“This poor hat. It’s the third time I’ve sat on it this week.” She ran her hand over her frizzy ginger hair and sighed again. Tossing the hat on the bench, she sat down beside it and shot her fellow Agents a wry smile. “It’s good I’m not the gambling kind.”
“How so?” Darling squatted down and put his hand out for his cat to sniff.
MacDannan pushed her round, owlish glasses up on her nose. “I would have wagered my left arm that Von Dread was mixed up in this Mordeau matter.”
Darling chuckled. “Scarlett, I would’ve been fleeced—or disarmed—right beside you.”
Rachel’s breath escaped softly. MacDannan and Darling were two of the Six Musketeers, still friends and working together decades after they had saved the world from the Veltdammerung. She glanced surreptitiously at Sigfried and Nastasia. Would facing the dangers before them be enough to forge such a bond between the three of them? Could they still be friends twenty years from now? She dearly hoped so.
Agent Standish watched his cheetah stalk around the room. Periodically, the great cat froze, its head cocked to the side, its round ears twitching. Then, it would begin pacing again. Standish leaned on his fulgurator’s staff and spoke in his deep sonorous voice. “The young crown prince handled himself well. I have never heard tell of anyone showing such extraordinary presence of mind under the influence of the Spell of True Recitation.”
“Think he used magic to interfere with the enchantment?” asked Agent MacDannan.
Standish shrugged. “I don’t know.”
Leaning forward, MacDannan lowered her voice, “Just between the three of us: he scares the living daylights out of me.”
Standish’s dark lips twitched with mirth. “You handled yourself very well for a woman with no daylights.”
“What I wouldn’t have given to have been able to ask him other questions,” she sighed.
“You mean, questions not related to the matter at hand?” Agent Standish stroked his short-trimmed beard. “Such as the real story of what led his father to destroy the country of Syria? Or whether Bavaria was behind the nefarious happenings at the Budapest Convention—though I’d place my bet on either Transylvania or China. Or, whether there is any truth to the rumor that his father offers sanctuary to surviving members of the Morthbrood in return for them teaching their black magic to the Bavarian Army.”
“Those among many others, yes.” Agent MacDannan’s eyes flashed with eagerness.
“The person I was dying to question was Locke.” Agent Darling looked up from where he squatted beside Pyewacket. He had pulled a plumb bob from his pocket and was dangling it for the tortoiseshell cat to bat. “What is O.I. doing in their facility in Toronto? What led them to abandon the Miyagi Plant? The survivors we found were encased in a caramel-colored crystal we could not make sense of. We couldn’t even tell if it was magic or technology. Boy, I’d like to know more…” He sighed. “But it was not to be.”
“Because we obey the rules,” MacDannan said fiercely, “even if everyone else does not.”
Upstairs, the princess murmured, “Commendable.”
“Because we are the good guys, Scarlett.” Darling gave her an encouraging smile. “Always have been. Always will be.”
Despite the ache in her heart, Rachel could not help nodding. Good for him.
Standish intoned in his deep voice, “At least that potential political nightmare’s behind us. I would not care to have ended up on the wrong side of King Ludwig IV of Bavaria.”
Agent MacDannan sighed. She pulled her rat off her shoulder and held it. “We still have a Transylvanian prince who used phantom fire on the Princess of Magical Australia.”
Both men blanched. Darling shot to his feet. They looked at each other warily.
“The king of Magical Australia is a strange bird,” Standish offered hopefully, “but he is not unreasonable. He’ll understand that the boy was geased.”
MacDannan’s voice was grim. “Unless he wasn’t.”
“The Drake students were clearly geased.” James Darling shifted his weight to the balls of his feet. “Who says otherwise?”
Agent MacDannan pursed her lips and blew. “Rachel Griffin.”
“Oi!” Standish struck his forehead with the palm of his hand. “Why couldn’t the claim have come from someone more likely to be mistaken? Perhaps, the memory-less kid?”
Upstairs, Sigfried muttered, “Great. Make fun of the orphan boy.”
Scarlett MacDannan deposited her rat on her battered tricorne hat and rose to her feet. “Might as well get to it.”
• • •
In the thinking glass, Remus Starkadder swaggered into the disenchanting chamber. The Transylvanian prince was tall and blond with rugged, Germanic good looks, and a smug leer.
“Hey, it’s the guy who burned the princess.” Putting his elbow against the thinking glass, Sigfried began playing with his knife, twirling it and passing it between his fingers.
Lucky swooped down and landed beside his master, his immensely long scarlet whiskers trailing behind him. “Also, the guy you pelted with the apple.”
“Enjoyable, but a waste of perfectly fine food,” Sigfried replied.
“I’ll go down and find it. Someone should eat it.” Lucky flew out the window, diving downwards. He returned a few seconds later, looking happily smug.
Rachel and the others waited impatiently while the Agents disenchanted the Transylvanian prince amidst bagpipe music and sparkles. Finally, his feet were back on the floor. Agent MacDannan swung off her bagpipes and mopped her forehead.
“Do you work for Mordeau?” she asked, resting her instrument on the bench. Her rat ran over and sat on the bagpipes, zealously guarding them with his fat little body, nose twitching.
Remus’s voice had that odd distant sound of someone under the Spell of True Recitation. Even so, he managed to sound smug. “I like to think of it more as a partnership.”
“Oh? How so?”
“We help them. They help us.”
Agent MacDannan glanced significantly at her companions. James Darling pulled out a notebook and raised his pen.
“You say ‘we.’” She asked, “‘We’, who?”
“Myself and my younger brother, Fenris.”
Upstairs, Rachel murmured, “That’s nice to know.”
Nastasia shot her a puzzled look. “What is?”
“That the brothers are working together,” Rachel explained. “The Starkadders are famous for fighting bitterly amongst themselves. Valerie mentioned that this generation—here at school—is the first that has ever shown signs of getting along with each other. Valerie’s info must be true, if he admits under the Spell of True Recitation to cooperating with his brother.”
“Indeed. But cooperating to do what?” the princess asked darkly.
In the glass, Agent MacDannan asked, “What did Mordeau want?”
“A secret base. We gave Mr. Egg and his confederates access to Beaumont Castle.”
Rachel made a soft noise, deep in her throat. The other two looked at her.
“Sorry,” she whispered, chafed her arms against the sudden chill. Her steeplechaser, which she held between her thumb and forefinger, swung around wildly, nearly hitting Lucky. “I think of Beaumont as a place of ill-omen. My hero, ‘Daring’ Northwest, died there.”
“Recently?” Siggy asked. “Maybe it was these guys.”
“No. Well over a hundred years ago.”
“Hmm.” Sigfried shrugged. “That lead might be a bit cold. Even for my daughter-of-a-detective G.F.”
Nastasia smoothed her needlework. “Do you mean Darius Northwest, the author of The Not-So-Long-Ago Dream Time: A Comprehensive Study of the Bunyip?”
“Yes. That is he!” Rachel grinned with delight. “My hero!”
“Hero?” Siggy perked up at the word. “What did he do? Kill dragons?”
“No. He was a librarian,” Rachel announced proudly.
“Oh.” Siggy looked so uninterested it was pain
ful to see.
“An adventurer librarian,” Rachel explained rapidly. “Not like Unwary librarians. He went out in the field and hunted down the things people came to his library to ask about.”
“Huh. That sounds okay, I guess.” Siggy shrugged again. “Or at least, it doesn’t make me so bored that I want to shoot myself.”
“I want to be just like him when I grow up,” cried Rachel. Her eyes shone as she opened her heart and shared her hidden dreams with her two friends, because that was what friends were for, right? “Traveling to unexplored places, seeing things no one has ever seen before, and then coming back and telling people about them.”
“Shhh.” The princess shushed her. “We’re missing the questions.”
Below, Remus was saying, “…in the deep countryside, away from prying eyes. Besides, it’s mine. No one was using it.”
“Your highness, you mentioned a quid pro quo.” Agent Darling looked up from his notebook. “What were Egg and his friends to do for you in return?”
Remus’s grin faltered. He struggled not to answer. His face contorted from the effort, but the power of the Spell of True Recitation was too great.
He blurted out, “They were to kill my brother Romulus, the crown prince.”
Chapter Eight:
The Grim General of Verhängnisburg
A flurry of activity followed, ending with the two guilty Starkadder princes being led away under guard. Upstairs in the belfry, the three students whooped with glee. Sigfried high-fived Lucky. With a triumphant little smile, the princess lifted her robes as if they were skirts and danced victoriously in the straw.
Clickity-clack, tap, clickity-clack. Nastasia’s legs flashed, her heels clicked. Her motions were vigorous but orderly. Her long locks bounced about her like a fringed shawl of spun gold. Straw flew through the air, filling the belfry with the scent of hay.
“Stone the crows!” Siggy exclaimed. He took three steps backwards away from the dancing princess, waving his hands before his face. “What in Zeus’s name is that?”
“Something I learned during dance class.” The princess panted, her cheeks shone pink with animation. She looked even prettier when she was smiling brightly.
“That’s from Riverdance. I know that one, too!” Rachel ran forward and stood beside Nastasia, lifting her own robes. She had not practiced that particular routine, but she had seen the princess do it. Now, she would never forget.
Side by side, the two girls performed the Irish step dance, legs kicking, feet stamping. Their faces glowed as they moved in perfect synchronization. Rachel’s heart swelled with happiness until she feared it would burst. Keeping the princess as her friend had been the right decision. Nothing could come between them now! In twenty years, they would surely still be close, like James Darling and Scarlett MacDannan.
Siggy watched them, eyes agog. Then he grabbed his head, twirled three times in a circle, and began hitting his forehead against the stone wall.
“Boss, what are you doing?” Lucky watched him with puzzlement.
“Girls. Too cute!” he cried, banging his head with a thunk. “Can’t endure the cuteness!”
“Stop that, Boss!” Lucky urged, his voice faint and muffled. “You don’t damage your head when females are desirable. You bite them on the neck and put them in your lava nest, adding them to your harem. Boss? Stop that! You’ll damage the few brain cells you have!”
The dragon darted between the young man and the wall, opening its mouth wide enough to grab Sigfried’s entire head and wrestle it away from the hard surface.
The two girls looked at each other and burst into laughter.
“Look at us.” Nastasia pressed her hands against her lips, her eyes sparkling, “Giggling like school girls.”
“We are school girls.” Rachel spun around, her robes flaring about her. Dark wisps of hair went everywhere. “If we cannot behave this way, who can?”
“Good point.” The princess’s eyes danced. Then, the humor in them faded. She moved back to her chair and sat down, smoothing her robes. “You know, I’ve never been in pain before. Not like today. Normally, if I stumbled or grew ill, my father’s servants fixed it right away. We had excellent nuns and monks from the Order of Asclepius on staff. What Prince Remus did…was quite painful,” she finished with quiet dignity.
“I’m so sorry,” Rachel whispered.
“’Tis no matter. I am happy he was apprehended before he could commit worse crimes. He used black magic on children, and he was willing to commit fratricide.”
“A total rotter,” Sigfried swore, holding his aching forehead. “What will become of him now? What do you Wise guys do with criminals? Do you torture them? Hang them upside-down from racks? Rip off their fingernails and feed them to their children? Force them to eat their own toes? Make them watch while the lower half of their body is consumed by fire ants? Do you all have special fire ants that actually burst into flame? Flaming ants! Wicked!”
“Bet they’re tasty, too!” Lucky licked his furry dragon-lips.
“He’s a citizen of Transylvania.” Rachel knelt down and pulled a piece of straw out of her shoe. “He’ll be handed over to their king.”
“They should turn him over to the Grand Inquisitor.” The princess tsked disapprovingly. “Not his own father. Whatever punishment he receives, it will be too lenient.”
“Transylvania is rather old-fashioned.” Rachel stood up. Her eyes snapped with gleeful spite. “Maybe they’ll clap him in irons and toss things at him. That could be rather horrid.”
“Do you think they’ll invite Nastasia to go throw things?” Siggy asked. “Are there spells that make really foul-smelling stuff? Putrid?”
“You could always conjure another skunk.”
“Oh, yeah. Come here, Lucky.” Siggy began making the gesture for drawing down a conjured object.
“Not now!” Rachel squeaked in exasperation. “Later. Do that later, Siggy. We still want to see what’s going on downstairs.”
“Where are my manners?” The princess jumped up and pulled two more straight-backed chairs from her purse, the mouth of which seemed quite elastic. “Here. Have a chair.”
Sigfried turned his chair around, sat on it backwards, and put his hand on the thinking glass. Rachel sat on the third chair. Downstairs, the Agents interviewed students who had been under Mordeau’s geas, one after the other. Each student seemed shocked when the Spell of True Recitation revealed hidden memories of having been told a command word that would force them to obey the speaker. Some had been given simple orders: carry a message or deliver a package. None recalled having been asked to do anything violent before today—when Mordeau instructed them to kill all the students who had no wands.
Rachel sat on the edge of her chair, eager to hear more. Learning things by spying on the adults was even better than having them volunteer information. It was like a secret within a secret. And she wanted to know everything!
It was not merely her burning curiosity that drove her. The wonder of learning, the excitement when unconnected facts came together to form a pattern—making order out of chaos—filled her with a delight that she could not put into words.
It was as if she lived in an enormous dark mansion, of which she could only see a tiny portion. As she explored, candle in hand, occasionally she would come upon a lamp. Each time she lit a new lamp of knowledge with the fire of her curiosity, whole chambers, previously dark, became illuminated. Here was a drawing room of fascinating facts. There a hallway hung with breathtaking landscapes and paintings of faraway places she longed to visit. And over here was a ballroom filled with dancing hopes and dreams that she would not even have known to yearn for if she had not sought out the forgotten things that others overlooked.
However, not everyone matched her enthusiasm. As the bells tolled five o’clock, the interviews downstairs became repetitive. Siggy grew bored and began falling asleep, causing the image to go blank. Rachel poked his shoulder repeatedly. She did not blame him. Her e
yes kept closing as well. When they did, however, sleep brought nightmares. She dreamt she was back in the hallway under Drake Hall, paralyzed with Dr. Mordeau’s eared snake slithering toward her, preparing to bite. Only this time, the princess did not arrive to rescue her.
This time, the snake’s sharp white fangs bore down upon…
Rachel sat up and shook Siggy’s shoulder again. She must keep watching, learning. It staved off the darkness.
The only unexpected bit during the next hour was their friend Joy O’Keefe, who had finally been released from the infirmary. Joy remembered, as a child, coming upon her father talking with a black Raven the size of an eagle, with blood red eyes. Rachel also liked the part where her senior resident, Yolanda Debussy, admitted to having kissed an Agent named Jack Oliver, but Sigfried pulled his hand off the mirror before Yolanda finished. He claimed that the “boy-girl” stuff was so revolting it made him physically ill.
By the time she got Siggy to put his hand back on the mirror, Yolanda had departed. Agent Darling stood looking off into the distance with a thoughtful expression on his face.
“Scarlett, that kid who helped Finn when he was injured, after his duel with Aleister Crowley…wasn’t that Mortimer Egg?”
Agent MacDannan had put down her bagpipes and was searching for something. She tipped back her head, thinking. “The quiet one with the funny felt hat?”
“That’s him.”
“Yes. It was.”
“Huh.”
A shiver traveled up Rachel’s spine. Crowley. Mordeau had mentioned him. He had helped Rachel’s grandfather defeat Bismarck’s sorcerers in the 1880s. After that, Crowley had gone bad. Very bad. He had been one of the Terrible Five who caused the Terrible Years. What did it mean that the man who had tried to kill Valerie, who might be Mordeau’s secret boss, was present at the death of this horrible sorcerer?
And what about her grandfather? What was this mysterious tragedy he suffered?
“Who’s Finn?” asked Sigfried.
“Finvarra MacDannan, Scarlett’s husband and James Darling’s best friend. He was one of the Six Musketeers Mr. Fisher told us about,” Rachel reminded him. “He’s also thought to be the best Enchanter alive today. He’s so good, he is even a hit with the Unwary. He’s the lead singer of a band called Bogus.”
The Raven, The Elf, and Rachel (A Book of Unexpected Enlightenment 2) Page 8
