The Mortal Knife (19 page)

As if reading his mind Spike scowled at the screen. ‘I tried getting more of the CCTV footage, to see if Baseball Cap had ever looked straight into a camera, but he kept his face down most of the time. Trust Dan to only get him from the side. A face on picture would have made it easy. Baseball Cap was really careful. S'pose he would be, if he's a ninja. '

Lucky, not careful
, Adam thought.
And definitely not a ninja.
When he thought of the CCTV cameras he must have walked past that day  …  He could have been caught like a rat – and all because Dan was in the wrong place at the wrong time.

The revision class started. Adam made a valiant attempt to master the basics of valencies even though his thoughts were all over the place. Spike's laptop was super-booted to the
n
th degree but it was whirring and chugging under the strain of his search. It was a constant distraction. Spike didn't even pretend to be listening to what was going on in the class, giving all his attention to the photos flickering across the screen, checking them and the percentage match against the picture of Baseball Cap hovering on the far side of the screen.

Adam couldn't quite shake the feeling that he was looking at a ghost, seeing himself standing there. It made him want to laugh or shriek, knowing that he was sitting right beside the person who was trying to hunt him down. Like something out of a nightmare, he watched the endless parade of images flutter across the laptop screen, freeze for a few seconds, then disappear beneath a new image. Still, as the pictures marched onwards he made a conscious effort to relax. The thing was, every picture was totally different to the last. There were men, women and children of every race and colour in an infinite variety of poses. Some were in corporate headshots; others were brandishing barbecue tongs or grinning over birthday cakes. Some were black and white photos dredged from historical archives, all because one person at the centre of the group had a jawline or a cheekbone reminiscent of his own. He stifled a grin but tried to sound sympathetic. ‘Look, it was always a long shot. Even the police haven't been able to find the guy.'

Spike was squinting at each face in turn, as if he could match them by sheer force of will. Occasionally he pressed pause and scrolled back a few frames, as though he was scared of having missed something. He was muttering under his breath. ‘The parameters are too wide. I need to tighten them up.' Frustrated, he slammed his hand down on the bench, making everyone in the room jump awake.

‘Sebastian! What on earth are you doing?' Their teacher Mrs Suresh was glaring across at them. It took Adam a minute to realise who she was talking to; he couldn't remember the last time his friend had been called anything other than Spike.

It took Spike a minute to realise too, not least because he hated being called Sebastian. Still, after previous encounters, Mrs Suresh was one of the few teachers he was slightly in awe of so he settled for replying, ‘Nothing,' through gritted teeth.

Mrs Suresh wasn't mollified. ‘Since you're obviously not listening to a word I'm saying you can run a message for me. No, leave your computer where it is! Believe me, you'll be back before the end of the session.'

Spike was scowling – but even he wasn't going to risk after-school chemistry every day for the rest of the year. He stomped up to the desk with a pained sigh and took the envelope from the teacher's hand.

Mrs Suresh continued as though nothing had happened and the class slumped back into sleepy incomprehension. Adam's eyes were closing and he forced them open. He watched the screen on Spike's laptop, hoping for some kind of entertainment, but the hypnotic slide of photos only made things worse. His eyelids were drooping and his eyes drifted over the images, one after the other, after the other, after the other until –

Adam jolted upright. He stared stupidly at the screen, unable to believe what he was seeing. The image was already moving on and he panicked. He had to get it back! He lunged for the keyboard, then forced himself to stop. He needed to be careful. If he disrupted the programme Spike would want to know why – and if Adam had seen what he
thought
he'd just seen then Spike needed to never, ever know that photo existed.

Hardly daring to breathe, he hovered over the mouse pad until the programme controls appeared, then pressed pause. A smiling couple grinned out of a wedding photo, champagne glasses raised in a toast. In the time it had taken him to come to his senses the photo had changed several times. He needed to go back. He clicked the arrow key, and the image changed to a smiling Jewish boy at a bar mitzvah. He pressed again, trying to tell himself he'd been dreaming, that it wasn't possible, that no one would be stupid enough to –

And then, as the photo burst back onto the screen, he stopped telling himself anything and simply stared.

Several hours later, Adam was still in shock. He lay on his bed chewing his lip, trying to ignore the sick, churning feeling in his stomach. It wasn't like he was easily freaked out – his life wasn't exactly normal – but it had always made a kind of sense because of who he was. He was a Mortson and the Mortsons were Lumen. He might not like it – but he'd always known who he was because of his family. They had each other, even if they weren't the typical suburban family.

Just recently though he'd been starting to feel like there were more secrets than he'd ever imagined. It was like lots of tiny pieces in a jigsaw were coming together and falling into place – but frustratingly he still couldn't see the whole picture. It had started with Morta's sneers at the Summoning. Then there was Auntie Jo's day of drunken sobbing and then her confession that his parents had been forced to elope, even though Nathanial was a Mortson. And why did the French side of the family largely shun them even now? Family and connections were everything in the Luman world. He had never thought about it before but now it was beginning to hit him: there was something in his family's past that didn't add up – and the photograph provided him with his first solid piece of evidence.

When he first saw the picture appear on Spike's laptop screen Adam had almost thrown up with sheer terror. He couldn't believe what he was seeing. But after the initial shock a kind of survival instinct had kicked in and left him with just one thought: get rid of the photo. Get rid of the evidence – but not without getting a copy himself first.

He had been expecting Spike to walk back in at any second. As he plugged his memory stick into Spike's laptop he could
see
his hands shaking and feel the awful, giddy rush of his heart beating. He dragged the photo onto the memory stick and was just about to delete it when another thought had occurred to him. It was all very well having the photo but where had it
come
from? What was the source? And how had it ended up on the web in the first place?

Fear and his need to know had fought frantically. In the end Adam's curiosity forced him to gamble that he had just a little more time. He clicked on the photo and let it link him to the source page. He had wanted to solve the mystery there and then but there wasn't time. He took a screen shot and dragged it onto the stick, then pulled it out. He was just deleting the picture when the lab door opened and a scowling Spike returned. He presented Mrs Suresh with an envelope and a filthy look – but it didn't stop him noticing that Adam was hovering over the computer.

‘What are you doing?'

Adam had breathed in slowly, hoping his voice wouldn't betray him. He'd managed to close the page – but not to delete it from the browser history. ‘Nothing. I just thought I recognised someone.' He pointed at the picture of the boy at his bar mitzvah, trying to sound disinterested. ‘I just thought I knew his face but I don't.'

Spike snorted. ‘Yeah. That would be a pretty big coincidence.'

Yeah, wouldn't it just
, Adam had thought bitterly. Last week he'd been feeling like everything was going his way. This week the tide was turning on him.

The last twenty minutes of the revision class had passed in a daze and he almost screamed with relief when he finally got out of the lab. But Adam hadn't been able to go straight home. Instead he made his excuses to Spike, checked the coast was clear and scurried into the library. Only the sixth formers were supposed to stay after school but the few who were there were too busy with their own stuff to notice Adam slip in and quietly boot up the computer and printer. Half an hour later he'd been on the bus home, his mind a blur.

And now here he was, lying on his bed and looking at the source of his misery and confusion. He'd recognised the faces immediately – or two of them anyway. His father and Auntie Jo were recognisably themselves, albeit much younger versions. His father looked like he was barely out of his teens. Seeing Auntie Jo was a shock. Whenever the photo had been taken she hadn't been wearing a kaftan but some kind of summery dress with her dark hair pulled back off her face. She wasn't thin but she was much slimmer and her eyes were sparkling above a wicked smile. She was pretty. It felt weird seeing her because something about her – a kind of playfulness – reminded Adam of Melissa. His aunt was in the middle of the photo, Nathanial's arm slung round her shoulders. On the other side she clasped the arm of the unknown man; the man Adam had always wondered about and whose face he was poring over now. The man in the locket.

His hair was dark, although not as dark as Nathanial's. He had a pale, thin face and very blue eyes. His pose was relaxed and like the others he was smiling – but there was a hint of something else around his mouth, something sad. His eyes were watchful and haunted. He looked like a man trying very hard to be happy and not quite succeeding.

In contrast Nathanial looked happier than Adam had ever seen him. There was no trace of the tiredness in his face or the careworn stoop Adam sometimes saw in his shoulders when he thought no one was watching. He stared straight into the camera, grinning broadly. Strangely, his pose reminded Adam of Luc; the same hint of barely suppressed swagger. It was eerie. A few months earlier Nathanial had confessed that he had dreamed of being a race car driver. At the time Adam had scoffed at the thought of his kindly, conscientious father doing anything so dangerous – but it didn't seem as ridiculous an idea for
this
Nathanial.

And as for Auntie Jo  …  she was glowing. Something about being beside Nathanial and the mystery man made her light up like a torch. She wore his picture in the locket around her neck. He must be the man she was once supposed to marry. But who
was
he?

Or, to be more accurate, who had he once been? Adam moved the photo printout to one side and looked at the second page, feeling sombre. This was the reason the photo was on the web in the first place, in defiance of the ban on online photos. He studied the screenshot, knowing he was intruding on something he had never been supposed to see.

The picture was from an online memorial website. The post was simple and anonymous – the photograph and a few lines of text – but Adam could guess who had written it by the date. It had been posted a couple of weeks earlier on the 19th of March – the day Auntie Jo had been sobbing in her room, drunk and miserable enough to throw caution to the winds and ignore their laws.

My grief is darkness but Lucian: you were our light. You were
real
; you existed. We do not forget. For now we must not speak your name – but we are not ashamed. We may not understand but we love you still. Some day we will meet again because our Light is your Light.

Adam stared at the printout for a long time, trying to will it to reveal its secrets. Who was Lucian? What had happened to him? Obviously he had died and walked through his Light onto the Unknown Roads. But why? He was young and Lumen rarely took ill or died young – their keystones seemed to protect them. In the photo he looked only a few years older than Nathanial.

And why would his life – or death – be a cause for shame? When a Luman died he would be guided into his Light with a family Keystone, passing through onto the Unknown Roads and returning briefly to hand over a freshly ‘charged' Keystone and pass on any wisdom that could be added to
The Book of the Unknown Roads.
Guiding a dead Luman was an honour and a source of pride; a last chance to say thank you after a life of service. The Mortsons were an old family and if Auntie Jo had been betrothed to this man then he must have been from a good family too. None of it made any sense.

There was a knock on the bedroom door. Adam scrambled to hide the papers under his duvet as Chloe walked in. She gave him a knowing look. ‘Don't worry. I won't even ask. Every time I have to go into Luc or Aron's room
they
hide stuff too. You lot are disgusting.'

Adam scowled, unable to deny anything in case she demanded to see what he
did
have. ‘What do you want?'

‘Dinner will be ready in ten minutes. It's late tonight because Father had a call-out.' From her sing-song tone Chloe had obviously delivered the message to everyone else.

‘How many call-outs were there today?'

Chloe shrugged. ‘Just a few. Nothing out of the ordinary. Luc went along because Aron wanted a day off.'

Adam relaxed back into the pillows, feeling a twinge of guilty relief. With everything else going on he'd forgotten about Luc's fatal attraction for Morta. At least if he was going on call-outs he wasn't off doing anything stupid. Chloe was almost out of the door when Adam called her back. ‘So what did
you
do all day?'

Chloe turned and gave him a withering look. ‘What's it to you?'

Adam wasn't sure why he'd asked. It had been an impulsive question and one he was already regretting because Chloe's expression could have curdled milk. Still, now that he thought about it, Chloe might be the way to find out more about the mystery man. She spent most of her time hanging out with Elise and Auntie Jo. Surely they must
talk
about stuff? Chloe, he realised with a start, was an untapped mine of information. After all, she was the one who had told him about Auntie Jo's annual bout of melancholy. What other secrets did she know? ‘I'm just interested.'

Chloe sighed. ‘Well, Adam, let me think about it. Today I practised the piano while Mother picked every note apart.
Then
I made watercress and anchovy soup, which was as disgusting as it sounds, and
then
I had some tapestry practice and finished embroidering a handkerchief for Father. And then I went out with Mother and watched her terrorise the butcher until he found her the exact piece of meat she wanted because it had to be
perfect
.' She rolled her eyes but her shoulders drooped. ‘Just another Monday.'

Adam blinked, unsure what to say. He'd been expecting something along the lines of,
We all had lunch and went shopping and Auntie Jo told me loads of stuff about the past and it was a brilliant day!
Things always worked out better in his head than they did in real life. ‘Anything happening on the betrothal front?'

‘No!' Chloe's eyes had gone laser. ‘Why do you keep going on about it? I don't have to do anything yet. Father told me not to rush into anything.'

Adam held his hands up, trying to appease her. ‘OK, sorry! I was just asking!'

Chloe glared at him for a moment until she seemed to realise that he wasn't tormenting her. She hovered at the door, looking uncomfortable. ‘Mother keeps telling me I should get betrothed to a Chinese Luman because they have so many souls. Either that or a French Luman. I don't know why she goes on about France so much. It's not like we go there very often so why does she want to marry me off there?'

To make peace
, Adam realised with a sudden moment of clarity. It was like something out of his history class; all those warring kings and queens marrying their children off as bribes and peace offerings. Elise had betrayed her family in their eyes and now she was trying to find her way back. But having married for love herself, there was no way she would try to force Chloe into a betrothal she didn't want. He knew that in his gut. ‘She won't make you do it. Trust me, she really won't.'

Chloe looked at him curiously. ‘How do you know?'

‘I just do.' Adam shrugged. ‘What does Auntie Jo say about it all?'

‘Auntie Jo doesn't say much to anybody these days.' Chloe's face darkened. ‘She pretty much lives in the den.'

This wasn't really news to Adam. Toast and horror movies were the twin joys of Auntie Jo's existence. ‘I thought she'd talk to you about Ciaron and stuff. I mean, I thought she was betrothed once?'

‘She doesn't talk about it if she was. I don't want to end up like her though.' Chloe shuddered. ‘I'll get betrothed to anybody rather than end up like that.'

‘There's nothing wrong with Auntie Jo!' Adam felt a quick flare of anger. Why couldn't Chloe see that Auntie Jo cared as much about them as their parents did? Maybe she even cared more.

‘Nothing
wrong
with her?' Chloe sounded incredulous. ‘She sits there all day with her whisky bottle for company. You don't see anything wrong with
that
?'

‘So she likes a drink!' Adam retorted, trying to ignore the prickle of unease he felt hearing this.

Chloe gave him a pitying look. ‘Yeah, Adam. She likes a drink. She likes a drink the same way a junkie likes a fix. But you know, whatever.' She held her hand up, angry. ‘Nobody listens to me anyway. I've told Father and he just disappears into his study. I told Mother too and she shouted at me. What am I supposed to
do
? Maybe I
should
just get betrothed and then I could go and live somewhere else, away from this
nut house
!' She stomped out, slamming his bedroom door behind her.

Adam looked at the door for a moment, then pulled out the pictures from under the duvet. He stared for a moment at Nathanial and Auntie Jo, their smiling, untroubled faces seeming to admonish him.

Things had been going so well. So why did it feel like his whole world was beginning to unravel?

As so often happened, when things went wrong they started small and snowballed from there. That evening at the dinner table Adam found it hard to eat. Everyone else was in a good mood, delighted to have another meal without being interrupted by a call-out. For Adam it was torture. He tried to focus on his plate but his eyes kept darting between his parents and Auntie Jo. He hated the thought that they were keeping secrets. It made him feel sick.

His plan for the days ahead had been simple. Get caught up on all his work. Spend some time with Melissa and enjoy the art show. Keep an eye on Luc and hope that Morta left them in peace for just a little longer. There were only two weeks of school left before Easter and then he could watch his wily brother twenty-four hours a day if necessary.