Petra led David back onto the platform, and they hurried along it to the steps of a footbridge. From here they had a view down onto the trains, and the main part of the station beyond. Behind them was a huge arched window, but its panes were darkened by soot and crisscrosses of tape. David gazed ahead, recognizing the familiar vast space of Paddington station from his own time, but not the details of everyday life that it contained in 1940.
Petra raised her hand and pointed across the crowded platforms to where the green of Dishita’s woolen hat could be seen slipping through the crowds toward the station clock.
The time was 11:49.
But where was Eddie?
“Shouldn’t we get back down there?” David said.
Petra was about to answer when a voice cried, “Warning!” right beside David’s head. He jumped with shock, turning to find Misty’s golden eyes close to his. She was wrapped in a long dark coat, tightly buttoned up, and wore a hat that wouldn’t have been out of place at a wedding, except that it was black. She might be in disguise, but she didn’t seem able to hide her true dazzle.
“What are you doing here?” Petra’s lip curled.
“We have detected Adam,” said Misty. “He has remained in this place long enough to be identified.”
She held out one slender arm. David followed her finger to a stationary train. Partly concealed in the dark open doorway of a carriage was the even darker silhouette of a man with a cane.
Adam.
“Someone’s with him,” David said, straining to see better. There was indeed a second figure skulking in the gloom.
“Misty, make yourself useful for once.” Petra was straining too. “Who’s that with Adam? Analyze.”
“Charles Bartholomew Grinn,” said Misty, looking down at the distant figures without the slightest hint of effort. “Gangster, assassin, and manhunter. According to the Archive, he is responsible for seven murders, but is probably behind a further nine. He was born in 1895, will be arrested in January 1941, and will be hanged for murder three months after that.”
“Murder?” David cried. “Eddie’s murder?”
“Calm down, David.” Petra spoke without taking her eyes off the two figures. “Misty is just giving us the original history. This Grinn never killed Eddie, according to the records — none of us would be here now if he had. But Adam is trying to change all that. This is the man Adam has chosen to do his dirty work, and if he’s due to be hanged soon anyway, Adam could promise him anything he likes. Misty, go and tell Dishita.”
“Yes, Petra.” Misty stepped away from them and melted from sight.
“Come on,” David said. “We’d better get down there.”
“No,” said Petra. “We’ll never get a better view than this. And look there … and there!”
David saw again the two policemen with their distinctive helmets taking up position close to the exit. Another strolled along the platform, his hands behind his back.
“Don’t forget, Dishita’s been busy,” Petra said, “and Eddie’s already been reported as a missing person. The moment we spot him, Dishita will point him out to the police. I doubt if someone like Grinn will try anything with the police here.”
“But what if he does?”
Petra moved in close to David.
“Stop worrying, will you? We’ve done these things before, you know.” She gave him a mischievous grin. “We’re just here to keep watch, remember? We need to blend in. So let’s pretend that we belong to this time and that you have just met me off a train. And let’s pretend you missed me.”
David didn’t know if it was possible to blush on a dreamwalk, but he felt himself redden.
“There you are,” Petra giggled. “You’ll be making your own clothes in no time. Now, you watch behind me, and I’ll watch behind you. Eddie can’t be far away now.”
David stared down into the crowds over Petra’s beret. Dishita was under the clock now, leaning against a pillar with a magazine in her hands, just a few paces from the two policemen. But why wasn’t she doing anything? And where was Théo? Hesitant, David wrapped his spectral arms around Petra, thinking there were times when it was fun to be a ghost, and times when it wasn’t. He forced himself to focus and stared down into the group of children below, scanning each face for signs of the boy who would one day be his grandfather.
The minute hand of the station clock crept toward midday.
A woman in a round hat came to join them on the walkway, her heels tapping as she climbed the stairs.
David glanced her way and saw that she had a steel camera around her neck. Was this the photographer who was about the take the very picture he’d found in Adam’s room? David would have laughed if he hadn’t looked down into the shadow of the carriage door and seen the dark figure of Adam raise his cane and point at the woman. The man called Grinn stepped forward.
“It’s about to happen,” David gasped, trying to step away, but Petra grabbed him.
“No, stay here! Keep watching the platform, there might be —”
“I can’t just stand here …” David interrupted but stopped. Down in the shadows, Grinn had changed his stance. He was hunched forward in the carriage doorway, suddenly hard and intent, his face like that of a hungry wolf watching a lamb. His right arm was curled back. His coat was long and his hand mostly concealed, but even from a distance David caught the gleam of metal as something long and viciously pointed flicked forward.
A knife.
David followed the man’s gaze, until his eyes stopped on the features he’d been so desperate to see. Eddie! His grandfather was there, down in the crowd, shoulders hunched and collar up. His hair was a mess, and there were signs of the fire all over him, but David would have recognized him anywhere. He could even see the rolled-up notebook in his hand. As Eddie walked slowly on, David saw the scene of the photo he’d found come together right in front of his eyes, about to be fixed permanently in the flash of the photographer’s camera.
Grinn left the shadows, ducking between people.
David swore and pulled away from Petra, who cried “No!” after him.
He ignored her and ran to the stairs.
“David, come back!” Petra’s whisper was almost a shout, but David was far from her now, leaping down the steps toward Eddie.
At ground level, he stopped and swore again. Suddenly the crowd was too thick, and Eddie wasn’t visible. David pushed forward, dodging around people, frantic.
Where was Eddie?
Where was Grinn?
Then a group of children moved together. Beneath the vaulted glass roof a space cleared, and there, standing in dejection, was Eddie.
And ten paces behind him, his right arm pulled right back, was Grinn.
Time slowed as David saw his own destruction at the point of the knife in Grinn’s hand, exactly as if the blade was about to be thrust into his own back. The faces of his father and sister danced before his eyes.
“Eddie! Eddie, look out!”
All around people turned to look.
Eddie’s head snapped up and his eyes grew wide behind his sooty glasses.
“David?” The surprise in his voice echoed around the station.
David dashed forward, but he was so intent on reaching his grandfather that he didn’t notice what was happening far above him. As predicted, the winter wind picked up and for a moment the clouds parted over London. The sun came out.
Someone screamed.
David spun around and saw several people looking at him, aghast. He held up his hands as if to ward them off. And then he saw it for himself. Winter sunlight was pouring down through the glass roof, and he was bathed in it. His hands, like the rest of him, were now transparent and suffused with a spectral blue glow.
“A ghost!” someone cried. A group of children began shrieking and flocked away from him, knocking into other passengers. Suddenly everyone seemed to be running or yelling, and David was left bewildered in an ever-widening circle of fear and confusion. He couldn’t see Eddie anymore. He caught sight of Dishita’s appalled face in the crowd and knew he had to get under cover quick. He turned. There was a sudden flash of light, and David saw the photographer on the walkway above, frantically fiddling with the enormous flash apparatus on her camera, clearly hoping for a second shot.
David ran. He darted out of the sunlight and glanced toward the carriage where Adam had been, but there was no one hiding there now. He looked back, hoping for a glimpse of Eddie, but his grandfather seemed to have melted into thin air. And there was no sign of the man called Grinn either, just dozens of wide eyes staring at him in fear. He swore even more emphatically, then pelted straight for the nearest dark corner, people yelling and falling away from him as he ran. He was so desperate that he forgot to slow down as he neared the station wall. He barged straight into it … and found himself on the other side!
It was a strange, indescribable sensation, but David had no time to congratulate himself for walking through walls. What a fool he’d been! He’d blundered right into the sunlight! And then he’d run straight through solid brick in front of crowds of witnesses. But even as he cursed himself, it did occur to him that at least he’d saved Eddie.
Or had he? Where was Eddie now? And the man with the knife? From the other side of the bricks, he could hear the commotion he’d caused, and a woman was still screaming. David swore again and again. He looked around at what appeared to be an engineer’s workshop, wondering what on earth he should do now.
A sleek black cat crossed the floor, its dark eyes hard as they fixed onto David’s.
Without warning, David felt an excruciating sensation in his left side, and he was flung across the room, pain pulsing through his whole being. The workshop and the machines in it grew faint, and he lost his bearings entirely. When he could finally focus again, he saw a girl about his own age standing by the wall where he’d come through himself. She had white-blonde hair, and David knew he’d seen her somewhere before. Her 1940s clothes melted away to reveal a strange, featureless suit, like those worn by the dreamwalkers, only silver-gray. The girl’s hand was still raised exactly as if she had just struck him. Then he recognized her — it was the young nurse who’d tried to kidnap him from his school.
A haunter.
“Well, well,” said the girl in precise English tones, “I didn’t think I’d be seeing you again.”
David struggled to stand, but his mind was drained and numb, his dreamself more like a puddle on the floor than a spectral body. The girl laughed. She rose into the air and arced across the workshop, her fingers extended like bright claws. She came to rest over him like a hawk on a mouse.
David tried to straighten up so he could look the girl in the eye, but the effort made the world grow faint again, and he slumped back down. He remembered the spear in the desert, and he knew that he’d just been hit by a mind pulse. He wondered if he was about to be knocked out of his dreamwalk as Dishita had been, and just how much it would hurt.
“You’re supposed to be dead,” said the haunter, “but this will do for now.”
She drew her arm right back, her face terrible with concentration as she prepared to bring her spectral fist crashing down.
David flinched in terror. He was so weak from the first hit he knew that a second would be devastating. He thought of Carlo in his coma and Siri, who could no longer speak.
Then another arm flashed out from somewhere at the edge of his vision. The girl’s raised hand was knocked to one side, her concentration broken. David turned groggily and saw Théo. The girl swung the fist of her other hand, but Théo dodged it and made an attack of his own, slamming both his hands into the haunter’s side. The silver-suited girl shuddered as she was flung back, spinning out of control across the room. Her shriek was cut off as she vanished through the wall. Théo leaped across the workshop after her.
But he never got there. A shape sprang from the shadows of a hulking steam train like a pouncing cat and seized him in midair. Théo cried out, pinned half upside down in the center of the room by a tall, dark-haired figure in a silver suit.
It was Adam.
Théo tried to lash out, but Adam held him fast and high. Adam gave a fierce laugh as he forced his hands wide, twisting the struggling form of Théo in the air. Théo cried out again, this time in anguish. There was a sound like popping static as Théo’s dreamself was ripped in two before David’s eyes.
The beginnings of a scream echoed around the workshop as the remains of Théo’s ghost disintegrated into nothing.
Silence fell over the room. Adam turned and looked at David.
“You?” he said. “They’re so desperate they’ve even sent you?”
David struggled to his feet, his mind finally regaining a trickle of strength.
“You won’t get him. Eddie, I mean. I stopped your man with the knife — Eddie got away.”
David desperately wished he could have thought of something cleverer to say, but face-to-face with Adam he found it hard to speak at all. Come on! David yelled at himself. This is the monster who wants to kill Eddie, to wipe out Dad and Philippa. Attack him!
He took a hesitant step forward, forming his hands into spectral fists, but Adam was already striding toward him, his dreamself radiating mental power.
David raised his arms, trying to draw on pure hatred of Adam to supply the power his mind would need to fight. But it was no good. He was exhausted — the blonde girl had hit him too hard — and he slumped again.
“I don’t care what you do to me,” he managed, as Adam loomed over him. “Eddie’s with the police. He’s safe.”
“You miserable little …” Adam began, his grin evaporating. “Yeah, I can see why you’d hope that. But thanks to your showstopping performance out there, precious little Eddie is gone again, so no, the police don’t have him. But I have you. And you’re the one who knows where he’s hiding out. I’m going to enjoy making you tell me.”
David staggered back, wondering whether he would still be able to pass through a wall in his weakened state. It was cruel, having to face his enemy without even the energy to defend himself, let alone anyone else. But Adam had destroyed Théo so easily that David knew there was only one thing left he could do. He turned and ran.
“Going somewhere, Davy boy?” cried Adam, leaping forward. He seized David and spun him back around. Instantly Adam’s other hand fastened around his throat like a ring of ice. David gasped as he felt the ghostly fingers grip him and sensed his mind being quickly enveloped by the power of Adam’s will. He tried to resist, but his world was already smothered by a crushing darkness, leaving nothing but the sound of Adam’s voice.
“Tell me where he is!”
David managed just one word as his consciousness failed. “No …”
“Tell me!” Adam shouted. “Or I’ll fill you with pain till you burst.”
“David!” It was Petra’s voice.
Adam looked to one side and something struck him. Then it was his turn to stagger back, releasing David as he did so. For a moment he looked pained and his dreamself grew faint, but with a dismaying lack of effort he snapped back to full, ferocious clarity. Petra was standing over David as Adam raised his arm to come back at her. But Petra wasn’t the only newcomer.
“Enough,” said Dishita as she stepped out of the shadows behind Adam. “It’s over, Adam. The end of the line.”
“The end of the line?” Adam laughed, nodding his head toward the railway station around them. “Was that some kind of joke, Dishita? Personally, I find the idea that two girls and a schoolboy can stop me much more amusing.”
In reply, Dishita flew at him. Adam raised his arms and caught her hands, and the two of them spun crazily through the air, each wrestling to free a hand and hit the other. Petra looked down at David.
“I hope you weren’t trying to impress me,” she said, the hint of concern in her voice almost hidden by anger. “Because you didn’t!”
David forced himself to look her in the eye.
“Where’s Théo?” Petra said.
“Gone …”
“No!”
“I’m so sorry. But I couldn’t just stand there …”
“What have you done?” Petra looked horrified. “Didn’t you think Adam would have haunters with him? The station is probably crawling with them. Théo …”
David tried to speak, but stopped. Petra didn’t appear ready to listen to him now anyway. She called Misty and shouted at her to bring the other team to help.
Adam and Dishita finally separated, each flinging the other away. They dropped back down to the ground at different ends of the workshop, both clearly drained by the effort.
“I doubt there’s anyone there who could come, sweetheart,” called Adam to Petra. Then, in front of them all, Adam’s suit reappeared, as perfect and unruffled as if he’d just stepped out of a tailor’s shop. He tugged the front brim of his hat low over his eyes and leaned nonchalantly on his gleaming black cane, the perfect picture of self-controlled malevolence.
“So you see, it’s you who have reached the end of the line. My new colleagues have seen to that.”
“How could you join them?” Petra spat back. “Murderers! How can you bear to work with them against your own friends?”
“You know the answer to that better than most, Petra,” Adam said, “and since I know you won’t be joining us …”
Before anyone could move, Adam flicked his cane forward and sent it flying straight at Petra. She cried out as she dropped back, the spectral cane zinging through the air above her. Dishita darted forward, but Adam was impossibly quick. David could only watch as he leaped high above Dishita then dropped down behind her. Before she could turn, a dreamwalker’s door had appeared behind Adam. He knocked it open with his cane — miraculously back in his hand — and raised his hat.
“So long,” he said, stepping through.
David acted instinctively. There was no way he could let Adam escape, not if Eddie really had disappeared again. This might be his only chance to save him. He flung himself at the door as it began to slam shut, and got one arm through. He pushed with all the force left in his battered mind.
Petra was with him in a moment.
“You can’t hold it open that way.”
“Can’t let him go,” gasped David. The door was pushing back harder and harder, crushing him as Adam willed it to close. Despite the pain, David could see what looked like water through the doorway — water and buildings, and was that a crane? And he could tell Adam was there somewhere, looking on with an amused smile.
Petra leaned into the door herself, but even together they couldn’t do more than gain a little extra space.
“David, get out!” shouted Petra.
David pulled his arm back before it was too late.
The door slammed shut and vanished, leaving nothing but a faint tang of river air in the room.