The Lost Heir (The Gryphon Chronicles, Book 1) (31 page)

“You did well,” Waldrick congratulated his nephew.

Jake sauntered back into the morning room, lightly dusting off his hands as though he had just taken out the trash. Which he had, in Waldrick’s view.

“Now then. I want you to go up to your room and study our guest list until you have memorized all the names. You must make a good impression on Society tonight. I’m a very important man, and I won’t have you embarrassing me.”

“Yes, sir.” Jake bowed to him and walked out of the room.

Waldrick smiled and took a sip of tea. Why, if he had known about the Oboedire spell, he might even have married and had children of his own long ago. Too bad he couldn’t bottle the potion and sell it to the parents of the world.

A man could make a fortune.

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

A Familiar Apparition

That night, Jake sat on his bed waiting for his cue to go down to the ballroom. The guests were already arriving. He could hear the music thumping through the floor.

Uncle Waldrick wanted him to stay out of sight until everyone was there. Then Jake was to make a grand entrance, parading down the red-carpeted staircase into the ballroom, so all the fancy folk of high society could ogle him like he was some creature in the zoo.

He looked presentable enough, dressed in a tuxedo, except he thought his hair looked stupid, his forelock flattened back against his head with the same sticky Macassar oil Uncle Waldrick used on his hair.

Well, thought Jake, giving himself a sullen stare in the mirror, he might look good, but he felt terrible. Just terrible. Trapped inside the Oboedire spell.

He was furious at how his uncle had forced him to treat Dani and Derek this morning. They were the two people he cared about most in the world, and now they probably thought he was the worst sort of turncoat varlet.

At least he had a small break from Uncle Waldrick and Fionnula. They were downstairs in the ballroom, greeting their arriving guests. The Oboedire spell wasn’t as strong when his uncle wasn’t present in the room with him.

Jake let out a huge sigh.
How in the world am I ever going to get out of this?

All of a sudden, a glimmer of light behind him in the mirror caught his eye. He jumped to his feet and whirled around. An orb!

“Everton,”
came a whisper.

“You!” Jake stared in shock as the ghost of Sir George Hobbes materialized in front of him. Fury rose up in him. “Murderer! I’ll kill you!”

“But I’m already a ghost,” said the portly baronet.

Jake stalked toward the apparition. “How dare you appear to me again? I know now what you did. You killed my mother and father! That’s why you were locked up in Newgate!”

“Noooooooo, not I, boy.” The ghost disappeared and reappeared behind him. “Falsely accused… Lies! All lies…”

“You’re the liar!” Jake accused, whirling around to face him again. “Why did you do it? Just because you were jealous? You ruined my life!” He grabbed at the ghost in an angry tackle, but his arms swept through thin air.

Left hugging himself, Jake narrowed his eyes.

Sir George floated up toward the ceiling where Jake could not reach him, though he kept swiping at him, jumping up onto his bed to try to get him. “Come down here and face me like a man! When I get my hands on you—”

“Follow,” the ghost whispered, then he turned back into an orb and vanished through the door.

“Hey! I’m not done with you yet!” Jake leaped off his bed, ran after the orb, threw open the door, and stepped out in the hallway.

The portly apparition was gliding toward the far end. Jake tried to use his telekinesis on him, shooting a bolt of energy from his fingertips that only succeeded in knocking a picture off the wall.

The ghost laughed and zoomed away.

Jake chased.

Sir George ducked into another room ahead, and Jake was hot on his trail.

When Jake stepped into the stately bedchamber, he realized by its magnificence and by its lived-in look that it was his uncle’s room.

Uncle Waldrick was below, of course, greeting his guests in the receiving line with Fionnula, who was acting as hostess in her human guise as a glamorous opera diva.

They’d be calling for him soon, but for now…

He advanced on the ghost, prowling toward him bent on revenge, though he wasn’t exactly sure how to take revenge on someone who was already dead.

Whether Sir George was really the murderer or not, Jake didn’t know. The world thought so. Even Derek thought so. And Jake was in a mood to take his wrath out on someone. “How did you get out of Newgate?” he demanded.

“You urged the other spirits to try to leave the prison, remember? They took your advice and discovered they could. And so could I.” Backing away from him, Sir George disappeared into the wall but kept talking to him. “Remember the singing that night, Jacob?”

“Yes, what about it?”

“After you escaped the jail and the singing stopped, I ventured out of the prison to find out where it was coming from. Ahh, and as I started finding answers, I grew less confused.” Ghostly eyes suddenly appeared, superimposed on the eyes of the painting on the wall: a life-sized portrait of Waldrick looking very debonair in his fox-hunt clothes, complete with the shiny riding boots and smart red coat.

He had his nose in the air, as usual, and a smug smile on his face, one fist propped on his hip, his elbow bent at a cocky angle.

Blimey, that man’s an egomaniac,
thought Jake. Who kept a life-sized portrait of himself right at eyelevel—what, so he could kiss his own image?

The painted Waldrick stood between the closet and a full-length oval mirror on a stand.

The rest of Sir George’s face now materialized like a ghostly mask over his uncle’s painted face on the canvas. “Don’t you want to know what I saw that night?” Sir George pursued.

“Of course,” Jake said impatiently.

“I floated up out of the jail and I saw…her.”

“Her who?”

“The siren-hag! The singing-witch! The ugly-beauty. I followed her here. To Waldrick’s.”

Jake furrowed his brow. “Fionnula?”

“Yes. She’s behind it all, Jacob. Fionnula Coralbroom. Do you know anything about her?”

“Only that she’s a sea-monster or something in her true form. With tentacles. On the train, I saw her use some sort of magical red feather to transform herself from that beast into a pretty woman. She rubs it in her hands and it turns into a poof of sparkly dust.”

“What sort of feather?”

“Don’t know. They do their best to keep me in the dark about everything.”

“That’s why I’ve come. To help you, Jacob. I’ve seen many strange things since I’ve been dead. Things I’d have never believed when I was alive… Things you’re going to have to see for yourself to believe. Go on, punch me!” Sir George suddenly taunted.

His face vanished, then instantly reappeared on the right side of the painting. He poked his head out of the portrait near Uncle Waldrick’s elbow.

The ghost tapped himself on the chin. “Come on, boy! Right here! Take a swing! You know you want to.”

“You’re right about that,” Jake muttered. He clenched his fist and socked the apparition in the face.

Sir George let out a playful “Ow!” (since he surely felt nothing) but Jake gasped, for the blow he had landed had popped the right side of the painting forward.

He stared.
What the—?
Cautiously he touched the edge of the portrait. It creaked inward…a hidden door!

He opened it, inch by inch, and found a secret passageway behind it. Narrow wooden stairs headed straight down into the darkness.

“There, was that so hard?” Sir George asked, floating over the staircase with his arms folded across his chest and a told-you-so smirk on his face. Then he turned around and started gliding down them. “Come.”

Jake’s heart pounded. Hesitating, he glanced over his shoulder. Any moment now, they’d be calling him to make his grand entrance into the ballroom.

But he wouldn’t likely get a chance again to find out what exactly his uncle was hiding. His mind made up, he stepped through the secret doorway and pulled the Waldrick painting shut behind him.

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

Hidden Memories

Dim light shone from the bottom of the stairs. Jake trailed his hand along the cool, clammy wall, steadying himself on the steep descent. When he came to the end of the stairs, he stepped into a strange, cave-like room.

He glanced around at everything while Sir George floated on ahead. “What is this place?” he murmured.

“What does it look like?”

Jake shrugged. “I don’t know. Some sort of…wizard’s workshop. We’re underground?”

“Indeed.” The ghost flew into the rounded alcove over a large, dark pool of water on the left. Jake stared at the worktable in the center of the room. It was heaped with dusty old books and scientific instruments that Archie would have loved.

The distant wall was lined with wooden shelves, but he couldn’t see much in that area. It was cloaked in shadow. The only light came from the single lantern hanging on a peg behind him by the doorway.

Sir George floated toward him, lowering his voice. “What if I told you I made some inquiries about Madame Coralbroom on the Other Side? Don’t ask how, more important is
what
I learned,” he advised when Jake started to interrupt. “Fionnula is a sea-witch, a fugitive from justice, and your uncle has been hiding her here for years, right under the Order’s nose.”

“Why?” Jake asked.

“Why, indeed?” the spirit whispered. “You know by now your uncle doesn’t help anyone unless he’s getting something out of it in return. He hides her from justice, and she uses her magic to help him reach his goals. Like stealing the title from his elder brother. And from you.”

“Do you have proof?” Jake breathed. “Show me.”

Sir George flew into Fionnula’s alcove, hovered over her stone-carved desk, and made the pages of her thick book of spells flutter open. “Look. What your uncle doesn’t know is that there are rumors on the Other Side that Fionnula has been in contact with the Dark Druids.”

Jake’s eyes widened. He glanced at the ghost, but wasted no time, climbing around the pool for a closer look. Steadying himself on the slippery stone edge around the dripping pool, he nervously eyed the razor-toothed eel swishing around in the black water. If he fell in, he was quite sure the thing would eat him, leaving nothing but his bones.

Fortunately, he reached her writing desk safely. He leaned closer to read the page Sir George was showing him in the witch’s grimoire. Across the top of the page was written:

Dissembler’s Spell.

For assuming the appearance of another.

“You see?! Waldrick set me up!” Sir George grew as agitated as he had been in Newgate. He began to pace, a legless half-orb, half-apparition. “He was at the ball that night! He heard me make those stupid threats to your father—but I didn’t mean a word of it! I was just being a jealous fool! Haven’t you ever said something you didn’t mean, simply out of anger?”

Jake thought instantly of Dani and nodded in regret. He laid his fingertips on the page to scan the list of ingredients. But the moment he touched the book, a strange thing happened. A rush of images flooded his mind.

He suddenly felt like he was falling at breakneck speed, sliding feet first down some dark, weird tunnel full of twists and turns, coils and crevices—taking him into the darkest depths of Uncle Waldrick’s brain!

He did not realize that was where he was at first.

Understanding dawned a few seconds later as Jake found himself inside his uncle’s point of view, jarringly, at some moment in the past. A moment when Waldrick and Fionnula had been standing here in this very chamber, conspiring together.

Waldrick was looking at himself in the rusty mirror, only it wasn’t his own face he saw, but the chubbier face of Sir George—well, an alive version—not the ghostly, bluish one that Jake had gotten used to.

“This spell had better last long enough for me to get the job done, Fionnula.”

The squidy sea-hag stood behind Waldrick in the memory. “It will. Just make sure you don’t lose your nerve,” she said in a hard tone.

“There’s no fear of that—as long as you take care of Derek Stone. I trust you have prepared the spell to scramble his Guardian instincts?”

“Of course. We’ve already sent it to him in a bottle of wine from your brother and wife, with a note of congratulations on his latest successful mission.”

“Oh, the irony,” Waldrick drawled.

“That’s not all. I have a surprise for you—special bullets I made just for your task! Strong enough even for a pair of Lightriders. Here you are, dear.” She emptied a handful of round silver bullets into Waldrick’s hand.

“Why, that’s very kind of you.” ‘Hobbes’ smiled at her and loaded the magic-dipped bullets into his pistol. “I’ll go through the village in my disguise to make sure some of the locals see ‘Hobbes.’ The castle servants, as well. That drunken idiot will be doomed. Don’t forget to send the servitor to drive my carriage through Hyde Park this afternoon,” he added, “so that everyone will see ‘me’ far from the scene of the crime.”

“Child’s play,” she replied.

“Then I believe we are all set.”

Fionnula nodded. “I’ve done my part. Now you do yours.” She turned him around and stuck a warty finger in his face. “Satisfy your revenge on your brother and his family, if it pleases you—”

“Indeed, it does. When Hobbes shot off his mouth in front of everyone in that ballroom, he gave me the perfect opportunity. I don’t intend to pass it up.”

“As you wish. But whatever happens, bring me that creature. I mean it. Do not fail me, Waldrick. Elemental magic of an immortal beast like that is extremely rare. I need its feathers to override the mermaids’ curse. I
must
be beautiful again. If you fail me, you will pay. Do you understand?”

“No need for ugly threats, my dear!” he chided. “Soon we’ll both have what we want.” He pushed her hand away with a frown. Then Waldrick-as-Hobbes turned to his servitors arrayed by the wall. “Ready the cage. The creature will come flying out to attack the moment it smells Griffon blood. We’ll have to work quickly. If we’re not careful, that monster will tear us all limb from limb—and eat whatever’s left.”