The Artifact Hunters
Page 18
Hypatia and the Incan man had worn the pendant and made the door appear, so they must have been Guardians in their times.
Mistress Vivienne, who had worn the pendant, was Guardian in her time and said, “I will not return. It’s time for another, who is waiting for me even now.”
Isaac’s father, who wore the pendant, was Guardian in his time.
In the Incan city, Isaac had thought, Please, door, appear and open, and it had appeared and opened.
Isaac’s father gave the key to Isaac because . . . The simplest solution to this question, to Isaac’s question about why he was here at Rookskill, what was happening to him through all these time travels, and what he was supposed to learn along the way . . .
The simplest answer was that Isaac was the newest Guardian of the Vault of magical artifacts.
Isaac took a deep breath as he thought about this huge responsibility.
He shoved the pendant back down underneath his shirt and rose to his feet. He was following this time-travel puzzle so that he could learn how to become the Guardian. How to use magic. How to be the Isaac Wolf he’d always wanted to be—the hero of his own story.
But the best thing—the very best thing—was that he’d made friends along the way. In the diaries Leo had found in the library he’d read about the team—the team of Artifact Hunters that worked with the Guardian. How the team was crucial to success.
Guarding the Vault didn’t have to be something he did alone. Defeating dark magic wasn’t something he had to manage by himself. All the others had magical skills, too. He just had to amplify them, the skills of his friends. His new family.
The Artifact Hunters.
Right, then.
Isaac squared his shoulders and looked at Sir Bedwyr. “We’re going to need a plan. But first things first. Can you, and the rest of them”—and Isaac gestured down the length of the armory—“can you all fight if I ask?”
The ghost knight lifted his head, and a blue light flashed through the visor. The flash was echoed up and down the line of knights, and Isaac heard a soft hiss that sounded like yes.
“All right, then,” Isaac said. The knights could fight with weapons. Isaac would fight with magic.
He heard the familiar pop and Willow hung in the air before him. “There’s been a bit of trouble,” Willow said.
“Colin again?” Isaac asked.
“He’s still missing. But no, this is new trouble. A very bad kind. We like Amelie the best, so it’s really too bad.”
Isaac sucked in a breath. “What do you mean?”
“It’s not very nice,” Willow said, and leaned close. “You’ll have to see for yourself.”
Isaac made for the door of the armory. “Fine. Let’s go.”
Willow said, their voice a sly wheedle, “Can we recommend a more direct route?”
Isaac paused.
“If you’ll allow us, we’ll magic you out,” said Willow. “It’s much quicker. We wouldn’t do this for just anybody, but because it’s Amelie . . .”
“All right,” Isaac said. After all, he thought, I’ve time traveled. What could be worse?
Being magicked by a wight, as it turned out.
Isaac thought he was being squashed into a speck of dust, then exploded back to full size. “Ow!” He landed with a thud on the floor of a room he’d never seen. Every bone in his body hurt, as if he’d been through a tumbler with rocks. He lay flat on his back, trying to determine whether anything was broken.
“Honestly, you humans with your skin and bones and other whatchamacallit thingies. You are impossible.”
“Those thingies are called internal organs. Which are fragile.”
“Exactly.”
Isaac groaned, sitting up slowly. “Where is Amelie?”
“This way,” Willow said, pointing.
Isaac stood, clinging to the furnishings, one hand on the back of his pounding head. He staggered after Willow, who bounced along in the air ahead, humming.
The wight was humming. Off-key, too.
As was Isaac’s brain, all of a sudden. That magical hum filled him and it was hard to control, it was so strong. He grabbed at the doorknob, thinking he couldn’t feel much worse, until he saw what was in the room on the other side of the door.
Amelie was there, all right.
She was suspended, hanging in the air, high above his head, her eyes closed and her arms open and her hair and clothes drifting like seaweed around her.
CHAPTER 47
Isaac
1942
“Amelie?” Isaac said. Was she dead? If she was dead, he couldn’t begin to . . .
“Ah,” came a voice from the other end of the room. “Good. You’re here at last. I thought this would do the trick.”
A great tall creature (no, a monster), with leathery wings and a face bearing a white scar that ran from one earlobe up through one vacant eye socket and a remaining eye that glowed a burning red, rose from a chair.
A sluagh fae, Isaac thought, as he braced himself. Just like in the book. Just like he’d seen before.
A dire wolf next to the fae also rose to its feet, shook itself, and faced Isaac with teeth bared. Willow danced in the air next to Amelie.
“Thank you, Willow,” said the fae.
“Willow?” Isaac asked, thinking the wight had led him into a trap.
“We didn’t know they were here,” the wight hissed. “We just wanted to help her.”
“Now,” said the fae, in a stilted but lilting voice, “I imagine you’re trying to sort this out.”
Isaac still hurt all over, and the hum of magic made his head throb. The fae was trying very hard to cast some kind of spell over Isaac, and he gathered as much of his newfound abilities as he could to ward off the spell. He steadied himself against the doorframe. “Is she dead?”
“Dead? Her? No. Not yet, anyway.”
Relief flooded him, and he asked, “Why? Why all this? Who are you? What do you want?”
The fae answered with a short laugh. “Ah, my young friend. Isaac Wolf.” He began to move toward Isaac. “My name is Moloch. Moloch of the fae.” He tapped his head. “I now have Colin’s memories. But his body was too . . . confining.”
Isaac squared his shoulders. He put all the energy he could muster into resisting this fae, who was probing, pushing.
“I’ve been looking for you and the others before you, Isaac, for a long, long time.” Moloch’s words barely disguised a rich pleasure. The dire wolf uttered a rumbling growl.
Isaac couldn’t tell whether he was unbalanced because of the wight’s transport, or because he was worried about Amelie, or because he was fighting the dark magic emanating from Moloch.
“You want to know my story. How touching. Fine, then. Once upon a time, I was a respected member of the Seelie fae. Then humans decided to steal magical artifacts and lock them away in that infernal Vault, and I, well, I helped.” Moloch shrugged. “It seemed like fun at the time.” Moloch’s one eye glowed bright as he paused and lowered his voice. “I was rewarded by being thrown out by my brethren.”
“You betrayed your own kind just for fun,” Isaac said, “and you have a problem with your punishment?”
Moloch’s eye glowed hot, but his lip lifted in a slight, but distorted smile. “The Seelie fae only want to have a good time with their parties and music and dance and tricks and glamour. They are silly, the Seelie. For my, ahem, poor judgment, they banished me to live with the Unseelie host.”
The sluagh, Isaac thought, not wanting to say it out loud.
“Yes, I know,” Moloch said, reading Isaac’s mind. “But I’ve come to respect them, the sluagh.” Moloch’s voice dropped an octave with that word and Isaac shuddered. “They are much more focused than the Seelie. Not very bright, but focused. They have one desire. It’s grim, but it’s simple. And after
all, light needs the darkness.”
“What did you do to Colin?” Isaac asked.
“Nothing serious.” Moloch waved his hand. “All fae can make a shapeshift. I borrowed him.”
I can make a shapeshift. His mother could make a shapeshift. Did that mean that Isaac’s mother was . . . a fae?
“Part fae, from a distant past relation,” Moloch said, reading Isaac’s thoughts again.
Isaac clenched his fists. If his mother was part fae, why, then, there was only one logical conclusion.
Isaac, too, was at least part fae. That was the magic his mother gave him. He felt sick, thinking he was in any way, however distant, related to Moloch.
“It would be so nice, Isaac, if we could be friends,” Moloch said, sounding pleased, “since we both have fae blood.” Moloch paused. “But I sense that you have a unique kind of magic. Even now I feel it.”
Moloch was tapping, probing Isaac’s magical energy, and the boy had to concentrate to resist the pressure Moloch put on him. Isaac’s magic zipped up his spine, and he gave an involuntary shudder, then resisted again.
Moloch grimaced. “I’ll find a way,” he muttered.
“Let her down,” Isaac said, as firmly as he could. “Bring Amelie back.”
“I will, when we come to an arrangement,” Moloch said. He moved closer to Isaac and said with urgency, “I could use your gifts, Isaac. And I need that key. I need you so that I can be what I’m meant to be. Listen, Isaac. I made a bad call, I’ll admit. I should have been good, but they threw me out. I could be good again.” Moloch turned his head, and Isaac could only see the side of Moloch’s face that was beautiful and unscarred, and Isaac’s breath caught.
Moloch was beautiful. So beautiful it was impossible to look away.
Moloch needed Isaac. Wanted Isaac’s gifts and the key to the Vault—Moloch wanted access to the magical artifacts that Isaac’s father had said were dangerous in the wrong hands—so that Moloch could be good again. Oh, Moloch was trying very hard to break through Isaac’s resistance.
But . . . Isaac shook himself. If Moloch could go from being a Seelie fae to what he was now, could go from being beautiful to being a monster, then Isaac could slip from being an uncertain boy with magical gifts and a special, magical responsibility to being a monster, too. It wouldn’t take much, would it?
Becoming a monster only takes justifying one little slip toward the darkness. One little thing that seems at the time like the right thing to do.
“So,” Isaac said, “if I give you the key, you will let her go?” The pendant was cold against his skin. Isaac, no one can take this from you by force, only if you relinquish it.
“Of course,” Moloch answered. “Once you let me inside the Vault, then the Vault is mine.”
“I have to let you inside?”
Moloch stirred with impatience. “Yes,” he said, with a hiss. “There’s a little spell, just a small spell, yet to perform.”
Aha. Having to let Moloch inside the Vault meant Moloch couldn’t outright kill Isaac, which might give him an edge. “So, when I let you inside the Vault and give you the key and you perform the little spell, you will go back to your world and we will all live happily ever after?”
Moloch spread his clawed fingers.
“No?” Isaac said.
The dire wolf growled and bared his teeth. “The light can’t exist without the darkness,” Moloch said slowly.
“That’s what I thought,” Isaac said. He waited a moment. Then, “I’m sorry, but I will not help you. I am sorry you lost your place. I understand how you must feel, because I do not want to lose my friends. But the artifacts inside the Vault must be protected no matter what. So as much as I care about Amelie, I will not give you the key.”
Isaac paused and glanced up at Willow, who still dangled at the ceiling. He bit his lip, hoping that the wight would understand what he was trying to say, and knowing that he’d use his own magical power to amplify Willow’s. “If I could magic her out of here all by myself, I would. I would take her to safety. Anyone who cared about Amelie would do that. But I cannot.”
Isaac straightened and stuck his hands in his pockets. His fingers found the Adder Stone cuff. “If I am a monster, I’m going to try and be a good monster. Not fall into evil. Not like you.” He looked back at Willow, meeting (he hoped) the wight’s eyes. “What do you think about that?”
Moloch snarled.
Willow took the hint.
Willow magicked Amelie away, and at the same instant, Isaac slipped the cuff up his arm, called on his power . . .
. . . and vanished.
CHAPTER 48
Isaac
1942
Isaac barely had time to register his relief.
Moloch gave an anguished scream, and it was all Isaac could do not to throw his hands over his ears. And then he had a horrifying thought. What if the dire wolf could smell him? He was invisible, not gone.
As it was, Daemon was staring straight at him. Moloch’s red eye searched blindly, his great leathery wings expanding around him.
Isaac couldn’t just wait to be found out. He had to do something. Now.
He leapt for the open door, just as the dire wolf leapt for him, then, hoping his long legs would not fail him, ran as fast as he could.
He had no idea where he was. He ran blindly, hearing the dire wolf panting and Moloch howling. Then, just ahead, an entire segment of wall pivoted inward, and Kat stood in the opening, waving both arms frantically and yelling his name. Isaac slipped off the invisibility cuff and put on a burst of speed and dove through the opening as Kat shoved the door shut behind them, shutting out the howls and screams of Moloch and Daemon. She threw an iron bolt across the closed door.
Isaac, bending over and bracing, saw that they were in a dim, narrow passageway. “How did you know?” he asked between panted breaths.
Kat held up the scroll with the map of Rookskill. “Leo had a vision. I hope you don’t mind that I fetched the map from your room. Come on.” She led the way down the passage. They were somewhere behind or between walls.
“Amelie—” he began.
Kat interrupted, “I know. Leo saw that, too.” Tears welled in Kat’s eyes.
“Got her away. Willow did it.”
Kat grabbed Isaac’s arm. “Willow?” she said hopefully.
He nodded, finally catching his breath. “Do not know where she is, but she is safe for now from that monster. Where are we?”
“Inside one of the castle’s hidden passages. This map really helps.” She waved the scroll.
“We must get to the others. Must find Colin. Must stop Moloch.”
“I know,” Kat said, her face grim.
“Where’s Leo?” he asked.
“In the kitchen with Lark.”
“Let’s start there,” he said.
She nodded. “Right, then. This way.”
They ran down the passageway until they came to a small door, which turned out to be behind a wardrobe in one of the upper bedrooms. They shoved the wardrobe closed behind them.
They were making for the stairs when Kat grabbed Isaac’s arm and they both flattened against the wall, peering from around the corner and over the balcony.
Three dire wolves paced the entry hall, sniffing, padding from doorway to doorway, their eyes gleaming in the low light. Behind them, through the great front door now open to the outside, vines moved inward, twining around the doorframes, climbing the walls, snaking toward the parlors and libraries and stairs.
Isaac and Kat backed around the corner as quietly as they could, hardly breathing. They slipped inside one of the rooms, locking the door behind, and stared at each other, wide-eyed.
“Beastly wolves!” Kat exclaimed.
Isaac nodded. The window was completely covered by thorny vines. “The map,” he said.
“What’s that?” Kat said, pointing to something on the lowest floor. It looked like a spider and was labeled MAGISTER.
Isaac shook his head. “I don’t know that word. But there are those wolves.” The three wolves slunk from doorway to doorway. “Look at the kitchen. Willow, Lark, and those must be Leo, and Amelie.”
“I know a way down to the kitchen that’ll avoid running into the wolves. Come on.”
CHAPTER 49
The Wraith
The wraith is inside Rookskill for the first time. It licks what is left of its lips. It wants to find the bright, shiny thimble that sits inside the pocket of the girl Kat. The wraith’s mechanical creation will help.
The winds screech around the wraith, bringing leaves and debris inside, and it peers through the whirlwind.
Ah. There it is, sweet mechanical, the wraith’s creation. And there is one of the children, a small boy, and his dog. But the three are spelled, frozen and mute. Who? How?
The wraith squints and then sees who, how. The fae hovers over the bodies. The fae that appeared on his dragon. This fae has a wounded soul and a lovely white scar and large leathery wings.
Oh, what the wraith could do with those wings . . .
The wraith bows. The fae inclines his head, then vanishes down the passageway, a dire wolf at his side.
The wraith waves its hand and undoes the freezing spell, and its creature comes awake.
“Find her,” the wraith commands. “Find the girl. Take the boy with you.”
Yes, it thinks, find the girl. Find the shiny thimble. Find the soul of the wraith’s beloved. Find.
CHAPTER 50
Isaac
1942
Kat led the way down a narrow back stairwell. The farther down they went, the more they saw that vines and branches and brambles had invaded the castle. By the time they reached the bottom, it was almost like hacking their way through a forest. And the sounds were disturbing—cracking against the aging stone walls, grinding over wood doorframes, the occasional thudding as a portrait was yanked off a wall.