Crook of the Dead (The Adventures of Lydia Trinket Book 3)

by Jen Rasmussen

  “Did you leave when I was at the emergency vet, that night Wulf got attacked in Bristol and I was waiting to hear whether he would live or die?”

  “No, but—”

  “Did you leave the hospital, while I was waiting to hear what happened to Gemma, even though you were sick as a dog and should really have been in bed?”

  This time he didn’t bother with the but, only said, “No.”

  “Well, I’m not leaving. Not until we know your dad is okay.”

  What if he’s never okay?

  The question showed on his face, but he didn’t ask it out loud. Instead he dropped a kiss on top of my head as he went to the staircase. “I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

  “I’ll send your mother for you if anything changes here.”

  After he left, I started down toward the kitchen, but paused on the floors in between. The fourth had actual rooms with doors, as far as I could tell the only privacy available in the whole tower. They all turned out to be bathrooms.

  I was even more curious about the third level, which I’d gotten a glimpse of on my way by earlier. It looked like a pretty normal living room—four armchairs, three tall bookcases, and a little wood-burning stove—except for what had caught my eye before: three clocks, hung on the wall at more-or-less even intervals. One silver, one gold, one copper. Big and round and, like so many of the things here, full of gears.

  I studied them in turn. Each had a small sign hanging off the bottom from a delicate chain, but the writing was in that same unfamiliar alphabet. They all had three rings, like targets, and each ring had one hand. They were all numbered differently.

  Of particular interest was the copper clock, where the innermost ring had twenty-four numbers around it, the middle one thirty-one, and the outer one twelve.

  It was the only one whose numbers matched up to my world. Right now the hands pointed at eleven, five, and somewhere between the zero and the one. Sometime after midnight, November the fifth.

  My stomach twisted a little. Six days of my life, taken in one afternoon. If I stayed here a whole day, I’d miss Thanksgiving. (Not that you’d be invited anyway. How will you stand Thanksgiving sitting in that crappy apartment, knowing that Warren is enjoying it with his dads, probably not even missing you?) Two days and I’d miss Christmas, too.

  Just two weeks, and I’d have been gone a year. Phineas had told me his kind aged according to their own time, which probably meant that I would, too. Surely I’d sprout a few lines on my face. Would my hair grow at some stupidly fast rate?

  I chose not to think about it, and went down to the kitchen.

  Apart from the fact that their bread was bright yellow, their food wasn’t all that weird. There was no cheese, or dairy of any kind, the downside of not having domesticated animals. But there was some sort of roast. I had no idea what animal it had come from, but I figured meat was meat. I seasoned it with a few of the better smelling things in the spice cabinet, then put it in the oven. After that I cut up the various fruits they had on hand into a sort of salad. They didn’t seem to believe in cutting boards in this world, but at least there were plenty of knives.

  Phineas came back maybe an hour later (another day lost), just as I was wondering how to tell when the mystery meat was done. He checked it for me, then took it out to rest, while he told me in a flat voice that he hadn’t found any signs of Amias in the clearing. The devil had eluded us yet again.

  “All he left behind were a lot of dead birds,” Phineas said. “Justin’s already gone back to the city.”

  “And the wounded?”

  “Seven, and they’ll all live, so that’s the good news. Eight phantasms dead, and one visiting human.”

  I nodded. It could have been worse than nine. But it was still nine too many.

  I cleared my throat, then held up the loaf of bread and asked, “What’s up with this?”

  “Bread? Is this a trick question?”

  “Why is it this color? It hasn’t gone bad or anything, has it?”

  He laughed, hollowly maybe, but under the circumstances I counted it as a victory.

  “No, that’s how it’s supposed to be.” Phineas pointed out the window. Since we were only on the second floor, I couldn’t see much outside except for trunks and leaves, and it was getting dark. I wasn’t sure what I was supposed to be looking at.

  “We don’t have ground crops,” he said. “Like wheat or even vegetables. Everything we cultivate grows on trees. You see the thing hanging from that branch?”

  I leaned over to see better in the direction he was pointing, and nodded. “It looks like a really big lemon.”

  “Nothing like a lemon. It’s really starchy on the inside. That’s what we make our flour from.”

  He started pulling out plates. “I’ll take a tray up for my mother. She should eat, and she probably wouldn’t have thought of it for hours yet, so thank you.”

  “No problem.”

  While we were getting everything ready, I figured it was my chance to ask some of the burning questions about his world that I’d been storing up. First on that list was language, a topic that had always been of interest to me.

  “I’m confused about which of you speaks what,” I said. “Some of you sound like Jeffrey Litauer did, some of you sound like my incantation. But then sometimes I’m not sure that what I’m hearing is really either one. So I’m not even sure how many languages there are.”

  Phineas shook his head. “They’re all the same language, or at least I think you’d classify them as the same, if you studied them. They’re more like dialects, I guess. The way you speak your incantations, the way Rebecca talks, that’s the accent in our one major city. Think of it as proper and educated. Like British English, maybe.”

  “And your accent here?”

  Phineas smiled. “More like redneck Southern.”

  I smiled back. “But that means Jeffrey Litauer and Drayne, or their people anyway, were from your neck of the woods.” I nodded out the window at the trees. “Literally, in this case.”

  “Not necessarily here,” Phineas said. “But somewhere out in the orchards, yes.”

  “Do you have a higher than average concentration of bad guys out here, or have I just gotten lucky?”

  Phineas sighed. “Probably a little bit of both. It’s… difficult out here. Not an easy life, if you stay.”

  “But your parents stay.”

  “There are advantages too, if you’ve got the temperament for it. The growers make a good living, and there’s lots of land out here. The towers are big, the life is relatively luxurious. If you can handle it.”

  “Phineas!”

  It was Gwen. We both raced upstairs.

  Eric thrashed and twitched on his bed, while Gwen stood beside him, looking half delighted (presumably to see him awake) and half horrified (presumably to see him having some sort of fit).

  At Phineas’s request, I ran back down to the kitchen to boil more water for tea, but we never needed it. Phineas came down not more than three minutes later.

  Most of the tension had left his face, and I smiled.

  “He’s doing better?”

  “He’ll definitely live. My mom’s in with him now. Figured I’d give them a little privacy.”

  I let out a little cheer and hugged him hard. He pulled me in tight and laughed.

  “Thanks,” he said, although I wasn’t sure what he was thanking me for. He hadn’t even gotten a chance to try the salad yet.

  I blame the hug going on as long as it did on the day we’d had. It had been long—quite literally, at least for me—and hard, and contained entirely too many emotions at once. It was no wonder we’d both be craving that kind of contact.

  When I finally pulled back, I felt myself giving Phineas that hard look you give a person right before you kiss him.

  He gave me the same look back.

  And then I shut that shit down.

  Kissing Phineas would add a whole new set of complications and worries
to my life, and as far as I was concerned, I was all stocked up on both. Not that I thought it through in so many words. It was just instinct. Or, you know, panic and cowardice. Whatever you want to call it.

  So I stepped back, muttered something about the bathroom, and walked up the stairs. I didn’t look back to see whether his expression would show disappointment or relief. I knew that if I found a mirror up there, my own face would show both.

  I hid—there’s really no other way to put it—in the bathroom for probably ten minutes before my state of confusion was made worse by the shrill blare of a siren, coming from somewhere outside. It was followed by rushing footsteps on the stairs, then a cacophony of banging and slamming above me.

  I found Phineas and his mother on the top floor, where I hadn’t been yet. It seemed to be dedicated to windows and chairs. An observatory of sorts, maybe. There was a long brass lever in the narrow bit of wall between each window.

  Gwen and Phineas rushed around the room, yanking the levers. With each one they pulled, a rolling metal curtain came crashing down. Or actually, from the brief glimpses I got it looked like two curtains, one indoors and one out, effectively encasing each window in armor. The metal was gray and solid, with seams so thin that when the panels straightened out you could barely see them.

  “What is going on here?” I asked.

  When all the windows had been covered, Gwen held up a lamp to give Phineas light, while he fastened chains on the curtains to rings in the stone wall, on either side of each window.

  “The alarm,” Phineas said.

  As if that explained anything. He gestured for me to follow him back downstairs.

  The windows on the sixth floor, where Eric still slept, had shutters that looked more like the doors of a safe. Phineas and Gwen banged them closed and locked them, while I wondered what they were thinking, making all that racket in a sick man’s room. Not that it sounded so loud compared to that damn screaming siren. Eric didn’t wake.

  “We’ve got to keep going,” Gwen said to me.

  I fell in step beside her, and helped them with the slamming and locking on each of the other floors.

  When we finished we went up to the kitchen, where Gwen lit another lamp and put the kettle on to boil, calm as you please. Both she and Phineas, now that they were done securing their tower, looked completely relaxed.

  Phineas smiled at me. “You’re about to find out why we build our houses so we can see above the trees and out for miles.”

  As if on cue, the siren stopped abruptly. A roar rose up in its place.

  Whatever it was, it must have been big, if I could hear it through all those layers of stone and glass and metal. This theory was supported when something hit the tower wall, or maybe it was the roof, with enough force to shake the whole building.

  “Holy shit, are we under siege or what?” I shouldn’t have been using that kind of language in front of Phineas’s mother, but I was too shaken to censor myself.

  “Remember that dragon you met?” Phineas asked.

  More bangs and roars. The tower shook again.

  “I was afraid that one was just a baby,” I said.

  Phineas shook his head. “No, it was fully grown.”

  “No way is that little thing causing all this!”

  “No,” Phineas agreed. “It’ll be more like fifteen or twenty of those little things. They travel in packs. And one isn’t such a big deal, but things can get ugly with so many.”

  “What the hell are they doing?”

  “Trying to get in, of course,” said Gwen.

  “They can smell us,” Phineas added. “Even through stone. That’s why it’s important to get ahead of them and prepare. There’s no hiding from them.”

  “Lovely.”

  Gwen sat down on a bench along the wall, and pulled a basket from underneath.

  “Is that knitting?” I asked. “While you’re being attacked by dragons?”

  “Don’t worry,” Phineas said. “You wouldn’t want to be out there, caught by them unawares, but this building has withstood centuries of dragon attacks. It’ll withstand one more.”

  Another bang, as if to refute his point. I jumped, and Phineas smiled.

  “We’re perfectly safe in here,” he said.

  There was a brief cry among the roars outside, some animal yelping.

  “Well something out there isn’t safe at all. I thought you didn’t have dogs?”

  “We don’t— Lydia!”

  I wasn’t listening. I was running down the stairs as fast as I dared, hoping I wouldn’t break my neck before I could get out of the tower.

  While I’d been talking another howl had come up from below, long enough this time for me to recognize it.

  It was Wulf.

  Phineas actually tried to stop me from getting out of the tower, if you can believe it. Like I was really going to leave my dog outside to be eaten by dragons. He shouted a few things about it being dangerous to open the door and having to protect his parents. Which was probably a good point, but I was too hysterical to consider it.

  But I’ll say this for him: when he couldn’t convince me not to do something stupid, he did it with me, instead.

  It was already dark outside, and not much moonlight filtered through the thick canopy of trees. Phineas rushed out after me, while Gwen stayed behind to guard the tower door, and to let us back in when we returned. Always assuming we did.

  “Wulf!” I called.

  “Shh!” said Phineas. There’d been a roar from above, too close to being directly over us for comfort.

  “You just said they can smell us, and there’s no hiding,” I said. “I can’t see how shouting is going to hurt, and he’ll never find us otherwise.”

  A howl came from somewhere ahead, and I thought maybe a little to the left, but sound carried strangely through the orchard. I took my best guess as to where Wulf was, and ran. Phineas swore and followed.

  The howls turned into yelps of pain, and I ran faster.

  Wulf was on the ground, flattened on his belly, while a dragon like the one I’d seen in Bristol flapped over him and clawed into him. I threw myself at it and shoved as hard as I could.

  The dragon shot a few feet back. I suspected the only reason I’d been able to move it that far was that I’d taken it by surprise, focused as it was on its prey. It wheeled around and snarled, and I got a glimpse of yellow fangs and reptilian eyes as it rushed at me. I swear it looked like it was smiling.

  What the fuck, Lydia? You couldn’t at least pick up a weapon before you came out? There’s panic, and then there’s downright stupidity.

  My inner critic was always doing this, picking the worst possible times to lecture me.

  Luckily though, Phineas was smarter than I was, and presumably not distracted by his inner critic. There was a whistle of a crossbow bolt passing my ear, and the dragon fell with a horrific cry just before it reached me.

  Unfortunately, four more dragons, drawn either by our scent or the commotion, were already upon us. Phineas shot two of them out of the air. A third descended on me, claws out, and I remembered just in time that I still had the bone dagger in my pocket, from when I’d gone out of body in the tower.

  I pulled it out and thrust if forward as the dragon’s forelegs landed on my shoulders. The thing thrashed and screamed. I managed to push it off me just before its fangs sank into my face.

  Phineas had dispatched the fourth one in the meanwhile. I knelt by Wulf, and for the first time noticed two more dead dragons nearby—he’d gotten a couple of them before they brought him down, at least.

  Good boy.

  “How many did you say would be in the pack?” I asked.

  “More than the seven we have here,” Phineas said. “Can you shoot a crossbow?”

  “No.”

  “Then you’ll have to carry the dog. Can you manage?”

  Despite the circumstances, I took the time to give Phineas an insulted look as I heaved Wulf into my arms. (Although in truth, t
hat was one seriously heavy bloodhound.)

  Wulf whined. I started to whisper something soothing, but was drowned out by more roars.

  I ran and stumbled back toward the tower. It wasn’t the most graceful retreat, but it got the job done. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Phineas shoot the bow several more times, although I couldn’t see how many dragons he felled.

  There was a flutter behind me, and claws dug into the back of my neck. I jumped forward, tripped, nearly dropped Wulf, but finally managed to regain my balance. Phineas shot a bolt over my shoulder, and I heard a dragon hit the ground.

  My surge of triumph at reaching the tower door was short-lived, thanks to a roar right beside my ear. I hastily set Wulf down and turned, standing between him and our attacker.

  Phineas was kicking at the door, shouting for his mother, and shooting his bow at the same time. I wished desperately I had a gun, but the dagger I’d shoved back into my pocket was the best I could do.

  I swung and connected with a dragon’s eye, then twisted the blade as it cried out in pain. But there was another on me now, its claws tangled in my hair. I turned my face toward it, to better aim the knife.

  Big mistake.

  The dragon reared back its head and spit. Something awful covered my face.

  I was on fire. I had to be. That was the only explanation for the pain, the crackling, the smell of burning skin. Phineas could say what he wanted about these dragons not breathing fire, but I was certain that the thing had ignited me like so much tinder. And that my flesh was melting right off my skull.

  So I did what any normal person would do in that situation: I panicked and screamed and generally carried on. I tried to drop to the ground and roll, but the dragon had wound its way around me like a constrictor. There were fangs in my shoulder, or maybe claws.

  Another crossbow shot, and then another. Wulf yelped. The tower door slammed. I heard Gwen’s shouts mixed with Phineas’s, and finally the dragon fell off me. But I was barely aware of it by then, so intense was the pain in my head.

  Then Phineas was dragging me inside. Gwen was standing in the threshold, crossbow raised, as more dragons came hurtling at the door. Phineas dropped me and took a shot, but his aim was too hasty and the bolt missed its mark.