Читать книгу Clash of the Worlds - Ned Vizzini - Страница 15

Meanwhile, seven miles away, across the Golden Gate Bridge, Brendan paid the cab driver and stepped out of the car into the dark night. He had no idea how he was going to get home. The number forty bus stopped running at eight p.m., and he’d had to spend all of his remaining money on the cab ride there. Thankfully, his driver didn’t speak English very well, and didn’t even bother asking why a twelve-year-old kid was taking a cab to a cemetery at two thirty in the morning on a school night. Brendan supposed this was a benefit of living in a big city like San Francisco. Nothing seemed weird there.

He was surprised to see that Fernwood Cemetery did not have a perimeter fence. He’d been fairly certain he was going to have to climb a ten-foot-tall iron fence with impaling spikes at the top. But the huge cemetery, surrounded by woods and built on a gently sloping hill, seemed almost welcoming to late-night trespassers.

It was dark; the only light was from several streetlights nearby and a few faded stars in the black sky.

Brendan braced himself with several deep breaths as he stared into the blackness of the cemetery, trying to tell himself that facing savage warriors, bloodthirsty pirates, Roman gladiators, hungry lions and a vicious wolf the size of a horse had all been way more terrifying than this. There was no reason for him to be afraid.

His mind drifted towards the time when he was nine and snuck into the living room late at night to watch Night of the Living Dead On Demand. He might as well have been a delicious brain sitting on a dinner platter. Brendan would have laughed at the image of his brain sitting neatly on a silver platter flanked by sides of braised kale and mashed potatoes if he were less petrified.

He tried to ignore his fear and instead focus on what he was there to do. First things first: he had to somehow find Denver Kristoff’s tomb.

Brendan switched on his phone’s flashlight and made his way into the cemetery, weaving past most of the headstones. It actually took far less time to find it than he’d suspected, given the cemetery’s size. But his gut instinct to start by checking the larger, more expensive mausoleums paid off. After jogging to four or five of the newer-looking mausoleums, Brendan found the one labelled Marlton Houston, the false name reported by the news in the days following Denver Kristoff and Aldrich Hayes being killed by a city bus downtown.

Kristoff’s mausoleum was a grand affair. It was roughly the size of a large tool shed, but all similarities ended there. It was constructed of white marble and had three steps leading up to a set of bronze double doors covered in intricate carvings of hooded figures and mythical beasts. Two marble columns flanked the doors beneath a peaked roof containing a large carved symbol Brendan didn’t recognise.

He stood in front of the steps and took a few deep breaths, cleared his throat, and thought back to the horrifying experience of watching Denver and Aldrich summon the spirits of past Lorekeepers inside the Bohemian Club with a simple spell.

“Diablo tan-tun-ka,” Brendan said, softly at first. “Diablo tan-tun-ka.” His voice grew louder as he chanted the spell several more times. “Diablo TAN-tun-ka! Diablo tan-tun-KA!”

Nothing seemed to be happening. Brendan continued anyway, recalling words the two Lorekeepers had spoken, but not quite remembering the inflections.

“Diablo TAN-tun-ka, spirit of my … uh, great-great-great-grandfather, um, I think,” Brendan said. “I summon you! I wish to speak to the one departed called Denver Kristoff!”

Brendan raised his arms towards the sky, as if he were literally trying to lift up the dead spirit of the Storm King from his resting place. He stopped and waited, his arms still raised into the air like he was signalling a touchdown.

Only silence greeted him. He lowered his arms and realised how ridiculous it was to think he could possibly raise the spirit of a dead Lorekeeper … or anyone for that matter.

A chill went up his spine as a breeze whipped across his neck and face.

Then a twig snapped behind him.

Brendan spun around, raised his phone’s flashlight; his heart lodged firmly in his throat. And then he screamed loudly enough to wake the dead.