London Belongs to the Alchemist (Class Heroes Book 4) Page 34

  Lolly remembered how Al had intended to stage a series of protests in the city today. She herself had asked Nicky Cairo to recruit people for the riots, as a cover for her rescue attempt. It had totally slipped her mind!

  She leaned over in the cab and kissed Bill on the cheek.

  “Thank you,” she said, as she climbed down. “I won’t forget what you’ve done for me.”

  “Take care of yourself, dear,” he said, waved, and inched his lorry forward through the traffic.

  Lolly made her way from Piccadilly up Regent’s Street, past so many wonderful shops where, less than a year ago, she had spent endless hours picking out clothes. She carried on up Portland Place, past the embassies and institutes, in the direction of Regent’s Park. She passed a very nice hotel, which had been one of her boltholes a few months back.

  As she ambled through the beautiful park, past the boating lake where she had been on her first date, she pondered on whether the address that Stannard had given her was a trap.

  Finally the park gave way to a tree-lined road with big, expensive houses and luxury sports cars in the driveways. It was ironic, thought Lolly, that she and Daddy had actually lived on this road when she was little. She had ridden her bike all the way up to the big junction, much to her father’s fury.

  She quickly found the address that Mrs Stannard had given her. A white house, three storeys, set back from the road and protected by a high wall and a set of wrought iron gates. Lolly hurried past without giving it more than a quick glance. She needed to reconnoitre from a safe distance.

  Opposite was a block of 1920s-style apartments. They were only five storeys high, but would offer a good vantage point of the house. She sauntered through the car park, and followed the pathway past the main entrance around to the back of the building. From there, she nimbly scaled the wall using window ledges, the grooves between bricks, and any foothold she could find to make her way up to the roof.

  She clambered across the grey tiles. It reminded her of sitting on the Blakes’ rooftop what seemed like weeks ago, but was in fact only a few days.

  From the apex, she had a good view of the gorgeous white house opposite. The courtyard was empty. No cars. If Mrs Stannard was telling the truth, her father was locked up inside.

  If she had been lying, or if it was a trap, there could be teams of armed police waiting for her inside. She had been searching for her father for eight months, so another hour or so wouldn’t hurt. She settled down to wait and observe.

  ***

  Lolly wasn’t sure how long she sat on the rooftop, but eventually her patience, or perhaps it was indecision, was rewarded. A plain white van was approaching slowly from the north. As it drew closer, the large black door of the house opened, and a man in a suit walked briskly to the iron gates, opened them and ushered the van into the courtyard.

  It looked like an ambulance, except there were no markings.

  The man in the suit closed the gates.

  From her vantage point, Lolly could watch the proceedings inside the grounds. The van stopped, and the driver and a passenger got out and opened the back doors. Then, assisted by two other people who had been in the back of the van, they proceeded to carry a figure on a stretcher out into the daylight.

  Lolly gave an involuntary gasp.

  Despite the distance, she was sure the figure they were carrying was James Blake. It was a boy, that was for sure. He had James’s hair, he was of a similar build, and just catching a glimpse made Lolly’s skin tingle. It was the same sensation that she always got when she was near him.

  Was he dead?

  He was covered in blankets up to the waist. His upper body was bare except for a large, bloody bandage on his right shoulder, and he had an oxygen mask covering his face.

  Lolly swallowed hard and her throat burned. What on earth had happened to him? A gun shot? Her head went all fuzzy. She hadn’t expected this.

  She wanted to drop down to the street, crash into the compound and rescue him, but her legs felt suddenly weak.

  Think, Lolly, she told herself. Daddy always admonished her for just charging in without considering the consequences.

  MI5 hadn’t taken James to a hospital, they had brought him straight here, despite the serious nature of his condition. That meant they must know about his power. When MI5 had found Stannard dead in the car impound, they must have checked her computer and found out about the twins. Presumably there had been a fight and James had been shot. So where were Sam and the parents?

  One thing became clear to Lolly: if MI5 had brought James here, then her father must be here, too. It was down to her now to rescue them both.

  The stretcher party disappeared inside the house and the big, thick, black front door closed. The van remained in the courtyard.

  There were security cameras positioned on the walls surrounding the house but she chose to ignore them. There would be no value in a covert assault. It was impossible to know what kind of opposition she would face inside, but if she approached slowly the cameras would inevitably detect her and give the security people time to react.

  Much better to mount a lightning raid. Break through every door and wall until she found her father and James, then get them both out.

  James’s presence might actually be a benefit. Her original strategy had been for her and Daddy to fight their way out of the house and then lose themselves amid the riotous streets of London. But if James was well enough, he might be able to teleport them all to safety. She just hoped she reached him before he woke up, realized he was in danger, and vanished.

  Lolly estimated the distance between her current position and the rooftop of the safe house to be 20 or even 30 metres. Too far for even her to jump. She would have to drop down to street level and attack from the ground.

  She vaulted over the low roof wall and dropped several metres until she caught hold of a window ledge. She then descended to the next ledge, then the next, until she was back on the pavement below.

  The main gate of the safe house was right in front of her. She took a deep breath and started running.

  Chapter 57

  Seconds before she reached the main gate, Lolly took a flying leap and landed on the top of the metal barrier with both feet planted neatly between the spiked metal railings.

  She paused, momentarily, to make sure her dress hadn’t got snagged on the spikes, then dropped into the courtyard below. Instantly she noticed movement at a ground floor window. She’d been spotted.

  Lolly ran straight at the window. As she powered forward, she summoned up a flaming bolt in each hand and propelled them at the glass, which smashed inwards under the force of the assault. The frames were enveloped with fire, but they did not break. Solid metal.

  There were panicked shouts from inside the house. Lolly threw another two flame bolts. Both sailed through the smashed window and lit up the room inside as curtains, furniture and wallpaper caught fire. Lolly had a brief glimpse of a man dropping to the floor.

  A shot rang out. It must have missed because Lolly felt nothing. She hurled four more flame bolts in random directions in order to create some panic. A good fire always drew people outside and that was exactly what she wanted.

  She reached the nearby broken window and dove between the frames into the burning room. There was a lot of smoke building up already and the sound of coughing alerted her to the presence of a man on his knees in the middle of the room, waving a gun at her. Lolly delivered a forearm smash to the side of his head and he dropped to the floor.

  An alarm kicked into life. Lolly left the room via a door at the far end and found herself in a wide, white-painted, modern-looking hallway. Four more doors, all closed, led off to who knew where. There was a staircase in front of her. A woman was leaning over the bannisters on the first floor, looking down at Lolly. She was holding a gun but seemed reluctant to even point it at her. Lolly threw a flame bolt at the bannisters, setting them alight. The woman ducked back out of sight.

  Lolly picke
d the nearest door. It was locked, so she simply kicked it down. The room was furnished like a study with a long row of books on dark wooden shelves, and leather armchairs. A man and a woman were standing next to a table, which had a row of monitors and electronic equipment spread across it. They were both staring at her, their eyes wide. The woman held a phone to her ear, and Lolly heard her say, “She’s here. Repeat: She’s here!”

  Neither seemed to be armed, so Lolly decided to question them. She snatched the telephone away from the woman and crushed it in her hand. The woman tried to retaliate by striking at Lolly’s face. Too slow. Lolly caught the woman’s hand and twisted it. The woman howled in pain, but Lolly stopped short of breaking her arm.

  The man was rooted to the spot, distressed. He wasn’t a fighter, that’s for sure. Technical, more likely. He was in his forties, he had a big stomach and he was sweating. He liked the woman, Lolly surmised. He wouldn’t want to see her come to any more harm.

  Lolly put her arm around the woman’s throat. It felt soft, creamy, delicate. In the past she would have snapped it without even thinking. Now she just wanted these people to answer her questions so that she didn’t have to use any more force.

  “Where is my father?” she asked the man. “Where is Sir Michael? Tell me quickly, or I’ll kill your friend.”

  There was no hesitation.

  “Basement level. The door at the end of the corridor. He’s being questioned.”

  Lolly stroked the woman’s neck with her long fingers. Her captive was breathing in sharp bursts and her body was trembling.

  “Thank you. And James Blake? They just brought him in,” Lolly whispered.

  “First floor,” babbled the man. “He’s hurt.”

  “How bad?”

  “I don’t know. I think he’s been shot. I don’t know anything else, I promise.”

  “I believe you,” said Lolly. She couldn’t waste any more time here. “How many people down in the basement?”

  “There are four agents with him at the moment. Routine interrogation.”

  Lolly took in the row of computer terminals and monitors, and realized what she was looking at. There were four screens in all. On the leftmost monitor, there he was — her father — sitting on a chair in a bare room, wearing a pair of black trousers, black shoes and a plain white shirt. Lolly caught her breath. For a second her eyes blurred with tears. She hadn’t seen him for nearly a year and he had changed. He had always been in excellent physical shape, strong, proud and handsome. He’d done everything for her. He was her rock.

  Now he was thin and gaunt, his skin looked pale, his cheekbones were sunken, his eyes had a faraway quality, his hair was matted and lifeless and he was slumped in his chair.

  “What have you done to him?” asked Lolly, hoarsely.

  The man was nervous.

  “He’s being treated well…” he began.

  “Well?” snapped Lolly. “Have you been starving him? Drugging him?” That was it! Somehow they must have discovered that his powers were fuelled by food. They knew about that, too!

  “His calorie-intake is being controlled,” bumbled the man. “But we’re not starving him. He’s been receiving errrr… medication.”

  The second monitor showed a separate room, with two women sitting on one side of a table facing a glass screen.

  Lolly guessed that her father was on the other side of the screen. The women were engaged in an animated conversation with two men who were standing at either end of the table.

  The third monitor showed a waveform. Although there was no sound from any of the screens, Lolly could see that her father was speaking because his lips were moving. Every time they did, the lines of the waveform spiked.

  “What’s happening?” asked Lolly.

  “He’s being questioned,” replied the man, not taking his eyes off the hand that Lolly had placed around his colleague’s throat. “The room is soundproofed. Sir Michael speaks into a microphone and his voice is altered.” The man pointed at the computer to indicate that the equipment was responsible for scrambling the sound. “That way he can’t, you know, influence anybody. It stops him.”

  Lolly felt rage at her father being kept so impotent.

  The fourth monitor showed James Blake. He was being lifted off the stretcher onto a bed.

  Lolly took a deep breath.

  “I should kill you both,” she hissed, not understanding why she hadn’t. “Stand back from the computers,” she ordered the man.

  He didn’t move, so Lolly pushed the woman away and struck her across the back of the head. The woman dropped to the floor. Lolly held up her hand, conjured up a fireball and destroyed the equipment. The tech guy recoiled at the explosion, hit his head on the bookshelf and slumped to the floor.

  Lolly left the fire burning. The man and woman would have to take their chances.

  ***

  Back in the corridor, Lolly literally ran into an armed police officer. She had a brief glimpse of a helmet, body armour, a gun — and then he was on the floor. She kicked him to be sure he stayed down, then marched to the door at the far end. It was locked and required a key code. Lolly broke it down with one punch.

  A shot rang out from below and a bullet smashed into the wall beside her. She couldn’t see who or what was down the stairs, but she hurled a fiery bolt into the darkness. It splashed across a wall, illuminating her assailant. Another man in a suit. Lolly launched herself down the stairs and planted her feet squarely on the guy’s chest. He hit the floor, cracked his head and went limp. Lolly sat on top of him. He was still breathing, but unconscious.

  She got off him and found the light switch. She was in an empty space, a bare room about four metres by five. Plain white walls and grey slate-tiled floor. There was a door set into the left wall and another one at the far end. Lolly opened the nearest one. A sparsely appointed kitchen, nothing of any interest.

  The second door had a key-code lock. This looked more promising. Lolly crashed through it and found herself in the room with the table and the four interrogators that she had seen on the monitor screen upstairs.

  The table was facing her father’s cell, separated by a glass screen or maybe it was a two-way mirror.

  Lolly’s heart pounded. It was different again, seeing him in the flesh. She felt weak, there were goosebumps on her arms and the hairs on the back of her neck stood on end. It brought out all her protective instincts. That they should dare to hurt her father, to reduce him to the level of an animal in a cage.

  She was so numb that she temporarily forgot about the interrogators. A powerful hand grabbed her by the neck, pulled her right arm behind her back and pushed her face down onto the desk. A man’s head was virtually buried in her ear as he shouted something at her. It brought her back to reality.

  A wave of anger crashed through her body. There was a pounding in her temples. She stood up straight and brought her head back against the man’s face. She heard a crack and felt his nose squash. Lolly then drove her elbow into his stomach and clubbed him to the floor. He was unconscious, but somehow that didn’t seem to satisfy her sense of justice. She felt a longing, a base instinct, to kill him.

  The second man and one of the women drew their guns but didn’t fire. They wouldn’t want to risk hurting their colleagues in this confined space, reasoned Lolly. She knocked the guns aside using both her arms in a sweeping motion. Two quick punches rendered the agents unconscious.

  One woman left and she clearly wasn’t going to be a threat. She shrank back against the wall. Again, not a fighter, more like an analyst, treating her father like a maths problem. It was almost too much effort, but Lolly banged the woman’s head against the wall and watched her slide to the floor.

  Lolly turned back to the glass. Her father was still sitting in his chair, looking bewildered, clearly unable to hear or see anything that was going on in the adjoining room.

  She took three steps back, braced herself and then ran at the screen, jumping as she did so.

&n
bsp; The glass was solid and heavy but she broke through it. The impact disoriented her. Thick, jagged shards ripped at her clothes and drew blood from her bare legs, arms and face. She landed with a jolt, fell and rolled over in a slew of fragments. She came to a halt when she hit her father’s chair. She lay at his feet, trying to recover her breath, looking up at him.

  He was blinking and in shock, but when he realized what he was looking at, his face slowly broke out into a broad, familiar grin. Fleetingly, he looked almost his old self again.

  “Hello, sweetheart,” he croaked.

  Chapter 58

  Lolly tried to speak, but couldn’t. Her throat was dry. She pulled herself to her feet and hugged her father tightly, her tears wetting his shirt.

  “Thank you, thank you, but I can’t breathe,” he managed.

  Lolly laughed, let him go and wiped away the tears that were streaming down her cheek. What had happened to her? She cried at anything these days.

  Her father was secured to the chair by a series of leather straps. Lolly snapped them and helped him to stand up. He was unsteady on his feet and had to hold on to the chair for support. Lolly put her arm around his waist and he took a few faltering steps towards the broken screen. He stopped when he saw the bodies lying on the other side.

  He opened his mouth as if to speak, but no words came out.

  “They’ve got James Blake here too,” said Lolly, urgently. “We have to find him. He can get us out.”

  Her father nodded, but he didn’t seem to be listening. He gently extricated himself from Lolly’s arm and unsteadily approached the interrogators’ table. He leaned over one of the fallen men on the floor. The guy was groaning, clutching his bloody nose.

  “Daddy, did you hear me? They’ll have backup coming. We need to find James and get out.”

  “In a minute, sweetheart.” He sounded distracted. It reminded Lolly of when she was a child, trying to get her father’s attention while he was busy with some important work thing.