Battle of the Beasts

Angel looked up from under the table.

“Leave this place and never tell anyone about what you saw.”

“But what am I supposed to do?” complained Angel, climbing out. “I quit my old job to work for Mr Kristoff. How am I supposed to get a new one?”

“Start over,” said Hayes.

“I’m too old to start over,” said Angel.

Hayes answered by unscrewing the top of his cane. Brendan was sure he was going to draw out a sword and skewer Angel with it, but instead he pulled out a tightly rolled piece of paper. A spell scroll, Brendan thought. Hayes declared, “Famulus famuli mei, transfigura!”

An explosion of smoke obscured Angel’s body. For a moment Brendan thought Hayes had made him disappear. But when the smoke cleared, and the driver stepped out …

He was seventeen years old!

Angel looked like a million bucks. He was tall and muscular, without any of the padding he’d picked up driving limos.

“You’re a senior in high school again. You have a second chance to make something of yourself. Study, find a nice girl, and play some baseball,” Hayes said, unlocking one of the doors.

Angel wasted no time hustling out, grinning as he took a selfie with his phone.

“You should have killed him,” said Kristoff.

“That’s where you and I differ,” said Hayes. “You’d resort to violence to keep Angel quiet. I give him hope, a new life, and he’ll still keep quiet.”

“My methods are more secure,” said Kristoff.

“Your methods are more emotional,” Hayes said, “and clearly you won’t listen to reason.” He began to pace in a circle. “So perhaps you’ll listen to proof.”

“Excuse me?”

“What if I could contact your daughter’s spirit?” Hayes looked up. Brendan followed his eyes to the portraits that hung over the room, featuring the old Bohemian Club members. “What if I used the help of our brothers to summon her soul, and communicate with it? Then would you believe she was well and truly gone?”

Kristoff stammered … as Hayes started lighting candles.

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“I don’t want you to do a séance, please,” Eleanor begged. She was getting very frightened as the crouched, make-up-caked Aldrich Hayes placed a wooden board on the long table in the Bohemian Club’s great hall. The table was lit up with candles like a birthday cake. Eleanor was holding still, her shoulder in the grip of Denver Kristoff’s big hand, but now she was getting way too scared to be here. If Hayes were really going to do a séance, that meant ghosts and spirits, and Eleanor wasn’t sticking around for that. Luckily, by not moving for so long, she had made Denver Kristoff relax his grip, and with Hayes tending to the table, she broke free!

Eleanor ran towards the doorway that Angel had just walked out of. Kristoff called angrily after her, but she didn’t turn around – and then she heard Hayes’s voice, calm: “Wait, little one. You’ll be needing some money.”

Eleanor stopped, turned back. Did I hear that right?

Apparently she did. Because Hayes was holding out a hundred-dollar bill.

“I want you to get a taxi, go back to your parents, and never tell anyone about being here. And keep the change. Understand?”

“You’re letting me go?”

“Mr Kristoff was wrong to bring you here.”

Eleanor glanced at Kristoff, who stood behind Hayes. He was clearly angry but also powerless. The old man really was his boss. Eleanor hesitantly took the hundred-dollar bill and strode towards the door. Behind her, she heard Kristoff whisper to Hayes: “You’re making a mistake. We should get rid of her. Permanently. I know a place under the Bay Bridge where we can dispose of the body—”

“Enough. Make yourself useful and bring me more candles—”

“I’m not your servant—”

“You are in my home and you will follow my rules.”

Eleanor paused as she approached the door, catching sight of something above. She turned slowly, so Hayes and Kristoff wouldn’t notice—

And saw Brendan staring down at her.

He was upstairs, on the balcony, next to Will!

Have they been up there the whole time?

Eleanor had to get to them.

Two sets of doors stood in front of her: one that led out of the great hall and one that led to the street. She went through the first set and opened the second, so it would sound like she was leaving … but then she dashed left, climbing the stairs to the balcony. She squeezed her eyes shut as she passed a pedestal holding a glass-encased stuffed falcon with huge, sharp claws. She had to get past all the scary stuff in this place. She had to get to Brendan and Will. And there they were! So close …

Control yourself, stay steady, no sudden movements, she thought, but it was all she could do not to cry out as she fell into them.

Their three-way hug was as strong as it was silent. It had only been a few hours since Eleanor had finished her riding lesson with Crow, but she thought she was never going to see her family again, and knowing that Bren and Will had come reminded her: Sometimes your siblings annoy you, but sometimes they save your life.

Then, all of a sudden, the lights in the Bohemian Club went out.

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Eleanor, Brendan and Will turned to the great room below, where there was a faint glow.

The white candles on the long table were arranged in a figure of eight stretching from one end to the other. Hayes and Kristoff stood at the centre of the table. Beside them was an ancient record player, equipped with a rusted wind-up crank and a large metal horn. Next to it was the wooden board that Hayes had brought to the table before. Brendan and Eleanor didn’t recognise it, but Will knew it was a planchette, a board used for “automatic writing”. A pencil was stuck through its middle, and the idea was that if a spirit contacted you during a séance, you placed your hand on the board and allowed the spirit to guide you, spelling out the words it wanted to say automatically on paper below. Planchettes were forerunners to the Ouija board, which Will knew since the whole idea of speaking with spirits was very popular in his time.

Hayes put a black vinyl record on the record player, dropped the needle and turned the crank. A squeaky, wince-inducing sound filled the room. Brendan, Eleanor and Will held their breath.

The record player let out a loud crack, and then staccato pops, signalling that music could start at any moment.

But the sound that followed wasn’t music.

It was a heartbeat – but very, very slow, as if a human heart had been slowed by a factor of fifty. It sounded like a cross between interstellar static and a giant’s footsteps. Fat Jagger’s footsteps! Eleanor thought, suddenly missing the brave and simple-minded colossus the Walkers had met in their last adventure. If only Fat Jagger were here, he would get us out of this. He was my friend.

As the slowed-down heartbeat played, a mist came out of nowhere – like the water on our car in the morning, thought Eleanor. It filled the room, from the air around Eleanor’s fingers to the space between the portraits of the old Bohemian Club members. And as it drifted around the room, the heartbeat began to get faster, just a tiny bit. Hayes and Kristoff started chanting.

“Diablo tan-tun-ka.” “Diablo tan-tun-ka.”

They reached for each other across the table. Their fingertips were just able to touch. They moved their arms back and forth in a fluid ellipse, almost as if they were dancing.

“Diablo tan-tun-ka.” “Diablo tan-tun-ka.”