The Book of Beasts (26 page)

Carik glowered. ‘I will not—'

‘I need you to trust me, lass. If you don't leave now and join Solon, with the old monk's death there will be no future for Matt or his sister.'

Matt's head was splitting open. The Grendel's bloodlust was powerful. He could feel how strongly it wanted to rip Malcolm apart. How much longer could he keep control?

He suddenly felt Carik's cool hand on his. ‘You have my pledge forever, Matt of Calder.'

Matt's voice felt unsteady. He had grown fond of the fierce Viking girl. ‘And you have mine. You and Solon. For what it's worth.'

‘Climb up through that hole and ye'll find yerself out on the hillside, lass,' Jeannie instructed, guiding Carik away from the foul stinking slime of the howling Grendel. ‘The North Star will be high on your right side. Find yer way to the mill where Solon is waiting for you.'

Matt's concentration had slipped as Carik looked into his eyes – the Grendel's eyes – in farewell.

It was a mistake.

Carik's eyes suddenly widened. ‘Look out!'

Her warning was too late. Matt felt a piercing agony in his side.

His father had plunged the sharp white tip of the bone quill deep into his own son's flesh.

Auchinmurn Isle
Present Day

Zach woke up with a hollow silence in his head and a really bad feeling in his gut. His clock read 4.20 a.m. It was still dark outside and would be for a few more hours, but his stomach was doing somersaults and he tasted salt in his mouth.

He burped. His stomach rumbled. His gut twisted. Throwing off his duvet, he dashed across the hall to the bathroom.

Oh, man,
he thought, holding his hand to his mouth.
Sandie must not be allowed near the cooker any more.

Since Jeannie's absence, Sandie had decided that it was her responsibility to cook for everyone and insisted that Renard not replace Jeannie with anyone else. They didn't need any strangers in the house at this time. This was the second night in a row that Zach had woken up with an ugly stomach ache.

He flushed the toilet then quickly brushed his teeth, staring at himself in the mirror. His short blond hair stood up in spikes and the skin under his hazel eyes was puffy. He spat, rinsed and splashed water on his face.

He was hardly back in his bedroom when his gut clenched again. The taste in his mouth was stewed cabbage. He moaned and headed back to the bathroom, glancing absently at Em's bedroom door as he passed. It was open. He could see from here that her bed was empty.

And then it hit him.

What if it wasn't Sandie's burgers that had woken him? What if it was Em? What if she was wandering outside again and was now in trouble?

Ever since he had met her, Zach had felt Em's presence in his head. A soft purple wrapped around his thoughts, a wisp of pale violet cushioning his ideas, a pale light always in his mind.

Standing in the hallway in his boxers, Zach closed his eyes and listened for her. Nothing except a tight knot that he'd blamed on Sandie's cooking.

Yanking on a T-shirt, thick checked shirt and a pair of jeans, Zach ran into Em's empty bedroom, doing his best to keep the rising panic at bay.

Em! Can you hear me?

Nothing.

He closed the door and turned on the light. Then he sat on her bed and looked around. The room was not only void of her presence, but she had been gone for a while. The only sense of Em was emanating in a barely visible blue aura from her three-panelled comic strip of the warrior princess, lying open on her desk. The princess looked ferocious, a lot like Em. Zach threw off the memory of their recent encounter with the princess's arrows at the Abbey gates.

All the other posters and prints of her favourite comic-book characters and the shelves of her books were still. Usually, Em's imagination kept everything around her perpetually pulsing, almost alive.

Zach switched off the lamp, pulled open the curtains and let a shaft of moonlight illuminate the room. He could sense things better in the darkness.

Almost at once, he was aware of something significant.

Since Matt had disappeared, Em had taken to wearing one of his hoodies all the time. Last night, the hoodie had been over the back of her desk chair. Not any more.

Zach did a quick search of her laundry basket. As he did, Em's scent hit him hard. He slammed the lid on the basket and sat on it for a few minutes until he felt he was back in control of himself. The hoodie wasn't there.

Em? Where are you?

White noise buzzed in his head.

Auchinmurn Isle
The Middle Ages

Matt was dimly aware of a howl of horror. His grip on the Grendel's mind was loosening, and his eyes couldn't focus and his head felt cloudy. He looked up at Jeannie and Carik from his own body. He could feel the wound directly above his hip bone, deep and bleeding profusely.

‘It is bad?' he mumbled.

Jeannie snatched Carik's knife and charged at Malcolm.

‘Yer own flesh and blood, Malcolm! How could you?'

Malcolm whipped his armour-plated arm at her head. Jeannie dropped to the left and took the brunt of the attack on her shoulder. She gasped, but didn't slow down.

‘You heard the boy. He has no use for me,' Malcolm snarled. ‘We could have ruled the world, but he turned my glory down.'

Jeannie thrust herself forward, the knife blade aimed for Malcolm's heart.

Matt could feel himself fading. There was noise. Howling. Shouting. The sound of feet dropping to the cave floor and a familiar voice – Solon's. Matt struggled to stay awake, but it was hard. His side was on fire. Blood was dripping through his fingers where he pressed the wound. The Grendel was shaking free of his control.

Matt heard a scuffling behind him grow louder and turned in time to see Solon leap from the ledge above.

Solon's sword was sharp and swift, sweeping with deadly accuracy. Malcolm's head toppled to the cave floor. Carik made an inarticulate noise and ran to Solon, throwing herself into his arms and kissing him.

Jeannie was with Matt again, checking his wound. ‘Son? Speak to me.'

‘Still… here,' Matt whispered.

Solon kneeled next to Matt.

‘Your sister?' Matt asked.

‘She and the others are safe.' Solon slipped a folio from under his tunic. ‘Take it. Use it. End this.'

Matt pulled himself up against the cavern wall. He ran his fingers over the manuscript
.
He held
The
Book of Beasts
at last.

Only a few feet away, the Grendel seemed fascinated with Malcolm's severed head. Matt wanted to close his eyes but couldn't.

It's not your dad any more,
he repeated to himself.
It's not your dad.

‘Keep your eyes and your imagination with the Grendel,' Jeannie coaxed. ‘You must be able to control it, or we will never take it through the portal. And you must do that, Mattie. You must put the last beast in with its kind, into Hollow Earth forever.'

‘I can do that,' croaked Matt, doing his best to disguise his pain with a weak grin.

‘I have faith in you.' Jeannie leaned closer. ‘Son, I'm so sorry but this is going tae hurt.'

Before Matt had a chance to prepare himself, Jeannie yanked the bone quill from his side and placed it in Matt's hands. The pain was blinding. There was a ripping sound as Jeannie tore a piece of fabric from her blouse and packed it into the wound.

Hundreds of smoky tendrils with gaping mouths swarmed over Malcolm's body as the Grendel sucked blindly at Malcolm's engorged heart. Seconds later, only bones remained on the cave floor. Matt knew his dad had become something ugly, a festering monster riddled with hate. But he couldn't help himself. Tears streamed down his cheeks.

‘Mattie, son, can ye hear me?' Jeannie said gently.

Matt swallowed and nodded.

‘You're doing fine, son. Stay with me.'

Jeannie turned to Solon and Carik. ‘Take care of yourselves,' she said. ‘Find a way to heal these islands.'

‘I hope we meet again some time,' Matt told Solon and Carik. It was an effort to speak. ‘Thanks for helping me, both of you.'

‘Now scat,' said Jeannie with a smile.

Solon and Carik left the cavern. Matt felt their loss immediately.

The stench from the Grendel filled the cave with a sickening mustard fog as its hunger swept towards Jeannie. It began to move.

‘We have to open Hollow Earth right now, Jeannie,' whispered Matt. ‘I want to go home.'

Jeannie squeezed his hand. ‘Then draw, son. Draw, like our lives depend on it.'

Matt knew that they did.

Matt released the Grendel from his mind. Swiftly, he turned his eyes to the manuscript page and began to draw.

The Grendel lurched forward and touched the etching of the hellhound with the shapeless tip of its bloodied nose. At its touch, the hellhound's heads snapped forward. Its paws tore from the wall as it hurled itself out of the drawing, straight into the wide sucking mouth of the Grendel.

A great silver helix spun slowly against the cavern wall where the hellhound had leaped from the stone. It was rotating, getting faster, sending blinding ribbons of light out into the cavern.

‘Ready, Mattie?' said Jeannie.

Matt pictured his family, sitting round a roaring fire at the Abbey. He was going home. Somehow.

‘Born ready,' he said.

The Grendel seemed calm now, as if it knew where it was going. It needed only the smallest nudge to put its head up against the spinning helix. The helix flexed and widened, pulsing like a great white heart, enveloping the monster.

Jeannie took Matt's right hand as he finished the drawing. ‘Now!' she cried.

Matt and Jeannie stepped behind the beast and into the silver light.

Auchinmurn Isle
Present Day

Zach searched for Em in every room of the children's floor of the Abbey as carefully and quietly as he could. He trusted that his movements were stealthy, and that he was opening and closing doors without much sound. He also knew from nights when he and Matt would sneak into the kitchen for slices of pizza or Jeannie's cake which floorboards on the Abbey's back staircase squeaked.

After a fruitless hunt in the kitchen, he moved across the foyer and into the library. Maybe she'd fallen asleep reading. It wouldn't be the first time.

He had only taken a few steps into the room when an intense pulse of light exploded in his brain, dropping him to his knees. He squeezed his eyes against the pain and gagged at the taste of salt and seaweed in his mouth as the vision flickered in front of his eyes.

Em was holding the reins of a gilded seahorse as she drove a golden chariot across the bay. She was dressed like a warrior in silver chain mail, a steel-grey breastplate and a purple cape that matched the streak in her hair. A quiver of arrows hung from her shoulder. The cape was veined with threads of silver, and billowed out behind the ethereal-looking chariot. An army of smaller but equally resplendent seahorses in a rainbow of colours followed behind her.