13 LONDON
Got to admit, Burt has this whole espionage thing down.
“The name’s Burly, James Burly,” I whisper in his ear. But because he has spy-mode activated he doesn’t reply—which makes perfect sense. Spies know when to keep mum.
So I need to get with the program too. Faun-senses activated.
The air is filled with strange vibrations.
Even without seeing anyone, I can feel bodies moving. They all seem to be heading in one direction. I think it’s the office on the back side of this monstrous mansion.
Oh! I bet they’re having a staff meeting!
I felt pretty chuffed with myself, so tell Wolfy-Burt (Wurt?) my thoughts.
“When the staff are away, the faun can play…” I whisper.
And I want to start playing right now.
Waiting in these bushes has done nothing to quieten the squirmy worms. My belly is filled with them. They hate this place.
They remember the smells; sea air—mixed with cleaning products and fear.
It’s making my hooves want to double-time-it back to the Sadie-Mae and leave this place behind me. Set to sea and never ever turn back.
Though if I turned back, maybe this mansion would turn into a pillar of salt and that would be A-OK with me.
Wump-ppp.
Kitten!
She’s headed this way.
Bingo, right on cue, the bushes push apart and out pops my lass in her mackintosh. She’s followed by Shivery Shane, who is looking remarkably smug.
Ooh-er.
I don't even need my faun-radar to feel the massive change in the air. The static charge between them is bouncing around like pinballs. Kitten’s lips are pink and puffy. Hmm, I know the look of a proper snogging when I see it!
Well, well, well.
I give Shane a little nudge with my hairy elbow as he slides into the shadows beside Burt.
I’m a little-bit hoping his shivery-yikes factor might ratchet down a notch now he’s had a nice cuddle. It’s an intense vibration.
Burt’s massive wolf-jaw lets out a hot huff of steam that turns back into human breath as his bones do the wet click-crack shift. Within two seconds, he’s back but his face is not half as relaxed as Shane’s.
“We think they’re having a staff meeting. So I figure there’ll be minimal security for at least twenty minutes. London needs to lead us in to find Sky. Francois, I want you to keep back and fend off anyone who looks like they’re coming our way.”
Shane gives his shiveriest glare to Burt. “That makes no sense. I will be going with Aurora and London. Your canine ears will be preferable as a defensive line.”
Uh-oh. Trouble in paradise.
“Listen, boys,” I say, because sometimes people just need a little wisdom. “It’s not about the destination, it’s about the journey. The fantastic journey.”
I guess they heed me, because after a beat, Burt nods. “Fine.”
Rory bounces on her toes, ready to rock and roll. “Let’s do this. Which way, London?”
All eyes lock onto me.
Kitten looks fierce.
Shane looks analytical.
Burt looks burly.
And now I have to take them all down the rabbit-hole and not let us get lost.
Here we go.
I rub my hands on my hairy thighs then shake them out. “So, there’s a real posh staircase. We go up, then up again another set of stairs. A landing with door after door. You know that Shining movie? That’s where we lived, behind the doors.”
“So, the third floor?” Wolfy stares so hard it’s like he’s trying to crawl into my brain.
Third floor? Righhhht.
Only Brits do ground floor, then first floor, then second. It makes way more sense than calling the ground floor the first floor. Or does it? I guess it’s the first floor and the ground floor. Which means the second floor really is the third floor?
Oh no!
Have I been going to the wrong floors all my life? Is that why I keep stepping into places that don’t feel right for me? This place was the place that felt the wrongest of all.
Every kind of wrong.
It never made sense that I ended up here.
I was sixteen and wily as a fox. I’d already escaped from the immigration brutes, hopped out of their van, and was making a clean getaway, when the man with the scarred face zapped me.
Buzz, buzz, conked-out.
Woke up on a boat, trussed up like a turkey.
They locked me in the corridor of doom, like I was in the worst waiting room in the world.
And by the time I’d been taken to my fourth ‘party’, I knew I had to flick-flack to freedom.
So I did. For a while.
“London?” Aurora’s soft hand touches my arm, snapping the worms out of my head. “Stay with us. You’re safe.”
Right. The mission.
I give my horns a little comforting stroke then put on my captain's hat, which is sadly metaphorical, because I’m not currently in possession of such an admirable headpiece.
“Let’s go.”
I give Burt a wave as he shifts back to Wolfie, then me, Kitten and Shane sneak through a side door.
Somehow, Kitten seems to know which way to go. “These kind of McMansions always have the same kind of layout,” she whispers.
Well, hello. That’s handy.
The house is quiet as a mouse, and lickety-split, we are in the main hallway which has the fancy stairs from my memory.
Ground floor, first floor, second floor.
Or third floor.
The corridor of doom opens up before us, looking exactly like it did when I was sixteen. An endless line of heavy oak doors with little brass numbers tacked onto them.
My number had been nine, but was attached improperly, so would swivel around and become a six every time the door got slammed shut. And the doors were always shut, and locked.
But not today. Today is opposite day. Open house day. Open door day.
And no one is shouting.
No one is crying. No shouting. No crying.
Huh.
“No kids here,” I whisper.
“No kids?” Kitten breathes, her eyes darting around the empty hallway as her sweet forehead wrinkles into a furious frown. “Where are they then?”
Before I tell her the truth, that I sadly don’t know where they are, a muffled, cross voice sounds from the end of the corridor.
It’s followed by a crash. Shane pushes me and Kitten into one of the empty rooms. “Stay here,” he hisses.
I don’t mind doing that, because honestly, my brain is having a hard time being here, and in fact, my whole body is having a hard time being here too.
The muffled voice starts up again, and this time it’s a little clearer.
“Let me out of this fucking cage, you piece-of-shit bastards! The second I get out, I'm going to find the nearest bottle and smash it and shove it right up your…”
Oof, the person throwing the wobbler is fuming, with a capital Fu.
And definitely not one of the bad guys.
We sprint down the hall and find the one locked door that the ranting is coming from.
“Kitten, your safety pin please.”
She nods, and takes out the pin that’s been holding up her jeggings.
The world record for most locks picked in one minute is fifteen. I only have one to do, and it takes nothing but three and a bit of those long rivers.
Sitting inside, on a bare mattress, is a boy who looks like he’s not even a teenager yet.
He’s got a mop of dark hair and a face covered in dirt and pure, unadulterated rage. He’s chained to the bedpost by a heavy iron cuff around his ankle, but he isn't crying. Not even a bit. He’s actively trying to use a loose piece of radiator pipe to smash the lock to pieces.
When his eyes hit Shane’s shivers, and my velvet horns, he doesn't flinch.
He just hoists the pipe like a bat, his chest heaving under a ripped linen shirt. “Who the fuck are you?” the kid spits in a high piping voice, his eyes flashing like a Belisha beacon.
“If you're here to drag me down to the docks, you better be ready to lose an eye, you dickheads.”
I’m about to put his mind at ease and explain we’re escaped convicts, but Kitten beats me to it. “We’re here to get you out and away to safety. London, pick the lock.”
The kid lets out a laugh that doesn’t sound very happy. “Sure, weirdos. Whatever you say, but I’m going to gouge the eyes out of the first person who touches me wrong.”
“We are not those people,” Kitty-cat says in her most swishy voice. “You’ll be OK with us. But where is everyone else? We’re looking for a girl called Sky…or maybe Candy.”
“Too late, genius,” the kid snaps, being far too wiggly for me to break a record on cuff-picking. “They cleared the whole lot out at dawn.”
He tightens his clutch on the metal pipe. “Everyone was dressed up like fucking dolls, but they left me behind because I bit one of them.”
Ooh, have I found a kindred spirit?
“The main bastard said I was too unruly for the party, so they left me here. Took all the others. They’re stupid. Scared little sheep who won’t bleat in case they get hit.” He gives a little grin that makes me want to give him a blue certificate for excellent attitude in a shitty situation.
The cuff falls off and he shakes his ankle free, then stands, bouncing on the balls of his feet.
“Where have the other captives been taken?" Shane growls, his eyes doing that slitty pupil thing. The kid blinks, looking at Shane with shivery respect.
“Big party,” the boy says, his voice turning deadly serious. “A massive, stupid superyacht called The Carnivàle, has been out in the bay. You could see it from the bathroom window. They sometimes have parties and auctions on it. They took all the kids there first thing this morning.”
“Fuck,” Kitten sighs. “Stop doing your thing, Francois. He’s just a kid.”
Ahh, the shiver-vision.
I put out a hand. “Come along, little fella. Time to make like a bun and roll. Ooh, what’s your name? Is it Roland?”
“Does it matter? It's not like we’re going to be friends.”
No, no, no. That’s not true. “Listen, Mr. Man,” I tell him. “We are already your friends, so tough titties. And actually, I think your name is Tucker.”
He looks like a ‘Tucker’.
He gives me a look like maybe he’s feeling pukey. “My name is not Tucker, it’s Basil, fuckwad.”
Aha!
“Nice to meet you, Basil Fuckwad.”
“Can we please get moving,” Kitten murmurs. “Like, now?” Moving. Yes. Quite right.
Except my legs don’t seem to have received the memo. They’re stuck. Cemented right into the oak floorboards.
The worms in my belly aren’t just twisting anymore; they’ve turned into giant, slimy eels, wrapping around my throat, squeezing the breath right out of my pipes. The fake lavender scent they’d spray around to cover up the tang of fear is just the same. Number nine.
Nine turned upside down is six. Six doors down. Six feet under.
“London?” A sweet voice sounds like it’s coming from the bottom of a deep, dark well calls my name.
Or maybe I’m in the well. Ding dong dell. It’s me. I’m sixteen again, and the man with the scarred face is holding that heavy cattle-prod. Buzz, buzz, conked-out.
“Oh dear,” I mumble.
I think I’m having a little bit of a funny-turn.
“London, look at me!” Warm hands grab at my arms.
“He’s losing it,” a shivery voice says. They’re not wrong. “We don’t have time for this, Aurora. I’ll carry him.”
“Don’t touch me!” I shriek, a horrible, high-pitched animal bleat ripping out of my throat as I scramble backward into the corner.
My spine slams hard against the radiator pipes. “No parties! No more parties…” I will not let Coco and Bozo take me to the circus again.
A sharp, violent sting explodes across my left cheek. SMACK.
My head jerks to the side, my jaw aching from the sudden impact. I blink, the gray mist clearing from my eyes, and find myself staring right into the dirt-smudged face of Basil Fuckwad.
He’s standing directly over me, eyes blazing with the fiercest fury I’ve ever seen in a boy called Basil.
“Shut the fuck up, you absolute lunatic,” he spits, poking me hard in the center of my chest with the end of his pipe.
“I didn’t just get out of these cuffs to have some goat-weirdo fuck things up and get me caught again. ”
My mouth hangs open. “Basil Fuckwad,” I whisper. “You have an enviable brass pair.”
Whereas I seem to be bottling it.
The slap really helped, so I give myself another.
Slaperino.
It’s not as hard as Basil’s but still a-OK. That’s better. “Basil, my old son,” I say, springing back up to my feet. “You are an absolute champ.”
Basil just rolls his eyes, gripping his metal pipe tight. “You’re all fucking mental. Can we go now?”