Emerald Greene and the Witch Stones Page 18

  Shivering, he stared into the rain with growing unease. The wind was getting up as well, twisting his hair and pushing it into his eyes, and his glasses were steaming over again.

  A few feet away, the Special Measures crew hovered, black uniforms glistening in the rain.

  Something crackled inside Mr Courtney’s coat, and everyone turned to look at him. He frowned. ‘Get me my indigestion pills,’ he snarled at the nearest of his operatives.

  ‘Er, I think it was your radio,’ Richie offered politely.

  ‘Harrumph! Of course it was.’ Mr Courtney fished his two-way radio out of his inside pocket. ‘Courtney! Go ahead?’

  ‘It’s Arossi, sir. We’ve got a big problem with the specimen. It... still seems to be gathering energy, sir. Looks like it’s about to break out!’

  ‘Where’s Strickland?’ snarled Mr Courtney.

  ‘He’s... gone, sir.’

  ‘Gone? What do you mean, gone?’

  ‘Vamoosed, sir. Absconded. Disappeared off into the sunset. Said he wasn’t paid to risk life and limb.’

  Mr Courtney gritted his teeth. ‘Why, the little... All right, Arossi, I need you to power down, d’you hear me? Switch everything off, disconnect the power and get out of there!’

  ‘I can’t, sir! It’s all going into overload! I’ve tried polarising the neutron interface, but it just has no effect!’

  ‘Sir!’ someone yelled over to the right. ‘Something happening!’

  ‘Hang on, Arossi,’ snapped Mr Courtney. ‘We’ve got our own problems here.’

  Richie saw it at the same time. The main arched window of the Hall, glowing with a blue fire, appeared to be bulging outwards, expanding like a balloon.

  Crack!

  The window burst, scattering a shower of molten glass like glutinous raindrops. They hung in the air for a second, defying gravity, as if an iridescent flower of glass had bloomed from the side of the school. And then the droplets fell, as one, with a hiss of steam, solidifying on the grass about thirty metres away from the ring of Special Measures operatives.

  And from the hole came the witches.

  It had to happen. Two of the youngest operatives, jittery and frightened, reacted instinctively, firing upon the spectral, grey-blue figures as they flowed from the gap.

  Richie put his fingers in his ears and ducked behind the bonnet of Mr Courtney’s car. No way is this like the films, he thought grimly. The sound of bullets was unbelievably loud, like fireworks going off right beside him, and their pungent smell, wafting on the wind, made him sneeze.

  ‘Hold your fire!’ Mr Courtney was shouting furiously. ‘Hold your fire!’

  But more Special Measures operatives were firing now, some dropping to one knee, others standing. The guns chugged and coughed and spluttered, belching hot lead, carving out brick dust and glass from the school building, scorching and searing it, smashing windows, ripping drainpipes from their housing and splintering doors.

  The witch-wraiths strode on, through the fire, unheeding.

  Finally, the firing stopped.

  ‘What the hell?...’ Richie heard Mr Courtney mutter.

  He lifted his head above the bonnet, risked a look.

  They were whitish-blue pillars of radiance - he counted nine of them. But if he squinted through the driving rain, he could see their form: tall, young, beautiful women with long limbs, graceful movements, hair which flowed like coils of pure light, wrapping around the drenched air and crackling with energy. And beneath the cowled hoods, he could make out features; beautiful faces suffused with light, and bright eyes of gold, shining like halogen bulbs.

  Standing there. Waiting.

  Richie looked away. They hurt his eyes. Something told him he ought not to look at them for too long.

  He scurried over to Mr Courtney. ‘I don’t think you can just shoot them,’ he said angrily. ‘That’s just stupid. I mean, it’s like shooting light. Or air. They’re not like that.’

  ‘So we use your friend’s plan,’ said Mr Courtney, eyes narrowing.

  With a shower of mud and a skittering sound, Mr Odell scrambled over to join them.

  ‘Ready to activate, sir!’ he snapped. Two operatives were backing away from the wire fence, unfurling cable as they went. Mr Odell held up a small black box sporting a silver switch and two dials - no more advanced than something from the school physics lab, Richie noted wryly.

  Mr Courtney nodded. ‘Go!’

  As one, they saw the shimmering forms of the witches advancing towards them.

  Mr Odell flicked the switch on the box.

  The effect was astonishing.

  One second the spiral of wire fence was there between them and the ghosts, and the next it was replaced by a thrashing, bright barrier of blue energy. Like a living thing made out of lightning it crackled, scorching the school field - Richie, taking cover behind Mr Courtney’s car, could smell the burnt mud and grass.

  The witch-wraiths, as one, held their hands to their ears and screeched. The sound was unearthly - Richie thought it sounded like a discordant choir of voices, mixed with a noise like the rending of sheet metal and the screams of animals being tortured. He winced, scrunching up his face in physical discomfort as the noise attacked his ears.

  ‘The dials, man!’ shouted Mr Courtney, making a twiddling gesture towards Mr Odell.

  Mr Odell twisted the controls on the box, and the keening noise subsided, replaced with a low, buzzing hum like that made by strip-lighting. The crackling barrier settled down too, coalescing and forming softer-edged shapes which ducked and dived like will-o’-the-wisps caught in a cage of wire.

  A strong, harsh odour of burning drifted towards them through the rain. It reminded Richie of the smell of sparklers on Bonfire Night.

  Richie straightened up. He hardly dared speak to Mr Courtney. ‘Holding them?’ he said.

  The Special Measures man’s eyes narrowed as he nodded. ‘For now,’ he grunted. He swung round towards Richie. ‘So, lad. We’d better start hoping your friend Miss Greene is right about all this - hadn’t we?’

  Rain hammered on the Dormobile’s windscreen as it cut through the mud of the forest. It juddered and skidded, Emerald Greene stepping hard on the accelerator.

  ‘Will I be all right?’ Jess asked, her teeth chattering.

  ‘I cannot say. You let one of them touch you. Anything is possible.’ Emerald’s tone was shockingly casual.

  There was an expression of intense concentration on Emerald’s face as she steered the shaking van through the forest towards the chronostatic barrier. Mud sprayed up on all sides, splattering the windows.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ purred Anoushka, fixing Jess with a hard stare. ‘You’ll be fine. If the witches had intended to harm you, they could have done so far more seriously.’

  ‘Oh, thanks,’ said Jess bitterly. ‘That’s really reassuring.’

  ‘I think,’ Anoushka drawled, ‘that they just wanted to let you know they were there.’

  Jess frowned. ‘So what makes you an expert, moggy?’

  Anoushka twitched his whiskers and looked away, his emerald eyes flicking upwards towards his young mistress for a second. Jess didn’t see what passed between them. ‘I have enough experience to speak with confidence,’ the cat muttered. ‘Let’s just say that.’

  A second later, the van slammed to a sudden halt. Jess would have been jolted from her seat in the back if she hadn’t been hanging on.

  The engine slowed to a purr. They had reached the clearing.

  ‘Let’s go!’ Emerald yelled, and the van leapt forward.

  Jess felt, for a moment, as if her body had left her stomach behind. She was aware of the Dormobile surging forward, churning up the ground. Onward they pounded, the engine roaring, the van shaking, the rain flaying the windows like
a thousand lashing whips. She shivered as a sudden chill passed over them, and for an instant she stared at the rear window, sure that she had seen something terrible scraping at the glass and trying to get in. Anoushka leapt on to the back of Emerald’s chair, fur standing on end, arching his back and hissing like a mad-thing. Jess thought, for a second, that she heard a terrible, unearthly screaming noise.

  And then it was gone, and there was just the rain and the buckling trees and the darkening sky rushing by outside.

  A second later, they hit the Chronostatic Barrier.

  11

  The Last Gathering

  Mr Courtney and Richie leaned against the Mercedes and watched the glowing line of witches.

  ‘You know,’ Mr Courtney said thoughtfully, ‘you remind me of my two boys.’

  ‘Really?’ said Richie nervously.

  ‘Oh, yes. Intelligent. Inquisitive. Never willing to take the easy answer.’ He nodded to himself. ‘I like that,’ he said. ‘I like enquiring minds.’

  Richie blinked. ‘What do your sons do now?’ he asked tentatively.

  Mr Courtney looked down at him, and for a moment his face creased into a kindly smile. ‘William’s a sheep farmer in the Australian bush,’ he said, ‘and Lewis is an accountant.’

  ‘Wow,’ said Richie. ‘Bit of a difference.’

  ‘I know,’ said Mr Courtney with a heartfelt sigh. ‘Only to be expected, though. Lewis was always the strange one.’

  Richie folded his arms and stared at the glowing forms of the witches. ‘I wonder what they’re waiting for?’ he murmured, almost to himself.

  Mr Odell strode over to join them.

  ‘I was wondering that myself.’ Mr Odell stood with his feet apart and his hands behind his back, and stared pensively at the glowing forms of the witches.

  ‘If I was them,’ said Richie, ‘I’d have broken through that barrier by now. Which suggests they can’t. Yet.’

  Mr Odell and Mr Courtney looked at one another, then down at Richie.

  ‘Well, think about it,’ said Richie, who had been. ‘They broke out of the school easily enough. So the field’s keeping them at bay. What would you do? You’d think, wouldn’t you? You’d work out that you’re contained there. So you’ve got to do something else. Either find another medium, or...’ He looked up at the two men. ‘What’s the other option?’

  ‘More power,’ said Mr Odell softly. ‘I’d be waiting for more power.’

  The radio hissed again. Mr Courtney snatched it up. ‘Arossi? What’s going on?’

  The crackling of the radio grew louder, then disintegrated into static.

  Mr Courtney growled angrily and shook the radio, whacking it with one big, meaty hand. ‘Arossi, come in, please!’ He shook his head and looked up at Mr Odell in despair. ‘Nothing. Any way we can boost the signal? I need to know what’s happening down there!’

  Rubicon House was pale and fragile beneath the full moon, its marble statues like watching ghosts. The white façade of the house was suddenly picked out in the arc of the Dormobile’s headlights, as the van screeched to a halt outside the main doors.

  Jess shivered again. It was not normal cold, she told herself - it was spreading from within, working outwards from her numbed, hardened fingers.

  Emerald flung open the sliding door, which made a crunching, squeaking sound. She threw something at Jess, who caught it instinctively. Looking down, she saw she was holding a packet of smoky bacon crisps.

  ‘Salt, protein, glucose,’ Emerald reminded her. ‘You need extra unless your body has become accustomed to the Barrier.’

  ‘Right. Um... I’m not that keen on this flavour.’

  Emerald threw her hands up in agitation. ‘The barriers of reality are threatened with destruction, and you are quibbling over food additives!’ She grabbed the crisps from a startled Jess, tore open the packet and thrust them at her. ‘Eat them! Eat!’

  ‘All right, all right,’ Jess muttered, chewing uneasily.

  Emerald consulted her watch. ‘Now, then,’ she said, her eyes shining, ‘I would estimate we only have about thirty minutes. Come on.’

  Jess hopped out on to the gravel. She was pale and shivering, but still felt a thrill of excitement when she gazed at Rubicon House. ‘This place is still amazing,’ she murmured, popping crisps in her mouth as fast as she dared.

  ‘Really?’ Anoushka purred, jumping down behind them. ‘I find it a little ostentatious myself. I’d hoped for something rather more modern. Still, one can’t pick and choose when one is an exile, can one?’

  Emerald fumbled with the great, iron key to the front door. ‘I just hope the Librarian is still up,’ she murmured.

  ‘I still don’t really get it,’ Jess said, munching, staring back down the gardens as if trying to detect the point at which they had entered the barrier. ‘How can it be dark here? And not raining?’

  Emerald sighed, turned round with her hands on her hips and stared at her. She peered over her glasses, and for a second, Jess thought her eyes actually glowed. ‘It is a different dimension,’ Emerald explained impatiently. ‘Why are you people always so full of questions?’

  ‘Sign of intelligence,’ protested Jess, as the door creaked open.

  ‘Right,’ said Emerald. ‘In, now!’

  They ran through the labyrinth of corridors and rooms, lit by flickering candlelight. Still shivering, even with her foil blanket around her, Jess found herself wondering whether the internal alignment of Rubicon House had somehow adjusted itself since her last visit.

  At last, Emerald stopped, spinning round on one heel in front of a pair of oak doors with wrought-iron handles. ‘Here,’ she said. She grasped the handles firmly and flung the doors open.

  The Library yawned in front of them, vast, cold and high-vaulted. The towers of ancient books were now lit, Jess noticed, by lanterns hanging from the ends of some of the shelves. The light was uneasy, painting thick shadows in the furthest recesses. The vaulted room smelt of dust and damp, and Jess was sure she could hear skittering noises like a dozen mice running for cover. She looked around for Anoushka, but the cat seemed once again to have disappeared when he was needed.

  Emerald, her footsteps echoing off endless books, marched to the centre of the nearest aisle. She climbed on to the big wooden desk, kicking over a SILENCE notice as she did so.

  ‘Lesson for you, Jessica Mathieson,’ said Emerald grimly, staring up into the highest reaches of the Library. ‘Some rules were made to be broken.’ And to Jess’s astonishment - and delight - Emerald put her fingers to her mouth and let out a piercing, echoing whistle.

  For a moment, there was silence. The girls held their breath.

  Then, there was a movement in the air, and a leathery, fluttering sound. Down came a great, cold shadow from the uppermost heights, descending towards them at an astonishing rate. Even though Jess knew what to expect this time, she still felt her heart beating a little faster.

  The eagle settled on the table, hooked its claws on to the silver globe as before, and surveyed the girls with its beady eyes.

  ‘Who calls the guardian of the books - ’ it began.

  ‘No, no,’ Emerald exclaimed, waving her hands in agitation. ‘Please, Librarian, just this once, can we forgo the poetry? Time is of the essence.’

  ‘Hmmm,’ said the Librarian in obvious disapproval. ‘Time always of essence, hmm? Humans need a little perspective, mmm.’

  ‘Do you have the book for me?’ Emerald persisted.

  ‘Oh, book is it you are wanting? Thought perhaps was something, ah, urgent, mm, for which you were disturbing my sleep.’ The eagle shook his great head, rummaged inside his plumage and pulled out the leather-bound book which Jess and Emerald had looked at, offering it to them in his beak. Emerald reached for it gratefully, but the Librarian snatched it back. �
�Well?’ he said indistinctly. ‘Is urgent?’

  ‘Librarian,’ Emerald said in her most adult and serious voice, ‘a dimensional anomaly is spreading across Meresbury, one which threatens to disrupt the very fabric of the continuum. It could release into this world a host of spectral creatures who have no business here. It would mean...’ Emerald’s eyes gleamed. ‘It would mean chaos!’ she cried.

  ‘They might even get in here,’ said Jess, ‘and mess up the order of your books.’

  The eagle’s beak fell open another couple of millimetres. ‘Urgent,’ he agreed.

  Loosened, the book fell, turning slowly as it dropped towards the table. Emerald caught it, slamming the leather covers between her palms in a cloud of ancient dust.

  ‘Thank you,’ she said, looking up.

  ‘Return by date stamped,’ said the eagle haughtily, and, spreading his wings, he lifted off the ground and rose slowly, slowly, disappearing back to his eyrie high among the topmost shelves.

  Jess shrugged off her foil blanket and looked expectantly at Emerald. ‘Now what?’ she demanded.

  Emerald leafed frantically through the book. ‘I need to find the right information,’ she muttered.

  ‘Emerald, it’s a tome full of ancient ley-lines! Maps of chalk horses and drawings of garlic pentagrams! How exactly is it going to help us?’

  Emerald fixed her with a cold gaze. ‘It contains information,’ she said with unnerving calmness. ‘Certainly, it needs to be interpreted in a different form - translated, if you like - but the building blocks of a scientific solution are here.’

  ‘And can you... translate it?’

  Emerald held the book open on the nearest desk, pulled one of the lanterns close and skimmed through the book’s pages - a little less calmly now, it seemed to Jess.

  ‘Well?’ Jess demanded, slamming her palms down on the desk and wincing at the pain.

  ‘I do not know,’ Emerald Greene admitted.

  ‘Emerald, you have no idea what you’re looking for, have you?’

  ‘Very well!’ Emerald’s eyes shone with a cold, green light. ‘You and Richie always look to me for the answers, for the explanations of all that is outside your experience. Do you think I have ever had such explanations? Someone to stand over me, to hold my hand, to tell me how all the strangeness of the universe works? No! I have had to use my intelligence!’