Dancing Jax Read online

  Frantically they sought the track that led to the car. Then Gerald stumbled to his knees and spent a long time coughing and gasping for breath.

  Spencer crouched beside him and put a hand on his shoulder. “We made it,” he said, rasping because his mouth was so dry. “We got out of that ruddy awful place alive. Another cliff successfully jumped. Unbelievable!”

  Estelle stood stiffly nearby, staring at the burning ruins through the strata of settling dust and curling smoke.

  “At long last,” she whispered, the infernal fires reflected in her eyes.

  “It’s finally gone,” Gerald wheezed. “That’s a sight gladder to me than all the ovations, all the awards I ever received. The biggest achievement of my life. The place of so many nightmares… and I brought it down. Not too shabby for a pensioner.”

  “But how?” Spencer asked, bewildered. “Grenades couldn’t do all that, could they?”

  “Not just them on their own, no. I think they let loose something far more destructive. It’s gone anyway.”

  He flicked some of the dirt from his sleeves and a twinkle gleamed in his eye. “You know,” he said, “if we keep destroying every place we go to, no one will ever invite us anywhere again.”

  Spencer’s pent-up fear and anxiety finally burst out and, moments later, he found himself crying with laughter.

  “We’re so the worst guests!” he hooted, tears streaking through the dirt on his cheeks. “We’ll get such a reputation.”

  Gerald joined in and, for a while, neither could say anything more. When they tried, they kept setting each other off. They could not believe they’d cheated the inevitable one more time and fell about on the ground, giggling like infants.

  Eventually Gerald let out a great sobering sigh.

  “I’m too old for this,” he said with a shake of his head that loosed a blizzard of chalky dust. “I’m just about done in right now.”

  “Oh!” Spencer told him feverishly. “You haven’t heard the best bit. When you blew up that room, those old radio things, the monster on the landing fizzled and vanished.”

  “Monster?”

  “You didn’t see it. It was huge and disgusting, a slug the size of a wagon train. It’s what was squelching about upstairs. I thought we’d had it!”

  He turned to Estelle. While they’d been wrapped up in their laughter, the girl had been standing apart, deep in thought. Rousing, she nodded in confirmation.

  “It was there,” she agreed. “Then, suddenly, it wasn’t.”

  “And I remembered something else,” Spencer gushed excitedly. “Back in the camp, when Marcus was killed by the giant worms, Jangler destroyed one of the radios there and they disappeared the same way.”

  Gerald’s eyes widened. “Spence,” he murmured. “Are you sure?”

  “Absolutely! I bet there’s not a Doggy-Long-Legs or anything else for miles around here now. They’ve been chucked back to where they came from.”

  Gerald rocked backwards. “That’s incredible.”

  “You know what this means!”

  “If we could smash them all? Every device like that? We’d rid the world of those hellish creatures completely. But Spence, that’s crazy, there’s no way we can. Those receivers will be in every country, in every aberrant camp – secret places we don’t know about. How on earth? And what about the things that have hatched here since? Would they be thrown back?”

  “That doesn’t matter and we don’t need to smash them all,” the boy enthused. “Not right away anyway. Why wasn’t the main console in that room just now? Because the Ismus has had it moved to Kent, for the broadcast. If we can destroy that one… his Punchinello Guards will disappear, that demon, Mauger…”

  Gerald stared at him. “What are you getting at?” he asked.

  “We might, just might, be able to put a spanner in the Ismus’s grand plan. What if we could actually stop the Dawn Prince himself crossing over? Everything he’s worked for, with DJ, would be ruined.”

  “Spencer…” Gerald breathed, hardly daring to believe what he was hearing. “If anyone lives through this, they’re going to write songs and make movies about you. You’re bloody incredible.”

  “As long as whoever plays me gets to ride off into the sunset, with The Magnificent Seven theme playing, that’s fine by me. But seriously, you think we can do it? We stand a chance?”

  “Don’t ask me. I didn’t think we could get out of Titipu alive – now look where we are.”

  “But getting to Kent, the castle replica. How do we even do that? The roads will be jammed. You said so yourself.”

  Gerald gave him a mysterious look. “I also told you I had a silly idea about that,” he said. “It’s so barking, it might just get us all the way in.”

  “Through that traffic? How?”

  The old man tried to stand, but couldn’t. He held out a hand and Spencer helped him to his feet.

  “What I learned from those interminable coffee mornings with the big hats in North Korea is that the copy of Mooncaster they’re building here is the biggest construction project in history. And what do massive works like that need?”

  “Er… hard hats?”

  “Service roads, Spence. Even if I hadn’t seen them on plenty of satellite photos, I’d know they were there. Quarried stone and tonnes of excavated earth don’t move themselves. They had to build umpteen new roads to cope with it. You should see how many cranes they’ve got down there. Those roads will be kept clear – no ordinary traffic will be allowed anywhere near them – and they go right to the heart of the site.”

  “Brilliant! But won’t it be guarded? They won’t let us use those roads either. Pretending to be Mooncaster royalty won’t cut any ice this time. There’ll be millions of Jacks and Jills and Under Kings and Queens there already.”

  Gerald smiled. “That’s my silly idea,” he said. “What we need is the help of someone no Jaxer would dare stop or question. Someone nobody ever dresses up as. We need one of the Aces.”

  “Like who? The Jockey? The Harlequin Priests? Could we get away with it?”

  “Just a minute, Spence. There’s something we need to sort before we go any further.”

  They’d been walking down the track, towards the taxi. Gerald stopped and turned back to Estelle who was trailing quietly behind.

  “I think it’s time now, don’t you?” he said to her.

  The girl shook her head unhappily.

  “No,” she said.

  “You can’t stay in there indefinitely. You have to give it up. Let Eun-mi go.”

  “I was only nineteen years old,” she told him. “It isn’t fair. I didn’t ask to be murdered. I just want to be alive again. Even just for the day that’s left.”

  “How fair are you being to Eun-mi?”

  “You don’t want her back! Spencer certainly doesn’t. He called her a rattlesnake – and she is!”

  “That’s not the point. It’s her body, her life. You don’t have any claim to it.”

  “Let me come with you!” she implored. “I can help.”

  “It’s over. Leave Eun-mi and be at peace, if you can.”

  The girl narrowed her eyes. “I know how you can defeat AF,” she announced. “I mean actually kill him, stone dead.”

  “Kill the Ismus?” Spencer cried. “That’s not possible.”

  She gave a grim laugh. “There is a way – I know it.”

  “What way?” Gerald demanded.

  “Fair dos,” she said, wagging a finger. “I’ll tell you, but only if you let me keep this body; that’s my price. It can’t be too much to ask, surely? Not when the doom of absolutely everything is in the balance?”

  “You’re bluffing,” Gerald said. “Austerly Fellows is untouchable.”

  Estelle laughed. “Oh, is he? I didn’t spend all those decades cowering from him, being tormented by him, in that hideous mausoleum without learning something. AF has a weakness, which you could exploit to destroy him forever.”

  “What weakness
?”

  “I’m not going to blab it out like that,” she said. “Not till you swear I can stay and we’re miles from here.”

  “No deals.”

  “Wait!” Spencer interrupted. “If she really does know how to kill him… I mean that would be the best result ever. Wouldn’t it? It’d be fantastic! Why are we even talking about it? If there’s the remote possibility of getting rid of him completely…”

  “See!” Estelle said. “Spencer knows what’s more important. The treacherous Shanghai Lil – for the life of the most evil man who ever lived. How difficult a choice is that?”

  “Even if I believed you,” Gerald replied flatly, “the answer would still be the same.”

  “But Gerald!” Spencer protested.

  “No, Spence. What she wants is just wrong. It’s as black and white as that. This is exactly what we’re fighting for, to give people the freedom to be themselves. That’s what it comes down to. Could you really live with yourself if you agreed to let Eun-mi be taken over permanently?”

  “I’d have a ruddy good go!”

  Estelle tossed her head. “Nobody is going to live beyond tomorrow night anyway!” she snorted. “What would a day of guilt matter? Believe me, Shanghai Lil won’t be any loss. Her father barely tolerated her, her own sister would sell her out to AF in a heartbeat, she’s got nowhere to go. Why should you care?”

  “That’s enough!” Gerald snapped. “Party time is over – get out now.”

  The girl appealed to Spencer. “Make him see sense,” she implored. “You don’t want the awful Oriental back, do you?”

  Spencer didn’t know what to say. He trusted Gerald’s judgement completely, but how could he not understand what a miraculous opportunity this was?

  “She’s keeping something from you, you know,” Estelle pressed, seeing his hesitation. “Something vital, something you really should know about. You can’t trust her, not a bit.”

  And then Spencer remembered what had happened in the moments before that monster had vanished on the landing. It had heard her voice and was afraid. He hadn’t imagined it. Other things started to slot into place.

  “Just who can we trust?” he asked. “Cos I don’t think it’s you.”

  “Darling boy!” she cried in an injured tone. “Whatever can you mean?”

  “The things – the creatures that were out here earlier – they were scared of you.”

  “What? Oh, that is such rot!”

  “Er… no, it isn’t. They’ve all been terrified of you and didn’t come near. Why’s that?”

  “You’re talking gibberish, poppet.”

  “I’ll have my hat back now. Eun-mi won’t appreciate it on her head.”

  He reached out and took it, then Estelle pulled away sharply and raised her rifle.

  “I really don’t know why I tried to do it the painless way,” she snarled and now her voice was filled with contempt and anger. The girl’s face contorted: deep creases slashed her brows, cut down from her nose and veins tightened in her neck. The lips curled back and the eyes shone with a savage, bestial light. The transformation was sudden and hideous.

  “I should have turned round and shot the pair of you at the start. I thought it would be more amusing not to, but the game wasn’t worth playing. You two are ridiculous, you know that? A faded old pansy and a spotty weed. I only wanted a ride out of this cesspit, to take me beyond the boundary. Almost eighty years I’ve been stuck here, and yes, when he wasn’t torturing me, I tortured everything else – and loved every malicious moment of the agonies I inflicted. He was an excellent and oh so very thorough mentor. When the foolhardy came to this place, it was me who drove them insane, me who caused them to shred their vocal cords with their screams, me who whispered darkness into the heads of silly young boys who broke in for a dare. Austerly Fellows got out of here inside a bragging layabout. This sour-faced rice maiden is my first-class ticket. Neither of you pair of inadequates will get in my way.”

  Her laughter was cold and cruel. Pointing the rifle at Gerald, she grinned and said, with an ugly sneer, “So let’s begin with you, shall we? The inverted really should go first.”

  Sniggering, she squeezed the trigger. Then she stared down blankly when nothing happened.

  “You should have asked Eun-mi where the safety catch is on those things,” Gerald said, jumping forward and tearing the Kalashnikov from her grasp.

  Spencer leaped in and grabbed hold of her clawing hands, twisting them round her back.

  “Let me go!” she raged.

  “You let Eun-mi go!”

  “I’ll kill her. I can stop her heart or make her brain bleed. What are you going to do? You can’t hurt me without damaging her.”

  Gerald stared at her in disgust. She was right, what could they do? It was hopeless.

  Suddenly Spencer started yelling in her ear. “Eun-mi! Wake up! Your leader wants you. Kim Il-sung the Eternal President commands you to obey. Wake up! Wake up!”

  Estelle shrieked with derision. He really was feeble. Then her face twisted and she shuddered uncontrollably.

  “I’ll destroy you!” she threatened, but she wasn’t speaking to Spencer or Gerald.

  “Wake up!” the boy continued. “Kim Jong-un orders you! His father, Kim Jong-il, orders it. The People’s Army commands it.”

  Estelle writhed and jolted. She screeched and vowed to butcher them all, but she was fighting an internal battle. Eun-mi was struggling to regain control.

  Gerald nodded encouragingly at Spencer to keep it up and he wracked his memory to recall some of the North Korean words he had learned from little Nabi.

  “Chung Eun-mi!” he roared, mimicking her father’s voice. “Salute your General. Obey him. Salute your father!”

  Estelle screamed. The girl’s body arched and became rigid. Her eyes rolled back and her face froze. Her mouth locked horribly wide. Spencer almost let go of her hands in alarm when he saw streaks of white spreading among her long black hair. The contest within was taking a terrible toll.

  “Never!” Estelle’s ferocious voice howled up from Eun-mi’s gaping mouth. “If I get driven out then I’m taking her soul with me. She’ll be mine to torment – like I was to him.”

  “Chung Eun-mi!” Gerald commanded.

  “No!” Estelle yelled.

  The blank eyes clamped shut and she was shaking so violently, Spencer could barely maintain a grip on her hands. The last traces of black disappeared from her hair. It was now bleached totally white and her lips were turning a deathly grey.

  Gerald stared at her anxiously. There was nothing more they could do. They were losing her.

  At that moment Spencer saw something moving in the branches overhead. It was the hazy spectre of the hanged woman that had attacked him when they first arrived. The foggy shape came swooping through the trees and long, shadowy arms reached down.

  Spencer let go of the girl’s hands and darted out of the way, covering his throat.

  “No, wait!” Gerald shouted. “It isn’t after you, Spence – look.”

  The boy turned to see the apparition bear swiftly down upon Eun-mi’s body and heard a strident female voice sing out, as if from a great distance:

  “Let the high praises of God be in their mouth, and a two-edged sword in their hand…”

  The ghostly rope round the spectre’s neck unwrapped itself and the wraith’s hands reached deep into Eun-mi’s mouth.

  There was a scream of terror and the girl shook more wildly than ever, like a rag doll worried by a dog.

  The echoing voice continued.

  “To execute vengeance upon the heathen, and punishments upon the people…”

  Then the malignant spirit of Estelle Winyard was hauled out. It was a tangled mass of shrieking darkness, and the noose was now tight about it.

  “To bind their kings with chains, and their nobles with fetters of iron…”

  Still screeching and wailing, the girl’s spirit was hoisted high into the air and dragged into the s
urrounding woods. The declaiming voice rang out in the night:

  “To execute upon them the judgement written: this honour have all his saints. Praise ye the LORD.”

  And then there was silence. The agonised shrieks and the righteous condemnation faded. Spencer hardly dared to move. He stared through the trees in disbelief. Suddenly a familiar voice cried out and he spun round.

  “FATHER!” Eun-mi had howled desolately. Then she collapsed.

  Gerald and Spencer rushed to her. She was cold and still.

  “Is she dead?” Spencer ventured.

  Gerald searched for a pulse. It was very faint.

  “She’s extremely weak. That fight must have taken every ounce of strength she had. She needs complete rest.”

  “No hospital is going to take her! They’ll know she’s an aberrant.”

  “I know a place where she’ll be safe. Help me lift her up. I’ll carry her to the car.”

  Spencer wavered. Gazing at her, he was struck by how beautiful she was. The unnatural white hair framing her face and radiating over the ground heightened it, making her appear almost divine.

  “She looks like an angel,” he breathed.

  “She’d punch you if she heard that,” Gerald said, smiling.

  “But what just happened?” Spencer asked when they eased her on to the back seat of the taxi. “What was that?”

  “Going by the psalm reading,” Gerald reflected, “I think it was the governess who committed suicide here, Grace Staplethorpe. Austerly tormented her into hanging herself. He was only six years old at the time.”

  “Six? So young?”

  “He wasn’t a normal child. I honestly don’t think he was human at all.”

  “So why did she pick on me earlier?”

  “You know, I wonder if we got it wrong. Maybe she wasn’t attacking you.”

  “Er… hello – she was strangling me.”

  “Was she? Or was she trying to stop you from going to the house, and keeping you away from Estelle in the most direct way she could? Possibly the only way.”

  “Why didn’t she attack her instead then?”

  Gerald shrugged. “I’m only guessing, but you heard Estelle; she tortured everything around here. Her spirit was too strong, too angry. The fight with Eun-mi must have weakened her enough for Grace to finally turn the tables. But I’m no expert.”