‘You can’t stop me,’ said Paddy. And Whitney raised her other eyebrow. This was one of her scariest faces.
‘You wanna take me on?’ she said and moved in on Paddy. Whitney was big. Whitney was tough. No one argued with Whitney. She went right up to Paddy, looking down at him, towering over him, like the Gruffalo looking at the mouse.
‘You disobey me,’ she said, ‘and it’s not sickos you got to worry about. My wrath is mighty. I been given one job – to look after you idiots, to keep you safe.’ And she looked square at Sam. Sam knew how everybody was treating him as special, the golden one with the special magic blood. It was no fun being special. He wished he was just plain old Small Sam again.
But he was still really glad they were looking after him.
‘So don’t get no ideas in your head about going out there to play soldiers, Patrick,’ Whitney said and she playfully slapped him round the head, rocking him sideways. If her play slap was like this, Sam wondered what a real slap would be like. Probably would have knocked Paddy’s head off.
‘You guys got free run of the museum,’ she said, walking towards Paddy’s troop and forcing them back across the hall towards the stairs. ‘You can march around in here. You can do your drills and have mock battles as much as you like, but you DO NOT go outside. You do not go through these doors. You do not even look out the windows. These walls are, like, half a mile thick. With everything locked down tight, there is no way any sickos can get in. And that’s how I’m keeping it. This is our castle. I am king of the castle. And you do as I say or I inflict some major pain on you.’
‘I’m a warrior,’ said Paddy. ‘I want to go out and fight. It’s my choice. If I want to go out there and die like a hero I can.’
‘I’d love nothing more,’ said Whitney. ‘One less pest about the place. But what about these other kids? Maybe they ain’t bustin’ to get killed.’
She looked across the ranks and nobody could look back at her. They all stared at their shoes.
‘I been given a job and I’m gonna do it,’ Whitney said. ‘You are pinned down, little man. I suggest you stay pinned.’
‘This is all Sam’s fault,’ said Paddy and he gave Sam a furious dark look.
‘What are you talking about?’ said Sam.
‘It’s you,’ said Paddy. ‘It’s all about you. Because you’re so special. Because we all have to look after you. If it wasn’t for you I could go out there and be a hero. Instead, I’m stuck here with little kids and babies and cowards.’
‘I didn’t ask for this,’ said Sam angrily. ‘I never wanted to be special. I don’t even know why I am. Why my blood is like it is.’
‘You must’ve been born with it,’ said Wiki. ‘Like some people have genetic differences, mutations, different immune systems.’
‘I still don’t know what that means,’ said Sam.
‘You have natural immunity to the disease. It can’t harm you. It’s in your blood and the sickos can smell it. It’s dumb luck. It’s just chance. It could’ve been any one of us.’
‘I wish it was,’ said Sam. ‘I wish someone else had it instead of me. I don’t want to be like this. I don’t want to be special.’
Paddy was going to say something, but he was distracted by a shout from the back of the hall and two boys came running up to Whitney.
‘Whassup?’ she asked them as they got near.
‘There’s been an accident in the kitchen,’ said one of the boys. ‘Alicia’s tipped some boiling water all down her legs.’
Whitney swore. ‘She OK?’
‘We dunno. Don’t know what to do, whether to take her jeans off to look or if that’ll make it worse. She’s bare screaming.’
Whitney shoved the boys towards the orange zone. ‘Go get someone from the medical team and some gear. I’ll go see Alicia.’
She gave Paddy’s crew all one last dirty look and hurried off.
‘It ain’t fair,’ said Paddy. ‘We can fight as good as the rest of them. And the rest aren’t even fighting. They need us.’
‘Paddy,’ Sam shouted. He was getting angry now. ‘Whitney’s right. This isn’t a game. I know you want to be a warrior, a big hero, but you’re not. You’re a little kid like the rest of us.’
Paddy stared at him. Sam had the awful feeling that he was about to burst into tears. His face had gone red, his eyes shiny.
‘And what about them?’ Paddy shouted, waving his arm at a group of bigger kids who were doing what they always did – sitting around chatting. ‘Do they look like grown-ups to you? Do they look like adults? No. We’re all just kids.’
‘Yes, but we’re smaller,’ said Sam. ‘We’re younger. We’re weaker.’
‘I’m not,’ said Paddy. ‘I’ve been trained by Achilleus. The best fighter there is. I could take on anyone here.’
‘No, you couldn’t,’ said Sam and immediately wished he’d kept his mouth shut.
‘I’ll show you,’ said Paddy and he stormed off, his face even redder. His muscles all stiff, shoulders hunched over.
‘Where’s he going then?’ said Jibber-jabber.
‘Hope he’s not going to do something stupid,’ said Zohra.
‘Of course he is,’ said Wiki. ‘He’s been in a bad mood ever since Achilleus refused to fight.’
‘Before that,’ said Zohra. ‘Ever since Jordan took his dog.’
Sam sat down on a bench with The Kid. Looked over at the group of bigger kids. They were some of the ones who’d chosen not to fight. They all looked tense and worried. There was a horrible atmosphere in the museum. It was making everyone on edge and quick to argue. They were all wondering just what was going on out there. The fighters had gone charging out, and since then it had been like it always was. Quiet. Boring. Slow. All you could really do was wait. Wait for the fighters to come back and tell you what was happening.
There was a shout from upstairs. Paddy was at the end of the balcony near the minerals gallery, leaning over the stonework, waving a spear in the air.
‘You see what this is!’ he shouted. ‘It’s the Gáe Bolg. The belly ripper. The greatest spear ever made. Made for a warrior. And I’m taking it into battle.’
The bigger kids looked up and Paddy turned his attention to them.
‘Look at you sitting there, doing nothing,’ he yelled. ‘You should be out there fighting. You’re all useless.’
He marched along the balcony, still shouting, but his words were lost, echoing up into the great space of the hall. When he came down the stairs, Sam could see that he’d put on one of Achilleus’s tops. A Nike one that was far too big for him. He’d tried to roll the sleeves up, but one of them had come loose and was hanging down over his hand. He was also carrying the iron bucket helmet that Achilleus had brought back from the V&A.
‘I’m gonna show you all what to do,’ he said, putting the helmet on. ‘I’m gonna kill the enemy.’
‘You can’t,’ said Zohra. ‘Whitney won’t let you.’
‘If she tries to stop me I’ll kill her,’ said Paddy, and Wiki and Jibber-jabber laughed. Paddy turned on them, swinging the spear through the air. It had a wide, leaf-shaped head that was more like a sword blade. It was a really mean weapon, a proper spear, unlike the home-made, sharpened metal spike that Achilleus had embedded in the tree trunk.
Wiki and Jibber-jabber jumped back, swearing at Paddy and shouting at him to be more careful. But Paddy was off on one now. Striding towards the main doors, yelling insults at the bigger kids, who simply looked at him with dull eyes.
‘Who’s with me?’ he said. ‘Who wants to be a hero?’ A couple of the smaller kids followed him.
‘Come on,’ Paddy shouted. ‘All of you. Let’s show them.’
He marched up to the guys guarding the doors. They weren’t the regular guards, who’d gone off to Hyde Park, and when Paddy jabbed his spear at them they stood aside to let him out. Most of the Youngbloods went after him, chatting excitedly. They wanted to see what Paddy was going to do. Sam sighed and looked at The Kid. The two
of them were still sitting on the bench.
‘We can’t let him go,’ Sam said and The Kid nodded.
When they got outside, they saw Paddy already halfway to the gates. Sam was relieved to see that the guards at the gate were regulars, more serious and better trained than the guys inside. Sam and The Kid arrived to find Paddy in a furious argument with them. It was clear they weren’t going to let him out.
Sam looked up as a huge flock of seagulls appeared overhead, as if from nowhere, wheeling and spinning in the air, screaming and swooping. Scavengers. They knew a big meal was coming.
‘They’re the banshees!’ shouted Paddy. ‘You know what it means? That someone’s gonna die. We’re gonna kill the sickos. And look – there.’ He pointed to where three crows sat on the railings. There weren’t any vultures in Britain, but there were carrion birds, like these, that ate dead things.
‘Morrígans,’ said Paddy. ‘Badb Catha and her sisters – the battle crows. These are good signs.’
Paddy ran at the crows, scattering them, and Sam was glad that he’d been distracted from going out through the gates. But when he got to the railings he didn’t stop. He jumped on to a big waste bin and climbed over the fence. When he jumped down, he turned with a wide grin on his face, like a naughty little boy, signalling for the others to follow. And then, despite Sam and The Kid and Zohra arguing with them, one by one, giggling and egging each other on, the other kids joined him.
It was like running away from school. They were being deliberately disobedient. Doing something for themselves. They all climbed over and ran after Paddy who was walking purposefully away along the Cromwell Road. Only Sam and The Kid held back.
‘What should we do?’ said Sam, his voice cracking. He was nearly crying now. ‘We can’t let them go out there by themselves.’
The Kid wasn’t stupid. He went over to the gatehouse and managed to make himself understood. A boy and a girl set off down the road after Paddy’s group, shouting at them to stop, which only made Paddy break into a run. The guy in charge and another girl ran up to the museum to tell Whitney what had happened. Forgetting about Sam and The Kid.
Sam looked at the open gate. He looked at The Kid.
‘Come on,’ he said. ‘We have to help.’
The Kid nodded and they went out into the road.
46
Maxie and Blue’s unit had made it safely to Hyde Park. They’d come in from the east, not knowing exactly what to expect when they arrived.
And then they’d stopped.
Stunned.
They were about halfway down Park Lane, just outside the railings, frozen, trying to take it all in, unable to put a proper sentence together. Just grunts and swear words and sentences started and abandoned.
They couldn’t have imagined this.
The whole park seemed to be filled with grown-ups. A great dark mass of them, greasy and stinking. So many it was appalling.
In the end Blue broke the spell. He yelled at the kids, forcing them on, south down Park Lane, past the fenced-off area that had been used for concerts, until they found a relatively safe place to enter the park. They got a better sense of what was going on from inside. The grown-ups had come in at the top and apparently stopped. So far they didn’t seem to have made it past the halfway point where Jordan had set up his defensive lines. He’d fortified a roughly rectangular position next to the Serpentine with sharpened stakes in the ground and barricades made from metal fencing and bits of scavenged wood. He’d even cut down some trees and hauled them into place. The barricade began at the eastern corner of the lake and ran in a straight line northwards to the LookOut. The LookOut was one of two clusters of Royal Parks buildings that Jordan had used like forts in his wall, securing the top east and west corners. The defences ran between them and then cut back south again to meet up with the Serpentine near the bridge. The wide expanse of water protected their rear.
Jordan had made the LookOut building his headquarters. It was a modern building protected by metal fencing. Jordan had cut down most of the surrounding trees to reinforce the fence and give better lines of sight. He’d also erected a viewing platform on its roof so that he could see out across the battlefield. Maxie was just glad that the sickos had obliged him by coming here. Almost as if it had been planned and agreed on, like a pitched battle from the past. Otherwise this would have been a lot of work for nothing.
She spotted Jordan up on his platform, sitting in a plastic chair. Blu-Tack Bill was at his side and Paddy’s dog, Bright Eyes, was waiting patiently at the bottom of the big ladder Jordan was using to get up on to the roof.
That bloody dog. It had caused all the trouble with Achilleus. So petty. Such a stupid little thing to get upset about.
Although Maxie knew that wasn’t really why Achilleus was pissed off.
It was all about pride. Respect. The macho code that caused so many problems among boys.
And Achilleus being pissed off meant that now almost half the kids wouldn’t fight.
Great.
Maxie rolled her shoulder, trying to get rid of a knot of tension. She sighed. Maybe those kids wouldn’t have fought anyway. Maybe they’d just been looking for an excuse. Even so, Maxie could have killed Jordan and Achilleus for acting like a couple of dickheads.
It was ironic. They needed macho dickheads to fight this battle. But it was Achilleus’s pumping testosterone that was keeping him away, sulking in his room.
Maxie looked around. Those kids who had turned up were silent, just staring out at the sicko army that faced them from the other side of the barricades across the long grass. They were probably all thinking the same thing as Maxie – was it too late to turn and run? Jordan didn’t seem to be giving any orders. He just sat there. Even he seemed stunned by what they had to deal with.
For their part, the grown-ups also seemed to be waiting. Standing still and staring back.
Over to Maxie’s left, formed up in neat rows, all dressed in green, were the St Paul’s kids, carrying banners and musical instruments, Matt standing at their centre, unreadable.
‘We will destroy the Nephilim!’ he shouted.
‘Yeah, right,’ Blue muttered, but Matt wasn’t finished.
‘I saw an angel standing in the sun. Who cried in a loud voice to all the birds – “Come, gather together for the great supper of God, so that you may eat the flesh of kings, generals and mighty men, of horses and their riders, and the flesh of all people, small and great.” I saw the beast and the demons of the earth and their armies gathered together to make war against the King and his army. The beast was hurled to the earth, and his angels with him, but he will be slain. The rest of them will be killed, and all the birds will gorge themselves on their flesh …’
Blue pushed his way into the compound where the LookOut was. Maxie followed him in. Blue went right over to the ladder and started climbing up to the roof, Maxie hard behind him.
‘This is crazy,’ Blue shouted out to Jordan.
‘You telling me, soldier,’ said Jordan as Blue reached his platform. ‘We need ten times the numbers we got. But we don’t got ’em. So we just have to do what we can with what we are.’
‘We can’t attack.’
‘Is probably right. We might just have to stay behind our defences and see what happens.’
‘Why aren’t they moving?’ Maxie called up to Jordan. ‘What are they waiting for? Why don’t they attack?’
‘Dunno,’ said Jordan.
‘It is really freaking me out.’
‘I hope you got a good plan?’ Blue said.
Maxie looked at Jordan. He nodded and chuckled. ‘As Mike Tyson once said – “Everybody has a plan until they get punched in the mouth.”’
‘That’s reassuring,’ said Blue and Maxie noticed that little Bill was whispering and muttering something into Jordan’s ear. Jordan turned and muttered something back to him.
Maxie had no idea exactly how many grown-ups were out there, but if anyone knew, if anyone could co
unt them, it was Bill.
The calculating part of Maxie’s own mind had shut down. She couldn’t take in the big picture, could only concentrate on details. A single white cloud in the sky. A boy down below picking his nose. A girl literally wetting herself. The sun glinting on a spearhead. A bird singing in a nearby tree – almost the only sound in the whole park, despite the vast number of people here. And Bright Eyes, lying peacefully at the bottom of the ladder, eyebrows twitching, her ears occasionally swivelling. Details.
Jordan climbed down from his platform and walked to the edge of the roof. It was flat but gently sloping, and he could see all his troops from here.
‘When I give the signal,’ he shouted, ‘I want all the officers to take your troops to where we planned. We start with missiles. We fire at them and we keep firing. We throw everything we got at them till there ain’t nothing left to throw. We don’t go to them and fight unless we absolutely got to. For now, we defend.’ He looked around. ‘Where’s my musicians?’ he shouted.
Four kids came hustling over from the St Paul’s contingent. Two trumpeters and two drummers. They climbed up with some difficulty and joined Jordan and the others on the roof. Maxie remembered the long, boring hours spent learning the various signals. She supposed now, though, that they’d be useful. They had to work together as one efficient unit if they were to stand any hope of defeating the sickos.
Jordan raised his hand to give the agreed signal. And then lowered it slowly, shaking his head at the musicians.
The front rank of the sicko army had parted and two grown-ups were walking out through the gap.
One was a big and grossly fat father, with wire-framed glasses that had lost their glass. He was wearing a tattered vest with a red cross of St George on it and a pair of baggy cargo shorts.
This must be St George. Couldn’t be anyone else.
The other was a tall, thin mother with long grey hair that hung over her face and down to her waist. Her arms dangled straight and unmoving at her sides. Maxie had a horrible image. That these two were the parents of the whole army. It wouldn’t have surprised her if they’d reached out and held hands.