Below them the coupler to the passenger carriage dropped to the track in a shower of sparks. Tara clung to the back of the tender with her eyes tightly shut. The tender lurched forward, and the safety chain took up the slack with the screech of metal being tested well beyond its capability.
‘If the chain breaks, we’ll leave all the train cats behind!’ said Jack excitedly, as he hugged his sister, both of them almost falling over as he slipped on the loose coal underfoot.
‘I don’t think so,’ said Ari, as he and his Portland followers swarmed up and over the end of the coal tender and turned to yowl defiantly behind them.
Jack followed Ari’s glance.
There were lines of train cats pouring out through the windows of the passenger carriage and climbing up the sides to the roof. Amadeus was already on top, yowling at the biggest and meanest-looking cats to move up and attack, though he himself was not coming forward.
The cats would have no difficulty jumping the gap, and though the chain was groaning, it hadn’t given way.
‘I’ll stop them,’ said Jaide. She was flushed with confidence. Her Gift had saved her; now it would do her bidding again. ‘I’ll make us go faster and snap the safety chain.’
She raised her arms above her head and called to the wind, visualising it coming down, making them go faster, pushing the locomotive and the coal tender so hard it would snap the chain.
The wind answered her, a great gust sweeping in along and under the train, almost lifting it from the rails as it picked up all three carriages – locomotive, coal tender and passenger carriage – and hurled them forward.
Jaide and Jack fell over with the sudden acceleration, sending up a great billow of coal dust that threatened to choke them. Coughing and spluttering, they staggered upright and looked over the edge.
The passenger carriage was definitely still with them, the chain not even taut now that the wind was pushing the entire train along.
‘Uh, that wasn’t what I meant to happen,’ said Jaide. ‘I’ll stop it now.’
She shut her eyes and reached out to the wind. But she felt no response inside, no Gift leaping to her aid.
It was just like before. Her Gift was gone. But the wind remained, pushing the train on faster and faster.
‘Jaide!’ Jack shouted.
Jaide opened her eyes. On the step below, Tara was staring back at the cats who were now streaming down on to the forward passenger carriage step, readying themselves to jump across to where she was standing.
‘Tara!’ yelled Jack. ‘Hold up your arms!’
Jaide blinked and reached down to Tara. Together they pulled Tara up just as Amadeus and the first wave of train cats jumped across to the coal tender’s step.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Collision with the Excision
‘I’ll hold them off,’ said Jack, picking up a jagged lump of coal. ‘Jaide, you and Tara go ahead and get the driver to stop the train! Ari –’
‘We will stand with you, troubletwister,’ Ari said calmly. His cat followers lifted their heads and swelled up their chests. ‘They shall not pass.’
‘Tara, you stay too,’ said Jaide, after a quick glance at her friend, who looked in no shape to run forward across a loose pile of coal.
‘Do you . . . can you . . . talk to that cat?’ asked Tara in a whisper. ‘And Jaide, did you . . . fly?’
‘Yes,’ said Jack. ‘Look, we’ll explain later. Grab some coal and throw it at any cat that tries to get past.’
A whole row of paws with claws extended like grappling hooks suddenly appeared over the lip of the coal tender.
‘Here they come!’ spat Ari. ‘Stand fast!’
‘Go, Jaide!’ Jack shouted as he fired off a chunk of coal and picked up another.
Jaide hadn’t waited. She was already clambering up the heap of coal as fast as she could. It was piled high in the middle, so she needed to get over the peak and down the other side. Jaide had never seen coal before. She had heard about it of course. She knew it was black and some people burned it in power stations, which was bad for the environment. But she’d never held a chunk of it in her hand, and certainly never tried to cross over a small mountain of the stuff.
It was black and it smelled of charcoal, and it made every footstep treacherous. The coal was dancing, jiggling energetically from side to side because the train was moving beneath it. No matter where she put her trainers, the coal shifted underneath her weight, trying to tip her over.
Finally she got to the other side, and reached the front of the tender accompanied by a small avalanche of coal. Unlike the gap between the passenger carriage and the tender, the one to the locomotive ahead had a kind of metal bridge of two plates that were joined by a concertina section of rubber.
Jaide gasped with relief that she wouldn’t have to jump across, a gasp that turned into a choking cough of surprise.
She could see clearly into the cab of the locomotive, with all its hissing pipes and dials and wheels and levers. But there was no one in it. The driver was missing, the only sign that he had ever been there a cap on the floor.
Jaide took that in and then gasped again as she saw a small grey shape next to the cap.
‘Fall back to the ridge!’ Ari commanded as more and more train cats swarmed up and into the coal tender. Though they were not all that keen to attack, the sheer weight of their numbers meant that Jack, Tara, Ari and the other Portland cats were constantly beset by wave after wave of enemies. ‘There are too many!’
‘What ridge?’ asked Jack, kicking at a cat who was trying to bite his foot, while simultaneously throwing lumps of coal with each hand.
‘The top of the coal pile!’ answered Ari, following that up with a battle-yowl as he scratched the ears of two cats who had temporarily outflanked him. ‘Go!’
The defenders scrambled up the coal slope and re-formed in a line. The train cats didn’t immediately follow up, at least not until Amadeus himself jumped down among his troops and pointed up with his paw, one shining claw extended.
‘Swarm them!’ he yowled.
‘Oh no,’ said Jack. Not because of what Amadeus had said, but because of what he’d just seen.
Amadeus’s eyes were entirely white.
The grey shape was a cat, who lifted a paw in greeting.
‘Kleo? What are you doing here? It’s not safe!’ shouted Jaide. The thumping roar of the locomotive was really loud here, as was the noise from the tracks, the rattling carriages, all of it amplified because the train was going way, way too fast.
‘It was safe enough before someone raised this wind beneath us,’ replied Kleo. ‘I presume that is your work, troubletwister?’
‘Uh, yes,’ said Jaide, flustered. She looked ahead and saw that not only was the train going at least twice as fast as it usually did, it was terrifyingly close to Portland. There was only about a mile to go before they would crash into the buffers at the end of the Little Rock tunnel. If the train didn’t jump off the tracks before then. ‘We have to stop the train! Where’s the driver?’
‘He was leaning out of the side to look ahead when the wind came up, and it knocked him off,’ replied Kleo. ‘I suspect it would be a good idea to . . . ahem . . . stop it.’
‘I can’t,’ Jaide confessed. ‘My Gift’s gone again. I have to use the train’s brake!’
As she spoke, she looked wildly at all the wheels and levers in the cab, bewilderment in her eyes. Why wasn’t there something simple like the foot brake of a car?
‘I believe the brake is that long lever with the red handle,’ said Kleo calmly. ‘At least, that’s what they used to slow down coming into Scarborough.’
‘Scarborough?’ asked Jaide. She moved forward and gingerly reached for the lever. ‘You’ve been on the train to Scarborough and back?’
‘How else would I be here now?’ asked Kleo. ‘I needed to reconnoitre the opposition.’
‘But how can you leave? Aren’t you supposed to be in Portland all the time?’
> ‘Why?’ asked Kleo.
Jaide took a firm grip on the lever and started to pull it down.
‘Aren’t you the Living Ward?’ she asked, just as the lever slid down, the brake engaged and the wheels of the locomotive locked up with a screech worse than anything Jaide had heard from fighting cats or the Monster of Portland, as at the same time everything that wasn’t tied down and everyone who wasn’t holding on were thrown violently forward.
The shock of the sudden braking sent everyone in the coal tender flying, both friends and enemies. Jack narrowly avoided going over the side, along with several cats who were not so lucky.
As it was, he fell down the forward slope of the coal pile, landing in a heap with Tara and Ari, along with a couple of Portland cats and four or five train cats. Coal dust went flying and for a few moments there was an informal ceasefire as everyone got up and brushed themselves off.
The squeal of the brakes continued, but despite this, the train had not slowed down anywhere near enough to actually stop. Sparks were cascading up on both sides of the locomotive, the wheels jammed rigid. The train was now effectively skating towards the Little Rock tunnel and certain destruction.
‘Jack! Look out!’ cried Tara.
Jack whirled round just in time to beat off two leaping cats, striking out with wide blows of his arms. Before any others could attack he picked up the long-handled shovel near his feet and brandished it.
But only one enemy cat was in sight. Amadeus stood on top of the coal pile, looking down at him, his white eyes bright.
++Hello, Jackaran Kresimir Shield,++ said The Evil.
Jack lowered his shovel and touched his pocket with his elbow, checking that the pillbox charm was still there. Though he doubted it would do much for him now that The Evil was actually present, it was still a little comforting.
‘Go away!’ he shouted. ‘You’re not meant to be here.’
++But we are here, little troubletwister. Have you changed your mind?++
Jack knew it was talking about him joining The Evil.
‘No,’ he said. ‘I’ll never change my mind.’
++Excellent. We are pleased that you still wish to join us.++
‘That’s not what I meant!’
++We know what you mean better than you do, troubletwister.++
‘You don’t know anything about me!’
++I know what happened to your father in the place you call the Pacific. I know what he lost. Don’t you want to know too? Don’t you want to know all the secrets the Wardens are keeping from you?++
Jack stared into the cat’s horrible white eyes and suddenly didn’t know what he wanted. He stood frozen as Amadeus slowly began to come down the coal pile, as sure-footed as ever despite the jerking and rattling of the still speeding train.
‘That voice?’ said Tara, clutching at Jack’s arm. ‘That voice in my head – stop it, Jack! Please make it go away!’
Her cry cut through Jack’s paralysis. He turned to her and spoke urgently.
‘Don’t listen to it, Tara! Think of something else, something happy. Think of doughnuts!’
‘Doughnuts,’ murmured Tara. ‘Really great doughnuts, hot, with cinnamon, just cooked . . .’
Thinking of doughnuts made Jack feel better too.
++Such small thoughts, so soon to be lost to the world.++
Amadeus blinked and shook his head. His eyes had returned to their normal bright blue. His voice was normal too, notwithstanding that he was a cat.
‘What? Why are you leaving me?’ the cat cried.
Jack had no idea why The Evil had left Amadeus, but he tried to take advantage of the cat’s temporary befuddlement. Running up the slope, he swung his shovel, only to lose his footing as the train suddenly lurched, the sound of the wheels changing from a shriek to a sickeningly loud thump-thump-thump. Amadeus jumped out of the way, and Jack rolled back down, losing his weapon.
Tara dragged him out from under a layer of coal, just as Jaide and Kleo ran in from the locomotive.
‘Grab hold of something!’ Jaide yelled. ‘We’re going to crash!’
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
What Lies Under Little Rock
Everything went into slow motion. Jack and Tara dived for the front-left corner of the tender as Jaide, Kleo and Ari went for the front-right. Amadeus jumped back over the coal pile, shouting to his followers.
Jack wedged his legs against the side of the tender and looked across at Jaide. The train was shaking violently, the tender bumping up and down, the brakes still letting out occasional shrieks.
‘How long?’ yelled Jack, meaning how long until they hit whatever it was they were clearly going to hit.
Any answer Jaide might have given him was lost as they went into the tunnel. Everything went dark, and the sound around them was both muffled and magnified at the same time. But there was no impact, and for a moment Jack thought there wasn’t going to be.
He had little more than a second of feeling relieved. Then the train hit the buffers blocking off the Little Rock tunnel, smashed straight through them and left the track.
A second later, the locomotive collided with the rock wall of the tunnel, screeching along it like a giant metal finger running down a blackboard before it finally tipped over and came to a stop, a hundred yards inside the tunnel.
The tender did not tip over, but it too scraped along the tunnel wall, one entire side getting peeled off like the lid of a sardine tin, Jack pulling his feet back just in time. One of Ari’s Portland cats was not so lucky.
The passenger carriage did not follow, the safety chain finally breaking as the front part of the train careered off the rails.
Finally everything stopped.
In the darkness, steam vented with a melancholy howl. The survivors in the coal tender slowly dragged themselves upright, coughing out coal dust and pushing away the drifts of coal that had almost buried them.
‘Jaide? Tara?’ whispered Jack. ‘Ari? Kleo?’
There was a terrible silence for a few seconds, then three voices answered. But Kleo did not.
‘Jack,’ said Jaide, coughing. ‘Can you see?’
‘Yeah,’ said Jack. He could see. There were Tara and Jaide, and Ari trying to lick coal dust off his own eyes . . .
‘Can you make us a light?’ Jaide continued. ‘Be careful.’
‘Make a light?’ whispered Tara. ‘How?’
Jack didn’t respond. Despite everything, despite the situation they were in, his heart was swelling with hope and relief.
His Gift was back!
He thought about a soft, gentle light. Like the light cast by the big lamp in their old living room, the one with the gold-patterned paper shade that his father had brought back from a trip to Japan.
A steady, golden light grew above his head and slowly spread, illuminating Jaide’s relieved expression and Tara’s gobsmacked one.
‘How are you doing that?’ she asked. ‘Are you . . . are you guys some sort of superheroes?’
‘I wish,’ said Jack. ‘Oh . . . Kleo!’
Jaide looked where he was pointing. A familiar, sleek, blue-grey tail was poking out from under a pile of coal. It wasn’t moving.
‘No!’
The cry came from human and cat mouths, and the next second there was a frantic, mixed-up melee as everyone tried to dig Kleo out at the same time. Jaide got to her first, picking her up and cradling her to her chest.
‘Kleo! Kleo, don’t die!’
Ari sniffed at Kleo, then sat back on his haunches with a sigh of relief.
‘She’s not dead,’ he pronounced. ‘Just stunned.’
‘That’s a relief,’ said Jack. ‘I mean, obviously for her, but also since she’s the Living Ward as well . . .’
‘No she isn’t,’ said Jaide and Ari together.
Jack stared at them.
‘Well, who is then?’
Somewhere outside the wrecked train, a horribly familiar groan sounded over the hiss of escaping steam.
&
nbsp; ‘Uuuuuurrrrrghhhhhhhhhhblblllellaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.’
Everyone rushed to the front of the tender to look out, and there they all stopped.
They were in a cave. The train had opened up a great gash in the side of the Little Rock tunnel, and the coal tender had run into a vast hollow chamber that lay behind it.
Slowly, led by Jack, they climbed down. He expanded his light without even thinking about it as they left the tender behind and looked around. High above, long stalactites sent back flickering reflections. Black shapes wheeled and turned in a panic between them, hundreds or even thousands of bats, rudely woken from their daytime slumber. Fifty yards away, a wide pool of dark water lapped at the white limestone of the cave floor.
‘Uuuuuurrrrrghhhhhhhhhhblblllellaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.’
The sound filled the cave, making everyone’s hair stand on end.
Jack looked at Jaide. ‘That’s whatever was next door,’ he whispered.
‘What is it?’ asked Tara. She stayed close to Jack, apparently convinced that he was indeed a superhero, no matter what he said.
‘That . . .’ said Jaide, pointing to the underground lake.
There was something in the shallows, near the shore of the lake. A huge creature, half-fish, half-worm, that was pulling itself feebly along with the flipper-like appendages that sprouted near its front. It had two small-looking black eyes and fan-like fronds where its ears should have been, and there were numerous scars and stitches in its pallid, glistening flesh. There was a new bleeding wound in its side, with a piece of train embedded in it.
Its mouth opened, and the gurgling groan came again.
‘That has to be the monster,’ whispered Tara.
As she spoke, there were footsteps behind them. Everyone whirled around.
A woman walked across, between the wreckage of the locomotive and the tender. She wore overalls that were so ripped and stained they were little more than rags, but no one noticed that because her eyes were shining white, without pupil or iris, and her mouth was set in an unnatural smile.