The Shadow Cabinet (30 page)

I stepped again. I was almost pulling Stephen's hand, the hand that was not visible. The faces kept coming up in front of me, but I decided I could not be afraid of them.

“Move aside,” I said.

To my amazement, the inch or so in front of my eyes turned into a sliver of dark that widened second by second. But I still couldn't see the others.

“Let us through,” I said.

Stephen's grip on my hand was loosening.

“I said,
let us through.
”

And then, there were four of us, alone in a sea of white. Boo was weeping, and Callum had fallen against my back. I had no idea how any of this had happened, but the fog was now against the wall, and there was a clear path ahead of us.

I turned and found Stephen clutching my hand firmly again. He was half draped over Boo.

“What . . .” Boo looked up and saw Stephen slumped against her. “Why am I crying? What happened?”

Callum too was pulling himself back up. The wall of fog was encircling us, leaving only this small space for us to stand.

“There,” Stephen said. “Ahead of you.”

A few feet in front of me, the tunnel was blocked by a half wall topped with metal bars, like an old-time jail cell. This marked off some other channel we couldn't access, one that went perpendicular to where we were. I could hear water flowing. There were some loose pipes on the floor by the wall, but that was it. Nothing to get us through.

“I believe that's the river,” Stephen said. “It's diverted at this juncture.”

“We need to get the stone up there?” Callum asked, looking at the bars. They were about a hand's width apart—much too narrow for the stone.

We had come this far, through whatever it was we'd just walked through, only to be defeated by a few metal bars. Stephen shook his head.

“They diverted the river,” he said. “We can do the same.”

He grabbed the bars and pulled himself up to look through the opening.

“Give me a pipe,” he said.

Boo handed him one, which he shoved between the bars. He dropped down, falling almost to his knees. He would have gone down completely if Boo hadn't caught him. Stephen moved the pipe around a bit until a trickle of water started to come out of the end on our side.

“The stone!” he said to Callum. “Put it there.”

Callum put the stone down under the flow. We watched the stone become damp, water gently pooling on and around it. It was nothing much to look at, but the fog around us began to pull in on itself, sucking back into a more concentrated form. The path behind us was clear, but the force of its movement was like being in a wind tunnel. The four of us struggled against the pulling force behind us, which was now wailing and screaming through the tunnel. Then there was one final blast, which sent us all pitching forward into the filthy water.

And then the fog was gone.

30

I
T
WAS
ONE
O
F
T
H
O
S
E
J
U
M
B
L
E
D
D
R
E
A
MS
—
ONE
WHERE
THE
scenes switch abruptly, like pieces of a movie cut together all wrong. Stephen was there sometimes, and sometimes he wasn't. Sid and Sadie were there, and then I saw Jane again, right before the knife went into her neck. Then I was in a tunnel, somewhere dark, and the Ripper—Newman—he was behind me, following me, telling me that all of these people I thought I knew were lying to me and that he was the only one who wasn't. Then he stabbed me again, but this time, I didn't collapse, and he didn't vanish. I staggered after him, telling him off, telling him he didn't know my friends. And he laughed at me. Then there was a fire, and I was gasping in the smoke.

I woke up, and there was suddenly a bottle of water within my reach. I grabbed it and guzzled about half the contents in one go, squeezing it and waking myself up with the earsplitting crinkle of the plastic. I was on a sofa, and everyone was sitting around me. Boo sat on the floor next to me—she had given me the water. Thorpe was in the chair across, looking up from his computer. Freddie was sitting in the middle of the paperwork we had been sorting. Callum was setting down a few shopping bags on the floor.

Boo got up on her knees to face me.

“Morning. How do you feel?”

“Okay. Just thirsty. Really thirsty. What time is it?”

“It's tomorrow. You've been asleep for almost twenty-four hours.”

“I have?”

I sat up. My head was cottony, but in the way you'd expect after sleeping for an entire day. I was still in my clothes. I didn't have to sniff myself to know I smelled. I hadn't showered for days.

“We have some new clothes for you,” Boo said. “And soap, a brush, things like that. We thought you might need that first.”

“Where's Stephen?”

“He's upstairs,” Thorpe said. “Asleep.”

“Asleep?”

“He's fine.”

“And the doctor?”

Thorpe nodded.

“We're all fine, Rory. Why don't you get yourself together? Callum brought some food. You need to eat something. Then we'll all talk.”

I took the shopping bags Boo handed me and went upstairs. As soon as I was gone, I could hear the others talking in low voices. I moved quietly to the bedroom and pushed open the door—softly, softly . . .

I'd just done this. My life was looping around on me.

Stephen was there, stretched out on his side, his back facing me. The blankets were twisted around him and half falling off the bed. I couldn't see his face, just the back of his hair against the pillow. His glasses were the only object on the bedside table. What I wanted to do was climb into the bed with him and hold him tight. What I actually did was get close enough that I could see his chest rise and fall at least three times before I backed out of the room and gently shut the door.

There was one hall window, and it revealed a pinkish sky, much lighter than normal. I went to the bathroom, where the light was harsh and brought some realities into sharp focus. The person I saw in the mirror was a wreck. My chopped-up hair was in all directions. My eyes were bloodshot. When I went to get undressed, I found that there was some brown, dried blood under my fingernails and encrusted on the nails themselves. I rubbed this off under the running water, then I took a shower that never got very hot and tried to wash everything away. I washed my stiff, short hair, which smelled like cat food when I got it wet. When I brushed it after the shower, it made scraping noises against the brush. I would need to cut more of it off—not just a bob. Cut it short. Let this terrible dye job grow out.

Boo had clearly been doing the shopping again, and this time, the clothes had more of her personality—a black sweater with plasticky-leather bits on the shoulders, slightly better-fitting jeans, some red flats. There was even a little bag of makeup in there, which I didn't use. It was nice that she'd thought of me.

I returned downstairs, where a small feast of prepared convenience foods was spread out on the coffee table. Thorpe was right—I needed to eat. I worked my way through two ham and pickle sandwiches, a banana, some kind of date and nut cookie, a bag of cheddar and onion crisps, and a piece of ginger cake. I washed it all down with two bottles of apple and elderflower drink and a Coke.

“It's going to snow tonight,” Freddie said. The remark met no reply—it just floated into the room, and we all looked at the window for a second.

“I've never been in snow,” I said. “We don't get it where I live.”

As I said it, I had some memory of snow, but I couldn't place it. We didn't get snow at home, so where had I been? Somewhere. It would come to me.

“Are people okay?” I said. “The people in the fog?”

“Only a few people were harmed, mostly by debris and glass,” Thorpe said. “What's more disturbing is that they have no recollection of what happened to them. The news is saying it was a nerve agent.”

There was a creak on the floorboards upstairs. Then footsteps, the sound of someone walking toward the bathroom. Water running.

“He's awake,” Boo said.

Callum could sit no longer and hopped out of his seat, pacing by the foot of the stairs. Thorpe closed his computer and rested his head on his chin and stared at the floor, deep in thought. Freddie looked like she wanted to say something but had no idea what, so she tidied the piles of paperwork around her.

“Maybe we can be normal,” I said.

Sometimes I say stupid things.

Stephen came down about fifteen minutes later. He had changed his clothes as well, but was wearing his own—a familiar black sweater and pair of jeans, and a pair of sneakers. Someone must have gone back to the flat and gotten more of his things. He was unshaven, and there was a surprising amount of dark stubble along his chin, which stirred something in me. He came into the room quietly and tucked his hands into his pockets. He looked at the spread on the coffee table.

“May I?” he asked. “I'm famished.”

We watched him take two egg and cress sandwiches and sit on the arm of the sofa to eat them. Some things are so big, you can't even react to them. You almost have to act like they never even happened, because they don't fit in any kind of reality you know.

So we watched Stephen eat, and Stephen watched us watching him eat.

“Someone should probably say something,” he finally said, “because I'm going to be eating for a few more minutes.”

“How do you feel?” Callum said. “You seem all right. Do you feel all right?”

He chewed for a moment and nodded before answering. “I feel fine. Which is fairly remarkable, considering.”

“Oh, God,” Boo said. She went right for him and grabbed him, holding him in a long, somewhat awkward crouching hug. He held his sandwich at arm's length to keep egg salad off of her and looked at the opposite wall a bit bashfully.

“All right,” Boo said. “Callum, now you. Come on.”

Callum did the same, but a bit shorter.

“Since we're all doing it!” Freddie gave him a quick embrace. Thorpe settled on a nod.

I was too nervous to move. I had no idea what I'd do. So I smiled a weird, sloppy smile and shoved another cookie in my mouth.

“Do you have any recollection of what happened to you?” Thorpe asked.

“Very little. I remember the car accident, and I remember going to the flat and going to sleep in the chair. I think Rory might know more.”

“Not a lot,” I said. “They had me do some kind of ceremony, and I drank something, but I don't remember anything after that.”

“Nothing?” he said.

“Nope.”

He watched me curiously for a moment.

“It's possible we'll never really know the mechanics of it,” he said. “But why was I at Marigold's house?”

“She got to the hospital morgue before I did,” Thorpe said. “She was there to get your body, and what she found was that you hadn't exactly died. You were removed, and all records of your being there were wiped clean. I did meet a very agitated pathologist who had been forced to sign the Official Secrets Act.”

“You're an Official Secret,” Boo said to Stephen.

“Congratulations,” I said, trying the smile again, and again it came out super weird. No smiling. Smiling not working right now.

“So who is Marigold?” I asked.

“We got this explanation when you were out cold,” Boo said. “She works with Thorpe.”

“To a limited extent,” Thorpe said. “She's a medical officer who works on very sensitive matters. She was instrumental in initial recruitment and in trying to determine what it is about you that makes you different.”

“So she wanted to do my autopsy,” Stephen said.

“I believe that was her hope.”

“Glad she checked, then.” He reached for a bag of chips. “That could have been awkward.”

This tiny joke lightened the mood in the room, and Callum broke into a smile.

“Mate . . .” he said. “Mate.”

“We're all here,” Boo said. “We survived. We're back.”

I felt a moment dawning, a moment when we were all taking this in—that we were together and happy. This is when Freddie, who had clearly been looking for a chance to chime in, accidentally brought us back to the matter at hand.

“But one thing,” she said. “You had this information about the Oswulf Stone and writing in cipher code. How did you know so much, and why were you keeping it secret? Not that . . .”

Stephen shrugged. “I was looking at the same sites and sources you were. I knew we had stones that could dispel the energy of the dead, and they seemed to match the description of the Eye of Isis. I looked into the Oswulf Stone, and there did seem to be evidence indicating that it existed and it might have some actual power. I wrote the notes in code because I like cryptology and I was bored of the crossword I'd been working on. I went to Chanceford, as I'm assuming you did. I assume you broke the code. It wasn't very complex, I'm afraid.”

“But this means the Shadow Cabinet—” Freddie said.

“Is ridiculous,” Stephen replied. “You know as well as I do that it's a conspiracy theory.”

“But they're right about these two stones,” she said.

“A lot of these fantasies are based on some actual fact,” Stephen said. “Given the amount of research these people do, someone would have turned up something on the other stones. No one ever has.”

“So you don't think they exist?”

“I think it's highly unlikely. I chased up a few leads, but they were all nutters. There's no cabal protecting magic stones in London. But we do have two new termini.”

Callum smiled broadly at that.

“Oh, it's a sweet day,” Callum said. “We are back. For reals. Back.”

“So what happens next?” I said. “What about Charlotte? How did she turn like that? And where is she?”

“Stockholm syndrome, possibly,” Freddie said. “It happens quicker than you might think. The original Stockholm case only took a few days. But more likely she was conditioned over time. You said Jane used drugs. Drugs, isolation . . . and they gave her the sight.”

“We don't know where they went,” Thorpe said. “We don't have identification on most of the people in the group. We couldn't find Charlotte on CCTV. She's gone, but this time of her own accord. As are Sid and Sadie.”

“Listen to you lot,” Callum said, coming to the middle of the room. “We should celebrate better than this. We need to. Come on. Come
on.
”

Thorpe considered for a moment.

“I expect a drink or two isn't out of order,” he said. “There's a pub at the end of the road. We won't be using this house anymore, so I think we can go. Not for long. But one round.”

As we went out, the first flakes started to fall. They were much bigger than I expected, and faster. I reached out and grabbed one, only to watch it vanish in my hand the second it landed.

“That's disappointing,” I said. “I thought it would last longer than that.”

We walked slowly, and Stephen and I fell to the back of the group. He tucked his hands deep into his coat pockets. This had been restored, as had his scarf.

“What do you remember?” he asked me. “About the last day? About what happened to you?”

“Not much,” I said. “Like I said, I drank something, then I woke up.”

“Do you know how long you were unconscious?”

“No.”

“So you don't remember anything?” he asked again.