+You can’t escape us, Jackaran Kresimir Shield! You can’t escape!++
But Jack was suddenly through, running as fast as he had ever run, and the worm shrieked in fury and broke apart, sending thousands of rats, ants, spiders and crawling horrors after Jack. No longer constrained by moving together, they were at his heels within seconds.
Far off in the distance, Jack caught a glimpse of light, real light, and he ran toward it, hoping against hope. It led him to a wider tunnel, one lined with brick rather than concrete. Rusted iron grilles blocked off several tunnels leading elsewhere.
Jack ran to the tunnel’s end, where he found a vertical shaft leading up into darkness. There had once been a ladder, but it had pulled away from the wall and only a twisted length of rusted metal remained to show where it had been. There was no way for him to climb up.
But the light didn’t come from above. It was emanating from a luminous, cylindrical cloud that was swirling slowly around underneath the vertical shaft, blocking the way up.
Jack wondered if it was marsh gas. He’d read about it in an old book once, how it could choke you to death, or explode. Jack looked at it, then back at his pursuers. They had slowed and were grouping together again. They were rebuilding the worm-creature, and he could feel its mental pressure growing, trying to break into his head.
Jack lifted the bottom of his T-shirt up to cover his mouth and nose, and walked into the shining cloud.
Instantly, the mental pressure ceased. Behind him the worm-creature screamed with all its rat mouths and rose up, drawing in more and more rats, ants and insects as it surged forward to overwhelm him.
The cloud of light moved forward to meet it, leaving Jack behind and growing brighter as it went. Jack backed up to the tunnel wall and watched in amazement as the cloud coalesced and took on a human form, a human form that he instantly recognised.
Hanging brightly in the darkness of the tunnels, as cool and beautiful as the full moon, was the ghostly form of the young Grandma X.
Jack pressed harder against the tunnel wall, thinking that he had been caught by the witch and her minions, and that he had come to the end at last.
The radiant image of Grandma X raised her right hand, and there was a flash of intense light. The worm-creature charged, sending shadows writhing across the walls of the tunnel.
Grandma X and the worm-thing met in a blaze of light and darkness, sending Jack flying under a shower of rats, ants and bugs.
In the darkness of the rat’s deepest thoughts, Jaide suddenly saw a light bloom, a light that also brought Jack into view. He looked frightened and dirty, and he was backed up against a brick wall that curved over his head. He seemed to be staring right at her.
‘Jack, it’s me! We’re coming to get you!’
Jaide’s voice echoed back at her from the walls of Grandma X’s house. She didn’t know how to speak with her mind as Grandma X did, so she was just speaking aloud – but something did hear her nonetheless, something heavy and dark and terrible that crashed over them and said in a voice that tried to drag her down into the darkest halls of memory—
+We see you, Jaidith Fennena Shield. We see you!++
The light flared. The darkness struggled against it, briefly but intensely, then abruptly snuffed out the light, taking Jack with it.
‘No!’ Jaide recoiled, tripped and landed on her backside in the drawing room. Spots of black danced in her eyes. Above her, Grandma X quickly snatched her hand off the rat. Kleo jumped up onto the desk and butted her head against the woman’s side.
All traces of the darkness vanished with the breaking of that contact.
‘It is already so strong!’ exclaimed Grandma X, wiping her hand across her brow. ‘But at least we know where Jackaran is now, that he has managed to evade it so far, and my . . . our . . . intervention will have given him some more time. Where the shadows are darkest, light burns most brightly. If only he can keep away from it . . .’
Jaide got to her feet and clutched at Grandma X’s arm urgently, adding emphasis to her question.
‘What is it? And what does it want with Jack? With us?’
‘It wants you for the same purpose it wants every living thing in this world: to absorb you and make you part of itself. As to what it is, well, no one knows exactly where it comes from, and it has no name in any human language. It just is.’
‘You must call it something.’
‘We do,’ said Grandma X gravely.
She looked older and wearier than Jaide had ever seen her before.
‘We call it The Evil.’
THE EVIL.
The name filled Jaide with images of vampires and werewolves and horrors she couldn’t find words for. The Evil had to be more evil than any of them, or perhaps all of them combined. And it was down in those tunnels with Jack!
‘We have to rescue him; we can’t leave him alone!’
‘Of course we will rescue him,’ said Grandma X. She tapped the last two fingers of her right hand on the desk, her forehead deeply creased in thought. ‘But it is more easily said than done. Even if it does catch him, it will . . . it will take some time to subdue his will, before it can . . . absorb him.’
Jaide recoiled, shocked at the thought of Jack being absorbed by something. She couldn’t get that glimpse of Jack’s terrified face out of her mind, and she didn’t want him to be in danger for a second longer than he had to be.
‘Can’t we just go down there and get him?’
‘I am not strong enough in daylight to confront this manifestation of The Evil directly, and your Gift is neither fully revealed nor even partially under your control. We’ll have to find a less direct way to get him out.’
Kleo meowed. Grandma X looked down at the cat and sighed heavily. ‘Yes, The Evil has caught us napping. Caught me napping
, I should say. It should not be here, not so strong. The wards should have stopped it, but somehow it’s getting through . . .’ She rested her head in her hands for a moment. ‘I’ve been so weary and distracted . . . I’ve not been thinking clearly for days, ever since the cats sensed your awakening Gifts.’
‘If we can’t directly rescue Jack,’ Jaide said, ‘can we help him escape? We can’t just sit here and do nothing. You have to tell me what we can do.’
Grandma X looked up and surprised Jaide by slapping herself on the cheek and shaking her head wildly from side to side and up and down, like a horse getting ready to run.
‘You’re a very smart girl, Jaidith Shield. Jackaran has managed to get away from The Evil so far . . . Perhaps if we helped him find a way out . . . Let me see . . . Moonrise is at ten minutes past eleven . . .’
Jaide remembered what Grandma X had said about her Gift being tied to the moon.
‘Will the moon make you stronger?’
‘Yes, even if it is not visible. The tide will be coming in, too,’ said Grandma X. ‘But I’ll need your help. Let me gather a few things and we’ll get started.’
Jack shielded his face with his arms. He had fallen onto his back, and prickly legs ran all over him as the insects and rats scurried about the tunnel. Not in a panic, but desperate to regroup and attack the glowing figure swaying with arms outstretched among them. Wriggling, dark shapes spun in midair around the image of Grandma X, as though floating in freefall. Jack could feel the black mass of thought swirling around him, struggling to bring its ghastly composite creature back together. He could hear its wordless call and struggled to resist it himself.
When that call took on words, he found a strength he had never known he had.
+We see you, Jaidith Fennena Shield. We see you!++
Suddenly he was on his feet, brushing off debris and throwing himself bodily into the mess of creatures, squashing those that were squashable and tossing aside those that weren’t.