Will was several paces ahead. He scowled over his shoulder. “Come on, Jack! Sir Drake is in trouble!”
But Jack was still processing the implications of the dragonite. He glanced around the room. Books and scrolls were scattered across the floor, burning and smoldering. Suddenly he understood. The Black Chamber sat adjacent to another of London’s secret underground strongholds—one that he knew well.
“Too late,” said Will, backpedaling to Jack’s side. “Looks like the fight’s coming to us.”
The men and women fighting at the center of the chamber fell back like parting curtains. Gall strolled between them.
Gwen appeared to Jack’s left. “Um. Yeah . . . I think that was a given.” She held what looked like a wooden baluster at the ready. When Jack gave it a questioning glance, she shrugged. “What? I improvised.”
He offered a quick smile, his own version of Gwen’s freckle bounce—without the freckles. “I’m glad you’re here. I can’t do this alone.”
The moment he spoke those words, they echoed in his head. I can’t do this alone. He’d said it before, hadn’t he—climbing out of the long wushi well? How had Gwen answered him?
You don’t have to.
You’ve never had to do any of this alone.
The thought hit his brain with far more force than a memory. Jack shifted his gaze to the crumb bleachers and saw his sister looking straight at him, serenely calm as their mother kicked an approaching spook in the chin and sent him tumbling down the bleachers.
Sadie smiled.
We’ve always been here, Jack. Right beside you.
She was right.
In the bell tower of Big Ben, Gwen had been there to help him defeat the Clockmaker.
In the subconscious battle within Genghis Khan’s ruby, Jack’s father had fought beside him.
In the tomb of the First Emperor, Ghost had saved Jack from Gall, and Sadie had called in the matriarch to obliterate the clockwork dragon.
Despite the isolation Jack had felt since the Clockmaker first dragged him into the secret world of the four Elder Ministries, he had never been alone.
He knew what to do.
Jack needed his sister’s help, but he didn’t dare risk pushing a thought her way, not with Gall so close. “Gwen, look.” He showed her the lump of dragonite.
It took less than a second for the usual I-have-it-all-figured-out expression to wash over Gwen’s face.
“Gather the troops,” whispered Jack.
She gave him a single nod and rushed away, heading for Sadie and his mother. On the way she swept the legs out from under a spook with her baluster, freeing Ash from a chokehold. She beckoned for him to follow.
Gall strode through the chamber, shoving dragos and wardens out of the way without even touching them. Shaw rushed him like a bull and Gall knocked him aside with a telekinetic backhand. The warden slid across the floor, unconscious.
“I guess it’s up to us, then,” said Will.
“Not entirely.” Jack siphoned heat from the dragonite. His sword burst into flame. “I think I have a plan.”
“You think?”
“Get ready. Here he comes.”
The spook slowed to a halt a few feet away, regarding their combative postures with derision. “We’ve already been over this, boy. You don’t have the skills to fight me.” He stretched out a hand wreathed in blue flame. “And neither does your little friend.”
Jack felt Gall’s telekinetic power licking at his skin, and he felt Will’s barrier go up to absorb it. The strain of the effort tightened Will’s features. Sweat beaded at his brow.
“See? Young master Will already begins to crumble. He will fail, and once again, you will be all alone.”
A green fireball came next. Jack dropped the dragonite chunk and answered with a fireball of his own. As the flames exploded between them, dark thoughts entered his mind.
Did you think you had won? Did you think a bronze box could possibly hold me?
The fire covering Jack’s blade dwindled.
Will dropped to a knee, pushing out with both hands, his telekinetic shield failing.
Your friends cannot save you, Jack Buckles. Your mind. Your abilities. They all belong to me.
Gall’s words wrapped around his brain like barbed wire. Jack let out a cry.
You are suffering needlessly. Give in and it will end all the sooner.
The pink ribbons of a second, melodic voice broke through.
Leave my brother alone!
Several strands of the barbed wire snapped. The pain lessened. At the edge of Jack’s peripheral vision, he saw Sadie stepping down from the bleachers. Three quartermasters—Gwen, Ash, and Jack’s mother—surrounded her, fists, cane, and wooden baluster flying to defend her from all attackers. Sadie’s paced forward, eyes burning.
You’re finished, Gall.
Another wire snapped. Jack drew a breath. Then, for just a moment, Sadie glanced away.
Wake. Wake now!
That last telepathic call seemed to catch Gall’s interest. He furrowed his silver-streaked brow, as if wondering what the little girl was up to.
Jack knew. But before he could act, he heard a familiar zzap and a dreadful cry.
“Ghost, no!” Jack reached for her.
The thief had tried the same tactic as before, but this time Gall saw her coming. With a flaming blue hand, he stopped her in mid-flight. Her features twisted in agony. Her body flickered like the ghost she claimed to be. Gall released her and she dropped to the floor.
Jack grit his teeth. “You’ll pay for that.” He looked to the others around him. “Now!”
Hovering above, Jack’s dad fired a bolt of electricity from the sheath of the falcon-head cane.
Sadie pressed closer, thoughts pounding the spook.
The bronze wolf’s head shot out from Ash’s cane, trailing a wire.
Will thrust out both palms, unleashing a rippling blast wave.
The onslaught overwhelmed the senior spook. Gall swatted the air with flaming hands as if fighting off a swarm of mosquitos, and Jack did not waste the opening.
“Aaagghhh!” With a shout, Jack slung a white ball of flame, the biggest he could muster. The fireball sailed past the spook, skipped off the arbiters’ desk, and disappeared through the black hole in the wall.
Gall watched it go, panting. He sneered. “You missed, boy.”
“Nope.” Jack kicked off his sneakers and stepped up onto a big slab of dragonite. “I didn’t.”
Ffffooomp. A deep burgundy light flashed in the darkness beyond the gap, illuminating curving shelves of books. The Archive. The Black Chamber, it seemed, backed up to the giant well, and Jack had tossed his fireball down into its depths, betting on what lay waiting there—a creature Sadie had just awakened.
The flame!
A roar shook the chamber, like the blaring of a thousand ships’ horns.
The defiance dropped from Gall’s expression, replaced by a look of sheer terror.
The heat of the dragonite filled Jack’s body. He wrapped both hands around the hilt of his cane sword, and with a swing worthy of a home run, he slung the fire from his blade.
Whirling, burning gasses trailed the fireball. It slammed into Gall’s chest with an ugly thump, sending him flying backward through the gap in the wall. A blast of dark red fire filled the Archive well. When the flames fell away, Gall had vanished.
Jack ran to Ghost. “Imogene,” he said, using her real name. “Are you okay?”
Ghost raised herself up on an elbow. “I . . . I think so.” But the moment her eyes found focus, they went wide, staring past him. Jack turned to see a massive ruby dragon head filling the gap in the wall. The creature gripped the edges with garnet claws the size of sports cars. It opened its jaws. A vortex of starry red fire swirled within.
“Liu Fai!” shouted Jack, pointing frantically. “Douse it! Douse it now!”
Liu Fai poured frost and snow into the dragon’s mouth, advancing, straining, leavi
ng a trail of frozen footprints across the wooden floor. Lady Ravenswick aided her son, drawing moisture from the air to feed his efforts.
The fire dimmed, and then the frost snuffed it out altogether.
The giant patriarch dragon snapped its mouth closed, gave Jack a sorely disappointed glower, and dropped back down into the well.
Chapter Fifty-Nine
THE MORNING AFTER THE battle, QEDs and workers on glowing ankle thrusters worked to repair the hole in the Black Chamber wall.
“No time wasted,” said Gwen, handing a block of dragonite to a waiting drone. But she and Jack had not come to help with the repairs. They had come to say goodbye to their friend.
Jack sat down on the judges’ table, right next to Liu Fai. “So it’s back to China, then?”
“My father has given me no choice.” Liu Fai cracked a smile. “He is simply too proud. Father has been on the phone all night, telling anyone who will listen how his son battled rogue British agents and subdued a patriarch dragon.” He inclined his head toward the gap in the wall. “Speaking of which, how did you know?”
“Elementary, my dear friend,” said Jack, giving Gwen a wink. He slapped Liu Fai on the arm. “You were the one who told us about the matriarch. And the portals in the Citadel were so like the Chinese portal device that I realized the dragos must have access to a similar creature. Suddenly, all the rumblings I’ve heard from the bottom of the Archive made sense.”
Gwen folded her arms, jumping in. “I told Sadie to wake the dragon with telepathy, and Jack tossed a fireball down the well to light its flame.” She gave Liu Fai one of her trademark freckle-bounce smiles. “I think I speak for all of England when I say we’re grateful you were able to douse it again.”
“And the thief who saw the dragon first? What of her?”
“Recovering,” said Gwen. “The Einstein-Rosen Bridge is safely locked away in the Keep vaults, and Ghost’s rather unique injuries are being well tended.” She and Jack exchanged a sly look.
Liu Fai pressed his lips together, trying to decode the odd exchange, and then smiled. “You are referring to Will.”
“Excellent deduction,” said Jack, touching his nose. “Will helped carry her down to the Keep’s medical wing and now Mrs. Hudson can’t get him to leave.”
Gwen giggled. “The thief and the legal clerk. They have so much in common.”
All three laughed and Liu Fai pushed himself off the table. He clasped Jack’s hand with both of his. “Thank you, Jack. My father and I . . . Well. Things will be different now.”
“Yes.” A melodic voice interrupted from the darkness of the well. “Very different.”
The Archive’s purple balloon, with its gilded ropes and spherical lanterns, descended into view. A Chinese woman in a silk robe worked the controls.
“Dailan?” asked Gwen.
The mountain hermit pushed open the gondola gate, and four QEDs scurried down to make a bridge, sliding into position in time for each graceful step. “I was told my help was needed. And”—she shrugged—“I am quite good with ancient documents.”
Jack offered a hand to help her over the rubble. “You’re the new Archivist.”
“It is a difficult thing. I cannot replace one whom you loved so much.” She glanced over her shoulder at the gondola. “And . . . I certainly don’t get along with her cat.”
The calico strolled out through the gondola gate to cross the makeshift bridge, giving one of the drones the evil eye when it tried to move too soon.
“That’s okay,” offered Gwen. “The Archivist never got along with him either.”
“And it looks like you’ve got some extra help.” Jack thrust his chin at the gap.
A blue snout poked out from behind the balloon. Xiaoquan gave Jack a bright water-dragon grin and flew into the chamber. He circled low over the cat, dodged a swipe from its claws, and retaliated with a stream of water. The calico retreated into the cover of the rubble.
An alarm sounded, the wee-oo, wee-oo of a police siren. Gwen’s pocket lit up with spinning lights and Spec flew out.
“Time to go?” she asked as the drone settled in front of her.
Spec did a flip and a twirl.
“Excellent. Now get back in the box.”
Spec dimmed his thrusters and drooped a bit, but when Gwen opened the pillbox, he obeyed.
“Forgive us,” said Gwen as she and Jack took Dailan and Liu Fai’s hands. “But we have an appointment across town.”
* * *
They found Mrs. Hudson in the Keep’s Botanical Artifact Conservatory, snipping at an unruly stranglervine.
As the open lift brought them up to the third level, Gwen whispered, “Tell me again why we’re meeting in the Dodgy Plant Vault?”
Mrs. Hudson heard her. “Because I like the trees here,” she said, still sparring with the vine. Out into the open center of the greenhouse, the Kite-eater tree made a grab for a QED and missed. “Most of them. And this vault doesn’t have any extra ears. Except for those.” She pointed her shears at a potted tree with big floppy leaves growing from its trunk. The card at its base read HOUNDDOGWOOD (CORNUS BASSETUS).
As Jack and Gwen stepped off the lift, Mrs. Hudson caught the wiggling vine with her shears. She ground the blades through, cutting off a foot or so. The severed end shriveled up, and the remainder retracted into the bushes. “That’ll do for the day, Nigel,” she called after it. “Same time tomorrow?” She dropped the tool into a belt holster like a western gunslinger and started down the path.
Jack and Gwen fell into step behind her.
“It was no small thing that you two did,” she said, spritzing flowers and shrubs as she went, “stopping Gall. The realm is safe. Sir Drake and his council will recover from their injuries. All is not right with the world by any stretch, but it certainly could be a lot worse.”
They passed a line of tall look-at-me flowers, all vying for Jack’s attention. He let several brush against his fingers. They were soft and sweet. “We had help.”
“I know.” Mrs. Hudson lowered her spectacles, and from over her shoulder—whether by accident or design—Jack glimpsed a marking on the base of their stem that he had never noticed before. It was a seal, a falcon and a dragon. “Nevertheless, you proved yourselves. Normally we withhold the rank of journeyman until sixteen years of age. But the regulations permit the occasional waiver.”
They came to a small courtyard with a fountain, where Ash waited, newsboy cap on his head and wolf’s-head cane laid back against his shoulder. Mrs. Hudson nodded to the quartermaster, who reached into the pocket of his waistcoat and pressed something into her waiting hand. As she turned to face Jack and Gwen, he gave them a wink.
“All journeymen carry challenge coins,” said Mrs. Hudson, presenting them each with a bronze marker stamped with the ministry’s falcon-head seal. “With these you can identify friend from foe in dark and dangerous places. Keep them on you at all times.”
“You mean—” said Gwen.
“Congratulations. You are both hereby promoted.”
“Welcome to the club,” said Ash, touching each of their shoulders in turn with his club like a king knighting a squire.
Jack and Gwen pocketed their coins and exchanged a knuckle bump.
Mrs. Hudson interrupted with a cough. “I will expect those waiver applications by this evening. In triplicate.” She returned to her spritzing, working her way around the courtyard, as if nothing whatsoever unusual or knuckle-bump-worthy had happened.
“Mrs. Hudson?” Jack pushed at the pavers with the toe of his sneaker.
“Are you three still here?”
“Well, I . . .” He frowned. “Was there anything else you wanted to tell us?” She had hinted that she did not want their meeting to be overheard, but a promotion to journeyman was not something either of them needed to keep secret.
“Oh yes.” Mrs. Hudson snapped her fingers. “The titles of journeyman tracker and journeyman quartermaster imply that you two are ready to train ne
w trackers, the same as Mr. Pendleton here.”
Jack didn’t understand. “There are no new trackers. There won’t be for a full generation.”
She raised her spectacles and stared at him as if she expected better deductions than that.
“The exiles,” said Gwen.
Mrs. Hudson’s thin lips stretched into something close to a smile. “High marks, Miss Kincaid.”
“But the tracker regulations—” protested Jack, stepping to the side as a strange flower leaned out and tried to kiss him.
“Are indisputable,” Mrs. Hudson finished for him. “Rules, I am afraid, are not meant to be broken, no matter what Miss Kincaid says. So I must know nothing about it. However, if I were Mr. Pendleton, I might choose to help you gather said exiles and find a secure location to train them.”
Ash stepped up between the other two. “Sounds good to me.”
“I’m sure it does.” Mrs. Hudson turned to leave again, then stopped, glancing back. “Out of curiosity, if you three were to create a new, secret organization under the auspices of the Ministry of Trackers, what might you call it?”
Jack and Gwen exchanged a smile, then both answered together.
“Section Thirteen.”
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
As always, my wife, Cindy, deserves top billing. She is my first line editor, my cheerleader, and my shoulder to cry on. Without her, my books would not be possible. Also, without her, I would probably starve, so there’s that.
David Gale, Amanda Ramirez, and Jen Strada at Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers are a fantastic team, and I will be eternally grateful for their commitment to this series. I am also grateful to my agents, Harvey Klinger and Sara Crowe. It is wonderful to have such an incredible group fighting in my corner.
No author worth his or her salt can make it without the support of friends and volunteers. The list of the usual suspects continues to shape my writing with critiques, encouragement, instruction, and advice. Author Steven James, Susie, John and Nancy, Chris and Melinda, Seth and Gavin, Danika and Dennis, Rachel and Katie, James and Ashton, Nancy and Dan, Steve and Tawnya, Randy and Hulda, and the Barons. God has blessed me through all of you, and I am grateful both to you and to Him.
The Clockwork Dragon Page 24