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The creature roared without words and reached out for them anyway, flailing with hand and hoof and claw.
Every time one of the limbs threatened to come close, Tara and Kyle whacked it with a poker, forcing it to retreat.
The vortex spun. The creature spun with it. For a long minute, nothing else changed.
Slowly, warily, Jaide, Jack, Kyle and Tara stood up and faced The Evil in its prison of wind and darkness.
They looked at one another, bloodied and soaked through, clothes torn and dishevelled, the Card of Translocation gleaming in Tara’s hand.
‘Is that it?’ asked Kyle. ‘Have we won?’
At that moment, the ceiling burst open and something bright flashed down into the centre of the room. An explosive force flung the four children back against the walls, stunning them momentarily. The vortex trembled, and Jaide reached out with both hands to control it. Jack pulled more of the night into the room, winding ropes of deepest black around the creature it contained.
‘Wait,’ said Tara, ‘I think there’s someone in there!’
Jack peered through the roiling wind. A flash of lightning blinded his sensitive sight, but he did glimpse the figure of a man spread-eagled in the tumultuous wind. Lightning flashed again, and the vortex rocked and swayed. Jaide tried to bring it into line, but when lightning flashed a third time, the vortex wriggled like a belly dancer and spat a familiar figure out onto the ruined floor.
A man who looked exactly like Hector Shield landed on his hands and knees, spluttering, glasses completely missing, a familiar pitted iron rod raised waveringly in one hand.
Jack and Jaide just stared at him, the echoes of a very loud thunderclap still ringing in their ears. Was this man their father or some Evil impersonation?
Then with a roar, a sabre-toothed tiger leaped through the hole in the roof, closely followed by a much smaller, ginger shadow. Custer and Ari took a protective stance between the twins and the vortex, as above them all a helicopter swung into view, its downdraft and spotlight only adding to the confusion.
‘Keep back,’ said the man who might or might not be their father. ‘Let us . . . uh . . . that is . . .’
The vortex had returned to its former state, with The Evil firmly trapped inside. To illustrate the point, Kyle jabbed the snout of a passing possum with his poker, making it retreat back into the swirling mass of mixed-up bodies.
The sabre-toothed tiger circled the vortex once, then sat on its haunches at Hector Shield’s side.
‘We’ve arrived too late, Hector,’ it said in Custer’s voice.
‘Do you think?’ added Ari, staring up in awe at Jack and Jaide.
The twins had eyes only for their father. It had to be him now, if Custer said so.
‘Come here, troubletwisters,’ Hector said, opening his arms as his twin had, and this time they ran to him without hesitation.
Above them, the chopper came low over the ruined roof, swaying from side to side in the vortex’s updraft.
‘Is anyone harmed?’ came Grandma X’s voice over the helicopter’s loudspeaker.
Hector took his arm from around Jaide’s shoulders and gave her an enthusiastic thumbs up.
‘Good work, troubletwisters,’ said Grandma X, and the twins glowed with pride. ‘Your mother says that this time the grown-ups will do the cleaning up.’
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Not All Twins Are
Troubletwisters . . .
THE HELICOPTER PUT DOWN BEHIND the porter’s lodge, allowing its passengers to step out onto solid ground. Grandma X was wearing a long coat over her hospital gown. Susan Shield raised an umbrella once they were clear of the rotors and steadied the older woman as they crossed to the lodge’s back door. Kleo ran with them, keeping close to their heels in order to share the umbrella.
Arrayed around the lodge, next to several incongruous suits of armour frozen in mid-step, were a number of familiar faces: Aleksandr, Roberta Gendry, Phanindranath . . . The Wardens had come when called, but they were keeping well back now. They understood that this was no ordinary attack by The Evil. This was personal.
Custer greeted them outside the lodge, in human form.
‘I’m on my way to get him,’ was all he said.
Grandma X nodded with a weariness that had nothing to do with tranquillisers or other modern drugs.
‘Be kind,’ she said, ‘but firm. I want to see him.’
He nodded. They went inside.
The lodge was ruined, gutted by wind and rain. Everything Young Master Rourke had owned that wasn’t already boxed up was now soaked through or torn to shreds. The ceiling sagged. Floorboards curled under sodden carpet. Even the wallpaper was peeling from the walls.
The sources of the destructive force stood on either side of their father. Behind them were two more children and a parrot. They should have been shivering in the cold and wet, but their faces said it all. They were beaming, proud of what they had done. Success kept them warm.
Near them, hissing like a fat, bloated snake, was the black-striped vortex containing what remained of The Evil, evidence that they had done very well indeed.
‘Grandma!’ the troubletwisters cried, interrupting their explanation of what had happened to greet the new arrivals. ‘And Mum – what are you doing here?’
‘Your grandmother . . . appeared to me,’ said Susan. ‘She said you were in danger. The chopper was the fastest means we had of getting here.’
‘I heard the call of the Living Ward,’ Grandma X explained. ‘Custer was summoned by Ari.’
The ginger cat looked smug. ‘He didn’t believe me at first, but the smell of wolf on me was a bit of a giveaway.’
Susan looked around in amazement and alarm at the damage, at the vortex, and finally at the twins’ father.
‘Were you in danger?’ she asked them all. ‘Because that wasn’t why we moved here.’
‘That discussion can wait,’ said Grandma X, opening her arms. ‘Come here and give me that wretched card.’
They ran to her and hugged her, and after a moment Susan hugged them, too.
Tara hesitantly approached the huddle, holding the Card of Translocation tightly in one hand. She was reluctant to give it up. She had seen its power and wanted more than just a glimpse of it.
‘Here,’ she said, winning the war within herself and offering it to Grandma X. ‘I guess you’ll know what to do with it.’
‘Thank you, Tara. So . . . the Gift of Translocation. That’s what this is all about.’
Grandma X took the card from her and studied it for a long moment.
‘Let’s see. It must be here somewhere.’ Symbols flashed by, as mysterious as the Gifts they represented. One appeared, one they had glimpsed before – a square with a straight line drawn through it. ‘Ah, yes. Butler’s Gift, lost for forty years.’
Grandma X raised the card, and something changed. Jack and Jaide felt it, although they couldn’t have defined how or where they were feeling it.
Then the animals in the vortex started howling in terror, and they knew what had happened. The wards were back, reactivated by the Gift Grandma X had found. With the return of the wards, The Evil was driven out, and it had left its creatures behind, afraid and confused.
‘Oh,’ said Jaide, ‘those poor things.’
She clapped her hands as she had seen Grandma X do, and her Gift, weary from so much exertion, relaxed instantly. The vortex collapsed, and the binds of blindness that stopped the animals from seeing unwound, too, as Jack followed Jaide’s lead. The animals staggered dizzily free.
Kyle stepped forward. ‘Hey, Chippy, here.’
One of the chimpanzees lurched to him and climbed up into his arms, scratching its head in confusion.
‘Flippy?’
The second chimp joined him.
‘We’d better get them back in their cages,’ Kyle said, ‘and all the others, before they run away again.’
‘Tara, will you help him?’ said Grandma X.
Tar
a eyed the wolves with wary scepticism. ‘Will they do as they’re told?’
‘Sure they will,’ said Kyle, ‘if you call them by name. Come, Tasker. Come, Kress. You’ll be good for me, won’t you?’
‘Ari, Kleo,’ said Grandma X, ‘go with them. They should be safe, now the wards are back up. I have shifted the boundaries slightly to include the lodge and the rest of the estate.’
The wolves shook their furry flanks and followed as Kyle led the animals out of the room in a ragtag line. All except Cornelia, who flapped warily back to her perch as Ari passed by.
‘You don’t have to worry about me,’ the cat said as he trailed after the other animals. ‘I only eat free-range.’
That left just Grandma X, Susan, Hector, and the twins. Jack and Jaide returned to their father’s side, so glad to be near him again but wary of their Gifts playing up. Fortunately, both Gifts were exhausted and content to remain quiescent, for now.
