Hollow Earth (32 page)

The canvas was the size of a school notebook, but the demon captured on it was truly monstrous. Its body was the size of three men, its muscles and skeletal structure visible beneath red, scaly skin. Matt thought it looked like an anatomical drawing of a body without skin. Em thought it was simply horrible.

Tanan’s back was still turned to the twins. ‘This is a copy of Duncan Fox’s
The Demon Within
, painted by your mother.’

‘Fox was a brilliant Animare in the nineteenth century. He claimed this was the first monster he saw in Hollow Earth.’

Matt and Em gasped. Mara’s eyes were expressionless.

‘Oh yes. Fox found Hollow Earth,’ Tanan murmured. He was pleased with the effect he was having on the twins, and stroked the face of the monster in the picture before him. ‘Disturbing creature, isn’t it? It’s no wonder Fox went insane.’

Matt glanced at Em.
I thought you said Hollow Earth was a legend!

Em swallowed, too shocked to respond. They both thought of the strange yellow, green and black drawing Arthur Summers had sent them; Matt remembered the painting in the vault. Zach’s laptop described the picture as showing ‘the entrance to a mythical purgatory’ …

The two adults stepped away from the painting and walked over to the cage. The twins did their best to stand with as much dignity as they could muster, given that their hands were bound and their heads were hitting the top of the cage.

‘When you were very young, your mother bound your father in this painting,’ said Mara. ‘We need you to use your significant abilities to release him.’

‘But why would Mum do that?’ said Em, her voice cracking slightly.

‘Because your mother lacked your father’s vision for the future,’ Tanan said.

Suddenly the cage began to rattle, knocking Em to her knees. Matt clenched one of the bars to steady himself. It changed into a snake, hissing and spitting venom at him, and he yanked his hand away, staring at Em.

‘Are you doing this?’

‘I don’t know,’ Em cried, looking at the canvas on the easel. ‘Maybe. That painting scares me.’

The studio floor rolled, buckled and cracked underneath the cage, dropping the twins into a huge fissure.

‘You told me you had her under control!’ Tanan shouted. ‘Bring them here.’

Grabbing the twins from the buckled and useless cage, Mara cut their ties, dragging them over to the easel. The twins instinctively took each other’s hands.

‘Your father, Mara and I revived the Hollow Earth Society right after you were born,’ said Tanan softly, ‘because we believed, like Duncan Fox, that Hollow Earth was real. We understood how a very powerful Animare and Guardian together could open Hollow Earth. However, unlike Fox – who sought to protect the world from the creatures within – we have somewhat bigger plans.’ An expression close to rapture filled Tanan’s face as he recited the lines the twins remembered from the inscription on Arthur Summers’ drawing. ‘To our sons and daughters, may you never forget imagination is the real and the eternal. This is Hollow Earth.’

Em stared at her mum’s copy of
The Demon Within
stretched on the easel. The image at its centre was like nothing she’d ever seen before – monstrous, skeletal and scaly. ‘Mum bound Dad in this painting so he could find Hollow Earth?’

Tanan leaned close to Em. ‘Your mother bound him in this painting to
stop
him finding Hollow Earth!’

Help me!

For a beat, Em thought Zach must have come back to the studio. She was so sure that she turned, expecting to see him. But he wasn’t there. His voice was only in her head.

Zach’s in trouble. We need to get out of here.

‘We need you to release your father from this painting so the Society can continue its mission,’ said Tanan, his eyes flaring angrily. ‘We need your father to find Hollow Earth, and, when he does, we need you to open it.’

He’s insane, Matt
.

Matt needed to focus on getting them out of here. He looked again at the Abbey’s flags.

‘If you want to see Simon or your mother again,’ added Tanan, ‘you will do this for us.’

‘But we don’t know how!’ wailed Em.

‘Concentrate. Feel your connection to your father—’

‘We can do it,’ Matt said, interrupting. He squeezed his sister’s hand.
Trust me and empty your imagination, Em
.

Confused, Em did as her brother suggested, sending images and emotions flying out of her head in trails of brilliant light and streams of magnificent colours. For a few seconds, they filled the studio; then, just as quickly, they exploded into a million sparkling pieces, like embers from a fire, fading to nothing. Her mother’s voice popped into her mind. She forced that out into the room, too.

‘Good,’ said Tanan, relaxing. ‘You need a quiet mind. Now, are you ready?’

The twins turned so they stood back to back, their shoulders pressing against each other. Tanan and Mara took each other’s hands, barely able to contain their excitement. On the easel, the canvas was pulsing, the monster’s scaly hands twitching and flexing.

Instead of sending words to Em’s mind, Matt telepathed lines, curves, dots, smudges of black, white and silver. Instead of the rhythm of Matt’s voice, Em accepted the texture and dimension of an image. Instead of sentences, Em let a picture take shape.

Suddenly it sounded as if a helicopter was hovering outside. Mara looked up, staring in confusion as all the natural light from her stained-glass window was blocked from the room. The canvas had returned to stillness as Matt had shifted his imagination to Em. There was no shimmer, no bursts of colours, no creative energy – no Malcolm.

‘Something’s not right,’ said Tanan.

‘They look as if they’re in a trance,’ said Mara, her voice displaying a twinge of anxiety. She grabbed Matt’s wrist, feeling for his pulse.

The twins’ eyes were closed, their heads pressed together, their hearts beating in sync, their minds creating in unison.

‘This should be working,’ yelled Tanan, rushing forward.

But he didn’t get very far. A magnificent white stag with expansive silver wings crashed through the stained-glass window, landing on top of the twins’ cage, crushing it under its hooves.

‘A
peryton
!’ gasped Mara.

Tanan was too stunned to move. The twins’ eyes snapped open. For a couple of seconds, they stared in awe at their animation. Then Mara screamed in anger, lunging for a piece of pipe lying near one of her crates, just as Tanan reached for his sketchpad. But neither Tanan nor Mara moved fast enough.

It was as if the peryton knew their next move. It dipped its enormous white antlers, hooked them on the nearby crate and launched it across the room. The crate landed on top of them, sending Tanan’s sketchpad across the floor, coloured glass showering down on them.

The twins ran to the peryton. Cupping his hands, Matt hoisted Em on to the beast, pulling himself up in front of her. The beast took one, two, three paces forward then lifted itself back out through the smashed window.

‘Nice job with the whole earthquake thing to get us out of the cage, Em,’ Matt shouted against the wind. ‘But I could have lived without the snake.’

SIXTY-FIVE

T
earing pieces of crate and shards of glass from his robes, Tanan let out a feral howl, as the peryton carried the twins out through the remains of the stained-glass window. He kicked over the easel, sending Mara to the floor to retrieve the canvas of Fox’s demon, then pulled his sketchpad from his sleeve, pacing like a maniac and waving it in the air like a weapon.

‘Malcolm wasn’t bound in that painting at all, and the twins sensed it. Sandie must have made another copy …’

For the first time, Tanan wondered if his ambitions might have impaired his vision. Sandie had been one step ahead of him the whole way.

Mara thrust the canvas into his hands and backed away. Tanan stared down at the image. The demon’s coral skin was scaly and pockmarked, its muscles and bones distinctly visible, and its bald head couched demented eyes. So if this was not the picture in which Malcolm had been bound, then where was the first copy? The satchel …

‘I’m going after the twins,’ said Mara. She was about to take the canvas and return it to the tube when Tanan put his hand on her arm.

‘Wait,’ he said softly. ‘I have a better idea. Let’s send Fox’s demon to fetch them.’

The peryton landed with grace, setting Matt and Em down on an outcropping of rocks at Monk’s Cove on Era Mina.

‘So how long do you think our animation will last?’ asked Em, stroking the beast’s wings with awe.

‘I don’t know. I can’t exactly destroy the sketch, since I used your imagination as my drawing pad.’ said Matt. ‘He feels different from our normal animations, doesn’t he? Like maybe he’ll last … for ever.’

The moon was full, and the water was filled with hundreds of tiny, twinkling jellyfish, like thousands of candles floating across its surface. Before they had landed, the twins had seen the Abbey’s speedboat beached near the tower, so they knew that Zach was here, even though none of Em’s telepaths had been answered. Hopscotching across the rocks, the twins left the peryton preening its wings and darted inside the caves.

The darkness engulfed them immediately, forcing them to stop and adjust their bearings. The beacon light from the tower bathed the mouth of the cave in an eerie glow, but the deeper they went, the heavier the darkness.

Behind them, tucked high on a ledge, a pair of beady yellow eyes was watching. If the twins had been concentrating, they might have been able to hear it smacking its lips, gnashing its sharp little teeth.

Matt jumped over the rocks to the ledge near the cave’s entrance. His hand bumped against something heavy.

‘Zach’s backpack is here,’ he called over to Em. His fingers touched something else. ‘And his helmet.’

A wave of fear washed over him. And then, as an arc of light from the tower swept through the cave, his worst fears were confirmed.

Two figures floated below him at the edge of the tidal pool.

‘Em, over there!’ he yelled, directing her with the light on Zach’s helmet.

Zach was sitting up against a flat rock, unconscious, his chin resting on his chest, blood dripping from a gash on his forehead. Vaughn was perched in front of Zach, as if he was sitting in his lap. Zach’s arms were wrapped around Vaughn’s upper body. The good news was that Zach had been able to keep Vaughn’s head above the rising tide, preventing him from drowning.

The bad news was that Zach and Vaughn’s arms and necks were covered in fresh bite marks.

SIXTY-SIX

H
er heart pounding, Em knelt next to Zach, gently lifting his chin. Zach groaned and smiled weakly, then dropped his head forward on to Vaughn’s shoulder.

‘We need to get them out of the water,’ said Matt, wading into the tidal pool.

With a great deal of effort, the twins pulled Vaughn up on to the rocks above the tide line. Vaughn stirred and grabbed Matt’s wrist.

‘You need to get out of here,’ he slurred.

‘We will. We’ll get help,’ Matt promised. But Vaughn had lost consciousness again.

Zach, along with the gash in his head, had clearly twisted or broken his ankle. Em started to cry as they moved him. This was all their fault. Tears streamed down her face as she helped Matt lay him on the rocks next to Vaughn.

Just as they thought they were safe, it struck.

They couldn’t see what hit them until it was right upon them. A black shape, springing from the darkness, landed on Matt’s shoulders. Its teeth snapped in Matt’s ears, its foul breath chilled his skin.

Em screamed, lunging at the dwarf-like creature, punching and tearing at it, trying desperately to break its grip on her brother. Dropping to his knees, Matt tried to shake off the grotesque creature by pummelling it against the cave wall. And all the while, the changeling’s teeth nipped and gnawed at the skin on Matt’s neck.

Em’s punches were useless. The creature had somehow attached itself to Matt’s back. She scrambled back over the rocks to Zach’s backpack, barely able to see what she was doing, her only light coming from the glow of the changeling’s yellow eyes and the pulse of light from the tower’s beacon. The changeling’s distorted face grinned at her every time the beacon’s light caught it.