“I have business elsewhere,” I growled, “and so I bid you stand there while I go. If you seek to impede me, I’ll shoot you.”
The Dark Man answered, “I believe our business is the same. Are we not both hoping to get the candy and give the rush?”
“Give us the candy or we’ll give you the rush” is the traditional shout heard on the holiday of the Pirates’ Parade, but I guessed he was using it as a reference to the Dainty Pirate. Still, I played ignorant.
“I don’t know what you mean. It’s not Pirates’ Parade.”
“Perhaps not a parade, true enough, but I do believe there is a pirate. Allow me to introduce myself.” The darkness fell away from the figure, as though he had cast it away like a cloak, and revealed the Hurdy-Gurdy Man I had seen outside the Bella Union Saloon. “Firemonkey at your service. And we should quit playing games if we are to have the slightest chance of saving Boy Hansgen.”
“The Quetzals took him,” I blurted.
“So I know. Others from my organization—”
“You mean your band?”
“The band is just a cover, of course. No, the Eschatological Immenation. Who else?”
The EI! Mamma had been right to be worried about them. They did more than just paint slogans after all.
Firemonkey continued, “When we heard of Boy Hansgen’s capture, we knew we must act. Some of my group have already gone ahead to intercept the Quetzals. Hubert and I came back because we thought you were the Warlord’s pursuit.” He paused. “Listen!”
I listened. Hubert had stopped whimpering, and all I heard now was the distant throb of the ocean, the rush of the night air, and my own breathing. “I don’t hear anything, and I don’t have time—”
“Listen, not with your ears! Listen!”
What can you listen with, if not your ears? I stood, trying to listen but to not listen. And, gradually, I realized that I did hear something, a deep vibration that was more of a feeling than a sound. There was a rhythm to the sensation, ebbing and flowing with my breathing, but like a tide coming in, it grew stronger and stronger. “What is it?”
“It’s the whirlwind sound of the world turning round,” Firemonkey replied.
“What?”
“Someone is rending the Current—come on!”
He ran, quickly, and I followed, less so. The sand slid under my feet and my empty sabre sling kept entangling in my legs. Ahead of me, Firemonkey swept up the sand dune and paused at its peak to wave an encouraging arm toward me. Halfway up, I skidded downward, feeling my thigh muscles squeal, my arm throb. Firemonkey jumped the crest and was gone. A shout arrested my slide; teetering, I turned and saw below me a waving figure and the bulk of two horses. Finally, Udo.
I half jumped, half ran back down the dune, and only Udo’s sudden grab stopped me from ending up flat on my face.
“Where the hell did you go?” he demanded. “Are you all right?”
“I’m fine, and the horses, are they all right? Where did you go?” I pulled out of Udo’s woolly embrace and squinted up. The jutting chin and heavy eyeliner were all too familiar: Udo’s Glamour had worn off. It was good to see his face again.
“They’re fine. Pigface, Flora, are you sure you are okay? Did you see those guys? Where’d they go?”
I answered. “I’m okay, but those guys, Udo, they’re trying to rescue Boy, too. They are—”
“Pigface Psychopomp, Flora, get down.” Udo gave me a hard shove, and I went sprawling. The horses jumped and scattered, and Udo himself hit the sand, half on top of me. A bitterly bright green light sped by us, barely missing our heads. It raced like a rocket, like hot shot, like a comet, and then got smaller and smaller until it winked out like a blink. The sand tilted up and tilted down, shifting like the deck of a ship. For a second, the whole world seemed to lift an inch and hover in the air. Then it jolted down again, with a tremendous thud. I felt as though every organ in my body had been pureed and poured back into my skin.
“What the hell was that?” Udo groaned.
“I’m not sure, but I know it was something Currenty. Come on.”
“The horses—they’ve scarpered.”
“Leave them; they know better than we do how to take care of themselves. Come on.”
My feet turned in under themselves when I tried to stand, so I crawled my way up the sand dune instead, scraping my hands, tasting grit in my teeth, blinking away grit in my eyes. I started to slide back down, then felt Udo behind me, pushing. I paused at the top, bending to catch my breath, tasting iron on my tongue, my saliva too stringy to spit. The ocean ahead was a bright surge of silver, as fluid as mercury, and up the coast, Bilskinir House shone blue, like a malevolent morning star.
Distantly, a figure ran along the dark fringe of sand, pursued by Anahuatl horses. Udo, next to me, had pulled out his binoculars. “It’s Boy; he’s running hard, but they are gaining. Even if we got the horses, we’d never make it in time,” he reported.
“Give me the binoculars,” I demanded, yanking at the strap.
“Close your eyes,” Firemonkey hissed in my ear. I started; I hadn’t heard him crawl up next to me.
“Why?”
“Look beyond the Waking World.”
I closed my eyes, and suddenly the steel-gray night was lit a glowing green, and the distant details of the chase snapped into clear focus. I saw then, not a man harried by a pack of horses, but a coyote, low and lean, running for his life along the shingle. And hot on his trail, four eagles.
Firemonkey said, anguish in his voice, “He hasn’t got a chance.”
“Can’t we do anything?” Udo’s free hand slid into mine, and I squeezed it tightly.
“No—they are too strong,” Firemonkey answered. “They’ve already gotten my comrades. Damn those bloody birds to the Abyss!”
The Coyote ran, his spine stretched long and his muzzle pointed like an arrowhead, but the Eagles flying behind him were like bullets. He was not going to get away. One Eagle rose up, then skidded downward, snatching at the Coyote’s back with outstretched claws. The Coyote stumbled, rolled in a tumble of legs, and writhed back to its feet, but another Eagle struck him down again. The others spun in a wide circle, darting and pecking, tearing with sharp beaks. The Coyote wove into the water, splashing, but the Eagles drove him back onto the sand, buffeting him with their huge wings. The Coyote lunged, his jaw snapping onto a wing, pulling the Eagle out of the air. The two dissolved into a blur of feathers and fur, the other Eagles swooping so low that their wings churned the sand up into a fine mist. Around and around the combatants they circled, and the mist became a whirlwind, so that I could see nothing but the spiral of sand.
My heart was beating so loudly in my chest that I couldn’t even hear the thump of the surf. Udo was saying something, but I heard him dimly, all my attention focused on the now red-flecked sand devil, twisting and turning higher and higher. Udo’s grip on my hand was crushing. The sandstorm flushed a deep crimson, then suddenly, as though an invisible hand whisked it away like a parlor trick, it was gone.
Now there was no Coyote, only a man on the bloody sand, so red he looked like he’d just been born. The Quetzals bent over him, their grotesque eagle-beaks tearing and pecking at his soft flesh. Then one stood, holding aloft something squishy and soft: Boy Hansgen’s heart.
I opened my eyes.
TWENTY-SEVEN
Home. Stale Bread. Valefor.
FIREMONKEY AND what was left of the EI did not linger. As soon as they saw that it was all over, they scarpered, warning us to do the same before the Quetzals noticed us, or the militia came, or whoever/whatever else the magickal battle might have attracted turned up. So, Udo and I rode back to the City in a daze, silently. It was so late that even the streetlights were extinguished, so early that the only other traffic we passed were milk trucks, and the occasional cab, ferrying someone home from a big night out.
So much for our big night out.
At Crackpot, we silently took care of the horses
and went on to the House. When we had left so many hours earlier, the dogs had been locked up in the mudroom, but now, when I opened the back door, no dogs, eager to pee, shot past us caroling joy at their release.
Even before I stepped into the kitchen, I knew what we would see. Although I had not completely cleaned up the last kitchen mess, I had tidied up some before we left. Now, once again, the dim overhead light showed a scene of gigantic disaster. The table was covered in spilled sugar and broken crockery. Chairs were overturned. The kettle had been knocked off the hob, and the ensuing flood had turned the hearth into a soggy waterlogged mess. The floor was covered with jammy paw prints, and the butter dish showed clear signs of licking.
“Oh Pigface. Not again,” Udo moaned. “Those dogs, I could shoot them, each and every one. And then Hotspur next.”
“Do you want a snack before you go to bed?” I asked. I stepped over a broken jam jar and kicked some onions aside to get to the sideboard.
“Shouldn’t we clean up?”
“It can wait.”
“Then I think I’ll hit the rack. We have to get up in a few hours for school.”
The dogs hadn’t gotten to the bread box; the bread inside was stale, but I didn’t care. I was so hungry I would have eaten it moldy. I took a knife off the knife rack and began to cut. Udo halted on the bottom stair, looking at me.
“We did everything we could,” he said.
I chewed the bread; it made my jaw ache and tasted like nothing.
“Everything we could,” he repeated.
I swallowed and tore another hunk off the slice.
“What more could we have done?” he asked.
“Nothing,” I answered. “Nothing at all.”
“You should go to bed, too, Flora. You look dead on your feet.”
“I will, but I’m starving. I gotta eat something first.”
Udo trudged up the stairs, and I righted a chair and sat down at the kitchen table, oblivious to the mess before me. Tea would have been nice, but I didn’t feel like reviving the fire, and anyway, the teapot lay in pieces on the floor. I just sat there, staring into the shadowy darkness at nothing, chewing on stale bread.
Me and my happy splendid plan. My fabulous rangery skills, my magickal pride. I had thought I was so clever, and yet where had my cleverness gotten us? Nada, zip, nunca mas, nothing. I was an idiot, and a fool, and childish, and a failure. The long mirror over the sink reflected a sullen girl sitting in the middle of a huge horrible mess. Her eye makeup had smeared into pools of blackness, and her hair stood on end. Her lip rouge was blurred, making her mouth look almost bloody.
A nasty taste rose up in the back of my throat, bitter and burning, and I thought I might throw up. I leaned over, swallowing hard, and rubbed at my mouth with a gritty sleeve, scrubbing the rouge away. Now that girl in the mirror just looked washed out, a pale ghost. She would never be a ranger.
In a few hours it would be dawn.
In a few hours Mamma would be home.
Tomorrow was my Catorcena.
A little purple light shimmered, and became Valefor. He was looking pretty papery again, but I didn’t care.
“Well,” he said. “That was a fine time, Flora Segunda.”
“Well-water,” I answered. “Don’t spoil with me, Valefor. I’m not in the mood.”
“So much for heroic rescues. I am banished and even I could hear the screams. Such a magickal battle has not been seen since Hardhands—”
“Not now, Valefor!”
“Well, no matter. You did your best, which arguably wasn’t really that good, Flora. But it’s done.”
“Go away, Valefor.”
“Flora Segunda—you are far too serious. You give up so easily. Was it your fault that Boy Hansgen died? No, of course not. Your plan was perhaps not the best, and doomed to failure from the start, but it was kind of you to attempt it. He was going to die, anyway.”
“Somehow you are not making me feel the slightest bit better, Valefor.”
“Forget about Boy Hansgen. He’s not the first magician to overreach, and he won’t be the last. Let’s move on to more important things.”
“Yes, let’s, Valefor. Let’s, indeed,” I said. “Are you familiar with the term Anima Enervation?”
Valefor shrank back a little, and his shape quavered. “Ayah so? What about it?”
“What is it, pray? Do tell me, Valefor. Enlighten me. You’ve always been quick to enlighten me before.”
“I think, Flora Segunda, from your waspy tone, you know already.”
“No, Valefor. I know that the Dainty Pirate thought I was fading, discorporeal, and he said that a galvanic egregore was sucking away all my Will, and I think he meant you, Valefor, and he said soon it would be too late. But perhaps you can explain it to me better, Valefor! Please do!”
Now Valefor wrung his hands, and his forehead wrinkled like a prune. “Is it my fault that your Will was so weak that it was so soon exhausted? And now we will both run back to the Current from whence we came.”
“What do you mean, Valefor? Speak plainly and cut the mumbo.”
“I was banished to the Bibliotheca and I had just enough stamina to keep myself strong from the wisps of Fyrdraaca Will that came my way. But then you came along and helped me out, Flora Segunda. It was so nice of you, and it enabled me to regain some of my former glory, though not a whole lot of it because, frankly, your Will was never really that punchy to begin with. But it was certainly better than nothing, though now your Will is running out, and so am I—I fear that I shall just dissipate back into the Abyss, and you shall go, too, for we are connected now—”
“Unconnect us, Valefor. Right now. Wherever you are going, you can go alone.”
“Oh, but I can’t, Flora Segunda. We are intertwined now; it’s beyond my control, and there’s nothing I can do.”
“How could you let this happen?” I demanded.
“Me!? I am weakened, Flora—I could not help myself! You are the magician; I am just the denizen. It is your responsibility to take precautions!” The hands were still wringing, but his eyes narrowed into gleaming slits, and I saw that his hands weren’t really wringing as much as they were snapping with an audible crackle.
I stared at him. I should have been angry, but somehow, suddenly, I didn’t care.
“You are pernicious, Valefor. Now I see why Mamma banished you,” I said dully.
“Pernicious! After all I’ve done for you, Flora Segunda, you are so ungrateful. All you wanted were your own little comforts, no true thoughts of Valefor, poor Valefor, you only pretended to be my friend. You never cared for my needs at all, so it seems to me that you only deserve what you are getting, faithless Flora!”
“Leave me alone, Valefor, just leave me alone.” I lay my head down on the table, not caring if I got butter or broken glass in my hair, and closed my eyes. If I vanished, then none of this would matter anymore. No Catorcena, no Barracks, no Mamma, no failure.
“But, there is hope, Flora,” Valefor said, eagerly. I felt him pat my hair hesitantly. “There is hope; we must not despair. You can save us still—”
“I don’t care, Valefor,” I said, without opening my eyes or lifting my head. “Just go away.”
“But Flora, don’t you want to redeem yourself? We haven’t much time, but if I were restored, then I would be strong again and happy again, and so would you be, too, because we are connected. We are in this together, Flora!”
“I do not care,” I repeated. “Go away, Valefor.”
The little pats on my hair became little tugs, and I tossed my head against his grip. “Come on, Flora, just because you must be so morose doesn’t mean that you should take me with you. Think of someone other than yourself for a change—”
I tugged away and stood up, knocking the chair down. Valefor hovered over me, his eyes white, his teeth white, his fingers long and pinchy.
“Leave me alone, Valefor, just go away and leave me alone!”
He tried to get
in my way, but he was too insubstantial to make much of a roadblock. I pushed my way through him and ran outside.
TWENTY-EIGHT
Barbizon. The Pond. A Leap.
VALEFOR DID NOT—perhaps could not—follow me. The sky looked like milky tea and the moon was a swirly smudge just above the tree line. The gate to the back garden was open, and I went through it into the tangled wilderness beyond. Valefor had bragged quite a bit about the marvels of his gardens—how perfect his hedge animals, how tall his cypress trees—but as with the rest of Crackpot, there was nothing left of the glory but the brag itself. Without his care, the foliage had become a tangle of branches, and the grass high and hiding. A small footpath beat its way through the wilderness, and I could just make out its trace through the gloam, leading toward the Sunken Puddle, Crackpot’s ornamental pond.
Just beyond the gate, at the edge of the Puddle, stands the grave of Barbizon, my great-grandfather Azucar Fyrdraaca’s war horse. Her memorial is a statue so energetic that it seems as though Barbizon herself had turned to hard stone in the sudden act of curveting: She balances on muscular back legs, while an extended front hoof forever slices up at the sky, her teeth bared.
I sat down on a rock and stared up at Barbizon’s shadowy bulk. The story goes that when my greatgrandfather Azucar fell at the Battle of Creton’s Harm, mortally wounded, Barbizon stood over him, keeping his enemies at bay with slashes of her sharp iron hooves, until at last my great-grandmother Idden fought her way through the rough din and helped Barbizon drag Azucar from the field. That, says Mamma, is true loyalty.
Something nosed against my leg, and I started, alarmed, before I realized it was Flynn. Dear darling Flynnie. I leaned over and squeezed him, and suddenly my emptiness was filled with a giant black sorrow, piercingly sharp. Now I was choking on tears that seemed to rip from my throat, leaving the taste of blood behind. Each breath I took cracked my heart a bit more, so that darkness spilled upward, outward, tearing my insides to shreds.
Flora Segunda: Being the Magickal Mishaps of a Girl of Spirit, Her Glass-Gazing Sidekick, Two Ominous Butlers (One Blue), a House with Eleven Thousand Rooms, and a Red Dog (Magic Carpet Books) Page 18