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Another voice struggled to make itself heard over the whine of the buggy’s motor. It was coming from Jack’s backpack.
‘That’s him!’ Professor Olafsson was shouting. ‘That’s the voice I’ve been trying to remember!’
Jaide pulled the death mask out and pointed him forward.
‘Him?’
‘Yes! I knew I recognised him from somewhere. He was in the castle, a long time ago. He – eeeeargh!’
Jack braked again as a long red car roared to a halt in front of them, driving right through the phantom and dissolving it into mist. Professor Olafsson flew out of Jaide’s hands and went spinning through the window, striking the side of the car with a resounding crack and splitting in two, right down the length of his face.
‘Professor Olafsson!’ Jaide stood up in her seat but couldn’t see if either piece was still moving. ‘Jack – he’s hurt.’
Jack was too busy trying to reverse, but the wheels were spinning in the wet grass.
In the rear-vision mirror, Zebediah’s driver-side door opened with a creak and a grim-looking Rodeo Dave stepped out.
‘Jack, get us out of here!’ cried Jaide.
‘I’m trying!’
The buggy’s engine whined uselessly.
‘Don’t run, troubletwisters,’ called Rodeo Dave over Zebediah’s long front bonnet. ‘I know what you’ve done, but it’s not your fault. You’ve been tricked!’
‘Hurry up, Jack!’
‘Don’t listen to him!’
Rodeo Dave was coming around the front of the car now. Zebediah’s blinding headlights cast his face into deep shadow. The buggy was going nowhere. They would have to get out and run for it and hope youth would win out over his longer stride, or—
‘The card, Jaide,’ Jack gasped. ‘Use it – quickly!’
‘What?’ Jaide fumbled at her back pocket. ‘Use it to do what?’
‘Translocate him!’
‘Translocate Rodeo Dave? But we don’t know where he’ll go—’
‘We have to! He’ll stop us from getting to Dad if you don’t!’
Jaide pulled the card out into the light. It gleamed wildly in the reflected headlights. A wave of cold made her fingertips numb as she held it up in front of her. A series of black symbols swept across its face, settling on a bold, black X.
She called up her Gift and felt it swirl around her in the night air. Lacking any idea at all how the card was supposed to work, she simply raised it in front of her and said the first thing that came to mind.
‘Go, card – do your stuff!’
‘Jaide, no!’ said Rodeo Dave, holding up his hands in alarm. ‘Don’t do that!’
But it was too late. The Card of Translocation had been activated.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Remembering Rodeo Dave
JAIDE’S GIFT VANISHED LIKE the air leaving a burst balloon. She felt it going, bleeding out of her in a few seconds, leaving a terrible emptiness in its wake.
‘What?’ She shook the gold card as though it was a malfunctioning gadget. ‘My Gift’s gone! That wasn’t supposed to happen.’
‘Give it here,’ said Jack. ‘You probably didn’t concentrate hard enough!’
He took the card and tried exactly what she’d done.
‘No, Jack, wait!’ cried Rodeo Dave, stepping out of the light and coming closer.
‘Translocate!’ said Jack.
Suddenly he could no longer see in the dark. His Gift was sliced away, leaving him blind apart from the dazzling headlights.
‘It’s not too late, troubletwisters,’ said Rodeo Dave urgently. ‘I can make everything right. Just don’t run. I’m nearly there.’
Jack almost gave in. The card was useless in his hands. They had no Gifts and no means of defending themselves. Perhaps if they gave him the card, they would live to fight another day, as poor Professor Olafsson had put it. Perhaps he would let them go.
Then a voice called out of the darkness to their right.
‘Jack and Jaide! Over here!’
Hope returned. It was Hector Shield, and he sounded close.
‘We’re coming, Dad!’ cried Jack, grabbing his sister’s hand and tumbling out of the buggy.
Rodeo Dave lunged for them, yelling, ‘No, wait!’
They dodged him, and then they were running across the muddy grounds of the estate, following their father’s voice.
‘That’s it! A little further!’
Jaide had her torch on. Hector Shield was just feet away. He waved them closer. He looked dishevelled and his glasses were askew, but his face was eager, excited, and relieved all at once.
‘The card has taken our Gifts,’ Jaide called to him. ‘Translocated them somewhere!’
‘That’s what it’s supposed to do,’ he called back. ‘But don’t worry – it translocates them into the card itself, with all the other Gifts he stole.’
‘I didn’t steal them,’ puffed Rodeo Dave from behind them, ‘and you know it!’
‘Shut up, old man. In a moment the card will be mine, and then I’ll deal with you once and for all.’ Hector Shield hurried the twins onwards, into his waiting arms. ‘That’s it, children. Almost there. Almost mine . . .’
Jaide hesitated. There was something so gloating and horrible about the way her father was speaking that she hardly recognised him. She had never heard him sound that way before, and she remembered Professor Olafsson asking, What kind of father . . . ? Her father would never talk like this. Her father would never threaten anyone.
‘Wait, Jack,’ she said, slowing him by tugging on his backpack. ‘Something’s not right.’
‘Don’t listen to her, Jack,’ said Hector Shield, reaching towards him. His feet stayed just outside the invisible line marking the boundary of the wards. ‘Just come . . . a little bit . . . closer. Oh, curse you – I’ll come in there and get you myself!’
With that, he lunged over the line, caught the card in one hand, and pulled it from Jack with a cry of triumph.
‘No!’ shouted Rodeo Dave. He grabbed the twins and pulled them further back inside the boundary of the wards, away from their father
. ‘This is the worst possible thing! Behind me, both of you.’
‘Nothing you can do will save them now.’ Hector Shield capered on the spot, holding the Card of Translocation over his head. Black symbols danced over its surface like numbers on a digital clock that was running too fast. ‘You were foolish to allow them near the card. Now I have their Gifts, and soon The Evil will have them, too.’
‘The Evil?’ Jaide asked. ‘What are you talking about, Dad?’
‘Just get back,’ said Rodeo Dave, putting himself in front of them.
‘Dad . . . but you can’t be Evil. You can’t be,’ Jack said.
‘Can’t I, Jackaran Shield?’ Hector Shield stared at him. ‘Just you watch.’
He tapped the gold card with his right index finger and the symbols stopped moving. It showed a square with a straight line through it. What happened next, Jack and Jaide didn’t understand at first, but the air changed around them. The ground beneath their feet changed, too, and the rain hitting their faces, and the clouds high above. Hector Shield changed, too. He stood straighter. His face grew longer, more haggard. He didn’t look like their father now. He looked like a different man hiding behind the same face.
‘Dad . . .’ said Jaide, but the word sounded uncertain in her mouth.
++Will you tell them or will we, David Smeaton?++ Hector Shield said in the voice of The Evil.
Not very far away, in Portland, Renita Daniels jumped at a searing pain between her ribs. It felt as though a dagger had stabbed deep inside her, so keenly and smoothly that she hadn’t even felt it until it reached her heart.
‘No,’ she gasped, pressing her wooden hand to her side. ‘Not again.’
And not very far from her, a much older woman, who no longer had a name at all, opened her eyes and took in the dim gloom of the hospital room around her. Her mind felt fogbound and sluggish, the exact opposite of how she prided herself on being, and for a long second she struggled to remember how she had come to be that way. There was a car . . . the river coming up to meet her . . . a series of doctors and nurses in white coats . . . a dark figure creeping in at night, fiddling with her drip . . .
