Alistair Grim's Odd Aquaticum (32 page)

“Why, this is to be the new railway bridge at Charing Cross!” Lord Dreary exclaimed. In the gloom I spied the shadowy shapes of mooring posts, wrought-iron girders, and scaffolding, and beyond that, a cluster of boats and a flight of stairs leading up to more construction on the embankment.

“Although it’s high tide, I daren’t moor the Odditorium closer to shore,” Father said. “Don’t want to get stuck in the mud or be seen should the invisibility mist run out.”

Presently, a pair of samurai stepped out onto the balcony, and next thing I knew, Lord Dreary, Kiyoko, and I had followed Father upstairs into Nigel’s chamber. The big man and Gwendolyn were already in the back of the demon buggy with a handful more samurai standing nearby. Father threw the lever on the wall and the hangar doors hissed open, filling the room with the river’s cold, putrid air. Kiyoko climbed into the buggy’s front seat with Excalibur, but as I tried to slip in beside her, Father held me back.

“Not so fast, son. You’re staying here with the others.”

“But, sir, I want to come with you!”

“I’m afraid not, Grubb. I’m leaving you in charge of the Odditorium in my absence.”

“Me?”
I gasped.

“That’s right, so listen carefully. There are still plenty of samurai on board, and as long as you don’t go flying, there’s more than enough fairy dust in the reserves to keep you buoyant. However, should something go wrong, if for some reason we don’t make it back, you’re to get the Odditorium as far away from London as possible.”

“But, sir, I can’t play the organ well enough to—”

Father held up a hand to shush me. “Yes, you can. But no matter what happens, Abel Wortley must never get his hands on Cleona. Do you understand me?”

I nodded numbly. Everything was happening so fast that I couldn’t speak. Father held out his hand and I passed him Mack. “Remember, Grubb,” Father said as he slid behind the steering wheel, “fairies and prophecies are never what they seem.”

“Chomp, chomp!” Gwendolyn said with a smile, and then the buggy’s engine roared to life in a cloud of demon dust. The samurai who couldn’t fit in the backseat stood along the running boards, and then Father zoomed out the hangar door and splashed into the river a good ten feet below. I stood in the opening watching after them in amazement—I’d had no idea that the demon buggy was also a demon
boat
—and yet, as soon as Father sputtered round the Odditorium and out of sight, I found myself choking back tears. I wanted to go with them.

Lord Dreary put his hand on my shoulder. “Chin up, lad. There’s no shame in holding down the fort.”

I dashed past him without a word, all the way back downstairs and out onto the balcony, where, squeezing past the samurai, I caught sight of the demon buggy through the scaffolding on the river. They were close to the landing stairs, their faces like vague yellow phantoms in the glare of Gwendolyn’s fairy light. She was protected from the water by the buggy’s magic paint, of course, and could easily hold her own against the worst of the prince’s minions. But still I worried that her glow might give them away.

As if reading my mind, Nigel tucked Gwendolyn under his coat, and the whole lot of them, demon buggy and all, faded back into the darkness. I searched for them for a long time afterward until, ever so briefly, I saw their shadowy forms skulking along the embankment before disappearing again amidst the wharf upriver.

“‘Chin up’ is right,” I said, puffing out my chest. I was in charge of the Odditorium now, which meant I had no business feeling sorry for myself. Besides, I thought as I gazed down at the organ, my playing wasn’t all that bad. I knew how to move the Odditorium’s spider legs, didn’t I? Not to mention its vertical thrusters, so perhaps I was the right bloke for this job after all.

“You can count on me, Father,” I whispered in the dark.

There was no way he could hear me, of course, but if he had, not even Alistair Grim could have predicted just how soon I would make good on my promise.

I
’ll wager it was Lorcan who put that bug in his ear,” Cleona said. She had joined me on the balcony just after midnight, and the two of us stood gazing out across the Thames. The clouds had parted, and the river looked like molten silver in the moonlight.

“What bug in whose ear?” I replied.

“The one in Uncle’s about your staying here. Lorcan told him what he saw in the Avalonians’ temple.”

“What does that have to do with anything?”

“You don’t understand. While you and the others were flying back here on your dragons, Lorcan slipped away to have another look. There were more tiles, he said, rising up from that pool of glowing water and plastering themselves against the wall.”

“What sort of pictures did they make?”

Cleona shrugged. “Lorcan said it was for Alistair Grim’s ears only, but I gathered from the look in his eyes that it had something to do with me.”

“You mean the tiles formed a picture of
you
?”

“Lorcan refused to speak about it. He’s strange that way—a bit superstitious. Then again, who isn’t when it comes to prophecies?”

Perhaps that was why the Gallownog looked so out of sorts when we returned to the Odditorium. Unbeknownst to everyone, he had gone back to the temple and seen more of the queen’s prophecy. Had the tiles really formed a picture of Cleona? And if so, what exactly did Dalach tell Father he had seen?

“Did he tell you about the other pictures?” I asked. “The ones of my mother and me? Of Mack and Moral’s egg and all that lost-princess business?”

“He told me everything that happened, including that little bit about Abel Wortley. Pshaw, I didn’t see that one coming, did you?”

I shook my head. “Neither did Father.”

“Anyhow, Lorcan was very impressed with your bravery. He’s grown quite fond of you, in fact. Then again, no accounting for taste, is there?” Cleona giggled.

“You can say that again. Look who he’s been sweet on all these years.” Cleona laughed heartily. “Speaking of which,” I said, “you don’t really think he’d ever take you back to Ireland, do you?”

“Lorcan talks a good game, but in my heart I can’t see it happening.”

“Neither can I.”

Cleona and I gazed out at the wharf, its mooring posts and ship masts black as ink against the moonlit river. There was no sign of Father and the others, but the wind had picked up some, bringing with it the dull toll of dinghies and laughter from the darkened shore. A violin played somewhere in the distance, and despite the gravity of our circumstances, a strange feeling of peace came over me.

The moment was quickly cut short, however, when in the distance we saw a light break the surface of the water.

“There,” Cleona said. The light winked off, revealing one of Wortley’s black, cigar-shaped sharks floating in the river. Almost immediately another light surfaced and then winked off nearby. And then another. And another. My breath hitched and my knees felt weak. Father had been right about Wortley’s next move after all, as well as him not coming alone.

“How many of those big black fish does the devil have?” Cleona asked. More sharks, at least a half dozen of them, had surfaced and were now heading for the wharf.

“I’ve got them in my sights,” Mrs. Pinch whispered from the organ’s talkback. She and Lord Dreary were in the upper gunnery.

“Remember, Penelope,” said Lord Dreary, “don’t fire unless it’s absolutely necessary. We don’t want to give away our position.”

Cleona held my hand and we watched the sharks slip silently, one by one, into the wharf. For a few tense moments we lost sight of them behind what looked like a coal barge in the foreground, and then I spied the silhouettes of the prince’s minions clambering along the docks. I recognized Shadesmen and goblins and a troll or two, and there was the towering form of Prince Nightshade himself lumbering slowly behind them. Judging by the way he was moving, he must have been wounded worse than we thought.

Suddenly there was shouting, followed by the clash of metal and a bolt of brilliant white lightning from Kiyoko’s magic wand. Gwendolyn, who remained onshore, expanded into her bright, toothy ball—her light illuminating the entire wharf as the battle began. Kiyoko and the samurai clashed with the Shadesmen while Gwendolyn chomped up the goblins and trolls. At the same time as Nigel hit the prince with the egg blaster, Father ran along the dock straight for him. In one hand he held Excalibur, and in the other, the time stopper.

Then, without warning, everything just…
shifted
. The evil minions were gone, the prince lay on his back, and Father stood over him with Excalibur. It was as if the entire scene had jumped forward in the blink of an eye.

“Mack,” Cleona said. “Uncle used his time stopper on the prince.”

“And he killed him with Excalibur!”

“So that’s it, then?” Cleona said after a moment. “Just like that, it’s over?”

Cleona had echoed my sentiments exactly—I too had expected something much more dramatic—but still we watched with bated breath as Father passed the sword to Kiyoko and knelt down beside the prince’s lifeless suit of armor. He lifted the visor on his helmet, and then suddenly shrank back onto his feet. Everyone looked around in confusion, and then Father grabbed Excalibur and raced for the embankment.

“I knew it,” Cleona said. “Something’s wrong.”

The others followed Father from the dock, and as Gwendolyn took her normal shape again, I lost sight of them behind a mass of buildings along the wharf.

“Hang on,” Cleona said. “I’m going to have a look from the roof.” She quickly disappeared up through the ceiling.

“What’s happening?” Mrs. Pinch said from the talkback. “I can’t see anything now.” An eternity passed in which all I could hear was my heart pounding in my ears, and then a police whistle shattered the silence. “Stop, thief!” someone cried. “Murderer!” cried another. A handful of lanterns, their lights bobbing up and down, began moving along the darkened embankment, and then Mrs. Pinch was on the talkback again.

“Cleona, what are you doing in the gunnery—?”

“It’s another one of those submarines!” Cleona shouted over her. “Wortley must have slipped into it somewhere behind us. He means to get away upriver!”

“What are you talking about?” I asked. “We just saw Father kill him on the—”

“I can see Scotland Yard clear as day from up here,” Cleona said with the gunnery gears grinding behind her—Lord Dreary, I could tell, was steering them to the opposite side of the roof. “They’re up in arms and crying murder. Which means all that business on the wharf was a distraction while Wortley stole the transmutation dagger!”

I was entirely bewildered. I’d seen Prince Nightshade fall to Excalibur with my own eyes. In fact, I could now see a crowd of locals gathering round his armor on the—

“His armor.” I gasped, and my heart froze as I replayed Father’s reaction in my mind. Could someone else besides Abel Wortley have been inside the prince’s armor?

“Quickly now, Mrs. Pinch,” Cleona cried from the talkback. “Target your cannons over the port side.”

“I am, I am,” said Mrs. Pinch. “But I don’t see—Well, blind me, there he is!”

“Fire when ready, Penelope,” said Lord Dreary, and the Odditorium trembled with the cannon’s blast.

“He’s moving out of range,” said Mrs. Pinch.

“Grubb, you’ve got to get us closer,” Cleona cried. “If he gets past Waterloo Bridge we’ll lose him for good!”

“But I can’t—”

“Hurry, Grubb, there’s no time to lose!”

And just like that my hands were on the organ. The music, if you could call it that, was jumbled and discordant, and yet somehow it did the trick. The spider legs creaked and groaned, and before I knew what was happening, the Odditorium had turned completely around and began to crawl upriver.

“Well done, Grubb!” Cleona said from the talkback. Yes, I was doing it. I was piloting the Odditorium just as Father had taught me. I could see the submarine shark directly ahead of me now, cutting fast through the water. I played faster, and the Odditorium responded by speeding up. Mrs. Pinch rained down a barrage of red lightning from the upper gunnery, but we were still too far away, and her cannon blasts fizzled out in the water just short of her target.

“Faster, Grubb!” the old woman cried. “You need to get me just a little closer.”

The Odditorium rocked clumsily under my control, but still I managed to keep the spider legs splashing forward with a
thwomp, thwomp, thwomp!
through the riverbed. Then, out of the corner of my eye, I saw something flash. The Odditorium sputtered a bit, and the organ music grew louder.

“Grubb, you’ve turned off the invisibility mist!” Cleona cried—how she could tell, I had no idea—but I kept my eyes fixed on Wortley’s shark. My fingers raced along the organ with a mind of their own. And then, much to my amazement, Beethoven’s “Ode to Joy” began blaring out across the Thames.

“That’s it, Grubb!” Mrs. Pinch called from the talkback. “Just a little closer!”

“A regular prodigy!” Lord Dreary cheered in the background.

I could hardly believe my own ears, but there I was, playing “Ode to Joy” almost as well as Alistair Grim himself. The Odditorium’s spider legs now crawled steadily, almost effortlessly under my command—
thwomp-th-thwomp-th-thwomp!
they trudged in time with the music. I was getting the hang of it now and closing in on Wortley fast—so close that I could make out the submarine’s demon glaring back at me from its engine porthole. If only Father could see me now, I thought.