Hollow Earth Read Free Page B

grown fond of her over the years. Despite the nature of their work together, they had made a good team. He knew she trusted him – at least, as far as anyone can trust their jailer.
    Arthur sighed. Sandie Calder really should not have trusted him at all.
    What a fool he’d been, to think that the Society’s plan would go forward without further violence. Arthur was nothing more than a pawn in a murderous chess game that had been going on for centuries.
    Sitting at his cluttered desk with his head in his hands, an amazing thing happened to Arthur. He found a little compassion and just enough courage to free Sandie from the chains that bound her.
    It was time to break his allegiance to the Hollow Earth Society and let Sir Charles and the Council of Guardians decide the twins’ fate after all.
    He lifted the phone and dialled a number. After a few seconds, he punched in a code, then hung up. Within seconds, his phone rang. The receiver almost slid from his clammy hand as he grabbed it.
    ‘What has happened, Arthur?’
    ‘Sir Charles, it’s the twins. They … they animated themselves into a painting. I’ve never seen anything like it before. I knew it was possible, but witnessing it for the first time was quite shocking. One minute they were drawing on the bench, then the next minute they were—’
    ‘Arthur, I’m a Guardian. I know what animating looks like.’
    There was silence on the line for a beat, just long enough for Arthur to hear scurrying outside his door.
    ‘Thank you, Arthur,’ said Sir Charles Wren. ‘The Council will take charge of the twins from here on. Something we should have done years ago, if I’d had my way.’
    Arthur hung up the phone, his nerves frayed but his conscience stilled. Even if the Council of Guardians decided to bind the children, Arthur hoped they would not do so until they were sixteen and of age. If nothing else, he hoped he had given the twins, and Sandie, a little more time. There was just one more call to make.
    Arthur was reaching across his desk for the phone again when it rang. Startled, Arthur knocked the receiver from the desk. Bending to pick it up, he saw a dark shadow choking the space between the floor outside and his door.
    ‘Does Sandie know of the Society’s plans for the twins?’
    It wasn’t Sir Charles.
    ‘I don’t … don’t think so,’ said Arthur faintly.
    ‘Good. Good. Oh, and Arthur?’
    ‘Yes?’
    ‘Don’t open your office door.’

SIX
    T he taxi turned into Raphael Terrace, a narrow street on the cusp of Knightsbridge, where the houses were clinging with quiet dignity to their wealthy pasts even as their paint peeled and their roofs leaked. Sandie and the twins got out in front of a three-storey Victorian mansion that had been the home of the Kitten family since the eighteen fifties. In the nineteen sixties, the Kitten sisters Violet and Anthea had turned their mansion into a home for modern artists. They had leased the top floor, converted into a flat years ago, to Sandie when she and the twins had first arrived in London.
    Violet and Anthea were in the hallway with their shopping when the twins burst through the front door, so they helped the two women with the bags. That way, they figured they could postpone, if not avoid, more of their mum’s wrath upstairs.
    Sandie’s mobile rang. Sprinting up the stairs, she answered as she unlocked the door to the flat.
    ‘They’re coming for you,’ said Arthur without any preamble.
    Sandie leaned against the wall for support. ‘The Council of Guardians? But they can’t take them now. They’re too young. Sir Charles promised me when I came to London he wouldn’t take them if I … if …’
    The twins’ voices carried up to her from downstairs. She couldn’t let them overhear how she’d protected them all these years. ‘Matt and Em didn’t know what they were doing, Arthur,’ she whispered instead. ‘Truly, they didn’t. How much time do we have?’
    ‘Not enough. Not enough. I’m