by D. R. Martin
Then, without any warning, they popped up through the top of the massive cloud and fog bank. “I can see the end of the clouds off ten or fifteen miles,” Uncle Ez announced.
That was music to Johnny’s ears. They’d be able to observe the ground again, and maybe get back on track. And if the gas was running out, they’d have a decent chance to find some place to land.
Johnny’s attention had been toward the ground. But Nina urgently nudged him with her elbow and pointed skyward. “Look.”
Johnny blinked up into the blue, cloudless sky stretching above them to infinity. It was so much brighter than being in the fog that, at first, he couldn’t see much. The light overwhelmed his eyes.
Then he saw what Nina had seen.
“Holy maroley,” he said, his jaw dropping.
Soaring along, faster even than the gyrocopter, were hundreds of ghosts, scattered off into the distance. Many were mounted on horses. Others flew under their own power. And they all seemed to be warriors. From the Middle Ages. From the Dark Age. From more recent centuries and wars. Scattered among them were Northern Raiders and Steppe Warriors and cavaliers.
We’ve flown right into the middle of a regiment of ghosts, Johnny realized. It had to be the force that Percy was sending to attack Royalton. And down below there were probably a whole bunch of bog zombies heading toward the great city.
Johnny had to get down on the ground now and sound the alarm. This was real proof that an attack was on the way.
“Uncle Ez,” he hollered. “We’ve got to land as quickly as we can. We’ve got to tell people what we’ve seen.”
Uncle Ez twisted around as best he could, looking puzzled. “What’ve we seen, then?”
Johnny had forgotten that Uncle Ez didn’t have etheric vision. He had no idea whom he was flying with up here.
“There’s a ghost force all around us,” Johnny said. “And I think they’re heading for Royalton. Take us down first chance you get.”
Uncle Ez nodded briskly, then gave Johnny and Nina the thumbs-up sign.
“Uh-oh,” Nina said, rather loudly.
Johnny’s blood was cold already from the fog, but it cooled a few more degrees upon hearing Nina’s utterance.
“What?” he asked dismally.
“Over to the left. Is that who I think it is?”
Johnny twisted his head. There, a hundred feet away, was a Steppe Warrior charging along, seemingly oblivious of the gyrocopter. It looked an awful lot like Burilgi. If it was him, and he should happen to see who was sitting in this rear seat, well… They were utterly defenseless in old Thumper.
“Nina, you’re right. I think it might be Burilgi. Pull up your hood and slump down, like you’ve fallen asleep. I’m gonna do the same. With any luck, he won’t even notice us. And take off your goggles—they’re a dead giveaway.” Nina did just that.
Johnny leaned against the side of the aircraft facing away from the Steppe Warrior. He would wait a moment, then take a peek. By then, Burilgi should be gone. The ghost, after all, was flying faster than the gyrocopter.
Johnny counted up to sixty seconds. Then he slowly moved, still keeping his face hidden, until he could see off to the left.
He managed not to jerk in surprise. If he had, it would have been the end.
There was Burilgi, not forty feet off Thumper’s port side, galloping along, regarding the aircraft and its occupants with a certain curiosity. Of course, Uncle Ez wasn’t aware of those empty eye sockets coldly studying him. But Johnny and Nina had to convince the warrior wraith that these wet, chilly passengers were unworthy of his interest. Lucky, Johnny thought, that Nina was wearing that black, hooded jacket. Burilgi couldn’t even see her face.
But Burilgi came in closer yet. And Johnny thought that those bleeding eye sockets revealed some glimmering of recognition.
The specter seemed to know who they were!
A scowl formed on the Steppe Warrior’s flat, cruel face. He began to withdraw his sword from its scabbard.
Johnny was frozen in place, unable to do anything but watch that curved blade reveal itself. There was nothing he could do to defend himself and Nina. Without even thinking, he held on to Nina even tighter. Twelve and three-quarter years wasn’t a long time to be around, but at least he’d packed it with a lot of neat adventures. It could’ve been worse. And they wouldn’t die alone.
Just as Johnny was saying his final goodbyes to the world, their rescuer—who had no idea he was a rescuer—came dashing out of nowhere, right to Burilgi. Another Steppe Warrior.
The two ghosts exchanged a few words. With the noise of the rushing wind and the thumping rotor above, Johnny had no idea what they said to each other. But it caused Burilgi to re-sheath his sword, give one contemptuous look in Johnny’s direction, and charge forward with the other ghost. They easily outpaced the gyrocopter and flew quickly out of sight.
“I think we’re okay,” Johnny told Nina. “You can straighten up.”
“What happened?” Nina asked breathlessly. “I feel practically blind now, without my goggles.”
And Johnny told her. He was about to inform Uncle Ez that they had just had a very close call, when he noticed that the gyrocopter was descending. There was clear visibility beneath them, the rolling green landscape stretching out ahead.
Uncle Ez twisted around and shouted back to Johnny and Nina. “We’ve had a bit of luck. I can see Chapswith Castle down there, with its oval moat. Blackfield and Wickenham aren’t too much further.”
Chapter 36
Friday, February 7, 1936
Wickenham
Grandmother had appointed Bao the official ghost greeter at Wickenham. All morning long the little wraith haunted the grand entrance hall and front staircase, waiting for ghosts who flew in to report on their searches through MacFreithshire for Johnny and Nina. They were just starting to arrive.
Whenever a new ghost turned up, Bao would look at him or her eagerly, hoping to see a happy or encouraging expression. But most of what Bao got were grim and downcast looks.
Bao always asked, “Any sign of Johnny and Nina?”
No one ever said yes.
In the small sitting room where Grandmother questioned her ghost searchers, all that Bao heard was that this district or that village or those farms had been thoroughly gone over, with fine-tooth combs. And no sign of the two missing youngsters had turned up.
The mood in Wickenham certainly hadn’t improved the evening before, when Colonel MacFarlane and his troopers had finally come back from the north. The colonel blamed himself for losing the two youngsters at the train wreck, and no one could persuade him otherwise.
At lunch Bao listened as Grandmother, the professor, and Mel discussed the weird headaches and stomachaches that ghosts up north were reporting. They wondered if the ailments had anything to do with the mysterious fog that kept appearing and disappearing. Mel ominously suggested that Percy had somehow upset the balance of the ether, causing these effects.
“Maybe by reanimating so many dead bodies,” she said, “Percy has caused some part of the ether to intrude into the physical world. What if he has created some kind of connection between the two universes?”
The professor raised his index finger. “That’s an interesting idea, Melanie. Percy may be drawing a sort of miasma from the ether, which we perceive as the fog. And, being of the ether, it affects the residents of the ether—the ghosts.”
“Exactly,” Mel said. “The irony is that Percy may not even be intending to do it.”
Dame Honoria shook her head and groaned. “Sometimes I wonder if he’s doing all this just to torment me. I often think that I should never have made him eat all those prunes when he was little.”
The ghost searchers that continued to arrive were of all different sorts and sizes. Bao had rarely seen such a variety of wraiths. But they all had one thing in common—none of them had found a trace of Johnny or Nina.
As badly as Bao felt about this—because she still had a hopeless c
rush on Johnny, and Nina wasn’t too bad a person—she felt sorrier for Mel. The young woman took the loss of her brother and Nina very hard indeed. Even a letter from her friend Danny Kailolu failed to lift her spirits.
Later that afternoon Bao asked the colonel if she could ride along on his patrol up in the sky. She thought some company might help to take his mind off his worries about Johnny and Nina. And she loved flying with him and Buck.
Bao sat in front of the colonel on Buck and gazed up, down, sideways, backward, and forward, on alert for anything suspicious. She did see lots of ghosts. But there were always ghosts flying around up above Wickenham—just as ghosts flew around everywhere. The ones Bao saw were the local wraiths “mooning about,” as Mel liked to say.
Several thousand feet in the air, trotting along on Buck, Bao could see great distances. Even though it was still wintertime in the Royal Kingdom, the rolling hills down below looked green and rich. She could only imagine what her father, a farmer of rice and other crops, would have given for land like this, rather than the sparse, hard ground and small paddies he had to work with back home.
The sun peeked through puffy white clouds, but far to the north a dense fog bank covered the land. Off over Bao’s left shoulder came a strange mechanical sound—a distant, barely audible thump-thump-thump-thump. She twisted her head around and squinted back in that direction. It was some kind of flying machine, but not like any she had ever seen.
“What is that?” she asked the colonel.
The bearded officer took a look over his left shoulder and shrugged. “Don’t know, Miss Bao. Shall we go have a look?”
“Yes, please, let’s.”
They galloped in a broad semi-circle back toward the peculiar aeroplane.
Bao could see that the thing was quite different from the flying boats that she had ridden on. It was small. And it had no great wing to hold it up in the air. Instead, the aircraft had some kind of giant blade going around up above, while a smaller blade spun in front. There was a bearded man in flying goggles in the pilot’s seat. Bao saw a passenger. Or maybe it was two passengers.
Suddenly, the strange flying machine banked away and started to descend.
“I think he’s making for that landing strip down below,” the colonel shouted in Bao’s ear. “And we had better go check him out.”
Chapter 37
Friday, February 7, 1936
Airborne over Gilbeyshire
It’s not that Johnny didn’t like Nina. But he was getting awfully sick of being crammed into this little cockpit with her jammed onto his lap. Fortunately, their flight south was almost over. Uncle Ez was heading for a broad, grassy stretch down below—the Blackfield aeroport.
“We have to get to Wickenham in a big hurry,” Johnny yelled in Nina’s ear. “Dame Honoria can phone her contacts about the attack on Royalton. Maybe we’re not too late.” But when he thought about the flying ghost warriors, he feared that time may have already run out.
They came in over what looked like an vineyard, then flew almost on top of a large herd of cows, and finally settled down on the long grass strip with hardly a jolt or joggle. They rolled to a stop close to a hangar that resembled Uncle Ez’s back in MacFreithshire. By this time, the big rotor up above had stopped turning. Uncle Ez killed the engine.
Nina climbed out of the back seat. Johnny followed, hanging his Ritterflex back around his neck. He checked to make sure all his film rolls were safely in his pockets. He could still feel the pins and needles in his legs and feet when he hit the ground, but at least he didn’t collapse in a heap.
Uncle Ez cupped a hand to his mouth. “Anyone at home?” he hollered.
There was no response, until the door of the nearby cottage—brick below and thatched roof up above—swung open.
Johnny cringed a little, half expecting some angry farmer with a shotgun to emerge. Instead, a tall woman in knee pants and heavy wool sweater came out, wiping her hands on a red towel. She stared at Johnny and his friends, then at Thumper. A toothy smile broke out on her weathered, freckled face.
“Low on petrol, are we?”
It turned out the woman was a flier herself, proud owner of an old army air corps biplane. She and Uncle Ez instantly struck up a conversation about the gyrocopter. They were so deep into their discussion that Johnny had to interrupt them by tugging on Uncle Ez’s arm.
“Excuse me,” Johnny said. “But we need to get to Wickenham as quickly as possible.”
“Maybe we can lend a hand,” said a voice from above him.
Johnny jumped about a foot in the air, then looked up. There, hovering in mid-air, were Colonel MacFarlane, Bao, and Buck.
“Am I ever happy to see you guys!” Johnny exclaimed. “Can Nina and I hitch a quick ride to Wickenham?”
* * *
After saying goodbye to Uncle Ez and his new friend, Johnny and Nina hopped aboard Buck. The colonel flew them straight back to Wickenham, with Bao zooming along beside. Johnny shut his eyes tightly most of the way. When they arrived, the two youngsters jumped off the ghost horse and raced up the front stairs and into the stately old house.
With Bao in the lead, they went in through the entrance hall, past all those glorious paintings, then turned down the long hallway to the library. The door was open and all three of them burst in. The room smelled like a used bookstore, like old paper.
“Grandmother, I found them!” Bao shouted.
Dame Honoria, hunched over her desk, looked up. When she saw Johnny and Nina standing there, her long, gloomy face lit up like an electric bulb.
“You’re alive!” she gasped. “You’re alive! Melanie, see who’s here!”
Johnny spotted Mel, with dark circles under her eyes, blinking up from her desk.
Then it was her turn to look amazed. “You’re safe!”
Not that he didn’t expect it, but Johnny quickly found himself smothered in Dame Honoria’s firm embrace, while Mel was hugging Nina and shouting, “I don’t believe it! I don’t believe it!” Then the two older women exchanged their victims for another round of hugs—but fortunately, very few kisses. Dame Honoria got two or three in, on Johnny’s forehead.
By now, Professor DeNimes—who appeared to have been sleeping at his desk—had joined the scrum. He slapped Johnny on his back and said, “Good job, old boy, good job.”
Johnny grinned at the professor. “Real glad to see you, too.”
The onslaught of affection took another moment to run its course. Then Mel grabbed Johnny by the shoulders and looked him straight in the eyes, in that big-sisterly way of hers. Johnny knew what was coming.
“Where have you two been? What have you been doing? We’ve been worried sick about you. Why didn’t you get word to us?”
“It’s been a week since that train wreck,” Dame Honoria said. “And it’s as if you both vanished from the face of the earth.”
“You haven’t seen an Imperial centurion ghost and a little dead blonde girl, have you?” Johnny asked.
Mel looked baffled. “What in the world are you talking about?”
“Guess you haven’t. But now we’ve got some real important intelligence that you have to get to the authorities.”
Then, in a torrent of words fraught with excitement and danger, Johnny and Nina told about what they’d seen up at fourteen thousand feet not an hour earlier. And how Percy and Miss Worthington-Smythe themselves had made menacing mention of Royalton. And how if you put everything together, it seemed that a massive ghost assault on the capital might be imminent.
“We even sent two ghosts here to warn you, in case we didn’t make it,” Johnny continued. “That’s the centurion and the girl ghost. Guess they got lost or something.” Johnny hoped that Petunia and Quintus were okay. He’d feel awful if anything happened to them. And what about Raj? Had he gotten word through to the SGS about the zombie camp at Bilbury Hall?
Dame Honoria marched over to her telephone, talked to the local operator, and waited for a line to Royalton. She first
spoke to the home secretary’s assistant, and gave him Johnny and Nina’s report. Then she called her contact in the royal household. She quietly and urgently repeated what Johnny and Nina had told her, then listened. She said goodbye, set the hand piece back in the receiver, and strode back to Johnny and Nina.
“We are to report immediately to the king at Castle Henry,” Dame Honoria said gravely. “In person. Johnny and Nina, I’ll have the upstairs maid draw two quick baths for you and lay out changes of clothes. You appear to need them. We’ll leave as soon as you’re spick-and-span, and ready to go.”
Chapter 38
Before they left Wickenham, Johnny had a quick visit with the colonel and the soldiers of the First Zenith Cavalry Brigade. To a man, they were impressed with his tale of flooded culverts, zombie battles, and the gyrocopter flight. Johnny had his back slapped more than a few times.
Some of the ghost troopers’ stories were equally hair-raising. The battle of the derailed train had been fierce and terribly treacherous in the fog—where the danger of mistakenly attacking a comrade was ever present. By the time the colonel and his men, assisted by SGS agents and army soldiers, had driven off the zombies and their ghost allies, it was too late to find Johnny and the others. Though they searched and searched.
Sergeant Clegg kept apologizing, but Johnny blamed it on the confusion of battle and his own decision to shoot off a flashbulb. For their part, the ghost troopers felt that there was something about the fog that, as Private Boo put it, “took the sap right out of us.”
By the time they started for Castle Henry, it was dusk. Johnny, Nina, Mel, and Dame Honoria spent the drive catching up on the past week’s events. Johnny wanted to know about Uncle Louie. Mel said she had sent word to him about the kids’ disappearance. He was supposed to arrive at Wickenham the next day, to help with the hunt.
The report of Percy’s late night visit to Wickenham’s library caused Johnny’s jaw to drop. That scoundrel sure got around. Johnny had seen him and Pamela in the upstairs corridor at Bilbury Hall just a couple nights ago. But Johnny was excited to learn that the clues Percy had unintentionally provided all pointed to Okkatek Island—the very spot where Johnny’s parents, Lydia and Will Graphic, were last seen. Mel and Dame Honoria had already made plans for an expedition there in a few weeks.