The World Beneath (The Mira Brand Adventures Book 1) Read online

  “Right,” I said, making a decision. “Okay. We get to the next set of stairs. Come on, quickly now.”

  “What are you going to do?”

  “Make them go away. Come on, up!”

  Carson booked it, pausing three-quarters of the way up.

  “Higher. Right to the top.”

  He obeyed.

  I’d stopped midway; high enough that a knife couldn’t come through the banister and slice my Achilles, not so high that Carson would be in danger should things go south.

  Heavy footfalls came from just around the corner. Five seconds ‘til they were on me, ten tops.

  I fumbled at my belt, unclipping—

  “An umbrella?” Carson wasn’t too exhausted to muster a tone of incredulity: “You know it’s bad luck to open those indoors, right?”

  “It’s not an umbrella, and I don’t see how our luck can get any worse at the moment, frankly.”

  The cloaked pursuers rounded the corner. Saw me on the stairs.

  The lead—the one I must’ve spanged in the face, because his cowl bore a diagonal line of off-white dust—gritted his teeth and jutted out his chin, the only visible portion of his face. Cinquedea brandished, his foot met the first step—

  I flung open the umbrella—

  The glamour dissolved. The canopy, bright yellow and red in alternating octants, disappeared. The metal rod lengthened, widening in my hand, stretching and stretching until it became—

  Decidian’s Spear, brandished right at them.

  Behind, from Carson: “What the hell?” He sucked in a sharp breath. “Wait. Are you the Penguin’s daughter?”

  The lead, stopped in his tracks, gritted teeth, jaw flexing beneath the shadow of his cowl. He reached out his empty hand and flexed his first two fingers back and forth: Hand it over.

  “No.” I tightened my grip, two-handed, jabbing at the air.

  He gestured again, more animated now.

  Didn’t these guys talk?

  Ignoring the sense of unease creeping up my spine, I said, “You not hear me, mate? I said no. You know how much trouble I went through to get this thing? The spear’s mine.” I filled my chest. “And I will use it if that’s what it takes.”

  The corner of his lip crooked up. He shook his head, slow.

  “You don’t believe me? What’s that smear on the end, then? Orc blood, mate.”

  Carson, sounding as though he was on the verge of fainting: “Orc blood?”

  “I’ll use it again,” I said. “I swear to you, I will use—”

  Then there were sirens. Carried from the street, they blared, warbling as they came closer and closer.

  “Police,” I whispered. Someone had called them!

  The cloaked men exchanged looks.

  The lead jabbed a finger at me. All trace of the smile had gone now. His jaw was set—and for the third time, he gestured for me to hand the spear over.

  Freedom or glory, for the second time today. Were these men sent by Alain Borrick, with talismans and compasses of their own to cut through to London, the way I’d found the temple and stolen the spear?

  “I said no,” I said one last time.

  The man’s jaw flexed. I thought he might bolt for me, take the chance—still three against one, spear or not—but the sirens reached apex. There were a trio, it sounded like, all just slightly out of step—and all coming from the foot of this building.

  A moment later, a bang.

  Echoing up the stairs: “POLICE! LET’S MAKE THIS EASY, WHY DON’T WE?”

  Relief threatened to flood me. But the impasse had not ended. Until the police had us, and taken these men into custody, I could not relinquish my hold on Decidian’s Spear. Even one second of hesitation would be enough for me to lose it, and everything I was working so hard for.

  Another shout, closer: “WE KNOW YOU’RE UP THERE!”

  The lead cloaked figure stepped back. He jerked his shoulders, twisted his neck. It cracked, low and unpleasant.

  The cinquedea was stowed. His compatriots did the same.

  Backtracking, they made for the nearest door.

  Just before passing it, he looked back at me, eyes hidden by his cowl, mouth a thin line. Again, he said no words—but the meaning in the look was clear. This wasn’t over.

  Then they were gone.

  I didn’t release my hold on the spear.

  “They’ll run into the police,” Carson whispered.

  I shook my head. “They won’t.”

  “But how—?”

  There were new footsteps now, clomps echoing around this sanded wooden chamber.

  If they hadn’t shown up, this place might’ve been our tomb.

  Wasn’t, though, was it?

  When the steps were close enough, I let the spear’s glamour descend. It shrank, canopy sprouting again, each section filling brightly.

  The hitch in Carson’s breath as he watched was audible. I should’ve glanced back to see how large his eyes bulged, how close they came to bursting out of his head like a pair of ping pong balls. Heavens knew I could do with the laugh after today—and after what was about to happen.

  The first officer, a middle-aged man with receding dirty blonde hair, rounded the corner just as I was folding the umbrella closed. His eyes fell to it first, flashing with confusion. Then he was at the bottom of the stairs, one hand extended.

  “Afternoon, kids. Want to tell me what you’re doing in here?”

  “We had to run,” Carson blurted. “There were men with cinquedeas—”

  “Cin-what?”

  “Knives,” I said. Sinking onto the step, I held my head in my hands. Exhaustion had come at last, and I had no choice but to fall into its embrace. “Blokes in cloaks with knives came after us. That’s why you’re here, right?”

  “We had reports of an altercation,” the officer said. “Anyone else in here besides you two?”

  I shook my head. “No.”

  “There were!” Carson said at the same moment. “But they’ve gone—”

  “All right.” I guessed the officer saw babbling like this a lot. Not the time for it now, especially with floors above us still to check. “Why don’t you come down with us?”

  “You’re—you’re letting us go?”

  “Well, I’d prefer if you came to the station.”

  “The station?”

  Poor Carson. His sightseeing plans had been well and truly demolished.

  If only he hadn’t followed. All of this could be avoided.

  For him, anyway.

  “Just to answer a few questions,” the officer said. “What do you say?”

  Carson didn’t respond. I didn’t need to glance back; I could imagine his face well enough, his mouth hanging, opening and closing like a goldfish in a tank.

  “Fine,” I conceded with a sigh. “We’ll come.”

  I rose, eased down the stairs. Every step was heavy—defeated.

  Carson took a moment to move. But I glanced back, and jerked my head. Obediently, like a child, or maybe a puppy, he followed. Like mine, his legs didn’t seem to want to work. He reached over himself to clutch the banister with both hands.

  By the time Carson had caught up, the officer had called for backup. His partner arrived, a stern-looking overweight man with a greying mustache and a shaved head. He conducted a pat-down, and ordered me to turn out my pockets. Checking the miniature flashlight, he popped the batteries and pocketed them, then handed it back, plus my Railcard. He gave the objects on my belt a particularly scrutinizing eye, umbrella especially.

  “Supposed to rain today, is it?”

  “Well, it is London,” I offered in return.

  The stern-looking officer walked us down to the building’s ground floor.

  Police cars were pulled up outside. A pair of coppers stood alongside one, chatting.

  They raised eyebrows as Carson and I were led outside.

  “Trespassers,” our escort muttered. “Brady caught them.”

  “
All right. In the car, mate,” said one. To me: “You, the other.”

  I obeyed. No choice. And though I figured I could maybe put on a burst of speed and find myself a quiet corner for just long enough to cut through, what would the point be? I’d run away, but London was still my home. I couldn’t leave it entirely—especially when my work here wasn’t done. Better to go along with this and answer their questions rather than duck away and end up on some wanted list. That was the last thing I needed—especially given the skulking necessary to find places to cut through.

  So, with a crowd meandering but watching what all the fuss was about, I climbed into the back of the police car.

  I looked back. Carson had obeyed too. Through the window, he stared at me, somewhere between baffled and broken.

  For all the good it did, I muttered, “Sorry”—for the second time today.

  6

  I’d seen interrogation rooms on TV and in movies before.

  The one I found myself in was dead on. No windows; nothing remotely interesting or exciting whatsoever. Plain floor, utterly bland table, camera in the corner pointed at it—at me, on one side.

  On the other paced Constable Lawrence Heyman. He was not totally dissimilar from the bobbies who’d apprehended me and Carson. Shirt, jacket, number printed on the shoulder. No hat. And no stab vest either—no need, in here; I’d been patted down enough times. Just the once was enough; I’d had damn near everything taken from me. Only my talisman remained, dangling as it was now from Heyman’s fist, plus the flashlight in my pocket, sans batteries. Oh, and my Railcard. Couldn’t lose that.

  Heyman was an imposing sort of man, I supposed. Less bulky without the stab vest, to be sure, but still threatening enough. Or maybe that was just the uniform doing its thing.

  He frowned. Well into middle-aged, he was fighting off the jowly look, but I reckoned another can of lager or two each week and it would have him. No facial hair, but his eyebrows made up for it: the same salt-and-pepper as the hair on his head (and it was mostly salt), they were bushy great things. I wondered if he had to comb them down to get his helmet on.

  “Where’d you get this?” He lifted the talisman. Its pendant swung like a pendulum.

  “Family heirloom. I didn’t nick it, if that’s what you’re accusing me of.”

  He laughed, a short braying noise. Shaking his head, he lowered it gently onto the table: pendant first, then the chain, coiling around.

  “I’m just curious,” he said. “It’s a pretty thing.” He took a seat and pushed it across.

  Distrustfully, I took it and put it back on, stashing it beneath my shirt.

  “What’s the pattern?”

  “I dunno. Some tribal thing, I guess.”

  “Certainly looks it.”

  I was quiet.

  Heyman’s eyes drifted over me. I imagined how ratty I looked: hair a mess; clothes creased like they’d made their way to me down the side of Everest; face blotted with dust—and, on my left sleeve, a slowly darkening line. I hadn’t noticed it until it was pointed out, but apparently the space-grey sleeve had failed to hide the soft ooze of blood from my encounter with Burbondrer.

  If I saw Carson again, I dreaded to think how he’d react to it. Probably faint dead away and crack his skull open like an egg.

  I suppressed a grimace. If I saw him again. Which was not likely. He was somewhere in this building with me now, I figured, being asked about his side of events. We’d probably be let go around the same time—nothing they could pin on us, except for trespassing, I guessed, but even that was dubious after all the eyewitness accounts of men wielding daggers chasing after us.

  I’d make a point of getting away quickly this time.

  Although potentially not immediately. It was his fault I was in here, after all, and he deserved reminding of it.

  Although … it was hardly his fault we’d been pursued, was it?

  I told myself to shut up. This was no time for sympathy or understanding.

  “Run me through this again,” Heyman said. He’d been taking notes, and he fished out the clipboard from under his arm, filled with scrawl. Completely impenetrable, by the look of it. He should’ve been a doctor. “You and your friend exited the Underground, Piccadilly line. What next?”

  “He’s not my friend,” I corrected. “He’s just some guy who started chatting to me when I was on the stairs, asking about places to visit while he’s in the city.”

  “All right. Now, you’re outside the tube station …”

  I recounted the story. Heyman listened, nodding along, asking follow-up questions in all the right places—did I see their faces, how tall did I think they were, did they say anything at all. All the same as before. Looking to catch me out, I guess, because he looked over and over his notes, adding to them only very occasionally.

  When finally I was done, Heyman reviewed in silence.

  No little holes—obviously.

  He popped the clipboard back down, and eased back in his seat. An eagle eye met mine, gaze penetrating.

  I did my best not to shift beneath it.

  Not easy. It was like he was trying to peer into my soul. Probably what got him the job in the first place; the sort of look that could bring a person to break.

  I didn’t have anything to break over, and it still unnerved me. Under the table, I fidgeted, fingers tugging opposite sleeves.

  “What?” I finally challenged.

  “My boys pulled a few details on you.”

  I waited. “So?” But I felt the hairs on the back of my neck rise.

  “Mira Traci Brand,” he rattled off. “Seventeen. Second child of Jacob and … Ileara?” I must’ve nodded subtly, because Heyman went on like I’d confirmed it. “Computer says you ran away from home about three months ago; seventeenth of January.” He leaned closer. “That would be you, wouldn’t it, Miss Brand?”

  I was frozen. Couldn’t move an inch.

  I should’ve run. Just left Carson and gone.

  “You’re from Colchester, Essex, is that right?”

  I was aware of my nod this time, a jerky sort of motion I couldn’t control. “Yes.” The word sounded like a croak coming from my throat.

  “Your parents from there?”

  “My dad,” I said. “My mum’s from Lagos. Nigeria.”

  “They’ve been worried about you.”

  Have they, I almost said. There wouldn’t have been even the remotest hint of belief in it.

  “How’ve you been getting by? Seventeen-year-old girl, all alone in the city. This is where you’ve been, I presume? London?”

  I didn’t answer. Couldn’t, even if I’d wanted to. My vocal cords were stuck. And if they weren’t, what could I say? “I open gateways to other worlds and sell the things I bring back”? I’d be carted out of this room in an instant, chucked into the back of the nearest car, and taken to a padded cell in a loony bin somewhere.

  “I see you travel with a flashlight,” Heyman said. “Are you nicking things?”

  I shook my head, once.

  “I understand if you have,” he went on. And there was no unkindness in his voice. He sounded … sympathetic. “I see homeless people all the time, and it breaks my heart, it really does. To not know when your next meal is coming … I get it, Mira. I do.”

  Good cop. That’s all this was. He just wanted to bait a confession, nothing more.

  But what confession? There was no confession to give! I hadn’t stolen anything—at least from here. All right, I nabbed artifacts and trinkets—but no person was missing them, probably no creature at all, given the stupidly ancient places they were squirreled away in. At worst I was robbing the graves of long-dead things from other worlds. It wasn’t even like I’d taken custody of a doorstep to lay my head down at night!

  I didn’t say anything. Heyman didn’t push—which was probably just another facet to his good cop routine. Instead he rose from the desk, stepped around me for the door.

  “I’ll be back shortly.”
r />   “You’re leaving me in here?”

  “Just for now. I won’t be long.” He lifted a parental sort of smile—and said, “Your parents are on the way. I’ll bring them through when they’re here.”

  Out he went.

  Horror widened my eyes. They bored through the opposite wall, unseen.

  Your parents are on the way.

  Heyman had called them. Told them I was here.

  They were coming to get me. To take me home.

  It was over.

  My adventure was over.

  All my hopes, all my dreams …

  Gone.

  Just as soon as they stepped through that door.

  7

  No.

  That was the first thought, when my brain kicked back into action. Outright refusal. I was not, repeat not, going back with them. No way.

  Question was, how to avoid it?

  The talisman.

  Perfect answer. Ish. Mum and Dad knew well enough what it did, how it worked. If at first there had been any doubt, months of my absence would have only confirmed it: I’d pilfered a talisman and made my getaway. If I waited until they got here to collect me, the first thing they would do, the very first, would be to take it back. Clip my wings.

  That would not do.

  So I could cut through here …

  But I didn’t have the compass.

  Worse still, there was a camera on me.

  I glanced at it, hoping I didn’t look too suspicious. Probably not, right? People in interrogation rooms by their lonesome probably glanced at the things all the time. Hard not to, when you knew you were being watched by eyes you couldn’t see.

  Would someone be watching it right now?

  I doubted it. Paperwork to do, and all that. Plus how interesting was a scruffy-looking seventeen-year-old? Save for a cursory glance now and again at one of several monitors, I was pretty certain I was safe.

  But where was I supposed to cut through? The camera was positioned in a corner, probably with a slightly fish-eyed lens. It would capture every wall. The only blinds spots were directly beneath—and under the table.

  Which could work.

  Brilliant. I’d just open a hole and drop in with the chair.