Shadow Breakers (14 page)

I shrug. “And?”

He makes the first picture bigger, zooming in on one girl's face in the Victorian group. It looks blurred, but Ollie does something with the mouse and suddenly the features are sharper.

She's dark-haired, with big, dark eyes and a wide mouth.

There's something weirdly familiar about her.

Then he does the same with the nineteen twenties group, zooming in on just one girl, and finally the same again with the class from the nineteen sixties. Each time he cleans up the picture so that it's sharp.

I step forward and peer at each of the three pictures in turn.

The clothes and hairstyles are different, of course, but the girls all have the same features — glossy dark hair, dark eyes, sharp face, that cheeky wide mouth.

“Gran, mum, and daughter?” I ask.

Miss Bellini comes over and gently puts a hand on my shoulder.

“Not quite,” she says. “Look again, Miranda.”

I do so. And now I feel my heart rate quickening and my hands growing prickly and hot and damp with sweat.

Because I've seen it.

No.

It
can't
be.

“Do they look familiar, Miranda?” asks Miss Bellini.

I nod dumbly. The room seems to be wobbling.

“So they should,” says Miss Bellini quietly. “All three of these girls have exactly the same face.”

She raises her eyes, and for a second her glasses are full of soft, blue light.

I stare at Miss Bellini, trying to focus. And when I look at the three images again I know what she is going to say. I almost don't dare hear it, and yet I know I have to.

Miss Bellini says: “It's the face of your friend, Jade Verdicchio.”

My eyes are blurring with tears.

I'm hurrying along the marina, past the expensive shops and the moored boats. This is only a few minutes from the Seaview, but it's the posh end of Firecroft Bay, the bit they did up when they forgot about the Esplanade and left the Seaview to rot. Seagulls shriek above, as if they are laughing at me.

I find my way to the end of a jetty and stand there, arms folded, my tears blurring the sea and the masts and the breakwater in my vision.

There's a cold wind here, zipping across the masts of the boats and ruffling the awnings of the little trinket shops and fishing-tackle places. I huddle into my jacket. It's a good one: strong, sturdy black leather with loads of zip pockets like a motorcyclist's jacket. I remember when I chose it from the shop. Just after Dad died. It was too big for me then, too baggy and too teenage, and I thought Mum was going to tell me not to be stupid as it was so expensive. And yet she bought it for me.

He'd have liked it.
You look cool, Panda,
he'd have said.

And here I am now, leaning on a rail in Firecroft Bay Marina, and both the jacket and the memories are keeping me warm. An ordinary girl in a biker jacket, jeans, and Converse, hair tangling in the cold wind. Nobody would give me a second glance. And yet I know too many things about the world now. Things I wish I didn't.

My head is spinning with thoughts of Jade. I don't know if I have been deceived, or if that conversation last night was supposed to be telling me something more than I picked up. This is happening to me a lot. Why has she gone away? I'm starting to feel more angry than afraid, angry that I don't know what's going on.

I sense him behind me. I don't need to turn around.

“I . . . didn't know,” says Josh softly.

“Go away.” I'm amazed I don't say something ruder.

He sighs. “Fine. You know what, Miranda, I'm fed up with doing this.”

I half turn toward him. “Doing what?”

“Buoying you up. Chivvying you along. I know you're new, but I thought you'd have come good by now.”

He pauses, comes to lean on the rail beside me — not looking at me, but staring out to sea like I am.

“I
like
you,” he says. “I mean, you're annoying, and you prattle on too much, and someone ought to tell you that the Avril Lavigne look went out years ago, but . . . But yeah, despite it all, I like you, Miranda. I thought we worked well together. But there are times when you have to put doubt aside and just face the truth. However uncomfortable it may be.”

“Easy for you to say.”

For a few seconds neither of us says anything. Then he says, “Maybe this isn't for you, Miranda. Because if you're going to let personal feelings get in the way —”

I round on him and face him, squaring up to him — and he actually takes a step backward. Wow.

“Personal feelings? Is that what you call it? Jade is my
friend
, Josh. And now you're trying to tell me she's this . . .
thing
we've been looking for all along?”

“Well,” he says, scratching his ear. “I'd go for ‘neo-vampiric embodiment of a dark spiritual life force,' myself, but I suppose
thing
will do if you can't come up with bett —”

“Don't get
clever
with me!” I step toward him and he actually backs away again. “I don't understand. You told me it wasn't her. Ollie did, on the pier. We . . . There . . . She's not —” I break off, feeling my eyes prickle with tears. My throat is raw and angry.

Josh shrugs. “The data . . . wasn't complete,” he says apologetically.

I'm so angry with him, I almost shove him.

He lifts his hands up. “Okay, okay. Look . . .” His eyes narrow. “Seriously, Miranda. You've seen the evidence. Three times, three faces.
The same girl.
And it makes perfect sense.”

“I don't believe it.”

“You know it. We all know it. She's the Animus. She's hundreds of years old, Miranda. She's the thing we're looking for. The thing that could kill everyone. She's the ‘Ring Around the Rosie' girl. And she's been running rings around
you
all right.”

“You can talk,” I retort. “All this time you thought she was a Mundane.”

“Well, yes. Hmm. Bit of a misjudgment there.” Josh pulls out his phone, checking messages. “Anyway — we know where she is. Target lockdown initiates in five minutes.” He raises his eyebrows at me and grins. “It's endgame. Are you coming or not?”

Josh, Miss Bellini, and the others, always knowing more than me. Haunted abbeys, shadows, intrigue, and betrayal. Life on the edge of reality.

I don't want to go on.

I don't need this anymore.

“You know what, Josh?” I say. “I'm not.” I lift my chin defiantly, feeling the cold salty air on my face. “You go. Because . . . because I'm finished.”

He looks vaguely surprised. “Oh. Okay.” He turns, as if to go. “You're sure about this?”

I nod, feeling both weary and relieved. “Yes.”

“All right,” he says. He puts his hand out. “All the best, then, Miranda. We won't bother you anymore. No hard feelings.”

I look at his hand like it's a dead fish.

“Customary gesture?” he says.

I give him a reluctant smile and shake his hand. “Okay, Josh.”

“That's my girl,” he says with a smile.

And he slams his other hand onto the back of mine, so that he has me caught in a double-handshake.

For two seconds, I can't move my hand from his grip.

Josh pulls away from me.

“I'm really sorry,” he says.

I look down.

There is something on the back of my hand.

It looks like a flat pink disk. And there's
cold
spreading out from it, hitting my veins, rushing through my body.

I gawk at my hand in horror, and reach to try and pull the disk off, but I can hardly move my other arm. I feel all woozy. This is what I imagine being drunk is like. My legs suddenly lose the power to support me, and my knees start to buckle.

Josh grabs me before I hit the pavement.

“Steady,” he says softly. “Don't hurt yourself.”

“Wha' . . . you
done
?”

“It's a simple skin-pad tranquilizer. Just a standard Level One.”

“What?”
I stare at the disk on my hand, trying to focus. My entire body feels like it's shutting down for instant sleep, and my limbs are going numb.

“Hits the nervous system and gets flushed out in hours. Don't worry. It's harmless. Mutant form of a flunitrazepam derivative. You'll be okay.”

“Flu-what?” I say in horror, my own voice echoing in my head.

The sound of the sea, swirling like weird static on the radio . . .

Blood rushing . . . The seagulls screeching . . .

Josh's face, blurring now . . .

Ollie, taking me into his confidence about his sister . . .

JumpJets blasting out from Jade's laptop, the latest video on YouTube. “Give what you can, and I'll take the rest/Do your worst, baby, 'cos I know you're the best . . .” The electronic drums throb and pound in my head.

The Shape on the beach . . .

The girl running from the blazing forest, smoke wreathing her as she turns away from me . . .

The crone in the Abbey . . .

Long, dark hair hiding their faces . . .

I keep trying to focus as I feel myself slipping away.

“We can't have you warning Jade,” he says. “I'm sorry.”

I try to move my mouth.

I get as far as “You —”

And then my legs give way, and everything goes black.

She's pointing at me.

I'm boarding it along the seafront, trying to get away, wheels whizzing fast. I kick the tail and go into a jump-spin.

No, I'm running now, and the pebbles are going
kssh-kssh-kssh
under my feet. I can hear the sea washing in my mind, and yet, for some reason, I can't turn my head to look at it.

The seascape shimmers, fades. I am on the edge of the blackened field again, under a reddening sky. The smoke hangs over the burning forest and the smell of sulfur is strong and pungent. I can hear bells, deep and loud as if they're sounding the doom of the world.

And the girl is running through the misty smoke, running toward me, arms spread wide, hair spread out and wrapping itself around her face as she runs.

Ring around the rosie.

Her face is hidden, but now she comes to a halt a few yards from me. I stop, breathing hard, my eyes heavy.

“What do you want?” I say. “What do you want?”

Soft, tinkling laughter echoes in my mind.

And now her voice, singing the song that day in the tree in the garden of the children's home, where she seemed so kind and so carefree.

A pocket full of posies.

I'm walking up to her. My feet leaden, as they were in the Abbey that time. Everything is mixed now: bells and sea and fire. I can hear the sound of the seagulls as if on a tape loop, as if mingled with the singing of the nursery rhyme.

Ashes, ashes, we all fall down.

I take several steps forward and suddenly I am there. I am there. I reach out, trying to pull back the veil of hair.

Her face is —

• • •

I sit up, screaming.

“It's okay, it's okay.”

Someone's voice. I don't know whose. I am hot, breathing quickly. My heart is hammering, and I can feel the vibrations of an engine all around me. I take a few seconds to focus my eyes and my mind.

I look frantically from side to side, trying to work out where I am.

“Miranda . . . ? Miranda? You with us?”

It's Josh. He comes into focus. He has his hand under my chin, almost affectionately, peering into my eyes. He nods, and Lyssa — yes, she's there, too — hands him a slim flashlight.

I can hear a voice saying, “She was there. She was there,” over and over again, and I suddenly realize it's mine.

“Eyes open wide,” says Josh, and peers into my eyes, shining the flashlight into them one by one. Then he nods, toward the front of the vehicle. “Equal and reactive,” he says. “She's back with us.”

I realize I am in the VW camper van, and Miss Bellini is up in the front, driving, with Cal in the passenger seat. Cal turns, her red hair loose, and gives me a reassuring grin. That's weird. Lyssa and Josh are on the folded-down backseat with me, and Ollie is down on the floor with all the computer equipment and other junk that Miss Bellini carts around.

“What happened?!”

My voice sounds croaky, and only now is my heart rate slowing to something like normal. Josh passes me a bottle of water and I gulp from it gratefully. When your mouth is that dry, water tastes like the sweetest stuff on earth. I feel it sloshing down my chin. I cough and splutter as I swig too much down at once.

Josh slaps me between the shoulder blades

“Had to get you back with some adrenaline,” he says apologetically. “I was stuck with dragging you back to HQ. Lucky it was only just across the road.”

I realize there is a small, absorbent white patch on my upper right arm, and it stings a bit.
“Adrenaline?”
I say quietly.

Josh nods. “Got you up and running again. Ready to go?” he says, clapping me on the shoulder.

I shrug him off. “No. No, I'm not! How
dare
you mess about with me like I'm some sort of . . . vivisection experiment. What gives you people the
right
?”

The camper van judders to a sudden halt. Miss Bellini turns around in the seat, and with one hand still on the wheel and the other draped across the back of the driver's seat, she gives me an apologetic smile. “No right at all,” she says. “But needs must. I'm really sorry, Miranda. We'll try not to do it again.”

“How am I going to explain this to my mother? She'll think I've been doing drugs.”

“An emergency rubella inoculation,” says Miss Bellini. “I've already arranged for a letter to go out.”

“German measles?” I scoff. “I've already had that one.” (And she never wrote me that note about getting out of gym, did she?)

“It's a mutant strain,” says Cal, leaning around. “Don't worry, you'll be covered.”

Miss Bellini nods. “Fighting fit?” she says.

I scowl again. “You don't trust me, do you? Any of you? Just because I'm friends with her. With Jade.”

“We need you to be on board for this, Miranda,” says Miss Bellini sternly. “We need to contain this, and we need to contain it
now
. Before it brings an apocalypse.”

I feel a creeping horror. I remember Jade's face. On the pier, narrowing her eyes at me. In school, when I felt ill, taking me under the arm and leading me to the nurse's. In the tree house. My friend. Getting close to me, and all that time —