The Dragon Lord

by E. G. Foley

  Besides, if they were attacked, it wasn’t as thought they were powerless. Jake had Risker and his telekinesis. Nixie had her wand, and as for Brian, well, they’d just have to see whether the new kid was any good as a Guardian or not.

  “It’s creepy out here,” Dani finally said, while Teddy hurried nervously behind her. “I have an idea! Why don’t we sing to cheer ourselves up?” At once, she began an old familiar round: “Hey-ho, nobody home! No food, no drink, no money have I none—”

  “I don’t think that’s a good idea,” Jake interrupted.

  Brian nodded grimly. “We should probably keep quiet.”

  “I don’t see why,” Dani said with a pout. “There’s nobody out here but us.”

  Don’t be too sure.

  Jake and Brian exchanged a wary glance. Jake was glad the Guardian was keeping on his toes. Maybe the new kid would prove useful in a fight after all.

  Suddenly, a flicker of movement in the shadows of a side street caught Jake’s eye. He stopped so abruptly to stare that all of his friends, following, bumped into him, one after another.

  “Sheesh, watch where you’re going!” Nixie said.

  Ignoring the pileup behind him, Jake stood riveted, peering intensely down the intersection on their left. He cursed the fog, conspiring with the darkness to mask the world around them.

  “Something wrong, coz?”

  Jake didn’t answer. Instead, he concentrated with all his senses and the ghost-sight, as well, holding his breath and scouring the darkness.

  “Brian?” he asked in a low tone. “You got anything?”

  The Guardian kid came up beside him and narrowed his keen eyes, peering into the night for a long moment. “Nope.”

  “You sure?” Jake stood stock-still, ready to use his telekinesis if anything charged out of the fog at them.

  “Nothing at the moment,” Brian murmured, speaking only to Jake. “But something’s definitely out there.”

  “Aye. I feel it too.” When Jake noticed Dani gazing at him in alarm, he remembered all of Henry’s lessons in chivalry again. No need to scare the girls. “Right. Well, never mind, you lot,” he said, moving on. “I thought I saw something, is all. It was probably just a stray cat. Or a ghost.”

  “Ghost?” Brian aimed a worried look at Jake.

  Who grinned. “London is a haunted city, mate.”

  “Now you tell me,” Brian muttered.

  “Surely Red would alert us right away if there was any trouble.” Archie nodded up at the Gryphon, who was poised on the edge of a bookshop roof.

  Red’s golden eyes caught the glow of the street lamp below him as he watched from above.

  “Agreed.” Jake nodded, but felt uneasy all the same. “Let’s just keep moving. The sooner we get to Beacon House, the better.”

  They forged on. But they hadn’t gone far when Brian drifted to a halt, staring down an alley in between two shops.

  “What is it, Bri?” Dani asked.

  The Guardian wrinkled his nose, paused, and looked around. “I thought I heard footsteps a little ways back. But now there’s just this awful odor. Does anyone else smell…rotten eggs?”

  “Wait, you smell sulfur?” Archie asked. “As in brimstone?”

  “Well, that can’t be good,” Nixie murmured.

  “I don’t smell anything,” said Dani.

  “Be glad.” Brian wrinkled his nose. “It’s like Beelzebub farted.”

  Jake chortled, and even Archie grinned, but the girls gave the boys withering looks.

  Nixie grimaced. “It’s probably just trash in one of these back alleys. People are pigs. Can anyone else smell it?”

  “Teddy can.” Isabelle hesitated, gazing at the dog, who was panting nervously. “For my part, I-I must admit, I’ve got a most…unsettled feeling.”

  “What are you sensing?” Dani turned anxiously to the empath, but Jake was watching Red scout out the way ahead. Something had got the beast’s attention.

  The Gryphon zigzagged back and forth across the street, his lion paws pushing off the friezes near the tops of the buildings as he flew.

  “I’m not sure,” Izzy said in a halting tone. “There are so many minds here, it’s hard to separate one from another. But it feels like—I hate to say it—something evil coming closer.”

  “Let’s pick up the pace,” Jake said. “Don’t worry, when we reach Beacon House, we’ll be safe.” Hopefully. “C’mon.”

  Teddy whined, but the kids pressed on, huddling closer together as they hurried through the mist.

  Brian tried to lighten the mood a little farther on when they came to a life-sized, painted wooden cutout of the great Admiral Horatio Lord Nelson posted outside the entrance of a pub.

  Above the recessed doorway, gilded letters proclaimed it The Victory. Its hanging wooden sign depicted the famed sea captain’s mighty warship, with which he had destroyed most of the French fleet in the early 1800s, during the Napoleonic Wars.

  As for the great historical hero himself, there he stood—resplendent in his Royal Navy uniform, with his gold epaulets and his bicorne hat, his black eyepatch and his missing arm—for all his glory, reduced now to welcoming pub visitors in for a pint.

  Brian grinned and slung his arm around the flat, man-sized figure. “Argh, look, maties! A pirate.”

  “For shame, sir!” said Archie. “That is Admiral Lord Nelson, y’ heathen. One of the greatest war heroes in all of British history.”

  “Is he really?” Brian lifted his eyebrows and lowered his arm from the cutout’s shoulder. “Huh. Must’ve been the eye patch that threw me. No offense.”

  Archie harrumphed. “Nelson joined the Navy when he was barely our age. He got the eye patch because he sacrificed an eye for King and country—and his right arm, as well.”

  Every British schoolchild knew about Horatio Nelson, but the name was clearly new to the Yank. Brian looked impressed, but Dani heaved a sigh.

  “Can we quit dawdling, please? Teddy’s getting tired. He wants to go to bed, and so do I.” The carrot-head picked up the little terrier and carried him for a while.

  As they all walked on, Jake found himself mulling the life of the great English hero. Having just stepped away from a bloody battle himself, Jake pondered Nelson’s famous courage. He couldn’t even imagine giving up either an eye or an arm, let alone both. That would be like…well, losing his powers.

  He shuddered at the thought. That would leave him defenseless.

  In any case, the kids soon saw the dashing Lambeth Bridge on their right, with its showy red arches. Just beyond it, they came to the spot where the new riverside park was being built in honor of the Queen.

  Victoria Tower Garden, it was to be named—an open, grassy space right next to the Palace of Westminster, the famous buildings where Parliament met.

  For now, though, the future royal park was still under construction, especially the river wall they were building to keep the Thames in check. The stretch of land there needed to be built up from a low, muddy shore into a nice, smooth wall, and the land for the park itself had to be leveled out before they could plant the grass, flowers, and trees for people to enjoy.

  With all that construction underway, the site of the future city oasis was a big, ugly mess. Towering, steam-powered Hercules cranes had been brought in to lift and lower the heavy granite blocks into place for the river wall.

  They should’ve just asked me, Jake thought wryly. He could’ve used his telekinesis.

  There were piles of gravel, pallets of bricks, mounds of mud the workers had dug out and needed to cart away, coal bins and smokestacks for the steam engines, frumpy little padlocked sheds where, Jake guessed, shovels and picks and other equipment were probably stored overnight.

  What an eyesore. He preferred the view ahead, where stately Westminster waited, about a third of a mile up the road. Reaching it would put them at about the halfway mark to Beacon House. Gazing up the road, Jake found it comforting to see Big Ben glowing, strong and steady as
ever, driving back at least some of the fog.

  “C’mon, you lot. We’ve still got a ways to go.”

  Izzy yawned and Dani set her dog down again, then the kids continued up Millbank, wondering aloud why it turned into Abingdon Street right there for no particular reason.

  All except Archie.

  The boy genius had slowed to a halt beside the future park site, studying the builders’ progress with interest.

  Absorbed as he was in the construction project, it was he—not Jake, not Brian, not even Red—who first noticed the strange little creature scampering up the crane.

  Behind him, Jake heard his cousin gasp.

  “What the devil is that?” Archie cried.

  CHAPTER 14

  Lesser Devils

  Jake spun to face his cousin. “What? Where?”

  “That!” Archie pointed wildly at the crane they had just passed. “There! See it?”

  Between the darkness and the fog, Jake couldn’t see much of anything, but he heard metal bits clanking in the vicinity of the crane.

  Everyone else stopped and came back, staring curiously into the dark construction site, trying to spot whatever was making the noise.

  “What did you see?” Jake asked his cousin.

  Archie looked baffled, his gaze locked on one of the Hercules cranes. “I-I’m not entirely sure. Some sort of animal, I think, only…” He faltered. “It had arms and legs like a human. About my height, maybe a little shorter. Slender.”

  “Probably just some kids fooling around,” Dani mumbled. “Troublemakers, I’ll bet. My brothers would definitely try climbing that thing if they thought no one was looking.”

  “I don’t hear anyone,” Brian said, his head cocked to listen.

  But Teddy must’ve heard—or smelled—someone, for he growled, the scruffy fur on the back of his neck bristling.

  In the next heartbeat, the little terrier exploded into furious barking, tore free of Dani’s hold on his leash, and went charging into the construction site.

  “Teddy!” Without a second’s hesitation, she raced into the darkness after her dog.

  Jake and Brian both launched into action, chasing her.

  Red must’ve heard the dog barking. He cawed with alarm from somewhere up the road—perhaps as far away as Big Ben. Jake wasn’t sure, but he trusted that the Gryphon was coming.

  As for Teddy, Jake couldn’t see the terrier, but his yapping reverberated through the construction site and across the river.

  Jake’s stomach tightened, for he’d lost sight of Dani as well amid the sinister swirls of fog. “Dani!” he yelled, his heart pounding.

  Brian raced up a slag heap and crouched down atop it, scanning the darkness. “Dani, get back here now!”

  “Do you see her?” Jake asked.

  Brian squinted. “She’s headed toward the river.”

  Jake strode deeper into the park while Teddy’s barking became even more savage. “Blast it, carrot, you can’t simply run off like th—”

  “Jake!” Brian said in a shocked tone. “Look.”

  Still crouched atop the slag heap, Brian pointed upward. Jake paused, turning to him. He had been searching at his own eye level for Dani, and at ground level for her dog. But, uncertainly, he followed the upward angle of Brian’s extended finger.

  And then he saw it—a hideous humanoid animal of some sort, shimmying up the crane’s smokestack.

  “Nixie, light!” Jake shouted.

  “On it!” the witch yelled back from the street.

  I knew we were being watched. Jake didn’t take his eyes off the strange, wiry creature. But dread for his best girl seized him. “Dani, get over here, now!”

  “I’m not leavin’ Teddy!” she hollered back, hidden by the fog. “I think he’s cornered a rat or something!”

  “It isn’t a rat,” Jake replied. “Forget the dog—” he started, but knew he was wasting his breath. “Go,” he told Brian, who had also seemed spellbound by the strangeness of the blue-skinned creature. “Bring her back if you have to drag her. I’ll watch this thing. If it moves, I’ll blast it with my telekinesis.”

  The young Guardian nodded, leaped off the slag pile without hesitation, and ran in the direction of Dani’s brogue-tinged voice, instantly vanishing into the mist.

  It was now just Jake and the creature, staring at each other.

  The skinny, pointy-eared thing had frozen once it realized it had been spotted, as though unsure whether to flee or hold its ground.

  “What are you?” Jake demanded. “Why are you following us?”

  It snickered but didn’t answer, and continued wriggling higher up the smokestack—like some tropical islander climbing a palm tree to pick some coconuts.

  At that moment, the illumination spheres that Nixie had conjured left the tip of her wand like big, pale, shining bubbles, and slowly ascended over the construction site.

  A dozen pale orbs of soft, glowing light floated up into the fog and began spreading out across the future park, lighting up the small sections of it beneath them.

  When one of the orbs passed the creature on the smokestack, Jake got a better look. He rather wished he hadn’t.

  The creature had blue skin, a hooked nose, and a rail-thin body dressed in nothing but a loincloth.

  Instead of running away, as Jake had rather expected, it peered down at him with a sly gargoyle’s sneer. “We know who you are, Jakey-boy,” it taunted in a crackly, high-pitched voice.

  Jake blinked at its use of his name, but held his ground.

  “You’re ours,” it continued. “The Horned One has decreed it—Your Highness!”

  “Your Highness?” Jake retorted as a chill ran down his spine.

  “You will be the Black Prince. You can’t undo the prophecy—especially now that you’ve got blood on your hands!” A crazed cackle suddenly burst from the creature’s lips, and Jake recoiled.

  How could that thing possibly know about the sky pirate he had killed tonight by accident? Unless…

  “Wyvern sent you!”

  “No-ho, but his daddy did! Tonight, you will join us, Lord Griffon.”

  “No, I won’t.”

  “You, we want,” it said eagerly. “But the others? Your little friends? They’re doomed!”

  “Dani!” Jake thundered, turning toward the river as he suddenly realized he did not hear Teddy anymore. “Brian!”

  He was suddenly alone in the fog, and when he spun around to face the creature, it was gone.

  Fear gripped him.

  He sensed a powerful evil approaching.

  Then Jake saw it. The towering shadow on the wall of Westminster Palace, at the edge of the park. He stared in horror. Surely his eyes were playing tricks on him.

  Blacker than black, the huge, horned silhouette spanned the whole stone wall of Parliament, and it was moving. It swished its dragon tail as it turned and shifted tattered batwings. Its clawed fingers curled into fists by its sides.

  Red eyes gleamed from the wall, searching the night.

  Were they staring right at him?

  Jake took a step backward.

  The shadow let out a frustrated snarl.

  His mouth went dry. What was it that imp had just said? Wyvern hadn’t sent them. His daddy had. Shemrazul…

  We need to get out of here.

  “Dani!” he yelled, suddenly turning toward the river, his heart pounding. “Dani O’Dell, answer me right now!”

  “Where’d she go?” Archie asked, hurrying out of the darkness just then.

  Jake whirled around and had never been happier to see his eccentric cousin. Nixie and Isabelle were right behind him, running into the park site from the street.

  “Egads, coz, you’re as white as a ghost.”

  “Look—!” Jake pivoted and started to point at the wall, but the demon’s silhouette was gone.

  “What is it, Jake?” Nixie asked.

  He swallowed hard, his heart thumping. “D-did you all hear that horrible sound? Like
a-a snarl?”

  “No.” They shook their heads.

  “What did you see?” Izzy asked with a penetrating stare.

  Jake fell silent, still rattled by the realization that something worse than he’d ever imagined was hunting them.

  And yet he wasn’t sure whether Shemrazul had actually seen him. The terrible gaze of those gleaming red eyes had swept right past him, as though he were invisible.

  “Never mind.” Jake decided to tell his friends about it later. Right now, he just wanted everyone to get to Beacon House. Besides, the demon was gone. “I-I thought I saw something, is all. Probably—just a shadow.” He cleared his throat, a little embarrassed that they could tell he was scared, and turned away. “C’mon, Dani went this way.”

  He strode ahead once more, his senses on high alert. Glad as he was to have the trio’s reassuring company nearby, a part of him wished they hadn’t followed, after that nasty little creature’s threat against his friends.

  It made him jittery—and all the clutter of this blasted construction site made him feel claustrophobic, boxed in.

  “Nix, come on!” Archie said when the witch hung back.

  Jake turned and saw Nixie standing motionless, her astonished gaze trained upward.

  “Imps!” she said, and pointed.

  “Oh, is that what you call ’em?” Jake muttered, but then he saw his cousins glancing around in shock.

  “Good Lord,” Izzy whispered.

  Jake followed her stare and was startled to find there were imps all over the park site.

  As soon as Nixie’s illumination orbs revealed their presence, the lesser devils burst into gleeful laughter and scattered. They began running amuck around the kids, twirling like acrobats around the crane’s arm, racing on tiptoes across the stacked bricks, and somersaulting along the half-built embankment.

  Others juggled chunks of coal, then hurled them at the kids with the most unpleasant snickers. Jake and his friends ducked.

  “Hey!” Jake yelled. “Stop that!”

  “All hail the Black Prince!” one yelled in a squeaky voice, and the others joined in.