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‘Dad
. . . do something!’ Jaide said. ‘Please!’
They were shuffling forward like zombies, their limbs operating without their conscious control.
Hector Shield opened his arms to welcome them in.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
No Escape
WITH A DEAFENING CRASH, a bookcase collapsed in front of the twins, directly on top of their father. The falling bookcase dislodged the one next to it, which dislodged the one next to it, and soon the library was full of tumbling books and the shelves that had once held them. The twins reeled backwards, released from The Evil the moment its attention was diverted. They blinked and shook their heads, feeling the horrible soul-sapping influence ebb.
‘Got him!’ cried Kyle, hopping in victory among the tumbled books and high-fiving Tara.
‘Is that really your dad?’ she asked the twins, poking his limp, outstretched hand with her toe. ‘And I thought mine was a loser.’
‘He’s not a loser,’ said Jack, hoping Hector was just unconscious under the mountain of books. ‘He’s just . . . it’s not . . .’
‘He’s not your father,’ said Rodeo Dave, clambering out of a pile of books. ‘This is what I’ve been trying to tell you. He’s not who he seems.’
‘Then who is he really?’ asked Jaide. ‘Dad’s identical twin?’
She had meant it as a joke, but even as she spoke the words, she was struck by the force of them. So was Jack. It couldn’t be true, could it? If it was, that changed everything . . .
‘There’s no time to explain,’ Rodeo Dave said urgently. ‘Make for the gates and get the card to safety.’
‘What about you?’ asked Kyle.
‘I’ll follow. Don’t worry about The Evil attacking me. The card is what it wants. Go!’
They didn’t need to be told twice. Jaide and Jack led the charge through the castle and back out onto the grounds, with Tara and Kyle hot on their heels and Cornelia above, matching their pace.
Outside, the night was storm-racked and furious. Wind buffeted them from all sides. Rain lashed their faces. It was difficult to talk, and nearly impossible to see where they were going. They could only find the road leading to the gates and remain on it by bending low, holding one another to stay together as they ran around the lake.
Jack glanced behind him and saw several dark shapes running after them. It was hard to tell from the water in his eyes, but it looked like chimps on wolf-back again. Their eyes shone like cold stars, fixed permanently on the children’s retreating backs.
‘And The Evil is . . . ?’ shouted Kyle over the sound of the storm.
‘Evil!’ said Jack.
‘Why?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Like you didn’t know your dad had an identical twin?’
‘We don’t . . . that is, he doesn’t . . . I mean . . .’
The unreality of the situation struck Jack hard. He couldn’t decide what was stranger – that The Evil had somehow created a mirror image of their father to lure them into a trap, or that Hector Shield really did have a twin brother he had never told them about.
Despite the storm and The Evil and everything else that was going on, the weirdest thing in Jack’s life was suddenly the realisation that he might have an uncle he hadn’t heard of before.
‘Where are the reinforcements?’ shouted Tara as the gates loomed ahead.
‘I can’t see anyone,’ said Jaide, scanning the road outside. She had been randomly trying Gifts while they ran and had stumbled across Jack’s Gift by accident. Using the Gift, she could see the white-eyed animals trailing them with chilling clarity. The chimps weren’t riding the wolves – they were now part of them, like miniature wild centaurs. And they were catching up fast.
Any hope of escape through the gates was snatched from them when the gates themselves came alive and slammed shut in their path.
++Halt!++
The metal whale woven into the gates flapped its tail and snapped its jaws at them. The four kids retreated.
‘That way!’ shouted Jaide, pointing. Through the wind and rain, the stone walls of a building were visible near the gates. The porter’s lodge, Tara’s father had called it. It wasn’t much, but if they could barricade the doors behind them, that would at least slow The Evil down.
Jack used his grandfather’s skeleton key to unlock the front door, and they tumbled inside, one after the other.
‘This is where he died, isn’t it?’ said Tara, flicking on a light switch and looking around. ‘Young Master Rourke, I mean.’
‘I think you’re right,’ said Kyle.
Cornelia swooped with practised ease around light fittings, coat-racks and high-backed chairs, and occupied a familiar perch on a curtain rod in the main room.
‘Rourke,’ she said, dipping her head. ‘Daft old fool.’
A chill wind whipped around the room, riffling book covers, swaying the sheets that covered the furniture, and making Tara shiver from more than just nervousness. It felt ghostly, but had a natural origin. Jaide had finally got her Gift back.
She tossed the gold card to Jack. ‘You want the one that looks like two black eyes.’
‘And then it’s our turn?’ said Kyle.
‘I . . . don’t think it works like that. Look around for weapons. Anything will do.’
Jack found the symbol Jaide had described and swapped his new Gift for the one he had been born with. His confidence returned the moment his shadow sight was restored. This was a Gift he knew. It might be wild and crazy sometimes, but he understood it. It was part of him.
‘Here,’ he said, giving the card to Tara. ‘Keep hold of it, and it’ll protect you like it protected Cornelia. If Kyle’s eyes start to glow, give it to him.’
‘We can share it,’ she said, offering one edge of it to Kyle, who gripped it tightly between the fingers of his left hand. In his right, he held two pokers that he had found next to the fireplace. He gave one to Tara, and she hefted it with relish. Cornelia launched herself off the curtain rod and landed awkwardly on her shoulder.
‘Man the cannons,’ she squawked.
‘I just want to say,’ said Kyle, ‘that this is the most fun I have ever had.’
Before either Jack or Jaide could reply, the windows smashed in. At the same time, something large and heavy came down the chimney in an explosion of ashen mud.
The four protectors of the golden card instinctively put their backs to one another, facing outwards to meet the enemy, equipped with nothing but pokers and their Gifts.
This time The Evil attacked without words, sensing its goal was within reach. The animals were silent, too, not wasting energy on snarling or growling. They just came for the twins and their friends in a silent rush, armed with teeth and claws and all the cold force of the alien intelligence controlling them. There were the two wolf-chimps, plus the other members of the menagerie crossed with all the night creatures The Evil had scared from burrow and nest across the estate. There were at least three owl-lemurs, six deranged possums with eight legs and two heads, and one zebra-warthog that was too horrible to describe.
Behind them all came the stifling will of The Evil, striving to snuff every human thought from those who stood in its way.
Jaide whipped up several whirlwinds that plucked The Evil’s creatures and tossed them around the room. The whirlwinds also tipped up furniture and rattled the roof and doors, threatening to tear them from their hinges, but for once this was okay. Jaide wanted her Gift to go crazy, and she found it harder than expected to really let go. She had spent so long trying to control her Gift, it felt wrong to do otherwise.
Jack’s struggle was no different. Putting out all the lights wasn’t going to help anyone except him, since Tara and Kyle needed to poke their pokers every time an inquisitive snout snapped too close, but apart from that, he was free to do anything. He threw palm-size patches of darkness like shadowy daggers, temporarily blinding his targets. He pushed possessed creatures into the shadows at his feet, where they struggled and
flailed until they finally emerged into full solidity and the light. He danced around the room like a ghost, shadow-walking too fast for anything to get a solid grip on him.
But still, despite all their efforts, the twins were nipped and scratched and clawed. Their clothes offered little protection against wild animals filled with the fury of The Evil. Steadily and silently, not caring how they were injured, the circle of animals pressed closer and closer to the card.
Jaide decided to risk all on a desperate gambit.
‘When I say duck—’ she cried.
‘We duck?’ said Tara, clouting a determined wolf across the snout with her poker.
‘Exactly.’ She took a deep breath, gathering as much air into her lungs as she could. ‘Okay . . . duck!’
The four of them dropped to the ground – and so did Cornelia, who adopted a dive-bombing posture and landed in Kyle’s lap. Jaide blew upwards with her lips pursed as though whistling, but what emerged was a new vortex, one denser and more powerful than any she had created before. It hung above them, sucking all of the smaller hurricanes into itself, dragging in all of the animals they held within them, and becoming stronger in the process. The vortex whirled and roared above their heads, pulling in furniture and everything else not fastened down.
Jack grabbed Jaide’s wrist and pulled her out from under the base of the vortex. He could tell from the way the funnel was dancing that it wanted to touch down, but was trying to avoid hurting them. Tara pulled Cornelia and Kyle after them.
The moment they were out of the way, the vortex snapped like a living whip, smashing down through the floor and up against the ceiling, flattening out in a spreading mushroom cloud, gaining more strength as it grew. Even the largest of The Evil’s creatures, the hideous zebra-warthog, was pulled steadily into it, no matter how its clawed feet scratched at the floor. It fell sideways with a roar, and they saw it tumbling and flailing in ever-tightening circles, mixed up with the other animals, its white eyes blazing in anger.
The Evil wasn’t done yet. Confined to the vortex as they were, it was easy for the animals to merge into the giant monster the kids had seen by the castle. But Jack was ready for it. He stretched the night in through the windows like toffee, winding it around the creature’s many heads and blinding it.
