Hidden Among Us (15 page)

Not very reassuring.

Rafe had already found an ancient computer in a gloomy corner at the back of the café, just beneath a spiral staircase.

“Not even a password,” he said, taking a swig from his coffee as I sat down beside him. “Not bad. Surprisingly OK.”

The coffee
was
good. Bitter and strong. Dad thinks I’m funny for liking black coffee at my age but I needed it then. My whole body felt drained and empty. I’d hardly slept the night before, after Rafe had smashed the window. I’d just lain there on edge, watching the hours slide by.

Like I was waiting for something.

And then Dad had come in at six in the morning.
It’s Connie. She’s really not well, Joe. There’s an ambulance coming—

I glanced at my phone again. Still out of reception. I’d had no signal for hours now. At the Reach, I’d managed to send texts to my mates the night before, moaning about how shit this holiday was going to be, and now we were in town. You’d think the reception would be better, not worse.

“Are you going to try speaking to your mam?” I tried to sound casual.

Rafe shook his head, not looking at me. “What’s the point? Neither of us can do anything to help Connie.” He sounded rough, aggressive. “I really don’t think either of us should be using our phones. Just turn it off.”

“I’ve no reception anyway.” I hesitated, almost not wanting to know the answer. “Have you?”

Rafe shook his head. “Not since this morning.”

“I know the house is out in the countryside and everything,” I said, “And Hopesay Edge is tiny, but we’re in town now. Why would the signal just disappear?” For a second, me and Rafe just stared at each other. “The police can jam mobile signal, can’t they?”

He shrugged. “If you think this has got anything to do with the police, you’re more stupid than you look.”

I swallowed the urge to hit him and went to the bar. I was starting to feel light-headed, slightly sick. We had to eat. By the time I returned with some bags of crisps and a couple of flapjacks, Rafe had started his search. Not that I really knew what we were even googling
for
. There was a long silence as we both mechanically worked our way through the food, and I tried to read the latest website over his shoulder. It was badly designed – lots of cramped white writing on a black background. My eyes ached.

“What’s the Fontevrault Group?” I asked. “It sounds sort of familiar.”

Rafe drank the last of his coffee, still looking a bit green. “Just a load of businessmen and politicians from places like Germany and the US. Holland, France. Us, too. They meet in secret, so every conspiracy-mad lunatic has a theory. I just searched for ‘the Hidden’ and this page about the Fontevrault Group came up way, way down the list after all the usual crap about fairies and crystals – I can’t find where the Hidden are even mentioned. I must have done a million Internet searches about them, but I’ve never come across this association before. It’s really weird.”

He scrolled through an article making out that this Fontevrault Group thing had control over the International Monetary Fund, and went right down to the comments.

There it was. One rambling badly spelled sentence, right there in front of us:

“Jesus,” Rafe whispered.

The Gateway’s open,
I couldn’t help thinking.
They’re already here
. Whoever had left that comment was behind the times.

I let my eyes travel down to the responses below it.

I didn’t bother reading on.

And below that:

The whole conversation was dated two days earlier.

“This website’s based in the US,” Rafe said, quietly, “they must—”

I moved without even thinking, took hold of the mouse and shut down the computer, heart racing. “We shouldn’t be looking at this. They could be monitoring it, these Fontevrault people, if they’re some massive powerful organization. Checking the IP address of computers that access websites which mention the Hidden.”

Rafe reached into his bag and took out the manuscript. “Look,” he said, quietly.

I looked where he was pointing, reading the scrawled old-fashioned handwriting at the bottom of the page.

Both of us glanced towards the bar at the same second. The girl had her back to us, emptying glasses from a dishwasher, stacking them on a shelf by the till.

“I thought that meant the Hidden,” Rafe said, so quietly she’d never be able to hear. “But now—”

“It’s this Fontevrault Group thing? So they’re the ones who’ve been following us? Why would a load of politicians and bankers care what we do?”

Rafe shrugged. “Maybe they don’t care what we do. No one really knows what the Fontevrault Group is actually for, or if it even really exists. That’s why there are so many conspiracy theories. What if it’s the Hidden they’re interested in?”

“Or people who try to find out more about the Hidden.”

Rafe stared at me. “Even if you’re right, they can’t possibly know where we are. There’s no way. We were on that site for less than five minutes.”

“Come on – don’t you feel like we’ve walked straight into one trap after another? First you with that journal, now this. And what about CCTV? They must know your number plate. Neither of us have had any phone signal for hours.” Was it really crazy to suspect that someone had jammed all signal from the local mobile mast?

Why would anyone do that?

“CCTV? Out here? They’ve barely got fire and the wheel.”

Rafe might have been right about the CCTV, but we were both already on our feet and walking to the door, out to the car, Rafe leaning heavily on the plastic broom and my shoulder. The girl behind the counter watched us leave, her eyes fixed on Rafe’s knackered and bloodied leg. He looked a mess, white as a sheet and sweating like mad. We weren’t exactly inconspicuous. I should’ve come in on my own. Another mistake. The keys felt heavy in my pocket. All this was too much responsibility.

I’m supposed to be on holiday
.

I was starting to feel a bit crazed.

Rafe leaned back in the passenger seat, breathing heavily. Sweat was now pouring freely down his face; I could see it trickling along his neck. Those painkillers he’d necked at the Reach weren’t even touching the sides, by the look of it.

I started the car, following the signs on the one-way system out of town. “Look. We’ve got to get your leg sorted out. Is there a – a doctor or something?”

I didn’t want to say the word “hospital”. Connie was in hospital.

I looked up. And I saw that dark grey car coming straight for us, right in the middle of the tiny lane. There was no room to pass. I waited for it to pull over. Slow down.

It didn’t.

Seconds flowed like hours.

Closer. Closer.

“Brake!” Rafe was yelling. “For Christ’s sake, stop, Joe! Stop!”

The other car wasn’t going to.

I pounded the brakes, yanking the steering wheel hard over, pulling in as close to the hedge as I could. Crabbed hawthorn branches screeched against my window, against the side of the car. The grey car filled our windscreen. I gripped the steering wheel, digging my fingers into the fake leather. Waiting for it.

We stopped just in time. I leaned back, gasping for breath, but Rafe was already leaning over me, wrenching my door open, shouting into my face, “Run,
run
, don’t you see it’s got to be them? These Fontevrault people, whoever they are.”

Surely these people were just coming to see if we were OK? They’d nearly crashed into us, after all.

“Don’t be stupid!” I said. “It can’t be—”

“Go!” Rafe yelled. He tore open the buckle of my seatbelt, shoved me out of the door.

I half fell out into the road and shoved past the hedge to Rafe’s side of the car, hardly feeling the scratches; my legs weak with fear or exhaustion – I don’t know what. He was right. He was right. Two men climbed out of the car, one on each side, quite young, each wearing a suit.

I tore open the passenger door, grabbing Rafe by the sleeve. “Come on! You can’t just sit there!”

“I can’t move!”
He spoke very quietly. “Run, Joe, this isn’t a joke.
Go
.” He shoved me into the hedge. “Here. Take this. It’s the only thing that will kill them. The Hidden.”

I looked down: he was holding out the iron knife. “Take it.” Rafe looked away, staring straight ahead at the men running towards us.

I had to leave him there. I took the knife. It was heavy, the wooden handle a smooth weight in my palm.

“Go!” Rafe said again. “It’s OK, Joe. Just go.”

“But—”

I looked up – the men were only a few feet away now, faces set hard, smart-looking shoes pounding against the tarmac. They were coming for Rafe. They were coming for me.

My legs woke up and I started to sprint. My whole body
knew
I was being chased because I’ve never run that fast in my life: the need to survive took over and I ran like a mouse from a cat, zigzagging down the lane back the way we’d come. There was a gap in the hedge a hundred feet away; beyond it a church spire. A village. No one could abduct me in the middle of a village.

I could hear them chasing me. They didn’t speak; they never spoke. Just the drumming of their smart office shoes on the road. Ragged breathing. Rafe was alone in the car. Waiting.

I forced my way through the gap in the hedge, keeping to the edge of the field because it was thick mud, raining hard, clutching Rafe’s knife all the time.

Rafe was gone. I’d just left him, like a bloody coward.

I was on my own.

26

Larkspur held out one hand, his fingers swan-feather white in the gloom, still smiling, teeth shining, always on the edge of laughter despite the sadness in his eyes. As if I were some kind of giant joke that made him want to laugh one minute and cry the next.

“I don’t care about your stupid king,” I snapped. “I’m not going anywhere with you.”

I whirled around to run, but Rose was waiting, thin arms folded across her chest. I noticed for the first time that her pale wrists were scarred, each marked with a livid purple band, as if she’d been horribly burned.

She smiled viciously. “Now
that
, my dear, would hardly be fair on the boy, with so much effort spent, and such a lonely punishment endured, all for your sake. Fourteen years of living alone with nothing to think about but how he betrayed his own father.”

“I have not missed conversing with you, Rose,” Larkspur said. “Every word a drop of poison. You’d kill me if you could – would you not?”

For a second they just stared at each other, her all silent and calculating, Larkspur defiant, like he was daring her to say something.

At last, Rose shrugged. “It seems I could not, though, much though I’d like to have you out of my way. The path you long for is no longer forbidden, child of my brother. Take it.”

Child of my brother
. Rose was Larkspur’s aunt but they both looked exactly the same age. I couldn’t process this information. Any of it.

Larkspur just stood waiting with his hand held out for mine, his face now blank as a mask. It was impossible to guess what he might be thinking.

Everyone was watching, even Tippy. Drums and pipes still silent and waiting for this drama to end. Tension bounced through the stale smoky air like a sonic boom.

I ended it myself by taking Larkspur’s hand, my brother’s hand, thinking:
And what does this really mean, if he’s my brother?

I’m not—

I’m not – human—

But the grateful way he pressed his fingers against my palm felt so totally normal that for a second I almost forgot he wasn’t either.

Hand in hand, we walked through the chamber, all of the gathered Hidden watching our every step. There were more of them than I’d first realized, perhaps two hundred: the shadowy cavern stretched on into the firelit darkness like the great hall in a stately home. At last, Larkspur held aside a tattered tapestry and led me out into a tunnel that reeked of damp sheds. Behind us, the music started up again. Drums, pipes. Someone sang in a wild voice; I half remembered the tune. Laughter, too.

I couldn’t shake the idea they were laughing at me. And Larkspur.

He turned, looking down at me. For once no trace of a smile. “Come.”

Before I could answer he held aside another heavy curtain, alive with grey mould. As Larkspur touched the fabric, thousands of tiny spores drifted from its folds, hanging in the silver light. I heard him whisper something beside me but didn’t catch the words. And Larkspur led me forwards into sheer white brightness. I had to cover my burning eyes, squirming and unprotected like a blind worm.

I squinted into the light.

We were facing guards. Two Hidden cloaked in black. Each held a long spear, dark against the brightness. Moving quicker than falling stones, the guards crossed their weapons before our path.

The clash of metal echoed, bouncing around the bright white vastness. There was no way past.

One spoke, face shadowed by the hood of his cloak: “What can you want, traitor?”

“I’ll speak with the King and no one else.” Larkspur sounded so calm, but when I looked down at his hands they were shaking.

Traitor? A word from another time: when queens and kings ruled the world. What kind of mess had I walked into? I was part of a game, but no one had explained the rules.

I wasn’t human.
I’m a monster
.

The other guard turned to me, reaching out to touch my face with the tip of one finger. His skin was so cold I gasped; the chill spread through my entire body. It was like falling into a well. A faint musty smell rose from the guard’s black cloak as he moved, the wide hood completely shadowing his face. “Let the traitor by.” Slowly, slowly, the guard’s finger moved down my face, tracing a line of burning cold. How could anything be so deeply frozen and still alive? The guard laughed. “Yes, let him by. It is part of the covenant.”