Deadlight Hall (Nell West/Michael Flint #5)(17)
He lay on his side, watching the stove. If he half-closed his eyes, he could make it seem to move. Or was it moving by itself anyway? Yes, it was. It was waddling forward towards the nearest bed. Leo half sat up, alarmed, and he was just wondering whether to call out to the others, when he heard another sound. This time it was not anyone crying or the stove, it was someone walking around outside this room.
It ought not to have been frightening to hear those footsteps, because people had been walking around ever since Leo got here. But these footsteps were different. They were slow, sort of dragging. Across the room, Sophie sat up and looked towards Leo’s bed.
‘Can you hear that?’ said Leo, as loudly as he dared.
‘Yes.’
‘Who is it?’ Leo did not dare ask if it might be the Angel of Death, the Todesengel so feared by the twins’ mother, but Sophie heard the thought, of course.
He said, ‘Is Susannah all right? What did they do with that needle?’
‘It hurt a lot,’ said Sophie, her voice wobbling. Leo knew she was trying not to cry. ‘They dug it into Susannah’s back, into her bones. They’re going to do it to me tomorrow.’
‘And to me,’ said Leo, remembering this with a shiver.
‘And after they’ve done that,’ said Sophie, her voice trembling even more, ‘they’ll take us to the Ovens. That woman – Sister Dulce – she’s the one.’
‘But where—?’ began Leo, then broke off. ‘Someone’s coming,’ he said. ‘Lie down. Pretend to be asleep.’
Sophie flopped down at once, and Leo turned on his side, watching the door. After a moment, it began to open, not quickly and firmly in the way Sister Dulce and the others had opened it, but slowly and stealthily, as if whoever was there did not want to be seen or heard. Leo’s heart started to race. Very gradually, the door opened wider, and a shadow fell across the floor – it was a black shadow, but the red from the stove ran in and out of it. Leo lay absolutely still, waiting for it to go away, but it did not. It stood in the doorway as if looking round.
Then a low blurred voice said, very quietly, ‘Children, are you here …?’
Leo was shaking uncontrollably, and his head was hurting so much he thought it might explode.
‘Children, are you here …?’ There was a pause. ‘I’ll find you … Wherever you are.’
It’s come for the twins, thought Leo, sick with the horror of it all. This is what they saw – it’s what followed them to England, and watched their house. It’s followed them in here.
The shadowy figure stepped back into the passage, and Leo sank gratefully back into the pillows. It was all right. Whatever had been there had gone away. The twins were safe and everything was all right.
Except that everything was not all right. There was a movement across the room, and to his horror he saw two small figures walking hand in hand to the door. Sophie and Susannah.
They went very quietly across the room, almost like shadows themselves, not looking towards Leo. Sophie’s arm was round Susannah – Leo thought Susannah must be still hurting from the needle pushed into her bones earlier. They went through the door and it closed with a soft little click.
Were they running away as Sophie had said? Surely they would not go out into the snow by themselves? And Leo could not believe they would run away without telling him, either. Sophie had said they would like it if he went with him. Or did they think he would follow them? We’ll always be linked, they had said that night. We’ll always know if one of us is in trouble.
Leo did not know what to do, but what he did know was that the shadow was still out there – he could feel that it was. Which meant the twins would walk straight into it.
His whole body was still burning up and his bones felt as if they were melting with the heat, but he would put up with worse than this to help his beloved twins. He got out of bed and went across to the door.
SIX
At first he thought he was not going to manage it, because he felt so ill that it was difficult to walk. Mr Hurst had talked about people cast into hell being made to wear iron cloaks, and Leo wondered if this had happened to him now. It seemed perfectly possible.
But somehow he got out to the big hall. It was in shadow, but it was not completely dark, and he could smell hot metal. Was that the old heat that Sophie had talked about? She and Susannah had thought the scent was from the Ovens. Leo was just thinking that rather than risk the Ovens he would go back to his bed, when there was a movement ahead of him. His heart bumped and the hot confusing mist swirled around him. He stood very still, then two figures walked in and out of the shadows, and Leo, fighting not to fall over, saw the unmistakable tumble of Sophie’s hair.
They half turned to look back at him, and one of them put up a hand to beckon him. They’re running away, thought Leo. They’re running away from the Todesengel. But they had beckoned to him to follow them, and he would have to try, so he took a deep breath and went across the hall and through the door after them.
The door opened easily, and on the other side were stone steps going down. There was a bad smell of damp and decay, but Leo, by now feeling dreadfully ill, managed to ignore it, and made his shaky way to the foot of the steps. Now there was a narrow stone passage. It was not absolutely dark because there were oil lamps fixed to the walls near the ceiling, which someone had lit. They were like huge swollen eyes staring down and Leo hated them. He began to walk along the passage, forcing himself not to look up at the bulgy eyes, willing the twins to appear. Once he thought he heard the whispery voice calling the children again, but then it faded and he thought he had been mistaken. He would probably reach the twins at any minute, although if they were running away, he was not sure if he would manage to go with them. And where would they go anyway?