The Chalice of Immortality (5 page)

A chilly breeze blew across Nick's forehead, feeling like icy fingertips. Isabella inhaled. Theo and Boris froze. From behind them, they heard the sound of many paws scraping on cobblestones.

Slowly, Nick turned around. “Theo?” he whispered.

His cousin spun slowly along with Boris and Isabella.

“This is not good,” Theo said. “Not good at all.”

An entire pack of wolves crept toward them, fur sticking up straight along the ridges of their spines. The wolves were panting, snarling, and saliva dripped to the street. The beasts emitted low growls from their throats.

“Now would be as good a time as any to make us disappear, Theo,” Nick urged.

“But if we do that, we won't find out why they are here. Isabella,” Theo commanded, “speak to them. Explain that we mean no harm.”

“There are seven of them,” Isabella said, her teeth chattering, eyes wide. The animals snapped their teeth, and one of them howled again, sending a skittering shiver up Nick's back.

“So?” Nick asked. “Just talk to them. Come on, Isabella!”

“Seven
angry
wolves. And those two,” Isabella nodded with her head, “are the alpha and his mate—they're the angriest of all!”

A wolf leaped toward them, and Boris leaned down to pull a dagger from a sheath strapped to his leg. The dagger gleamed. Boris and the wolf faced off against each other.

“Now would be the time to speak to them, Isabella,” Theo urged.

Isabella nodded and began speaking. Nick had always marveled at his cousin's magical talent—a skill only inherited by female Magickeepers. She could understand any animal—whether it was a barking dog, a chattering monkey, or her tiger, Sascha. And when she spoke, they understood her. Nick once asked her how that worked, and she said she had no idea—just like he could not explain how it was that he Gazed.

His cousin's voice was shaky, a little above a whisper. “We mean you no harm. We are searching for an ancient chalice.”

One of the wolves roared and howled. The others followed suit.

“What are they saying?” Nick asked.

“They say that they are not what they appear. They have been possessed by Shadowkeepers and commanded to make sure we do not succeed. They cannot control their ferocity. Oh, Nick, it's so sad.”

His cousin's compassion for animals was limitless. Nick thought it gave her courage, because Isabella's voice steadied and grew louder. “You do not need to harm us. Let us pass. We come in peace. We are Magickeepers and fight the very ones who did this to you.”

Suddenly, one wolf—not the alpha—broke from the pack. With its tail between its legs, it crawled forward, almost on its belly. It looked up at her with yellow-tinged eyes and made a sound as if it was wounded and in horrific pain. Isabella nodded at the various whimpers, snaps, growls, and barks.

“Yes,” she said. “Yes…I understand.” She glanced at Theo and then at Nick. “The chalice exists. But we are not the only ones hunting it.”

“That figures,” Nick muttered.

“But we now know something else the wolf has told me.”

“What?” Nick asked.

“The chalice was once in the possession of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.”

“Who's that?” Nick asked.

“The man who invented the character of Sherlock Holmes,” Theo said. “Isabella, can you free these wolves?”

“I doubt it,” she said. “This is a Shadowkeeper spell. I've never tried to undo one of their animal spells.”

Nick grabbed her hand. “Isabella—you love animals more than anyone in the world. You can free them. Evil is
not
stronger than good. Don't be afraid. You can do it.”

“I…don't…know…” She bit her lip. Her eyes filled with tears.

Then Nick had an idea.

“I should have known a
girl
wouldn't be able to do it.”

Isabella quickly pulled her hand from his, slugged him in the shoulder, and began to speak in what Nick could only describe as wolf-language. Periodically, Nick heard her speak Russian.

The wolves howled louder. Their voices seemed to bounce off the moon and echo back again, surrounding them. And still Isabella wove her spell. The snarling reached a fevered pitch, and Nick watched the wolves as they rose on their hind legs, snapping and pawing at the air. They seemed to be hurting. Their chests heaved and expanded, looking like they might explode.

Wolf by wolf, they fell to the ground with a dull thud, one right on top of the other in a heap. They looked dead—all seven of them. Then Nick smelled it—the unmistakable odor of Shadowkeepers. He had tried many times to think of a way to describe it: Egg salad sandwich left on a hot school bus for a week in the middle of June? Garbage dump mixed with dead skunk? But no matter how he tried to describe it, words could not capture the stench.

“Look!” Boris pointed. Seeping from the wolves, a black, oily substance filled the street, forming rivulets in the cobblestones.

“Don't let it touch you!” Theo commanded.

Theo, Isabella, Boris, and Nick backed away from the oil and watched for several minutes. Finally, the wolves stirred. They shivered and whimpered and then woke up as if they had been in a deep sleep. Nick watched as they began sniffing, rubbing noses, and licking each other's faces. They looked as tame as puppies.

“What's going on?” he asked Isabella.

She beamed at him. “They are free!” she announced.

“I knew you could do it,” he said.

Isabella instinctively rolled her eyes. But then she quietly said to Nick, “Thanks for pushing me.”

The alpha male, easily 180 pounds or so, Nick thought, walked to Isabella and licked her hand. She buried her fingers in the ruff of his neck. “I'm so glad. I am so glad.” She knelt down and buried her face in the wolf's fur. The other six in the pack approached and surrounded her, licking her and nuzzling her. Nick was in awe. He could barely see the top of her head as the pack made her a part of their circle.

She spoke to them some more, then nodded. Finally, she stood with the wolves still surrounding her protectively.

“We need to follow the trail to Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and Harry Houdini.”

“Harry Houdini?” Nick asked, shocked.

“They were friends once,” Isabella said. “Until the Shadowkeepers—and the Chalice of Immortality—came between them.”

The wolves trotted off, free from their curse. Nick, Isabella, Theo, and Boris wearily entered the bed and breakfast owned by Lady Daphne. She descended the staircase in a flowered flannel nightgown, her snowy white hair set in curlers, cold cream on her face.

“Blimey! You all look as if you've seen a ghost.”

“Not a ghost,” Nick replied. “A pack of wolves.”

Lady Daphne paled. “Wolves! Oh, my!”

“They were under a spell,” Isabella offered.

“I was in the shower. I didn't hear a thing. You poor travelers! The beasts didn't harm you, did they now?”

“Thanks to Isabella,” Theo said, putting his hand on Isabella's shoulder, “no. It could have been far, far worse.”

“What about Shakespeare's home? Did you find any clues?” Lady Daphne asked. She walked to a large desk, opened a drawer, and extracted a room key.

“No,” said Isabella. “But the wolves offered us a clue. They said we must follow the trail to Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.”

“And Harry Houdini,” Nick added.

“Oh,” said Lady Daphne. “That's a sad tale—at least, the part that I know.”

“Can you tell us?” Nick asked.

“Over a spot of tea. And here.” She handed Theo the key. “The four of you can have the two-room suite on the top floor. But first…tea to warm your tired bones and make you sleepy. Mine is a very special, magical tea. You will wake refreshed!”

Lady Daphne led them into the kitchen of the bed and breakfast. A long wooden table of knotted pine stood near an immense fireplace with a crackling fire, its flames licking large logs. Above the fire hung a bubbling cauldron. Nick tried to avoid staring. Was Lady Daphne a witch?

She caught him looking and seemed to read his mind. “No, I am not a witch, you little rascal. It is my world-famous English beef stew with suet dumplings.”

“Suet? What's that?” Nick's stomach growled with hunger.

“Why, it's raw beef fat.”

Nick's stomach flip-flopped.

“Or sometimes mutton fat. It's the
best
fat too, the hard fat surrounding the
kidneys
. My goodness, my mouth is watering just thinking about it.”

Nick wanted to throw up! What was it about Magickeepers and really gross food? “So you make
dumplings
…out of
fat?
”

“One bite and you'll be a convert, lad. Now, sit down for tea.”

Lady Daphne prepared the table with a dainty porcelain sugar bowl containing perfect cubes of sugar, a small pitcher of thick cream, and teacups painted with portraits of famous Magickeepers.

As she set cups in front of each of them, she began, “Now to be sure, I have no idea what Harry Houdini may have had to do with the chalice, or what Sir Arthur Conan Doyle might have done with the chalice, for that matter. But I can tell you about the fairies.”

“Fairies?” Isabella said, exchanging a look with Nick that said,
Even for a Magickeeper, Lady Daphne is a bit crazy.

“Yes. Fairies. Two little girls—Elsie and Frances—took photographs of fairies in their garden. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle was
absolutely
convinced that they were real. And Harry Houdini was absolutely convinced they were a hoax. Though Houdini and Doyle had been friends, they had a falling out. A real row, from what I've heard.”

“Were the fairies real?” Nick asked.

Theo laughed.

“What?”

“Now you're going to tell me you believe in fairies? Little creatures with wings?” He playfully slammed his hand on the table and chortled.

Nick furrowed his brow. “Theo…since I came to live with you, I've seen tame polar bears in a swimming pool, Shadowkeepers disappearing into oil slicks, snow falling in the desert, and a sinkhole swallowing an entire building—and just now, I watched Isabella tame a pack of wild wolves. Fairies? Why not?”

“Well, ducky,” Lady Daphne clucked, “the fairies were not real, I'm afraid. They were a hoax. But the falling out? That was real. Go to Surrey, the home of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Follow the chalice there.”

They drank their tea, which Nick decided had the taste of honey…and oranges…and mint mixed with cream…and something magical that tickled his tongue. Then they went up to their suite. Isabella had the small bedroom, which was an explosion of tiny roses on wallpaper—even the ceiling had roses. Nick, Boris, and Theo took the larger bedroom, in which the theme appeared to be blue stripes.

Nick slept on a striped couch. Boris snored all night long. And it wasn't just snoring—it was a loud sound like a buzz saw that kept Nick up all night. He tried putting a pillow over his head. He even considered putting a pillow over
Boris's
head, but he knew he'd be taking his life in his hands if he did. Finally, near dawn, Nick slept for what seemed like ten minutes.

But Lady Daphne's tea must have worked, because the next day, Nick wasn't even tired. By midmorning, he and his three companions stood on the lawn of Undershaw Estate.

“It's kind of sad-looking,” Isabella said.

Nick nodded. The house had once been a hotel, but now it had fallen on hard times. The grasses surrounding it had grown long—they almost looked like wheat fields, and they rustled in the breeze.

Theo cast a spell, and they found themselves standing in what once had been a library. There was no furniture, but Nick saw the bookshelves climbing the walls and assumed they once had been filled with the books of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.

He walked over to a musty shelf and started writing his name in the dust. Suddenly, his mind flashed.

“What is it, Nick?” Isabella asked.

He whispered, “I'm having a vision.”

***

Undershaw Estate, Surrey, England, March 1, 1925

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle sat at his heavy wooden desk, working on another of his Professor Challenger stories. He enjoyed the jack-of-all-trades professor character he had created. Professor Challenger was so different from his most famous character, Sherlock Holmes. Professor Challenger had a huge head—enormous! And he was bushy-headed, fierce-looking, like a beast! He roared when he talked, bellowing like a braying donkey. No, he was not as urbane as Sherlock Holmes, but Professor Challenger was fast becoming Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's favorite creation.

Doyle leaned back in his chair and twirled his handlebar mustache contentedly. He smiled to himself. He was pleased with his writing. He looked down at his manuscript, which he was working on in longhand, writing with his favorite fountain pen.

Periodically, he sipped from a golden chalice on his desk. One day, he had poured water into the chalice and drunk it. He had felt a near-explosion of ideas in his mind, some energizing effect. So he drank more water from it. And after he drank from it, he found he never tired. His mind bubbled with ideas.

He heard a knock on his study door. “Enter.”

Harry Houdini strode into the room in black pants and a black coat, his wiry hair looking, as usual, like he had been hanging upside down during one of his escape tricks. “Arthur, I need to speak with you. Your houseman showed me in.” Houdini's eyes traveled to the chalice.

“What is it you wish to speak to me about? More of your doubts and condemnation of spiritualism? More of your sneering obstinacy about the world of magic?”

“Friend…I do not condemn. I only wish to save you pain and sorrow—more sorrow than you already have. Spiritualism—it is not real. You place your hope in falsehoods.”

“No. It is you who are wrong. I am hoping my Professor Challenger will help people to realize there is more to the world than meets the eye. The spirit world exists, Harry, my chap. It exists.”

Harry Houdini looked at his friend sadly. “Tell me, do these beliefs have more to do with that chalice from which you drink or the loss of your son? Or the dreams and disappointments of a writer? Are you not the creator of Detective Sherlock Holmes? Can you not deduce in the way he did? Can you not use the powers of reason to see that you are mistaken?”

“I am perfectly reasonable.”

“No, you are not. You sip from that chalice and slip further and further into the realm of spirits.”

“You are talking stuff and nonsense.”

“No!” Houdini's eyes darkened. “You forget—I was there that night.”

“What night?”

“The one night when I came to believe in this spirit world you are so taken with. We were warned about that chalice. You were warned. I was warned. Do you remember the words of Madame Bogdanovich?”

Now it was Doyle's turn to become irate. His cheeks flushed. “I know nothing of what you speak.”

“She said, ‘Beware, my friend. Beware. A goblet may come into your hands. Protect it at all costs, but fear it! Fear its hold on you!'”

“This chalice has no hold on me!”

“When was the last time you wrote without sipping from it? When?”

“I do not wish to say.”

“I've done some investigating, Arthur. I know how you came to possess this chalice.”

“The parties involved were sworn to secrecy.”

“You forget, I know how to hypnotize people. Using this talent, I discovered that after that night, after that séance, you
sought
the chalice. You were so bent on connecting to the spirit world that you assumed the chalice in question would enable you to speak to your son. So you used all your wealth, all your connections to seek it. You even sketched a picture of the chalice from memory—from what you saw in Madame Bogdanovich's ball.”

Doyle stood up. “I do not need to listen to this!”

Houdini strode toward his friend and put his hands on each of his shoulders. “You do, Arthur. You bought that chalice from an heir of Robert Knox!”

Doyle looked around as if he thought someone might hear them. But no one was in the room except the two old friends. He broke away from Houdini's grip. “And what if I did?”

“Grave robbing? Grave robbing! To obtain this chalice? Robert Knox bought bodies from the scoundrels William Burke and William Hare. They stole that chalice from a grave where it was to have remained hidden away from the world. For good reason. That chalice has special powers. It has a hold on you, Arthur—an unnatural hold.”

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle put his hands up to his ears, like a child who didn't want to listen to his mother's scolding. “No, I
need
the chalice. It helps me create! And sometimes, since I got hold of the chalice, I hear my son's voice late in the night, speaking to me.”

“It is your grief doing that to you. The chalice is unnatural, Arthur. Trust me, old friend. Let go of it.”

“I won't. I won't ever.”

Houdini sighed. Dropping his head as if in defeat, he nodded. “At least I tried.”

“Please, Harry. I have already lost so much in my life. Let us not argue, old friend. Let us not argue and instead take a meal together. Tonight, my cook has prepared a venison stew. Let us eat and talk of old times, memories of before—before these things that vexed us so.”

“Fine,” nodded Houdini.

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle patted his friend on the back. He left the chalice at his desk, and the two men retreated to the dining room.

***

Later, in the dark, Houdini crept into the library and drew heavy curtains across the windows. Only then did he light a lamp, casting the room in a chilly gray glow. He looked at his friend's desk. No sign of the chalice. Where had Doyle put it?

Houdini began opening drawers, working as silently as possible. He crept, catlike, around the room. He even looked in the fireplace for the chalice, but he could not find it anywhere. “Oh, Arthur,” he whispered. “I fear you have come under its spell.”

Quietly, stealthily, he continued opening drawers. He had to find it. It was too important. He stared at the bookshelves. Walking closer, he noticed all the spines were perfectly aligned. His friend was nothing if not precise and orderly. But one book nudged out from all the rest.

Houdini walked closer to it. He smiled. It was one of the most successful Sherlock Holmes books,
The Hound of the Baskervilles
. It protruded from the shelf above his head. He had to stand on tiptoe to reach it. Houdini pulled the book down. Using his right hand, he felt the spot where the book had been. And there, behind the book, the chalice had been hidden.

Houdini took the chalice in his hand and marveled at the intricate symbols, none of which he could quite decipher. It felt hot to the touch, and even though he did not believe in spiritualism—not the charlatans he encountered as he traveled—this was different. In all his life, that strange night with Madame Bogdanovich was the one time he was convinced the spirit world, the magic world, had contacted the human one. And even he had to admit that the chalice seemed to emit some sort of power. Unlike his friend, he knew enough to fear it.

Sighing, he extinguished the lamp, retreated from the study, and walked to the front hallway. There, with one last mournful glance, he whispered, “Forgive me, old friend,” and opened the front door, slipping out into the darkness—and taking the chalice with him.