Rise of Allies (The Gryphon Chronicles, Book 4) (26 page)

“
Maddox St. Trinian!”
a deep voice roared all of a sudden from farther down the path. “What do you think you’re doing?”

Suddenly, Derek was there.

“Sir.” Blanching, Maddox whisked Jake away from the giant turd and immediately set him on the ground.

Jake jumped to his feet, red-faced and scowling, brushing leaves off his clothes. “He tried to kill me!”

“Don’t be absurd,” Maddox muttered.

“What is wrong with you two?” Derek boomed with an angry glance from one to the other. “I turn my back for one minute and you two are at each other’s throats!” He stepped between them, moving protectively in front of Jake and glowering at Maddox.

The older boy dropped his gaze. “He started it,” he mumbled.

“And you lost your temper. That is a luxury a Guardian cannot afford. Besides, blast it, you’re the older one, Maddox! You’re supposed to be an example!”

Maddox started to object, then bit his tongue. “Quite right, sir. I apologize.”

“O’ course, there was the small matter of some dragon turds bein’ flung in your protégé’s direction, courtesy of our birthday boy,” Tex drawled, taking another thoughtful puff on his cheroot.

“You cannot be serious.” Derek glanced at Tex, then looked at Jake in disbelief. “What did you do?”

Jake cast about, trying to look innocent, but Derek scanned Maddox and read the true story in the flecks of dragon dung all over his clothes.

“He was being pompous!” Jake insisted.

Derek rolled his eyes, then growled under his breath in frustration and seized them both by the backs of their coat collars. “Come on!”

He thrust them forward on the path, grumbling and lecturing them by turns all the way back to the waypoint.

Look what you’ve done now!
Maddox’s angry glance seemed to say.

Jake made a face at him. Perhaps he was acting a little immature, but he couldn’t seem to help it.

The worst part came when Derek ordered them both to apologize and shake hands while Tex punched in the coordinates to take them back to Merlin Hall. Neither boy wanted to lower himself to a truce; they just glared at each other. This impulsive quarrel seemed to have taken on a life of its own, and Jake didn’t know how to back out of it. Plus, his pride wouldn’t let him.

Maddox was staring at him like he thought him a spoiled baby.
You’re just a little kid to me.

How insulting! And yet, now he couldn’t stop acting like one.

“Apologize!” Derek ordered while Dr. Plantagenet collected his things and jumped into the waiting portal.

“It was just a joke!” Jake exclaimed.

“You’re not going into the Grid before you say you’re sorry. You want to be treated like an adult? Act like one!”

Jake stifled his rage and ground out, “Sorry!”

“Maddox?” Derek prompted.

“Yes, sir.” Jake seethed as the Guardian-in-training made a great show of his vaunted self-discipline. Even in apologizing, he was showing off.

“Terribly sorry,” Maddox said in a flat monotone. “Just a misunderstanding, I’m sure.”

His stare seemed to say,
See? I can even apologize better than you.

Jake could have howled with frustration at his rival’s hardheadedness. He just wanted to get back to civilization and end this vexing excursion. It was
his
birthday. Maddox never should have been invited.

“Now shake on it,” Derek commanded.

“No way! I’m not touching him,” Jake said. “He’s got dragon doo on him.”

“And whose fault is that?” Derek roared.

Maddox thrust out his hand, eager to prove himself the bigger man once again.

Oh, I can’t stand you,
Jake thought, but two could play that game. Aye, Jake took it even a step further, summoning up an Uncle Waldrick-like smile as he shook Maddox’s hand.

They parted sharply.

“You. In,” Derek ordered Jake, nodding at the portal. “And when you get there, go straight to your room.”

“
Fine.
” Without any hesitation this time, Jake jumped in and went whooshing through the Grid, still too angry to care much about all the wonder of it and so forth.

But then, a few minutes later, fate gave him one last, sweet twist of revenge.

Jake was standing on the lawn, getting over his queasiness, when Isabelle came running over with a bunch of pretty older girls—the same ones with whom she’d gone out collecting the Beltane dew. And that stuff must
work
because they all looked awfully pretty to him.

“Jake! How was it?” Isabelle greeted him, eager to hear about his adventures on the other side of the Grid. Jake eyed her friends with interest.

Brimming with curiosity, the girls had gathered around the portal when, suddenly, Maddox St. Trinian came tumbling out, rolling across the grass and landing at Isabelle’s feet.

Still covered in dried dragon poop.

Innocent, pure-hearted as she was, even Isabelle couldn’t help herself, automatically wincing and clamping her fingers over her nose with a low, “Ew.” All the other pretty girls laughed and did the same.

Maddox squeezed his eyes shut and thumped his head on the grass in wordless humiliation.

Now
we’re even
, Jake thought in satisfaction. And his roguish grin returned.

It didn’t last, however.

When Derek stepped through the portal, he swept the scene before him in a glance, then offered Maddox a hand up.

He pulled him onto his feet, clapped him on the back, and said, “Good work back there. Dismissed. As for you, Jake, your behavior was atrocious. Go to your room!”

With all the lovely young ladies looking on, Jake withered slightly, his usual defiance rearing up. “Hey, it’s my birthday, I want to—”

“I SAID GO!”
Derek thundered so loudly it was a wonder that the towers of Merlin Hall didn’t crack and fall down like the bloody walls of Jericho.

All the girls jumped and went absolutely silent.

Jake was very sure he shrank to the size of the dwarves they had recently visited in Wales. His voice was gone. His cheeks glowed like red-hot coals.

Maddox glanced back over his shoulder with a sly smile as he marched off across the grass alone.

Jake looked at Derek helplessly, then dropped his gaze, and without another word, did as he was told.

But he sure didn’t like it.

CHAPTER TWENTY

Smoke on the Wind

“I
hate this place,” Jake grumbled at Red that night, having sneaked off to have a grand sulk in the company of his Gryphon. “I hate dragons. I hate that kid. I tried to get along with him, but he’s a pompous fool! Derek and he can have each other, I don’t care!”

“Becaw,” his peach-fuzzed pet said sympathetically.

“Why is the whole world against me? Oh, yeah—and I hate that troll kid, too. Frankly, I hate everybody. Except for you, Red. And Gladwin. And Archie, I guess, and maybe Dani, too. I want to go home.”

“Becaw?”

“Fine! I don’t hate Isabelle, either, but she’s been
really
annoying ever since she met Mr. Saint Perfect,” he said vehemently. “Or as I prefer to call him, Mr. Poop-Stink. Heh.”

“Caw,” Red said with a bit of a frown about the edges of his beak.

“Hey, I can be mad if I want to. It’s my birthday! At least for a few more hours. Some birthday.” He let out a sigh, ignoring the fact that he was alone at his pity party.

Then a sudden, worried thought occurred to him. He glanced at the dark woods around the Gryphon’s nest. “Red, make sure you warn me if you see that hideous troll coming this way. I think he lives in a cave or a hole around here somewhere. I swear, if he bothers me again, this time, I’ll levitate him into the Venemous Tython’s cage. See how he fares then!”

Night had fallen, and he didn’t even care that he was in the zoo after dark. How dangerous could it really be after spending the day with dragons in the wild? The menagerie was kind of peaceful after dark, actually.

The Dreaming Sheep were bouncing high into the sky with the winged sheepdog chasing after them. He could hear the Venemous Tython snarling in its cage below, but he was confident the thing couldn’t get out. Near the entrance, the climbing fish were chirping in the mud while Malwort was chatting away down in the Fairy Stinger’s cage, getting to know his green, hairy, oversized “cousin.”

On his way to Red’s nest, Jake had stopped to see how the two were getting on. The arachno-sapiens had been babbling nonstop in his weird little voice, and the Fairy Stinger answered, humming its equally strange tunes.

Quite a pair they made.

He had also spotted Ogden Trumbull bedding down for the night. The half-troll hybrid had tucked himself into a long, low indentation among the rocks in the hillside.

“I sure won’t miss him when we leave,” he mused aloud. “I can’t believe I’ve got to stay here for—how many more days?”

Red rested his beak on Jake’s knee, but did not answer.

Comforted by his big pet’s presence, Jake stroked the Gryphon’s head. Baby-chick type feathers had started popping up all over Red’s scalp, shoulders, and wings.

“You’re looking a lot better than yesterday, you know.”

“Becaw.”

Jake took that to mean that Red was feeling a good deal better, too. But, for himself, his restless thoughts kept on churning.

“I mean, who does that kid think he is, anyway?” he burst out. “Where does he even come from? I wish Derek never tried to foist him off on us. He wants us to be
friends
. Isabelle insulted him today by accident. It was pretty hilarious. She wasn’t trying to be mean—it just slipped out—but that should get rid of him now. I almost felt sorry for the glocky bloomin’ mumper.
Almost
. Do you realize if he became her beau he would always be lurking around us? Ugh.”

“Becaw?” Red asked, as if to say,
Is he really that bad?

Jake ignored the question. “I just want to go back to Griffon Castle, don’t you? This Gathering’s a bore. Can you believe that troll kid nearly killed Archie and me today?”

Red growled sympathetically. “Caw!”

“No, that’s all right, boy. Don’t worry, we handled it. But thanks, though. All’s well that ends well,” he added, wryly echoing Maddox’s conclusion about the debacle. He shook his head in resentment, hating the fact that he’d had to be rescued.

It did not sit well with his male pride at all.

“You know what it is?” he admitted to Red in frustration after a moment. “It’s knowing I’ll never be as good as that kid. It’s not just skills, I mean—his character. He’s as strong as Derek, and as chivalrous as Archie, and it’s completely annoying, because then there’s me. Truth be told, he kind of terrifies me. How am I ever supposed to live up to
that
?

“I feel like I’m walking on eggshells half the time, making it up as I go along. And you realize nobody’s ever going to let me live it down that I used to be a thief. Maddox threw it in my face today, and I just… I don’t know, Red. I just wanted to shake him up. Show him he’s not so perfect, either. That’s why I made the dragon poo fly up on him, I guess. To get a reaction. It wasn’t very nice, I know, but at the time, I just wanted to get under his skin the way he gets under mine. Give him a taste of his own medicine.”

“Becaw,” Red answered wearily.

Jake heaved a sigh. “I know. I’m an idiot. Derek was right. I acted immature.” He paused. “Maybe I
am
still just an annoying little kid. Maybe I always will be. Red, growing up is rotten.”

He sat there, brooding in philosophical silence for a moment, and then absently, he noticed that one of the downy feathers on Red’s shoulder looked a strange color in the lantern’s glow. Not the usual scarlet, but gold.

Weird.

He smoothed the golden bud of a feather, still distracted by his thoughts. “I can’t wait for Maddox to see you once you’re all better,” he remarked. “That glock-wit actually claimed he wasn’t afraid of you. Ha! We’ll see about that once you’re back on your feet. Will you scare him for me? Not for serious, just for a joke.”

Red didn’t answer either way, serenely enjoying Jake’s attention.

“Oh, and I almost forgot to tell you about this girl. Nixella Valentine—how’s that for a name? She’s really bizarre, but I think Archie likes her. Actually, I’ve had my suspicions she might be a spy for the Dark Druids.”

“Caw?” Red lifted his head and looked at Jake in astonishment. His golden eyes blinked.

“She’s just a young girl, Dani’s age, and that would be unlikely, right? But on the other hand, doesn’t it make sense that they’d send a spy nobody would suspect? I mean, she’s incredibly talented as a witch. Really smart and powerful. Even Aunt Ramona was impressed.” Jake shrugged. “Why not? She could be the one.”

“Becaw,” Red chided.

“That’s true… Fooling Archie is one thing, but not too many people can fool Aunt Ramona. Say, what’s that?” Jake pointed at the sky, where the winged sheepdog suddenly started barking.

Wings pumping, it raced past the moon, chasing some flying creature away from one of its bouncing sheep.

Jake had brought along the telescope Archie had given him for his birthday. Even if he wasn’t allowed to talk to anybody until tomorrow, banished to solitude per Derek’s orders, he could still observe others from a distance and maybe keep watch for the spy while he spent time with Red. He quickly took the telescope out of his waistcoat, unfolded the cylinder, and lifted the lens to his eye.

The dog was definitely chasing something, but it was too dark to see well. Jake flipped the special lens clockwise, clicking the night setting into place.
That’s better.

Once he found his target, he was startled to see the dog chasing away a giant black bat that was trying to bite one of the sheep.

The big, fluffy dog snarled and snapped at it, going on the attack, until the bat gave up and flapped away.

Jake shuddered at the sight of its four-foot wingspan, watching its every move. “That thing had better not come this way.”

The great bat descended in swooping spirals toward the ground. But what happened next was even stranger. Following its progress through the telescope, Jake gasped aloud, for as it neared the ground, the bat turned magically into a person.

It jumped down onto the grass, a man.

He smoothed his black clothes with an elegant gesture, then strode toward the entrance of Merlin Hall, barely missing a stride.

Jake stared in disbelief, gooseflesh prickling down his arms. He barely dared blink as he watched the bat-gentleman through the telescope.

The shapeshifter or whatever he was moved at a gliding gait. He had longish, dark hair that hung past his shoulders in a sleek queue. As he neared the lanterns that glowed around the palace entrance, the people loitering there to enjoy the night air stopped and stared at him.

He did not acknowledge them but kept his sights fixed on the front doors: a man on a mission.

Why on earth would he try to bite the Dreaming Sheep?
Jake wondered, watching in bewilderment.

Then he gasped and shot to his feet.

A vampire?!

He had never seen one before, but he felt very sure he was looking at one now.

But here? How?
Merlin Hall was protected from evil forces, and from all that Jake had heard, the vampire race definitely fell into that category.

Guardians came running from all directions, and Jake’s heart thudded to see Derek at the forefront.

The vampire (if such he was) stopped before the iron-muscled row of Guardians that closed ranks a few feet before him; he cast a sidelong glance at the others closing in on both flanks.

Derek held up his hand in a signal to belay his fellow warriors, then the master Guardian took a step forward and said something to the intruder.

Jake trained his telescope on Derek’s face.

Even when his beloved mentor had been furious at him today, Jake had not seen anything approximating the rage that now hardened Derek Stone’s face.

He had scolded Maddox for losing his temper this afternoon; tonight, it was his turn.

When the warrior spoke, Jake strained to try to read his lips. He was fairly sure Derek’s words were something like: “
How dare you show yourself here?”

The vampire gave an answer that did what Jake had, until that moment, thought impossible: It made Derek lose control.

Wrath broke from him.

With a fury the warrior had never before displayed, even on the day he had saved Jake from Uncle Waldrick’s henchmen, Derek charged the vampire, tackled him, and slammed him to the ground. Other Guardians closed in to assist, but he snarled at them over his shoulder, loudly enough to be heard from this distance:
“Stay back! This one’s mine!”

Derek whipped a knife out of an ankle sheath hidden beneath his trouser leg.

Vampire, all right,
Jake thought, his eyes widening as the new arrival sprouted fangs and vicious fingernails to protect himself. But the creature did not strike.

Nor did Derek stab him, though he held the blade up for the blow.

Instead, the two stared at each other; and when the vampire’s fangs receded, Jake realized that the two men shared some sort of history.

Aunt Ramona came whisking out the palace doors just then, looked at them in alarm, and gave Derek a command.

Still glaring, Derek slowly withdrew and rose to his feet, his chest heaving with barely restrained fury.

The vampire lifted upright onto his feet with an unnatural magic, not even having to bend his knees.

Definitely a vampire,
Jake concluded, amazed. But that still didn’t explain what this smooth-faced monster was doing here.

The vampire eyed Derek with smug caution as the Guardian stepped back and let him pass. He followed Aunt Ramona, and they disappeared inside. Jake noticed the Elder witch had taken her wand out, just in case. That, in itself, was very rare. He had never seen his aunt utilize serious magic.

When they had gone, Derek pivoted and stalked off into the night by himself.