Alyzon Whitestarr (45 page)

Then he released me and told me to go.

There was no time to marvel at what had taken place. I set off at a run, knowing the warehouses’ bulk would hide me from the cars I could hear coming. Instead of going along the road to where it ended in a cul-de-sac, I fought my way through waist-high weeds to the triangular, weed-choked no-man’s-land
between the first two warehouses. My extended vision allowed me to avoid a mound of overgrown construction rubbish, but not the thick, black ooze of mud puddled at its base. Grimacing at the filth I could feel squelching around my sandals and between my toes, I realized the best position I could achieve without putting myself in danger of being seen would afford me a view of the entrances to only half the warehouses. It would have to do.

Knowing I might be there for some time, I found a slight depression close to the wall of the first warehouse and squatted down. Only then did I realize that I could no longer hear any vehicles. I puzzled at this until, after a good ten minutes, I heard the sound of a car starting up. I recognized it as the deep purr of Raoul’s car, and I listened as it headed back along the road. Then two more engines roared to life, and I heard them coming closer. They must have spotted Raoul’s car and stopped at Davey’s place. I wondered worriedly what had happened, then headlights indicated the two vehicles had swung into the cul-de-sac and grated to a stop. I could hear the Rak playing from one of them, and when its door opened, the noise hit the night like an explosion. The metal wall of the warehouse shuddered with the thumping violence of the bass. Barely audible under the racket, I could hear people getting out of the van and the other vehicle, slamming doors and talking in an overlapping murmur.

It took me a good two minutes to calm down enough to lift my head clear of the grass. When I did, I was dismayed to
realize that I could only see the front of the green van, not the doors; the other vehicle was completely out of sight, which meant it had probably been parked behind it.

I focused my hearing on the voices and distinctly heard a familiar girl’s voice. I tried thinking about Serenity to focus it more acutely, but the Rak kept gnawing into my attention. I willed her to come around the back of the van so I could see her, but nothing happened. Then I heard the sound of rattling metal—keys at the door of the warehouse I was leaning against.

I leaned sideways and pressed my ear to the corrugated metal of the warehouse. The voices were muffled enough that I knew the warehouse must be lined, and that in itself was strange. Who would go to the trouble and expense of soundproofing such enormous warehouses in the middle of an all-but-deserted industrial park?

Collecting my wits, I pushed my hearing until my head began to hurt. The sounds of conversation I could hear were too fragmented to make sense of. I caught the high pitch of a female voice again and homed in.

“… don’t understand why … there will be dozens of better cameras …” I frowned, because all at once the voice seemed too high and clipped to belong to Serenity.

“You need to prove your commitment and courage,” a male voice said, so distinctly that I knew he must be right on the other side of the wall.

When she answered, the girl used a plaintive and sulky voice. “I don’t understand how filming can—”

“You don’t need to know all of the details.” The male voice was coldly dismissive and, just like that, I recognized it.

Harlen Sanderson.

I gasped. And then I heard Harlen say with perfect clarity: “What was that?”

I held my breath, because although common sense said he could not have heard me, my danger sense was thrumming hard, reminding me that people infected with wrongness seemed also to have their senses extended.

“What was what?” I heard another male voice ask.

“Shut up.” Harlen bit the words out. “Switch that music off!”

Suddenly my danger sense began to scream. I had a mental image of Harlen silently signaling his companions to go outside and circle around either side of the warehouse. Forcing myself not to panic, I turned and stepped back until I reached the pile of rubble. I climbed over it and, without hesitation, lay down flat in the black sludge. I rolled back and forth in it, then I swiftly smeared it over my face and neck and hands. Then I rolled against the side of the warehouse, pressing my face to the wet earth.

My danger sense began to roar, but I turned my mind away from it and made my flesh still, my breath slow, my heartbeat a whisper.

And I listened.

For a long moment I heard nothing, but then I caught the shifting glow of a flashlight. I prayed that whoever held it would not walk down into the dark cleft, or would not come
far enough for the light to find me. I prayed that I would not hiccup or sneeze or cough.

Then I smelled him. Harlen.

Fearing that the sickness he carried would allow him to scent my terror, I turned my mind to scouring rain falling onto the gray-dimpled skin of the sea. But behind my tight-closed eyelids, the light grew brighter as Harlen came closer.

Then I heard a quick, light step. “I don’t know what you think you heard. I didn’t hear anything.” The girl’s complaint grated against the night, and at last I recognized whose voice it was: not Serenity’s but Sylvia Yarrow’s.

Harlen ordered her to shut up in a savage voice, and then he swooped the light around one more time and came another step into the cleft. Knowing he must be at the mound, and literally standing over me, I burrowed into the stillness of my mind until I found a place where it was quiet and safe and clean, and where I could not sense the world.

* * *

Harrison was half-dragging, half-carrying me through the door of Davey’s shack. I stared at him in utter confusion, because the last thing I remembered was lying beside the warehouse.

I tried to speak, but my lips were numb and I realized I was trembling uncontrollably.

“You got close,” Davey whispered. “Almost too close …”

Only then did the white-faced Harrison notice that I was awake. With an exclamation of frustration, he drew me over
to a seat by the stove and asked Davey to fetch warm water and a cloth and towel.

“There were two green vans,” he said abruptly. “They both stopped here by the side of the road. The bouncer type from the poetry group got out of one and came over tae Raoul’s car. Luckily I was inside the hut monitoring the cell in case ye called for help, because otherwise he’d have recognized me for sure. He wanted tae know what Raoul was doing on the industrial park, and Raoul said his car had been acting up and Davey had been recommended by the roadside assistance people. Then Raoul asked why the guy was asking so many questions. The bouncer said there had been some trouble at the park and he was one of the people keeping an eye on things. He told Raoul he’d better watch out because some people had been hurt pretty badly. Raoul did a good job of looking unnerved as he paid Davey and drove off. The bouncer guy watched him go, laughing, then he told Davey tae watch himself, got back in the van, and drove off.”

Davey had come in with water, and Harrison began very gently to mop my face clean of filth as if I were Luke’s age, as he continued his story. I gave myself over to the combination of the cloth strokes, the pervasive scent of lavender, and Harrison’s voice.

“We climbed ontae the roof of the hut after the van had gone. Simon suggested it, Davey said. We saw the guys and the girl from the vans go intae a warehouse, then after what seemed an age, they all came out again. It was obvious they
were searching for you. I was all set tae call Raoul, but Davey …” Harrison glanced at the big man, who had a peaceful, almost absent expression. “Davey told me it would be all right; that you would be able to stop them finding you. A little later they seemed tae give up searching. They set about carrying out some stuff tae the van, locked up, and drove away. Then Davey told me I must go and get ye. It took me ages tae find ye, and when I did, I near had a heart attack because you were lying there so still. I couldnae seem to rouse ye proper. Ye stood and walked, but I had tae lead ye. It was like ye were in a trance.”

“Harlen Sanderson was there,” I said. “And Sylvia Yarrow.”

Harrison’s dark blond eyebrows lifted. “The girl who drowned the cat?”

* * *

Harrison and Davey left me alone to change into some dry clothes Davey had unearthed from a goodwill bag that had been wrongly delivered there some time before.

“What a coincidence,” I thought when the bag contained jeans and a sweater in my size. I shoved my own filthy, mud-sodden clothes into a plastic bag, thinking I would have to find some way to wash them without anyone at home seeing them. Then I remembered what had happened before we had left for Shaletown and groaned at the thought of having to explain myself to Mirandah and Jess.

I looked up to see Harrison regarding me with a queer look on his face.

“What’s the matter?” I asked.

“Nothing,” he said almost tersely. “At least, Raoul just called to say your sister got home hours ago. Your brother had to wait until she was in her room before calling. He said they’d put the diary back and that you shouldn’t mention it. I guess he feels guilty about reading it.”

“Jesse would,” I said. But I wondered if he would so easily put away his memory of Serenity’s scalding hatred.

“Aren’t you relieved?” Harrison asked.

“I ought to be,” I admitted. “But it feels like I’m waiting for the other shoe to drop. Because they must have come to get her, and they took her somewhere before coming here. That’s how we managed to get here before them. Well, at least we can go home.”

Harrison nodded. “Raoul is waiting for us on the other side of the field. Davey says it’s better for us tae go tae him.”

“You will be careful, won’t you?” I said to the gentle man, hating the thought of leaving him there. It was like leaving a puppy in a lion’s den. And yet he had been there all along, keeping watch.

“Simon says, ‘Be a monkey’” Davey said very seriously.

* * *

“That’s a good look on you. Sort of advanced street wear,” Harrison said as we crossed the field.

I bit back a sharp response as I tripped for the tenth time on the hem of the coat that Davey had given me. I hitched it up, feeling ridiculous. Of course, in fairy tales the prince only had to kiss the princess or scullery maid to realize that he
was crazy about her, never mind the soot or mud or ragged clothes. Unfortunately, in my case the kiss seemed to have had the opposite effect on the hero.

“That’s real life for you,” I sighed.

“What?” Harrison asked.

But we had reached the end of the field, and as we climbed over the fence, a car parked on the opposite side of the road flashed its lights. In five minutes we were seat-belted in and on the way home. Harrison told Raoul everything.

“Are you OK?” Raoul asked me.

“I feel stupid getting everyone so worked up and then nothing happens,” I said.

“Nothing!” Harrison said almost indignantly. “We know for sure now that Harlen is linked tae the Shaletown gang, and indeed from what you say, he might even be its leader. And we know that another girl from your school is involved.”

“But involved in what? Making films is hardly a criminal activity. And we still don’t know what Serenity did tonight, or what she is going to do. And what on earth am I going to tell Mirandah and Jesse?” My voice had a ragged edge to it.

There was a silence, then Harrison said. “I’ve been thinking. You say that Serenity wouldnae hurt anyone by shooting or bombing. But what if she’s been set up tae do something she doesnae realize will hurt people? What if she’s tae be given a gun and told it’s not loaded. Or told tae set fire tae someplace that is empty, only it isn’t? Wouldnae finding out she had really done something dreadful wound her again, in just the way that would be needed for infection?”

I stared at him, feeling sick.

“I made some calls while I was sitting in the car just now,” Raoul said. “It turns out that a politician whose portfolio includes immigration is scheduled to visit the Shaletown Detention Center on Monday afternoon. It seems to me that this would be the perfect occasion for your sister to make some radical statement that goes wrong.”

“We have to stop her from hurting anyone,” I said. “Harrison’s right. It would destroy her.”

“You know,” Raoul said thoughtfully, “knowing where and when something is going to happen might offer an opportunity we shouldn’t ignore.”

“Opportunity?”

“I wonder if your journalist friend would respond to a tip. Imagine if he was there to witness what was happening, and knew that Aaron Rayc owns the warehouses nearby and funds the gang that meets there and produces books that prime kids like Serenity to do harm. It might even be that we could set it up so that
he
could stop your sister. That would make a dramatic story, and once he had access to the stuff Daisy dug up …”

“That’s brilliant,” Harrison said. “Raoul, you are a genius.”

Raoul laughed at his enthusiasm. “Not quite. But it does seem the perfect way to save your sister and discredit Rayc without any of us getting in the limelight. After the ORBA function tomorrow night, we might even have more to offer him.”

“I’ve just had an idea,” Harrison said. “Alyzon, you have tae go with Raoul tae this ORBA thing. If there are going tae be a whole lot of celebrities there, you could smell any who were infected and we’d have a list that would take weeks of checking tae compile otherwise.”

“It’s up to you, but it might be a good thing,” Raoul told me. “The only thing is that Aaron Rayc will be there, so we’d have to keep you away from him.”

* * *

By the time Raoul dropped me home, the house was nighttime quiet, with only Jesse up reading in the kitchen.

“Where’s Da?” I asked, shrugging off the derelict coat and my backpack. I had no fear that Jesse would comment on my clothes because he never noticed anyone’s clothes—not even Mirandah’s.

“He’s not home from the rehearsal yet,” Jesse said, and I heaved a sigh of relief. “Look, Alyzon,” he went on, using his rare stern-big-brother voice, “it’s time you did some talking.”