Free Candleman by Glenn Dakin Page B

For decades these fanatics have been watching us, spying on all our good works. But over the years, quietly, and with great care, we have been shutting down that organisation, eroding its funds, discouraging its membership, even freeing some of its workers from their earthly worries.’ He gave Mr Nicely a meaningful look.
    ‘Killing them,’ said Mr Nicely.
    ‘With kindness!’ insisted Dr Saint. ‘But this broken, old, crumbling Society produced one final flicker of life. It actually managed to capture the Vessel.’
    Mr Nicely grunted. He still didn’t like that expression. Dr Saint beckoned his butler over to study the monitor he had linked to the Mercy Tube.
    ‘But it’s all here,’ Dr Saint said excitedly. ‘In the Tube! Burned into its memory. Every day of the Vessel’s life, every detail of the changes in his body. All the energy that was regulated, siphoned off and studied!’ Dr Saint lowered his voice to a faint, excited tremble. ‘I think we may not actually need the Vessel any more.’
    Dr Saint flicked a switch and an outline of Theo’s body appeared on the monitor, with waves of energy cascading through it. Mr Nicely looked away.
    ‘The Vessel is out there now,’ Dr Saint said, nodding towards the window. ‘Contaminated. If we don’t repossess our property quickly, it – he – will become so poisoned by other people’s thoughts that he may actually become dangerous to us. There might soon be a time when it will be better for the Society to free the Vessel from that contamination – from all his mortal worries, in fact – than to allow him to stay alive. When that time comes, will you be ready, Mr Nicely?’
    ‘I’ll be ready, Dr Saint,’ mumbled the butler quietly.
    ‘Good man,’ said his employer. ‘Now let’s see about that tea.’

Chapter Eleven
Fragments
    ‘H ow do you feel now?’ asked Chloe. Theo was leaning, red-faced and weak, on the gate at the back of the Condemned Cemetery.
    ‘Sick, but better,’ panted Theo. The trip through the network had been as quick as only Chloe’s expert knowledge could make it, but the air down there had been clogged with the dirty vapour that was now spreading throughout every nook and cranny of the city.
    ‘What does it mean,’ Theo asked, ‘Sir Peregrine having access to the network?’ His face was resuming its usual pale hue, his dark hair was matted and curled by sweat and dirty fog.
    ‘That your theory is right!’ Chloe replied. ‘He
must
be the Dodo. But he was a weird villain from the Victorian days. How can he still be alive?’ Chloe looked exasperated.
    ‘I’ve no idea,’ Theo replied. ‘But I’ve seen an old picture of him – it’s not the sort of thing you forget!’
    ‘The trouble is,’ Chloe said, ‘Mr Norrowmore always tried to keep me in the dark about the old days, the old characters. He wanted me to be
Modern Vigilance
– an up-to-date agent only interested in how to stop the Society of Good Works here and now.’ Chloe glanced back, anxious.
    ‘Speaking of the here and now,’ she added, ‘we’d better move on!’ Chloe shoved open the rusty gate and plunged into the woods that surrounded the sprawling graveyard.
    ‘Where are we going?’ panted Theo.
    ‘Can’t you guess?’ Chloe called back.
    Theo hurried to keep her in sight through the gathering dusk. After a gloomy trek through the trees, Chloe stopped by a crumbling tomb carved to represent an immense sleeping lion. She motioned for Theo to remain there while she scouted ahead. She scuttled through the smog, the holly and the gravestones. Suddenly she straightened up, relaxed and beckoned Theo. ‘It’s clear,’ she said.
    The cemetery keeper’s cottage had been trashed, taken apart by curious and destructive hands. Even items that couldn’t possibly be important had been scattered and smashed, like the glasses Theo and Sam had so recently used in celebration.
    ‘I should have known,’ said Chloe dismally. ‘There would have been a light