a builder will return.
His twisted tongue will utter song,
the champion will arise,
But fallen Groundling or gentle Guard,
his choices will decide.
As Mr. Spines finished reciting the poem, Edward’s mind raced. The poem didn’t make much sense, but there was something familiar in it that he couldn’t quite place. It was at the edge of his thoughts, the same way the song had been back in the cellar. What was going on? Had he gone crazy? Was all of this, Mr. Spines, the talking weasel, and the flying toad, a hallucination?
Edward’s mind was spinning. If not for the fact that he could feel the wings on his back pressing into the seat cushion behind him, he would have thought it all some kind of strange nightmare. It made him feel both exhilarated and terrified.
“You should rest,” Mr. Spines said, leaning back in his seat. He could tell the boy was nervous. Had he told Edward too much too soon? He couldn’t risk frightening the boy out of his wits, but he had to gain Edward’s trust quickly so that they could accomplish the task ahead.
Edward didn’t reply to Mr. Spines’s comment. Instead, he leaned back and stared out of the train-car window. He didn’t want those things with him to see how afraid he was. They weren’t coming after him with scissors, but they were still pretty creepy. How could he trust them when he couldn’t shake the feeling that he was being kidnapped?
Edward glanced covertly at Sariel and Artemis, who were fighting underneath the table for the last of the shortbread. If what Mr. Spines had said was true, then they were fallen “Guardians.” But didn’t that mean that they were evil?
The only thing Edward knew for sure was that he wanted to be as far away from Whiplash Scruggs as possible. Spines had talked as if Scruggs were an enemy, but how could Edward be sure which side anyone was really on?
Edward turned back to the window with his heart thumping wildly. He had no idea who he could trust. He shivered. He had a pair of wings on his back and was traveling to Los Angeles with a perfect stranger who was telling him that he was from the Afterlife. It was too much to believe!
He didn’t know what was going on, but he couldn’t afford to take any more chances. He had to get away from these freaks and figure out what to do next. He didn’t like Mr. Spines. In spite of all Spines had said about wanting to help, Edward still didn’t trust him.
Edward leaned back in his seat and pretended to go to sleep, ignoring Mr. Spines who was watching his every move. Edward knew what he was going to do. He would have to catch Spines off guard. Then he would try to escape!
He closed his eyes.
Shifting to as comfortable a position as he could manage, he pulled his big, ebony wings around his shoulders like a protective blanket. Even though the wings were a comfort, he wished he had something more than feathers to shield him from Mr. Spines’s intense gaze.
Chapter Ten
CONVERSATION
Whiplash Scruggs fiddled nervously with his broad-brimmed hat. The situation with the boy had not gone well at all. He walked across his tiny room and gazed out the dirty window. Below him, several Foundry students were gathered in a muddy field, shoveling fertilizer into a ragged-looking garden. He gritted his teeth in frustration. He’d come too far to give up now. He didn’t want to think about his Master’s reaction if the Jackal learned he had failed to capture the boy. The last time he’d failed the Jackal in a mission, Scruggs had paid severe consequences. How long he’d suffered in the brimstone mines beneath his Master’s fortress. The mines were filled with stinking rocks that blistered his palms despite the thick gloves he’d worn. Ages had come and gone as he moved the steaming rocks from pile to pile.
He glanced at his palms, eyeing the heavy callous that each of them still bore.
Scruggs hadn’t anticipated Melchior’s resurfacing. The Jackal had been searching for the wretched creature for years and found nothing. Why now?
Scruggs scowled. It should have been an easy task. He had easily convinced the boy’s aunt to enroll him at the Foundry after his mother died, and then he had filled the school with low-level Groundlings, posing as teachers and waited for the signs. Warburton had been providing him with consistent updates on the boy and his progress. All that was left was to wait for the wings and then snip! Piece of cake. The fact that Melchior would dare to interfere was unthinkable.
Scruggs grimaced. He and Melchior shared a long and hateful past. They had been friendly competitors long ago when they were Guardians in the Woodbine. They shared reputations as excellent craftsmen, and their engineering skills were used to develop new and innovative musical instruments for the Guardian choirs. But Melchior had gained the Jackal’s favor, after giving the Master what he needed when he needed it most. Melchior had helped design a new body for the Jackal when it had been ravaged by the destruction of the Seven Bridges. It was Melchior’s talent that the Jackal had craved, not Scruggs’s.
Scruggs’s eyes hardened. Well, he wouldn’t want to be Melchior when the Master finally caught up with him. He was certain that the Jackal would have a punishment far worse than working in the brimstone mines in store for Melchior. Betrayal was the most serious of offenses. He himself had been sent down to the brimstone mines for much less. Just because he’d shown interest in a mortal woman who dealt with the Guardians occasionally, the Jackal had punished him severely. Any contact with the enemy forces, no matter how insignificant, was forbidden.
Scruggs stroked his goatee, thinking. Perhaps he could convince the Jackal to give him another chance. If he could get the boy and capture Melchior at the same time, he might be spared another punishment in the mines. He might even be rewarded.
Hope flared in his piggish eyes. The Jackal would welcome news of Melchior’s whereabouts. There were portraits of Melchior scattered throughout the Jackal’s lair, promising a reward for his capture.
Scruggs walked over to the shabby wooden dresser and opened a drawer. Inside was an iron ring etched with a serpent biting its tail, just like the one Melchior had used to rescue Edward. He removed it and held it aloft for a moment. Then he spoke the ancient word, his voice taking on a gutteral growl, “Se’ol.”
The ring sparked as red flames danced around its edges. Moments later the inside of the ring filled with a swirling cloud. The black mist drifted in lazy circles and Scruggs could make out the dim outline of the Jackal’s fortress inside the smoke. He gulped and tried to keep his face impassive as the fortress faded and was replaced by the image of an ornate throne covered with wicked barbs.
Then he saw it. The something that sat on that throne. A yellow eye with an icy blue pupil gazed back at him from the Oroborus. It was red-rimmed and never blinked. That eye was one of the few organic parts of the Jackal that remained. The rest of his body wheezed and clanked, bellows instead of lungs, motors where his arteries should have been. His black armor was covered with iron thorns. A long, richly embroidered cloak was fastened to his metal shoulders. A few strands of hair, once golden, but now clotted with oil and grime, hung limply from beneath his empty iron mask. The metal face had but a single hole in it, and this was the window from which his lidless orb stared. He was more machine than fallen Guardian now, but the essential parts of him that were immortal were animated by a deep, black hatred for all things good.
The Fall from the Higher Places had been dreadful for the Jackal. As he’d plummeted, the flesh had been ripped from his immortal bones while he grasped and pulled at the Seven Bridges, destroying them almost completely. It had been a cunning act of defiance. But he had paid a price for it. And gazing into that dripping, yellow orb, Whiplash Scruggs could clearly see the eternal hate that burned within the Jackal.
“You have the boy?” the Jackal wheezed. His voice was reedy and mechanical, as if it came through a flute or clarinet.
“Not yet, my Master,” Whiplash Scruggs said. “But he’s close,” he added quickly. “He’s with Melchior. I’m tracking them down even as we speak.”
&nbs
p; The eye didn’t move or blink. It remained as fixed on Scruggs as if it were made of glass.
Suddenly, Whiplash Scruggs felt tremendous, searing pain course through his entire body. His hands flew to the sides of his temples and he gasped and sunk to his knees. It was a pain so horrible that it felt as if every cell in his body were about to explode. A high, clear note reverberated all around him as his internal organs were flayed from within.
A high-pitched, barking laugh like a hyena’s burst from his master’s lips. It was the sound that had given the Jackal his current name, the horrible laugh that sent chills down the spine of any being, mortal or immortal, that heard it. He had once been known by other, more powerful names, but the Jackalsuited him now.
Tears slid down the sides of Scruggs’s jowly cheeks. The bulky man writhed on the floor as his dogs howled in pain from their spot beneath his bed.
“Please . . . please . . .” Scruggs begged, his voice a ragged whisper. “I won’t fail you again. I’ll bring . . . them both to you . . . please . . .”
The high, clear note suddenly stopped. As it ended, Scruggs felt the searing pain leave his body. He lifted himself up and pulled in a deep, shuddering breath. After a moment, the Jackal spoke.
“Bring Melchior and the boy to me. Do not fail me again, Moloc.”
Scruggs nodded weakly.
“Never again, my Master.”
Chapter Eleven
ANGEL’S FLIGHT
“LOS ANGELES,” the conductor’s voice boomed.
Edward, who had been pretending to sleep for the last couple of hours, made a show of waking up. He yawned with exaggerated care and then glanced at Mr. Spines, who seemed not to be paying Edward any attention.
Edward felt the train begin to slow. He tried to look relaxed, as if nothing were wrong. His gaze flickered to the sliding door at the back of the coach. He’d have to be quick. To stumble or trip on his way out would cost him precious seconds. He’d had time to study the strange creature and felt pretty sure that Mr. Spines was stronger than he looked.
The gas lamps at Los Angeles Union
Station flickered dully outside Edward’s
window. Beneath their glow, he spotted rows of
canary-yellow cabs waiting to pick up arriving
passengers. The taxi drivers leaned against their
vehicles, chatting amiably, waiting for their
next fares.
The train slowed to a crawl.
Any minute now.
“I’m starving, Melchior!” Artemis’s muffled voice came from inside Mr. Spines’s leather satchel. The two creatures had been placed inside so that they wouldn’t attract attention when they disembarked.
“Can’t we stop and get ice cream on the way to the hideout?” the toad begged.
“It’s after nine o’clock; everything’s closed,” Spines said into the opened bag. After looking at his watch he closed its cover with a small click. “You can have something once we get there.” He glanced up at Edward and, after noticing how pale the boy looked, offered him another of his ghastly, broken-toothed smiles.
“Don’t worry about a thing, my boy. Once we get to where we’re going, our troubles will be over,” he said.
I doubt it, Edward thought. But he offered Spines a fake smile in return.
The train shuddered to a stop and the sound of hissing steam echoed outside the windows. Edward took a quick, deep breath.
NOW!
He was up in an instant, dashing straight to the door.
The conductor at the exit glared at him as he leaped to the ground and ran as fast as he could through the lightly crowded station. His new wings flapped behind him as he ran, and he desperately hoped that if anyone saw them that they would be mistaken for a big black overcoat. He knew that he couldn’t afford to attract too much attention. Right now, all that mattered was getting away.
Far behind him he was aware of some commotion, and heard Spines’s rough voice shouting, “Edward, come back!”
But he wasn’t coming back. He didn’t trust the misshapen creature or his strange animal sidekicks.
Edward knew that he couldn’t go back to the Foundry. He couldn’t take a chance that Whiplash Scruggs was still there, and besides, he’d hated the place. No, the only option he could think of was to try to get back to Oregon and find his aunt. She was the only relative he had.
He knew that when he’d been sent to live with her after his mother died he’d been in a terrible state of mind. It was no secret that he’d acted spitefully and had withdrawn from her attempts to connect with him. But this time it would be different. He would show her that he could be well behaved. He didn’t know how she would react to his new wings, but he was convinced that if he really tried, he might be able to get her to like him in spite of his strange appearance.
It was his only chance of ever having a normal home again.
At nine o’clock P.M. on a Sunday, all of the shops in Los Angeles were closed. Edward ran down the darkened streets and eventually turned down one called Alvarado. It was lined with shops built from adobe bricks, most of which were festooned with the tattered remains of colorful streamers. Glancing into some of the store windows as he ran, he saw sugar skulls grinning back at him and signs reading DIA DE LOS MUERTOS hung on the shop doors.
Edward had never been to California before, but if he had, he’d have understood that what he was seeing was the remains of the Mexican Day of the Dead celebration. The holiday honors loved ones who have departed, and for days the streets are decorated with flowers, candy skulls, and parades. Death is laughed at by the celebrants, and in doing so, the people accept dying as a natural part of life. The holiday was brought north into California by Mexican settlers. But Edward knew none of this. To him, the shops filled with candy skeletons and dead flowers were terrifying reminders of what he was fleeing from.
After several hundred yards, he crossed over to a deserted side street. Small, bungalow-style homes lined the road. It was less terrifying than the skeleton-themed street he’d been on before, but he still had no idea where he was.
Edward walked slowly down the deserted street, keeping to the shadows while he caught his breath. He glanced from house to house, trying desperately to think of what to do next. He wished so much that he would awake in his own bed in his mother’s house to find that this was all some horrible nightmare.
As he stared longingly at the neat houses filled with happy families, something caught his eye. There was laundry hanging from a clothesline in one of the yards, and at the very end of the line was a large, black overcoat.
That’s stealing, an inner voice chided. But Edward was desperate. He couldn’t afford to be seen with the big, black wings growing out of his back. He might be arrested or captured and thrown into a freak show somewhere. Normally, the thought of taking something that didn’t belong to him wouldn’t have crossed his mind, but right now, Edward didn’t feel that he had a choice.
He crept quietly into the backyard, keeping his eyes fixed on the home’s windows. Anyone could see him if they happened to glance outside.
He grabbed the coat with one swift motion and dashed back out to the street. There was no sound of pursuit as he ran with the heavy bundle underneath his arm. His conscience bothered him, but he pushed it aside. He had to do whatever it took to get away from Scruggs and Spines and make it somewhere safe.
After a few blocks, Edward reached a busy intersection. He paused to put on the heavy coat and was relieved to find that it fit perfectly over his exposed wings.
Model T’s raced up and down the busy road, punctuated by the light bells from cable cars. Tall buildings, bigger than any he’d seen in Portland, towered all around him. Edward stared, awestruck, at their imposing silhouettes.
As he looked around, Edward noticed a group of people waiting at a cable-car stop across the street. He felt his pockets for spare change, but knew even before he did so that he wouldn’t find anything there.
He desperate
ly wished that he’d had time to grab a few things before he’d left the Foundry. Everything had just happened so fast. And now he was in Los Angeles without any money or a place to stay. He was lost in a huge city and had no idea where to go. Suddenly everything seemed very large and terrifying. And he had no clue how he was going to get back up to Oregon with no money and no ride.
His stomach rumbled. The only thing he’d had to eat since yesterday was the shortbread cookie Spines had offered him on the train.
Okay, don’t panic,he told himself. He could feel his heart racing with anxiety. First you need to find a place to sleep for the night. Someplace safe.
Edward walked for what seemed like hours, searching for a good place to rest. He needed a spot that was secluded enough that he wouldn’t be bothered, but not far enough away from people that he couldn’t call for help if he needed it. It was a scary prospect. He’d heard from his mother that Los Angeles could be dangerous place, but, until now, had never thought he’d actually be wandering its streets alone in the middle of the night.
He was glad that the overcoat he was wearing made him look bigger and more imposing than he actually was. With his wings flattened on his back, it filled out the shoulders of the big coat and made him look older and more muscular than he really was.
Finally, after about two hours, Edward came to an unusual-looking train station. There was a big archway over a short track that extended up to the top of a hill. Situated at the bottom of the track was an elegant train made up of two cars. All the lights were off, but Edward could just make out the words written on the archway above.
ANGEL’S FLIGHT.
He looked carefully around him. The station was deserted. He moved over to the nearest car. He didn’t expect it to be unlocked and was surprised when the doorknob turned easily beneath his hand.
He hazarded one more glance over his shoulder before sliding quickly inside and carefully shutting the door behind him. Inside the little car were several wooden benches.
Wings Page 5