The inside looked normal enough, at least to begin with. There was no sign of trouble, and Ned could see that one of the gas rings in the kitchen had been lit, though the pan next to it was still waiting to go on. As if someone had been interrupted. Or taken by surprise.
“Mum! Dad?”
There was no answer.
Where were they, and why would they leave the front door open and the gas on?
“Kidnap,” blared the radio suddenly. “Tonight’s story focuses on how people are being taken from their homes, but also asks the big question – why?”
“Taken?” murmured a horrified Ned. “Whiskers – that Morse message, was it from the Olswangs?”
The Debussy Mark Twelve gave an affirmative bob of its head.
Ned peered through the living-room window, out across the street and on to the Olswangs’. Even as the day drew darker, he could see that there was something very wrong with their door. It appeared to have been broken off its hinges. Panic, clear and bright, made its unwelcome return. Surely this couldn’t be happening? The Veil, Barbarossa, it was all behind them but Terrence and Olivia Armstrong were gone – apparently – and the decorated home they’d left in their wake was lifeless and bleak, like a once-busy shop after a sale, when the lights were out and all the people had gone home.
“Protocol,” he breathed. His parents had lain out concise plans should this very situation arise. Search the premises for clues, carefully and methodically. Anything he found would prove vital if he was to get them back. If intruders were still present, he was to leave immediately.
“Boys, look around, will you? Gorrn, would you kindly search the bedrooms? Whiskers, look for anything out of the ordinary.”
“Arr,” said Gorrn, and the ominous creature was in the shadows and oozing up the stairs.
“Move, Gorrn!” hissed Ned.
His slovenly familiar gave an undulating shrug of what might have been shoulders, and began moving at two miles per hour instead of one.
The second third of his mostly mute search party promptly gave a squeak from behind the sitting-room’s sofa. His keen clockwork eyes had indeed found something “out of the ordinary” on the carpet. It had collected by the far wall and looked almost exactly like liquid mercury. Ned got down on his knees and took a closer look. The sudden absence of his parents must have something to do with the odd-looking liquid, but what?
“Blimey, Whiskers, what is this stuff and what’s it doing on our carpet?”
His trusty mouse, as wonderful as it was, had no answer.
“Take a sample, our friends on the other side will want to have a look at this.”
Whiskers did as he was told, using his tiny metal tongue as a syringe. The mercurial liquid was now Ned’s only clue and whatever it might mean, he was quite sure it had originated from the other side of the Veil – the side he would have to go to for answers.
To his left was the family Christmas tree. It sagged under the weight of lights and baubles and the promise of happier days. He looked at the pile of presents beneath it and his chest tightened. In a few days he would have been opening them with his mum and dad. But today and now, everything had changed. He would have to leave shortly and had no way of knowing when he’d come back. There were two presents that he’d been particularly excited about. As daft as it was, he couldn’t bear to leave without them, and scooped them up into his arms.
“Yes, Chief Inspector, but why, why are they being taken?” blared the radio.
Ned thought of his parents’ smiling faces and willed the interview to stop. As he did so, there was an angry bang! from the kitchen and his mum’s radio exploded. His powers had spiked again, loudly enough for something upstairs to take notice.
From the ceiling directly above Ned’s head came a low growl and it was one that he didn’t recognise. It was followed by a wailing sound from Gorrn, who Ned guessed had found an intruder!
“Gorrn? Gorrn, what’s going on up there?”
Silence.
If Ned’s training had taught him anything, it was that Terry and Olivia Armstrong were the best of the best. They wouldn’t have gone down without a fight and yet there were no signs of a scuffle, at least downstairs. He prayed that whatever Gorrn had come across had made them flee, and that if they’d done so, they’d escaped without getting hurt.
“Please be OK,” he whispered.
CRASH!
There was a loud tinkling of broken glass and another of Gorrn’s wails, at which point Whiskers responded with a highly agitated flashing of his eyes.
Two dots and a dash; “U”, followed by an “S”, then an “E”.
“USE, O, N, E,” translated Ned, “W, A, Y.”
“One way?” he mouthed.
“H, E, L, P – I, S – I, N – T, H, E – P, A, R, K.”
Ned froze. The One-Way! The Glimmerman had given it to him before he’d left the circus. His dad never let him leave the house without it, never. In an emergency it could be used to travel by mirror, any mirror, to a Hidden-run safe house. There were several problems with Whiskers’ frantic blinking message. Parks in general did not contain safe houses, at least not as far as Ned knew, and any clue to finding out what had happened to his parents was not going to be found in a bush, but upstairs, where Gorrn was fighting with … something.
As Ned cursed himself for not thinking ahead, the largest and most immovable problem presented itself.
He had left his bag containing the One-Way Key in Mr Johnston’s shed.
That decided it.
There had been moments in Ned’s life where one might think he’d acted bravely. In truth he had acted out of necessity. Today, here and now, was one such moment. No matter what the protocol was, if he was going to find his parents, he had to see what was upstairs. He placed the two Christmas presents by the front door and turned to his mouse.
“Right, Whiskers, you lead the way upstairs – I’ll be right behind you. On my count; three, two, one – GO!” he spat.
And Whiskers did go, right up his trouser leg.
“Coward.”
The Debussy Mark Twelve answered with a nip at his ankle. Heart now racing, Ned crept forward. On the landing outside his bedroom he saw Gorrn, rushing towards him at a decidedly faster pace than the last time he’d seen him. Whatever was behind the now-fleeing creature had clearly spooked him, and Gorrn did not spook easily. There was no sign of an intruder of any kind – which was how Ned guessed it was a bargeist.
He had come across one before. Completely invisible, unless you were scared, and the perfect hunter. Gorrn had dispatched one for him at the Circus of Marvels. If Gorrn was having trouble with this creature, it must be old – maybe even an alpha?
“Gru,” mumbled an out-of-breath Gorrn, which in this instance meant sorry.
“Gorrn? Gorrn, you’re supposed to protect me, you big lump!”
His familiar gave him an oozy, deflated shrug, before shrinking into Ned’s shadow.
“You two are useless!” grimaced Ned, before trying to focus