by E. G. Foley
“But Jake, honestly, even as vexing a lad as you are, why would three grown men risk hanging for the pleasure of ridding the world of you? If there’s any truth to your account, maybe they merely wanted to thrash you. Perhaps you stole something from them, hmm?” the judge suggested. “What did you do to annoy them?”
“Nothing, Your Worship! I never saw them bleeders before in my life!” he said, infuriated. “I was minding me own business in Covent Garden Market when they started chasing me—for no reason! I ran into the rookery, but still they followed, and when they cornered me in the alley, some toff called Lord Griffon showed up and ordered them to kill me.”
The judge abruptly stopped laughing.
“What?” His voice dropped to a harsh whisper. “What did you say?”
Derek Stone also looked over at him with a look of dark surprise.
“Surely you did not just claim that the Earl of Griffon was a part of this?” the magistrate said crisply.
Jake nodded and swallowed hard, his heart pounding. “Yes, sir, I did. He was.” He did not think it prudent to tell them the earl had claimed to be his uncle.
The magistrate stared at him for a very long moment. Then he set down his pen. His face was getting redder by the second, and when he spoke, his voice trembled with barely contained wrath. “Jake Reed, you are a dangerously misguided boy. This time, you go too far with your wild tales. You are under oath of perjury—and yet you would speak such slanderous lies against one of the greatest philanthropists in London! Now I know you are lying! Order in the court!” He banged his gavel as the audience exclaimed in shock over Jake’s accusation against the earl.
Jake turned to Dani, shrugging as he mouthed the question, “What’s a philanthropist?”
“A person who gives lots of gold to charity!” she enunciated back.
“Oh, great,” Jake muttered.
“Lord Griffon is a fine man, practically a saint, and he happens to be the chief patron of the Police Pensioners’ Alms House!” the judge nearly stammered in his righteous fury. “Why, he gives more each year to support our retired bobbies in their old age than the greatest merchant houses in the City!”
“Well, he still tried to kill me,” Jake growled.
The beak was fuming, all his world-weary joking cast aside. “Order in the court!”
“Your Worship!” Constable Flanagan called above the noise of the scandalized murmurs from the audience. “There’s something else that you should know, sir.”
The beak settled back into his chair and gestured to the policeman to speak.
“The boy thief we were chasing this morning on behalf of Harris the Pieman…was Jake Reed.”
The whole courtroom burst into cries of astonishment and whoops of hilarity.
The judge turned to Jake in utter fury.
“I suppose that’s what he meant when he says he was ‘minding his own business,’” Flanagan drawled. “He got away from us at the time, but the flower-seller saw him sneaking past with something, and let’s just say, my officers know his face.”
The judge glared at him, but finally found his voice. “Jake Reed, you are a terrible boy! You have disrespected this courtroom and me, coming in here and lying to my face, after I’ve already given you two chances to better yourself! I don’t know who might’ve promised you what to get you to come in here and tell these brazen lies, let alone to slander a fine, upstanding pillar of society like Lord Griffon, but this time, by Jove, you will learn your lesson!” He banged his gavel. “Send them both to Newgate!”
“Jake!” Dani cried in horror, but Jake stood there frozen.
“Jake Reed, you will give us thirty days detention for your thieving, and as for you Derek Stone, you are hereby remanded to Newgate, as well, to await your trial—for murder!” Bang! With a whack of his gavel, the angry beak dismissed them.
He was now so out of temper that he adjourned the court and marched out, taking refuge in his chambers.
Teddy was barking at the chaos that erupted and Dani was yelling supposedly helpful advice, while Jake, in a panic, tried to dart away from the officers coming to arrest him.
Unfortunately, there were bobbies in all directions, and this time Flanagan was too fast for him. He grabbed hold of Jake’s arm. “Don’t even try it, you young scamp. You’re on a bad path, Jake. You better mend your ways.”
“I didn’t do it!” he cried, merely out of habit.
“Bah! I saw you bolting off this morning with my own eyes. I know you’re hungry, lad, and it’s too bad you ain’t got a proper father to show you any discipline, but you’ve got to learn your lesson somehow.”
Jake glared, trying to hide the fact that he was terrified. He looked over his shoulder as they clapped the handcuffs on him. “Don’t worry, Dani, I’ll be seeing you soon!” he called, sending his friend a meaningful look as they began dragging him away.
Dani usually understood what he meant without him having to spell things out, which was why her eyes widened.
She realized he was referring to his tele-ka-whatever.
“I’ll be out before you know it,” he assured her.
Then the officers brought him outside and tossed him in the big, black police wagon.
Derek Stone wasn’t far behind. “Foolhardy, thick-headed—don’t you ever do as you’re told?” Derek demanded as soon as they slammed the heavy carriage door and locked it tightly.
“Nah, not my style!” Jake shot back, parroting the warrior’s own insolent words to the constables from this morning.
Derek harrumphed.
“Why did you let them catch you?” Jake demanded. “You could’ve at least fought back!”
“I’m a Guardian. I don’t kill policemen,” Derek growled. “The Order would’ve had me out in a few days.”
“What Order?”
“Never mind. Did you really see Lord Griffon?”
“Aye! That’s what I said. Is he really my uncle and if he is, then why does he want me dead?”
Derek cursed under his breath, shaking his head. “You should’ve gone to Beacon House like I told you.”
“How was I supposed to know if I could trust you?”
Derek looked at him in amazement. “I saved your bloody life, you ungrateful whelp! Why wouldn’t you trust me?”
“Mister, I don’t know nothin’ about you! I don’t even know why you bothered to help me in the first place.”
“’Hoy! No talking! Shut it, now!” The bailiff banged his truncheon on the bars. Then two policemen climbed up onto the driver’s box of the police wagon, and in the next moment, they were underway, soon to be delivered into the dark oblivion of Newgate.
Jake looked back and, through the bars, saw Dani standing alone in the road, looking terrified and bewildered. She was hugging Teddy close and trying not to cry. Seeing her standing there, looking so small and defenseless, Jake was furious at himself. He hung his head.
“Your little girlfriend?” Derek drawled.
“Shut up! She’s not my girlfriend.”
“Then why do you look so distraught?”
“Because it’s dark out, right! And now she’s going to have to walk home by herself in these bad streets.” Jake cursed himself. “Not that you give a twig.”
Derek studied him. “I’ll say one thing for you, kid. You may be a thief, but you’ve got your father’s courage. I think you actually do know the meaning of honor.”
Jake looked over at him uncertainly.
Derek gave him a rugged nod.
“You really knew my father?” Jake whispered as one of the policemen glanced back to check on them.
Derek looked away with a faint smile on his face in the darkness. “He was like a brother to me. His name was Jacob, too,” he added.
“No talking, now! Don’t make me tell you again!” the bobby ordered, reaching back to hit the window bars with his nightstick one more time.
Derek fell silent, but he gave Jake a look that helped bolster his shaken courage.
And it was a good thing, for when the police wagon rolled up to the looming fortress of Newgate a short while later, Jake saw he was going to need it.
PART II
CHAPTER SIX
The Fairy Prisoner
Gladwin had been a prisoner for approximately twenty-four hours, but at least now she had confirmed that her captor was indeed the boy’s uncle—Waldrick Everton, the current Earl of Griffon. Grim news, indeed.
The earl had taken the jar with Gladwin in it out of his pocket and set it on a shelf when they had arrived, and there she had remained. Peering through the glass, the room before her was some sort of underground lair.
The cave-like space was dark and dank. The light of a dingy lantern played over a dusty brass microscope, a mortar and pestle, and a clockwork astrolabe.
Great old books with cryptic writing were piled on a large table beside an inkpot and quill. A human skull held a burning candle. By its dim glow, she could see the other caged creatures in the earl’s ‘collection’: a pitiful cobbler’s elf called Mo, a grumpy cherub who needed his diaper changed, and a chubby satyr wearing spectacles, who introduced himself as Stanley.
Beyond the row of cages, a terrarium held a giant silkworm. These creatures were as rare as His Lordship’s talking spider. Giant silkworm thread was so light and yet so strong that it was used to create the finest body armor in the magical world.
It was Stanley who had told her that Waldrick had captured them all to do experiments on them. He was trying to figure out ways to steal their powers.
“I don’t even have any powers!” the poor satyr wailed. “Aside from being a highly qualified accountant.”
None of Gladwin’s fellow prisoners had any thoughts on how to escape. Nor could they tell her what was making the terrible growling sounds and deep snarls that echoed up to the cave from time to time, emanating from somewhere below.
Whatever it was, it sounded big and hungry, but even the presence of this unknown monster was not as frightening as their jailer.
She sat in her own watery alcove on the other side of the cave.
Huddled over her books and potions, muttering to herself, the bulky old hag was round and hoary, with a few walrus whiskers on her double chin. She stank like rotting kelp that had washed up on the beach.
“Who is that?” Gladwin had whispered to Mo, the cobbler’s elf, when the dreadful creature disappeared from sight, lolling underwater in her dark pool.
“Don’t you know?” Mo whispered. “That’s Fionnula Coralbroom, the sea-witch!”
Gladwin gasped, looking over again in shock.
Fionnula Coralbroom was an infamous fugitive from justice. All of Magic-kind knew the story. Some fifteen years ago, the fearsome siren-sorceress had been banished from the ocean after being caught plotting to overthrow the mermaid royal family. There were other crimes she had yet to answer for, but somehow she had escaped.
“Waldrick Everton has been hiding her?” Gladwin whispered, stunned.
Mo nodded. “Apparently, she’s been living here for years. The earl built special accommodations for her over there,” he whispered. “They bring in fresh barrels of seawater for her every week. She has to stay submerged, at least when she’s in that form, with the tentacles and all. That’s why it’s so damp and moldy in here.”
Tentacles? Flying up a little higher in her jar, Gladwin could just make out the large pool carved into the rock. It explained why the sea-witch hadn’t come out of her alcove, and why she was only visible from the waist up when she worked at her stone-carved desk.
“Is she part of his ‘collection,’ too?”
“No, she’s his special guest. From what I gather, the earl found her on the banks of the Thames years ago. Captain Lydia Brackwater refused to give her asylum in the river after the witch was banished from the sea. The freshwater nymphs didn’t want any trouble with the salt-water mermaids, so they refused to take her. Lord Griffon found her dying on the banks and took her in, saved her life. She’s extremely powerful, of course, but apparently quite helpless when she’s stranded on dry land. A fish out of water,” he added glumly.
“I wonder what Lord Griffon wants with her!” Gladwin whispered.
Mo shrugged. “Sometimes she makes potions for him. And in exchange, he gives her—”
“Shh! Quiet! She’s coming back up!” Stanley warned, pointing fearfully at a ripple in the pool.
But Gladwin had so many questions. “What’s making those dreadful snarls?” she insisted.
“Shh! I don’t know, and I really don’t want to find out!” Stanley breathed. He laid a finger over his lips to silence her as the horrid Fionnula Coralbroom came up from the pool, swimming over to her stone desk to continue her strange writings.
Gladwin caught a quick glimpse of a slimy beige tentacle skimming up from the water behind the round bulk of the old hag. But then, the sound of a door opening at the top of the stairs to the left reached them all.
Gladwin looked over and even Fionnula turned as heavy footfalls approached. The earl and two of his henchmen marched down the many dark steps into the cave.
Whatever they had been talking about, the earl did not look happy. “Blast it, Oxley, how could you let this happen? I should have Fionnula turn you back again! How would you like that, eh? Go back to pulling a plough all day, till you end up roasting on the barbeque spit?”
“Oh, no, sir, please!” the big, bald muscleman begged him. “I like being a human so much better!”
“And I like being an earl better than a nobody—which is what I will be once again if you fail to kill this boy! Lud, I am surrounded by fools! Don’t you understand the brat gets it all if the world finds out about him? The title, houses, money—and the magic powers to boot. So get it through your thick skull, you bovine dullard! I will not be left with nothing! You will not fail me again—or it’s the barbeque for you! No bull,” Waldrick added with a cruel smirk.
Oxley blanched. “Yes, sir.”
Hurrah, Jacob! Gladwin thought, hearing that the boy had gotten away. She leaned forward eagerly, spying on them from her confinement in the jar. She had been so desperately worried about poor young Jacob.
Meanwhile, the bald giant cowered away from the earl. “We did our best, sir. It’s just, the Guardian showed up right after you left. We had him cornered, but Derek Stone came at us hard.” He hesitated. “We lost Ratlow.”
Lord Griffon rolled his eyes, but brushed off this loss impatiently. “Never mind the rodent. Fionnula can always make more of his kind. What of the boy?”
“Escaped, sir,” Oxley mumbled, head down. “Stone covered his retreat.”
“I see. So now you have no idea where he is?” Waldrick folded his arms across his chest, glaring at his servitors.
“That is true, sir—but all’s not lost!” his pale, flame-haired henchman piped up. “At least we know where Stone is! The bobbies sent him to jail for killin’ Ratlow!”
“Well,” the earl replied, turning to him, “at least you’re a little brighter than this one, aren’t you, Flare?”
Flare nodded. “We seen ‘em from around the corner.”
“Hmm.” The earl considered this and paced away from them, stroking his mouth in thought. He pivoted at the other end of the cave. He shivered as if he had a chill, and paused to run his fingers idly across the top of the candle’s flame as he considered his next move. “Very well, slight change of strategy,” he announced. “We’ll pick up the hunt for the boy tomorrow. First, we’ve got to deal with Derek Stone. There’s no point trying to kill my nephew as long as that wretch is alive to protect him.”
Gladwin realized Derek’s locating instincts must be working just fine, after all. He’d found the boy—in the nick of time, it sounded.
“However,” Waldrick continued with a crafty glance, “right now, our brave Guardian is locked in a jail cell, unarmed. There’s no way he can escape, nor fight back, behind those bars. And that means there’s no way for you to miss. It�
�s the perfect opportunity to get rid of the miserable lout for once and for all. Tonight,” he instructed, “you will break into Newgate Prison, find Derek Stone’s cell, and kill him. It’ll be easy,” he promised. “Shooting fish in a barrel. Do not fail me again,” he added, “or this time, I’ll let Fionnula turn you into a pair of oysters and feed you both to her pet eel. Hello, darling,” he added, suavely blowing the sea-witch a kiss.
Gladwin lifted her eyebrows as the hideous creature giggled like a schoolgirl.
Oxley, meanwhile, cast a nervous look in Fionnula’s direction. “Yes, sir. Uh, I have one small question—”
“Do not fret, man! I’m half a league ahead of you, as always. My sweet Fionnula will get you into the jail. Oh, darling?” he called in a singsong.
As he sauntered toward her, the sea-witch swam over to the edge of the pool closest to the earl. “Yes, my lord?”
“Perhaps you have a pretty lullaby to sing for all those nasty prison guards. Oxley and his men will need a bit of help breaking into Newgate.”
“Oh, yes, I know just the tune!” The hag clapped her warty greenish hands. “But if you want me to do it, I must have a feather! I must go, after all, to where the prison guards can hear me sing my tune.”
“But of course.” With a debonair smile, the earl reached into his vest pocket and pulled out a scarlet feather with a faint golden shimmer of magic dancing round the edges.
Gladwin stared at it, mesmerized, but unsure what it signified.
Fionnula’s eyes shone with an unholy gleam as Waldrick offered it to her, but he paused. “Now promise, my lovely, that you’ll keep your end of the bargain.”
“Don’t I always?”
He did not deign to answer that. “And that you won’t run amuck after you are through?”
Her eager smile turned to a huff. “It’s none of your business if I do!”
“Fionnula,” he chided.
“I cannot always stay penned up in this cave, Waldrick! You have no idea how boring it is! I need life, parties, dancing! Every now and then, a girl has to stretch her legs!” She lifted a rubbery tentacle from the water and wiggled it playfully.