desception

Deception

Manny

Chapter 1 – Preparations

Tonight was going to be the night, yes, tonight. I would not fall asleep and I would not get bored, tonight I would escape. This time I prepared well, earlier in the day I had spent my hard earned pocket money on some supplies. I had, chocolate to keep me awake, a joke book, a note pad, some pens and pencils, packets of prawn and cocktail crisps but also salt and vinegar because I don’t like to much of the same, and to top it off I had also a packet of, my favourite, chocolate covered, toffee smothered, digestive biscuits.
The weather was perfect it was warm outside but still not to light, I enjoy darkness it makes me feel safe and unnoticed. It was ten o’clock and mum and dad still hadn’t gone to bed yet, I munched greedily on my chocolate, Mmm, delicious. Footsteps. I had been so interested in my chocolate that I had not heard the bathroom taps turn off and the hallway door shut. I quickly threw the rest of by chocolate into my rucksack with the other supplies in, wiped my face on my quilt and pretended to be asleep. As the handle started to swing down it felt as if my whole life had come to snail pace even though my heart was beating so hard and fast that I thought it might break.
“ Goodnight Manny, my little pumpkin.” I tried to keep as still as I could and cover up the fear that tore through my veins and pounded in my brain. My mother quickly lost interest and left me, struck with fear shivering in the dark.
I knew I had to be quick so after I had recovered I slipped on a grubby T-shirt, and put on some baggy trousers, slung some clean underwear into my rucksack and put on my woolly hat. I put on my, obviously, well-worn trainers. I was ready. All I had to do now was my parka into the rucksack, in case it got cold, then put myself wait until my parents were asleep. Only then could I make my escape out of the window.


Vivaldi
Chapter 2 – Devious thoughts

   “Blow it up!”
   “No, you blithering idiot!”
   “Look, Ray, if ya wanna get killed alive, mate, you go walk in there ‘n’ nick it yourself, but for me, ya can knock it on the ‘ed son! The only way is to blow tha lot!”
Vivaldi raised his head from his leather bound tome,
   “Quiet, both, of you.” He hissed in glacial tones. Both men froze stock-still.
   “Ray is correct, we cannot just “blow it up” we must be sly and devious, like a cobra. Although Mr Knolling does have a point, we cannot walk in and walk out; oh no something far more sinister must be played out.
   Vivaldi Alonzo stole through the back alleys of London, his henchmen, Ray Samson and Charles (Block) Knolling tripped behind him.
   “If we want to have any success of this, then we will have to” Vivaldi said, now pausing for dramatic effect, “We will have to land ourselves,” another pause. “A host.”
   “How we gonna get one ov ‘em den boss?” Block blurted in thick cockney.
   “Shut up Block you blithering, idiotic moron.” Vivaldi spat sickly, without even bothering to look back at his two, faithful henchmen. “I am thinking.”
A painfully long silence lulled its way into the conversation. All that could be heard were the metallic steps of Vivaldi’s second pair of unusually expensive, hard leather Italian shoes this week. One could only ponder on why each pair was scraping the regions of £400. Unusual hide used for the leather perhaps…
   A series of deep “aahs” and “oohs” and “ahas!” where muttered from Vivaldi’s chapped, dry lips.
   “We need a child.”
   “But boss, I don’t fink it can work cause we is all me-“
   “No! You stupid imbecile! We must. (Pause).  Find one, and even if it were possible, what the hell would the fruit of your loins look like? A strange and mutilated being with absolutely no ability to learn or do anything perhaps?”
He spat the insults as if they were venom, the venom seemed all the more potent and deadly because he was not facing him. “As I was saying, we will find a child, befriend it; it will have to be gullible and ostentatious.” He trailed off. “Anyway I will explain more of this later.”
   Ray decided it was better to stay quiet than to get involved with his master he didn’t like the odd mood he was in today, seemed to ray that he was even more unstable than normal.

Manny
Chapter 3 – Slightly chilly

After three nights of sleeping rough and eating little I was feeling mildly stressed to say the least. The first night I had sheltered inside a privet hedge that butted up to a busy road; as a result I had not had a very good sleep. The second night I stayed outside a delightfully graffiti smothered church, with a few pieces of cardboard and the daily mirror to keep me warm. It was still summer but it was getting rather a bit too cold for my liking, to say the least it was slightly chilly. And now last night I had slept in a park somewhere, definitely the worst night of my life, I was underneath a bench and someone had the courtesy to share with me their evening’s refreshments, and maybe a Chinese takeaway. This morning I woke up and then proceeded to walk into a lamppost. Today was not going very well. I managed to get most of the vomit off me in a public toilet; luckily the drunkard’s vomit only went on my head so I didn’t have to get my clothes wet and cold by washing it off.
   Tonight I decided to stay at the church where I had stayed before. I scavenged some more boxes and even an old blanket and set up a pretty good camp beside the church in the gap between it and the building next to it. I had thought that tonight would be better. And by midnight it had seemed that it definitely was…


Vivaldi

Chapter 4 – The catch of the day

Vivaldi had been observing the young lad for a large part of the day and decided to reel him in. he sent Ray to get a hot chocolate from a nearby coffee stall and sent Block to get a cheese sandwich from Tesco, followed by some shouts, a few obscenities, and a pathetic kick. Ray was being quiet. Vivaldi noticed. Vivaldi shouted obscenities at Ray. Ray kicked him. Vivaldi shouted more obscenities at him.
   Ray had now brought the hot chocolate and was shortly followed by Block bringing a cheese and pickle sandwich, slightly crumpled, but extremely palatable to a hungry boy no less.
   “Excuse me, young chappy.” Vivaldi tried his best to sound mildly approachable at least, ”I was wondering if you might like some hot chocolate or a cheese sandwich.”
Manny’s eyes lit up.
   “Um, um, well um, but I um, I have no idea who y-you are.”
   “Tcht tcht tcht, kids these days. I guess I’ll just have to go and put these in the bin, seeing as you don’t want them…”
   “No no no! I’ll take them gladly; I’m very hungry. Thankyou ever so much.” Vivaldi smirked to himself like a cat that has found a mouse.
  “Oh good, here you are then.” Vivaldi handed him the somewhat crumpled sandwich and the steaming, hot chocolate. Manny tore through the plastic packet in which the cheese sandwich was stuffed and started gobbling it with intense vigour, a bit like a starved turkey.
   “Ah good, we wouldn’t want you starving now, what was your name by the way?”
   “Um,” he gobbled, “It’s, mmm, oh yes, Manny, sir, mmm,” he slavered; eager it seemed to spread his identity to anyone and everyone.
   “Call me Vivaldi, please,” he slopped out the words with a sick happiness, one could only describe this as an evil desire. “Time for you to meet my friends, they should be around,” Manny thought it slightly odd that he had not met them earlier, it didn’t bother him for long though, he did not trust this stranger, but he was overcome with glee that his hunger had been overcome and his thirst quenched. “Ray, Block! Come here!” Out from the shadows came a wiry man, obviously around 40 years of age and balding, wearing a blue suit and black tie, and a huge man hulking behind him with a squished up face like a cat’s bottom, strangely large ears and eyebrows (or eyebrow) that looked like a big fat black hairy caterpillar taking refuge on the brow of his furrowed forehead.

Manny

Chapter 5 – Lies and suspicious truths

I slept in Vivaldi’s menacing abode outside London through the night. However something was niggling at me, something suspicious about his nature, perhaps a melancholic childhood. I decided to let it lie. Go along with the man, he seemed nice enough; perhaps he just wanted to give something back to the world. And after all he’d obviously taken enough from it, his house must have been four storeys tall, with a huge cavernous mess of tunnels and halls for a basement. It was richly furnished with animal skins, suits of armour, fading tapestries, and ancient paintings, he also had a library which was bigger than the public one I had enjoyed going to as a child, except it was filled with ancient leather bound tomes. A thick musty odour hung in the air, of mothballs and old decrepit paper. I loved it. I was entranced with his house and his books and his wealth and power.
   I had been staying for a few days now and was having a brilliant time. I had ridden horses and played with swords and armour to my heart’s content.
“I have a request of you,” Vivaldi was saying over breakfast, I gave him a puzzled look. “You see I work for the government, as an urr, head of a branch of the secret service, Retrieval of items of special interest, R.I.S.I for short, I go around Europe and the country searching for items of special interest; powerful, magical items. You see they don’t tell ordinary folk this, but magic is real!” he said this with an obvious fake excitement, but he had already drawn me in, I was too entranced to question what he was saying. “And what we are currently doing is planning to go into a tomb, that is filled with powerful items. The tomb was that of an ancient leader of our country. You see what they also don’t tell you, is that back a few thousand years ago humans were not barbaric and ignorant, they were not stupid, they had completely mastered the art of magic! They had learned to create and force spirit beings into becoming slaves, which knew how to use the earth to bring technology to our civilization. But then in about the time of the Tudors, our magisterum abolished all magic and anything to do with magic, apart from a few things like the apparent discovery of the Archimedes screw, the idea of which was actually given by a spirit being. They even re-wrote the bible to portray the past as less technologically advanced and magical than it actually was. Anyway, there is a spell, a booby trap if you will, on the tomb and anyone who breaks in will be, incinerated. There is a loophole however in the spell’s terms and conditions if you will, and it allows the use of a highly complex veil to be used on a person, which will cause the spell to dissipate and therefore kill it. However, this is where you come in, this veil only works on anyone who is not an adult, one who has not gone through puberty. So what I’m asking of you is to accept the honour of leading our investigation into the tomb you being protected by the veil, then we will follow and collect the items for the government to prepare for war. Are you up to it?” he took a few panting breaths; he was not used to long speeches. By then I was rigid, struck with excitement, adrenalin coursing through my veins. I gawped at him.
   “Um, yes.”
   “Good. We will leave tomorrow at 11p.m into the city; the tomb is under a chapel. Well no actually, it’s under cathedral. Well it’s under Saint Paul’s cathedral. We will have to go in through the back. All the doors have been opened courtesy of the secret service, apart from the tomb door obviously.”
   It was time for me to get some rest so I went to my room. However, as much as I tried I could not get to sleep, so I tiptoed towards the kitchens to get a mug of hot milk. As I passed the study where Vivaldi, Block and Ray had gone to have a cigar and talk about tomorrow. I heard…
   “… take over the world...” The voice was definitely Vivaldi’s. I stopped in my tracks. And squatted next to the door which was ajar.
   “Yes everything, has panned out correctly, the boy bought the bait like a dog to a bone. Ha! Little does he know it’s to his own demise. We will then take the items and travel to America to start our empire. I have fake papers and visas for each of us. It will be easy. Soon we will have the world in our hands.” This followed by the three of them laughing with an extreme sinister glee. My heard pounded in my chest, “its OK.” I thought to myself, “I’ll go with it, heaven knows, the world’s future may be my fate.” Then I crept to my bedroom.

Vivaldi

Chapter 6 – Deception

The whole day Vivaldi had been briefing Manny on what would happen inside the tomb. Then they had in a black limo left 11p.m sharp. The limo silently drifted in for landing behind the cathedral.
   “So remember, you will go in the first door, after I put the veil over you, then proceed through the second door, this is where the trap, The Morning Star will be set off, just stand still and wait for it to dissipate, we will go in five minutes after you and collect everything. Got that?”
   “Yes.” Manny moaned to him for the tenth time that day. They swiftly stole through the corridors and flights of stairs of the cathedral and got to the tomb. There where statues of gargoyles on either side of the door, a plaque on the wall which was impossible to read as it was so thickly crusted with dust and mould, which also covered everything else in the ancient catacombs. Block carried a flaming torch, which spilled a flickering glow about the room, adding an extra menacing air to the situation.
   Vivaldi muttered a complex incantation, which he had made up the previous evening, then placed his hand on Manny’s forehead.
   “You are ready.” Manny slowly walked toward the stone door, put the heavy brass key Vivaldi had given to him into the lock and twisted it. It flicked around the lock mechanism clicking the levers into the correct place, then stopped. He left the key in the lock and pushed the door, strangely it swung open with ease, and then shut it behind him. Manny then unfurled out his plan of action. He placed the second key in the lock twisted it until it stopped but did not open it. Then went back to the first door and hid behind a statue, and waited, he though hopefully that when the others came through they would not look back. After waiting over five minutes, the door finally opened and three shadowy figures stepped through, they did not look back and went barging into the second door. A vast and powerful energy raced through the building, the spell, as if it had a conscious mind, was so happy to see it had four victims that it decided to put on an extra special show. The ground shook, and green flames tore through the tunnels and corridors scorching all in its path. It rumbled with ancient power and shook Saint Paul’s cathedral to the ground. As you can imagine there was uproar the next day, and investigations by the real secret service. They had discovered and traced through dentist records, jewellery, bankcards found on the blackened bodies and the limo at the scene, that Vivaldi was the culprit there where two henchmen in on it as well.
   It was thought that there was a young boy around the age of 13 involved.
   This child’s body was never found...