by E. G. Foley
Jake was riveted. What a terrifying sight it must have been to peaceful inland farm villages in medieval times—a horde of Viking raiders rowing up the river!
Jake wished the others could have seen it like this, all filled in with faintly-shining spectral energy. He sucked in his breath as the warlord’s phantom followers materialized out of the air and picked up their oars. Jake scarcely dared to blink, unwilling to miss a second of it.
Right there in the museum, he could feel the wind and the pitching waves as the Viking chief and his men took to the seas. He could hear their chants as they rowed—though, of course, it was getting them nowhere.
They must all still be attached somehow to the ship, he thought.
Henry announced it was time to go get ready for the Welcome Dinner and began herding the kids outside, but Jake hung back.
The tutor gave him a private nod and covered his retreat back into the building while the others were distracted.
Jake stepped out of sight behind a display case as Miss Langesund locked the door to the museum. He wasn’t sure how long he might have. There was no time to waste.
The Viking warrior was standing at the bow of his ship, looking pleased that the intruders had retreated.
Jake swallowed hard, then steeled his courage and walked cautiously toward the ghost. “Sire! A word with you, if I may?”
The brawny spirit turned and stared at him in shock. “You, boy! You can see me?” The Viking leader came over to the bluish edge of his ship, propping one laced-up boot up on the low bulwark.
“I can,” Jake affirmed. “Is this your ship?”
“My ship. My weapons,” he growled, nodding at the table with the dagger that Archie had been handling. “My people. My lands! And who are you?”
“Jake Everton, sir. The seventh Earl of Griffon.” It still felt awfully strange to him to be twelve years old and a lord. But his title seemed to impress his fellow nobleman, who nodded in begrudging approval.
“Ves heill. Health and good luck be to you, young master.”
“And to you,” Jake answered cautiously. “Might I ask your name, sir?”
“My name?” The Viking warlord threw his head back and laughed. “Oh, that’s a good one! As if you don’t already know!”
“Er, no. Sorry, sir. No idea.”
“Come, what sort of prank is this? You know perfectly well who I am. Kingdoms tremble at my name!”
Jake just looked at him.
The Viking scowled. “Well, that’s just insulting. I can tell by your accent that you hail from Angle-land, where I terrorized the eastern coast, and yet you claim you never heard of me? You, boy Earl, must be from a puny, backwater village, indeed, if you have never heard of Ragnor the Punisher, Shield King of the North!”
His crew cheered his announcement of his name with hearty bellows.
“Now, admit you’ve heard of my glory! Was it not I and my men who plundered all the lands of our enemies? I made all my warriors rich, and gave out gifts like a very son of Odin! It was I who made the Gauls cower and the Danes beg for mercy, I who sailed to unknown continents, built ships that sea serpents tall as trees could not sink! I who defeated the foul ice grendels—”
His men cheered wildly like the most committed fans at a rugby match.
“That’s right!” he vaunted. “And it was I, let it never been forgotten, who wrestled the treacherous Loki to the ground and tattooed his very cheek, so that my people would always know him, no matter what form he took. Then they would never be deceived!”
“Wait—you tattooed Loki’s cheek?” Jake exclaimed, startled by this claim, considering he had just met a mad prince with a tattoo on his cheek.
But…no, it couldn’t be! Loki was just a legend!
His question went unheard in the general ruckus of the happy warriors cheering and the Viking chief still singing his own praises.
Absently, Jake remembered Dani reading aloud to them from her Norway book about how outrageous bragging had been a major form of entertainment in the old Viking mead halls.
Jake was getting a bit tired of it all.
“Of me, the bards sang tales in every great hall throughout the Norse kingdoms—”
“Sorry, but I’ve never heard of you,” he interrupted impatiently, determined to press on with the business at hand. “Can we get on with it, please—”
“NEVER HEARD OF ME!”
Every Viking warrior ghost aboard threw down his oar and growled, looking ready to pile on Jake.
“I-I’m sorry, sire, I don’t mean any insult. It’s just that you’ve been dead for nearly a thousand years!”
This shocked the Viking chieftain into silence.
“Really?” he asked after a long moment. “Has it been that long?”
Jake nodded.
“Hmm. Time flies when you’re in Valhalla. Doesn’t it, boys?” he muttered to his men, and they all grunted agreement, nodding at each other. But the Shield King of the North was most displeased. “Well, I might be forgotten, but I’m not gone. They have no right to plunder my grave! It’s unthinkable, a sacrilege! Why, I will never allow it! Warn them of my fury, boy, for I will drive them out, each and every one of them! I will terrorize them, and make them pay!”
More fierce roaring in agreement followed, a general clamor from his henchmen.
“But sire, this place is called a museum. If you allow them to put your treasures on display, there will be a plaque telling of your great deeds and conquests. Then your name will truly be immortal. People will come from everywhere to, er, pay homage to your glory. Far from being an insult, this place will be a monument to all your victories in life!”
“Hmm, well, if you put it that way…. You have a smooth tongue. You must have some bardic blood in your veins, Earl of Griffon. One moment.” He flew over to confer quietly with his warriors.
Jake waited to see if they would approve.
The Viking ghosts were arguing among themselves, some sounding offended by the opening of the grave, others shrugging, nodding, as though the chance at fame sounded fairly reasonable to them.
Jake recalled something else Dani had read to him, about votes being important to Vikings even back in ancient times. It wasn’t such a new invention as everyone thought, he recalled her saying.
Any mighty man of courage who showed enough brains and leadership to win his men’s respect could eventually set himself up as a king back then if he tried. You didn’t have to be born to it like nowadays.
At last came the verdict.
Ragnor the Punisher returned to the railing of the ghost ship and gave Jake a nod.
“Very well. My men still say it’s sacrilege, but for glory’s sake, we will stop haunting these grave robbers, provided they tell your world of my, er, our great deeds.” He glanced over his shoulder at his warriors, then looked at Jake again. “In the meanwhile, we will go in peace for now and return to Valhalla, for we find your world frankly rather bewildering, Earl of Griffon. But,” the Viking warned, “I will personally be back from time to time to check on their progress here—and they had better not break my things.”
Jake nodded. “Yes, Sire, I will tell them. I’m sure they’ll take good care of it all.”
“You have put my mind at ease, Earl of Griffon. Farewell.”
“Wait! Sir? King Ragnor?” Jake followed him toward the ship.
“What is it, boy?”
“What are ice grendels?” he blurted out, so full of questions he barely knew where to begin.
But Ragnor the Punisher turned around with a hearty laugh. “Ha! Trust me, boy, you don’t want to know.”
“Pray to Thor you never meet one!” a bearded warrior taunted from the ship, reaching down his arm to help his King up. He had leather armor on and small braids in his long, wild hair.
With his mate’s assistance, the Viking leader vaulted back up onto his ghostly vessel.
Jake just stared at them. What a crew they were, this lot! He would not have wanted to be a
meek medieval monk living on the English coast nine hundred years ago.
Striding up to the bow of his ship, King Ragnor raised his fist. “Come, men! Back to the Hall of Odin and our beautiful Valkyries!”
They whistled and made rude purring sounds at the mention of the Valkyries.
“Row! Row!” he began chanting at them.
They joined in, their deep, ominous voices reverberating through the Exhibit Hall.
Jake watched in amazement as the ghostly version of the Viking ship moved off the posts where it had been superimposed upon the ancient archeological find.
The bluish, phantom ship whooshed off, just as though it were riding on the water. The chants swelled as the Viking warriors drew on the oars, but faded off when the ghost-ship disappeared through the wall.
Jake remained holding his breath for a long moment after it had disappeared. Blimey.
Then he glanced around like someone waking from a dream, still rather dazed by all he had just witnessed.
With the haunting spirits gone, the little museum now had a tranquil atmosphere. He made sure the table display was in its proper order, then hurried to catch up with the others, still amazed.
He let himself out of the building by using his powers; his growing finesse with his telekinesis meant there were few locks he could not master with the right degree of concentration.
Click, pop, turn.
The door opened.
He slipped out of the museum, then locked it behind him again by the same method, not needing a key. In his former life as a London pickpocket, he could have done fantastically well for himself with these abilities, but fortunately for the world, he had sworn off being a thief.
Of course, his stealing skills likely would’ve won him a hero’s reputation if he had been born a Viking, he mused as he slipped off into the darkness, crossing the campus with the stealth of a midnight raider. After all, taking other people’s stuff was the main purpose of the Norsemen’s social calls to foreign places, from what he understood. Aye, Jake thought wryly, he’d have fit right in with that bold, rowdy lot if his life hadn’t changed.
At the moment, however, he’d be satisfied with a large plate of food. With that, he went in search of the long-awaited Welcome Dinner, his stomach rumbling like the distant roar of ice grendels.
Whatever they were.
CHAPTER TEN
Lord of the Shapeshifters
Later at the Welcome Dinner, Jake huddled with Archie and the girls around the kids’ side of the table, telling them in hushed tones about his encounter with the Viking ghost.
Meanwhile, on the adults’ side of the table, Miss Langesund sat between Henry and his sister Helena, the girls’ governess. The ladies all wore richly colored dinner gowns and satin gloves; even Dani and Isabelle were preening in their fancy long dresses.
The boys and all the gentlemen wore formal black and white for the grand dinner officially opening the Invention Convention, welcoming attendees from around the world. The dinner took place in an elegant banquet hall with red carpet, crystal chandeliers, and dozens of large round tables draped in white damask tablecloths and laid with fancy china and ornate silverware, candles and flowers.
Amid this elegant setting, Jake was amused to notice Henry mooning over Miss Langesund. In a gold bustle gown, she did look rather magnificent, having changed her awful hairdo and taken off her glasses for the occasion.
Several famous archeologists were also seated at their table, including Doctor Schliemann, who had discovered the ancient city of Troy and the golden Mask of Agamemnon that Jake had seen earlier.
Miss Langesund kept glancing toward the doors of the banquet hall, clearly embarrassed by her father’s failure to appear. “I can’t imagine what’s keeping him,” she was saying to their colleagues. “He has so been looking forward to seeing you all again.”
“Would you like me to go and knock on his door, Astrid?” Henry offered. “Perhaps he fell asleep.”
“Oh, how kind of you. But it’s all right, Henry, I’ll go. You’ve got the children to look after. I’m sure he simply lost track of the time. He does that when he’s wrapped up in his work.”
“Sounds like someone I know,” Henry answered with a fond glance at Archie.
“I’ll go fetch him,” she said. “Hopefully he’ll make it here before dessert!”
The gentlemen at the table rose politely as Miss Langesund stood; Jake only remembered to do so after a nudge from Archie.
Absently, he watched the lady-archeologist hurry off, slipping past white-coated waiters, who were now delivering the appetizers. Still on his feet, Jake paused to scan the whole scene in curiosity.
Many people were still coming and going from the banquet hall; others milled about among the tables, reading the place cards to find their assigned seats.
As Jake started to sit down again, he spotted a familiar face in the crowd: the loon-bat in the opera cloak from earlier today. The mad prince—or whatever he was—sauntered casually into the banquet hall, greeting people here and there with lordly smiles and debonair nods.
Jake watched him like a hawk. When the prince turned to bow casually to Mr. Edison and the other American scientists at a nearby table, Jake’s gaze homed in on his cheek. He vividly remembered the dark tattoo that he had seen slithering down the side of the stranger’s face, but it had only been visible with the Lie Detector Goggles.
He wished he had them now, as he recalled Ragnor the Punisher’s boast about tattooing the cheek of Loki.
But surely it was impossible.
Jake shook his head to himself. No, it was too much to believe, even for him. Ghosts, gryphons, fairies—yes, these he knew firsthand were real. But ancient Norse gods?
Then he remembered how Miss Langesund had told them that, according to legend, Loki was a shapeshifter. Maybe Henry and Helena might know something about it.
Jake leaned toward their tutor, seated to his left. “Henry?” he murmured.
The mild-mannered tutor glanced at him in concern. “Something wrong?”
“I’m not sure.” Jake beckoned to him to lean closer, then he lowered his voice. “Remember when you found me near the Gatling gun today? And I told you some loon-bat had been playing with it?”
Henry huffed at the reminder and adjusted his waistcoat. “Of course I do, and I’m still waiting for you to come clean about—”
“He’s here,” Jake interrupted. “The man I was talking about. Any idea who that is?” When he nodded toward the mad prince, Henry followed his gaze and suddenly went very still, staring at the stranger.
“Henry?” Jake asked, but the tutor didn’t seem to hear.
Jake could almost see the hackles on Henry’s neck rise as his stare locked onto the mad prince; his entire posture changed in a heartbeat.
Henry’s face went taut; he barely blinked. Though he did not say a word, Jake wouldn’t have been surprised to hear him growl, by the look of him.
His twin sister, Helena, had picked up on the change in his demeanor, too. While Herr Schliemann rambled on about his excavations of the lost city of Troy, she looked at her brother intently.
Henry must have felt her gaze, for he tore his stare away from the mad prince and gave his sister a meaningful glance. “Won’t you all excuse me for a moment?” he asked politely. Pushing back from the table, he rose without explanation, taking his dinner napkin off his lap and setting it by his plate.
“Something wrong, Henry?” Archie asked, but Henry didn’t bother answering.
“I’m sure he’s fine,” Miss Helena said brightly, redirecting the kids’ attention to Doctor Schliemann’s endless story of digging in the dirt.
But Jake knew something was afoot, and it seemed serious.
He watched Henry go right over to the mad prince on the other side of the grand reception room and tap him on the shoulder.
When the stranger turned around, it was obvious they knew each other. Words were exchanged, but it was too far away to make o
ut what the two men were saying.
Jake glanced across the table at Miss Helena to see her reaction. The girls’ pretty governess, fair-skinned and black-haired, had paled a bit with shock at the sight of the stranger. She quickly masked her reaction behind an air of calm control. “Children, will you excuse me, please? I must see to my brother. I’ll be right back. Isabelle’s in charge—she’s the eldest.”
“What’s wrong?” Isabelle immediately asked.
“Not a thing, my dear!” Miss Helena answered brightly as she rose. But you couldn’t fool an empath.
Isabelle frowned as her governess hurried off.
Archie turned to his sister with a puzzled look. “What’s wrong with her?”
“I don’t know, but she was lying.” Isabelle paused. “I also sensed fear.”
“Miss Helena, scared? I doubt that,” Archie muttered.
“Well, something’s going on,” Dani declared.
Jake nodded. “I’ll go find out what it is.”
“I’m coming with you,” Dani said automatically, starting to get up.
“No, stay here. I’m less likely to be noticed if I go alone.” He did not wait for her to argue, but slipped away from his chair and left the table.
Glancing across the banquet hall, he scowled to find that the twins and the stranger had already disappeared. He scanned the vast room, but they were nowhere to be seen.
He decided to go looking for them. They could not have gone far yet. It had only been a moment.
Fairly good at making himself inconspicuous—a vital skill for any former pickpocket—he checked a few different areas off the banquet hall, but when this yielded nothing, he walked outside onto the terrace.
Here many of the men in formal dinner jackets were smoking cigars and pipes and discussing their various fields.
Jake waved off a cloud of smoke and tried the shallow side stairs that led down into the garden. He walked down a few graveled paths among the trees and flowerbeds, looking around here and there. But when he reached the tall green shrubbery maze, he paused, hearing voices.
