The Time Shifter (7 page)

‘Hang on,’ James said, still looking through the window. ‘Tom might be in trouble.’

Amelia looked back and blanched. Frrshalla, pounded into a grubby paste by Tom’s walking stick, had rolled into a ball. At first it looked like the sort of defensive thing an echidna or hedgehog would do, but then the ball began to shiver all over.

‘That’s just crying, probably,’ said Charlie.

But the shivering got faster and faster until the ball was vibrating violently. Tom backed away nervously, and then the ball reached a climax and suddenly began to expel hundreds of white pellets, shooting them out in all directions, fast as bullets.

‘No way – that’s impossible!’ Charlie protested.

Tom shouted in pain as the stones of hardened flour pelted him. He stumbled to the door and almost fell through it to the clearing outside. Amelia ran to help him, and Charlie slammed the door closed as the hailstorm inside continued. There was a muffled rumble as the stones drummed against the walls and door, and sharp cracks appeared in the windows as they were struck. One shattered in a shower of glass shards, and Tom gasped, ‘I told you to run!’

‘Where to?’ said Charlie. ‘Our plan stopped at the “turn to glue” stage!’

They heard a distant shout from the direction of the hotel.

‘That way,’ said Tom. ‘Plan or no plan, we have to stop that canister leaving the hotel, whatever the cost.’

Amelia looked at his grizzled face, the black patch over one eye, the hand with a finger missing, that constant limp – were these the costs Tom had already paid defending the gateway?

But this is crazy
, she thought.
We’re just kids! How can we be expected to –

‘Just run!’ Tom barked.

All four of them broke into a sprint, crashing through the undergrowth, smashing heedlessly through the magnolia branches and out to the foot of the steeply sloping lawn. There was a shout – Dad’s voice – from the hotel, the sound of breaking glass, and then they were high enough over the rise of the hill to see the hotel and Trktka sailing from the smashed bay window of Amelia’s bedroom.

She was in human form and had the black canister in one hand. That wretched bracelet sparkled brilliantly on the other wrist. She landed on the grass as weightlessly as a snowflake, but immediately staggered when – as if out of nowhere – Amelia’s mum sprang out from under the cover of the hotel’s verandah, spun on one foot and snapped out a lightning-fast side-kick that sent the canister spinning from Trktka’s hand. Amelia wouldn’t have been surprised if the kick had broken Trktka’s wrist, but the time-shifter recovered her footing and dealt Mum a ruthless backhand blow.

James growled and ran the last stretch even faster than before. ‘Don’t you hit my mum!’ he bellowed, and dived at Trktka just as Dad tackled her from the other side.

It ought to have been a disaster. Krskn would have slid out from between James and Dad and had them both bound and gagged before they knew where he’d gone. Perhaps Trktka was that fast once, but now – her attention on Mum, her concentration fragmented by the time-shifting, and her confidence all smugly set on that bracelet on her wrist – she didn’t see the ambush coming.

The two Walker men collided heavily with Trktka, and the three of them crashed in a heap. James immediately scrabbled around to pin Trktka’s legs, and Dad practically sat on her back to get her arms. Mum, touching her bruised cheek with the back of one hand, smiled and bent to retrieve the canister.

When Amelia and Charlie reached them, they could hear James and Dad breathing hard as they struggled to secure their grip. Trktka, though, had yet to utter a sound.

‘I wonder if she knows about the recursor,’ Charlie whispered.

Amelia saw Trktka’s face contort with effort as she worked to move the hand with the bracelet, and then a gleam of triumph in her eye when Dad grabbed that wrist and squeezed it tightly.

Nothing happened. Trktka blinked in surprise, then thrashed around more violently, forcing Dad to squeeze her wrist still tighter.

Again, nothing happened. Amelia saw panic now in Trktka’s face, and she started writhing so ferociously on the ground that her holo-emitter was shaken loose.

‘Aargh!’ James shouted, almost losing his hold in shock. ‘She’s a Krskn! Dad! You let me tackle a Krskn barehanded?’ He floundered for a second as Trktka’s tail lashed at him.

‘Hold on, James!’ Dad urged him. ‘Don’t –’

James wrestled the tail down, but he fumbled, and Trktka used the opportunity to give another huge heave. The arm with the bracelet lifted off the ground.

‘Enough of that, you!’ Dad puffed. ‘Just be nice, and lie
still!
’ He knocked her arm down and put all his weight into pinning her wrist to the ground.

There could be no doubt in Trktka’s mind now: the bracelet was useless. Trktka must have known the recursor was broken. All at once, she went limp and let out a wail of despair. There was no more fight in her now, just grief. Her tail lay flat in the grass.

Amelia almost felt sorry for her. She stopped where she was and just gazed at the miserable alien, her heart full of confused pity, her ears full of Trktka’s pathetic sobbing. Even Mum, the canister hugged against her chest with both arms, seemed mesmerised by the scene.

Which is why no-one noticed the silent swell of water behind Amelia until the needle-sharp point of a transparent tentacle was a millimetre from her throat.

‘Give me the canister,’ Frrshalla gurgled, the rest of its body catching up with its arm until Amelia was almost encircled by a standing wave of furious alien. ‘Surrender the Essence now, or the girl dies.’

Amelia swallowed hard. The skin of her throat tingled in anticipation, expecting at any second to feel that deathly tip of water touch her. If she hiccupped, if she shivered, if she so much as swayed on her feet – it would all be over.

‘Quickly!’ Frrshalla hissed. ‘My wormhole won’t hang around all day. The canister – now!’

Mum stepped toward Frrshalla slowly and deliberately, her hands out in front of her, holding the canister like any sudden movement would break it. Trktka gave a muffled yelp, but Dad sat more heavily on her back, and she was silenced.

‘Mum, no,’ Amelia whispered. As much as she wanted to be saved, she couldn’t let Mum do this.

‘Skye! Don’t!’

Amelia didn’t dare turn her head, but Tom’s hoarse shout from far away was unmistakeable.

Mum ignored him and kept coming, her eyes fixed on Amelia’s. ‘It’s OK, cookie, just hold on,’ she said calmly, though her face was ablaze.

She stopped a metre in front of Amelia. ‘All right. Here I am. Now release the girl, and I’ll give you the canister.’

‘No,’ said Frrshalla. ‘Give me the canister, and I’ll release the girl.’

‘How do I know I can trust you?’ said Mum.

Frrshalla shivered, and the rippling wall of water became a bristling mass of tentacles, all worming weightlessly through the air, each one ending in a lethal point.

‘Trust has nothing to do with it,’ the alien gurgled. ‘You will do as I say because I am more powerful than you, and you fear me. Now give the canister to me.’

Mum nodded meekly and reached out to Frrshalla, her hands trembling as she offered up the canister.

‘Mum, please,’ Amelia murmured. ‘You can’t …’

Frrshalla gurgled again and took the tentacle from Amelia’s neck, using it instead to pluck the canister from Mum. Amelia fell to her knees and scrabbled away as quickly as she could.

‘Thank you,’ Mum said, but as Amelia looked up from the grass, she could see that another three tentacles were hovering only a centimetre from Mum’s face.

‘I released the girl,’ Frrshalla burbled. ‘I kept that much of the bargain, but tell me: was it worth it? Saving the girl’s life for an extra minute or two but knowing that you’ve lost the canister, that the Guild are victorious and that now I’m going to kill you all anyway?’

‘Yep,’ said Mum.

The Breel shivered all over, the horrible tentacles wavering dangerously close to Mum’s defiant face. ‘What did you say?’ it hissed.

‘It was unquestionably worth it,’ Mum said boldly, all her meekness and trembling gone. ‘The deal-making, the careful exchange, this conversation we’re having right now – oh, yes, I wouldn’t have missed this for the world.’

Trktka heaved violently against the grass and undoubtedly would have called out, but any noise she might have made was lost as Dad leaned an elbow on the top of her head and told her, ‘Shh!’

‘Oh,’ said Frrshalla after a puzzled pause. ‘Oh, I think I see – this is the famous human banter in the face of certain dea–’

It froze mid-sentence and was enveloped by a vast white cloud. Amelia blinked. When the cloud dissipated a couple of seconds later, she saw something extraordinary. Usually, when a person ‘froze mid-sentence’ it was just a turn of phrase, but, for some reason, Frrshalla had literally, spontaneously frozen – had actually
turned to ice
.

‘No,’ Mum said dryly. ‘This is the famous human delay tactic, distracting you long enough that you forget to
look behind you
.’ She shook her head dismissively. ‘Amateurs.’

Amelia struggled to her feet, completely overwhelmed. Grawk was suddenly beside her, wagging his tail and pushing his warm body against her legs, and then she saw Lady Naomi sheepishly step out from behind the snap-frozen alien, a gas cylinder in one hand.

‘What was
that?!
’ Charlie whooped in delighted shock.

Lady Naomi shrugged modestly. ‘Liquid nitrogen.’

Mum pulled Amelia into a tight hug, while Amelia asked, ‘But how did you know?’

‘Grawk,’ said Lady Naomi. ‘He came bundling up to my research station and kept barking and tugging at my clothes until I did exactly what he wanted.’

‘It was
Grawk’s
idea to get liquid nitrogen?’ Charlie asked.

‘Well, I had some already, just standing by … for my equipment, you know …’

‘But hang on,’ Charlie persisted. ‘Grawk can
read?
And he knows what liquid nitrogen can do?’

They looked at the obviously not-at-all-a-dog. Grawk sniffed and snapped at a fly, ignoring them all.

‘Is the canister safe?’ It was Tom, huffing and puffing as he finally crested the hill.

‘Well, it’s not going anywhere right now,’ said Mum.

Indeed, the canister was locked solid in Frrshalla’s icy tentacle.

‘Good,’ said Tom, smiling as he brought his walking stick down like a machete. The tentacle shattered, and the canister dropped to the ground in a shower of ice shards.

‘Oh, Tom,’ Mum chided. ‘Was that really necessary?’

‘Yes,’ said Tom, stooping to pick up the canister. ‘But this isn’t,’ and he swiped at the alien again.

This time the stick caught Frrshalla diagonally across the centre of its body. At first nothing happened. Then there was a deep, glacial creak, and Amelia saw a jagged fault line run through the ice. In a second, that fault had crazed the ice from top to bottom, and with a final shudder, the whole lot collapsed onto the lawn in a pile of icy rubble.

‘You killed it?’ Amelia gasped.

‘If only,’ said Tom. ‘No – it’ll be fine once it melts.’

‘Which it’s going to do much faster now that you’ve snow-coned it into pieces,’ said Lady Naomi, disapproving.