AllFreeNovel
Share Us
++Thank you, troubletwisters,++ said The Evil. ++Once again you have opened the way for us. We could never have got in here without your train.++
Jaide felt her blood stop in her veins, and not just because of the voice. She knew the face The Evil was wearing.
It wasn’t Martin McAndrew. It was Renita Daniels.
++Do not be afraid,++ said The Evil ++We are here to protect you.++
‘You can’t be here,’ shouted Jack. ‘You’re dead!’
++You should know better, Jackaran,++ said The Evil. ++We would never leave you. We have so much love for both of you!++
‘You’re the excision,’ said Jaide, finally understanding. ‘The leftover that stayed behind when the wards were re-established. Rennie was the focus, her will to stay alive kept you here . . .’
‘What’s going on –’ whispered Tara.
++You do not know the meaning of love,++ interrupted a stern voice that came from the silvery, spectral form of a young woman in a white robe that had suddenly materialised near the edge of the lake.
‘Grandma!’
++Stay back, troubletwisters,++ Grandma X warned them. ++You are in grave danger.++
++We will keep them safe,++ said The Evil, its mental voice sliding insidiously into the children’s minds.
As The Evil spoke, Rennie stepped closer, moving further into Jack’s light. Tara gave a cry of horror, and even Ari shuddered.
It wasn’t just the white eyes that distinguished Rennie now. She was truly a creature of The Evil. Her ears were made up of bits of bugs and worms. Her entire left hand was composed of dozens of rat paws, melded together to fashion palm, thumb and fingers, a ghastly jigsaw where the original rat parts could still be seen in outline.
Falling from the lighthouse must have done that, Jack thought. Hiding, probably underground, had done more. All the injuries that must have caused . . . all had been repaired by The Evil, in its own horrible way.
Rennie took two steps forward, and her hair swung strangely. Jaide gulped as she realised it wasn’t hair at all, but was composed of hundreds of small black spiders.
‘You’re Rennie?’ asked Tara unexpectedly. ‘You’re the builder who disappeared with Dad’s second van?’
‘There’ve been two MMM vans all this time?’ asked Jaide.
‘Yeah. Dad lent one to her, and then when she went missing, so did the van . . .’ Her voice dropped back down to a whisper. ‘What happened to her? What does she want?’
++If she still exists anywhere inside that shape, she wants to replace her lost children,++ said Grandma X. ++That’s how The Evil twisted her mind into joining it originally. Thus it ever goes – love is turned to hate, and the world is poisoned once more. But we know you now, excision, for what you are. You are a pathetic remnant, and we will see you gone!++
Other glowing figures appeared around the lake. In amazement Jack recognised Custer, the mane-headed Aleksandr and several others from the Gathering of the Glass. They were all in spectral form. Some glowed white, like Grandma X. Others were blue, green, yellow – every colour of the rainbow. All were young in appearance, just like Grandma X. Only the woman with twinkling eyes looked the same because she had been young anyway.
Rennie took in the new arrivals with her white, lifeless eyes.
++You will not. The Living Ward will die, and we will triumph!++
‘What?’ asked Jack.
The Evil laughed through Rennie’s damaged mouth, echoing it within their minds.
Over in the lake, the monster’s groan suddenly changed. It rose up on its flippers and tail, and roared in defiance.
‘No,’ said Jaide. ‘That?’
The light of the Wardens brightened, forming a ring of silver fire round the monster. It didn’t seem to slow it however. It slid on as quickly as before, dripping rank water and slime as it advanced upon Rennie, who retreated back into the darkness.
The monster stopped, its blunt head turning as it tried to work out where its target had gone.
‘Watch out!’ shouted Jack as a wave of train cats burst out from the remains of the train. He reached for his Gift, trying to maintain the light while also raising a line of shadow that would cloak him and his friends.
He failed. The light disappeared, but its loss was not noticed, the brightness of the silver ring around the monster and the glowing Wardens more than enough to banish the darkness. The shadow also didn’t work, for some reason wrapping the coal tender in impenetrable blackness rather than Jack.
But Amadeus’s cats weren’t coming for Kleo and the troubletwisters. Instead they swarmed right past them and threw themselves at the monster.
The white ring flared. The train cats who hit it bounced off and fell senseless to the floor. Amadeus himself twisted in the air and somehow managed to avoid that fate. Hissing, he ran on, disappearing into the cloud of steam around the fallen locomotive.
‘The monster is the Living Ward?’ said Jack in disbelief, stepping back out into the light. ‘All this time?’
++You shouldn’t be here,++ said Grandma X, disappearing and reappearing beside them. ++Move back up the tunnel, as quickly as you can.++
‘But why didn’t you –’ asked Jaide.
++Go! You must take Tara to safety and await my arrival. I am on my way.++
++Enough,++ said The Evil, and Rennie’s twisted form once again came into the light. ++We grow weary of this dance.++
The composite woman stood stock-still. The white in her eyes faded and her left hand began to shiver.
‘It’s leaving her,’ whispered Jaide.
++Watch and ward!++ called Grandma X.
High above them, hundreds of bats chirped all at the same time. Then they moved together in a great cloud, but not down towards the monster. They flew up, and began to hurl themselves at one of the stalactites. Bat bodies smashed into it and fell like a ghastly rain.
A sharp splitting sound followed the thump, thump, thump of impact. A stalactite as long, thin and sharp-tipped as a spear fell, guided and directed by yet more white-eyed bats. It dropped with a whistling noise and skewered the monster just behind its head, going right through its body before embedding itself deep into the ground.
The monster howled, a howl that was worse than any noise that it had made before.
It was a howl of mortal agony, a death-cry.
The images of the Wardens flickered.
++Troubletwisters . . . go to the –!++
Grandma X was cut off as her shining image vanished.
Rennie flinched and straightened up, the white luminosity returning to her eyes as The Evil left the bats and returned to her. She looked at the twins and smiled. Her teeth were not human.
‘Go to what?’ asked Jack. He was trying very hard not to panic.
‘The ward,’ said Jaide. ‘We have to do something for the ward.’
The Evil laughed inside their heads as they ran to the side of the giant creature. It was still breathing, but only just. Pinkish blood pulsed from its terrible wound, forming a puddle round its feet. Its black eyes stared out, unseeing.
‘Don’t die,’ said Jaide, clutching its slick, clammy side. ‘We need you.’
‘You can’t die.’ Jack didn’t want to think what it would mean if another ward failed. They had only just managed to repair the last one. ‘You’re the Monster of Portland. We didn’t realise what that meant. We didn’t know you were the Living Ward!’
‘It’s stopped breathing,’ Tara said.
No one said anything. There was a moment of absolute stillness between the monster’s last breath and the failure of the Living Ward.
But it was only a moment, and when it passed, The Evil came rushing through to join its excision with a deafening cry.
++Yes!++
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
The Living Ward
‘It’s in my head,’ muttered Tara.
Jack looked at her in horror. A white film was slowly washing across her eyes.
‘No!’ he
shrieked. ‘Doughnuts! Think of doughnuts! And . . . shopping!’
++You have interfered for the last time, trouble-twisters.++
The mental voice was like a sledgehammer blow to the head. Jaide actually fell down on one knee and dropped Kleo. Jack raised his arm as if he could block the attack.
The Living Ward, the West Ward, had failed. Now Portland was exposed to the power of The Evil. It would flow in, unstoppable, and destroy the other wards, and then spread across the whole world –
‘No!’ shouted Jaide. She reached for her Gift and it was there again, rising up in her like an overflowing spring. She spun up a tornado and sent it at Rennie, only to see it wither and fade, breaking into small eddies of air that merely lifted the spider-hair on Rennie’s head.
++You are right to doubt your Gifts,++ said The Evil. ++They are weak. You do not know how to use them. We will teach you, when you are with us.++
Rennie raised her arms. A vast cloud of moths and bugs flew to her middle, and were absorbed. She grew taller, and relished in it, twisting and flexing as bats flew to join her too. Then the train cats came, slinking and writhing, resisting to the last. But they too were taken.
Amadeus was the last, stalking proudly, as if it was all his idea. Rennie reached down and picked him up. When she stood straight, Amadeus was no more, but there was a ruff of white fur around the giant Rennie’s neck.
At Jaide’s feet, Kleo stirred. Ari was at her side in an instant, licking her face, but she pushed him away with one paw and stood up.
‘Back away and run, troubletwisters,’ she whispered. ‘Ari and I will try to hold it off.’
Jaide looked behind her. There was only the dark lake, and the body of the monster.
‘Too late,’ she whispered.
++ Warden Companions. You may join us too ++
