Erebos (45 page)

They sat for a time without speaking. Victor was agitated, and Nick would have liked to reassure him. It's okay, nothing's going to happen to me. But could he make that statement with confidence?

To take everyone's minds off him, he asked after the absent Speedy.

‘He's fine, he's waiting for Kate to need a novice, and then he'll be in again. With a false name, of course.' Victor pointed towards the computer room with a beringed index finger. ‘I've got six false internet identities; Speedy can have one of them. That should work; my virtual selves even have official addresses.' He raised his eyebrows. ‘And by the way, Nick, you can have one too if you want to. You could play again; you just need to wait until Speedy II is ready to sign someone up . . .'

Did he want to play again? Nick asked his inner voice. The answer was a clear no. It didn't appeal to him any more. The opposite, in fact. He was glad that he was only an outside observer now. ‘It's okay, thanks Victor. Maybe not. But I would like to know whether there's any news and how the game's going at the moment.' ‘Hectic. I've got the feeling that things are coming to a head. Last night there was a battle against earth monsters that were shooting heads out of cannons; loads of people came off badly. That always means heaps of new orders.'

‘Like mine,' Emily added. ‘But I wasn't there for the cannon business; I was defending an embankment against river spirits.'

Earth monsters, river spirits. Heads being shot out of cannons. Cannons. Nick felt pressure in his temples, a tickle in his mind. There was something, some niggling thing that he kept overlooking. He'd been so close to getting it, he was sure, and today as well somehow, in a different way.

‘Could you keep playing for a little while?' he asked Victor. ‘I'd like to watch.'

‘There's no such thing as a little while with Erebos,' Victor snorted. ‘If I get started, I'll be stuck for a couple of hours, you know that. And it'll be goodbye cosy chat with tea and biscuits.' Then he beamed. ‘Of course you could always feed me! That would be heaven on earth: playing and being fed at the same time!'

They decided to give Victor a taste of heaven, and laid on peanuts, biscuits, jelly babies and the big teapot, while Victor ‘woke' Squamato, as he put it.

The lizard man was alone, standing in the middle of a flat meadow where the grass was withered. There wasn't another fighter to be seen.

Quiet music was spilling out of Victor's headphones. Nick listened intently; the melody was not the one he knew from his games as Sarius. Odd.

Squamato headed towards a hedge; that was definitely a good idea. If you found a hedge and followed it, it usually led into interesting territory – a similar thing happened with rivers. This hedge seemed familiar to Nick – Sarius had walked alongside it too, not all that long ago. At night. The funnel-shaped yellow flowers had glowed, and they'd only grown on one side of the hedge. Just like here. Nick frowned.

‘Jelly babies please!' Victor interrupted his thoughts, opening his mouth wide so Emily could stuff a bunch of them in.

Squamato continued on. Up ahead something big and white was moving, writhing . . .

‘I've been here,' Nick cried out. ‘It's a statue – three men being strangled by snakes. Famous, I think.'

That earned him a narrow-eyed glance from Victor. ‘The Laocoön group, my friend. Also from ancient Greece. Very apt, by the way.'

There were warriors standing all round the statue this time too. Nick recognised BloodWork with his glowing red circle around his neck, and Nurax was nearby.

‘I suspect it's a warning,' Victor said. ‘Laocoön was the one who didn't want to let the wooden horse into Troy. You do know the story, I hope,' he added, giving Nick a sideways glance. ‘Poseidon subsequently sent sea snakes, which not only finished off Laocoön, but his sons as well. The game has much in common with a Trojan horse, I feel.'

Nick pulled a face, and Emily passed Victor a handful of nuts to interrupt his flow of words.

There had been something the messenger had said before he sent Nick to this location. He'd been amused; his yellow eyes had glowed more brightly than usual – was it the allusion to Troy that he had found so entertaining?

Nick scrutinised the Laocoön group once more. The men's contorted faces, their desperate attempts to shake off the snakes . . . the hedge, green and yellow, the flowers planted straighter than any real gardener could ever manage. Nick pictured the chuckling messenger again.

‘If you follow the hedge westwards, you will come upon a statue, a monument.'

For a moment everything went black before Nick's eyes. Was it . . . was it possible . . . Monument . . .

‘I've got it!' Nick shouted. His voice wobbled, and, as he leapt up, so did his chair. ‘I've got it now. I've got it.'

Victor looked at him wide-eyed and removed his headset. ‘What? What do you know?'

‘The code! I know where we are! It's . . . look . . . yellow and green and the monument!'

Emily and Victor exchanged looks of incomprehension. ‘What do you mean, exactly?' Emily asked gently.

‘I know where we are. I've figured out the code. Green and yellow and red and blue.'

They still didn't get it.

‘The colours represent the lines on the London Underground. This is Monument station here, where the Circle and District Line trains run. Yellow and green. Like the hedge. Got it?'

Victor's stunned gaze swung back and forth between the screen and Nick's face. ‘Yes indeed,' he whispered. ‘Of course. Damn it.' He reached his hand out to Nick in a solemn gesture. ‘I take back all those things I said about your intellectual capacity. You're a true genius!' Victor suffered like a dog in the minutes that followed, because while Emily and Nick were searching every drawer for a map of the Underground, he still had to take care of Squamato.

‘Ooh, not a battle now, please! Do you think I could just get out quickly? Nothing's going on at the moment, absolutely nothing. But if a gnome sends me into the next battle, I'll be caught for two hours. Oh, what the heck. The messenger can go jump.' He clicked a couple of times and leapt up.

Emily had struck gold in the meantime. She spread the map out on one of the little tables in the sofa room. ‘You're right,' she said breathlessly and reached for Nick's hand. ‘The first battle I ever had was on a red river with ruined windmills around it. At first I thought of Don Quixote. But that was nonsense. It's Holland Park, on the Central Line.' She placed her finger on the corresponding spot on the map and kept searching.

The red river. Nick recalled his underground odyssey, and the fact that the river had finally led him to the White City.

‘White City,' he said. ‘After that I followed the pink hedge, in other words the Hammersmith & City Line. There, the first station after Wood Lane: Shepherd's Bush Market.' He looked up. ‘You've never seen such revolting-looking sheep. There wasn't much left of the shepherds.' He traced further with his finger. ‘Goldhawk Road. The golden hawk nearly did for me.'

‘The pink hedge,' Emily yelled. ‘I was there too! That's where there was the giant tree with the crown in it.' She tapped the map. ‘Royal Oak. This is crazy.'

Victor hadn't said anything, but he was literally vibrating with nervous tension. ‘Yesterday,' he began, ‘and the previous days as well, they kept announcing to us that we were near Ortolan's fortress – the place where the deciding battle is going to take place.' His index finger circled the Circle and District Line. ‘Temple,' he said. ‘The gnome was most agitated near the temple. Today we started at Monument – ah yes, look at that. Cannon Street is right next to it. But why on earth they shot heads out of the cannons I don't understand.'

The three of them studied the multi-coloured Tube map.

Knightsbridge, Nick thought. It was my downfall, literally. Giant knights who push you off the bridge – why didn't that occur to me?

‘So Ortolan's fortress is located somewhere near Temple,' he said, thinking out loud. ‘In the middle of the City of London.'

‘It's obviously not a fortress in the usual sense,' Emily said. ‘Anybody got an idea how we're supposed to find it?'

The problem occupied Nick throughout the following night. There were three of them – how were they supposed to check the catchment areas of four or five Tube stations? What were they even supposed to look for? And if Victor was right, they were nearly out of time.

CHAPTER 30

Early next morning a helpful text arrived from Victor.

The gnomes r babbling about Ortolan & his dark brothers. Maybe we should keep an eye on Blackfriars station as well as Temple.

He'd also informed Emily. ‘What is there in Blackfriars that's so special?' she wrote to Nick.

But there wasn't anything, well, except the Blackfriars Bridge, the theatre and the big station – would that pass for a fortress? Apart from that – office buildings, restaurants and . . . that car park where Nick had taken photos! That had been near Blackfriars station. Maybe it was a coincidence – but maybe not.

Nick quickly ran through the available options in his head. The car park and the Jaguar were his only clues. It was only seven-thirty. If he kept watch in front of the car park for the whole day . . .

You're out of your mind.

The stupid thing was that he couldn't think of anything better. He sent Emily a text saying he wasn't going to school, and packed his bag.

When he arrived at the car park it was eight-fifteen. The place was totally unsuited to surveillance. Not a corner or a recess in sight where Nick could hide. So he walked up and down, trying to look as inconspicuous as possible while keeping an eye on the cars. The car park was clearly popular with the office workers nearby.

Car after car passed through the yellow-and-black striped barrier. But there was no Jaguar among them.

It's no wonder, Dunmore, Nick berated himself. It was a dumb idea. Just because the man parked here once doesn't mean he's going to do it again.

And yet, at the time, the messenger had said that Nick was to come here as often as necessary until he had the photos – and the messenger knew what he was talking about.

Back to walking up and down the street. A Ford, a Toyota, a Suzuki, another Toyota. A VW Golf. Nick noticed that his attention was drifting. He pulled himself together. Mustn't let his thoughts wander. A Mercedes. A Honda, another Honda.

Half an hour later, Nick's spirits were flagging. His intention of sticking it out for the whole day no longer seemed achievable. Besides, he was cold; he cursed himself for not taking a thicker jacket. He'd stick it out for an hour longer, he owed the others that much . . .

A silver-grey Jaguar stopped at the barrier. Was it the right one? Nick squinted. LP60 HNR. That was the number. The barrier opened, and the Jaguar swept forwards.

Victor is right – I'm a genius, a genius!

He had to be careful not to miss the Jaguar's owner when he came out of the car park. Where was the pedestrian exit? He could find the car exit, but . . .

Nick broke into a run. People were coming out over there, was that the right spot? Was there more than one exit?

He stopped, turned and then saw him. It was undoubtedly the man he'd photographed, and he was walking in the direction of New Bridge Street. Good. Nick simply had to make sure he didn't lose him. He followed at a distance, hardly daring to blink for fear of losing sight of him.

They walked down New Bridge Street. Had the man noticed that he was being followed? He appeared to be nervous; every few steps he looked back over his shoulder or hurriedly to the side. Like someone who was afraid. Nick increased the distance between them although it made his gut hurt. He couldn't allow anything to hold him up, not even the Japanese tourist couple who smilingly asked him the way to St Paul's Cathedral. Nick pointed wordlessly in the direction he thought was right, and kept walking.

They reached Bridewell Place, where the man entered an office building that was being renovated. Scaffolding covered most of the front windows and the white facade. Nick stopped, undecided. His first instinct was to go in as well, but he didn't want to attract attention, not for anything, so he watched his target greet the doorman and walk over to one of the gleaming brass lifts.

That meant his office must be in one of the upper floors. Of course – expensive car, expensive suit, expensive office. Nick immediately rejected the idea of questioning the doorman. But there were company nameplates mounted in front of the entrance; perhaps they'd be helpful.

Management consultants, an estate agency. Judging by the man's appearance, either was possible. A pharmaceutical company, and also a . . . Nick caught his breath. He'd hit the jackpot with the fourth company:

Soft Suspense

Games for PCs, phones and consoles.

Never outdone on the fun.

Just to be sure Nick took a picture of the nameplate with his phone. Should he let Emily know? No, she was still in school. Victor! He would tell Victor. But Victor wasn't answering. Damn. Well, then Nick would just go over there.

He set off for the Tube station, and it was probably only because his senses had been sharpened by the preceding chase that he immediately noticed Rashid on the other side of the street.

Had he noticed Nick too? Didn't look like it; Rashid was shuffling along the street with his head down as always, looking neither right nor left. He was carrying some sort of grey-green pouch close to his chest; Nick was dying to know what it contained.

Naturally Rashid was heading for the office building. Nick ducked into the shadow of an entrance. Rashid stopped, looked up at the facade and got a camera out of his trouser pocket. He was taking photos of the building – from close up, from further way, from different angles.