“You may try,” he told her. “But you will not live long enough to succeed.”
Again the woman spoke, but this time her voice was softer, almost soothing, and the things she told the driver sent the most frightful shiver up Ian’s spine. “Yes,” she cooed, ignoring his threats. “I shall enjoy killing you, Antolin. But not before I cut the throats of your wife and son.”
The man audibly gasped, but he seemed to recover himself quickly. “A lucky guess, Frau Van Schuft. You do not know my family.”
Ian’s eyes met Carl’s in the dim light. Carl’s face reflected all the shock Ian felt. They were both quite familiar with Frau Van Schuft and her evil master. “It was not a guess, peasant,” she taunted. “Your wife, Lera, and your son, Renaldo. They are in the flat just a few streets over, no?”
“I could kill you now, woman!” the man growled.
“Yes, you could,” she said with a small sigh, as if she didn’t have a care in the world. “But that would displease my associates—who are right now waiting for me—which would condemn your family to certain death. And you should also know that my associates would not stop at murdering your son and his mother … no, they would vent their fury on every member of your family. Your two brothers and your aging mother and father. Your parents are on the other side of the city, correct? They have a lovely little home, Antolin. I especially love the small garden in the back, where your mother keeps her chickens. And my loyal associates would make sure to leave you for last so that you could feel the full measure of their revenge. Perhaps they would even make you watch.”
Ian’s mouth had gone dry. Frau Van Schuft spoke as if she were talking about something as casual as the weather. Finally, the man who had taken the journal from Carmina spat on the ground and said, “If I give you the journal, you must promise to leave me and my family alone!”
“Give me the journal, Antolin, and I’ll consider it.”
There was another long pause as the taxi driver must have been thinking about the mess he’d got himself into, and when several seconds ticked by with no more sound, Ian couldn’t resist taking a peek to see what was happening. With great care he lifted his head just a fraction and peered over the lip of the lorry. He could see the driver sticking his head out the window, staring angrily at Frau Van Schuft—who, Ian noticed, had taken great care to disguise herself, changing her long platinum blond hair to a short black bob.
Unfortunately, Frau Van Schuft must have sensed that someone was staring at her, because to Ian’s horror, her head snapped in his direction and their eyes met. For a fraction of a second, no one moved. Frau Van Schuft snarled and reached forward to grab at him, but the driver of the lorry must have got spooked, because he hit the gas and sped down the street.
Ian lurched forward to grab the side of the lorry bed as the driver began to turn the wheel sharply; then he saw something whiz out of the cab and land with a small thwack on the pavement. He realized in that instant that it must be the journal.
Without thinking it through, Ian grabbed Carl roughly by the collar and lifted him to his knees. “We’ve got to jump!”
Carl responded immediately by lunging toward the side of the lorry, grabbing hold, and launching himself out of the bed. Ian jumped right after him and landed with a hard thud on the ground before rolling over and over on the pavement. “Ow!” Carl moaned from a few paces away. “That hurt!”
Ian crawled to Carl’s side, his shins aching from the fall. “We’ve got to get the journal!”
“Go, mate!” Carl said, rubbing his ankle. “Hurry, before Van Schuft gets to it!”
Ian pushed off the ground and limped as fast as he could back to where he thought the journal had landed. In the distance he could hear the sound of someone running toward him and he knew it had to be that dreadful woman. Desperately, he searched the ground for the diary, and with a rush of relief he spotted it near a gutter, but at that very moment, a small gust of wind lifted the cover of the book, and the paper the professor had been copying the scroll onto flittered from between the pages and blew into the gutter. Ian gasped when he realized that hours of the professor’s work had just been lost—but there was nothing he could do. As fast as he could, he darted to the mouth of the gutter and grabbed the journal, then turned to run back to Carl.
Behind him Frau Van Schuft yelled, “You there! Stop!”
Ian ignored her and dashed to Carl’s side. His friend was attempting to stand. “Did you get it?” Carl asked.
“Yes, mate, can you walk?”
Carl took one small wobbly step just as something that sounded like a car backfiring echoed loudly behind them. In the same instant, something smacked into the wall of the building next to them hard enough to send a spray of grit and bits of brick into the air. “She’s shooting at us!” Ian yelled, grabbing Carl’s sleeve and pulling him along the edge of the long building.
Carl limped beside him, not uttering a single word of complaint about his injury while the boys looked about for a place to hide. Behind them Ian could hear footfalls approaching, and when he risked a glance back, he saw Frau Van Schuft closing in, her arm raised and, just as he’d suspected, a gun in her hand. “Hurry!” Ian shouted as another BANG sounded and more brick splintered off the wall nearby.
The boys ducked sideways into an alley and were nearly hit by a motorcar turning the corner. The driver honked at them and Ian pulled Carl flat against the wall of the narrow alley, dropping the journal.
To his dismay, he quickly realized that the car had run over the diary and torn the cover and several of the pages right off. “The journal!” he cried after the car passed.
Another loud BANG sounded from the end of the alley, and something hot grazed the top of Ian’s left ear. The pain was immediate and intense and he dropped to his knees, clasping the side of his head.
“We’ve got to run!” Carl shouted, trying to lift Ian to his feet.
Ian squinted against the pain and reached forward to grab the diary. Several more pages came loose, and it was as if the bound volume wanted to disintegrate in his hands. He desperately clutched at the papers nearby but he had to leave the front cover and the few pages attached to it while he staggered to his feet and hurried to get away from Frau Van Schuft, who was quickly closing in on him.
“I’ll kill you both!” she shouted, and Ian felt certain she would make good on her threat.
“This way!” Carl called as he ducked down a two-lane street with a good deal of traffic already flowing in the early morning.
Ian realized that Carl assumed Frau Van Schuft would not fire her gun with so many people and cars about. He could only hope that his friend was right.
“We’ve got to cross the street!” Carl insisted, and to Ian’s horror, his friend darted right into the middle of traffic. Cars screeched, horns blared, and Ian’s heart felt like it would burst out of his chest. “Carl!” he shouted.
Miraculously, Carl managed to dart forward just before a large bus skidded past the spot where he’d just been standing. A few more car horns and angry fist wavings later, his young friend made it safely to the other side. Turning around, Carl motioned for Ian to follow.
Ian clutched the pages of the journal to his chest as he tried to find a hole in the flow of traffic so that he might cross as well, but just as he was about to dash to the middle of the road, he was grabbed roughly by the collar and dragged backward. “Let me go!” he shouted, reaching back with one hand to try to free himself.
Above him Frau Van Schuft’s face was contorted in fury, and Ian found her surprisingly strong. Her grip on his shirt was ironclad and she pulled him with hard yanks into the doorway of a closed shop. There she pinned him against the hard wood and shoved her gun into the middle of his belly. “Well!” she crowed triumphantly. “You are not the One we’ve been looking for, Ian Wigby, but I’m told your death will assure us a victory all the same.”
Ian closed his eyes and clenched his stomach muscles, bracing for the horrible pain he knew would
follow, when instead of a BANG, he heard a muffled whump and the hand gripping him fell away.
Stunned, Ian opened his eyes to find Frau Van Schuft piled in a heap at his feet and the man with the bronze cuffs hovering over him. “Are you hurt?” the stranger demanded, a thick exotic accent coating his words.
Ian was too stunned to speak, but his hand drifted up to his ear, which he belatedly realized was bleeding. The large man in front of him squinted at him before placing his hand on Ian’s head and tilting it to one side to inspect the wound. “You’ve lost the top of your ear, lad,” he said. “But you’re not likely to die from it.”
Ian still found speech difficult, especially since Frau Van Schuft began to moan softly at his feet. The stranger eyed her menacingly, and Ian realized that his rescuer was reaching for a long knife tucked into his belt. “No!” he said, gripping the man’s hand. “Don’t kill her!”
The stranger eyed him skeptically, and Ian had the distinct feeling he was being measured up. Behind them was a series of car honks and screeching brakes and Ian knew that Carl was attempting another mad dash across the street.
His rescuer whirled around just as Carl cleared the last of the traffic and dashed forward with a crazed and angry look. “Leave him be!” he yelled while he approached at a run, and Ian realized Carl meant to barrel right into the man in front of him.
Ian stepped over Frau Van Schuft and blocked Carl’s path. “Stop!” he said. “Carl, this man saved me!”
Carl barely managed to collect himself before bumping into Ian. Frau Van Schuft moaned again and her eyes fluttered when she made a feeble attempt to sit up. Quicker than Ian thought possible, the man with the bronze cuffs bent and struck her on the side of the neck with one hard blow. Frau Van Schuft wilted into unconsciousness again and while Ian and Carl stood in stunned silence, the man eyed the street suspiciously and commanded, “Follow me!”
Without another word he then turned and hurried off down the street.
Ian and Carl did not hesitate; they followed dutifully. Carl limped beside Ian while Ian still clung to the pages of the diary he had. With relief he could see that he’d managed to retain much of the diary and he could only hope that what he held to his chest was the section the professor had been working to translate.
The stranger led them through a dizzying array of streets and alleyways until they finally came to a small café brightly lit by the morning sunlight now warming up the day. Their savior motioned for them to sit at one of the tables, and told Ian, “I will be back momentarily. Do not leave until we’ve had a chance to talk.”
Carl and Ian took their seats and Ian could feel a few patrons staring at him. He looked down at himself and realized with a bit of embarrassment that he was still wearing his nightshirt, which was stained with small dots of red. “Your ear’s bleeding,” Carl said helpfully.
Ian sighed. “I know, Carl.”
A moment later the stranger returned and offered Ian a white washcloth and a large bowl of warm water. “Clean yourself up, lad,” the stranger instructed.
Ian gingerly dabbed the cloth on his wound, wincing at the sting it caused. “It’s just a nick in the top of your ear,” Carl told him, trying to be helpful again.
“Thanks,” Ian muttered as he dabbed at the blood on his cheek, neck, and nightshirt.
While Ian cleaned himself up, the stranger looked at them curiously. “Tell me,” he said casually. “Why would Frau Van Schuft be so interested in you two?”
Ian looked at Carl, wondering how much they should reveal to this stranger, but Carl was distracted by a large tray of breakfast rolls sitting nearby. As if he had not heard the man, Carl turned to him and asked, “Do you think they’ll take a few pence here in exchange for a roll?”
The stranger smiled brightly at Carl, his black eyes twinkling, and for a moment he looked so much like another older man they’d once known, Jaaved’s grandfather Jifaar, that Ian felt a pang in his heart. “I suspect they’ll take your pence, boy, but as they would prefer their own pesetas, of which I have plenty, why not allow me to purchase your breakfast?”
“That’d be smashing, thank you!” Carl said, again eyeing the tray of breakfast rolls. “I’d like that one near the top, if you please. It’s a bit fatter than the others.”
Their savior chuckled softly and waved a hand at the waiter coming toward them. He ordered them each a cup of hot chocolate and a breakfast roll, allowing Carl to select his roll of choice from the tray. Once their breakfast had been served and Ian had had a chance to clean himself up, he thought perhaps the stranger had forgotten his original question.
The man sipped his café con leche casually and smiled at him over the rim. Ian smiled back and set the journal to the side of his hot chocolate so that he could take up his breakfast roll and bite into the delicious bread.
He closed his eyes for a moment, savoring the sweet honey taste, but when he opened them, he found that the stranger had taken the journal right out from under his nose and was carefully turning the pages.
“Give that back!” Ian snapped, then realized how rude he sounded to the very man who had saved his life. “Er, what I mean is, that journal is private, sir, and if you please, I’d very much like it back.”
The man was looking at him with amusement. “I’m sure you do,” he said evasively. “But what I want to know is, what is it about this journal that Frau Van Schuft finds so interesting?”
Ian gulped. He wasn’t sure what the connection between this kind stranger and Frau Van Schuft was yet, and he was afraid of giving out too much information before he knew more about what this man was after. “I’ve no idea what that vile woman wants with our journal.”
Ian could tell immediately that the man sitting across from him didn’t believe him for a second. “I see,” said the stranger after a long moment, and to Ian’s dismay, the man then pulled the page up close to read it.
“I told you that’s private!” Ian snapped again, and he heard Carl suck in a breath of surprise next to him. Ian didn’t care that he was being rude this time. He was afraid the man wouldn’t give him back the journal and he knew that the professor needed to finish copying it.
But the man ignored his tone completely. He turned the pages casually, skimming their contents, and then in an instant of recognition, the man’s eyes bulged and he gasped, “By Zeus!”
Ian blinked, thinking that was a very odd thing to say.
“By Zeus?” Carl repeated, obviously thinking the same thing Ian had. “Pardon me, sir, but might you be from Greece?”
The stranger across from them looked up at Carl, shock appearing on his face. “You can understand what I’m saying?” he asked, and Ian noticed belatedly that the man’s thick accent had vanished. Obviously the stranger had switched from English to his native tongue—whatever that might be.
Ian cleared his throat loudly, trying to warn Carl, but his friend hadn’t caught on, and said casually, “Yes, sir. You’re speaking quite plainly, after all.”
It was then that the stranger seemed to notice the small pouch tied to a cord around Carl’s neck, and one glance at Ian’s collar revealed an identical necklace. “Your name,” he demanded, swiveling his head back to Carl.
Carl seemed taken aback by the man’s intensity, but he said, “Carl Lawson, sir.”
This seemed to puzzle the stranger for a moment but he soon fixed his eyes on Ian and asked, “And you? What is your name?”
Ian thought about lying; he was growing increasingly worried about the man’s reaction to the journal and to them. But while his mind raced to come up with a false name to offer the man, Carl said, “His name’s Ian Wigby, sir.”
The stranger gasped, his hand flying to his mouth as he stared wide-eyed at Ian, who could have kicked Carl. “Perhaps we’d better find our way back to our patron,” Ian suggested calmly, and he began to rise from his seat.
“No!” the stranger said loudly, and both Ian and Carl scooted back in their chairs. “Wait,” added the
man in a much calmer tone. “Just a moment of your time, if you please.”
Ian hesitated and noticed that Carl looked ready to dash away. “We’re very grateful to you, sir, but we don’t want any more trouble this morning.” Ian discreetly eyed the journal lying on the table in front of the stranger. He couldn’t judge if he’d have a shot at grabbing it and escaping.
The man sitting across from him seemed to realize that the boys were close to running, and he clearly worked to soften his features and offered Ian the journal. “Here,” he said, giving it to him. “But promise me you will keep this out of the hands of Frau Van Schuft.”
Ian took the journal warily, wondering if the stranger was trying to lure him into a trap. “Who are you?” Ian asked once he’d tucked the diary securely into his waistband.
The man did not answer for the longest time. Instead, he continued to look at Ian in wonder, and to Ian’s surprise, the stranger even seemed to be on the verge of tears. “I am someone who never thought I’d actually meet the likes of you, Ian Wigby,” he finally whispered. “I am the Secret Keeper, and I thought the time for your arrival was perhaps lost or set far into the future. But what I am most concerned about is that you are so far away from the very place that can keep you safe. Why have you come to Spain?”
“We came for the journal,” Ian said, hoping he could trust the man. “But might I ask how it is you know about me, and why you’ve been following Frau Van Schuft, and for that matter, why do you call yourself the Secret Keeper?”
“Yeah,” said Carl. “What secrets are you keeping?”
The stranger gave them both a sad smile, as if he carried some tremendous burden. “I’ve known about you, Ian, from well before you were born. I’ve been following Frau Van Schuft because she is the servant of my enemy, and I have chosen to keep my enemies always in sight. To answer your final question, lads, I am the keeper of secrets so important that the fate of the world rests upon my shoulders, secrets from the past that I am bound by oath to carry into the future, and my journey has been both tragic and dangerous, but by that same oath I must carry on. And although I am tempted to alter the Fates and divulge all that I know here and now, Laodamia has strictly warned me against using such tactics.”
The Curse of Deadman's Forest Page 10