Wild Boy and the Black Terror (29 page)

His pulse quickened. He had a feeling that he was being watched.

He stepped out from under the porch and looked across the side of the palace. Stone angels stood guard on the roof, black against the dark sky. With their wings raised, they reminded him of the demon Malphas.

Stop messing about, thickhead
.

Returning to the porch, he tore off his mask and dropped it by the doors. He crouched and examined the marks in the snow. They were just fragments of footprints – the point of a toecap, the indentation of a heel, a curling groove from the side of a sole. As Wild Boy stared at them, they began to move. He knew it was only happening in his head, but it seemed so real. The pieces of the jigsaw slid across the snow and slotted together. In the moonlight, he saw a single complete footprint.

He blinked and it was gone.

The moment lasted barely a second. But there was no mistaking the tapered, flat-soled print and sharply pointed toe of a Wellington boot, the calf-high leather boots named after the duke that wore them so often.

A clue. But was it enough?

He peered through the glass doors, studying the ballroom. In ten seconds he had seen that fifty-three of the guests wore Wellington boots.

Gotta try harder than that
.

He looked down, and the puzzle came back together. He realized now that something was missing from the footprint. Most wealthy men wore either old-fashioned breeches, pulled tight by a strap under the boot, or fashionable French-style trousers. There were no marks from a bootstrap in this print. So the intruder wore trousers.

He shot back to the door. Of the fifty-three men in Wellington boots, eighteen wore trousers.

Still not good enough
.

There was something else about the marks. The largest fragment was almost half complete, from the centre of the sole to the point of the toecap. He could tell from the depth at the centre that the intruder had crouched to pick the lock, transferring his weight to the ball of his toes. But the print continued two inches
beyond
that point. Either the intruder had unusually long toes or his boots were too big. But why would someone choose to wear oversize boots?

Unless he hadn’t chosen.

Unless the boots were stolen.

The patio darkened as the moon slipped behind clouds. It didn’t matter. Wild Boy had seen enough. Whichever of those eighteen suspects wore oversized boots was the intruder. Hopefully the Gentlemen could escort them from the dance floor without attracting too much attention.

For the first time that evening, Wild Boy smiled. That had gone surprisingly well.

He opened the door and stepped inside.

Then he realized he’d forgotten to put his mask back on.

“It’s the Wild Boy of London!” someone screamed.

“He’s come for the Queen!”

Another scream, and another, and then lots of screams at once. Guests stumbled back, tripping over one another in their desperation to escape from the ballroom. Some of the men stood in front of their wives and adopted boxing stances. Others thrust their partners in front of them as shields. Lucien pleaded with the guests to remain calm as they demanded to be released by the Gentlemen blocking the open doors.

The orchestra hurled their instruments at Wild Boy from the stage. Violins and harps crashed down near his feet, but he ignored them. His eyes remained fixed on the guests, searching for the intruder.

“For God’s sake!” someone cried. “There’s a monster loose!”

“Get a shotgun!”

Wild Boy ignored everything, still seeking out the Wellington boots from among the fast-moving feet. He saw one pair, dismissed it, saw another and another…

His eyes locked onto a pair that looked too large for their wearer, and wet from the snow. He could only see the back of their owner, a cloak and hood swaying as the person jostled among the guests at the doors. Just for a second Wild Boy glimpsed a mask beneath the hood. It was covered in silver sequins.

He began to run.

It was a mask he’d seen before, on the statue of Marie Antoinette at the wax works museum. The boots were stolen too, he realized, from the wax figure of the Duke of Wellington. It had to be the killer.
It had to be
.

The screams grew louder as he charged across the dance floor.

“Spread out!” someone yelled. “He can’t eat us all.”

Wild Boy ran for the killer, bracing himself to leap at him. Then he saw something he could barely believe. With extraordinary speed, the figure dropped low, launched forward and twisted between the legs of the Gentlemen at the door. The guards saw but couldn’t give chase without letting the rest of the group into the gallery.

“He got past!” Wild Boy cried. “Move!”

The guests fled from the doorway, scattering in every direction across the dance floor. The Gentlemen saw him coming and stepped aside, letting him out of the ballroom. Ahead, Wild Boy saw rustles of cloak as the uninvited guest raced along the gallery and up the Grand Staircase.

He couldn’t believe it. Surely the killer wasn’t
still
going after the black diamond? The Queen was guarded by six men.

He reached the stairs in time to see the hooded figure stumble, wet boots slipping on marble steps. Wild Boy willed his legs to go faster, closing the gap. He yanked the syringe from his pocket. A cry came from his mouth, savage, guttural. He didn’t care how he did it, he had to get the killer’s blood.

He expected the intruder to keep running, but the figure stayed at the top of the stairs. Eyes behind the sequined mask watched him run closer. They were burning eyes, filled with fury.

And then Wild Boy stopped too.

All of his anger was suddenly sucked from him, replaced by surprise.

He recognized those eyes. He recognized them but it was the last person he expected to see.

Then he heard a shout from behind.

Two Gentlemen charged up the stairs, shoving him aside in their rush to reach the intruder. The cloaked figure fled again, taking the last three steps in a single jump and then turning along the corridor at the top.

Still Wild Boy just stood there, staring.

Glints of light reflected off the Gentlemen’s pistols, breaking his trance. Now he was running again – no longer after the intruder, but after the Gentlemen. He shoved the syringe back into his coat.

“Wait!” he yelled. “Don’t shoot!”

BOOM!

He came to a gasping stop in the corridor.

No. No, no…

Wisps of smoke floated past his head, tinged with the smell of gunpowder.

“Don’t move!” one of the Gentlemen warned.

He’d fired a warning shot. The intruder had stopped mid-escape, with one leg out of the window at the end of the corridor.

Wild Boy rushed forward, barging past one of the Gentlemen. The man slipped and fired his pistol at the ceiling.

Plaster sprayed down. The two Gentlemen fell to the floor, covering their heads, and the intruder tumbled back inside and onto the carpet. The furious cry that came from behind the mask was as familiar to Wild Boy as the angry eyes that glared at him from the floor.

He leaned against the wall, the gunshot ringing in his ears. “What the hell are
you
doing here?” he asked Clarissa.

32

C
larissa didn’t know whether to hug him or to punch him.

In the end she decided to do neither, and sat in a sulk on the ballroom bench. She tucked her hands under her thighs, hoping that might stop them from lashing out as fists when Wild Boy spoke.

She hadn’t said a word as the Gentlemen led her down to the gaudy ballroom where the toffs had been dancing. All those lords and ladies were moved into the long room with the paintings on the walls, so now it was just her and Wild Boy and stinking Lucien Grant. The other Gentlemen, dressed as servants for some reason, were in the picture gallery too, trying to keep the toffs from complaining. This ballroom seemed even bigger with just the three of them here. There was so much red and gold that Clarissa wanted to be sick.

She knew she had to speak, but part of her wanted to stay silent. That part of her wanted the killer to win, to punish the Queen and the Gentlemen. And to punish
him
.

She dug her hands harder into the seat as Wild Boy came closer. All she could ever see were his eyes, but she knew them so well and she could tell he was hurting. Was he still suffering, like she was, from those visions left by the killer’s poisonous smoke? She pulled her hands from under her legs, about to reach out to him.

But then Lucien Grant whispered something and Wild Boy nodded, and she knew they had become friends. She felt another stab of betrayal: that knife in her heart.

“Clarissa?” Wild Boy said. “Why are you here?”

He looked confused.

Good. For once he doesn’t get to know everything.

Lucien glowered at her. He was trying to look scary, but she was pleased to see that he stayed several steps away. He was shiny with sweat from running around in a flap. Clarissa gagged from the stench of his body odour.

“Miss Everett,” Lucien said, in a deep voice. “Perhaps I might present you with a few facts?”

She swirled a ball of spit in her mouth, ready to present
him
with a faceful of phlegm if he came closer. But then he said something that made her swallow it back down.

“You were at all of the crime scenes.”

“What?”

“What is more, Wild Boy informs me that a key detail of this case is based upon an account provided by yourself. You state that you were given a note by the killer at Lady Bentick’s house, which you supposedly threw on her fire. And now you are here, caught by our trap. You see where this is leading?”

Clarissa almost burst out laughing until she saw how serious Lucien was. He thought
she
was the killer?

She looked at Wild Boy. “Do you think this an’ all?”

Wild Boy threw his hands in the air and groaned. “Course I don’t, you bloomin’ thickhead. But you gotta say what’s going on, Clarissa. This is serious.”

She fought a grin. Of course he didn’t think it was her. Still, she wasn’t about to forgive him. “Why don’t you work it out with your new
pal
,” she said.

“He ain’t my pal. You are.”

Unable to control herself, she shot up and shoved him in the chest. “You left me.”

She only meant to push him, but his knees buckled and he collapsed to the floor. Wild Boy was tough – the toughest boy she knew – but he’d gone down like an old man. He turned away, but Clarissa saw him grip his head. It
was
the terror.

Lucien went to help Wild Boy up, but she barged him aside.

“Here,” she said. “Sit down.”

“I’m sorry, Clarissa,” he said. “I didn’t have no choice. Marcus is gonna die. Maybe all of London too.”

She didn’t want to argue with him, not like this. But he was wrong. “You had a choice,” she said. “We could’ve done it together. Instead you left me just like…”

She bit her tongue.

“Just like everyone else?” Wild Boy said.

“Like a thickhead, was what I meant. Sit down, will you.”

“I’ll sit down if you tell me what you’re doing here.”