Ruins (27 page)

“Do you think it’s possible? Raising the Dark Prophets?”

“Nobody’s succeeded so far,” Dawn said.

“Laurent thinks it can be done.”

“Laurent’s nuts.”

“And Esus thinks I have the power to wake up the Trinity. How does that even work? I mean, do I ring some sort of supernatural alarm clock?”

“If we knew that, we wouldn’t be here.”

“How much do you know about the Prophets?” All Nicholas knew was that they were the baddest of the bad. They’d been banished by the Trinity to a hell dimension, but they wanted back in.

“Nobody knows exactly what they are,” Dawn admitted. “There are illustrations of them as dragons, as men with horns, as goat-footed monsters. There are always three, though. That’s the only consistency between any of the theories.”

“Three Prophets. Three members of the Trinity.”

“That’s generally how it works. The universe loves symmetry. Matter and anti-matter. Yin and yang.”

They heard the front door go.

“That might be Sam,” Nicholas said, hopping to his feet. What he’d sensed about the tunnels made him anxious. The whoops of excitement and the bitter tang of blood. Something big was happening down there – it could be happening right now. “Come on,” he said.

They went downstairs and into the lounge. Sam sat in one of the armchairs. His arm was bandaged and he rubbed his forehead wearily.

“You okay?” Nicholas asked.

“Long day,” the old man said. “How’s the arm?”

“Annoying. What happened to yours?”

“Malika.”

Nicholas felt winded. “You saw her? What happened?”

“She’s the one responsible for the gauntlets,” Sam said. “We found one of her dens. We escaped, but by the time other Sentinels arrived to apprehend her, she was gone. Burned the place to the ground.”

“So she’s still out here?”

“I’m afraid so.”

Nicholas chewed his lip. It was bad enough that they had Laurent to go up against without Malika out there scheming, too. Was she still after him? She’d tried to make him kill Jessica when she broke into Hallow House. Would she try again? He envisioned a vulture hovering over a wounded animal. If Malika was working with Laurent, she probably wasn’t breaking much of a sweat. She’d observe the world’s dying spasms, then pick its bones clean.

He wanted to know more, but he had to tell Sam what he’d discovered. “We figured out where Laurent’s hiding. He’s using the tunnels.”

“Tunnels?” Aileen asked apprehensively, coming into the lounge with a tea set.

“The ones under the town; the ones you told me about,” Nicholas elaborated. “He’s using them to get around. Or at least we think he is. He must have the girl down there, the one Esus wants me to find. The seeing glass... I think something’s happening down there right now. Something big.”

“The Bury tunnels,” Sam breathed, straightening in the chair. “I thought they were a myth. Do you know a way in?”

Nicholas shook his head, frustrated. What if Laurent had already started whatever he’d planned? What if they were already too late?

“There are entrances all over town,” Aileen chimed in, setting the crockery down on the coffee table. “If the old wives’ tales are to be believed. That reminds me of old Mr Pearson. I used to help out at one of the cafes on Abbeygate Street and my boss, Mr Pearson, he used to talk about a funny trapdoor in the cellar that led into some tunnels. Used to joke they went all the way to Australia. Wasn’t known for his sense of humour, Mr Pearson...”

“Which cafe was that?” Sam asked.

“Now let me think,” Aileen mused. “Yes, it’s called Abigail’s now. They changed the name when Mr Pearson died. I don’t know anybody there these days, though.”

Nicholas recognised the glint in Sam’s eye.

“We’re going out again, aren’t we?” he asked.

Sam got to his feet. “Aileen, call as many Sentinels as you can. Tell them where we’re headed. I’ll phone Liberty.”

The landlady bustled quickly from the room and Nicholas noticed Dawn moving for the hall.

“Thanks,” he said, stopping her in her tracks. “For, you know, today.”

Dawn looked embarrassed and nodded, then disappeared.

Sam paced into the hall and picked up the phone. Nicholas heard him talking and replacing the phone into its cradle.

“Liberty knows where we’re going,” the old man said as Nicholas joined him. He popped the battered grey fedora on. “You can never be too careful, especially where people like Laurent are concerned.” He didn’t question what Nicholas had sensed about the tunnels. Sam was trusting him completely, which made Nicholas jittery. What if it was a trap? What if his vision was wrong? They could be going to their deaths.

Before he could talk to Sam about his uneasiness, though, the elderly man had stepped out the front door. Nicholas hurried after him, their footsteps ringing in the alley. Sam clasped his satchel and rifle, Nicholas squeezed the Drujblade at his hip, reassured by its presence.

“What if it’s bad down there?” he asked. He thought of the whoops and cheers. “What if Laurent isn’t alone?
She
could be down there.”

“Remember what we talked about, the different types of battles? This is pure reconnaissance. We’re gathering information only.”

“And if we’re caught?”

“We fight. You know how to use that dagger?”

Nicholas nodded. He couldn’t tell if he was being cowardly or canny by questioning Sam. This was what Sentinels did, after all. They had to stop Laurent. But Sam looked desperate. So far, Laurent had eluded them and this was the first break they’d had. Nicholas understood Sam’s urgency, but that didn’t quiet his nerves.

“You sure you’re alright?” he asked. He dreaded to think what the bandage on Sam’s arm was hiding.

“Fine, lad.”

For the first time, Nicholas was worried for him. Sam seemed to have forgotten he was seventy-one years old. He had to be more careful. Nicholas was glad they were investigating the tunnels together, though he wasn’t sure how much help he’d actually be if they had to fight.

What if Malika really is down there?
he thought.

Anger trembled beneath his ribs. He’d hoped he’d never see Malika again. He’d been naïve to think she would simply retreat, though. She was a vicious monster, and he was learning that those sorts of things wouldn’t stop until they were put down.

How could they defeat Malika, though? She was wily and resilient. Nicholas had watched Sam burying two bullets in her, neither of which stopped her for very long. If she was working with Laurent, or worse, the Prophets themselves...

Nicholas realised he was clenching the Drujblade at his side so tightly that his knuckles hurt.

“Ah, here we are,” Sam breathed.

They were halfway up Abbeygate Street. Abigail’s cafe was quaint with an old-fashioned hanging sign. A hand-drawn cup of coffee emitted tendrils of steam that spelled out the business’ name. Net curtains were pleated neatly in the window.

The street was quiet as they approached the door. They were lucky – there were no restaurants at this end of the street. A murmur of voices floated from a few hundred metres away as diners chatted over their evening meals. Nicholas and Sam were tucked out of sight by the door.

“Eyes, lad,” Sam said. Nicholas nodded, standing with his back to the cafe and watching the street. He heard the old man using his lock-picking kit for the third time in almost as many days. The moon peeked interestedly over the chimneys above them.

Nicholas heard the door open and hurried into the cafe with Sam. A curtain on the back of the door shielded their activities from the street. The moment they began walking between the tables, which were stacked with upside-down chairs, an ear-piercing shriek filled the cafe.

They had triggered the alarm.

“Blast,” Sam yelled over the noise. “I’d hoped there wouldn’t be one. We need to move quickly.” He hurried to the back of the cafe and Nicholas followed. They found nothing more than a small kitchen, so they returned to the shop front.

Had Aileen been wrong? Nicholas didn’t want to doubt her, but with the alarm wailing, he began to panic. Any second now the police would arrive. He felt sick. He’d never had a proper run-in with the police – the night he’d been found sleepwalking in the snow in the wake of his parents’ deaths didn’t really count – and there would be no way of talking their way out of this.

The alarm screamed at him.

Out, out, out,
it shrieked.

“Here,” Nicholas called, spotting a square in the floor by the coffee machine. He tugged at a metal ring with his free hand and lifted the trapdoor. Steps led down into the cellar.

“Good lad,” Sam said, descending first.

Nicholas hesitated, recalling the basement at Snelling’s. He didn’t have a choice, though, and Sam hadn’t exactly blanched at the thought of another basement. Gulping down his uneasiness, Nicholas clambered down the steps, finding it difficult to squeeze through the cramped opening with his broken arm.

At least the alarm was muffled down here. The cellar was cramped and stacked full of boxes illustrated with coffee beans. A door at the back led to another stock room.

“Where is it?” Nicholas asked, his desperation mounting. “Where’s the trapdoor?”

“Move those boxes,” Sam ordered evenly, setting his rifle down and heaving one of the cardboard obstructions out of the way.

Ignoring the complaints of his broken arm, Nicholas used his good one to shove a box across the floor. Sweating from the exertion and struggling to breathe in the airless stockroom, he moved box after box, the thought of the police spurring him on. They
had
to find a way into the tunnels.

Finally, they had cleared a space at the back of the stockroom.

An unremarkable round metal plate was set into the stone floor. It looked like a manhole. Old and ordinary. Nicholas supposed the more mundane the entrance to the tunnels was, the less conspicuous it would seem. Still, he couldn’t help imagining that they were about to open up a sewer.

“How do we open it?” he asked. He doubted if this entrance had been used in decades. What if it had rusted shut?

Sam tapped his nose and retrieved something from his satchel. Nicholas watched as he unravelled a thin wire and dug it into the grooves around the edge of the manhole.

“Step back,” the old man said, striking a match. He lit the end of the wire and blue sparks fizzed along its length, wreathing the manhole in smoke. When the sparks met, a muted WHUMP resounded through the stockroom and the manhole jumped in its stone seat.

Nicholas wondered what else Sam had hidden in his bag. He looked up, sure he’d heard somebody moving above their heads.

The alarm continued wailing.

“Give us a hand,” the old man entreated, crouching over the metal plate. “Just the one,” he added with a wink. Nicholas helped him heave the plate up and together they slid it across the floor. The old man motioned him back again and pointed a torch into the hollow. With a satisfied sniff, he looked at Nicholas.

“Ready for a little sight-seeing?” He packed everything back into his satchel and drew some of the boxes back around the hole to hide the entranceway once more. Sam went foot-first into the ground, lowering himself down into the tunnels.

Thump, thump, thump.

Nicholas looked up. He’d definitely heard something that time. It sounded like boots stomping across the floor above.

The police.

Heart hammering, he hurried over to the hole in the ground. Sam peered up at him.

“It’s safe. Come on, lad.”

Suddenly the thought of confining themselves to the catacombs beneath Bury St Edmunds seemed foolish. If this was where Laurent had made his nest, they’d be trapped with the most dangerous man imaginable. The man responsible for killing Dawn’s dad and having her mum committed to a psychiatric ward. The man who wanted to turn the world down-side up.

“Yeah, let’s just offer ourselves up to Laurent in his underground lair. That sounds like a great idea,” Nicholas grumbled to himself. He swung his legs over the side of the hole and attempted to lower himself into the tunnel with his good arm. He lost his grip and fell, hitting the dirt floor hard.

“Easy there, lad,” Sam said.

Nicholas coughed and wrinkled his nose at the fusty air. Above him, Sam reached through the hole and Nicholas heard the metal plate scraping across the stockroom floor. It clunked into place and they were sealed inside the tunnels.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Underground

N
ICHOLAS EYED HIS SURROUNDINGS APPREHENSIVELY.
T
HERE
was no going back now. The walls curved around him, as if carved in the wake of a giant worm. Bricks knitted together over his head and unlit gas lamps lined the bibulous swerve of the pathway. A pungent reek of damp faeces made him purse his lips. A pale blue light glimmered somewhere further into the tunnels and the silence was unnerving.