Illegal ZEUS transmission; biography of Janus
THE TRAIN FROM London took hours, traveling deep into the West Country. The land was bleak with frost, the trees black, the distant rim of Dartmoor grim under a hanging curtain of dark rain.
Wharton had to ask for them to stop at Wintercombe—a request stop, because hardly anyone used it.
As he stepped down, Jake could see why.
There was a concrete platform among trees and a rain shelter. Through a white gate a path led to a parking lot where one empty blue car waited.
Wharton climbed from the train after him, followed by a girl with a small bag. A few carriages up, a man walked hastily through the gate, his back to them, not looking around.
No one else. The train pulled creakily away.
Wharton sighed. He was tired; he’d tried to sleep on the journey, but the endless jolting had kept him awake. Irritated he said, “No taxis.”
“Are you going far?” The girl had walked to the car and unlocked it. She was not much older than Jake, very tall, her long red hair heavy with a glossy fringe that almost hid her eyes. “Can I give you a lift?”
“Er…well, that would be kind.” Wharton looked at Jake, who shrugged. “We’re actually going to a place called Wintercombe Abbey. I gather it’s not far.”
Her eyes widened. “The Abbey! Really?”
“Is that a problem?” Jake muttered.
“No. Honestly, I’d love to take you! Jump in.”
But it had surprised her, he thought. More than that—startled her. He climbed into the front seat and Horatio put his head out of the bag and stared curiously around. The girl said, “Wow. Is he yours?”
Jake held up a finger and Horatio bit it thoughtfully. “Maybe I’m his.”
She started up the car. “You’ll fit in at the Abbey. They say it’s a place for eccentrics.”
Wharton had time to say “Really?” before he was flung back in his seat. She drove awkwardly, scraping the car around in a three-point turn before jerking out of the parking lot. They were through the village before Jake got much of a look at it—old thatched houses, a post office, the pub, then narrow lanes, high-banked with thorny hedges.
“I’m Jake Wilde,” he said.
“Rebecca Donahue.” Her eyes met Wharton’s in the mirror.
He said, “George Wharton. One of Jake’s—”
“Uncles,” Jake said firmly.
“…uncles. Right.”
Rebecca’s eyes flicked between the mirror and the road. Jake knew she was puzzled at the obvious lie. He said, “You live here?”
“I’m at uni. In Exeter. I’m home for Christmas.” She took a corner at a crunching angle that made Wharton breathe a brief swear word.
“Do you know Venn?”
“Oberon Venn?” She looked surprised. “No. Of course not. No one knows him. Well, maybe some of the older villagers used to, but not these days. No one goes to the Abbey anymore. I’m desperate to know why you are.”
If they told her, it would be all over the village—that was how these places worked. Jake said, “Venn’s my godfather. I’m staying for a while.”
The car squealed around a bend. “Is he really? That must be so exciting.”
“Must it?”
“Well…yes. Wow, he was so amazing in that series he did. Volcanoes and stuff. And he’s so hot!”
She raised her eyebrows. Jake looked out of the window, disgusted.
They had entered a steep valley; the lane down it was narrow, branches scraping both sides of the car. As they descended, Jake heard the crunch of frosted gravel under the tires; starlings flew in the twilight, squawking from the trees above. At the bottom, surrounded by what seemed like a thick wood, were two locked iron gates in a pillared wall. Rebecca slammed the brakes on just before the car hit them.
“Sorry. I’ve never been down this way before.”
“As a matter of interest,” Wharton said mildly, “have you actually passed any sort of driving test?”
She glared at him. “Last week.”
“I’m amazed.”
“Well, so am I actually. It was my third go.” She hit the horn; a long noisy hoot. “Is he expecting you?”
Before Jake could answer, the gates shuddered jerkily open, as far as the massed overgrown holly on one side would allow. Tense with nerves, he said, “We can walk from here, thanks.”
“No way.” Rebecca changed gear with a crunching effort. “I want to see the famous Venn. Anyway, the drive is probably miles long.”
He looked back at Wharton, who said, “In that case, please carry on.”
The girl smiled. Jake had the feeling she was laughing at him; he felt annoyed at her stupid adoration of Venn. Moodily he stared out at the overgrown driveway. Every moment brought him closer to the house. It made him shiver; he fingered the wallet in his pocket, picturing his father’s cheery smile in the black-and-white photograph. Whatever secrets lurked here, he wouldn’t rest till he’d clawed them out into daylight.
For a mile the car jolted along, Rebecca taking it carefully now, because the Wood this deep was a black-and-white kingdom of frost, the track pitted with deep potholes. They came to the splintered trunk of a great dead tree lying right across the way.
“Good heavens.” Wharton opened the window and leaned out. “Is that deliberate?”
“They say he doesn’t like visitors. But someone must come, because there’s a sort of way around the side…” Rebecca maneuvered the car clumsily around the obstacle, jolting Wharton and the suitcases violently in the process. The monkey gave a shriek of protest.
“Oh shut up. I’m doing my best.”
Suddenly space opened up; in the white landscape of winter frost they saw the Abbey, pale in the moonlight, its lawns rectangles of silver. It seemed to Wharton that it crouched down in the Wood, that the trees surrounded it like a threat, as if one day they would devour it, grow over it completely.
Rebecca stopped the car on the weedy gravel and turned the engine off. “Wow,” she said, into the silence.
Jake gazed up at the ancient windows, the gargoyled gables. The place chilled him. He got out and stood facing it, like an enemy. Wharton hauled the suitcases after him. “Thank you so much, Ms. Donahue. It would have been tiring to have walked all this way.”
She wasn’t listening; her eyes were on the house. He turned, and saw that a man had come out, a tall, fair-haired man who stood on the frosty steps with an upright, arrogant assurance.
“It’s him,” Rebecca muttered. “Oh, double wow.”
Venn said, “I don’t know how you got in here, but you can leave now.”
Jake turned and faced his father’s killer. He felt only a coldness. As deep and numbing as if he could never be warm again.
Wharton stepped between them hastily. “Mr. Venn. Perhaps I should—”
“Who the hell are you?”
“Wharton. George Wharton. Head of Humanities, Compton’s School.”
Venn’s stare was blank. “Compton’s…?”
“In Geneva. Switzerland.”
It was enough. The anger in Venn’s blue eyes transformed to a swift wariness. He looked at Jake, who hadn’t moved. Nervous now, Wharton said, “This is Jake Wilde. Your godson.”
Venn was staring at Jake. “You’re David’s boy?”
“Yes. He is.” Jake’s silence made Wharton stammer anything to fill it. “You remember, I’m sure…the e-mail.”
Venn said, “I don’t send e-mails.”
“You did, I assure you. We, the school, that is, explained that Jake had…exceeded a few limits. Your reply was for us to send him home.”
Venn seemed to drag his gaze from Jake to Wharton. Then he turned and snarled “Piers!” in a voice of utter fury.
A tiny man in a white lab coat came leaping down the steps and ran hurriedly toward them.
Wharton caught the glint of a gold earring in his ear. Venn rounded on him. “Tell me you didn’t do this.”
Piers’s voice was shaky. “I did. I replied to their message. I told them to send the boy.”