Devil's Rock - Chris Speyer [78]
He thought about the pet guinea pig he had had when he was younger. It was white with brown spots. He thought carefully about where the spots were positioned, pictured its bright little eyes and quivering whiskers, the little bit of pink on its nose, the sound its feet made on a polished floor. He let it take shape in his mind while staring at a dirty sock on the floor beside his bed. The sock developed a bright little eye and then the sock was gone and the guinea pig popped into existence around the eye. His concentration wavered and the guinea pig went back to being a sock. This obviously takes a bit of practice, he thought.
Each time he brought the guinea pig into being he held it there a little longer until, eventually, he was able to reserve a piece of his mind for the guinea pig while thinking about something else entirely.
He let the guinea pig run around the bedroom while he took a clean pair of socks from his drawer. He thought of two more guinea pigs. Two perfect clones of the first guinea pig scuttled about the floor, around his feet and under the bed. He wiped them all from his mind; three guinea pigs disappeared and were replaced by three socks. So what did that prove? That when something appeared, something else disappeared. The flapping plastic bag turned into the first seagull, the poster turned into the hawk, the socks into the guinea pigs.
All very interesting, but turning socks into guinea pigs wasn’t going to help him against Maunder! The logbook was still in his rucksack. Maybe he’d missed something. Maybe something she had written could help him. What did she say about the Devil Dances?
Zaki sat on his bed, the book open against his knees. He reread everything Rhiannon had written about the Devil Dances, about her transformation into the demon in Maunder’s house and about the events in the cave. He rested his head back against the wall and closed his eyes, trying to picture everything she had described. Did he fall asleep? He felt another face pressing against the inside of his, as though his face were a mask worn by somebody else. He felt his features stretching and distorting as the face inside pushed outwards. Then his mind filled with memories that weren’t his own. He saw Devil’s Rock, black against the sky. A wrecked ship lay on the reef beneath; bodies floated in the water, carts were being loaded by the light of flaming torches.
Zaki sat up quickly. He looked for the mirror on the wall but saw the mask, then remembered he had put the mirror on the floor. He picked it up and examined his face. Did he imagine it, or did he see a white scar running down from under his left eye, through his lips to his chin? Yes – it was faint, but it was there, like a pale puckered line. Maunder!
He mustn’t wait any longer. He had to act. He found the CD of drum music that Anusha had given him. But he needed something to play it on. He went to Michael’s room and fetched the laptop and his brother’s headphones. Back in his own room, he set the computer up on the table beside his bed, put the CD in and put the headphones on. Then he put on the bracelet. The mask was on the wall in front of him. He was ready. Could he drive Maunder back into the bracelet?
The drum music began to play. Through the headphones it sounded as if the drum was in the middle of Zaki’s head. A second drum joined the first, then a third and a fourth. Mr Dalal had obviously laid one track over another. The rhythms crossed and recrossed but every now and then the drums would beat together in unison and the rhythm throbbed like a great heart echoing the beating of Zaki’s own. Zaki kept his eyes fixed on the mask. Slowly, the mask’s features came to life: the sightless eyeholes became eyes that fixed their penetrating gaze on him; the mouth widened in a terrible grin; the hair became alive with snakes. From the head grew a body, its belly smeared with blood. From the shoulders sprouted four arms that ended in four clawed hands. One hand gripped a rooster,