Jonathan Stroud - The Creeping Shadow

Before leaving, we made ourselves as dark and unobtrusive as possible. Being agents, we all more or less wore black anyway, and had gloves to cover our hands. But our faces weren’t ideal for commando work; Kipps’s in particular almost seemed to glow like a second, freckled moon. So Holly went to work with her makeup brush and soon we were all nicely dimmed.

Five silent shapes departed the Old Sun Inn. It was just after two a.m.

There were spirits wandering in the woods; we saw their other-light from afar, but none approached us, and we took care to give them a wide berth. We stayed away from the lane, too, hopping over the little stream a few yards down from the wooden bridge, circling around the quarry, and then following the course of the road through the trees. We kept going until the stars shone bright between the trunks ahead and we knew we were reaching the brow of the hill.

As Lockwood and I had done the day before, we covered the last bit in a crawl. There were no alarms. Soon the five of us lay in a row on the hillcrest, looking down on the Rotwell Institute. By night, curiously, it looked more impressive than by day, the floodlights masking its ugliness, giving the buildings a smooth metallic sheen.

It wasn’t the floodlights that caught our attention as we lay there. They weren’t the only lights around. Here and there across the black expanse, faint glowing figures stood like posts risen from the ground, like nails hammered into the winter field. Their light was tenuous, palely golden, shimmering and twitching, as if at any moment they might be pulled apart by the wind. What form they’d ever had was lost with countless years.

“ That’s why they aren’t too worried about posting sentries,” Lockwood breathed. “They’ve got Vikings to do the job for them.”

“Must be some bones still left out there on the battlefield,” George said.

“Not good.” Kipps was scowling through the goggles. “What do we do now?”

“I think it’s all right,” I said. “We can just steer around them. There’s plenty of space, and it doesn’t look as if they’ve moved for centuries. It’s not them we should worry about, anyway, if we’re talking psychic threats.”

“Still got that background hum, Luce?” Lockwood asked.

“Yeah. It’s really loud. And it’s coming from down there.”

In fact, the sound had been building up all the way through the woods. It wasn’t quite so heart-stoppingly immediate as when the Shadow was approaching the churchyard, but it was strong now, buzzing like insects in my brain. As with the bone glass months before, as in the hidden tunnels of Chelsea, it almost made me feel nauseous. There could be no doubt: it was coming from the site below.

Lockwood shifted where he lay; his hand touched my shoulder. “We’ll follow your lead, Lucy, when we’re in there. Anything you pick up, just tell us.”

“First,” Kipps said drily, “there’s the small matter of getting in .”

A rough, stony escarpment led down to the level of the fields. We took this inch by inch, so as not to send pebbles tumbling, but once on the flat ground we picked up the pace again. The compound floated ahead of us in its island of light. No one was visible, which gave us heart, though in truth there was little chance of anyone under the floodlights seeing us as we drew near. Looking out into the dark, they’d have been almost blind.

I was right about the Visitors, too. We were able to curve between the softly glowing forms, keeping at a distance, and never once did any of them stir. They were scarcely more than pillars of creamy light, except for one, in which traces of a bearded face could still be seen. Then we were past them. Drawing near the darkest portion of the boundary fence, we flung ourselves down.

A minute went by, during which we allowed our heart rates to slow. The grass was cold; I was pressed between its blackness and the blackness of the sky. When I looked up, I could see the loops of wire a few inches from my face and, beyond, the backs of buildings. They were more substantial than they’d appeared from the woods; taller, larger in extent. The sides near us were very dark, but you could see that some of the structures were connected by passages. These were basically metal-ribbed tubes, with canvas sides that shuddered gently in the wind. It was silent; the place might have been abandoned.

“George,” Lockwood ordered, “cut us in.”

Snip, snip. George put the wire cutters into operation. With deft precision he cut five or six strands of wire, close to the ground, so that a stiff flap was formed. He pushed it experimentally with a hand. “We can squeeze through,” he said. “Then it falls back. No one will see.”

“Needs to be bigger,” Lockwood whispered. “In case we have to exit in a hurry.”

“Psst!” It was a sound like an elegant snake. That was Holly, giving the alarm. We flung ourselves flat again, covering our silver rapiers with our bodies. Boots crunched on gravel, coming around the side of the nearest building. We lay in the dark grass, faces pressed to the earth, while someone passed a few feet beyond the fence. The footsteps rounded a corner and faded.

Cautiously, I raised my head and pushed my curtain of hair aside. “All clear.”

The others levered themselves up. “Not bad, Cubbins,” Kipps breathed. “I never thought you could flatten yourself like that. At all, in fact.”

“I never thought you could make witty comments,” George said. “And I was right.” He resumed snipping at the wire. Soon he had cut free a mailbox-shaped patch of mesh, shoulder-width, just high enough to squeeze through with a backpack on. He dragged it aside. No sooner had he done so than Lockwood was wriggling through the space. Even with his coat, his slim, spare form slipped through without difficulty. In a moment he was up and crouching, looking all around. He gave the signal. One after the other, with varying degrees of deftness, we followed him onto forbidden ground.

“Memorize this spot,” Lockwood whispered. “The hole’s midway between those two black posts. Now—Lucy, any idea which way we should go?”

The psychic hum was louder than ever; I could feel it in the depths of my ears, in the soles of my feet, in everything in between. I took a few steps in one direction, then in the other, keeping my eyes closed, listening to the pattern of the sound.

“It’s nearby,” I said. “When I go to the left, it feels stronger.”

With infinite stealth we inched toward the left-hand corner of the building, where light from the center of the compound spilled across the gravel. The wall rose above us like a corrugated metal cliff, black, featureless, and cold. By unspoken assent, I was at the head of the line. When I reached the corner, I peered slowly around—and almost cried out in pain at the thrum of psychic power that struck me in the face.

Away across an expanse of lit gravel stood a construction that I immediately knew to be the heart of the complex. In some ways it was no different from the other buildings—like a monstrous metal barn with a broad curved roof. But a ribbed passageway ran to it from the shed we stood by, and I could see another beyond. They were like spokes running to a hub. The central hangar had no windows, but a pair of double doors stood open at one end, facing the fence. Out of those doors streamed a soft and hazy light—and, with it, that blast of psychic power. Three or four men in white lab coats stood in the light. They held things in their hands, but I could not tell what these were. None of them moved. No one came in or out.

I leaned back in; let Lockwood take a look. “That’s where it’s all happening,” I whispered. “Whatever it is.”