20 Years Later (3 page)

“Bigger than Luthor?” Jay was frowning. Luthor, the largest Hunter of the Red Lady's gang and the one she called her Champion, was very tall and very strong, setting Jay's standard for “people to be concerned about.”

“Oh, much, much bigger than Luthor,” Zane replied with certainty and a ripple of wonder spread through the circle of Boys.

Dev sighed in frustration. “I told you he was, Jay, honest-like!”

Jay frowned. “But he didn't follow you?” Both boys shook their heads. “And you didn't see him in Miri's square afterwards?”

“Nothin'!” Dev confirmed. “Was like he disappeared. Outside the hospital we couldn't see anythin' of him or them weird feet of his.”

“We could see footprints in the hospital,” Zane explained, “but all the dust blows about outside, so we don't know which way he went.”

Jay looked down at one of the smallest Boys who tugged at his jacket hem. He leant down and the sandy-haired Boy whispered into his ear. Jay nodded and straightened up. “Seb here's got a good question. How did the Giant have a light that wasn't fire?”

The gang murmured as Seb looked proud. Zane and Dev shrugged in unison.

“Maybe he put some fire in a jar like we do when it's windy,” Mark proposed, scratching his lank brown hair.

Zane shook his head. “It didn't look like that. It was too bright, and not shaped like a jar either. It was a perfect circle.”

The murmuring increased. “Maybe the Giant caught the sun in a bottle,” one of the younger ones called out from the back.

“Nah,” Dev said, “would've been hot, and it weren't.”

No more theories were forthcoming. Jay kept frowning and that made the Boys nervous. “Grame, Mark, we need double shifts tonight, and everyone needs to stay sharp, ya hear?” All assembled nodded, even Zane, who then blushed. “Anyone hears anything weird, or sees anything weird, come to me right away.”

“Even if it's Dev?” one of the Boys quipped. They all sniggered again, apart from Dev and Jay.

“Shut it,” Jay said and silence fell. “No messin'. This is serious. Maybe them Gardners have got sommat goin' on with the Giant, so we need to stay smart-sharp. Got it?”

There were few things that Jay took more seriously than the threat from the Gardners. Named after their matriarch's surname and that of her three sons, the Gardners attacked his Boys at any opportunity. Brutal, ruthless and cruel, with a territory boundary that expanded and contracted according to Ma Gardner's daily whims, they were always on Jay's mind.

Dev watched Jay closely, like a hungry puppy hoping for scraps from a table.

“Now scarper you lot. Check the square and the edges of the territory. No wheelie racin' or fightin' 'til I got the all-clear. Go on then!” The Boys scattered to all of the places they knew to check, but Jay grabbed Dev's collar and held him back. “Nice one, Dev.”

Dev grinned as he saw Jay reach into his jacket and pull out a badge. “Ta Jay!” He scampered off after beaming a gaptoothed smile at Zane.

Jay turned to Zane. “Your mum know about this?”

Zane looked down at his scuffed shoes, his dark hair falling to hide his guilty face. “You know how she is about hospitals.”

Jay nodded, remembering the last time some of his Boys had been caught trying to pilfer old mattresses from the hospital on the corner of Miri's square. He wouldn't have believed their story if she hadn't marched them over herself to hold him to account. “She should know though. If I were in her shoes, I'd wanna know.”

Zane sighed. “I know, I –”

He was cut off by three sharp whistles from the northeast corner of the square. Jay took off at a sprint with Zane following close behind. It was some kind of alert, but not a full-blown Gardner alarm.

“Jay! Jay!” A Boy called Smudge (because of a small birthmark on his forehead) was waving frantically for his attention. He was pointing at a low wall in front of one of the abandoned houses. “Another boy, a new one! Behind that wall!”

Jay ran and peered over, then vaulted it effortlessly. Zane hurried over, eager to help, tying his long hair back out of the way in case he was needed.

Huddled against the wall, shivering and deathly pale was a scrawny boy with very short mousy brown hair. He was dressed in the strangest clothes: thin pale blue cotton pyjamas, almost pristine in condition, no patches or holes and hardly any dirt. Zane shuddered when he saw him, not knowing why.

“Hey there,” Jay said. His voice was soft and calming and the little boy lifted his head. “I'm Jay, this here's my patch, but boys are allowed to stay so you're alright.” As he spoke, the boy visibly relaxed, and Jay slipped off his leather jacket to place it gently around his shoulders. He seemed to notice something as he did so, and beckoned Zane over. “Come look-see, Zane. I reckon he's hurt.”

Zane clambered over the wall and went to Jay's side. The little boy's eyes widened when he saw him, and the trembling started again.

Zane knelt down to his level and, just like his mother would, he smiled warmly at the boy, even though a chill spread through him that made him shiver.

At that moment, the boy's face crumpled into an expression of utter terror. He shook violently and his breath became ragged. Stunned, Zane drew back as Jay threw him a confused look.

“I only smiled at him,” Zane said apologetically, just as confused, as Jay gathered the boy up in his arms.

“I'll take him to ya mum,” Jay said, as the petrified boy buried his face into his chest and clung to him desperately.

Zane sagged, watching them go. Smudge peered up at him. “Whatcha do to him?”

“Nothing! I've never even seen him before!”

Smudge raised an eyebrow. “Looked like he'd seen you before.”

Zane kept busy in the garden for the rest of that day, steering clear of the house whilst his mother tended to the new boy under Jay's protective supervision. At supper that evening he was quiet, not wanting to talk too much about anything, in case it led to the tale of the Giant in the hospital. Zane wasn't ready to face her anger about that yet.

For her part, Miri assumed he was brooding about the new boy's reaction that Jay had mentioned, and left him to it. The boy had clearly been distressed and disoriented, and she couldn't understand why Zane was so shaken up by his behaviour.

The next morning she was relieved to see that he was back to his old self. Not only was he cheery and pleased to see her, but he had risen early and stoked up the fire to boil the day's drinking water. He kissed her on the cheek, just like every morning, and she hugged him tightly.

“Everything alright?”

Zane rested his chin on her shoulder, it still being a novelty to be able to do so and thought for a moment. Somehow it still wasn't the right time to tell her about the Giant, but there was something else to talk about. “I had a weird dream last night.”

“Tell me about it whilst I make breakfast.”

Zane leant against the door frame, his back to the living room, as his mother began to chop the fruit he had picked the day before. The kitchen, like the whole downstairs of the house, was tidy and clean, worn and patched. Small, meticulously labelled pots and jars containing ointments, seeds, preserves, and dried fruit lined every work surface. The dark-red tiled floor,
swept daily, was marked with scrapes from the wooden stools tucked under the table in the corner. The wooden cupboards, full of mismatched crockery, also showed signs of age, but it was all well cared for. The oven was treated as the best mouse-proof cupboard, as all of the cooking was done on a trivet over the fire in the living room. The back door into the small courtyard at the rear was open to let in the pleasant morning breeze, a thin muslin curtain pinned over it to keep out the summer insects.

“I dreamt I was in a house, not this one,” Zane began. “I was living there but it wasn't my home. Everything was very dusty, and all the picture frames I could see were turned face-down, so I couldn't see the people in them.” Zane glanced back into the living room at the framed pictures on the mantel piece over the fire. All were old photos of his mother with her parents when she was younger. All Zane had heard about them was that they died when It happened; Miri didn't like to talk too much about the past.

Miri looked up at the pause and he continued. “I could see a rug that had been rolled back, and there was a weird sort of door in the floor and steps that went down.”

“A cellar,” Miri said, her knife halfway through an apple as she frowned a little. “You've never seen one before …”

“Oh. Well, there was one of those there,” Zane continued, unconcerned, “but I didn't go down it, I knew someone was down there, but not a bad person. Anyway, the really weird thing was that I looked in a mirror in the dream, and I had strange purple eyes.”

“Purple eyes?! Like you'd get from a fight?”

“No no, the um … the bit that's brown –”

“The iris.”

“Yeah, that bit, they were like a pale purple, the same colour as those flowers that grow on the right-hand side on the way to Jay's square.”

“Violet,” Miri's hand was still poised on the knife halfway through the apple. “Like Elizabeth Taylor's eyes.”

“Who?”

Miri shook her head, starting to chop quickly again and Zane knew she had thought about before It happened.

“Isn't that a weird thing to dream about?”

Miri nodded. “Do you remember if your face was the same?”

Zane shook his head. “I can only remember the eyes … and that was all that happened, but it was so clear, it felt like I was really there.”

He watched her chop the rest of the fruit and then mix it all together, remaining silent. Miri glanced over at him expetantly a few times but didn't press him to talk about the day before.

“The little boy was alright in the end,” she commented as she served the fruit into Zane's favourite bowl.

“Oh, right … that's good.”

Miri frowned at him and sighed. “Are you sure you're alright?”

He nodded hurriedly and took the bowl she offered. “What do we need to do today?” Miri didn't press further.

As the days went by, Miri noted that Zane wasn't visiting the Boys, but she didn't worry too much about it–the same had happened in the past. Sometimes Zane would want to be close to others his age, sometimes he preferred her company; either way she was sure he would drift back there soon. Besides, summer was always very busy, and she was glad he wasn't being distracted from all that had to be done. And the less time she spent worrying about what he might be getting dragged into with the Bloomsbury Boys, the better.

The night of the next full moon brought Dev to the square again. Zane was much more alert this time when he opened
the window. “Is it the Giant again?”

Dev shook his head and Zane smiled with relief.

“Ain't seen you for ages, don't you wanna be friends with us no more?”

Zane looked away, feeling guilty for avoiding them, but then fired back, “You didn't come over here either.”

“Couldn't. Jay's got us busy at the moment. We heard noises on the other side of the barricade few days back, and what with the Giant an' all …”

“So why couldn't you wait until morning to visit?” Zane yawned.

“Because it needs to be dark to do what I'm gonna do, not too dark mind you. But tonight's perfect, and I need your help.” Zane listened with apprehension. “I'm gonna get me a Token, best one ever. Ever.” Dev puffed up his chest, the moonlight glinting off his highly polished metal badge.

Zane was far from keen. “It sounds dangerous.”

“Course it is!”

“It's not something from the …” Zane swallowed hard. “The Gardners is it?”

Dev shook his head. “Nah, too hard–anyway, loads of the others have got stuff from them. I wanna do something better, something
different
.” At Zane's raised eyebrow, he continued. “I'm gonna get sommat from the Red Lady's place.”

“What?!”

“I'm gonna get one of her banners. I went and had a look-see at 'er patch last night, and I reckon if someone kept watch for the guards, I could grab one and run with it.”

“You're mad.”

“No, really, it'd work, Zane, honest-like! I just need you to keep watch, not go close or anything.”

Zane knew that the Red Lady's territory, with Gray's Inn at its heart, was only ten minutes from the garden to the southeast if one were stupid enough to attempt to walk there out in
the open. He'd never been there himself, but he'd heard from the Bloomsbury Boys that the territory was marked by daubs of red paint on the buildings around the perimeter. Some said it was blood, but he wasn't sure he believed them.

“They kill people who go near, Jay told me, and Mum too. They both said to stay away.”

“Aw, c'mon. Don't be like that. They only kill people they catch.”

“That doesn't make me feel any better.”

Dev sighed with frustration. “I thought it all through and it'll be fine. They don't expect anyone to do this, that's why it'll work. C'mon, help me out. I gotta get another Token. Len got one the other day from the Gardners, and he's half the size of me. Everyone laughs at me all the time; I gotta show them that I'm worth sommat.”

Zane listened to Dev's pleading and his face softened. “It doesn't matter what people say about you, Dev.”

“It's alright for you, you ain't one of us. You got Miri and the garden. It's different 'ere.” Dev hung his head. “If I don't show 'em I'm worth sommat, they'll kick me out. So I'm gonna do this. Tonight. And if you 'ent gonna help me, then I'll go on my own.”

Dev turned and began to march off purposefully. Zane watched him, worried, and then called him back with a loud whisper. “I'll … I'll watch for you. But I'm not going close.”