Candleman (20 page)

Mr Nicely stepped across to the guard captain. ‘Don’t forget,’ he murmured, ‘there are the bodies to take up.’

They all watched in silence as the dead Foundling was lifted on to a stretcher. The body was so enormous it took the other Foundling and two guards to shift it.

‘We aren’t finished!’ Sam shouted from the open lift cage. He had meant to sound defiant but his voice was cracked and emotional.

‘Oh, yes you are,’ Dr Saint retorted, signalling the guards to bring a second stretcher over. ‘And if you have any ideas of making a last desperate attempt to escape, let me show you what happens to those who defy me. This friend of yours met an unfortunate accident.’

Theo saw a guard pull back a sheet to reveal a dead body. At first he didn’t recognise the pale face, the drawn features. Then suddenly he felt a chill in his soul as he realised it was someone he knew. It was Chloe.

T
heo sat on a crate by the elevator, Mr Nicely standing guard over him, a rifle in his hands. The young captive watched the lift rise away into the clouds, his heart pounding, his eyes misted with tears. Theo felt like his whole world was being spirited away from him, the only people he had ever cared about – dead or alive – all removed at one stroke. Somehow he just couldn’t accept that Chloe was gone.

‘It wasn’t the orders, Theo,’ Mr Nicely said quietly. ‘I’m sorry. She was spotted in the upper levels. The guards shot her by mistake. They’re all amateurs. Haven’t seen proper army service like me,’ he mumbled, and looked away, unable to face Theo. The pretending had gone wrong. In fact, it had gone so far wrong he was now having to use the truth to try and make things better. It didn’t feel right.

Theo didn’t reply. Something about Mr Nicely’s words seemed out of place, but he couldn’t grasp why. Chloe’s death was too big to take in. He knew he couldn’t think about her now.

Your own feelings aren’t important,
Theo thought, remembering his years of indoctrination at Empire Hall.
Remember – you are the least important person in the world.
Right now, that thought kept him going.

Suddenly he heard a deep grinding noise as all around the Well Chamber, circular stone covers rolled away from hidden outlets. Boiling streams surged downwards, hitting the mineral drifts below with a deafening hiss. While Theo had been distracted, Dr Saint had thrown the great lever.

Magnus said this mustn’t happen,
Theo thought. He rose to his feet, but Mr Nicely blocked his way, giving a cursory nod at the rifle. The pain of rising so quickly made Theo almost swoon and he fell to his knees, retching.

‘I told you life in the outside world would over-stimulate you,’ sneered his guardian, glancing over.

Now Theo thought he was hallucinating, as sparks of light appeared before his eyes. He squeezed them shut, shook his head and looked again – but the tiny points of light were still there, filling the whole chamber.

‘Alchemists call this the
golden time
,’ said Dr Saint. ‘It is a brief, magical state in which miracles can happen. Earth, air and water have been conjured to do my bidding. I now need one final ingredient to complete the alchemy!’

Dr Saint was now staring at Theo’s hands. Theo looked down to see a pale green glow dancing about his fingers, becoming brighter as his strength returned.

‘Get away from the controls!’ he cried out, staggering to his feet.

Mr Nicely went to block his way again, then noticed Theo’s glowing hands. The butler jumped back, dropping the rifle in surprise.

Theo lurched forwards. Mr Nicely stared at those dangerous-looking hands. He did not try to pick up the gun.

‘Stop him, Mr Nicely!’ ordered Dr Saint over his shoulder. The crucial time had arrived for his great alchemical work, and he did not want to be torn away from the controls. ‘Do it now!’ he roared. But Mr Nicely stayed where he was. It was probably the first time in his life he had ever disobeyed an order, and he stood there, in his shirtsleeves, like a guilty schoolboy.

‘Err … no, sir,’ came the reply.

‘What did you say, Mr Nicely?’

‘No, sir,’ the butler repeated, refusing to budge. ‘He, err … melts people, sir. Wouldn’t want to risk it.’

Dr Saint stared at Mr Nicely, speechless. Part of his face dripped down on to his tie.

Theo’s spirit rose at this unexpected turn of events.

‘I don’t want to hurt
you
, Mr Nicely,’ Theo said quietly.

Mr Nicely gave a weak smile. He looked tired and confused. ‘I always looked after you,’ Mr Nicely said. ‘You know that, Theo.’ Except the butler could hardly say the word
Theo
– it seemed to choke him.

Theo walked on, straight towards Dr Saint, his bare arms held out before him, his shining fingers twitching as if beyond his control.

‘Stop it!’ Theo cried out. ‘Stop it now!’

Dr Saint turned to face Theo with a cold smile. ‘You’re too late!’ he declared with evident satisfaction. To prove it, he stepped away from the controls. ‘The process is now in motion.’

‘What are you doing?’ Theo demanded. ‘Tell me!’

‘I’m quite happy to tell you what you have failed to prevent,’ his guardian replied smoothly, ‘if you have the good manners to hear me out.’ He gestured grandly all around him. ‘You are in a most sacred place,’ he said. ‘Over a hundred years ago, the original Philanthropist, Erasmus Fontaine, discovered these secret chambers beneath London. He used them for his experiments. He awakened dark things down here, creatures from the earth’s ancient past – the urughoul: warrior garghoul.’

Theo listened, fascinated. After years and years of lies, he sensed he was finally getting to hear the truth. Why? Did Dr Saint believe he could finish him off any time he liked?

‘One by one he called them to life, these mindless creatures of destruction. They welcomed his commands. He used them as secret assassins, destroying all those who opposed him. Only one man stood in his way – Lord Wickland, the original Candle Man.’

As he spoke that name, he looked darkly upon Theo, a look of open loathing such as Theo had never seen before in his life.

‘The war between them was terrible. The police could not control it. They even had to invent lies and legends, like the tales of Jack the Ripper, to account for some of the slaughter on the streets.’

Dr Saint smiled to himself. As he spoke, Theo appeared to be calming down. Perhaps soon he would become less desperate, sink back into being the docile fool he had always been at Empire Hall.

‘Lord Wickland won,’ Dr Saint continued. ‘There were no witnesses to what happened, but a terrible slaughter took place here in the network. Your precious ancestor destroyed them all – the Philanthropist and his army. The lifeless forms of the urughoul were found – by me – at the bottom of this chamber.’

Theo trembled. Dr Saint did not know that Theo had seen the garghoul graveyard – but that proved his guardian was finally speaking the truth. Theo stood there, boldly facing his enemy, like a hero ready for a final confrontation. In fact, he felt ready to drop. Every moment he stood there was torment to his punished body. But at last he was getting answers. He wanted to know all the truth even if it killed him.

‘The network –’ Theo ventured. ‘You’ve turned it into a kind of enormous Mercy Tube. I recognise its … echoes.’

Dr Saint twitched with ill-concealed surprise. Part of his ear began to trickle down his neck.

‘Clever of you to see that,’ he said. ‘But no amount of smart guesswork can help you now.’

Theo had been trying not to think about his personal peril. He glanced around to check that Mr Nicely wasn’t going to change his mind suddenly and jump him. But the butler stood blank-faced nearby, unmoving, like a man in a dream. The tiny stars danced like a golden blizzard all around them.

Dr Saint loomed closer to Theo, a cracked smile of triumph on his face.

‘I will bring the creatures of darkness back! I will free them from their ashy tomb. They will be my personal army. You have not seen a warrior garghoul in action, Theo; their hands can cut a human apart like flint knives.’

There was a chill in Theo’s heart – utter dismay at this final proof of his guardian’s dark, dreadful ambitions.

‘Listen to yourself!’ Theo cried out in misery. ‘Is this your kindness? Your good work?’

Tears were trickling down his face, although he did not remember crying them.

‘You are young, Theo,’ Dr Saint said, now in a soothing manner. ‘You don’t understand the world. One day you will find out that there is no such thing as law and order out there. There is only the rule of whoever has the most power. That is why the world needs Good Works!’

‘It’s not true!’ Theo shouted. ‘If your works are so good, why did you have to lie to me all those years? What are you hiding? Why couldn’t you tell me the truth – about me being the Candle Man?’

‘Tell you the truth?’ scoffed Dr Saint, a cold smile on his blistered lips. ‘About the monster you really are?’

‘The Candle Man was a hero – not a monster!’ Theo cried out. ‘I’ve seen the old newspapers – been into your secret room!’

Dr Saint recoiled at this, truly shocked. His skin rippled like a disturbed pool.

‘A hero?’ Dr Saint echoed, giving himself time to recover his superior air. ‘At first, yes. But he had no control over his power. I gather you have used it already – seen its hideous effects?’ Dr Saint brandished his own hand, the once finely manicured fingers now bubbling and bony.

‘I have.’

‘And in your travels, I expect you have met the Eighty-eight?’

‘I – I’ve been there,’ Theo said.

‘Do you know what they are?’ taunted his guardian.

‘Magnus wouldn’t tell me.’

Dr Saint sighed, shook his head and placed his hands together in his old familiar gesture of prayer.

‘The Candle Man created them!’ said his guardian. ‘They were all victims of Lord Wickland. Anyone and everyone who got in the way of his war with the Philanthropist. They all felt his touch. He wanted to melt them, but he knew little of his power and cared even less. It didn’t always destroy, sometimes it merely
changed.
All those ghouls and ghosts trapped down there are not dead – they are victims of the Candle Man!’

Theo wanted to shout at Dr Saint, tell him this was just another one of his lies. But something held him back – a horrible suspicion that this was the truth, or at least a fragment of the truth. Theo had seen his powers dissolve two men. The bizarre way their bodies had been melted was certainly similar to the hideous transformations he had seen in the gulag. He looked at Dr Saint now, and saw his skin dribbling off his cheekbones as he spoke.

‘Thanks to your noble ancestor,’ Dr Saint crowed, sensing an advantage, ‘those poor souls are trapped between life and death, substance and disintegration.’

‘Like you!’ cried out Theo. ‘If they are the Eighty-eight, then you are number eighty-nine!’

Dr Saint froze. His skin began to peel from his head with the shock of this unpleasant truth.

‘Yes,’ hissed Dr Saint, his face a dripping skull. ‘Like me!’

A loud klaxon sounded from the main panel. The ghastly figure, still immaculately dressed in a dark suit, sprang to the controls and pressed a button. A series of alchemical symbols flashed on the main screen.

‘Final phase,’ Dr Saint said. ‘I’ve kept you talking long enough. Now I’m ready.’

‘Stop!’ Theo cried. ‘Don’t force me to use my power!’ He raised a glowing hand. To his astonishment, his guardian responded with cold, mocking laughter.

‘That is the one thing I
want
you to do!’ Dr Saint said. He gestured at the row of symbols illuminated on the screen behind him. The one in the centre was a queer elemental hieroglyph Theo had never seen before, like a letter ‘t’ with a cross at the top. Dr Saint’s eyes lit up with glee as if he was enjoying a secret joke.

‘Your power,’ said Dr Saint,
‘our
power – the
tripudon
energy – is the final ingredient needed in my calculations. It is the tiny flame that will ignite this whole chamber and fulfil all my plans. Use it, and you will awaken my army!’

Theo wavered. A cold feeling in his guts told him this horrible claim was all too true.
They always know more than we do,
Chloe had said. That was why they had kept him all those years – to use his flame for evil purposes.

He would not let that happen. He would hold on to his cold fury, the way he had held back his hopes and desires every single day at Empire Hall.

‘Then I will not use my power,’ Theo said bitterly. ‘Not even to kill you!’ He stood defiantly before his guardian, his arms folded, hoping he would not pass out at any moment.

‘Your plan has failed!’ Theo said. ‘Your power is just a cheap copy of mine – I can see you falling apart before me!’

Dr Saint admired his own shimmering flesh. It was now flickering with a weak flame.

‘My power will rise,’ he said, ‘when I use it to kill you!’ He leapt on Theo, clutching at his throat with hands of white fire. A blinding aura of green light blazed around the two figures. But Dr Saint’s skeletal fingers could not grip his intended victim. Energy flashed and crackled between them, hardly allowing them to touch.

Theo tore himself free, and fell to the floor, his body glowing, his hair a shock of flame. He felt as if he was burning up; the power was crying out to be used, but he would not be its servant – he would be its master. Grimly, he refused to call upon it.

Dr Saint bore down on him again. ‘I’ll kill you in the end!’ the melting man shrieked, pounding the exhausted boy with desperate fists. But Theo could feel no physical pain now, only the searing energy within him.

‘It’s over!’ Theo cried, breaking away and standing tall with his last strength. ‘You can’t beat me. The power won’t let you!’

‘I feel the flame! I feel the power rising!’ Dr Saint screamed, raising his hands up high.

Suddenly Theo heard running footsteps. He realised he had taken his eyes off Mr Nicely for too long. He tried to turn and defend himself, but – to Theo’s surprise – the butler raced straight past him.