The Billionaire’s Curse Read online

  The Archer Legacy ♦ Book One

  The Billionaire’s Curse

  Richard Newsome

  Illustrated by Jonny Duddle

  For Ella, Kath, and the other two,

  and Mum and Dad as well.

  Contents

  Prologue

  The clock on the wall chimed twice. Two o’clock in…

  Chapter One

  “Nothing…is…certain!”

  Chapter Two

  Gerald nestled into the airplane seat and munched on some…

  Chapter Three

  “Yes, Gerald,” Mr. Prisk continued, dabbing his sodden paperwork with a…

  Chapter Four

  Gerald had been impressed by the luxury of the private…

  Chapter Five

  Gerald was sucked into a clash the likes of which…

  Chapter Six

  Gerald’s eyes locked on the word murdered. As if the…

  Chapter Seven

  Gerald made his way up the steps and between the…

  Chapter Eight

  Gerald could barely open his eyes. His shoulder felt like…

  Chapter Nine

  “Well, you’re mixing with the muckety-mucks, aren’t you?”

  Chapter Ten

  Gerald, Sam, and Ruby landed in a knot of arms…

  Chapter Eleven

  The heavy portal opened and Gerald led the way inside.

  Chapter Twelve

  Gerald’s mouth hung open. The major continued to rummage in…

  Chapter Thirteen

  The black cab wound its way through the avenues of…

  Chapter Fourteen

  Sam scraped his spoon around the bowl one final time…

  Chapter Fifteen

  Gerald skirted the hedges to keep out of sight of…

  Chapter Sixteen

  Ruby was the last to crawl through the opening. As…

  Chapter Seventeen

  The knife sliced through the soft pink flesh before hitting…

  Chapter Eighteen

  “Mr. Hoskins!” Gerald said. “What are you doing here?” It was…

  Chapter Nineteen

  Downstairs, the bookshop was deserted. A handwritten sign saying BACK…

  Chapter Twenty

  Three empty tins of brass polish lay on the terrace…

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Ruby’s arms and face were covered with scratches. Sitting astride…

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Gerald was falling backward, his feet high and his arms…

  Epilogue

  In the week after the events at Beaconsfield, the warm…

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Credits

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  PROLOGUE

  The clock on the wall chimed twice. Two o’clock in the morning. Constable Lethbridge of the London Metropolitan Police was bored.

  He had finished the last of his take-out dinner—a rather disappointing chicken curry. He didn’t have the luxury of a table, so a fair amount of it was dribbled down the front of his shirt and spattered on the marble floor around his boots.

  Lethbridge eased back in his folding chair and loosened his belt a notch. The last of the curry completed the trek down his gullet, his head lurched back, and a tremendous belch burst through his lips. It shot up the walls like a gas-fired Ping-Pong ball.

  “Whoops,” Lethbridge burbled to himself. “Pardon I.”

  He removed a crumpled newspaper from the jacket that was slung over the back of the chair. Sighing, he settled in for a long night.

  A half-moon shone through the glass dome that formed the roof high above, illuminating the cavernous circular room in a dull glow. Apart from the occasional scraping of Constable Lethbridge’s chair on the floor and the rustle of his paper as he turned the pages, there was nothing to be heard. As you might expect at two o’clock in the morning in the Reading Room of the British Museum, not a great deal was afoot.

  The British Museum is one of the world’s finest museums. And the Reading Room is one of the museum’s finest rooms. Its walls are lined with bookcases that stretch up over three stories, and its elaborate glass-paneled dome is trimmed in gold and duck-egg blue. The room houses an extraordinary collection of leather-bound volumes of rare antiquity: a majestic warehouse of the learning of all Western civilization.

  In the middle of all this sat Constable Lethbridge, scratching his bottom with the plastic fork from his dinner. There was nothing at all extraordinary about him. His sandy hair was thinning, his face was pale, he was on the tubby side of plump, and he was in desperate need of a holiday.

  Lethbridge shifted uncomfortably in his chair. He lowered the newspaper to his lap and muttered, “Gawd, this is dull.”

  His voice disappeared into the gloom. With a low grunt, he hauled himself to his feet, hitched up his sagging trousers, and shambled across the floor.

  In the center of the room, bathed in moonlight and free from the museum clutter and dinnertime debris, stood a circle of identical statues. A dozen ancient archers carved from gray stone, each one aimed a crossbow at a black marble pedestal in the very middle of the room.

  On top of the pedestal rested a glass case. And inside the case there shimmered a soft light.

  Lethbridge stepped into the circle of stone sentries and crossed to the case. He bent down and peered through the glass.

  Inside the case, on a stand like a red velvet egg-cup, nestled a single gem—a diamond—about the size and shape of a duck’s egg. Shards of moonlight hit the stone. Tiny rainbows reflected in Lethbridge’s watery eyes. The diamond looked as if it burned with a flame of gossamer in its heart.

  “Not that impressive,” snorted Lethbridge, wiping a patch in the glass that his breath had fogged up. “Who’d pay a hundred million quid for that?”

  He straightened up and plodded across the room, still clutching his waistband and grumbling to himself. He hated working nights. But with security guards on strike across London and police having to step in, his duty sergeant had assigned him the task of watching the diamond until dawn.

  Lethbridge lumbered across to a large white sculpture of an elephant in the shadows at the edge of the room. The elephant was taller than a good-sized man and it sat plump-bellied and cross-legged on a cushion of pink rose petals. Garlands of blossoms were draped around its neck. Four arms poked out from its rounded sides; one hand held a coil of rope, another a bamboo flute, while a third clutched a bunch of roses. The fourth arm stretched out, like a cop stopping traffic.

  Lethbridge peered into the statue’s face. The statue stared back. Their gazes locked.

  Lethbridge went cross-eyed. He lost focus and half stumbled forward. He shuddered. Being locked in a huge circular room where the slightest noise seemed to come from every direction at once was giving him the creeps.

  He turned and trudged back, his graying underpants peeking out above a drooping trouser line. At that moment the elephant statue blinked. A crusty white eyelid flickered. Hairline cracks spread across the statue’s surface, like a giant boiled egg being cracked with a teaspoon. Flakes of white plaster sprinkled onto the bed of rose petals as the elephant slowly began to move. It plucked a flower from one hand and guided it bud-first into the bamboo flute it held in another. Then it waited.

  In the center of the room, Lethbridge passed between two of the stone archers and stopped in front of the glass case. He unhitched his belt again and bent over to take another look at the diamond. The back of his trousers sagged low.

  A sharp burst of air splintered the silence. Lethbridge lifted his head. But before he could turn, something sharp b
uried itself deep in his left buttock.

  He yelped, his eyes popping in their sockets in a rush of pain and surprise. He clamped his hands behind him to clutch at his underpants, out of which now sprouted a six-inch-long dart with a rosebud fixed to its end.

  Lethbridge reeled. Grasping for support, he lunged at the glass case. His knees buckled. Numbness drained into his legs, his face flushed from red to purple. His jaw clamped shut and white froth spurted from his lips. His belt fell undone and his trousers collapsed around his ankles. Lethbridge lurched to the floor, crashing onto his elbows and knees, still hugging the glass case in his arms.

  Across the room in the shadows, the elephant statue slid another flower into its flute.

  Raising the instrument to its mouth like a blowgun, it let loose another bolt that shot across the room, this time skewering Lethbridge’s right buttock.

  “Bleedin’ heck,” Lethbridge whimpered through clenched teeth. He laid the side of his stunned face on the cold marble floor. “That really hurts.”

  His vision blurred. The world tipped on its edge and spun crazily inside his eyeballs. The numbness in his legs washed through him. The stone archers swam in and out of focus—almost laughing at him. Lethbridge could have sworn the elephant statue stood up from its nest of rose petals and took a step toward him. Then he blacked out.

  And that is how Constable Lethbridge of the London Metropolitan Police was found by his colleagues the next morning: slumped facedown on the marble floor, asleep on his elbows and knees, his trousers around his ankles, his underpants exposed to the dome high above, and what appeared to be two red roses growing out of his backside.

  Of the world’s most valuable diamond, however, there was no sign at all.

  CHAPTER ONE

  “Nothing…is…certain!”

  Gerald raised his head at the blood-freezing roar that boomed through the dank dungeon tunnels. Even under his heavy fur cape, he shivered. The beast was close. He cradled the unconscious Madeleine in the crook of his right arm, her auburn hair cascading over alabaster shoulders, her bottle-green robes spilling across the stone floor like a lily pad on a pond. Gerald muttered an oath. He cursed the foul fortune that had landed him in this benighted place. He cursed the cold and the stench. But, most of all, he cursed the realization that he would have to fight this beast with his left hand. He slid his long blade one more time from the worn leather sheath on his belt, and waited.

  And what a beast it was. Barely recognizable as human, the creature stood a good seven feet tall. Its skin rippled with muscles, like baseballs stuffed into socks. Its bristle-covered shoulders burst through the bare rags that clothed it. A shaggy head lolled to the side—a thick tangle of dark matted hair across one eye, the other glaring out with a bloodshot resonance that glowed in the dark mire of the castle’s rank underbelly.

  “Nothing is certain!” the beast bayed again, steam spewing from its nostrils and spittle showering from its coal-pit mouth. Its jaws opened wide, exposing rows of yellowed teeth, rotted through from the flesh of other adventurers. The beast lay ready. Waiting. Hungry.

  Gerald cared not for this beast. He shot a fleeting look at Madeleine, lying in his arm as if in peaceful slumber, and steeled himself. He would not let her down. They might be mere teenagers, but neither man nor beast would stand in their way. His blade sliced slow silent circles through the fetid air, ready.

  Without warning, the beast sprang from a corner about twenty yards from Gerald and the maiden. The creature raised a mighty paw and flung a fireball straight at Gerald’s head. The boy hero ducked; the flaming missile grazed his temple, singeing his hair.

  “Nothing is certain!”

  The yell was deafening. The beast strode right at them, pelting fireballs at every step, its enormous feet pounding the flagstones like a pile driver. Gerald spun on his heel, clutching Madeleine tight to his side, weaving and dancing through the erupting firestorm. Molten death exploded all around them. His sword flashed through the air, deflecting lethal missiles left and right in a Catherine wheel of sparks and brimstone.

  Gerald swung around to fight the fast-advancing foe. He scuttled up a corridor as quickly as he could, his sword a scythe of blazing metal. But then he felt the cold press of a stone wall at his back—and he knew with equal coldness that there was nowhere left to run. He stole a last glance at the vision of beauty at his side, his one true love. He looked back—in time to see the beast unleash one final, fatal fireball….

  A stub of white chalk bounced off the middle of Gerald’s forehead and clattered onto the desk in front of him. Gerald blinked.

  He blinked again. The face of Mr. Atkinson, his year eight history teacher, was glaring down at him. The vein in the teacher’s temple was throbbing like some claustrophobic earthworm trying to wriggle free. Gerald watched the chalk as it circled to a stop on his desk.

  “Not talking too loudly for you, I hope, Wilkins,” the teacher said. “Hate to disturb the sleep of the simple.”

  The dank castle dungeon, which moments before seemed certain to be Gerald’s final resting place, melted away. Instead Gerald found himself in the back row of Mr. Atkinson’s history class. He rubbed the spot on his forehead where the chalk had hit. Everybody in the room was staring at him.

  “Wilkins,” the teacher breathed, his teeth clenched as if glued at the molars. “I was advancing the theory that nothing is certain—that we are all the masters of our destinies; with some effort we can conquer the obstacles that come before us.” He paused for breath. “Now, apart from an inevitable jail career, what was it that you were advancing toward in your slumber?”

  Gerald shifted in his seat.

  “Um…you know, I was sorta thinking that same thing…about destiny…and stuff.”

  Atkinson was not Gerald’s favorite teacher. Atkinson was tall and angular, with a box-shaped head, no hips to speak of, and a fashion sense that extended to a dozen shades of beige. His rimless glasses magnified his eyeballs and resembled a pair of rifle sights strapped to the front of his head. On this day, Atkinson had Gerald in the crosshairs.

  The teacher leaped forward. He plucked a dog-eared notebook from under the boy’s elbow, whipping it away before Gerald could grab it.

  “And what do we have here?” Atkinson said in triumph, ignoring Gerald’s protests. He flicked through the ink-smudged pages. “Oh, this is most interesting.”

  Gerald let out a low moan and slumped into his chair. This was not turning out to be his best day.

  “Well, well. This is very entertaining, Wilkins,” Atkinson said airily as he wandered between the rows of desks. “I suppose all these drawings of castles and little men on horses do have something to do with history.” He held the book up to show Gerald’s classmates a particularly detailed drawing of a dragon spewing fire at a knight who was cowering behind a shield. The room erupted in laughter.

  “Please don’t,” Gerald groaned, his head now in his hands.

  “Oh, but I must, Mr. Wilkins! I must!”

  He flicked through the pages. “Yes, just the collection of juvenile scribblings and smudged adolescent angst that we could expect from you, Wilkins. Oh look—here’s one with a little story under it.”

  Gerald sat up.

  “No!” he blurted out loud. Then, in a softer voice, “Not that one.” And then even softer, “Please.”

  Atkinson glared through his gun sights at Gerald. “But, Wilkins, this one wants to be shared.”

  Gerald closed his eyes.

  “Let’s see,” Atkinson began in a cheery voice. “The story is under a drawing of a young man holding a young lady in his arms. The young lady has lovely flowing hair and it looks like the young man has been going to the gym rather a lot.”

  More laughter spewed from the class as Gerald’s head sank toward the top of his desk. “Oh, crud,” he muttered.

  “And the young lady is gazing at the young man with such gratitude in her eyes, such adoration. And this is where Wilkins has written: ‘Bra
ve Sir Gerald saves the love of his life yet again!’”

  The laughter showered over Gerald like acid rain.

  “Wait, wait! There’s more!” Atkinson said above the noise, waving his hand to quiet the class. “The terrific thing is, Sir Gerald has even named his fair maiden.” The teacher wandered toward the front of the classroom and consulted the notebook again. “Let’s see. It appears her name is…Lady Madeleine.”

  With that, Atkinson dropped the notebook onto a desk in the front row. The room fell silent. The girl who was sitting at the desk picked up the notebook and studied the drawing. She flicked a lock of auburn hair from her eyes and swiveled around to look at Gerald. Revulsion was etched across her face.

  “Anything you’d like to add to the story, Madeleine?” Atkinson asked, drumming his chalky fingertips together with glee.

  The girl in the front row looked very much like the girl in the drawing in Gerald’s notebook—the same strong jaw, the upturned nose and intense eyes, even down to the lock of hair that fell across her face. But there was no adoring look, just a glare that would curdle milk.

  The bell rang for the end of the period and the class dissolved into a clatter of voices and scraping chairs. Atkinson, obviously annoyed that his fun was being cut short, called over the rabble, “Enjoy your break, people! At least those of you who have earned it.”

  Gerald remained slumped in his seat at the back of the room, staring at the floorboards.

  “Well, that could have gone worse,” a voice said. “Not much worse, I grant you, but potentially worse.”