A Hero at the End of the World (24 page)

In its weathered trunk was an opening big enough for a man to step through.

Back when Duff Slan had ruled Britain, the Gallows had been used for what was referred to as matters of national security.

State police would use it to pop into the center of protests or into resistance meetings, using the element of surprise to arrest those working against Slan.

Now, either because of its former association or because people were afraid of it, it was rarely used at all. Over time, its radiance had faded. The only time Oliver had ever attempted to use it was when they had received word that the Order of the Golden Water Buffalo had started their spell to open a portal to another universe.

“Okay, let’s go,” Oliver said.

Archie didn’t react until Oliver pointedly waved his hand toward the opening in the Gallows.

“You cannot be serious,” Archie said, looking at him as though he had gone spare. “I’m absolutely not stepping into that.”

Sophie lingered in the doorway, biting the nails of her left hand. Oliver had never seen her so unnerved.

“The Gallows is perfectly safe,” Oliver protested.

“Oh, yes, I feel
very
secure about walking into a creepy gray tree called the
Gallows
,” Archie replied sarcastically. “How does it work, anyway?”

“Well, first it drains loads of power,” said Oliver, gesturing, “and then it supposedly moves you from point A to point B in an instant.”

“Supposedly?” Archie asked.

Oliver scratched the back of his neck. “The one time I used it, I sort of... caused an explosion.”

“Now I’m definitely not using it,” said Archie.

“I didn’t blow up
people
.”

“Nope, absolutely not,” Archie repeated, crossing his arms over his chest. “We’re taking the train.”

Sophie raised her hand. “I’m okay with that.”

“You use a magic that’s slowly bleeding the universe of energy,” said Oliver, scowling. “I would’ve thought you lived dangerously.”

“I know no one’s asked me, but
I
know how to get to the Shetland Islands,” Sophie informed them. “We used to holiday there when I was younger. All we have to do is take the train to Aberdeen, and then we can catch a ferry.”

“Why couldn’t Ewan have gone to France?” Archie groaned. He looked up at the vaulted ceiling. “I love France.”

“Ewan’s afraid of foreign languages,” replied Oliver matter-of-factly. “His parents made him take Cantonese for six years and all he can say is ‘yes’ and ‘where is the toilet.’ He once got lost in the Guangzhou wetland park for twelve hours because he didn’t know how to read the map. Sorry, but the bloke you’re not in love with isn’t very clever.”

Archie looked annoyed. “He has other good qualities. He’s very tall.”

“You’re in love with Ewan?” Sophie asked, arching an eyebrow. “Ewan Mao, the man who accidentally joined a cult?”

Archie winced. “We’re just friends,” he mumbled.

Sophie glanced at Oliver. “This adds a whole new layer of drama to things, doesn’t it?”

Chapter 24

I
t was a long train ride from King’s Cross to Aberdeen. Their only option was to take a sleeper train overnight, and Archie insisted on riding first class, which normally Oliver wouldn’t object to—when it was work that was footing the expense. As it was, paying nearly two hundred quid for a single journey left him lightheaded. In revenge, he made Archie pay for an entire bag of snacks and sandwiches.

Archie, it turned out, wasn’t a terrible travel companion, aside from the whole first class thing. As soon as the train left London, he put on an eye mask and headphones and climbed into his small, uncomfortable bunk. Oliver had been expecting an entire night of chatter, so he was taken aback by this; he hadn’t even brought a magazine with him.

At one point in the evening, when Archie got up to use the toilet, Oliver asked, “What are you listening to?”

“Just this fantastic band called the Plastic Wizard Kings,” Archie replied with an air of superiority. “You’ve probably never heard of them.”

Oliver immediately regretted asking.

The sun had set by the time they had made it even a third of their journey north. When Oliver woke up the next morning, the scene outside amazed him. Aberdeen was a flat, stone city on the coast of the North Sea, its gray towers and white skyscrapers overshadowed by nearby green mountain peaks. It seemed frosty outside, and Oliver got to experience the cold in person as he stepped off the train and was hit by sub-zero winds.

It was equally freezing on the ferry ride to Lerwick, the capital of the Shetland Islands. From the windows of the boat, the gray North Sea looked bitterly cold; even where he was, Oliver could hear the whistling of winds blowing. Sophie and Archie huddled together, shivering and miserable.

Once on shore, Archie steered their hired car out of Lerwick and into the heart of the Mainland. The snowy, rolling hills of the moorland were dotted with a few wooded areas, but mostly they saw long stretches of farmland. Oliver saw more sheep on that drive than he’d ever seen in his entire life.

“Oh, there,” Archie exclaimed suddenly, slowing the car until it was nearly stopped. His face was pressed to the window. “Shetland ponies.”

“They’re
adorable
,” Sophie agreed from the back seat. “Look at the spotted one!”

Oliver scowled. “How will we know we’re looking at the Baahl when we see it?”

Archie let out a deep sigh and sped up the car again. “Abrams,” he began with exaggerated patience, “when I say, ‘evil object of immense destruction,’ what comes to mind?”

“Big, evil disc of doom?” Oliver asked.

“Do you really think my mother, a member of the peerage, would have an openly evil mechanism in her parlor?”

“
Parlor
,” Sophie repeated. Oliver twisted in his seat to see her trying to hide her smirk behind her book.

Oliver turned to Archie. “I think your mother, a member of peerage, would openly flaunt just how little she cares about the law.”

Archie’s lips thinned.

Ewan’s cottage was the same crumbling stone house with a thatched roof that he had seen in the CCH’s snapshot. Oliver directed Archie to pull the car up to the end of the dirt driveway, hoping that Ewan wouldn’t be able to peek at them through the window; he wanted to use the element of surprise to his advantage.

“Ready?” he asked the others.

Archie nodded grimly, but Sophie still had her nose in her book. “Go in without me,” she murmured, “I’m almost done with this chapter.”

He stared at her annoyance before reminding himself that she would only choose a book over the fate of the world if she thought it was important. Still, he slammed the passenger door a little more forcefully than he normally would have.

Dead seagulls encircled the cottage. Oliver toed one. It rolled over easily, but it was unusually heavy: sentries, then, not actual, living seagulls. Yet there was no tense feeling inside of him to indicate that Ewan had put up a protective ward.

“He’s put up some sort of an enchantment to drain sentries of their magic,” Oliver said to Archie. He was grudgingly impressed that Ewan had managed to perform such a complicated spell.

“It’s not an enchantment, it’s a mechanism,” Archie announced. He raised his chin. “My mother bought a set of them from a Czech inventor who had smuggled them into country. One is currently being used on her home. Do you know what this means?”

“That I’m going to have to suggest the Border Agency drop by your mum’s house for a surprise visit?”

“It means that Ewan must have the Baahl,” Archie replied sourly, glaring at him.

Oliver glared back and knocked on the door.

He waited, but there was no answer. A terrible feeling went through him: what if Ewan had somehow discovered that they were coming and fled? What if they had gone to the ends of the North Sea for nothing? Worse, what if Gardener Hobbes had already got to him?

He banged on the door again, this time harder. Seconds later, it flew open.

Oliver and Ewan stared at each other in heavy silence. Ewan’s hair was sticking up in every direction, and his jaw was covered in a patchy layer of stubble. He was wearing an oversized purple hoodie and the bottoms of his jeans were tucked into hiking boots. There were visible smudges on the lenses of his glasses.

Oliver was still furious with him for becoming evil, but he was also relieved to know that, for the moment, Ewan was safe.

Ewan sagged against the doorframe as if the astonishment of seeing Oliver had weakened his knees. “If you’ve come to kill me,” he said, “just know that Mrs. MacBay down the road will notice when I don’t stop by in the morning to get the basket of drop scones she’s made me. She knows I’d never willingly pass up free food.”

“I haven’t come to kill you, you nutter,” Oliver said angrily.

Ewan suddenly straightened back up, his gaze pinned over Oliver’s shoulder. With a stunned look on his face, he said, “Archie? What are you—?” His eyes darted back to Oliver. “What’s going on?”

“Hi,” said Archie, raising his hand in a pathetic half-wave.

“Hi,” Ewan repeated awkwardly.

“Ewan, I need the Baahl,” Oliver said.

Ewan squinted at him. He pulled off his glasses and rubbed his eyes. “The ball?”

“No, the Baahl. The mechanism to destroy the world. We need to get rid of it before Louise Gardener Hobbes finds you.”

A confused look crossed Ewan’s face.

“Also, it’s bloody freezing out here,” Archie cut in. “Do you mind if we come inside?”

Ewan stepped aside, allowing them to enter. “Uh, yeah. Sorry. Come in.”

Before he passed through the door, Oliver glanced back over his shoulder to see Sophie still reading her book, her scarf wrapped around her nose and mouth; she looked like a blob of red knit, except for the curtain of straight, brown hair falling from her cap. She looked up, and he nodded in the direction of cottage’s interior.

Unfortunately, it wasn’t much warmer inside, even with a fire roaring in the fireplace. The cottage looked exactly had it had in the CCH image, from the overabundance of furniture to the floral couch, except in color. Now it was obvious how mismatched everything was; the faded green and brown couch clashed with the pink roses on the curtains and the blue throw rug under their feet.

Archie spun on his heel. “Why did you do a runner?” he demanded.

Ewan glared at him. “
You’re
the one who told me that my only choices were to die, go to jail, or leg it. I chose the one that was the least painful.”

“Did you even think about what that would do to the people you left behind? What about your parents?”

“They’re better off without me,” Ewan grumbled, looking away.

Oliver cleared his throat. They both glanced at him as if suddenly remembering that he was there, and Archie began roaming the flat. He started sorting through the odds and ends on the mantelpiece, tossing a few of the items directly onto the floor; an earthenware vase hit the carpet with a thud. Ewan’s eyes followed him as he moved on to searching through boxes, bemused, until he noticed that Oliver was watching him watch Archie.

“What is it?” he snapped, crossing his arms over his chest.

“You could’ve mentioned that you like men, you know,” Oliver said quietly.

It stung that Ewan had kept something so personal hidden from him for so long. He had thought that they told each other everything. Hadn’t they been best friends?

Ewan looked at him blankly for a moment before saying, “Oh, right. Not that it’s any of your business, but I’d forgotten that you didn’t know.” Oliver raised his eyebrows. “I didn’t realize it until after we stopped being friends, all right? There was this bloke, Joshua... We met at one of those Job Centre training classes on how to humiliate yourself to get employment.”

“What was he like?” Oliver asked, trying to picture him. He hadn’t ever seen Ewan with anyone, man or woman.

“Something of a prat, really,” Ewan admitted, shuffling his feet. “But he was well fit. White, blond hair, skinny, a bit posh...”

That description reminded Oliver of someone. He glanced pointedly over at Archie, who was rifling through one of the corner cupboards. “Pretty?”

“A little, now that you—oh, ruddy hell,” Ewan said. The look on his face was that of a man who had just had a revelation.

Oliver couldn’t help but grin. “Didn’t realize until now that you have a type?”

“I was a late bloomer,” Ewan snapped. He dragged a hand over his scratchy cheek.

“I suppose there are worse people to be attracted to,” Oliver mused.

“Really?”

“No,” said Oliver.

“Nice,” Archie called from across the room, “really nice. Anyway, if you’ve finished your heart to heart, I’ve found the Baahl.”

Oliver was puzzled when Archie held up a silver, glittering, football-sized ball; it had a faint shimmering sheen around it that gave away that it was enchanted. Archie carried it over to them with the gentleness of a man carrying a bomb about to go

off. Oliver’s good mood evaporated.

“The disco ball?” Ewan and Oliver asked simultaneously.

“Oh, the
Baahl
is a
ball
,” Oliver said as it hit him. He shook his head. “Of course.”

“You didn’t sell it,” Archie said, sounding relieved.

“Surprisingly, no one wanted to buy a white gold disco ball,” said Ewan. “Can’t imagine why not.”

Oliver stretched his hand toward it, and, suddenly, he felt it: it was as if the inside of the ball were filling with fire. It glittered prettily on the outside, but inside there was something dark and powerful growing; he could almost feel the force spreading along the inside of the sphere, pressing itself from glittering wall to glittering wall. Every hair on his body stood on end.

He yanked his hand back.

Suddenly, Archie flinched, nearly dropping the Baahl. “I think the gears inside are moving.”

“Ewan, you stole an evil disco ball,” Oliver accused.

“I didn’t mean to,” protested Ewan.

“You didn’t realize it was glowing?”

Ewan glowered. “Do I look like someone born in the seventies? I thought all disco balls glowed. They do in the films.”