The London Pride (6 page)

Fire splashed sideways, trying to find a way round the impenetrable blue-light wall, as the cat and the dragon circled each other, one blasting wildfire, one hissing out a force-field, pivoting round the point where the unstoppable fire met the immovable light.

YOU CANNOT KILL ME.

Bast’s voice echoed off the stone walls of the courtyard.

They continued to move, each straining to get closer to the other, unable to do so, like magnets repelling like from like.

THEY TRIED TO KILL ME LONG AGO.

The dragon redoubled the intensity of the flame-burst, clearly trying to drown out Bast’s voice. The light wall held as the cat pushed back.

THEY COULD NOT. SO DO YOU KNOW WHAT THEY DID?

The dragon snarled.

THEY IMPRISONED ME.

The dragon snarled louder.

DO YOU KNOW WHAT I DID?

The dragon’s chest expanded as he sucked in another lungful of air to fuel the fire he was spouting.

I DID THIS!

The cat sprang backwards, taking the blue wall with her. The dragon stumbled onwards. And then the cat leapt forwards, high in the air, up and over the dragon. And as she arced, the dragon shot flame at her.

But as the cat arced above the dragon, so did the wall. And when the cat landed, the wall stayed in an arch above the dragon.

The dragon whirled, trapped beneath a span of his own flame, and then before he could think straight, the cat streaked around him in a circle. The enraged dragon tried to roast the cat with his fire, but Bast the Mighty, Bast the Huntress, Bast the speeding bronze cat was closing the circle by dragging the wall of blue light around the dragon.

As she completed her circuit she stopped dead, suddenly as docile as a domestic cat again, and sat down, beginning to groom herself with a series of pointedly disinterested licks.

The dragon roared in a final desperate shriek of realisation.

Bast paused and looked up.

I LEARNED: WHAT YOU CANNOT KILL, YOU TRAP.

The roars of frustration began to change to something closer to pain. The dragon was penned within a dome of blue light, but the inner walls were rolling arcs of wildfire swirling about him on all sides.

Bast had won.

The dragon was imprisoned within a ball of his own fire.

Sometimes hell is other people. Sometimes you make it yourself. This was one of those times.

And it wasn’t pretty.

Will and Jo had found the door to the hotel stairs tucked behind the elevator lobby, and were heading upward as Filax led the way.

‘We must never split up again,’ Will said as they climbed. ‘Never.’

‘We won’t,’ she said. ‘I promise not to go stomping off in a huff again.’

‘No,’ said Will. ‘Seriously, Jo. I give you my word. Whatever happens from now on, we stay together and we get through this together.’

She smiled at him, trying to take the edge of the tension they were both feeling. He stuck out his hand.

‘We stay together and we get through this together,’ she said, clasping his hand. They both gripped hard and shook.

On the second-floor landing they passed the rigid figure of a harassed-looking room-service waiter transfixed mid-step as he ran upward holding a single fork like an Olympic torch in his right hand.

They exchanged a look. Jo waggled her eyebrows.

‘Weird,’ she said.

‘If we do get separated—’ he started.

‘Seriously, Will,’ she said. ‘I promise. My word. Cross my heart and all that stuff. We’re not going to split up again.’

‘I know. But remember the 7Ps,’ he said. ‘They still apply. Of course, we’ll stick together, but if things DO go pear-shaped again, we just meet back where we left Mum. Coram’s Fields. By the car. OK?’

She smiled back at him.

‘OK. Good thinking, Batman.’

When they got to the fourth floor they had to move a loaded room-service trolley to get in the door. Will looked back down the stairwell to the waiter.

‘Ah. He must have forgotten the fork,’ he said.

‘Yeah,’ said Jo, eyeing the food on the trolley, her attention particularly focused by a large and glistening slice of dark cake, the kind her mother called Devil’s Food Cake, and her father called Death-By-Chocolate.

She had a stab of memory, her parents sitting with them at the kitchen table, in the warm glow of candlelight from a birthday cake. And they’d all been laughing at how much of the chocolate cake had got onto Will’s face instead of inside him. Then one thing led to another and her father had ended up daubing cake on her mother’s nose and – well, it was just a good memory.

And then she thought of her mum now, cold and alone and unmoving somewhere in the frozen city, and suddenly the slice on the trolley didn’t seem so tempting.

‘Come on!’ said Will, ahead of her. ‘This looks great.’

He was already standing in the open door to a large corner room. She turned from the suddenly resistible cake, and followed him in.

It was, as Selene had promised, a very lovely room and certainly luxy. There were two large beds, and they had the kind of super-comfortable mattress that was firm enough to bounce on, but with a soft topper under the sheets that felt like the bed was not just gently holding you but would hug you and keep you safe as you slept. In short it was just what Will and Jo needed.

‘These are really good beds,’ said Will, falling back and spreadeagling himself on the one closest to the door.

Jo clicked on the light in the bathroom.

‘Wow,’ she said. ‘It’s like in a film.’

He rolled off the bed and peered in over her shoulder.

‘Shower and a bath,’ he said, looking at the pale marble and the clean modern lines of the space. ‘And two loos.’

‘That’s not a loo,’ she said. ‘That one’s a bidet.’

‘A bee-what?’ he said.

‘Bidet,’ she said.

‘What’s it for?’ he asked.

Filax pushed in between them and nosed his way to the lavatory.

‘No!’ said Jo sharply.

‘What?’ said Will.

‘He’s thirsty,’ she said, and stepped into the room. ‘He was going to drink out of the lav.’

She pulled a lever and turned a tap, and the bidet began filling up. Filax looked at her, and then licked her hand. Strangely, the pale marble tongue felt soft and warm – and wet. He then began lapping at the rising water in the bidet.

‘It’s not really a dog bowl, is it?’ said Will.

‘Not really,’ she agreed, ruffling her hand in the dog’s mane, which was, again uncannily, both marble and as soft as real fur. ‘But it works well as one, doesn’t it? I’m thirsty too.’

‘Minibar!’ said Will. ‘There’ll definitely be a minibar in a posh hotel like this.’

They left the dog happily lapping up water as if he hadn’t had a good drink for centuries, and went back into the room. The small fridge was hidden under the desk behind a door. It swung open revealing cans of sparking water, mineral water and a lot of tiny bottles of whisky, vodka and gin. There were also chocolate bars and jars of nuts.

‘Jackpot!’ said Will, grabbing a Coke and a chocolate bar and sitting on the end of the bed. Glancing at the widescreen TV fixed to the wall, he picked up the remote and clicked through endless channels of glitch: every programme was freeze-framed at the moment the rest of London had stopped. It was a tantalising series of images, teasing fragments sent to taunt them by showing what normal used to look like. He hadn’t realised how used he was to screens giving him information or distracting him until it had stopped. In a similar way to his dead phone, it felt like he’d lost a sense, not a major one like sight or hearing, but one you don’t immediately notice has gone, like smell or taste.

‘Shame the TV doesn’t work,’ he said. ‘That’s a monster screen.’

Jo was sitting back on her bed, having taken some nuts and a chocolate bar for herself. She unpopped a can of Coke and took a long drink. She realised she felt as thirsty as Filax had been.

‘You wouldn’t be able to watch anything,’ she said. ‘What do you think would be on? You wouldn’t be able to concentrate anyway.’

‘It’d take my mind off things,’ he said.

‘You’re obsessed with screens,’ she said. ‘Mum’s right.’

‘I’m not,’ he said, chomping on a mouthful of chocolate.

‘You are,’ she said. ‘I mean, this could be the end of the world and you want to watch TV? How responsible is that?’

‘I’m not being irresponsible,’ he said. ‘I’m just saying! It’d be nice to not think about all this. Just for a bit. It’s making my head buzz and fizz like it’s going to overheat and explode. TV would be boring and normal. Just five minutes of boring and normal would probably be as much good as …’

And here he yawned hugely, immediately and treacherously, giving the lie to what he was about to say.

‘… probably as much good as a sleep.’

She looked at him.

‘Stop getting at me about screens,’ he said. ‘Right now that’s as stupid as me – OK, I admit it – that’s as stupid as me wanting to watch some crap TV show.’

Silence hung between them for a while. He found he was unconsciously rotating the scarab on the string round his wrist, and stopped again.

‘OK,’ he said. ‘We’re going to stick to the plan about Mum and her scarab. We’ll go there when it’s light. Without an armed escort. Maybe get Selene to fly us there.’

Another thought hit him. ‘Maybe if we put it on a frozen statue, like the Fusilier, the spell would break like it did with you and me? Maybe we could do that? Maybe that would make him move and talk again?’

One of Jo’s eyebrows twitched up in a way he normally found annoying because it was usually a sign she was about to say something snarky at his expense.

‘Or we could go now,’ he said a bit uncertainly. ‘It’s worth a try. A third scarab would definitely be cool, yeah?’

‘That’s a totally brilliant idea. Seriously. But you look as exhausted as I feel,’ she said, wrong-footing him, which was almost as annoying as snark. ‘Sleep would be better.’

‘OK,’ he said. ‘We’ll do it in the daylight. But one of us should stay awake and keep guard.’

He yawned again. A real jaw-cracker. ‘I’ll do the first bit, then I’ll wake you. Say an hour?’

She looked at him. ‘Will,’ she said. ‘You’re kidding, right? How are you going to stay awake?’

He pointed at the mini kettle and the tray next to the small fridge. ‘I’ll make a coffee.’

‘You hate coffee and you don’t need to anyway,’ she said. ‘Selene said she would guard us. And we have Filax.’

There was a bump and a lurch on her bed as the large dog climbed up on it. He padded round in a tight circle, as if settling the covers to his own particular satisfaction, and then dropped into a curled position at the end of mattress. He looked at them both and then rested his great head on his shaggy paws, staring right at the door.

‘See?’ she said, leaning forwards to stroke him. ‘Dog’s got our backs.’

‘I’m still going to stay awake,’ said Will. ‘You sleep first.’

‘You’re so stubborn, Will,’ she said sleepily. ‘But please yourself.’

And she closed her eyes. She heard him crinkle the paper of his chocolate bar and throw it into the bin. Then she heard him rattling the cups and sachets and turning on the mini kettle.

‘I can mix hot chocolate with the coffee,’ he said, sounding pleased. Realising his mother had a scarab that might help had really cheered him. They weren’t thrashing any more. ‘Won’t taste so foul.’

‘That’s a mocha,’ she said. ‘Or maybe a mochaccino.’

‘A mochaccino it is,’ he said.

She felt the comforting weight of the dog at the end of the bed, and stared at the inside of her eyelids, waiting for the slumber that was very insistently tugging at the hem of her consciousness to pull her down into what she very much hoped – but secretly doubted – would be a deep and dreamless sleep.

She heard the kettle begin to rumble and chunter, and then, after a bit, click and ping itself off. She lay there, anticipating the pouring noise and the clink of spoon on china as Will stirred his improvised coffee and chocolate cocktail, but he must have been under the impression she was asleep and had decided not to wake her by making the noise.

He was OK, Will. He was one hundred per cent boy, and that had its inbuilt limitations, of course. But though she would never let herself be caught telling him this, he was, in her book, as good as it gets. Deciding not to wake her was kind. He was brave and he was kind, and that combination of qualities was one she and her girlfriends valued. Boys loved being brave, of course. Every day, every boy seemed to be told they should be brave and tough and all that. But none of them seemed to think being kind was particularly important. Not that all the girls she knew were kind, far from it. Girls could be worse than boys. They could leave wounds with their tongues that would last much longer and do more harm than the thumping boys occasionally gave each other. Kindness was seen as a sort of wussiness, when Jo knew it was in fact an even more valuable virtue than bravery. She decided to tell Will this, and let him know she hadn’t gone to sleep yet so he could make his drink.

She opened her eyes.

‘It’s OK,’ she said. ‘I’m still awake.’