Revenge (7 page)

I nodded, grabbing my jacket. ‘Call Ryan! Give him the address and tell him to meet us there. Let's go!'

The three of us lurked in the dark of Temperance Lane, across the road from the undertakers' premises. It was just like last year, only now we had Ryan with us, not Cal.

‘Check it out,' Winter said, flicking her head
towards the shopfront. ‘Looks like there's been a change in management.'

She was right. The black-and-white light box that hung from the shop roof over the footpath now read simply ‘Greaves and Diggory', like someone had painted over the ‘Rathbone' part.

I was nervous and starting to sweat. What if Cal wasn't in there? And if he
was
in there, who else were we going to come face to face with? Sligo? Rathbone? Or somebody else? Could we take them on? If only I'd had time to make up some more Disappearing Dust or bring some of my spyware to scope out the place first.

Winter looked fired up and ready for action, but I could see that Ryan was sweating like me.

‘I almost fell on top of a dead person last time I was here,' I told him.

‘That had better not happen to me,' said Ryan. ‘I love horror movies, but I wouldn't want to star in one.'

Winter rolled her eyes. ‘The place seems deserted, but that's the way they'd want it to look.' She patted her pocket where she'd stashed Cal's cryptic letter. ‘Let's go get him.'

The three of us skulked silently across the road and along the side of the shop.

Winter worked her magic on the back door and had it open in seconds.

I shuddered, thinking not only of the dead bodies we might find tucked away behind the jars of embalming fluid, but of Cal … and the poison coursing through his veins, slowly killing him. What if we were already too late?

The door opened slowly and we crept inside, ready to attack. My heart was thumping rapidly in my chest.

Something was moving in the far corner. The three of us froze, not knowing what to do next.

As quietly as I could, I reached for the light switch on the wall. I glanced over at Winter and Ryan's silhouettes beside me, then flicked it on.

Big black triangles suddenly swooped at us. Winter screamed and covered her head. Ryan and I ducked.

We slowly turned and watched as the pair of disturbed bats flew out the door and into the night.

I ran into the funeral parlour, now lit up and fully exposed.

Winter gasped. Ryan swore. Aside from a broken broom, propped up crookedly in the corner of the former showroom, the place had been completely stripped.

It was empty.

Cal wasn't there.

Watchful black crows perched around us on white marble tombstones. I kicked at the dried-up flowers at my feet in frustration, and the crows flapped their wings and squawked in defiance.

After finding the funeral parlour empty, we'd gone straight to the cemetery where Cal had been buried alive. We'd searched it, completely blanketed it, but found no trace of Cal or Sligo there either.

Winter pulled the letter out again. ‘Another dead end,' she sighed. ‘Coffin, coffin,
coffin
. Cal,' she said into the morning air, ‘what are you
trying
to tell us? Where
are
you?'

‘We have no choice, we'll have to wait for Sligo to contact us again,' said Ryan. ‘He won't hurt Cal. Not yet. He needs him alive so we'll do what he says. He wants money, right?' Ryan looked desperately at us both, willing us to agree.

I nodded, but didn't feel so sure that was all he would want.

‘We can't just wait for Sligo,' said Winter,
looking
up from the letter. ‘Cal put this message in here for us because he knew we'd figure it out. He knew we'd find him. We
can't
let him down.'

‘But maybe Ryan's right,' I said. ‘You know we
can't go to the cops. That's not even an option. I can finish up the aerial drone I've been
working
on. Maybe it can help us keep an eye on this place while we're not here. Just in case we're missing something.'

Ryan looked at me curiously.

‘I've based the design on the Hummingbird Hawk-moth,' I began.

‘Another moth?' Winter interrupted. ‘Like the mothified listening bug Cal fired into Oriana de la Force's place?'

‘Not quite the same, but similar. This one's
much
cooler. I'll thrill you with the details later. Besides, I've not quite finished it.'

The three of us stared at each other silently for a moment. Then Ryan spoke quietly. ‘Don't the Ormonds have some kind of tomb or
something
, somewhere?'

Winter and I practically yelled in unison, ‘The Ormond mausoleum!'

‘Genius!' I added, slapping Ryan on the back.

‘Oh, but how do we get in?' said Winter. ‘I don't think we'll be able to get the key to the vault without making Mrs Ormond suspicious.'

‘You're right,' I reluctantly agreed. ‘She's suss already. We'll have to think of something else.'

I pictured my room and all the surveillance spies and half-finished inventions spread out on
the floor. I knew exactly what
would
get inside that vault. ‘The Vipercam!' I said. ‘The Vipercam would be perfect! I've been working on something else that I think can—'

‘Don't tell me,' Ryan began, ‘you've invented some other robotic insect that can march
miniscule
explosives into locks?'

‘Hey!' I laughed. ‘How did you know? I'm
working
on something exactly like that. But, nah, this one's more
reptilian
.'

Ryan nodded at me, keen to hear more.

‘The Vipercam is made up of tiny
interconnected
joints, like a snake,' I explained as we headed out of Infinity Gardens. ‘The joints help it worm along and infiltrate narrow passages. Its head—where the camera sits—is less than five millimetres wide. It can weave its way through a crack in the stones and transmit footage to us while we wait outside.'

‘OK,' said Winter dubiously. ‘Can this snake also see in the dark? And what about infiltrating
sealed
areas?' she added. ‘What if Cal's trapped in something … physically impenetrable?'

Like a coffin
? I thought. ‘Not a problem. It has night vision and thermal infrared imaging. If anyone's in there, we'll find them.'

‘If there's anyone
alive
in there, you mean,' she said solemnly.

I shrugged. When it came to Cal, I wasn't
prepared
to consider any other option.

‘This place is creepy,' whispered Ryan, shuddering as he gave the stony Ormond vault the once over. The three of us were watching the vault from a few metres away, huddled behind a cold and crumbling tombstone. ‘All the mossy angels and cherubs … I'd be petrified in here at night.'

I raised my eyebrows at Winter, as if to make sure she was noting I wasn't the only guy in the world to get spooked by graveyards. She smiled nervously at me.

Winter looked up and down the cemetery path, then when she was sure the coast was clear, she slipped over to the Ormond vault, her back against the closest wall. We quickly followed.

Ryan quietly crept around to the door and jangled the lock. He shook his head. Winter and I pressed our ears up to the rough stone of the wall. Nothing.

‘Hey, Boges,' said Winter, ‘what about this one?' She looked up at me from her crouched position in front of a thin, diagonal crack. ‘Wide enough?'

‘Yep, that looks pretty good to me.' I let my backpack fall to the ground and lifted the
Vipercam
out of its pouch like I was a real snake handler.

‘Wow,' said Ryan, ducking down to touch it. ‘That is unreal. Feels like real scales, too.'

I eased it head-first into the gap, then activated it with my remote control. This wasn't your
ordinary
remote—it was complete with a touchpad and a multi-platform screen, showing plain sight, night vision and infrared. I flicked the touchpad gently, getting the device started. Millimetre by millimetre the viper wormed its way into the mausoleum, its black tail-end slowly
disappearing
into the crack.