The Sacrifice by Charlie Higson

  ‘Still do.’

  ‘That David. Jesus. He’s in charge at Buckingham Palace?’

  ‘I’m afraid so.’

  ‘Do you have any dealings with him?’ Ed asked.

  ‘We have a sort of alliance with the palace.’

  ‘You guys are really organized.’ Ed laughed.

  ‘We have to be,’ said Nicola. ‘Or we’d all be dead.’

  ‘So if you have dealings with David at the palace then maybe you know whether Sam’s mates ever made it there?’

  ‘Sam?’

  ‘Small Sam, the boy we’re looking for.’

  Nicola looked thoughtful. ‘I do know that a group turned up from Holloway not long back. One of David’s guys had found them, persuaded them to come to the palace. David made a big deal of them. How they were the “greatest fighters in London”.’

  ‘Yeah, that fits.’

  ‘It was a bit embarrassing for David, though, because he wound them up the wrong way and I don’t think they stayed long.’

  ‘Why’s that?’

  ‘David’s weird,’ said Nicola. ‘Not everyone takes to him. He lays it on a bit heavy and a lot of kids don’t like it there, but he’s trying to build up an army, so he’s desperate to get more fighters. Too desperate. Like a sweaty boy at a party coming on too strong. He puts people off.’

  ‘What’s he want an army for?’ Ed asked.

  ‘Wants to rid London of every oppo and unite all the kids.’

  ‘Oppo?’

  ‘Is what we call grown-ups.’

  Ed put his head in his hands and sighed. ‘This is too much to take in right now.’

  They’d been very isolated at the Tower. Secure in their own little world. He’d had no idea that there was this whole other life going on out here, so close, if only they’d ever braved the no-go zone. It had become like the Middle Ages, when someone could spend their whole life in one village and never even visit the next one up the valley. Well, he’d crossed the mountains now and discovered not another village on the other side, but whole towns full of busy people.

  Nicola stood up, tugged her jumper down automatically.

  ‘I think I can trust you,’ she said. ‘So let’s go and talk to the Cabinet. I told them to get ready in the House of Lords.’

  ‘The Cabinet? Right.’

  Ed hauled himself up off the sofa. It wasn’t the most comfortable piece of furniture he’d ever sat on, but he was tired and sitting down for a while had been bliss.

  He walked alongside Nicola as they made their way back downstairs. She kept close to him and he made no attempt to move away. In a different life he might have flirted with her. It was clear she liked him. But these days he didn’t think about stuff like that. Boy-girl stuff. He kept himself to himself. Concentrated on what needed to be done. Girlfriends were a distraction. He didn’t need anyone else to worry about. Couldn’t fight with a girl hanging on his sword arm.

  Besides, since he’d got his scar he’d lost all confidence in that department.

  And yet …

  No, Ed, put it out of your mind. Like Brooke.

  Ryan was still there, sitting sprawled on the plush red benches of the House of Lords with his hunters. A sea of black leather. Thankfully they’d chained their noisy dogs up outside when they’d come in.

  The rest of Ed’s crew were there as well, comparing their wounds and reliving the day’s events. There were also about ten of Nicola’s kids. All three groups were sitting apart and chatting among themselves.

  Nicola gave a quick round-up of what she knew and what Ed wanted.

  ‘It was definitely them,’ said Ryan when she’d finished.

  ‘Who?’ Nicola asked, sitting down with her kids.

  ‘The ones who rocked up at the palace. They was definitely from Holloway. That raggedy-arsed kid in the disco coat, Jester, found them and brought them in like you said. About two weeks ago they all left in the night. David don’t want no one to know about it. He’s got a well red face over that one. Everybody knows he’s trying to fit up an army and they was bare good fighters is what I hear.’

  ‘Where did they go?’ Ed asked.

  ‘Natural History Museum is what I been told – same as your man DogNut. Ain’t heard nothing about them since. Is been well quiet over that way. With all that’s going down these last days, we ain’t been near the place.’

  Kyle settled back in his seat and leant over towards Ed. ‘Seems you’ve got to take us on an outing to the museum, boss.’

  ‘Seems so.’

  A boy with a buzz cut and no front teeth stood up and called across the floor to Ed.

  ‘Can I ask a question?’

  ‘Fire away.’

  ‘Did you really come through the City of London?’

  ‘Yeah. I wouldn’t advise it, though.’

  ‘Did you know there were all these oppoes about?’

  ‘No. Yes. Well, no, we knew there’d be more of them in there, knew it wasn’t exactly going to be fun, but we had no idea just how bad it was going to be. No way did we expect all these new arrivals to be out on the streets in the daytime.’

  ‘I told you, soldier,’ said Ryan. ‘We don’t even go in there.’

  ‘We weren’t overjoyed about it,’ said Kyle.

  ‘It’d be interesting to know what goes on there,’ said Buzz Cut. ‘Specially now with all these oppoes heading that way.’

  ‘So nobody round here goes into that part of London neither?’ said Kyle.

  ‘No,’ said Buzz Cut. ‘The Aldwych, Holborn, that’s about our limit. I mean, we sometimes get one of the Greens come out, but you can never trust what they say.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ Ed sat up straighter, something tugging at his thoughts. ‘Who are the Greens?’

  ‘This bunch of kids that live in St Paul’s Cathedral,’ said Buzz Cut. ‘They got some screwy religion, cult type thing going on. They used to send out what they called missionaries; holy rollers trying to convert other kids and take them back to join in their prayer meetings. Ain’t seen one of them for a long while. Probably cos a couple of them faked it, came out as missionaries and, what’s the word? Deserted?’

  ‘Defected,’ said Nicola.

  ‘That’s it,’ Buzz Cut went on. ‘We got an ex-Green here. Come out of St Paul’s singing hymns, done a bunk, moved in with David for a bit and when he’s found that’s worse than St Paul’s, he’s come here.’

  ‘Why do you call them the Greens?’ Ed asked.

  ‘They all dress in green,’ said Nicola. ‘It’s part of their cult.’

  This wasn’t good. Ed’s brain was grinding, trying to make sense of this new information. The facts were rearranging themselves into a new pattern.

  ‘Who’s in charge there?’ he said. ‘Who runs the show?’

  ‘Guy called Matt,’ said Buzz Cut.

  Mad Matt. All this time he’d been there, at St Paul’s, just a mile away from the Tower. Ed felt sick. He’d got it all wrong. An image came into his mind of Sam and The Kid sitting in the pub at the Tower while he told them about the Lamb and the Goat. Memories came barging in. Matt coming out of the smoke with his visions and crazy ideas. Matt causing the boat on the Thames to sink. Floating off on a piece of wreckage. The kids at the Tower whispering about Sam and The Kid. Matt’s wonky banner. Tish’s friend, Louise, slumped in the doorway, her hand cut off, her throat slashed. Blood on her green clothes.

  Green like Tish, who he’d put in with Sam and The Kid in the Casemates.

  Green.

  They all dressed in green.

  Shit. Shit. Shit. He was in the wrong place. Sam hadn’t been heading for the palace at all. Tish must have been taking him to St Paul’s, whether he knew it or not.

  Ed stood up.

  ‘I’ve got to go there,’ he said.

  ‘Go where?’ Nicola looked surprised.

  ‘St Paul’s. I’ve made a mistake. The boy you were talking about – the Green, the missionary, the defector, whatever – I need to see
him.’

  ‘Here we go again.’ Kyle clapped his hands together. ‘The game is on.’

  48

  The Kid was worried that Wormwood was going to get stuck. It was OK for him, scurrying around down here in the tunnels; he was skinny as a pin. The Green Man was a bigger deal, though, and had that round tum on him. He had to slither along on his front. Now and then The Kid turned round to check on him. Shining the flame on to him and making him squirm. He’d ferreted a slim candle out of his hairstack – not much bigger than the ones people used to put on birthday cakes. It was already burnt down to a stubbins. But there was still just enough flame left in it to show him the fuzzy green naked skin of the man, his bulk filling the tunnel from side to side and top to bottom, his arms reaching out, long fingernails waving, stretched face leering at him, gums bright and shiny, little silvery-grey teeth.

  The way his skin was pulled tight made him look like he was smiling the whole time as he shifted slowly along, inch by squeezed inch. The Kid was scared to stop and wait for him to catch up, though, because the damned bogeyman wasn’t smiling. He was hungry. If The Kid let his guard down he was going to feel those nasty sharp little teeth in his backside.

  He just hoped they’d reach the end of this tunnel soon.

  It had taken him ages to find a way out of the cellar, but he’d done it in the end, like he knew he would. These places usually had drains of some sort and there had been one there, hidden under years of dust and rubble and God knows what bits and bobbins. He’d searched the floor, over and again on his knees, feeling with his hands, sniffing for fresh air currents, the reek of sewers, anything that would give him a clue to another way to escape this dungeon than by the big black iron-hard door.

  He only had the one candle and he’d been saving that. So he worked in the dark, talking, talking all the long while, making sure the Green Goblin kept his mind off his supper and his eyes on the target. He wanted the troll to forget about ribs and loin and thighs and breast, and think instead on freedom and fresh air and a change of scenery.

  Twice as he’d searched, The Kid had flicked on his Bic and, in the bright sudden flare of light, he’d seen that Wormwood had got up and was creeping across the floor towards him. Then The Kid would kick up a storm and roar and yell and threaten the bogeyman with bright fire and remind him that he was getting them both OUT OF THERE.

  Then, grumbling and moaning and rubbing his swollen, aching belly, Colonel Bogey would shuffle off back to his bench and sit down again, arms at his sides, teeth bared, waiting.

  The Kid liked to talk; he had a lot of words stored up in his head, every one he’d ever heard it sometimes seemed, but he was running out of chat by the time he found the drain hole. Sensed it was there in the dark. He scrabbled and cleared the doobries away. And then, just as his fingers found the metal bars, he felt hot breath on his neck, rolled quickly aside and screamed blue nuns at Wormwood. Spun the flint on his lighter and there he was, crouching over him, dribbling.

  ‘Can’t you get it into your fat head?’ he’d shouted, dancing with that hot lighter in his hand. ‘That if you eat me you will never be gone from this place?’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ whined Wormwood. ‘It’s not my fault. It’s not me. It’s the other. The falling star, a million years old, that’s not me, how could it be? That’s what you said. I’m Mark Wormold. I work for Promithios.’

  ‘We been over this a million times,’ The Kid protested. ‘I don’t want no more excuses. I want you to fix on this: I am your Salvation Army. Now put those gnarly claws of yours to good use and dig this drain hole clear.’

  Wormwood had been obedient. He’d got to his naked knees and grovelled and scratched away at the rubbish until he’d cleared the grille that covered the hole. Just big enough to fit through. Only just.

  The Kid had had a lot of experience of grilles like this. It was an old friend. Old and rusted. It was easy enough to smash it to smithereens with a wooden shelf he ripped from the wall. Then he slipped down to investigate. There was a short drop into a long brick-lined tunnel with cables running along the side of it.

  The Kid had lit his candle then. Taken a good look-see, going on hands and knees like a newborn. Maybe once upon a time this had been a sewer, and then, as they made new sewers, these old tunnels found new uses. The Kid knew from experience that the ground under London was riddled with such tunnels, all now carrying cables and wires. He went far enough to check it wasn’t blocked any time soon, then scurried back for Wormwood.

  Found him dangling down through the drain hole, upside down, arms out, fingernails combing the air. A dangling bogey.

  ‘Hey, Struwwelpeter!’ The Kid had snapped at him. ‘You wait for me and do as you’re told.’

  ‘I’m stuck.’

  ‘No, you ain’t. Go back up and then come down feet first.’

  It was easier said than done, but done it was, eventually, and Wormwood had joined him in the tunnel.

  Which is where they still were. Making slow progress. They struggled and sweated and scraped along, and the stink of the Green Man made The Kid want to throw up his guts.

  His candle was about to burn out and they had to find a way up soon or Wormwood would give in and just eat him and then die down here wedged in the tunnel like a toad in a drainpipe.

  ‘Is this the way to work?’ Wormwood asked.

  ‘Come off it.’ The Kid started giggling. It was that or start crying. ‘It’s a wormhole for a worm.’

  ‘I was working somewhere,’ Wormwood went on. ‘Near here. Promithios. I had a white coat then. Not green. It was washed white. And at night I’d go home and tell stories to my boys and kiss my wife, and watch the television. Is there still television?’

  ‘No, sir. That’s all gone,’ said The Kid. ‘The juice has run dry, old bean. Maybe one day it’ll come back. Never used to like the old goggle-box myself, to tell you the God’s own truth. There was too much in there. It used to set my poor head spinning, fill it up with words and pictures and the old sound and fury. I hear something, it goes right into my brain and sticks there, you see? Yeah? Sure you do. Once the words go in I can’t rattle them loose. Granddad and Grandma, they said it wasn’t good for me. TV. Said it overstimulated me. That was a fine big word, overstimulated. That one stuck. There’s a lot of useless words stuck in my head: testosterone, Toblerone, mallard, affidavit … And sometimes the words get broken and mixed up with each other if I get overstimulated. Back then, with Granddad and Grandma, it was the worst thing to be, overstimulated. Did you used to watch the box with your childers, Mister Worms?’

  ‘Yes. Yes, we did. Me and my wife and the three boys. Those were happy times. All of us together.’

  ‘It’s a long way from there to here,’ said The Kid. ‘And you can’t get back there. No, sir. It’s a long way from watching TV with the family to eating small fry like me. You need to join the dots. How did you end up down here playing the Minotaur?’

  ‘They came to my workplace,’ said Wormwood. ‘I do remember that. All very hush-hush. That was the word they used, hush-hush.’

  ‘Hush-hush?’

  ‘Yes. They came from the jungle, you see? Little brown men. It was my job to make sure they were healthy, to check them over.’

  ‘Who are you going on about now?’ asked The Kid. ‘Am I supposed to know?’

  ‘It hurts my head to answer your questions,’ said Wormwood. ‘These memories hurt. The past is a heaviness. Because, you see, something got inside me. Something spoiled everything I had. My home, my wife, my children, all gone. Something got inside me and made me do things. There are two of me. Like you said. There’s Wormold and there’s Wormwood. We’re not the same.’

  ‘Change the record, Mister DJ, that one’s stuck.’

  ‘It was all my fault,’ said Wormwood.

  ‘You got sick,’ said The Kid. ‘Wasn’t only you.’

  ‘Oh but I was one of the first.’

  ‘Tell me more about you and the boys and the lovely wife a
nd Christmas round the Christmas tree, Wormy. Those are the bits I like.’

  ‘Yeah, that was nice, that’s a happy memory. You see? We were working for the company. And it was all hush-hush. And the sickness got in us. The sickness made us do things. Hide things. We had another child. A girl. I’ve tried to forget her. She was twisted, you see? Didn’t come out right.’

  ‘Now here’s a new story,’ said The Kid. ‘Tell me about the poor twisted girl.’

  ‘She came out all wrong,’ said Wormwood sadly. ‘She wasn’t alone. There were others. We were all working there. Hush-hush.’

  ‘Working where, old Wormster?’

  ‘Promithios. I am Mark Wormold. I work for Promithios. I study tropical diseases. Parasites. How do you do? “No, don’t shake my hand, ha, ha.” That was my joke. “You don’t know what you might catch. Have you met the wife?” I’m Mark Wormold and I have a wife and three boys. We have a fourth on the way, a lovely girl. My wife always wanted a girl.’ Wormwood fell silent. All The Kid could hear was him snuffling and panting and wriggling along on his pot belly, fingernails scritch-scraping on the bricks. And then, after a long pause, he carried on, sounding very sad and lost.

  ‘But she came out wrong,’ he said. ‘We were all there, we all had children, and they all came out wrong. She’d be about fourteen now. It was hushed up, hush-hush. All hushed up. You know the only way to make it right?’

  ‘Lay it on me, daddio.’

  ‘To eat the world. To taste the flesh of the ones who aren’t sick. The ones like you. That’s what I hear them shouting at me. All of them up there. That we must eat the world and I must show them how. I try to tell them to keep it buttoned, but they won’t shut up. Their chittering is in my head. They’re louder now. Up there. The bugs. I tell them there’s another way. But will they listen? No, because like me, they’re two in one. I tell them there is a way. I tell them that good blood will force out bad, but they won’t listen. All they want to do is eat the children.’

  ‘Not me,’ said The Kid. ‘We got a deal, remember? A cast-iron, copper-bottomed, blue-chipped mug of a deal. You can’t eat me, buster balloon.’