by E. G. Foley
“You said that the last time; then it came true,” Jake replied. Archie had dreamed about the kidnapped Lightriders being kept in a big, cavern-like chamber in the basement of the Black Fortress, and then Tex had confirmed its existence after being captured himself.
“Well, this one isn’t going to come true, Jake!” Archie’s cheeks flushed with anger, but there was fear in his eyes. “I won’t allow it! Now, would you please let it go? You’ve got bigger things to worry about at the moment, I daresay.”
“Like what, the Dark Druids’ prophecy?”
“No—him.” Archie nodded toward a spot behind Jake.
Still unsettled and confused about what his normally open cousin was hiding, Jake turned around. When he followed Archie’s nod and spotted the “him” in question, he dropped his foot off the low wall with a groan and rolled his eyes.
“Oh, you’ve gotta be joking,” he said under his breath.
Jake’s former nemesis from his pickpocket days was marching past the row of trees toward the boys.
Truncheon in hand, helmet perched atop his head, sunlight glinting off the shiny brass buttons down his dark blue uniform coat, the copper was already frowning suspiciously at Jake beneath his red handlebar mustache.
It was none other than the bane of his former existence: Constable Arthur Flanagan.
CHAPTER 28
The Rupture
“That is the policeman who always used to arrest you, isn’t it?” Archie asked, sounding all too amused.
Jake huffed. “Aye. Even when I wasn’t doing anything wrong!”
Archie’s lips twisted. “Guess he figured it was only a matter of time, coz.”
Jake shot the boy genius a scowl. By mere force of habit, a surly mood settled over him as the straight-arrow, ever-meddling do-gooder approached.
“Well, well,” came Flanagan’s cynical greeting, “look who it is. The boy earl ’imself!”
“Good day to you, constable,” Archie offered. Clearly entertained, he rose to his feet and slipped his hands into the pockets of his brown tweed jacket, looking like a miniature professor.
Flanagan harrumphed in reply and eyed the boy genius skeptically. Beneath the brim of his black helmet, his shrewd glance said that any companion of a former pickpocket must be a shady character, too.
“What are ye lads doing, lurkin’ around the park on this foine Sunday?” he inquired, his voice tinged with an Irish brogue. Flanagan was rookery-born himself, after all, but he’d made up his mind young to rise above it.
“We’re not lurkin’,” Jake retorted, barely noticing his own Cockney accent from the old days returning.
Master Henry would be so disappointed.
“We’re just standin’ here, mindin’ our own business—sir.”
“Lookin’ for trouble, I warrant,” Flanagan said. “Eyeing up your next mark, eh, ye young troublemaker?”
Jake let out a large, indignant scoff. “I didn’t do nuffin’!” he cried. It had once been a very familiar refrain. Not that Flanagan had ever bought it.
Archie glanced at Jake with barely concealed mirth.
Jake fumed. “I’m rich now, constable. I inherited a goldmine. Haven’t you heard?”
“Oh, I ’eard.” Flanagan nodded slowly, unimpressed. “But in my wide experience, many thieves consider it more fun taking others’ property, and you, my lad, you always liked your fun, didn’t you, Jakey-boy?”
“Actually, sir,” Archie cut in smoothly, “we’re just here waiting for our aunt, the Dowager Baroness Bradford. She had a meeting with a gentleman inside Westminster.” He nodded toward Parliament. “Her Ladyship should be back at any moment. I’m, er, keeping an eye on my cousin until she returns.”
“Well, good luck with that,” Flanagan muttered.
But he looked reasonably mollified, reading Archie’s honest nature in his face after giving him a good, hard stare with a copper’s practiced eye.
Jake shook his head at his cousin’s annoying habit of always being nice. (Well, almost always.) “It’s none of his business, Arch. There’s nothing illegal about two people standing in a park. He has no right to interrogate us.”
“What! I’m only being polite,” said Archie. “Honestly, Jake. You should try it sometime.”
“Aye,” Flanagan agreed, and his lips twitched beneath his red mustache in something between a smirk and a smile.
“Trust me, Arch, you wouldn’t be feelin’ so courteous if he’d arrested you half a dozen times.”
“Weeeell, Jake, maybe you had a little something to do with that yourself.”
“I like this lad,” said Flanagan.
“Judas!” Jake said to his cousin with a half-jesting snort. “Sidin’ with the copper against your own kin, eh?”
Archie shrugged. “You’ve had your moments, coz.”
“Thanks a lot.”
“I’m just saying…”
Flanagan arched a brow as the two boys began playfully bickering as only best friends can.
“Well, go on, then!” Jake taunted his cousin, tongue in cheek. “Why don’t you tell him what we had for breakfast, too? I’m sure he’d like to write down all the fascinating details in his little notebook.”
“Can’t you ever just cooperate?” Archie exclaimed, his eyes twinkling. “The constable’s merely doing his job, Jake. I, for one, am glad we have conscientious officers like him on patrol. They protect us from the rabble.”
“Ugh!” Jake said. “Toady.”
“Juvenile delinquent!” Archie shot back.
Apparently satisfied the situation was under control, Flanagan began strolling off, chuckling to himself.
They waited until the noble copper was a dozen steps away.
“Do you think he bought it?” Archie whispered.
Jake laughed under his breath and nodded. “You’re scarily good at charming adults.”
Archie grinned.
At that moment, without the slightest warning, a deafening thunderclap split the clear blue sky directly above Parliament Square.
BOOM!
Its reverberating blast shook the ground and nearly knocked the boys off their feet.
They both yelped, startled; Flanagan whirled around and looked straight at Jake.
“What did you do?” the copper bellowed at him.
“I’m just standing here!” Jake cried as the deep rumbling continued.
Then all three covered their ears as the thunder turned into a giant, ear-splitting screech like the brakes on a train trying to make an emergency halt. It made his very teeth hurt.
The horrendous sound traveled off in both directions, then a rush of wind poured out of nowhere, blowing Jake’s forelock back wildly from his forehead, and dust into his eyes.
He quickly raised his hand to shield his face from the stinging bits of debris gusting at him, while fallen leaves went whipping past him down the street.
“Saints presarve us!” said the constable, holding on to his helmet.
There weren’t many people around, but most of them ran away, screaming. Others ducked or hit the deck.
Top hats and parasols flew by end over end. Petticoats flashed, exposing the ankles of mortified ladies. Passing carriage horses reared up. The pigeons atop Westminster Abbey were blown from their roosts; they squawked and fluttered anxiously, trying to right themselves.
Across the square, the guards posted outside the gates of Parliament scanned the building, as though they feared a huge boiler had exploded somewhere in the basement.
Good Lord.
“Was this your vision?” Jake shouted over the din.
“No, it was worse!” Archie yelled back.
“Worse?”
“Never mind that—look!” Archie’s face was stamped with terror as he pointed at the sky.
Squinting against swirls of wind-blown debris, Jake managed to lift his gaze.
What he saw filled him with horror.
A dark, massive cloud formation had formed directly overhea
d—like an earthquake in the sky. Its epicenter was directly over Parliament Square, but it was widening fast, racing off in both directions like a giant sewing stitch unraveling, swathed in churning clouds.
The violent wind they were experiencing was pouring out of this tear in the otherwise-blue sky, along with a new, distant noise—a deep, ominous pounding.
Aghast, Jake turned to his cousin while Flanagan held on to a lamppost to avoid blowing away.
“What the blazes is that?” Jake shouted.
“Not sure,” said the scholar, the tails of his tweed coat flapping behind him. “I-I-I know of no weather event that matches its description, a-and, well, this is just a hypothesis, but I-I daresay… No! It can’t be.” Archie shook his head vehemently as he studied the sky-quake. “It’s not possible.”
“What?” Jake roared.
“I-I fear it’s a rupture in the Veil!”
Jake stared at him for a second without comprehension.
“Nixie would know for sure,” Archie added with a gulp. “It’s a-a magical thing, n-not scientific.”
“Hold on,” Jake said. “The Veil? The one separating the magical world from the human one? That Veil?”
“Yes, coz. That Veil.” Archie nodded, ashen. “I pray I’m wrong,” he added halfheartedly.
But, as usual, the boy genius was right.
And all across the planet, the shock wave of the rupture barreled on, breaking the boundary between the human world and the magical one with unstoppable concussive force.
In minutes, it roared past over an already-battered Merlin Hall. Sir Peter looked up at the sky through a hole in the palace roof, saw those legendary clouds, and turned white. Finnderool winced and raised his fingers to his temples, bowing his head. Dr. Plantagenet reached for the nearest tree trunk to steady himself, while the magical zoo animals rebelled in their cages.
Standing sentry on the palace grounds, Maddox and Ravyn glanced at each other in dread. The rupture even woke Janos in his coffin inside his private mausoleum in the Merlin Hall burial grounds.
Out in the forest, Prue (in skunk form) peeked out of a hollow log where she’d been lounging, while at Shadowedge Manor, Victor looked up from his endless homework, scanned the sky, and arched a brow.
“Well, that’s new,” he murmured. Then he glanced toward Magpen, who had dived under his bed with a shriek.
Farther afield, Izzy’s unicorns whinnied and reared up, breaking into a frightened stampede, as did the wilder herd in the woods around Jake’s rambling forest cottage in Wales. The gold goblins there screeched in the trees, while in the town, the crystals in Madame Sylvia’s mystical shop hummed with alarm, and the dried herbs hanging from the ceiling swung back and forth.
Even in the depths of Jake’s goldmine, the old graybeard dwarf, Ufuud, enjoying his after-lunch pipe in the miners’ dining hall, sensed a profound change somewhere on the surface world above.
The wild dragons who lived in the forests surrounding the Order dungeon where Uncle Waldrick had been held began roaring and flew up into the sky, breathing fireballs at the frightening phenomenon.
And although Snorri and his giants up in Jugenheim heard nothing, deep in the sea, the merfolk of Poseidonia felt the rupture travel through the water like a tidal wave washing over their world. It swayed the sea trees of the kelp forest, sent schools of fish scattering in a panic, and scared every crab and sea turtle into its shell. Even the giant octopus dozing in the Calypso Deep awoke.
Deeper still, Shemrazul laughed and laughed, while his minions danced and cheered around him. Even Baphomet was impressed, nodding his congratulations from the Tenth Pit.
Eyeball ran around in circles, waving his hands. “It worked, master, it worked!”
“Of course it worked,” Shem drawled, gloating on his throne.
“Well done, my boy.” Wyvern heard his demon father’s praise in his twisted mind and smiled in his dark glasses, the jump almost complete.
The whole catastrophe, however, was felt hardest in London, for that was where the Veil had initially burst.
Queen Victoria, cool-nerved as she was, splotched the note she was writing to the prime minister when her hand jerked at the boom. She looked up warily as the crystal chandelier above her desk tinkled.
A few rooms away, Guardian Derek Stone quit listening to the kids’ flimsy excuses about why Jake and the normally sensible Archie had absconded from the palace.
“Oh, what have they gotten themselves into now?” the warrior whispered. He quickly strode over to the window, Miss Helena a step behind him.
“What was that?” Dani cried over Teddy’s barking.
Brian shrugged, his face blank, but Izzy doubled over in pain.
“Isabelle!” The governess ran to her.
Nixie took her place at the window, stared up at the ominous line of clouds for a moment, and then murmured, “Oh no.”
Derek turned to her at once. “What is it?”
Nixie told them, but across the city, Red already knew.
Standing on the roof of Beacon House, the Gryphon crouched like a lion briefly, startled by the boom. Then he stared at the sky in shock.
In all his nine hundred years of life, not even Claw the Courageous had ever seen a rupture before, but he felt it down to the tips of his magical feathers.
He reared up with a mighty war cry, then launched skyward, flapping hard against the great wind, no longer caring who saw him. It didn’t matter anymore.
Magic was out of the box.
He swooped lower, shooting down the Strand just above the roofs. He scanned angrily with his eagle eyes to find whoever had done this terrible thing. People stopped and stared at him as he passed, pointing and shouting. Filled with urgency, Red ignored them. Only one certainty beat in his heart.
Evil was coming.
His boy needed him.
He had to find Jake.
With a beat of his wings, he climbed higher into the sky and scanned the city’s horizon for Buckingham Palace.
Inside the great Clock Tower, meanwhile, Ramona and Zolond stared at each other in dread.
The Elder witch pressed her hand to her middle, feeling the tear in the Veil like a physical blow to her solar plexus. The sorcerer-king looked equally pained, wincing with a hand to his temple.
“Oh, Nathan,” Zolond whispered, his gnarled grip tightening on his walking-stick wand, “what have you done?” He lifted his gaze to one of Big Ben’s huge clock faces, but it was difficult to see much of anything through the white-frosted glass.
Ramona stared at the shadow of the huge minute hand.
Alas, when her darling Geoffrey sent her a pained glance, in that moment, it seemed they both knew that after some three hundred-odd years, their time was up.
PART IV
CHAPTER 29
They’re Here
Back at Parliament Square, the wind had eased and the scar-like line of roiling clouds was already starting to dissipate.
Dazed Londoners began climbing to their feet, looking shaken. What they made of all this, Jake could not imagine. He barely knew what to think himself.
Although the thunder and the awful screeching noise had receded into the distance with the weird cloud front racing off in both directions, a new sound could now be heard throbbing out of the rupture. It was fainter and farther away, but getting louder.
Jake turned to the boy genius, his heart still thumping. “I don’t understand. Why is this happening?”
Archie shook his head, at a loss. “I doubt even Nixie would know why.”
“Well, think! Let’s try to reason it out. Why now?” Jake said impatiently. “Maybe because the Old Father Yew died? Could the loss of his magic—and the damage to the dome over Merlin Hall—somehow cause the Veil to tear?”
Finally starting to recover, Archie righted his crooked spectacles, picked a stray leaf out of his hair, and gathered his thoughts. “Well… I don’t think something this drastic could happen all by itself.”
Jake’s brows shot up. “You think someone did it on purpose?”
“Don’t you?”
He narrowed his eyes. “Could they?”
Archie shrugged. “Depends on who it is, I suppose.”
The two boys stared at each other.
“Zolond,” they said in unison.
About ten feet away, meanwhile, Constable Flanagan was muttering and gathering himself up, as if he hadn’t been scared out of his wits along with everybody else.
He adjusted his helmet, planted his hands on his hips, and looked around indignantly. “What in the blippity blazes is that God-awful pounding?” he demanded.
Jake had no idea. But the deep, vibrating rhythm coming from inside the rupture grew louder by the second.
As the constable tilted his head back and peered at the sky, the boys did the same.
Jake’s eyes widened as he spotted bluish lightning bolts flickering inside the line of the swirling clouds.
“Oh, no,” Archie murmured, seeing them too.
“Take cover!” Flanagan suddenly roared. “This way, boys!” Racing back over to them, the constable grabbed an arm of each and dragged them toward the nearest statue. “Quick! Get behind Mr. Peel!”
He shoved them to supposed safety behind the big granite plinth supporting the bronze statue of the London bobbies’ famous founder.
Keeping the boys behind him, Flanagan crouched down and peered around the wide granite block. “Don’t worry,” he said absently, scanning the square, “I won’t let anything happen to you youngsters.”
Behind his back, Jake and Archie exchanged a quizzical look. Jake could not deny he was impressed. Even a bit touched. Flanagan was a father, after all, with many children.
Still, the poor copper hadn’t the foggiest notion what he was up against here.
“What do you make of it, sir?” Archie asked, as if he couldn’t resist.
Flanagan kept his sights firmly on the square. “Freak storm of some kind, I warrant. Or possibly, a Congreve rocket that went off accidentally,” he answered, all business. “Must be a Navy ship docked on the river…or a merchant vessel that’s armed against pirates. Mishap with one of the cannons, I wager.”