++Thank you, troubletwisters,++ said The Evil. ++Once again you have opened the way for us. We could never have got in here without your train.++
Jaide felt her blood stop in her veins, and not just because of the voice. She knew the face The Evil was wearing.
It wasn’t Martin McAndrew. It was Renita Daniels.
++Do not be afraid,++ said The Evil ++We are here to protect you.++
‘You can’t be here,’ shouted Jack. ‘You’re dead!’
++You should know better, Jackaran,++ said The Evil. ++We would never leave you. We have so much love for both of you!++
‘You’re the excision,’ said Jaide, finally understanding. ‘The leftover that stayed behind when the wards were re-established. Rennie was the focus, her will to stay alive kept you here . . .’
‘What’s going on –’ whispered Tara.
++You do not know the meaning of love,++ interrupted a stern voice that came from the silvery, spectral form of a young woman in a white robe that had suddenly materialised near the edge of the lake.
‘Grandma!’
++Stay back, troubletwisters,++ Grandma X warned them. ++You are in grave danger.++
++We will keep them safe,++ said The Evil, its mental voice sliding insidiously into the children’s minds.
As The Evil spoke, Rennie stepped closer, moving further into Jack’s light. Tara gave a cry of horror, and even Ari shuddered.
It wasn’t just the white eyes that distinguished Rennie now. She was truly a creature of The Evil. Her ears were made up of bits of bugs and worms. Her entire left hand was composed of dozens of rat paws, melded together to fashion palm, thumb and fingers, a ghastly jigsaw where the original rat parts could still be seen in outline.
Falling from the lighthouse must have done that, Jack thought. Hiding, probably underground, had done more. All the injuries that must have caused . . . all had been repaired by The Evil, in its own horrible way.
Rennie took two steps forward, and her hair swung strangely. Jaide gulped as she realised it wasn’t hair at all, but was composed of hundreds of small black spiders.
‘You’re Rennie?’ asked Tara unexpectedly. ‘You’re the builder who disappeared with Dad’s second van?’
‘There’ve been two MMM vans all this time?’ asked Jaide.
‘Yeah. Dad lent one to her, and then when she went missing, so did the van . . .’ Her voice dropped back down to a whisper. ‘What happened to her? What does she want?’
++If she still exists anywhere inside that shape, she wants to replace her lost children,++ said Grandma X. ++That’s how The Evil twisted her mind into joining it originally. Thus it ever goes – love is turned to hate, and the world is poisoned once more. But we know you now, excision, for what you are. You are a pathetic remnant, and we will see you gone!++
Other glowing figures appeared around the lake. In amazement Jack recognised Custer, the mane-headed Aleksandr and several others from the Gathering of the Glass. They were all in spectral form. Some glowed white, like Grandma X. Others were blue, green, yellow – every colour of the rainbow. All were young in appearance, just like Grandma X. Only the woman with twinkling eyes looked the same because she had been young anyway.
Rennie took in the new arrivals with her white, lifeless eyes.
++You will not. The Living Ward will die, and we will triumph!++
‘What?’ asked Jack.
The Evil laughed through Rennie’s damaged mouth, echoing it within their minds.
Over in the lake, the monster’s groan suddenly changed. It rose up on its flippers and tail, and roared in defiance.
‘No,’ said Jaide. ‘That?’
The light of the Wardens brightened, forming a ring of silver fire round the monster. It didn’t seem to slow it however. It slid on as quickly as before, dripping rank water and slime as it advanced upon Rennie, who retreated back into the darkness.
The monster stopped, its blunt head turning as it tried to work out where its target had gone.
‘Watch out!’ shouted Jack as a wave of train cats burst out from the remains of the train. He reached for his Gift, trying to maintain the light while also raising a line of shadow that would cloak him and his friends.
He failed. The light disappeared, but its loss was not noticed, the brightness of the silver ring around the monster and the glowing Wardens more than enough to banish the darkness. The shadow also didn’t work, for some reason wrapping the coal tender in impenetrable blackness rather than Jack.
But Amadeus’s cats weren’t coming for Kleo and the troubletwisters. Instead they swarmed right past them and threw themselves at the monster.
The white ring flared. The train cats who hit it bounced off and fell senseless to the floor. Amadeus himself twisted in the air and somehow managed to avoid that fate. Hissing, he ran on, disappearing into the cloud of steam around the fallen locomotive.
‘The monster is the Living Ward?’ said Jack in disbelief, stepping back out into the light. ‘All this time?’
++You shouldn’t be here,++ said Grandma X, disappearing and reappearing beside them. ++Move back up the tunnel, as quickly as you can.++
‘But why didn’t you –’ asked Jaide.
++Go! You must take Tara to safety and await my arrival. I am on my way.++
++Enough,++ said The Evil, and Rennie’s twisted form once again came into the light. ++We grow weary of this dance.++
The composite woman stood stock-still. The white in her eyes faded and her left hand began to shiver.
‘It’s leaving her,’ whispered Jaide.
++Watch and ward!++ called Grandma X.
High above them, hundreds of bats chirped all at the same time. Then they moved together in a great cloud, but not down towards the monster. They flew up, and began to hurl themselves at one of the stalactites. Bat bodies smashed into it and fell like a ghastly rain.
A sharp splitting sound followed the thump, thump, thump of impact. A stalactite as long, thin and sharp-tipped as a spear fell, guided and directed by yet more white-eyed bats. It dropped with a whistling noise and skewered the monster just behind its head, going right through its body before embedding itself deep into the ground.
The monster howled, a howl that was worse than any noise that it had made before.
It was a howl of mortal agony, a death-cry.
The images of the Wardens flickered.
++Troubletwisters . . . go to the –!++
Grandma X was cut off as her shining image vanished.
Rennie flinched and straightened up, the white luminosity returning to her eyes as The Evil left the bats and returned to her. She looked at the twins and smiled. Her teeth were not human.
‘Go to what?’ asked Jack. He was trying very hard not to panic.
‘The ward,’ said Jaide. ‘We have to do something for the ward.’
The Evil laughed inside their heads as they ran to the side of the giant creature. It was still breathing, but only just. Pinkish blood pulsed from its terrible wound, forming a puddle round its feet. Its black eyes stared out, unseeing.
‘Don’t die,’ said Jaide, clutching its slick, clammy side. ‘We need you.’
‘You can’t die.’ Jack didn’t want to think what it would mean if another ward failed. They had only just managed to repair the last one. ‘You’re the Monster of Portland. We didn’t realise what that meant. We didn’t know you were the Living Ward!’
‘It’s stopped breathing,’ Tara said.
No one said anything. There was a moment of absolute stillness between the monster’s last breath and the failure of the Living Ward.
But it was only a moment, and when it passed, The Evil came rushing through to join its excision with a deafening cry.
++Yes!++
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
The Living Ward
‘It’s in my head,’ muttered Tara.
Jack looked at her in horror. A white film was slowly washing across her eyes.
‘No!’ he
shrieked. ‘Doughnuts! Think of doughnuts! And . . . shopping!’
++You have interfered for the last time, trouble-twisters.++
The mental voice was like a sledgehammer blow to the head. Jaide actually fell down on one knee and dropped Kleo. Jack raised his arm as if he could block the attack.
The Living Ward, the West Ward, had failed. Now Portland was exposed to the power of The Evil. It would flow in, unstoppable, and destroy the other wards, and then spread across the whole world –
‘No!’ shouted Jaide. She reached for her Gift and it was there again, rising up in her like an overflowing spring. She spun up a tornado and sent it at Rennie, only to see it wither and fade, breaking into small eddies of air that merely lifted the spider-hair on Rennie’s head.
++You are right to doubt your Gifts,++ said The Evil. ++They are weak. You do not know how to use them. We will teach you, when you are with us.++
Rennie raised her arms. A vast cloud of moths and bugs flew to her middle, and were absorbed. She grew taller, and relished in it, twisting and flexing as bats flew to join her too. Then the train cats came, slinking and writhing, resisting to the last. But they too were taken.
Amadeus was the last, stalking proudly, as if it was all his idea. Rennie reached down and picked him up. When she stood straight, Amadeus was no more, but there was a ruff of white fur around the giant Rennie’s neck.
At Jaide’s feet, Kleo stirred. Ari was at her side in an instant, licking her face, but she pushed him away with one paw and stood up.
‘Back away and run, troubletwisters,’ she whispered. ‘Ari and I will try to hold it off.’
Jaide looked behind her. There was only the dark lake, and the body of the monster.
‘Too late,’ she whispered.
++ Warden Companions. You may join us too ++
Jack felt just the fringes of The Evil’s mental might focus on Kleo and Ari, and staggered back again. Kleo fell again and kicked her legs, turning in a circle, but her eyes stayed clear.
‘No!’ she gasped. ‘No! I am stronger . . . I will not fall . . .’
Ari remaining standing, but did not speak. His eyes too remained clear.
Rennie growled and grew larger again, as hundreds more bats flew down and were taken in. A carpet of insects enlarged her feet.
++You will all join us! Troubletwisters too!++ came the mental voice. ++It is time!++
Now the force of The Evil really came to bear. Jaide fell and doubled over, clutching her head. Jack groaned, feeling his every emotion and thought being squished out of his ears.
A small hand slipped into his.
‘I’m feeling better, Jack,’ said Tara. ‘I think the doughnuts did it. And shopping.’
He could barely remember her name, let alone think of anything he liked.
Ice cream? Hot dogs? Chocolate?
They were just words, as dry as ink on an ancient page.
Hector? Susan? Jaide?
They might as well have been names on gravestones in the Portland cemetery for all the emotion they aroused in him.
But there was part of him, his deep inner self, that refused to give in. It was the part that doubted, the part that had listened to The Evil and been tempted before, the part that understood exactly what it would mean to give in because it knew The Evil best of all.
Troubletwister, know thyself. Only then will you know your enemy.
‘Never,’ he said. That single word took all the energy he had, but getting it out mattered more than anything. ‘Never!’
++Ah!++ The Evil sounded more amused than surprised. ++You are not the weak one after all.++
‘Neither of us are weak!’
++You are wrong, troubletwister. One always falls. Thus it has always been, and thus it always will be.++
Jack forced his eyes open. His sister was lying on the ground, gasping like a fish. Her eyes were open, but they didn’t see him. Was that a faint swirl of white curling in them already?
He closed his eyes again, forcing The Evil from his mind. It was messing with him – he was sure of it. First it made him doubt himself, then, when that failed, it turned on the person who mattered most to him. If he let it, The Evil would eat at his confidence from the inside until he was hollow all the way through. And then it would take him over.
Jack would never let that happen, either to him or his sister.
He was still carrying the remains of his backpack. Reaching inside, he sought and found the jar of insect repellent Grandma X had given him. He brought it out, unscrewed the top, then drew back his right arm to throw.
‘You’ll never beat us!’ he cried, opening his eyes just enough to aim.
++Then you will die.++
Rennie raised one enormous hand to strike him down.
He threw the jar into the insect maelstrom that was her midriff and watched the moths scatter.
She staggered backwards, beating at the chemical fire in her belly. ++Foolish troubletwister! You have but delayed the inevitable!++
Before she could recover, six brilliantly coloured bolts of light stabbed through her, their passage leaving black spots on Jack’s eyes. Rennie staggered again, swatting at them.
++Confounded Wardens, pricking us from afar!++
The bolts of light struck again, blasting out hundreds of insect corpses, and burned rats and bats. The Giant Rennie reeled backwards, roaring and snarling.
‘What’s going on?’ asked Jaide. Her mind was a fog. She remembered The Evil declaring that it would take her and Jack first, followed by the rest of the world.
‘The Wardens are fighting back,’ said Jack.
‘Jack started it,’ said Tara proudly.
‘Uh, not really,’ he said.
‘Either way,’ said Jaide, ‘let’s work out how to finish it.’
It looked for a moment that the job was being done for them. Rennie’s giant body was slumping against the cave wall, disintegrating into its component parts, which scurried, flapped or ran away as fast as they could. What remained of Rennie herself was little more than a scrap of humanity, blinking around her in alarm and horror.
Her eyes were clear. Her pain was real.
‘What have I done?’ she cried.
But there wasn’t time to think about her, for at that moment the locomotive suddenly lurched into an upright position. With a grinding, scraping sound, it jerked backwards a few yards, stopped, then jerked backwards again. The clashing of pistons and hissing of steam rose to a crescendo.
++We will smash you! We will crush you!++
‘It’s in the train!’ exclaimed Jack.
The Warden’s multicoloured lightning played across the locomotive, but without effect.
‘It’s backing up for a run at us,’ said Jaide. She looked around wildly, but they were trapped against the pool of water within the cave.
‘What are you going to do?’ asked Tara anxiously.
‘I don’t know,’ said Jack. ‘But I can’t feel it any more in my head. I think it’s using all its power on the train.’
Ari and Kleo were getting up, though they moved in a daze. The eyes of the bats they could see flying around in a panic were normal. Only the train was possessed by The Evil.
‘We have to fix the ward!’
‘But it’s a different ward. We can’t just pick something at random and say, “Be the ward”! It has to be someone living.’
‘What about one of us – could we do it?’
‘I doubt it. You know how afraid they are to allow a troubletwister anywhere near a ward – imagine what it’d be like if we were one of them!’
‘Then who?’
‘What are you talking about?’ asked Tara. ‘Is there anything I can do to help?’
They turned to face her. She was as smudged and dirty as both of them. She didn’t know anything about wards and Wardens and excisions and The Evil, but here she was, in the thick of it all.
Volunteering for more.
‘No,’ said Jack.
‘What do you mean, “no”?’ said Jaide. ‘She’s the only who can do it!’
‘No she’s not. What about all these bugs and bats and things?’
The locomotive vented steam and edged forward, rubble shifting under its wheels.
‘It’s changing shape,’ said Tara. Her voice was almost conversational, as if there had been so many shocks in the last half-hour that nothing more could scare her.
The locomotive was changing shape. Steel railway tracks were rising up behind it and slithering forward to join the boiler, where they attached themselves and then sprang out like cruel, grasping arms. Its pistons were withdrawing from the driving wheels and slanting downwards, to turn into legs. Legs that flexed, eager to dash forward.
The boiler itself was splitting at the front, separating into jaws . . .
‘We have to let her do it!’ said Jaide.
‘She can’t!’
‘Don’t I get a say in this?’ asked Tara angrily.
‘No!’ they both yelled at her.
The train was backing up like an enraged bull, snorting and furious. More piston-limbs were forming at the rear. Once they were functional, The Evil would be able to charge forward like a living battering-ram, intent on just one thing:
Killing the troubletwisters who had defied The Evil once again.
‘Let me do it,’ said a weak voice off to the side. ‘Let me be the ward’
They turned to see Rennie crawling towards them. She was conscious and free of The Evil, but horrible to behold. Worms and insects crawled all over her. Her left hand was gone, leaving only a putrid stump. Her face was so ravaged by what The Evil had done to her that she was barely recognisable. Only her eyes were the same – full of a terrible sadness that could not be put into words.
‘Oh no,’ said Jack.
‘You must be kidding,’ Jaide agreed.
Rennie coughed up a bug and spat it out.
‘I . . . I lost . . . lost my children. The Evil took my grief and turned it into a desire to hold you in their place. I thought I was doing the right thing. I thought that bringing The Evil into the world would unite us, bring us together in one big happy family.’