Hollowpox: The Hunt for Morrigan Crow Read online

  Then there came a beautiful, terrible sound—something between the roar of fifty lions and the tinkling of a thousand silver bells—and the shapeless storm rose into the air, reborn as a long, serpentine dragon made of snow. It flew through the sky above them, tumbling over and around itself in the most extraordinary display. Snowflakes fluttered down from its outspread wings, landing gently on Morrigan, Jupiter, and Jack, who held up their hands and cheered along with the rest of the Courage Square crowd.

  “Oh, YES!” shouted Jupiter, eyes wide. “Brilliant! Absolutely brilliant.”

  Jack whooped loudly, casting Morrigan a rather smug look. “Now THAT’S a finale.”

  But it wasn’t over yet. Saint Nicholas, not to be out-Christmased, motioned for everyone in the audience to hold their candles high. The thousands of tiny flames grew brighter and larger, until finally they seemed to leap from the wicks and band together, forming a cloudlike bonfire in the sky above them. Morrigan closed her eyes briefly against the flash of light. She felt heat blooming on her face.

  When she opened her eyes, the flames had reshaped themselves into a golden-red firebird, blindingly bright and beautiful, borne higher and higher into the sky as it beat its fiery wings.

  “YES!” Jupiter shouted again in elation. “MAGNIFICENT! BRAVO, SAINT NICK, BRAVO!”

  Morrigan could hardly believe what she was seeing. She turned to Jack with a joyous laugh, and even he looked impressed. “You were saying?”

  The firebird and the snowdragon danced around each other, spiraling together to form a tower of vivid orange and dazzling white that reached high into the atmosphere… until at last, in one final glorious act of mutual destruction, the flames were extinguished and the snow evaporated. Dragon and bird disappeared in an instant, leaving nothing but the ghostly shape of their light blinking against the black sky, emblazoned on everyone’s retinas.

  A moment of stunned silence.

  Then a roar of delight so loud, Morrigan had to cover her ears.

  Morrigan wasn’t sure she’d be able to find Hawthorne and his family amid the sea of people surging in every direction after the battle—she realized too late they’d forgotten to plan a meeting spot. But she needn’t have worried. They found her instead.

  “MORRIGAN! There you are. Oi!” her friend shouted eagerly, running to where she, Jupiter, and Fenestra were waiting by the fountain in the middle of the square, hoping to maximize their visibility. Jack and the others had been too cold to wait around in the snow; they’d already taken the carriages home.

  Hawthorne’s mum, dad, brother, and sisters followed close behind him, and there was no mistaking the Swift family’s allegiance to Saint Nicholas. All six of them were decked from head to toe in varying shades of red. (Although Morrigan thought she spied a flash of green socks beneath Dave’s scarlet corduroy trousers.)

  Morrigan beamed. “Jolly Christmas!”

  “I’m glad you managed to find us,” said Jupiter, rubbing his hands together and blowing on them for warmth. His beard was collecting snowflakes.

  “Oh, it was easy, I just looked for Fen’s great big head in the crowd—hello, Fen, Jolly Christmas!” Hawthorne puffed cheerfully, and Fenestra scowled at him in return. He gave a good-natured chuckle as she turned away, her tail stuck high in the air. “Classic Fen. Helena, didn’t I tell you how hilarious Fen is?”

  Morrigan had already met Dave, and Hawthorne’s mum, Cat, several times, as well as his older brother, Homer, and baby sister, Davina, whom everybody called Baby Dave. But this was her first time meeting the eldest Swift sibling. Helena was completing her fifth year of study at the Gorgonhowl College of Radical Meteorology, a school situated on a tiny island off the coast of the distant Sixth Pocket in the eye of a perpetual cyclone, and it was rarely safe enough for her to travel home.

  “She is tremendous,” Helena declared, staring at the Magnificat with open admiration. “An absolute queen.”

  At that precise moment, a young man walking past Fen accidentally stood on her tail. She yowled in pain, then shoved her enormous face right up to his and bared her great yellow fangs at him with a dangerous hisssss. The man fainted on the spot.

  “Queen,” whispered Helena.

  Seeing the whole Swift family together, Morrigan noticed how perfectly they were split down the middle. Hawthorne and Helena both took after Cat with their long, wild brown curls and gangly limbs. Homer and Baby Dave, on the other hand, favored their father’s side of the family—sturdy, yellow-haired Viking stock.

  “We’ll bring Morrigan home later,” Dave was telling Jupiter.

  “Oh, don’t worry about that,” said Jupiter, gesturing vaguely in Fen’s direction. “I’ll send my housekeeper to collect her.”

  Dave cast a nervous sideways look at Fen, who’d overheard Jupiter’s magnanimous offer of her services and was glowering at them both. “Er—are you sure about that, Captain North? We, um… we really don’t mind.”

  “No, honestly, it’s fine,” Jupiter assured him. “Truth be told, Magnificats are pretty rubbish at housekeeping. But she’s on the payroll, and if I don’t send her on the occasional errand she’ll snooze her nine lives away. Right, Fen?” he called out to her with a wink.

  “Tonight you sleep with the fishes,” she growled.

  “That means she’s going to put sardines in his bed,” Hawthorne whispered loudly to his mum, smiling fondly at the Magnificat. “Classic Fen.”

  “How-tawn,” said Baby Dave, tugging insistently at Hawthorne’s red sweater as they made their way out of Courage Square. “How-tawn, pick me up. I tired.”

  “No, Baby Dave.” He shook her off. “You’re a big girl now. You’re almost three! Almost-three-year-olds have to walk on their own legs like everyone else.”

  The toddler was not happy to hear this, and Morrigan could understand why. (After all, she thought Hawthorne might have a better chance of convincing Baby Dave she was a “big girl now” if he and the rest of his family stopped calling her Baby Dave.)

  Davina glared up at Hawthorne from beneath her pale blond eyelashes. “HOW-TAWN!” she growled in a voice that made Morrigan jump. “PICK ME UP! I TIRED!”

  “Oh, fine,” he said, and stopped to heave her into his arms with great effort. She sat there beaming contentedly at the crowd, like a small but statuesque Viking queen surveying her subjects, as they followed Hawthorne’s dad through the turnstile at a busy Wunderground station.

  Adult Dave had suggested they circumvent the postbattle crowds by avoiding Courage Square’s nearest station, Caledonia Circus, and heading straight for Greenery Gate instead. He hadn’t counted on most of the people at the battle having that same idea. When they reached the busiest part of the station, of course, Baby Dave got bored with being carried and insisted “How-Tawn” let her down immediately.

  “Hold hands! Single file!” Hawthorne’s dad shouted at their group as they made their way through the maze of stairwells and down to the platform. “Form a human chain! Don’t get—pardon me, madam, I’m just trying to keep this lot togeth—oh well, excuse you very much! All right, team, don’t let’s lose each other—oof!”

  It was a lost cause. The crowd was a sea that had taken on a life of its own. A train arrived at the platform and a new wave of passengers spilled out of its doors. Those waiting paused just long enough for them to disembark before surging instantly forward, everyone eager to board so they wouldn’t have to wait an agonizing two whole minutes until the next train came along.

  Somewhere in this mess, one hand slipped out of another and the Swift family’s human chain was split in two. Morrigan watched as Cat, Dave, Helena, and Homer got swallowed up by the momentum of the crowd and pulled to the open doors of one carriage, while she, Hawthorne, and Baby Dave were pushed to the next.

  “Where’s Baby Dave?” Hawthorne’s dad shouted in a panicked voice. Meanwhile, Cat was trying to elbow people out of the way to get back to them, to no avail. “Who’s got Baby Dave?”

  “We do!” M
orrigan called back from farther up the platform. She tightened her grip on Davina’s pudgy, sweaty little right hand (the left was firmly in Hawthorne’s).

  Dave looked clammy and anxious, his eyes bugging out of his head as he jumped up and down in the crowd, trying to keep sight of them while he shouted instructions. “RIGHT, STAY TOGETHER, YOU THREE! WE GET OFF AT TUCKER PARK PLACE! THAT’S TWELVE STOPS AWAY! DID YOU HEAR ME?”

  “I know where we live, Dad!” Hawthorne shouted back, rolling his eyes. “We’ll be fine!”

  The carriage was full of chatter and high spirits, even though they were all crammed in like pickles in a jar. Someone down one end started a rousing chorus of “Green Is the Color of My Cheer,” and seconds later a round of “Zoom Goes the Big Red Sleigh” started at the other end, and the two competing groups managed to merge and harmonize quite pleasantly together.

  “Dad is such a worrywart,” said Hawthorne. She noticed, however, that his eyes narrowed as they swept over the carriage and he was still gripping Baby Dave’s hand tight—they both were, in fact. It was a lot of responsibility to be separated from the others with a toddler to take care of.

  Hawthorne leaned down to pick up his baby sister again. “Oof. Yikes. What are Mum and Dad feeding you? Whole chickens? You’re almost as big as I am.”

  “How-tawn, put me DOWN!” demanded a wriggling Baby Dave, but this time Hawthorne refused.

  “Shush, Baby Dave,” he said. “It’s too busy in here. Just—OW!” She had bitten him, hard enough to leave teeth marks. Hawthorne held up his wrist, looking half-shocked, half-impressed. He turned to Morrigan, laughing. “Will you look at this? She’s part shark.”

  Baby Dave grinned at Morrigan, who leaned away slightly, making a silent vow never to allow those chompers anywhere near her limbs.

  The crowding in the carriage eased a little at each stop as groups of passengers disembarked. After they’d passed through a handful of stations, there was finally enough room for Hawthorne to put his still-complaining sister down on the floor.

  “Mogran, pick me up. I tired,” moaned Baby Dave less than a minute later. She gripped Morrigan’s hand, leaning dramatically backward, and Morrigan had to use all her strength just to keep them both upright.

  “Please, Baby Dave, be good,” she said coaxingly. “It’s only a few more stops.”

  “PEAS, MOGRAN, PEAS PICK ME UP,” Baby Dave wailed, her enormous blue eyes filling with tears. Morrigan stared at her in horror, uncertain what to do.

  Hawthorne laughed and said in a singsong voice, “She’s playing you.”

  A group of elderly ladies sitting nearby clucked their tongues in sympathy at the display, shooting them disapproving looks.

  “Heartless,” Morrigan heard one of them mutter. She felt her face turn pink.

  “Aye,” said another, looking right at Morrigan and whispering just loudly enough for her to hear. “The poor wean’s obviously exhausted.”

  Morrigan gave in as the train pulled up to its next stop, and heaved a delighted Baby Dave into her arms.

  “Oof,” she grunted, shifting the toddler to one side. “Not sure I’ll be able to hold you for very long, Baby Da—”

  She was cut off by a squeal at one end of the train car, followed by a roar that sounded a bit like Fenestra when she was furious. Morrigan looked around uneasily, trying to see the source of the commotion, but there were too many bodies in the way.

  “What’s going on?” asked Hawthorne.

  An indignant voice came from the end of the carriage. “It scratched me! That beastly creature just scratched me! Clarissa, look, I’m bleeding, I’m actually bleeding.”

  Morrigan stood on tiptoes to get a better view and nearly fell over in surprise. “Oh! Goodness. It’s a leopard—er, leopardwun.”

  She said leopardwun rather than leopard only because the big cat wore a chunky string of beads around its neck and a big, expensive-looking diamond earring in the tip of one of its furry ears. And, well, because it was riding the Wunderground, which would have been highly irregular for an ordinary leopard.

  At a distance, it was sometimes tricky to tell the difference between Wunimals (sentient, self-aware creatures who were capable of human language and fully assimilated to human society) and unnimals (normal creatures who went about their normal creature business in their normal creature societies). It was of course easier if you were looking at a Wunimal Minor—a sort of human-unnimal hybrid, usually with more humanoid features than unnimal.

  With Wunimal Majors—who were physically indistinguishable from their unnimal counterparts—there was more scope for confusion… that is, until they opened their mouths to complain about the weather, or to ask where they might find the nearest Brolly Rail platform. That’s why most Majors wore specially tailored clothes, or at least accessorized with a jaunty hat or a monocle or something, to signal their sentient Wunimal status and avoid the embarrassing assumptions of strangers.

  If it wasn’t for the leopardwun’s jewelry, however, and the fact that it had somehow managed to board public transport on its own, this could very well have been an escaped unnimal from the Nevermoor Zoo. It seemed almost completely unnimalistic to Morrigan, sniffing the air like a big cat on the hunt, as if it had quite lost its mind.

  The leopardwun snarled as it prowled through the carriage in their direction, snapping its powerful jaws at the terrified passengers, who all shrieked and tried to scramble away. Morrigan felt fear grip her throat. She tried to swallow, but her mouth had gone dry. All she could do was tighten her hold on Baby Dave. Hawthorne stood in front of Morrigan, shielding his sister.

  The lights of the next station suddenly came streaming in through the windows, and Morrigan breathed a sigh of relief as the train began to slow.

  “Let’s get off at this stop,” said Hawthorne urgently. “We’ll catch the next train and meet everyone at Tucker Park Place. Mum and Dad will understand, and we’ll only be a couple of minutes behind them.”

  “Good idea,” agreed Morrigan, keeping her gaze on the bizarre behavior of the Wunimal as they made their way to the nearest exit.

  But the doors were taking too long to open, and the leopardwun was stalking toward them, still sniffing the air like it was looking for something. An oblivious Baby Dave laughed happily as she yanked the scarlet ribbon in Morrigan’s hair.

  The leopardwun grew still at the sound. Her eyes fixed on Baby Dave, who made another happy squealing sound.

  It happened so quickly.

  Morrigan saw the big cat’s eyes flash a bright emerald green, as though somebody had turned on a light behind them. It leapt up onto the windows, then onto the ceiling, seemingly defying gravity, bounding between passengers and leaving startled screams in its wake, until suddenly it landed just in front of them, growling and baring its teeth.

  Morrigan had the briefest flash of a thought that she ought to call Wunder and… and do something… but it all happened in a matter of frantic milliseconds, and after all, what could she possibly do with Baby Dave in her arms, even if she knew what to do?

  The leopardwun crouched, preparing to leap straight toward them, and then—

  WALLOP!

  The group of ladies had leapt up from their seats, swinging their heavy purses and carpetbags filled with heaven knows what. They lunged for the leopardwun as a single entity, fury trumping fear as they surrounded the big cat and thumped it into submission. It yowled and cowered away from them.

  “How very dare—”

  “A baby!”

  “You ought to be ashamed—”

  “A BABY!”

  “Bog off, spotty!”

  “A WEE LITTLE BABY, for goodness’ sake!”

  “This station is Scholars’ Crossing,” intoned the calm, pleasant voice on the loudspeaker. “Alight here for Nevermoor University, West Campus.”

  The doors of the train finally pinged open at Scholars’ Crossing station and the leopardwun had no choice but to get off, since it was being steamrollered out
onto the platform by the gang of surprisingly vicious elderly ladies.

  “Gwan, get orf!”

  “And let this be a lesson!”

  “Why they ever let Wunimals on trains to begin with—”

  The doors closed with a whoosh, and the whole carriage broke into loud applause.

  “Th-thank you,” said Hawthorne in a shaky voice.

  “Yes,” Morrigan said breathlessly. “Thank you.” She couldn’t think what else to say. Her brain had gone numb.

  “Poor little love,” said one of the women, clucking sympathetically and pinching Baby Dave’s cheek. “Got the fright of her life, didn’t she, the braw wee thing.”

  But braw wee Baby Dave wasn’t frightened at all. In fact, she seemed utterly tickled by the whole episode. She giggled and waved goodbye to the leopardwun as the train took off, leaving the Wunimal stalking up and down the platform, snapping its jaws in an agitated state and heaving in great shuddering breaths. Morrigan noticed that Hawthorne, on the other hand, had gone a bit pale.

  “Let’s, er… let’s not tell Dad about this,” he muttered as he took his little sister from Morrigan, trying unsuccessfully to bounce her up and down on his hip. “He’ll only get upset and blame himself for us being separated. I’ll tell Mum later, she’ll be a bit calmer about it. Tomorrow, maybe, or—no, that’ll ruin Christmas. Maybe the day after.”

  Morrigan nodded and allowed Baby Dave to yank violently at her scarlet ribbon for the rest of the trip.

  “Oh, the marching band!” said Helena, snapping her fingers. “Saint Nick’s invisible marching band, all those instruments playing themselves. That was the best bit.”

  “Did you taste one of those mince pies? Best I’ve ever had,” said Cat, who was sitting with Dave on the squishiest sofa. Baby Dave—tuckered out from their Wunderground misadventure—had fallen asleep between her parents with one hand stuck in a bowlful of popcorn, snoring softly. “Morrigan, what was your favorite bit?”