Colm & the Lazarus Key (15 page)

He could breathe again. He shrugged Lauryn off. That was better.

‘I warned you,’ he said. He balled his hand up into a fist. He was going to have to teach that child a lesson. No, it didn’t matter now. He could do that in a minute. The creature had the boy. He had to watch this first.

But then the thing that was once Hugh DeLancey-O’Brien released its grip on Colm and turned around. It looked straight into the face of the rat-faced man. The man frowned. A puzzled look on his face.

‘What are you doing? The boy has the Key, not me, you idiot.’

‘No, I don’t,’ Colm whispered.

‘But.’ Slowly it dawned on the man. The stupid child had thrown the Key into his mouth. And he’d swallowed it.

His eyes bulged and the tiniest wisps of smoke escaped from the gaps between his teeth.

‘The only thing that can destroy the Key
…
’ Colm began.

There was no need for him to finish. The man knew what he was talking about. He was smart like that.

Question: What type of acid is the main acid in your stomach?

Dad: Hydrochloric Acid.

The creature reached out for him.

‘Uh-oh,’ said the rat-faced man. He wanted to run, but the Key was drawn to the creature and he couldn’t move. Not a muscle.

Colm and Lauryn shut their eyes as the creature wrapped its wretched frame around the man. It had to have the Key. No matter what.

The rat-faced little man’s screams rang throughout the woods.

‘Don’t look at him,’ Colm called out.

‘Not a chance,’ Lauryn replied.

The screams seemed to last for an eternity, but eventually there was silence and when they finally opened their eyes the creature was gone. The rat-faced man lay on the ground. He looked as if he’d aged forty years in the last minute. He was still breathing, but he didn’t move.

‘Is he
…
’ Lauryn began.

‘No, he’s still alive,’ Colm said.

The first rays of sunlight broke through the trees.

‘We did it
,
’ Lauryn shouted in delight. Then she saw Colm’s face. ‘Didn’t we?’

‘The creature is still out there
.
’

‘But it doesn’t have the Key
.
’

·•·

The creature knew what had happened. It was defeated. But not permanently. The man it had taken wasn’t young and it was only able to get partial replenishment as it could not grasp the Key in its hand, but it had enough power to return to its chamber. There it would lie and wait. The Key it had stolen was gone forever, but there were two more out there somewhere in the world. It was certain of it. And somehow the Key would find its way to its chamber. All the creature had to do was wait.

·•·

Colm tried to get to his feet, but he stumbled and fell back onto the mud. He was too weak. The swing had taken the very last bit of his energy.

‘We have to stop the creature getting back to its … lair
,
’ he said.

‘Where is it?’ Lauryn asked.

‘I don’t know
,
’ he said. ‘He does.’

He pointed towards The Brute.

Lauryn leaned over Colm’s cousin and slapped him on the face. He groaned.

‘Hey, what’s your name. Brute. Wake up. We need your help,’ she said.

‘Whazzat?’

He shook his head groggily.

‘He’s out of it,’ Lauryn said. ‘What are we going to do?’

·•·

The creature was almost back at its chamber. The sun was growing stronger and although the trees offered it some protection it needed to get back underground. It could see the door now. It was close.

Lauryn’s voice echoed through the woods. ‘Is anyone there? Stop the creature. If anyone can hear me – stop it now.’

Foolish child, the creature thought. It couldn’t be stop-ped.

‘Is this a fancy dress party? Because if it isn’t then you’re making a horrible fashion statement,’ Cedric Murphy said, stepping out from behind a tree.

The creature hesitated. Who was this fat thing blocking its path?

Cedric shoved the trapdoor shut with his mud-covered Italian loafer. It closed with a loud bang. The creature glided towards him. It was weak now. The patches of sun were drawing away the strength it had taken from the rat-faced man. It reached out and grasped Cedric by the shoulder.

He felt an icy chill run through him. His lips turned blue and his teeth began to chatter. All the strength in his legs went and he collapsed right on top of the trapdoor as the sun’s rays filtered through the trees and on to his prone body. Even though he was too unconscious to realise it, Cedric had taken away the creature’s last hope of survival. His immense weight was too much for it to move and it could not get back into its chamber.

·•·

The creature screamed in rage. Smoke curled up from its robes. It was dying. All those years underground. All that waiting. It made no difference now. Its time was at an end. And as the sun’s rays pierced its body the creature that was once Hugh DeLancey-O’Brien saw the morning light for the first time in over one hundred and fifty years.

Its dried-up old body began to wither in the light and by the time Cedric Murphy woke up several minutes later there was no trace of it to be found.

·•·

Colm was feeling better. He knew he was on the mend because he was starving. He’d have given anything to have a double cheeseburger, chips and curried beans even though it was only half-past five in the morning.

He felt even better when Lauryn returned with Cedric Murphy. They’d checked the underground chamber and found it was empty. Lauryn had said it was a cold and horrible place and she never wanted to see it again as long as she lived.

Cedric had introduced himself and Kate as Bill and Jill, two tourists who just happened to pass by at the right moment, and having made sure everyone was all right they quickly said their goodbyes. It was only after they left that Colm wondered why they had turned up at the hotel in the middle of the night. Still, that wasn’t something for him to worry about now. He’d been through enough already and his brain hurt. A lot.

There had been an awkward moment while he had waited for Lauryn to return. The Brute, who was more or less back to his old self, had checked that Colm was OK. They’d both stood there, unsure of what to say, even though after all they’d been through in the previous twelve hours Colm thought that it should have been easy for them to talk to each other.

Finally, he’d broken the silence.

‘Thanks for, you know, trying to stop the thing, the, ahm, creature, from attacking me,’ he’d said.

‘No problem
,
’ The Brute had replied. He hadn’t looked at Colm. He must have found his trainers very interesting because he’d kept staring at them.

Silence.

‘That creature. Sort of a mad thing, wasn’t it? Like some-thing from a movie,’ The Brute had said.

‘Yeah. Mad all right.’

‘Yeah.’

They were both glad when Lauryn appeared.

C
olm was both delighted and terrified when his parents were finally released from the cellar. Delighted because they were safe and sound and no matter how much they bugged him – and they bugged him a lot – they were his parents and he loved them. Usually he loved them because, well, he had to, but not now. He was actually pleased to see them.

The terrified part wasn’t going to be any trouble until later on when he’d receive the lecture of all lectures, no doubt to be followed by the punishment of all punishments. At least he wouldn’t have to tell them about the creature. It’d be enough for them to think that some dangerous criminal had been on the loose and that he’d been caught up in the middle of it all, but if he told them about a … he wasn’t sure what to call it … some sort of zombie … well, whatever it was, they’d either punish him more severely for making it up or if they believed the story they’d have to be hospitalised for shock. Either way, it wouldn’t be good.

His mother grabbed him in a bear hug and smothered him with kisses. He could see Lauryn smirking in the corner. But then he looked again. She wasn’t smirking, she was smiling. And to his great delight, The Brute got the same treatment. He didn’t seem to mind too much. He supposed that after all they’d been through a few kisses weren’t going to be that much of an embarrassment.

His father ruffled his hair and gave him a friendly thump on the shoulder. It hurt.

There was lot of talk after that. Too much of it. All he wanted to do was have a nice meal and a long sleep, but there was questions followed by questions and just when he thought they’d run out there were a few more.

His parents took a lot of convincing that Mr Drake wasn’t a kidnapper and that he was only trying to protect them, but once Mrs McMahon was given the all clear by the doctor she managed to persuade them. She wasn’t too happy when his father peppered the conversation with the words ‘sue you for everything you’ve got’, but from the glint in his father’s eye Colm knew he wasn’t serious.

Mr Drake would have to spend the night in hospital, but the doctor said that this was just a precaution and that he expected him to make a full recovery. After that, the paramedics carried the rat-faced man to an ambulance. The driver had asked if anyone knew him. He’d presumed that the man must have been somebody’s grandfather as he looked as if he was over eighty years old. When the Gardaí had turned up Marie told them that the man was on the FBI’s Most Wanted list. They seemed very interested in that, although they were going to have some difficulty in identifying him.

They wanted to take statements from Colm and The Brute, but Mrs McMahon told them that the boys had been locked up in a separate room and hadn’t seen anything. The sergeant seemed suspicious, but since the man they were after was already under arrest, he let it go.

A couple of hours later all the commotion had died down and Mrs McMahon brought them into the restaurant and insisted that they all have a cup of tea and a full Irish breakfast served by Mr Jenkins.

The Brute said he wasn’t hungry, but as soon as he smelled the sausages cooking in the kitchen he realised he was ravenous and he ate everything that was put in front of him. There wasn’t much conversation at the breakfast table. Everyone was too tired and had spent long enough talking already. Colm was glad of the silence.

Eventually they finished up and Mr Jenkins brought their bags to the car.

‘He’d better not be expecting a tip,’ Colm’s father said.

‘Everything’s on the house,’ Mrs McMahon said.

‘I should think so too
,
’ Colm’s mother replied. She didn’t seem quite as taken with the Red House Hotel as she had been on first viewing.

Before they got into the car Lauryn came over to say her goodbyes.

‘Sorry for the mess guys,’ she said.

‘No problem
,
’ said The Brute shyly.

‘Sorry about making you dive at the man like that,’ Colm said.

Lauryn smiled. There were still some traces of dirt on her face from where she’d landed in the mud. ‘That’s cool. You knew he’d get the better of me, didn’t you?’

‘Yeah. Sorry
.
’

‘I’d have done the same in your position.’

‘Is it gone do you think? The Key?’ Colm asked.

‘I talked to Peter, Mr Drake, before the ambulance took him away. He can’t believe that he didn’t realise the acid would destroy it. He said he’d misread the notes. The Key wasn’t a real diamond. It was made out of some special material. The acid would have dissolved it in seconds,’ Lauryn replied. ‘I still can’t believe you thought of it.’

‘Just luck,’ Colm said. ‘What’s going to happen here now?’

‘I guess the hotel’s not going to be re-opening for a while. I don’t think anyone will want to stay here once word gets round about a dangerous gangster turning up in the middle of the night,’ Lauryn said.

‘Would have been better if it was just rats here, not rat-faced men,’ said The Brute.

Lauryn laughed and he turned bright red. ‘Good one. My gran is still in a bit of shock. She knew all the stories about the Key, but she never believed they were real. She does now. Kind of a weird night, huh?’

‘The weirdest,’ Colm said, but right now it didn’t seem strange at all. He knew that was just because of the tiredness. Once he’d had a couple of good night’s sleep he’d probably freak out about it. He smiled to himself.

She shook his hand. ‘Thanks for everything, kid.’

‘Lauryn?’

‘Yeah?’

‘Please don’t call me kid,’ he said.

‘Thanks for everything, Colm
.
’

‘You’re welcome
,
’ he replied.

‘Wow, you sure are polite. Even after all we’ve been through.’

She turned to The Brute. He wouldn’t look her in the eye.

‘See ya, tough guy
,
’ she said.

‘See ya,’ he mumbled.

She winked at Colm then leaned forward and kissed The Brute on the cheek. Instant glow. Two hundred degrees of heat.

‘I-I-I
…
’

‘Bye,’ she said and ran back into the hotel.

‘Well, that was
…
’ Colm began, but The Brute interrupted him.

‘If you make a smart remark I’ll hit you so hard
…
’

‘No. You won’t. You won’t hit me
.
’

The Brute looked at him. There was something different about his cousin. Something he almost … Oh no. He didn’t like him, did he? That’d be awful.

They got into the car and his father drove off at some-where between five and seven miles an hour. Slowly, very, very slowly, the Red House Hotel began to fade into the distance.

‘Now, Michael
,
’ Colm’s mother said.

‘Huh,’ grunted The Brute.

‘What are we going to tell your mother? Because we can’t tell her the truth. She’d have my guts for garters,’ she said.

The Brute pricked up his ears. Here was a chance.

‘I don’t know, Auntie Mary. I’d hate to lie to my mother. Unless we could come to some sort of arrangement of course
.
’

Colm relaxed into the seat and closed his eyes. Yep, in less than an hour The Brute would be out of his life and things would be back to normal. Just him, his mam and his dad again. Within a minute he was snoring and even his cousin didn’t dare wake him up.