Only a Monster(Monsters #1)(65)

Joan had been confused. Whitehall Palace had burned down three hundred years ago.

‘It’s just the physical location,’ Aaron had explained. ‘It’s hard to keep track of what buildings are around when. If monsters say “Newgate Prison”, we just mean where it once stood.’

Now, as they walked up Horse Guards Avenue, Joan’s chest felt tight. Even in daylight, there was something skeletal about Whitehall’s bleached buildings. Tonight, it felt like walking into the streets of the dead.

‘I hate mires,’ Aaron said as they walked. ‘They give me the creeps.’

‘Mires are places where you can’t travel,’ Ruth explained to Joan. ‘This one stretches from Westminster Abbey to Leicester Square. You can’t travel anywhere, in or out, while you’re here.’

They’d scouted earlier to find a building recess with a view of the Banqueting House—the only part of Whitehall Palace still standing. The spot wasn’t perfect—they were only shielded from the street by a railing. But as Joan settled into place beside Aaron, the darkness enveloped them. Down the road, clumps of tourists milled around the mounted sentries of the Horse Guards building, but the street was otherwise quiet.

Joan kept track of the time by counting Big Ben’s strikes.

Ten o’clock went by. Then eleven o’clock. The temperature dropped.

Long after eleven, there was still no sign of a gate or of guests for the Court gala. The only warm part of Joan’s body was her arm where it was pressed against Aaron’s. She couldn’t stop shivering. He must have been cold too. There was some room between him and the rail, but he hadn’t moved from Joan’s side.

‘Maybe Tom got the time wrong,’ Joan whispered.

‘Maybe he’s a drunken fool who hasn’t been a guard in years,’ Aaron whispered back.

Joan opened her mouth to answer, and then stopped.

Someone was emerging from the direction of Charing Cross. She nudged Aaron. Ruth was already looking.

The moon was gibbous, but offered little light. Only the person’s silhouette was visible. Their gait as they passed was eerie—slow and gliding. Joan found herself holding her breath.

New footsteps made them all turn again, toward Parliament. Two more people were approaching. Men in Victorian top hats. And still more people from Horse Guards Avenue.

Big Ben began to sound. It was midnight.

The arrivals were all on foot. Some silhouettes were familiar, some alien—clothes from the distant past, or the future. Monsters.

Aaron’s breath was coming shorter now. He sounded as nervous as Joan felt. She could just see his face, pale grey in the dark.

On Big Ben’s last strike, the world seemed to still. The sounds of London ceased. No cars, no rush of water from the Thames. No insects in the air. Joan craned to look at the horse guards. They were sitting on their horses, still as ever. Terrified? Or had they been frozen in time?

‘Look,’ Aaron breathed. He nodded at the junction between Horse Guards Avenue and Whitehall.

At first Joan wasn’t sure if she was making patterns out of nothing, like seeing shapes in clouds. But something seemed to be changing in the junction. Shadows were shifting like smoke.

‘What is it?’ Ruth whispered.

Joan had seen it before—in paintings of old London. ‘It’s the gate,’ she said. ‘It’s the Whitehall Palace gate.’

The shadows solidified into a huge arch straddling Horse Guards Avenue. It was the arch alone, without the palace walls—the bare brick bones of it. Joan stared. Inside the arch, the stars were unaligned with the sky outside. Inside, the moon was full. And framed like a picture was Whitehall Palace, beautiful and whole, before the fire.

A lone figure came into view—on the wrong side of the gate. The figure stepped through, and a male voice rang out, theatrical and baritone. ‘Welcome to the Monster Court.’

A murmur of excitement ran through the crowd. The road in front of the arch was full of people now, and more were arriving. The atmosphere was giddy in pockets, solemn in others. But above all, a strange tension hung over everything. Joan could feel why. Some sixth sense inside her—the monster sense—could feel the timeline straining fruitlessly against this unnatural beast. Whitehall Palace out of its time.

‘I’ve never seen anything like this,’ Ruth whispered. ‘I always heard that the King had power, but seeing it . . .’

Joan scanned the crowd. Aaron seemed to know who she was looking for. ‘Those guards aren’t moving,’ he whispered. ‘If the hero is here, he’s frozen like the other humans. There’s some kind of suspension over everything but monsters. I’ve never seen power like this either.’

‘This is the advantage that we need,’ Joan whispered back. ‘If Nick can’t get in—even with that key—we’ll get the device, not him. Then we’ll just have to figure out how to use it.’

‘One thing at a time,’ Aaron said. ‘We’re not in yet.’ He nodded at the gate, where guards were verifying people’s identities before allowing them through.

Tom had explained how the gate identification would work.

‘There’ll be a guest list at the door,’ he’d said.

‘And you can get us on the guest list?’ Joan had asked.

‘No,’ Tom had said, as if that were a ridiculous thought. ‘The guards have a book of personal marks. That’s the guest list. Guests find their mark in the list and then stamp their chop next to it to prove their identity. But I know for a fact that the guard who checks the marks gets lazy late in the night. So just get into the line late, and then find a mark that’s a near match to yours.’