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CONJUROR
John & Carole E. Barrowman
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About this Book
About the Author
Table of Contents
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About Conjuror
Matt and Em Calder are no ordinary seventeen-year-old twins. They are Animare, an ancient order of artists who can bring drawings to life and travel in time through paintings. They work for Orion, an intelligence agency that protects the secrecy of their order.
The work is rarely dangerous. Until they are sent to rescue Rémy, a teenage boy sleeping rough in London. Rémy’s mother has been murdered – and now her killers are hunting him. For he is a Conjuror, the last descendant of an ancient bloodline that can change reality with music. His song gives him powers beyond those he ever dreamed… powers that could be deadly if they fall into the wrong hands.
To teachers everywhere and with love to Adeline Beatrice Murray
Contents
Cover
Welcome Page
About Conjuror
Dedication
Prologue
First Movement
Chapter 1. El Diablo Weeps
Chapter 2. A False Eden
Chapter 3. Perfect Pitch
Chapter 4. Smoke in the Air
Chapter 5. What to Do
Chapter 6. Not Even a Croak
Second Movement
Chapter 7. Some Kind of Freaky
Chapter 8. Play Somethin’ Sweet
Chapter 9. Sticky Fingers
Chapter 10. Out of Words
Chapter 11. Count to Ten
Chapter 12. No Dirty Notes
Chapter 13. Run, Rémy, Run!
Chapter 14. What Dying Sounds Like
Chapter 15. Blackbird
Chapter 16. Taco Tuesday
Chapter 17. Lord of the Flies
Chapter 18. We all Fall Down
Chapter 19. Take this and Go
Third Movement
Chapter 20. Time Travel Sucks
Chapter 21. Outside the High Kirk
Chapter 22. Mothballs and Lilacs
Chapter 23. Banksy and Merlin
Chapter 24. Midnight in Paris
Chapter 25. Not My Fault
Chapter 26. Old Friends
Fourth Movement
Chapter 27. A Higher Cause
Chapter 28. Memories of You
Chapter 29. Mi Casa Es Tu Casa
Chapter 30. Still Freaky
Chapter 31. Scalding Tea and Burning Questions
Chapter 32. Death and Dust
Chapter 33. Magic and Revelation
Chapter 34. The Price of Freedom
Chapter 35. Time to Go
Chapter 36. Making the Headlines
Chapter 37. Trifling Details
Chapter 38. Casting Call
Chapter 39. Open for Visitors
Chapter 40. A Cabinet of Curiosities
Chapter 41. Inside the V&A
Chapter 42. Into the Wardrobe
Chapter 43. Exit the Building
Chapter 44. Making Tracks
Chapter 45. Let Me Go
Chapter 46. Too Much Awesome
Chapter 47. Putting it Together
Chapter 48. This Happened
Chapter 49. Fast Learners
Chapter 50. Annie’s Journal
Fifth Movement
Chapter 51. Hot as Hades
Chapter 52. Driving While Invisible
Chapter 53. Turn Round
Chapter 54. In Chains
Chapter 55. Guilt Trip
Chapter 56. The Second Kingdom
Chapter 57. Captives
Chapter 58. The Final Cut
Chapter 59. Reunion
Chapter 60. Introductions
Chapter 61. Street Fighting Man
Acknowledgements
Questions for Your Book Club
About John & Carole E. Barrowman
Also by John & Carole E. Barrowman
An Invitation from the Publisher
Copyright
PROLOGUE
The first Conjuror came to America in a slave ship.
In 1797 a lone ship drifted up a tributary of the Mississippi. Alonzo Blue, overseer of the Dupree Plantation, spotted the two-decker bobbing in the choppy water. As word spread of the ship’s strange arrival, the field slaves vanished into their damp huts, closed their shutters and shoved pellets of hardtack into their ears. They knew what was coming.
At dusk the voice of an angel singing a wordless aria could be heard, like the fluting sound of the breeze through the sugar cane, or the delicate notes of the harpsichord in the big house’s front parlour. The music floated from the ship in a pulsing silver mist, above the moss-draped oaks, through the rubber trees dripping with wet lichen, dipping and darting across the indigo fields until it reached the party at the plantation house, where handsome guests were sipping sweetened rum from tulip-shaped glasses on the wide veranda.
At the cool touch of the mist, the guests’ fingers twitched, their limbs stiffened, their eyes fluttered and their glasses fell to the wooden planks of the porch. The women’s ears trickled blood on to the lace of their white cotton dresses. The men’s collars sliced into the throbbing veins in their necks.
The music stopped.
FIRST MOVEMENT
‘Praise the Lord with the harp,
Make music to him on the ten-stringed lyre.
Sing to him a new song.’
Psalm 33
1.
EL DIABLO WEEPS
SOUTHERN SPAIN, 1510
Tears of joy creased the powdered cheeks of the Grand Inquisitor Cardinal Rafael Oscuro as he listened to the boy sing. Tugging a perfumed kerchief from the sleeve of his gown, he dabbed at his eyes, and then crooked his finger at the man in red and gold silk lounging on a chaise behind the child.
Don Grigori finished his sugared square of marzipan and glided across the chambers towards his master, his gait surprisingly graceful for such a tall man. Blond hair curled at the curve of his elegant neck, framing the youthful face that audiences across Europe courted and coveted.
He kneeled before the older man.
‘Your Eminence?’
Don Grigori’s voice was as high and girlish as his cheeks were smooth. It was a voice that could make the heavens smile – if Don Grigori had been interested in such mundanities.
*
At the twilight of his second decade, the Vatican’s most famous castrato could still hold a note for minutes and the attentions of princes and popes for hours. He had been a gift to Rodrigo Borgia from Spain’s emissary at the Vatican when, as Pope Alexander VI, Borgia had granted the kingdoms of Castile and Aragon to Spain. Don Grigori’s fame had grown even as popes had fallen.
*
The Grand Inquisitor gestured for Don Grigori to rise.
‘Where did the boy come from?’
The child’s ankles, visible beneath the hem of a sackcloth tunic, were clotted with welts from months in manacles. His fists were clenched at his sides. The boy was biting his lip. The boy was trembling. But the boy was not crying.
Don Grigori stood again, licking flakes of sugar from his rouged lips.
‘He arrived two days past from the Ivory Coast, Your Eminence.’ He had adapted the pitch of his high voice with a lilting cadence that was mesmerizing whether he was speaking in Spanish, Italian, French or English.
‘Was he alone?’ asked the Grand Inquisitor.
‘He is now, Your Eminence.’
‘His age?’
‘It is difficult to say. His diet has been poor.’
‘A guess then?’
‘Not yet in manhood.’
The Grand Inquisitor smiled his approval
. ‘Excellent. We are in time.’
The child was, in fact, ten years old and, until he had been hunted like a wild boar and forced naked into the rat-infested hold of a slave ship, had been well-nourished and deeply loved.
The Grand Inquisitor cupped his hand under the boy’s chin. The boy jerked his head away. ‘Ah, we have a spirited one. Does he have the mark?’
‘I could not find it, Your Eminence.’ The castrato paused, before adding, ‘I examined him… thoroughly.’
‘Still, with a voice like his we cannot take chances.’ The Grand Inquisitor ran his manicured fingers over the boy’s roughly shaved head. ‘How did you find him?’
‘The Moor was protecting him. I had a spy placed in his household days ago when he first became a nuisance. Her presence finally bore fruit.’
‘Ah, Don Grigori, my most loyal friend, you will be doubly rewarded.’
Don Grigori kissed the Grand Inquisitor’s lips. It was a dutiful kiss, one to seal a promise rather than sustain a dalliance. Those desires had ceased for Don Grigori years ago with the nip of a knife.
2.
A FALSE EDEN
The Grand Inquisitor stepped on to his balcony and inhaled the perfumes of his gardens. A warm breeze rippled the sparkling water in a chain of ponds, where faceless human statues cavorted with odd reptilian creatures. A great phallic fountain with a blue globe at its base soared at the centre of this secret garden, designed for the Grand Inquisitor’s eyes alone. Every tree in the garden was heavy with strange, lush fruits, and creatures that had no place in the world outside frolicked in the foliage. Perched on a drooping branch, a peculiar, oblong-shaped owl stared back at the Grand Inquisitor with wide, lidless eyes.
The Grand Inquisitor regretted what he had to do, but he had spent too long in this place enjoying the hospitality of the Spanish Inquisition. The Moor, Don Alessandro de Mendoza, was drawing close and he couldn’t afford to have his plans exposed. He must retreat once again, let his network of soldiers and spies continue under Don Grigori’s leadership, while he rested and rejuvenated. After all, time was the Grand Inquisitor’s closest ally. As for the Camarilla, they were as ancient as the Knights Templar and their mission just as sacred. With Don Grigori at the helm, the Camarilla would be ruthless and unwavering.
With one last lingering look at the view, the Grand Inquisitor reached under the stiff collar of his robes and lifted an ivory pitch pipe to his lips. He played a note and held it for a long beat before releasing it.
The sound raked over his glorious garden. Tines of yellow light turned over the soil as if under an imaginary plough, and cyclones of dirt swirled into the air, each leaving dark holes in the ground. From each cavity a swarm of scarlet flying beetles, the size of dragonflies, burst from the earth to hover in a thrumming cloud above the Grand Inquisitor’s false Eden.
He put the pipe to his lips again. Now the red swarm mowed over the landscape like locusts, devouring everything, reducing the garden to a wasteland of sticks and stones, shattered statues and contorted limbs. The Grand Inquisitor surveyed the scene with a frown.
Behind him, Don Grigori cleared his throat.
The Grand Inquisitor tucked the pitch pipe on its velvet ribbon under his collar.
‘It is good we leave here, Don Grigori,’ he said. ‘We have grown too comfortable in this time and place.’
‘What do you intend to do, Your Eminence?’ A stray beetle fluttered in from the garden, landing on Don Grigori’s exaggerated cuff. He flicked it off with a long finger. ‘The Moor’s sorcery is strong. My spies tell me even our Queen trusts him intimately. And I fear he has others of his kind within his immediate circle.’
‘The Moor’s persistence has exhausted me. I should have listened to you, my friend. We should have left this place sooner.’ The Grand Inquisitor squeezed Don Grigori’s shoulder, the gesture close to an apology. ‘However, I have arranged to correct this indulgence. Our portrait is almost complete. I think I’d like to venture west. Perhaps explore the new world beyond the horizon. We appear to have worn out our welcome in this old one. A ship bound for Hispaniola waits at Marbella for us. The ship’s captain belongs to our trusted Camarilla, and has been well compensated. He and his crew will ensure our slumber is protected during the journey.’
‘What of the Moor, Your Eminence?’
The Grand Inquisitor smiled coldly. ‘Others are dealing with him and his cabal as we speak. He should not trouble us for much longer.’
‘And the boy?’
The Grand Inquisitor considered his options. Such a truly divine voice, but without the mark the boy was merely a distraction. He poured two goblets of wine and held one out to Don Grigori.
‘If the child does not bear the mark, then he is worthless to me, but the Vatican choir will be the richer for his voice.’ He brushed the back of his hand across Don Grigori’s soft cheek. ‘Especially since the Pope has never forgiven me for stealing you away.’
‘I’ll take the boy below,’ said Don Grigori, pausing to savour the rich red liquid in his goblet.
The boy whimpered. It was the only sound he’d made since he’d stopped singing.
‘And remind the barber he is no longer the village butcher,’ added the Grand Inquisitor. ‘If he is not more precise in his cuts, he will be retired. Permanently. The fool has made far too many mistakes of late. It was likely one of his slips of the blade that brought the Moor’s attention to us in the first place.’
‘I will take care of this boy personally,’ said Don Grigori, draining the goblet. ‘It will be my pleasure. And perhaps one day he and I may sing for the gods together.’
The child’s whimpering cries suddenly rose up in a series of notes that shocked the older men. The goblet fell from the Grand Inquisitor’s hand and smashed on the shining tiles as a visible whip of sound threw Don Grigori against the nearest wall like a ragdoll.
‘Why, you—’
The Grand Inquisitor raised his hand to strike the boy, but the song was too beautiful, too seductive, too pure, too divine. His imagination tilted. Tendrils of fog snaked at his feet, paralyzing him in his velvet slippers. His overfed body swayed to the aching melody while his mind struggled against the music as it swelled in a silver mist around him.
‘Silence… him!’ The Grand Inquisitor gasped. ‘He has the mark, he must… Don Grigori, silence him!’
But the castrato lay slumped in the corner, his long legs splayed uselessly in front of him, leaving the Grand Inquisitor fighting to purge the boy’s voice from his imagination alone. The effort was sapping his concentration. He could not make his hands do what his brain wanted of them. Helplessly, he raised his fat fingers in the air as if conducting the ribbons of sound swirling around his legs.
Don Grigori groaned as wraithlike vapours of perfect music carpeted the chamber, reaching across his fallen body and pressing him to the floor, the melody slowly squeezing the air from his lungs.
Blood wept from the Grand Inquisitor’s eyes and ears. ‘Who has trained you?’ he gasped, fighting on. ‘Whom do you serve?’
The boy’s voice only rose higher, shattering the gilt-framed mirrors on the walls and the crystal decanters on the table, raining shards of glass. A dense curl of mist wrapped around the handles of the balcony doors and flipped the key from the lock.
The Grand Inquisitor’s vision was a blur. Tearing his pitch pipe from under his robes he dragged himself to the balcony windows, pressing his free palm to the glass and blowing feebly.
At once the scarlet beetles rose from the charred earth and charged the balcony doors like a million tiny red arrows, coating the panes in crushed shells and dark inky blood.
The boy sang on.
The Grand Inquisitor jiggled the gold handles hopelessly, his sweaty hands slipping, his fleshy elbow thumping into the stained glass over and over again. This century’s appetites had weakened him. Full of bile and riddled with gout, he had become soft and lazy, his powerful magic muted. In desperation, he blew once more into
his pipe. This time the beetles rose off the balcony and formed a battering ram, their scarlet shells gleaming in the midday sun, to pummel the door over and over again until a web of cracks spidered across the thick glass.
The frenzied fog of sound whipped around the Grand Inquisitor’s neck, his chin, his face, enveloping him, pressing the pipe against his pocked chin. He toppled to the ground, his body mummified in a web of ropey fibres, leaving only one eye left to stare at the boy through tears of blood.
The balcony doors shattered.
3.
PERFECT PITCH
The beetles encased the boy in seconds, filling his mouth, clogging his throat and choking his voice. He swallowed some and spat out the rest in sticky clumps. Shaking as many off as he could manage, he twisted his robe up over his head, knotting it off like a hood. He mustered a rondo, a repeating phrase he’d learned years ago from his father before he died in a hunting accident, the melody rushing from his imagination.
But the beetles and his exhaustion were winning. The mist and its effects were beginning to dissipate. And Don Grigori was stirring. The boy collapsed to his knees, his voice faltering. Groaning, the castrato reached for his mummified master.
With an explosive splintering of wood the chamber doors burst open and a tall, brown-skinned soldier crashed into the room, wielding a sword in each hand. His breeches were tucked inside black riding boots, knives sheathed on their silver buckles, and his head was wrapped in a low yellow turban. Opals pierced his ears and a fist-sized golden tablet etched with peculiar glyphs rested at the glistening V of his open tunic.
Two of the Grand Inquisitor’s household guards leaped into the chamber after him. The soldier pivoted, lunged at the guard to his left, piercing his neck. Before the first guard fell, the soldier feigned a counter-parry, cross-stepped, and lunged at the second guard, stabbing through the hatch in his armour and piercing his heart. The second guard dropped instantly. Smelling fresh blood, a horde of beetles abandoned the boy’s head and flocked to the guards instead.