The Illusionists Read online

  Rue stepped forward.

  ‘Threya take us,’ she whispered.

  She felt Livie come in behind her and close the door. Under the musical hum of machinery, there was a rattling, susurrant something. She crept closer and realised what it was. His breathing.

  ‘Wren?’ she called. ‘Can you hear me?’

  He didn’t stir. His skin was pale and clammy-looking, hair in twisted wet strands across the pillow.

  ‘He’s hooked up to loads of shit,’ said Livie, prowling around the machines. ‘There’s no way he’s even awake.’

  ‘Can we get all this stuff off him?’ Rue said, starting to feel frantic. This was so much worse than she’d thought it would be. He had needles in him. How the hell were they supposed to Jump him with all these machines attached? What if he needed the machines to survive?

  ‘I’m not a doctor, I have no idea.’

  They looked at each other.

  ‘Help.’

  Rue’s heart stopped briefly. Wren had his eyes open, half lidded as if he was struggling to keep awake. He was looking straight at her.

  ‘Help.’ His voice was barely there. His eyes went to the drip inserted into his arm. Then they went back to her face.

  Then they closed again, and she heard his painful, laboured breathing.

  ‘Oh gods,’ Rue breathed. ‘They’re keeping him here.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘They’re drugging him. So he can’t Jump, perhaps. Maybe he did something, tried to escape. I don’t know.’

  ‘They can do that?’ Livie sounded astonished.

  ‘They did it to White when he was in prison.’

  ‘He was in prison?’

  ‘Wren,’ Rue said, urgent. ‘Can you hear me?’

  But he didn’t stir.

  Rue turned to Livie. ‘We have to get these things out of him. The drug things.’

  ‘Drips.’

  ‘Drips. How?’

  ‘They’re just taps, I think,’ said Livie, cautiously. ‘Hang on.’

  Rue waited, trying to keep calm.

  ‘Okay. I took a picture and uploaded it to search on. They’re definitely just taps, so you should be able to … ’ She moved as she talked, her eyes focused in Life. ‘Like a valve. Okay.’ Her fingers hovered over the tube coming out of his arm.

  Don’t hurt him. Grad knows he’s a prick, but just … don’t hurt him.

  Livie gently grasped the tubing and worked at a connected joint. It came loose with a clipped little sound and she fiddled. ‘Okay, yes. It’s easy, you just disconnect it and close the little valve thing.’ She moved to the other arm and began to work on it. A moment later and it came free.

  Livie turned, triumphant. ‘What do you want to do?’

  Rue stood for a moment. He was unattached now, but still unconscious and drug-addled. Would a Jump be okay?

  ‘Send a message to Cho and tell her to get White in here,’ she said.

  Livie blinked once, slowly. ‘It’s done.’

  ‘Well, this is interesting,’ said a new voice.

  Rue spun.

  Greta’s face was on the wall.

  ‘So you’ve decided to skulk back, have you? Good, because I was about to put out a search for you, and that would have been expensive.’

  Rue was silent. Her heart hammered. Every nerve ending screamed RUN. But she couldn’t.

  On the wall screen, Greta’s face tilted. ‘Good job I have an alert on his implant, really. His levels just changed. What did you do?’

  ‘I haven’t done anything.’

  ‘Still a terrible liar, I see. Let’s get a doctor in here to check, shall we? I should have kept some security in here, but I honestly didn’t think anyone would care about him, apart from his girlfriend Sabine.’ She paused. ‘You just missed her, by the way. She’s quite distraught.’

  ‘What lies did you tell her?’

  ‘I told her the truth, Rue. He’s in a coma. It’s his own bloody fault. He overdosed.’

  ‘Overdosed?’

  ‘Are you a parrot? Yes. Sabine found him on his bedroom floor. He’s been taking too many drugs.’

  ‘That’s a lie,’ said Rue. ‘You’re keeping him here. You’re keeping him drugged so he can’t Jump.’

  She heard the door open. She saw Greta’s eyes widen.

  White came up beside Rue. ‘I think there are people heading this way,’ he said softly in her ear.

  It was decision time. They had to go. They had to get everyone out of here. But all Rue could see was Greta’s face as she gazed at White.

  You. Stupid. Stupid. Girl.

  What had Wren told her? What had she begun to suspect herself? This whole thing was about getting White back, wasn’t it? And she’d brought him straight to Greta. The only thing missing was the gift wrap.

  It was all going so wrong, so fast.

  The door opened again. In came Cho, backwards, and with her came three security guards, followed by a technician who slipped in quietly behind them. The guards spread out into the room. One blocked the door. He was heavy, solid. No one was taking him down.

  ‘Miss Hammond?’ he said, his voice curiously high and polite.

  ‘Thank you for coming so quickly. A few questions and then I need you to take them downstairs to the police, who should be arriving soon.’

  Rue’s heart sank, sick with misery.

  ‘And, Dr Brein, can you please check the patient’s levels? They dropped a moment ago and I want to know why.’

  The doctor frowned and moved to the bed.

  ‘Okay,’ said Greta. ‘Since you’re not going anywhere for the moment, would you mind telling me what you’re doing here?’

  ‘Not going anywhere?’ said White. ‘We can Jump right now.’

  ‘But your sister can’t. Are you really going to leave her? And her friend?’

  White was silent with shock. Rue could see it on his face – who was this woman and how the hell did she know so much about him?

  ‘It’s fine,’ said Cho. ‘Jacob, it’s fine. Go. Take Rue and go. Livie and I will be fine.’

  ‘No.’

  Cho spat an oath. ‘Just go, would you?’

  White wavered. He couldn’t think. Neither could Rue. They saw it in each other’s eyes. Neither of them had any idea what to do.

  And it was in that moment that Wren saved them all.

  ‘Um,’ came a voice from the bed. Dr Brein, who had been in the middle of re-attaching the drips, was backing away.

  Wren had sat up.

  Everything dropped and went sideways, as if she was going to faint.

  ‘White … ’ Rue whispered. ‘Something’s wrong.’

  ‘I feel it, too.’ His voice was ragged.

  Rue looked up. Cho and Livie were standing together near the door, staring at them.

  Are you okay? mouthed Cho.

  Greta sighed, massaging her forehead as if she were just unutterably weary.

  ‘Doctor,’ she said. ‘Please sort this out, will you?’

  ‘Um, you don’t understand,’ said the doctor. His eyes were very, very round. ‘He shouldn’t be moving. The drips were only disconnected minutes ago. There’s no possible way. No one can do that.’

  Wren was gazing around the room as if he’d never seen it before.

  ‘What are you talking about?’ said Greta. ‘Just inject him again, then.’

  ‘Except he should be in a coma right now,’ the doctor snapped. ‘Any more and I’m risking heart failure.’

  ‘What is this?’ said Wren. He looked down, as if surprised by his own mouth. ‘Where,’ he said, enunciating clearly. ‘Where is this?’

  Dizzy. The room was trying to turn on her. Rue fought it.

  ‘Wren,’ she said. Wren looked at her.

  ‘Where is this?’ he repeated.

  ‘The real world,’ said Rue. She wasn’t even sure why she said it.

  Wren smiled.

  ‘Needed a body,’ he said. ‘Needed a body to get out. Got a body.’
r />   ‘Well, he’s clearly still drugged, he can’t even talk sense,’ said Greta. ‘And he’s clearly not in a bloody coma, is he? So just do it.’

  The doctor put out a hand. ‘Wren?’ he said, his voice pitched to a careful level. ‘I need you to lie back down now, okay?’

  Wren looked at him.

  And then disappeared.

  Greta sighed, and her mouth opened, but she never got further than that because Wren reappeared standing behind the doctor and snapped his neck.

  There was a wet little cracking noise.

  He disappeared.

  He reappeared behind one of the guards, who didn’t even feel it coming. Wren reached out with his slender arms and snapped his neck.

  Rue felt White grab hold of her.

  ‘We need to get out of here,’ he said desperately.

  ‘Oh gods, oh gods,’ Rue whispered, breathless. ‘It’s too late.’

  Wren reappeared behind the second guard and tussled with him briefly. The guard went down.

  There was no sound from the wall screen. Rue couldn’t tear her eyes away from the third guard, the one in front of the door.

  ‘Run,’ she begged him. ‘Please. Please.’

  The guard was standing, a statue of shock. His eyes were on the bodies of his colleagues. ‘What?’ he said. That was all he seemed capable of.

  Wren reappeared in front of him. The guard reacted instinctively, flailing out a meaty arm and punching him in the chest. Wren should have gone down. He should have been floored. But instead his body folded around the fist, and he staggered back. Then he came forward again and started to struggle with the guard. They danced across the room.

  ‘We have to go,’ said White. ‘Cho, come on!’

  But Cho was rooted to the spot. Livie was the same. They looked like all the colour and the life had been leeched from them and they’d forgotten how to move.

  ‘What’s he doing? What’s he doing?’ said Livie, her voice wavering with hysteria.

  White started to move towards them both. Behind him, the guard went down, crashing into the bed and falling still.

  And then Wren appeared in front of Cho.

  ‘No!’ White roared, pushing her back and standing in the way.

  Rue knew she was moving, and there hadn’t even been time to think about it – she was just moving. Because maybe this was the moment. It had taken her by surprise. She didn’t think she’d have to save him if he never opened the Castle. She had already saved him, hadn’t she?

  But there was no saving him now. He couldn’t Jump with Cho – he’d kill her. And he couldn’t leave her to die.

  So he would die. They’d all die.

  Is it really going to happen like this?

  But Wren hadn’t moved. He ducked his head oddly, like a chicken.

  ‘Vessel,’ he said.

  He disappeared.

  He reappeared in front of Greta’s screen. Her face was still there, slack with shock.

  ‘Fucking bitch,’ he said. He raised his hands and tore the screen off the wall. Rue was astonished to see that it was as thin as paper. Wren shredded it in two, and then dropped the pieces.

  He disappeared.

  After a while, it looked like he wasn’t coming back. The dizziness had gone – that was how she knew for sure. Everything came back in a rush – the painful bright and hard edges of the real.

  ‘They’re dead, aren’t they?’ Cho was saying. ‘They’re dead. He killed them. They’re dead, right? They look dead.’

  ‘We have to leave,’ said Rue, trying not to cry. ‘We have to go right now. We have to walk out of here like nothing’s happened.’

  ‘Rue,’ came a voice.

  Gods. It was Greta.

  Rue edged over to the other side of the bed. She could see the doctor’s body out of the corner of her eye.

  The ripped sheets of wall screen lay curling on the floor. They were dark. But Greta’s voice still sounded from a thin panel attached to the bottom of one half.

  ‘There are police outside the building,’ she said. ‘You won’t get far, I promise you.’

  Rue lost control. ‘Did you just see that?’ she shouted, her voice cracking and peeling at the edges. ‘Did you see it? Did you see what it did?’

  A pause.

  ‘I saw.’

  ‘We have to stop it!’

  ‘I’ll find him,’ came Greta’s voice. But she sounded uncertain. She sounded bewildered. It was horrible to hear.

  ‘No, you won’t,’ said White. ‘We’re the only ones who can find it now.’

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous.’

  ‘Ridiculous? It can teleport faster than you can react. It can do things Wren could never do. Did you hear it call me a vessel? That’s what they do. They can’t come here unless they can find a vessel. A body. They’re non-corporeal, they must be.’ White’s voice had grown fast and urgent. He was trying to cope, trying to stay on top of his fear by puzzling it out. ‘They use the Talented as vessels to come to the real places. To leave the Castle.’

  ‘You’re telling me that Wren is no longer Wren. What is he supposed to be now?’ Greta said.

  ‘Something else. Something … ’ Rue bent over. She suddenly felt sick. Violently, awfully sick. It didn’t come.

  ‘You’ll never find it on your own,’ said White. ‘You need us to track it down.’

  ‘Work with me, then.’

  ‘No.’

  It was Greta’s turn to snap. ‘You don’t have a choice! Or are you going to leave here without your sister?’

  ‘You can’t detain me,’ said Cho. Rue was gratified to hear some of the old fire back in her voice. ‘I haven’t done anything wrong. None of us has.’

  Greta laughed. ‘You really want to go there? It would be the easiest thing in the world to have you arrested, Cho. Do you know how thick my file is on you? Did you think you could have secret meetings and hang around with Technophobes and display an astonishing proficiency for hacking without someone taking notice?’

  ‘So you’ll arrest her anyway,’ said White. ‘It sounds like you have enough evidence to do it. In which case it doesn’t matter what I do, does it? Come on, Rue, let’s go.’

  ‘Wait.’

  Greta paused. She sounded tired.

  She doesn’t know how to deal with this, Rue realised. She doesn’t know what to do.

  ‘Propose your terms,’ she said. ‘Come on, hurry up before I change my mind.’

  ‘You let us go,’ said White. ‘All four of us. We walk out of here. You send Cho a Life message if you need to talk to us. We’re going to go and clean up your mess.’

  ‘My mess?’

  White’s whole body was stiff. He was angry.

  Very, very angry.

  Rue felt her fear trickle back into her, filling her up.

  ‘Yes,’ said White. ‘Your mess. Wren didn’t open the Castle on his own. He couldn’t. So you did something, didn’t you? Something to accelerate his Talent. You just couldn’t stop fucking tinkering, could you? Always picking us apart, trying to know. Trying to control. And due to the fact that I’ve mentioned it twice now and you haven’t even blinked, I’m guessing you know all about the Castle. And that means you know what’s inside Wren’s body. What you helped let loose.’

  Silence from the wall panel.

  ‘Fine,’ said Greta. ‘You can leave. But if you want to disappear on me, Jacob, please remember that I can have your sister picked up any time I like. And if you would rather she didn’t go to prison, then when this is finished, you’ll come back.’

  ‘I understand.’

  ‘I’m sure you do. I’ll be in touch. Let’s see who finds Wren first.’

  ‘This isn’t a game,’ said Rue, disgusted.

  ‘No, it isn’t,’ said Greta, and her voice had regained its hard edge. ‘Wait for the police. They’ll take you home.’

  Silence.

  It all went past in a blur.

  The police came. Everyone came. Greta instructed. He
r security clearance was obviously sky high – everyone obeyed her without question.

  There was no panic. There should have been panic. People milled, talking, ordering, organising. The four of them were taken into the corridor and made to sit on the chairs there. Questions were asked. Rue couldn’t even remember what was said. How much had she told them? The woman questioning her kept giving her careful eyes, the kind of eyes you made when you thought the person in front of you was brittle, breakable. Crazy, or traumatised, or maybe both.

  It was loose inside Wren. It was loose in the world. It could be anywhere.

  Questions crowded in her head, blotting out everything around her. What was it doing? What did it want?

  How?

  How?

  How had it happened?

  The sound of a snapping neck kept echoing in her head.

  Eventually, they were taken outside and bundled into a police transport. It should have been exciting – Rue had never ridden in such a thing before. The vehicle hummed along, whipping the grey scenery past her window. All four of them huddled into the back together.

  She hadn’t even noticed how silent they all were until Livie spoke. Her voice was hoarse, like she’d been talking, or crying, a lot. Probably both.

  ‘Can you all do that? What he did?’

  ‘No,’ said White. ‘He was being pushed to the extreme. The thing inside him. Pushing his strength. I’d be surprised if it could keep that up. It’s still got to work inside a body, after all. Bodies have limits.’

  ‘You’re talking as if … as if he wasn’t a he. That was a human being. That was a guy. Your friend. Your friend, you said.’

  It was friend that did it. It was too much. Rue burst into tears. Great, painful tears that squeezed out of her eyes like rocks and hurt her chest.

  Wren, she wailed in her head.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she heard Livie say, astonished. ‘I didn’t mean to … ’

  ‘He’s … dead … isn’t he?’ she managed, in between hiccuping sobs. ‘We can’t … get him back. It … killed him.’

  White didn’t reply. She looked up. She didn’t want anyone seeing her with these horrible scrunched-up eyes, this red face – especially not White. But she had to know if he thought so too. If he thought so too, then it was true.