Read The Shadow Project Online
Authors: Herbie Brennan
The Shadow Project
Herbie Brennan
For Jacks, always
Danny, outside London
Dorothy, London
Opal, the Shadow Project
Danny, the Shadow Project
Opal, Lusakistan
Sir Roland, London
Sir Roland, the Shadow Project
Opal, Lusakistan
Danny, the Shadow Project
Opal, Lusakistan
Sir Roland, the Shadow Project
Danny, London
Opal, Lusakistan
Danny, outside London
Dorothy, Saint Luke's Hospital
Danny, the Shadow Project
Opal, Lusakistan
Danny, the Shadow Project
Dorothy, Saint Luke's Hospital
Michael, the Shadow Project
Sir Roland, the Shadow Project
Sir Roland, the Shadow Project
Danny, the Shadow Project
Opal, Lusakistan
Dorothy, the Project Clinic
Danny, the Shadow Project
Sir Roland, the Shadow Project
Opal, the Shadow Project
Sir Roland, London
Danny, the Shadow Project
Opal, the Shadow Project
Danny, the Shadow Project
Opal, the Shadow Project
Opal, the Shadow Project
Opal, the Shadow Project
Danny, the Shadow Project
Opal, the Shadow Project
Danny, Beaconsfield
Opal, the Shadow Project
Opal, the Shadow Project
Opal, the Shadow Project
Danny, Blandings
Danny, Blandings
Opal, Blandings
Dorothy, Blandings
Opal, Blandings
Danny, Blandings
Opal, Blandings
Michael, Blandings
Danny, the Astral Plane
Michael, the Astral Plane
Opal, the Astral Plane
Danny, the Astral Plane
Danny, the Astral Plane
Opal, the Astral Plane
Danny, the Astral Plane
Sir Roland, the Shadow Project
Opal, the Lake of Fire
Roland, the Shadow Project
Danny, the Lake of Fire
Michael, the Shenlu Chamber
Opal, the Shenlu Chamber
Danny, the Shenlu Chamber
Danny, the Shenlu Chamber
Sir Roland, the Shadow Project
Danny, the Shenlu Chamber
Sir Roland, Blandings
Opal, Blandings
Danny, outside London
D
anny would never have noticed the door that night if it hadn't opened a crack. It was hidden on the outside by the same wood paneling that ran along the whole length of the corridor. Cleverly hidden too, lovely workmanship. How it opened, Danny didn't knowâyou probably twisted a candlestick or felt behind a family portrait for a hidden button. Only he didn't have to look for anything like that, because the secret door was already open. Not much more than half an inch, but half an inch was enough.
He was expecting the door to be stiffâit looked like it hadn't been used in yearsâbut it swung back sweet as you like, not so much as a creak. There was another door behind it, a modern door this time, brand-new and high-tech looking. There was a combination lock pad built in with some sort of sensor plate above it and a little lens above that.
Danny stared, impressed but puzzled. He knew what he was looking at, all rightâhigh security. Very high security. You didn't just need the numbers to punch in: that pad was for a thumbprint, and the little lens above it was an iris recognition system. But what was such a high-security system doing in an old, run-down country house?
He took a step back before another thought struck him. Maybe the secret door led to a vault where the owner kept his priceless art collection. Maybe the old boy who owned the house was filthy rich. Not that it mattered, because Danny didn't have the combination or the thumbprint or the iris pattern to get through a door like this anyway. But it didn't stop him from pushing it. Just a little push, not really expecting anything to happenâjust the sort of thing you did if you were somebody like Danny with nothing to lose.
The door opened.
Not inward, but sideways. A sliding door, so silent you couldn't hear a whisper. And an automatic light came on.
Danny was looking into a lift.
Danny kept looking into the lift, thinking it was all too much. The thing was all sparkling chrome with mirrors built into the walls, not so much as a finger smudge on any of them. No buttons, though: no top floor,
ground floor, lobby, or that sort of thing. But there was a discreet brass plaque announcing
OTIS
, which meant that this was an American installation, what they called an elevator. What was an American high-tech, state-of-the-art, high-security elevator doing hiding behind a secret panel in an old English country house?
There was no question of getting into it, of course. That would be stupid. No buttons. This was an automatic elevator, the sort that took you somewhere of its own accord with no way of stopping it or making it go somewhere else. All the same, he was curious. He wondered if there really was an art collection.
Danny stepped into the elevator. The door slid closed behind him. “Going down,” the lift murmured in a soft American accent. It went down for a lot longer than he thought it would, a lot longer than it would take to get to a converted cellar, for example, before the doors slid open again.
Danny felt a sudden pang of fear. He was in a corridor that didn't seem to suit the rest of the house. It was modern, stark, dead straight, and painted blue. No furniture, no ornaments, no pictures on the walls. And not just a corridor. This looked like a whole maze of corridors, which definitely didn't belong here. It was as if somebody had built an entire office deep underneath the old house. But why?
Danny wished the lift would go back up again, but it stubbornly refused to move, refused even to close its doors. There had to be sensors, maybe even a hidden camera, that told it somebody was still inside. So it left him standing exposed to anybody who was down there. He had to move to somewhere less conspicuous, and he had to move fast. He was no longer in an empty country house. There might be people down hereâpeople who set up high-security systems.
As Danny stepped smartly off the elevator, its door slid shut again, and this time it didn't open when he pushed it. Whatever he'd got himself into, he was stuck here. But where was he? What was this place? It even had light tracks along the floor, like the markers in airports that showed where you were supposed to go. Different colors seemed to lead to different places.
He turned to push the elevator door again, but nothing happened. Coming down here had been really stupid. It was one thing trying to nick a few quid from an empty house, but this place was something else. One step in and he was creeped out already. His heart was pounding uncomfortably. His hands were sweating. It wasn't just waiting for somebody to step into the corridor and spot him. It was the feeling that getting caught down here could be a lot more serious than getting caught up above. He needed to find a way back out and find it
fast.
Danny started to move along the corridor. There were doors opening off it, which might mean places to hide but might also mean roomfuls of people. All the same, he had no choice. He stopped and listened at one of the doors before pushing it open.
The room was the weirdest thing he'd ever seen. All he could think was
execution chamber
. Two electric chairsâat least they looked like two electric chairs with their shining metal headsets and cables snaking everywhereâwere set side by side in the middle of the floor. There was a pretty girl inside, about Danny's own age, dressed in a T-shirt with a fairy on it and expensive-looking designer jeans. She might have been headed for a high-class disco, only she wasn't. She was sitting in one of the electric chairs, strapped in with the steel cap on her head, not quite covering the blond hair. There were
things
flying around her: for some reason his eyes couldn't focus on them properly, but they flapped like little bats. Behind her, standing by a bank of switches, was a man who looked like Nicholas Cage, except for the color of his hair. The girl had her eyes closed, but the man was staring straight at Danny. His mouth dropped open.
Danny went cold. Nicholas was about to execute the girl!
“Hey!” shouted Nicholas Cage. The girl opened her eyes.
And right on cue, like in some really bad horror movie, Danny heard running footsteps behind him.
Danny swung around. There was a figure rushing toward him down the corridor, a muscular young black guy, Danny's height or maybe an inch taller, who looked about his own age. But his gear was nothing like anything Danny ever wore: a cream-colored two-piece suit that fit so well, it had to be tailored. He reached for Dannyâwho, with street-fighter instincts, kneed him in the groin.
The boy howled, jackknifed, and clutched himself with both hands. Encouraged by the reaction, Danny drew back to hit him in the mouth. But somebody grabbed his wrist, somebody strong. He spun around, thinking about repeating the knee trick, only it didn't work so well with girls, and he was definitely looking at the girl, free of her electric chair and glaring at him.
“What the
hell
do you think you're doing?” she demanded.
Dorothy, London
R
ing for an ambulance,
Dorothy thought.
You have to get me to a hospital, otherwise I'm going to die down here at the bottom of the stairs. So ring for an ambulance and then ring Danny on his mobile. Not that he ever answers it, but you can leave him a message, voice mail or whatever it's called, bound to pick that up eventually. Tell him his old Nan's had a bit of a turn. Don't worry him, mind: tell him the hospital is just a precaution. You can say observation, took her in for observation.
“Oh, Jesus!” Aggie said.
Go on, you useless old fool,
Dorothy thought.
Think
telephone.
Think
get help.
Don't just stand there like a headless chicken taking the name of the Lord in vain.
“Oh, Dot!” Aggie said, which was a change from
Oh, Jesus,
but not much more helpful. Then Aggie did a strange thing. She leaned forward and kissed Dorothy very gently on the cheek. Then she stood up, slowly,
painfullyâDorothy could hear her knees crack. “Don't you worry, Dot, I'll get the doctor round. You're going to be all right. You stay there and don't move.”
Don't move?
Don't move?
What world are you living in? If I could move I wouldn't need the bleeding doctor, would I? And never mind the doctor anywayâit's an
ambulance
I want.
In her desperation, Dorothy tried to say somethingâ
ambulance
, probablyâbut all that came out was a squeak. Not that Aggie would have heard her anyway, because she was already on the move, huffing. Stepâ
huff.
Stepâ
huff. She was walking past the telephone!
What was wrong with her? Right past and into the kitchen andâDorothy couldn't believe itâout the back door.
Suddenly the house was very quiet.
Dorothy knew what she'd had, and it wasn't just a bit of a turn, whatever she told herself. What she'd had was a stroke, same as Stanley. She knew all about strokes because she'd gone with Stanley in the ambulance and talked to the nice young doctor. That's how she knew there were two kinds of strokes. With one you got a clot on the brain, and they had to give you medicine to dissolve it. With the other you had bleeding in the brain, and they had to give you medicine to make it clot.
Could see the problem, couldn't you? Until they found what sort of stroke you had, they couldn't give
you any medicine at all. Because if you had a clot and they gave you the stuff that helps clotting, they'd kill you; and if you had bleeding and they gave you the stuff that dissolved clots, it would make the bleeding worse. So the trick was to get you into the hospital and find out what sort of stroke you'd had. “Timing is everything,” the nice young doctor had said.
And Aggie had gone off, silly cow. Walked right past the phone, right out of the house. Gone to feed her cat or do the Lotto. The woman was batty. It'd be funny if it wasn't so sad. Gone off and left Dorothy to die.
But talk of the devil, there she was again. Dorothy could hear the back door and the sound of Aggie's steps and heavy breathing. And then Aggie was standing over her, looking down at her, face all full of anxiety.
“I called the hospital,” Aggie said.
She'd gone and done it from her own phone,
Dorothy thought.
She only went and used her own phone to save me the cost of the call!
“You're going to be fine, Dot,” Aggie said.