Desolation (29 page)

“We start by having a backup plan,” said Bill. “You’re absolutely right, the both of you. We need to protect ourselves. Astaroth wants us to bring him either Amber or Jesper. We don’t know where Amber is, but everyone knows where the mayor resides.”

“He’ll have guards,” said Kirsty. “Maybe even more of those cops.”

“We can handle it,” Bill said. “We can handle anything. After you, ladies.”

Betty walked out first. Kirsty followed, with Grant trailing after her. Bill took a look around and Amber ducked back.

When she looked again, he was gone.

S
HE CALLED
M
ILO
, and Virgil came out to pick her up. Amber didn’t say much on the ride back, just sat and bled all over his seat. Virgil assured her he didn’t mind.

When she got back to the house, Linda did her best to patch her up. Amber took a few painkillers. She was crashing hard after all that adrenaline, so she went to lie down and feel sorry for herself while Milo headed back out with Virgil to visit the town’s nuclear bunker. Two came with her, and she snuggled him and fell asleep, shivering despite the heavy blankets.

When she woke, the shivers had stopped and the painkillers had worn off and Two was kicking out in his sleep. Groaning, and moving slowly, she tipped herself out of bed and shuffled from the room. She smelled food. Javier was cooking for the house, and there was a plate set aside for her. Ronnie and the others had been over the morning’s events again and again, she could see it in their faces – the triumph after finding Austin, and the wariness after their encounter with the Narrow Man. By the time she sat beside Warrick and involved herself in the conversation, they’d moved on to cheerier fare. They told her and Austin stories about their previous last-minute escapes. The way they told it, it was all chases and scares and running down mineshafts and through old hotels. They left out the murder and horror and death. Amber appreciated that. It was nice, this, being part of a group. She’d never experienced it before. It was comforting.

Milo and Virgil got back a little before four.

“The bunker will do us just fine,” Milo said once they were all gathered in the living room. “It’s basically a fallout shelter left over from the sixties, obviously never used. It’s safe, secure, and far enough out of the way that no one will stumble across it. It’s opened by a keypad, though, so we’ll need the code.”

“And where do we find that?” Ronnie asked.

“About five or six years ago there was this town-wide scandal,” said Virgil. “Couple of high-school kids were using the bunker to party and drink and do whatever it is young people do nowadays. They were found out, grounded, and the mayor said the code would be changed – but I don’t think he ever got around to it. You just have to find one of those kids, get them to tell you the code they used.”

“Any idea who they were?” Linda asked.

“Don’t remember their actual names,” Virgil said, “but I remember a nickname. Ridiculous thing, it was.”

“The Party-Monster?” Kelly guessed.

Virgil looked surprised. “You know him?”

“We’ve met.”

“I know him,” said Austin. “Well, not know him, but I know where he lives. I can show you if you want. There’s a house at the end of Barn Owl Road with a purple truck in the drive. It belongs to his dad.”

“So that’s your job,” Milo said to Ronnie. “Talk to this Party-Monster individual. We’re going to need the bunker tonight.”

“Still going ahead with your plan, are we?” Javier asked.

Milo looked at him. “You sound like you don’t approve.”

“Just playing Devil’s advocate,” Javier said. “You’ve gone to all this trouble to get Austin here back safely and stop the sacrifice … and now you want to sacrifice someone, anyway?”

“We want to sacrifice
Jesper
,” said Amber, a little irritably. She immediately felt bad, but the pain from her shoulder was sending spikes into her mind. “He started all this. He’s responsible for all the evil done in this town.”

“I’m not saying he doesn’t deserve it,” said Javier, “I’m just questioning the wisdom. You’ve managed to get a check in the win column – shouldn’t you just count your blessings and hightail it while you can?”

“Finding Austin does nothing to save Amber from the Hounds,” said Kelly. “She helped us, now we’re helping her.”

“By turning this town evil,” said Javier. “That’s what’ll happen, yes? When you do sacrifice Mayor Jesper, all that craziness you said will happen will actually happen, right?”

Amber looked away. “Right.”

“And, while the town goes crazy, we’re all sitting in the bunker? That doesn’t sound very heroic.”

“Then it’s a good thing we’re not heroes,” said Milo. “The curfew’s at eight, that’s when all the kids have to get off the streets, and sunset tonight is, what, ten-thirty? Then it’s an hour’s wait until it’s actually dark. So ten o’clock is when we meet at the bunker. It’s tight, but I think we can do it. By then, Amber and I will have Jesper in tow and hopefully you guys will have the code to let us all in.”

“You need any help?” Kelly asked.

“We’ll be okay on our own,” said Milo.

Kelly frowned. “Is it because I haven’t showered today? Warrick takes forever in there.”

“I really do,” said Warrick.

“I’m gonna shower the moment we finish talking.”

“It’s not your hygiene,” said Milo. “Amber and I, using Shanks’s key, should be more than enough to snatch Jesper. The fewer the better. We bring him to the bunker, which you will have opened, we wait for the barrier to drop, and, when it does, we take Jesper to Naberius.”

“Where you’ll kill him,” said Javier.

“Where we’ll do whatever we have to do,” said Milo. “Then we’ll rejoin the rest of you while the town takes care of the Hounds, and wait till morning. Anyone have any questions?”

“Just ethical ones,” Javier said. “But I don’t suppose anyone’s interested in those.”

“What about the Narrow Man?” asked Linda. “We’ve taken his sacrifice away. We had hoped he wouldn’t notice until it was too late, but obviously that chance has passed.”

“Hey, yeah,” Warrick said. “What’s to stop him from just snatching some other kid?”

“We’ll need to keep an eye on him,” Ronnie said. “On Oscar Moreno, rather. I’ll do it. The rest of you get the code and I’ll tail Moreno, if I can find him.”

“He knows your face,” said Amber. “He knows all our faces.”

“Oh, for God’s sake,” said Virgil, “
we’ll
follow Moreno, all right? We’re not completely goddamn useless, and he hasn’t seen
our
faces.”

“Uh, he’s
wearing
Javier’s, though,” said Warrick.

“I’m an old man,” said Javier. “He’s not going to recognise me.”

There were some uneasy glances passed around.

“We’re not imbeciles!” Javier snapped. “We can find someone and follow him and make sure he’s not off kidnapping any more children. It’s not rocket science.”

“But it might be dangerous,” Ronnie said.

“Son, at our age going to sleep is dangerous,” Virgil told him. “This is nothing.”

“Well, okay,” Linda said. “That sounds like a … like a good idea? Maybe? I think it does. We’ll take Austin with us, then. Cool.”

Virgil nodded. “That’s settled.”

“Amber’s parents,” Kelly asked. “Are they likely to cause us trouble?”

“If this were a complicated plan, maybe,” Amber said. “But it’s pretty simple. Simple plans have fewer things to go wrong.”

“You hope.”

Amber shrugged, the movement sending fresh waves of pain coursing through her. She clenched her teeth to stop from crying out.

“I got one more question,” said Virgil, not noticing her discomfort, “just because nobody else seems to be asking it. What then?”

Milo glanced at Amber, then looked back at Virgil. “What do you mean?”

“I mean, what then? Supposing all this works out. The Narrow Man doesn’t snatch another kid, you get the code for the bunker, you grab Jesper, the Hounds come in, you kill Jesper, the town tears the Hounds apart … then what? You’re all going to ride off into the sunset? What’s going to happen to Desolation Hill? What’s going to happen to the people? Is the Narrow Man going to keep bringing those kids to that Demon they’ve got locked away?”

“We’ll deal with the Narrow Man,” said Ronnie.

“How?” Virgil asked. “I just got treated to a fifteen-minute, blow-by-blow account of how disastrously that went for you all this morning.”

“He wobbled, though,” Amber said tightly. “As the Narrow Man, yes, I don’t think we hurt him one little bit. But, when he changed back to plain old Oscar Moreno, he limped. And he bled. I think when he’s disguising himself as, well, as
you
, Javier, he can be hurt. Maybe even killed.”

“So then we go after him when he’s Moreno,” said Virgil.

“I’m afraid it’s not as simple as that,” Milo said. “He changes form in a matter of seconds. We’d have to take him by complete surprise and I don’t see that happening.”

“Well, take me along with you,” said Virgil. “I’ll distract him, you hit him from behind. Whatever he is, he’s a kid-killer, and kid-killers need to be got rid of.”

“I’d agree with you there, sir, but things are moving pretty fast right now.”

Virgil scowled. “I can still hustle when I need to.”

“We’re not hustling, sir, we’re sprinting. I’m sorry, it’s just too dangerous.”

“Don’t treat me like a goddamn child.”

“I wouldn’t dare, Mr Abernathy, but the reality of the situation is that you are old, and going after the Narrow Man is no job for you.”

“You need me,” Virgil said angrily. “If it wasn’t for me, you’d have no idea who this Narrow Man was. I figured it out. This started with me.”

“And it’ll end with us,” Milo said. “I mean no disrespect, but you’ll have to view this from the sidelines. You can keep an eye on Moreno because you’ll be out of harm’s way, but that’s as close to the action as you’re going to get.”

“Goddamn you, boy.”

“Yes, sir.”

“I don’t mind staying away from the action,” said Javier. “I was never much one for swinging punches, anyway. Used to get the stuntman to do all my fight scenes. Fat slob he was, a full head taller than me, but I’d still be able to sell it in the close-ups. I don’t think anyone noticed.”

“Everyone noticed,” said Virgil.

“I noticed,” said Warrick.

“Me, too,” said Milo.

“Yep,” said Javier, “nobody noticed.”

A
MBER SAT ON THE BED
in the spare room, ignoring the pain in her shoulder and tracing her fingers over the contours of the brass key. Her eyes were closed and her mind was filled with a single image – the doors they’d passed through when they’d been taken to see Jesper. At first, she’d tried to picture the ornately carved entryway into the mayor’s mansion, but the carvings were too intricate for her memory, and she felt that anything less than absolute certainty would bring her back to Naberius’s cell underground. She didn’t want to go back there again.

So she focused on the double doors leading into the drawing room. She could see these much more clearly, could still see Jesper’s butler, whatever his name was, the guy with the burn mask, reaching for the handles, opening them. She felt confident that the picture was clear enough in her head. Fairly confident, at least.

Mildly confident, then.

The door to the spare room opened and Kelly came in, her hair still wet from the shower. “All set?” she asked.

Amber nodded, and stood. “I’m ready.”

“Milo says you’re leaving in five. We’ll be going shortly after. I swear, this is military precision compared to our usual way of working.”

“More casual, is it?”

“We have a Warrick and a dog. It pretty much has to be. How’s your shoulder?”

Amber gave a big smile. “Really, really painful, thanks.”

“I bet,” Kelly responded. “Take your shirt off.”

Amber blinked. “Uh … Sorry?”

“Your shoulder,” Kelly said, opening the medical bag on the side table. “I have to change the dressing.”

“Oh right. Yeah.”

Kelly stood there, waiting, while Amber stood there, not moving. “So you gonna take it off, or are you waiting for me to take mine off first?”