It was a baby, its diaper dangling from one of the Corvidian’s talons. The baby squirmed and screamed, helpless as a grub. Wally looked at Ludwig’s paper birds, flapping the Corvidians toward the fish factory. He looked to the factory’s roof where the chef Pyra was mixing up a poison that would pluck 'em, gut 'em, and roast 'em for dinner …
“STOP COOKING!” Wally screamed toward Pyra. But his voice was lost beneath the caws and screams.
“I’ll try and stop her!” Breeth said.
The moss shuddered as she zipped back toward the factory.
Wally took one last glance at Greyridge, hoping his brother was safe inside, and then sprinted back to the fish factory and the helpless baby dangling a hundred feet above it.
He reached the factory and started to climb, barely thinking about the height as he scaled the building’s fire escape ladder. A stiff wind was still blowing the Corvidians overhead. The baby’s screams were lost in a cloud of caws.
On the roof, Pyra giggled maniacally as she poured her ingredients and muttered violent promises of what would happen to the monster birds. Wally saw a purple cloud of poison spurt up, alive with pink lightning, and he climbed faster.
He climbed over the lip of the roof, caught his breath, and pointed. “They have a baby!”
The four staff members looked at him, startled.
Amelia squinted her one eye at the flock. “He’s right. Abandon the plan! We could poison the child!”
“Good sing Pyra is such a klutz, no?” Ludwig said.
He stepped his large form aside, revealing Weirdwood’s chef, who frowned at her cauldron, which had tumbled over, spilling murky purple fluid that sizzled the roof. The lightning cloud evaporated.
“I did that!” Breeth said, smiling from a cloud of chimney smoke.
In the sky, Ludwig’s paper cranes had done their job of blowing the Corvidians to the factory. The monster birds’ dark eyes caught sight of the figures on the roof.
“B-but if ve cannot stun ze Corvidians,” Ludwig said, “zey are going to attack us.”
Amelia uncoiled her whip. “Yes, they are. And we’re going to let them.”
Pyra snickered eagerly.
“But—but I am not supposed to fight!” Ludwig cried. “I am ze groundskeeper!”
“How do you think I feel?” Amelia said. “I’m the bloody doctor!” She drew her whip. “But we can’t let the flock fly away with the child. They could drop it. Or worse, eat it.” She looked at the chef. “Pyra, can you cook up a new potion? Something less caustic?”
Pyra snarled in dissent.
Amelia sighed. “Ludwig. Could your birds catch the child?”
“Nein,” Ludwig said. “Their paper vings vill strain under ze veight … Oh!” He took out his papers and started folding. “I could build a soft sort of somesing to catch him?”
Amelia nodded. “We’ll keep you protected.”
The Corvidians dove straight down at them, talons glinting.
“Permission to use my swords, ma’am?” Sekhmet asked.
“No,” Amelia said. “You haven’t completed your training. You could scald the child.”
Sekhmet looked insulted, but she kept her swords sheathed.
Amelia whirled her whip, making the air resonate. “I’m going to try and get the baby away from them. Brace yourselves.”
Wally clutched his fists, taking a wide stance. With Greyridge’s gates locked, the only way to protect Graham was to destroy the Corvidians.
The monster birds screeched in, consuming the Weirdwood staff in a tornado of feathers and silver talons. A cut opened across Wally’s cheek. Then another over his shoulder. He swung his fists, knuckles connecting against a feathered chest and a beaked jaw. But the onslaught of talons only grew more intense and he was suddenly buried under a sea of soaring, slicing, half-human monsters.
Beneath the deafening sound of shrieks and slashes and screams, Wally heard other sounds: the baby crying itself hoarse; Amelia’s vibrating whip; Ludwig’s high-pitched sobbing. The attack continued to grow louder and sharper until Wally thought he might lose his mind or have every last bit of him torn away …
But then it was over. The Corvidians swooped back into the sky, leaving behind a mess of feathers and blood. Wally held his weeping cheek with one hand while flexing the bruised knuckles of the other.
The others hadn’t fared much better. Their clothes were ripped. They bled from their faces and arms. Sekhmet tore away a part of her robe and tied it around a slash on her throat. Ludwig was missing a patch of hair, and his paper construction that was meant to break the baby’s fall had been torn to shreds.
“I couldn’t catch the child,” Amelia said, staring up at the baby, who was screaming so loud it could barely breathe. “I was able to coax its diaper out of one of their claws only to watch it get snatched up by another.”
A new scream rang out across the port. The Corvidians had taken Pyra. She kicked and punched at her captors. But the monster birds carried her higher and higher over the port … and then they dropped her.
Pyra’s scream cut in a breathless gasp as she plummeted toward the planks.
“Ludwig!” Amelia cried.
“Yes! I see! I see!”
The giant steered his flock of paper cranes away from Greyridge and toward the falling chef. They swooped low, and with a flap of their wings, managed to create a cushion of air beneath her.
Still, Pyra hit hard. The vials in her robes shattered on impact, and a blue mushroom cloud exploded toward the sky.
“That’s not good,” Amelia said.
“That’s worse,” Sekhmet said, pointing.
With Ludwig’s paper birds diverted, the Corvidians had managed to carry the carriage over the front gate and dropped it on Greyridge, caving in the hospital’s lobby.
Caws of victory echoed across the port. Wally’s heart sank. Graham.
“The baby!” Sekhmet said.
Before the Corvidian carrying the baby made it to the top of the cliffs, Ludwig grunted, steering his paper flock back above the hospital where they flapped another gale that sent the monster birds hurtling toward the fish factory.
“Grab hold of something!” Amelia shouted. “We can’t afford to lose any more of us!”
“Wally!” A waft of coal smoke bent toward him, coiling with Breeth’s shape. “I’m going to possess one of the birds. I can make its claws drop the baby safely into your arms.”
“But … you’d have to die again,” he whispered.
Breeth’s ashen eyes searched the sky. “It’s a baby, Wally. If they kill him, I’ll never forgive myself.”
Wally swallowed. “You’re braver than I am, Breeth. Good luck.”
“Get ready!” Amelia yelled.
The Corvidians swept in again, attacking even more viciously. Wally aimed his punches at their legs so they couldn’t grab hold of him. But then he accidentally punched a talon, which peeled the skin off his knuckles. After that, Wally could only make a ball of himself and hold on to the railing for dear life.
The wings cleared again. A warmth trickled down Wally’s neck. He reached up to find his ear bleeding. His shirt was filled with slashes, and cold slices opened across his chest. His vision blurred, woozy with pain.
He shook himself awake and studied the flock, searching for signs of Breeth. But instead he found Sekhmet and Ludwig dangling from the Corvidians’ claws, clinging to chimney pots that hadn’t been secured to the roof.
Ludwig, dangling in midair, dropped his pot and pulled paper out of his pocket. His trembling fingers tried folding more cranes to cushion his fall, but the Corvidians simply dropped him. The giant screamed as he fell, splatting in a crate full of fish.
“Permission to draw your swords, Sekhmet!” Amelia cried to the Novitiate.
But the moment Sekhmet grabbed her hilts, the Corvidians dropped her too. A few yards before she hit the cobbles, she slashed at the ground, creating a pocket of heat that allowed her feet to touch down gently o
n the docks. The Corvidians dove at her, trying to snatch away her swords, but Sekhmet deflected their talons with grace.
Wally searched the flock. “Where are you, Breeth?”
“I tried.”
He turned and found the ghost girl’s disappointed face wavering in ash smoke.
“I couldn’t get inside their thoughts,” she said. She hit the side of her temple with an ashen fist. “They kept squawking Out! Out! like they were pecking at my brain.”
Wally’s shoulders sank. The baby’s cries were growing fainter.
The monster birds dove toward the roof again. Amelia whirled her whip while Wally raised his fists. This was it. Wally would put up a fight, but eventually the Corvidians would pluck him up and then drop him from an impossible height. Graham would spend the rest of his life in Greyridge alone, enduring an endless series of painful experiments.
The first Corvidian swept in, blood dripping from its silver claws, its hideous, half-human face shrieking. But before it could reach them, a golden object whizzed from below, pelting the Corvidian in the head, making it drop unconscious to the rooftop. Dozens more objects followed—coins, cups, and trinkets—pelting more of the Corvidians. The birds turned their attention to four figures on the docks and dove at them.
Wally peered over the roof’s edge. He’d seen many strange things in the last couple of days, but none of them beat Arthur Benton wearing a wide-brimmed hat and leading a group of three skeletons, who threw fistfuls of gold from casks they’d clearly stolen from the Manor.
“Can’t peck my eyeballs when I ain’t got none, can ya?” the short skeleton screamed before headbutting a Corvidian. “Ya see that, Gus?”
“That ain’t how you do it, Tuck!” the tall skeleton called Gus cried. “C’mere, ya glorified feather dusters!” He uppercut two others.
“While you idiots are over there squawking,” a skeleton with a woman’s voice cried as she gave a Corvidian a noogie, “I’ve knocked out enough birds to stuff a king’s mattress!”
Gus pointed a bony thumb at her. “Jeez. Who ruffled Mim’s feathers?”
The skeletons had not only managed to distract the Corvidians with their makeshift golden ammunition, they also battled them with ease, their bones impervious to the bills and talons.
“Arthur!” Wally cried.
Arthur hurled a goblet and then tipped his hat upward. “Cooper!”
“You!” Amelia cried over the edge of the roof, continuing to fend off Corvidians with her whip. “Take those skeletons back to the Mirror immediately. We’re trying to get the Fae-born back to their realm, not bring more over!”
Arthur pointed at her. “There’s one! She’s one of the bad guys that kidnapped us!”
“Got it, boss!” Tuck, the shortest skeleton, said.
He pulled off his arm and hurled it at Amelia, who ducked just in time. The arm rolled and clattered along the roof.
“Um,” Tuck called up, “would you mind tossing that back?”
Amelia scowled.
“She stole Tuck’s arm!” Gus cried.
“She is evil!” yelled Mim.
She removed her own arm and was about to hurl it when Wally held up his hands. “Amelia’s not evil! She’s trying to save a baby!”
He pointed at the child, high in the sky.
“Oh,” Mim said, refitting her arm. “Why didn’t ya say so?”
While the skeletons continued to fistfight Corvidians, Arthur tipped his hat to Amelia. “Afternoon, ma’am! My Merry Skeletons and I would be happy to help with your monster bird infestation. If you overlook this gold we nicked from your Manor, that is.”
Amelia’s mouth tightened. She gazed toward Pyra, Sekhmet, and Ludwig, who were still out of commission. “I don’t see what other choice I’ve got.”
“Hear that, guys?” Arthur cried. “We’re hired!”
The four of them scaled the side of the building, swatting at birds as they went.
“Prepare for your swan song!” Gus cried.
“Birds of a feather get socked together!” Tuck cried.
“The early bird gets the fist!” cried Mim.
“All right, Merry Skeletons!” Arthur said, climbing onto the roof. “No more clever quips until that baby’s safe, you hear me?”
“You got it, boss!”
The Corvidians swept in again. With a diminished flock and more bodies to attack, the onslaught wasn’t nearly as punishing this time. But once the feathers cleared, the skeletons were left armless and legless, and one without a head.
“We’ve been disarmed!” cried Mim.
“And beheaded!” cried Gus.
“Aaaaaaaaauuuuuuggggggggghhhhhh!” screamed Tuck’s skull in the sky.
Arthur’s cheeks flooded red. “I guess you guys can’t really win a fight without skin and muscles.”
The Corvidians tried to make another sweep toward Greyridge, but the paper birds blew them back. Even though he was injured, Ludwig continued to control his creations from the fish crate. But that meant the monster birds were going to attack Wally and Amelia again. Wally didn’t think they’d survive another onslaught.
He watched the Corvidians circle the roof, bones in their talons, and had an idea.
“Breeth!” he said, slipping behind a chimney. “Can you possess one of those skeleton arms?”
“Ooooh!” Her soot rippled with excitement. “I think so!”
He watched as her face drifted higher and higher in the smoke before dissipating into the flock. A skeleton arm came to life, thrashing and feeling around. Then another and another as Breeth worked her way toward the skeleton arm closest to the baby.
“What’s happening?” Amelia asked, staring at the flock. She turned to the Merry Skeletons. “Are you doing that?”
Mim shrugged her armless shoulders. “I don’t know what my arms get up to when they’re not on me.”
In the sky, one of the arms felt around until its bony fingers managed to seize hold of the baby’s diaper. With a swift tug, it wrenched the baby loose from the claws.
“I’m gonna drop him now, Wally!” Breeth screamed.
“Get ready to catch!” Wally yelled, holding out his arms.
Arthur held out his arms too. The flock passed over the roof, the skeleton hand released the diaper, and the baby fell screaming from the sky. Amelia cracked her whip, which gently coiled around the child, twirling him right into her arms.
“There, there,” she cooed, patting the baby’s back.
Just then, two hands slapped the edge of the roof. Pyra climbed up, huffing, her hands, face, and robes dyed a bright blue.
“Pyra!” Amelia said. “Do you still have the poison ingredients?”
Pyra peeked inside her cloak and grunted assent.
“Start cooking. You won’t have the luxury of Ludwig’s wind control, I’m afraid.”
Pyra snagged her cauldron and poured in the ingredients, eyes shining wickedly. Soon, a purple cloud spurted up from the rooftop, squirming with pink lightning. It enveloped the Corvidians, and Arthur and Wally covered their heads as birds and skeleton limbs rained onto the roof and the streets below.
“I have to admit, thief,” Amelia said, “you and your skeletons did good.”
Arthur doffed his ridiculous hat. “Glad to be of service, ma’am.”
Gus scoffed. “I didn’t see you lose any limbs in that tussle.”
Breeth’s face rematerialized in the ash cloud. “The ghost girl never gets credit,” she said. But she was smiling.
The air had barely cleared of purple smoke when Amelia started shouting commands. “Pyra! Head to the docks and make sure Ludwig and Sekhmet are okay. You two”—she pointed to Arthur and Wally—“put those skeletons back together and get them to the Manor!”
The skeletons leapt from the roof to collect their missing limbs and head while Arthur tossed stray bones down to them.
“That’s my femur!” Gus cried. “Give it back!”
“Is this a funny bone?” said Tuck.
“If it is, it ain’t yours!” Mim said.
Wally stepped to the roof’s edge and eyed the damage to Greyridge. His heart settled in his chest when he saw that the hospital was still standing. Graham was safe. From the Corvidians, at least.
Amelia stepped to the roof’s edge with the baby. “After I return this child, I’ll bring these Corvidians back to the Mirror and find out where these Fae-born are coming fr—”
She was interrupted when the sea began to rumble.
They all peered over the roof’s edge as the planks of the port strained and splintered. The water shot up in great sprays as an enormous hole opened up in the swell like a whirlpool, swallowing two large ships. The dock exploded as dozens of tentacles burst through. The tentacles were huge, the size of ship’s masts, and as black as nightfall. They flopped their way across the port, coiling around whatever they found and dragging it into the ocean. This included the skeletons and treasure chests.
“Wait!” Gus said, dragging his bony fingers. “I haven’t put my foot on yet!”
“Ain’t you gonna buy me dinner first?”
“Gaaarneeeeeeeeett!”
Arthur removed his hat in reverence for his skeleton friends. And probably his gold.
The tentacles blindly felt their way up the cliffs toward Greyridge. They coiled around the outer wrought iron fence and tugged, making the metal strain and squeak.
Wally watched, helpless. He’d thought it was over. That Graham was safe …
Amelia stared at the giant tentacles and shook her head. “The moment one Fae-born is snuffed out, another rises. What’s happening?” She drew her whip. “I’ll have to return to the Manor for backup and get Lady Weirdwood’s input. There’s no use defeating this monster if another is going to take its place.”
“Wait!” Wally said. “What about my—”
But Amelia had already leapt off the roof, whip singing.
Wally stiffened with fear. How was he supposed to rescue Graham without Weirdwood’s staff and their magic?
15
ALFRED MOORE
Breeth billowed in a million bits of swirling ash, rising over Kingsport. A fog rolled in from the sea, flooding the streets. Through the mist, she could see massive glistening knots of tentacles—like dozens of giant squids had crawled onto the port and then exploded.
Thieves of Weirdwood Page 15
