A Hero at the End of the World (19 page)

Oliver straightened up, starting to feel worried. He had a sinking suspicion that he had knocked an entire level of a Tube station unconscious for no good reason.

On the other side of the wall, the carriage doors beeped and then whispered shut. Seconds later, the floor rumbled as the train left the platform with Ewan as one of its passengers.

At the end of the corridor, a panel of what Oliver thought had been a wall swung open. For a moment, all he saw was a wall of glowing security monitors, but then a pair of navy-clad TFL attendants peeked out at him, looking puzzled.

“Well,” Oliver murmured to himself, glancing down at the motionless bodies at his feet, “this’ll be a great deal of paperwork.”

In the air above him chimed the familiar ring of a forthcoming announcement. It was followed by a muffled, staticky voice that called, “
Would Oliver Abrams please report to the ticket counter
?”

Chapter 20

E
wan had entirely too much time to think as the train zipped through the Hertfordshire countryside, or as much of the countryside as there was between London and Watford, and then in the taxicab to Louise’s house. As far as he was concerned, he had two choices: he could go back to Oliver and be arrested, or he could go to Louise and beg to be left alone. He had ruined his chances with Oliver the moment the spell had slipped through his lips, but, now that he was of no use to Louise anymore, there was still a chance that she would have some compassion.

On the train, Ewan had pulled out the reel of the cassette tape and shoved the whole thing into one of the bins by the carriage door. Oliver wouldn’t have any evidence now.

The door to the Gardener Hobbeses’ house was open when he arrived; behind him, the taxi’s wheels squealed as it took off down the road. He stretched his senses to see if he could feel any spells over the house, but nothing jumped out at him. There was no sound from the hinges as he put his hand on it and pushed, but from deep within, he could hear clattering and clangs. Gulping, he made his way inside.

It was nearly as dark inside as it was outside. He padded down the long carpet on top of the real wooden floors, through the corridor with its maroon Victorian wallpaper and past the winding staircase. Yellow light beamed from the far room at the end of the hallway, and, as he crept closer to it, he could hear a low murmur of voices. The eyes of the portraits on the wall seemed to follow him.

He rested his hand on the crown molding that lined the door. He could hear that Louise was speaking to someone, presumably her housekeeper.

“Take only what you can carry,” she was saying. “No, not that—why would you need that?”

“Louise,” Ewan began desperately, bursting into the room. But at the sight of Archie, who was holding an urn in one hand and a photo album in another, a heavy feeling of dread settled over him. “How-how’d you get here before me?”

“Took a taxi the entire way,” Archie sniffed. “I paid him extra to enchant the traffic lights.”

Louise straightened slowly, dropping the bag in her hands. “So, Ewan, you’ve come to challenge me.”

“Yeah,” said Ewan, “that’s definitely why I came here.”

Ewan’s mum had always said that his sarcasm would get him into trouble one day. Louise’s eyes narrowed into slits, and everything inside Ewan screamed at him to get out of the way. He dove through the door in time to see a flash of light; bits of plaster hit him in the face as her spell blew a hole in the wall. The entire house shook, and the smell of smoke filled the air.

“I was joking,” Ewan yelled. Another flash of light passed over his head and shattered a vase on an antique table.

He heard a choked cry from Archie: “Mum!”

Ewan dragged himself across the floor on his elbows, trying to keep his head down. His heart was pounding so hard that he swore she must have been able to hear it. He ducked behind an old rolling table, the only piece of furniture in the hall that looked big enough to hide him.

“Really, dear, don’t you think I won’t get you eventually?” Louise called, just behind him.

The table against his back began shaking. It lifted nearly a foot into the air, exposing him; he glanced around and saw the rest of the furniture in the corridor doing the same. Frantically, he looked for somewhere to run. When he eyed the half-open front door, his heart flipped over in his chest.

As soon as he thought about it, the door slammed shut.

“Ewan,” Louise said, singsong, dragging out his name.

Furniture and housewares shattered as Ewan bolted up the stairs. He heard a horrible ripping noise behind him, and when he glanced back over his shoulder, deep scratches were following him up the wall, splitting apart the lavish wallpaper.
Upstairs, upstairs
, his inner voice repeated. He heard footsteps behind him.

Something seemed to shove him, and he surged forward onto the second floor, his feet slipping on rug. He used the momentum to slide into the room at the right, and he flung the door shut behind him, twisting the skeleton key in the lock. Walking backwards, he bumped into something cold and solid—but it was just a standing curio case.

Ewan’s chest heaved as he tried to catch his breath. In the dark, it was difficult to tell where he was, but then he spotted Apollo’s face in the corner, the statue illuminated by the moonlight coming through the window; when he spun around, he could make out figurines and books and other bits and bobs behind the glass of the cupboards. He was in Ralph the Ravager’s collection room.

Feeling momentarily safer, Ewan pulled off his winter vest; what looked like deep claw marks had sliced open the back, but had missed his skin. Bits of stuffing were bursting out of the split seams.

The door handle jiggled. Dropping the vest, Ewan quickly scrambled behind the curio cabinet, his knees drawn up to his chest.

Outside in the hallway, Louise laughed. “Do you truly think this will stop me?”

Against his back, the case wobbled. Ewan screwed his eyes shut. He should never have come here; what had he been thinking, assuming that Louise would let him live?

“Stupid,” he whispered to himself, pressing his cheek against his knee. “Stupid, stupid.”

“Mum,” Archie cut in, muffled through the door, “we don’t have time for this. Abrams is probably right outside, and he’s undoubtedly brought the SMCA with him.”

With a loud crash, the case dropped back to the floor. Ewan let out a long breath and then slapped his hand over his mouth. He could still hear voices in the hallway, but he couldn’t make out what they were saying.

Suddenly, he heard the faint creaking of the stairs. It got further and further away, and Ewan felt a stark, almost sickening relief. Shaking, he slumped against the back of the case.

“Ewan,” Archie called through the door.

Ewan froze.

“Ewan,” Archie repeated, “don’t wee on the carpet. It’s Persian.” There was a pause, and then an even softer, “I’m sorry.”

“Wait,” Ewan called, “Archie—”

He broke off, not certain what he was going to say.
Don’t leave me
was on the tip of his tongue, as was
you treacherous bastard
.

There was no answer. At long last, he heard the front door open and close.

Ewan counted to one hundred in his head before scurrying to his feet. He had to get out of there before Louise or one of her people returned to finish him off. Or, worse, Oliver.

He was reaching for the doorknob—which had a funny blue sheen over it—when a thought struck him. Louise had inherited everything in the collection after Ralph the Ravager had died, she’d told him. Included among the antiques were enchanted mechanisms and spell books; he had seen runes scratched into some of the objects, and he couldn’t think of what other reason Ralph the Ravager would’ve had for keeping single, ripped pages and decaying books if not for them containing some illegal spells.

He didn’t know why Louise had left the collection behind, but he couldn’t let her come back and get her hands on it. She was
evil
.

Ewan had no idea how he was going to take it, or even where—after all, Oliver had said that he could be thrown in jail without so much as a trial—but the most important thing was that it was out of Louise’s reach. Probably.

Moving quickly, he began pulling everything out of the cupboards. The books were heavier than they looked, and some crumbled into dust underneath his hands; when he touched several of the urns, they broke apart, sending dirt into the air. The items in the glass-top curio case, some of which were made of metal and gemstones, fared better, and he put them in a pile for after he got a bag to put them in. It was when he opened one of the drawers and took out a long ivory comb carved into the shape of a boat that a sparkle in the corner of his eye caught his attention. It was the disco ball, the one that Archie had said might have been made of white gold. He had forgotten about that ridiculous thing. He tossed it into the pile with the rest.

Ewan touched the doorknob with the tips of his fingers—and jerked his hand back when a shock of electricity shot out and stung him. A blue shimmer flashed over the door and knob. The air smelled like smoke.

He was trapped. No wonder Louise had left.

If the door was protected, it only made sense that the rest of the house must have had an incantation put over it, right? Ewan hesitated. Slowly, he looked around the room, trying to pick up more blue flashes. Sure enough, he spotted an almost indecipherable glow over the window.

Feeling helpless, he tore through the curio case’s drawers, looking for something that could help him. There had to be all sorts of strange mechanisms and things in there. Finally, in the bottom drawer, underneath jeweled bracelets and brooches, he found a stainless steel ball with a note taped to it.

“
EXPLOSIVE,
” he read. “
Do not drop
.”

“Brilliant,” Ewan said, and then promptly dropped it.

He was paralyzed as the ball rolled to the middle of the room, reflecting the moonlight streaming in through the window. When nothing happened, he let out a long, relieved breath. He had thought he was a goner.

A millisecond later, the explosive device began glowing.

Ewan grabbed the disco ball off the floor. It was heavier than a football, but when he flung it through the window with all his might, the glass didn’t break the way it did in films. Instead of shattering into a million pieces, it only broke where the ball had hit it. The rest of the glass stayed in place, splintering slightly around the hole. Ewan yanked a marble bust of Oliver Cromwell out of the cupboard and used it to break as much of the glass as he could until there was a big enough gap for him to move through without disfiguring himself.

He tossed some of the harmless-looking enchanted objects out the window first, the ones that looked Roman or Greek or whatever, watching as they rolled through the garden. One of the heads of a marble figurine broke off and went sailing under a bush.

That seemed terribly ominous. Maybe he didn’t have to jump. Ewan looked back down at the mechanism hopefully, but it was glowing brighter.

Heart in his throat, he jumped, aiming for the tree right outside the window. The ground swerved to meet him—and then his hands closed around a thick branch, his body swinging, his feet dangling in the air. He made the mistake of looking down, and felt lightheaded when he saw how far up he was.

The pounding in his chest slowed when he realized that he wasn’t going to go crashing down and break every bone in his body. His arms strained, but it was uncomfortable, not painful; he glanced down at the garden again, and this time it didn’t seem as though he were all that high.

Ewan counted to three and let go. The shock of hitting the ground went up through his knees, but it didn’t hurt; much to his surprise, he didn’t land on his head or snap his leg. Chuffed, he brushed dirt and tree bark off of his palms.

Above him, the room exploded, knocking him to the grass. The bits of glass he had left attached to the window frame rained down, narrowly missing him, and a cloud of blue smoke billowed out from the window.

For a brief instant, Ewan was proud of himself. He had almost carried out a plan entirely on his own. Then he remembered that he had caused possibly millions of pounds’ worth of property damage, had made two very powerful people angry, and, more importantly, now had to flee for his life, and suddenly his triumphant escape didn’t seem all that clever.

The disco ball was beside him in the grass. He balanced it in his lap, turning it over in his hands; none of the flimsy mirrored squares had broken. He couldn’t go back home. The SMCA probably had his house surrounded, and only the gods knew what Louise would do when she found out that he was still alive. Glancing around the rubble, he wondered how many of the remaining antiques he could fit into his pockets.

Starting a new life, after all, had to be expensive.

Part 3

E
wan and Oliver stumbled out the gates of Duff Slan’s riverside castle together—Oliver, covered in blood; Ewan, fine except for the bloody handprint on his jumper and a bruise on his forehead from where he’d walked into a wall.