The Beast of Seabourne (19 page)

“Oz!” yelled Ellie.

They sprinted for the next door and Oz yelled “Door open” again. Ahead, the steel doors slid apart, and they ran into the corridor outside the porch area. Oz kept shouting “Door open, door open” in Bendle's voice as they ran, and within seconds, they were out on the driveway, tearing at the aprons and hats that were melting even as they pulled them off and fumbling their shoes on in a mad, hopping dance.

“You okay?” Oz yelled at Ellie and Ruff as they ran towards the gate.

“My face is burning,” Ruff said.

“Use your hat to wipe it off,” Ellie urged.

They'd gone halfway up the drive when they heard an engine cough into life, followed by a repetitive whirring. They slid to a stop and listened.

“What is that? A mower?” Oz asked.

“Nah,” Ruff said. “Too small.”

“Sounds more like a model…”

“…helicopter?” Ellie said. She was pointing back at the house where the source of the noise was coming around the bend.

“Airship drone,” whispered Ruff.

It was as good a description as any. The thing was an elaborate construction of brass and steel with a ribbed, sausage-shaped balloon at its centre and whirring copter blades above and on both sides. Oz had never seen anything like it, but it looked very manoeuvrable and was heading straight for them.

“Spread out and make for the gate,” he shouted. The drone was aiming for him. He had time to feint right and then turn left before the copter dropped something on the spot where he'd been standing a second before. Over his shoulder, Oz caught sight of a small spherical object descending. There was a squelchy
splat
, and he saw a yard-wide pool of liquid splash over the ground. It solidified instantly. Oz gasped. It looked like a nasty way to hunt for rats and mice. He tried to imagine one of those balloon bombs hitting his face and shuddered. He looked up; the drone was making for Ruff, who ducked under a rhododendron bush as the thing flew over and dropped another bomb.

Oz did a zigzag run for the gate and saw two more bombs drop before he felt he was near enough to try voice activation again.

“Gates open,” he shouted.

The gates trundled open with agonizing slowness. Then they stopped and started closing again.

“Bendle's blocking you,” Ellie yelled as she skidded to a stop, with Ruff close behind.

“Soph?” Oz said. “What can we do?”

Oz heard her answer in his head. “If we can get to the intercom, I will reprogram the mechanism to your voice.”

Ahead of them, the drone had taken up a hover position in front of the gate.

“We could rush it,” Ellie said.

“It'll get one of us for sure,” Ruff panted.

“Sticks,” Oz yelled. “Get sticks to throw. It'll have to go upwards. That way, it'll be less accurate.”

They grabbed anything they could find from the grounds and began lobbing missiles at the drone. As expected, it went upwards, out of harm's reach. Oz took his chance. He sprinted forwards and got to the pillar with the intercom.

“Now what?” Oz asked.

“Press the button. I will do the rest.”

Oz reached around and pressed the out-of-sight black button. Above him, the drone hovered, scooting left and right away from Ruff and Ellie's throws. But it soon found a level out of their range and then centred itself.

“It is done.” Soph said. “Use your own voice.”

But before he could say anything, Oz heard Ellie's urgent shout: “Oz, look out!”

From high above, the drone—or rather Bendle, who was obviously flying it remotely—had twigged that launching one balloon from that height would be hit or miss. So instead, he launched half a dozen balloon bombs. Oz saw them falling towards him like massive rain drops. A collision was inevitable.

“Soph?” Oz said—or did he think it?

“Order the gates to open, Oz,” Soph said calmly.

“Gates open,” Oz shouted as all six bombs exploded in midair—or rather, hit the tutamenzon field Soph had thrown around him. Previously, the three of them had considered this protective shield nothing more an interesting little quirk of the obsidian pebble. A party trick in which they'd made Ruff hold the base unit and hurled things at him. Watching him flinch as books and shoes and old socks almost, but never quite, hit home had been great fun. But its true value now came to the fore as the balloons ruptured a foot above Oz's head, sending a waterfall of blue fluid cascading all around his body, six inches from his face. With a chemical crackle, it solidified into a murky bubble. The high-pitched buzz of the drone was instantly cut off, along with the hiss of leaves in the wind, birdsong, and Ellie and Ruff ‘s shouts. He was cocooned.

Oz did not consider himself claustrophobic, but the sudden, crushing silence and the disappearance of the visible world drove a spike into the fear centre of his brain. He tried to imagine what this must have felt like to the poor animals Bendle hunted. Cut off from sight and sound, and, without Soph's protective shield, cut off from air as well. Then there was the chemical smell, sweet and sickly, like strong glue, searing the tender membranes of his nose.

Panic pumped adrenaline into his blood. He had to get out. He hurled himself at the barrier, fists beating, voice yelling, feet kicking. The smell made everything ten times worse, sending his imagination on a terror-fuelled trip. What if the mad, germ-fearing Bendle was more than he seemed? What if he was an alchemist? What if he could conjure spells? What if Oz had already been transported to some airless desert, trapped in a sealed sarcophagus to slowly roast…

“Oscar, please stop.”

Soph's voice broke in on his nightmare.

“You are still in the grounds of Chivyon house. I will augment Ellie's voice for you.”

“Oz, we're going to push it over, okay?”

The muffled words sounded a long way off. Then the milky blue covering around him began to topple. Two seconds later, he felt two sets of hands upon him, guiding him backwards out of the carapace and pulling him to his feet.

He blinked in the daylight and drank in the cool, fresh air. His ears rang, and he fell to his knees to retch as the stink of the chemicals left his body. He didn't object as they hauled him to his feet and dragged him out through the gate on quivering legs. They encouraged and cajoled him, and after fifty yards, he could stand on his own and half-

run.

Above them, they heard the drone.

“Think it'll follow us?” Ellie asked with an anxious glance over her shoulder.

“Don't know,” Ruff said.

They hurried back to the road bridge, and by the time they reached the towpath, the buzz of the drone's whirring engine was finally fading.

They paused to look back up the lane, and Oz felt Ruff 's and Ellie's eyes rake over him.

“There was a gas,” Oz muttered in between gasps. “Some sort of chemical that made you…like you were going to suffocate… I couldn't hear or see. It was like I was all alone a long way away.”

“DEEMET,” Ruff panted, wiping his mouth on his sleeve.

“What?” Ellie gave him one of her what-are-you-talking-about looks.

“DEEMET, Dr Evil's Even More Evil Twin,” Ruff explained, as if the word were something he heard on the news every day.

The look of incredulity on Ellie's face was enough to bring a much-needed smile to Oz's. “Come on,” he said, “let's get out of this place before anything else happens.”

“Yeah,” Ellie agreed, “and before Ruff can come up with any more gibberish.”

Soon, they were back in the park, with the village of Bog Sturgess in view over the bridge, looking as serene as ever. There they stopped to catch their breaths again. Ellie handed out bottles of water from her backpack, and they drank greedily and splashed it over their faces.

“What was all that about?” Ellie asked

“Good question.” Ruff wiped water from his face with his T-shirt.

“He was completely bonkers.” Ellie said.

“Bonkers squared,” agreed Oz. “But I think it was worth it.”

“Worth it?” Ruff protested. “Gassed and then attacked by a robo-copter-drone thingy with suffocating splatter bombs worth it? Did I miss the bit where it wasn't totally buzzard?”

“Knowledge is our reward, Ruff,” Ellie said.

“Knowledge of what?” Ruff demanded.

“That someone called McClelland tried to sell him the ring in 2008, you gonk.”

“Never heard of him,” Ruff said and drained his bottle of water.

“Exactly,” Oz nodded. “So now we have a totally new lead.”

Chapter 9

The Missing Student

They managed to get the last three seats on the number 56 bus back into Seabourne. Ellie and Oz had decided talking about what had happened at Chivyon House would not be a great idea, in case they were overheard. As a result, Oz was left to stare out of the window at the passing traffic while his mind whizzed along at a hundred and fifty miles an hour, throwing out questions like hand grenades. Why was Bendle living like a recluse in a mansion? What would have happened to them if Soph hadn't been able to throw up her tutamenzon field or to imitate Bendle's voice and open the doors? How was Ruff going to survive another hour without eating anything? As it was, Ruff had stopped talking to them because their insistence on going straight back to Oz's place meant he'd missed lunch.

Luckily, Mrs Chambers was in when they returned mid-afternoon.

“Goodness me,” she said on seeing the three of them trudge in. “Hard day at the coffee shop?”

“We got sidetracked. Any chance of some food, Mum?”

“Pasta be okay?”

“Mmmm,” Ruff said with feeling.

By five, they'd been watered and fed and were sitting in Penwurt's library. The room, as always, smelled of varnished wood and old books. Whenever Oz sat in one of the old leather chairs, he always got a delicious waft of polished leather that recalled his dad, who had spent every spare minute in the library when he'd been alive.

“Right,” Oz said, calling up Soph. “McClelland. What can you tell us?”

Soph shimmered in front of them. “I have correlated the dates provided by Mr Bendle with existing directory databases. There were twenty McClellands listed in the telephone directory for Seabourne.”

“Twenty?” groaned Ellie. “It'll take ages to get around all of them.”

“That may not be necessary, Ellie. Students do not always show up on council registers, nor have listings in telephone directories, but they are registered with their universities.”

“So you think this McClelland bloke was a student?” Ruff asked. He was in a much better mood now, having refuelled on half a ton of pasta.

Soph turned her bright-eyed gaze upon him, and, as always, Ruff flinched slightly. Not for the first time, Oz thought Ruff was still just a bit scared of her.

“I have also found an archived newspaper cutting of the time, which may be relevant,” Soph said.

In front of them, a six-foot projection of a page from the
Seabourne Post
appeared. The article read—

Search For Missing Student Continues

A spokesperson for South Wales police today said they were gravely concerned for the safety of 21-year-old Hamish McClelland. The Seabourne University history student went missing seven days ago on a hiking trip to the Brecon Beacons National Park. Despite a massive search by mountain rescue and police, no trace has been found of McClelland so far
.

An image of a fit-looking, curly-haired young man in shorts and a backpack looked out at them.

“What date is that?” Ellie asked. “August twenty-first, 2008, Ellie,” Soph said. “That's seven days after Bendle said he'd met him,” Ruff said.

“It must be the same McClelland,” Oz nodded. “It's too much of a coincidence not to be.”

“So, this McClelland goes to see Bendle and ends up going missing on the top of a mountain somewhere. Sounds a bit trout and salmon sandwiches to me,” Ruff said.

“Could you explain that, Ruff?” Soph asked.

“That's ‘fishy' in Ruff-speak,” Ellie said. “He means it sounds suspicious.”

“Did they ever find him?” Oz asked Soph.

“There is no record,” Soph said.

“What else do you know about McClelland?” Ellie asked.

“I normally would be able to access the university database. However, the network has been powered down for two days of weekend maintenance,” Soph said.

Oz groaned.

“So, we just have to wait,” Ellie said.

The others nodded reluctantly.

There was no sleepover that Saturday night. Ellie had a hockey tournament the following day, and Ruff was helping his dad on another patio project, but Oz didn't mind that much. By ten that evening, Ruff and Ellie had gone, and he chilled out in front of the TV for half an hour, exhausted from the day's excitement. The encounter with Bendle had taken quite a lot out of him, and since there was orchestra practise the next day, he went to bed early.

His dreams were of mad pink billiard balls sporting whirling copter blades, chasing him with shrink-wrap bombs. It would almost have been funny if he didn't know how close to the truth it really was.