"Out here?"
"Yes, out here, where there"s less chance of you accidentally killing anyone."
Drake"s stomach went tight. "I"m not killing anyone," he said quickly. "Is that what I"m supposed to do? I"m not doing that."
"Accidentally killing anyone, I said," War growled. "No one"s asking you to kill anyone on purpose."
"But isn"t that what I do, though?" Drake asked. He was suddenly realising exactly what he might have got himself into. "I mean, if I"m Death, that"s what I do, right?" He clamped a hand over his mouth. "Oh my G.o.d, I"m evil, aren"t I? Death, War, Famine, Pestilence; we"re all evil!"
"No one has to kill anyone," Pestilence explained. "All we"re supposed to do is ride the horses across the sky come Judgement Day. We"re like mascots, really. Just sort of cutting the ribbon to declare Armageddon open for business."
"And we"re not evil," War said. His nostrils were flared in a sneer, as if the very suggestion offended him. "Wars can lead to freedom. A plague or a famine have no will of their own, they"re natural events."
"But what about me?" Drake asked quietly. "Death"s evil, isn"t it?"
"Murder"s evil," War said. "But death? No. Death can be the end of suffering. Death can be a welcome visitor. I have seen people begging for death, and weeping with relief when it finally came. Most people fear death, but sometimes, in the end, it"s the only friend they"ve got."
"And on that cheerful note," said Pest, doing his best to ease the tension, "let"s get on with the training!"
Drake rapped his knuckles against the side of the tin hut. Clang, clang, clang. He turned to War. "You want me to do what?"
War sighed. "Enter the shack."
"But not through the door?"
"No, not through the door. What would be the point in that? *Here"s your third challenge a" walk through a door." No, I don"t think so."
Drake studied the wall of the hut again. It was made of a heavy corrugated iron, rusted in patches, but still completely solid.
"But I can"t walk through the wall," Drake said. "I mean, it"s impossible."
"To Drake Finn, maybe, but not to Death," War explained. "Death can go anywhere. Nothing can hold it out, not distance, not magic and certainly not a rusty sheet of metal."
"It"s a belief thing," Pestilence said encouragingly. "I believe you can do it. The question is a" do you?"
"No," said Drake, shaking his head. "I don"t."
"Go on, give it a try," said Pest. "I bet you"ll be a natural." Drake looked doubtful. He brushed a hand against the metal. It still felt solid.
"OK, I"ll try," he said, prompting a short burst of excited applause from Pestilence.
Taking two paces back, Drake lined himself up with the side of the metal shack. He straightened his back, held his head high and closed his eyes.
"Here goes," he muttered, then he took one pace, two paces, thra"
THUD.
Drake opened his eyes. His face was pressed against the side of the shack.
"Oh, aye, a natural," War snorted.
"It"s impossible," Drake insisted. "I can"t do it."
"Because you didn"t believe you could," War said. "You shuffled up there like you were queuing for your pension. You were just waiting to hit the wall."
"Of course I was!" Drake snapped. "I knew I was going to."
"You don"t get it, do you?" War roared. Startled by the sound, a flock of nearby birds took to the air in panic. "There is no wall! Not to you! Nothing can keep you out!"
He pointed to a spot some ten metres away from the shack. "Get over there," he growled. "Take a run up at it, don"t slow down, just pretend it"s not there and you"ll sail right through."
"Buta""
"Now! " War bellowed. Drake could tell from the way the veins were standing out on the giant"s forehead that he probably shouldn"t argue. He walked over to the spot and turned to face the hut. It suddenly looked to be a long way away.
"Right, now run," War barked.
"Fast as you can."
"Fast as I can," Drake said. "Right."
He sprang forward like a sprinter off the blocks, his hands bunched tightly into fists.
"You can do it, Drake," he heard Pest cry, and then he was past the other hors.e.m.e.n, powering on, throwing himself at full speed at the rigid metal barrier...
A flash of panic filled his head. Rigid metal barrier.
He hit it shoulder-first and his whole skeleton shook with the impact. There was a sharp squeal that Drake at first thought must be Pestilence, but then the wall collapsed, and Drake"s momentum carried him through on top of it.
There was more squealing from the other walls as the metal tore, and they slowly folded in like a house of cards on top of him.
Drake didn"t think he could feel any pain, but he couldn"t be entirely sure. He lay there, just in case, pinned beneath the corrugated iron. Eventually, a pair of powerful hands lifted the walls away.
"Well, that was one way to get inside," Pestilence said, smiling cheerfully. "But maybe we should try something else?"
Drake looked down at his school uniform. It was stained with patches of orange, where it had come into contact with the rust. His shoulder throbbed where it had connected with the metal. More than that, though, there was another sensation niggling at him. Shame. He was embarra.s.sed by his performance. Behind War"s beard, Drake was sure the giant was laughing.
He looked up and saw that the sky overhead was slowly darkening.
"No more training," he said. "I want to go home."
The veins on War"s head stood out again, but he didn"t shout this time. Instead, he stomped past Drake and swung himself up into the saddle of his ruby red horse. "I tell you," he muttered, "this ninety days can"t end soon enough."
With a "Yah! " and a tug of the reins, War and his horse took to the sky and were quickly lost among the clouds.
"He doesn"t mean it," said Pest softly.
Drake sniffed. "I don"t care," he said. "Just take me home."
DRAKE LAY IN bed, listening to the ticking of his clock. He"d stopped looking at it a few hours ago, when the hands had been creeping past one o"clock. No matter how hard he"d tried since then, he couldn"t fall asleep.
He put it down to worry. He could never sleep when he was worried, and right now things were queuing up to be worried about.
Someone was trying to kill him. Someone had tried to kill him. Twice. That was one of the things bothering him, but that wasn"t even the biggie.
Armageddon. The end of the world. It sounded ridiculous a" the idea that the whole world could just suddenly and abruptly come to a stop. How could one man destroy the whole world and everyone on it? It seemed impossible.
And yet both Pestilence and War had said it was possible. And, of course, Death Nine wasn"t just any normal man.
Drake thought about that. The old Death was human now a" someone *dark and sinister" if Pestilence was right. That pointed to one obvious suspect. And the metal sphere had come from inside his cla.s.sroom.
Could Dr Black be the old Death? Drake had been relieved when Mr Franks showed up to take him away from the history teacher"s cla.s.sroom, but now he couldn"t help but wonder what he might have found out if he"d hung around.
The cupboard, he thought, might still hold some answers, even if it didn"t hold the bodies of Bingo and his cohorts. It was worth a look, anyway. He"d have to find some way of unlocking the door, of course, but maybe there"d be something in there to help him figure out if Dr Black really was Death number nine. And, if he was, maybe there"d be some sort of clue as to whether he really was capable of ending the world.
Drake rolled over, making the bed creak. A few nights ago he"d been lying awake worrying about starting school. Now he was lying awake worrying about the Apocalypse. A lot had happened since Monday.
Drake got up, tiptoed to the window and looked out. Through the darkness, he could just make out a small red roof at the far end of the garden.
Pulling on a jumper and wriggling his feet into his shoes, Drake undid the window latch, and quietly slid the wooden frame open.
Famine was sitting on the gra.s.s outside the shed, his back leaning against a side wall. He looked up as Drake approached, revealing a face smeared with streaks of brown. The fat man"s fingers dipped into a jar of chocolate spread he held between his thighs. He scooped out a dollop of the stuff, licked the finger clean, then clamped a pudgy hand over the jar.
"It"s mine," he said.
"Yeah, I know," Drake said. "I"m not hungry, anyway."
"Lucky you," Famine replied, as he scooped out some more of the gooey spread.
Drake sat on the gra.s.s beside him. "I couldn"t sleep," he said. "Thought some fresh air might help."
"It won"t," Famine said. "You don"t need as much sleep now. Hardly any, really."
"Really? I don"t know if that"s good or bad," Drake admitted.
"Bad," Famine told him. "Very bad. Being awake"s overrated."
Drake thought about this. "I suppose you could get lots done, though, without sleep."
"Maybe. If you had something worth doing," Famine said. "All we have to do is wait. You don"t need to be awake to wait."
He reached the bottom of the jar. Drake watched in horrified fascination as the horseman stuck his tongue into the container and began licking the inside clean.
"You"re doing the right thing, I reckon," Famine said, when the jar was spotless.
"What do you mean?"
"Jacking it in. We"ve been waiting on the call for what, six or seven thousand years now? Starting to drag a bit, if I"m being honest. You"re best getting out when you can."
"How come you"ve all lasted?" Drake asked. "Why is it just Death that keeps a"" he reached for a suitable word, but couldn"t find one a" "cracking up?"
Famine shrugged. The shed he was leaning against creaked loudly in protest. "Death"s the leader, and he"s the most powerful. Maybe it"s that that does it. The power. Or maybe it"s the responsibility. Don"t ask me."
"The most powerful?" Drake muttered. "I can"t even summon my horse."
"You"ll get there. It just takes practice. And the right mindset."
"And the ability to whistle," Drake added.
Famine grunted what might have been a laugh. "Yeah, that"s a help an" all." He lifted up a roll of flab and pulled out a tin of mackerel. "You really can"t whistle?" he asked, cracking the ring pull and tearing open the lid.
Drake put his fingers in his mouth and blew. A slightly damp silence emerged. "Nope," he said. "I"ve never been able to do it."
Famine lifted the can to his lips and half drank, half ate the fishy contents. Drake thought that it was just as well he wasn"t hungry. After that, he didn"t think he"d ever want to eat again.
"What"s your horse like?" Drake asked, when Famine had wiped the oily fish residue from his chin.
"Bandy-legged," Famine said, then he laughed a hollow laugh. "I don"t ride much, these days." He looked at his hands, all smeared with oil and fish bits. "Don"t do much of anything, these days."
They sat in silence for a while longer. "I think... I mean, I"m not sure, but I think one of my teachers might be Death. The old Death, I mean. The last one."
"Oh?"
"Yeah. Dr Black, his name is. Do you think he could be?"
Famine shrugged. "Why don"t you ask him?"
"Well, because he might try to kill me again, for one thing."
"Yeah, he might at that. Still, I suppose it"ll all be over soon."
Drake frowned. "What do you mean?"
"The Apocalypse. If he kicks it all off, it"ll all be over for everyone. Won"t have to worry about anything any more."
Drake thought about this. "Yeah. I suppose."
He got to his feet. There was a strong breeze blowing around the garden, and he was surprised he didn"t feel cold. "I"m going to head back to bed and lie awake until morning."
"Sounds like a plan," Famine said.
Drake gave him a nod. "See you later."
"See you later."
Drake was almost at the wall of weeds when he stopped. "Do you mind if I ask you something?"
Famine shook his head. "I don"t mind."