The Black Fortress

by E. G. Foley

  Red nodded, and Jake gave him another doting pat on the head. “Take good care of him for me, doc.”

  The Green Man smiled. “Will do, my lad.”

  With that, Jake pried himself away from the veterinary office and went to see what Archie wanted him to do in his role of assistant.

  Jake jogged back across the grass to Merlin Hall and strode lightly inside, crossing the white lobby underneath the dome. His mood was buoyant; he didn’t even mind that Dani had started her Lightrider training without him this morning.

  Of course, he didn’t let himself think about it too much. Bully for her, was all he said to himself.

  As for Isabelle, he hadn’t seen her this morning. She had been pretty shaken up by the dreadful news about poor Janos’s family.

  Jake also felt awful for his fanged friend, but they were vampires, after all. They drank people’s blood. His wives were known murderers, his children probably ghouls. Janos was the exception, a vampire who refused to feed off humans. So, not to be callous—and he’d never say it to Janos—but Jake was with Maddox on this one. In the long run, the world was probably better off, and deep down, even Janos likely knew it.

  Still, the poor fellow was devastated. This evening, Jake planned to take the others over to try visiting him.

  Janos had holed up in an empty mausoleum over on the Merlin Hall Burial Grounds. He wanted to be alone and the little Gothic marble building would seal out the sunlight, so at least he would be safe there. Since day was night to him, Jake figured Janos was probably sleeping right now, but he and his friends meant to go and knock on his door after nightfall.

  They all felt so bad for him.

  Jake wasn’t sure if the vampire would want to see anyone so soon after the tragedy, but he at least wanted to thank Janos for rescuing Red and to say how sorry he was.

  All the same, after having been in a dark place himself all these weeks, Jake felt so good at the moment that he did not want to get bogged down in thinking too much about Janos’s suffering.

  He pushed the painful thoughts away, needing to enjoy his own happiness for a few days.

  Bounding down the steps that led into the basement of Merlin Hall, Jake leaped off the bottom few and landed at the bottom with a pounce. Then he strutted down the dark corridor, whistling, until he found Archie’s laboratory.

  Admittedly, he found the place slightly creepy.

  Buried mostly below ground level, the high-ceilinged room was spacious but dim; the only windows ran along the top part of one wall. Globular lamps assisted with lighting the worktables and dark wooden shelves, but the lab still felt chilly and dank on account of the drab green paint on the walls and the gray flagstone floor underfoot.

  Worst of all, though, was the turpentine and burned-hair smell of all the chemicals. Ventilation was poor. But the lab had a sink in the corner and all the equipment the boy genius could want, given the circumstances.

  Burners and beakers, bell jars and bowls lined the surrounding shelves. There were rows of test tubes in all sizes and sharp little tools resembling tweezers and scalpels.

  There were thermometers, magnets, and dozens of little glass vials containing elements and minerals, like a collection of odd-colored rock salt. These sat alongside the mortars and pestles used for crushing things into powders and finely tuned scales for weighing them. On the center table sat no less than three different microscopes and a small spinny thing called a centrifuge.

  These, at least, were the items Jake could identify, but there were other whimsical contraptions and odd apparatuses that he could not name.

  In any case, as he breezed into the lab finally in a good mood, he lifted his arms out to his sides, presenting himself. “Dr. Frankenstein: your Igor is here!” he said to the boy genius.

  “Ah! Excellent.” Archie looked up from a clipboard, where he had been scribbling notes.

  Nixie was also there, scratching her head idly with her wand and squinting up at the top shelf, where Malwort, a friendly spider the size of a dinner plate, scurried back and forth, fetching ingredients for her.

  Archie had given the witch a few shelves of her own, where she could keep her magical equipment. The two geniuses liked working together. They made a good team.

  Malwort stopped and plucked a vial off the shelf with his two front legs. “Oh look, it’s the Jake!” the arachno-sapiens said in his clinkety little voice.

  “Hullo, Malwort,” Jake replied.

  He had long since noticed that the talking spider seemed much happier in life as Nixie’s assistant than he had ever been as Uncle Waldrick’s pet.

  As Malwort hopped back down off the shelves to bring Nixie the vial, Jake noticed that both she and Archie were wearing white lab coats.

  He wondered if he’d get to wear one too—and a pair of those goofy googles. Then he strolled toward his cousin, and Archie studied him curiously over the rim of his spectacles.

  “Well, look at this. I do believe my cheeky cousin’s back. Good to see you, mate.” Archie offered a handshake. “It’s been a long time!”

  Jake laughed, shook his hand, then clapped his cousin on the shoulder. “Aye, I’m officially back to m’old self.”

  “We’ve been warned,” Nixie drawled, sauntering over to them.

  Jake reached over with a grin and rumpled her spiky black hair. She hissed at him, but not maliciously.

  “Did you get Red over to the vet?” she asked, fixing her hair with a scowl.

  “He’s there now.” Jake clapped his hands together and rubbed them back and forth, ready to work. “Right! So what do you two brains want me to do?”

  Archie glanced past him. “Nix, you ready?”

  “Ready,” she answered.

  “Good.” Archie nodded. “Then, both of you, follow me.” He bopped through a side door that Jake hadn’t even noticed was there, while Nixie turned to her creepy little assistant.

  “Stay, Malwort. This could get dangerous.”

  “Yes, boss,” the spider answered. Nixie gestured to Jake to go ahead of her, so he followed his cousin into the adjoining lab.

  It had the same green walls and gray floor as the main lab, plus a few chalkboards, but no furniture, leaving the space clear for the bizarre mechanical wonder that took up most of room.

  “What on earth…?” Jake murmured, staring at it. Well now.

  The boy genius had come up with some odd inventions in his day, but this one had to be the strangest of them all.

  The large, grayish metal contraption looked like an upside-down salad bowl with flat, shallow sides. Around fifteen feet in diameter, the center—or the base of the overturned salad bowl—stood as tall as Jake’s chest, while the sides sloped down to the level of his shins.

  A metal pole about six feet tall stuck up through the center of the contraption, a sturdy leather strap or belt wrapped around it, and as Jake’s gaze traveled along it, he saw the belt was attached to a seat of gears several feet away.

  Oh, how Archie loved making things with gears.

  The upper sprocket was set horizontally, so that the belt from the pole could also travel around it, but the lower sprocket that it melded with was set vertically, at a right angle to the first.

  Likewise, the lower sprocket had a leather belt wrapped around it—longwise in this case, while the other ran sideways.

  But the belt on the lower gear was connected to the front wheel of, lo and behold, a velocipede.

  Ugh, Jake hated those things: teetering, tall bicycles. You could break your neck on one of those things if you fell over. (Plus, they reminded him of Loki.)

  In any case, this particular high-wheeler, or penny-farthing, as they were commonly known, wasn’t going anywhere. It had been safely secured on wooden blocks a couple of inches off the ground.

  Jake turned to his cousin in amazement. “What’s all this, then?”

  Archie beamed with pride and tucked his pencil behind his ear. “It’s a giant centrifuge, coz! And guess what? You’re the powe
r source.” He clapped him on the back, then pointed at the bicycle. “Riding that.”

  “Oh…”

  “Maddox has been helping me with the welding…” Archie began bustling around and showing Jake the two large objects that were secured on the upside-down salad bowl, carefully placed across from each other.

  One was a giant test tube, big enough to fit a full-grown adult. It rested at an angle, with the stoppered top on the higher end, near the middle.

  Opposite the test tube sat a long sandbag of about equal size, well strapped in, like the test tube was.

  Archie pointed at it. “When Aleeyah comes back, she’ll be about the size and weight of that sandbag. We’ve measured it carefully. It’s there to keep the centrifuge balanced. We don’t want the poor woman flying off and crashing headlong into the wall from centripetal force the moment she’s back. This thing is really going to get spinning, y’see. That’s the idea, anyway.”

  “Huh,” Jake said, staring at the contraption in wonder.

  “The belts drive the motion using the power of mechanical advantage.” Archie tapped his clipboard with his pencil. “According to my calculations, the gravitational force we’re going to create will squeeze her molecules back together, forcing Aleeyah from a gas into a solid state.”

  Jake frowned uneasily. “That sounds pretty drastic.

  “It is. I am not messing around.” With that, Archie lowered his goggles over his eyes.

  Lord help us, thought Jake. But, fortunately, he noticed that his cousin had worn his lucky bow tie. That should help.

  Nixie, meanwhile, shut the lab door, then walked around the centrifuge to the other large structure behind it: a tall wooden platform on stilts.

  It had a safety railing and a ladder leading up, which Nixie now climbed, holding her wand crosswise in her mouth. Like a pirate climbing the ship’s rigging with his knife.

  “What’s that?” Jake asked, nodding at the structure.

  “Oh, that’s the observation deck,” Archie said. “I’ll have a good view from there of how the experiment is progressing. Right, then! We’re almost ready to proceed. Now, where is our patient?” Archie glanced around the lab. “Aleeyah? Hullo?”

  “There she is.” Now atop the observation deck, Nixie pointed toward the ceiling, where a modest cloud of grayish smoke drifted with an air of nervous boredom. “Say hullo to Aleeyah, Jake.”

  Jake waved uncertainly at the cloud. “Morning, Aleeyah. You probably heard the good news about Red and Ravyn and Tex.”

  Nixie nodded with confidence. “We told her she’s next.”

  Archie gazed up at the cloud. “Are you ready to get in?”

  The cloud drifted up and down a tiny bit, like a person nodding. When it wafted down toward the test tube, the inventor climbed up onto the giant centrifuge.

  The sheet metal warbled and reverberated under his movements as Archie clambered up the slope, then planted his knee near the top and pulled out the big rubber stopper using both hands. It came out with a pop.

  The djinni hesitated, understandably.

  “Do hurry,” Archie said. “It’s all been sterilized; we should minimize exposure to the air.”

  The Aleeyah cloud floated down into the test tube.

  While Archie waited to make sure that all of the djinni’s smoky bits were in, Jake noticed that the test tube already had stuff in the bottom. It was filled about halfway with a sloshy gray liquid.

  “What’s that in the test tube?” he said.

  “Oh! That’s, um, life soup, you might say.”

  “What?”

  Archie shoved the stopper back into the test tube. “Nix and I have already assembled all the basic ingredients needed to build a human body.”

  Jake stared at him in shock.

  Finished securing the stopper, Archie gave the test tube a reassuring pat for Aleeyah’s sake, then dismounted the centrifuge like it was a slide as he explained.

  “Nearly nine gallons of water provide the proper ratio of oxygen and hydrogen. A special nitrogen compound I invented. A generous helping of carbon, as well—that gives it its charcoal color, y’see. Then come the minerals: calcium, potassium, sodium, magnesium, iron, and so forth. Everything for building strong, healthy bones.”

  “And don’t forget the magical ingredients.” Nixie rested her elbows on the railing of the observation deck. “The two powdered Gryphon feathers that you gave us, plus… Should we tell him, Arch?” She flashed her beau a grin.

  Archie grinned back. “You tell him, Nix.”

  “Tell me what?” Jake prompted.

  She stood up straight. “Though the Gryphon feathers are renowned for their healing properties, we already tried it alone and it didn’t work. Then it dawned on me that what we really need is a spell-breaking substance for a base. The most powerful magic-reversal agent we could get. After all, it was a dark spell from a Nephilim warlock that trapped Aleeyah in her smoke form.”

  Jake nodded. “Lord Wyvern.”

  “Correct,” Nixie said. “So we knew we’d need something strong to undo his working. Thing is, the master wizards and witches that have already tried untangling this problem got nowhere with all of the usual solutions. But there’s one ingredient they forgot.”

  “She’s brilliant, that one.” Beaming, Archie nudged Jake and nodded at her. “Tell him what you came up with, Nix.”

  Nixie lifted her chin. “Fairy tears!”

  “Ohh, right!” Jake exclaimed, remembering. “They broke that dreadful spell Fionnula Coralbroom put on me once. What was it…? The Oboedire spell.”

  “Oh, that’s a bad one.” Nixie’s eyebrows rose. “You were under that once?”

  “Aye, before we met. The sea-witch put it on me. It made me obey whatever she and Uncle Waldrick ordered me to do for a while. I would’ve been stuck as their slave forever if it weren’t for little Gladwin. She was kneeling on my palm when she cried a few tears. They dripped onto my skin, and that broke Fionnula’s spell completely.”

  “Good to know,” Nixie said. “If a couple of fairy teardrops got you free from the Oboedire spell, then this should definitely do the trick for Aleeyah. Because we put a whole quart of them in there.”

  Jake looked at her in astonishment. “How on earth did you manage to collect a whole quart of fairy tears?”

  Nixie grinned at his question, but Archie poked Jake in the arm, then pointed at the velocipede. “You should go and get on the bicycle.”

  He nodded and walked over to it as Nixie answered his question.

  “Have you ever heard of Charles Dickens?”

  “The writer? Of course. I’m not that much of an ignoramus.” Jake made sure the penny-farthing was secure before he dared climb up on it; he tried to shake it, but it remained firmly upright in the stand where it perched, secured by the wooden blocks.

  “Well,” Nixie continued, “I’ve kept this kind of quiet, but, for the past several weeks, I’ve been inviting the whole tribe of royal garden fairies down to the terrace, where, each night, I serve them their favorite bedtime snack and read them another chapter of Mr. Dickens’ book, The Old Curiosity Shop.”

  “A classic,” Archie chimed in, making final checks of his machine.

  “They loved it,” Nixie said. “You know how sentimental fairies are, especially when it comes to little children.”

  “Right.” Jake nodded. Satisfied the penny-farthing wouldn’t topple over, he used the metal step to climb up onto the bicycle seat.

  “Well,” Nixie said, “when the part I’d been waiting for finally arrived, Isabelle and Dani assisted. I had a whole box of tear-collecting vials ready to go. And on that particular night, we finally reached the chapter with the Death of Little Nell.”

  “Aw!” Jake burst out laughing.

  Nixie shrugged. “It worked—like a charm, if I say so myself. The poor little fairies cried their eyes out.”

  “So did I!” Archie mumbled.

  So did everyone who’d ever read the blasted
thing, Jake thought, chuckling.

  Indeed, some of Mr. Dickens’s fans barely forgave the author for having killed off poor, sweet, innocent Little Nell.

  “You’re cruel,” Jake said with a grin.

  “I know,” Nixie said sweetly.

  “Enough jibber-jabber, you two. It’s time to get this experiment underway.” His final checks complete, Archie stood beside the centrifuge, his hands planted on his hips.

  “Now, Jake,” he continued, “in a moment, you’ll begin to pedal, but not yet. There’s going to be incredible resistance when you first begin, so Nixie and I will help get the centrifuge moving by giving it a good push.” He beckoned to his sweetheart to come down from the observation deck.

  Nixie hurried back down the ladder, then went and stood beside the centrifuge, opposite Archie.

  “When I say go, Nixie and I will push, and you start pedaling. See, for every one revolution you do on the velocipede, the centrifuge will spin eight times. That’s the mechanical advantage at work. Got it?”

  “Got it.” Jake nodded and gripped the handlebars.

  From the corner of his eye, he noticed Malwort peering worriedly through the small window in the door between the two labs. Inside the giant test tube, Aleeyah was probably feeling even more anxious than the spider.

  “Count of three,” said Archie. “One…two…three!”

  At once, Jake stood upright on the bicycle, mashing down all his weight on the right pedal while Archie and Nixie thrust the centrifuge forward in a counterclockwise direction.

  The thing barely budged. Jake’s bicycle stirrup scarcely descended by an inch.

  “Again!” Archie said. “One…two…three!”

  Once more, they all heaved together, and this time, the centrifuge creaked forward half a foot. The two leather belts groaned. The gears clanked through a few meshed teeth, grinding into sluggish motion.

  Again and again, the three of them strove together until the front wheel of the penny-farthing was slowly gliding forward, moving the belt wrapped around it, and transferring the motion through the vertical gear to the horizontal one. The pole in the center began to turn, and finally, through their combined willpower, the upside-down salad bowl began to rotate slowly.