He roared: “I am he, the Jack of Hearts, Jackhammer, the Jack Knife! Lumberjack, Steeplejack, Bootjack, Dancejack, and Jack Dandy! Jackaroo, Jack of All Trades!”
“And I am the Bungalow Baby Doll,” I answered. “I am the Fleet Footed Fancy Girl. I am the Red Haired Daughter of Midnight. And I’ve got a giftie for you.”
Jack struck like a snake. The striking I had anticipated, but not the speed. Before I could dance out of his way, I was caught, one arm twisted behind me, hands pinned, and the knife against my throat. In stories, the knife blade is always described as cold, but this one was strangely warm. The edge was so sharp that it didn’t hurt a bit, although the pressure was hard against my skin.
“You have brought me a giftie, little lolly,” Jack whispered in my ear. “A sweet and tender giftie, and I shall thank your bones for it when I am done with you.” His voice, low and scratchy, had nothing of Udo in it, and neither did the gleaming eyes looking hungrily down at me. A trickle of fear ran down my spine, turning my feet to ice. Perhaps I was too late, perhaps Udo was gone for good, and perhaps I was about to be gone for good, too.
For a moment I could not move my lips, and then I swallowed hard and whispered back, “Such a sweet giftie I bring to you willingly, Jack of Hearts.”
“And what is that, dollie?” he purred, licking my ear, and the disgusting slurping feeling hardened my resolve.
I purred back, “Why a kiss as sweet as summer, hot as heaven, red as love.”
“The kiss does look as red as love, and it hasn’t even left your mouth yet,” Jack said, and blessedly he took the knife away from my throat. I twisted around and snuggled my arms up over his neck, trying not to breathe through my nose, for he smelled very strongly of cheap rose water. Blah!
He leaned down eagerly, and I stretched up equally eagerly—although in my case it was to get the whole thing over with. The ground began to quiver beneath our feet, but we ignored the temblor. Our lips met, as light as snow, and with their touch, he was mine.
Forty-Two
Brute Force. Siege. Poppy.
THE GREAT OUTLAW was felled by the oldest trick in the book: poisoned lip rouge. Well, maybe not exactly poisoned, but some of Udo’s Sonoran Zombie Powder mashed into some of Udo’s lip rouge. Add a heavy layer of hair pomade to the lips as a buffer: One smackeroo and Jack is your obedient mindless drone. My obedient mindless drone.
As soon as I stepped back, Valefor swooped down from the closet, pillowcase in hand, and dropped it over the outlaw’s head. We tied the pillowcase off and bound Jack’s hands with my curtain tiebacks. I gave him a good shove in the middle of the chest; he tipped back on his heels, teetering precariously. Another good shove, and—Timber!—down he went. Jack hit the floor with a thunderous shake, and then lay still. Pigface, was that gonna hurt later. Oh, well.
Jack might now be vacant, prone, and drooling, but the snake heads on his boots were still spitty; they hissed and snapped each time I tried to get close to the boots.
“You could try mesmerizing them with flute music,” Valefor offered. “Can you play the flute, Flora Segunda? How about an ocarina?”
“I don’t need a flute or a blasted ocarina when I’ve got this.” I whacked each head with the fire-iron until they dangled limply I knelt at Jack’s feet. “Wish me luck.”
“Luck!” he said. “You deserve some after all this. You are the unluckiest person I’ve ever known, Flora Segunda.”
“Shut up!” I grabbed a stacked red heel with each hand and pulled.
And pulled.
And pulled.
The boots did not come off. In fact, all I succeeded in doing was to drag Udo along the floor, work myself up into a sweat, and almost pop a vein in my forehead. And still the boots did not come off.
I was not too late. I would not be too late.
I turned around and straddled Udo’s leg, facing his head, and grasped the left boot.
Pulled.
Tugged.
Yanked.
Pulled harder.
Tugged harder.
Yanked until I thought every muscle in my body would twang like a broken guitar string from the strain. The blood rushed to my head. My hands began to burn.
“I think it’s too late,” Valefor said.
“It’s not too late,” I puffed.
“You are gonna have to cut his feet off. It’s the only way to save him.”
“Shut up!” I let the boots drop and rubbed my burning hands on my kilt.
“He can get wooden ones. He’ll never notice the difference. I knew an admiral once who lost both his legs below the knee from a cannonball, and he had the most cunningly carved feet, shaped like boats, so he could walk across water—”
I turned my face to the ceiling and let out a horrible howl, a howl that came from the very bottom of my soul, tore my throat, and rattled my teeth. A howl that made me feel much, much better afterward.
“What in Califa’s name was that, Flora? They’ll hear you across the Abyss!”
“It was that or punch you in the nose, Valefor. Aren’t you glad I decided to scream instead? Now shut up and take his shoulders. I’m going to pull and you are going to hold him. Hold him hard, don’t let him go.”
“Maybe we should try squirting soap—that works with rings.”
For once Valefor had a decent idea; I ran and got the soap, mixed it with water from my washbasin, and we poured it into the boots as best we could. I wasn’t sure it would do anything but get them wet and us slippery, but anything was worth a try.
“You have to know when to fold your cards, Flora Segunda,” Valefor said. “Didn’t Nini Mo say that?”
“Shut up and take his shoulders. If you let go, Valefor, I will pop you. Let’s try one at a time.”
“Wrap the boot in a towel, it will help your grip,” Val advised, taking Udo’s shoulders. I did as he suggested, and then took a deep breath and pulled and pulled and pulled and puuuuuuuuuuuuuuulled. The boot moved slightly, and began to slide.
“I can ... barely ... hold ... him.”
“Don’t ... let go ... I ... feel ... it ... moving.”
A quarter inch. A half inch. Success gave me a second wind, and again I put my back into it, feeling every sinew in my body go as taut as violin strings. The boot slid another inch; now I could see the top of Udo’s sock. Almost there...
Behind me, through my grunting, I heard a door fling open. Valefor let go of Udo and I fell flat on my face, narrowly missing the edge of my desk.
“Valefor, you fiking snapperhead!” I rolled over. Poppy stood in my doorway, looking at me, looking at Valefor, looking at Springheel Jack. And looking not the least bit surprised at what he was seeing. A rifle was slung over Poppy’s shoulder—his bad shoulder—and a pistol was tucked into his belt. He wore an extremely battered buckskin jacket, obviously field gear, for it had Armyissue buttons and a major’s gilt boards on the shoulders. The Skinner scars on his cheeks had been touched with black war-paint, bringing them into high relief against his white face. He looked grim as death.
“Poppy, I ... uh...”
“You have to get out of here, Flora,” Poppy said calmly. “Axacaya’s Birdie friends just rammed through the main gate. They’ll be here any minute.”
Valefor blinked out and then back in again. “They’re trampling my rosebushes! What do they want, Flora Segunda?”
“I guess they want me.” I had never thought that Axacaya would dare try to steal me from Crackpot by force. I felt sick—I had never even thought that by coming home I might be putting my entire family in danger.
“Well, he may want you, but he’s not going to get you,” Poppy said. “Not if I have anything to say about it. But you’d better chop-chop, Flora. I set the dogs on the Birdies, and a few other little surprises, too, but I wager you should make your exit.”
“I can hide in the Bibliotheca. He’ll never find me there.”
Valefor howled, “I am violate. There is no part of me he cannot enter. I can’t hold him back. S
ee what happens! If I were myself, he wouldn’t dare to enter—”
“Take it up with Buck another time, Valefor,” Poppy said. “I’ll hold him off, Flora, for as long as I can, but you need to get the hell out of here. Get to the Presidio; get to Buck. Even Axacaya won’t dare follow you onto the Post.” He leaned over, pulled me to my feet, and began to hustle me toward the fireplace. “You’ll have to use the bolt-hole, which, yes, I know about. Your horse is waiting at the bottom of the Straight-up Stairs. I think you should get going, honey.”
“They are in my kitchen,” Valefor wailed. He disappeared, the snapperhead, no doubt to hide somewhere until the fuss was over.
Poppy pressed on the rabbit-painted tile and the panel sprang open. “Flora, if I don’t see you again—”
“Don’t see me—” I clung to Poppy’s good arm. “What do you mean, not see you?”
“Remember always that I love you, even if sometimes that love seems pretty paltry. I’m sorry I couldn’t do better.” Poppy clutched me; his pistol butt dug into my chest. I smelled his sandalwood soap and the mellow scent of tobacco and wood-fire. He kissed the top of my head and pressed something into my hand: a Madama Twanky’s Tooth Polish tin. Tiny Doom’s container for the key to Bilskinir. “Here—I think this is yours.”
“Poppy, who am I?”
“You are my daughter and a Fyrdraaca.” He pushed me back, so he could look me square in the face. “And you are, apparently, a Haðraaða—”
“Why didn’t you tell me, Poppy?!”
“You look so much like her—you are so much like her. I should have known all along; I would have, if I had been paying attention. But, well, I’ve been distracted these last few years. Listen to me. Your mother—”
The door, which Poppy had bolted behind him, crashed open in a hail of splinters. Axila Aguila stood in the doorway, saying, “My apologies, Colonel Fyrdraaca, but—”
Poppy turned around, pushing me away The rifle was now in his hands. He fired. Red feathers puffed into the air. He jacked the lever and fired again. Another puff of red feathers and the Quetzal crumpled to the ground.
“Go!" Poppy hissed, jacking again, and not taking his eyes off the door.
I went.
Forty-Three
Running. Ambling. Bouncing.
AT THE BOTTOM of the bolt-hole stairs, I stopped to reconnoiter. From above: gunfire (Poppy’s last stand?) and distant shouting, coming from upstairs, not outside. With a muffled thump, something rolled out of the darkness and landed at my feet. The ice water receded from my veins when I saw it was Pig.
I snatched him up, riding him on my hip like a toddler. He felt heavy and reassuring in my arms. When I cracked the door open and peered out cautiously, I saw a serene afternoon garden. So, I ran, without cover, because there wasn’t any, across the yard and into the tangled bushes of the Gardens Beyond. Once, these gardens had been perfectly manicured, pruned, and organized, thanks to Valefor. Now they were an overgrown, tangled mess, for which I was grateful. I might be leaving a trail that a blind gazehound could track, but at least I had gained some cover.
I hustled by the Bog and tore through the Pet Cemetery, by the Casa de Hielo. I didn’t think anyone was following me, but I couldn’t hear much other than my labored breathing and the war-drum thump of my heart. Still, I didn’t look back. I just kept going, glad, so very glad, that I was still wearing Tiny Doom’s stays so I wouldn’t expire from breathlessness after about the sixth step. My dead mother had done me a favor after all.
As I reached the top of the Straight-up Stairs, a horrible shriek tore through the air, and for a moment it seemed as though a huge cloud had blotted out the sun. But the sky was a cloudless, flat blue. Poppy? Valefor? I teetered on the top step, wanting to go back, but also—coward!—wanting to put miles between me and Lord Axacaya’s Birdies.
But whatever had happened behind me I could do nothing about now, so that decided me. I flew down the steps as though my feet had wings, and thank the Goddess Califa I didn’t stumble once—it was an awfully long way to the bottom. My heart bounced, Pig bounced, I bounced, but I didn’t fall. I reached the bottom in record time, my calves grinding in pain, and saw, as I tore through the gate, Sieur Caballo waiting in the alley. He’d been eating someone’s geraniums, and now he looked up, nickering through a mouthful of purple blossoms.
I flung myself onto Sieur Caballo’s back as a red streak bounded down the last step and squeezed through the gate—Flynnie! Hot on his tail was a bouncing, lumbering shape: Springheel Jack. The pillowcase was gone from his head, and his arms and legs had been untied—by Poppy probably, who had not realized that Udo wasn’t quite himself. His eyes looked like red-tinged fried eggs, and his smeared eyeliner made his eye sockets look like holes. He was drooling. Damn him! Well, at least he was still zombified and would follow my command. The last thing I needed now was Springheel Jack.
“Come on, Udo—Jack—whoever you are,” I said, and he obediently bounced up onto the horse behind me and put limp arms around my waist. I wiped his chin with my sleeve so he wouldn’t drool into my hair, and we took off, Flynn dashing behind us.
The fastest way to the Presidio from Crackpot is straight out the Post Road, but of course the fastest way is also the most obvious. As cool as it might have been to go flogging through the streets, scattering people and clattering hooves, it also would have been predictable and easy to follow. So instead, we went a long, roundabout way, ambling along slowly, trying to blend in. Each moment, I expected to see wings above me, hear the incoming shriek of a diving eagle. Play it easy, said Nini Mo. Try to look unimportant. I was so easy, I was shaking. And Pigface, was I trying to look unimportant. But I must have succeeded, because no one paid any attention to us, not even the City militia that pounded past us at one point. They were easy and important—they never looked at us once.
At Abenfarax Boulevard and Turk Street, a rider drew alongside me, another fell in behind me, and another jostled in front: more City militia. I sucked in my breath and tried to quell my panic, before realizing the rider next to me, swathed in a captain’s cloak, was Idden.
“Ave, Flora. Pig. Udo. Keep moving. Look unconcerned.”
“Are you all right? How did you get away from Axacaya?”
“We have our ways. Don’t you worry.”
“Have you been following me all this time?”
“You don’t cover your tracks very well, Tinks. Anyone could follow you. We’ve had you in our sites for a long time—Poppy too.”
“Poppy’s been following me, too?” Now I felt like a complete snapperhead. Being able to cover your tracks is basic rangering. I hadn’t even managed that.
“What’s up with you, Udo?” Idden asked. He didn’t answer, of course, so I told her, briefly, and she rolled her eyes, said, “Oh, Udo,” and then no more. We rode in silence for a while, and now that I had a moment to think, my thoughts were not happy.
“I left Poppy fighting off the Quetzals. They stormed Crackpot Hall.”
Idden grinned wolfishly “Don’t worry about Hotspur, he’s more than a match for a bunch of mangy birds.” She thrust something at me: my dispatch case.
“Idden,” I said, dolefully “I was a total snapperhead. I let Axacaya suck me in. I believed him.”
“Don’t be a pinhead, Flora. Axacaya’s tricky. You aren’t the first to be caught by him.”
No, I thought, but I wager when I’m done with him, though it may take the rest of my life, he’s gonna wish he’d caught someone else.
“But he was right about me being a Haðraaða. Why did Mamma never tell me?”
“To keep you alive, snapperhead. Do you think for a minute the Birdies would have let you live if they’d thought you had any connection to Azota?”
“But Buck could have told me she wasn’t my mother. Owww—why’d you whack me?”
Idden said fiercely, “Because Buck is your mother, Flora! Love counts as much as blood. And Buck loves you and has done everything she can to p
rotect you. Don’t you dare forget it. We’ll talk about it more later; this isn’t the time and place. You can feel sorry for yourself when you’re home free. Right now you need to focus.”
Idden was right. That day, that sorrow, said Nini Mo. Several times our journey was punctuated by temblors that reminded me of my current sorrow. I might be momentarily in the clear, but the Loliga still threatened the City I didn’t want to have to die in order to save her. Surely Mamma would not let me die; Mamma would come up with another plan. Mamma would know what to do.
At last we reached the edge of the City and turned onto Goat Hollow Track, the rough road used by the Outland Dairy Company to move their herds from the dairy in the Outside Lands to their pastures near Cow Hollow Lagoon. For about a mile, the track skirts along the edge of the Presidio; it’s an excellent shortcut, and one that not many know about. The sun disappeared behind a fog bank—typical Califa summer weather—and a chill wind began to blow. The track is narrow and rough, and we went slowly, single file, the outrider moving ahead, the file-closer falling back.
A few more miles and we would be inside the Presidio gates. I wasn’t sure what I would say to Mamma, but I knew, despite all, I would be mighty glad to see her indeed. And she was not going to be happy when she heard that Axacaya had invaded Crackpot. He was going to be very sorry he had messed with the Fyrdraaca family. Mamma would take care of him, and take care of me, and take care of the City.
The road dipped between two sand dunes—at least now we were screened from the biting, sandy wind—and then twisted around a scrubby pine tree and turned behind one of the dunes. We turned that corner, and there was our outrider, lying on the ground like a broken doll, his clothes oozing red. Axila Aguila stood in the road, wiping blood from her beak with the hem of her cloak. Apparently it takes more than bullets to kill a Quetzal. (Oh, Poppy!) Three other Quetzals stood behind her, obsidian knives in their hands.
“Get out of our way,” Idden hollered, and drew her pistol.
“I cannot,” the Quetzal said. “Flora must come with us.”
Flora's Dare: How a Girl of Spirit Gambles All to Expand Her Vocabulary, Confront a Bouncing Boy Terror, and Try to Save Califa from a Shaky Doom (Despite Being Confined to Her Room) Page 28