Restoration (21 page)

  "Can you stand?" he asked Penelope.

  "Of course I can!" she snapped, proving as much, though the wound in her ankle made her limp awkwardly.

  "I think we should run," he said holding a hand out to help her but not altogether surprised when she refused to take it.

  They ran, Alan looking over his shoulder to keep an eye on whether the birds were following. The few pigeons left were quick to form a new attack pattern and give pursuit. He glanced down at the racquet, its strings were ruined, it was no more than a wooden hoop and frankly useless as a weapon. He dropped it, and looked around for something to take its place. A glint of silver offered hope from the surface of the bar and he snatched at it. He would have to turn at the last minute, any earlier and the birds would have the chance to change direction. Their formation was narrow, a thin triangle, and he thought he just might pull it off…

  "When I say 'drop'," he told Penelope, "hit the floor and roll to one side." Another few seconds… "Drop!"

  He spun to face the birds, holding the wide, silver drinks tray at arm's length. As the birds hit, he pushed forward, counterbalancing the force of their blow. The first few in the line were dead instantly, necks broken, the next couple tumbled to the floor, disorientated. That left four still in the air and a danger. They veered around the tray and landed on him, beaks hacking away at the lining of his coat. The fabric split, white stuffing spilling out. He beat at himself with the tray, trying to knock them off, but they held on tightly, their talons long and sharp enough to pierce the coat and cut into his skin.

  "Sorry about this," Penelope said, before beating at him with the dropped tennis racquet. She used the rim, not covering a lot of area but packing a punch. Alan grunted as she knocked the birds from him but had the sense to know this beating was in his own best interests. Penelope gritted her teeth as the birds fell, thrashing them away as they tried to turn their attentions on her. One fluttered at her ankles and she stamped on it blindly, trying to ignore the feeling of it crunching beneath her foot. In a few seconds the job was done, the champagne bar a charnel house of birds, some still twitching, most mercifully still. Alan was an absurd figure, great plumes of padding sprouted from all over his borrowed jacket.

  "Thank you," he said, removing the coat gingerly.

  "A pleasure," Penelope replied and couldn't help but laugh. For a moment they both did and Penelope thought they might just have taken their first step towards getting on with one another. Then the air vent gave an almighty clang as something large moved along it and their laughter stopped.

  "I have a feeling the pigeons were just an advance guard," said Alan, backing defensively in front of Penelope.

  She appreciated the gesture but was damned if she was going to allow it, moving slightly in front of him. "Perhaps they were spooked by something moving along behind them?"

  "Perhaps," Alan agreed, "though I can't say I like the idea of meeting something they would be scared of."

  The vent clanked again and both of them could track the movement of something coming along the narrow chute. The metal popped and distorted as the weight of something inside pushed it out of shape. Closer and closer it moved towards the open hatch.

  "Maybe we should drop back," Alan suggested.

  "Before we even know what we're dealing with?" Penelope replied.

  It was too late anyway as, whatever it was, reached the hatch and there was the shadow of movement in the darkness beyond. Suddenly a face appeared.

  "Avast ye!" shouted Ryan, onetime cabin boy of the good ship
Intrepid
. "Alan Ahoy!"

 

 

The crew of what had once been the much-loved
Intrepid
– before it met its end, smashed to splinters on the floor of the House's impossibly sizeable bathroom – had been convinced that their time was up. Their newest members, Alan and Sophie, had been whisked away from them down the gloomy plug hole they had spent a couple of days hiking toward. One of the wraiths – invisible creatures of pure force that patrolled the gaps between one section of the house and another – had set upon them and dragged the man and girl into the darkness against the crew's best efforts. The ship's captain, Hawkins, had been relieved that the wraith hadn't hung around to inflict further damage on his beleaguered crew. That relief was so laden with guilt at Alan and Sophie's likely fate that he pushed the feeling away as soon as he was able.

  Their respite hadn't lasted long. A few minutes after their new friends had vanished, the sky around them had begun to darken, storm clouds appearing and lightning forking the sky. As if that hadn't been frightening enough the whole room had started shaking, tiles falling from the walls and showers of plaster raining down from the ceiling way above them. They weren't to know that this had been nothing but a side-effect of Sophie's communion with the House, a phenomenon felt throughout the building as the young girl altered its structure to accommodate the train station. As far as they were concerned this was nothing less catastrophic than the destruction of the whole building.

  "We're too exposed," Barnabas had shouted, as it began to rain. "We'll be crushed to death for sure!" For once nobody saw fit to argue with him, in this case his famed pessimism was probably on the money.

  "Cover yourselves the best you can!" Maggie cried, hoisting her pack above her mad explosion of hair.

  Hawkins knew that was scant protection should the roof truly cave in. But they had an alternative…

  He dropped to his knees by the plug hole and began fastening a pair of ropes to the bar of the central grating.

  "If you think I'm going in there," Barnabas moaned, "you've another think coming. I prefer my chances out here."

  "In where?" asked Jonah lifting both his eyepatches to reveal the milky, dead eyes beneath.

  Ryan laughed, though none of the others were in the mood for the blind man's humour.

  Maggie went to her husband's aid, taking one of the ropes off him and ensuring the knot was strong. She needn't have tested it, Hawkins had been on the ocean long enough to know how to secure ropes. "Well I'm up for it!" she cried, lowering herself off the side.

  "Wait woman!" Hawkins shouted, fearing for her. She blew him a kiss and bounced her way down the rope. Hawkins shook his head, though he couldn't hide a smile of pride. "Mad bugger will be the death of me one day…"

  Ryan didn't need encouraging, dropping down the rope after her.

  "Get over here!" Hawkins called to Barnabas and Jonah.

  "I'm not going," Barnabas repeated as Hawkins put the rope in Jonah's hands and watched him drop into the hole. A large piece of ceiling broke loose behind them. It drifted down for a few seconds, the wind slowing its descent as it caught the wide surface area. Then it exploded against the tiles of the floor in a shower of plaster fragments. "Oh balls and arseholes," Barnabas moaned, holding his arms over his head to protect it from the debris. "Out of the way then you terrible man." He shuffled past Hawkins, grabbed the rope and began to lower himself down. "I suppose if I fall I might knock that idiot Ryan off on my way, that would be some consolation." He vanished from sight.

  Hawkins spared no time in following, the thunder and lightning building in intensity in the gloom above him. If the House was shaking itself to death he supposed he could live with it. Damn though, if he hadn't been determined to see his crew home safely…

  He lowered himself into the plughole.

 

They weren't altogether protected inside the vast pipe of course, though what debris did fall in their direction was, for the most part, broken into smaller pieces by colliding with the spokes of the covering above.

  "I feel like a spider," Ryan joked, gripping the rope with his legs and waving his arms – though it was far too dark for the others to see him.

  "Stop shaking the damned rope!" Barnabas moaned. "I'm having enough difficulty hanging on without you making it harder."

  On the other rope, Jonah was making swift business of the descent. "I must be reaching the end of the rope soon," he shouted up to Hawkins, "these things don't go on forever."

  "Tell us what you see when you get there," shouted Ryan, much to Jonah's amusement.

  "It's so dark I have no idea how far this drops," said Maggie, not far behind Jonah for all his speed. "We should have brought a lantern."

  "Now she tells me," Hawkins replied, he'd been thinking much the same himself, in fact had been half-tempted to climb back up and grab one. A loud crash of brickwork and tiles from near the opening soon cured him of that idea. They had acted in haste and would pay the price soon enough. He had hoped the shaft wouldn't drop too far, even accounting for its gargantuan size it would surely branch off soon? But then that was assuming that this plumbing bore any relation to the pipework he was familiar with back home, an assumption that this House would no doubt mock him for soon enough. "I have matches in my pocket," he called down. "I could light one and drop it? See how far it falls?" He knew the plan was far from ideal, as much as the pipe offered some protection there was still rain in the air, that – or just the rush of wind as the match fell – was likely to snuff the flame before it told them anything useful.

  Maggie agreed. "It likely won't help," she said, "we need something heavy, listen out for it as it falls."

  "Hang on," Ryan said, the rope shaking as he shifted around above her.

  "What did I tell you about shaking the damned rope?" Barnabas shouted.

  "Drop you in a minute," Ryan muttered, "you're certainly heavy enough… Watch out below!" he dropped something into the darkness, Maggie flinching as she felt it whistle past her. After a few seconds there was a loud clang as whatever Ryan had dropped hit the ground.

  "What was that?" Maggie asked.

  "My belt," Ryan replied, "so be warned my trousers will likely fall on your face in a minute."

  "Charming."

  "It took just over a second after passing me to hit the bottom," shouted Jonah.

  "Not far then!" Ryan replied.

  "Far enough," Hawkins said. "Objects travel at around thirty feet a second so the ground's at least that below you."

  "How does he know that?" Ryan asked, impressed.

  "I'm clever, lad," Hawkins replied. "Consider yourself lucky to know me."

  "Aye aye, Cap'n!" Ryan roared.

  "Don't forget to factor in the time the noise takes to travel back up," suggested Jonah.

  "Over thirty feet?" Hawkins replied. "Neither here nor there… if it shaves off a couple of foot you'll be lucky."

  "Okay!" Ryan shouted. "Enough with the maths or I'll jump off the rope on a point of principle."

  "Two plus two equals four," Barnabas suggested, happy to encourage him.

  "I'm counting off the distance as I climb the last stretch," said Jonah, "though there's not much rope left, I'm swinging too much." After a few seconds… "there… maybe knock off ten or twelve feet."

  "Are you right at the end?" Hawkins asked.

  "My feet are," Jonah replied, "so that's another five foot or so leaving me enough to hold onto, add my height again… I reckon I'll be dropping ten foot or so."

  "That sounds doable," suggested Maggie.

  "If his maths are right," agreed Ryan, "I'd happily do it."

  There was a moment of silence then a small splash followed by a grunt. "More like fifteen feet," came Jonah's voice. "Enough to make your arse sore if you land wrong. I'm speaking from experience you understand."

  Maggie began to lower herself as far down the rope as she could. "I don't suppose we know whether the two ropes were the same length do we?" she asked.

  "They should be," Hawkins replied, though now his wife's safety relied on the fact he was reluctant to risk it. Not that they could hang there forever.

  "Soon find out," she replied, letting go and landing with a whoosh of expelled air.

  "Are you alright?" Hawkins shouted, panicking in the silence that followed.

  "Fine," his wife wheezed after a few seconds, "just winded."

  "Bet one of us will end up with a broken ankle," moaned Barnabas, climbing down. "See it coming a mile off."

  Or a broken neck. Hawkins thought.

  "Geronimo!" called Ryan, letting go of the rope. There was a slight splash. "Piece of cake," he called back up.

  Now there was only Hawkins and Barnabas left. "After you," Hawkins called. "Just move out of the way quick smart if you don't want me jumping on your head."

  "I didn't sign up for this," Barnabas muttered. "Life on the ocean waves, not skulking around water pipes." He let go of the rope, landing with a yell.

  "Are you alright?" Hawkins called. It would be Barnabas that hurt himself wouldn't it… bloody typical.

  "He's fine," Maggie called, "just didn't expect to be."

  "I could have sworn I felt my leg break," Barnabas insisted, "could have sworn it…"

  "Big girl," Ryan chuckled. "Come on Cap'n!"

  Hawkins dropped as low as he could and let go of the rope. He hit the ground a little stiff, his heels skidding in the water and sending him toppling backwards. His hand caught on the side of the pipe and he heard his wrist crack.

  "Damn it!" he growled, the pain surging up his arm.

  "Hawkins?" Maggie called, shuffling forward in the dark.

  "Broke my damned wrist," he moaned, "felt it snap…" he roared with pain as he tested it. "Yep…" he said once he'd caught his breath, "definitely broken."