Skulk (34 page)

“Cluster,” said the man. “Chandran, and this is Katie.”

“Hi,” said the girl. She waved an arm. Her wrist was limp at the end of it. “I’ve got cerebral palsy,” she added, her speech a bit slurred. “I like to tell people early, it saves time. Don’t worry, Chandran can carry me if we have to run. Bitch upstairs took my crutches.”

Mo blew out an angry breath through his teeth.

I frowned. “Weren’t you at the
Saracen
with the others?”

Chandran shuddered. “We were there. We managed to hide from the pigeons and we’ve been hiding ever since. Apparently not well enough.”

“You the one that found our stone?” Katie asked.

I nodded. “I’m so sorry I couldn’t keep it safe. We tried, but Fran was working against us.”

Chandran shrugged. “You wouldn’t have been able to do it anyway, it doesn’t work like that. I’m actually relieved to find out someone knows where it is, after a year of just not knowing,” he said, stroking his stubble with a rueful smile. “Even if it’s in the hands of a maniac.”

“You’re looking for the girl, Addie,” said Katie. “She’s over there.” She nodded towards the other side of the group.

“Thank you,” I murmured. Addie must be behind Randhir and Don. They were standing over Ben, who was huddled in on himself, shirtless and trembling. Randhir caught my eye, looked me up and down and mouthed “Meg?” I nodded. He gave me a thumbs up and went back to berating Don for getting them all into this. I felt a little sorry for him, even though Rand was only doing it to keep up the noise… and he was right.

“Oh no,
Peter
,” breathed Mo. He crouched to an old white man who was leaning on the invisible barrier. “Are you all right? It’s Mo, from the Rabble!”

The old man looked up and smacked his wrinkled lips together. “Ah, Mohammed,” he croaked. “What’s going on?”

I saw Mo gather himself, his fists briefly clenching before he put a steadying hand on the barrier.

“The stones are in danger,” he said. “The woman who brought you here is collecting them.”

Peter tried to sit up straighter. His frail wrists looked like they might snap under his weight. “Mohammed, that can’t happen…”

“I know. We’re here, we’re going to help you. Just hang on.”

James sidled up to us, throwing wary glances up at the gallery. “Guys, I can keep an eye out for anyone up there, but someone ought to be back in that corridor keeping watch.”

“Go,” said Peter, looking at Mo. “I’ll be all right. Don’t let them catch you too.”

“All right.” Mo glanced at me, held up the paint can with a small smile, and then hurried back into the passageway.

I edged further around the box. “Addie!” I whispered. “It’s Meg, where are you?”

“P-princess?”

Someone shifted aside, and I saw her. She was more fully dressed than most of the others, in a jumper and a skirt. But she was still curled up tight, her hands balled into fists. Her skin was dirty and spotted with old scars and bruises. She looked tiny compared to the others, more like twelve than fourteen.

I ran around the side of the box and knelt at her side. “Oh my God, Addie. Are you all right?”

“Is this her?” said a voice. I looked up and saw another person kneeling beside Addie. They had long, glossy brown hair that draped over their chest and they were wearing a big green shirt wrapped around their waist. The whole effect was quite mermaid-y.

“Meg, this is Orion, he’s–” Addie broke off, rolled her eyes. “Argh! Sorry,
they
, I’ll get it, I swear,” she said weakly.

“Honestly, if ‘he’s’ easier on you right now, you go ahead,” said Orion. They gave me a sideways smile and tucked their hair back behind their ear.

“No way, no, screw that, I’m going to get it right, and so’s Meg, aren’t you, Princess?” Addie said, giving me a significant look. Her voice was croaky – I supposed she hadn’t used her human vocal chords in a while – and her eyes were still darting about, full of wary anger. But she did seem to be getting it together.

“Why can’t you go fox?”

“It was Fran, just like you said,” Rand said quietly, looking down over Don’s shoulder. “She came over to Don’s house and the stupid bloody idiot let her in.” I expected a sharp comeback from Don, but he stayed silent.

“It was like the shift just... turned off,” Addie said miserably. “I hate being human. So what’re we doing, Meg? How are we going to get out of here?”

I hadn’t been looking forward to someone asking me that question.

“I don’t know,” I said, honestly. I put my hand up on the invisible barrier. “It’s solid. It’s physical, and she made it. I bet she can do it because she’s got the Skulk stone. Maybe if we can get it back, we can get you out of here.”

“Hurry,” said Don. “Ben’s not doing well.”

I looked again at Ben. “Why, what happened?”

“She took him,” Addie whispered. “She hurt him.”

I shifted back around the barrier until I was a close to Ben as I can get, but he was sitting almost right in the middle and his head was down, leaning on his knees.

“Ben? Can you look at me?”

He raised his head, and I stifled a gasp. He had a black eye and a long, shallow tear right down his cheek. It wasn’t bleeding, but it was weeping a horrid pale liquid. There were livid bruises coming up all over his chest and his arms.

“Why did she do this?”

“She knew,” Ben said miserably. “This is all my fault.”

“How could it be
your
fault?” Don asked.

Ben shook his head and his face flushed blotchily, on the verge of tears. “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, I didn’t think it was important, I didn’t think you’d even notice it was gone...”

“Oh you total wanker,” said Rand, but he kept his voice soft and his face twisted with sympathy. “
You
took the bloody stone!”

“What the hell for?” I demanded.

“I sold it. To pay for a – a holiday. That’s why I haven’t been around lately.”

I glanced up at Don. His face was deep purple. He seemed too stunned to speak.

“But why did she hurt you?” Rand asked.

“He hasn’t said,” Don added.

“She said if I told you she’d have me thrown out of the window. I think she might actually do it,” he moaned. “She shoved my face right up against the glass! Have you looked down recently?”

I had. I remembered the sound in my head like a swarm of bees and red clouds obscuring my vision.

“All right. I have to get the stones. That’s all we can do right now,” I said, looking over at James and Roxie.

“Oh, is that all,” Roxie said.

I stood up, my knees weak underneath me. What were my chances of going snooping around Victoria’s apartment looking for the stones without getting caught? Slim to none. Still…

Sssssssssssssssss

I twisted on the spot, almost lost my balance, stared towards the corridor. I knew that chemical hiss.

Mo had both hands around the middle of a mad, pecking pigeon. It was coated in white spray paint and flapping madly, flicking paint into his eyes. He wrestled silently with it but his hands slipped on the paint-slick feathers.

I broke into a run, too late to stop the pigeon landing one, two, three hard blows on Mo’s face with its beak, drawing blood. He dug his teeth into his lip to keep from screaming.

I grabbed the pigeon by the neck as its head bobbed viciously forwards to try to take out Mo’s eye, and dragged it off him. Its wings beat around me and I smacked it into the wall, hard, just to try to stun it, to get it to stop before one of us broke and cried out loud enough for Victoria to hear.

I felt the delicate neck bones snap under my hand and the bird flapped for a horrible second longer before going limp and tumbling out of my fingers in a shower of feathers. Its wings spread white paint across the floor where it fell, a ghost impression of a bird.

Mo gathered me into a hug.

“Thank you,” he whispered into my hair. Then he pulled away and gave my shoulder a reassuring squeeze. He edged down the corridor towards the lift, wiping the blood and paint from his eyes, listening for signs the struggle had been overheard.

I didn’t take my eyes off the pigeon. Under the coating of paint, it was plump and brown. Its wings were strong and its feathers were messy. Bits of down still floated in the air around me.

I waited, tears searing down my cheeks, holding my sobs in my chest, trying not to make a sound. I waited for the pigeon to stretch and morph into the corpse of my father.

I couldn’t think of anything worse, until I realised that it wasn’t going to.

I fell back against the wall and slid to the ground, folding my arms around me and over my face as if I could physically contain the wails that rose into my throat. I bit down hard on the neck of my hoodie and forced myself to choke them back.

Dad was dead. Mum was dead. They had been dead from the minute she changed them. My dad was never, ever coming back. Not even in death.

Mo came back and fell to his knees beside me, a horrified question forming on his lips, and all I could do was point to the corpse with a quivering hand and then fold up into myself. My throat and chest were burning up from holding in the sound of my breathing. If I’d allowed myself to make a sound I wouldn’t have been able to do anything but scream.

I wished for this. I wished that they were dead, because it would be easier for me.
Easier.
I deserved to be carried off and fed to the fog, right now. Did I try to save him, really try? Did I do everything I could? His neck snapped in my hands. I wanted to cut them off at the wrist. I could have called all Victoria’s minions to me, to finish the job, with one good scream... but Mo, but James, but Addie, but the Skulk and the Horde and Peter and all that was left of the Cluster.

I had to get them out of here.

I was going to get to those stones, and if I couldn’t save them, I would destroy them.

Mo’s arms slipped under mine. He lifted me to my feet. I swiped my arm through the air and pointed, furiously. He had to keep watch! The Skulk were already being careless with their voices, calling out to me, asking what was wrong.

Mo pulled away, but he was replaced at once. James’ arms wrapped around me and he held on tight to the back of my head. I sucked in a breath, intending to gather myself, and only succeeded in letting out a tiny, hideous, strangled wail.

“Dad,” I choked out. “He’s gone.”

James held me for a few minutes, my tears soaking into his shoulder.

I balled my fists in my sleeves and wiped at my eyes and nose, getting rid of the worst of the sticky, trying to clear my vision. More sobs rose out of the ground and hit me like the aftershocks from a terrible earthquake, but I managed to get to my knees, and then shakily to my feet.

“All right, darlings, listen up,” James said very quietly, taking charge, not looking at me. “There’s nothing more we can do here, we’re going to find the stones and try to break whatever this is.” He kicked the barrier. “Pay attention: if the box comes down, you all need to
run
– to the end of the corridor and turn left. There’s a fire exit. Get out, go down the stairs and do not stop running.”

“Anyone who gets out, meet at my mum’s place,” said Mo. “Peter, you can get them there, right?”

Peter nodded. “Yes, sir.”

Roxie stood up. “I’m going with them,” she said to Amanda.

“Good luck,” said the Horde leader. “And if you see Ryan, kick his arse.”

“Will do,” said Roxie, with a little salute.

The four of us backed away into the corridor. Roxie looked down at the body of the pigeon and then up at my red eyes, but didn’t say anything.

“I think they’re still upstairs,” said James. “So let’s search downstairs first.”

I nodded silently.

James led the way, treading silently. Mo gave us a thumbs up as we passed and hung back to bring up the rear. Miraculously, I could still hear Victoria and Fran, talking upstairs. They hadn’t heard the pigeon attack, or my sobs.

We passed the lift and came out into the airy sitting room. I glanced at the floor-to-ceiling glass and dearly wished I didn’t know that Victoria was willing to use her wizard’s tower as a blunt instrument. There was a glass and steel spiral staircase in one corner of the room, leading up to the second floor. With a single silent glance, we all agreed to go the other way.

I crept into the kitchen. It was similar in size and design to our industrial sized entertaining kitchen at home, though nothing here was padlocked. I guessed that meant she wasn’t keeping the stones in her spoon drawer, but Mo and I hurried to silently open every drawer and cupboard, just in case.

Through the dining room, there was another corridor. An enormous, gleaming bathroom with a shower that would even put my mum’s to shame. A library and media room with a TV screen the size of Texas, a plush and comfy-looking eggshell blue sofa, and crammed bookshelves.

It wasn’t all specially purchased antique books that nobody had ever read, either – there were lots of well-thumbed paperbacks on philosophy, politics, history, sociology and psychiatry. I pulled a couple down, just in case I could find a lever that would reveal a secret passage… but nothing moved.

James crept past me. He paused to give a copy of
Mein Kampf
the serious side-eye, and then opened the door to the next room.

Tendrils of grey mist shot out and sucked him in. He let out a yell, and it was cut off as the fog closed over his head. I saw him lifted off his feet in the swirling current. He writhed and kicked and twitched in agony.

I drew out my spray paint, aimed and fired. A spatter of black spots hit the fog and whirled around James, boiling and pulsating, but nothing else came from the can except a weak hissing sound.

I get through Black so quickly. I should’ve brought the Pastel Rose
.

“Meg!” Mo threw his can across the room and I snatched it out of the air, turned and fired. White paint burst from it, filling the fog cloud with crackling dots of ink. James vanished completely into the opaque cloud, and I heard him scream.

The cloud burst. White paint rained down, covering the room beyond, which was a closet full of Victoria’s coats, her hats and her shoes. James knelt among them, panting and trembling and spitting out mouthfuls of paint.