Before any sound could come out I went blind and deaf again. But I’m still holdin’ the sword. What happened to my cat’s eyes? It was hot and stuffy. My breathing echoed in my ears as if I was in an ironclad’s turret. What the---?Did somebody drop a bathtub on my head? With my left hand I reached up to touch my face. I couldn’t. Metal stood in the way.
Turned out I really was in a turret, in a manner of speaking. Somebody had slipped a medieval helmet from Ivanhoe onto my shoulders. And they’d done it in the blink of an eye without my knowing it. Now who did I know who could have done that?
“Jasper!” I snapped, wincing as the sound deafened me. I lowered my volume. “Jasper!” Yanking on the helmet got me nowhere. I stamped my foot. “Jasper! Get this thing off me. I can’t breathe.”
“I don’t know,” the boyish voice said, sounding pouty. “You called me a lot of horrible names just now. Fairly rude, if you ask me. Were you brought up in a barn?”
“Next to one, if you must know. On our farm. Come on, let me out of this miserable brain-bucket. It’s hot.”
“Are you gonna scream? Can’t have that. Alert the nasties.”
“What nasties?!”
He took on an elevated hurt tone. “I won’t talk to you if you’re gonna take a hostile attitude.”
“I’m not hostile! I’m way past bein’---!” I caught myself, took a gulp of air, counted to five. “Jasper,” I went on as if sitting in a library, clipping my words between my teeth, “won’t you please be a dear and kindly remove this exquisite example of a twelfth century great helm from my poor little face?”
“Delighted, my beloved Verity.” Fresh air—as fresh as could be had down in the sub-basement—cooled my nose. That awful helmet vanished. It wasn’t removed or lifted from my shoulders, it just ceased to exist. This magick thing will take some gettin’ used to. Now I could see through the gloom once more. The helmet melted away into Jasper’s blade, like water running back down a drain. My sword took on its normal shape again and the headgear was just a bad memory. Gonna have a lot more of those, at this rate.
“Thanks,” I said, rolling my shoulders to unkink them.
“Not at all.”
There was a long silence in the underground room. Sighing at last, I said, “I don’t think I can do this.”
Jasper’s voice was gentler than it had been before. “No one ever does, kid.”
“That’s just it. I’m a kid. Twelve years old!”
“So you keep sayin’. How old do you think I was when they put me in here?”
“No.”
“Yep. Say hi to a fellow youngun. Three weeks shy of my thirteenth birthday.”
Funny how shared misery really does make you feel a little bit better. “How’d that happen?”
I heard a sad laugh inside my head. “Someday I’ll tell you. No time now. You just have a few minutes to learn the ground rules, I expect. You can bet the Stone has tingled every Merchantry agent for ten miles.”
That made me frown. “Ground rules?”
“The fine print in the contract. You didn’t exactly read it careful-like, I noticed. Magick has limitations and responsibilities, just like everything else.”
“Is this gonna be like those stories where the genie grants wishes but there’s always a horrible catch? Will I turn into a giraffe later on?”
Jasper chuckled. “No.”
“That’s good. ‘Cause if I turn into a giraffe and start bumpin’ my head on doorways, you’re in big trouble, mister.”
The blade reared up like a horse. There was a strange pause, as if my sword sniffed the air. “We’re already in big trouble.”
“Really? What?” I had hoped that those ground rules would’ve been explained before I had to start saving the world from whatever might be wrecking it. This magick stuff was fun but so far it’d been awful vague on the why’s and wherefore’s.
Jasper’s voice interrupted my thoughts. It now sounded ancient and weary. “The Bullies have found you. And Venoma is with them.”
5/ Venoma’s Threat
The Evil Ones talk like Shakespeare? This gets weirder and weirder.
We had bullies at school, but I felt dead sure that Jasper talked about something I couldn’t just wrestle down and Dutch-rub. And it went without saying that anyone going by ‘Venoma’ had to be bad news. “Sounds like you mean trouble with a capital T, huh?”
“’Fraid so. Time to get outta this hole.”
I almost whooped for joy. “Now you’re talkin’! You got a magick carpet?”
Jasper sniffed. “I’m not a dginn. I have to do things my way. First ground rule: you’re my Mistress and have to command me. I’m not allowed to act on my own except to save your life in a dire emergency.”
I thought about that a minute. “That’s why you could slap that nasty helmet on my head, to shut me up so I wouldn’t bring them down on us?”
“Right. Your command can be just a glimmer of a thought. That’s all I need. You may not even know it’s a command. That’s okay. I will. We magick swords are smart that way.”
“Whoa! ‘We magick swords’? There are more of you?”
“You bet. Sorry to say, they ain’t all as charmin’ as me. The Honourable Merchantry has some that are downright rude.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.” My sword began stretching toward the ceiling until it became a fireman’s pole that reached all the way up through the opening. “A jagged edge that spits Black Death into the wound? I’d say that’s mighty rude. Come on. Climb up.”
I shinnied up the pole quick as a squirrel. Climbing things has always been easy for me. Of course, sometimes I fall down after the climb. That’s how Eddie once had to carry me and my busted ankle home for two miles. At the top I looked around, but the basement still lay empty, except for Ernie. The plump gray mouse stood on his hind legs, looked at me for a second, then bowed. I swear to you, he bowed like I was royalty. My jaw bounced off of the dusty floor.
The sword shrank upwards into my hand until it resumed its normal self again. Between that and Ernie I’d about hit my limit for grasping strangeness. I pointed at the mouse. “Did you see that? He bowed to me!”
Jasper had a smile in his voice. “Why shouldn’t he? Ernie served as a footman at Windsor Castle before the Merchantry condemned him. He knows quality when he sees it.”
“Wha---? His name really is Ernie? I’ve been callin’ him that as a joke.”
“No, you haven’t. You’ve been callin’ him that because you’ve always known it’s his name.”
“How’s that possible? I’m not a mage.”
I heard a sigh of impatience. “Everyone’s a mage, in a way. Magick’s as natural as breathin’. It’s just that most people have no idea what they’re capable of. They get overwhelmed by what they call ‘real life’ and never learn to use their gifts.”
“So you’re sayin’ understandin’ animals is my magickal gift?” I looked at Ernie, willing him to turn somersaults. Nothing happened.
“One of them, maybe. It’s a common enough one. Every horse doctor has a bit of it. Most magick isn’t throwin’ fireballs, you know. But your gifts are many, Verity. That’s why you have the Stone. And me. We make your gifts into powers. Or did you think this is happenin’ to you completely by chance?”
My eyebrows went up. “It’s not? This is some kind of destiny thing? Like King Arthur?”
“If you wanna call it that.”
Ernie sat atop a thimble and drummed on it with a tiny paw. He seemed impatient about something. I made a sour face at him and said, “What’s your problem?”
“You’re me problem, ducky,” the mouse replied in a working-class Britannic accent.
If my jaw had dropped earlier, it positively plummeted now. “You talked!”
“What? The silly sword jabbers on half the night and yer don’t bat an eye. The mouse talks and yer wanna call the bloody London Times. Jasper, yer sure this is the one? Seems a bit dim to me.”
“Just gimme a chance to get my bearin’s,” I protested.
“We’ll, yer better get ‘em quick. Trouble’s comin’ our way.”
I shook my head, which started to ache from all of this. “I’m talkin’ to a rodent.”
“Your mind gave me a command,” said Jasper. “You wanted to speak to him, so I boosted your gift.”
“Just like that? No, ‘oh, mighty sword of sorcery, grant me this wish’?”
“We can do it that way, but, to be honest, it wastes a lot of time.”
“Which we don’t have,” grumped Ernie. “Me network says Venoma’s on the way. Be here in just a few minutes. Not in strikin’ range yet, miss.”
I felt I should contribute, being the Anointed One or whatever they thought I was. “How will we know when they’re that close?”
Jasper told me, “The Stone’ll let you know.”
Hmmm. I guess bein’ vague is just somethin’ that comes with magick. I unbuckled the belt from the suit of golden armor and fastened it around my waist. Jasper fit nice and snug into the frog on my left hip. “What now?”
“We needs to get upstairs and outside without bein’ seen by any of the actors or stagehands,” Ernie said, hopping off of his thimble.
That confused me. “Why? I know ‘em. They’re okay.”
“Lovey, if you’re gonna be our mighty leader, listen to your Uncle Ernie. The so-called Honourable Merchantry has turncoats watchin’ everybody. Don’t let your trustin’ nature get us all transmogrified. Once is plenty fer this old coot.” He began climbing the stairs up to the stage, grunting all the while. Stopping three steps up, he said, “Oh. And don’t talk to the cat. He’s a bloody traitor. Works for fish scraps, that’s the shame of it. Too bad, really. Used to be a nice chap. Grocer in Ipswich when we lived there. Used to give me missus first pick o’ the brisket on Thursdays.”
“Got it,” I whispered, finger to my lips. “No cat chat.”
“You bet your arse,” the mouse said, nodding for emphasis and resuming his climb.
We arrived at the top of the stairs without making them squeak too much. I tucked the sword behind me so no one would spot it and start up a curious conversation. Didn’t want it banging against a wall, either. I needn’t have worried. Nobody looked my way. They were all too enthralled by Macbeth’s rantings about Birnam Wood come to Dunsinane. Eddie watched over Ma’s shoulder from the other side of the stage. I stopped and watched, too. Booth may have been an arrogant puffer pigeon on the street, but on stage he had something special. You couldn’t help but pay attention when he spoke. Is that his magick, his gift? I told myself to be careful around him. As Ernie had said, you couldn’t trust anyone.
Funny, then, how I so trusted a talking mouse and a shape-shifting sword and their story about evil Bullies coming to take me away.
The great battle scene began. Blades, shields, and spears slashed the gaslit air, their sweet noise even louder than usual because of my Jasper-enhanced ears. I dearly wanted to stay for it, but Ernie kept tugging at my overall cuff to keep me moving toward the fire exit. We slunk past a couple of stagehands who were admiring the Shakespearean carnage and then eased out the door, being careful not to let it slam. Drawing the sword, I started to look for enemies. After all of our careful slinking I nearly undid us by almost stepping on Ernie. That made me jerk my leg back. Unbalanced, I hopped on one foot, Jasper clutched in one hand, feeling for the wall to steady myself. Instead I fell full-length through the half-closed door.
And stopped in mid-air.
Well, this sure seems magickal. I’m floatin’ like a Hindustani fakir.
I looked down. A huge shiny hand, standing on a single iron foot, held me like a baby. Balanced horizontal, as if flying. The stage door bumped against my shoulder, trying to close. No one in the theatre had noticed me yet, so I eased back down off of Jasper’s new form and gently shut the door. He melted like quicksilver back into his sword self. After letting out the breath I’d been holding, I turned away from Ford’s Theatre into the alley.
My vision turned so sharp that it almost seemed like day. Just a slight bluish haze and shimmer gave away the magick. The medieval fight on the other side of the wall sounded near as loud as it had when we had stood in the wings. A light breeze itched my skin like tiny lizards clawed their way across it. Unlucky for me, my sense of smell now grew many times better than before, too. I stood in the wrong city at the wrong time of year for that to be any fun. It occurred to me that wandering the streets of Washington carrying a sword was bound to attract attention. Jasper sensed my question before I could think of it.
“Here, let’s make us less conspicuous,” he said in a whisper, which struck me as funny since nobody could hear him but me. The sword shrunk down. I thought for a second it would vanish all the way, but it stopped when the blade folded into the hilt. Now I held a simple tin cup. But it felt warm, with a pulse.
Shaking my head, I said in a hush, “Don’t think I’ll ever be able to get used to that.”
“Wait’ll you hit puberty,” Ernie snickered, next to my ear. He’d climbed up me while Jasper had been shifting. “That’s somethin’ that really takes some gettin’ used to.”
“What’s puberty?” Jasper asked.
“Search me,” I said, almost shrugging the mouse off of me. “I thought you knew everything.”
“I’m only twelve, too, you know. My Master just gave me the knowledge he thought I’d need to help you. The rest I have to find out on my own.”
“Can you tell the future, then?”
“I think no one can. Not with certainty. Some great mages can see several possible futures and guess which is most likely. The Grand Mage sure seemed to foresee this night, though. At least so far.”
“Except for the part about her bein’ a whiny pain in the backside,” grumbled Ernie.
I protested with feigned outrage. “Hey! I’m standin’ right here.”
“Right, lovey. You’re standin’ instead of walkin’. We need to get to the river. Let’s go.”
“Okay. Hang on.”
The alley would take us onto 10th Street. From there we could move west to the Potomac, much like me and Eddie had done that afternoon. This time I didn’t plan on cutting through St. Bart’s. In fact, I expected to take a twelve-block detour. If these Bullies were as scary as they seemed then we sure didn’t want to add Horace and his loonies to our troubles. That’d be more than this girl can handle. To tell the truth, between falling into the chamber, getting zapped with magick, and trying to understand all of the impossible things that had started happening to me, I felt near to falling over in a dead heap.
Just as we were about to leave the alley we ran smack into Mad Molly. She popped up out of a niche in the wall of Clemens’ Dry Goods store, offering me a flower and muttering something that made no sense. Her dark rags and smudged face made her hard to see, even with my new eyes. I had no trouble sniffing her, though. The stench could’ve knocked a buzzard off a privy. Did she smell that bad all the time? Like something dug up from a festering graveyard? Molly’s smell didn’t distract me for long, because something new happened.
My Legacy Stone became cold as a January icicle against my chest.
The Stone’ll let you know, Jasper had said. But this is harmless old Molly. We’ve known her since we moved here from Maryland.How can she be a ---?
The inner debate ended with a violent jerk on my right ear. Ernie yanked hard on it, hauling my head and shoulders in that direction. Ow! Just as he did so, the ancient withered face distorted. Its jaw unhinged like a hungry snake’s and three rows of jagged teeth shot forward to snap at the air where my head had been. I felt the thing’s steaming drool graze my cheek, leaving it numb. Molly Monster slashed at me with a clawed backhand. I brought up the tin cup in a sad effort to protect my tingling face. She moved quick as a panther. Her talons bounced off of a round metal shield two feet across. Thanks, Jasper! Stumbling backward, I tripped over a cat and went down, scraping my rear end on b
roken glass.
“Bloody cat!” Ernie snarled. He leapt off my shoulder onto the animal’s head. “I told yer he was no good!” I heard a terrible commotion of screeching and spitting, commingled with sturdy Britannic cursing. There’s one kitty who won’t relish catching his mousie. That was all I had time to think about, as my attacker tried to pounce on me while I lay sprawled on the ground.
My boot met her belly, which felt solid as an iron plate. The shock went all the way up to my hip. That foul thing flew above and beyond me, bouncing off the brick wall. I turned to see where she’d go next while scrambling to my feet. My eyes widened to see her launch herself across the alley and crash into the opposite wall, her claws digging into the stone and holding her there like a fly on a window. Yellow-green eyes with vertical pupils glared at me, smoke bleeding out of them. A mouth the size and shape of a coal scuttle held those deadly teeth now and they clicked with excitement, slime dripping from the lower lip. No hair to speak of grew on the long leathery skull. Of course, the ears were pointed. I’d have been disappointed otherwise.
The assassin creature climbed the wall to get more height for its next pounce. What had remained of Molly’s tattered rag dress fell off. Seeing the whole body of the monster didn’t make me love it any more. I could now see that it was female, in a unsettling and misshapen way. Ick! It had leathery lumpy skin like an alligator hide I’d seen in the Smithsonian. A bony ridge ran along the middle of its broad back. Her belly hung swollen and pulsing, like she’d just swallowed a large dog…or worse. All of the thing’s limbs were longer than they should have been. The lengthy feet had splayed toes with four-inch black claws. An awful, curved spike grew from each heel.
Right then I really wished that they’d made Jasper into the Righteous Revolver of Retribution, instead of just a sword. Sheesh, this is 1862, fellers. Modern times.
Brimstone and Lily (Legacy Stone Adventures) Page 5
