The Boy with One Name Read online

  Where it was all going to lead she wasn’t entirely sure. But she could imagine the mayhem in the morning when her foster mother saw the empty bed. She knew people would blame her for all the inconvenience that would inevitably follow because that was how things normally turned out for Ruby.

  She closed her eyes and placed her hands on her ears. The prickly noise sounded to her as though she was underwater, and in her mind’s eye she imagined that she was swimming in a warm sea with a tropical island all of her own close by. It was a trick she’d learnt for whenever the world seemed too difficult a place for her to deal with, usually when things seemed to be happening that were outside of her control.

  Ruby felt a tug on her arm. She pulled her hands away from her ears, allowing the grumble of the camper van’s engine back in. Jones’s eyes were darting from the road . . . to her . . . and back again.

  ‘You all right?’ he asked with genuine concern.

  ‘I’m fine. It’s just something I do to shut out the world.’ She chewed her gum and smiled. But it seemed to bounce off the boy right back at her. ‘When I need a time-out.’

  Jones thought for a moment and then nodded. He had never heard of a time-out, but he knew exactly what she meant. He gave her another look. ‘How come you never swallow what you’re eating?’

  ‘Are you telling me you’ve never tried gum?’

  When Jones shook his head, Ruby dug out the packet and unwrapped another piece. Keeping both hands on the wheel, Jones opened his mouth like a baby bird as Ruby folded the stick of gum into his mouth.

  ‘Keep chewing,’ advised Ruby, ‘and don’t swallow it.’

  They sat quietly, their mouths cow-chewing round, until a muffled voice broke the silence.

  ‘Get geee out o’ ’ere.’

  Ruby squirmed in her seat and pulled out the gun from the pocket of Jones’s overcoat, which she was still wearing.

  ‘Jones!’ it spluttered. ‘We need to talk.’

  ‘ ’Bout what?’ asked Jones between his chewing.

  ‘About what happens next of course.’

  ‘Not now. It ain’t the right time,’ said Jones, and the revolver grumbled something under its breath.

  Ruby had never held a gun before and she wasn’t sure she liked the feel of it. Its grumbling did little to endear it to her either. So she placed it carefully on the dashboard, the muzzle pointing away from her.

  ‘How come you couldn’t pick it up?’ she asked, looking at Jones.

  The gun laughed, replying before the boy. ‘Maitland put a charm on me. If Jones so much as touches me with a finger, I’ll shoot him with pepper spray. Of course, Maitland never told him to start with, so the stupid boy got into trouble the first time curiosity got the better of him.’

  ‘I was only young,’ Jones said to Ruby. ‘I only wanted to see how it felt to hold it.’

  ‘What did Maitland always teach you, boy?’ chuckled the gun.

  ‘Trust is the cornerstone of any true friendship,’ said Jones as though reciting it out loud in class. ‘Especially for Masters and their apprentices who’ve got to rely on each other in the Badlands.’

  ‘And it’s a charm that means you can speak?’ Ruby asked the revolver.

  ‘It’s charmed to do lots of things,’ said Jones. ‘Like firing any type of bullet you want whenever you need it.’

  ‘And how do things get charmed?’

  ‘With magic of course,’ snapped the revolver. ‘How else do you think Badlanders survive hunting creatures? They know how to control magic. It’s their greatest secret. Once an apprentice does their Commencement, they’re given the gift of magic, and then they can start to learn how to use it, charms . . . spells, whatever you need. Isn’t that right, Jones?’

  ‘P’r’aps,’ said the boy, shrugging and saying nothing more.

  ‘Commencement?’ asked Ruby.

  ‘That’s why Maitland handed over the key before he died,’ said the gun. ‘So Jo-wheeyyyy—’

  Jones swerved the van so hard to the left the revolver hurtled across the dashboard and dropped into the pocket in the door beside him. ‘Bloomin’ fox,’ said Jones without taking his eyes off the road, nimbly jamming a cloth on top of the gun to stop it sliding about, and muffle whatever it was saying.

  Ruby sat back in her seat, wondering how different the world would be for her if she could use magic. It would be easy to be rich or have whatever you wanted. Perhaps she’d make her parents want to see her again. She liked the word Commencement. It sounded official and important.

  Something in the other pocket of Jones’s overcoat was digging uncomfortably into her hip, and she pulled out a slim red book called:

  The Badlander Bestiary

  Pocket Book Version

  When she flicked through it, all the pages were blank.

  ‘It only tells you things when you ask it,’ said Jones. ‘You could fill up three or four vans with just the basic books on creatures. There’s a lot that can kill you in the Badlands.’ He pointed to a newspaper cutting from the Independent dated 2009 taped to the dashboard with the headline: The Missing: Each year, 275,000 Britons disappear. ‘It says most people turn up again,’ said Jones. ‘But there’s others who don’t, and now you know the big reason why. That’s why Maitland stuck it there,’ he said, ‘to remind us how important our job is.’

  An hour later, when Jones turned off the engine, the thatched cottage loomed in the headlights like something out of a fairy tale. Ruby was asleep, her head on her shoulder, and a curl of black hair hung down over her brow, vibrating as she breathed.

  Quietly, so as not to wake her, Jones lifted the cloth off the gun in the pocket of the door. ‘Can you hear me down there?’

  ‘Are we finally home?’ it muttered.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Then get the girl to pick me up, boy. There’s enough dust and muck in here to choke me,’ it grumbled.

  Jones leant in closer, lowering his voice. ‘You ain’t to talk to Ruby about magic or Commencement or anything else.’

  ‘Because?’

  ‘Because none of it matters. I’m not gonna be a Badlander.’

  There was a loud tutting. ‘I knew there was a reason you didn’t bother marking your kills tonight. I always thought you’d be a disappointment to Maitland, boy, and now you’re being one after he’s dead. So what about me? What’s going to happen to me?’

  But Jones didn’t reply. He touched Ruby’s arm gently instead. ‘Ruby?’

  The girl moved. Her eyes were big and slow when she opened them. She’d been dreaming about owning a magic wand and making every day her birthday. ‘We’re here,’ said Jones, pointing at the cottage.

  FIVE

  When they opened the front door, the lamps in the hallway came on by themselves. None of them had plugs or cords. Ruby wondered what else might be different to a normal house.

  ‘Wait here,’ said Jones as he began walking away from her, ‘and don’t touch anything,’ he cautioned, before disappearing through a doorway at the end of the hallway. Ruby had the feeling she was standing in a well-run antiques shop, or an old person’s house, because the furniture looked so worn and none of it matched. She ran a finger along the wooden dresser beside her. Not one speck of dust. She put down her backpack and quietly cleared her throat.

  ‘Abracadabra,’ she whispered, twirling her arm and pointing a finger at a lamp on the dresser. But it didn’t switch off. The gun in her pocket started laughing and she knew it must have heard her. Ruby’s face turned red with embarrassment.

  ‘How about doing something ordinary,’ the gun said through its giggles. ‘There’s a walnut case I’m normally kept in, in Maitland’s study. I’d like to go back there.’

  ‘But Jones said—’

  ‘It’ll only take a minute. He’ll only have to ask you to do it eventually because he can’t pick me up.’

  ‘Yeah, but—’

  ‘I’ll show you more magic, if that’s what you want?’

  Keen to see
as much as she could of magic, Ruby took out the gun, heaving off Jones’s overcoat, leaving it in a heap on the red velvet seat of a chair.

  ‘Go down the hallway,’ said the gun. ‘Then first left and keep going.’

  Ruby followed the dark red carpet down the hall, turning left into another long corridor. Light bulbs wearing shades, floating below the ceiling, came on as Ruby walked beneath them, and she smiled.

  ‘They’re all charmed by Maitland to come on at night when somebody walks past, just like the ones in the hall. But that’s nothing,’ said the gun. ‘Not compared to all the other things Maitland could do.’

  ‘Like the ball of light above the cottage earlier?’

  ‘Kids’ stuff!’ exclaimed the gun. ‘There’s all sorts of things you can learn if you become a Badlander.’

  ‘Me? A Badlander?’ Ruby tried to sound surprised, but her mind was racing, already imagining how good she might be with magic.

  ‘Oh, no!’ laughed the gun. ‘There’s never been a girl Badlander.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘It’s against the Ordnung. Girls can’t learn magic.’ Ruby stopped, her face wrinkling up as if she’d just bitten into a lemon. ‘It’s tradition, and you can’t change that, can you?’

  ‘But—’

  ‘However . . .’ and the gun cleared its throat for dramatic effect. ‘I do have an alternative proposition you might be interested in. You and me could team up anyway. Just imagine it, us hunting together. We’d show all those Badlanders where to stick their Ordnung. We might even become famous if you stayed alive long enough that is.’

  Ruby walked on down the corridor. Working with the gun sounded exciting. But, very quickly, she decided it wouldn’t be nearly as good as being able to do spells and charms. Becoming the first girl Badlander to use magic, now that would be something really special, she thought, immediately wondering how such a thing might be possible, given what she’d heard about this Ordnung so far. But she kept it to herself. ‘Can I think it over?’ she said. ‘It was all pretty scary earlier.’

  ‘As you wish. But remember, I’m a gun of the very highest calibre that any Badlander would be desperate to own. There’s paperwork to prove it.’

  They reached a heavy oak door and the gun instructed Ruby to open it which she did, revealing Maitland’s study. A large chandelier floating below the ceiling began to glow, making the wood floor seem to move as the light caught it.

  There was a musty smell of old parchment and ink. The walls were lined with shelves crammed full of books and Ruby scanned the titles in the row nearest to her – The Complete Guide to Goblins of Eastern Europe. Goblins and their Eating Habits. Good Goblins, Just a Myth? Another shelf contained books all about trolls. After glancing at the first title – Troll Teeth, a Fascinating Insight (Gums and All) – she gave up looking and moved across to another wall where all the books had the same black spine although each one had a different number on it written in gold. She plucked out Number 27 and opened it to pages of neat black handwriting.

  ‘They’re Maitland’s journals,’ said the gun. ‘He’s written down an account of every hunt he’s ever undertaken. You’ll find me mentioned in many of them.’

  Ruby flicked through the pages and paused at one of the entries.

  Hunt 27.8

  17th July, 1992

  Ghoul – Marlow, Buckinghamshire

  Below it was a brief account of how Maitland had hunted down and despatched a Ghoul he’d discovered lurking in an abandoned house. Careful notes had been made of what weapons had been used as well as a magic spell that had been cast, although its name was written in a language Ruby did not understand. She looked up at the shelves. The journals were numbered all the way up to Number 103.

  ‘Maitland was a very good Badlander,’ said the revolver. ‘One of the best. I should know because I only work with the best of the best. It is,’ it said with a slight tremble in its voice, ‘very sad to know he’s gone. We had so many adventures. He was the one who charmed me to talk. I suppose now at least I will be able to tell others of his great deeds. Now, if you don’t mind, it’s been a long day. I go in the wooden case on the desk. It’s charmed to keep me clean and polished, of which I am in great need.’

  The large desk in the middle of the room was covered with piles of papers and stacks of books and notebooks. Beneath the mess, Ruby could see patches of a green leather top, embossed with a line of gold around its edge. After opening the dark wooden box, she laid the gun down on the red velvet inlay.

  ‘So we’ll talk more about my offer tomorrow? About being famous, you and me?’

  ‘Sure,’ said Ruby and she put on her best winning smile. As she closed the lid, she heard the gun sigh with the sort of contentment that reminded her of getting into bed after a long day. But Ruby didn’t feel tired now.

  She wheeled out the chair from the desk and sat down on the cracked brown leather seat, in the depression that Maitland’s weight must have made over the years. The back of the chair creaked as she leant away from the desk, making the same noise as she leant forward again. Her eyes were drawn to a human skull, sitting on the far left corner of the desk, which Maitland had obviously used as a paperweight. The bone was smooth and shiny and the skull looked in good condition, but the teeth were black and sharp, like large lead pencil points. Fascinated, Ruby reached across the desk and hooked her fingers into the eye sockets as though she was picking up a bowling ball. She placed the skull on a stack of books in front of her.

  ‘Not so scary now, are you?’ she whispered. ‘No match for a Badlander.’ The name sounded good rolling off her tongue. ‘That’s Ruby Jenkins to you. Ruby Jenkins the Badlander, the first girl to ever work the Badlands and do magic. That’d show them where to stick their Ordnung for sure.’

  A glimmer of movement caught Ruby’s eye, and she looked into a large glass jar sitting on another corner of the desk, with a grey mist swirling inside it, the lid screwed on tight. She was sure it had been empty before. Leaning across for a better look, she jumped when two green eyes materialized and blinked. A small mouth appeared and grinned, revealing tiny yellow teeth that looked like the thorns on a bramble. A single finger with a long nail appeared as the mouth breathed on the inside of the jar, fogging the glass. The tip of the fingernail drew some tiny words carefully in reverse for her to read:

  Ruby sat back in the chair, deciding it was probably not a good idea to open the jar. Instead, she explored the three drawers on the left side of the desk. They were largely empty except for pencils and blank sheets of paper, and in the bottom-most one was a small copper-coloured key. Trying the only drawer on her right, Ruby discovered it was locked.

  When she tried the small coppery key, she discovered it fitted snugly into the keyhole, and turned it. The drawer was empty. At least, it appeared to be, until an oval-shaped black stone rolled into view. Ruby didn’t think twice about picking it up because it looked so pretty, with tiny veins of silver running over its surface. It was much lighter than she’d expected, and very cold too.

  The stone changed colour immediately, to a dark red, as if reacting to the warmth of her hand, and the silver veins vanished as a crack appeared around its middle. A tiny gassy sound escaped from Ruby’s throat as she realized that what she was holding wasn’t a stone at all, but some sort of egg.

  Before she could put it back in the drawer, the top half of the egg had been pushed off by a small furry muzzle, and a minuscule puppy, the size of a baby bird, with fur as black as night, emerged with fragments of shell stuck to its coat. Ruby stared at the creature as it scrambled out of the remains of the egg, kicking it onto the floor, and into Ruby’s hand. The puppy scrabbled up into a sitting position in her palm and sat, blinking at Ruby, mewling like any newborn.

  Ruby wasn’t sure what to make of the creature. Clearly, it wasn’t a normal dog, not just because of its size but its black fur was prickly and the ears were marked with red tips that matched its red eyes. When it tried to stand up, only t
o fall straight down again on Ruby’s uneven hand, her heart melted and she cooed at it, nudging it to get up with a finger. After managing to stand up on all four wobbly legs, it opened its mouth and Ruby thought it was yawning, and the sweetest thing she’d ever seen.

  But then it bit down on her finger with teeth as sharp as pins.

  Ruby gasped, shaking her hand to try and throw the creature off. But it clung on tight with its claws. When she tried picking it off with her other hand, the puppy growled, showing its white teeth streaky with blood. And it bit down on her finger again, making Ruby gag when a tiny half-moon appeared just below her middle knuckle.

  In a panic, she picked up the nearest object to hand, which happened to be the skull, and swung it as best she could, hitting the tiny beast, and sending it flying through the air. It spread like a black four-pointed star when it hit the large glass jar, and then slid down onto the desk and didn’t move.

  The jar wobbled, then fell off the edge of the desk before Ruby could reach out to try and grab it. She heard it smash on the wooden floor.

  Jones was busy under the sink in the kitchen when he heard Ruby scream. He was trying to reach for a vase for some pansies he’d hurriedly picked from the garden to try and make a good impression. He straightened up, cracking his head on the underside of a cold copper pipe, and cursed.

  A gurgle of laughter floated through the house as Jones rushed out of the kitchen, and he recognized it immediately. When he heard another scream, Jones hurried to Maitland’s study and pushed open the heavy oak door.

  Ruby was cowering, barefoot, in one corner of the room as five grey-scaled imps stood on her shoulders, pulling her hair. Each imp was the length of a human hand, with pointed ears and a forked tail, and sharp yellow teeth and green eyes. Two more of the creatures were sitting on the floor, pulling out the laces from her trainers and trying to unpeel the soles, while a further two were perched on a bookshelf, unpicking the threads of her white woollen socks with their long fingernails.