The Dark Portal (The Gryphon Chronicles, Book 3) (42 page)

Jake growled under his breath at the memory of how Garnock had terrified him that night
, projecting the awful vision into his head of himself as the future leader of the Dark Druids. Even now, his fears whispered:
Is this how it begins?

“You hav
e no right to do that to people! Why don’t you mind your own business?”

“W
hat fun would that be? Besides, I had to keep you still somehow, so I could feed on your life-force. Yes, as you guessed, that is how it works. It’s quite a handy trick. I could teach it to you if you like.”

“Not interested.”

“Think it over,” Garnock chided. “Think of all that you could do, the way you could control the idiots around you. You see, in my research, I’ve found that nothing can paralyze a person more swiftly than showing them the picture of their worst fears. I’ve seen yours, Jake, don’t forget—along with your greatest desires, even the secret wounds you think you hide. Poor boy,” Garnock continued with artificial sympathy. “I also glimpsed your memories of your rookery days inside that head of yours. So sad. You’ve had a hard life, Jake. Robbed of your parents. Unloved at the orphanage…”

“Don’t listen to him, Jake,” Isabelle whispered through her suffering. “
He’s only trying to manipulate you.”

“
Beaten by your apprentice masters. Then the scrabble to survive on the streets. Begging, stealing. Half starved to death, and nobody even caring whether you lived or died.”

“Dani cared,” Isabelle rasped, dangling by her wrists from the ropes that bound her. “She was always there for you. Still is.
And you have us now.”

“Don’t listen to her!” Garnock s
napped. “How can this sheltered little rich girl, this pathetic china doll, understand the cruel things you went through? She has no idea what it’s like to face a winter’s night without a roof over your head! But I know. I’ve seen it in your mind, in your heart.”

“She’s seen it, too. She
is
an empath,” Jake said stiffly.

“Ah, yes.”
The wizard sneered at Isabelle. “An empath who can’t handle anything difficult. Look at how weak she is, Jake. What good are you, girl? Quit your sniveling!”

“I a
m not weak,” Isabelle ground out, sobbing, and Jake suddenly understood that this very accusation was
her
greatest fear.

That was
exactly why Garnock was saying it. The enchanter was like a snake weaving back and forth before its prey to mesmerize it before striking. “Little porcelain doll. She’ll crack under the slightest pressure. She can’t do anything like ordinary girls. Helpless. Weak. She can’t even go into London.”

“
Leave her alone! She’s stronger than you know!” Jake said furiously.

“Well, whatever she is, she’s too
innocent
and
pure
to understand what the struggle to survive can do to a person. Those of us who have tasted the bitter side of life like you and I, Jake, we know how such experiences harden a person. But that’s not necessarily a bad thing,” Garnock admitted. “Indeed, I find that nasty streak of survival in you rather a promising sign. You’re not like the others. You could actually be something, with the right guidance.” He stepped closer. “Maybe we should talk.”

“Stay away from me.”

“Come, Jake, you already know the truth, deep down. The Lightriders are weak, just like her. You don’t want to be like them. Look at how your own parents failed you!”

“Stop talking,” Jake ordered
.

But Garnock shook his head, offering the drug of self-pity. “Poor, poor boy.
No wonder you’ve always felt abandoned. I mean, really, I know you admire your precious Lightriders and want to be just like them. But if you think about it, they’re the ones who ruined your life. How could those unconscionable fools lose track of such a special boy as you? With your gifts? Your abilities?”

First terror, then temptation. Now it was flattery. Jake shook his head
. This bloke was good.

“Y
ou really think they’re going to do any better by you in the future? They’ll only fail you again. They don’t deserve you, Jake. You deserve better.”

“Look, I know what you’re trying to do and it isn’t going to work,” Jake informed him, trying to shake off the depressing effect of the wizard’s words.

It did rather make him recall that Aunt Ramona could not even be bothered to answer his message.

“I’m only giving you the truth, Jake. The Elders of the Order will never let you reach your true potential. They’re already scared of you, I wager. They’ll always hold you back. I’ll tell you what,” he ventured. “Why don’t we make a bargain? I’ll free the girl right now if you will agree to become my apprentice.”

“Your apprentice?”

Isabelle struggled against her bonds. “Don’t do it, Jake. That’s how the Dark Druids started out.”

“What say you, Jake?” Garnock asked in a coaxing voice. “I’ll teach you how
to use all that marvelous ability you were born with. Then you can become something greater than your parents ever were.”

He shook his head, aghast at the offer. “Never.”

“How selfish of you, boy! Tsk, tsk, selfish as usual. I’m giving you the chance to set your cousin free. Do you realize what will happen to her if you don’t take the deal? We’re talking about eternal torment here.”

“It’s a trick, Jake. He lies. Don’t let him fool you,” Isabelle whispered weakly from behind him.

“You’re right, Izz. Even if I agreed to it, he’d never let you go. So let’s quit wasting time.” Jake moved boldly behind Isabelle to avoid turning his back on Garnock.

He lifted his runic dagger and started to cut the ropes around her wrists, but Isabelle suddenly screamed.

Garnock’s wand was aiming at her.

Jake froze.

Garnock lowered the wand and Isabelle heaved for breath, mercifully granted relief. “Try that again and I’ll hurt her even worse.”

Jake stared
at him in bewilderment. He hadn’t expected that. “Why are you doing this?” he cried as he stepped back out from behind his cousin. “And to her, of all people? Isabelle would never hurt anyone!”

Garnock grimaced like he couldn’t st
and a goody two shoes. “It’s nothing personal. I have an old debt to cover, and she’s to be my payment.”

“Oh, really?”

“I had an unfortunate falling out a long time ago with a very powerful friend down here. The sort of friend who holds a grudge and never forgets a debt. He should be here any moment to collect. Which means you have only a minute or two to take my offer, Jake. I’ll free her right now, like I said, and find some other way to pay my debt another time. I suggest you take the deal. Otherwise, the china doll will serve as payment in my place—and you know how easily fine china shatters.”

“So, the old story’s true,” Jake said, stalling for time until he could think of another solution for how to free Isabelle without risking Garnock torturing her again by magic. “You really did promise the devil your soul? Did you really think you could actually make him serve you?”

Garnock sighed. “It seemed like a reasonable idea at the time.”

“What a fool!
You’re the one who’s weak,” Jake baited him. He figured that if all else failed, he could draw Garnock’s fire to himself instead of Isabelle.

After all, if he had one natural, non-magic talent, it was his gift for annoying people. He had honed it well on Dani O’Dell.

“I mean, look at you!” he taunted, pressing harder, turning the wizard’s own sly tactics against him. “Only a coward would feed on schoolchildren and helpless tree goblins—and the only way you even got this far was by being invisible. Now anyone can have a crack at you. How are you ever going to make it in the nineteenth century? You’re a relic of a bygone age. You must be completely bewildered by all our new machines.”

“That’
s why I need you,” Garnock countered. “You help me, I share my knowledge with you. A fair exchange.”

“
I want nothing to do with you.” Jake shook his head, scoffing at him. “I hope you get run over by a train. I’ll bet you don’t even know what that is. And I’ll tell you something else, old man.” Jake moved closer and stared into the sorcerer’s fiery eyes. “You will never substitute my cousin in your place. You’re the one who made the bargain. You’re the one who’ll pay the price.”

Garnock forced an approving smile. “You catch on fast. Last chance, Jake.
I think I’m being very fair. I’ll set her free and even remove the unpleasant memory of all this from her pretty head to sweeten the deal. Can’t you see how she’s suffering? I wouldn’t want to be an empath here myself,” he said. “This way, I can pull out the memory like a thorn, and the poor, sensitive little thing won’t even remember the horrors she’s witnessed here. If you really cared about her, you’d do this for her. Let her go.

“All you have to do is agree to serve me as your apprentice master. Learn from me, Jake. I’ll be like the father you
never had. Or…” Garnock paused. “Both of you can stay here, trapped underground forever. Just like your ancestors tried to do to me,” he added coldly.

Jake laughed in his face
. “Aye, well, you deserved it,” he replied, and that was not what the sorcerer wanted to hear.

Garnock let out a garbled shout of ra
ge and charged straight at him.

He seemed to have decided that if he couldn’t kill Jake by magic, he was perfectly happy to strangle him to death.

Jake was not prepared for the ferocity of the attack.

Garno
ck’s hands wrapped around his throat and shook him violently as he sought to choke the life out of him.

As a grown man, Garnock had the advantage of height and strength
over Jake. As a wizard, he had the advantage of dark magic, as well. And as someone who still technically owed the devil his soul, he also had the wild strength of utter desperation.

But Jake had Risker.

With his eyes bulging and his face turning from scarlet to an air-deprived shade of blue, he reached for the dagger at his side and pulled it out to slash at the man.

But Garnock uttered a spell and the knife glowed hot.

Jake dropped it in pain while Isabelle cried his name in the background.

The magic
Viking dagger tried to fly back into his hand, wrought, as it was, by the same great smith of Asgard who had forged Thor’s hammer. But when it tried to come back to him, Jake knocked it away, his fingers already burned.

Garnock leaned closer and gave him a sinister smile as Jake continued to struggle. “I don’t care how bad you taste, with your Lightrider blood. Your powers will be worth it
when I steal them along with your life-force. Let’s try this again now, shall we?”

Then his mouth opened up, the jaw unhinging as it had before—only now, it was much more horrible, since the sorcerer had an actual human head. His whole face became distorted, demonic.

Jake panicked as Garnock took a deep breath and started to suck the life out of his very soul. He thrashed and pulled and tried to throw himself out of the way, but he couldn’t breathe and the ruthless wizard wouldn’t let him go.

His knife was still too hot to touch
, and his powers were spent after defending himself from the wizard’s evil magic and from hitting Garnock so hard before with his telekinesis.

I’m going to die
down here,
he thought in astonishment, watching the vapor of his spirit rushing into Garnock’s gaping maw.
He’s stealing my soul!

Scrabbling for any sort of weapon, while lack of oxygen sent worrisome black dots drifting before his
eyes, all his searching hand found was Dani’s pouch of Illuminium.