Alistair Grim's Odditorium (14 page)

The Odditorium was
moving
!

The crowd gaped and gasped, and as Mr. Grim’s fingers picked up speed, the Odditorium picked up speed too—all of it twisting and turning and bobbing and weaving as if the entire
building were alive and dancing to the music.

“It works,” Nigel said to himself. “It actually
works
!”

We all stood there in awe as Mr. Grim played on, and finally, when the music reached a fever pitch, the Odditorium appeared to lengthen upward an entire story. It held there for a moment on a
single high note, and then slowly settled down again as Mr. Grim’s fingers traveled to the opposite end of the keyboard.

All of a sudden, a woman’s scream rang out above the crowd and the music stopped.

“Help! Help!”
she cried.

Mr. Grim stood up and looked out over the balcony. There was a fuss brewing farther down the street. I couldn’t see exactly what was happening, only that people were franticly moving
aside.

Then, from amidst the commotion, a constable went flying up into the air. He sailed backward over the crowd, his arms and legs pinwheeling. A moment later, another constable went flying up after
him!

More heads turned and people screamed, and everyone began backing away from something in the street—something that was clearly making its way toward Nigel and me—and then the crowd
parted to reveal a trio of lads staring up at us.

It was Noah, Frog Eyes, and Flat Nose. Their skin was deathly white, their mouths set in snarls, and their eyes, ringed with black circles, glowed a devilish purple.

“Oh dear,” Nigel said. “They belong to the prince now.”

And with that the three lads pointed up at Mr. Grim and uttered the most terrifying noise I’d ever heard—a low, inhuman moan that sounded as if it had come from Mr. Grim’s pipe
organ.

Mr. Grim met their glowing purple eyes with a strange expression of both defiance and confusion. And then, in a flash of thunder and lightning, a screech echoed above our heads.

Gazing upward, I spied a line of crows perched atop a nearby building. At first I thought the screech had come from them, but then, high above us, a large, black-winged creature emerged from the
clouds, circled there like a hawk, and began to dive.

I recognized the monster immediately from the drawing in Mr. Grim’s notebook.

“The Black Fairy,” I gasped.

Whether or not Nigel heard me, I cannot say, for the big man immediately lifted me off his shoulders, tucked me under his arm, and made a dash for the Odditorium. I caught one last glimpse of
Mr. Grim as he fled from the balcony, and then all around us the street erupted into bedlam.

The crows took flight and the crowd screamed and scattered. The line of constables in front of the Odditorium tried to hold us back, but Nigel easily pushed them aside and made for the
steps—when without warning the Black Fairy swooped down and snatched Judge Hurst from the sidewalk.

“Help!” he cried as he was carried off—but I lost sight of him as Nigel scooped up Lord Dreary, tucked him under the same arm as me, and bounded with us both up the steps.

“Great poppycock!” Lord Dreary shouted, squirming. “Put me down!”

Nigel ignored him. And as the big man reached the Odditorium’s front door, he hunched over a small black dome covered with buttons. Wedged as I was between his arm and Lord Dreary, I
couldn’t exactly see which combination of Dreary and me, the samurai drew their swords and dashed for the door.

Noah and his gang were heading up the steps outside.

“No!” I cried, and Nigel covered my eyes with his hand.

“It’s for the best, Grubb,” he whispered.

And then the samurai’s swords went whistling through the air.

“Great poppycock!” Lord Dreary exclaimed. “Those lads just
disintegrated
!”

“They weren’t lads, sir,” Nigel said. “Not anymore.”

Nigel removed his hand from my eyes. Noah and his gang were gone, all right. But as the samurai made their way back up the steps, the Black Fairy landed with a heavy thud in the street behind
them.

Squatting on its haunches, the creature was at least as tall as Nigel—its massive bat wings spreading out far beyond the outline of the door frame. And just like the drawing in Mr.
Grim’s notebook, the insides of the Black Fairy’s eyes and dagger-filled mouth were completely white.

“Good heavens!” Lord Dreary gasped.

The Black Fairy screeched and flapped its wings, then turned its white eyes upward and opened its mouth wide.

“Hurry up, gents!” Nigel screamed. The samurai rushed back inside. However, just before the big man shut the door behind them, I caught sight of what looked like a long stream of
black fire shooting out from the Black Fairy’s mouth.

“Mr. Grim!” Nigel cried. “The monster’s aiming for the balcony!”

The Odditorium shook violently and I fell to the floor. Nigel pressed a button beside the front door and a second inner door slid sideways into the frame. At the same time, a panel slid open in
the ceiling, and down dropped Mr. Grim inside a giant birdcage.

“No need to worry, Nigel,” he said. “I lowered the shield on the balcony just in time. The control room is safe for now.”

Another blast hit the Odditorium, and I staggered to my feet.

“What on earth is going on?” cried Lord Dreary. “I demand an explanation!”

“No time for that,” replied Mr. Grim, then he turned to Nigel and said, “Looks like we’ll have to leave sooner than planned.”

“Right-o, sir,” Nigel said, and he began pushing Lord Dreary into the birdcage.

“What’s that?” the old man sputtered. “Leave? Great poppycock, man! You’re not planning on taking me out there with that—that—
thing
, are
you?”

“That thing, as you so eloquently call it, is the Black Fairy.”

“The Black—?”

“Fairy, yes. Quite an unpleasant chap as you might have gathered, but a shrewd one, nonetheless.”

Another blast shook the building, and the Black Fairy shrieked outside.

“It won’t take him long to figure out that the Odditorium is impervious to his fire,” Mr. Grim went on. “Therefore, I suggest we get moving before Prince Nightshade
arrives to help him.”

“Prince Nightshade?” asked Lord Dreary, stunned. “What are you—?”

Nigel shut the old man inside the birdcage. Mr. Grim threw a lever, and then he and Lord Dreary quickly began their ascent.

“Take the boy with you to the engine room, Nigel,” Mr. Grim called down. “Gwendolyn is fond of him, and we don’t have time to risk her temper.”

“Right-o, sir,” Nigel said, and Mr. Grim and Lord Dreary disappeared into the ceiling. “Come on, then, Grubb,” Nigel said, and I followed him over to the large portrait
of Mr. Grim that hung between the staircases.

“Stand back,” Nigel said. He placed his palm on the glowing blue orb in Mr. Grim’s hand and pushed it gently, upon which, along with the muffled sound of gears grinding under
the stairs, the portrait slid sideways to reveal a secret chamber beyond.

“Cor blimey!” I gasped.

The cavernous space into which we entered was spherical in construction, with a small landing and a steep staircase leading down to the floor below. A line of red-burning furnaces ringed the
outside walls, and hanging from the domed ceiling was the Yellow Fairy’s dollhouse. Directly beneath it, at the center of the room, was an enormous crystal sphere with a massive tangle of
pipes branching out from it in every direction. At the top of the sphere, a porthole with a hinged steel cover stood open.

“It’s time, miss,” Nigel said as we descended the stairs, and the Yellow Fairy appeared in one of the dollhouse’s upstairs windows.

“Oh really?” she said mockingly, batting her eyelashes. “The Black Fairy has got your twiggy boss worried now, has he?”

“Now, now, Gwendolyn,” Nigel said. “No need to call Mr. Grim names.”

“And what are you going to do about it,
baldy
?”

The Yellow Fairy hurled a shimmering ball of her fairy dust and hit Nigel square in the chest, encasing him in a glowing yellow bubble. The bubble began floating up into the air with Nigel
inside, but the big man appeared unconcerned, and calmly lifted his goggles to reveal a pair of eye sockets filled entirely with blue animus.

My mouth fell open in amazement.

Mack had told the truth. Nigel
was
Odditoria after all.

The big man blinked once, and beams of bright blue light shot from his eyes. They burst apart in sparkles against the inside of the Yellow Fairy’s bubble, and then the bubble turned green
and began to fizzle and pop until it dissolved completely and Nigel dropped to the ground.

“We don’t have time for this, miss,” he said, replacing his goggles. And as if on cue, another blast from the Black Fairy shook the Odditorium.

“What’s going on down there?” shouted Mr. Grim, his voice crackling behind me. “Why don’t we have power?”

Nigel rushed over to the wall, where he flicked the switch on yet another of the Odditorium’s mechanical talkbacks.

“It’s Gwendolyn, sir!” Nigel shouted. “She won’t get into the sphere!”

“Good heavens! Tell her she can’t break our alliance now!”

“I can hear you loud and clear,
twig
!” the Yellow Fairy shouted. “And our alliance said nothing about me spinning around in some big glass ball!”

“The Black Fairy is retreating!” Lord Dreary said on the talkback. He sounded farther away than Mr. Grim.

“Gwendolyn, please,” said Mr. Grim. “If you don’t get into that sphere and start spinning, the Black Fairy will return with the prince and destroy us all!”

“Ha! A big bully is all he is. Besides, I’d rather stand and fight than run away like a bunch of lily-livered humans!”

“Be reasonable, will you?” said Mr. Grim. “Even a fairy of your power is no match for Prince Nightshade and his army!”

“So says you, twig! But I’m beginning to think this Prince Nightshade doesn’t even exist. Just another one of your tricks to use me—like that jig yesterday with the
samurai!”

“Alistair, look!” Lord Dreary shouted in the background. “There’s something happening in the clouds!”

“Gwendolyn, I beg of you!” cried Mr. Grim. “We don’t have time for this nonsense!”

“You talk to her, Grubb,” Nigel said, pushing me forward. “You’re a child. She’ll listen to you.”

“But what shall I say?”

“Well, you might start by asking her to get in that sphere!”

“Er, uh, begging your pardon, miss,” I said nervously. “But would you be so kind as to get into that sphere?”

“Ha!” said the Yellow Fairy. “Playing the child card, are you? Nice try, baldy!”

“No one’s trying to trick you, miss,” I said. “You see, all of this is my fault.”

“Your fault?”
asked Gwendolyn and Mr. Grim together.

“Yes, sir—uh, miss,” I stuttered, spinning in place. “You see, it was I who tipped off the doom dogs.”

“Doom dogs?” asked Mr. Grim from the talkback. “Did you say doom dogs, Master Grubb?”

“Yes, sir. It’s a long story, but the nub of it is I accidentally brought Mack outside and got my pocket picked. The lads what done it opened him, and, well—”

“He’s telling the truth, Miss Gwendolyn,” Nigel said, holding up Mack. “This pocket watch here runs on the blue animus.”

Mack must have been shaking in Nigel’s pocket, because when he opened him, the watch cried, “What time is it?”

Nigel immediately tapped Mack’s XII and closed his case.

“Let me guess,” Gwendolyn said, her disposition softening. “Without the magic paint to protect them, the lads who used the animus fell victim to the doom dogs.”

“That’s right,” Nigel said, slipping Mack into his pocket. “And after those devil hounds took their souls to the Land of the Dead, Prince Nightshade turned their corpses
into Shadesmen.”

“Shadesmen?”
asked the Yellow Fairy.

“The walking dead. Soulless creatures what serve only their master. The lads knew Mack here had come from the Odditorium, and so they led the Black Fairy straight to our
doorstep.”

“And where are these lads?” Gwendolyn asked sadly.

“Mr. Grim’s samurai put them to rest. They’re at peace now.”