Demon Storm
Authors: Justin Richards
Praise for
The Parliament of Blood
:
‘A spine-tingling read – I loved it.’ Julia Golding
‘A rollicking ghoulish horror story written with great pace and historical detail. Children will love it.’
Daily Mail
‘Impressive … a rollicking historical yarn about streetwise boys foiling a dastardly conspiracy.’
Daily Telegraph
‘You can always trust Justin Richards to provide a rip-roaring story that will keep you on the edge of your seat from start to finish, and this follow-up to
The Death Collector
is no exception … This is the kind of book for reading late at night under the covers. A perfect Halloween read for anyone who prefers an adventure over gore.’
Waterstone’s Books
Quarterly
Praise for
The Death Collector
:
‘This is a real page-turner. The book starts with a dead man walking back into his kitchen and then
dragging his terrified dog out for a walk! … Once you’ve finished it, you’ll want to find another book just as exciting.’ CBBC Newsround
‘A very exciting novel, reminiscent in some ways of Philip Pullman’s Victorian novels … a real page-turner – and the ending is quite spectacular.’
Books
for Keeps
‘A thoroughly enjoyable romp full of chases, high drama and a hint of romance in great old-fashioned style. Simply smashing.’
Kirkus Reviews
Praise for
The Chaos Code
:
‘
The Chaos Code
is a globetrotting tour de force in the mould of
The Da Vinci Code
, but better written.’
Write Away
‘Exciting … thought-provoking.’
Daily Mail
JUSTIN RICHARDS
A
WOMAN WHO DROWNED HERSELF OVER
sixty years ago stood by the lake watching Sam. The dead woman’s hair was matted with pondweed, and her plain white dress was stained and torn. Her eyes were sunken black in her pale face. Water dripped from her outstretched, pleading arms – dripped and fell and never landed on the muddy ground …
‘What are you looking at?’ Ben asked.
‘Nothing,’ Sam said. ‘Nothing and no one. It’s not important.’
The woman slowly lowered her arms. She gave the faintest shake of her head, then turned and walked sadly away. Back into the lake. There were no ripples as the water closed over her head – just as it had sixty-three years ago.
‘You’re always looking at nothing,’ Ben grumbled. ‘Why can’t I see it too?’
‘Be quiet, Ben,’ Sam told her brother, though
she spoke gently. ‘We’re here to make a promise, remember?’
She took her young brother’s hand, hoping he would think she was trembling from the cold. Together they walked down to the side of the lake. There was a narrow path – barely more than a muddy track – running along the shore. When they last came here, exactly a year ago on Ben’s twelfth birthday, the track had been hard and dry. Now it was damp and slippery, mud squelching and oozing beneath their shoes.
They could see the house from the corner where the path bent almost back on itself to follow the water. A dark silhouette against the gathering clouds and the grey of the evening. The broken windows were empty sockets, the boarded-up door a gaping mouth.
‘We really used to live there?’ Ben wasn’t impressed.
‘A long time ago.’
‘With our mum and dad?’
Sam looked away, pulling Ben after her as they left the house behind. ‘With our mum and dad.’
‘I don’t remember Mum and Dad. I remember the MacPhersons. Mr MacPherson was in the army. We had to leave. They were nice.’
‘Yes. And before the MacPhersons we were with the Bakers. And before that the Neales.’
‘Did we have to leave them too?’
Sam didn’t answer. The MacPhersons had been understanding, the first few times. But Sam had screamed at the ghosts too often. She’d refused to go in the room where the old man rocked himself to sleep in a chair that wasn’t there. She saw the men Captain MacPherson had killed in the Gulf, following him everywhere he went …
The Bakers hadn’t even tried. The first time she went pale and started to shake at the sight of what hung from the gibbet on Gallows Hill they’d sent Sam and Ben back. And as for the Neales …
A wooden jetty stuck out into the lake. The planks were rotted and broken. A frayed rope hung from a splintered mooring post. The faintest impression of young James Anguin, who’d fallen out of his fishing boat and never been seen again, nodded to Sam. She nodded back. He was always there. Always would be.
‘Here we are,’ Sam said.
‘Let’s go out on the jetty.’
‘Best not. The wood’s pretty rotten. It’s not safe.’
‘I did last year.’
‘It was the year before. You’re much bigger and
heavier now, and the wood’s even more rotten and weak.’
‘We’ll do it here, then,’ Ben decided, standing stiffly on the path at the edge of the jetty.
‘Here,’ Sam agreed.
She took her brother’s hands between her own and looked down at him. Ben’s dark hair was blowing round his face in the breeze. Her own long, dark hair was whipped into a frenzy, but she kept hold of Ben’s hands as they promised.
They made the same promise every year. Even now, neither of them could be sure they wouldn’t be separated from each other. When they were younger, it was a constant worry. Every year they were able to stay together was a bonus. The only constant in their lives was each other. Every year they were thankful for that. Every year they promised each other they’d stay together. They’d never be split up.
‘You first,’ Ben said.
‘I, Samantha Foundling – or whatever my real name is – do promise here at the lake, close to the house that was our last proper home, to look after my brother, Ben Foundling.’
‘Or whatever his name is,’ Ben said, giggling.
They’d had so many names, so many different
families. Neither of them really remembered their own surname any more. Maybe it really was Foundling.
‘I promise I’ll always be there for you, no matter what,’ Sam went on. ‘I promise that nothing will ever take me away from you. Not ever.’ She forced a smile. ‘There. Now it’s your turn.’
Ben nodded. ‘I promise too. All that stuff. Together forever, no matter what. And we’ll come here every year, like we always have, to make our promise, won’t we?’
‘We will. Every year. Without fail.’
Ben pulled his hands away and enfolded his big sister in a hug. ‘I love you, Sam.’
‘I love you too, Ben.’
They stood silent and still, holding on tight, for several minutes. The darkness closed in around them, and the late James Anguin faded with the last of the October light.
Finally, Sam gently pulled away. ‘We’d better be getting back.’
*
The MacPhersons had tried, Sam knew that. Just as she knew how difficult she must be to live with. Better now, but two years ago, when she was
not much older than Ben was now … She didn’t blame them. Over a year of a thirteen-year-old’s screaming and temper and panic and tears …
She could control it better these days. She could ignore the things she saw – make a point of not looking at them. Some, like James Anguin, just watched her. They just
were
. But others, she knew, meant her harm.
Only Ben knew that she could see things – or ‘nothing’, as they pretended. But even he didn’t really understand. He was just thirteen – how could he understand? She couldn’t when she was that age. She was nearly fifteen now and she still couldn’t understand it. Why was she different? Was it because of something that had happened? Something at the house by the lake when they had parents and names of their own? There was something on the very edge of her memory … Perhaps that was why she was drawn back to this exact same place every year to make her promise to her brother.
‘Will we be in trouble for going out?’ Ben asked.
They were sitting on the bus. Sam stared straight ahead, not looking at the woman opposite who clutched a new bag from a shop that had closed a decade ago.
‘I doubt anyone has even noticed we’ve gone,’ she told him. ‘We’ll be back before bedtime.’
The boys and the girls had separate dormitories. Ben’s was divided into cubicles with a curtain across the front of each. The older girls were in shared rooms, two or three in each. Except Sam – she had a bedroom to herself. No one would share with her. They all knew she had such nightmares.
The bus turned sharply at a T-junction. Sam glanced out of the window. The grey lady was leaning out of the window of the old house on the corner of Renfrew Avenue. She was screaming. Sam looked away.
The closest bus stop to the home was a good ten minutes’ walk away. It was dark now. The street lights cast a sickly orange glow through the evening. The iron gates were dark silhouettes behind which the driveway led up to the Victorian building. There was a newer block stuck on the side, which housed the girls’ rooms. It had been built in the 1960s, with no thought that it should complement the main house – pale, square, flat-roofed.
They all called it
the home
, though as it provided not just somewhere to live but also their education it was more like a small boarding school. Except that there were never any school holidays, never any real homes to go back to when term ended …
At least Sam’s room was in the new block, where
there were fewer ghosts. The old house was full of them – ghosts and memories and a gargoyle at the top of a downpipe round the back that watched Sam through sightless stone eyes.
They walked up the drive, hand in hand. The lights in the new block shone bright, but the shuttered windows of the old house were dark and empty.
‘What happens when you’re sixteen?’ Ben asked, his voice trembling. It was something he’d thought about a lot, but he hadn’t dared to ask before. ‘People can leave the home when they’re sixteen.’
‘I won’t leave you,’ she repeated. ‘I just promised, didn’t I? And when I’m old enough – maybe when I’m sixteen or eighteen, or whenever I’m allowed – then I’ll take you with me. We’ll find somewhere else, just the two of us.’
‘Will we be a family?’
‘Yes,’ Sam told him, squeezing his hand. ‘We’ll be a family. Nothing will stop that. Things will be so different just a year from now.’