The Conquering Dark: Crown (8 page)

Imogen moved awkwardly toward Ferghus. The flames illuminated her black mourning clothes. She unbuttoned her right cuff and pulled the sleeve up over her elbow. From the ghastly white skin of her forearm rose a host of thin filaments, some six inches long, wavering in the firelight. The young woman halted and swept her arm in front of her, sending several of the strange quills flying toward the Irishman. The fragile needles never reached him because Ferghus's heat shield rose again and the filaments virtually melted out of the air. The strange specter of the veiled Imogen distracted Ferghus enough, however, that he turned away from Kate.

With fingers that felt tight from the heat, Kate pulled free the largest canister at her hip. She ran at Ferghus, pulling the top and pointing the canister at the mad elemental. Her hat tumbled from her head and her long braid swung free. She pressed a trigger and the cylinder sprayed a wide stream of clear gelatinous goo that hit Ferghus in the back. The canister moved up and down, coating him. He turned, dripping, with burning hands and brutal eyes. She prayed there was enough left in the canister as she aimed for his chest. She pressed the lever. The substance whooshed out and splashed over him. The flames rising from his fingers smoldered out. Ferghus stared at his hands in confusion.

“Now!” she shouted.

Imogen loosed a single quill, which struck Ferghus in the neck. Malcolm tackled him, and the two men tumbled across the bridge. The Irishman grabbed Malcolm's coat with slippery hands and tried to ignite it. He yelled angrily as his powers failed him. His limbs slowed as his strength faded. They flopped to the ground weakly as Imogen's toxin hit his system. Malcolm reared back an elbow and struck Ferghus in the face. The Irishman was so drunk he didn't feel it. Blood poured from his mouth, but he just grinned through it. Ferghus crashed his fist into Malcolm's cheek.

Nick came up behind Ferghus and slammed a chunk of stone against Ferghus's head. The Irishman slumped over unconscious.

Simon dodged the massive mechanical arm as it tore off a section of the balustrade larger than their wagon and chucked it at Penny. She aimed her blunderbuss at it and fired. The flying stone shattered as she ducked under the dust and shrapnel.

Charlotte called down from somewhere atop the mechanized beast. “No way in!” Then she had to dodge aside as the arm swiped for her. It struck the top of the machine and dented it. Charlotte eagerly renewed tearing at that section of the metal.

Simon threw one of Kate's vials at the creature's legs as it swept past. Mist swirled and hardened, encasing it in a block of amber. The crawler stumbled, but steadied itself quickly. The arm reached down and the segmented fingers examined the rock-hard substance. The tentacle-like appendages then crushed it to dust. The arm slammed down onto the ground and brought everyone to their hands and knees. The bridge cracked, a line racing down its length. It groaned, shifting from side to side. The machine headed straight for the wagon. Penny started to intercept it.

“Fall back!” Simon ordered. Penny paused but then moved to his side.

Red steel fingers seized the armored wagon in a crushing grip, lifting it as if were but a child's toy. The steel groaned and bent inward but the three-hundred-pound stone inside didn't fall out. Then the machine's head swiveled on some sort of axis to face behind it, and it scuttled toward the western side of the bridge.

“Charlotte!” Simon shouted at the figure still attacking the machine. “Get off!”

Charlotte either didn't hear him or was too enveloped by her rage to take note of what was happening. Simon took off in the wake of the machine and saw Kate angling toward them. She was focused on Charlotte high above so he assumed that meant Ferghus was captured or dead.

With its prize in hand, the machine strode straight to the balustrade and crashed through the rail, sending massive stones into the river. Its forward legs whirred and stretched out to the new bridge upstream. People who had been crowding the rail there shouted and scattered before the steel barbs slammed down among them. Horses reared and screeched. Wagons careened into chaotic mobs. Charlotte dug in her claws to maintain her grip as the machine tilted suddenly and winched itself over the water. Its legs continued to work furiously, lumbering over the new bridge, breaking flagpoles and smashing lampposts. Then it dropped off the far side into the swirling Thames. The machine began to wade forward, lowering into the dark water.

Only when a wave suddenly splashed against her did Charlotte look up from ferociously pounding on the machine. She climbed higher atop the thing's head.

“Does she know how to swim?” Malcolm asked anxiously rushing to the broken balustrade.

“No!” Imogen cried out. “We have to get to her!”

The machine was submerging. The werewolf looked back at their distant figures, her molten yellow eyes reflecting her sudden terror. She flinched as wave after wave crashed over her, almost dislodging her.

“She'll drown if she stays there.” Malcolm's normally steady tone rose in alarm.

“Jump, Charlotte,” Simon shouted, hoping her keen hearing would pick up his cry. He already had a leg over the edge when Nick grabbed him.

“What do you think you are doing? You can't swim out to her. You're wearing bloody armor.”

“I don't intend to, but the current will bring her back to us. I can grab her.”

“If she isn't dragged under first!”

Simon glared back at him firmly asking, “Can you swim?”

Nick shook his head. “No.”

“Then we have to hope Charlotte's lycanthropy gives her the strength to stay afloat until she gets to us.” Simon climbed over the rail and lowered himself down onto a stone pier.

Charlotte cried out in fear, glancing at the water that was now at her knees.

“Simon will grab you as come past,” shouted Kate, unsure if Charlotte could hear her, signaling the girl to come toward them.

“Kick for all you're worth,” Imogen encouraged her. The young woman's veil was off, and fear drenched her white features.

Charlotte hesitated, but only for a moment as the water closed in around her waist. With her last purchase of solid ground, she jumped back toward the bridges. She landed with a great splash fifty feet upriver from the new bridge. She was now below their line of sight, so they all crowded lower to peer through its high arches.

Simon climbed down farther. He crouched on the broad top of the piling with the frothing water just a few feet below him. He watched the oddly small shape of the werewolf flailing in the water. Poor Charlotte was getting dunked over and over, her long muscular arms paddling madly. The current shoved her against the arch of the new bridge, smashing her into the slick stones. She scrabbled with her claws, gouging deep lines in the wet walls, but always bouncing back into the flow.

She emerged from beneath the bridge. Kate gasped loudly as Charlotte went under the dark brown water. There was a deafening silence as everyone held their breath, waiting for her to surface again. Finally, her head burst into the air, her arms flailing madly.

Simon judged which side of the pier the current would take her. His steel fingers dug into the stone above him. Malcolm reached to grab his other arm. Nick was behind him, anchoring Malcolm. Should Simon catch Charlotte's heavy form, there was real danger they would all be dragged into the churning river. The turbulent water roared through the narrow arch and over a drop of at least six feet into the swirling currents on the downstream side of the bridge. Even in a sturdy craft, only the bravest and most foolhardy riverman would dare “shoot the bridge.”

The young werewolf rushed toward Simon, reaching out in a panic. He leaned into the hard spray, the water pounding him. His feet slipped and he nearly took Malcolm and Nick off the bridge behind him. His fingers were battered in the rolling water just where it plunged over the churning waterfall into the whirlpools beyond.

“Reach, Charlotte!” Simon shouted. “Reach for my hand!”

A hairy arm stretched up to him. She was tiring against the power of the water and its icy chill. Charlotte's heavy hand slapped against his arm and for frantic seconds her grip slipped, but then her claws dug along his flesh and into the steel of his gauntlets. Her sudden added weight pulled him away from his hold on the piling. He heard Malcolm shouting with alarm. Water cascaded over Charlotte's face as she hung on to Simon, sputtering. The waterfall roared behind her.

Simon gasped under the strain, but he didn't have the strength to do more than just hold on. She was too heavy to lift and she was too spent and frozen to pull herself up. With Malcolm's death grip on his other arm, it felt like his limb would be torn from its socket. “Charlotte, change form!”

Her terrified expression showed she was afraid of how vulnerable she would be as a little girl. If they lost their hold on one another, she couldn't survive the drop into the vortex. Their eyes met and instead of a hulking werewolf, suddenly she was only a small child. Strength fled and her grip on Simon's arm loosened.

“No!” she screamed as her small fingers slipped.

But Simon's steel gauntleted hand held on. Inch by inch Charlotte was dragged up. Her drenched frame emerged from the torrent, so frail and battered. Simon pulled her close, fairly crushing her against his sodden coat and hard breastplate as Malcolm drew Simon back onto the ledge of the pier several feet above the water. Simon handed the girl to Malcolm. The Scotsman wiped her sodden hair from her face. He looked uncommonly distraught.

“Pass her up!” Kate shouted from the bridge.

Malcolm almost unwillingly handed her to Nick, who lifted her to the shattered railing. Kate and Penny took the limp girl and Kate threw her jacket over Charlotte's shivering body.

“We've got you, child,” Kate soothed, wrapping her arms around Charlotte tightly. Her expression of gratitude warmed Simon as she looked down for him. Imogen fell to her knees beside her friend, clutching her wet form tight.

Malcolm and Nick slumped on the stones next to Simon.

“You damn fool,” muttered Nick. “We could have all drowned.”

“Yes.” Simon climbed wearily to his feet.

Malcolm looked at him, his teeth chattering from the cold. “Thank you.”

Simon laid an aching hand on his shoulder and climbed up. He went to Charlotte and tilted her chin. “Reckless. But admirable.”

“I knew you wouldn't let me go.” She embraced him. “Even without your magic.”

Simon caught sight of Kate's grateful, expressive eyes. That look was always well worth any risk.

When Simon heard the first explosion rumble through Hartley Hall, he ran for the library. They had secured Ferghus in the cellars below yesterday and he was relieved to see the door intact. Simon opened it and heard no disturbances from below.

“Nick!” he shouted. “Are you all right?”

“Yes.” Nick appeared at the base of the stairs and started up. “What the hell was that noise?”

“I thought it was Ferghus.”

“No. He's still down here coated in that goo. And he's still not talking.”

Another boom sounded in the distance, and Kate appeared in the library door as Simon turned to the French windows. “The wards to the north. Something supernatural has entered the grounds.” He reached for the door handle when a series of rolling explosions shook the room, vibrating through his chest.

Penny rushed in behind Kate, balancing her brass cannon on her shoulder. She had a collection of pistols shoved in her belt, and she carried Simon's gauntlets as well. She tossed the heavy metal gloves to him.

He shoved his hands in and flexed the fingers to test the charge. “Where are Malcolm and the girls?”

Penny stepped past him out onto the terrace. “Malcolm went for the roof with a scope. The girls went to find Hogarth and get the servants to safety.”

The floor rocked and Simon only kept his feet by grabbing a chair. He staggered out beside the stumbling Penny. The stones of the terrace were quivering and cracking.

“Simon!” came a hoarse shout from above. Malcolm hung off the eaves at the northeast corner at the front of the house, clutching a stone gargoyle with one hand and a brass spyglass in the other. He gestured out beyond the front of the mansion. “Something is in the forest. Something big. I can see the trees moving!”

Simon ran to the front corner of Hartley Hall, watching flocks of birds circling overhead and others streaming away into the distance. Kate, Penny, and Nick followed him. The vast manicured lawn stretched away from the house for about two hundred yards, dotted by shrubs and ornamental trees before reaching the distant line of heavy woods. The trees were shaking as if in a stiff wind, but the air was still. The disturbance continued to come closer accompanied by the cracking sound of wood.

A gravel road led from the front of the house and into the forest. The ground around it shuddered and undulations surged outward. Ancient trees teetered and were torn from the earth. The noise was deafening. Branches and trunks snapped as the massive forest giants were tossed aside as if a huge child were digging sand at the beach. Trees toppled into terrifying heaps of rolling and tumbling colossi, shedding landslides of dirt from their roots and raising a cloud bank of dust and debris.

Then the ground rose into a wall. That embankment became a solid wave of dirt and stone and timber some twenty feet high roaring toward Hartley Hall. Turf and arbors and statues were all dragged into the thundering swell that smashed everything in its path into bits of flotsam.

Simon grabbed Kate and Penny. Running was the only option. There was no standing up to this. As they neared the house, stones clattered loose under their feet. One by one, they fell. The moving mountain closed in on them, filling the air with a roar that pounded through their heads.

The wave seemed to slow as it came nearer. The rippling line of rocks and brush along the crest was blasted backward like an ocean wave fighting a heavy gale. Barely twenty yards from the house, the avalanche stopped dead, crashing against an unseen barrier and smashing itself to bits. The air exploded with choking dirt. Debris rained atop the huddled figures.

Then everything went still except for the sound of stones and sticks clattering to the ground. Simon was on his knees, stunned. Kate stared with her mouth agape at the proof of destruction beginning to show through the clearing haze. The entire facing grounds of the hall were a churned field. Beyond that, the grand old forest was a jagged wasteland.

“My God,” Kate breathed. “My God.”

Penny felt for her cannon, which was partially covered in sand and stones, but her eyes were wide. Her lower lip clamped between her teeth.

In the distance, something moved through the dust. A man-sized shadow grew clearer. A tall man with white hair and beard emerged from the smoking hell that just had been a peaceful forest. He stopped and stared at Hartley Hall in surprise. His eyes were angry; his mouth drew tight with bitter acceptance. Brushing dirt from his fashionable suit, he started toward the house. The ruined earth seemed to flatten out before him.

“You must be Archer!” the man shouted. “A word with you if you please.”

Simon actually laughed. The incredibly inappropriate statement stabbed his sense of the absurd. He stood, kicking idly at a nearby rock. “Were we expecting you, Gaios?”

The white-haired man frowned at the glib reply. His gaze shifted up and in a sudden motion, his hand swung around. A wall of rock bloomed on his left at the same instant a rifle shot sounded from above. The ball cracked harmlessly off the rock shield.

Gaios snarled and used both hands to gesture. The stone wall shifted like water, flowing into a shape some fifteen feet tall. It gathered itself into a humanlike frame and began to move. The living rock creature reached down with long jagged arms to wrench a huge stone from the ground and hurl it at Hartley Hall in a single fluid motion.

The rock flew like a cannonball for the spot where Malcolm crouched. The Scotsman scrambled back as the huge stone seemed to smash against the house and explode. Nick pulled Simon and Kate back under the feeble cover of ledges and window settings. Stones and dust rained down around them.

“Malcolm!” Penny shouted, pushing away from the house, unmindful of the detritus plummeting around her.

They saw an arm waving from above. Malcolm peered down, his face white with dust. The house was uninjured. The stone had been obliterated before impact through some unknown force. Still, Penny turned angrily toward Gaios.

“No!” Simon grabbed her arm before she could bring her cannon to bear. “You can't harm him. Stay next to the house. We're safe here. I think.”

“You are partly correct. You can't harm me.” Gaios strode closer so his booming voice could be heard more clearly. The stone golem moved beside him with pounding, grinding steps to stay between its master and Malcolm. “But you are not safe. Not even here in the house that Sir Roland built.”

“It's still standing!” Kate proclaimed with a vial in one hand and a sword in the other.

“For now.” The white-haired earth elemental shifted his glowering gaze to Kate. “When I'm done, there will be nothing left of the Anstruthers. All those years of Sir Roland's hounding me around the world, prying into my affairs. I was never able to seize him because of that key of his. Do you still have it?”

Simon pulled a gold key from his trouser pocket and held it up. “It's worthless thanks to your Egyptian magic-eater.”

“Just like you, Archer.” Gaios stared at the key. “If it's powerless, you won't object to giving it to me.”

After a moment's hesitation, Simon threw it toward the elemental. Kate and Penny both cried out in alarm. As the golden key spiraled through the air, a column of dirt shot up from the ground, surrounded the object, and collapsed back to the earth.

“Simon!” Kate rounded on him. “What are you doing?”

“It's worthless, Kate,” he replied with a subtle quirk of his lips. “And there's no way to re-create it.”

A short column of dirt rose next to Gaios with the key resting on top. He reached down and took it between two fingers, lifting it close to his eyes. He considered the key for a minute, turning it around from every angle, even appearing to smell it. Then he tossed it into the air. The golem caught it and held it between his two massive hands, which transformed to red-hot magma. The hands parted and dribbles of molten gold fell between its thick fingers.

“There,” Gaios said. “It's a shame to lose such a magnificent artifact. But if I can't use it, I don't want you to find a way.”

“Are we done then, Gaios?” Simon asked. “That key was what you wanted from us?”

“It was once, but now you have something else I want,” Gaios bellowed. “Where is Ferghus O'Malley?”

“I don't know. Did you check every pub in the British Isles before coming here?”

Gaios clenched his fists. “You are making a mistake, Archer. There are only two sides: me or Ash. You are not on mine, so you must be on hers. That means you will die. You may not know me—”

“I know you!” Simon interrupted harshly. “You are Gaios, murderer of Byron Pendragon and his followers. Destroyer of the Order of the Oak.” The ground vibrated under Simon's feet.

The elemental glared from downturned eyes. “Ash told you all about me, did she?” Gaios guffawed, throwing back his head and stretching his arms out. “The day you believe anything she tells you is the day you are lost. Did she tell you that Pendragon loved her?”

“Yes. The two of them struggled to keep you in check because you were a dangerous lunatic.”

“He never loved her.” Gaios sneered.

“Strange then that, of the three, you were the one in prison.”

“Ash lied to Pendragon to convince him to chain me. I had trusted that he was too smart for her, but I was wrong. So I sat in a tiny dark cell for centuries. Fed through a slot in an iron door. Never seeing the sky. Never feeling the pulse of the earth.”

“You poor misunderstood innocent. However did that rumor get started that you caused Vesuvius to erupt, burying Pompeii with all those pesky bystanders?”

Gaios narrowed his gaze. “That was a terrible mistake, but that had nothing to do with my imprisonment. Ash hated me because she feared Pendragon and I would ally against her.”

“Was she right?”

“My only mistake was waiting too long to move against her.”

“Then why didn't you kill Ash when you escaped the Bastille rather than Pendragon?”

The elemental stared empty into space. The intensity drained from his eyes and he seemed a tired old man. “He was my friend and he turned his back on me. He locked me in with vile sorcerers and monsters for my only companions. Forced me to turn to that disgusting rabble for my allies. She … she lied to me and convinced me that he was going to execute me because he was afraid. I believed her. I wanted to believe her because I was so angry with him.” Gaios held his powerful hands out in front of him. “He told me I was wrong. He told me Ash was lying, but I refused to hear him. And I killed him. My friend.” He looked up with human concern. “We three were once like you, shoulder to shoulder, facing the future, fighting for what we believed in. And now because of her, we've come to this. One of us is dead. One of us will soon be. And one of us has been driven mad.”

Simon stepped toward Gaios and felt Kate's hand grab his coattail. “You can end it. You can walk away.”

The elemental shook his head with disappointment. “All I have is Ash. Before I kill her, I will destroy everything she loves. And I will be sure she knows I did it.”

“Meaning London?”

“Meaning all of Britain. When I am done, this land will be no more.”

Simon watched the white-haired man and there was a simple purity to his rage. He wasn't dreaming or bragging. He was planning and anticipating. It was terrifying, but also fascinating. Simon didn't conjure the same disgust and fury over Gaios as he did from Ash. This powerful elemental seemed more like a storm or a volcano. It was appropriate to be awestruck, but there was no purpose to being angry. Gaios was a force that couldn't be turned aside with reason or emotion. You could only strive to protect yourself.

“And that's why you need the Stone of Scone?” Simon asked.

Gaios raised an eyebrow. He reached into his coat pocket, then held out his arm, and a fine stream of sand sifted out from his fist. “Here is your Stone back. Did you think I wouldn't know it was a fake?”

Simon shrugged. “I had hoped.”

“I have the power to find the true Stone.” Gaios dusted his hands together. “But I would prefer not to expend the time and my energy.”

“I wish you very good luck in your search.”

The elemental glared again, the fury building inside him. “I dislike clowns, Archer. I thought you might have some value, but I was wrong. You are insubstantial. There is nothing in you. Even if you had your power, you would be a worthless shadow of a scribe. You are to Pendragon as a parakeet is to an eagle.”

“Let's recap, shall we?” Simon replied evenly. “So far in this contest of mouse versus elephant we have defeated your toadies, Gretta Aldfather and Dr. White, and dismantled their network. We destroyed your Egyptian demigod. We have removed your fire elemental. And we have kept the Stone of Scone from you. I'm not usually one to boast, but we're winning.”

The ground began to reverberate again. Dirt quivered and small stones rolled from the vibrations. The green leaves of uprooted trees shook loudly.

The voice of Gaios rumbled like the ground. “Your world is now limited to that house. If that constitutes victory to you, so be it. If you dare step against me, you will die.”

The earth lifted Gaios. He disappeared from view as the ground carried him away. The stone golem ground to a halt and seemed to lose its life spark. It froze like a statue.

Penny dropped onto the ground with a grunt and let her cannon slide to the wrecked stone terrace. She looked up, giving Malcolm a reassuring gesture.

“Simon, what about our fathers' key?” Kate asked with alarmed exasperation. “We went through hell last year! Imogen gave up her humanity! If you were so willing to give it up, why did we suffer to save it?”

Simon turned with a sympathetic smile and threw an arm over Kate. He drew the gold key from his waistcoat pocket and dangled it from the chain. “That was one of Penny's facsimiles. It was a worthless piece of gold.” Simon laughed out of habit, almost as if he were still feeling his old aether intoxication.