by E. G. Foley
It made them feel much better to be reminded that although their adult chaperones might be frozen, at least they still had Claw the Courageous on their side.
“All right, it’s down to us now,” Jake said after a moment. “We’ve got to work together if we’re going to rescue Isabelle.”
Dani took a shaky breath. She nodded. “Just tell us what to do.”
“Did Garnock say anything about why he was kidnapping her or where he might have gone?” Jake asked Dani. “Did you hear him say anything useful?”
She furrowed her brow. “Well, after he threw me in the leaf-pile, I heard him say he had a friend he wanted her to meet.”
Oh, no.
“Maybe he meant the Dark Druids,” Archie whispered.
Jake shook his head. The sick feeling returned to his stomach. He hoped with all his heart he was wrong, but he had a feeling…
“I don’t know,” Jake lied, for he dared not tell them his suspicion, especially Archie, “but I’ll bet I know where he’s gone. I need to get back to the Tomb.”
“What, down in the coalmine?” Dani asked in confusion.
“Hang it! I almost forgot about the rockfall.”
“I can get you in there. I just need to mix up some explosives,” Archie said at once.
“That sounds dangerous,” said Dani.
The boy genius glanced at her. “I’d do anything to save my sister.”
Jake clapped him on the shoulder. “That’s the spirit, coz. I’m sure Emrys will have whatever you need—”
“I already have it in my chemistry set,” Archie cut him off.
“You brought your chemistry set on holiday?” Dani muttered.
“Of course.” Archie turned to Jake. “But why would Garnock take my sister to the tomb?”
“Is he going to kill her?” Dani whispered, wide-eyed.
“No.” Jake strove to find the most tactful way to put it, but he couldn’t bear to tell them his theory.
It was only logical.
Now that he was back among the living, the last thing Garnock would want was to have to keep looking over his shoulder and worrying about the devil on his tail.
What better way to make amends with the demon ally he had betrayed than to offer up another soul to take his place? There were probably few souls of higher value than the unusually pure type belonging to a Keeper of the Unicorns. If Garnock offered up Isabelle in his place, he’d be off the hook—free to enjoy his unnatural new life without worrying about the devil coming to collect on their bargain.
And if he succeeded, then poor Isabelle would be stuck in that horrible netherworld for all time, prisoner of the demons, unless Jake could save her.
“Are you sure about this?” Archie was asking. “Because we can’t afford the time if you’re wrong.”
“Sure enough,” he replied, dodging the need to explain. His suspicions about Garnock’s reason for taking Isabelle would only terrify them more. “Come on, then. Enough gab. Are we going to go and rescue her or what? Let’s go down to the cottage and get our supplies.”
“What about Miss Helena?” Dani asked as all four of them started running down the trail. “What if the tree goblins start sniffing around her? Don’t they bite?”
“We’ll send Snowdrop up to stand guard over her until Madam Sylvia can come and unfreeze her.”
It seemed to take forever to reach the cottage, but when they got there, they gave Snowdrop her instructions. She was appalled to hear how badly it all had gone, but sped out to the woods at once to watch over poor Miss Helena.
Archie immediately began collecting the needed items for the explosion. At least knowing he’d have the chance to blow something up seemed to make him feel better. It was one of his favorite things.
Dani turned to Jake. “What can I do?”
“You need to get down to the Harris Mine School and tell Derek what’s happened as soon as he’s unfrozen. Nimbus can drive you. Once Madam Sylvia’s done with Derek, bring her back here to fix Miss Helena. Tell Derek to follow us down to Garnock’s lair. We may need his help once he’s back in action.”
“But that mine is huge. How’s he going to find it?”
“He’ll have to sing. When Red and I went down there, I left a trail of Illuminium behind us like breadcrumbs so we could find our way back out. All he has to do is sing and he should be able to follow the Illuminium trail just fine.”
“So you’re out of Illuminium,” Dani said, nodding. “Here, take mine. It may come in handy down there in the dark.” She offered him her pouch of the powder. He accepted it with a grateful nod and tied it to his belt.
Then Jake hollered for Nimbus to get the carriage ready for Dani.
“All set,” Archie said, marching back up the hallway with the Vampire Monocle pushed up onto his head and a satchel full of explosives over his shoulder. “We’re in luck. I had a few sticks of dynamite left over from the Invention Convention. Some American railroad engineer gave them to me. If they can blast through the Rockies with this stuff, it should work for us.”
Jake and Dani took a wary step back from him at this announcement.
“So he just carries these sorts of things around with him?” she murmured.
Jake nodded. “I know. He’s a traveling laboratory.”
But it seemed the moment had arrived. Red prowled over into their midst, ready to carry the boys to the coalmine.
“Well, this is it, then,” Dani said. “Promise me you’ll both be careful.”
“We will,” they said.
“Don’t blow yourselves up. And Jake, bring Isabelle back to us. We need her.” Dani’s voice caught on the threat of another sob as she spoke these plaintive words.
Jake couldn’t stand for her to start crying again, so he distracted her—shocked her was more like it—by giving her a quick hug. “Don’t you start that again, carrot-head,” he mumbled, and gave her a brotherly kiss on the head.
She pulled back and looked at him like he was a tree goblin.
Jake grinned. “Gotcha.”
Fortunately, his unexpected show of affection had the effect he’d hoped. She forgot all about crying.
Instead, she backed away from him as if he had a disease, then turned and ran outside to the carriage.
Through the window, they saw her climb up onto the driver’s box beside Nimbus Fingle. Then the brownie coachman slapped the reins over the horses’ rumps and they went tearing off for the Harris Mine School.
Jake glanced at Archie, who backed away, putting his hands up. “Don’t even think about hugging me.”
Jake laughed and clapped him on the shoulder. “C’mon, coz. We’ve got a Keeper to rescue.”
Archie nodded, his jaw clenched in resolve.
Then the boys climbed on the Gryphon’s back. Jake leaned down to murmur in his mount’s ear: “All right, Red. The Lightriders dealt with this devil once before, but it’s our turn now. So let’s go and finish it.”
“Caw!”
Red took a few running steps then leaped into the air, his scarlet wings pumping powerfully as he rose into the air with his passengers.
The October sky was cold and windy as he bore them aloft, but nothing would deter them now.
Both boys held on tight as the Gryphon carried them over the mountains to the mine.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
Light in a Dark Place
Jake had always suspected that Archie’s love of blowing things up would come in handy someday.
Deep in the coalmine a short while later, having left Red out in the woods where he wouldn’t be seen, the boys crouched at a safe distance down the tunnel from the rock pile blocking the collapsed tomb.
Jake held his ears while the boy genius lit the long fuse with a gleeful look of intensity. The spark burned its way along the ground to where he had packed the dynamite in among the rocks.
“Wait for it…” Archie murmured.
BOOOOOM!
The deafening sound of the explosion rever
berated down the tunnel, followed a moment later by a rolling cloud of dust.
The boys coughed a bit, waving the dust away, then peeked around the bend in the tunnel, lifting their lanterns to see if the entrance to Garnock’s tomb had been cleared.
Jake clapped Archie on the back as soon as he saw that the sticks of dynamite had done the job.
The huge mound of rocks from the collapse that had trapped him in the tomb had now been pulverized.
They raced down the tunnel, but when they arrived at the newly formed opening, Jake held Archie back. “Stay out here. I don’t want to risk another collapse. The chamber will still be unstable without a few support beams. Learned that the hard way.”
“I’m coming with you! She’s my sister!”
Jake knew his cousin was terrified for Isabelle—they all were—but he shook his head in adamant refusal. “It’s too dangerous. You already got shrunk! What if he does something worse to you next time? Please, just stay back. I’m the only one he seems the least bit afraid of, because of my Lightrider bloodlines. Please. I’ll take care of Isabelle. Just stay back and send Derek in, if he reaches us in time. I’ll holler if I need you, I promise.”
Archie grumbled, peered longingly through the hole into Garnock’s lair, but finally nodded in reluctance. “Be careful, Jake. Save her.”
“I’ll have her back to you in no time.”
“I know. I believe in you, coz,” he said.
Touched by his cousin’s words of encouragement, Jake gave Archie a grateful nod, then turned to face the tomb.
Blimey, he did not like caves any more now than he did when he had first arrived in Wales. Nevertheless, he climbed over the rubble left by Archie’s explosion and entered the tomb once again.
He shuddered upon arriving, lifting his lantern high. He did not say it aloud, but privately, he could not believe he had to come back in here.
At least this time there weren’t any gargoyles trying to bite his face off. No, he thought dryly as he crossed the chamber warily, now he only had to contend with their master. An enemy far older and far more powerful than he. An enemy that, frankly, he had no idea how to defeat.
But there had to be a way. There just had to. Isabelle’s life was at stake. No, actually, more than her life, he thought. Her soul. Her afterlife. Eternity. Because the underworld was where bad people were sent to endure eternal punishment. She, of all people, did not deserve what would happen to her if he failed.
Then Jake’s blood ran cold, for as he went down the dark stone steps into the second room with the skull-shaped doorway, he suddenly heard her screaming.
He drew in his breath, momentarily paralyzed with fear. Good Lord. He had never heard anyone scream like that before. It was a sound of pure agony and raised the very hackles on his nape.
He’s torturing her!
At that realization, Jake instantly forgot all about his own terror, racing across the room and through the skull doorway to save her.
He would never forget the sound of those screams for as long as he lived—and if he failed, he knew he would never again be able to face Archie or Dani or Aunt Ramona.
As he burst through the door into Hades, which Garnock had left propped open, the smoke briefly choked and blinded him. He brought up his hand to shield his face. It was all as unpleasant as he remembered. The fiery heat, the sulfur smell, the wailing and gnashing of teeth from millions of dead souls who had earned their torment. Thieves and murderers, cheats and swindlers, liars and maniacs of all kinds.
And the innocent Keeper of the Unicorns.
Jake stopped at the top of the stairs, taken aback when he spotted her below. The moment his vision cleared, he saw, thank Heaven, that Garnock wasn’t torturing her.
He wasn’t even touching her.
On the flat rocky plateau at the bottom of the stairs, she was tied up with her arms over her head to a wooden frame resembling a gallows.
The sorcerer himself was standing, arms raised, at the cliff’s edge, shouting into the void to summon his former demon ally, Jake supposed—the one he had betrayed with his trickery.
No doubt he had some making up to do after cheating the devil of his promised soul.
Neither Garnock nor Isabelle had noticed Jake’s arrival yet, but for his part, a chill ran down his spine despite the river of fire nearby as he suddenly realized why such bloodcurdling screams were coming out of his poor cousin.
Isabelle was an empath.
Her particular gift was feeling what other people felt. Only now did it dawn on Jake how this terrible place of suffering would affect someone with her abilities.
Of all the people to be dragged down here! he thought. She couldn’t even stand to be in a crowd in all the hustle and bustle of London. Even that was too overwhelming for her exquisite sensitivity, so finely attuned was she to the emotions and attitudes of everyone around her.
It was what made her so compassionate toward others, but in this place, no wonder she was screaming like that.
Isabelle was in agony, drowning in a sea of other people’s pain and horror and regret. Sharing the despair of the damned. He swallowed hard.
She’ll go mad if she stays down here much longer.
Jake knew he had to get her out of here.
He also knew that Garnock was going to do everything in his considerable power to stop him.
Given that the sorcerer was still flickering between spirit and solid form, Jake wasn’t sure what—if anything—he could actually do to him. Nevertheless, he started rushing down the stairs, despite his lack of any particular plan.
Well, he thought, using his telekinesis to push Garnock off the cliff sounded like a decent start.
He filtered out Isabelle’s tormented screaming as best he could because it so unnerved him. Then he cleared his mind, focusing on the wizard’s back.
Determined to shove her captor off the ledge into the canyon below, he summoned up every ounce of magical ability at his disposal.
Now!
From the very core of him, power rocketed out of his palms, amplified by the presence of the great quartz crystals just outside the skull door.
Garnock didn’t have a chance. He went shooting over the cliff as though he had been blasted by the water from the strongest fireman’s hose that ever was.
Jake sustained the beam and did not stop until the sorcerer had disappeared over the stone ledge with a shout, plummeting into the dark, fiery pit beyond.
Where he belonged.
Jake’s chest was heaving when he finally dropped his hands to his sides. He was a little dazed by the outpouring of power and could already feel his temples starting to throb. But as draining as that had been, he was still in much better shape than Isabelle. He pulled out his runic dagger and ran to cut the ropes binding her wrists.
Having seen him, she had stopped screaming.
“Jake,” she said weakly. Her blue eyes were glazed with pain. Her face was smudged with ashes.
“Don’t worry, I’m going to get you out of here.”
He lifted his knife to free her, but she glanced past his shoulder and gasped. “Jake, look out!”
Knife still in hand, he whirled around and was astonished to find the sorcerer floating back up over the side of the cliff again, his black robes billowing in the breeze.
“Surprise,” Garnock said sweetly, gliding up higher into the air. “Now it’s my turn,” he snarled. Suddenly brandishing a twisted black wand, he aimed it at Jake, and a snakelike wave of dreadful magic came crackling out of it, so powerful it emitted a deep, droning hum.
Shielding Isabelle with his body, Jake instinctively raised his hands to ward off the current of dark magic barreling toward them.
He was not entirely sure what he had expected to happen, but even he was shocked when, somehow, his telekinesis bent the beam of magic coming at him and deflected it toward the red underworld sky.
Garnock was visibly outraged by this trick, though Jake was as bewildered by it as the sorcer
er was.
The wizard redoubled his efforts, and Jake continued to channel the furious current of power elsewhere. He and Izzy remained unscathed—for the moment.
Garnock finally gave up on that, slightly winded.
Heart pounding, Jake tried to hide the fact that he, too, was rather exhausted from the effort.
Garnock studied him through narrowed eyes. “Well, you’re just full of surprises, aren’t you, little Lord Griffon? I didn’t hear you come in. But honestly! Shooting a fellow in the back? Hardly worthy of a young Lightrider.”
“That’s the least you deserve.” Bristling, Jake stood his ground in front of Isabelle, with sweat from the fires of Hades dripping down his face. “You kidnapped my cousin. You killed Brother Colwyn. You shrank Red and Archie and froze Derek Stone. You nearly drained the life out of all those students, and terrorized their teachers.”
Garnock smiled. “To be sure, I am such a naughty man.”
“Man? You’re not even human anymore, after you changed yourself into a black fog. You might have got your body back, but you’re still not a real person. I’m beginning to doubt you ever were.”
“Insulting me isn’t going to save you, you insolent snail.” Garnock floated down from the air and landed on solid ground, studying him intently. “Tell me how you did that. Bent the stream of magic away? I heard no chant. You don’t even carry a wand. What’s the trick?”
“How should I know? But you better not come near me or my cousin, or I’ll give you something worse,” Jake warned.
Garnock laughed. “Such threats! Boy, you may have a prodigious amount of natural talent, but it’s obvious you have no idea what you’re doing. All that power, wasted on a cheeky little numskull. But…you’ve got courage, coming in here. I’ll give you that. I daresay with the proper training, you could actually be something someday, couldn’t you?” the sorcerer mused aloud.
Indifferent to the volcanoes in the distance and the screams echoing from the city of the condemned, Garnock pocketed his wand and held up his hands to show he was unarmed. Then he started walking closer, step by cautious step. “Perhaps I was hasty in trying to destroy you. I could use a new apprentice.”