Robin Jarvis-Jax 01 Dancing Jax Read online

  Striding through the plants, he headed for the door at the opposite end and called for her to follow. She did so reluctantly.

  Queenie and Manda stepped into the sunken courtyard, the hems of their gowns still in their hands to save them from getting wet. With admiring gasps, they twirled about and cavorted through the greenery.

  “Mr Fellows oversaw every stage of the construction,” Jangler addressed the two bodyguards. “He even drew the plans himself. He had so many skills – has so many skills.”

  The Ismus was running his hands over the rusted surface of the large door when Shiela joined him. It was almost twice the height of them.

  “What’s in there?” she asked. “Aren’t you going to open it?”

  He shook his head and scoffed at her ignorance. “This is the Dark Door,” he told her. “It can only be unlocked from within.”

  “How is that possible?” she asked, but he was already ascending the steps that twined up the side of this larger pillbox.

  Shiela went after him.

  The view from the top was splendid. The beach dipped down before them and the North Sea spread into the horizon. Shiela glanced backwards. They were screened from the road by a jungle of gorse that grew all around the courtyard’s walls. Encircling that wild tangle was an even higher wire fence than the one Tommo and Miller had cut through. They really were secluded and hidden away here. From the beach and the road, nobody would even know this place existed. She had never suspected it was here. Taking a step forward, she almost tripped.

  Something was jutting from the flat roof. Looking down, she saw the threaded ends of four steel bolts set into the concrete.

  The Ismus was watching her.

  “For the Empty Throne,” he explained. “This is where it shall be affixed, upon this raised dais – towering over the Court below.”

  “Waiting until the Exiled Prince returns to sit in it?” she asked slowly.

  The Ismus’s crooked smile grew broader.

  “And it’s him who’ll be opening that Dark Door from the inside, right?” she said in a fearful voice.

  “My dear Labella,” he congratulated her. “How clever you are.”

  “My name is Shiela!” she told him. “I’m not your Labella. God’s sake! Look at you, look at all of you – you’re locked in a shared psychosis!”

  She spun around. That was it. She wasn’t going to take any more. She had to try and get away, at least attempt to escape their madness. But her way down the steps was barred by Tommo. He stood there, feet planted squarely apart and arms folded.

  Shiela turned from him to flee down the other set of steps, only to find Miller was standing at the top of them, forbidding her escape.

  The faces of the Harlequin Priests were devoid of expression. Then, staring at her with blank eyes, they pointed to the red diamond tattooed on their cheeks, to indicate their displeasure, and she stepped away from them – afraid.

  “Just let me go,” she pleaded. “I won’t make any trouble. I won’t tell anyone anything.”

  “Oh, but you have already,” the Ismus said, stationing himself in the centre of the four bolts, where soon the throne would be secured. “This very day, whilst I was in Ipswich, you sneaked off to speak to someone. Who was it, my Lady? What did you tell?”

  Shiela heard Queenie’s gloating laugh coming up the steps behind Miller and realised who had followed and betrayed her.

  “It was just one of my old teachers,” she said hurriedly. “I never said anything to him. I swear!”

  “I don’t believe you,” he answered with a disappointed shake of the head. “Was it the man you spoke to yesterday at the boot fair?”

  “No!” she lied vehemently.

  “I see that it was. I’m deeply saddened at your rebellion, Labella. I have been chosen to rule in the absence of our great Lord and yet you complain and dodge and baulk at everything I do. You even refuse to read the sacred text. This cannot be tolerated. You are my consort. The lesser monarchs must look up to you, as they look up to me. Your lack of belief will not be winked at any longer.”

  “What are you going to do?” Shiela demanded. “Even you’re not mad enough to hurt me!”

  The Ismus signalled to the Harlequins and they stepped forward to seize her by the arms.

  The woman cried out, but it was no use struggling; they were far too strong.

  “Miller!” she begged. “It’s me, Shiela! Stop it. Tommo – stop it! Please!”

  “They cannot speak,” the Ismus reminded her. “And those names are meaningless to them now.”

  “If you kill me, the police will know who did it. You can’t play this stupid game with them.”

  The Ismus looked offended. “Kill you?” he asked. “Whatever gave you that melodramatic idea? If I want anyone killed, I get the Court Assassin to do it for me. No, dearest Labella, I am merely going to open your pretty eyes to the world of the Dancing Jacks, so that you may stand at my side and these misguided mutinies of yours will be forgotten.”

  He clicked his fingers and Miller pulled Shiela’s head back. The woman yelled and tried to fight once more, but it was hopeless.

  “Where is the Queen of Hearts?” the Ismus asked.

  Manda came huffing up the steps. “I am here, my Lord,” she said.

  “You have what I instructed you to fetch for me?”

  “I have it here, my Lord,” Manda answered obediently.

  Shiela tried to twist her head around, but Miller held her firm and she couldn’t see what the woman handed over. Then the Ismus’s face moved into her line of sight.

  “The Queen of Hearts has visited my conservatory, my fair Labella,” he told her. “And behold what she has harvested from the Garden Apart.”

  He lifted the thing so she could see and Shiela screamed at the top of her voice. Then clamped her mouth shut as she realised what he intended.

  The Holy Enchanter held in his fingers an ugly, almost translucent vegetable. It resembled a small gourd, but the waxy skin was a sickly yellowish-grey colour. It was soft and overripe and bruised easily in his grasp. Beads of juice already speckled the surface.

  Shiela shook her head as much as she could and her eyes implored the man to spare her.

  “You must taste the juice of the minchet fruit,” he instructed with calm intent. “It is the only way.”

  He crushed the repulsive vegetable in his fist and a drizzle of sickly-smelling yellow fluid splashed on to her firmly sealed lips. He glanced at the other Harlequin and the man who had been Tommo pinched Shiela’s nose.

  For the better part of two minutes she held her breath and prayed for someone to save her.

  By then everyone was standing on that roof. The Queen of Spades viewed the proceedings from behind her fan, so that she might conceal her spiteful delight at Labella’s torment.

  The Limner put his head on one side and considered what a powerful painting this scene would make. He made mental notes so that he might convey it on to a canvas later.

  Jangler knocked his knuckles together with excitement as he looked on. Mr Fellows had foreseen there would be some who would resist the pull of the sacred text. He had foretold there would also be ‘aberrants’ over whom the blessed scripture would have no power and so the remedy to this had been devised long ago.

  Spent air was escaping from Shiela’s lips as her lungs felt close to exploding. Bubbles percolated in the puddle of juice that had filled the crease of her tightly clenched mouth. Then, finally, it was over and she gasped and shrieked for breath. In that exact instant, as she gulped the new air down, the squashed, fibrous pulp of the unclean vegetable was thrust between her teeth. Shiela gagged and spat it out. She stared, horrified, accusing and wounded, at the Ismus – at that face she had once loved.

  The juice was bitter and it stung her tongue. It was as if a fistful of nettles had been stuffed into her mouth. No matter how hard she tried, she could not rid herself of that rank, prickling taste. Then the bitterness burned down her throat and
scorched through her veins.

  The Ismus gestured for the Harlequins to release her.

  Shiela staggered free of them and dragged her crinkling lips over her sleeve. And then it happened. The others watched in fascination as her face drained of anger and was replaced with something else.

  The Queen of Hearts chortled with amusement when she saw the young woman grab hold of the Ismus’s hand. The hand that had crushed the minchet fruit, the hand that was still wet and dripping. And then Shiela was licking it, sucking the juice from his fingers. When it was gone, she dropped to the floor like an animal and feverishly snatched up the fragments she had spat out. She crammed them against her thirsty lips.

  The Holy Enchanter wiped his hands on his T-shirt.

  “Now, Labella,” he addressed her. “You have an appointment with the blessed text.”

  Leeching the last drops from the stringy residue, the Lady Labella kissed her own fingers dry and looked up at him with round, glassy eyes.

  “Yes, my Lord Ismus!” she declared fervently. “Let me take my place at thy side in the magickal Kingdom. I beg thee!”

  “You’re already there,” he answered. “And tonight we raise Mauger and bring him through. The Guardian of the Mooncaster Gate must come amongst us. The way must be opened.”

  “The way must be opened…” Mr Hankinson repeated in a thrilled whisper.

  “The way must be opened,” the others chanted with excitement.

  The Lady Labella threw back her head. “The way must be opened!” she exulted.

  Chapter 16

  Kennelled in a dungeon during the daylight hours, the Guardian of the Mooncaster Gate is let loose on a long lead after dark. Mauger is the beast’s name; a monster from beyond, caught by the Dawn Prince himself, and never was there a more terrifying warden of the White Castle’s main gate. The slender cord that tethers him is enchanted and was woven from the hair of the four Under Queens. As long as they live, Mauger will be safely bound. But should one or more perish, then the monster will be freed and maraud through the Kingdom. Only Haxxentrot the witch knows this and she plots endlessly to bring about the deaths of the Under Queens.

  IT WAS PAST midnight and the Paediatric Unit was as quiet as any hospital ward could ever be. A trolley rattled in the distance, a respirator hissed with soft white noise and morphine pumps, and monitoring machines bleeped gently, giving a steady, digital rhythm to the not-quite dark. Light leaked in from the end nearest the corridor, where the anglepoise lamp of the nurse’s station shone on the desk.

  Joan Olivant, the night sister, was talking quietly to Shaun Preston, the charge nurse.

  “Be a love, Shaun,” she said. “I’m desperate for a cup of tea. Just nip out and get a pint of milk.”

  The young man groaned. He didn’t want to budge.

  Sister Olivant leaned over to him and quivered her bottom lip pleadingly. “Aww, pretty please,” she implored. “I’m gagging for one.”

  Shaun pulled away from her. For some time now he had suspected she had some sort of a crush on him and he didn’t feel comfortable when she acted all girlish like this. She was in her fifties, more than old enough to be his mother, with grizzling hair – and built like a wrestler. “Olivant the elephant”, some of the unkind and less respectful staff called her behind her back.

  Shaun shifted to the edge of his chair and ignored her doe-eyed gaze. Eventually Joan gave up and sat back. She took a deep, resigned breath, which inflated her formidable bosom like an emergency dinghy. Then she started grumbling about the Prime Minister.

  It was his impromptu visit that afternoon that had robbed the small staff fridge of all the semi-skimmed. She was glad her shift hadn’t coincided with that media circus. Apparently the ward had been crammed with the PM, his entourage of suits and the accompanying press.

  “Bed Seven got all the attention,” she told the charge nurse.

  “Fiona Ellis,” Shaun corrected. He didn’t like the way Joan dehumanised the patients by referring to their bed numbers instead of using their names. “Not surprised,” he added. “She’s the most photogenic of them. Burns and fractures can’t compete with a twelve-year-old blonde girl with a bandage over one eye. What could be better for his warm and fuzzy publicity? Fiona’s like a human Pudsey Bear.”

  “She wasn’t even in the Disaster,” Sister Olivant commented dryly. “She was already in here when it happened.”

  Shaun glanced down the ward. There were twelve beds in total. Eleven of them were occupied by children who had been at the Landguard last Friday. The rest of those injured in the Disaster had been shunted round the hospital – to wherever there were vacant beds.

  All was still. Foil balloons, tethered to bedside cupboards, gleamed in the dim light. The whites of the eyes of the Disney characters painted on the walls seemed to glow in the gloom. From one of the beds a sleepy voice murmured unhappily and another responded across the way.

  “We can take their pain away,” Shaun muttered sadly, “but we can’t do anything about their nightmares. The horrors of that night will torment them for a long time yet – poor beggars.”

  “Some biscuits would be nice too,” Joan said, harking back to the subject of tea.

  “I don’t want any tea,” Shaun replied. “I’ll get a can from the machine if I want anything.”

  “Some knight in shining armour you are,” the sister huffed. “I’ll nip along to Maternity and see if they’ve got half a pint I can scrounge. If there isn’t, I’ll pinch a baby’s bottle. They always have a big tin of biscuits on the go there as well.”

  She rose and marched to the security door. Pausing before pressing the large button to unlock it, she looked back. With a wink, she said, “If you’re very lucky, Shauny boy, I’ll let you dunk a biccy in my brew.”

  Shaun couldn’t think of any response to that, but the nervous, gulping sound effect that was always in old Tom and Jerry cartoons played in his mind. He looked away hastily. One of these days she was going to lunge at him or grope his bottom – or worse. He wondered if he should speak to Human Resources. But it would be his word against hers. Joan would simply laugh it off and everyone would think he was being paranoid or stirring up trouble. She’d been here so long, nobody would believe him over her.

  He let out a dismal sigh then remembered where he was. His problems were nothing compared to what these youngsters had been through. He almost felt ashamed to even think about his own petty worries.

  Leaving the nurse’s station, he paced down the ward, checking the patients. Peter Starkey: thirteen years old, multiple leg fractures; Thomas Goulden: eleven years old, broken ribs and burns; Janet Harding: fourteen years old, multiple fractures; Jonathan Spencer: thirteen years old, third-degree burns across his back…

  Shaun paused when he came to the bed of Harvey Temple. This twelve-year-old had both legs in plaster and dressings on his arms where his fleece had melted to his skin last Friday.

  The charge nurse smiled. The boy had fallen asleep with his earphones in. Shaun removed them gently and put the attached iPod on the cupboard, among the get-well cards.

  Harvey stirred slightly and whimpered. He too was having nightmares, reliving those awful moments over and over again: the fight, the speeding car skidding out of control, the screams as it ploughed into the crowd, the panic, the explosions, the fire that rained down…

  “It’ll be OK,” Shaun whispered. “Don’t dream of all that. Just sleep, Harvey.”

  Then he heard the sound of Joan’s strong fingers jabbing away at the entry keys outside the door.

  “No milk to be had then?” he observed, nodding at her empty hands when she came back into the ward.

  The night sister walked slowly to the desk and leaned against it. Even though her features were in semi-darkness, he could see there was a strange expression on her face.

  “You feeling OK?” he asked.

  Sister Olivant smiled. It was a weird, blank smile.

  Shaun stared at her and wondered what new fl
irting tactic she was trying this time. He stepped forward warily. Then he saw the fresh yellow stains around her mouth and the livid juice running down her chin. “What’ve you been eating?” he asked.

  The woman’s smile stretched wider and she glanced back at the security door. Only then did Shaun see the thin, scruffy man in the leather biker jacket holding it open and leering in. The first thought that entered the charge nurse’s head was that it must be a relative of one of the patients, but at this hour? He didn’t like the look of him at all. Before Shaun could say anything, two more men, with blackened faces, rushed in, past the stranger, and grabbed Shaun by the arms. One slapped a large hand over his mouth.

  “There now,” the Ismus said, sauntering over and casting his eyes around the ward. “They look so cosy, don’t they, these little invalids? A trifle too cosy. Are you certain their sleep is troubled?”

  “Dreadful nightmares,” Joan assured him. “Sometimes we have to change the sheets.”

  The Ismus looked delighted and he rubbed his hands together.

  Shaun could not take in what was happening. Locked in the fierce grip of the two men, he could do nothing. His eyes flicked back to stare at Joan. The night sister was beaming indulgently as the thin intruder strolled down the ward as if he owned the place. What the hell was going on? What did these mad people want? Had Joan gone insane? He tried to yell, but the hand that covered his mouth pressed all the more tightly and his lips bruised painfully against his teeth.

  When he heard more footsteps approaching, Shaun’s eyes darted back to the doorway and he prayed it was Security, come to deal with this unhinged trio. But no, he saw two others enter and his hopes were crushed. One was a young, unkempt-looking woman. The other was a small, stout man in his sixties, dressed smartly in a charcoal-grey three-piece suit.

  “Quiet,” the Ismus commanded in a low voice. “We must not wake our Tiny Tims. That would spoil everything.”

  He raised a hand and beckoned to the elderly man.

  The bald solicitor came forward and Shaun saw he was carrying a large Gladstone bag. He placed it on the floor, flipped back the catches and reached inside.