A Hero at the End of the World (30 page)

“We’ve been to five universes now, not including our own,” Ewan answered.

If it was Oliver’s energy that the mechanism was feeding off of each time they shifted to another dimension, it was no wonder that he was feeling poorly. It struck Ewan that he might run out of magic before they could make it home. Already, nearly all of its squares were covered in thin cracks.

At that thought, he unsteadily climbed to his feet. The mostly-plastic interior of the café reminded him of every other bland sandwich bar that littered the city. The only hint of character was a childish painting of a bird on the wall—Sara’s, no doubt. The special of the day was tuna and jacket potato.

“Where are we this time?” he asked.

Oliver picked a paper takeaway cup off the bar and tossed it to him. “Here.”

“
Egy Kavé
,” Ewan read off the label. He frowned. “I don’t even know what language this is.”

“By the way, don’t look outside,” Oliver warned, nodding at the storefront window over Ewan’s shoulder.

Ewan froze. “Why not?”

“Because the last I looked, it was raining fire.”

“You couldn’t have mentioned that sooner?” Ewan demanded.

Outside the window, London was burning. What he had thought was ringing in his ears were, in fact, fireballs streaking through the sky. This universe was more intact than the last one—they still had a roof over their heads, for one thing—but the shops across the road had been broken into, their front windows smashed, and the doors of many of them were hanging off their hinges. Everything around them was smoldering; the air was thick with smoke.

Ewan wondered where Archie and Sophie were—and, he couldn’t help thinking in spite of himself, Louise.

Oliver smiled wryly, turning the Baahl over in his hands. “We should probably go before the fire hits us. What sort of horrors do you think the next universe will bring?”

Swallowing, Ewan said, “Oliver, we need to come up with a plan. We can’t just keep going from universe to universe, can we? There could be millions of them.”

“I’ll think of something,” Oliver swore, holding up the Baahl. The muscles in his hands tensed as he squeezed it.

The world shifted again. The cold, white interior of the café disappeared, and in its place was darkness. Instantly, Ewan panicked, thinking he had lost his sight—but then dim lights flickered to life overhead, emitting a faint buzzing sound that Ewan had always associated with hospitals and council offices.

Ewan was in a place unlike any he had been before. It was a long, dark corridor with black, rippled walls, as though it had been constructed out of metal tubing. Either end of the hallway disappeared into the darkness. Gooseflesh ran up and down his arms as he noticed that the temperature had dropped; he felt cold air through the torn knees of his jeans and the small holes in his hoodie. He had fallen, he remembered suddenly. Louise the dragon had been chasing him.

“Ewan,” Archie called, startling him.

Sophie and Archie were standing there behind him, looking disheveled. Ewan was strikingly, almost painfully, happy to see them.

“I saw Oliver in the last universe,” he told them excitedly. “He’s fine. Well, physically, at any rate.”

Sophie deflated as if a great weight had been lifted off her shoulders. “Thank the realms,” she rasped, burying her face in her hands.

Her shoulders shook, but when she looked up again, her eyes were dry. A spark had returned to her hazel eyes that Ewan hadn’t realized was missing. He felt a stab of shame at the thought that maybe he had been so wrapped up in his own feelings that he hadn’t noticed that Sophie might have had more of a reason than he did to be upset about Oliver’s death.

Abruptly, the lights flickered, humming loudly before throwing the corridor into darkness. When they came back on seconds later, it was just in time for two tall men to silently step out of the shadows, the both of them dressed in identical gray suits. The harshness of the overhead lights carved deep shadows into their cheekbones and under their eyes.

Ewan yelped and stepped back. “Monsters!”

“Sir?” one asked.

They moved forward in sync, more into the light, and a flash of plastic caught Ewan’s eye. Pinned to both of their lapels were ID cards proclaiming them to be agents of the Serious Magical Crimes Agency. Underneath their photos, the cards said their names were Kaur and Yates, respectively.

This was the SMCA, Oliver’s office. Ewan froze, unsure of what to do.

“We’ve been looking everywhere for you,” one of the agents said to him. “It’s time.”

“Y-you’ve been looking for me?” Ewan stuttered. Suddenly, the realization of what he was doing there hit him. He groaned. “All right, your coffee’s coming. Give it a mo.”

They exchanged confused glances. “Coffee?” the white one asked.

Sophie spun on her heel, an odd expression crossing her face. “I don’t think you’re a barista in this universe,” she whispered, pointing at Ewan’s chest.

Ewan glanced down at himself. He hadn’t noticed it before, but he had his own card clipped haphazardly the fabric of his hoodie. “
Ewan Mao
,” he read upside-down, “
Special Agent, Fourth Class
.”

His heart skipped a beat. As a child, all he had wanted to do was become an SMCA agent, defeating evil on a daily basis. If he was one in this universe, did that mean—? Was he—?

“You’re not dressed appropriately for the raid, sir,” Yates said, gesturing toward Ewan’s hoodie and jeans. “There’s no time now for you to get kitted out before we leave.”

“Raid?” Ewan repeated.

The agents exchanged glances again. Ewan’s stomach twisted.

“We’ve found him,” Kaur said proudly.

“Who?” Sophie asked.

“Oliver Abrams. He’s been hiding in the Clock Tower.”

It took Ewan too long to recognize the name; it had been called Duff’s Tower for so long back in his reality. “Big Ben?” he asked, feeling utterly lost. What was the Ewan in this universe doing? “Oliver’s in Big Ben? And we’re going to raid it?”

“Well, not in the bell itself,” said Kaur, like Ewan was a knob. “Just the tower.”

“Right by the Home Office,” Yates muttered, cracking his knuckles. He seemed livid. “That nefarious bastard.”

“I’m sorry, what’s going on?” Archie broke in. “Why is Abrams in hiding?”

The agents turned on him with matching menacing expressions. Archie took a step back behind Sophie.

“And who might we be?” Kaur asked.

Terror stirred in Ewan, his mind going blank, but Sophie snapped to attention. “Don’t you recognize an MI-6 agent when you see one?” she asked coldly. “This is Agent Shufflebottom. He’s been assigned by the Crown to assist Agent Mao.”

“Of course,” Kaur said in a rush. He looked embarrassed at the mistake. “Apologies, guv.”

“Don’t think anything of it,” said Archie, getting with the program. “I didn’t have time to change before the order came in.”

“Abrams has threatened to carry out his final plan against the slayer”—Yates gestured to Ewan—“within the next few days. He’s promised that it will finally end the conflict between the two of them, and that all of London will suffer. Every bit of the SMCA’s resources have been put toward the effort of locating him before he can go through with it. Can’t have our slayer dying, now can we.”

The slayer. Ewan felt dizzy.

An indecipherable look crossed Sophie’s face. “And now that you’ve found him, you want to...?”

“Kill him, hopefully,” said Yates.

Kaur eyed him. “He means arrest him.”

“Or that,” Yates said with a shrug. “I’m not bothered either way.”

“Agent Shufflebottom?” Archie hissed as they followed Kaur and Yates down the street. Ewan only vaguely registered that they were moving from one side of the bank to the other, from the black palace of the Home Office to the gothic houses of Parliament.

“It was the first thing that popped into my head,” Sophie retorted. “What would you have said?”

The refrain of
slayer, I’m the slayer
whirling through Ewan’s head finally fell silent as the spires of Westminster Palace came into view. As they jogged past Victoria Tower Gardens, its spires peeked over the trees and smaller buildings.

Neither of the SMCA agents ahead of them seemed bothered by the chilly evening, and they weren’t particularly concerned that the three of them were still wearing the beat-up clothing that had arrived in. Ewan couldn’t help but wonder if this meant they were so desperate to stop Oliver that it didn’t matter whether or not their team was following procedure—so long as Ewan Mao, their slayer of Duff Slan, the one who had saved their Britain five years ago, saved London once again.

What had happened to the Oliver in this universe?

Sophie suddenly fell silent, her eyes going wide. Ewan followed her line of sight to the police blockade on the outside of the iron gate that kept the tourists at bay, many of whom were snapping pictures and trying to figure out what was happening. Armored lorries were parked inside the car park. Behind them, the Clock Tower loomed over the palace, taller than the rest of the decorative spires and turrets.

But, as they were led inside the gates, flanked on either side by police, Ewan knew what it was that had really grabbed her attention: the two dozen armed agents dressed head to toe in black body armor. Runes painted in an even inkier black shone on their arms, chest, and legs, and a long spell was written out across the seam of the featureless helmets that hid their faces. Each one was holding what could only be described as an assault rifle.

Ewan exchanged an uneasy glance with Archie.

“Let us go in first,” Ewan said. He tried to make it sound like an order, but his voice wavered. “Maybe I can reason with him.”

“You want to
reason
with him?” Yates asked, stopping dead in his tracks.

Ewan did what he thought Oliver would do in that situation: he glared at him. “I’m the slayer of Duff Slan. He’ll listen to me.”

“Erm, yes, sir,” said Yates, backing away.

Ewan glanced up at the glowing clock face, more than three hundred feet above him. Oliver was up there with no idea of what was about to happen.

Kaur shouted at the other agents to stay back until they received his orders before turning back to Ewan. “We’ll be right behind you,” he promised as the tower doors opened.

¤

Three hundred and thirty-four steps later, they made it to the top. The belfry was much smaller and darker than Ewan had imagined. Narrow, arched windows travelled up the tower walls, but they didn’t let in much light; the small amount of sunlight that trickled in only made the rest of the area seem darker by contrast. Ewan’s eyes were immediately drawn to the center of the belfry, where the bronze bell, Big Ben, hung. Four other, smaller bells were on either side of it, and blankets were thrown over various mounds around the room, covered in much the same way furniture would be when a house was being painted.

Beneath Big Ben, the floor—which Ewan realized was more like a plain, wooden platform—had been cut away.

“Shouldn’t there be a fence or something around the bells so no one falls through?” he asked, voice hushed.

“I’ve been here before,” Sophie said. She took a long look around. “When I was in school, we came all the way down to London for a trip. We had a guided tour of the palace and Big Ben, and it didn’t look quite like this. This doesn’t look like a place to bring visitors.”

Something long and dark passed in front of the windows. Above their heads, the roof groaned.

“What’s that?” Archie whispered.

“The dragon.”

Ewan looked up. Oliver stood on the platform above them, which circled the bells. He had a black mask pulled over his eyes, and while he was still wearing most of the same clothes he had been when their universe had been destroyed, he had somehow found a black trench coat, which he’d put on over his tattered and stained shirt. It was buckled all the way up to this throat. A slight bulge on his chest indicated that he had his totem pouch tucked under it.

Only Oliver, thought Ewan, could look both good and ridiculous all at once.

“I’ve named him Mr. Buttons,” Oliver said as he walked down the steps. “Your SMCA will have a difficult time capturing me with him around.”

Sophie’s head jerked back. “
Your
SMCA?” she repeated, her voice lifting.

“Come on now,” said Ewan a bit desperately. He glanced back over his shoulder, worried that the agents downstairs would get tired of waiting before they could move along to a new universe. “We need to get out of here. There are people with guns outside.”

“We’re nemeses in this world. You’re the slayer of Duff Slan, and I am...” Oliver paused for dramatic effect. “The bird man.”

“You’re the what now?” asked Ewan.

Something out of the corner of his eye rustled in the shadows. He craned his neck to look up and saw that hundreds, perhaps thousands, of black birds were perched on the iron bars above, so many that he had mistaken them for the actual ceiling. They stared down at him with blank, soulless eyes. A sense of unease filled him.

“Are those sentries?” he asked.

“They’re my friends,” Oliver said with a straight face.