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She twisted uncomfortably on the stony ground. Dark fluid leaked from her eyes. Jack realised that she was weeping.
Behind her The Evil locomotive grew its last piston-leg. It rose up and opened its terrible jaws to reveal the firebox still burning within.
‘Now it has tossed me aside and left me to die. I want to make amends. It is the only way I can make up for the mistakes I’ve made.’
Jaide looked at the locomotive. They only had seconds before it charged.
‘What if we trust you and you betray us?’
‘Please let me! I failed to protect my children, so let me protect you, this town, the people . . . give me a reason to live.’
‘We don’t know how,’ said Jaide uncertainly.
The locomotive vented steam in an unholy scream that sent ripples flying across the lake. With it came the return of The Evil’s mental voice.
++What are you doing?++
Rennie stiffened. A fleck of white appeared in her eyes.
‘Now!’ she whispered. ‘Now!’
The locomotive shuddered forward and struck rubble. It backed up, moving ponderously on its steely legs. Then it rammed forward, exploding the fallen rocks, but not quite all of them. Not enough so it could pass. It backed up again, snorting and steaming.
Jack and Jaide took what remained of Rennie’s right hand.
‘Rennie,’ said Jaide.
‘Renita Daniels,’ corrected Jack.
‘Renita Cassidy Daniels,’ Rennie whispered.
‘ . . . be the Living Ward of Portland,’ the twins said in unison.
Rainbow-hued light flared between them. Rennie’s back arched and her mouth opened in a silent cry. Jack and Jaide shook as their Gifts were ripped from them in a wild, sudden rush. They had forgotten that the creation of a new ward would temporarily rob them of their powers.
Even as what made them troubletwisters rushed into Rennie, making her into the Living Ward, The Evil fought back. The whiteness was spreading in her eyes and the locomotive was smashing against the fallen rocks.
‘Come on, Rennie!’ Jaide cried.
Jack gripped her hand more tightly than ever. ‘Don’t give in!’
Tara joined in, unflinchingly reaching out to touch her palm to the side of Rennie’s ruined face.
‘Please,’ she said. ‘You’re a mum. We’re kids. We need you.’
The white vanished from Rennie’s eyes in an instant and the black tears became clear. She smiled, and her eyelids slowly closed.
The Living Ward was restored. Portland was safe again.
The locomotive, reversing for its final charge, kept going and rammed backwards into the tunnel beyond the cave. Its boiler burst, and red-hot coals exploded out of its firebox, falling like a shower of meteorites.
++No! Come back to us, be one with us, forever . . . !++
The mental voice of The Evil faded and then was gone.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Smoke and Mirrors
A few seconds later, the shining forms of the Wardens returned. Four of them bent over Rennie and laid down a cloth of something so white that the twins and Tara couldn’t bear to see it and had to look away.
When they looked back, Rennie and the four shining figures were gone.
++Quickly,++ said Grandma X’s voice. ++There is little time.++
The twins turned to see her sylphlike, youthful form standing directly behind them.
‘Are you a ghost?’ asked Tara.
‘Where did Rennie go?’ asked Jaide at the same time.
++No, I’m not a ghost,++ replied Grandma X. ++Rennie has been taken somewhere where we will heal her, at least as much as we can. But right now you all must listen very closely. Emergency services are on their way.++
‘Uh-oh,’ Jack said.
‘Mum!’ exclaimed Jaide.
++Yes, your mother, among many others. We must get you out of the cave before she arrives.++
Two more shining figures appeared next to her. One was Custer, in human shape, and the other was Aleksandr.
++We must act fast to seal up the cave again,++ said Custer. ++And restore the locomotive pieces to a more usual form. You children need to get out now.++
Jack nodded.
++Tara,++ said Aleksandr. ++One moment. Jack, stand next to her, please.++
Tara turned to look at the Warden. Something flashed in his hand and she went limp for a moment, and would have fallen if Jack hadn’t propped her up.
++She will remember nothing of what transpired here,++ he said. ++You must not remind her.++
‘But she was part of it,’ said Jaide. ‘We couldn’t have done it without her.’
++You may talk of the crash, but not what followed. She saw too much. It would do her no good to remember.++
He waved his hand, and Tara followed the gesture like a puppet, heading towards the hole in the cave wall.
Ari and Kleo appeared, no longer looking quite so worse for wear.
‘We must follow,’ Kleo said. ‘The Gathering is going to work their magic, and they wish you well away before they start.’
‘I get it,’ Jack said. ‘In case our Gifts make things go wrong.’
He set out after Tara and the spirit of Aleksandr, his hands shoved deep into his pockets.
Jaide followed, but paused as she saw a bedraggled, white-furred body in the rubble. Amadeus had no visible wounds, but he was clearly dead. He appeared to have died from shock.
‘Poor Amadeus,’ said Kleo. She licked the top of his head, in a final farewell.
‘What happened to the other train cats?’ she asked.
‘Most ran away,’ said Ari. ‘We’ll just go and make sure that all of them did so.’
‘Good.’
‘Would you carry Amadeus for me?’ Kleo asked Jaide. ‘He should be properly buried, not left here like this. He was not always as you saw him.’
Ari sniffed, stifling it suddenly as Kleo looked at him.
‘All right,’ said Jaide, swallowing a flash of mixed sympathy and revulsion. She put her hands under the dead cat and, with one quick movement, picked him up.
++Hurry!++ called out Aleksandr, turning back to the cave. ++Out through the tunnel!++
The twins ran to him, took Tara by one arm each and led her out into the night air.
‘Along here,’ said Kleo, guiding them across the tangled tracks and past the passenger carriage, which was only half off the railway tracks.
Behind them, with the sound of a great stone door slamming shut, the cave was once again sealed off from the tunnel.
Sirens approached. Two police cars, one fire engine and an ambulance screeched round the corner into the station car park. Jack shielded his eyes from the bright lights.
A car door slammed and Susan almost catapulted out of her seat and was with the children in an instant.
‘Jack? Jaide? What on earth are you doing here?’
Before they could even begin to answer, she gathered them into a frantic hug, then pushed them back to peer at their filthy faces, looking for blood, bruises, broken bones and possibly worse things the twins couldn’t imagine.
‘We were on the train, Mum,’ Jack told her. ‘But it’s OK. We’re all right.’
‘Are you sure? Your face is scratched,’ she said to Jaide.
‘It doesn’t hurt,’ she said, and indeed it didn’t. After everything that had happened, she had completely forgotten about it.
‘And you, Tara? You poor girl. Look at me.’
Susan swung Tara round so the light caught her full in her face.
‘Uh, what?’ she said, as though waking from a deep dream. ‘Where am I?’
Susan held her face and looked into her eyes.
‘No obvious sign of concussion,’ she said. ‘But I think we’d better take her in for a full check-up. Just sit down here, Tara, for a few minutes.’
She turned back to the ambulance and raised her hand above her head.
‘Hobo, stretcher!’
‘I
’ll take the twins home,’ said Grandma X, the real, physical Grandma X, coming forward out of the light. ‘You have work to do.’
There was something in her voice that made the professionally repressed fear in Susan’s eyes fade. She looked the twins over again, then nodded.
