The Lost Heir (The Gryphon Chronicles, Book 1) (35 page)

Well! That’s handled.
Dusting off his hands, Waldrick lifted his chin, smoothed his waistcoat and his hair, then strolled back out to his guests, a happy man. Now he actually had something to celebrate!

Sing loud, Fionnula
, he thought with a smile.

Her tune would help to cover up the screams.

“AHHHHHHHHHH!”

Jake regained consciousness in the middle of falling endlessly down a long, smooth slide through pitch darkness.

Thud.

“Ow.” He landed on his rear end in a dark dungeon somewhere far beneath his uncle’s house. His hands were still tied behind his back, leaving him defenseless.

It was not the most comfortable position, either.

Where am I?

Uneasily, he scanned the black space around him. His eyes were slow to adjust to the darkness. Indeed, he could barely think straight after that blow to the side of his head.

Finally, heart pounding, Jake saw he was in some sort of underground cell, an old limestone cave reinforced with iron bars. Three torches burned far above, but they did not provide much light. As he struggled to get his bearings and collect his thoughts, he suddenly became aware of a presence nearby. He went very still as he realized he was not alone. Something was down here with him.

Something big.

He held very still—suddenly afraid to move or get up or to draw attention to himself.

All the while, his head throbbed with pain. He could feel a trickle of blood oozing from his left temple where his uncle had clobbered him with the fire-poker.

Great
, he thought. If there was some sort of animal down here waiting to eat him, the scent of blood was only going to whet its appetite.

Just as he was trying to think of some sarcastic comment to help convince himself this was no big deal and he could easily get out of it, his eyes widened and his blood ran cold.

A low, angry growl rose from the shadows.

PART V

CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

The Fairy Courier

Dani and Derek were doing surveillance on Waldrick’s mansion from the leafy shadows of the park across the street. Trying to see what was going on inside, all they could do at this point was watch and wait for a chance to rescue Jake—though it did seem odd to have to rescue someone from a big, glamorous party where he was the guest of honor. There had to be worse fates.

Half of London had gone into Everton House to celebrate Jake’s return. The snooty half, thought Dani.

The square was lined with parked carriages that all the fancy guests had arrived in. The elegant music from inside the house reverberated through the walls.

Dani sighed, wondering what it was like to be a fine lady and go to a ball. She supposed she’d never know.

Derek had apparently seen enough. He turned away with a scowl and a harrumph, and leaned against the tree.

She could tell by the look on his face that he would have rather burst into the mansion and dragged Jake out by the scruff of the neck. But of course, they had already tried that earlier today. It had not worked out so well.

After Jake had ejected them this morning, they had spent the whole day in the library at Beacon House trying to research some solution for how to break the spell he was under, to no avail.

As Dani stared at the mansion, she still couldn’t believe her best friend had used his powers against her.

A part of her wondered if maybe she deserved it after telling on him, but she felt especially sorry for Derek, who had been subjected to the same indignity.

The warrior had been quiet and gruff all day long, mentally beating himself up about Jake falling into Waldrick’s hands. Dani had tried to tell him not to worry, that Jake had been in worse scrapes than this. But at the moment, neither of them was sure of their next move.

The last they had seen Jake, he had been completely under Waldrick’s spell. How could you help someone who didn’t want to be helped?

Suddenly, Dani noticed a faint twinkle of lights across the street, like tiny sparks of fire, traveling low to the ground along the base of Waldrick’s house.

Moving rapidly through the darkness, the glittering trail of sparks hugged the mansion’s outer wall, moving toward the cobbled street.

“What is that?” she inquired, pointing it out to Derek.

He drew in his breath, his sharp supernatural senses homing in on the target. “It’s Gladwin!”

“Huh?”

He turned to Dani, firmly grasping her arm. “Stay here,” he whispered. “I’ll be right back.”

“What is it?” she exclaimed.

“Don’t you know?” he drawled, leaning closer and lowering his voice. “That’s a fairy trail!”

“A fairy trail!” she echoed, but the warrior was already in motion. In the next heartbeat, he had pushed away from the tree and was striding toward the wrought-iron gates of the park.

“Derek! I want to come, too!” Dani called in an insistent whisper, which was ignored. She snorted.

No wonder he and Jake had got along so well! she thought. They were both impossible.

She watched uncertainly as the Guardian dashed off, leaving the trees’ shadows cloaking the garden square. At the risk of being seen, he walked out into the dim glow of the streetlamps and crossed the street, slipping between the parked carriages.

When he ducked out of sight, Dani could only wonder what was happening. A few minutes later, he returned, holding something carefully in his cupped hands.

Something that glowed.

Dani barely dared breathe as he joined her once more behind the cover of a wide tree-trunk.

“What is that?” she asked in amazement, staring at the faint golden light emanating from between his cupped fingers.

“Not what, who.”

“You have a fairy in there?” she blurted out. “Let me see!”

“Careful, she’s hurt,” he murmured as he slowly opened his hands and let her look upon the small, delicate being.

Dani gazed in wonder at the beautiful fairy with moonlight-colored hair kneeling right in the center of the warrior’s rugged palm.

But something was missing—the most important part! Dani looked at Derek. “How can she be a fairy without any wings?”

He shook his head grimly. “Waldrick did this to her.”

Dani gasped. “Oh, no! He pulled off her wings?”

“Cut them off. Don’t worry, Gladwin,” he reassured her softly. “We’ll get you to Beacon House soon. Perhaps there’s something Doctor Celestus can do.”

“Yes, Doctor Celestus! He’s terribly clever! He helped me when I got bashed in the head,” Dani assured the tiny thing, heartbroken for her. When the fairy glanced at her, she hesitated. “I’m so sorry. I shouldn’t have mentioned it. I-I didn’t mean to be rude. If there’s anything I can do…”

The fairy tilted her head, gazing back at Dani, then she turned to Derek with a curious gesture.

“Of course. Where are my manners?” he mumbled. “Gladwin, this is Miss O’Dell, a friend of Jake’s.”

“Call me Dani,” she said with a little wave, though she was still privately horrified about the wings.

She heard a silvery, tinkling answer. It was the most adorable sound she had ever heard. If flowers could talk, that’s what they would sound like, she thought, but unfortunately, she could not make out the words. “What does she say?”

“She’s pleased to meet you.”

“Likewise! Would you please tell her I didn’t mean to be rude about her wings?”

“She can hear you. You should be able to understand her, too, since you’re a child. Listen a little bit harder.” Derek glanced at the fairy. “Gladwin, would you mind repeating yourself?”

Dani leaned down and concentrated, listening for all she was worth.

“Don’t worry, Miss O’Dell,” the fairy said in her tiny, charming voice. “I know you didn’t mean any harm. You have a kind face.”

Dani’s eyes lit up when she heard and finally understood Gladwin’s words. A smile from ear to ear broke across her face. She gazed warmly at the tiny being, but all the fairy lore she knew warned her to be respectful. A wise person never risked angering a fairy. “Thank you, Gladwin. I’m so pleased to meet you! I’ve never had the honor of meeting one of the fey folk before. Granny told me all about the ones she saw when she was young in Ireland. You’re still a beautiful fairy, wings or no.”

Still standing on Derek’s palm, Gladwin curtsied in thanks.

“This is Gladwin Lightwing, one of Queen Victoria’s royal garden fairies,” Derek hastily explained. “She’s been missing for weeks. Now I know why. She was supposed to bring me a message about Jake, but Waldrick captured her. He’s been holding her captive all this time.”

“How awful!”

“Fortunately, Jake got her out of there, and now she’s brought us a message from him. He’s free of the spell, but it showed him some things, Gladwin was just telling me.”

“Waldrick is working with the sea-witch Fionnula Coralbroom, and Jake is now convinced that it was the two of them who killed his parents,” Gladwin informed them. “He also wanted you to know, Guardian Stone, that Fionnula put a spell on you the day of the attack, some potion to dull your Guardian instincts. That’s why you couldn’t sense the danger to your friends. You see?” Gladwin said. “It wasn’t your fault.”

A stunned look settled on Derek’s hard face. “It wasn’t my fault?” he echoed barely audibly. He turned away, deeply shocked by this revelation. “All these years, Waldrick’s made me feel so guilty every time our paths have crossed. He never…lets me forget my failure that day. As if I could ever forget it myself.”

“But it wasn’t your fault,” Dani repeated.

“Yes,” Derek whispered. Then he looked at the mansion again with flames in his eyes.

“There’s something else,” Gladwin hurried to tell them. “When I last saw Jake, he was heading off to confront his uncle in the ballroom.”

“Really?” Dani’s eyes widened. “I’m not sure that’s such a good idea.”

“Of course not,” Derek agreed. “It’s foolhardy, reckless—”

“Typical Jake! How are we going to get in there and stop him?” Dani prompted.

But Gladwin shook her head in worry. “I’m afraid you’re already too late.”

CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

Big Red

Hanging, maybe. Dying of starvation. Being murdered by his uncle’s henchmen, skewered by Magnus the Blacksmith, or drowned in the Thames by an angry water nymph…

Jake had imagined several unpleasant ways he might’ve died, but being eaten alive by a large, hungry monster wasn’t one of them.

He was not looking forward to this.

The growl from the darkness grew louder. Cursing himself for taking on Waldrick alone, Jake scrambled to his feet from where the chute had dropped him onto the cold stone floor. To make matters worse, his blasted hands were tied behind his back. He was defenseless.

Heart thumping, he retreated from the snarling sound.

By now he had more or less figured out what this stone dungeon really was. Faded, rusty watermarks on the walls suggested he was at the bottom of an old rainwater cistern, no longer in use. Once it must have held a water supply for the mansion. But Waldrick had long since turned the empty, cave-like reservoir into a secure stone cell for his pet monster.

Chains clanked and scraped across the stone as a black silhouette began moving in the darkness.

It was big.

Jake cowered, his whole body shaking. He had never been so scared in his life. He felt utterly alone, a scream trapped in his throat. He didn’t want to die this way. Not even a ghost appeared to face this horror with him.

Then he gasped and ducked as a large shape whooshed above him; something with a wide wingspan pounced across the cell and landed on a rocky outcropping a few yards above his head.

Still chained, the creature crouched on the ledge, studying him; he could feel its stare, but could not make out what the monster looked like.

Jake struggled not to panic, hunkering down behind the bottom of the chute, wondering if he could crawl back up that steep, narrow slide. Otherwise…

Chains rattled again as the creature launched itself off the ledge and flew across the dark space, ricocheting angrily off the walls that confined it.