The Teen, the Witch and the Thief Read online

  The thief couldn’t strike at him this close without being consumed by his own energy. The boy’s face, which must once have been round and pleasant, sneered up at him.

  “And now what, Mr Jackson?”

  An inferno of flame erupted around Malcolm. He was the tiny dot at the centre of an infinite sea of fire. His skin shrivelled in an instant and agony shredded his nervous system. Superheated air scorched the oxygen from his lungs.

  But it was illusion. It could only be illusion. Beneath the heat and the agony he knew he was grappling with a solid, warm human being. Abruptly he was back, kneeling astride the body of a teenage boy, pinning him to the hard, rough surface of a road in the middle of the night in Salisbury.

  Kill him!

  Malcolm’s guardian spirit urged him on. As though another force was guiding them, Malcolm felt his hands wrap around the child’s throat. He stopped. It was the only way he possibly could do it but his mind reeled with the impossibility of the task.

  The boy had stopped wriggling under him. They locked gazes and the boy gave him a grin and a knowing wink.

  “Better make your mind up, old man.”

  Bees swarmed around him, out of nowhere, so thick that they blotted out the street lights. Hundreds of thousands of cold, tiny bodies scraped against Malcolm’s skin. They tickled and itched inside his clothes, forced their way into his mouth and nose and ears. Their drone was the only sound he could hear and it vibrated in the depths of his soul. Every part of him clenched in the dread certainty that this was no illusion, this was utterly real, and in a moment they would start stinging, and try as he might he couldn’t get a single muscle to move against them for fear that–

  The blows came out of nowhere – sharp, hard jabs into Malcolm’s kidneys and neck that almost stunned him. These were real, no illusion at all. The thief had hit him. Malcolm collapsed off the boy and the thief was on his feet again in one bound while Malcolm groaned on the ground. The bees had vanished.

  “Should have taken your chance,” the thief grated through his teeth, and he raised a hand.

  Zoe stood behind him and with a loud cry she smashed the Agora Bookshop’s tea tray over his head. He staggered away and dropped to his knees.

  “Get up,” she snapped at Malcolm, and she pounded the tray again onto the thief’s back, edge first. He collapsed, flat on the ground. Malcolm summoned all his strength and staggered to his feet.

  The thief rolled onto his back and chuckled through his pain.

  “Oh, yes!”

  He held both hands up to Zoe, palms outward, and Zoe stopped in her tracks, her face contorted. Malcolm watched in horror, expecting her to die the same way as Louise. But Zoe dropped the tray and fell to her knees, shuddering as if from invisible blows. Malcolm’s guardian gave him eyes to see what was happening. The thief was taking strength out of Zoe’s body, channelling it into his own, healing the injuries Zoe had just dealt.

  Kill him! the guardian commanded once more and Malcolm knew it was right. There could be only one possible end to this business and he had to do it. How hard could it be? He would wrap his hands around the boy’s throat and squeeze until the boy died. Simple. Surely?

  But even as he took his first step forward, the thief glanced at him and flicked a dismissive wrist. A blast of wind as solid as a battering ram slapped into him and knocked him flat on his back.

  Zoe lay on the ground, sobbing weakly, and the thief leapt to his feet again, fully restored.

  “It’s the end, old man,” he said, and once more raised his hands for the final, killing blow.

  A beam of radiant light struck the thief in the chest. It lifted him up and threw him thirty feet through the air.

  A glowing figure hung in the air above Malcolm. He squinted up into the sphere of light. There was a person in there but he could make out no features. He looked quickly over at Dennis, at Jane. Dennis was moving weakly, almost sitting up. Jane was still a crumpled heap.

  So who was this?

  The new guardian! Malcolm’s triumphant guardian boomed the words in his head. The thief had made his first and worst mistake: he had killed Louise, a guardian, which created a vacancy. Someone else in the bloodlines had been summoned forth to fill the gap: a brand new guardian, undamaged, untampered with, hugely powerful.

  The thief picked himself up from where he had landed, gathering his strength to fight back, but the hovering guardian pulsed like a sun and a beam of power transfixed him where he stood. He cried out and fell to his knees. This was the spell the guardians had first tried to use, the one that would erase the thief forever, but this was being done properly. It tore through the thief’s shields and turned his own power against him. Its energy ate into him and his back arched in agony and the noise he made tore at Malcolm’s ears. He only heard the sound of an adolescent boy’s pain and he wanted to shout at the guardian: stop it! He forced himself to remember what was actually happening.

  With the last desperate vestiges of his strength, the thief struggled on his knees to face the nearest building. It was on the corner of the point where New Canal narrowed: a four storey building of red brick with a pointed roof. He raised both hands, clenched his fists and pulled.

  The building tumbled down into the street as if a bomb had gone off beneath it. Bricks, timbers, tiles, furniture, plaster plummeted into the road between the thief and Malcolm. It fell square on top of the glowing guardian and knocked it to the ground. The light vanished behind a wall of rubble. The roiling cloud of dust and plaster flowed out along the street. Malcolm felt the choking wave roll over him and he could taste it, even with his mouth clamped firmly shut. It clogged his nostrils as if someone were packing his nose full of chalk dust.

  Feet pounded past him and he heard a voice howling wordless anguish. He dared to peek up as the dust cleared. His mind was dazed, his memories not quite patching together. It took a moment to recognise Ted. The boy had his back to him: he clutched his head and pulled at his hair and screamed at the collapsed shop.

  The rubble suddenly blazed with light and a glowing figure erupted from the top, scattering beams and fragments of stone. It rose into the air in a soaring arc and disappeared beyond the rooftops. Ted ran a few steps forward and stopped again, his feet tapping an uncertain little dance as he gauged his chances of getting over the rubble. Then he ducked to one side and ran for the entrance to the Old George Mall. Malcolm got a glimpse of his pale, ashen face and a very breathless: “Bloody hell ... You all right? ... S’cuse, I’ve gotta ... Arse!”

  Then Ted was gone. New Canal was almost back to normal, barring the collapsed building, the shattered windows, and Zoe, Dennis and Jane, all lying around with various degrees of injury. The guardian spirits flickered, hurt but unable to move to new bodies, still tied to their existing hosts while they still lived. How long had it been since the thief landed in the street? Since the first exchange of shots? Malcolm guessed a minute, maybe two at the most. He picked himself up, gingerly dusting powdered glass off his hands and clothes, and shambled towards the nearest of his wounded colleagues, which was Zoe. The alarms were still ringing uselessly and his ears picked up the first distant wail of sirens.

  Chapter 22

  Ted missed most of the fight. He screamed when the thief killed Louise but it was a reflex, a short circuit in his mind to bypass the horror of actually believing what had just happened. It was so sudden: something that just happened with no special effects or musical build-up. How could someone he knew just be erased?

  Then he had other things to worry about. Sarah sighed and gently crumpled to the ground in a faint.

  “Sarah?”

  She was the immediate focus of his attention. Not Sarah, don’t let her be hurt, even if she’s the one thing that gets out of this let her be okay ...

  He was kneeling down beside her when the windows shattered. If he and Zoe had been standing outside the shop rather than in, they would have been torn to pieces as the shreds of glass flew away.

  “Hel
p me–” he began, but even as he was saying it he could see Zoe wasn’t going to be any help. She was staring at the battle outside, transfixed like a rabbit wondering which headlight would hit it first. He dragged Sarah away from the window and pulled his hoodie off to make a pillow for her head. What now? First aid lessons, dimly remembered, ran chaotically through his head. Check pulse. Oh God, she’s dead! No, there it is ... oh arse, that’s mine ...

  But she was breathing and her head moved from side to side as if a fever ran through her dreams. The din of the battle got pushed to the back of his mind.

  Zoe suddenly shouted, “No!” She looked around as if for something, anything that could be a weapon. The mugs of coffee went flying as she grabbed the tray and ran out of the shop. And Sarah began to glow.

  “Huh?”

  Her eyes had opened and light shone from her face. She began to get up and he tried to help, but then he realised she wasn’t just getting up, she was rising. He fell back on his hands and stared as her whole body lifted up off the floor, tilting to the vertical. The light of a bright summer’s day filled the shop and shadows of the book stacks slid across the walls.

  Sarah looked down at him and gave him a smile. It was warm and friendly, happy and full of confidence: the one thing that told him that this wasn’t some Exorcist stunt, this might actually be good. Then the light grew so bright he couldn’t look at her directly and she floated out of the window.

  “Sarah!”

  Ted lurched to his feet and pulled the door open, just in time to see his sister strike at the thief and send him flying. She struck again and the sound of Stephen’s torment tore at his heart. Then the shop came tumbling down on top of Sarah and buried her out of sight.

  Ted shrieked and on sheer autopilot he ran out to the mound of settling rubble, barely noticing Malcolm nearby. All he could think was my sister’s under that: it pounded inside his skull and he clutched his head as if his brains would explode under the pressure if he let go.

  Then the mound shifted. Rays of light shone out through the rubble and Sarah burst out again, launching into the air like a missile, soaring into the sky and vanishing over the rooftops in the direction of the High Street.

  Ted had no other thought but to follow her, but he couldn’t get past the remains of the building. Fine: he could cut into the Old George Mall and go round two sides of a square to get to the High Street that way. He turned and almost tripped over Malcolm.

  “Bloody hell!”

  Then manners made him ask:

  “You all right?”

  But he could see his employer was obviously alive and he didn’t look badly hurt. There wasn’t anything Ted could do to help him.

  “S’cuse, I’ve gotta–” Sarah was getting further and further away. Explanations could wait. “Arse!”

  He ran into the dark mouth of the mall.

  Thirty seconds later he burst out into the High Street, arms windmilling as he staggered to a halt. Part of his mind registered a sense of déjà vu. It had been only a couple of days ago that he had first seen the witch, in that mall of meta-Salisbury, looking for him. He had run and exited into the High Street just as abruptly.

  But he was too busy to pay much attention to the coincidence. He strained his eyes left and right, up and down the High Street. Where was Sarah?

  His heart sank as he heard the sirens. Oh God, he so didn’t want to be talking to any cops right now. Where was she?

  The witch appeared out of the air in front of him and pointed to his left, towards the stone arch beyond the traffic lights at the end of the street – the gatehouse to the Cathedral Close. Then her head jerked up as though something behind him had caught his attention, but he didn’t bother to look back.

  “Thanks–” He broke into another run. If other guardians were coming too, let them. He was only interested in one.

  The gates stood open, though Ted knew they were meant to shut at eleven, open at six. He stumbled as he ran beneath the guardroom. Something was catching at his feet, and he looked down and realised what had happened. His trainers scuffed through a pile of dark sawdust and fragments of metal. The mighty medieval gates had been reduced to wood chips.

  It began to occur to him: hadn’t anyone heard? People lived in the Close. It was lined with old manors and modernised cottages. Even if the gates had been destroyed without any noise, the racket from New Canal should have caused one or two bedside lights to come on, or a few curtains to twitch.

  But as he walked more cautiously down the narrow lane into the Close the question answered itself. A silence hung over the place. The air was thick and absorbed even the sound of his footsteps. The sirens and alarms from New Canal faded away. There was no sound of traffic, no machinery, not even wind. Ted didn’t know how – perhaps his bloodline instincts were growing sharper – but he was sure it was deliberate. Somehow the thief had cast this shroud over the whole Close. Everyone here might as well have been in their own little bubble outside the world. Whatever happened, the Close would slumber on.

  Which meant, that irritating analytical bit at the back of his mind pointed out, the thief must be doing something here. He wouldn’t cast a spell of silence on the Close just for the fun of it.

  There was one sound, though: a child sobbing. Ted quickened his pace and the road broadened out into the wide-open space of Choristers Green. Ahead of him the cathedral glowed in the beams of hidden spotlights, a ghostly apparition of vertical lines and feather-light stone. The spire faded into the dark night so that just the red warning light picked out its tip high above.

  Sarah, not glowing and feet firmly planted on the ground, stood in the middle of the car park. Her crying came out as frightened, uncertain yips. The moment she saw Ted she ran wailing towards him.

  “Hey ... oof!”

  The impact as she flung arms round his waist almost knocked the breath out of him. She pushed her face into his ribs.

  “I’m scared!”

  “Yeah, you and me both.” He hugged her hard.

  “How did I get here? I don’t remember!”

  “Uh ... long story. It’s okay, I’ve found you.” He tried to sound resolute and brave. “Let’s get out of here, right?”

  But Sarah was already tugging him in the other direction.

  “Robs is over there,” she said, “in that car.”

  “Huh?”

  A solitary Focus was parked by the wall at the end of the footpath that led across the lawn to the cathedral. Ted bent down to peer through the windows.

  “Yes!” He drummed triumphantly on the car roof with his fists. Robert sat inside, in his pyjamas and dressing gown. His head leaned back against the seat rest and his eyes were closed. He looked peaceful, but Ted couldn’t tell if he was asleep or in a coma or even alive. He tugged at the handle but the door was locked. He began to rattle it as if he could force it that way.

  “What’s Robs doing here?” Sarah asked.

  Ted paused a beat. How to even begin explaining?

  “A bad guy brought him.” He started to look around for anything – a stone, a brick – that could smash the window. Maybe Sarah in her guardian-mode had hurt the thief enough that he wouldn’t interfere. Maybe they could get Robert away and somehow get the Knowledge out of him.

  Sarah looked from side to side.

  “Is the bad guy here?”

  “Oh, he is.”

  For the first time in the enchanted silence of the Close there was the feeling of a breeze. It brushed against their faces, ruffled their hair and clothes, and it carried a voice that was full of wonder.

  “He is here and he is wondering how homo sapiens ever coped without the Knowledge. Our ears and eyes limited to a minute range of frequencies? No more power than the strength of our own muscles and the cunning of our own minds? Why did our ancestors even bother? Why didn’t they just lie down in their caves and give up? There is SO much more! I can see EVERYTHING!”

  Ted remembered the thief as he had seen him in New Canal –
the thing that possessed the body of his friend. He hadn’t waxed so lyrical then. Zoe had said he would grow and grow in power – an exponential curve upwards to infinity. It was only minutes later and he sounded like he was well along it.

  “What does he want?” Sarah whispered.

  “Well, there is so much I could do. I could open the ground beneath this city and watch it fall into the earth’s core. I could suck every molecule of oxygen from the air. I could open a wormhole to the heart of the sun and sterilise half of Europe.”

  Ted defiantly pursed his lips and gave a little two-note whistle to say, this guy’s crazy! Sarah giggled and the thief stepped out of thin air ahead of them, ten feet off the ground.

  “Ah,” he said. His face twisted with scorn. “Humour in the face of the enemy. The only power left to the weak.”

  “That’s Stephen!” Sarah exclaimed, apparently more surprised at the familiar face than the fact that the familiar face was hanging in mid-air.

  “No,” Ted whispered. “It isn’t. Zap him.”

  “You what?”

  “Zap him!” Ted urged. “Do your ... your glowy ... thing!”

  The thief chuckled. “You might have noticed something in the air? I’ve redefined the terms. It works differently within the area of the Close now. If I don’t attack, she can’t either.”

  Sarah’s guardian was back suddenly, in the corner of Ted’s eyes, disappearing if he looked straight at her … no, still there, in fact. Maybe he was getting practiced at seeing it. It was raging, but impotent, as if it were knocking against an invisible barrier.