Midnight's Choice (13 page)

T
ESS COULDN'T FACE MARTIN'S
mother now that she had failed so miserably in her mission. Instead she slipped quietly down the stairs, out of the front door and away down the street.

The last of the sunlight held no warmth, but it had that sweet, golden hue of evening which made it seem more substantial than it had been earlier in the day. Tess was reminded of the light emitted by the phoenix, and she tried to settle her thoughts and recapture her earlier mood.

She had left Martin's house in a hurry, not because she was afraid of him but because she was afraid that her own feelings of anger and betrayal would overwhelm her. As she warmed to the stroll through the darkening streets, the strange contradictions of her situation began to become apparent to her. She was being swung like a pendulum between two opposing forces, one dark and bent upon nothing more than satisfying its own desires, the other light, peaceful, beyond human yearnings and frailties. The first saw itself as all-important, with others being no more than a means of satisfying its needs, while the second had no need of others, but was perfect within itself. The choice ought to have been simple, according to the morality that Tess had been taught both at home and at school, but when faced with those opposites in reality, was far from being so. Because the phoenix, for all its light-giving qualities, was powerless when faced with opposition. How otherwise could it be caught so easily and held captive, at the mercy of those who held the keys? It might continue; it might rise again from its own ashes, and again, and again. But what use was that if it couldn't move about freely and spread its influence?

The vampire, on the other hand, would always be free to stalk the earth, even if it was restricted to the hours of darkness. It had the power to mesmerise, to bring others under its control. And in a confrontation, as Tess had found out, the only defence that existed against the creature was to become as he was. This had happened to her in the street under the trees, and in a slightly different way it had just happened again. The only response Tess had found to Martin's coldness was a coldness of her own, despite all her good intentions. Under threat, the phoenix force had diminished and the vampire force had grown.

Tess tried to remember what Lizzie had said. ‘It's not what we are that needs changing but what we thinks.' Was that it? In any event, the words made no sense. Tess felt as though the seams of her mind were about to give way under the stress of the inner conflict. She wished that she had never met Martin, or Kevin either. She wished for the first time in her life, that she had never discovered her power to Switch and that she was safely on the course that her parents wanted for her; towards a good education and a secure job. Life would be so simple, then; the only choices she would be faced with would be her Leaving Cert subjects.

She felt like screaming and began to run, trying to drown out the pursuing voices, both the light and the dark. When she got back to the house she barely greeted her mother, who was frying burgers in the kitchen, but went straight through to the sitting room and turned on the TV. A children's programme was on; it seemed fatuous, but lulled her like an old song and, exhausted from the excitement of the day and from lack of sleep, Tess dozed off.

She dreamt that the room was full of rats, a moving carpet of silky grey-brown. The rats were trying to get her attention, sending out strange picture calls, but she was refusing to listen. They were becoming more and more agitated, and some of them had begun to climb up on to her bed.

She woke and opened her eyes on to darkness. For a moment she didn't know where she was, then the familiar shape of the bay window reminded her that she had fallen asleep in the sitting room. One or other of her parents had brought down her duvet and pillow; she was snug and warm, wrapped up on the settee. She glanced at the luminous hands of her watch. Three a.m. With a sense of relief, she turned round to go back to sleep.

Something wriggled on the settee beside her. At the same time, something small and heavy ran across the top of the duvet. This was no dream. Tess threw off the cover and sat up, reaching out blindly for the switch of the standing lamp beside the settee. In the dim orange glow cast from the street lights outside the window, she could see her duvet moving on the floor as the rats beneath it squirmed around, looking for a way out. As her initial terror passed off, Tess relaxed, and was immediately bombarded by rat minds throwing images at her. It hadn't been a dream. The rats had come, and they had brought a message from their master.

For a long moment, Tess considered refusing his demand. She was afraid of what she might discover; afraid of the vampire's night-time power. But something stronger than fear lured her. Whatever her final decision might be, she needed to know everything there was to know.

She reassured the clamorous rats and sat for a while trying to compose herself; trying, without success, to draw upon the residual serenity somewhere within. She failed to find it, but discovered instead a small corner of her heart which still hoped to save not only herself, but Martin as well, from the eternal alienation of a vampire existence.

Despite the anxiety which wrenched at her guts there was no question of changing her mind. She took a deep breath and Switched, hating the transition as always but welcoming the alertness of the rat, and the vibrant certainty of its being.

The others led the way. There must have been about fifty of them, steaming down through a hole in the floorboards that Tess was sure wasn't there yesterday. One by one they dropped down through the joists beneath the floor and on to the uneven, muddy shale of the foundations. It was the last bit of open space that they were to see for quite a while, for the next minute they were underground, racing nose-to-tail through a newly-dug tunnel.

It was more like something a mole would dig than a rat and Tess remembered the little piles of earth she had seen in the park. Here was the answer to that mystery, at least. The earth that had been excavated would have to have been put somewhere. Below ground, the tunnels were economical, just wide enough for a rat to pass through at full stretch with no concession made for whiskers. Every few feet, subsidiary tunnels branched off the main one; some going up, some going down, some heading off on the same level, at right angles. As they sped along, the rats explained the system to Tess; how it had been devised so that every patch of ground beneath the city and the park could be searched. They would not, however, describe for her what they had found, despite their obvious excitement.

For the most part, the journey was easy going, if a little dull and claustrophobic. But on two occasions the entire party was brought to a halt by subsidence in the tunnel ahead. When that happened, the lead rat had to dig a way through, passing the fallen earth back from rat to rat until it reached the end of the line or the entrance to an excavation tunnel, whichever came first. The delays only served to heighten Tess's sense of expectation, so that by the time they eventually arrived at their destination, about half a mile from the edge of the park, she was bursting with curiosity.

The first she knew of their impending arrival was when the file turned in to a subsidiary tunnel on the right-hand side. It ran along straight for a few yards, and a single tip-head passage forked off to the left, sloping gradually upwards. Soon afterwards, the route began to slope downwards, gently at first, then more sharply. The earth was quite wet at that depth and the tunnel, which was clearly well-used, had turned into a mud-slide. The rats at the front tried to use outstretched paws to brake their descent, but the pressure of those careering down behind added to their speed, so that when they reached their destination they went shooting out into space like champagne corks.

Rats are hardy creatures, however, and take no notice of the occasional tumble. One by one they picked themselves up, licked their paws, polished their whiskers and were ready for action again.

And there was plenty of it. It was pitch dark down there beneath the ground, but between the sounds she could hear and the images she picked up from the minds of the other rats, Tess was able to get a fairly clear picture of what was going on.

They were in an underground chamber of some kind. Parts of the roof were still held up by pillars which supported crossed arches, but in other places these had given way and the chamber had filled with earth and rubble. Tree roots had reached down into the cavity, and one of the predominant sounds was of rats' teeth, gnawing through them to clear them away.

It was clear to Tess's human mind that this must have been the crypt of some long-forgotten church which had once stood above it. It was a dramatic find. Tess was sure that no one knew the place existed. Her human mind was aware of a brief thrill of excitement before the realisation of what she was here for sank home. There were two or three stone tombs in the chamber. One of them, was standing in the open, the others were half buried by the subsidence of the roof. The rats were busy digging them out. Earth and small stones were flying everywhere, and the rats swore at each other a great deal as they got pelted by the debris. But despite this, the work was progressing at good speed.

Tess knew now that it wasn't treasure Martin was looking for. She knew as well that, despite what he had said, he hadn't the slightest interest in archaeology. She was just arriving at the obvious conclusion when a large shape appeared from nowhere, right there beside her. It made huge, hollow sounds with no meaning at all, and the rats' first instinct was to leap for the tunnels, which caused a great deal of useless falling around the place. The truth dawned on all their minds at the same moment. Their master had been among them for a while in rat form. Now he had assumed his own shape and was talking into the darkness in a language the rats didn't understand. They sniffed the air for a while, twitching their whiskers and passing information backwards and forwards to each other. Then, as though of one mind, they started back to work again.

Tess stayed where she was, close to the base of one of the great stone tombs. She could sense the vampire's mind trying to search her out, and shielded herself as well as she could. She needed time to decide what to do.

One or two of the nearer rats sensed Tess's fear and asked her what the problem was. She shut out their communications and tried to concentrate. What was she going to do? The only way out was back along the rat tunnels and Tess had a dreadful feeling that if she tried to go against the tide she would meet with little sympathy from the other rats. No other alternative seemed to offer any better chance. If she became a phoenix she could flood the crypt with light, might possibly even succeed in driving the vampire back into rat form and away down the tunnels, but it would not be a permanent solution to anything. Sooner or later she would have to find a way out, and when she did they'd be waiting for her.

The vampire mind was beginning to exert irresistible pressure upon her weak rat personality. Tess Switched quickly, before she lost the initiative, and found herself human again. There seemed to be no other choice, and at least this way she could think straight.

Or so she hoped. Without the extra nocturnal senses of the rat, Tess was helpless there beneath the ground. The darkness was total; silent for a moment as the rats adjusted to her altered presence, then full of their unseen scuffling and scratching. And, worse than that, there was someone in the enclosed space who was watching her without being seen.

‘Where are you?' she said to the darkness. There was no answer, and if someone was breathing, the sound was lost behind the restless activity of the rats. Tess had never known claustrophobia before. She experienced it now: a brief, breathless panic at being enclosed on all sides. But the feeling didn't last long. A moment later it was replaced by sheer terror as she thought about the being that was closed in there with her. In that minute, her body seemed to become dysfunctional, as rigid and useless as a Cindy doll propped up against the cold stone wall.

She had been wrong about thinking straight. The truth was that she couldn't think at all. A low snigger slid out of the darkness, but she couldn't tell where it came from. Tess's fear suddenly converted into fury and, completely without thinking, she let fly with a series of the foulest swear-words she had ever heard.

The reply was another mocking laugh. All around them the rats continued working in the darkness.

‘What are you afraid of?' said the vampire, his voice like poisoned syrup.

‘What do you think I'm afraid of?' Tess was still shouting, her voice ringing back at her from the cold stone and damp earth. For an instant she wondered if she could be heard above the ground. There might be people around the park, sleeping overnight perhaps, to be early in tomorrow's queue to see the phoenix.

‘But you have nothing to be afraid of, Tess.' The rich voice was amplified somehow by the enclosed space so that it seemed to be coming from all directions at once.

‘Not much, I don't.' Tess jumped as a pebble flicked out by the eager digging of one of the rats bounced off her temple. She took a deep breath, aware of a trembling throughout her whole body. ‘You're doing what you did before, aren't you?'

‘What did I do before?'

‘In the street the other day. You've got me trapped into a corner so that I'll have to Switch and become like you.'

The air seemed to be getting thinner. It smelled of rats and of ancient corruption. For the first time Tess thought of the original function of these tombs. She shuddered, and a new determination entered her heart. ‘I won't, though,' she said. ‘I have more tricks up my sleeve than you could imagine.'

It was a lie. Tess hadn't the faintest idea how to get out of this one, but her words seemed to have some effect, because the vampire fell silent for a while.

A rat scuttled over her foot. In the reprieve, she reached out with her rat mind to talk to it, and to her surprise a familiar signature of baby images came back. It was Algernon, camouflaged by the darkness; just another of the guys. Her mind flowed out to him, filled with relief at meeting someone familiar in this ordeal. Algernon's baby-talk returned; he was exhausted but proud of himself to be here working for the master. Reaching down to her feet, she found his little form beside her shoe. She closed her hands around him, anticipating his warmth against her face and neck, the pleasure of pets, the giving and receiving of comfort. But this new Algernon was no one's pet. He jerked wildly and jack-knifed in her hands, swivelling his head round and sinking his teeth deep into the flesh of her hand. Tess cried out and whipped her hand away, flinging Algernon out into the darkness in an automatic reaction. Straightening up, she felt the damp wall behind her again. Algernon's allegiance had changed. There was no comfort to be found in this place.