The Black Fortress

by E. G. Foley

  Jake scoffed. “I want no part of your stupid prophecy!”

  “You know about that?”

  “Of course!”

  “How?”

  “Pfft, I’m not telling you that. You’re a Dark Druid. The lot of you are loony.”

  Wyvern quirked a brow. “If it’s fate, Jake, there’s nothing you can do.”

  “If it’s fate, then I choose the Order. Not you.”

  “Hmm.” Wyvern’s eyes narrowed. “I was worried you’d say that.”

  “So, what now? You gonna kill me? Go ahead! It’s probably best for the world.”

  “Oh, Jake, if I were going to kill you, you’d already be dead. But, lucky for you, that wouldn’t serve my purpose at all. Not anymore.”

  “Uh-huh,” Jake said with the utmost skepticism. “So, let me see if I have this right. You and the squid want to become my new parents.”

  “I beg your pardon!” said Fionnula, but Wyvern could not hide his amusement.

  “That’s right. More or less.”

  Jake snorted. “Not interested, thanks.”

  “I can get you an army of gryphons. You like gryphons, don’t you?”

  “Just the one,” Jake replied.

  “Riches?”

  “I already own a gold mine, mate.”

  “Hmm.” Wyvern narrowed his eyes, looking a little frustrated yet amused. “How about additional powers?”

  “Doubler. Keeps me busy enough. Don’t you get it?” Jake exclaimed. “All I really want is to get my parents back!”

  Wyvern stiffened. “Well, that’s not possible.”

  “Why? Are they dead? I know Uncle Waldrick didn’t really murder them. He thought he did, but Fionnula tricked him by putting magic bullets in the gun. She told me so herself.”

  “Oh, did she?” He sent the sea-witch a reproachful glance.

  “I had no choice!” she said. “The boy came to see me in prison. What else could I do? Information was all I had to bargain with!”

  “We’ll talk about this later,” he replied.

  Jake shook his head at the sea-witch. “Fionnula, you really need to think about your taste in men.”

  “That will do, sir! I’ve had about enough out of you.” Losing patience, Wyvern rebuked Jake with a zap from his wand that sent him sprawling facedown on the driveway. “You need to learn some manners.”

  The unexpected face plant knocked the wind out of him, and when his chin hit the gravel, he bit his lip as his jaw snapped closed.

  It hurt. Jake was now on eyelevel with Wyvern’s polished black boots. Dazedly, he touched his lip, and his fingers came away bloody.

  “You do realize there is no one on your side who’s even a match for me, don’t you? Who can stop me, really? Balinor? Please,” Wyvern said. “The old man’s a joke. Your aunt, the Elder witch? She’s afraid of her own power. Or, what’s his name—Peter Quince? He’s an amateur compared to me.

  “Face it, Jake. The Order’s going to lose. I’ll make sure of that. Trust me, you’re going to want to be on the winning side by the time it’s over. With us, you can learn the real meaning of magic.”

  His heart pounding, Jake refused to stay down and started climbing back onto his feet.

  Wyvern stopped him, planting a big boot on his back to smash him flat onto his stomach.

  “Hey!”

  “Do you know what it means to wear the Black Crown?” the warlock continued, warming to his speech. “Can you even imagine it? It means cheating death, for starters. Look at Garnock. He was well on his way to bringing himself back to life after centuries in the grave.”

  “Till I stopped him,” Jake boasted, never mind his inglorious position.

  “You got lucky,” Wyvern said, then added more weight to the foot he’d planted between Jake’s shoulder blades to try to still his struggling. “The only reason you were able to stop the great Garnock is because, deep down, you’re already one of us and you know it. Play your cards right, and you might even supersede our founder in time.”

  “No thanks.” Pressing upward with all his strength, Jake nearly succeeded in making it onto his hands and knees before his would-be adoptive father squashed him flat again.

  “Oof!” Jake bumped his chin again and winced, but was not giving up. He ground his knees into the gravel as he fought to rise.

  “Don’t you realize the chance you’re being given here? The Dark Master has the power to guide world history in any manner he fancies. When I invite you, boy, to serve as my son, to stand by my side as the Black Prince, I am offering you the Earth, in due time. The Order might be able to make you a Lightrider, but me, Jake? I can make you a god.”

  Burning with defiance, Jake peered up at Wyvern from underneath his forelock. “There’s only one God, gov, and he whupped your father’s hide a long time ago.” With a sudden war cry, Jake shot his hands up and hurled the most vicious wave of telekinetic energy he could summon at Wyvern.

  It jarred the Nephilim, forcing him to take his foot off Jake’s back to catch his balance.

  Jake jumped to his feet, pressing his attack without hesitation, blasting the earl with the full force of his telekinesis.

  Wyvern planted one foot behind him, refusing to be bowled over. He held up his palm, shielding himself somehow, though not very well.

  Red cawed encouragement. Jake clenched his teeth and intensified the onslaught, ignoring the blood trickling down his jaw from his split lip.

  Blimey, this amount of force should have sent the earl flying into the next county by now. But the warlock barely budged.

  With a low grunt of effort, Wyvern held his hand steady and blocked the double-barreled energy attack that Jake continued blasting at him.

  “Children,” the earl quipped through gritted teeth. There was fury and exasperation in his eyes, yet admiration.

  Theirs was a battle of wills.

  But, to Jake’s fury, Wyvern started laughing.

  “The boy has spirit, doesn’t he, dear?” he called.

  “Stubborn, like you,” Fionnula answered uneasily.

  Jake concentrated harder, pouring more energy out through both palms. He was giving the fight all he had, but it still had minimal effect.

  Wyvern adjusted to his attack, now staving off Jake’s furious assault with one hand, arching an eyebrow like he was bored.

  “Honestly, Jake. You think I’ve never dealt with telekinetics before? Enough! Your determination is adorable, but I have things to do.”

  Jake disregarded the mild scold, but he knew he was in trouble when all the power he’d put into his attack began to sap his strength.

  Suddenly, he didn’t feel so good. He knew he’d overdone it, but he kept up the attack. The energy streaming out of his palms was waning fast. A headache started throbbing in his temples.

  But only when he felt blood trickle out of his nose did he finally quit.

  Chest heaving, Jake dropped both hands to his sides, exhausted.

  “Well,” Wyvern said sardonically. “Now that you’ve got that out of your system, are you ready to be reasonable?”

  Jake looked at Derek, who watched helplessly from beneath the bell jar. The warrior gazed sorrowfully at Jake’s bloody nose and scraped chin as if he already knew what would happen next.

  The look on Derek’s face was what made Jake realize it too. Oh my God, they’re going to kidnap me for their stupid prophecy. They really think they can force me to become a Dark Druid.

  Wyvern gave him a fatherly smile. “Now come along quietly—son.” He reached out and offered Jake his hand.

  Jake looked down at it, with its huge grip and extra finger.

  He despaired. He had just subjected the Nephilim to the strongest attack he could inflict, and it had had no effect. Now Wyvern was offering an olive branch? He’d expected a counterstrike.

  This unexpected reaction threw him.

  Was that what it was like, having parents? You could blast them with all your anger, and they’d still stand there, sti
ll caring about you, just waiting for you to calm down?

  Well, he’d probably never know.

  Fionnula was a liar, after all. His parents probably were dead by now, or had been kept in that comatose state too long to ever be revived.

  Imperfect as it was, this might be the only chance he’d ever get to have a real family of his own. Wyvern and Fionnula were repulsive as parents, true. But it wouldn’t be half bad being a prince, anyway.

  Indeed, that offer had been enough to tempt Janos.

  But as Jake gazed down at that overlarge hand with its too-many fingers, all he could think of was his real dad, who had the same telekinesis talent in his hands that he had passed on to him. The blond, smiling stranger and the beautiful, sable-haired woman in the portrait hanging over the fireplace.

  His throat closed.

  Tears blurred his eyes.

  “Do as he says, Jake,” Fionnula said quietly.

  It was a warning for his own good if he’d ever heard one. A subtly spoken message that even the sea-witch feared the Nephilim.

  Jake looked at Fionnula in desperation. She stared back at him matter-of-factly, and Jake realized that she was as trapped by “Nathan” as he was.

  Derek shook his head, at a loss. Miss Helena roared, but she and Henry were both helpless. Aunt Ramona was nowhere to be found.

  Archie stopped melting glass, turned off the blowtorch, and lifted his goggles to reveal eyes filled with concern. “Coz? Whatever he’s telling you, I promise it’s a lie! Don’t listen to him! Jake?”

  “Stay out of this,” Jake replied in a weary monotone.

  Wyvern paid Archie no attention, still holding out his hand. He searched Jake’s eyes, well aware his strength was spent. “Come along, my lad. Take my hand, and together we’ll change the world.”

  Jake shuddered. He knew what he had to do.

  He realized he was going to be destroyed where he stood, but maybe that was safest for all of humanity.

  Somehow he scrounged up his courage to make a final stand, and stared at the towering man with his last measure of defiance.

  “Stay out of my house,” Jake said slowly, emphatically. “Get off my land. You keep away from the people I care about, or I’ll smash you. You hear me? I won’t stop until the other side of your prophecy comes true. I’ll see you and all the Dark Druids destroyed.”

  Wyvern looked at him in amazement. “Did you hear that, Fionnula? Threatening total annihilation, and he’s only thirteen! Baal’s beard, he already talks like one of us!” He let out a bark of laughter. “Shemrazul was right! This is my son.”

  “No, I’m not!” Jake roared.

  “Close enough,” said the earl. Then he waved his wand and lifted Jake off his feet, using his own sinister version of telekinesis.

  “Hey!” Jake kicked his legs and swung his arms, but he couldn’t get down. It was the same sort of prank he liked to play on Dani from time to time, letting her dangle in midair just to tease her. He could suddenly appreciate how annoying it was. “Put me down!”

  Wyvern ignored him, nodding at Fionnula. “Let’s go.”

  “But my wand!”

  Red snarled, planting himself in the way.

  “Leave it,” Wyvern said. “You’ve got twelve more at home. It’s time to go.”

  “What about the item we came for?” Fionnula said, backing away from the Gryphon.

  “We’ll try again some other time. The boy is a far more valuable prize.”

  “You’d better put me down right now!” Jake bellowed. But there was nothing he could do other than kick and squirm helplessly and float along like an infuriated helium balloon.

  “Settle down before you hurt yourself.” Wyvern left the courtyard and walked out onto the lawn, using his wand to steer Jake ahead of him, some four feet off the ground.

  Red roared, seeing this, still guarding Fionnula’s wand.

  “Stay back, Red!” Jake said. He did not want his Gryphon getting captured again.

  Then Archie yanked off his goggles and started stomping toward them. “I say! Let my cousin go this instant.”

  “Archie, don’t be stupid!” Jake yelled. “Stay out of this, both of you! He’s too powerful!”

  “Smart lad,” Wyvern murmured.

  Archie faltered. Apparently, he could tell that Jake absolutely meant what he said.

  He did not want them involved.

  After what had happened to Janos’s hatchlings, they knew Wyvern did not scruple over hurting kids.

  Floating along, Jake stared back anxiously at his cousin, filled with a sense of doom. He had a feeling that when his evil new “parents” said they were taking him home, they meant to the Black Fortress.

  The thought made him queasy. Because, after all those months of waiting for Red to be rescued, Jake knew all too well that once they got him inside the warlocks’ moving headquarters, the Order would never be able to pinpoint his location.

  He wasn’t telepathic like Janos; he had no way to get the message out. Then I’ll escape. Aye. That’s it. No problem…

  But if Lightrider Tex and even Ravyn Vambrace hadn’t been able to do it…

  Blimey. I’ll figure something out.

  His main concern at the moment was to avoid getting anyone he cared about maimed, mangled, or killed. As Wyvern steered him across the lawn with Fionnula following a few steps behind, it hit Jake like a punch in the gut that, once more, he was alone…or was he?

  For, at that moment, a strange sound began drumming in the distance. It was coming from the direction of Bradford Park.

  Fionnula turned to Wyvern. “What is that?”

  He furrowed his brow. “How should I know?”

  The deep, thunderous noise grew louder. The woods between his cousins’ house and his own began to shake.

  Jake stopped squirming as he caught an inkling of what it might be.

  Isabelle had said she’d be bringing help…

  All of a sudden, the herd of unicorns she tended burst out of the woods in a blaze of white and charged straight toward them, a glorious cavalcade of flashing horns, pearly hides, and pounding hooves bearing down on them.

  With a whinny of righteous fury, the mighty stallion Belarex led the charge, with three dozen bright, shining mares barreling on behind him.

  They swept across the meadow, leaped the post-and-rail fence, and galloped onto the lawn of Griffon Castle.

  Fionnula screamed. Wyvern dropped Jake with a shocked curse, turning toward the stampede. Jake tumbled free onto the ground—but all of them were in immediate danger of being trampled.

  Including wolf-Henry.

  Jake roused what little strength he had left to lift his frozen canine tutor higher off the ground, quickly floating him over to the nearest tree, where he set him down, still frozen, on a fat, low branch.

  While the frog servants leaped out of the way, croaking with alarm, Belarex lowered his head and aimed straight for Lord Wyvern, the sunlight glinting on his swordlike horn.

  If the threat of being impaled by an angry unicorn stallion did not scare him, not even Wyvern could withstand the rippling wave of white light that rolled out several yards ahead of the unicorn herd.

  The beautiful creatures embodied pure goodness, and when the sweeping wave of their power struck Wyvern, it made him bellow with pain and clutch the spot where Red had scratched him.

  Belarex was bearing down on him, flying over the ground like a racehorse.

  As the white stallion lowered his head to run Wyvern through, the warlock grasped Fionnula by the wrist, rasped out a spell, and circled his wand around himself and the sea-witch.

  The pair vanished in a puff of black smoke.

  CHAPTER 41

  Call in the Cavalry

  “Jake! Archie! Stand still!” Isabelle hollered, mounted side-saddle on her usual white riding horse at the back of the unicorn herd, her Keeper’s staff in one hand. “I’ve told them not to hurt you! Don’t move!”

  Jake froze in place. Archie
did the same.

  Isabelle had warned the boys many times that unicorns didn’t trust human males; the animals felt threatened by them after centuries of being hunted, and usually attacked them.

  His heart in his throat, Jake hoped the creatures would listen to their Keeper as the herd galloped straight toward them, a bristling phalanx of bright, shiny spears.

  Derek and Helena were safe behind the bell jar, but Red flapped up into the air, zooming out of the way.

  Then the wave of light energy hit him, blowing Jake’s hair back. The herd of stampeding unicorns followed.

  The next thing he knew, he was in their midst.

  They thundered past him on both sides, their pounding hoofbeats shaking the ground beneath his feet, the breeze from their passing riffling his hair. Jake stayed motionless somehow. He barely dared breathe to avoid provoking the creatures as they flowed past him.

  He only flinched when one of the shining mares barreling by slapped him in the face with her lavender-tinged tail. It stung, but at least he had not been impaled.

  In the next moment, the stampede had passed him by. Still holding his breath, Jake turned to watch the unicorns gallop away.

  It was an awe-inspiring sight. The herd arced around the lawn and swept behind the castle, circling back toward Bradford Park and the safety of the woods that were their home.

  Jake gradually exhaled.

  Isabelle split away from the herd and cantered her horse over to the boys. “Are you all right?”

  They nodded.

  Archie threw an arm around Jake’s shoulders. “We owe you one, sis.”

  “Happy to help. Um…” Izzy frowned up at the frozen wolf resting on the tree branch nearby, looking nervous. “What is Henry doing up there?”

  “Oh—I thought he’d be safer out of the way,” Jake said. “I’ll get him down.” He used his telekinesis to float wolf-Henry safely back down to earth.

  But their poor tutor was still frozen.

  Isabelle swung down off her horse. “How can I help?” She hurried over to kneel next to Henry while Red flapped down onto the lawn. Archie gave Jake a whew sort of look, then trudged back to the bell jar to finish making air holes for Derek and Helena.