Chapter 5
The British museum looked exactly the same as Madeline found it the week before. Groups of tourists were scattered around. It was an awfully busy place for a secret meeting with the person called Sciphil Two. Perhaps it wasn’t a secret meeting at all.
She caught sight of Ciaran nodding at Tadgh. Tadgh responded with a wink and patted his pocket.
“Jesus Christ, are you carrying guns?” Madeline spoke between her teeth.
Ciaran smiled. “I like to refer to them as weapons. Guns sound too primitive.”
“You can’t have them here! This is a museum!”
“Says who?” Tadgh asked.
“We won’t use them unless absolutely necessary. I don’t care to be at a disadvantage when we don’t know who we’re dealing with,” Ciaran said.
They walked further into the ancient history section. Ciaran checked his phone and found no messages.
Suddenly, the air seemed to stop flowing. Their hearts skipped a beat. Everyone else in the museum seemed to be oblivious to it. Madeline, Ciaran, and Tadgh seemed to be in a different world—a very quiet one. They could hear their own heartbeats.
“John Dee’s glass! Look!” Madeline pointed toward a display of a golden plate. As they walked closer, the air around them seemed to thicken.
Ciaran grabbed Madeline and Tadgh to stop their movement toward the display. Ciaran asked them, “You hear anything strange? Like an echo in the air?” Ciaran shook his head as if shaking away the noise in his ears.
“No, I just feel strange, like the air is thick as gel and lacking in oxygen,” Madeline said.
“It feels like the air has been vacuumed out of the room to me,” Tadgh said.
Ciaran approached the glass cabinet of John Dee’s exhibit with caution. The thick air seemed to follow him. Ciaran spoke to no one in particular. “We haven’t the time nor inclination to play hide and seek. Show yourself, or we’ll leave.”
In the air right in front of them, a white and blue beam flashed straight to the plate. The light bounced back from it, forming a cone shape in which text appeared. “Hello,” it said.
“This is a very primitive model of the hologame technology,” Ciaran said.
“Yes,” the text printed.
“Can we talk elsewhere if all you need is a shiny plate to reflect your light on? What if people walk in and see?” Madeline asked.
“Other people’s vision in the same space with you has been blocked. You are fine where you stand. The plate reflects the correct frequency,” the text read.
“What do you want?” Ciaran asked.
“We need to warn you that the LeBlancs are in danger.”
“Who are you, and what sort of danger are we facing?” asked Ciaran.
“We are your council and your guards when your position is active. At the moment, we can only alert you of possible danger. The danger is coming. It’s time . . .” The text flickered, faded away, flickered again, and then was totally gone.
“What position?” Ciaran asked.
“Damn it. That wasn’t very helpful,” Tadgh snarled at the air.
Ciaran grunted in pain and held his ears. A drop of blood trickled from his nose. Madeline tried to hold him steady as he swayed. When Tadgh approached to help, Ciaran said, “Time me.” And then he fell to the floor, unconscious.
Madeline shook his shoulders and got no response.
“Tadgh!” she called out.
Tadgh stood frozen. He shoved his hands in his pockets, looking as if he was somewhere else. Madeline shook Ciaran’s shoulders again. “Come on, you’re scaring me.” Then she looked up as Stefan walked into the room with Jo at his side. He had his arm around Jo’s waist. Madeline knew that underneath Jo’s jacket, Stefan was holding a weapon to her.
“Tadgh!” she called out, but the only difference between he and Ciaran was that Ciaran was on the floor and Tadgh still stood, looking like a statue. The text had said that other people couldn’t see them. That was the hope Madeline held on to.
Stefan glanced around the room. Jo did the same.
“Nobody’s here. Let’s go,” Jo said.
Madeline caught an unusual sign in Jo’s eyes. Jo saw something, Madeline thought.
“Be quiet. If you can decode my sister’s disk, I don’t need Ciaran. I shot at him before, so I can’t just come back and ask him nicely. But you can use your charm to get what we need,” Stefan told Jo.
On the floor, Ciaran stirred and opened his eyes. Tadgh immediately switched back to reality. Madeline helped Ciaran sit up. “How long was I out?” he asked Tadgh.
“Precisely thirty-three seconds.”
She could see Tadgh wore no watch and had nothing with which to track the time.
Ciaran saw Stefan and Jo now. So did Tadgh. Tadgh growled and turned to walk toward Stefan, his hand ready on his pocket. Ciaran grabbed at Tadgh.
“Wait. I can’t fight yet. I don’t think they can see or hear us.” Ciaran stood up.
Jo gazed straight in their direction.
“Are you sure they can’t see or hear us?” Tadgh asked.
“Jo has very good instincts. She might be able to feel us,” Madeline said.
Stefan steered Jo in their direction, keeping his hand on her back.
“He has a knife on her,” Ciaran said. Both Ciaran and Tadgh had their hands in their pockets. Ciaran moved Madeline behind him.
“Are they going to bump into us?” Madeline asked.
“I’m not sure what will happen,” Ciaran said.
Jo gazed in their direction and stopped walking. “I need to go, Stefan.”
Stefan stopped on his tracks. “Go where?”
“The girl’s room. You can come with me if you like.”
“Don’t fuck around with me, Jo. You stay right here. They’ll turn up sooner or later unless you gave them a hint over the phone.” Stefan glared at Jo.
“Look, Stefan, I want to go home. I told you I can decode the disk for you. You don’t have to wait for them.”
“What are they saying?” Tadgh asked.
“Can’t you hear them?” Madeline asked.
Tadgh shook his head.
“Can you, Madeline?” Ciaran asked.
Madeline nodded.
“You tried for hours, and you’ve got nothing,” Stefan raised his voice.
“If you knew a scrap of computer programming, you would know it takes an awful lot of time to decode a program at that level. I could have been faster if you’d put me in a habitable place. Not that dingy little hole in the wall you call a house. And if you’d pulled down those silly distracting bells on the veranda, stopped the flutes in the garden, and let me work in the actual house rather than a basement . . .”
“Lower your voice or I’ll hurt you,” Stefan growled. Jo stiffened. Stefan must have pushed his knife harder into her back.
“Coward,” Tadgh snarled and moved forward. Ciaran grabbed at him, pulling him back.
“I can take him. I’m a good shot. I’ll blow his brains out before he even knows what hit him,” Tadgh said.
“Do you know how long it takes to slit someone’s throat, Tadgh? One second. He’s closer to Jo than you are. You haven’t seen what Stefan is capable of. He blew a man’s head off without a thought.”
Tadgh shoved Ciaran away from him.
“As long as Jo behaves, he won’t hurt her,” Ciaran continued. “What did Jo just say, Madeline?”
She repeated it to Ciaran. “She must sense someone is listening. She’s giving us the location of the house.”
Ciaran nodded. “And I know exactly where it is.”
Stefan seemed convinced that there was no point in waiting for Ciaran. He took Jo out of the room.
The text flicked and appeared in front of them again. “Your enemies are attempting to obtain our frequency. If they can get to us, they can get to you. The disk contains the frequency.” A number appeared—a countdown from five seconds.
Five. Four. Three. Two. One.
Ciaran grabbed at Madeline and Tadgh, pulling them back toward the far end of the room. The air stretched, following them like a rubber band.