The Legend Thief (7 page)

Sky analyzed the angle of the arrow and found the likely s pot where the shooter had stood. The ground was covered in feathers and wax, which meant that Fred and the
Marrowick
had either attacked the shooter together, or that one had attacked the shooter and the other had defended the shooter from the attack. Either way, the prey had fled north while Fred and the Marrowick followed the shooter east.

Sky scratched his head.
What in the world was going on here?
Sky reached out for Fred again. Nothing. He reached out further through the Edge, striving to touch Fred's mind and get a sense of his whereabouts. As he focused on Fred, the grove suddenly grew very, very quiet. Sky gave up his search and glanced at the Piebalds, wondering why they'd ceased their incessant gossiping. What he saw chilled him. Not a single feather moved, not an eye twitched. The Piebalds sat, tense and perfectly still, their beaks raised to the night.

Sky looked up and saw a shadow streak across the moon, high above the thin and scattered forest-its gigantic wings blotting out the light. A blink, and then it was gone.

Sky held his breath, afraid to move.

Straight in front of him, he saw one of the Piebalds shuffle from one foot to the other.

No
.
..
no
, don't,
Sky wanted to scream.

The Piebald looked at him. Sky shook his head-No, he mouthed.

The Piebald twitched nervously and began to spread its wings.

No, no, no!
Sky shook his head violently, willing the Piebald to stay in place.

With a downward thrust, the Piebald launched into the air.
"NO!" Sky screamed. But before he could even finish, a giant winged shadow-moving faster than he could track darted out of nowhere and snatched up the Piebald in its gaping mouth. Sky caught a glimpse of a twisted horn and a mesmerizing blue light dangling from it, and then the creature was gone.

The grove erupted into chaos. Piebalds threw themselves from their perches, cawing and yammering madly in their frantic race to save themselves.

The Darkhorn reappeared, swooping through the Piebalds, knocking aside trees and boulders that got in her way to get at her favorite food.

Sky sprang sideways, dodging a falling tree. The Darkhorn hurtled over him, scooping up another Piebald. Sky reached for his Pounder, but the Pounder didn't work. He cursed Crenshaw, reached for his Fogger, and detached a canister as the Darkhorn came in for another pass.

He flicked it on and chucked it into the air, trying to hide not only himself, but the Piebalds as well. Before Fog could cover any of them, the Darkhorn apparently mistook the canister for a Piebald and swallowed it whole as she rocketed past.

She screeched angrily, a high-pitched neighing that shook Sky to his bones.

He scrambled for cover and reached for his last can of Fog, but before he could grab it, the Darkhorn dropped to the ground in front of him. She was massive and sleek and stood almost twenty feet tall. Thick Fog billowed from her mouth, swirling around her in strange geometries as she folded her wings to her sides. The glowing blue ball of light dangled from her mangled black horn, swinging back and forth.

Her angry screeching suddenly changed into the most disturbingly beautiful sound he'd ever heard, like a thousand bro ken harps accompanying a thousand fallen angels. The sound pulled at him, dragging him close, step by longing step. And standing above him now was the most glorious woman, robed in light, her arms beckoning, beckoning. Strands of bright white hair swirled around her head and she smiled warmly, waving him closer.

Sky took another step.
Another.
He knew something was wrong, but couldn't stop himself.

Something cawed off to his right and the woman suddenly reached out and snatched a Piebald from the air, shoving it in her mouth. In that instant Sky saw the Darkhorn in place of the beautiful woman, and he threw himself to the side as the Darkhorn's slavering maw plunged toward him, just missing.

Sky rolled to his feet, slammed his Jumpers and Foggers at the same time, and shot into the air. Putrid Fog rolled around him as the Darkhorn's teeth snapped shut behind him. He landed on a high tree branch and scampered along its length as she let out a hideous shriek.

The Darkhorn rocketed out of the Fog and felled the tree next to him.

At the end of the limb, Sky lunged forward and dropped to a new branch, hugging it as he landed. He pulled himself up and dashed toward the trunk. The Darkhorn rammed the tree, and Sky hit his Jumpers-a quick burst-and sailed into the next tree. He veered sharply toward a new branch and a new tree. Another burst.

The Darkhorn shot past, snapping branches.

Sky bounced free-form, without his Jumpers, from limb to limb and tree to tree, frantically trying to stay ahead. Branches and bark showered him.

He spun, changing direction again and again. One more burst and the Jumpers fizzled-out of juice.

Sky plummeted. He slapped his Shimmer and crashed into a branch, snapping it in two. He ricocheted down the tree, bouncing around, and then he smashed into the ground.

His Shimmer flickered out at the same time as his Fog and he rolled to his back, groaning.

Dense Fog coated the forest. The Darkhorn screeched, but she sounded far
away,
and getting farther. Sky's twists and turns within the Fog had thrown her from his trail. He was safe for now.

Rocks poked him in the back and a branch had worked its way into an awkward position, but he didn't care. Piebalds had died tonight because of his stupidity. He should've known better than to reach out for Fred like that with the Darkhorn and Bedlam nearby
.·
That reaching was part of edgewalking, part of Bedlam and the Darkhorn's domain, and they were infinitely better at it than him. If he'd thought it through, he would've realized: If he could reach out,
they
could reach back. Why did everything and everyone around him keep dying? The Piebalds, hundreds of hunters when he was young, including several of his friends' parents, and Phineas, Errand, Crystal, Andrew, Hands, T-Bone ... Sky stopped himself. Not them. Not the monster hunters. Not his friends. Nackles would get them out. He had to believe that, even if it was hard.

Something crunched nearby, and Sky stopped berating himself. He sat up hesitantly and looked around, but the Fog remained as impenetrable as ever.

More
crunching,
and then quiet.

Fearing that the Darkhorn had circled back, Sky climbed to his feet and stepped around the tree. On the other side, he found a scruffy man with a scraggly beard wearing a dingy blue jump suit. The man sat casually on a tree stump, holding a torn picture in one hand and eating from a bag of Doritos with the other.

Sky glanced around nervously, wondering if the Darkhorn was messing with him-if she'd pulled him into a nightmare without him knowing. And then he realized that he recognized the man.

"
Mister .
.." Sky didn't know the man's last name. "Mister Janitor, are 'you okay?"

Crunch, crunch, crunch.
Orange cheese and bits of tortilla chip lived in the mangy beard like squirrels nestling down for winter.

Sky stepped closer. The poor man had mental problems, he knew. Last year the janitor had helped him out of a bind with Crenshaw, and then he'd made the strangest comment about urinal cakes.

"Forest saltines taste like urinal cakes," the janitor now muttered.

A comment very much like that, in fact.

Without taking his eyes from the picture, the janitor held out the bag of Doritos, not to Sky, but to the empty space slightly to the left of Sky.

Sky glanced
over,
afraid he might find someone there. No one was, but that made him more frightened, not less.

"Are you lost?" Sky asked hesitantly; he was beginning to think he might prefer the Darkhorn. "Do you need help finding your way back to Exile?"

The janitor ate another Dorito. A checkered picnic blanket was spread out in front of him.

Slowly, Sky stepped up behind him and looked down at the picture, which had been ripped from top to bottom so that half was missing. The picture showed a woman who looked somehow familiar. She wore jeans and a grungy T-shirt and her charcoal hair was long and pulled back in a ponytail. In the background, he saw one of the spires of Arkhon Academy. An arm clothed in a white dress shirt was wrapped around the woman's shoulder.

The more Sky stared at the woman, the more familiar she seemed.

"I know her
... ,
" Sky muttered, the memory nagging at him. The Dorito paused halfway to the janitor's mouth.

"We won't let anything hurt you," the janitor promised without turning, his voice gentle, as if he were talking to a small child.

Sky shied away, taking several steps back. "Excuse me?"

"Not monsters, not hunters, not the Arkhon himself, no matter how badly he wants you," the janitor continued. "You'll grow up with my son and the others."

"Your son?"
Sky backed away, utterly creped out. "Who's your son?"

The janitor turned to look at him. "We'll teach you how a hunter
should
act. All of us, we'll start
aga
-"

The janitor suddenly stopped and stared at nothing.

A chill shot down Sky's spine. He'd heard these words before . . . last year while edgewalking through the memory of when he was a baby. They were the words spoken in the library the night the hunters captured Solomon Rose, whom they believed then, and believed still, to be the Arkhon.

A man had held Sky in his arms and spoken those very words to him, promising something he could never deliver,
promising
Sky safety. The man had cut down a ring of monsters around the pendulum before fighting the Shadow Man, the one who could slip through shadows, the one who'd turned Sky and Errand into Changelings that very night.

Sky's great protector had fallen while defending him. White light, like a physical thing, had whipped out of the Hunter's Mark during the Changing and plunged through the monocle, into his protector's eye.

Sky stared at the janitor and imagined him dean-shaven, with cropped hair, a long black trench coat covering slacks and a dress shirt, and a thick white monocle on his eye. His great protector, the one who'd given up so much for him, had been right in front of him the whole time, and Sky had never spared him a second look.

"You're Nikola," Sky said, bewildered, the puzzle pieces snapping into place. "You're the hunter who built the Arkhon's prison with Phineas. You protected me."

Nikola glanced back at Sky, looking past him rather than at him.

"They'll never find it that way," Nikola muttered, dumping out his Doritos and putting the bag over his head. 'The coffin is empty."

"What?" Sky glanced over his shoulder, but once again there was nothing there
save
Fog and forest.

Nikola dropped the picture and picked up his picnic blanket. ''Why do the good ones always die? You'd better hurry if you want to save her."

"Save who?" Sky asked.

Muttering to himself about nacho cheese, urinal cakes, and glowing saltines, Nikola spun and walked away, disappearing into the Fog. Sky picked up the picture and raced after him.

"Wait! Who is this? Who's your son?" Sky yelled.

But Nikola
-
the Genius, the Protector,
the
Mad Janitor of Exile
-
was gone.