The Illusionists Page 29

  ‘I can’t, Cho. This is the room. This … the hole … it’s the opening Wren made. We have to close it. We can’t go anywhere.’

  She felt Cho open the door behind them – a gust of freezing air stirred her hair. ‘Where’s everyone else?’ said Cho.

  ‘I have no idea.’

  ‘Shit. Shit. Okay. Don’t worry.’

  Rue felt the beginnings of hysterical laughter try to push its way out of her.

  ‘Don’t … worry?’ she said. She couldn’t seem to talk normally any more. It was all slowing, slowing. ‘Look … at it.’

  ‘I’m trying not to, actually! Okay. Stay there! I’ll be right back. I’ll keep the door open! No. I can’t leave you!’

  ‘Go, you … idiot!’

  ‘Okay, okay! I’m keeping the door open. I’ll come right back. I’ll find them!’

  And then Cho was gone.

  Rue closed her eyes. She felt like sinking to her knees. Sinking into sleep. It would be so easy to just let it all go. Not to have to feel any more, or try or think or care. No more anythings. It would be wonderful.

  Yes, said Fernie’s reasonable voice in her head. But you’d be dead, Rue, my love. Don’t you want to see the world, still? Did you think you’d seen it all already?

  Her heart flared, afire with curiosity. That was right.

  Gods, what had she been thinking?

  ‘I don’t want to die, actually,’ she spat. It felt good to copy Cho. It almost felt like she could be as brave as her, if she wanted. ‘So you just stay there like a good little monster.’ Her arms locked with renewed strength. The creature scrabbled on the ground, pinned.

  Someone, Rue thought. But her thought was so weak and small. No one would hear her. No one would come. White. Please. Come find me. Somehow.

  They were supposed to be here by now. They were supposed to be right here, right at the end of it all when she had nothing left to give. Because here it was.

  But they weren’t. She was alone.

  So she kept going.

  Just one more minute, she thought. Her whole body was sobbing. Her face was sopping with tears. Just one more minute, and then I’ll give up. But I can’t give up until they’re here.

  It was so long.

  It was so, so long.

  This was what heroes did, wasn’t it? They hung on so that the day could be saved. But hanging on felt like dying, very slowly, and not in a heroic way at all.

  The creature scrabbled. Rue realised she was lying on her stomach on the floor, arms outstretched. She had no idea when it had happened. She had no idea of anything any more. All she had, all she could be, was the word STOP. If she lost that word, it was over. Her mind formed the word in a thousand different ways, the letters made of stars, of shells, of those tiny colour beads in Dam’s shop, of the scarves that Lea wore, draped artfully into STOP, and now it was leaves, and now it was graffiti across a building in neon pink letters ten feet high, and still she was dying.

  It mattered. It all mattered. How could she have ever thought otherwise?

  Then someone was skidding to her side and someone else was gripping her hands and pulling her up, and it was Lea, and Lea was covered in blood.

  Then there were more piling into the room, the sudden sound of them an awful, beautiful cacophony in her shredded mind, like lemon juice on a cut.

  A man was shouting something that sounded like orders.

  ‘Rue,’ said a breathless voice in her ear. ‘They’re here. You can let go. Jacob has it, Rue. He’s got it pinned.’

  But she didn’t know how, because all she had become was STOP and there was nothing more to her than that.

  ‘Cho, you’re going back with her,’ said a voice. His voice. Her White.

  ‘No! I’m staying, I’m helping!’

  Instead of getting angry, White’s voice grew closer and softer.

  ‘Cho, look at her. You’re going back now, and you’re going to look after her. You’re going to make sure she’s fine and alive until the rest of us get back. Do you understand? No one else is going to die. I will not let that happen.’

  Else? Rue tried to say. What do you mean? Who else? Tell me!

  But she wasn’t sure anything had come out.

  ‘I can’t.’ Cho’s voice broke. ‘Not again. I can’t just let you go away again.’

  ‘I’m not going anywhere. Please, Cho. Please look after her.’

  Cho groaned. Somehow, even through the fear in her voice, it still sounded comical. ‘Jacob, don’t tell me you’re in love with her. You’re such an idiot.’

  ‘Just take her hand.’

  Rue felt an arm slide around her back.

  ‘Don’t die, okay?’ Cho, angry.

  ‘I won’t,’ said White.

  And then Rue felt a push. Soft at first, and then insistent. White was pushing her back to the real.

  Darkness.

  Then light. Painful light.

  ‘Rue? Oh crap.’

  Someone was hauling at her.

  ‘Rue, say something!’

  She coughed. Her mouth was on fire. Her head was acid concrete. Her body howled.

  ‘Throat hurts,’ she croaked.

  ‘Yeah,’ said Cho’s voice, relieved. ‘You threw up a lot.’

  ‘In my sleep?’

  ‘Yeah, it’s pretty disgusting. It’s a good thing he put you on your side.’

  Rue’s gaze fell on the clean white walls of Livie’s social room.

  ‘We left them all behind.’

  ‘White made us leave, actually,’ said Cho. ‘Your fault.’

  ‘Oh. Sorry for saving your life, then.’

  ‘You probably will be.’

  Rue sat up, using Cho’s arms as support. Her head rolled, pounded.

  ‘How do you feel?’

  ‘Like I’d rather be unconscious.’

  ‘Are you going to be sick again?’

  Rue considered. ‘No.’

  ‘Do you want to go to a medical hall?’

  ‘No! We can’t just leave them! Ow.’ Her whole body throbbed alarmingly.

  ‘Okay, okay.’

  ‘Cho,’ said Rue. ‘It isn’t closed, is it?’

  ‘They can do it. Jacob was there, loads of them were there. They can do it.’

  ‘Were they all okay? Were they … was anyone missing?’

  A pause. Then a reluctant, ‘I don’t know.’

  Rue closed her eyes.

  Cho was lying.

  White was forced down to one knee.

  Enough. Enough of this. His hatred became a knifepoint, a skewer. The creature shuddered. White stabbed with his mind. Rue’s face flashed before him and he stabbed again. Wren’s face. He stabbed, and then twisted.

  The creature screamed, a horrible keening sound.

  And then it disappeared.

  He heard gasps around the room. The group were all backed up, flat against the wall, ranged around the hole, watching with wide, stricken eyes. The legs had gone. The bulky body had gone. The hole was empty.

  ‘Go,’ said White, his eyes searching for the creature. It couldn’t have died. Nothing was that easy. ‘Close the hole.’

  ‘Now, now, NOW!’ Lufe shouted. The group scrambled. They each sat or crouched as close to the hole’s edge as they dared. ‘Link hands.’

  Then Wren appeared. Out of thin air he stepped, feet away.

  He turned his head towards the hole, and sniffed. His gleaming silver eyes moved back to White.

  ‘Oh you,’ he said, with a wicked grin. ‘Now tell me you haven’t missed me, and I’ll call you a liar.’

  White looked him up and down. He felt his control falter, just a little bit.

  It was the monster that had killed Wren. It must be. But … no. That one was out in the world now, wasn’t it, in Wren’s body? So it was a different one, trying on Wren’s shape to toy with him. It wasn’t Wren.

  Wren was dead.

  ‘You’re not him,’ he managed.

  ‘No? Why not?’

&nb
sp; ‘Whatever you’re doing, it won’t work.’

  ‘Shall I tell you something only Wren would know?’ said the monster before him.

  Don’t look around. They can’t help you.

  They need you to help them.

  ‘I’m not listening,’ said White.

  Wren’s face twisted, a sudden whipcrack of temper. ‘You don’t have a choice. Because I’m here and you can’t go anywhere. So you’ll listen to me now, like you never listened to me before.’

  ‘I listened.’

  ‘You pretended to listen while you planned to steal my girlfriend and screw my life up.’

  It was bait and he took it and he couldn’t help it.

  ‘I never stole your girlfriend, you paranoid idiot! We were friends! We were friends, and then you tried to kill me!’

  ‘You betrayed me,’ Wren shouted. His hurt and his pain were a physical weight on the room. ‘After you, nothing went right any more. I came to World and all they did was use me. I tried to have a life, but it’s all gone wrong. It’s all gone so wrong.’

  Wren’s face was crumpled. White felt himself heave in response.

  ‘This whole mess is your fault,’ said Wren, throwing a hand out to the hole beside them. ‘Did you know that?’

  ‘No. No, it’s not.’

  ‘Do you even care? Do you even care that I’m dead?’

  But White couldn’t reply. Because it was too soon, and too much, and he knew it was his fault. He knew it.

  ‘White!’ Lufe called, his voice wavering with alarm. ‘White, it’s not real! It’s not him! Jesus, wake up!’

  He woke up.

  Wren was inches away from him, a hand outstretched.

  White scrambled back, snapping his mind back to focus.

  ‘Stay away from me,’ he said.

  Wren jerked to a stop.

  And changed into Rue.

  ‘You’re not her,’ said White. He felt his anger spike. How dare it use her against him. That was what it wanted. To make him angry, careless, lose concentration so it could break free of his grip.

  He could not let any more die.

  His mind sharpened to a point once more and he pinned the creature with it. Rue cried out and sank to her knees. He felt himself shrivel, just a little.

  It’s not Rue.

  She looked up at him. ‘I’m sorry,’ she whispered.

  Behind White, the group swayed.

  They had become one animal, shifting together, feeding off each other and pushing it all into the darkness before them. They were closing the hole.

  He had to be the distraction. He had to give them time.

  ‘I’m so sorry, White,’ Rue said again, her liquid eyes turned up to his. ‘I had sex with Wren. I loved him. I’m sorry. He was just so nice to me, when you weren’t. He liked me back.’

  He wanted to be sick. He wanted to scream at the horrible thing until his throat burned.

  He didn’t.

  He had often dreamed of that face. Now it was his to touch. Now he had the right. He would hold onto that. Whatever it said, he would remember the way Rue had looked at him in the bathroom, in the real.

  ‘You’re not her,’ he said simply. ‘And I don’t care what she did with Wren. That’s over now.’

  ‘Because he’s dead,’ Rue wept.

  White flinched, but held.

  Rue grunted, and turned into his mother.

  She squatted, her bulbous frame wobbling wetly against the stone.

  White felt his whole body flush with fury. It was trying to embarrass him. It was showing all his secrets. It knew how he guarded his secrets. How pitiful and crushed a little boy he was inside.

  ‘I don’t blame you for leaving, Jacob,’ said his mother, kindly. ‘I know you found it hard to be in the same room as me. I know you could barely look at me. You thought I was disgusting. It’s okay. I understand that.’

  I never thought you were disgusting, he wanted to say. Never. You’re my mother.

  But that wasn’t the truth.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I did think you were disgusting, and I carry that guilt around all the time. I hated having to go into your room and see you lying there. I hated you a lot. I was never sure how to love you. I abandoned you because I’m a coward. Is that what you want to hear?’ His voice was rising. ‘I’m a coward! And now everyone knows! Bring them all out! Who are you going to be next? Cho? The girl I tried to kiss in school and who told everyone I was a rapist, you know, for a joke? Be Frith. No one knows what I did to him, yet, do they? Go on. I fucking dare you.’

  He stared the monster down. ‘I have nothing left to hide.’

  His mother was looking at him, expressionless. For a moment he thought he’d beaten it. Whatever it brought out, he could deal with it. He’d imagined the worst and said it out loud. He’d taken its power away.

  But then it stood up. Its hair grew long and dark, its nose thin. The body was willowy, now, wrapped in black. It pursed its lips and watched him.

  White felt a freezing trickle of fear down his spine.

  ‘No one really knows you quite like you do,’ it said. And it smiled his smile, with his lips.

  Was his face really that thin? Did he always have such a smackably aloof expression on it?

  Did he really go through life like that?

  His copy held its hands up. ‘I’m not going to spill all your secrets, if that’s what you’re worried about.’ It shrugged. ‘I just want to talk.’

  He tried to gather himself. Tried to pin it harder with his mind. But this time it didn’t flinch, or cry.

  ‘I want to talk about the times I sat in my bedroom, alone,’ it said. ‘Times when I couldn’t look at the news feeds any more because they were making me sick. The shitty things people kept doing to each other turned my stomach. The people in charge were all the same, promising everyone everything until they got into power, and then doing whatever served them best. No one, no one gives a fuck about anyone else until they have to experience poverty, or illness, or injustice for themselves. Because the world is full of selfishness, and everyone is walking around half dead, just killing time until time kills them.

  ‘I hated myself most of all, because I was one of them as much as anyone. I wanted to do something about the things I felt, but I never did. All I’ve ever done is run away. Hide. Feel sorry for myself. I’ve always been alone, because I hate people, and I can’t let them in because I think I’m better than everyone – of course I am, I’m different. I think, I question, I have a power that they don’t have.

  ‘But at the same time I know, I know I’m not better than anyone else. So I don’t deserve anyone’s attention. In fact, I despise people who like me, because that means they’re weak. Only weak people like people like me.’

  White felt himself slide. Like the hole had grown bigger and was beckoning him in. The other him was close. Very close now.

  ‘Rue, she’ll leave me,’ it said, softly. ‘Because it won’t take long for her to realise that there’s nothing inside worth having. I’m just a collection of weaknesses and hate. I’ve done nothing good in the world. But I could change things, if I would just have the courage. The people who change things have courage. They take extraordinary leaps. They have to make the hard choices because being good is hard. Being unselfish, and thinking of the good of the world, is hard. If it were easy, everyone would be doing it. It’s meant to feel wrong. It’s meant to feel like it’ll break you in two if you do it. But you have to do it. This one thing that will give your life meaning. Let us in, and we’ll change the world with you. You’ll look back at this moment in time and wonder why you ever hesitated. Let me inside you, White.’

  He felt something brush close to his forehead. It had stretched out a hand.

  It was too late to say no.

  Maybe it was easier to just stand there and let it happen.

  Then Cho flashed in his mind. Scornful, fiery Cho, who knew her weaknesses and went ahead anyway, everything on display. She
was the most courageous person he knew.

  She’d be so disappointed with him right now.

  With a horrible groan, White wrenched himself away. It was like trying to move in thick, cloying syrup. He fought and fought, pulling back until he thought his whole body would snap.

  The other White reared up, startled.

  For a moment, he thought he had it. Then he saw his copy’s face twist, and the hands lunge forward. If it couldn’t use him to get out of the Castle, it would eat.

  He had no time to be afraid. He just lashed out. He punched with his fist and his mind, wild and unfocused but with so much fury he could choke on it. He hacked it all up and made it into a weapon and he punched.

  The copy didn’t even scream. It just staggered back, clawing at itself.

  Then it melted into the floor. He watched it shrivel, folding inwards like burning paper, curling and furling until there was nothing left. He made sure there was nothing left, and when he was sure, he let go.

  The room tilted. For a horrible moment, White thought he was going to faint; or maybe wake up and find himself back in the real. But then it faded, and he was left crouched on the floor next to the hole.

  He had never, ever felt so utterly exhausted.

  But it wasn’t over yet.

  He lifted his face to the group.

  The hole was still there, but he could feel them pushing at it with their combined strength, willing it back to a smooth floor. He didn’t want them to be here any longer than necessary. More monsters could come. It was the last thing he felt like doing, but he dragged himself to the group, and sat on the edge of the hole next to Lufe.

  You’ve done enough! said a voice inside, angry. Why the hell are you giving more?

  Because I can, he told it. Because it’s needed. So shut up.

  White hesitated. He’d never thought that touching could amplify their power like this. That had been Rue’s idea again; always thinking differently to him. He reached out and took Lufe’s unresisting hand, feeling the warm palm against his own.

  The group flowed into him at once, pulsing and alive. It was like a hot shower, skinny dipping in a lake at midnight, shoving your burned finger into snow. He was part of the group now, and they were part of him. He could feel them. But he wasn’t much of a he any more – he was a them.

  It was wonderful. It was terrifying.