"It"s Professor Start and Dr. Ashanti!" said the other personnel-guy.
Magdalen was wondering why they were talking in exclamation points, why the air smelled so sweet and cold, why such cheerful people didn"t care about blindfolds and gags and guns, and what they were all doing at work at this time . . .
Aneba was trying to identify the smell in the air. His nose twitched and his brain ran through its enormous knowledge of chemicals, plants, and aromas.
"Great! The asthmaguys!" the receptionist cried, and picked up the phone.
"He"ll see you now!" she trilled. "He sounds so pleased to know that you"re here!"
The lights twinkled above and far away.
The lion"s tail was firm and rough and warm in Charlie"s hand.
The cold river air rose up to his right. The hard, cold, steep concrete wall stood immovably to his left.
The dark water was right there beside him.
Step by step, carefully, slowly.
He looked at the young lion"s back. Not at anything else.
Not the necklaces of light on the far, far riverbank.
Not the great, high bridge, growing in height as they drew nearer to it.
Step by step.
He wanted desperately, desperately, to look behind him and see if the mothers had caught up with them. But he couldn"t. If he looked anywhere other than at the lion"s back, he would fall. It was that simple.
Step by step.
He had to place his feet a little closer together on each pace than he would naturally, because the ledge was so narrow. It made him feel slightly as if he were going to lose his balance.
Step by step.
Watching the lion"s back.
Breathing.
Tall.
Strong.
The bridge loomed up in front of them, white and calm. The overpa.s.s to his left had swooped down now behind its great wall. The ledge continued, and so Charlie and the lions continued as well, under the bridge they so longed to cross.
As they came out the other side, the ledge widened a little and Charlie found the courage to look back up at the bridge. There was nothing they could climb to get onto it. How were they going to get up there?
There was another bridge, way ahead upriver. Even if they could get onto that one, it was too far away. They had a train to catch, and maybe an angry guy with a big dog chasing them. Now Charlie could see the great iron and gla.s.s curve of the roof of the station, just there across the river. So near-only a few hundred yards. For a second he looked down at the water that separated him from the station. He shivered.
Then the young lion stopped. Charlie let go of his tail in surprise. The lion flicked it, once this way, once that.
"Charlie," he hissed, over his shoulder.
"Yes," whispered Charlie.
"There"s an entrance here-a small tunnel. We could go in. What do you think?"
Troy was at first confused by the scents of the three lionesses going in three different directions.
Rafi stood dripping on the quayside by the Circe, Circe, glaring at him. glaring at him.
"Find the scent, Troy," he said in a dangerously polite tone. Some last stragglers from the audience noticed him, and stood for a moment looking on in curiosity at the sodden, angry youth. He jerked his head back and gave them such a filthy look that they fled, chattering.
Troy ran to and fro, whining and snuffling at the ground. Here, there . . . Then he picked up the scent of the yellow lioness, whose fur he had been given to smell, and raced swiftly down the basin after her. When he came to the lock, he balked at following the scent across the narrow gate-tops, but with Rafi yelling at him from behind, he had little choice. Rafi followed him, nimbly, considering he couldn"t move his arm.
The lioness was perched motionless on top of the remote lock control. In the dark she just looked like a lump. Troy knew he was close, but he had no idea how close.
The beam that pa.s.sing boats had to trip to operate the lock shone out invisibly just beneath her.
As Rafi and Troy reached the safety-as they thought it-of the other side, she let her tail droop.
Flicked it slowly across the beam.
Yes.
A creak and a shudder warned that the lockgates were beginning to open. A growl and a leap and a thwack in the face with a golden tail were enough to confuse Rafi and Troy. Another leap-onto the gates as they began to swing open, and from one gate to the other-yes-just before they swung too far open for the gap to be leaped.
And there they were. Rafi and Troy on the far side of the ca.n.a.l, with no way back till the slow-moving lock closed again in, oh, twenty minutes. The yellow lioness gleaming her teeth at them from this side.
She gave a short, sharp roar.
The silvery lioness heard her, and using the same trick, set off the lock at the other end of the basin. It wouldn"t start to work till the first lock was closed again, but for now Rafi and Troy were cut off, and however they tried to cross back, it would take much longer. Then the silvery lioness and the bronze lioness left their hiding places and swiftly, quietly hurtled down to join their friend.
"We should go in," said the young lion. "It might lead somewhere, and anywhere is better than here."
"Okay," said Charlie, glad that someone else had made the decision. He called back to the others what they were going to do, and then took the lion"s tail again as they plunged into the darkness of this tiny riverside tunnel. It led directly into the bank.
Inside it was dark, and the water in there was smelly and sc.u.mmy-plastic bottles bobbed and Charlie could tell from the smell that there was litter and dirty caked-up foam. That meant that the water stopped somewhere up ahead of them-moving water would not smell this bad. If only the path would continue . . .
It did. Twenty yards inside the tunnel, the ledge suddenly widened out into a stone quay like the ones by the Ca.n.a.l St. Martin, and the water came to an end. Charlie could just make out what looked like a big, round pipe sticking out of the wall ahead of them, dripping weed and smelling disgusting. Drains, Charlie thought. Sewage, maybe. Old, old drains.
An open doorway led into the wall behind the quay. Again, the stonework was old and finely made, but by the look of it, n.o.body ever came here.
"Stay here a moment," Charlie whispered to the lions. "I"ll go and see where it leads." He hoped that the lionesses would catch up to them while they stopped. Catch up and say that the splash was just someone falling in, that the scream was just a scream of getting wet.
Wrinkling their noses and flaring their whiskers at the smell, the lions prepared to wait.
Concentrate, thought Charlie. Be grateful-if he"s in the ca.n.a.l, or if they"ve wounded him, he won"t be following, at least not so quickly . . .
"I"ll be as fast as I can," he said.
"Thanks," said Elsina, whose little nose was as wrinkled up as a prune. She lay down on the stone pavement and buried it in her paws.
Through the door was a staircase, cut into the stone.
Up the staircase was another doorway. Through that doorway was a chamber. Charlie silently peered through to see what was there.
It was mostly dark, but there was a dim light coming from somewhere, just enough to show him that the chamber was smallish, grubby, and absolutely filled with trash. But it was not just a dump. It was organized. Three supermarket carts stood in a row, full of bits of old-fashioned wires and plugs and the insides of electrical devices. One corner was piled high with big black plastic bags, some of which spilled pieces of cloth. Also, there was a small, low folding table with a mug on it, and some cushions put there as if two or three people might sit on them to talk to one another. And there was what could have been a bed.
And on that bed was what could have been a person.
And what could have been a person rolled over, and snored deeply, and flung out an arm, which knocked over a tall, ornate gla.s.s water pipe. The top fell off and some of the water spilled, and some last embers of tobacco fell out on the floor, sending the aromatic smell of apple tobacco out into the room, and reminding Charlie of the Arab cafes in London, and the delicious pastries made of nuts and honey . . .
Concentrate!
Across the room was a metal gate. Beyond it, the night sky, with the huge road beneath it.
Whoever brings this stuff in here must bring it in from somewhere; must have access to the outside. Access on foot-something other than the overpa.s.s, which no one could walk on.
Charlie turned back down the stairs. Maybe the mothers would be there. Maybe they"d have caught up.
They weren"t. They hadn"t.
He said to the lions: "Come on. There"s someone up there, but he"s asleep. Wait in the doorway and I"ll see if I can open the gate to the outside."
His heart was beating fast as he led the lions back up the stairs. They coiled themselves in the doorway, just out of the light, and silently waited for him, their eyes lazy but their whiskers alert. As he stepped out into the dim, grubby room, Charlie felt very strongly his responsibility to them.
It was difficult to cross that room in silence. There were things all over the floor, and there were dark corners and curious shadows, and there was the scary snoring figure, and there was very little light. It wasn"t really Charlie"s fault that he stepped on an old rollerskate, then fell into a pile of sc.r.a.p metal and hit his head, and yelled, and that the sleeping man woke up screeching. And it certainly wasn"t Charlie"s fault that the lions glanced at one another, and then leaped as one from the doorway to the man"s bedside, where they surrounded him, staring down at him, their claws out, their eyes intent, their fang-filled jaws hanging open, growling, ready to pounce.
"Stop it!" yelled Charlie.
The poor man shrieked and shrieked. The oldest lion put his paw on the man"s chest and roared. It worked. He stopped shrieking and started gibbering instead, but this was at least quieter.
"Stop it," said Charlie. "Please."
The lions looked around.
"You"re scaring-" He had meant to say "You"re scaring him." It came out as "You"re scaring me."
Elsina looked at him sideways.
The oldest lion flicked his whiskers.
"Sorry," said the young lion.
Charlie thought quickly.
Then he went over to the mangy bed.
"Taisez-vous," he said. It means shut up, but he hoped by putting in the polite form of he said. It means shut up, but he hoped by putting in the polite form of "Taisez-vous" "Taisez-vous" instead of instead of "Tais-toi," "Tais-toi," the man might realize that he didn"t mean to be rude. the man might realize that he didn"t mean to be rude.
How silly. There with three lions on his chest, the man would not be worrying about manners.
"We are a nightmare," he said. "You mustn"t tell anyone about us. Do you want to get rid of us? Tell us where the road is. Then we can go there. How do we get to the bridge?"
The man, who was not very old, and had a pleasant face as far as could be seen beneath his abject terror, could not speak. He tried to-he seemed to want to, but though his mouth moved and his tongue flapped, no noise emerged.
"Lions," murmured Charlie, "perhaps you should get off him for a bit."
The lions withdrew, and lay like a circle of sphinxes a few feet from the man.
He looked up at Charlie and blinked and swallowed.
"Take your time," said Charlie. "But not too long. We"re in a hurry."
The man looked back at the lions. And back at Charlie. When he spoke, finally, it was in Arabic.
"But they"re Moroccan!" he shouted.
"Indeed," said Charlie, a little surprised that the man should know such a thing. "So what?"
"So am I!" shouted the man. Having regained his voice, he now seemed unable to control it. Fear does funny things to people.
"Salaam alec.u.m," said Charlie. "Now how do we get to the bridge?" said Charlie. "Now how do we get to the bridge?"
"Left out of here, up the staircase, and it"s on the left," the man said, staring and clutching his blanket to him. "The gate is open."
"Thank you," said Charlie in Arabic. "Alif Shukr. A thousand thanks." A thousand thanks."
"One is enough," said the man, wild-eyed, as the lions trooped past him, out onto the deserted, silent, midnight riverbank.
Charlie had hoped that if anybody saw them, they"d think they were a trick of the light, a cat, an urban fox. "That cat looked huge, huge," they might say. "Did you see it?" But the cat would be gone, and the night would be still again. Yet from the shadows at the top of the staircase, they could see that it was still too busy for them to cross the bridge on the pavement.
On the outside of the bridge"s wall, there was a ledge. It was much the same width as the ledge alongside the river, and it was several hundred feet up in the air.
"We can use that," said the oldest lion.