The Dark Portal (The Gryphon Chronicles, Book 3) (38 page)

Only Jake and
Madam Sylvia turned.

“You’ve got something?” Derek asked quickly.

“Follow me!” Jake ran towards Old Sack, but before he could reach him, Garnock flew out of the wall with a sinister roar.

Jake
stopped in his tracks, shocked by the change in the sorcerer’s appearance. Below the waist, Garnock was still a black fog, but now, instead of a skeleton head, his face was distinct.

Though still swathed in smoke, his upper half was that of a middle-aged man with strong, lordly features and short, spiky hair
, pale as moonlight. He now had a regular sort of neck and shoulders, a chest, the top of a back, arms, and hands.

But the r
est of him was still a trailing dark cloud as he raced through the air, going after Old Sack.

“Run!” Jake shouted, only to grab his cousin’s shoulder when Archie started to dash away. “Not you, the ghost,” he muttered.

The headmaster ghost let out a shriek and instantly turned himself into a fast-moving orb. Old Sack flew out over the staircase, but he wasn’t fast enough.

Garnock caught him in midair.

“Let him go!” Jake shouted.

“Oh, dear,” Madam Sylvia whispered, lifting her hand to her mouth.

Grasping the orb between his newly formed hands like it was a crystal ball, Garnock shoved the whole thing into his mouth. To Jake’s horror, the evil spirit’s lower jaw unhinged like that of a shark, enabling him to swallow the orb whole.

Jake stood aghast. He couldn’t move, could not believe what he had just witnessed. He stared, r
iveted with morbid fascination.

He could not think of a single thing to say.

Garnock gave a great gulp, then his jaw and head went back to normal.

He turn
ed in midair to leer at Jake in sinister satisfaction. Then he licked his lips like a frog that had just swallowed a fly. “A little dry for my taste, like all these academics. That makes number ninety-six.”

“You killed him.”

“Good afternoon to you, too, Lord Griffon! The Lightrider’s son. Yes, I know now who you are.” Garnock’s eyes narrowed. “And I know what you did to my poor little Mischief and Mayhem. My gargoyles.”

“You’re a monster!” Jake choked out, taking a backward step in the
hallway as Garnock floated closer.

Moving under the school’s
dingy main chandelier, the black-fog warlock tilted his head back and laughed. “Thank you very much, my lad! I shall take that as a compliment. Some of my best friends are monsters. Now then, who wants to be number ninety-seven? Here’s a tasty little morsel.”

“You s
tay away from my cousin!” Jake belted out, throwing up his arm in front of Archie, and that was all the boy genius needed to hear.

Shoving Jake’s arm out of the wa
y, he slid the opened Spirit Box across the floor, then brought up the Phantom Fetcher with a yell and started firing wildly in all directions, cranking the brass handle at top speed.

The Phantom Fetcher blasted out a lightning-like net of crackling, bluish energy.

Garnock threw himself out of the way in the nick of time, then turned, looking outraged at this unexpected device. As soon as the sorcerer righted himself, he fired back at the boy genius with a ball of dark magic that only Jake could see.

“
Arch, look out!”

It flew out of Garnock’s hand and barreled into Archie’s chest, sending him flying against the wall behind him.

Jake stepped in front of him as Garnock swooped toward his cousin to feed. “Don’t even think about it.”

“Quick, the spell!”
Archie said, pushing his spectacles back up after they had slipped down his nose.

“Everyone, all at once!” Madam Sylvia said.

They had all memorized the Lightriders’ spell and together began reciting it. Jake brought up the wand and pointed it at Garnock, concentrating on the ancient magical words with all his might.

“Thrice cursed,

be thou bound

who evil chose

we now enclose

in dark and doom—

be thou entombed!

So we swear it by our blood

And victory of Holy Rood,

Banished be forevermore.”

Garnock drew back with a look of fear when he heard the incantation. He must have remembered its previous effect on him all too well, for he lifted his hands as if to shield himself, and immediately began chanting a counter-spell.

Jake and the others spoke louder, reciting the Lightriders’ spell over and over in unison while Archie climbed to his feet, but nothing seemed to be happening to Garnock.

If anything, every rep
etition only seemed to make him stronger. He was getting bigger and the human part of his body was growing more distinct; he now had a waist.

Apparently, he couldn’t help laughing. “You fools! Did you think I sat in that tomb all those centuries twiddling my thumbs? What do you take me for? Leave it to a Lightrider to show a total lack of originality.
Ho-hum!”

“Everyone, stop!” Jake ordered. “He’s turning our magic against us.”

“Very good, my clever little nugget! Maybe you’re not as thick as you look. Love the white hair, by the way. It suits you.”

“
I take it the spell didn’t work,” Archie said in a tight voice. “So what do we do now?”

Jake glanced over his shoulder at his cousin, at a loss.

This wasn’t in the plan.

Madam Sylvia took charge and stepped to the fore, holding up a handful of crystals on chains and waving them at Garnock, although she couldn’t see him
, which Jake thought extremely brave.

She
proceeded to lay a curse on him in the potent bardic language of old Welsh, her tone dire.

Garnock flinched as though someone with good aim had just thrown a rock at him, bu
t he shook it off and sneered.

“Take that, you hag!” He threw out his hand and cast another ball of dark energy
, which jolted Madam Sylvia off her feet and carried her backward toward the staircase.

He meant to
throw her down the steps.

B
ut before Jake could even summon up his telekinesis to save her, Derek dove, wrapping his arms around the old woman’s waist in order to take the brunt of the fall.

Jake
and Archie winced and ran to the top step as the two went bumping down the staircase, tumbling as they rolled. Madam Sylvia fainted along the way. Then Derek landed under the medium with a grunt of pain.

Setting the dazed old woman safely aside, he came up angry. “Point to him, Jake.”

Jake pointed at Garnock, and Derek instantly hurled his first Bowie knife. It flew right through the smoky black substance of Garnock’s body and stuck in the wall behind him.

Garnock looked over his shoulder and arched a ghostly eyebrow in amusement at the knife hilt still shuddering in the wall. “That wasn’t very nice.”

“Did I hit him?”

“Yes, but it didn’t matter.”

“Oh, really?” Derek threw the second knife with a growl of frustration.

Garnock’s eyes narrowed. “Ah, n
ow it’s my turn.” The sorcerer hurled a jagged silver bolt of energy at the Guardian.

“Derek, look out!”

The warrior crouched down and started to spin out of the way to duck behind the wall, but the bolt of magic caught him in the knee; he gasped in astonishment just before he was suddenly frozen in place.

“What have you done
to him?” Archie cried, then he raced to the nearest window and threw open the sash. “Red! Come! We need you!”

“You are an irritating little thing,” Garnock declared.

“Don’t you dare!” Jake yelled, but there was nothing he could do to stop him.

Garnock sent out an orangey-green bolt of magic
from his fingertips with a snicker, and when it hit the boy genius, Archie started shrinking right before Jake’s eyes.

His voice turned high-pitch
ed, like the squeak of a mouse; down and down he went, until he was only pixie-sized, and when Red swooped in through the open window with an angry
“Caw!”
he got the same.

“No!” Jake yelled.

Garnock laughed hysterically as the Gryphon shrank down to the size of a dragonfly. Miniaturized Red landed on the ground beside tiny Archie, who was hollering squeaky protests at the top of his teensy lungs.

Burning with outrage, Jake zapped Gar
nock with a furious bolt of telekinesis, and though the wizard had no solid matter to affect, he
did
stop laughing.

Perhaps he recalled the effect that trying to feed on Jake had had on him before.

“I’ll get you for this,” Jake vowed. “Put them back the way they were!”

“Or what?” Garnock taunted.

Jake’s answer was another bone-jarring jolt of telekinetic power. He sustained it for several seconds, ignoring the risks to himself of doing so.

It would weaken him, but he was too furious to care.

Besides, it also seemed to weaken Garnock, who dropped a few feet lower in the air when Jake cut off the beam.

Garnock panted after Jake released him. “I’ll make you sorry
for that. But first…”

He
swooped over and fed off Archie with a mighty inhalation through his mouth: ninety-seven.

Aghast,
Jake shot at him again with telekinesis, but had to be careful of hitting his itty-bitty cousin. He didn’t want to accidentally throw tiny Archie across the room.

Garnock apparently didn’t dare feed off Red, but flew away and drained of
f some of Derek’s powerful life-force next in the same fashion: ninety-eight.

“Get away from them!” Jake bellowed, racing down the steps as Garnock went over and inhaled more energy off
the unconscious Madam Sylvia.

“Ha, that’s ninety-nine!” the sorcerer declared, wiping his mouth on his sleeve. He looked younger, stronger; his face almost had some color, and Jake could see that Garnock’s spik
y hair was turning blond. “I’d hide if I were you, Lord Griffon. You have very little time to run before I come back for you. Now if you’ll excuse me, it’s time to find a unicorn!”

With that, Garnock whooshed through the foyer and flew out of the school.

Jake knew he had to go after him, but he couldn’t leave Archie and Derek and Red in this condition. He turned to Madam Sylvia, who had managed to rouse herself from her swoon.

“Go on, hurry
.” She waved him off. “I’ll look after these two.”

“Three. He got Red, too.
”

“Fine, just go! You mustn’t let him
finish the spell!”

Just then, an angry squeaking from the top of the stairs drew his at
tention. He turned and saw Archie standing on the top step, jumping up and down to get his attention and waving him on.

“What?”
Jake tilted his head, listening harder.

“Hurry!” his cousin
chirped. “The girls!”

He drew in his breath. “You’
re right!”

Instantly
, he dashed off, though he had no idea what he could possibly do to Garnock by himself once he caught up to him. He’d just have to figure something out when he got there.