'

‘Wilkes! Which name?'

‘I can't remember.'

Victor dashed at the man, grabbed his jacket lapels in both hands, then hauled him until they were nose to nose. ‘Which names?'

‘Don't you touch me with your filthy bug-infested—'

‘
Names?
'

‘You've just signed your immediate resignation, Brodman. You're finished here.'

Victor shoved the man back against a garden fence. At last Mayor Wilkes realized that the ranger wasn't playing games.

‘OK, OK . . .' Wilkes' lip curled. ‘If it means so much to you . . . or to your nasty infected brain. The boy was repeating the island's name: “Siluria. Siluria.” Get it? Oh, and the nurse . . . whatever they call the infernal woman.'

‘Laura?'

‘That's the one, Victor.' His tone suggested he was humouring him. ‘Laura, Laura, Laura.'

Victor pushed the man away. A moment later he raced toward the hostel.

Behind him, Wilkes took pleasure in shouting, ‘You're second stage, Victor! Go home. Calm that infested head of yours.' He barked out laughter. ‘Before you get yourself into even more trouble!'

Thirty

In the dining hall there was pandemonium. The hostel's walls trembled as the children from Badsworth Lodge went berserk. After Archer had heard Jay repeat his name out in the street, the child had dashed in mad panic to find Laura. The other children wanted to know what had scared him so badly. The trouble was, he was so petrified it came out in confused phrases.

‘Jay's done it again . . . the witch . . . I fell down here . . . then I woke up . . . and I know really bad stuff's happening! The doctor's got so worried. Nobody's coming!'

A youth grunted, ‘Archer, we don't know what the hell you're talking about.'

‘Yeah, spit it, or bottle it,' Candice snapped.

Archer stared, unable to speak. At that moment Laura entered the dining hall. Seeing her jolted out a fact that preyed on his mind. ‘Laura's getting married.'

‘
What!
' All the children flinched at the shock news.

‘Archer, how do you know that Laura's getting married?'

‘I met Victor. And Victor told Jay that he's getting married to Laura. And another thing . . .' The kids went crazy. They started yelling at each other, at Laura. One boy's face went into spasm, the bottom lip extended so much his teeth were bared in a weird snarl. He punched out at a pair of teenagers who stood next to him. Candice ran to a wall where she beat her own head against the brickwork. While Laura raced to stop her, Lou tried to break up the fighting youths.

Archer cried, ‘And another thing. Jay's saying my name. He's saying Laura's. He's put his witch curse on us!' He kept shouting. Only not a single person heard above the racket.

The big room echoed to the barrage of children howling – sorrow mated with rage. Even though no individual words were identifiable, the cacophony all stated the single terrible fact.
If Laura marries she'll leave. What will happen to us? Who will keep us safe?

The teenager who'd started the fight grabbed a knife from the cutlery box. Lou had to wrestle the boy to the ground, before prising his fingers from the handle.

Archer, meanwhile, shouted himself hoarse, trying to attract Laura's attention. However, she'd wrapped her arms around Candice to stop the girl pounding her forehead into the brickwork. At last the self-harmer collapsed into Laura's hug. There she wailed so loudly it shook the cups on the tables.

Archer tugged Laura's arm. ‘Jay's done it to you, Laura. He's saying your name. He's saying it over and over. You gotta stop him!'

Laura indicated she couldn't hear. Then, with both arms around Candice, she walked away – left him, abandoned him. He stared at her.
Laura getting married. Laura cursed. It's happening already. She doesn't want to listen to me.

A sharp point dug into his upper thigh. He reached into his pocket for the bracelet. He stared at it in his hand. Ghorlan~Victor. This bit of gold chain haunted him. Maybe it was the cause of all this trouble? So great was the din it was hard to think properly. Yet Archer knew this jewellery was important. The dead woman in the car had given it him. Now what seemed even more important was to get rid of it. If he could make Jay take it then maybe all these bad things would go away. Yes, that's it, he decided. Give Jay the bracelet, the little witch. See how he likes having to carry it round. It had more than blood stuck to it: the gold had death glued to it, too.

Archer's problems were too great for the boy to fathom. At that moment they all seemed to be attached to the bracelet. In his juvenile way of dealing with problems the easiest solution was to dump the bracelet on Jay. All panic and horror handed over with it. Of course, in a little while, he'd come to realize that this wouldn't end his woes, instead it would lead him to a face-to-face meeting with death itself.

Thirty-One

He had to get out of the din. That and find Jay. Archer slipped unnoticed through the hostel's side door. ‘Jay's gonna get the bracelet. That'll make everything OK.'

He staggered before the blast of chilled air racing up the deserted street. Leaves flew. Mist streamed like smoke from an old-fashioned locomotive. Even though it was mid-afternoon in May the sky had turned black. Gloom filled the narrow streets. Along with the fog it made the houses seem as if they lay in murky depths. Had the river flooded the town? Was he underwater? In that shocked state he wasn't sure. Thoughts didn't run as they should in his head. Constantly, he pictured his father with bullets lodged in his face. Twigs scuttled down the street like spiky-legged insects. In his mind he saw his father's coffin. Only this time he, Archer, lay in the oblong box. All that wet soil pressing down. It would hold the lid shut for ever. Dazed, he pushed on through airborne debris. A newspaper wrapped around his face to blind him. Maybe when he pulled it away he'd find he really was lying in a coffin . . . in the dark . . . alone . . . listening for hungry worms . . . Archer yanked the paper away. A figure stood there in the mist.

‘Dad?'

The shadowy form moved closer. ‘Remember me?'

Archer stared.

‘I'm the mayor.' The tall man smiled down at him. ‘I'm glad I've found you.'