Drake hadn"t realised until that moment that he had been tense, but now he felt himself relax a little. "Right," he said. "That"s good to know."
"Although," War said, "if he put things in place before he left, if he had a plan a" and G.o.d knows, he had enough time to come up with one a" then... aye. Maybe he could."
The relief that had washed over Drake drained slowly away. "He could really end the world?"
War nodded gravely. "I wouldn"t put it past him."
"And what if he tries to kill me again? What if he sends more robot things?"
"We"ll keep our eyes open," War said, but the way he shrugged didn"t do much to put Drake at ease.
"Right, I give up," Pest announced in a voice filled with shrill annoyance. "I had Saint James the Lesser, OK? Happy now?" He held up a picture of a bearded man, then stuffed it back into the pack. "Drake, you"re playing him," he said, glaring at Famine. "Good luck, it"s like beating your head against a brick wall."
Drake stood up. "No, I can"t hang about," he said. "I need to get home."
War frowned. Pestilence stopped shuffling. Famine took a bite from a Victoria Sponge.
"Home?" War said.
"Yeah, I don"t want to be too late a" my mum will get worried," Drake told them.
Pest cleared his throat, but didn"t say anything. War"s leather armour creaked as he leaned back in his chair.
"You are home, boy," he said. "Your old life a" you have to leave that behind. You are no longer Drake Finn, you are the Fourth Horseman. You are the rider on the pale horse. You are Death."
"For the next ninety days," Drake reminded him. "After that, I quit, remember? So, in the meantime, I"m going home, OK?"
None of the hors.e.m.e.n moved to stop him, so Drake left the shed and pulled the door firmly closed behind him.
A few seconds later, the door opened again. "I"ll see you tomorrow after school," he said, then he clicked the door closed for a second time, and slipped off into the high gra.s.s.
Next morning, Drake walked down the front path, swallowing the last bite of his breakfast. He swung the gate open and strode out, then almost tripped over someone sitting on the pavement.
"Hi. Didn"t expect to see you here," said Mel. Her back was leaning against the fence, her legs straight out in front of her, feet together.
Drake"s mind raced. His mouth dropped open.
"Now you"re supposed to say, *What, exiting my front garden just before school time?"," Mel prompted.
The vaguely awkward school-gates conversation from yesterday replayed in his head. "Yeah," he mumbled. "What are the chances?"
Mel popped to her feet and brushed some little stones and muck from the back of her skirt. "Mind if I walk you to school?" she asked. "You can say no if you want, but I"ll just follow you anyway, shouting abuse." She put a hand to the side of her mouth. "ABUSE ! " she cried. "See, like that?"
"OK, yeah, that"d be great," Drake said. He began walking, and Mel followed along. "How do you know where I live?" he asked.
Mel shrugged. "I have my sources. But the reason I came a" I remembered what I was meant to tell you yesterday."
"Oh, right," said Drake. "What was it?"
"Dr Black."
"Dr Black?"
"Dr Black," Mel repeated. "He came to Mr Franks"s cla.s.s yesterday after you"d left, pretending to be all worried about you."
"How do you know he was pretending?" Drake asked.
"Because he doesn"t worry about anyone," Mel said. "So, straight away my suspicions are aroused, I"m like, *Dr Black, worried about someone? No chance.""
"Right," said Drake, a little uncertainly. "Was that it?"
"You think I"d walk all the way over here just to tell you that?" Mel scoffed.
"What, then?"
"He started accusing you of stuff. Well, not exactly accusing, but pointing the finger of suspicion, let"s say." She prodded him in the chest. "At you."
"What did he say?"
"That you were the last one to see the missing kids."
A frown creased Drake"s forehead. "Well, he"s lying, I don"t even know who they are."
"He said something about... outside the toilets?"
Drake felt his stomach tighten. He stopped walking. "Wait, they"re not those three little spotty guys, are they?"
"Yeah, that"s them. So... what? You were the last to see them?"
"Yeah," said Drake absent-mindedly. "I mean, no, no, I wasn"t. He was. He took them away after that. I saw him taking them through a door in his cla.s.sroom."
"So then he was lying," Mel realised. "Why would he be lying?"
"I don"t know," Drake said. He thought about the floating sphere, and about the fact it had come from within the history teacher"s cla.s.sroom. "But I think we"d better try to find out."
HE CASTS HIS wretched gaze across the sands that stretch into infinity on all sides of him. The whirlpools of his eyes tilt down, down, before finally coming to rest on a rectangular indent on the desert floor. Somewhere, far off to his left, a purely vocal arrangement of Queen"s Another One Bites the Dust drifts across the plains.
He turns, once more, and slips through the barrier between that dimension and the next.
Again.
WHEN THE BELL rang for morning break, they both knew what they had to do.
Drake had practised the route in his head all morning so he wouldn"t waste time finding his way. Even so, Mel made it to Dr Black"s room before he did. She was standing by the door, keeping guard, when Drake finally came clattering along the corridor.
"He"s out on patrol," Mel told him. "He does it every break and lunchtime, just strides around scowling at everyone. We"ve got fifteen minutes."
"That should be enough," Drake said. He grasped the door handle, then paused, feeling his heart pick up the pace. The last time he had opened this door he had almost been killed. But Mel was already nudging him, and his hand was already turning the handle.
The door creaked open, revealing a room devoid of any mechanical monsters. Drake let out a shaky breath as Mel brushed past him into the cla.s.sroom.
"So, what are we looking for, exactly?" she asked, as she slid open a drawer on the teacher"s desk.
Drake didn"t quite know what to say to that. There had been no need to explain anything to Mel when he asked her to help him sneak into Dr Black"s room. She had agreed without asking any questions, and had seemed genuinely excited by the idea. Now, though, even she was starting to look a little apprehensive.
"I don"t know," Drake admitted. "But three dead bodies, maybe."
Mel stopped. She slid the drawer closed. "Doubt they"ll be in there, then."
"That"s the door they went in," Drake said. Mel followed his gaze.
"That"s just a cupboard," she said. "Why would he put them in a cupboard?"
"Not for anything good," Drake guessed.
Mel crept past him until she reached the cupboard door. She looked round the edges, where the door met the frame, as if checking for b.o.o.by traps. Finally, she placed her hand on the handle.
"Ready?" she asked.
Drake swallowed. He felt more nervous at that moment than he had in the cave back in Limbo. "Ready."
"Here goes," Mel said. She held her breath as she pushed down the handle. The door didn"t open. "Well, that"s disappointing," she sighed, letting the breath out. She crouched down and studied the keyhole directly below the handle, then put one eye to it. There was only darkness on the other side. "What do we do now?"
Drake joined her at the door. He pressed his ear to the wood, and rapped on it three times. "h.e.l.lo?" he said.
"h.e.l.lo," came a reply, but it hadn"t come from inside the cupboard. "Can I help you, children?" asked Dr Black. He spat the last word out, as if it left a sour taste in his mouth.
"Hi, Dr Black," said Mel, smiling innocently. Her lips were moving before Drake"s brain had even realised the need for an excuse. "Drake and I were having an argument about the Second World War. I say D-Day came before V-Day, but he says V-Day came first. I know, he"s an idiot, right? Anyway, we thought, who better to help settlea""
"Silence," Dr Black said.
"To help settle the argument than Dr Black, the most informed history teacher in the wholea""
Dr Black"s voice made the windows rattle in their frames. "I said be quiet !"
Mel stopped talking. The teacher glared at her for several seconds, the air whistling in and out of his hooked nose as he breathed. When he was certain she wasn"t about to start babbling again, he turned his gaze on the boy beside her.
"What are you doing in my room?" he asked. His voice was low and controlled, but menacing enough that anyone hearing it would be in no doubt that it could become very loud again, very quickly.
"We were just looking around," Drake said. From the corner of his eye, he saw Mel wince. But he wasn"t trying to make excuses. He wanted the truth. Drake drew himself up to his full height. "We were looking for the kids who went missing. I saw them go into your cupboard."
Dr Black"s expression did not change. "Did you, indeed?"
"And you were there," Drake continued. "I saw you," he said, although he realised that this wasn"t strictly true.
"And so you suspect I had something to do with their disappearance," Dr Black said. He clicked his tongue against the roof of his mouth. "And who else have you spoken to about this?"
"No one," Drake said. A nagging doubt told him this was the wrong thing to say. The feeling was confirmed when a relieved smile spread across Dr Black"s face.
"Lucky for me, then. I dread to think what such wild accusations could do to my reputation, were they to spread to the populace at large."
He looked from Drake to Mel and back again, as if deciding what to do with them. At last, he turned and strode across to the window. "With me, Mr Finn."
Drake hesitated. The cla.s.sroom door was open. They could make a break for it while the teacher"s back was turned. But then what? They"d know nothing more than they knew already, and then they"d always be running from Dr Black.
He walked over to the window, with Mel following along behind him.
"What do you see out there, Mr Finn?" Dr Black asked.
Drake looked through the grubby gla.s.s. The cla.s.sroom was one storey up, giving it a reasonably good view of the rectangle of concrete that made up the bulk of the school grounds.
"Kids," Drake said, looking down at the heads of the children roaming below. "Just kids."
"Look closer." Dr Black tapped a bony finger against the gla.s.s. It sounded like he was. .h.i.tting it with a stone. "Down there."
Drake looked in the direction the teacher had indicated.
"Ah," said Mel. "That"s cleared that up, then."
Three familiar figures leaned against a wall. They were much shorter than the kids around them, but the others were giving them a wide berth, all the same.
"They turned up this morning," Dr Black explained. "They had decided to run away, it seems, but quickly changed their minds. Nevertheless, as you can see, Mr Finn, they are very much not in my cupboard."
"Right, neither they are," Mel said. She caught Drake by the arm and began pulling him towards the door. "Sorry for the mix-up, glad you"re not a child-killer, Dr Black. Keep it up."
"Wait." Dr Black raised a hand. "Mr Finn, I would very much like to talk to you." He glared at Mel. "In private."
Mel hesitated. She was going to argue, Drake knew. That would do neither of them any good. "It"s fine," he told her, forcing a smile. "I"ll catch up with you."
Reluctantly, Mel made for the door. "I"ll see you in a bit," she said, and then she was gone.
Drake turned back to the window, but Dr Black was no longer there. He was sitting at his desk, his fingers loosely clasped in front of him. He indicated with a nod of his head that Drake should sit at one of the desks in the front row.
"I called for you to come to my cla.s.sroom yesterday," the teacher began, once Drake was sitting down. "But you did not. Why?"
"I had a doctor"s appointment."
The teacher"s eyebrows arched. "Nothing serious, I trust?"
"Just a check-up."
"Ah. Very good. One can never be too careful when it comes to the subject of one"s health. After all, one only lives once."
Drake remained silent.
"What would it be like, do you think? Death. What would death be like?"
"I don"t know," Drake said. He hadn"t missed the way Dr Black had emphasised the word. "Don"t really plan finding out for a while."