The little phalanx’s eyes lit up. “Bentha’s tub after you’ve heated it. I can’t walk up it.”
“Heat the goo,” said Gerald.
I looked down that the cathedral’s roof and the city beyond. The sun was coming up and there was now plenty of activity. “I can’t. Someone might see.”
“Penelope!”
The dragon glided below us, her big red tongue was slapping around her head to clean off the goo. She sucked her tongue back in and eyed the blob, like she was ready to eat it.
“No, no,” I said. “See Victory. I want you to heat the blob a little, but don’t fry him, okay?”
Penelope beat her wings and went up. I felt a rush of heat over the top.
“Hot. Hot. Hot,” said Victory.
“Stop, Penelope!” I yelled.
She didn’t stop, because she’s a dragon and when do they ever. Victory screeched and then suddenly stopped. I went to yank him off the blob and he just popped off into my hands.
“Are you okay?” asked Gerald.
“I didn’t enjoy that.”
“But are you okay?”
Victory examined himself. “I’m missing some of my tiny hairs. It’ll be harder to stick to Horc’s head.”
“He’ll be so sad,” I said, hiding my smile.
“I know. He so enjoys being my minion.”
“You might want to keep the minion thing to yourself for now,” said Gerald. “Spriggans are pretty important in Austria. They work for the imperial family.”
Victory strutted up to the tip of my thumb. “Who do the phalanx work for here?” He glanced around with sharp eyes. “Or does everyone work for us?”
Gerald and I exchanged a look.
“I told you phalanx aren’t exactly popular in Austria because they support the revolution. That’s why you have to remain hidden.”
“Those were phalanx that attacked Bentha,” said Victory.
“You noticed that, huh?”
“I didn’t like it. If I’d been there, I’d have ordered them to stop.”
“Good luck with that,” I said. “Right now, you need a good wash. Penelope, can you take Victory to Iris and get him cleaned up?”
Penelope presented the tip of her tail and Victory hopped on. He pumped his fist. “To the bath.” They glided away in the direction that Iris has gone.
“Do you think he learned anything from that?” asked Gerald.
“Nope. At least we can say we tried.”
We flew back up to land next to the gutter. My mouth fell open. There were three times as many gargoyles feasting on the blob and Percy had shown up and was gorging himself.
“We better get some before they eat it all,” said Gerald.
I got my bags and scooped until they were bulging and I tucked them away into my traveling bag. I would’ve packed some for the cardinal, but I had no clue what it would do to him. It was a topical spell, not to be ingested, except by reptiles apparently.
“Do you think Bentha needs that much? We could coat Lrag in that amount.” Gerald wedged the last bag in.
“Better to have some extra.” I couldn’t say that I was taking it to the empress.
Gerald raised an eyebrow at me. “You’re acting funny.”
“No, I’m not.”
A zing of pain went through my ankle. Yet another magical warning I didn’t need.
He moved in, his eyes searching over my face. “You definitely are.”
“Okay. Fine.” The pain intensified. “Don’t tell anyone, but,” pain much worse, “my ankle’s bothering me again.” The pain disappeared, like it was never there at all.
Gerald pulled back, the color draining out of his cheeks. Oh, crap. I wasn’t thinking.
“It’s okay. The gargoyles did it. I was carrying them out of the servants’ quarters last night,” I said.
“The gargoyles…not the horen?” Poor Gerald began to shake and try as he might, he couldn’t hide his terror. I was the biggest jerk ever. I should’ve said my neck, my hips, anything but my ankle.
I made myself look him in the eye. “The gargoyles are heavier than they look. It was a workout.”
He blew out a breath. “But your ankle, the horen venom in there, it will tell when the evil is close right?”
I wasn’t sure what the right answer was. My ankle had hurt at the opera, but I wasn’t sure if that was because of the emperor’s spell warning me not to reveal my job with him or because there had been a horen nearby. My ankle had reacted to all kinds of evil in Paris, not just horen, but it had been quiet since Gerald gave me the antidote.
I looked at his pinched face. I saw what he’d survived and decided to lie. “Yes. I think I’ll know when a horen is around, but it’s just the gargoyles this time.”
He looked over at the hissing weirdos jumping around in the blob and scarfing down big gulps of the smelly stuff. His brows knitted together. “Do they look different to you?”
At first I didn’t see it. They were still the annoying gargoyles that I’d been haunted by since my first day in St. Stephen’s.
“They’re bigger,” he said.
The gargoyles seemed to sense me looking at them. They pointed their snouts in my direction and began swimming through the blob towards me. The first one scrambled out of the gutter. It snarled and shook.
“That one’s definitely bigger,” I said.
“Look at the ears,” said Gerald.
Freaky. The gargoyles ears were bigger, more like Fidelé’s. When it shook a second time, its scales grew and took on a luminescent glow.
“Whoa,” said Gerald. “Do you see that?”
Oh, I saw it and it was freaking me out.
Chapter Twenty
I NOSE-DIVED down the center of the North tower. Gerald couldn’t keep up and I didn’t want him to. He’d start talking, questioning. He’d want to know what I thought about the gargoyles and I thought it was a very bad thing. So far the master secretary hadn’t noticed the gargoyles following me around. There was no way he wouldn’t notice that the gargoyles that had been infesting the cathedral for nearly a thousand years were now glowing. If I was very unlucky, he’d notice that their scales now matched my wings, purple and green. Ibn’s spell I used to mask my luminescence didn’t change the colors and now it was too late. All he’d have to do was see me being followed by a bunch of purple and green glowing gargoyles to figure out there was a connection.
Gerald tugged on my foot as I swooped through the tower entrance and into the nave. I intended to go straight to Bentha, but Iris cut me off. She flew straight into my face and I barely managed to avoid hitting her. As it was she spun around with her bucket of water that sloshed out onto the head of an unsuspecting cathedral employee, who cursed and dried his head with an over-sized handkerchief.
“I’ve got the water,” said Iris. “Where’s Victory?”
“With Penelope. She’s looking for you,” I said.
“Is my darling okay?”
“He’s not that darling, but he’s fine. I have to go.” I flew around her, but she snagged my traveling bag.
“What’s wrong? Is it Victory? Just tell me. I can handle it,” said Iris all in a panic.
Gerald zoomed up. “It’s not Victory. It’s the gargoyles.”
She made a face. “What about them? Did they die or something?”
“Or something,” I said.
“It was amazing.” Gerald tapped his chin. “I’m going to study them with a scientific journal and everything. Can you imagine what this means if it’s permanent?”
“I imagine that the master secretary and Rickard are going to be more suspicious than ever.”
“Oh, yeah. There’s that. But think of the power. A species, stable for a thousand years changed in ten minutes. Amazing. I wonder if you could do it again.”
“Do what?” asked Iris.
“That was an accident,” I said. “I won’t be doing it again. You need to use that brain you’re always bragging about and figure o
ut how to hide this.”
Iris sloshed her water again and dumped half her bucket on the employee’s head. He looked up at us and scowled. “I know you’re there,” he said in German.
We stared down and Iris waved. “Hi.”
“Stupid ghosts,” said the human. “I tell the director, but nobody listens to Helmut. No ghosts in the cathedral. Idiots.” He stomped away with a polishing cloth and began working on another statue.
“Ghosts?” asked Iris.
“He means us,” I said.
“Oh, right. Now what are you hiding?”
“Tell her, Gerald. I’ve got more things to screw up.” I darted away down the nave at my top speed and flew up to the servants’ entrance under the tomb to find Lonica blocking the entrance. Now what?
“Where have you been?” she asked with her hands on her hips.
Please don’t say the gargoyles beat me here.
“Just…um…getting some exercise,” I said and even I didn’t think that sounded convincing.
Lonica’s freshly painted skin creased on her forehead. “Exercise? That’s weird.”
“Ah…well…you know.”
“Are you sick?”
Sick and tired of crazy crap happening.
“No, I’m good.”
“Good, because,” she stomped her foot, “they’re back.”
Noooooo!
I tried to act normal, whatever that was. “How many?”
“All of them, I think.”
“Really? That was fast.”
Lonica stomped her foot again. “The smell is ridiculous. What did you put on them?”
Bloody pork stuff.
“Um…nothing.”
“Come on,” she said. “It’s like Mrs. Snigglebit’s times garbage times human porta potty. Take a whiff.”
Lonica stepped aside and I squeezed by her. I didn’t have to try to smell it. That stink came and smacked me upside the head. Oh, it was bad. Beyond yuck. But it wasn’t my rejuvenation spell.
I pinched my nose. “What is that?”
She pointed down the corridor and I went. Somehow this was my fault, but I couldn’t see how. I hadn’t been there when it happened. Everything couldn’t be my fault.
It turned out I was wrong. That was becoming a regular thing. Me being wrong. I turned the last corner, my eyes stinging from the stench that had only intensified the farther back under the tomb I got. When I saw what it was, I dropped my hand in surprise and immediately gagged. Klitzeklein trolls were piled up against my door like someone had shoveled them in there. At first I thought they were dead and rotting, the smell was that bad, but they were breathing. It probably would’ve been better for me if they had been dead. Dead things are easier to get rid of than live ones.
Lonica tugged on my cloak. “What did you put on them?”
“Nothing,” I said.
“That’s not nothing.”
I had to agree. The trolls were covered in some sort of gooey clear substance. It reminded me of Judd’s hair gel, but way smellier.
Iris and Gerald came up beside us, coughing and gagging.
“What…is…that?” asked Gerald between coughs.
“How should I know?” I asked.
“Do something,” said Iris.
“How about somebody else do something for a change?”
They all looked at me like that was inconceivable. Clearly, I was the doer of somethings.
“Fine. Where are the Home Depot fairies working today?”
Gerald shrugged. “They said the whole cathedral is broken. They could be anywhere.”
“Well, go find them and tell them we have an emergency stench on our hands.”
“Since when do they work on stench?”
“They work on human toilets,” I said.
“Good point. I’ll get them.” Gerald ran away, probably as much to get away from the stench as to find the Home Depot fairies. I envied him.
“Miss Penrose wants out of the room,” said Iris, her blue eyes watering.
“I bet she does,” said Lonica. “I have to go to work. The master secretary doesn’t know yet. You better hurry.”
She ran after Gerald, going so fast her long branches were whipping around and hitting the walls.
“I know what it is,” said Iris.
“Really. What?” I asked.
“Dragon barf.”
I gagged and had to cover my mouth to stop myself from heaving all over the stone floor. The last thing I needed was to clean up vomit.
“How do you know?” I asked between heaves.
“Percy ate a bunch of scented candles in the gift shop when we first got here. He threw them up and that’s what it smelled like.”
“Was that when they evacuated the gift shop for a couple days?”
“Yep. The humans had to scrub the whole shop with Borax to get the stench out.”
“Fantastic. Percy was supposed to spit them out at the train station,” I said.
“Well, he did spit them out. Eventually,” said Iris. “I’m sure he was trying to be helpful.”
“He’s not helpful in the least. They’re back, now with extra gross.”
“On the upside, he didn’t eat them.”
I slapped my forehead. “He did eat them. That’s why this happened. If you’re going to eat a troll, you better be sure you can keep it down.”
“He meant well.”
“No, he didn’t. He ate them.”
“All’s well that ends well.”
“This isn’t ended or well.”
“It will be.” Iris hugged me, but it didn’t help. “Gerald’s coming back.”
Gerald turned the corner with both hands clamped over his nose. “I found them.”
D came up behind him pushing a wheelbarrow. Thank goodness for the Home Depot.
“Dragon vomit?” asked D.
“How’d you know?” I asked.
“We have dragons.”
You can’t argue with that. D and the others set about shoveling the trolls into the wheelbarrow. It took five trips to get the hall cleared, but there was still oozing clear goo all over my door, the wall and floor. J produced a jar of Borax and gave it to me. The Home Depot fairies marched away in their line when they were done without saying another word to us, but I had the feeling that they wouldn’t be happy if this happened again. Neither would I or the rest of the world.
“Mix up the Borax in your bucket and get to scrubbing,” I said to Gerald and Iris.
“What about you?” asked Gerald.
“What about the trolls?” asked Iris.
“What about them?” I asked.
“Somebodies got to clean them up. The poor things,” said Iris.
“I don’t care about those trolls. I hope D throws them down the well.”
“You don’t mean it.”
“Oh, yes I do. Now clean this up while I take care of Bentha.” I tiptoed through the goo and used my poor sleeve to open the door. Miss Penrose and Delphine were next to Bentha’s bath, holding their noses. Horc was on his new bed with a big smile on his face. Fidelé and Rufus were on the window sill with their noses pointed out.
“Do you smell that?” asked Miss Penrose.
I gave her a look that would’ve wilted lettuce. “You think?”
“Sorry. Obviously you do. Did Iris say it was dragon vomit?”
“I don’t want to talk about it.” I set down my bag.
Horc slid off the bed and waddled over. “I do. What has created that fabulous stink? My spriggan mother would have been green with jealousy.”
“Wasn’t she already green?” I asked.
“Puke green with jealousy then.”
“Eww. I thought you liked being a wood fairy.”
“The lure of stench is hard to fight,” he said, breathing deep. “If only Lucrece could smell this.”
I rolled my eyes and shivered. My room was frigid and I hadn’t realized how much my nasty old tights kept me warm. With shaking hands, I ex
amined Bentha in the tub. He was unchanged.
“Where are your tights?” asked Delphine. “You’re out of uniform. It’s not proper.”
“They’re soaked with the spell, if you must know. Let’s get Bentha out. I’m already late for practically everything in the world,” I said with my teeth chattering.
Miss Penrose got Rufus off the windowsill. He puffed up and glowed orange at her touch. “Ow ow ow. Take him,” she said, practically hurling the fire lizard at me.
I chuckled as Rufus ran up my arm and coiled around my neck, glowing red hot. I was the only one who could touch him when he was hot. It took me a while to realize fire or heat of any kind didn’t affect me the way it did others. Rufus felt good. In a way, he was my healer by replenishing my fire and through it, my strength. His heat flowed down my back like lava and I heaved a sigh.
“You’re the best lizard.”
Rufus purred against my neck as we lifted Bentha out of the now chilly water, wrapped him in blankets, and laid him on the new bed the Home Depot fairies had made me. It was a roughhewn four-poster and very nice, especially since they made it in under an hour.
“I think he’s softer, don’t you?” asked Delphine, looking eagerly at Bentha’s still face.
I put my traveling bag next to him and flipped it open. “He couldn’t get much harder.”
Delphine’s face fell.
“Not helpful, Matilda,” said Miss Penrose with a frown.
I bit back a sharp retort and opened the first bag of the rejuvenation goo. It kind of smelled good, compared to the troll guck, so smearing it on Bentha’s face didn’t seem so bad. I coated his head and chest with the first bag. Bags two, three, and four covered the rest. I wrapped him back up and heated the floor to warm the room. Horc climbed onto the bed under the guise of looking at Bentha, but his real aim was my traveling bag filled with the bags of leftover spell.
“Don’t even think about it.” I didn’t know how much the empress would need, but I didn’t want anyone eating it after what happened to the gargoyles. A luminescent Horc was too weird to be considered.
Horc continued to sidle toward the bag until I pulled it away, setting it in a corner. “I said don’t even think about it.”
He groaned. “But it tastes delicious. A culinary triumph of epic proportions.”
Wicked Chill (Away From Whipplethorn Book Four) Page 20
