the voice.
But this time – like all the others – he found that he couldn’t do it. Because if he talked about it now … it would live outside his dreams and nightmares. It would become … real.
“Tomorrow, Dad, I’ll tell you both. I promise.” And a part of him believed that he actually might.
Suddenly there was a shriek from the kitchen, followed by an unusually panicked Olivia Armstrong, flapping her arms.
“Oh dear Lord, it’s ruined!” she gasped. “And the Johnstons will be here any minute! Will you two stop dribbling on about ‘Amplification’ and set the table. Terry, I need a spatula, and fast!”
Sometimes, Ned found it hard to believe this was the same woman who, mere months ago, had fought off countless gor-balin assassins, to protect her “wards” at the battle of St Clotilde’s. Ned’s mum could happily face off against a mountain troll if the mood took her, but the mystery of weighed ingredients and a timed oven were not a warrior’s domain.
As the aroma of burnt “something” hit their noses, the kitchen radio blared.
“The third kidnapping from the capital in less than a week—”
Terrence’s face whitened and his eyes flitted to Olivia for a moment, before he started rifling through a kitchen drawer for implements. But Ned had seen it.
All his dad’s talk of dark forces that might be interested in Ned. All the training he was making him do. There was something he was worried about – something specific – and it had to do with the kidnappings on the news.
Sleep.
For weeks now he had been plagued by the same horrifying nightmare. The hot metal walls. The sense of being trapped, and then the walls blowing open and …
Just thinking about it made him shudder.
But it was not the nightmare itself or the part Ned’s ring always played in it that he could not tell his parents about. It was the voice that lay waiting whenever it began. A voice both familiar and ancient – like a call of trumpets over the grinding of rock.
“TheeRe yoU arRe,” said the voice, when Ned finally succumbed to his exhaustion.
Deeply asleep and trapped in his dream, Ned shuddered.
Downstairs, the TV blew its fuse. A light bulb in the kitchen popped. And all down the street, car alarms began to wail.
“Err, guys, do you have to do that? It’s going to put me off my toast.”
Terry Armstrong continued without flinching. It was his mum who answered.
“Ned, your father and I have waited twelve years to celebrate Christmas together and this is only our second. No amount of teenage grumpiness is going to stop us dancing, cooing, hugging or anything else for the rest of our days.”
And as Ned smiled in blissful defeat, his dad finally spoke without taking his chin from the top of his mum’s shoulder.
“You know what they say, son? If you can’t beat ’em, join ’em.”
“Don’t be daft!” wailed Ned.
But his dad’s ring finger crackled wildly and Ned found himself being pushed by its invisible power to the arms of his mum and dad.
Ned’s hair was ruffled, his cheeks pinched and what followed was the most clumsy six-legged waltz the small suburb of Clucton had ever seen, except of course that they couldn’t actually see it. In that moment Ned forgot that he was fourteen years old, and a teenager who from time to time tried to let the rest of the world think he might be cool – because he wasn’t, but mostly because, just like his parents, he’d waited and hoped and dreamed for twelve long years that he could celebrate Christmas with his mum and dad. Now that he actually could, a six-legged waltz in the family kitchen felt like just the right thing to do.
***
Hours later, Carrion Slight sat in his Silver Shadow Rolls-Royce and tended to his bag of tricks, a bag containing two special items. This job had been awkward even for a thief with his unique set of skills. His targets had covered their tracks well and their scent had eluded him for an unusually long time.
“I really don’t get the point of children. They always smell rather off to me, especially the boys. Still, a contract is a contract and my nose never lies, does it, Mange?” said Carrion.
There was no answer.
“It reminds me of that job in Prague, her perfume was so sickly sweet – yet another aroma I wish I could forget. I don’t expect you’ve ever been to Prague, have you?” continued Carrion.
From the outside of the car it looked very much as though he was talking to himself.
“Nothing smells worse than bad perfume – nothing, that is, except for boys. Her necklace, on the other hand: so shiny, and such perfectly cut diamonds.” For a moment Carrion shut his eyes, lost now in the shimmer of “jobs” gone by. “It broke my greedy heart to sell it.” Still no answer. Carrion started to fume. “You’re never actually going to talk, are you, Mange? What I wouldn’t do for some intelligent conversation. Instead I have a bargeist; a demon-hearted, Darkling mutt with only one impulse.”
Carrion unwrapped a full leg of lamb and threw it into the back of
