by Lorelei Bell
She was nearly blinded by the brilliant white blasting her eyes.
She let the drapes drop back into place.
At the same time, she could hear it. A constant rushing. And then she realized the wind was just howling outside. The window rattled just a little bit, in its fittings. Maybe that dog barking she had imagined had been the windows, or something being battered by the wind.
Taking the heavy drape in her fingers, she pulled back slightly and squinted. White. She could just barely make it out, but snowdrifts had created weird shapes just outside the window. It was a blizzard out there. She couldn't see more than a few feet past the window. A good thing she had not gone out in this. She'd have died of exposure, after getting lost—or gone snow-blind.
Quickly she slithered into her dress. Then searched for her boots. Where could she have tossed them? No, that's right. He had relieved her of them. But she couldn't find them in plain view. Opting to go shoeless, she returned to the dark living room. Frustrated, she jammed her fists on her hips.
“Franz, where are you!”
The barking began anew.
Frowning, Zofia determined the noise was coming from outside the room. She angled toward the door, and stopped to put her ear to it. The dog barked some more, sounding about as frustrated as she felt.
No, it couldn't be…
Saint Germain had disappeared—possibly literally for all she knew—and now some dog was barking on the other side of the door that sounded familiar.
Dragon crap. She remembered the story Saint Germain had told of the sorcerer who'd tried to gain entry into his rooms, only to transmute into a half-man, half-dog thing. Not only that, she had the fear that this was some sort of a trick.
The dog, meanwhile, kept on barking.
“Be quiet, stupid! I'm not opening this door to you.”
The dog quit barking. She smiled, hoping that it would go away.
She took two steps from the door, and barking began again. It was that yapping bark, just like Lolly's dog. It couldn't be, she thought.
But what if it was?
She stopped and turned again. “Mr. Tigges?”
The barking stopped, and now it began to whine and then scratch at the door.
“Hey! Stop scratching Saint Germain's door!” Twisting the key in the lock, and throwing both bolts back, she paused, wondering if she should open the door. She listened. The dog went quiet.
Very silently, she twisted the doorknob, and eased the door open just an inch. Listening, she could hear nothing, except for a little high-pitched whine. Looking down, she saw his moist black nose poke into the small opening, sniffing. She opened it wider, using her skirt to keep the animal from charging inside, she gaped down at the dog. It was Lolly's dog. If it wasn't, it was a very good double. Even though the animal's pure white fur was dingy, and in spots sooty (as though he'd been in and out of chimneys), she knew the dog well enough, no matter what condition his coat was in.
Zofia swooped and picked up the dog and peered into the partially obscured eyes. “Where did you come from?”
It sniffled at her.
“You are Mr. Tigges, right?” she asked, keeping him at eye level, but at least a foot away, just in case he decided to nip at her. But he seemed docile enough. He only squirmed when Lolly held him, and Zofia's cats were around.
The dog made a little woof sound, licked its black nose and then sneezed all over Zofia.
“Yuck!” Zofia set the dog back down on the floor, wiping her face off. “You have bad manners, Mr. Tigges. Probably learned them from Lolly, no doubt.”
Mr. Tigges jumped, and barked, making a racket. If anyone was in the castle, she couldn't imagine why they wouldn't hear this noise. Where was everyone?
Mr. Tigges jumped and clawed at her, and it was all she could do to make him stop. Growling, he snatched the edge of her dress with his teeth and tugged hard, ripping the material. She jumped away. The dog charged past her.
“Hey! No! You don't belong in here!” She ran after him. The little dirty-white dog ran up the stairs into Saint Germain's bedroom, and she followed it, only to see him run under the bed. She bent and pulled up the covers. The dog's barking stopped as she peered underneath the bed. It was dark as a troll's hidie hole under there.
“Where are you?” She straightened, crawled up on the bed to see if he'd emerged on the other side. She caught sight of him, just as he paused before her boot. “What do you think you're doing?”
It's pink tongue out as it panted and looked up at her, he barked again, then snatched her boot and ran under the bed again.
Zofia lunged for him, but missed. She had to change direction and scramble across the large bed, hopped down and Transvected through the door, sighting the dog angling toward the door to the stairs.
“Hey! Stop you little—!” She chased after him and had to halt and change direction. The dog was already nearly to the bottom of the stairs. “Those shoes cost me an Obolus!”
Without a thought, she raced down the steps after him. It was dark in the hallway. The electricity, she remembered, had never come back on and she came to a landing on the floor in front of her door—what was left of it. Remembering there was a small lantern in a nook by her door, she incanted, “Locomote, Lantern!” She held out her hands and it floated toward her. “Luminos!” The lantern burst with flame, then died to a nice glow.
Mr. Tigges reappeared at the beginning of the hallway, barking at her, boot at his feet. He sure had a lot of energy to be hauling that boot around in his mouth for a little dog.
Obviously, he wanted her to follow him. Was he taking her to Lolly? Not that she wanted to see that old woman again, but in reality, if the woman was in trouble, she should go and see if she couldn't get her back to First World, where she belonged. She'd be doing the people of Ravenwood a great favor, she was certain of that.
“Saint Germain!” she called as she ran down the corridor after Lolly's dog. “Jacques! Biddle! Anyone!”
No one answered, as she lifted off and Transvected down the hall after the dog.
Mr. Tigges had run ahead of her and she wasn't sure where he'd gone to, until she wound her way to the double doors of Saint Germain's library. There the dog was, sitting in front of it, looking back at her, tail wagging.
Zofia came to a landing beside him. The dog didn't try and take her boot again.
“Okay, is Lolly in there? Or what?” Zofia asked.
Mr. Tigges scratched at the door.
“Hey, stop scratching!” she told him.
Mr. Tigges went up on hind legs and scratched some more. Why was he so insistent? Could Lolly be in there? She reasoned that probably she wasn't inside the library, but rather down below, since this was how one got to the lower regions of the menhir from the main castle.
As soon as Zofia opened the door, Mr. Tigges plunged inside. A fire crackled cheerily in the large marble hearth. The golden gryphons stood sentry on either side. Scanning the rest of the room, she found it unoccupied. Whoever had made the fire was gone now. It could have been Percival, or Saint Germain. But no one was around. Where could they have gone? On her way down here, she guessed that Saint Germain may have first excused the help, since they were in danger too. Then, she thought, he, himself, would have gone on some sort of exploration to find Dorian, Phineas, Cagliostro, and the rest. But she didn't know how he would be able to infiltrate their ranks without being seen.
The mystery of how Lolly's dog had found his way into the castle proper, and then come down the corridor and found where she was was her most immediate question and most perplexing one at the moment. She glanced at the dog where he sat looking expectantly up at the very bookcase which opened out to allow a person into the secret passageway. Some secret passageway, if even a dog knew where it was.
She ruminated on how the dog had found his way up to the main castle. What dawned on her suddenly filled her with sudden fear. Someone had brought the dog up here, of course. How could he have gotten through the se
cret opening without someone opening it—and not only that, how would he have gotten out into the hall? The doors on the library were closed when they'd gotten to them. And as she thought it through, she now wondered if they didn't just plant the dog right there at Saint Germain's door to begin with. Phineas would do this, but she puzzled on why she'd been brought here, to this room.
Zofia turned to glance at the closed door, puzzling this out.
Just as these hard facts jelled in her mind, there came a clarity about why she was there—and why she had to get the hell out of there right now.
Fear overriding everything, Zofia Transvected toward the door. Before she could make it even halfway across the room, the hair on the nape of her neck spiked. The smell of sulfur permeated the room. Strange sensations of the drawing on her belly button, like something sucking her from the inside out, came over her.
“NOOOO!”
It took only a second—or a mere millisecond—a span of time in which she had no feeling, no sight, and no hearing.
Finally, when sight returned, she could barely make out something large, and a vast dark depth, as though she were in a cavern, and the ceiling just kept going up and up into a dark void with no depth.
Sound of heavy metallic machinery chugging, steam issuing from something, and other loud sounds came to her ears, the noise almost causing her to cover her ears.
She couldn't breath for a few heartbeats; her breath taken from her on the landing. She realized she was on her back, on a floor, somewhere. Her head spun. Everything was all out of whack for her. But she knew, instinctively, what had happened. This wasn't good.
Slowly, she levered herself onto her elbows and tried to take in her situation. She was down below, she knew it. And every part of her body hurt, head to feet.
Someone was laughing. She couldn't see them. It was a husky laugh.
“I say, that must have hurt like hell.”
Chapter 39
“Run madam! Transvect out of here!” Biddle's voice echoed from somewhere.
There came a sharp smacking sound. And then a mournful groan.
“Shut up, you fool!” The other voice of an unseen entity growled.
It didn't take much imagination to realize what had just happened. Obviously, the reason Biddle had not returned to her was that he'd been captured—by another Ghogal. Probably, they'd thought that she would go in search for him, but she hadn't. The voice from the unseen source had to be another Ghogal. They would need another Ghogal to capture Biddle, and so had enlisted one. Somehow Biddle was tied, or ensnared, and he couldn't help her. When he had tried to warn her, the other Ghogal had hit him.
“Zofia, I see we have finally been able to persuade you to join us,” an entirely different voice said. This came from another spot. It was a much deeper voice, more sinister. She looked in that direction and saw the tall, skin-headed Phineas in a black robe, hood down, and was training his wand on her. He stood over her left shoulder. The only way she could see him from her position was to lift her head and turn her eyes upward to see him. But he was mostly hidden by deep shadows.
Long legs brought him around so that she could see him a little better. Her stomach clenched horribly at the realization of what this meant. Seeing that he had the drop on her pretty much brought reality crashing down around her.
Aside from the fact that he had just tricked her—and she really hated to be tricked—he'd caught her defenseless. That's what really pissed her off. Well, this just blows toad bubbles.
“I don't believe I've had the pleasure?” she said, trying to affect someone who was pleasantly surprised.
“You're quite right, my dear, we haven't been introduced properly. Phineas Gardner.” He made with a snappy head bow.
“The one Dorian was after, five years ago,” she said. “You probably didn't expect him to come back as a wizard, or to remember what you did.”
“No. You're quite right about that. But, it hardly matters any more. Does it?” he replied evenly, the edges of his thin lips curled into a tight smile. “Now, get up. Slowly. Don't try anything. Believe me, I would enjoy it if you did.”
Reminded what Stephen had said about him, she did as he said, but had to roll over to her knees first, and then struggle to her feet.
Two men in black robes swept up behind him, looking like smaller clones. She recognized them as Keeler and Garrison. They each had their wands trained on her as well. Hemmed in by a brick wall on one side, giant gleaming coper pipes on the other, and dwarfed by enormous hydraulic machinery, she realized that the electricity down here was working just fine. Even the remote thought of taking one, or all three flitted through her mind and she ushered it right out again. Even if she could produce an Umbrella spell, how long would she last against them? She decided that it would be madness to try and out master three powerful wizards. In order to do so, she would have to disarm them, and that was next to impossible. Especially since she'd never mastered disarming hexes. She was not trained in this stuff. She was relying on the men in her life—Saint Germain, Dorian or Stephen—to come and rescue her. She didn't know what had happened to Saint Germain. Most likely, they'd gotten him, somehow, before she had gotten up. She didn't think they'd penetrated the gold citadel that he had claimed would keep them safe, or they would have been right there at her bedside when she woke up. Saint Germain's disappearance was still a mystery to her. As far as she could tell, everyone else in the castle had disappeared as well. Only she had remained, and she was most sought after.
Once on her feet, Phineas guided her forward with a little wiggle of his wand. Shuffling forward, she followed one of the bricked pathways, all the way through the noisy, impossibly strange world of huge tubes and pipes. They guided her through a dark passage, out of the strange room. It seemed to go on forever. It smelled of limestone with a hint of rotten egg smell—brimstone—as Barty had mentioned in his book.
They finally emerged from the dank passage where a wall of stone intersected. Another passageway that T-boned this main one. Phineas poked her in the ribs with his wand. She looked sharply back at him. Wordlessly he motioned with his wand the direction he wanted her to go. Grudgingly she moved on, following this second murky hallway with all three wizards stepping along behind her. One of them had conjured a small fireball in order to see by.
Zofia came to a curtained-off threshold, and stopped several feet of it. She looked back, waiting for instructions. Before she could get the words out, the curtain parted and out rushed a woman. It was the last person Zofia expected to see.
Dressed in a black robe similar to the ones the wizards were wearing (but of a lesser quality material). Abigale dashed forward, her heals clacking across the stone floor.
“You caught her! Good!” she gasped, wide-eyed. She sounded relieved, and maybe slightly surprised.
“Of course,” Phineas said in a casual drawl. “Were you worried?”
Abigale didn't answer.
“It was the dog, that's what brought her to us,” Garrison slurred.
“That was my idea, by the way,” the smaller Keeler said, sounding quite proud of himself.
“I thought of letting it loose in the castle above,” Garrison added.
“Well, yes, but not until after I thought of using the dog to draw her out.”
“Enough, both of you!” Phineas barked. “You sound like school children trying to better one another.” That ended the debate. Phineas turned back to Abigale. “Are the others assembled?”
“Yes. They're all waiting for you.” Striding forward, she stopped before him. She had to crane her neck back in order to look into his face. “Are we really going to bring forth Apep?” Her eyes wide, she looked excited.
“Yes. Of course, my dear,” Phineas murmured as Abigale ran her hands up Phineas' chest while gazing into his face as though she were his lover. Phineas's reaction was on the chilly side; neither did he put a hand on her, nor did he look down at her. His gaze actually went over her head in what Zofia decided lo
oked like absolute abhorrence—as though her mere touch and attention was the last thing he wanted. What was a little more disconcerting was Keeler's glare at the scene. If Zofia wasn't mistaken, she just saw a rise of jealousy from Keeler over the bar maid. His face was turning crimson, and deep lines gouged deeply between his brows.
During this whole display, Zofia realized too late that the possibility of her escaping had arose—no one was looking at her at all—and the moment fled in a fluttering of a heartbeat. Phineas's hot gaze returned to Zofia. His wand, which had slumped in his hand, snapped back up and was aimed straight at her.
Zofia realized, in those smattering of seconds, that Abigale had been enlisted by the cult, probably Phineas had made it appear that he had romantic ideas toward her, but all the while—and being that he was a Knight—he was not interested in her at all. Her guess was that Keeler rocked his boat, instead. She wondered if Abigail would be shocked to learn that Phineas liked men, and she was next to dragon doo-doo as far as what he liked in bed.
All but shoving Abigale aside, Phineas commanded,“Tie her hands together.”
Whoever he had been talking to, Zofia didn't even know. Neither Keeler nor Garrison moved forward. Then, a bit of thin robe appeared in Phineas' other hand. He held it out to Abigale.
Phineas and the others stood in a line front of her. Zofia glanced toward the still moving curtain. There seemed to be an errant current coming form the other side. Possibly it was the cavernous space of the menhir. Of course, she wouldn't get far. And she didn't know exactly what would be beyond the curtain. Probably it led to a dead end, or into a room with no way out—and the rest of the cult waiting for her.
Abigale edged toward her with the bit of rope. Zofia shot her one of her most bitchiest looks. “How would you like to be turned into a slimy snake to match Phineas' personality?”