Across The Wall: A Tale of the Abhorsen and Other Stories. Garth Nix
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sounded in the corridor outside, then one stuttered into life. At the same time, the light beyond the door flickered on, off, and on again, before giving up in a shower of sparks that plunged the room back into total darkness.
Something touched Nick’s feet. He flinched, taking off some skin against the ropes. A few seconds later there was a click near his head, a whiff of paraffin; and a four-inch flame suddenly shed some light on the scene. Dorrance lifted his cigarette lighter and set it on a head-high shelf, still burning.
He took a bandage from the same shelf and started to wind it around Nick’s wrist.
“Waste not, want not,” said Dorrance. “Even if your blood is tainted, it has succeeded beyond my dearest hopes. I have long dreamed of waking Her.”
“It, you mean,” croaked Nick.
Dorrance tied off the bandage, then suddenly slapped Nick’s face hard with the back of his hand.
“You are not worthy to speak of Her! She is a goddess! A goddess! She should never have been sent away! My father was a fool! Fortunately I am not!”
Nick chose silence once more and waited for another blow. But it didn’t come. Dorrance took a deep breath, then bent under the table. Nick craned his head to see what he was doing but could hear only the rattle of metal on metal.
The man emerged holding two sets of old-style handcuffs, the kind whose cuffs were screwed in rather than key locked. He quickly handcuffed Nick’s left wrist to the metal rail of the bed, then did the same with the second set to his right wrist.
“It has been politic to play the disbeliever about your Charter Magic,” he said as he screwed the handcuffs tight. “But She has told me different in my dreams, and if She can rise so far from the Wall, perhaps your magic will also serve you…and ropes do burn or fray so easily. Rest here, young Nicholas. My mistress may soon need a second drink, whether the taste disagrees with Her or not.”
After shaking the handcuffs to make sure they were secure, Dorrance picked up his still-burning cigarette lighter and left, muttering something to himself that Nick couldn’t quite hear. It didn’t sound entirely sane, but Nick didn’t need to hear bizarre mumblings to know that Dorrance was neither the harmless eccentric of his public image or the cunning spymaster of his secret identity. He was a madman in league with a Free Magic creature.
As soon as Dorrance had gone, Nick tested the handcuffs, straining against them. But he couldn’t move his hands more than a few inches off the table, certainly not far enough to reach the screws. However, he could reach the pommel of his dagger with the tips of three fingers. After a few failed attempts, he managed to get the blade out, and by rolling his body, he sliced through the rope on his left wrist, cutting himself slightly in the process.
He was trying to move his left ankle up towards his hand when he heard the first distant gunshots and screams. There were more, but they got fainter and fainter, lending hope that the creature was moving further away.
Not that it made much difference, Nick thought as he rattled his handcuffs in frustration. He couldn’t get free by himself. He would have to work out a plan to get Dorrance to at least uncuff him when he returned. Then Nick might be able to surprise him. If he did return. Until then, Nick decided, he should try to rest and gather his strength. As much as the adrenaline coursing through his bloodstream would let him rest, immobilised on a steel operating table in a secret underground facility run by a lunatic, with a totally inimical creature on the loose.
He lay in silence for what he estimated was somewhere between fifteen minutes and an hour, though he was totally unable to judge the passage of time when he was in the dark and so wound up with tension. In that time, every noise seemed loud and significant, and made him twist and tilt his head, as if by moving his ears he could better capture and identify each sound.
There was silence for a while, or near enough to it. Then he heard more gunshots but without the screams. The shots were repeated a few seconds later, louder and closer and were followed by the slam and echo of metal doors and then hurrying footsteps. Of more than one person.
“Help!” cried Nick. “Help! I’m tied up in here!”
He figured it was worth calling out. Even fanatical Department Thirteen employees must have realised by now that Dorrance was crazy and he’d unleashed something awful upon them.
“Help!”
The footsteps came closer and a torch beam swung into the room, blinding Nick. Behind its yellow nimbus, he saw two partial silhouettes. One man standing in front of another.
“Get those shackles off and untie him,” ordered the second man. Nick recognised the voice. It was Constable Ripton. The man who shuffled ahead, allowing the light to fall on his face and side, was Professor Lackridge. A pale and trembling Lackridge, who fumbled with the screws of the handcuffs. Ripton was holding a revolver on him, but Nick doubted that was why the scientist was so scared.
“Sorry to take so long, sir,” said Ripton calmly. “Bit of a panic going on.”
Nick suddenly understood what Ripton had actually been trying to convey with his quick glances back in the guardroom. His uncle’s words ran through his head.
It is watched over quite carefully, I assure you.
“You’re not really D13, are you? You’re one of my uncle’s men?”
“Yes, sir. Indirectly. I report to Mr Foxe.”
Nick sat up as the handcuffs came off and quickly sliced through the remaining ropes. He was not entirely surprised to see the faint glimmer of Charter Marks on the blade, though they were nowhere near as bright and potent as they’d be near the Wall.
“Can you walk, sir? We need to get moving.”
Nick nodded. He felt a bit light-headed but otherwise fine, so he guessed he hadn’t lost too much blood to the creature.
“Sorry,” Lackridge blurted out as Nick slid off the table and stood up. “I never…never thought that this would happen. I never believed Dorrance, thought only to humour him…He said that it spoke to him in dreams, and if it was more awake, then…We hoped to be able to discover the secret of waking mental communication…It was—”
“Mind control is what Dorrance thought he could get from it,” Ripton said, interrupting him. He tapped his coat pocket. “I’ve got your diary here. Mind control through people’s dreams. And you just went along with whatever Dorrance wanted, you stupid sod.”
“What’s actually happening?” asked Nick. “Has it killed anyone?”
Lackridge choked out something unintelligible.
“Anyone! It’s killed almost everyone down here, and by now it’s probably upstairs killing everyone there,” said Ripton. “Guns don’t work up close to it, bullets fired further back don’t do a thing and the electric barrier grilles just went phhht when it walked up! As soon as I figured it was trying to get out, I doubled around behind it. Now I reckon we follow its path outside and then run like the clappers while it’s busy—”
“We can’t do that,” said Nick. “What about the guests? And the servants—even if they do work for D13, they can’t be abandoned.”
“There’s nothing we can do,” said Ripton. He no longer appeared so calm. “I don’t know what that thing is, but I do know that it has already killed a dozen highly trained and fully armed D13 operatives. Killed them and…and drunk their blood. Not…not something I ever want to see again…”
“I know what it is,” said Nick. “Somewhat. It is a Free Magic creature from the Old Kingdom. A source of Free Magic itself, which is why guns and electricity don’t work near it. I would have thought that bullets coming in from further away would at least hurt it though…”
“They bounced off. I saw the lead splashes on its hide…Here’s a torch. You go in front, Professor. Get your key ready.”
“We