Candleman (17 page)

‘We might be
hidden
here,’ Sam said, ‘but we could still get cooked alive.’

Theo pulled off his jacket and sat there in a grey T-shirt he had borrowed from Chloe. Sweat was starting to run down his back. They sat in anxious silence as the network creaked and juddered around them.

‘I just wish I knew what they were up to!’ Sam moaned.

Theo pondered. He had been developing a theory. It was time, he decided, for the Candle Man to solve a mystery. He didn’t know much about being a hero, but he did know it didn’t involve being a complete waste of space.

‘I wasn’t allowed to read newspapers or history books when I was at Empire Hall,’ Theo began, swigging his lukewarm water. ‘They wanted me to be ignorant of the real world.’

‘Not quite the time for your life story!’ groaned Sam.

Theo grinned. A couple of days with Chloe had prepared him for that kind of attitude. ‘But,’ Theo continued, ‘Mr Nicely thought it would be funny to let me read
boring
things: plans, maps, blueprints, and so on. Like he’d give me a diagram of a sewage works to look at for the evening.’

‘Your life sounds more exciting than mine!’ grumbled Sam.

‘When Chloe first showed me Foley’s secret map of the whole network, she asked me what I thought it was. Then she laughed at my answer.’

‘Why?’ Sam asked. ‘What did you tell her?’

‘I said it was some sort of machine,’ said Theo. There was a pause, broken by the distant screeching of vapour in tubes. ‘I think all the tunnels, vaults and canals add up to make one big device.’

Sam’s eyes grew bigger. ‘This is supposed to make me feel better, is it?’ he gulped.

‘But think about it,’ said Theo. ‘The Society of Good Works is down here in force. They’re hardly likely to do anything to endanger themselves, are they?’

‘Look,’ said Magnus suddenly. ‘Everyone’s leaving!’

Sam and Theo jumped up and joined Magnus at the vigil station. Screens which had previously shown no action at all now revealed figures climbing stairways and long lines of people walking towards exit hatchways. It was an exodus – a calm, orderly evacuation.

‘It’s like they’re abandoning ship,’ murmured Magnus.

‘Leaving us trapped like rats!’ groaned Sam.

‘Not all of them are leaving,’ Magnus said. ‘One or two people – Dr Saint in particular – cannot be accounted for. Now look here,’ he croaked, pointing with a knotty finger at a fuzzy screen. ‘It shows a glimpse of the tunnel leading to the centre of enemy operations. That is our target –’ Magnus was about to say more, when a yelp from Sam cut him short.

‘What is that?’ gasped Sam. He was no longer staring at the screens but towards the corner of the ceiling. Dark slime seemed to be oozing down through a crack.

‘There’s more!’ Theo said, pointing to some pendulous black bubbles that seemed to have grown through tiny gaps in the ceiling, and were now swelling like balloons. Even Magnus got up from his chair, grabbed a walking stick and staggered across to get a closer look. One of the black shapes fell to the floor with a
flop.

‘Stand back!’ Magnus cried. ‘They’ve found us!’

Skun, chief tracker of the smoglodyte tribe, reared up from the floor. Grinning like a little grey imp, he wobbled from side to side as his innards rearranged themselves into the right places.

‘I can see you!’ Skun cooed in a sing song voice, his narrow little eyes squinting towards Theo. Skun was ecstatic. Truly he was the greatest tracker of all. He had now found the precious Theo
twice.
This time, nothing would go wrong.

Another black blob squelched to the floor and began to reform itself.

‘A very clever hidey-hole!’ Skun said. ‘But I’ve been hunting for you
so
long – and it’s been
such
hard work …’

‘… And Dr Saint has been so very cross with us …’ butted in the second intruder.

‘… That we just couldn’t give up until we got you!’ completed a third, sprouting up to join its companions.

Three of them,
Theo thought, upset by the recurrence of his unfavourite number.
This is bad.

Magnus reached for the enormous old blunderbuss, but the smoglodyte leader leapt through the air and kicked him to the floor.

‘Naughty naughty!’ Skun mocked, jumping up and down on the old man.

‘Leave him alone!’ shrieked Sam. He landed a punch on the smoglodyte tracker, sending Skun flying into the wall. But the creature simply bounced back like a rubber ball and landed on its feet, cackling.

‘Plenty of time to get even with
you
,’ Skun hissed, his long tongue flickering out.

Sam didn’t have much time to worry about this threat, as the second smoglodyte sprang on him from behind and wrapped its flexible body around Sam’s head.

Theo rushed to help, but Skun’s tiny foot snaked out and sent him sprawling across the floor. Theo picked himself up, angrily peeling off his leather gauntlets.

‘Can’t – can’t breathe!’ gasped Sam as the smoglodyte squeezed itself tighter around his face and throat. Magnus was still lying, dazed, nearby.

‘Stop!’ Theo screamed at the top of his voice. ‘I’m – I’m warning you!’ The smoglodyte wrapped around Sam’s throat looked towards Theo. For a moment it seemed unsure. Then it resumed its fiendish grip.

‘Nah,’ it said. ‘I’m having far too much fun.’

Pop!
It was the last thing the smog said. Theo reached out to grab it, but the moment his fingertips came into contact it exploded into grey dust. Everyone in the room – including Theo – stared in astonishment as a fine rain of ash and stringy innards dropped to the ground.

‘What – what happened?’ stammered Skun, backing away. Theo could see the smog’s heart pumping with panic inside its skinny chest.

‘Dunno!’ squeaked the other. It had been creeping up on the fallen figure of Magnus, and was now reaching for the old man’s neck. Theo was so fired up by rage he leapt straight at it, grabbing it by the ankle before it could flit away. Moments later there
was
no ankle – the imp went
pop,
just like the other one had. Theo grimaced as the sticky wet guts hit him in the face.

In a desperate attempt to escape, Skun sprang towards the crack in the ceiling. Theo leapt to stop the fleeing smog, and just managed to brush the creature with his fingertips.

Skun’s skin bubbled, blistered, but did not explode. Squealing with pain, the wounded imp squeezed his body feebly through the crack, leaving a syrupy brown stain behind him. The smog attack had been turned into a rout.

‘Yes!’ cheered Sam, punching the air in a triumphant gesture. ‘We’ve got the Candle Man!’ Then he sank to the ground again and knelt there, panting.

Theo put his gauntlets back on and helped Magnus to sit up.

‘I knew I was right!’ the old man wheezed. ‘The Ascendancy is vindicated! Well done, lad.’

Theo bent down to examine a black streak of smog-bits smeared across the floor. ‘But what happened to them?’ he asked. ‘How did I
do
it?’

Magnus mopped up some of the remains with a tissue and put them in a jar to study later.

‘I believe,’ he said at last, ‘that smoglodytes – like the garghouls – are creatures from an earlier age of this earth. They are semi-solid beings of skin and gas. Almost impossible to destroy by physical force, but very sensitive to other forms of energy. The power in you, Theo, called
tripudon
by some – or
jump energy
– obviously makes them combust in some way.’

The fact that there was a name for his power was of secondary concern to Theo in the wake of the attack.

‘But are they … dead?’ Theo asked.

‘Don’t worry – these ones can’t harm us again! Whether they are destroyed forever, I don’t know. Some reports say that smoglodytes can reform themselves out of polluted air. But the process would take many years.’

‘What about that last one? I think it was wounded, but it got away.’

Magnus frowned. ‘Who knows? But the fact is, we are discovered. Chloe’s idea that we stay put is no longer an option.’

‘Good,’ grinned Sam. ‘Anyway, with Theo’s powers we may get out of this yet!’

Theo wasn’t so sure.

Magnus beckoned the others over to the Vigil Station.

‘Get out of this?’ he echoed. ‘I think we may do a little more than that. The screens are all telling the same story. The network has been sealed for a special purpose. Water levels inside are rising – probably through a sluice connected to the Thames. In the main network, everyone is making their way to the surface!’

Magnus looked perplexed for a moment as a dark shape, resembling a big cat, loped across one of the screens. He fiddled with the focus for a moment, then ignored it.

‘That means – apart from rather a lot of stray creatures that seem to be trapped down here – the only ones left behind in the network will be us … and a few smoglodyte guards.’ There was a twinkle in his eye. Was it happiness, inspiration or complete madness? Theo could not tell.

‘And as Theo has just demonstrated, we have no need to fear them any more.’ He grabbed the boys around the shoulders, supporting his skeletal frame between them.

‘I think we can get through to Dr Saint now,’ he said. ‘I believe we may yet stop him with just an old man and two boys. I actually think, my dear comrades, that after all these years, the Society of Unrelenting Vigilance is going to win!’

‘I
t was kind of you to bring me along, sir,’ said Mr Nicely. He spoke as quietly as he could because he didn’t like it when the smoglodytes’ ears pricked up and they looked at him. ‘But I rather feel a squad of muscle-bound Foundlings would have been more help.’

They were standing on the great garghoul monument at the bottom of the network. Dr Saint, in a stained and crumpled charcoal-grey suit, watched the smoglodytes as they busied themselves digging.

‘I don’t need mindless brawn, Mr Nicely,’ Dr Saint said. ‘That’s what I released this tribe of devils for.’ He flashed his white teeth, but it seemed to the weary butler that it wasn’t the reassuring smile of old.

‘I need someone who will walk beside me, behold my every action, smile at my every deed, and still report back to the world that I am a wonderful human being.’

Mr Nicely nodded, but in a spirit of dejection. It was difficult for him to get used to this new version of his employer. For a start, Dr Saint’s face had become inclined to drip; at the moment, the corner of his mouth was melting away, revealing rather more of tooth and gum than was usually acceptable in society.

‘I need someone by me who will do exactly as I say, without question, because he is terrified of me,’ said Dr Saint.

Mr Nicely frowned, then swallowed hard. ‘All, err … extreme kindness is rather awe-inspiring, sir,’ he said. ‘You
could
call it an element of fear,’ he conceded.

‘Oh, drop it, man!’ Dr Saint sneered. ‘We don’t have to act any more – not in front of these vermin!’

Mr Nicely looked away. All around them the industrious imps were scurrying, bending and scraping. The butler did his best to ignore what they were actually doing.

Dr Saint strode down among the stone markers. He climbed over a pile of freshly dug ashes and stared down into the ground at his feet. There, sprawled out in a shallow pit, a metre taller than the biggest man, was the enormous body of an urughoul, the fearsome warrior class of garghoul.

Its eyes stared up blankly, yet there was a curious intensity about that sightless gaze, as if it could hold you and keep you spellbound for eternity. Its horns were glittering and sharp, like black diamond. Its skin was shining and crystalline, as if chipped out of obsidian. The magnificent, terrible creature was but one of hundreds, each being unearthed from its own separate burial mound.

‘He is impressive, is he not, my lord?’ wheedled a small voice next to the doctor. It was Gank, the smoglodytes’ tribal leader.

‘Oh, yes,’ sighed Dr Saint with studied nonchalance. ‘The urughoul could rip a human being apart as if they were made of wet paper.’

‘And you – oh great Philanthropist – will wisely bring them back to life?’ the little smog asked in a querulous tone.

‘That is the noble purpose of the Liberation,’ Dr Saint replied coldly. ‘To release the poor, forgotten ones who were left down here, and give them Good Work to do.’

‘Yes,’ said Gank dejectedly. ‘They eat us,’ he added, looking up at Dr Saint with a pitiful smile.

‘I know,’ replied the doctor. He looked around to check he was not observed, then laid a hand gently on the smoglodyte’s shoulder. He watched with satisfaction as Gank popped out of existence.

‘Too much going on in the mind of that one,’ he remarked to nobody in particular. Satisfied with all he had seen, he headed back to the stairway, Mr Nicely struggling to keep up in his galoshes.

‘Careful, Sam!’ warned Magnus. ‘One false move and we’re all done for!’

‘Don’t be such an old worryguts,’ said Sam. ‘Theo’s plans aren’t
allowed
to go wrong!’

Getting out of the bunker had been trickier than expected. Water had risen up over the main entrance, so they had been forced to use an overhead hatchway. A narrow crawlspace had brought them back to the required tunnel, but this was flooded too – with hot, foul, smoking water.

It had been Theo’s idea to prise a gigantic fungus globe apart and use the glass dome as a boat. Now that Sam had clambered aboard, the three of them were speeding down the flooded passageway with ease, instead of having to wade and swim through poisonous waters.

‘It’s this Ascendancy thing,’ Sam chuntered on. ‘Now that Theo’s got his powers he’s a new man – a real hero! I bet there’s a magic ring and stuff that goes with that costume of yours!’

Theo groaned. ‘I’m still the same me,’ he protested. ‘Just because Magnus dug out an old moth-eaten costume –’

‘Which you are not wearing,’ Magnus observed.

Theo wiggled his fingers to show he had donned the vintage-edition Candle Man gloves. They were more supple than the cumbersome gauntlets Dr Saint had made him wear. Those old gloves only reminded him of his miserable years of confinement anyway.