The Book of Beasts Page 5

  At last, they were gone. Vaughn stood, stretched, slipped on his leather jacket and pulled his messenger bag over his shoulder. Checking the hallway was completely empty, he stepped in front of Morse’s painting.

  The Gallery of the Louvre had never brought Samuel Morse the fame he’d hoped for as an artist, but it had brought him a more important kind of renown, among a certain group, at least. Morse had used his unique abilities as an Animare and a code maker to serve a greater cause. Thanks to Morse’s skills, Vaughn and a small number of uniquely trained Animare were able to travel between various Guardian Councils and galleries. Because of Morse, a series of paintings around the world were linked to this painting as a kind of hub.

  Vaughn slipped his sketchbook from his messenger bag and began to draw. Those girls would never know it, but the redhead was on to something about the nature of the painting. Haunted wasn’t even the half of it.

  SIXTEEN

  First Vaughn sketched The Wedding Feast at Cana, a canvas that covered the entire wall on the left side of Morse’s painting. Then the Titians, the van Dycks, Raphael and Rubens – all with the kind of detail that anyone watching would have thought only possible after long hours, perhaps even days of work. For Vaughn, his copy of the painting took shape quickly, his fingers flying across the page.

  Only trained Orion agents were able to travel across art in this way. At least, that’s how it used to be. Sandie and the twins had done the impossible, circumventing Orion agents’ training, and instead travelling through art by their own means. If the Hollow Earth Society or even the world’s five Councils of Guardians discovered that the twins and Sandie not only could fade across paintings but across time as well, life as they knew it would be over.

  Vaughn could not let that happen.

  The light around Vaughn began to soften, bathing him in a buttery haze, its illumination suffusing every part of his body, slowly muting his physical presence while he sketched on. Sounds muffled in Vaughn’s mind as if all his senses were fluid. He relaxed and let his imagination assume control.

  It was at that moment it all went wrong.

  A horrified scream cut through the thinning sounds of the gallery, snapping Vaughn’s concentration. He hesitated, his fingers lifting off the page for only a beat, but long enough. His imagination stalled, his pulse plummeted. Every particle of his being exploded in pain. He collapsed to his knees on the floor, in agony as every nerve ending sparked and snapped and shot bolts of light through his body.

  He was burning up from the inside.

  He caught a glimpse of his reflection in the windows. His body looked like the negative of a photograph, a profile of light and dark against a halo of fading light, and his eyes were a fiery red. Crumpled on the floor, his body spasming against the pain, Vaughn glanced towards the stairs and saw the dark-haired girl from earlier staring in terror at his electrified silhouette.

  ‘I dropped my p… p-p-pen…’ she stuttered, her eyes wide and disbelieving. With a final piercing scream, she dropped her schoolbag and took off down the stairs.

  Her panic would bring security guards and questions. Lots of questions. Too much was at stake for that to happen. Vaughn had to get into Morse’s painting, or he had to destroy himself before the guards reached him. It was what was expected of an agent when caught.

  Vaughn focused first on his hands, willing them to move, to draw again. If he couldn’t regain control, his entire being would implode.

  Ignoring the heat searing into his bones, he struggled to his knees and then to his feet, with a burst of strength that fuelled rather than drained him.

  Draw!

  Forcing everything but Morse’s painting from his imagination, slowly, carefully, painfully, Vaughn willed his blistered fingers to move again, to shade the arched doorway of the Louvre at the centre of the painting, to outline the Roman statue of Diana the goddess of the hunt in the corner, to scribble the men and women in the forefront. And with every curving line, every shade, streak and stipple from his charcoal, Vaughn felt the heat dissipate, felt his heart rate rise and his bones cool. When he glanced at his hands, his skin was translucent, the smoky fog of light finally starting to absorb him.

  He hadn’t faded completely yet, and he could hear a mob of questioning voices approaching. Time was running out. Vaughn took a deep soul-filling breath and closed his eyes, sketching the rest of the painting from memory, hoping it would be enough.

  In front of him the Gallery of the Louvre began to pulse, as if inhaling and exhaling colour and light. Slowly at first, then faster, until the images in the painting were bursting from the canvas, cascading over Vaughn, reaching across space and touching, melding with the corresponding images on his sketch.

  The mob was almost at the top of the stairs. He was at the point of no return.

  Ribbons of reds and yellows, greens and blacks raked over Vaughn. At that precise moment and not a second before, he began to fade, lifting off the ground in a cyclone of colour.

  In a snap of a second, Vaughn materialized next to James Fenimore Cooper, one of the figures in the corner of the painting, leaving two security guards, a curator and a schoolteacher puzzling over a set of smoking black burn marks on the gallery floor.

  SEVENTEEN

  Edinburgh

  Present Day

  ‘Ah, sir, you have returned.’

  James Fenimore Cooper bowed to Vaughn, handing him a clean handkerchief from the pocket of his topcoat. The other figures in the painting took no notice of the visitor to their gallery, intent instead on their own conversations. The only exception was the artist himself, Samuel Morse, who leaned over his wife’s shoulder in the painting’s foreground. He nodded and smiled at Vaughn.

  ‘I can’t stay,’ replied Vaughn, wiping charcoal and paint dust from his face with Cooper’s kerchief.

  Morse bowed again and returned to instructing his wife on the details of the canvas before her, while his daughter kept her admiring eyes on the handsome stranger darting across the gallery.

  Even knowing that time had stopped, Vaughn still looked at his watch. Time was a temporal element, and art transcended time. When an Animare faded, he arrived the moment he left. This meant two minutes remained to get to the gallery in Edinburgh before it closed for the day.

  Behind the Roman statue of Diana’s marble plinth, Vaughn found the canvas he needed tucked out of sight. Despite his throbbing fingers and his bleary eyes, he began to draw himself into another work of art, one that hung in a small rotunda at the National Gallery of Scotland.

  When Vaughn burst on to the ice at Duddingston Loch, he first appeared in greys and whites, then quickly added bursts of colour and lines of movement. In those initial few seconds, he admired the wintry scene emerging before him, the frozen lake nestled in the Highlands and the lone skater, a minister, his hands in front of him, skating in silence.

  Vaughn skidded across the frozen surface of Henry Raeburn’s iconic Scottish painting, arms and legs akimbo, struggling to maintain his balance while at the same time punching himself into two then three dimensions.

  The ice was slicker than Vaughn remembered, and the thick soles on his Doc Martens couldn’t stop his momentum. Sliding wildly past the skating minister, Vaughn caught the Reverend’s eye for a brief moment, then bounced and tumbled across the loch, desperately tearing up his sketch of the work before he crashed into the trees bordering the lake.

  In the painting’s foreground the Reverend cut a comfortable circle on the ice, ignoring Vaughn as he shot out of the landscape and crashed clumsily on to the Edinburgh gallery floor, relieved that the room was empty.

  EIGHTEEN

  Auchinmurn Isle

  Present Day

  While Vaughn was skidding across the frozen loch, Em and Zach were in the Abbey library. Since losing Matt, they had spent a lot of time in here, trying to find some means of returning to the past between the musty pages and tooled leather covers of the books that Matt had been studying before he disappeared. Th
ey weren’t having much luck.

  Em had been sidetracked that afternoon, trying to discover something about the mysterious vision in her bedroom. She was convinced he had been trying to tell her about Matt, or Jeannie. They were in dreadful danger, she knew it.

  I have to do this my own way, she thought. A plan had started to take shape in her mind, but it would require secrecy. Even from Zach. She had no more time to think or plan. Tonight she would act. And if it worked, she’d have Matt and Jeannie home at the weekend.

  Zach jabbed her in the arm, making her look up.

  ‘Have you found anything?’ he signed.

  She laid her book to one side, and waved at the artefacts, sketches and maps strewn across the table. ‘These are all nineteenth-century copies of medieval maps and texts. At best they’ll take us back to Victorian times.’ She gave a growl of frustration. ‘I would do anything to bring Matt and Jeannie home.’

  Zach raised his eyebrows. ‘What about your dad?’

  Em snorted. ‘I hope his hellhounds have him for lunch.’

  ‘You don’t mean that,’ signed Zach, leaning back against his chair.

  Em flipped open her sketchpad to a drawing of the Abbey as she remembered it from the Middle Ages. If her plan was to work, and there were no guarantees, this drawing had to be as precise and detailed as possible. ‘Dad tried to use Matt and me to get into Hollow Earth when we were toddlers,’ she reminded Zach. ‘He took over our minds and made us draw for him. He could have injured us, but did he care? How is that even close to normal parenting behaviour? And now he’s doing the same in the Middle Ages. All for the sake of a bunch of monsters buried in the earth! It’s insane. He’s insane.’

  Em used the edge of her pencil and began to shade the Abbot’s tower in her drawing. She thought she had got that right.

  I’m going to save them by myself.

  Zach sat up instantly. No, you’re not. You promised.

  Em cursed herself for not concealing her thoughts more carefully. When Zach was concentrating on her like now, it was almost impossible to hide things from him. She focused on emptying her mind before he sensed what she was really up to.

  Em…

  She looked innocently at him. ‘What?’

  Before Zach could reply, they both heard a motorcycle roaring to a stop in the front courtyard.

  ‘Vaughn’s back,’ said Em, pushing away from the table and rushing out of the library’s double doors. She paused, looking back at Zach. ‘You coming?’

  In the wood-panelled foyer of the Abbey, Vaughn had dropped his helmet and leather jacket on the floor and was greeting Em’s mum Sandie with a kiss. Em flew at them from the library doors.

  ‘You’re still here, Em?’ Vaughn laughed, sweeping her off her feet. ‘I thought you’d be back in the thirteenth century by now.’

  Sandie slapped Vaughn’s shoulder. ‘Not funny. Do not put that thought in her head.’

  Em reminded herself that Vaughn was an Animare without Guardian mind-reading abilities. ‘I promised I wouldn’t break any rules for at least a few more days.’

  ‘Good girl.’

  As Vaughn pulled Zach into an embrace, Em saw him mouth something that looked like ‘Keeping her close?’ Seeing it hardened her resolve.

  ‘I’ve news,’ Vaughn said, hustling all of them into the kitchen. ‘Where’s Renard? And your dad, Zach?’

  ‘Good news?’ said Sandie, smiling in weak hope.

  Vaughn squeezed her hand and shook his head. ‘I wish it was,’ he said grimly. ‘But Renard and Simon aren’t going to like it one bit.’

  Em’s stomach plummeted. Things were already looking hopeless – how could Vaughn have more bad news?

  NINETEEN

  When Zach’s dad Simon and Renard joined them in the kitchen, Em was already seated at the table with a glass of juice, tapping her foot furiously to distract herself from imagining all the terrible things Vaughn might have discovered.

  Both men looked tense. The skin under Em’s grandfather’s eyes was grey and his hair was sticking up in white tufts. His and Simon’s anxiety hit Em in a mash-up of emotions, and she tapped her foot even faster.

  Sitting beside her, Renard placed a calming hand on Em’s shoulder. Em stopped bouncing her foot and exhaled slowly.

  ‘Tell us what you’ve discovered,’ said Renard, looking directly at Vaughn.

  Vaughn rolled up his shirtsleeves, accepting a cup of tea from Simon.

  ‘This morning Henrietta de Court stole the Battle for Era Mina tapestry from the Council Chamber.’

  The reaction was electric.

  Simon put his head in his hands. Sandie choked on her tea. Renard slammed his hand on the table, spilling Em’s juice, then leaped to his feet, pacing the room. Simon grabbed a handful of napkins from the counter, tossing them to Zach to mop up the mess, and pounded Sandie on the back to ease her choking.

  ‘I knew that woman wouldn’t stay out of our lives,’ snarled Renard.

  Em had never seen such rage on her grandfather’s face.

  ‘Who is Henrietta de Court?’ she asked tentatively.

  It didn’t take any sophisticated Guardian powers to detect the look that shot among the adults in the room.

  ‘Henrietta de Court is a powerful Guardian,’ Sandie wheezed, wiping tears from her cheeks. ‘She is also… your grandmother.’

  Em felt as if she had been punched in the stomach. ‘Are you kidding me?’

  What was wrong with this family? she thought in fury. When would they stop keeping secrets from her?

  She pushed her chair back, toppling it with a loud crash, and stomped outside to the patio, afraid of what she might say and animate with so much adrenaline and anger surging through her system. She squeezed her hands into fists, digging her nails into her skin.

  The evening sky looked as bruised as Em felt. The sun was setting behind the small island with lines of orange, yellow and purple streaking across the horizon.

  She wanted to punch something. She wanted to scream. So she did. She gave a shriek so loud and piercing that it rattled the glass doors behind her. A shriek for her own powerlessness, her grief for Matt and Jeannie.

  When she finally quietened, her face was red and her throat was raw. She felt better; calmer and in control. Taking a long deep breath, she unclenched her fists and loosened her neck muscles. Then she turned and marched back inside.

  She glared first at her mum, and then at Renard. ‘When exactly were you planning to tell me that we… that I have a living grandmother?’

  ‘It’s not an easy conversation to have,’ said Sandie. ‘Your father’s mother is not a friend of ours.’

  Did you know about this, Zach?

  Em was shocked to see how pale and trembling Zach was. She realized with a stab of guilt that her explosive tantrum had sliced through his mind like a cleaver. His response to her inquiry was faint.

  News to me, too.

  Em was filled with remorse. I’m so sorry. Are you OK?

  I will be. But don’t do that again without a warning.

  Em sat down, and looked searchingly at the adults. ‘Explain,’ she said.

  ‘Don’t look at me,’ Simon said, catching Sandie’s glance. ‘I never wanted to keep Henrietta a secret in the first place.’

  ‘Henrietta and I never got along,’ said Renard finally. ‘And she wanted to travel, to see the world… she did not want to live here for longer than she had to. One day she packed up and left with your dad when he was about five or six. I remained here.’

  ‘Why didn’t you go with them?’

  This time, the emotions among the adults were more subtle, complex and confusing. Em concentrated to catch the full range and depth of them. A volatile mix of regret and revenge was the strongest, but there were others too difficult to describe. They were emanating most strongly from Renard and Vaughn. The best Em could come up with was a discordant mash-up of loathing and longing.

  Do you feel that?

  Zach gave a subtle n
od. It’s like love and hate at the same time. Is that possible?

  ‘Please, Renard… Grandpa,’ said Em, holding her grandfather’s attention in her mind, gently soothing it. ‘Tell me everything.’

  Renard gave a throaty guffaw that flushed his grey face with colour and animated his worried eyes. ‘Emily Calder, are you trying to inspirit me?’

  Em flushed as Vaughn started to laugh. Then Simon and Sandie. Soon everyone was roaring, and the tension of the past half-hour was broken.

  ‘Not cool, Em,’ Vaughn grinned, ‘but awesome for trying.’

  TWENTY

  When the laughter settled, Renard clasped his hands on the table.

  ‘I did not leave the island and travel with your grandmother for two significant reasons,’ he said. ‘Firstly, I thought that your father would be better living with his mother for a while, and seeing the world while he could.’

  An odd use of words, Em thought.

  ‘Malcolm was schooled in Paris, Berlin and Hong Kong,’ Renard continued. ‘He lived in Brazil and Bangkok and he grew up to be an excellent Guardian.’ He hesitated. ‘Or so I thought.’

  Vaughn jumped in. ‘We have recently had confirmation that Henrietta had been planning a coup among Guardians for decades, and grooming Malcolm to lead it. I believe that when Malcolm discovered Hollow Earth was not just a story, he shared the information with Henrietta. For her, the power and wealth that controlling such an enchanted place would give them… I think it was irresistible.’

  ‘What was the second significant reason?’ signed Zach.

  ‘I cannot travel,’ Renard said after a moment. ‘At least, not for as long as Henrietta would have had me do.’

  ‘But you’re always travelling!’ Em said in surprise.

  As she spoke, however, she realized Renard hadn’t left the island since Jeannie and Matt’s disappearance.