Secrets of the Deep (54 page)

Sir Peter shouted back on the Order’s behalf: “We will parley!”

This was an encouraging sign. Ramona wasn’t sure why the Council hadn’t already made the castle jump to safety somewhere out of reach. But the intent all along had been to draw the enemy out, since the fortress itself was nearly impregnable. After all their losses already tonight, she was encouraged to see that at least the plan was working.

The portcullis behind the tattered pieces of the drawbridge slowly began rolling upward, creaking like the wind through a graveyard.

When the gleaming metal grate had retracted, the ponderous wooden doors behind it slowly swung open with a groan, and at last, several figures cautiously walked out.

The one in the center was very tall and broad-shouldered, a large animal prowling by his side. As he stepped into the glow of the fires all around, Ramona narrowed her eyes to find it was none other than Lord Wyvern.

She bristled at the sight of the vile Nephilim earl, well aware he was being groomed as the future leader of the Dark Druids. A very dangerous man. As for the animal by his side, at first she thought it was a lion—until she saw its scorpion tail.

“They have a manticore?” Janos whispered to Ravyn.

Ramona was glad the vampire had covered his handsome face again behind the black balaclava. She didn’t even want to contemplate what sort of agonizing death Janos would suffer if the Dark Druids ever found out he was double-crossing them.

Half a dozen heavily armed Noxu attended Wyvern, arrayed on either side of him, along with a few goblin imps. These were lesser devils and came hopping out like monkeys, red-skinned, with pointy ears and long noses.

Ramona watched anxiously from above while Wyvern approached Sir Peter. The two Lightriders stayed back a bit with their Guardian bodyguards, valuable as they were.

“Well, well. To what do we owe this charming visit?” the earl drawled. “If we had known you were coming, we’d have tidied up the place.”

“You know why we’re here,” Peter answered in a firm voice. “We’ve come to get our friends back.”

Wyvern smirked, but not widely enough to flash his infamous double rows of teeth.

Monster.

“You know, for the high value you place on your so-called friends,” Wyvern said, “you don’t do a very good job looking after them, now, do you? Take your poor, unfortunate wizard, for example. I hear he melted. Such a shame.” Wyvern shook his head. “No surprise, though. It’s blasted hot here, even in the evening.”

“Do not speak of him. Where is Derek Stone?” Ravyn demanded, scowling at the earl, while Red growled at the manticore.

The Gryphon’s warning snarl drew the earl’s attention. “My, this is an honor, indeed. I guess we’ve made the Elders truly angry this time, if they would even send in the noble Crafanc. And I see the lovely djinni has returned. So that’s how you found us.” Wyvern’s stare raked over Aleeyah, promising revenge, while the ogres mocked the minotaur for joining the Order.

“Fool! Slave! You could’ve been on our side! Why don’t you have some self-respect?!”

The minotaur snorted angrily through his nostrils, but he held his bullish temper in check, gripping his club by his side.

The earl made a calming gesture to his ogre attendants. “Now, now, mind your manners. Let’s not be rude. We’re in the presence of near-royalty, after all.” Wyvern sneered at Finnderool. “And this, why this is the famously urbane Sir Peter Quince, master of Merlin Hall. Come, Sir Peter, dazzle us with your eccentric charm.”

“This is not a social call, Wyvern,” the wizard said without a trace of a smile.

“What, no chitchat, no pleasantries?” Wyvern taunted. “Tsk, tsk, Peter. This is most unlike you. Very well, I’ll start, then.” He paused. “How is your dear, defenseless wife?”

Behind his spectacles, Peter’s stare turned icy.

“Do give her my best,” Wyvern said slowly, every word dripping poison. “And I’m sure you must be curious how we’ve all been here, though you, sadly, didn’t ask. As it happens, I have splendid news. We have not even sent out announcements yet, but would you like to meet the newest member of our family?”

The Order members exchanged uneasy glances, which Wyvern seemed to enjoy.

“Just a moment. I’ll introduce you.” The earl gestured to someone out of view inside the castle. “Don’t harm him, now. He’s just a baby. Only hatched a few days ago. He doesn’t even have a name yet.” Wyvern glanced again into the castle and beckoned again. “Come out, it’s all right, dear thing. No one is going to hurt you.”

Ramona looked on worriedly from above as a tall, spindly creature stepped out of the shadows.

It walked upright, wore simple trousers, and stood as tall as Lord Wyvern—but the comparison to a human being ended there.

Ramona stared in fascinated horror. She had never seen such a thing before. It was as though someone had combined the body plan of a lean, muscular man…with a locust.

The grasshopper-esque creature had four humanlike arms, but springy, backward-bending knees. Double wings—straight, narrow, and slightly translucent—pressed flat against its back. A hard carapace or exoskeleton protected its torso; perched atop its spindly neck, it had an insect-like head.

The face was smooth and hairless, with huge, faceted eyes, orange in color. Its mouth came to a point like a bee’s, and from his head sprouted two long, slim antennae.

The blank, staring face turned and looked to Lord Wyvern, as though awaiting orders.

“Isn’t he marvelous?” the earl gushed.

But Ramona felt sick to her stomach, for she knew at once that only Zolond could have created such a monstrosity. She could not fathom how he’d done it, but only that madman would have dared.

Oh,
Geoffrey…what have you become?

A wave of sorrow washed through her to think of the young man she had lost centuries ago to the grip of evil and the darkest of Magicks.

Lord Wyvern gestured to the creature. “Go on, show our visitors what you can do. Watch this—and prepare to be amazed.” He clapped his hands once at the creature. “Jump!”

The locust-man flicked its double wings out horizontal from its shoulders, heaved back on his backward knees, and then sprang over the whole group standing there, leaping all the way up to the rim of the crater in a single jump.

“Excellent!” Wyvern cried, beckoning to it. “Bravo! And now come back to me!”

They watched in sickened amazement as the creature answered him, chirping like a grasshopper, then leaped down from the edge of the crater, wings whirring, and landed effortlessly near the earl.

“Very good,” Wyvern congratulated the creature. “Now go back inside.” He motioned to the castle doorway with one of his weird, six-fingered hands, and the insectoid obeyed, walking back into the castle and out of sight.

Wyvern turned to them, beaming, a sinister glint in his eyes.

“What is that thing?” Finnderool demanded.

“Thing?” Wyvern said indignantly. “Don’t be hurtful. That’s the newest member of my family, as I told you.”

“Never mind your disgusting and criminal experiments,” Sir Peter said, somehow putting aside the shock they all were feeling at this violation of Nature. “Just give us back our friends and we’ll be on our way.”

Wyvern gave a taut smile and clasped his hands behind his back. “Tell you what,” he replied. “Let us make a trade. I will gladly let you have your miserable Guardian back safe, and the angel, too, or what’s left of him,
if
—”

“And the Lightrider, Munroe,” Finnderool reminded him. “The loudmouthed American.”

“No. Him you cannot have,” Wyvern said. “But you didn’t let me finish. There is no need for any further violence this night. We are reasonable men, after all.”

Both Order teams scoffed at that claim.

“Stone and Celestus can leave with you now…if only you give us the boy.”

Janos growled at those words, and Red’s posture changed with even more intense hostility. The Gryphon crouched like a lion getting ready to spring, and cocked his wings at a threatening angle.

“You know of whom I speak,” Wyvern said serenely. “You have been protecting him. The Council grows annoyed. We want him.”

“What for?” Sir Peter demanded, as if the Order would ever consider it.

“Somebody’s got to look after a lad of such abundant talents, what with his poor parents dead—and you lot clearly can’t manage to keep him out of trouble. Surely he’s more bother to you all than he’s worth. Do you even know what your darling little pickpocket has been up to lately? Somehow I doubt it.”

“And you do?” Sir Peter retorted.

“I know one thing—he’s still up to his thieving ways.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Finnderool demanded.

“Never mind.” Wyvern looked away, smug. “Will you hand the Griffon heir over or not?”

Ramona found herself feeling terribly unnerved by Wyvern’s offer of a trade. Overwhelming motherly instincts told her it was time to get back to the children right now and make sure Jacob was all right.

She knew better than anyone that the Dark Druids were after him, of course. But to hear Wyvern speak so frankly of their determination to capture him made her blood run cold.

Ramona decided then that the others would simply have to finish this battle without her. She had tarried long enough away from her body and the villa. She had to get back to the children.

A horrible thought suddenly gripped her.
What if this was all a trick to lure me away?

Jake could be under attack this very moment.

“You haven’t answered my question,” Wyvern said below.

“That’s because it was absurd,” Sir Peter replied. “But if you need us to spell it out for you, Wyvern, the answer, as you know full well, is an absolute and unequivocal
no
.”

“Ah. I thought you might say that. Very well.” Wyvern lifted his head with a treacherous glint in his silver eyes. “If you won’t give me the boy, then I’ll settle for his gryphon. Seize the creature,” he ordered his minions.

“Crafanc, fly!” Finnderool shouted, but alas, Red didn’t always listen any more than his young master did.

Incensed by the threat to Jake, he charged straight at the earl with a vicious war cry and leaped at him as if to tear his throat out, a perfect gryphon rampant. But the manticore intercepted Red’s attack, and in the next heartbeat, the two beasts were rolling across the ground, locked in ferocious battle.

Chaos broke out as everyone joined the melee, but Ramona was only dimly aware of what was happening among her allies, for now she, too, came under attack.

Zolond had found her in the darkness, invisible though they both were. All of a sudden, he wrapped his will around her like phantom chains so she could not escape.

My darling dear,
his rasping voice crooned, invading her mind.
You’ve come back to me. How I have missed you!
He tightened his hold around her like the coils of a giant invisible snake.

She spoke a curse to flex her might and drove him off, but only for a moment.

She could sense him laughing in delight at this reunion, mocking her return to the use of High Magick.
It’s good to see you using your powers again, my darling. Reminds me of old times,
he hissed.
Come, let me embrace you, my old betrothed. I will make you young again, and we can be together as we once were…

Let—me—go.
You foul…

She thrashed about in spirit form, fighting to break free of his hold, but the leader of the Dark Druids had long fed off forbidden energies. He easily contained her, as though he had clamped her inside an iron maiden.

You shouldn’t have come here,
he whispered.
Now you’ll never leave.

Zolond was suffocating her, trying to overpower her will and take her spirit captive. Ramona fairly panicked, aghast at the thought of being taken prisoner here—or worse. He didn’t make threats he couldn’t carry out.

High over the castle, while mayhem unfolded below, they struggled in midair as the full moon looked on. Terrified, she found one last burst of strength.

Please,
Geoffrey—!

Perhaps it was her use of his former name that startled him, but she pulled away so hard that she broke free, snapping back to her body much too hard and too violently from across too many miles.

Her trance shattered, she slammed back into the place where she sat, and opened her eyes to look dazedly at the little round table in her chamber in the Villa di Palma.

Woozy and disoriented, hands shaking, Ramona lifted a knuckle to wipe away the trickle of blood coming from her nose. But already she could feel her consciousness fading. The energy she had exerted had been too much for a three-hundred-year-old woman, the struggle against her nemesis too fierce, the jolt of returning too hard.

Before she could even wonder how the battle was going back in the desert, the room started going black, then the Elder witch collapsed and fell to the floor, unconscious.

CHAPTER 27

Dark Tide Rising

D
ani heard the thump from upstairs and instantly glanced at the ceiling. She knew that directly above the dimly lit drawing room was Lady Bradford’s suite.

Well, that didn’t sound very good,
she thought with a frown.

For the past few hours, ever since full darkness had fallen, she had been ranging about the house, bored and sleepy, but kept alert by the undercurrent of anxiety thrumming through her.

Liliana, meanwhile, had fallen asleep on one of the plush velvet couches in the oval drawing room. Teddy dozed by her feet but watched Dani’s every move as she finished refilling the snack trays for her next visit to the sentries on the beach.

For her part, she was trying not to succumb to the urge of nervous eating. She was no coward, but tonight the beautiful Villa di Palma was just too quiet, dark, and spooky. The long, gauzy white curtains all down the colonnade waved, ghostly in the sea breeze, and the endless, rhythmic soughing of the waves filled the silence.