The Firebird Mystery

by Darrell Pitt

  The truck slowed to a crawl. Then Jack heard the front wheels splash into the water. The vehicle paused and Jack looked up. An island lay a few miles offshore. There were no boats. Maybe one was due to arrive in a minute.

  The engine surged and the steamtruck drove at full speed into the water.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Jack gasped as water rose up around the vehicle. The truck swayed from side to side. Allowing himself a backward glance he saw the pebbled shoreline. The road he had travelled down disappeared into the hills.

  The engine changed as new sets of cogs and levers were brought into play. Jack felt a surge of power from the rear of the vehicle. The truck began to cut through the waves like a boat.

  An image surfaced from the depths of his exhausted mind: the underside of the steamtruck had been oddly shaped. He had not given it a second thought, but he now realised that the undercarriage had been designed to do exactly this—travel across the water.

  Jack found he could now relax. The ‘boat’ moved far more smoothly in water. He still had to hold on, just not as tight. His stomach growled. When had he last eaten? It seemed like days, but it had really only been hours.

  Waves splashed across the front of the vessel. The cold sea and the offshore wind were almost refreshing after the day’s journey. Jack looked ahead. They were racing to the island. A medieval castle rose from its centre. A thick curtain of forest enveloped the rest of the land.

  He laid his face flat on the roof.

  Not much longer now, he thought. Please. Not much longer.

  The vessel reached the shore, pulling into a sandy cove. It jolted once or twice, and Jack heard the shifting of cogs and gears again. After a momentary whirring of engine parts, the vessel gripped the shoreline and started up the beach.

  Jack tilted his head, seeing nothing but solid rock.

  Bazookas!

  They were driving straight into the cliff face!

  The truck slammed into the rocky wall. But, to Jack’s surprise, it yielded, turning into a piece of fabric. It was a false cliff decorated the same colour as the rock. The curtain slid across the roof, the weight of which almost dragged Jack off.

  They drove into a cave illuminated by flickering gas lamps. He could see the tops of shelves and drums stacked close to the ceiling as the truck drove onto a hard level surface.

  The vehicle drew to a halt, jolted once, and the engine cut out. Jack could have wept with relief. He heard people disembark. At one point he made out the angry voice of Paul Harker, followed by a thump. Their captors had a long conversation in German. After a time, their footsteps headed in the direction of an open doorway leading away from the chamber.

  Jack rolled onto his back. Rather than travelling on top of the truck, he wished it had simply run straight over him. It would have been less painful. Every muscle in his body ached. It seemed an eternity had passed since he had leapt from the side of the metrotower onto the airship.

  He closed his eyes.

  I’ll just rest for a minute, he decided.

  Just a minute.

  Just a…

  Jack woke in gaslit gloom. He had been dreaming of being buried alive and he hit out at the stonework, still believing he was inside a coffin many feet under the earth. The impact of his hand against the cold roof brought him back to reality. He was still on top of the truck with the stone ceiling a foot over his head.

  He remembered: the airship, the truck, the island.

  His unlikely hiding place had kept him safe during his sleep. He rolled over. His body felt stiff, but the total exhaustion that had plagued him the previous day had evaporated.

  What time was it? He had slept for who knows how long and anything could have happened to Scarlet Bell and Paul Harker. He had to find them.

  Jack almost laughed out loud. He was only a child. How could he hope to rescue Scarlet and Mr Harker? Still, he had come this far. Not everyone would have done as well. Now was not the time to doubt himself. All he needed to do was find them and get out of here.

  Wherever ‘here’ happened to be.

  His stomach growled. He wished he had some food.

  The beef jerky!

  Bless Mr Doyle, Jack thought.

  He pulled out one of the small parcels and unwrapped it. The jerky was hard to chew, but it was enough to abate his hunger. While he ate, he listened intently, but heard nothing. Good. Whoever occupied this building must be some distance away. He climbed down to the floor and swooned.

  Jack grabbed the vehicle for support. For the first time in twenty-four hours he stood on solid land. Taking a hesitant step, he found he could walk. It seemed he was in some sort of storeroom, packed with boxes and containers. He lifted a tarpaulin and discovered drums that smelled of oil. Others contained machine parts and laboratory equipment.

  Making his way to the exit, Jack peered out and saw a narrow tunnel lit by gas lamps. He wished he had a weapon. A big gun would come in handy right now. Barring that, at least he had the element of surprise. The kidnappers had no idea he existed. He wanted to keep it that way.

  He crept down the tunnel, but his footsteps still seemed to echo as if he were stamping across a tin roof. The passage went on forever. He wondered if it led to the castle he had spotted yesterday from the water.

  A wooden doorway, set into stonework, stood at the end. If it were locked, then he would have to give up. He gripped the ancient handle and turned it. Nothing happened. Then it gave a rusty squeak and he pulled it towards him. He peeked out into a stone corridor.

  Empty.

  Jack entered. A steep, winding staircase lay at the far end. As he climbed the stairs he listened for sounds. He thought he heard distant voices.

  At last he reached the top where the stairs met a hallway. Jack glanced in both directions. Nothing moved, but now natural light penetrated a number of windows. He was at ground level in the castle. It appeared to be very old.

  He tiptoed to his left. The windows faced an open courtyard. Two men walked across it. They were dressed in the same brown-shirt uniform as the men on the airship. Jack’s heart raced with fear. He hurried along the hall to an intersection. Voices now echoed down the hallway.

  Jack crept to a closed door, placed his head against the wood and listened. Voices were coming from beyond the door. They seemed to be speaking the same strange language as the men in the warehouse. Was it German? He backed away. Traversing another passage, he arrived at the kitchen. A cloth-covered table sat in the centre of the room. A preparation bench was under the window.

  A pot was boiling on the stove.

  Someone’s cooking, Jack realised. They might be back at any minute.

  Footsteps sounded from behind. Jack made for the garden, but caught sight of a person heading up the path at the same time.

  I’m trapped!

  Jack ran for the only hiding place in the room—the table. He scrambled under just as someone bounded down the stairs. A woman wearing a long skirt. A moment later a man entered from the garden. They spoke in German for a moment before one of the chairs was pulled out from under the table.

  Jack’s heart almost stopped. The man sat, crossed his legs, and a pair of big black boots hovered inches from his face. Holding his breath, Jack dared not move as the man spoke to the woman. She dished some food onto a plate and clunked it on the table.

  The man said something, laughing. He lifted the woman onto his lap. Jack rolled his eyes.

  Bazookas!

  A cat sauntered into the kitchen. Jack watched in horror as the creature strolled across the floor. Its eyes fixed on Jack and it headed towards him.

  Go away, he urged, glaring at the creature. It ignored him, taking up residence at his side. Jack tried to push it away.

  The man abruptly swung his leg and it connected with Jack’s knee. He bit back a scream as the man pushed the woman off his lap, dragged the chair back and stood up.

  ‘Was ist das?’

  Jack grabbed the cat and flung it out.
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br />   The man laughed, picking it up. Footsteps came from the landing. A second man arrived.

  ‘Success,’ he said in a broad American accent. ‘Bell revealed the location when we threatened to harm his daughter.’

  The other man replied in German.

  ‘English, please,’ his companion said.

  ‘My apologies. Are they still upstairs?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I will contact headquarters for instructions.’

  ‘Surely we will just dispose of them?’

  ‘Most likely,’ the man said. ‘But I will check. They are difficult to bring back to life if we kill them prematurely.’

  They laughed and left the room. Jack found himself alone with the cat. The kidnappers intended to murder Scarlet and the others. He had to act now. Climbing out from under the table, he searched the building until he reached a set of stairs. He began to climb.

  Footsteps echoed from the hallway and Jack raced up the remaining stairs. Stopped. The footsteps receded. Letting out a sigh of relief, he turned his attention to the upper level. The corridor headed in two directions: windows on one side, doors on the other.

  Blimey, he thought. There are too many doors and no time.

  He turned left, tried the first door and eased it open. Nothing. He paused. Trying all the doors was crazy; he might stumble upon the kidnappers.

  Peering at the doors, he realised that they seemed identical though one was different. It had a large key poking out of the lock.

  Why was that room locked?

  Placing his ear against the timber, he tried to listen for movement within. Again nothing. Letting out a sigh, he undid the lock, grabbed the handle and inched the door open. He saw a mirror. A sideboard. A bed. A sturdy timber chair…with someone tied to it.

  Scarlet.

  She sat in the chair, her hands and legs bound, a gag across her mouth. Her eyes opened in amazement.

  He closed the door, hurried to her side and removed the gag.

  ‘Oh Jack.’ She almost wept with relief. ‘How did you get here?’

  ‘It’s all right, Scarlet,’ he said. ‘I hitched a ride on the balloon and then the truck.’

  ‘Well done! But where are we? Is Mr Doyle with you?’

  ‘Hang on a minute and I’ll explain.’ He went to tell her of his adventures when he heard voices coming from somewhere in the building. He stuck his head into the hall. There was movement on the stairs.

  He eased the door shut. There was no time to untie Scarlet. If her assailants caught him, neither of them would escape. He made a difficult decision.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘You’ll have to wait a bit longer.’

  ‘What?’

  He secured the gag, all the while hearing the kidnappers growing closer. They were almost on him! He scurried across the floor and rolled under the bed.

  Not a moment too soon. The lock jangled. He glanced up at Scarlet. She allowed her head to sag, as if asleep. Two people entered.

  ‘I thought I relocked the door,’ a man with a deep voice said.

  ‘No matter.’ The other spoke with a slight accent. ‘She is securely tied.’

  Deep Voice undid Scarlet’s feet and dragged her into a standing position.

  ‘Your father has been most helpful,’ he said. ‘We needed only to threaten your safety. A man is as strong as his weakest link.’

  Scarlet said something through the gag.

  ‘Never fear, my lady,’ Deep Voice said. ‘We are taking you to the doctor in the forest. He will look after you.’

  The other kidnapper laughed unpleasantly.

  They dragged her from the chamber. Jack heard the rattle of the lock and the turning key.

  No!

  He ran to the exit and grabbed the handle.

  Locked! How will I get out of here?

  There was one way out. The window. It was double-hung, meaning it could slide up and down. Jack undid the latch and pushed it open. A rear courtyard, a series of walls and the forest lay beyond. Just below him, a small ledge ran the length of the building. If he made it that far, a thicker wall led from the corner to the rear of the building. The drop was over ten feet.

  The ledge was about six inches wide. Of course, he had walked along balance beams that width a million times—with a net below him. Covering the distance without one was crazy.

  Jack thought of the kidnapper’s threat to Scarlet.

  We are taking you to the doctor in the forest. He will look after you.

  He climbed out and his feet found the narrow ledge. Legs shaking, he took three deep breaths. The trembling stopped. Jack started to move along the ledge, gripping the window at first for support, then clutching the wall. The feat required his full focus. He also needed to breathe in a normal fashion.

  Fat chance, he thought.

  A door opened downstairs. Jack stopped. If the person below glanced up, he would be in a very bad position indeed. His nose twitched. A sneeze began to build. He squeezed his nose and the sensation passed. Movement sounded on the gravel below when the person went back inside. Jack resumed his journey.

  One step after another, he told himself. I’ll just count my steps. One, two, three, four… He kept counting. When he reached windows, he glanced inside each one. The rooms were—mercifully—empty.

  From the other side of the castle came the distant sputtering of a steamtruck. They must be moving all the prisoners to the doctor’s compound. Reaching the end of the ledge, he leapt onto the wall below and continued to the end. It was too high to jump, but a tree grew nearby. He grabbed a branch, swung, dropped to the branch below, lowering himself to the ground.

  ‘Just like the old days,’ he muttered. ‘Almost.’

  Jack ran through the forest until he met a road. The steamtruck approached. He ducked behind a tree as it chuffed past. Waiting until it rounded a bend, Jack came out of hiding and ran after it. He kept the vehicle some distance ahead of him—the driver might glance in his side mirror and see him!

  At last it decelerated as it reached a gate and a high timber fence. A man climbed out and unlocked the gate. Jack ducked into the forest and crept through the undergrowth until he reached the fence. He climbed over and dropped into the compound.

  Weaving around the trees, Jack lost sight of the vehicle. He made his way through the forest until he saw some buildings. The truck must have unloaded its human cargo because it restarted and drove back towards the gates. A thin, balding man in a lab coat followed the vehicle, closing the gates behind the exiting truck.

  That must be the doctor, Jack thought.

  The compound was made up of three brick buildings. Each of them was fifty feet square with flat roofs and wide eaves. Jack hid while the doctor disappeared into the closest building. Looking up at the sky, Jack reckoned it to be about two in the afternoon. Waiting until night fell was safer, but he might be too late by then.

  Creeping over to the first building, Jack risked a glance in the front window, but only saw a plain-looking kitchen with a wooden bench.

  On a hunch, he decided to investigate the buildings at the rear. He rounded the first and followed a path to the next. They were strange, but he wasn’t sure why.

  The penny dropped. They had no windows. Very odd. He crossed to the entrance. A single metal panel covered the centre of it. It had to be some sort of jail.

  Maybe other people are being held inside?

  Jack pulled back the latch. He glimpsed a set of bars and darkness within. The interior smelt like rotting food. Something shuffled about in the gloom.

  ‘Hello,’ he whispered. ‘Is someone in there?’

  The steps grew louder as a shape appeared.

  ‘Hello,’ Jack said. ‘Do you need help?’

  The figure drew closer. Then, still halfway across the room, it leapt, covering the remaining distance in a second. It slammed against the bars. Jack fell back in horror, stifling a scream.

  The thing was from a nightmare. Its features were that of a human
, but there the similarity ended. Short, bistre-brown hair covered its entire face. Its nose curved down into a long snout. The creature gripped the bars with hairy fingers, snarling with sharp teeth.

  Jack had no idea how it had been done, but the monster was half human and half wolf. Jack fell back in terror—and found himself face-to-face with the man in the lab coat.

  ‘Not so fast, my little friend,’ the doctor said, jabbing a needle in his arm.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Jack came to with a woozy sensation in his stomach and a cloudy head. A face hovered above him—a face he vaguely recognised.

  Oh crumbs!

  The doctor.

  He reminded Jack of a snake. His eyes were dead. They could have belonged to a corpse. He was almost completely bald. Even his eyebrows were missing. His teeth were uneven and his breath smelt of fish.

  The man introduced himself. ‘I am Dr Presbury. I wish to thank you for joining our little party. I believe you know Mr Harker and Scarlet Bell. Have you met her father, Joseph?’

  Jack shifted his head. He had been strapped to an operating table set at a forty-five degree angle on a cold, concrete floor. Harker, Scarlet and Joseph Bell were all in a similar situation on tables to his right.

  Joseph Bell looked like a kindly man. His face was round and his hair curly and copper-coloured, starting to turn grey. Jack saw the resemblance between him and his daughter. Opposite them lay benches with microscopes, test tubes, flasks and Bunsen burners.

  ‘What do you want?’ Joseph Bell demanded.

  ‘It’s not what I want, but rather what I can give.’ The doctor spoke with an English accent. ‘I was with the Darwinist League, but I left them after a difference of opinion.’

  ‘And who do you work for now?’ Scarlet asked.

  The doctor smiled. ‘Some things are better kept secret.’

  ‘You’re a traitor,’ Paul Harker said. ‘You’re working with those blasted Germans!’

  Dr Presbury shrugged. ‘I am a doctor. I am beyond nationalities. Beyond countries. I am interested only in my research and what benefits it may bring mankind.’