by E. G. Foley
Jake heaved a sigh of relief that it all had gone smoothly. His first mission was a success. Now that their task was complete, he could finally feel the tension easing from him. So this is the life of a Lightrider.
The trip through the Grid had been a magnificent birthday present, but he doubted Derek had asked Aunt Ramona if it was all right to bring him here. The Elder witch probably would have been aghast at the suggestion. Even lazy dragons could be dangerous, after all. Not to mention the fact that Archie and he had almost been murdered by a half-troll today.
The thought reminded him of his question for Maddox. He paused on the trail to wait for the Guardian lad to catch up.
“Wanted to ask you something,” he said as Maddox reached his side. He kept his voice low to avoid the adults’ overhearing. “Why didn’t you want me to tell Dr. Plantagenet about the troll boy attacking everybody?”
Maddox shrugged. “All’s well that ends well.”
“Easy for you to say! He could’ve killed somebody.”
“Luckily for you, I saved your arse.”
Jake scowled at the reminder.
“Look, I’ve heard some things about Ogden Trumbull that you might not be aware of. I think there’s a chance that if you were to tell on him…” Maddox hesitated.
“What?”
“Well, from what I’ve heard, some of the Elders wanted him put down ever since he was a baby. This could be enough to seal his fate. I didn’t think you’d want to be responsible for that, at least not without knowing about it in advance.”
“Put down? You mean killed?”
“Yes. Though I’m sure they’d try to do it humanely, but…”
“Why on earth would they kill him?” Jake asked in shock. The Elders were hardly known for ordering people’s deaths.
“Because he never should’ve been created. Wizards aren’t allowed to tamper with Nature like that, taking bits of different species and patching them into one. It’s considered a crime against nature.”
“He is pretty grotesque,” Jake admitted. “Still, it seems a bit much to order his death for something like that. I’m glad you warned me.” He brooded on this a moment longer as they walked up the trail. “Can’t they just train him?”
“They’re trying.”
“At least they could keep him in a cage.”
Maddox shrugged. “He’s committed no real crime.”
“Attempted murder?”
Maddox laughed. “All kids fight, don’t they? But unlike the zoo creatures, see, Ogden Trumbull’s half-human. That means he has certain rights, like not being locked up for no cause. He can think to some extent, you know. He’s somewhat self-aware. Can you imagine how it must feel knowing you are literally a freak of nature? A monster?” Maddox shook his head with a surprising look of compassion for the beastly being he had trounced. “I feel sorry for him. The older he gets, the more he understands his fate. He’s got cause to be angry. He never asked for this.”
“Well, attacking people isn’t going to help his case. I can’t imagine why he went after Archie, of all people. He’s probably the most pleasant person on the whole planet. Gets along with everyone.”
“It is strange. Og’s not usually that aggressive.” Maddox shrugged. “Maybe something about your cousin set him off.”
“Don’t blame Archie—”
“I’m not. Just trying to figure it out. Og probably felt bad about not being included in any of the groups earlier today.”
Jake rolled his eyes. “You sound like Isabelle, always making excuses for everyone to try to be nice. It’s annoying.” Jake elbowed him. “Maybe you would make a good beau for her. I could put in a good word for you with her father. Of course, then you’d owe me.”
“It’s you who owe me, since I saved your neck. But I’m not interested, anyway.” Maddox stared straight ahead, though he looked a little wistful. “Guardians don’t have time for girls.”
“Really? Tell it to the lovebirds, Derek and Miss Helena.”
“That’s different. Derek’s a master-level Guardian. At this point, he can do whatever he wants. He’s earned the right. Besides, the Order needs him too much. Me…they can drop.”
“You do like her, though.”
“No, I don’t.”
“You’re a terrible liar.”
“Well, I’m not as good at it as a former thief,” he retorted.
Jake stopped walking. Low blow! “Was I supposed to starve?”
“None of my business,” Maddox replied with a slightly judgmental look as he continued up the trail.
“Sorry if everybody can’t be as perfect as the great Maddox St. Trinian,” Jake muttered.
“I’m not perfect. I just train harder than you do. I have a work ethic. Discipline. And I don’t expect everything to be simply handed to me because of my bloodlines…Your Lordship.”
Jake’s jaw dropped.
Maddox swaggered up the trail without looking back.
“Pompous often?” Jake fairly shouted as soon as he recovered from his shock. “So is that your problem with me—my title?”
“My problem with you?” Maddox retorted, turning around. “You’re the one who’s been giving me dirty looks from the moment Derek introduced us!”
“Have not!”
“Oh, yes, you have,” Maddox said with a piercing stare. “And I think we both know why.”
“Uh, excuse me?”
“Do I have to say it? Fine. You’re jealous of me. Because you’re used to being the center of attention, and you can’t stand it that I can do certain things better than you. You don’t have to be like that, all right? We’re not in competition. You’re just a little kid to me.”
“Little kid?”
Infuriated, Jake watched him strut away. Unfortunately for Maddox, at that moment, he happened to be walking past the giant pile of dragon poop.
A wicked grin spread across Jake’s face. He was no glorious Guardian, but he did have telekinesis. A well-timed flick of his fingers from a distance was all it took to spatter the great, pompous Maddox St. Trinian with dragon poop.
The older boy froze in his tracks while Jake laughed heartily.
“If Isabelle could see you now! Oh ho, what’s that smell?”
Maddox looked down at himself in astonishment, his clothes speckled with stinky dragon doo.
Unbeknownst to Jake, Isabelle had guessed right about the reason why Maddox had not gone to the ball; he didn’t own a tuxedo. In fact, the clothes on his back were nearly all he had brought and among the best he had. Thus, Jake did not expect the reaction he got in answer to his prank.
The dragons they had left behind were nowhere near as terrifying as Maddox St. Trinian when he turned around, fury burning in his coal-black eyes.
Jake abruptly stopped laughing.
Indeed, he would not have been entirely surprised if Maddox had breathed out flames of fury at him.
Instead, the oh-so-controlled Guardian lad wiped a small splash of brown off his cheek. Caught in the young warrior’s blazing stare, Jake took a step backward, all signs of a grin wilting off his face.
Gulp.
What was he thinking, picking a fight with a Guardian-in-training who casually talked about cutting people’s arms off?
Jake’s hands fisted at his sides. “I-it was only a joke,” he stammered.
“Hilarious,” Maddox murmured in an icy tone, then he charged him.
In the split second as Maddox came tearing down the path, Jake froze. What do I do? Defend myself? Apologize? He didn’t really want to fight him.
“Aw, come on! I was just messin’ aroun—”
He never did get to finish the sentence. The Guardian’s hard shoulder collided with him, knocking the wind out of him and sending him sailing six feet off the trail.
Fortunately, the cushion of leaves on the forest floor gave him a soft landing.
Unfortunately, Maddox wasn’t done punishing him yet. He yanked him up off the ground while Jake was still try
ing to catch his breath.
“You spoiled brat.” Tossing him onto his feet, Maddox wrestled Jake’s right hand behind his back—obviously, to stop him from using his telekinesis. “I’m sick of watching you get away with everything. It’s time somebody put you in your place, you little runt.” Maddox was shoving and marching him toward the dragon poo.
“Hey! Leave me alone! What’s wrong with you?” Jake protested, finally managing to breathe again. “Can’t you take a joke? Let me go! You can’t push me around! I outrank you, you know!”
“You think your fancy title makes you better than me?” Maddox shot back in outrage.
Still keeping Jake’s right hand immobilized, Maddox knocked his feet out from under him with a sideways kick. The young Guardian grabbed him by his legs, and the next thing Jake knew, he was dangling over the mound of dragon doo, headfirst.
“Noooo!” Jake pleaded, his eyes watering at the stench. This was a much closer look at the disgusting droppings than anyone could ever want. He winced, he grimaced, he pleaded, and Maddox darkly laughed.
“Tex! Help me! Dr. P!”
The Green Man shot a worried look at the cowboy. “Munroe, do something!”
“Aw, wouldn’t dream of it, Greenie. Boys got to sort it out ’emselves. Just a part o’ growin’ up.” Tex lit a cheroot and watched the proceedings with a chuckle.
“You’re barmy!” Jake yelled at him. “Useless Lightrider.”
“The Guardians have a saying,” Maddox informed him, panting with exertion as he held him over the dragon poo. “You hit me, I hit back twice as hard. You flick that stuff on me, I toss you in it. What do you say? Whew, my arms are getting tired,” he taunted.
“Don’t you dare!” Jake bellowed, upside-down, the blood rushing to his head, the tips of his blond forelock almost touching the giant turd as Maddox lowered him another inch closer to it.
“They’re too much alike, that’s the problem,” Dr. Plantagenet mused aloud.
“No, we’re not!” both boys answered vehemently.
The Green Man arched a leafy brow.
“You’d better let me go—now!—or I swear my Gryphon will rip your guts out as soon as he’s done molting!”
“I’m not afraid of your big, bald Gryphon! But your little red-haired wife, she seems pretty scary.”
“That does it!” Jake bellowed in utter fury.
Better to be dropped in the poop than accused of being married to Dani O’Dell.
Although it did occur to Jake just then that he had kissed her on the forehead earlier today. Ugh, what the deuce had he been thinking? Must have been temporary birthday insanity.
“I demand to be released this moment!” he ordered, folding his arms across his chest as he hung upside down, and trying to sound very lordly and intimidating. Which was rather difficult under the circumstances. Nevertheless. “You do not want to go to war with me, St. Trinian!”
“What are you going to do, sic your ghosts on me?” Now it was Maddox’s turn to laugh at him. “But very well. I suppose if you really want me to let you go…”
“That’s not what I meant, no!” Jake flailed again, feeling the older boy’s grip on his ankles starting to loosen. “Don’t drop me, please!”
“Maddox St. Trinian!” a deep voice roared all of a sudden from farther down the path. “What do you think you’re doing?”
Suddenly, Derek was there.
“Sir.” Blanching, Maddox whisked Jake away from the giant turd and immediately set him on the ground.
Jake jumped to his feet, red-faced and scowling, brushing leaves off his clothes. “He tried to kill me!”
“Don’t be absurd,” Maddox muttered.
“What is wrong with you two?” Derek boomed with an angry glance from one to the other. “I turn my back for one minute and you two are at each other’s throats!” He stepped between them, moving protectively in front of Jake and glowering at Maddox.
The older boy dropped his gaze. “He started it,” he mumbled.
“And you lost your temper. That is a luxury a Guardian cannot afford. Besides, blast it, you’re the older one, Maddox! You’re supposed to be an example!”
Maddox started to object, then bit his tongue. “Quite right, sir. I apologize.”
“O’ course, there was the small matter of some dragon turds bein’ flung in your protégé’s direction, courtesy of our birthday boy,” Tex drawled, taking another thoughtful puff on his cheroot.
“You cannot be serious.” Derek glanced at Tex, then looked at Jake in disbelief. “What did you do?”
Jake cast about, trying to look innocent, but Derek scanned Maddox and read the true story in the flecks of dragon dung all over his clothes.
“He was being pompous!” Jake insisted.
Derek rolled his eyes, then growled under his breath in frustration and seized them both by the backs of their coat collars. “Come on!”
He thrust them forward on the path, grumbling and lecturing them by turns all the way back to the waypoint.
Look what you’ve done now! Maddox’s angry glance seemed to say.
Jake made a face at him. Perhaps he was acting a little immature, but he couldn’t seem to help it.
The worst part came when Derek ordered them both to apologize and shake hands while Tex punched in the coordinates to take them back to Merlin Hall. Neither boy wanted to lower himself to a truce; they just glared at each other. This impulsive quarrel seemed to have taken on a life of its own, and Jake didn’t know how to back out of it. Plus, his pride wouldn’t let him.
Maddox was staring at him like he thought him a spoiled baby. You’re just a little kid to me.
How insulting! And yet, now he couldn’t stop acting like one.
“Apologize!” Derek ordered while Dr. Plantagenet collected his things and jumped into the waiting portal.
“It was just a joke!” Jake exclaimed.
“You’re not going into the Grid before you say you’re sorry. You want to be treated like an adult? Act like one!”
Jake stifled his rage and ground out, “Sorry!”
“Maddox?” Derek prompted.
“Yes, sir.” Jake seethed as the Guardian-in-training made a great show of his vaunted self-discipline. Even in apologizing, he was showing off.
“Terribly sorry,” Maddox said in a flat monotone. “Just a misunderstanding, I’m sure.”
His stare seemed to say, See? I can even apologize better than you.
Jake could have howled with frustration at his rival’s hardheadedness. He just wanted to get back to civilization and end this vexing excursion. It was his birthday. Maddox never should have been invited.
“Now shake on it,” Derek commanded.
“No way! I’m not touching him,” Jake said. “He’s got dragon doo on him.”
“And whose fault is that?” Derek roared.
Maddox thrust out his hand, eager to prove himself the bigger man once again.
Oh, I can’t stand you, Jake thought, but two could play that game. Aye, Jake took it even a step further, summoning up an Uncle Waldrick-like smile as he shook Maddox’s hand.
They parted sharply.
“You. In,” Derek ordered Jake, nodding at the portal. “And when you get there, go straight to your room.”
“Fine.” Without any hesitation this time, Jake jumped in and went whooshing through the Grid, still too angry to care much about all the wonder of it and so forth.
But then, a few minutes later, fate gave him one last, sweet twist of revenge.
Jake was standing on the lawn, getting over his queasiness, when Isabelle came running over with a bunch of pretty older girls—the same ones with whom she’d gone out collecting the Beltane dew. And that stuff must work because they all looked awfully pretty to him.
“Jake! How was it?” Isabelle greeted him, eager to hear about his adventures on the other side of the Grid. Jake eyed her friends with interest.
Brimming with curiosity, the girls had gathered aro
und the portal when, suddenly, Maddox St. Trinian came tumbling out, rolling across the grass and landing at Isabelle’s feet.
Still covered in dried dragon poop.
Innocent, pure-hearted as she was, even Isabelle couldn’t help herself, automatically wincing and clamping her fingers over her nose with a low, “Ew.” All the other pretty girls laughed and did the same.
Maddox squeezed his eyes shut and thumped his head on the grass in wordless humiliation.
Now we’re even, Jake thought in satisfaction. And his roguish grin returned.
It didn’t last, however.
When Derek stepped through the portal, he swept the scene before him in a glance, then offered Maddox a hand up.
He pulled him onto his feet, clapped him on the back, and said, “Good work back there. Dismissed. As for you, Jake, your behavior was atrocious. Go to your room!”
With all the lovely young ladies looking on, Jake withered slightly, his usual defiance rearing up. “Hey, it’s my birthday, I want to—”
“I SAID GO!” Derek thundered so loudly it was a wonder that the towers of Merlin Hall didn’t crack and fall down like the bloody walls of Jericho.
All the girls jumped and went absolutely silent.
Jake was very sure he shrank to the size of the dwarves they had recently visited in Wales. His voice was gone. His cheeks glowed like red-hot coals.
Maddox glanced back over his shoulder with a sly smile as he marched off across the grass alone.
Jake looked at Derek helplessly, then dropped his gaze, and without another word, did as he was told.
But he sure didn’t like it.
CHAPTER TWENTY
Smoke on the Wind
“I hate this place,” Jake grumbled at Red that night, having sneaked off to have a grand sulk in the company of his Gryphon. “I hate dragons. I hate that kid. I tried to get along with him, but he’s a pompous fool! Derek and he can have each other, I don’t care!”
“Becaw,” his peach-fuzzed pet said sympathetically.
“Why is the whole world against me? Oh, yeah—and I hate that troll kid, too. Frankly, I hate everybody. Except for you, Red. And Gladwin. And Archie, I guess, and maybe Dani, too. I want to go home.”
