Rise of Allies (The Gryphon Chronicles, Book 4) (37 page)

When the attendant opened the parlor door for her to leave, looking at her with a mix of pity and disdain for her blunder a moment ago, there was nothing she could do. She offered a hapless smile and stepped out; the door closed in her face.

She whirled around.
I have to find the others.

Isabelle dared not waste any time trying to reason with adults right now. She had to tell Archie and Dani that Jake and Nixie were stuck inside the Enchanted Gallery. Her brilliant brother would surely dream up some notion of how to get their cousin and the witch out of the magical paintings.

Sneaking past the room where the chaperones waited for their girls to return, she slipped down the opposite hallway. Unfortunately, this meant she had to go by the room where the vampire was pacing back and forth, waiting for his turn to see the Queen.

He pivoted on his heel and pinned her with his unnerving stare, letting out a small hiss as she hurried by. Isabelle met his gaze for a fleeting second as she fled, but fortunately, he made no move to follow her—not with two large Guardians posted by the door.

One could never be too careful with a vampire.

It wasn’t long before she rushed back into her family’s suite on the upper floor in Merlin Hall, bursting to tell the other two about Jake’s latest scrape.

“Archie? Dani?” she called as soon as she stepped into the apartment.

“In here!” Dani hollered back.

Isabelle rushed toward the girls’ room, opened the door—and screamed at the site of Dani O’Dell sitting in a bathtub full of blood.

“Calm down, it’s just tomato juice!” Dani said. “We got skunked.”

“
What
?” Isabelle clutched her chest and leaned against the doorframe, having been scared half to death. Lud, crossing paths with that vampire must have given her thoughts of blood on the brain. “You’re all right?” she forced out, trying to recover.

“Aye, just really stinky,” Dani said in disgust. “Archie said the only way to get rid of skunk smell is to take a soak in tomato puree. The gnomes gave us every can from the pantry. He’s in there, by the way.” She pointed toward the boys’ room. “Don’t have a conniption when you see him, though, he’s fine! We both are. And we figured out who took the Queen’s flag. You were right. It was the skunkies.”

“Lord Badgerton’s niece and nephews?” she clarified, still rattled as she went to check on her brother.

“That’s right, sis,” Archie drawled, his tone sounding unconcerned, but his appearance quite ghastly, in her view, as he sat up to his chest in blood-red tomato puree.

It was plastered in his dark hair and streaked across his freckled face, and the sight of it made Isabelle cringe.

“Afraid they got us good,” he admitted. “We were ambushed. But this isn’t over, believe me. Once we’re de-skunked, we strike back.”

“We just haven’t figured out how yet!” Dani agreed from the other room. Isabelle could hear in her voice that she had definitely got her Irish up.

Isabelle shook her head to clear it. “Never mind that. We’ve got bigger problems. Jake and Nixie Valentine are stuck inside the Enchanted Gallery.”

“What?”
the two tomatoes shouted in unison.

“It gave me such a shock it made me spill my tea!” She explained what had happened and then rapidly concluded, “How they ended up in there, I have no idea, but we’ve got to get them out. Wash all that horrid red stuff off you and then we can start figuring out how to help them!”

They hurriedly agreed.

While the younger pair washed off the tomato puree with soap and water and then dried themselves and dressed in their separate rooms. Isabelle changed out of her fancy gown into a more ordinary walking dress, and then strove to rub the tea stain out of her skirt with some lemon juice before her governess saw it.

She had no idea what she was going to say to Miss Helena about the whole debacle—or to Mama, for that matter. At the moment, her social failure with the Queen seemed insignificant next to the problem of getting Jake and Nixie out of the palace artwork.

She hoped they were not getting turned into charred stone figures like those poor souls who had died so long ago in the famous ruin of Pompeii.

“Right, then. We need information,” Archie said, striding out of his room, adjusting his lucky bowtie and looking neat and tidy once more, though he still smelled faintly of skunk. “I’ll go to the library and dig up any clues I can on how to get someone out of the collection.”

“Well, if you’ve got that under control,” Dani said as she came out of the girls’ room in the middle of braiding her hair in two pigtails, “
I’ll
keep working on getting the Queen’s flag back from the skunkies. Hopefully by now they haven’t got rid of it to try to hide the evidence.”

“What exactly do you mean to do?” Isabelle asked, reaching to help finish her braids.

“Steal it back from them,” Dani declared, folding her arms across her chest while Isabelle worked on her hair.

“What if you get sprayed again?”

“I won’t.”

“You sound very sure.”

“Because I am. I’m gonna get those three if it’s the last thing I do. Disgusting little rats.” Brushing off Isabelle’s help, Dani finished tying the ribbon around her braid, then she set her fists resolutely on her waist.

It was then the rookery lass decided not to share with the genteel Bradfords the true extent of her Dark and Cunning Plan.

Namely, revenge.

Nobody skunk sprays me,
Dani vowed to herself.
This is war.

Those shapeshifter kids had made fools out of her and Archie by using their powers unfairly. She was sick and tired of being the only one around here with no magical abilities.

It was time to even the odds.

She knew just what she was going to do, too. She had thought it all out while sitting in the bathtub, and she was past caring if it brought her bad luck. She didn’t dare tell Archie and Isabelle what she intended, because she knew they’d only try to stop her, and there were times when an O’Dell simply couldn’t be stopped.

This was personal now.

Besides, she had promised Jake she’d help to clear his name, and Dani always kept a promise. She was
getting
that flag back, and then she was going to tell the Elders who the real thieves were.

Those skunkies were going to be sorry. This time, they had messed with the wrong redhead.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

Explosions

J
ake and Nixie stumbled into the next painting and found themselves amid the end of the world. At least, that was what it looked like as Mt. Vesuvius belched fiery lava into the sky.

Hordes of fleeing people in togas raced past them, deafening them with their screams. Jake had never heard such a racket of men shouting, women weeping, babies crying, dogs barking. And all the while, the mountain rumbled in the distance like an angry, waking god.

Falling chunks of glowing-hot stone caught the buildings on fire as they punched through the roofs. Smoke lay as thick as the panic in the streets, choking Jake and Nixie as they tried to get their bearings. They were bumped and jostled to and fro, and had to hold onto each other to avoid being trampled or swept along with the stampede of evacuating townsfolk.

Shielding their mouths and noses to avoid breathing in the powdered ash that fell like snow, they struggled to figure out which way to go in the chaos.

“I think we’re in Pompeii!” Nixie cried over the chaos.

Jake nodded, glancing around. This part of the doomed ancient city was a maze of narrow, twisting lanes; the smoke crept thickly through the streets like a great grey serpent looking for someone it could squeeze the life from. “We’d better get out of here, fast.”

“We can’t just leave, we need to find the next paintbrush! It’s got to be here somewhere—” Nixie let out a sudden cry of pain as the surging crowd made her trip on her sprained ankle.

Jake caught her. Coughing a bit, he quickly helped her over to the side of the street, taking refuge in a sturdy spot between two houses. “Are you all right?”

She nodded, rubbing her leg, but he could see she was holding back tears of pain.

“Nixie, never mind the paintbrush for now. This city is doomed. We’ve got to evacuate while we can or we’re going to get killed.”

“All right.” She steadied herself. “Maybe we could try to get away in one of those boats?”

She pointed down the stone street to the sea-port, where Roman galley ships were filling up with desperate people trying to escape the flaming missiles from the volcano. It seemed a dodgy solution at best. The sea churned with violent waves from earthquakes in the seabed, helping to prime the volcano’s fury aboveground.

Even as Jake gazed at the port, weighing this option, one of the boats took a direct hit from a red-hot boulder, and everyone aboard it burst into flames.

“Maybe not.” He shook his head, torn about which way to go.

“Jake, I know we have to get as far away from this place as we can, but what if the paintbrush doorway is right here
in
Pompeii?” Nixie spoke up. “When the last big blast from the volcano comes, everything in this city is going to be destroyed. If the paintbrush is somewhere in the town, that includes our only way out.”

He gave her a grim glance. “Good point.”

“You’ve got to find it. Go,” she said. “I’ll only slow you down.”

“I’m not leaving you behind!”

“It’s all right! Get to higher ground and see if you can spot it. The paintbrush, I mean. If you can see it somewhere in the town, at least then we’ll know which way to go. If not, then we can evacuate. But we have to make sure. Hurry up and go. I’ll wait here.”

“Very well, but don’t leave this spot. We can’t afford to get separated. I’ll be right back!”

She nodded. “Good luck.”

Jake hated to leave her by herself in the middle of one of history’s greatest emergencies, but she was right. If the paintbrush was here in Pompeii, it would soon be destroyed and then they might never get out of Ancient Rome.

He did not intend to die inside a painting. Ducking into the abandoned stucco house they had been leaning against, he dashed straight up the clay stairs, taking them two at a time.

A moment later, he reached the top floor and stepped out onto a rooftop patio with a view of the sea. Its canvas canopy was singed and smoking, but still intact. Potted lemon and fig trees and tubs of colorful flowers were placed here and there, along with a stone statue of some ancient Roman god. But the people who lived there must have fled in the middle of supper, in terror for their lives. Their abandoned meal was still sitting out on the mosaic-tiled table, under an ever-deepening layer of snowy ash.

Striding over to the edge, Jake stared at the hellish landscape of darkness and smoke before him. It sent a chill down his spine, knowing in advance that there was no hope for Pompeii or its neighbor, Herculaneum.

Scanning the city as best he could in the artificial twilight of the ash cloud, his eyes smarted from the smoke. He did not see any paintbrush in the chaotic streets around him nor in the surrounding countryside, with its olive orchards and huge, classical villas of the wealthy Roman aristocrats.

Blast it, where are you?
He wished he had brought along his new telescope from Archie. The gadget’s night vision lens would have come in handy.

Then, by the flare of a fireball that went arcing by overhead and slammed into the houses a block away, he spotted not the paintbrush door, but the window frame where he could look out into whichever room in Merlin Hall the Vesuvius painting was currently displayed.

Like all the rest that he had seen so far, the window hung weirdly suspended in midair, attached to nothing. It was huge, just sort of floating there, above another rooftop patio a few houses away.

Jake furrowed his brow, weighing his options.

Considering the gravity of their situation, he decided to go and try to get somebody’s attention out there.

Nixie was already injured, and their situation, in all, was looking increasingly grim. He was not normally one to admit such a thing, but all vanity aside, the truth was, they needed help. At least Isabelle had seen them. He knew that she would fetch the others, and that his allies, especially Archie, would start to work immediately on figuring out how to free them. But how much longer could Nixie and he really afford to wait?

They were completely lost, without food or water, and if the volcano destroyed their only way out, they might need rescue from the outside somehow. Besides, although this was the most dangerous painting they had been in so far, what if the next one was worse?

If he could just flag down somebody’s attention out there…

Knowing Nixie was waiting for him below, he set out across the rooftops. It wasn’t his original mission—she expected him to try to find the paintbrush—but this wouldn’t take long and it might just save their lives.

Fortunately, the houses in this part of the city were either connected by shared walls or had only narrow gaps between them, just a few feet wide. Going from roof to roof was a small thing for a former thief. So, off he went.

He jumped the gaps above a few passageways and climbed over a few wooden privacy fences, relieved that he did not cross paths with any of the residents in the midst of his trespassing. It seemed nobody was left to bother him. By now, everyone was long gone.

Please somebody be out there,
he thought as he jogged across the patio toward the huge window. He climbed up onto a long table to get high enough to reach it.

As he crept up to the window, he moved with caution, unsure what he might find. The Bugganes might still be out there, hunting for him and Nixie. For all he knew, they might have figured a way to get in by now.

Instead, Jake was shocked to see that, after all the ground he’d thought they had covered, they had merely gone around the corner in the Queen’s parlor—still in the same room!

Queen Victoria was sitting in her chair, but her daughters and all the debutantes had gone. There were others in the chamber now, older people.
Elders?
It looked like some sort of meeting in progress.

Jake knew full well that spying on the Queen’s private conferences was forbidden. But when he peered around the room and saw who was speaking, he gasped in shock.

The vampire!

He paced restlessly back and forth across the chamber as he spoke. “Of course, I have certain demands in exchange for my information.”

“And what might those be, Your Highness?”

That thing’s a prince?
Jake thought, ducking his head a bit to avoid being noticed, but he listened for all he was worth.

“Firstly, I want a seat in the magical parliament for my people. The vampire race deserves to have a voice among Magic-kind.”

“That is never going to happen,” a white-haired Elder wizard answered.

“Oh, but it will if you want to save your Lightriders,” the vampire chided. “Secondly, I want the Order’s help in finding a cure for the illness that afflicts my brides. You may think me cold, and no doubt, I am, but even I cannot bear to see the suffering of my wives and the withering of our hatchlings. There is some plague upon us, but I have confidence that your healing experts can help me find a cure.”

The Elders exchanged guarded glances.

“We wish no harm upon your younglings, Prince Janos,” an old wizard said. “This request is one we could consider. After all, it is not the vampire babes’ fault that they are born of darkness.”

“Born of darkness—?” the vampire sputtered, offended. “For your information, we are not
all
evil. Give me a little credit, old man! You know perfectly well I have used all my influence to keep the vampire race neutral in your ongoing spat with the Dark Druids. If not for my efforts, the vampires would have joined forces with your enemies years ago, and then where would you be?”

“Well, if you are here to help us as you claim, Prince Janos, the Dark Druids will know you’ve chosen sides. They will not easily forgive you,” Dame Oriel warned.

“True.” The vampire prince shrugged. “But as much as one might wish to be left alone to rest in peace in one’s coffin, one cannot always stay out of a fight. And believe me, you’ve got a fight coming. Which leads me to my third demand.”

“Let me guess.” It was Sir Peter Quince who had spoken, Jake noticed in surprise. “You wish to be made back into a mortal, hmm? Resume your old post alongside Guardian Stone?”

“Hardly,” the vampire said with a smirk that showed the tips of his fangs. “I want Urso the Shapeshifter released from the Order’s dungeon in Romania.”

“Absolutely not!” the old wizard huffed. “He was caught red-handed in the middle of last year’s Gathering, spying for the Dark Druids!”

“Oh, he was not here to spy on anyone! Your Majesty, you have to believe me,” the vampire said impatiently, taking a step toward Queen Victoria.

Two large Guardians instantly blocked his path.

He gave them a long-suffering look. “Urso came here for my sake, if you must know. I told him it was stupid, but if you knew the Bear, you’d understand. He only broke in to try to steal one of your healers’ potions for my family.”

“Who is he talking about, Sir Peter?” the Queen asked with a frown.

“A very large, very loud, German shapeshifter, Your Majesty. Very fond of beer, too, as I recall,” Sir Peter said. “His animal form is that of a great Alpine bear. He followed the prince into exile.”

“Urso’s very loyal to me,” Janos admitted with a shrug. “Which is why I demand his release if you want my information.”

“Give us the information first in good faith, and we will consider what you ask.”

“You will betray me!” he shot back.

“Like you betrayed us? No, Janos,” Dame Oriel chided. “We keep our word, unlike your kind. Convince us first that your information is truthful, and we shall proceed from there.”

Just then, a voice called to Jake from behind him on the rooftop.

“Jake! What are you
doing
?”

He shushed Nixie as she came limping over to stand beside the table with an angry glower, hands on hips. “Didn’t you hear me calling you? I found the paintbrush.”

“You did?” he asked in surprise.

“Come on, let’s go!”

“Just a minute. Something big is happening in there,” he whispered, gesturing to the room, where the vampire let out a world-weary sigh and shook his head.