Jake & The Giant (The Gryphon Chronicles, Book 2) (5 page)

CHAPTER FIVE

Two Paths

“I
t’s not what he’s done, it’s what he believes,” she replied. “He’s the most dangerous sort of person there is. The type who’s convinced that everything he does is for the greater good, so how dare anyone question him?”

“Are you sure about this?” Jake murmured.

“I feel like I’ve got a spike in my head from being near him,” she declared. “For me, that’s all the proof I need.”

They both knew
that Isabelle had a sort of allergy to evil. She could sense it even when no one else quite could. It was part of her role as Keeper of the Unicorns; she was responsible for the wellbeing of the protected unicorn herd that roamed the woods of the Bradford family’s estate back in England, Bradford Park. She shared telepathy with animals, clearly able to read their thoughts, but she could only sense the emotions of people…and the presence of whatever shadows lurked in their hearts.

“What does
Dr. Galton believe that’s so bad?” Jake persisted as they walked on through the crowd.

“That some people are worth more than others based on their genetics,” she answered.

“Aren’t they?” he asked.

“Jake!” She recoiled from the question, then turned and glared at him, appalled.
“No!”

“
Sorry, I was just asking,” he mumbled.

“Well, the answer is no. Not at all. And you must never forget it. Everyone matters
, Jake. Every life has value. Not even a genius like the Prince of the Polymaths has the right to play God and decide who deserves to live and who’s not good enough. Who’s Fit or Unfit. The arrogance of such a notion is obscene.”

Dani and Jake exchanged an unsettled look.

“What do you mean, Unfit?” Dani asked worriedly.

Isabelle considered how to say it. “
It’s almost too cruel to put into words, Dani. Dr. Galton is working on a theory called eugenics that picks up where Mr. Darwin’s evolution theory leaves off. He says why not help evolution along by weeding out the weak among us?”

“But we’re supposed to protect the weak,” Jake said. “That’s chivalry.”

“That’s right. More than chivalry, humanity,” she said sharply. “If you asked Dr. Galton and his ilk, he would say that the Unfit include the poor and unfortunate, people who are sick or blind or deaf or simple. Even those whose skin is considered the wrong color. If they had their way, they’d even let unwanted children die.”

Dani and Jake gasped simultaneously, thinkin
g of all their dear friends back at the orphanage. Unwanted children, all.

“He would…kill them
?” Dani breathed.

“Of course
.” Isabelle nodded somberly. “What does it matter, if people are only animals, glorified apes? Killing them shouldn’t matter any more than exterminating rats or raising chickens for food, should it?”

“But people have a soul!”
Dani protested.

“They don’t believe that,” Isabelle
replied.

“But I’ve seen them,” Jake interjected. “Ghosts. The spirits of people who’ve died. They live on. I know. I’ve talked to them.”

“Say so and they’ll put you in a lunatic asylum.”

“How horrible,”
Dani whispered, shaking her head.

B
ut Jake was too furious to comment until he finally managed to growl, “Is Galton one of the Dark Druids? Tell me.”

Isabelle put her arm
fondly around his shoulders with a sad smile. “No, Jake. He’s just a scientist, and sadly, his views are not nearly as uncommon as they should be. I’m afraid, for all their intellect, some of these geniuses are blind to right and wrong. All of their inventions and discoveries, just like your gifts and mine, can be used for either great good or great evil.”

She release
d him from her casual half-hug to point at the Chemistry aisle. “If you want to see the good side, look at Louis Pasteur over there, for contrast with our Dr. Galton. Instead of trying to figure out which diseases classify someone as Unfit, Mr. Pasteur is trying to solve the whole problem of disease by studying this new germ theory. Have you heard of it?”

“A little,”
Jake replied.

“Some people think
that very tiny creatures called microbes, or germs, invade the body and cause us to get sick.” Isabelle shrugged. “I would hardly know about that. What I
do
know is that Mr. Pasteur has already saved thousands of people’s lives by simply making sure the milk is safe to drink.”

Jake stared at the modest-
looking man in his fifties greeting people in the Chemistry aisle. Noting how Mr. Pasteur held his left arm at an odd angle and limped a bit, Jake was stunned.

“He’s partly paralyzed,” he mu
rmured, glancing at Isabelle. “So would Mr. Pasteur be considered Unfit, too, then?”

“
He very well might. Heavens, even Thomas Edison might not have made the cut, judging by his boyhood. Everyone knows he failed out of school and had to be taught at home by his mother. Plus, Mr. Edison is somewhat deaf in both ears, so, yes, I daresay Dr. Galton might’ve tossed him in the trash, too.” She shook her head. “I just hope that when my brother grows up, he will choose wisely about which sort of scientist he wants to be.”

“You
look pale. Are you feeling all right?” Dani asked, taking Isabelle’s elbow in concern.

She gave her
a grateful smile. “Actually, being around Dr. Galton has given me rather a headache. I could use some air.”

“
Come on, we’ll step outside. I’ll go with you,” Dani murmured, looking deeply upset by Isabelle’s revelations. “Jake, do you want to come along?”

“
I think I’ll go find Archie,” he replied. “Have a word with him about his admiration for the Prince of the Polymaths.”

“Good idea.” Isabelle nod
ded. “He’ll listen to you more than he ever listens to me.”

“Surely Archie doesn’t agree wit
h Galton’s madness?” Dani exclaimed as they turned to go.

“No,
it’s not that. You know Archie,” Isabelle said. “He just wants to get along with everyone. He makes a lot of excuses for his fellow scientists and falls into the trap, I think, of allowing them to ignore questions of right and wrong in their experiments for the sake of science.”

Experiments like, oh, reanimating corpses?
Jake wondered wryly, recalling Doctor Frankenstein’s dancing dead man. Bloody unnatural.

“I believe
the day will come when Archie will have to make a choice and speak out among his colleagues to warn them when they’re going too far. At least they might listen to him.”

Jake nodd
ed, taking it all in. “Feel better soon, Izzy,” he offered.

She cast him a wan smile, then she and Dani left the Exhibit Hall.

Jake, troubled by all he’d heard, turned to look for Archie. As he sauntered back the way he had come, he passed Dr. Galton once more, busy in his booth spreading his warped ideas to more of his fellow scientists. Too bad the man had not stuck to dog whistles and mathematics.

Wh
en his stomach rumbled again, Jake glanced down at his pocket watch, wondering how much longer it would be before the Welcome Dinner. He was starved.

But
just as he lifted his head again, slipping his watch back into his vest pocket, he glanced up to find a towering, high-wheeled bicycle barreling straight toward him down the aisle.

“Watch out! Move!
Move! Out of my way!” the bicyclist yelled, gesturing him aside.

Jake leaped clear
just in time to avoid being flattened. The high-wheeler passed so close that the breeze from its spokes fanned his face; its front wheel was nearly as tall as he was.

The lunatic rider zoomed past: a long, lanky man leaning over the handlebars and working the pedals with maniacal speed.

With his opera cloak flapping out behind him, he was humming that famous new song, “The Ride of the Valkyries.”

Jake recognized it because he had heard it in London only a week ago, when Great-Great Aunt Ramona had dragged him to the opera for the first time.
The tempestuous brass-and-cymbals of the famous Norse-themed song had made quite an impression on him, not the least because the orchestra had played it twice that night—the second time, as an encore.

Aside from that catchy tune, the only thing Jake had learned that night was that he was not
a great fan of opera.

But he was even less fond of pe
ople who tried to run him over.

Furious at the fool, he stepped back into the center of the aisle and glared after him. Then it was his turn to smirk, for those high-wheelers couldn’t make sharp turns.

His eyes narrowed in satisfaction as he watched the fool tip the giant bicycle over, taking the turn at the end of the aisle too fast.

The crazed rider lost control, wrecked the tall bicycle into a pillar, and went flying off the
side, landing in a heap of pointy knees and sharp elbows.

But
then Jake frowned, for the man got up laughing like a loon-bat, glanced around the Exhibit Hall, and dashed off again, obviously looking for more trouble.

What the—?

When the maniac rushed into another aisle full of delicate inventions, Jake frowned in concern.

Who is this joker?

He followed the stranger with caution. Trailing him from several yards behind, Jake was mystified and a little alarmed by what he saw.

The loon-bat
certainly did not behave like a scientist. He wasn’t wearing a lab coat, nor did he have particularly crazy hair.

His hair, in fact, was long and jet-black and rather stringy; his face was long and thin, too—almost goatish with his little goatee beard, a dark triangle on his chin. His tall, skinny frame was clad in elegant black clothes and draped in a long black cloak.

As Jake warily approached, the man appeared to be having a grand time, laughing to himself with irreverent delight and playing with all the inventions.

Signs everywhere said
DO NOT TOUCH
, but he ignored them.

He examined one item after another as if they were toys, then tossed them aside.

Jake watched him, taken aback.

Mad as a hatter, the strange man seemed to be in his own world. Then Jake realized that he must be someone important, for everyone else left him alone to do whatever he liked.

The loon-bat dared to put on the thick, padded “Super Strength Gloves” and wiggled his fingers, giggling as he inspected them. He crouched down and tapped the floor, cracking the flagstones with two fingers.

Anoth
er hearty chuckle. “Very nice!” Moving on, he paused to try on the “Lie Detector Goggles.” Peering through them, he began scanning the Exhibit Hall, and that was when he noticed Jake trailing him.

The man snapped his fingers impatiently. “You, boy! Come here at once!”

“Excuse me?” Jake retorted, offended by the summons.

“Chop-chop, front and center!”

“Why?”

“Because
,” he said. “I want you to lie to me.”

“What?”

CHAPTER SIX

A Loon-bat on the Loose

“T
ell me a lie,” the odd man commanded. “I want to see if these things work. Go on, hurry. Make it a whopper!”

Jake was not amused. He folded his arms across his chest and tried to look like his stern idol back in England, the warrior Derek Stone. “You shouldn’t be touching these inventions.”

“Nonsense.” The man lowered the Lie Detector Goggles, revealing fiery black eyes that brimmed with mischief and mayhem. “I can do whatever I want. Who’s going to stop me? You?”

“If I have to,” Jake replied rather more bravely than he had cause
for.

The man set the goggles back on the display table. “Boy, you obviously don’t know who I am.”

Jake shrugged with all his rookery bravado. “Don’t really care, either. You’re going to break something and it’s not right. These people worked really hard on their inventions.”

“But that’s what I do, my lad. I break things! It’s so much more fun than going to all that bother of trying to make stuff.
Trust me, you should try it sometime. The real fun’s in destruction, not creation. What’s your name?”

He eyed him warily. “Jake.”

“Take? Ahh, so you take things?”

“No, I said—”

“Excellent—a thief! Ha! I knew I liked you, Take. Rude, too. We shall be great friends. So, what sort of things do you most enjoy stealing?”

Jake gritted his teeth. “My name is not Take.”

This was a rather sensitive subject, for Jake had made a very firm break with his criminal past ever since he had spent that night in Newgate Prison. He wondered how the man had homed in on his disreputable history.

Maybe the Lie Detector Goggles had given him a clue. “My name,” he forced out, “is
Jake
.”

“Oh, dear me. Forgive me, Mr. Lake. So pleased to meet you—”

“Jake.”

“Cake? Ah, I’m a huge fan! Nice to finally meet you
, Cake. I didn’t realize you could appear as a person. Most impressive. Chocolate or vanilla?”

Jake just glared at him.

Even Dani O’Dell had never dreamed of being half this annoying, but Jake gave up on the name joke. Let the glock-wit have his fun. He refused to rise to the bait. “Who are you?”

The man laughed. “A
charming, clever, and quick-minded opportunist, misunderstood by all. What do you say to that?”

Jake shook his head. “What are you doing here?” he
countered in suspicion.

“Lan
guishing in idleness, I fear.”

“What?”

“The age of the gods is past, Cake. It all came to naught, yet here I am, stuck in Midgarth, denied my fearsome destiny. Now? Well, I suppose I’m really just killing time.” He let out a long sigh.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Never mind. Just dreams.”

Jake eyed him warily. “Well, you don’t seem like a scientist.” He didn’t seem as silly now as he had a few minutes ago, either.

“Me? A scientist? Please. I don’t have the patience for running experiments. I’m an investor, Cake. It takes a lot of gold to fund all this ‘research and development,’ as the eggheads call it. Tell me, what do you know of war?”

“War? Nothing, really.” Jake
shrugged, startled by the rapid change of subjects. It was then that he noticed they had wandered into a shadowy aisle labeled
Defense
. “Why do you ask?”

“Why, it’s
a favorite hobby of mine, war. Sport of kings, as they say. That’s why I come to these events. Because—here’s a secret, Cake. In war, as a general rule, he who has the cleverest toys wins.”

“These weapons aren’t toys,” Jake informed him, stepping in front of the stranger to block his curious stare at a bizarre
-looking armored carriage with guns mounted on top. “Is that why you’re here? You’re thinkin’ of starting a war?”

“Always.” The man sent him a crafty smile and firmly pushed him aside to stare at the armored carriage again. “That’s the greatest misc
hief there is, after all.”

“Who
are
you?” Jake persisted, following him as the man drifted down the aisle to gaze at a new long-range cannon.

He sighed again. “It’s complicated, Cake.” As the stranger s
auntered along, Jake followed.

“Why
is that?”

“Because I
change
. Sometimes I’m a salmon. Other times a seal…”

Jake blinked.

“…Or a horse. Bird. Other times a fly, which is more amusing than it sounds. But mostly I’m a prince, Cake, if you really want to know.”

Jake scoffed
, baffled. “A salmon? A fly? Mad, you are!”

“I prefer ‘interesting.’ And you may address me as Your Highness.”

“Then you can address me as ‘my lord,’ because I’m more of an earl than you’re a prince!” he retorted.

“I
am
a prince, Lord Cake.”

“Then where’s your land?”

The ‘prince’ looked askance at him. “Let’s just say, I’m not from around here.”

Jake shook his head. It did not take a genius to see that thi
s poor mumper was unstable, right nickey in the head. On second thought, maybe he really was royalty, then. The royal families of Europe had been marrying their cousins for so many generations, half of them were born barmy.

“I’m telling the truth,” the man
protested when he saw Jake’s dubious stare. “Ask the Lie Detector Goggles if you don’t believe me.”

“Maybe I will!” Jake s
natched them out of his hand, put them on, then turned to look at the man—and was taken aback by what he saw.

When viewe
d through the goggles, the ‘prince’ had strangely elongated ears.

His pointy ears were somewhat hidden by his long, stringy hair, but when he
turned his head, Jake could clearly make out the tattoo on the stranger’s face.

A
dark, intricate swirl of Norse-style knots crossed his cheek and curled up around his left eye like black war-paint.

How had he missed seeing
it before? But then he realized: Only the Lie Detector Goggles revealed it.

Baffled, Jake lowered them from his eyes. Lo and behold, the tattoo vanished from the stranger’s face.

He peered through them a second time in case his eyes had tricked him, but there it was again. Indeed, a closer look at the tattoo revealed that it did not depict a knotted rope, after all.

It was a tattoo of a serpent.

Jake felt a chill go down his spine at this revelation, but in the next moment, he forgot all about the tattoo, for the madman had just stepped up behind the newly-invented Gatling gun. “Hey-ho, what have we here?”

The multi-barreled weapon was mounted on a two-wheeled gun carriage, like a cannon.

The sign said it could fire over a thousand rounds a minute.

“Hello, gorgeous,” the ‘prince’
murmured heartily as he stepped up behind it and figured out how to load the whole box of bullets. “I must admit, every once in a while, you humans do come up with something fun…”

Not good, Jake thought. Rapid-fire
weapon in the hands of a loon-bat.
Not good at all.

Heart pounding, he set the g
oggles back on their table and walked slowly, calmly, bravely toward the crazy person. “Um, Your Highness, I don’t think you really ought to fool with that.”

“Why ever not, Cake?” h
e asked innocently. “Look what it can do. Angle up, angle down. You can swivel it round from side to side, kill everyone in sight. Lovely! All you have to do to fire is turn this crank…”

“You can’t be touching that!”

“Oh, yes I can.”

“It’s dangerous! Look what it says here.” Jake pointed to the sign ominously claiming that Doctor Gatling’s intent had been to invent a weapon so invincible that it would make all warfare obsolete.

“Pah! They always say that,” the mad prince scoffed. “What rubbish! It’s just an excuse. War is in our bones, Cake. They’ll never get rid of it. And they’ll never get rid of me.”

Then he
started firing.

Jake clapped his hands over his ears and
instinctively ducked his head. Thankfully, the loon-bat aimed the Gatling gun into the shooting gallery set up for weapons tests.

Even with his ears plugged, t
he bullets sounded to Jake like the loudest popcorn bursting.

L
aughing maniacally, the stranger went on cranking and cranking the handle, gleefully unloading. In seconds, empty brass cartridges littered the floor. The Gatling gun roared on, shredding the thick practice target.

Jake knew he had to do so
mething to stop him.

All that madman
had to do was swivel the gun in another direction, and people in the Exhibit Hall would be mowed down.

Jak
e knew the danger of using his powers in front of the public, let along the scientists, but what choice did he have?

Still holding his ears as the
giant machine gun thundered on and on, he let go of his right ear in order to put out his hand.

He summoned up all his concentration,
then used his telekinesis to make the cranking mechanism jam.

T
he Gatling gun abruptly went mute.

The mad prince stopped, making a small sound of disappointment.
He shook the weapon. “Piece of junk!”

Jake had already straightened up and was striding toward him, relieved that the stranger hadn’t seen him use his hereditary gift.

“It obviously needs more work,” the mad prince said in disgust. “I’ve always said the dwarves make much better weapons than these humans.” He started to walk away—only to stop mid-stride.

Jake was still trying to absorb the dwarf remark when the loon-bat
held up his hand and froze, as though hearing something in the distance. Then he sniffed the air.

Jake squint
ed at him in confusion.
What now?

“Do you smell that, Cake?”

“All I smell is gunpowder,” he answered in reproach, his ears still ringing from the din.

“
Shh! Quiet! Listen!”

Jake could have sworn that the man’s long, tapered ears twitched.

Then the prince started to laugh—slowly, even more wickedly than before. “It can’t be…”

He shook his head with a look of surprise, listening to whatever it was he though
t he heard. “I don’t believe it!” he murmured to himself.

“Believe what?” Jake demanded.

“Tsk, tsk. Somebody’s broken the rules. Oh, I love that!”

“Who?”

“Fee, fi, fo, fum… I smell the blood of… but it can’t be. That’s not allowed, not at all,” he whispered gleefully to himself, staring toward the Exhibit Hall doors.

“What are you talking about
?” Jake asked in exasperation. But the nonsensical syllables the loon-bat had just uttered sounded familiar. Where had he heard them before?

H
e suddenly remembered. Of course. The old fairytale,
Jack and the Beanstalk
. The orphanage ladies used it to read it to the children.

T
he mad prince had now forgotten all about him. “I must investigate!” He whirled away abruptly with a flap of his black cloak like a crow’s wings.

With t
he midnight fabric of his cloak streaming out behind him, he rushed out of the Exhibit Hall without another word.

Jake stared after him, confused.
Absolutely bloomin’ bonkers.

Wondering if he should call for campus security, he
had barely had a chance to sigh with relief that the lunatic had gone, when he heard Henry furiously calling his name.

“Jake! Get away from that weapon, this instant! How dare you g
o fooling with that thing? That is not a toy!”

Jake let out
a weary sigh.
Here we go again.
Getting the blame for something that wasn’t his fault. Typical!

“Jacob Everton,
have you lost your mind?” the boys’ tutor demanded as he came marching up the aisle. “I told you not to touch
any
of the inventions, let alone the Gatling gun!”

“It wasn’t me
!”

“Oh, really? You just happened to be standing here beside it? A
nd where did all these casings come from?” Henry gestured toward the empty bullet shells lying all over the floor. “Did they fall out of the sky?”

“It wasn’t
me
shooting, it was some lunatic—honest! He was here a moment ago. Didn’t you see him?”

“No!” Henry retorted, yanking Jake away from the Gatling gun and bending to pick up all the casings.