Vengeance Child (27 page)

‘What's wrong with you?' Mayor Wilkes asked brusquely. ‘Don't go weird on me yet, until you show me what's hidden in the castle.'

Hidden in the castle?
Archer flinched. He never mentioned anything hidden in the castle. He'd been careful to keep it a surprise. Mayor Wilkes was supposed to be so proud of him for finding the secret car. Now, somehow, the man had guessed.
It's like him knowing there's a connection between the Ghorlan~Victor bracelet and the castle. That doesn't make sense. The only way he could know those things was if . . .

Archer murmured the disturbing conclusion aloud just like a TV detective making an important deduction. ‘The only way he could know about the bracelet, and something hidden in the castle, is if he knows that's where the car is. And that the bracelet came from the car . . .' That strange mood came over him again. The one that gripped him when he became too worried. Then his emotions would go into shutdown. Catatonia. He'd heard Laura use the word once. Catatonia. It sounded like a disease. Vaguely, he was only half-aware that Mayor Wilkes loomed over him. Above the man's head, trees shook their branches in cold fury. They seemed to rage at Archer. The little boy who knew too much.

‘What's that you said?' The man gripped his shoulder so hard it hurt. ‘You just said something's hidden in the castle. What is it?'

The stormy gusts must have been noisy enough to prevent the man hearing everything that Archer had muttered. Previously, Archer had feared that Victor had put the dead woman in the car. Now he wasn't so sure. The mayor's eyes bulged. He'd become angry with Archer.
Really angry.
He was shaking the boy as if he were a toy. Not real flesh. Not a human being that could feel pain.

‘I'm warning you, you little freak!' Wilkes roared. ‘Stop playing the fool! Tell me what you've found in the castle!'

Archer couldn't speak, even if his life depended on it.

‘Tell me!' Wilkes bunched his fist. ‘Tell me now!'

Archer could only make a gurgling sound.

‘Oh, that silly game again. Where you pretend you've gone into a bloody coma. Well, you might fool your imbecile nurses, but you don't fool me.' He grinned. ‘You can't kid a kidder.' He pulled Archer toward him. Beams of light stabbed down through the branches. ‘Now,' Mayor Wilkes said with great satisfaction, ‘in your pocket you've got something I want. Hand it over, or I'll shake it out of you.' To add weight to the words he shook Archer the same way someone would shake dirt out of a rag. ‘Bracelet. Give it to me. Or you'll be sorry.'

A loud rustling sound came from the bushes. Mayor Wilkes reacted the same way as when he met Victor's sister in the field. Quickly, he stepped back from Archer. At the same time his features smoothed out, so that gloating expression was hidden behind a mask of normality. The man clearly thought someone would walk through the bushes. Instead, a pair of Saban Deer padded out; a mother and her young fawn. The pair of animals regarded Mayor Wilkes with calm, blue eyes.

‘Bloody pests!' Wilkes scooped up a stone then pelted the animals. In a flash of yellow they vanished into the shadows.

Archer knew they had the right idea. As fast as he could he raced away.

Behind him, Mayor Wilkes fired off a vicious response. ‘Hey, come back here!'

Archer kept running. A moment later, however, he knew that the big man was chasing after him.

Thirty-Five

The breeze struck Victor the moment he left the hostel. While he still had his wits about him he must find Jay. Solomon had told him what must be done. What he'd read on the websites reinforced the African policeman's recommendation. Expose Jay to danger. Make him fear for his life. Yet Victor had spent his adult life protecting animals. Now this? When he found Jay he wondered what he'd be capable of. By the church he was hailed by their grim-faced doctor.

‘Victor—'

‘I'm sorry, doctor, I can't stop. I have to find—'

‘Victor, your sister is ill. You've heard about this second stage?' Stormy gusts drove leaves along the pavement, ghostly forms that seemed to be searching for something in the maze of narrow streets. Dr Nazra continued, ‘Do you understand? The virus attacks the brain.'

Victor nodded. ‘How is she?'

‘Comfortable, but I have to tell you that she's no longer conscious. She must have been coming to the village for some reason when the illness overwhelmed her.'

‘Where is she now?'

‘At her friend's house. You do appreciate how critical the second stage is?'

‘How long does she have?'

‘This mutant strain has no model we can work with.'

‘Hours?'

‘Hours probably.' Dr Nazra regarded Victor. ‘And you, Victor, you've suffered from this, too.'

‘I'm feeling OK,' he lied. Already the world had taken on a dreamlike aspect.

‘My regret is that you won't be for long. Soon you won't be thinking coherently. Memory will fail. You'll become so fatigued that you will not be able to stay awake.' Dr Nazra sighed. ‘But my suggestion that you go home will be wasted on you, won't it? I can tell you have a matter of great importance.'

Victor smiled grimly. ‘A matter of life and death. If that doesn't sound too melodramatic.'

‘Then Godspeed.'

Victor thanked him then headed down toward the jetty.

The doctor called after him. ‘And another thing, think twice before you do anything that might cause harm. The fever will cloud your judgement.'

Debris covered the jetty planks: white shards of polystyrene, seaweed, plastic bags and a slimy coating of mud. He wondered why it had been left in such a mess. Then he looked along the shoreline. An upturned dinghy wallowed in the shallows. While on the beach itself were a dozen or so uprooted trees that had been tossed about the beach like a child's discarded toys.

‘I should know why it looks like this . . . something happened this morning . . .' He stared at the ravaged coastline. Brown scars revealed where turf had been stripped from the soil. What on earth had caused this? Victor's blood thudded in his ears. He knew the reason. He was sure he did. Only for the moment he couldn't quite . . .

‘The ship.' He sucked air into his lungs. The relief at remembering seemed hugely important. ‘I haven't lost my wits yet.' Even so, that moment of
not
remembering the incident of just a few hours ago, when an ocean-going tanker had sent a tidal wave blasting along the shoreline, left him trembling. ‘You got to keep a grip,' he breathed. ‘Because you've got to find Jay. And do what needs to be done.'

He worked his way along the shoreline path. The only figure out in this foul weather was John Newton, a writer of true crime stories, who lived in the cottage nearest the river. The man was clearing away branches left by the ship's destructive wash.

‘John,' he called over the roar of the gale. ‘John?'

‘Victor. Did you see what that ship did this morning?'

‘John, this is important. Have you seen a boy around here recently?'

‘About ten minutes ago, one of the Badsworth Lodge party headed up that way toward the middle of the island.'

‘Can you remember what he looked like?'

John Newton added a dripping branch to the pile. ‘About eleven or twelve. Very slightly built. Oh, and his eyes. Very distinctive eyes. Why, what's—?'

‘Thanks, John.'

Whatever John Newton's response might have been vanished into the teeth of the gale. Victor raced southward along the path. This wasn't a big place. He'd find Jay, without a shadow of doubt. It was only a question of time.

Archer ran. In fact, he ran so fast it didn't seem like running. Dark soil streamed under his feet. Above his head, a green blur of branches. He followed the pair of Saban Deer that flitted through the undergrowth; they were more spirit creatures than real skin and fur, or so it seemed to Archer.

Mayor Wilkes chased Archer, roaring at him to stand still. For a moment back there the eight-year-old felt himself slipping into the comatose state that gripped him when the world became too much to bear. But Archer knew the man would hurt him if he stopped, and it'd be a far greater hurt than any bully had inflicted on him in the past.

‘You, boy, give me the bracelet!'

Archer kept moving. Because he was so small he could run without stooping under the branches. Not so, the thundering man. They were at chest height for him. However, instead of bending down he punched his way through. Those hard fists snapped the twigs. Every so often he'd encounter a clump of pink blossom. Smack! The fist would strike. Then an explosion of pink petals. Nothing stopped him. What was more, Archer knew the man was gaining on him. Gulping with fear, the boy pushed on through the shadows.

‘Come back here, you little wretch!' The voice sounded closer.

And now the forest seemed endless. Archer's legs grew weaker; it was as if the bones had turned as soft as marshmallow. Stitch dug painfully in his side. Hide! But where? The man would find him. They were alone here. Nobody would hear a little boy's screams of pain. For the first time in his eight years Archer found himself looking into the future. Ahead there was only darkness for him. A deep void without light. The same darkness that dominated the coffin of his father's corpse.

His chest tightened. He could barely breathe. The whimper of terror in his throat turned into a crackling sound. Then the light hit him with the abruptness of a slap. He blinked. The forest now lay behind him. In front, the stone mass of the castle on its mound. Its tower loomed above him. He glanced back: surely Mayor Wilkes would be close enough to grab him.

The bushes fringing the forest were at their thickest here. Archer had been able to move freely beneath them. Mayor Wilkes, however, encountered those branches at chest height. His fists still smashed the greenery; yet, here at its densest, it did impede his progress.

‘Stay where you are, or I'll make you wish you'd never been born.'

Exhausted, barely able to put one foot in front of the other, Archer slogged his way up the grassy slope to the castle wall. A small doorway pierced the masonry. He prayed the entrance wouldn't be locked. Soon he wouldn't be able to run another step. Then he'd be easy meat for the furious, roaring figure that now emerged from the forest.

Storm winds shook the trees. The tower resembled a fist ready to fall on Archer and crush him into the earth in a mess of blood and bone and hair. By the time he reached the timber door set in the castle wall he saw that Mayor Wilkes had emerged from the forest. Archer sobbed. The man didn't appear tired. If anything, the anger made him more powerful. His eyes blazed – glorying – exulting – in the merciless power he'd soon wield over the child. Archer stumbled. On his hands and knees he struggled to get air into his lungs. Energy drained away from his body. He could barely raise his head.

‘Boy! Give me that bracelet. Then, so help me, I'm going to enjoy teaching you a lesson!'

Fists, kicks, biting . . . Archer foresaw all too clearly what the next few moments promised. With a yell he kicked free of the exhaustion that held him back. He staggered to the door.
Don't be locked . . . please don't be locked.

Mayor Wilkes pounded relentlessly across the turf toward Archer.

The boy gripped the door handle then tugged it down. It turned. Archer pushed the door. It remained firmly shut. He pushed harder. Still it didn't open. It must be locked after all. He groaned in pure terror. Any moment those fists would crash against his head. He pictured the dead woman in the car. The truth was obvious now. Why Mayor Wilkes needed the bracelet was brutally clear.

Weakly, Archer rattled the door. Just time for one more try. He pulled the handle down hard with both hands. A loud click. A mechanism moved. First time around he hadn't depressed it far enough to engage the lever. So exhausted he could barely push, he allowed his body weight to open the door as he slumped against it. Behind him, Mayor Wilkes had stopped running. He was enjoying the luxury of that purposeful, deadly walk toward Archer.

The boy limped through the doorway into the castle yard, surrounded by its twenty-foot-high stone wall. In one corner of the yard stood the timber cabin that served as the groundskeeper's store and souvenir shop. Shutters up. Door locked. Huge padlocks glinted; they held the outside world at bay. Along one wall, a stack of stone blocks ready to be used to repair eroded masonry.

Archer tottered across the cobbled yard. The main entrance gate had been sealed with forbidding padlocks. Huge things, as big as a boy's head. Archer turned round to witness a dreadful sight. A smiling Mayor Wilkes stepped through the doorway in the wall. Firmly he shut the door behind him, then shot across a bolt at the top – a bolt the tiny waif from Badsworth Lodge couldn't reach. Archer looked for open doorways in the castle buildings. There were none. And there was nobody about. Apart from the bad man, Archer was alone.

‘Archer. You've got something for me.' Mayor Wilkes grinned as he closed in, his hands balling into fists.

Thirty-Six

Above the castle, torrents of misty air raced in from the west. The turbulence drew a ghostly weeping from the battlements that only underlined Archer's fear.

Boy and man faced each other across the cobbled yard. The grown-up bared his teeth in something akin to a snarl. He knew he'd won.

‘Give up, boy, there's nowhere to run.' The adult approached.

Archer searched for a way out. Only the gates and doorways were locked. He was trapped in the castle yard. At that moment a shaft of sunlight speared the cloud. A pool of radiance skated over the stones to where a fence surrounded a metal grid, which had been set into the ground. Archer found himself drawn to follow the shaft of sunlight.