The Midnight Mercenary

CONTENTS

TITLE PAGE

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

COPYRIGHT PAGE

A bolt of lightning streaked across the sky outside the window, and for a split second Amelia could see the hotel lobby around her. Then, just as quickly, it was utterly dark again, and a thunderclap almost deafened her.

Amelia stood rigid, blinking in the dark, hating the storm, hating the blackout, and knowing there was nothing she could do about either.

‘Sonic boom!' Charlie cheered. ‘That was the closest one yet! I hope –'

He was drowned out as lightning and thunder hit the hotel simultaneously. Amelia felt sick. She also felt something soft rub against her leg, and bent down to scoop up her puppy, Grawk.

It's only a storm,
she told herself. But she knew there was nothing
only
about being in a building hit by lightning. A hundred million volts of electricity striking at a temperature of twenty-eight thousand degrees Celsius was the exact opposite of
only
.

Charlie shrieked in excitement. Amelia could hear him jumping around like a lunatic. A lunatic who, for some reason, was singing ‘Another One Bites the Dust'. There was a bang and a sudden yelp of pain.

Another flash of lightning gave Amelia a glimpse of Charlie holding his forehead and standing a bit too close to the corner of the reception desk. She snorted with laughter despite herself, but stopped short at the peal of thunder that rolled over them. The chance of being hit by lightning was only about one in ten thousand, she reminded herself, breathing deeply.

On the other hand, the chance of winning the lottery was less than one in forty-five
million
, and yet people still thought it was worth buying a ticket …

Charlie groaned. ‘Did you hear that? A gap between the lightning and thunder. It's going past already! What a rip off.'

Amelia just shook her head.

A beam of electric light appeared at the end of the corridor, and flashed around the lobby before settling on them both. Amelia's dad had finally found a torch in the kitchen.

‘Don't worry about missing out on the storm, Charlie,' he said, walking over. ‘This whole headland is so strongly magnetic, it acts like a kind of … well,
magnet
for electrical storms. There's a good chance this one will circle back to us.'

‘Awesome!'

Amelia shuddered. ‘You're mental, Charlie.'

Dad put his arm around her. ‘Don't worry, cookie. We've got lightning rods at every corner of the hotel. We're safe as houses.'

‘Yeah, I know. It's just a bit …' She glanced in Charlie's direction. ‘A bit boring with the blackout.'

Dad squeezed her to him. ‘I'm on it. I found the fuse wire, a torch – only one, I'm afraid – and Tom is going to show me where the fuse box is. We'll have the lights back on in no time.'

Charlie booed.

‘In the meantime,' Dad went on, ‘I've found a box of matches, too. Take them through to your mum and see if they're any better than that dud lighter she's been struggling with.'

He shone the torch on the matchbox so Amelia could take it, then gave her a kiss and walked out the main doors of the hotel to the pounding rain beyond. The lobby seemed twice as dark as before.

‘Come on, Charlie, let's go to the library.'

There was no reply.

‘Charlie?' She waited. ‘OK, ha ha, Charlie, very funny. Where are you?'

But the lobby was silent. Had Charlie slipped out behind Dad? Amelia thought she would have seen him go – an extra shadow, an extra flicker of movement against the thin torchlight. He might have used the distraction to slink off somewhere else altogether. Amelia had no idea what for, but she'd given up trying to figure out how Charlie's mind worked sometimes.

‘All right, then, Grawk,' she said. ‘Just you and me. Library.'

The puppy blinked solemnly at her, his molten gold eyes glowing softly in the darkness. OK, so maybe Grawk wasn't
technically
a puppy – he wasn't any kind of Earth dog at all. He'd appeared a week or so ago in the caves under Tom's cottage – an accidental ‘blowback' through one of the wormholes that had connected with the gateway. And from the moment Amelia had seen him, had taken him in her arms and felt him snuggle his velvety head under her chin, she'd known he was trusting her to keep him safe.

Charlie still wasn't convinced. They'd met several kinds of aliens since coming to the Gateway Hotel – a tall, fearsome reptile woman, a whole army of tiny pink and purple bear-like warriors, and Leaf Man, who could leap like a grasshopper. But no matter what size or shape they were, whether furry or scaly, all those aliens were undoubtedly
people
. Grawk was the first alien they'd met who seemed to be an animal. Yet Charlie had his suspicions, and whenever Grawk did something even slightly wonderful or extraordinary, he'd narrow his eyes coldly.

Amelia didn't care. It was just jealousy, right?

She bent down to stroke his head. ‘Can you see in the dark, Grawk?'

He made an odd grinding sound, halfway between a purr and a growl, stood up and turned away from her so that her hand was on the tip of his tail rather than his head. As soon as Amelia held onto his tail, he trotted happily across the lobby to the library, not wavering, not bumping into anything. Amelia stumbled along behind.

In the library doorway she called out, ‘I've got matches!'

‘Thank goodness,' said Mum. ‘Stay where you are, I'll come to –
ow
!'

‘I'll come to you,' said Amelia, and Grawk led her daintily around the desk, past the old fireplace, between the chairs, and over to the shelf where Mum had lined up all the candles.

It was a huge relief to see some light, and the warm candlelight was a lot more comforting than the grey beam of Dad's torch. As Mum lit one candle after another the library began to reappear from the gloom, and Amelia could see James sprawled on a sofa, and Charlie's mum Mary fitting yet more candles into holders. One good thing about living in an ancient, spooky hotel that everyone in town said was haunted: they had a lot of candelabra.

‘Where's Charlie?' asked Mary.

‘I don't know. He disappeared when Dad said he was going to help Tom get the power back on.'

Mary made a cross noise. ‘If he's outside in all this rain …' she muttered to herself. ‘If he gives himself pneumonia … If he thinks he's getting out of school …'

Amelia had never heard her finish one of these sentences. She wondered if even Mary knew how they should end.

‘James,' said Mum. ‘Do you want to take a couple of candelabra and light the lobby for Dad?'

‘Not really,' said James. He lay back, one arm draped over his eyes, the other dangling to the floor.

Mum's smile tightened. ‘Let me rephrase that: James, take a couple of candelabra to the lobby.'

James sighed and heaved himself off the sofa. He thudded over to the candelabra, took one in each hand, sighed again, and thudded out to the lobby.

Mum and Mary shared a look, and Mum called after him brightly, ‘Thank you, James!'

Amelia rolled her eyes. She didn't know how her parents could stand it, but she was totally over her brother. He was always moping around. And grumpy. And sarcastic. And not funny,
clever
sarcastic like he used to be. Now he was just mean.

She was still glowering when James came back into the library and slumped onto the sofa as though exhausted by the effort of walking fifteen metres. He reached over to a shelf beside him and pulled down a book. He was flicking through the opening pages when Lady Naomi stepped through the doorway and looked around at them all. She beamed at Amelia, and Amelia smiled back, her heart lifting. No matter how ferocious the storm outside, if it meant a chance to hang out with Lady Naomi, it was worth it.

Even though Lady Naomi lived at the hotel, and her room was only metres away from Amelia's, they hardly ever saw her. Apart from one memorable evening they had spent with her in the hotel's kitchen, Lady Naomi was always off doing some sort of ‘research'. But what she did or where she did it, Amelia had never found out.

Yet here she was, dressed exactly as she had been the last time Amelia saw her. Her plain black singlet top left her arms bare, showing a terrible scar that ran from one shoulder all the way to her wrist. On anyone else, Amelia thought, an injury like that would look disgusting or ugly. Somehow it just made Lady Naomi look even more mysterious and cool.

Lady Naomi walked over to the sofa and sat next to James – so close that James shied away in surprise.

‘Hey, watch –' he began, only to choke off when he saw who it was.

‘Hi, James,' said Lady Naomi. Her voice was husky, and a little bit breathy. Like she'd been running up and down the stairs. Not that Amelia could imagine Lady Naomi getting puffed.

Grawk pricked up his ears and stared at her.

‘Um. Uh …' James coughed. ‘Hello.'

Even by candlelight, Amelia could see he was blushing. James had been obsessed with Lady Naomi since before he'd even
met
her, but this was the first time she'd shown any particular interest in him.

Lady Naomi smiled at James – a wide, wicked smile that crinkled her nose. ‘James, I was thinking …' she said, and leaned over to him. She was much shorter than James, and had to reach up to whisper in his ear. ‘Tomorrow, after this storm passes, maybe you and I could …'

Amelia's mouth dropped open. She couldn't make out what Lady Naomi was saying now but as she watched, the stunned look on James's face gradually shifted to wonder, to a dawning, impossible happiness, and then –

Lady Naomi gave a great snort and began laughing helplessly, slapping her knee in a way that caught Mary's attention immediately.