James Munkers (14 page)

‘Or drugged him and he's lying unconscious in a ditch somewhere?'

‘
Thank
you,' Pippa says repressively. Then she sighs and goes back to looking worried. ‘I'm going to have to go into town and see if I can pick up his trace.'

‘We'll come,' Jem and I say simultaneously.

‘No you won't,' she says. ‘You'll stay here and be scholarly. And keep out of trouble if you possibly can.'

‘Who's in trouble?' Mum asks from behind us. She's carrying a box full of random objects, probably something for the Christmas Show on Friday.

‘Hello, Mrs Munkers,' Pippa says, instantly cheerful. ‘Nobody yet. It's just that I have a free period and have to nip into town, so I can't keep an eye on this lot.' She slides up next to me, puts an arm around my shoulders and sneers happily into my face. I sneer back. We're getting good at the boyfriend/girlfriend cover.

‘I'll watch out for the explosions, then,' Mum says, smiling at us.

‘Oh, thanks,' I say in mock outrage. ‘Where's your faith, woman?'

And off she goes on her merry way, humming “Oh Come, All Ye Faithful”. Our five smiling faces slide back into worry and concentration. Pippa doesn't pull away, though, now that Mum's gone. In fact she turns towards me and snuggles her cheek into my shoulder, looking miserable.

The bell interrupts us.

‘I have to run,' Claire says. ‘I've got a horrible maths lesson. So do you,' she reminds Pippa.

‘Well, sadly, I'm going to have to pass on that one.'

‘We've got English,' Jem says, ‘and I don't much care to have a duster thrown at my head for being late.'

‘I'll take care of it for you,' I offer.

‘Did you say you were going into town?' Peter says to Pippa.

‘Well, that's where Will usually heads when he storms off.'

‘I'll drive you if you like,' Peter offers. ‘I've got time, especially for a rescue mission.'

And so we part. I wish we didn't have to; I don't feel as safe as I have done recently, not with Will off the set.

And, just to add to my woes, we're doing poetry in English, which is boring. For something more interesting to do I push my mind into people's eyes to see what they're thinking about. Fi Gleeson is thinking longingly about Troy Alderidge. Troy is thinking longingly about the cheese sandwich in his bag. And Miss Lassen, staring open-mouthed at Tracy Beckett stumbling her way through some Byron, is thinking… nothing. She's the most air-headed person I've examined yet. I snort into my poetry book.

Then I almost vomit into it. A sound, a bit like static, has started up from somewhere. It's not loud, but I feel like it's worming its way into my brain and infecting everything in there. A wave of nausea passes over me.

I stumble up from my desk and mutter something to Miss Lassen about not feeling well. I must look pretty rotten because she waves me towards the door. I hear Jem trying to follow me out, but she orders him back into his seat, saying I can look after myself.

Once outside in the fresh air, I start to feel better. The static fades and my head and stomach stop churning. It's very cold and quiet out in the school grounds, and there's a heaviness in the clouds that speaks of snow. I've left my jacket on the back of my chair, so I can't stay out for long or I'll freeze, but I lean back against the wall behind me and close my eyes.

My reverie is disturbed by the sound of a door opening away to my left. I open my eyes and turn my head, but as soon as I do the nausea comes back, ten times as strong as before. My stomach contracts and I collapse onto hands and knees, retching onto the grass.

Oh God, I can't breathe. My lungs are seizing. Tears trickle from my eyes, which are squinted shut in pain. I sense rather than see someone passing by me. Is it the same person who opened the door?

‘Please,' I choke. ‘Please…' I reach past my bowed head with one hand and grab at the air in front of me. My fingertips brush against something…

All of a sudden the nausea turns to blinding energy. I gasp as it charges through me, lighting up every vein and making every hair on my body fizz. This is incredible! I'm aware of everything around me: every blade of grass below me, every crack in the wall behind me. And in front of me…

The light is too blinding. I can't see… Where are they, the person who passed by, who gave me this incredible power? Where did they go? Why did they leave me?

A figure appears around a corner, walking towards me. I'm filled with glee – they're coming back! – when I see it isn't them.

Damn them! Damn this new person who doesn't have any power for me! I hiss and spit and tear at the grass under my hands.

‘You little
shit
.'

I know that voice. Hacker. Martin Hacker, that's who it is. He's staring at me with pure hatred, but it's nothing compared with mine. I can feel my own anger rising up, focussing my energy on one object.

Martin Hacker is in my way.

I jump to my feet and storm towards him. I have to get past him and find my power.

‘You just don't learn, do you?' Martin says, and takes a swing at me with… what's he holding? A music stand?

It slams into my face and I go falling back to the ground. I'm surprised by this, because it doesn't hurt. My energy is numbing my body, making me invincible. I watch with interest as Martin tosses the music stand away and jumps on top of me. He's too angry this time to punch where it won't show, and is making quite a job of my face. Two clean punches to my nose. One to the left eye.

I'm not paying much attention, though. My attention is focussed on the music stand hovering just behind Martin's head. Black light shimmers over it. If I can just aim it at his spinal column…

‘BOYS!'

Martin's fist freezes in mid-air, and my powers jolt to a stop, leaving me shaking. The music stand falls to the ground.

Oh my God. My eye. My nose.

Martin's spine…

‘Get up.'

I watch as Martin turns his head towards the speaker, and feel weak with relief. The stand didn't hit him. I didn't break… I didn't break…

I turn my own head to vomit onto the grass again, and see Mr Grayson striding towards us, his eyes flashing. Martin scrambles off me and we both struggle to our feet. I find it hard to stay upright, I'm shaking so much.

Mr Grayson stops and surveys us from a few feet away, his arms crossed. ‘Both of you, my office,
now
.' He turns on his heel, fully expecting us to follow.

We do. The fact that he's usually bumbling and isn't now makes him twice as scary. Was he always that tall? I turn and look back at the music stand lying innocently on the grass, and wonder if he saw it.

He marches us inside the main doors, through the foyer and into Mum's office. Mum's sitting at her desk, typing away. She looks up as we approach, takes in the mud on my clothes and the blood on my face, and turns stonily back to her computer screen.

She's not yelling at me. She must be really mad.

Mr Grayson points to a plastic chair next to her desk. ‘Mr Munkers, take a seat,' he says. ‘Mr Hacker, inside.' Martin slouches into his office, and Mr Grayson closes the door behind them both.

I sit down on the edge of the chair and wait. I don't have any reason to feel nervous. It's not like I was the one doing anything wrong.

Ah, but you almost did
, my subconscious says.
You were ready to bring that stand down on Martin's head so hard it could have killed him
.

I swallow and try to convince myself that it isn't true. I was only trying to get him off me. I was defending myself. I was scared.

You were excited.

My heart starts pounding, and I flex and bunch my fists to try to stop them trembling. There's the taste of blood in my mouth, and I realise my nose is still bleeding a little. I wipe the blood away with my sleeve, but then figure this might not endear me any more to my mother.

‘Mum?' I say tentatively. ‘Mum, can I have a tissue?'

She doesn't reply.

If Mr Grayson doesn't kill me, I think my mother might.

The school bell rings suddenly. Hundreds of students walk past on their way to their next class. They all stare at me through the glass walls. This would normally make me feel awful, but I don't think I can feel any worse right now.

Mr Grayson's door opens and Martin walks out looking completely deflated. He doesn't even look at me, just walks straight out of Mum's office and joins all the other students disappearing down the corridors. Mr Grayson's head pokes out. ‘Alright, Mr Munkers. Your turn.'

My turn at what? They don't still use the cane in rural schools, do they?

I get up and follow him in. As soon as I walk into his office I get the shakes again. What's the matter with me? I have to get a grip on myself and think. This has to be handled carefully. I still don't know what he saw.

Grayson gestures to the chair in front of his desk, and sits down on the edge of the desk himself. I lower myself into the chair, watching him closely.

‘Ah, Jim,' he says mildly, resting one foot on a box of Christmas decorations by his desk and clasping his hands around his knee. ‘What am I going to do with you?'

I look down at my hands. ‘I'm sorry I was fighting, sir. I didn't start it.'

‘It looked like you were about to end it, though,' he says. ‘A music stand to the head, eh? I like it. He would have ended up as retarded as his brother.'

I look up sharply. What did he just say?

‘I confess I'm a little disappointed,' he continues. ‘A whole flight of fully-trained Hoarders after you, and it's a self-righteous little prick like Hacker who makes you show yourself.' He smiles at my look of horror. ‘Didn't I tell you there were people looking out for you?'

Oh God. He's a Hoarder.

He's a Hoarder, and I have no idea what to do about it. Did we cover this in training? Should I stare him down or avoid eye contact? Should I run away or curl into a ball? I have no idea, but I'm pretty sure that, whatever else I'm going to do, I'm going to panic.

Mr Grayson, on the other hand, looks perfectly relaxed. He pops a mint into his mouth and smiles down at me.

‘Well, this is convenient,' he says. ‘We can have a good chat without your pesky protectors interrupting us.'

‘Who?'

Okay, so denial isn't original, but it's worth a shot. I don't think Mr Grayson is buying it, though.

‘Now come on, Jim,' he says, frowning. ‘Let's not play games with each other. I've waited very patiently for this confrontation, but I don't mind telling you that I'm almost done being patient. You know who I'm talking about.'

‘No really, sir, I don't,' I say, trying not to think about what a “confrontation” might involve. ‘I don't have any protectors.'

‘Well, not at the moment,' he says, smiling again. ‘I wasn't sure how I was going to get you away from them but, in the end, William took care of that for me.'

I look up sharply despite myself.
Will
took care of it?

‘Oh, don't worry,' Grayson says. ‘He didn't betray you. He just chose last night to drink himself into unconsciousness over that Guardian bitch, Katherine Green.'

Over Kit? What's he talking about? Why would Will get drunk over Kit?

Mr Grayson takes in my look of surprise. ‘Didn't he tell you?' he says. ‘I'm not surprised. It's quite a pathetic tale: how he lost his powers on account of a skinny little girl. I wouldn't tell anyone either.'

So it was Kit who defeated him. He said it was a powerful Guardian who did it. No wonder he lost it when I said her name yesterday. He probably hates her guts.

He picked a hell of a time to go out and get sloshed over it, though.

‘In any case,' Mr Grayson continues, ‘it's given us a nice opportunity to get to know one another a little better.'

‘Why would you want to get to know me?' I ask cautiously.

‘Why?' Mr Grayson laughs. ‘My dear boy, you're fascinating. A human with extra-dimensional powers? Such a thing is beyond our knowledge. It's going to be quite an education, studying you.'

‘Look, I really think you might have the wrong person here,' I say, trying for guileless. ‘I don't know anything about dimensions or –'

‘If you don't stop toying with me, young man,' he says, leaning towards me and breathing spearmint into my face, ‘I'm going to rip your power right out of you with my bare hands.'

Oh. Man. I believe that was a death threat. I also believe my legs just turned into trifle.

Mr Grayson straightens up again and polishes a fingerprint off the edge of his desk with his cuff. ‘There's no point denying it, anyway. We've known about you ever since your little incident down in London.'

He's joking! They've known the whole time?

‘So all the undercover efforts…' I say.

‘Were a complete waste of time,' he says happily.

Great.

‘Hang on,' I say, confusion overriding my terror for a moment. ‘How did you know? I'm not a Hoarder. You shouldn't have been able to sense me.'

Confusion flickers across his face, but a moment later certainty returns. At the same time, nausea washes through me again. What the hell is going on? Can I sense Hoarders after all? Is that what's making me feel sick?

‘We have our ways,' Grayson says. ‘Anyway, it was all too easy persuading your parents to move your family up here so we could keep an eye on you. We didn't realise the extent of your power until our little experiment that night on the football field, though. That's when we really started getting interested.'

‘Experiment? I almost died! One of your Hoarders actually did.'

‘Only a minor one,' he says. ‘And it wasn't a murder attempt – it was a test. If you hadn't survived the knife attack, you wouldn't have been powerful enough for us to bother with you anymore. But you did. You performed excellently, and all our observations since indicate that you have a good aptitude for anger and destruction. You're going to be very useful.'

Hold the phone. What's he saying?

‘So you're not going to kill me?'

‘Kill you? Good gracious, what a waste. No, my dear boy. We're just going to… persuade you to join our cause.'

Persuade me? ‘With a six-figure salary and health benefits?' I ask.

Grayson smiles at my very funny joke. I don't think that's how they persuade.

‘Don't look so worried, Jim,' he tells me. ‘We'll take good care of you. We're all very excited about the extent of your powers.' He looks down at me proudly. ‘You're very special.'

‘Thanks, mum.'

He laughs. ‘Lovely lady,' he says fondly.

Suddenly I don't feel so despondent. The power within me starts to surge again. ‘Don't you
dare
go anywhere near my mother,' I say, my voice shaking with anger.

He leans in close to me and says, ‘What makes you think I haven't already?' Then he leans back and twists around to press the intercom button on his phone. ‘Sue, could you come in here for a minute?'

I grab a hole-puncher from his desk and swing it at his face. He catches my arm in a vice-like grip without even turning around. ‘Certainly, Headmaster,' I hear my mother's voice answer on the phone. Mr Grayson releases the button, turns back to me and twists me around to face the door with my arm pulled behind my back.

‘Let it go, there's a good boy,' he says, and pushes my arm further up my back. I cry out in pain and the hole-puncher falls to the floor.

The office door opens and Mum walks in. She seems completely unconcerned that her middle child has a smashed-up face and is being tortured by her boss. I'm gasping in pain and fear, wishing desperately for her to run out the door as fast as she can. She looks calmly at me, but I read nothing in her eyes – she's as mindless as Miss Lassen was.

Oh my God. What have they done to her?

Mum turns her vacant gaze from me to Mr Grayson. ‘You wanted to see me, Headmaster?' she says.

‘It appears,' he says gravely, ‘that your son thinks it's reasonable to get into fights at school. What do you think about that?'

She looks back at me. ‘That's unacceptable, James,' she says dully. ‘I brought you up better than that.'

‘And don't you think such behaviour ought to be met with punishment?' Mr Grayson says, an awful eagerness in his voice.

To my horror, Mum nods, walks over to a bookshelf and picks up a thumping great dictionary. I'm too shocked to do anything as she swings it back then slams it across my face. I fall sideways but Mr Grayson's still holding my arm. I scream in pain as I feel my shoulder dislocate. Only then does he release me with a shove. I stumble, fall against the wall and slide to the floor, my cheek and arm searing.

Through the pain I can hear Mr Grayson laughing. ‘Again,' he tells my mother.

‘Stop it,' I say through clenched teeth.

‘But you have to learn,' Mum says, raising the book again.

‘Not you.' I reach out my mind and create a protection shield around her, then push her away across the room until she's pinned up against the bookshelves. I push myself up with my good arm and turn to face the bastard messing with my family.

‘You.'

With my mind I raise the chair I was sitting on earlier and hurl it at my headmaster. It smashes into his chest and he falls backwards onto the desk, trapped. Dark energy whizzes around me as I tap into a wonderful new place of anger.

‘All of you.'

A stapler starts stapling one arm of his jacket to the desktop.

‘All my life, all I've wanted was to be left alone.'

The electrical cord of his lamp wraps itself around his other wrist.

‘But it seems you just can't help yourselves.'

The globe of the lamp shatters, showering him with shards of glass.

‘The Guardians, the Hoarders, even Martin Hacker – you all seem to have this undeniable urge to piss me off. Well, congratulations.'

I tip the whole desk upright so we're nose to nose. I'm shaking, sweating and about two seconds away from ripping his head off.

‘You just succeeded,' I spit at him.

He sneers. ‘That was the plan,' he says.

Then the whole room explodes.

I'm thrown backwards towards the door, and only just cushion myself with a protection shield in time. I land on the floor and look up at Grayson, only to see a ball of black energy shooting towards me. I levitate a metal filing cabinet in front of me. The ball smashes into it and explodes in a flurry of dark flame. I fling the cabinet towards the desk, where Mr Grayson is standing. He swoops out of the way and watches it smash through the window, the drawers jolting open and files flying everywhere. He laughs and applauds. ‘That's the way,' he says, and slices all the broken glass towards me in a great cloud.

I raise another protection shield around me, and peer through the debris to check that the one I put on Mum is still holding. It is, but Mr Grayson is busy toppling a bookshelf at me, so I have to double my own to hold it at bay. I'm getting tired and my mind is starting to spin. I realise I have to end this before I lose control.

‘How are you holding up there, sport?' Mr Grayson calls pleasantly. ‘Not so easy, is it – destroying someone?'

The feeling of nausea returns and mingles with my power.

‘You have to really mean it.'

I can feel my power growing with my hatred.

‘I don't know,' he says with a sigh. ‘Your heart just doesn't seem to be in it. Maybe I shouldn't have toyed with your mother's mind. Maybe I should have just destroyed your little sister's.'

Right. That's it.

I snarl with rage, and throw my hand out towards him. A surge of that darker power shoots out of it and charges straight at his heart.

Too late, I realise this is what he's been waiting for. He reaches out for the darkness and caresses it as if it were his favourite pet. I find I can't let go, and the ribbons of darkness span the gap between us.

‘Did anyone ever tell you how dangerous it is to play with someone's mind, Jim?' Grayson asks almost absently as he twines the darkness between his fingers. Then he looks straight up into my eyes. ‘Care to have a dip?'

Before I can catch my breath he whips at the dark ties between us and I feel my mind hurtling towards him. Kit's voice comes back to me –
the mind is infinite… deluged with information… end up going insane
. I can't stop myself, though. My vision goes black and I feel myself falling into the Hoarder's mind.

Image after image flashes before me of people in pain, people fighting, people dying and corpses rotting. Of atrocities performed and horrors still to commit. Of a terrible hunger for power. As the images come faster and faster my mind starts to panic at the speed and randomness. I don't have a point of reference for any of this stuff. I'm losing myself in here. These thoughts of a madman are going to keep coming and coming, and I'll never find my way out.

Only the thoughts all seem to be coming from the same place. My mind fights against the tide of images, trying to find the source of them all. Finally I reach a place, far down in the depths of Grayson's mind, which seems to be separate, controlling everything else. Desperate to escape the flood of horror, I plunge into it.

It's dark and powerful here. I feel my mind merging with this power, and a flash of triumph ripples through it. It welcomes me. It recognises me…

The triumph turns to shock, then rage.

JAMES!

Suddenly I'm hurled out of there, as if that dark power just spat me out in disgust. My mind rockets back to the top of Grayson's mind. A light starts growing in front of me, hazy at first but growing brighter, and I cling to it desperately. The light turns into colours, the colours into objects. An upturned desk, a littered floor, a blank-faced woman standing in the corner, a lanky boy lying in the middle of the room twitching and drooling…

I'm looking at myself. I'm looking at the ruined office and my dying body through Grayson's eyes.

I try to fling my mind back into my own head, but it's no good. The upper portion of Grayson's mind seems surprised to find me back at the surface and is pushing me down again. Meanwhile, the dark buried portion is fighting to throw me right out. I'm being squashed between the two, stuck on the edge. It's too much. I can feel my own mind being smothered by them. The vision of the room in front of me dims.

Before it disappears completely, though, I see the door to the office swing open and Mr Lancer, my maths teacher, walk in. He looks as calm as Mum did when she came in, and what's left of my mind cries out in disappointment. What good is a mindless maths teacher right now?

I may as well just give up.

‘I heard you were holding my student hostage,' Mr Lancer says from far away. ‘Can I have him back now, please, Headmaster?'

A bright light filters through the dimness and a snarled word echoes off the corners of Grayson's brain:
Guardian!

The word stirs something in my fading mind. The room comes back into focus and I see a scruffy man standing by a door, a pure white light glowing all around him.

Mr Lancer's a Guardian?

‘He's not a hostage,' Grayson says, talking mildly as he builds up his power to strike. ‘He's a victim.'

Mr Lancer takes another step into the room. ‘No he's not,' he says quietly. ‘He's a hero. And he's ours.'

‘He's
mine
,' Mr Grayson snarls in sudden anger. I can feel the words coming from the depths of his mind – it seems that hidden part of him no longer wants to spit me out. Conflicting emotions bolt up from that place: rage, confusion, excitement, desire. When that last one hits me, for a second, I feel it too. I want to join it, to let go of my worries, to be a part of something that powerful. The vision of the room before me blurs and darkens once more as I start to let go.