Serafina and the Twisted Staff (The Serafina Series) (27 page)

She heard a tremendous racket coming her way and spun round.

‘The clocks have all stopped!’ Lady Rowena said breathlessly as she tried to climb through the window out onto the roof in her fancy dress.

Serafina went over to help her. Lady Rowena’s dress, which was decorated with a profusion of silk taffeta roses, was so long and cumbersome that when she tried to clamber through the
opening her legs became entangled. The two of them worked together to push the fabric aside, avoiding stepping on the flower-encrusted skirt hem, and pull her through the small window without
tearing anything.

‘We’ve almost got it,’ Lady Rowena groaned. ‘Just a little more.’

Finally, she popped through the opening and fell onto the rooftop.

‘I’m here,’ she said, gathering herself up like a soldier standing at attention. ‘Someone stopped the clock!’

‘I stopped it,’ Braeden said as he stepped easily through the window and onto the roof.

‘What’s happened?’ Serafina asked him. ‘Did you see something?’

‘Gidean and Cedric are missing,’ Braeden said, his voice cracking.

‘What do you mean, they’re
missing
?’ Serafina asked. Some dogs were natural wanderers, but losing track of a wounded Dobermann and a giant St Bernard seemed almost
impossible to her.

‘We’ve searched all over the house and the grounds. Cedric seldom leaves my uncle’s side and Gidean has never gone missing before, but no one can find either of them,’
Braeden said in dismay.

Serafina tried to think it through. She walked to the edge of the roof and looked down, first at the gardens, with their many statues and paths, and then outward, across the forest.

She remembered what she had seen in the dark shadows of the pines the last time she’d gone out there.

She didn’t want to think about it.

She didn’t want it to be true.

But the memory kept rising up in her mind.

‘I think I may know where they are . . .’ she said, feeling a sickness in her stomach even as she said it. It was the last place on earth she wanted to go.

‘T
hank you for meeting with us, sir,’ Serafina said as Mr Vanderbilt walked into the library.

‘Braeden told me that you had important information regarding the disappearance of the dogs,’ Mr Vanderbilt said, his voice grave. She could not tell whether he was angry with her
for what had happened a few nights before, when Gidean was injured, but he was obviously deeply worried.

‘Serafina can help us, Uncle,’ Braeden said. ‘I trust her with my life, and with Gidean’s and Cedric’s too. The strange things that have been happening at Biltmore,
the way Gidean attacked Serafina, Mr Rinaldi’s death, Cedric and now this . . . they’re all related.’

‘In what way?’ he asked.

‘Mr Vanderbilt,’ Serafina began, ‘you met me for the first time a few weeks ago when the children disappeared.’

Mr Vanderbilt’s face turned even darker than it already was. ‘Yes,’ he said, looking at her. ‘Is this the same?’

‘No, not exactly,’ she said. ‘But you saw then that you could trust me.’

‘Yes, I remember,’ he said, studying her.

Serafina looked at Mr Vanderbilt and held his eyes. ‘I never meant to hurt Gidean. And I don’t believe he ever meant to hurt me. I’m not sure, but I think I might know where
the dogs are. They’re in the forest. But I don’t want to go there alone. I think we should form a hunting party with men and horses and weapons, and I’ll lead us there. Whatever
this turns out to be, we’ll fight it together this time.’

Mr Vanderbilt looked at her for a long time, clearly taken aback by what she was saying. He seemed to fathom how frightened she was.

‘This is that dangerous . . .’ he said quietly, thinking it through.

Still looking at him, she slowly nodded.

Mr Vanderbilt contemplated everything she’d said, then looked over at Braeden.

‘We need to go get the dogs, Uncle,’ he said, ‘and Serafina is the only one who can take us to them.’

‘What will we encounter when we get to this place you speak of?’ Mr Vanderbilt asked her.

‘I do not know for sure,’ she said, ‘but I think there will be animals in cages.’

‘Cages . . .’ he repeated, his face clouding with dismay as he tried to imagine it. ‘When would you want to do this?’

Serafina swallowed. ‘Now, sir,’ she said, feeling sick to her stomach even as she said it.

‘It’s pitch dark,’ he said.

‘I don’t think we have time to wait, sir. If my suspicions are right, then the dogs are in terrible danger. I think he’s going to kill them, sir. We have to go tonight. And one
more thing: it should only be yourself and your most trusted men.’

‘There are many men here who will want to help,’ Mr Vanderbilt said. ‘And if there is something criminal going on Detective Grathan will insist on coming.’

Serafina pursed her lips. ‘He’s the main one who should
not
come, sir. I believe Mr Grathan to be a grave danger to us.’

Mr Vanderbilt stared at her with his penetrating dark eyes for several long seconds, seeming to take in everything she’d told him. She held his gaze, waiting for him to reply.

‘I understand,’ he said, slowly nodding. ‘We’ll do it exactly as you say.’

A half hour later, Mr Vanderbilt had assembled the rescue party in the courtyard just as he’d promised, including eleven handpicked men on horseback, and Serafina on foot along with two
trackers and their dogs. Many of the men carried torches, the flames snapping and flickering in the darkness. When Serafina saw Braeden enter the courtyard on his thoroughbred, her heart sank, but
she could tell by the determined look on his face that she couldn’t prevent him from coming. And Lady Rowena rode beside him, seeming just as determined. She no longer rode sidesaddle, but
astride, the pretence of courtly daintiness set aside. Her cheeks were flushed in the chill air. She wore a fashionable riding coat, but it was dark and heavy and well suited to the task. She had
pulled her red hair back and tucked it into the coat’s hood. Her hands were covered by leather gloves, and she carried a riding stick like many of the men. She looked the part. Serafina
wasn’t surprised that the girl had insisted on coming – she just hoped Lady Rowena wouldn’t be sorry when they got there.

Mr Vanderbilt and the hunt master called everyone forward, and the horses set off at a trot. The hunting party rode out of Biltmore just after midnight under the dying glow of a clouded
moon.

A
s Serafina walked through the forest with the mounted hunting party all around her, she felt like a general leading an invading army into battle.
But the thudding hooves, shifting saddles, jangling bridles and breathing men made so much noise that it was impossible for her to hear anything else. She split off from the others and travelled
ahead of them through the trees so she could better hear the forest around them.

She knew she shouldn’t get too far ahead. A swirling mist floated in the low areas of the land and in the boughs of the trees, moving through the forest like waves of ghosts, one after the
other, dancing among the rocks and the trunks of the trees, sometimes blocking her view of the horses and the men.

She glanced back at Braeden, Rowena and Mr Vanderbilt riding on their horses with the men in a loose wedge formation. She knew that the master of Biltmore had always loved the beauty of the
outdoors, but he was not a hunter, in spirit or experience, and he had asked the estate’s hunt master to lead the horsemen and the trackers during the search. The hunt master rode in front of
the two Vanderbilts and all the other riders. He was a large, commanding man with a gruff voice and stout demeanor and looked like he had spent most of his life in a saddle. She could see the hunt
master watching her with steady eyes, following her movement through the brush ahead of them. She was the only one who knew the way.

The trackers – two rugged-looking men in heavy coats – travelled on foot like she did, holding a pack of six Plott hounds, large and lanky black brindled dogs that had been bred for
hunting bear in these mountains since the 1700s.

But as she led the search party up the mountain towards the stand of pines where the cages were located, the trackers looked confounded. Their dogs had their noses to the ground but seemed
confused, barking and agitated, and sniffing all around. Rather than picking up a distinct scent that they could follow, the Plotts started growling.

‘Steady the hounds!’ the hunt master ordered the trackers sternly.

‘Jesse there is acting like he’s on a wildcat,’ one of the trackers said as he gestured at the dogs on their leashes. ‘Bax is lookin’ like he’s on a bear. And
old Roamer is snarling like there’s somethin’ over yonder hill that he’s never smelled before.’

The hunt master glanced at Serafina.

They had finally come to the stand of pines that she was looking for, but the trees were so thick and the limbs so low that there was no way for them to get their horses through. And she knew
enough about hunting to know that there was nothing the hunt master liked less then ordering his riders to get off their horses. He’d rather go around something than dismount, but she was
certain that the cages were
through
the pines.

‘Straight through these trees,’ she said, signalling with her hand.

She had no authority to be telling the man how to manage his hunt, but she had to tell him what she knew. She glanced towards Mr Vanderbilt, who had reined his horse up beside the hunt
master.

But before the hunt master could give the call to dismount, an explosion of strange howls erupted from the trees. The barking, yipping, screaming howls put a shiver down Serafina’s spine.
They weren’t the howls of wolfhounds or wolves, but something else. The men looked all around, their eyes white with fear as their horses shifted and turned, crashing into one another.

Pairs of glowing eyes came at them through the darkness, at least fifty, moving this way and that.

The Plott hounds barked and snarled, ready to fight.

‘Hold steady, men!’ the hunt master shouted, trying to bring order to the rapidly deteriorating situation. ‘Keep your seat beneath you!’

A snarling, twisting wolflike creature lunged out of the darkness and attacked the hunt master’s horse. The panicked horse went screaming onto its hind legs, rearing and striking.

‘Pull back!’ the hunt master shouted as more of the wolflike creatures came charging in, biting at the horses’ legs, leaping onto the riders and pulling them from the
saddle.

Fear exploded in Serafina. These weren’t dogs or wolves. They were
coyotes
, a massive band of them, brought into the mountains by an unnatural force. Coyotes didn’t normally
come to these forests, for the wolves were their enemies.

Filled with panic, she sprinted towards Braeden, Rowena and Mr Vanderbilt through kicking horses, snarling coyotes and screaming men. Her legs burst her forward, propelling her into the mayhem.
She ducked and dived, dodging the vicious lunges of the coyotes as she ran.

The beasts took down the two trackers even as the Plott hounds tore into the coyotes, but there were far too many of them for the hounds to battle them all.

Braeden and Mr Vanderbilt were expert riders and had been alert to danger, so neither of them had fallen from their saddles in the initial surprise of the attack. But Mr Vanderbilt’s horse
was bucking and shifting and throwing itself around, smashing into tree limbs, nearly knocking poor Mr Vanderbilt from its back. It seemed as if even their horses had become their enemies now.

‘Pull back!’ the hunt master shouted as he struck a coyote in the snout with his torch.

‘Braeden, come on!’ Rowena called, shouting for them to retreat as she struggled to rein in her terrified, thrashing horse.

‘We have to keep going!’ Braeden screamed, desperately determined to help Cedric and Gidean, but finally even he was forced to pull back with the others.

Many of the men who had been thrown from their horses fled in terror on foot. Those who’d managed to stay in their saddles yanked their reins round and charged away. But the coyotes
pursued them, snapping at their horses’ legs and haunches, trying to corner and trap the lumbering animals in the heavy brush.