Mister Monday. Гарт Никс

running around and answering those ridiculous inquiries from up top. How should I know how that bit of the Will got out? I’m not going to write a report, you know. I haven’t the energy. In fact, I really need a nap—”

      “Not now, sir, not now,” said Sneezer urgently. He shaded his eyes with one dirty, half-gloved hand and looked around. Strangely, he still seemed unable to see Arthur, though he was right in front of him. “We’re almost there.”

      “We are there,” said the young man coldly. He pointed at Arthur as if the boy had suddenly appeared out of nowhere. “Is that it?”

      Sneezer left the bath chair and advanced on Arthur. His attempt at a smile revealed even more yellow teeth, some of them broken, but all too many of them sharp and doglike.

      “Hello, my boy,” he said. “Let’s have a bow for Mister Monday.”

      Arthur stared at him. It must be an unknown side effect, he thought. Oxygen deprivation. Hallucinations.

      A moment later, he felt a hard bony hand grip his head and bob it forward several times, as Sneezer made him bow to the man in the bath chair. The shock and unpleasantness of the touch made Arthur cough and lose all his hard-won control over his breathing. Now he really was panicking and he couldn’t breathe at all.

      “Bring him here,” instructed Mister Monday. With a languid sigh, he leaned over the side of the bath chair as Sneezer dragged Arthur effortlessly over, using only two fingers to pick the boy up by the back of his neck.

      “You’re sure this one will die straight away?” Mister Monday asked, reaching out to lift Arthur’s chin and look at his face. Unlike Sneezer, Monday’s hands were clean and his nails trimmed. There was hardly any force in his grip, but Arthur found he couldn’t move at all, as if Mister Monday had pressed a nerve that paralysed his whole body.

      Sneezer rummaged in his pocket with one hand, not letting go of Arthur’s neck. He pulled out half a dozen scrunched-up pieces of paper, which hung in the air as if he’d laid them on an invisible desk. He sorted through them quickly, smoothed one out and held it against Arthur’s cheek. The paper shone with a bright blue light and Arthur’s name appeared on it in letters of gold.

      “It’s him, no doubt at all,” said Sneezer. He thrust the paper back in his pocket, and all the others went back in as if they were joined together on a thread. “Arthur Penhaligon. Due to drop off the twig any minute. You’d best give him the Key, sir.”

      Mister Monday yawned again and let go of Arthur’s chin. Then he slowly reached inside the left sleeve of his silk robe and pulled out a slender metal spike. It looked very much like a thin-bladed knife without a handle. Arthur stared at it, his mind and sight already fuzzy again from lack of oxygen. Somewhere in his head, under that fuzziness, the panicked voice that had told him to use his inhaler was screaming again.

       Run away! Run away! Run away!

      Though the weird paralysis from Monday’s touch had gone, Sneezer’s grip did not lessen for a moment, and Arthur simply had no strength to break free.

      “By the powers vested in me under the arrangements entered into in the blah, blah, blah,” muttered Mister Monday. He spoke too quickly for Arthur to make out what he was saying. He didn’t slow down until he reached the final few words. “And so let the Will be done.”

      As he finished, Monday thrust out with the blade. At the same time, Sneezer let Arthur go and the boy fell back on the grass. Monday laughed wearily and dropped the blade into Arthur’s open hand. Instantly, Sneezer made Arthur wrap his fingers around it, pushing so hard that the metal bit into his skin. With the pain came another sudden shock. Arthur found that he could breathe. It was as if a catch had been turned at the top of his lungs, unlocking them to let air in.

      “And the other,” said Sneezer urgently. “He has to have it all.”

      Monday peered across at his servant and frowned. He also started to yawn, but quashed it, taking an angry swipe across his own face.

      “You’re very keen for the Key to leave my possession, even if only for a few minutes,” said Monday. He’d been about to take something else out of his other sleeve, but now he hesitated. “And to give me boiled brandy and water. Too much boiled brandy and water. Perhaps, in my weariness, I have not given this matter quite the thought…”

      “If the Will finds you, and you have not given the Key to a suitable Heir—”

      “If the Will finds me,” mused Monday. “What of it? If the reports be true, only a few lines have escaped their durance. I wonder how much power they hold?”

      “It would be safer not to put it to the test,” said Sneezer, wiping his nose on his sleeve. Anxiety obviously made his nose run.

      “With the complete Key in his possession, the boy might live,” observed Monday. For the first time he sat up straight in his bath chair and the sleepy look was gone from his eyes. “Besides, Sneezer, it seems odd to me that you of all my servants should have come up with this plan.”

      “How so, sir?” asked Sneezer. He tried to smile ingratiatingly, but the effect was repulsive.

      “Because generally you’re an idiot!” shouted Monday in a rage. He flicked a finger and an unseen force struck Sneezer and Arthur, sending them tumbling roughly across the grass. “Whose game are you playing here, Sneezer? You’re in league with the Morrow Days, aren’t you? You and that Inspector, and the Will safe as ever? Do you expect to take over my office?”

      “No,” said Sneezer. He slowly stood up and began to advance upon the bath chair. With each step, his voice changed, becoming louder and clearer, booming into the distance. Trumpets sounded as he trod, and Arthur saw letters of sharp black ink form upon his skin. The letters danced and joined into lines of type that rushed across Sneezer’s face like living, shining tattoos.

      “Into the trust of my good Monday, I place the administration of the Lower House,” said both the type and the booming voice that came out of his mouth, but was not Sneezer’s. “Until—”

      Arthur couldn’t believe the languid Monday could move so fast. He drew something from his sleeve, a glittering object which he pointed at Sneezer as he shouted deafening words that sounded like thunderclaps, the vibration of them smashing through the air and shaking the ground where Arthur lay.

      There was a flash of light, a concussion that shook the earth and a stifled scream, though Arthur did not know who it came from, Sneezer or Mister Monday.

      Arthur shut his eyes. When he opened them again, Monday, bath chair and Sneezer had disappeared, but there was still black type running in a thread through the air, moving too quickly for him to read the words. The letters twirled above Arthur into a spiral, a whirlwind of shiny letters. Something heavy materialised between the lines of type and fell down, striking him sharply on the head.

      It was a book, a slim notebook, no bigger than Arthur’s hand. It was bound in green cloth. Arthur absently picked it up and slid it into his shirt pocket. He looked up and around again, but the lines of type were gone. They had slowed down just long enough for him to make out only four words: Heir,Monday and The Will.

      Arthur could see Mister Weightman sprinting towards him now, a phone at his ear, and the school nurse running much more slowly from the direction of the gym, a resuscitation kit in her hand. Behind Weightman came the whole of Arthur’s gym class. Even the walkers were running.

      Arthur looked at them and would have groaned if he could have forced any air out of his lungs. Not only was he going to die, it would be in front of everybody. They would all be interviewed on TV and say things that sounded sort of nice but really meant they thought he was a stupid loser.

      Then he noticed that he could breathe. For a while there his brain had been tripping out from lack of oxygen, with visions and everything, but the inhaler had worked sufficiently well to get him over the worst. He could breathe a bit, and it was worth the pain in his hand—

      Arthur