The Bonehill Curse (17 page)

They both laughed as they careered across the twilight sky.

Ness woke with a start, half expecting to find herself falling, thrown to her death by the rogue carpet. She and Azuli huddled together as best they could, trying to fend off the bitter chill. If only she’d had time to put on a coat or something warmer. She didn’t remember dozing off. The carpet had settled into a steady flight pattern, only bumping occasionally.
I wonder if the carpet is asleep too.

A wave of tired sadness washed over Ness and she tried not to think of the besieged Lashkars or Morris and Scrabsnitch. She thought instead of her father.
Why did he search so hard for the bloodstone? Had he hoped to trap the djinn with it if Uncle Carlos freed it? And what about Mama? What did she wish for?
She thought of her father’s wish. The Lashkars and Scrabsnitch both suggested he’d wished for great wealth because a few months later, her grandparents had died, leaving a fortune to her mother.
Did he really make that wish? Did he know that would happen? Mama would have hated him for it.

Stars glowed, dusted across the dark-blue sky. Down below waves lashed white against a black shoreline.
What country is this?
Ness wondered. The distant, curved horizon grew yellow, waking the purple tops of densely packed mountains.

Day five
, Ness thought.

Azuli stirred as they travelled into daylight and thin wisps of cloud. He gave a start and grabbed Ness’s shoulder. He too was shocked to find he had slept.

‘It’s fine,’ Ness shouted, placing a reassuring hand over his. ‘We’re safe.’ Their eyes met and Ness’s hand lingered just a moment before she snatched it away.

Azuli shook himself and peered over the side of the carpet. ‘Where are we?’ he said, his voice loud above the whistling wind that tousled their hair.

‘I don’t know,’ Ness shouted back, looking at the ever-changing landscape. ‘Not England, for sure. Look.’

She pointed down at the brown earth below. The whole landscape looked parched. The odd scrubby clump of trees and bushes clung to the barren hillsides but little seemed to live in this world.

‘Everything looks dead,’ Azuli said. The carpet gave a menacing flicker, making him grip the edge tightly.

Ness gave a hiss and dug her nails into the carpet. ‘Don’t you dare,’ she snarled. ‘Woken up, have you?’

The carpet gave a few rebellious shudders but kept a steady path.

The ground below drifted by, unchanging. Now and then, a small herd of deer slipped beneath them. Ness swore she saw a caravan of camels but it was hard to tell. The ground became monotonous and unreal.

‘At least we’re warm now,’ she called to Azuli, who grinned back.

But her mirth wore off as they flew on. The sun blazed down, scorching her arms and head. Ness tried talking to Azuli to distract herself from her thirst.

‘How old were you when Taimur took you in?’ she asked.

‘Three or four, I believe,’ Azuli replied. ‘I can’t remember much before that.’

‘Do you remember when the other children were banished?’

Azuli shook his head. ‘No, I was taken in by the Lashkars about nine or ten years after the banishment. They tell the story almost every day though. It is so sad. They fought a fierce djinn called Amoteth. He had slain those who freed him and it took the full might of the Lashkars to subdue him. Jabalah himself wielded the sword. Seeing the finishing blow coming his way, Amoteth cursed Jabalah’s son, all his generation and any dear to them. They simply vanished – the young men, their wives, the grandchildren. Gone.’

‘That’s terrible,’ Ness gasped.

‘Yes, but clever too because it destroyed the Lashkars as a fighting force. Only the old remain. Hafid believes their children are trapped in the same way the djinns were, in a bottle or a jewel or some other item. It is a burden those left behind carry always.’

Ness nodded back but felt too exhausted to continue the conversation. The long, hot day wore on. Her mouth felt thick and dry. The desiccating wind blew hot on her face.

‘We need water,’ Azuli croaked, salty sweat caked on his forehead.

The earth below glared white, dazzling them and reflecting its heat upwards. Ness’s head pounded and whiteness filled her vision. Her lips felt rough and cracked. She screwed up her stinging face against the wind. Bile rose in her throat.

The carpet suddenly lurched downward, making Ness grip the rippling edges. The white earth blinded her but a small spot of black in the distance slowly became a disc of green, then a wreath of shivering leaves.

The carpet wasn’t slowing down. The oasis grew larger and larger. For a second, it filled Ness’s failing vision, then branches whipped at her face, tore at her hair. Somewhere Azuli yelled and the carpet rose as his weight vanished behind Ness.

‘Azuli!’ Ness screamed, groping about the carpet hoping to grab him but she had to keep her eyes shut tight for fear of being blinded by the passing trees. Azuli’s cry faded, growing more distant as he fell.

Ness tugged at the carpet’s front, pulling it up again. For a few brief seconds they flew up and down, veering this way and that as she wrestled for control. Blinding sunlight forced Ness’s eyes shut again as they broke clear of the oasis, then Ness swung her weight to the left, forcing the carpet into a mad downward spiral. The brown desert earth came hurtling towards them and Ness braced herself for the impact. But the carpet also feared such a crash, it seemed, as at the last moment it slowed and skimmed along the hot sand. Even then the stop was abrupt enough to send Ness rolling forward. Her grip on the carpet didn’t loosen so it tangled around her, shielding her body.

With a groan, Ness rolled on to her hands and knees pinning the carpet. ‘You poor excuse for a hearthrug! Why can’t you –’

She stopped as she was gazing down on a pair of brown, scuffed boots. The laces had long gone and holes gaped in the leather. Ness lifted her gaze from the boots up to the legs that stood before her. Brown socks to the knees, skinny, tanned and grazed. Then khaki shorts, a thick leather belt and a ragged shirt stuffed inside. Bony hands rested on the belt as the man stared down at her with a lopsided grin. The man’s whole face seemed crooked; his nose, his teeth, even his eyes seemed to look slightly to one side of her.

‘Well, well,’ he said, scratching his dirty fingers over his stubbly chin. ‘What ’ave we ’ere?’

Trust the dog and the wolf slips into the sheepfold.

T
raditional proverb

Chapter Twenty-three

T
he
C
orporal

Ness dragged herself to her feet, keeping the carpet firmly pinned under one boot, and glanced around.

‘Azuli? Where’s he gone?’ she stammered, panic welling up inside her. ‘I must find him . . . I can’t lose him . . . It’ll be my fault and . . .’

She shaded her eyes and scanned the barren desert landscape. Packages and boxes lay empty and strewn about them. A fire smouldered within a ring of stones in front of a tent that billowed slightly in the faint breeze. Behind her, the green wall of the oasis reared up, menacing and impenetrable.

‘Two of yer, eh?’ the man said, his voice hoarse from years in the desert. ‘With a flyin’ carpet an’ all. Well, this is a turn up for the books an’ no mistake. Do you ’ave a name, girl?’

‘What? Oh, sorry. Necessity.’ Ness gave a nod but continued to gaze into the oasis as if Azuli would pop up above it like a jack-in-the-box. ‘Necessity Bonehill.’

The man stood to attention, stamping his foot and giving a quivering salute which made Ness jump. ‘Corporal Rusty Grubb, Fourth Hinderton Rifles, at your service, miss!’ he yelled, then he squinted one eye at her. ‘Bonehill, y’say? I knew a Bonehill once . . .’

Ness’s head still throbbed. She stopped scanning the treeline and turned to stare at the ragged soldier. ‘Did you say Hinderton Rifles?’ Ness croaked.

‘You know of them?’ Grubb stepped forward excitedly.

‘My father was –’

‘Captain Anthony Bonehill,’ Grubb finished for her. He shook her hand vigorously. ‘I had the, er, the . . . pleasure of servin’ under him in the Hindu Kush.’ Ness noticed his eye wander down to the carpet.

‘Corporal,’ Ness sobbed, swaying slightly. ‘I’ve got to find my friend. I don’t know if he’s alive or . . .’

‘Don’t worry, miss,’ Corporal Grubb said, gripping Ness’s shoulder and steadying her. ‘We’ll search for ’im but you need a drink first. There’s plenty of daylight left. But if he’s in there,’ Grubb gave a sidelong glance at the gloom of the oasis, ‘well, there’s not much ’ope.’

Corporal Grubb disappeared inside his tent for a moment and returned with a canteen full of water.

‘Drink as much as you want, miss. Plenty more coming soon,’ he said, giving a crooked grin. ‘It’ll revive yer good an’ proper, no mistake!’

Ness gratefully poured the water into her mouth and over her face, gasping at how good it tasted and felt. It woke her up. Even her aches from wrestling with the carpet faded. Suddenly Ness felt strong.

She looked down at the ragged black mass that rippled under her foot. Ness fell to her knees and gripped the carpet with both hands. It writhed and squirmed in her grip as she rolled it as tightly as she could.

‘Do you have any rope, Corporal?’ she panted, squashing her fists down on the wriggling roll.

The Corporal glanced about his campsite and seemed to wilt. Ness followed his gaze, frowning. Now she had a proper chance to look at it, the place looked as though it had been ransacked. Crates lay tipped on their sides, empty sacks draped over them, here and there a barrel poked out of the sand, and Ness could see the remains of other tents collapsed and half buried. She thought of Sergeant Major Morris’s cluttered but orderly cottage. The only thing the Corporal and Morris appeared to have in common was a khaki uniform. Grubb’s jawline seemed to waver with indecision whereas Morris’s jutted out defiantly; his shoulders sloped where Morris’s were square. Grubb was a broken man, as far as Ness could see.

‘I’m on me own now,’ the Corporal said in a low voice, stroking his palm over his balding head. ‘Can’t keep the place as shipshape as I’d like.’ He gave a cough and straightened his back. ‘Anyway,’ he said, raising his voice and striding over to one of the submerged tents and rummaging in the sand. ‘I think I might ’ave something better.’ He stood up and revealed a belt with a flourish that reminded Ness of a conjuror. ‘It belonged to one of my boys.’ Grubb looked away. ‘He . . . Well, he don’t need it now.’

Ness wrapped the belt around the carpet and yanked it tight, buckling it and slamming a wooden crate over the whole lot just for good measure. She looked up and saw Grubb scurrying towards the edge of the oasis.

‘You don’t seem very surprised by my appearance,’ Ness called, catching up with him. ‘Or by the carpet, for that matter.’

Grubb gave a twisted grin full of crooked teeth. ‘I’m a corporal in the Fourth Hinderton Rifles,’ he said. ‘I’ve seen most things. You learn to not be surprised by anything.’

‘How did you end up here?’ Ness asked, taking a moment to stare around at the desert. The edge of the oasis was to their left. Thin tree trunks crushed close together, shaded by green leaves. Even in the narrow shadows between the trees, Ness thought she could see movement.

Grubb gave a sigh. ‘I told you. I’m a soldier. The Fourth Hindertons are special though.’ He stopped. ‘
Were
special. I don’t suppose there’s many of us left now, if any.’

‘Why not?’ Ness said.

The Corporal seemed to shudder. ‘It’s an old story,’ he muttered, glancing into the shadows. ‘As the British empire grew, us soldiers found ourselves in stranger and stranger lands. Sometimes we were up against . . . Well, let’s just say against things that shouldn’t exist. It’s a big world and there’s more in it than we understand.’

‘So the Hinderton Rifles were formed to fight these . . . things?’ Ness said.

Grubb turned suddenly and grabbed Ness’s hands. ‘Demons, monsters, wraiths and ghosts, bloodsuckers and night crawlers!’ he gabbled, his eyes wide. ‘I’ve seen ’em all. Killed ’em all. Seen me mates killed by ’em.’ He stopped and shook his head. ‘The bloodsuckers are the worst – they change people . . .’

‘I . . . I’m sorry,’ Ness murmured, easing her hands out of his cold grasp. She remembered Morris’s sometimes strange, haunted behaviour. She didn’t know why but she didn’t want to mention Morris to this man. ‘So what brought you here?’

‘The Amarant.’ Grubb’s eyes glowed. ‘We were an expeditionary force sent into the desert to find this oasis. To find it and destroy it if we could.’

‘Destroy it? Why?’

‘It’s a place of mischief and evil,’ Grubb said, shaking. ‘It was our mission to go in and cut the trees down, every one, raze the place to the ground. Fifty men came ’ere.’

‘Fifty men?’ Ness echoed. ‘And you’re the only one left?’

Grubb looked down, licked his lips. ‘We sent party after party into the oasis. The trees just swallowed them up. They never came out again – well, not all of ’em.’

‘What do you mean?’ Ness frowned.

‘Oh, listen to me,’ Grubb said, his voice a little too loud, a little too cheery. ‘All doom and gloom. Wastin’ time telling horror stories. We’d better find that pal of yours quick time!’