Kitabı oku: «The Darkening King»

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Prologue

1. Godshill

2. Afternoon Tea

3. The Door

4. Boiling

5. The Demon in the Tea Room

6. Grey-suits

7. Old Faces

8. The Butcher and the Hammer

9. The Nest

10. Tinks

11. Who? What? Why?

12. Little to Do about Nothing

13. Not Entirely Ideal

14. Not Entirely Alone

15. The Forest

16. We Have Company

17. Brother

18. The King in the Cave

19. Older than Old

20. The Stone Dragon

21. Trapped

22. Alliance

23. Brothers-in-arms

24. Headquarters

25. Mr Bear

26. A Brief Debrief

27. Father and Son

28. Clockwork Museum

29. Mr Cogsworth

30. A Decent Pub in Dublin

31. Tick-tock, the Mouse and the Clock

32. Trouble and Strife

33. Sharp Exit

34. No Exit

35. Dearly Departed

36. Best-made Plans

37. The Fey

38. The Liffey

39. Lemnus Gemfeather

40. The Glade Awakens

41. St Albertsburg

42. A Ball of Vines

43. Breaking and Entering

44. Magic Wakes

45. The Fallen

46. Boffins

47. Whiskers?

48. Mr Bear’s Insurance

49. Dad

50. Dinner for Two

51. Things That Go “Bump” in the Night

52. The Enemy of My Enemy is My Friend

53. Bananas

54. Past and Present

55. Ready?

56. The Forest Darkens

57. Really Real

58. Artificial Intelligence

59. Time’s Up

60. The Un-Hidden

61. Wild Horses

62. The Night Before the Darkness

63. Barbarossa

64. “Good Luck”

65. Mr Rook

66. The Wall of Wood

67. The Central Intelligence

68. Charging into Darkness

69. Tick, Tock

70. Into the Fray

71. Mr Spider and Mr Fox

72. Tricks and Traps

73. Whiskers and the Scientist

74. The Eastern Tower

75. Together

76. Barba and the King

77. The End of Everything

78. Light and Dark

79. Presents

80. Mr Fox

81. George and the Jungle

82. Toys

83. Everywhere

Acknowledgements

Keep Reading …

About the Author

Books by Justin Fisher

About the Publisher

PROLOGUE

he vast forests of the East Siberian taiga cover more than a million square miles, from impenetrable marshlands to unending carpets of ancient woodland teeming with bears, reindeer and other more secretive creatures not often seen by man. Of all of its villages, few are more forgotten or remote than Kazimir.

Captain Nikolai Volkov and his men had travelled all the way from Irkutsk. The city was home to the 24th Spetsnaz Brigade and the young captain had long been counted in their ranks as the man to “get things done”. He was not in a good mood. The stories he’d heard were not untypical for such remote parts of the region. Superstitions and old wives’ tales about “magic and monsters”, silly stories to keep their children from straying into the woods and a complete waste of Volkov and his specialist task force’s time. The cramped cabin of his DT-30 mobile base was at least warm, though its powerful diesel engine was interminably loud and smelt even worse than it sounded. Outside, the twenty-five-strong squad of men travelled on sledges behind harnessed reindeer. Each one carried GPRS tracking devices, night-vision goggles, grenade launchers, specialist automatic rifles and every other gadget and technological advancement that the mighty Russian Army provided. But their most valuable asset was the Siberian reindeer. Reindeer did not break down and a reindeer could travel through a forest’s thickest region where a twenty-tonne troop carrier could not.

The villagers of Kazimir had greeted them with teary eyes. Salvation had finally come after months of begging. It was only when officials from the local district had ventured into the woods and subsequently disappeared that the high-ups from Irkutsk had ordered Volkov to the area.

“Go, Nikolai, put these poor villagers’ minds at rest,” they had said. “We know it’s a bear, you know it’s a bear, but the denizens of Kazimir need proof.”

That had been days ago and here he was now, in the middle of a forest with the most highly trained pest control unit in the world.

“Magic and monsters,” he muttered, as the DT-30’s caterpillar tracks ground to an icy halt.

Bang, bang! came the pounding on the cabin’s hatch. “Captain Volkov, the transport can go no further.”

Volkov stepped out into an impossibly cold night. Even his gruelling training could not stop him from pausing to catch breath. It must have been -55°C at least. Surely not even a bear could withstand this cold? And anyway, didn’t bears hibernate in the winter months? In front and behind the forest lay black; their DT-30 had taken them as far as its tracks would allow.

“A curse on this cold, a curse on Siberia and a curse on this blasted mission!”

“Your orders, captain?”

His number two, though covered in extreme snow gear, was easy enough to recognise for the simple fact that he was the size of a bull. Galkin was younger by almost a decade but in Volkov’s opinion as able a leader as he was and Volkov was always glad of it.

“Take three men and scout the way forward; we’ll follow with the supplies.”

The bull saluted and paced on ahead.

Volkov never liked to walk through a forest at night. It made him feel as though the stars had been sucked out of the sky. After more than an hour, even the deep winter snow could no longer find its way through the taiga’s wooded canopy. There were no stars above and no snow below, just the ice-cold embrace of a pitch-black wood. As they trudged through the frozen mud and pines, Volkov’s gut started to twitch. His gut had never let him down. Like a dog sensing danger long before it arrives, Volkov’s gut always told him when trouble was brewing and the reindeer clearly agreed. The beasts came to a complete standstill, honking in their throats nervously, their hooves skittish on the ground.

“What’s got into them?” seethed the captain.

As a born and bred Siberian, no one knew more about reindeer than Volkov’s handler, not even the actual reindeer.

“I wish I knew, captain. I’ve never seen them like this, never.”

Volkov’s gut began to rumble more steadily. A quick gesture of his hand and his column of men pulled down their night-vision goggles. Everything turned to electric green and the reindeer stopped. As Yenotov and the other handlers pushed and prodded their now immobile animals, something through the trees moved with a flicker of dark green over black. Volkov raised his weapon and those not tending to the herd followed suit. The targeting dot from his laser slowed by a tree and something behind it moved.

“Six o’clock.”

“Eight.”

“Eleven.”

One by one his men called out movement in the trees, and seemingly from everywhere.

“Brace!” ordered Volkov.

The Spetsnaz dropped to one knee and prepared to fire.

All of a sudden, their supply column of reindeer broke free and fled from their handlers, all twelve animals with their heavy packs and Volkov’s much-needed supplies bolting as a feathered storm flew at the squad, a flapping of a hundred wings, magpies, pigeons, sparrows and hawks, swallows, barn owls, finches and crows, filling the air in a living squall, then just as suddenly parting.

Nothing.

Volkov and his bemused men got back to their feet and were trying to understand what had just happened when the first scream called through the darkness ahead of them.

Without a word, his men fanned out wide, running as best as they could through the undergrowth and straight to the sound of their screaming comrades. A little way forward something big was running towards them, crashing through branches with all the violent force of a crazed animal. It was Galkin, Volkov’s number two.

His helmet and scarf had come away, lost somewhere in his flight, and his eyes rolled wildly in their sockets. The man was crazed with terror. Volkov had seen this before with new recruits, young soldiers that had no place with the Spetsnaz, but Galkin? The man was unbreakable, or at least had been until now.

“Galkin, calm yourself. What happened?”

“M-mmm–”

Volkov grabbed the man by the shoulders and shook him hard.

“What, man? What are you saying?”

“M-magic and … and m-monsters,” Galkin finally managed.

Two of the squadron stayed with their sobbing second in command, as Volkov led the others forward. Some way through the forest the trees began to thin till they came to a vast clearing. At its centre firepits bellowed and a great iron structure jutted out of the ground like an angry tooth. To Volkov it looked very much like the beginnings of some fortress. The Spetsnaz had grade one clearance – they would know of such a thing, surely? Why had he not been informed? And what had happened to the sky? At first he thought he was looking at a mirror, or that the world had turned upside down. The air was black with smoke from the firepits, and the stars – every one of them had fallen to the ground. They lay along the clearing, too many to count. A great wondrous carpet of yellow and white in all its shimmering glory. Volkov and his men removed their goggles.

And the stars roared.

What had looked like heaven quickly became hell. The stars were not stars at all but the eyes of a great horde, monsters from old wives’ tales suddenly made real. From the lick of orange light spewing out of the firepits, the Spetsnaz saw row upon row of hideous creatures, fanged, clawed, hoofed and winged, edging their way closer and preparing to strike.

Captain Nikolai Volkov let his rifle drop to the floor. As his end approached, he could think of only one thing to say. It fell from his lips with no particular recipient in mind and it was to be the last three words that he would ever speak.

“Magic and monsters.”

Godshill

odshill on the Isle of Wight was as pretty a village as the Armstrongs could ever hope to find. Spring was finally rearing its head, bees buzzed along the thatched roofs of its ancient cottages, and a large medieval church at its centre could not have drawn a prettier picture. Ned and his little family had never found the time to go on holiday. He thought, as they walked down the road, how nice it might be to come back here one day, when they actually could. But here and now, like always, there was only the hunt, and the Armstrongs were in the unique position of being both predator and prey.

He’d lost count of the hotels and motels they’d stayed in. Never staying for more than a day at a time because of what they were searching for, and what – or rather who – was searching for them. As far as Ned could tell, everyone was looking for the Armstrongs, and on both sides of the Veil.

Backpacks, T-shirts, jeans and jumpers – holiday gear for the perfect “happy family”. Only, the Armstrongs hadn’t been truly happy for quite some time. “Happy” was for families that weren’t on the world’s most wanted list. “Happy” was for people who had the time to buy an ice cream and sit in the sun. And herein lay the problem – the Armstrongs and the world that they lived in had run out of time.

The Darkening King was on the brink of rising.

They now stood on a street corner outside Mavis’s Ye Olde Tea Shoppe, est. 2012. It was the sort you find dotted about the villages of England, particularly ones frequented by tourists. What was not known was that Mavis’s Tea Shoppe was in fact a safe house for the Hidden, especially those who had run out of places to hide. It was one of her rarer and more nocturnal patrons that the Armstrongs had arranged to come and see.

“Whiskers?” called out Ned’s dad.

There was a muffled squeak from somewhere in Ned’s backpack.

“Remember everyone on the other side knows about Ned and his mouse – that means you, furball. Not a squeak out of you till we get back to the caravan park, or you’ll blow our cover.”

The backpack remained deathly quiet.

“What’s he doing?”

“Err, I think he’s following orders, Dad.”

“Right. Good. Now, son, wait here. Me and your mum need to check the place out first.”

“Just a tick, darling, and don’t talk to any strangers,” added his mum.

Ned’s eyes rolled and his parents opened the door to the welcoming ding of a bell. “Don’t talk to strangers” was what you told a six-year-old – not someone who had saved the world. Twice. But it was always the same now, wherever they went. And the truth was – they had every right to worry. Ned’s ring no longer listened to him when he tried to use his powers, and his mum and dad had become so protective that he was barely allowed to do anything any more, except sit and wait with his shadow and his wind-up mouse.

He slumped on to the steps of the tea shop. Across the street he saw an old man in a tweed jacket, huffing and puffing with a Zimmer frame to steady his balance. He was tall and spider-leg thin, with barely any remaining white hair and a long reddish nose that seemed to be attached to the rest of his face with a criss-cross pattern of wrinkles.

He was struggling across the road towards Mavis’s and when he looked towards Ned he smiled between great rasping breaths. The poor old dear either thought that he knew Ned, or that Ned might be able to help him on his way, which of course Ned would. Stranger or not, the man needed help.

“Hello. Are you all right?” Ned asked.

Now almost on the other side, the old man grinned at Ned, revealing quite the most extraordinary set of teeth. They all pointed in different directions. Some were grey or brown, others chipped or missing, and one looked as though it would have been more at home in the mouth of a dog.

“I will be, young man, with a little assistance,” he rasped.

But Ned couldn’t take his eyes off the man’s teeth.

“Might I bend your ear for a moment?”

As he spoke, a small device in Ned’s pocket began to shake. It was the perometer that his great friend George had given him a few months earlier, when the Armstrongs had had to leave the Circus of Marvels and go on the run. The device could sense danger, and as it began to shake, Ned stumbled to his feet. The old man let go of his Zimmer frame, his bony fingers instead reaching into his jacket pocket. When they came out again he was holding a thin-bladed dagger, and his eyes shone black.

“Gor-balin!” spat Ned.

“Yes, boy! Been watching Mavis’s for weeks, I have. End of the road for you, my friend.”

Gor-balins were not uncommon amongst Darklings and were often sent on missions across the Veil’s borders, due to their more human size and shape. But as the creature’s glamour began to fade, Ned was reminded that that was where the similarities ended. The creature walked upright and easily now, the whites of his eyes turned black and his skin darkened to a wet, mottled grey. His nose grew more crooked, the tips of his ears longer, and his bony fingers now ended with claws.

“I wouldn’t come any closer if I were you,” stammered Ned.

“Why, what you gonna do about it?” jeered the gor-balin. “Not much, is what I heard …”

Ned raised his hand and focused on the band of metal at his finger – the same band of metal that had flattened a whole host of the creatures on the rooftops of St Clotilde’s. But that had been a different time and a very different Ned. He thought of ice and the air around his finger shimmered with intent. As he pictured the atoms in his mind coming together and growing still, he could feel the ring’s tendrils hum under the pores of his skin. And for a moment, just a fraction of a moment, he thought his powers had finally returned.

“Please,” he whispered.

The air crackled with the brief sparking of atoms and then, just as it had a hundred times before, his ring grew quiet and the air stilled.

“I said, don’t come any closer!” said Ned, trying to sound braver than he felt.

The dark hollows of the gob’s eyes shone and his lips broke into a smile. He walked forward, slowly now, relishing every second as Ned backed away further down the alleyway that ran alongside Mavis’s tea shop.

“So it’s true … Not the boy you was then, are you? You ain’t nothin’ without your mum and dad.”

The creature was right. But even now, powerless as he was, Ned wasn’t alone, not quite.

“To be fair, I did try and warn you. Gorrn?” he breathed.

Ned’s shadow – his slovenly familiar – did not make tea, or do the dishes. In fact, there were relatively few things the creature did well, except for fighting and biting.

“Arr,” said the shadow, and the smug grin on the gor-balin’s face was promptly removed as the darker recesses of the alley began to shift.

The shadow that was Gorrn raised himself up from the ground as a wall of toothy darkness, thickening and darkening as he stretched to fill the width of the alleyway between Ned and his assailant.

“Grak!” spat the gob.

And in a violent and silent second, Gorrn lunged, enveloping the Darkling in his folds before spitting him out like a mouthful of chewed food and into one of Mavis’s green recycling bins.

A shaken Ned closed the lid on the unconscious assassin, quickly and quietly.

“Thanks, Gorrn.”

His familiar oozed back to the ground before blending into the shadows.

“You there, Whiskers?”

“Scree.”

“I know Dad told you to be quiet and keep our cover, but next time someone comes at me with a knife can you assume the cover’s been blown and, you know, do something useful?”

The Debussy Mark Twelve remained silent.

Ned’s heart was pounding for more reasons than he could count. For one thing, Barbarossa’s minions were dangerously close, and not for the first time. Had it not been for Gorrn, the assassin would have ended him then and there. But that wasn’t what was really troubling him. What really scared him was that he still couldn’t work his Engine, no matter how hard he tried. How was he ever going to defeat the Darkening King if he had no powers? Not to mention the fact that if his parents found out about his face-off in the alley, they’d wrap him in so much protective cotton wool that he’d end up suffocating. He’d tell them later, after the tea room and in his own good time. He hid the gob’s Zimmer frame down the alleyway and out of sight, and paced back to the corner of Mavis’s tea shop.

“Not a word about this, from either of you. Not till we get back, OK?”

“Arr.”

“Scree.”

“I thought I told you – no talking to the mouse, Ned!”

Ned looked up to see that his dad had come back out of Mavis’s to get him.

“Sorry, Dad. I thought, erm … there was nobody about so …”

His dad cocked his head slightly.

“You OK, son? You look a bit ruffled.”

Gorrn shifted guiltily along the ground by Ned’s foot.

“I’m fine, Dad, just a bit nervous, you know? About who it is we’re going to see.”

“Well, keep your wits about you. Danger could be lurking anywhere.”

“Yes, Dad, anywhere …”

Afternoon Tea

avis’s was in fact just as it should have been. Scones, cake, proper teapots with proper tea and lacy pink curtains to match the lacy pink tablecloths. It was also, much to Ned’s surprise, completely empty apart from an extremely overdressed and bejewelled lady – presumably Mavis, thought Ned. No doubt her business was going well, though you wouldn’t know it from the state of her empty premises. His dad walked up to the counter and spoke to her quietly, leaving Ned with his mum.

“Do you think he – it – will actually be there?” Ned asked his mum.

“I hope so, darling. I’m so tired of all the running and chasing. All the grinning and pretending we’re on holiday.”

“You know, we could lose the grinning? It’s not like everyone’s always happy when they’re on holiday. We could pretend we’ve come down with some sort of tummy bug – you know, from all the exotic hotel food?”

His mum chuckled. “Oh, Ned, we’re on the Isle of Wight, not Outer Mongolia. The food’s good but hardly exotic.”

“You’re right, Mongolia was last week,” smiled back Ned.

“Was it? Oh yes, that dreadful business with the cyclops. Do you know, I thought it was Spain for some reason.”

“That was the week before.”

Ned watched as his dad passed Mavis a brown envelope full of used notes. She peered in and nodded appreciatively, then returned the favour by passing something small over the counter and tipping her head towards a door at the rear of the shop in a way that said, “Over there but I didn’t tell you.”

The happy holidaymakers that were Ned and his family made their way down a cramped corridor, past a loo, towards the door at the back. They walked through and found themselves in a small windowless room with red velvet wallpaper and a pair of long-backed mahogany chairs arranged either side of a tall mirror.

Ned saw it and sighed. “Really?”

“Yes, really,” said his dad.

“I thought we agreed, no more mirrors!”

Olivia Armstrong managed to look quite sheepish, which was not something the ex Mother Superior and Circus of Marvels agent was prone to do.

“Ned, we have avoided mirrors at every possible turn. We have travelled in the cargo holds of freighter ships, aeroplanes, a military troop carrier … even strapped to the bottom of a horse-drawn cart. This is completely unavoidable. Where we’re going isn’t on any map – it’s in the mirror-verse.”

Ned’s few experiences of stepping through mirror-portals had not for the most part been pleasant.

“In it?!” he shrieked at a far higher pitch than he’d intended.

“Safest safe house in existence. Son, this is the closest we’ve come in months. The last three informants were murdered before we even got there and Spain … well, Spain was an unmitigated disaster.”

His dad was not wrong. The “informant” they’d gone to meet had turned out to be an agent for the BBB, and had it not been for some quick thinking from Olivia, and Gorrn providing cover for a speedy getaway, the Armstrongs’ mission would have come to an end. It had only been after the battle over At-lan that Ned and his family had discovered who the BBB actually were. A josser network of highly trained spies, seemingly with unending resources and a fascination with the Hidden in all their forms. Their goal? No one really knew. But the BBB were getting better, smarter and more cunning. Everywhere the Armstrongs turned the message was the same – they were after Ned and his family and would go to any lengths to find them.

“Yes, it was a disaster, Dad, and your sources could be wrong about this too. We don’t know what’s on the other side of that mirror.”

“Nor what’s behind us.”

For a moment Ned thought about Barbarossa’s assassin still lying unconscious in a wheelie bin outside. And there could be more on their way.

“Fine,” managed Ned.

“Right,” said his mum. “Let’s go and find ourselves some trouble, eh?”

Given that trouble was regularly finding them, maybe turning the tables wasn’t such a bad idea.

His dad held the sliver of glass that Mavis had given him, and the Armstrongs all joined hands. Then quietly and without fuss they proceeded to walk through the mirror.

That was the thing about trying to find a Demon – they always seemed to hide in the most awkward places.

The Door

ed had only travelled by mirror a handful of times. Even so, he still had to adjust his brain as he pressed his nose to the glass. His reflection appeared to wrap around him somehow, and the glass had give. It was cold – somewhere between ice and water. Not slush exactly; slush was wet. But not dry either. More like jelly, only without its stickiness.

His reflection warped and blurred and joined with another until, quite seamlessly—

Shluup.

Ned popped out on the other side as though nothing had happened.

“This is it, son,” said his dad. “Mavis’s real tea shop.”

In front of them was a single carved door with images of fair-folk and Darklings all about its entrance. What was strange and very mildly terrifying was that it appeared to float on thin air, just above the red carpet they were standing on. Above and below was a starry sky with no moon to light it but what looked like the aurora borealis – a great dancing show of coloured light playing out around them.

“Wow,” said Ned. “Where are we?”

“Well, son, technically Mavis’s tea shop isn’t anywhere. Those stars out there are actually mirrors, just like the one we stepped through. This is somewhere in between the reflections, between the light. Geographically speaking, ‘here’ doesn’t really exist—”

“Now, Ned, I don’t need to spell out the dangers,” interrupted his mum.

“Yes, son, you’ve not been yourself for a while now, so if there’s trouble in there, you leave it to me and your mum, OK?”

Ned bristled, but he knew he was right. Ned was like a tiger without claws – no more capable of defending himself than the boy he’d been before discovering the Hidden and his powers. His mum saw the look on his face.

“Terrence Armstrong, sometimes your mouth gets in the way of your brain! Ned, darling, you’re finer than fine. It’s just a phase. I’m sure plenty of Engineers before you went through just the same sort of thing, and anyway, I don’t have any powers, do I? There’s nothing strong bones, a highly developed set of reflexes and quick thinking can’t get you out of!” said his mum, clearly trying to sound upbeat.

Ned knew she didn’t really believe it, just as surely as he knew she was wrong, but he smiled as best he could.

“That said, stay close,” urged his dad. “Now …”

They turned to the door. The entrance was completely silent, and Ned wondered whether the mirrored version of the tea shop was as empty as the one they had passed through to get there. A pink neon sign rearranged itself from a jumble of words till it read, MAVIS’S YE OLDE TEA SHOPPE, and then the sign changed again to: NO COFFEE DRINKERS ALLOWED.

Its oak door had the most lifelike carving at its front in detailed knots of intricately tooled wood. Ned had to blink – it looked very much like the Mavis they had seen back on the Isle of Wight, only “woody”, and both younger and a little less full in the face.

“Who are you?” croaked the wood.

Ned gawped – there was little he hadn’t seen behind the Veil, but this was definitely his first talking door.

Ned’s mum paused for a second, quickly recalling the cover story they had decided on before setting out.

“Ahem,” began Olivia in quite the regal tone, “I am the Lady de Laqua, with my warlock and nephew, Tarquin.”

The carving’s wooded eyes peered at them slowly, till the entire door started to shake, before breaking into creasy, knotted laughter.

“Ha ha ha! Come on, dear, no one ever tells me their real name here, but Tarquin?! Looks more like a Cecil to me.”

Ned’s mum scowled at Ned, as though he had somehow let them down by not looking “Tarquin-ish” enough.

“It matters not,” said the door. “Everyone is welcome here, just as long as you have coin. You do have coin, don’t you?”

“Yes – yes, we have coin,” replied Ned’s mum.

“ENTER!” croaked the door and flung itself wide.

Boiling

hey were met by a wall of colour, sound and heat. Mavis’s Ye Olde Tea Shoppe was bursting at the seams with its tea-drinking patrons and, to Ned’s amazement, there was not one but at least a dozen other Mavii all in the same heavy make-up and outfits as the one on the Isle of Wight. They moved through the crowd with all the skill and expertise of a lifetime pouring tea. Quick, amiable and with no time for nonsense.

“Doppelgängers,” whispered his mum. “Don’t stare.”

“Well, that’s one way to save on staff,” breathed his dad, his nerves finally settling into the mission at hand.

At its very centre Ned saw the real Mavis, who was at least in looks completely identical to her counterparts working the room, except for one amazing and inescapable difference. The real Mavis was a giant. Ned could only get a proper look at her from the waist up, but she must have been at least thirty feet in height and her great warbling voice shrilled with banter and laughter in equal measure, seemingly having several conversations at the same time. Around her was a great circular bar area arranged on three floors and the heavily bejewelled Mavis had teapots for rings on brown-stained fingers, pouring her cups ten at a time and on every floor. Her great earrings swung like chandeliers and she was coated in at least a gallon of make-up. Great rollers the size of tractors were in her hair and her shimmering dress was in gaudy, sequinned reds. It appeared that only an original outfit would do for the original Mavis. No matter how loud the raucous tea room got, her voice carried over all of it.

“My darlings, yes, of course!” she boomed to a boisterous gathering on the top floor. “Have you tried my new range in health teas? A little antioxidant? It’ll give you zip! We’ve Ener-tea, Strawber-tea and my absolute favourite, Zipi-tea. That’s trademarked, by the way, so don’t get any funny ideas.”

For a moment Ned felt on familiar ground, as if he was at a party at the Circus of Marvels. All the fear, all the worry from running and hiding finally ebbed away as he took in the splendour and fanfare of a Hidden get-together, with its bunting and pretty lanterns floating in mid-air. Soft music was being played by a band of nymphs on the second floor and all around them the air seemed to bubble. It was only when Ned’s eyes adjusted that he began to notice why, and he finally understood why it was so hot. Every wall had built-in glass kettles that were constantly boiling away, ready to create one of Mavis’s multicoloured concoctions. Every tea imaginable, catering to every taste, was on show. The smell of herbs and spices was dizzying. Saffron and cardamom, lily and sage, rose water, bluebell and forget-me-not. And further along into the darker corners of the tea room were pickled egg, carcass and swamp bile. Because as Mavis had explained to them – “everyone was welcome at Mavis’s”, even Darklings.

Ned’s mum put a heavy hand on his shoulder as they inched their way through the crowd. “Stay close,” she whispered.

Ned had no intention of doing anything else. They were deep now in the Hidden’s underbelly. From the dwarves to the dryads, each and every one was hiding from something. What astounded Ned was that they could share a room, let alone a table, with Darklings. Goblins, pirates and cut-throats, imps and a pair of nightmongers, who were creatures too foul to share a table with anyone. How it hadn’t erupted into outright violence was beyond Ned, till he walked past a table where a blue-painted dwarven berserker was in a heated debate with a knot-skinned mud-goblin, its hair and teeth a mess of rooty browns.

“You owe me for that cup, Guldrid – now pay up!”

“Want payin’, do ya?!”

The mud-gob threw his teacup at the dwarf, who barked in pain before smashing the table clear in half. No sooner had the sound of breaking china been heard than a giant arm came tearing through the room. The arm belonged to Mavis.

“NO FIGHTING IN MY TEA ROOM!” she bellowed.

The music, along with everything else in the room, suddenly stopped.

Realising what they’d done, the guilty parties pleaded in terror.

“Preease, we meant no ’arm,” begged the mud-goblin.

“RULES IS RULES!” warbled Mavis, and in one great sweep she grabbed both dwarf and goblin and hurled them out of a third-storey window.

There was no ugly splat outside, just their horrified cries as the two brawlers were launched into the mirror-verse, destined to float there long after they both had starved.

“Blimey,” whispered Ned.

“Shh,” replied his mum.

“WHAT IS RULES?” boomed the giantess now, with none of the cheeriness she’d shown only a moment ago. Her great eyes peered at the crowd defiantly, demanding a reply.

“Rules is rules!” warbled the crowd, no doubt with more than a pinch of fear-induced bravado.

“THAT’S MORE LIKE IT. MUSIC!”

The band started up again and seconds later the incident was seemingly forgotten.

Ned’s dad tapped one of the Mavii on the back. With all the commotion they were now running late for their appointment.

“Excuse me, madam?”

She turned with a blue-shadowed flutter.

“Yes, sir. Fancy a cuppa?”

“No, thank you.”

The mini Mavis scowled.

“I mean, yes, shortly. But, you see, we’re here to meet someone.” He whispered a name into her ear and the waitress’s face blanched.

“Are you sure?”

“The name’s quite correct. We were told that he had something for us.”

“No, I mean are you sure you want to meet him?”

Ned’s parents both nodded.

“I see. You had better follow me then.”

Past a throng of mercenaries and several other Mavii, their waitress took them to a dark corridor leading away from the main hall.

“This is the VIP area. If you need anything, feel free to scream.”

She knocked on an unmarked door.

“Enterrr.”

“I’ll leave you to it. Remember, scream if you need me – one of us will hear.”

The mini Mavis moved back down the corridor as fast as she could, making no secret of her desire to leave them to it. As soon as she was out of earshot there was an audible “Unt” from Ned’s shadow. Ned’s familiar and trusted bodyguard, bound to him as a servant to do his bidding at whatever cost, made his feelings quite clear. “Unt” meant a lot of things, but in most cases it meant “No”. Gorrn would not be entering the room with them.

“Oh, fine,” sighed Ned. “If you must stay out here, at least try to blend in.”

The undulating mystery that was Gorrn did just that and merged with a shadow by the door.

A room full of tapestries and Persian rugs was waiting for them. At its centre was a low, round table surrounded by luxurious silk cushions. It was all very dimly lit except for a small sprite-light that was presently dancing on the table. The little creature looked quite unhappy about the VIP she was dancing for and it was only when the creature leant out of the shadows that Ned could see why.

Some Demons, even in their human form, are not pretty.

The Demon in the Tea Room

s the Demon’s face came out of the shadows, Ned caught his breath. He was wearing a red velvet suit with black collars. In one hand was a ceramic cup full to the brim with a tarry, burning liquid. It flamed gently as he sipped from its edge, but it was his face that made Ned wince.

The Demon’s hair was immaculately groomed, slicked back with oil that smelt like coal. Its skin in contrast was as frail as old parchment and stretched across high cheekbones and a deeply lined brow. Black veins crept across its pores as though the creature carried some terrible disease, yet even in its weakened state it brimmed with quiet power, like some deposed king unseated from its throne but still sure of its rightful place.

“You are late,” he breathed.

“There was some commotion in the bar,” began Ned’s dad.

The Demon responded with a smile that wasn’t a smile.

“There is some commotion everywhere.”

And the expression he wore was between sorrow and something else, some deep trouble that refused to reveal itself. The Armstrongs took their places at the table, Ned’s mum making sure that her son was furthest away from the creature that they had come to meet. The little sprite-light was clearly happy to have less frightening visitors and proceeded to glow with more of a spark. To Ned’s amazement, the perometer in his pocket was quite still but all the same he drew it out subtly and laid it on the floor under the table, its lid open. There was a rustling from his backpack, which he promptly thumped before sheepishly laying it to one side.

“Thank you for agreeing to meet us,” began Ned’s mum.

“Whether you thank Sur-jan later remains to be seen.”

The soft-spoken Demon they were talking to had never met Olivia Armstrong, which she was about to make quite clear.

“Demon, you are at a disadvantage. You see, I have come across your kind before yet this is the first time that you have come across me. I have always walked away in good health – those in my wake have been less fortunate. Do not mistake me or my family for cowering jossers. We know well how to deal with your kind.”

The hairs on Ned’s neck began to prickle uncomfortably. Picking a fight with a Demon was considered suicide no matter what his mum claimed. Coupled with the long arm of Mavis and her tea-stained fingers, a scrap of any kind at the tea room would not bode well.

The Demon’s eyes thinned and his cup rattled. Under the table the perometer’s needle turned briefly to Sur-jan before settling languidly again.

“I know well the Armstrong name wo-man. It is not I that would trouble you, but what I have to say.”

Terry Armstrong put his hand over his wife’s and she started to un-brittle.

“Sur-jan, many of your kind have fled the Demon strongholds at great risk, choosing to live amongst the jossers rather than remaining with their kin. If what I believe is true, you are not our enemy.”

The Demon’s face shifted angrily and Ned finally understood. In his eyes he saw something unique. It was fear. An emotion that Demons were supposedly unable to feel, yet there it was and Sur-jan did not wear it well. He sat at the table like a hot coal on ice, spitting and crackling, steaming and sparking with visible malcontent. All creatures, it seemed, no matter where they are from, become angry when frightened.

“I have risked much to be here. To be away from the earth in this nowhere-place. It has made me sick. But better to be sick than a slave.”

“I don’t understand – what are you saying?”

There was a rattling from under the table. Ned’s perometer had come alive quite suddenly, but not, as he had at first feared, because of the Demon. The needle was pointing away from the creature and towards the door.

“The Darkening King – it is not welcome by those of us that remember.”

And the more he spoke, the more the perometer’s needle twitched. First one way and then another, in quick jerks of frantic movement.

“If you feel this way then help us! Tell us where he is, how to defeat him.” Terry Armstrong was now more animated than Ned had seen him since they had started their mission, hope burning brightly in his eyes.

The needle spun now in all directions, faster and faster.

“Defeat him?”

“Dad?”

“Not now, son!” urged his father. “Go on, Sur-jan, what can you tell us?”

Down the corridor, Ned heard footsteps running at a pace and the needle was spinning so hard that the perometer started to rattle.

“DAD!”

“Ned, what’s got into you?” said his mum, and then her eyes fell to the floor and the Tinker’s device. “Oh, dear.”

Ned snatched it from the floor and slammed it on to the table, narrowly missing a now terrified sprite whose light crackled then dimmed. A spin of the perometer’s dial could mean any number of things. Barbarossa’s men? The BBB? What was left of the Twelve and its pinstripes was still after them too.

The Demon remained quite calm, his head turned to one side, and he closed his eyes as if listening to something that Ned couldn’t hear. Finally his skin began to glow a fiery red.

“Trouble is here – here for you.”

Ned and family were up on their feet in an instant.

“What trouble? What do you mean?!”

“Find the old one – he will give you what you seek. Now go. NOW. While there is still time.”

“The old …?” Ned began to ask, but a second later he was shoved out of the door by both Mum and Dad, with a fast-moving sprite at their heels, out into the corridor and back into the tea room, and that’s when Mavis made herself heard.

“HOW DARE YOU? THIS IS MY TEA ROOM!”