London Belongs to the Alchemist (Class Heroes Book 4) Read online

  James had succeeded in freeing the prize. He flicked the catch on the front of the container and opened the lid. Sam peered inside. It was almost a disappointment to see a clear bag containing smaller sachets of red powder. Super D.

  “Is that it?” she asked.

  James rummaged in the box.

  “Just that. But there’s a lot of it. Imagine if all the kids at school came down here and took it.”

  “And Al said there were a thousand of these all round the city.” It wasn’t a nice prospect.

  Sam’s phone began vibrating in her pocket. She took it out. Nobody was calling, but another video was playing. Al’s skeleton face filled the screen.

  “Nice one, man,” he said. “You found the cache. Now I know you’re tempted to take the lot. But honestly, there’s enough to go round. Leave some for the next guy, yeah? There’ll be more than enough at the party. Come and join me and we’ll have the best time ever.”

  And the video stopped. Sam’s screen changed back to the Party Jacker map. It had zoomed out to show a red circle covering an area of London from Notting Hill to the west, Regent’s Park to the North, across the river at Lambeth to the east, and down as far as the Thames at Chelsea to the south.

  “So it means that the party will be happening somewhere in that area,” reasoned Sam. “And like last Friday, we’ll get the exact location nearer the time.”

  “So what do we do in the meantime?” asked James.

  “We go to Al’s house as we planned, and hope to find him there,” said Sam. “Leave the Super D in the box. I’ll burn it.”

  James took a step back. Sam conjured up a fireball and dropped it into the box. She watched the bags of Super D blacken and curl up as they were consumed by the flames.

  “Oi! What you doing? That’s mine!” shouted a hoarse voice.

  Sam looked up to see Mark Foster balanced on the top of a construction board. He dropped unsteadily onto the rubble and started bounding towards them.

  “Blake!” he bellowed. “I’m gonna mash you, you freaks.”

  “I’ve been waiting for this,” muttered James, straightening up.

  “James, please don’t,” urged Sam. “I know you want to get him back, but please, think — he’s not like us. Remember that.”

  There was something different about Foster, thought Sam, but it was hard to pinpoint because the boy was moving so quickly.

  As Foster leapt over a large pile of bricks, James made a flicking gesture with his hand and Foster just kept moving through the air. The surprised expression on the older boy’s face was comical. Foster crash-landed, head and arms first, on the muddy ground in front of Sam and her brother.

  He lay there, stunned, for several seconds. Then he tried to pick himself up, only to find that he couldn’t. James was pinning him down with telekinetic energy.

  “What’s going on?” Foster snarled. “Give me Super D. Give iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiit!”

  And there it was. Sam could see it now, the difference in him. In addition to the fact that he was writhing on the ground like a captured animal, his hair was noticeably longer than it had been yesterday. The close-cropped look had given way to longer, wilder, curlier hair. And he had stubble, too. Not a full beard, but an impressive growth nonetheless. Even his arms were unusually hirsute.

  “He’s dropped down the evolutionary scale a bit, hasn’t he?” James observed.

  “I wonder if it’s the Super D,” speculated Sam.

  Foster carried on struggling in vain, while the Super D continued to burn less than a metre from his face. He was snarling, spitting and calling Sam and James every terrible name under the sun.

  James made a pinching gesture with his fingers, and Foster’s jaw clamped shut.

  “They’re all out of the zoo now,” noted James. “Look.”

  Sure enough, a group of four lads in their late teens were clambering over the construction boards from the direction of the alleyway, while a group of three girls, who looked like they were in their early twenties, vaulted the barrier with ease from the opposite side.

  As they landed, Sam was struck by how they had that same animal stance as Foster. They looked a bit… well… Sam hated being mean about anyone, but ‘scraggy’ was the word that popped into her head. Even from this distance, there was something about their hair and their skin. They just looked rough.

  How many people had been using Super D? More than Sam had realized.

  “That’s ours!” the harridans screeched.

  Like a pack of hungry wolves, the horde of snarling boys and girls came bounding towards Sam and James.

  Chapter 49

  Sam instinctively backed away from the impending attack.

  “Time to go,” whispered James. Then he pointed at the smouldering cache.

  “This moron burnt it,” James shouted out, pointing at Foster. “He’s burnt your drugs,” he added for good measure.

  Foster, unable to reply, thrashed and snarled on the ground. The two groups shouted in rage as they scrambled across the rubble towards the spoiled prize.

  More people arrived on the scene. Boys, girls, men, women. They seemed to arrive independently but with the same purpose. Sam and James carried on backing out of the way and to Sam’s relief, the growing mob ignored them.

  “He burned the treasure,” James called out, for the benefit of the newcomers.

  “James, you have to let Foster go or he’ll be torn to pieces,” said Sam, fearfully.

  There was a moment of doubt in her brother’s eyes, but then he allowed Foster to get to his feet. Just in time too, as the three harridans pounced on Foster and dragged him back into the dirt.

  “This is going to get nasty, particularly after you just stirred it,” Sam chastised her brother.

  “Not our problem. Come on, let’s go.”

  He held out his hand. She was about to take it and then remembered he’d been touching those toilets.

  “Yuck, no way. You haven’t washed them.” She reached out and pinched his nose instead. “Ready,” she said.

  “We’re off,” he said in a comedy nasal voice.

  Sam’s last impression of the old cinema was waves of smoke and the biggest fight she had witnessed since the captain of the school rugby team had made a derogatory comment about the mum of the captain of the school football team.

  Her stomach heaved, she quickly shut her eyes, and when she opened them she was in yet another alleyway. It was the one close to the New Cross Empire Casino.

  ***

  Sam and her brother walked out onto the street and instantly everybody stared at them.

  Sam hoped that Al’s father’s shop was close by, because walking along this street among a gawping crowd was really horrible.

  They were jostled out of the way as a bunch of people ran past. Then some more. It was like a plain-clothes running club.

  “What’s the matter with them?” asked Sam.

  “It’s your stupid pink dressing gown,” said James, as they hurried along the street, heads down. “It’s frightened them. Caused a stampede.”

  “You can talk, onesie-boy. You’re not exactly James Bond, are you?”

  They kept walking. Sam heard James sniggering. She started sniggering, too.

  “Do you think MI5 have picked us up with their bad-fashion recognition software?” he asked, snorting on a strangled guffaw.

  “I think the style police might have us on their Most Wanted list,” replied Sam.

  She risked looking up. Thank goodness, there it was. Lester’s Global Grocer. She almost fell through the door in her haste to get in. A bell rang. She checked the counter. Two men standing behind it. Obviously Al’s brother and Al’s dad. Brother looked like older Al. Dad looked like even-older Al.

  “You kids wet the bed or something?” asked the brother.

  Not exactly friendly, thought Sam.

  “I was wondering if Al is here?” she asked.

  The dad and brother looked at each other.

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p; “I’m… sort of his girlfriend,” Sam explained.

  “Ordinarily she would have worn something smart the first time she met you,” added James, unhelpfully.

  The brother laughed.

  “Baby Al has a girlfriend,” he said.

  Sam waited for a follow-up line. Nothing. This was painful.

  “Yes. I’m Samantha. It’s nice to meet you.”

  “Nice to meet you too, angel,” said the dad. “But Al isn’t here and I don’t know where he is. I have no idea what my youngest son does, or where he goes, these days. I’ve almost given up.”

  “He mentioned something to us about a party,” James prompted.

  “A pyjama party?” queried the brother.

  Sam pulled a face at the man.

  “Well, it’s not here,” dismissed the dad. “Alvin thinks he’s a fancy rock star or something. He’d rather be out enjoying himself than getting an education or working for a living. I’m sorry, kids. If you’re not buying anything, I must ask you to leave.”

  Sam was about to speak when the door opened and the bell rang. Al’s dad stiffened and stepped in front of his son.

  “Morning, Mr Cairo,” he said, with wooden politeness.

  Sam turned around, her throat suddenly dry.

  Nicky Cairo stood in the shop doorway. He looked mean and he looked angry. Behind him were three large men, and they didn’t look any friendlier than Nicky himself.

  When Nicky saw Sam and James his eyes widened, his mouth dropped, he reached into his jacket and pulled out a gun.

  Chapter 50

  “This is the first bit of luck I’ve had in a week,” growled Nicky, pointing the gun first at Sam, then James, then back at Sam.

  He’s on the edge, thought Sam. He was perspiring. Sweat had soaked through his shirt and light grey suit. He looked bigger, more powerful, like his muscles were throbbing.

  “Please, Mr Cairo,” said Al’s dad, slowly. “These children were just leaving. Please let me help you with something.”

  “Shut up!” snapped Nicky. His eyes never left Sam. “You two, don’t move, or so help me I’ll blow your heads off.”

  Sam had no doubt that he meant it.

  “Mr Lester,” said Nicky, his voice hoarse and his breathing laboured. “Where’s your boy?”

  “Who are you talking about?” asked Al’s dad.

  Nicky didn’t smile, he grimaced, and pointed his gun at Mr Lester.

  “Mr big shot. Mr thinks-he-can-break-into-my-place-and-make-me-look-a-fool. Mr thinks-he-won’t-get-his-legs-broken. That one. Where is he?” Nicky’s finger tightened on the trigger.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” pleaded Al’s dad, looking desperately at his other son for illumination.

  “You probably don’t,” said Nicky, closing in on the counter. Two of his heavies accompanied him, both of them drawing guns from their pockets. The third man stayed by the door.

  “You don’t strike me as a good father, Mr Lester,” said Nicky, lowering his gun.

  Sam almost gagged as Nicky walked past her. He stank, like… like… like Mark Foster.

  While Nicky went eyeball to eyeball with Al’s dad, the two heavies trained their guns on herself and James.

  “You let your son run riot,” Nicky chastised Al’s dad. “You never taught him any manners or any respect. So I’m going to have to.”

  “Please, Mr Cairo,” implored Al’s dad. “Whatever he has done, I can make amends. Tell me what I can do and I will do it.”

  Nicky laughed.

  “You? There’s nothing you can do for me. Except tell me where he is, and how he can do the things he can do.” Nicky’s voice faltered and he took a sharp intake of breath.

  Almost as if to compensate for this perceived weakness, he raised his gun and put the barrel in Al’s dad’s ear.

  “I don’t understand. Please, just let me repay you for whatever he has done,” Al’s dad begged.

  Sam looked on, helplessly. If she or James moved, the heavies would shoot and Nicky would shoot. She just hoped James wouldn’t try anything reckless.

  “I’ll tell you about your boy, shall I?” said Nicky.

  Al’s dad closed his eyes, and he looked like he was trying not to gag, such was Nicky’s overwhelming stench.

  “Your boy destroyed my car. Turned it into mush, like some kind of magician. Then he came back, broke into my club, trashed the place, and then he… he…” Nicky looked like he couldn’t believe the words that he was saying. “It’s all over the internet.”

  He got angrier and pressed the gun harder into Al’s dad’s ear.

  “He thinks he can make me look a fool?” Nicky laughed. “How does he do it? I thought the Rosewood girl was the one who had the Super D. But now I see how it works. Somehow, your boy makes it. Conjures it out of nothing. Tell me how, or I’ll redecorate your shop with your brains.”

  Nicky squeezed the trigger. In his highly aggressive, agitated state, he could accidentally apply that extra bit of pressure and fire, feared Sam.

  “I don’t know,” entreated Al’s dad.

  “He doesn’t,” Sam blurted out. Nicky was a second away from carrying out his threat. “Al never told his family about his power. He only told me.”

  Slowly, Nicky pulled the gun out of Al’s dad’s ear and relaxed his grip on the trigger. He approached Sam slowly, his breathing was stertorous. He loomed over her, then reached out, grabbed her neck and jammed the gun to her temple.

  Sam choked on a scream. James took a step forward, but Nicky’s two thugs grabbed an arm each and held him back.

  “Let her go,” thundered James.

  Nicky ignored him.

  “Tell me this,” said Nicky. “Can he do it? Am I right? Can he make Super D out of nothing?”

  Reluctantly, Sam nodded.

  “And cocaine?”

  Sam nodded again.

  “How?”

  It was difficult to speak with Nicky’s hand closed around her throat.

  “I… it’s hard to explain. It’s to do with Lolly’s father. Genetic… research.”

  “And the Rosewood girl? That’s how she can do that thing with the fire?”

  Sam managed to nod again.

  “And what can you do?” asked Nicky.

  “The… same,” croaked Sam.

  She waited, gagging as the feral stench assailed her nostrils again. Nicky seemed to be considering, but he didn’t take his hand off her throat or remove the gun from her head.

  In that quiet moment, Sam became aware that the general hubbub of noise from the street outside had increased. People were leaning angrily on their car horns. There was a lot of shouting.

  The guy that Nicky had left guarding the door spoke.

  “Nicky, something’s going on out here. We’ve got a situation.”

  But Nicky didn’t appear to have heard. He had a faraway look in his eyes. Then Sam’s phone buzzed.

  Nicky snapped out of his trance. Impatiently, he patted her pockets, found the phone and pulled it out.

  “What’s this?” he asked, showing her the screen. The map had updated. It showed her current position in New Cross and the red circle had shrunk to encompass only Buckingham Palace gardens, Piccadilly, Green Park and Westminster.

  The Queen’s birthday, thought Sam, remembering Al’s cryptic clue. The party must be near to Buckingham Palace. In Green Park, maybe?

  “Is this him? Mr big shot? This party he’s planning?” demanded Nicky.

  Sam nodded.

  Satisfied, Nicky removed the pressure of the gun from her temple.

  “All right, then. We’re going to follow the map. You’re coming with us, little lady.”

  He grabbed Sam’s arm and pulled her towards the door. As he did so, a brick came through the window, showering her and Nicky with glass. The brick landed in a tray of mangoes.

  “What the—?” began Nicky, but was cut off as a chunk of pavement followed it and squashed a tray of pomegranates.

&
nbsp; The traffic in the street had come to a standstill. In the middle of the road, a fight had broken out. There was shouting, swearing, the almost constant blaring of horns, and people were getting out of their cars. Sam watched one guy walk up to one of the big double decker buses and drive his foot hard and low at the front of the vehicle. The red bodywork caved inwards and the large front window shattered and collapsed outwards. Passengers started screaming and falling over themselves to get off the vehicle.

  Across the road, a fire had been started in a bank. The neighbouring phone shop was being looted by a small gang. Next to that, two girls were trying to pull a cashpoint out of the wall. Somewhere, another fire must have been started, because burning debris rained down on the stranded vehicles in the road. Motorists abandoned their cars and began running in all directions.

  One guy, probably in his twenties, wearing an expensive leather jacket with a price label still on it, ran up to the broken shop window in front of Sam and Nicky, yelled something incomprehensible, then crouched down and ripped up a section of pavement. Before he could hurl it at them, Nicky raised his gun and blasted the guy back into the road. Sam felt her legs go weak as she stood looking at the pool of blood that began flowing along the gutter.

  “You didn’t have to do that,” screamed Sam.

  “Shut up,” ordered Nicky. He looked at his nearest heavy. “What the hell is happening?”

  “Some sort of riot,” said the guy. “Came out of nowhere.”

  “It’s Super D, you idiot,” said James. “Al’s been leaving it all round London, hasn’t he? You said you saw the video. He wants to start a riot. This is it. Everyone is going to start heading to the party now.”

  “Then we need to get going. Come on,” Nicky said to Sam, yanking at her arm again.

  “What do you want with my son?” asked Al’s dad.

  “Just be grateful I don’t torch this place with you in it,” replied Nicky, wiping the beads of sweat off his forehead with the sleeve of his suit. He pointed to his man by the door. “I want you to stay here with the old man. I might need some leverage when I catch up with his kid.”

  Nicky dragged Sam outside. James started to follow until Nicky rounded on him, gun raised. James stopped abruptly.