by E. G. Foley
“All hail the future Dark Master!”
“We are your humble servants, Your Highness!”
They began cheering for Jake, but only to mock him, he knew.
His friends looked appalled. They’d heard about the prophecy, of course.
“Hail Prince Jake! He’ll destroy the Order one day! The evilest Dark Master ever born!”
“Shut up!” Jake barked, but they merely laughed like he’d just proved their point. “Go away!”
They persisted.
“I don’t think I like imps,” Nixie remarked.
But, of course, the blue-skinned imps weren’t the only ones pestering them. There were red devils, too—just like in the old theater pantomimes, with horns and tails and nasty little pitchforks.
And there were…other things.
“What is that?” Isabelle asked, pointing at a blob-like creature that was staring at them from the roof of the nearest shed. It looked like a giant scoop of tapioca pudding with a face.
The blob shrieked and leaped away when Jake spotted it, boinging off the shed to land in a quivering heap yards away, atop a stone block waiting to be added to the embankment.
“What ridiculous creatures,” Nixie said. “If they’re from Hades, you’d think they’d be scarier than this.”
“Scary enough for me, thank you very much,” Jake muttered, though he was thinking of the shadow demon on the wall.
Archie adjusted his spectacles, as though he’d doubted his own eyes. “I daresay, at least we’ve found the source of Brian’s sulfurous fumes.”
This brought Jake back to the task at hand. “Let’s go. We’ve got to find Dani and him and that stupid dog and get the blazes out of here.” He walked on.
Nixie snickered as she followed. “Oh, come on, Jake, you’re not actually scared of these little critters, are you?”
He didn’t answer.
He didn’t care to tell them about the shadow, nor could he bring himself to repeat the blue imp’s sickening warning that all his friends were doomed.
Of course, devils lied. It was simply what they did.
But Jake wasn’t taking any chances. “Stick together,” he ordered. “And grab anything you can find to protect yourself.”
“Really?” Archie looked at him.
“Really.” Jake paused, not wanting to scare them. “Just in case.”
Hearing the seriousness in his voice, they quit dawdling.
Nixie slapped her wand against her palm. “Well, I’m ready.”
“Sis? Here.” Archie jogged over to an abandoned shovel leaning against the nearby shed the blob creature had fallen off of, and handed it to Isabelle, taking a pickaxe for himself. “Crude, but serviceable.”
“Thanks, brother.” Izzy gripped the shovel and hefted it like the Keeper’s Staff, with which she regularly trained.
“Let’s go. Dani!” Jake yelled again, striding ahead into the fog. “Dani! Brian! Where are you? Curse this fog!”
“Where are they going?” little mocking voices asked all around them.
“I don’t know. We’d better follow.”
“We shall attend you, Your Highness! Hee, hee, hee!”
The imps and devils followed Jake en masse, watching and tittering, as he and the other three marched through the construction site.
Strangely, the creatures kept their distance. Instead of closing in, they peered down from their perches on cranes, sheds, and brick piles, harassing the kids as they passed with mocking comments, rude whistles, and taunting laughter.
A couple of the red devils jabbed pitchforks in their direction, but none actually attacked.
“I think they’re afraid of us,” Nixie said.
“I doubt it,” Jake said under his breath.
“Maybe they’re just afraid of Red.” Izzy nodded upward as the Gryphon arrived on the scene.
His wingspan cast a shadow over the little miscreants everywhere as he swooped down beneath Nixie’s glowing spheres. Red let out a war cry, and the lesser devils screeched, then scattered like ants.
The imp swinging around the crane arm like a gymnast wasn’t fast enough. Red snatched him off the structure by his wrist and flew away, tossing him into the river; Jake heard the splash.
Then the Gryphon circled back.
“Red, find Dani!” Jake yelled.
“Becaw!”
Red went. He flew above the orbs where the fog was thinner and made a pass around the whole site, scanning the ground with his sharp eagle eyes.
“Caw!” The Gryphon suddenly zoomed toward the far corner of the future park, by the river.
Watching where he flew, Jake, Archie, Isabelle, and Nixie raced after him. The Gryphon helpfully hovered over a certain spot till they arrived.
To Jake’s huge relief, they soon found Dani and Brian there, unharmed. Teddy as well.
Joining them, Jake now saw the reason the dog had gone quiet. Teddy wasn’t barking anymore; he was growling.
Against a huge stone block, the terrier had cornered an oddity the likes of which Jake had never seen before—and that was saying something.
“Egads,” Archie said. “What is he?”
“No idea,” Nixie murmured.
The bizarre little creature was only as tall as a child of four or five. It had a body as round as a ball, skinny stick legs that ended in a pair of red shoes, and skinny arms with white gloves on its hands.
A large, single eye stared out of the middle of its belly. The eye blinked once, but for the most part, stayed fearfully fixed on Teddy.
With its back pressed against the big stone block, the funny little thing appeared to be panting, cowering away from the snarling terrier.
“Teddy, you’re frightening him,” Izzy chided. “Leave him be! Dani, make him stop.”
At that, the carrot snapped out of her speechless daze and snatched her dog up in her arms. She wrapped her fingers around Teddy’s snout to quiet him.
“Go on,” Izzy told the frightened little monster with a gentle wave. “Shoo.”
At once, the peculiar wee eyeball fellow ran off into the shadows, pattering off in his little shoes.
Archie started laughing, but Jake turned angrily to Dani.
“Why didn’t you answer me?” he demanded, though he was weak-kneed with relief to see that she and Brian and Teddy were safe.
“Huh?” Dani mumbled, looking dazed.
“You nearly stopped my heart! Oh, never mind. Let’s get out of here.” Jake took her by the elbow and began firmly leading her back toward the street.
“But—did you see that?” Dani said, going along without argument. “Did the rest of you see that, or am I losing my marbles?”
“We saw it,” Nixie said.
“What the devil was it, I wonder?” Archie said.
“Who cares!” Jake answered. “It doesn’t matter, anyway. Something’s wrong, everyone. If you haven’t noticed, these creatures don’t belong here.”
“There are more?” Dani asked.
“Look around!” Jake retorted, still cross at her for disregarding her own safety. Then he gestured to Red to go ahead of them, since the imps and devils were clearly afraid of the Gryphon.
Red dropped to the ground and prowled along ahead of them rather than flying. The creatures melted out of his path, some hiding in the shadows.
“Criminy,” she whispered.
“Why aren’t they attacking?” Brian murmured, bringing up the rear. “They could take us if they wanted to. They’ve got us outnumbered.”
“Maybe that’s not their job.” Jake gave the Guardian an uneasy glance.
Suddenly, one of the devils bounded over to stand before him after the Gryphon prowled past. “Oh, most terrifying Highness, please don’t go!”
Red whipped around and snarled.
The devil cringed from the beast, but held his ground. “I mean you no harm!”
“Good. Then get out of my way,” Jake said. “We’re leaving.”
“But we hav
e a song for you, sire.” The devil waggled his eyebrows.
Jake frowned. “I don’t care.”
“Aww,” said a bunch of the imps.
“We practiced for days! Please?” This fellow was smarmy, with his oily smile and thinly penciled mustache.
“Yes, please, please, please, Your Highness?” they all started whining. “Let us sing our pretty song for you and your friends!”
“It could be enchanted,” Nixie warned.
“It’s not enchanted, cross my heart, hope to die. Come, you’ll enjoy it, and it won’t take much of your time.”
The creatures were not taking no for an answer.
The red devil gestured with his pitchfork to his mates like he held a conductor’s baton. “Hit it, boys! A-one and a-two…”
The creatures all started humming a jaunty yet menacing tune in some minor key, stepping into a large circle around them.
“Goodness!” said Isabelle.
Red hissed, glancing about.
“I don’t like this,” Brian murmured. “We’re surrounded.”
“I know. Just go along with it,” Jake said under his breath. “Watch the ones behind us.”
“Can’t you zap them or something? Then we run.”
“I don’t want to set them off. Too many, like you said. And these things are bloody fast.”
Still humming their song’s introduction, the creatures joined hands like they were playing ring around the rosie and began swaying back and forth in time with the firm, implacable beat. Then they started to sing:
“Ha, ha, ha, you’re in trouble now,
Trouble now,
Hail to the new Black Prince!”
“Wait, why? Why are we in trouble?” Jake demanded.
“Tra, la, la, He’ll terrify the world now,
He’s the boy we must convince!”
“You’re not going to convince me of anything.”
The determined singers sang louder and faster.
“Fa-la-la-la-la!
The rest of you are all quite dead.”
“Hey! Don’t threaten my friends!”
“Ha, ha, ha, it’s so funny now,
Funny now,
All the bad children should’ve stayed at home in BED!”
The Gryphon roared.
All the creatures screeched and ran away.
In seconds, they had vanished.
The night was quiet and dark.
“Huh! Would you look at that,” Archie said, glancing around at the empty park site. “They’re gone.”
Dani beamed. “Good boy, Red!”
But Jake’s blood curdled when he lifted his gaze and saw that it was not the Gryphon who had scared the lesser devils away. “Everybody, be quiet. Now.”
CHAPTER 15
Surrounded
Three Nightstalkers were gliding up Millbank Street.
The spectral assassins were almost invisible in the fog, but Jake’s ghost-sight gave him a talent for spotting such creatures.
They were still some distance down the road but surely would’ve heard Red’s roar, if not that awful song.
They floated about eight feet off the ground, the tattered edges of their hooded cloaks blowing behind them as they approached.
Their faces were concealed by the sort of ventilator masks that Archie used when he was playing in his lab with dangerous chemicals.
“What’s wrong?” Dani whispered, giving Jake a wide-eyed look, but he kept his stare fixed on the wraithlike creatures zooming up the road.
They had reached the edge of the park at the same spot where the kids had first entered the construction site.
Jake gulped. “We’re in trouble, you lot. Don’t make a sound. Stay calm. Crouch down. Nixie, douse the orbs. Quick.”
Nixie did. “Why, Jake?”
Thank the Lord the creatures had not spotted them yet in the darkness. For once, the fog might actually work in their favor.
His friends followed his gaze and saw the three sinister phantoms for themselves; even Brian turned ashen.
The Nightstalkers were carrying scythes, which seemed an especially bad sign. The last time Jake had encountered them, they had wielded long knives.
Nixie lifted her wand uncertainly—not that it would do her any good. “What are they?”
“Nightstalkers. This is what attacked me in Sicily.” Jake’s heart pounded faster. “I’d have been dead if it weren’t for Janos and his darkling blade.”
Izzy looked at him sharply.
“There’s three more coming up the river,” Brian reported, glancing back toward the park.
Aye, Jake saw them. “Blast it, those little miscreants were stalling us,” he whispered. Scanning for an escape route, he could’ve kicked himself.
Janos had specifically lent him a darkling blade for their diplomatic journey to various kingdoms with Uncle Richard and Aunt Claire. Such swords were prized by vampires, who could appear either as solid flesh or a puff of black smoke; the darkling blade worked as a weapon in either form. Thus, it could kill phantoms like these. Janos had insisted that Jake borrow the weapon, just in case. But the whole group had been in such a scramble to reach Merlin Hall that Jake had left it in his blasted, blinkin’ luggage.
“There!” Archie said, keeping his voice down as he pointed toward the ornate roof of Parliament. “Two more atop Victoria Tower!”
Izzy looked around slowly. “They’re everywhere.”
Teddy whimpered while the imps gathered, eager to watch their doom.
Red moved in front of the kids, opening his wings as though he could shield them from the spectral assassins. Unfortunately, Jake doubted there was much that even the Gryphon could do against evil spirits.
“How do we kill these things, Jake?” Brian asked in a taut voice.
“We can’t. They’re phantoms, wraiths. Normal weapons pass right through them. My telekinesis was of no use against them either. I know of only two things that can hurt them: holy water and a darkling blade, like Janos carries.”
“Well, there’s holy water right across the street.” Dani nodded toward Westminster Abbey.
“She’s right,” Jake said. “We need to get inside the cathedral. They’ll have plenty of holy water in there.”
“Except the church is huge, and the entrance is not exactly close,” Archie whispered. “We’ll need to go up the street and around the corner to reach the door. The Nightstalkers will see us.”
“Not necessarily,” Nixie replied.
They all looked over at her.
“I have a new trick.” The witch sounded confident, but Jake saw fear in her dark eyes. “I’ve been studying invisibility spells lately. Ulwyn’s Umbrella is the strongest one I have, but we’ll need to move together in a clump—as if we’re all sharing one, big, dome-shaped umbrella.”
“Fantastic, Nix,” Jake said. “What should we do?”
She waved them closer. “Everyone, huddle together as tight as you can. Wait—let me stand in the middle.” Nixie pushed into the center, then the rest of them did as she said and held on to each other in order to stay tightly packed.
“C’mon, Red. You too.” Jake beckoned, and they had to reshuffle their arrangement, putting the Gryphon in the center, since he was the biggest.
The kids lined up on either side of the beast: Jake, Nixie, and Archie huddled close to Red’s left side, with Dani, Izzy, and Brian on his right. The carrot-head clutched Teddy in her arms, her hand poised to hold his snout closed to keep him from barking. Red folded his wings down and curled his tail across his back to make himself as compact as possible.
Still, Nixie looked worried. “I’m only able to do a ten-foot diameter at best, and I’m not sure how long I’ll be able to sustain it. But it should be enough to at least get us out of here. It was invented by an elvish spy. The Fae know what they’re doing when it comes to magic, trust me.”
“It’ll work. It has to. Don’t worry, we can do this,” Jake said, then glanced at Red. “Keep your
tail in tight, boy.”
“Right.” Nixie nodded. “Arms and legs and tails have to stay concealed beneath the dome. Whatever part of you that sticks out beyond it will be visible. Now, everyone, be quiet. I need to concentrate.” She lifted her wand over her head and began murmuring an incantation.
Something about the determination on her pert face reminded Jake of Aunt Ramona. Within seconds, a silver shimmer fountained up from the tip of Nixie’s wand and formed a small dome over their heads, like an ordinary umbrella.
But it grew quickly.
Jake was fascinated. The magical barrier that her incantation was creating resembled a thin layer of clear, flowing water; it cascaded down around them in a domed circle, hiding them bit by bit from prying eyes. It descended past their shoulders, then at waist level, until it went all the way down to their feet.
When it hit the muddy ground, its silver shimmer disappeared, and they all looked at Nixie.
“Did it work?” Archie whispered.
She nodded. “No talking. They can’t see us now, but they could still hear us. Try to keep your footsteps light, and Dani, make sure Teddy doesn’t bark.”
Without a word, Jake tugged on Dani’s arm. Since they had all grabbed hold of Red and each other, that moved the whole group forward at a cautious pace, one foot after the other.
It took a tremendous amount of self-discipline not to run off in a panic or scream as the Nightstalkers glided closer from all directions and began methodically searching the park.
The kids gripped each other harder as the phantoms floated past.
When one flew by just a few feet overhead, scythe in hand, its hooded face turning this way and that as it searched for them, they could hear its rasping breath beneath the gas mask.
It moved on, passing so close that the torn edges of its cloak trailed over their heads as it glided by.
Everyone winced but resisted the urge to brush off the black streamers of cobwebby fabric. Somehow, they all stayed silent.
Of course, the lesser devils had seen where the kids had been standing when Nixie cast her spell, so they gave the phantom assassins a general sense of where to look, pointing and gesturing.