Archibald Lox and the Pick of Loxes by Darren Shan

Author:Darren Shan
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Home of the Damned Ltd
Published: 2022-06-28T00:00:00+00:00

17

There’s complete silence in the room when I enter, everyone staring from Jickey to me and back again. It’s tight – the room wasn’t built to hold this many guests – but nevertheless there’s a large space around the prince, no one wanting to stand too close to him, sensing his guilt from his crumpled expression and the sad way he’s holding himself.

“Hello, Archie,” Jickey says, breaking the hush.

“Jickey,” I say shortly in response.

“You’re looking well,” he says.

“You too,” I say stiffly, then force a weak laugh. “We’re not very good at small talk, are we?”

“Absolutely rubbish,” Jickey smiles, looking for a few seconds like his old self, but the smile quickly fades, to be replaced again by that troubled, sickly look. “How did you escape from the cenote?”

“There was a borehole,” I tell him.

“In the pool?” he frowns.

“No,” I say. “Up higher, close to the rim.”

He looks confused for a moment. Then his expression clears, and to my shock he says, “The one that connects with the well.”

“How do you know about that?” I gasp.

“I hadn’t thought about that borehole in a long time,” he mutters. “Even if I had, I probably still would have chosen that location, as the hell jackals should have got you long before you climbed that high.”

Many of the people in the room sigh and shake their heads, because he’s admitted his complicity with that statement. A few look as sickly as he does, and I know this has presented them with a massive problem — how do you try a royal for a crime in a place where royals are above the law?

“What did you find in the well?” Jickey asks. “Was the –”

“Nothing,” I say loudly and quickly, before he can mention the blooder.

“Really?” he blinks. “How strange. I wonder what happened to –”

“Why did you do it?” I interrupt, cutting him short again. “Why take me to the cenote and set the hell jackals loose on me? That was your work, right?”

Jickey stares at me solemnly, then at the others. He lowers his face with shame and says, “Yes. I hired a deviser to install the borehole in the pool. It opened into a tiny zone, where a hell jackal handler had left four of his beasts.”

“Four?” Inez says. “There were only three in the cenote.”

“I guess one of them must have perished while they were waiting,” Jickey says. “Maybe the others killed it. I should have left the handler behind to babysit them, but I didn’t think it would be necessary. He’d given them some of your clothes to sniff – I extracted them from your laundry – so I knew they’d target you without having to be directed.”

I feel dizzy, listening to him talk about his plot so emotionlessly.

“How did you plan to get out of there?” I ask. “You must have known that once they’d killed me, they’d have fixed on you and Inez next. Or had their handler primed them not to attack you?”

“I’m not sure a handler could programme them that precisely,” Jickey says.

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