Tales From the Hood

by Michael Buckley

  Just then, a black motorcycle tore down the street. The hair on the back of Sabrina’s neck stood on end. The driver was the same man they had seen in Venice—the same man who was terrorizing Goldilocks.

  “What’s going on? Who’s that?” Briar asked.

  “That dude in black is following her everywhere,” Sabrina explained. “He’s one of the Scarlet Hand.”

  Sabrina watched her sister and uncle bolt down the street, weaving in and out of pedestrians and knocking a waiter carrying coffee cups to the ground. Sabrina shouted for them to be careful, knowing full well they couldn’t hear her. Still, it made her feel better to try.

  Goldilocks spun around in the street. She must have spotted the motorcyclist, because she quickly hailed a taxicab and got inside—moments later she and the cab were roaring away.

  “If we were there we could track her by air,” Puck said.

  Sabrina nodded. She should be there, helping her sister, making sure she was safe. She felt an incredible anxiety rip through her. She realized that this was the first time she and Daphne had been separated in a very long time. Daphne could be injured. This lunatic on the motorcycle might hurt her. Anything could happen.

  Briar seemed to sense her fear. She reached out and squeezed Sabrina’s hand. “They’ll be fine, Sabrina.”

  Sabrina nodded and watched Daphne and Uncle Jake jump into their own taxi in hot pursuit. With the image focused on her family, Sabrina couldn’t see Goldilocks, but she saw the motorcycle race past their cab. She watched Daphne roll down the window and crane her neck out to see where he was headed. When the cab made a sudden turn, she nearly fell out and Sabrina screamed.

  “That was a close one,” Puck laughed but stopped when both Sabrina and Briar flashed him an angry look. “What? It was funny.”

  Suddenly, like water flowing from a broken dam, a herd of stray dogs poured out of every alley and doorway. There were rottweilers, German shepherds, Doberman pinschers, pit bulls, wolfhounds, beagles, poodles, golden retrievers, Shih Tzus, West Highland white terriers, and dozens more in hot pursuit. They barked and snapped at the black-clad rider’s feet, causing him to swerve all over the road.

  “She’s called some friends,” Sabrina said.

  “She can talk to animals?” Puck said. “That rules.”

  The dogs gave the rider as much trouble as they could, but his bike was faster than all of them. Soon, they were left behind, causing traffic to back up all over Paris. Luckily, Uncle Jake and Daphne’s cab was undeterred and their driver raced on, steering the car into a circular street called Place Charles de Gaulle. At its center was an elegant arch decorated with statues and finely carved reliefs. Cars whipped around the circle from all directions. Without any traffic lights or signs, the circle was pure chaos, and there were several times Sabrina was sure her family would die in a head-on collision. But the driver was quick, and he steered the car out of traffic at the last possible second and darted down a tree-lined road bordering a park.

  “Where do you think she’s going?” Sabrina wondered aloud.

  “Exactly where I’d go,” Briar said, pointing at the approaching metal tower rising like a giant on the Parisian horizon—the Eiffel Tower. The tower was an incredible work of engineering made from huge steel girders and stood more than a thousand feet tall. It was quite a bit bigger than Sabrina had imagined, and she suddenly felt envious of her sister for seeing it in person without her.

  Sabrina watched Uncle Jake and Daphne’s cab come to a stop. They paid the driver and leaped out just in time to watch Goldilocks dashing toward the entrance to the tower.

  “Why would she go up there?” Briar said. “There’s no way off that thing once she gets to the top.”

  “She’s probably going to pull the talking animal stunt again. When we tracked her down in Venice, she had a bunch of pigeons fly her to safety. I bet she wants motorcycle boy to follow her up there so she can do the same thing. It would be a great way to lose him.”

  “Except I doubt it will work. The wind has to be crazy powerful up there,” Puck said. “I don’t think my wings could take it. I doubt a bird could do it, either.”

  Sabrina gasped. “So there’s no way off that thing if he catches her?”

  Puck shook his head. “Not unless your uncle and sister can rescue her from that lunatic.”

  “Speak of the devil,” Briar said as they watched the deadly motorcyclist skid to a stop nearby. He leaped off his bike and pulled a silver dagger from his boot; then he raced through the entrance to the tower. Sabrina saw Daphne pointing at the motorcycle. Without a word, she dashed through the entrance to the tower. Uncle Jake tossed the entrance fee to a clerk, and he and Daphne hurried into an elevator, just as it was about to shut. Sabrina scanned the tightly packed crowd around them. The man in black wasn’t there, but neither was Goldilocks. She imagined the poor woman, standing at the top, backing away from the dark rider with his deadly blade. She tried to force the vision out of her head. They would get there in time. They had to.

  They reached the first of the tower’s three platforms and tumbled out of the elevator. Daphne pointed at a sign leading to the elevator that would take them to the next level. She and Uncle Jake pushed through the crowd and made their way onto the next elevator. Soon, they were rising even higher above the Paris skyline.

  The second level was much higher, and a few people lost their hats in the strong wind. Puck had been right. Nature’s forces were brutal at that height, and it wasn’t even the top of the tower.

  “Look!” Puck cried as the mirror’s reflection showed the murderous motorcyclist entering the final elevator. Sabrina could almost hear the chaos when he pulled out his dagger and demanded that everyone get off. People nearly trampled one another to get away from the mad man. She watched him push a button and the doors closed, just as her sister and uncle approached. The two Grimms could only stare as the elevator rose to the top of the tower where Goldilocks had fled.

  Sabrina watched the rising elevator. It disappeared from view for several moments. The ascent to the top would take a long time. By the time it came back down, who knew what the villain might have accomplished. It wasn’t fair! Somebody had to stop him.

  “There will be another one,” Briar said to Sabrina. “Don’t worry.”

  But she was wrong. Suddenly, the elevator came crashing down from above. People were screaming and smoke filled the air.

  “Daphne! Uncle Jake!” Sabrina cried frantically, but quickly spotted them. Daphne had fallen, but Uncle Jake helped her up. Together they studied the wreckage. The man in black had somehow cut the cables.

  “He’s diabolical,” Briar said.

  “And not in the good way,” Puck replied.

  “There’s no way up to the top,” Sabrina said. “They’ll never get to her in time. Goldilocks is up there, alone. He’s going to kill her!”

  “If only I could go,” Briar said, reaching into her pocket and removing a small seed. “With one of these I could get Jacob to the top in a flash.”

  “Uh, I’m glad you are so excited about gardening, Briar, but we’ve got an emergency on our hands,” Sabrina said.

  “No, let me explain. When I was a kid, a witch put a spell on me that said if I ever pricked my finger on a spinning wheel I would die. Well, luckily I had a couple of fairy godmothers and they fixed the spell so I would fall asleep. To keep me safe from wild animals and nutcases, they also created a magical rosebush that covered the castle so no one could get at me. When William Charming managed to cut his way through and woke me up, the first thing I did was cultivate some of the rosebush’s seeds. The seeds grow like crazy, and they seem to understand how I want them to grow, too. They come in handy from time to time. All you need is a handful of dirt.”

  “I have a handful of dirt,” Puck said, reaching into his filthy pants pocket. When he pulled out his fist, he had a handful of crumbly soil. A fat earthworm was squiggling in the dirt.

  “You carry dirt with you?” S
abrina asked.

  “Sure, doesn’t everyone?” Puck replied.

  “What good is this going to do? We’re in Ferryport Landing. The trouble is half a world away! Unless I can get out of these handcuffs, Goldilocks is going to die.”

  Briar and Sabrina turned their gaze to Puck.

  “Listen, I swallowed the key,” he stammered. “We have to let nature take its course.”

  Disgusted, Sabrina turned to the mirror. “Mirror, do we have any lock-picking stuff in the Hall of Wonders?”

  Mirror’s face appeared. “Starfish, I’m increasingly concerned about your life of crime.”

  “Mirror! It’s an emergency!”

  Sabrina handed him her set of keys and moments later he returned with a small leather case. Inside were the kind of tools Sabrina had only dreamed about when she and her sister were wards of the state. There were picks of all shapes and sizes, and she tried each one until the handcuff snapped open. Free, she rubbed her sore wrist, and turned to Briar.

  “Maybe we should wake your grandmother?” Briar said as she hesitantly handed over her magic seed.

  “No time,” Sabrina said, and turned to Puck. “Hand over the dirt.”

  Puck did as he was told and Sabrina approached the traveler’s chest.

  She knew if she walked down the steps now, she’d wind up outside of the Hotel Thérèse, far from where she needed to be, so she closed the lid and removed the key. “I want to go to the second-floor observation deck of the Eiffel Tower in Paris, France,” she said aloud. Then she inserted the key and opened the lid. Inside she found a completely different set of stairs.

  “Be careful,” Briar said. “And tell your uncle to do the same.”

  “I will,” Sabrina said as she descended. She hurried down the stairs and into the dark until she found the door, but this one did not have a doorknob. Instead, she found a button. She pushed it and it lit up, but nothing happened. She was considering turning back when the door slid open. She immediately saw her sister and uncle.

  Sabrina stepped out, realizing she had just gotten out of the elevators on the second level.

  “What are you doing here?” Uncle Jake asked.

  “Your girlfriend sent me with some help,” Sabrina said as she hurried her family to the broken elevator shaft. There she took Puck’s dirt and placed it in a heap on the floor. She then took Briar’s crusty brown seed and buried it in the small pile of earth. Then she stood up and dusted herself off.

  Before she was finished, a tiny green sprout appeared in the dirt. It grew and grew, becoming plump and fat until it was as thick as a tree trunk and covered in roses. In no time it was as tall as Uncle Jake and had pointy thorns sprouting out of its sides.

  “My girlfriend is full of secrets,” Uncle Jake said as the bush rocketed into the air. He grabbed Daphne in his arms and reached out for a branch. “See you at the top, ’Brina.”

  A moment later, he was yanked off the ground and sailing skyward as the rosebush grew at an impossible rate. Sabrina grabbed a vine. The strength of the growing bush was incredible. She wondered if her arm might be yanked from the socket, but she held on with all her strength. Sabrina sailed higher and higher and faster and faster until she reached the top of the Eiffel Tower, where the rosebush stopped and the branch eased her gently to the platform.

  Sabrina stood for a moment, trying to regain her bearings and feeling the building sway in the powerful wind. She didn’t like heights, especially heights moving under her feet.

  “She’s here!” Daphne cried as she raced across the platform. Goldilocks lay on her back, motionless. Sabrina dashed to her side, with Uncle Jake in tow.

  “Is she—?”

  “She’s alive,” Uncle Jake said as he knelt to find a pulse. “It looks like she’s unconscious.”

  “But how?” Sabrina asked.

  Her answer came in the sound of running feet. Before anyone could react, the menacing motorcyclist had charged across the platform and tackled Uncle Jake. Caught off guard, Jake was helpless and took several brutal punches to the face and stomach. Sabrina watched him try to defend himself, but the dark rider was fast and fierce.

  Sabrina and Daphne rushed to help him, but they were nothing more than mosquitoes to the mysterious villain. He slapped Sabrina with a vicious backhand that sent her tumbling to the floor. When Sabrina righted herself, she realized Daphne was injured as well.

  “Uncle Jake!” Sabrina shouted as she watched the two men circle one another. Jake assured her that everything would be fine, but he never took his eyes off the mysterious man.

  “You must think you’re pretty tough, hitting women and children,” Uncle Jake said to the man. He replied by lunging with his knife, slashing and striking out, but Sabrina’s uncle was fast and leaped away from every deadly attack.

  “And the outfit, hiding your face. Then again, if I were slapping people around who couldn’t fight back, I’d want to hide my identity, too.”

  “You dare question my honor?” a muffled voice said from behind the helmet. “I’m the Black Knight, you fool.”

  “I thought knights rode horses,” Uncle Jake said.

  “I upgraded,” the Black Knight said.

  “Who knighted you?” Uncle Jake said as he continued to dig into his pockets. “That king must have been pretty hard up for heroes.”

  “I serve no king,” the knight growled. “Only the Master and his glorious vision of the future. When Everafters take their place as rulers of the world, your kind will be in cages, serving us.”

  “Blah, blah, blah,” Uncle Jake mocked. “You Scarlet Hand losers sure do love the whole ‘we’re going to rule the world’ bit. It seems to me the only thing you’ve got power over is my boredom.”

  “Hold your tongue, fool, or I will cut it from your mouth.”

  At that moment, Sabrina’s uncle took a small ring from his pocket and slipped it on. “Well, pal, if you’re feeling froggy, take a leap.”

  The Black Knight dove for Uncle Jake and the two men toppled over one another. Sabrina watched Jake lock his hand around the knight’s wrist, limiting his ability to use his deadly blade. But the knight’s other hand was free, and he punched her uncle several times in the jaw. They rolled over each other, kicking and punching along the way. Every time the knight seemed to get the upper hand, Uncle Jake managed to pummel him and gain control, but it never lasted long. The Black Knight was obviously stronger than Uncle Jake and a much better fighter. Sabrina could only watch in horror when the dark villain clenched his free hand around Jake’s throat to choke him. Daphne scrambled over once again to lend a hand but was tossed aside. She fell hard on the floor, but her eyes were still open.

  “Leave him alone!” Sabrina begged, but the knight ignored her. He continued to squeeze, and Jake’s face turned blue. In desperation, he raised his hand to the knight’s face, and a blast of red-hot energy exploded out of the tiny ring on his pinky finger. It temporarily blinded Sabrina, but when her eyes adjusted she saw the Black Knight was unfazed.

  “My Master has given me a special gift, fool,” he said. “Your silly magic won’t work on me. Sadly, he won’t see your death himself. He so wanted to witness it.”

  Spittle came out of Uncle Jake’s mouth and his eyes started to bulge. The knight was killing him, and there was no one to stop him. No one except for Sabrina. She reached into her pocket, found the kazoo, and aimed it right at the killer. She hoped she could direct its power away from her uncle. Then she blew into it. The wind it produced swirled around the knight like it was a living creature, a bird made of nothingness, circling and howling. It lifted the Black Knight off the floor and in his effort to stay down he released Uncle Jake. The wind carried the knight over the edge of the tower, and he sank out of sight. Sabrina heard his fading screams and rushed to the side of the tower. There, trapped in the vines of the magical rosebush, was the knight. It had saved his life, but it wrapped around his arms and legs to prevent him from escaping.

  Sabrina rushed
to Uncle Jake’s side and helped him sit up. The man’s face was raw and red and he coughed violently, but when he got to his feet, Sabrina was sure he would be OK. Daphne raced to the fallen Goldilocks and shouted her name until she woke.

  “What happened?” the woman asked.

  “Don’t worry,” Sabrina said, hurrying over. “You’re safe. The Black Knight is gone.”

  “It’s you!” she said, her voice higher and more feminine than Sabrina had imagined. She turned to stare at the others until her eyes focused on Jake. She looked startled at first, but then smiled.

  “You’ve come to take me back?” she said, as if in surrender.

  Uncle Jake tried to talk but couldn’t. All he could do was shake his head.

  “We’re not here to force you back to Ferryport Landing. We’re here to ask you to come back on your own,” Sabrina said.

  “Who are you?” Goldilocks asked.

  “My name is Sabrina Grimm and this is my sister, Daphne,” Sabrina said, motioning to the little girl.

  “We’re Henry Grimm’s daughters,” Daphne added.

  Goldilocks studied their faces. “I see a lot of him in you,” she told Daphne, then looked at Sabrina. “So he married that girl, huh? You look just like her.”

  Sabrina nodded. “Her name is Veronica.”

  “I know,” Goldilocks said as she got to her feet. She turned to Uncle Jake and gave him a hug. “It’s good to see you, Jakey.”

  Uncle Jake nodded and smiled, then pointed at his throat.

  “The knight tried to choke him to death,” Daphne explained.

  “Goldie, you have to come back,” Sabrina said. “The town is a disaster and my dad—”

  “Tell me he’s safe,” Goldilocks pleaded. Sabrina could see the woman still felt strongly for her father. She wasn’t sure how to react.

  “He’s fine, but he needs you,” Daphne said. “He’s under a sleeping spell. We need someone to kiss him. We were told you were the only one who could do that.”

  Goldilocks blushed. “A kiss from someone who truly loves him is all he needs. Can’t you get your mother to do this?”