The elements were not happy. Earth, air and water had been summoned in their eternal bargain to create life from the ashes of death. But the fire – the rare tripudon flame – had not been present. The vital spark had been missing. And in the depths of the network, in their vast graveyard, the army of warrior garghoul had been invited back from the darkness to the very brink of existence – then abandoned.
Now the dark waters seethed, sullen for revenge, seeking the slightest spark to call forth their rage. When Dr Saint’s disintegrating body hit the waters, the alchemical forces recoiled, ripped each other apart and erupted through the chamber with the force of an angry hell.
In a single moment, the urughoul were blasted into fragments. Minds of ancient malice – unimaginable to humankind – were splintered and evaporated.
The blast rocked the tower in the Well Chamber – one of its walls sheared away and melted into the fires beneath. Leaping flames engulfed the shattered stone. The platform tilted. Mr Nicely’s unconscious form began to slip towards the edge. Theo grabbed at the control panel with one hand and Mr Nicely with the other. There was a rending noise as the stone ruin began to fall in on itself.
Theo strained to keep hold of the butler’s sleeve. Through the stinging sweat in his eyes he looked up to see the last fragments of the lift shaft melt away in the air above him. There goes the escape route, he thought. I’m glad Sam and Magnus made it out.
But rising up through the inferno came a dark figure on smoking wings. Tristus, the last living garghoul, had spotted two helpless figures trapped among the flames. Swiftly, he swooped down and lifted them in his arms as if they were rag dolls. The ancient creature’s heart soared with joy. Yes, one of the figures was the boy. Against all the odds, he had saved Theo.
Another explosion shook the blazing cauldron below. The Well Chamber shattered, its ancient roof cracked and stonework rained down. Tristus rose up through the shattered dome and into the darkness of the passages above.
Theo had swooned from the unbearable heat, but soon a cooler air brought him back to consciousness.
The Something on the Roof, Theo thought, it’s come back to save me. Glancing about him, he recognised the main staircase that he and Chloe had crept down just a day before. A lifetime seemed to have passed since then. For a second, he dared to risk the hope: does this mean I’m going to be OK?
Suddenly dark wings blotted out the shaft above them. Tristus was rocked by the impact of an unseen attacker. His wings were gripped by cruel talons.
Unable to defend himself in case he dropped his human cargo, the garghoul began to spiral down towards the great staircase. In moments they had collided with the iron steps. Theo and Mr Nicely were hurled across a landing. Theo looked up to see Tristus’s body plunging back into the fumes below, under the black wings of nightmarish birds. And down the staircase above descended the unmistakable form of the Dodo.
On Larkspur Hill, just behind the Condemned Cemetery, Sergeant Crane of the Metropolitan Police and his special-response unit almost leapt out of their skins as the still of the night was broken by an almighty rumble. It seemed to be coming from below their feet, like subterranean thunder.
‘What was that, sir – an earthquake?’ a young recruit in a padded flakjacket asked. There was no time to reply. Crane’s lanky frame suddenly stood out in sharp relief as beyond him, from the cemetery, great plumes of fiery smoke rose up from tombs and drain covers. Marble cherubs were rocked from their pillars. Crooked stones inscribed Rest in Peace tumbled to the ground.
Crane and his team could also see a rosy cloud arise from within the walled gardens of Empire Hall, just as a powercut plunged the whole mansion into darkness. Sergeant Crane’s radio burst into life and a babbled message made his eyes grow wider and wider.
‘It’s going crazy over at Southwark Cathedral,’ he told his men. ‘We’re to move in on Empire Hall now.’
As the astonished sergeant raced through the stone angels and smoking crypts of the great cemetery, he grinned to himself wryly.
‘Chloe told me there was something going on!’ he muttered.
‘At last,’ growled the Dodo as he loomed over his captives on the great stairway. ‘This time you will not elude me!’
Theo was slumped against the wall, a scrawny, bedraggled Caspian Tiger crouched before him. Mr Nicely, still unconscious, was guarded by a single, one-eared Siberian Wolf Rat.
The Dodo limped awkwardly towards Theo. The old man’s cloak was in tatters, and his hook-nosed face was spattered with blood. A hastily improvised tourniquet was bound around his thigh.
‘I have fought my way through half the Society of Good Works to find you,’ the Dodo said. ‘We have unconcluded matters to arrange.’
‘What – what’s happened to the garghoul?’ Theo demanded.
‘My trained condors – the formidable teratorn – are keeping him amused. Do not fear for him,’ the Dodo replied. ‘A garghoul is close to immortal. You, however, are not.’
Theo scrambled to his feet. The tiger backed away slightly, baring its gleaming teeth.
‘Now, Master Luke Anderson,’ the Dodo said, ‘perhaps you would care to introduce yourself correctly!’
Among all his troubles, Theo felt particularly aggrieved at having his ability to make an introduction called into question. After his extensive reading of etiquette, he had always felt it was one of his few strong points.
‘It’s not easy to introduce yourself when you don’t know who you are,’ Theo said with naive sincerity. ‘I didn’t really know my own identity when I saw you last. But now I do. I am Theo Wickland. The Candle Man.’
The Dodo winced and his body stiffened, as if he had just taken a dagger blow. His claw-like left hand made unconscious gripping motions.
‘Theo Wickland, great-grandson of Lord Randolph Wickland,’ the Dodo breathed. ‘Do you know what you did to me?’ he suddenly screamed.
‘I’m truly sorry for that, sir,’ Theo said with respect. ‘I didn’t understand my powers at all then. I doubt I understand them any better now.’
‘Understand this, Wickland,’ the Dodo said, almost spitting in Theo’s face as he drew close to tell his story. ‘I was just a normal man when I first met your ancestor. I was a zoologist and rare-breed collector, who trained certain dangerous creatures to be used – for a fee – by the underworld. Assassinations, poisonings, colourful threats and suchlike.’ The Dodo almost smiled at the memory.
‘I was not what anyone would call a good man,’ he mused. ‘I may have deserved a jail term of some kind,’ he said, his face darkening with bitter memories, ‘but I did not deserve this!’
He pulled back his torn sleeve to reveal his gnarled and stunted arm, and jerked a thorny thumb at his own gruesome, birdlike features.
Theo lowered his gaze. It was hard to meet the wretched stare of those sunken eyes. And he could guess what was coming.
‘Your ancestor did this to me – your great Candle Man! Shaped me like wax – misshaped me, I should say. With one touch he ruined me for life, gave me the appearance to match my obsession with rare and extinct animals. And he transfigured my cells, so that I could not die like other men, but live on – in an eternity of weariness!’
‘But when I met you –’ Theo began.
‘I had almost cured myself!’ Sir Peregrine roared. ‘With my own potions, my own decades of tedious research. I had at last learnt to control my disfiguration – until you came along!’
The Dodo turned away from Theo, his face tortured, his claw clutching at air.
And now the Dodo is going to kill me, Theo thought. Because of what my ancestor did. Because of my power. Because the world cannot afford to have a new Candle Man running loose, spreading fear and misery in his wake.
This was it. The Dodo lowered his huge head and stared into Theo’s eyes. Theo could smell his stale breath, see the trickling sweat dissolving the dark edges of the dried blood on his cheek.
‘Candle Man,’ he said in a voice of utter weariness, ‘I want you to kill me.’
Theo staggered back, utterly astonished. The Dodo stood still, devoid of menace, calm and composed. A tiny bat dropped like a flake of soot on to the rough skin between the old man’s frayed shirt collar and his neck, and nuzzled there. The tiger let out a low, dismal, melancholy growl.
‘When Lord Wickland transfigured me,’ the Dodo said, ‘he affected all my cells. I can age somewhat, yet I cannot die. I should have been dead and gone for over eighty years now. Life has become a sick joke to me – a pointless shadow theatre – with no end to give it meaning.’
Theo didn’t know what to say. Yet in his heart a spring of hope was rushing up. Maybe I’m not going to die today after all. That surge of hope was more painful than any of the suffering he had been through in the last two days.
‘Lord Wickland was an arrogant devil,’ continued the Dodo. ‘He loved to hand out his punishments to those he defeated. But you – I sense – are not like him. You do not find the Dodo amusing, do you?’ he asked, shambling awkwardly to parody his own misbegotten shape. ‘Would you mock me, sir?’
Theo’s answer came readily. ‘I would not – I do not mock you, sir.’
‘That is wise,’ rumbled the Dodo. ‘And only you control the energy. Only you can destroy the work of your ancestor and allow me to die as all other men do. After my unnatural preservation I now long for the mystery of extinction.’ With his claw he caressed the head of the Caspian Tiger. ‘I want to go where my beautiful friends are going,’ he said. ‘I beg you, sir – end my horrible existence.’
Theo looked gravely up at the haggard, dejected old man, and paused to reflect.
‘My whole life,’ Theo said in reply, ‘I only saw three people. Those Three controlled my every moment. I came to hate that number, and even all its multiples in the three times table.’ Theo smiled, realising he sounded a little crazy. ‘You were Person Thirteen,’ he continued. ‘Before you, I had only ever met twelve people. When you examined me, I had a feeling that number thirteen might be a lucky number for me. So, Person Thirteen, I suppose you’re OK – deep down.’
‘I am not OK, deep down,’ growled the Dodo. ‘I’m looking for death, not salvation.’ He rubbed his thin hair, bemused. ‘Anyway, how could anyone possibly dislike the number three?’ he muttered. ‘I should have remembered what a peculiar boy you are.’
Theo put his hands together in a wise gesture of prayer, then yanked them apart, fearing he should turn into Dr Saint.
The Dodo awaited his answer.
‘I want you to help me,’ Theo requested. ‘Please. Help me understand my power. When I can control it without fear of creating further tragedy, then I will do what you ask – if you still request it. I need to know there will be no more horrors, and only a man like you can help me. Is it a deal?’