The Dire King Page 13

  Jackaby was silent as Hudson took another draught. “I’m not good enough,” he said, at last. “That’s why I don’t drink. I can’t afford to. At my best, my mind is only clever enough to keep me constantly aware that I am not clever enough. I can’t keep up with the Dire King, let alone outmaneuver him. I don’t know what I’m doing here. I never know what I’m doing. I pretend and posture and stumble through—and along the way I’ve somehow fooled a whole lot of people into thinking that I know what I’m doing. Now their lives depend on me being good enough. And I’m not.”

  Hudson rubbed his neck. He looked like he wanted to say something, then changed his mind. He took another swig instead.

  “We’re not behind you because you’re good enough, sir,” I said, pushing open the door. “We’re behind you because you’re good. ” Eyebrows lifted as both men turned to look at me. “You are a good man. I’ve never known you to pick an unnecessary fight just because you knew you could win it, just as I’ve never seen you back down from a necessary one that you knew you could not. You never ask for glory, you don’t want people to chant your name—for goodness’ sake, none of us even knows your real name. We don’t need you to be good enough, sir. We just need you to keep being good. Because”—I swallowed—“because it reminds us that we can be good, too. All of us. This world doesn’t need showy champions. It needs people who are good, people who do good, even if nobody will ever know.”

  Jackaby leaned on his desk and stared at me. At length he turned his eyes back to the trapper. “I’ve created a monster, Mr. Hudson. She won’t even let me wallow properly.”

  Hank chuckled. “She sure talks pretty, though, don’t she?” He pushed himself up. “I’ll go ahead and give y’all the room. Should be gettin’ on about now, anyway. I’ll see you in the mornin’.” He tipped his hat to Jackaby and gave me an approving wink and a pat on the shoulder as he headed out.

  Jackaby slumped back in his chair. “She made me a hat, Miss Rook.” The lumpy thing lay on the desk in front of him.

  “Yes, she did,” I told him. “And it is atrocious. It suits you.”

  He gave a halfhearted smile. “Bite your tongue,” he managed, his brooding melancholy falling off him like heavy treacle from a spoon. “I think it’s splendid.”

  “It may not have been woven with wool from a rare yeti, or dyes mixed by Baba Yaga,” I told him, “but I’m sure it was made with love. And also with an ice pick. Hatun didn’t come here for your protection; she came here because she believed in you. She believed that what you do matters. So, we’re going to finish what we started, and we’re going to save Hatun, and that’s all there is to it.”

  “And if I can’t keep you safe along the way?”

  “You were never supposed to. I didn’t take this position for safety, sir. I took it for purpose. Keep giving me that.”

  After a pause, Jackaby smiled in earnest. It was a tired smile, a slow smile, but it was good to have him back. “All right then, my sage young apprentice—what do we do next?”

  “Something foolish, I imagine,” I said. “Foolish and decidedly dangerous. That sounds about our style, doesn’t it?”

  From across the quiet house, three loud clanks echoed through the corridors.

  “Was that the front door knocker?” I said. “Who would be calling at this ungodly hour?”

  We both slipped quietly into the foyer. The giant’s low snores rumbled, and the gnomes were piled on top of one another in the corner, sleeping like puppies. I looked up at the transom window. “Well. I’m not sure I like the look of that at all,” I said. The transom read:

  r. f. jackaby:

  revenge

  Chapter Seventeen

  By all accounts he should be dead,” Jackaby said, staring at the door. “But I suppose that is true about an increasing number of faces I’ve come across lately.”

  “Who is it?” I whispered.

  “An old friend,” drawled a muffled voice through the door. “Little pigs, little pigs, let me in.”

  My blood froze. Pavel. How was it possible? The last time any of us had seen the vile vampire, he had been leaving the premises very quickly through a closed window—into the sunlight—with a brick in his mouth. My own hands had done the banishing, although I had no memory of my actions. The Dire King had crept into my mind at the time, manipulating me, using me. How could Pavel be back? Why now? Had our night not gone wrong enough already?

  “No, sir, don’t—!” I began. Jackaby opened the door.

  What awaited us on the other side was not the Dire Council’s cold, confident killer, standing on the doorstep all dressed in black. What awaited us on the other side was barely standing at all. What was left of Pavel was draped in soiled rags. He wore a floppy hat low over his head, but I could see that his face and hands were a mess of angry scars. He had been badly burnt, and he was leaning heavily against the column outside. He looked small and thin and unsteady, and he smelled like a lavatory.

  “Not going to just let yourself in?” Jackaby asked. “It went so well for you the last time.”

  “I thought I might give you the opportunity,” Pavel managed, his voice slow and labored, “to make up for your poor manners during our previous encounter.”

  “You threatened to kill me,” I said.

  “I was making small talk.”

  “And then you actually tried to kill me.”

  “I get tired of small talk. You take things too personally.”

  “How did you survive?” Jackaby asked. “I watched Miss Rook drive you out into the direct sunlight. You should be ashes.”

  “Sorry to disappoint.”

  “The sewer system, I presume?” said Jackaby.

  “I’ve had worse accommodations,” Pavel said, closing his eyes. He looked as though the act of standing might prove too much for him soon.

  “And you’ve been draining innocent people to regain your strength ever since?” Jackaby posited.

  “Ungh. I wish. Pigs,” said Pavel. “They taste almost human, if you close your eyes. And your nose. They were better than rats, at least. I found myself a quiet corner in the tunnels beneath that fat butcher in the Inkling District. I could go for a pint of the good stuff, though, if you’re offering.” He laughed a dry, hacking laugh.

  “And now that you’re back on your feet, you’ve come for your revenge, is that it?” said Jackaby.

  “YES.” Pavel’s bloodshot eyes flashed up at me from blackened, blistered sockets. “Yes, I have. And you are going to help me get it.”

  “Help you?” I said. “Why should we help you avenge yourself on us?”

  “On you? Don’t flatter yourself,” Pavel spat. “It was your hand that drove that brick into my jaw, but it was not you. I’m not stupid. I know who did this to me.”

  I blinked. The Dire King. Having that egomaniac trespassing inside my head had been the most disquieting experience of my life. I had lost time during his psychic transgressions. I had done things I could not remember. It was a violation I had told only my closest friends about, but Pavel knew.

  “You want revenge on the Dire King,” said Jackaby, his eyebrows rising.

  Pavel nodded. “And you two want to save the world. We can help each other.”

  “Just because you’ve fallen out of favor with your mad monarch, we’re supposed to believe you suddenly care about protecting the earth?” I said.

  “The earth can rot,” Pavel snarled. “I served that bastard for a century, and he cast me out the moment I was not of use to him. He cut pieces off me when he was displeased, he took my fangs when he was through with me, and then he threw me into the sunlight to die. I should have died—I would have died, if I had not reached that reeking grate in time. My whole body was burning in agony, greasy smoke pouring out of my lungs. But I refused to die. Not yet. The Dire King took everything from me. So, while I was chokin
g down foul swine’s blood, week after week, I began to ask myself, how do I make him suffer? How do I take everything from him as he did from me? I take the one thing he cares most about.”

  “Morwen?” I hazarded. “I’m afraid you’ve just missed her.”

  “No. He would let her die for his cause. He would let us all die. I want to rob him of his victory. He’s waited so long—he yearns for it. It consumes him. I want to throw a wrench in the works of his grand plan. I want him to watch it fall apart around him.”

  “And how do you intend to do that?” Jackaby asked.

  “You,” said Pavel, “are the biggest wrench I know.”

  “That’s a lovely thought,” I said. “But we haven’t come close to halting the Dire King, and it hasn’t been for lack of trying.”

  “You didn’t have me before.” Pavel gave a crooked smile that pulled the scars all over his face in sickly contortions. “The rend. I will take you to it. The council’s stronghold. The machine. The Dire King. He’s yours. Everything you want is everything I want to give you.”

  My pulse quickened. Jackaby narrowed his eyes. “And what’s in it for you?”

  Pavel chuckled again. It sounded something like a badger being strangled to death. “That’s the beauty of it. Your success is my success. I show you the way, and then I go my own way. Everybody wins. Except the Dire King, of course.”

  “If we accept your terms,” said Jackaby, “that does not make us allies. The next time we meet, you will still be held accountable for the lives you have taken.”

  “Wouldn’t have it any other way,” Pavel replied with a courtly and rather melodramatic bow.

  Jackaby’s jaw was set. He glanced at me and I swallowed.

  “Sounds foolish and decidedly dangerous,” I said.

  Jackaby took a deep breath, his face leaden. And then he made a deal with the devil.

  “Come in,” said Jackaby.

  Pavel’s eyes were half-lidded as he grinned drunkenly across the table at me a few minutes later. He swayed in his chair.

  “Am I the only one who sees that this is a terrible idea?” Jenny said, hovering anxiously over us.

  “No, no,” I assured her. “We are all well aware. That’s why we’re moving forward at all. Obviously, only an absolute idiot would trust Pavel after everything he’s done. The Dire King knows that we are not absolute idiots, so he knows we would never trust Pavel. Which is why we’ve chosen to trust Pavel. It has the element of surprise.”

  “So does a trap,” said Jenny. “He shows up the exact same night Morwen escapes. That doesn’t sound a little suspicious to you?”

  “I don’t bother with traps, love.” Pavel smirked. “When I want someone dead, I . . . well, just ask your boyfriend.”

  Jenny’s face darkened, and the air in the room dropped several degrees.

  “Oh, ho, ho!” Pavel said, shivering a little in the sudden chill. “Very impressive. She must be handy to keep around in the summer. You’re better than an ice chest.”

  “Jenny’s right,” Charlie said. “I don’t trust him.”

  “Of course not.” Pavel flopped his head toward Charlie. “But that’s only because I would happily throw you to my least favorite wolves if I thought it might give them indigestion. See? Honest. It must not be denied but I am a plain-dealing villain. That’s Shakespeare, love. Much Ado. Don’t look so surprised. I like Shakespeare. Makes me feel classy. Classy and honest—I’m the whole package.”

  “We don’t have to trust him,” I said. “But we can trust his nature. He’s a self-serving coward. He wouldn’t have come to us this vulnerable if it weren’t in his own self interest. He wants something, and we can deliver it. That’s what I trust.”

  “You’re a shameless flatterer,” Pavel drawled. “Compliments will get you everywhere, my darling.”

  “Please don’t,” I said. “We find the rend. We find the Dire King’s war machine. We disable it. I am not your friend. I am not your darling.”

  “You think I enjoy slumming it with you lot? Misery acquaints a man with strange bedfellows, Miss Rook.”

  Jackaby strode back into the room. He had one sleeve rolled up past the elbow and a slim bandage tied tightly around his upper arm. Under his left arm was tucked what appeared to be a small bundle of firewood, and his right hand held something slim that clinked like glass. “All right,” he said. “If we’re doing this, we are doing it now, tonight, before word reaches the council; before we lose the element of surprise.”

  Pavel’s nostrils twitched and his lip quivered. “Detective?” he said. “Is that what I think it is?”

  “You get one.” Jackaby held up three vials filled with a deep red liquid. “You will receive the next one only after you’ve shown us how to reach the rend and the council’s stronghold. You’ll get the last when I’m certain you haven’t betrayed us.”

  “You’ve bled yourself?” Jenny exclaimed. “Oh, that’s brilliant. Because you’re sure to be at your sharpest right after a bloodletting.”

  “Pavel will need his strength.”

  “Of course he will.” Jenny rolled her eyes. “If there’s anything we should be doing, it’s making the vampire you invited inside our house stronger. Nothing could possibly go wrong.”

  “Time is of the essence, Miss Cavanaugh,” Jackaby said. “Pavel’s vitality is fading. Pig’s blood has done little more than stave off death. I cannot afford to have him collapsing on us, or shambling along until the sun comes up and it becomes too late.”

  He passed the first vial to Pavel. “I did not ask you for this,” Pavel said.

  “I would not have offered it to you if you had,” said Jackaby. “As for the rest of you . . .” He shifted the bundle in his hands, and I saw that it was not firewood but sharpened stakes. He passed them out, one to each of us, and tucked the last one into a long, slim pocket in the lining of his coat. “These have been treated with garlic and silver dust for good measure. Add them to your traveling supplies. If Pavel gives you the faintest indication of duplicity, aim for his heart.”

  Jenny leveled her stake directly at Pavel. “The faintest,” she repeated pointedly.

  “Aww. It feels nice to be a part of the team, doesn’t it?” Pavel said. He popped the wax stopper out of the vial with his thumb and clinked the glass against her wooden stake. “Cheers,” he said, and downed it in an eager gulp.

  Chapter Eighteen

  I am going with you.” Alina was adamant. She stood in the middle of the hallway, blocking Charlie’s way.

  “You need to stay here,” Charlie insisted. “I can’t take you where we’re going. It’s too dangerous.”

  “Oh, but the haunted house where people get stabbed and kidnapped is safe?” she said.

  “Technically, it won’t be haunted while we’re away,” Charlie tried. “Because Jenny will be with us.”

  “Mr. Barker, may I have a moment?” Jackaby asked. He was tucking a slim hourglass into his coat pocket.

  Charlie nodded, gave his sister one more pleading look, and then padded off up the hall after Jackaby.

  “He cares about you,” I said. Alina looked at me with contempt. “He only wants you to be safe.”

  “You have no idea what it’s like,” she said, “being told to wait day after day, year after year, while your big brother goes halfway across the world and leaves you behind.”

  “No,” I said. “Not exactly. For me it was my father.” Alina closed her mouth and cocked her head at me.

  “He was a paleontologist,” I said. “Discovered amazing things all over the world. I was supposed to stay at home and learn the piano.”

  “And did you stay at home and learn it like a good girl?”

  “I learned to hate it,” I said. “I understand how you feel, I really do. But this is different.”

  “How is this different?”

&n
bsp; “Because this isn’t a dinosaur dig or a fancy conference you’re missing. We’re not searching for the bones of some long-dead monster—we’re walking into a nest full of live ones.”

  “I don’t see you practicing your arpeggios.”

  “What?”

  “You’re not waiting at home right now. Did your parents tell you to run off and fight magical beasts? Or did you finally decide to just stop listening when people told you to sit and stay?”

  I considered her words. “Fair enough,” I said. “I guess you’re coming with us, then?”

  “She’s not coming,” said Jackaby, swinging around the corner.

  “I am not going to wait here while Kazimir goes and—”

  “Yes,” said Jackaby. “You are going to wait here. But so is he. Charlie will be staying.”

  “What?” Alina and I said together.

  “Sir,” I added, “we need Charlie.”

  “We do. We need him here. I have given the matter some thought. We do not need numbers for the mission in which we are currently engaged. We need stealth and subterfuge. You and I can manage that on our own. Jenny will come as well. An agent who can become literally invisible and physically intangible is an asset, but the more bodies we bring behind enemy lines, the greater our risk of detection.”

  “You can’t seriously expect the three of us to defeat the Dire King all by ourselves?”

  “No,” he said. “Our role is not to defeat the Dire King, but to make defeating the Dire King possible. If we can undermine their defenses, we will leave the Dire King’s forces vulnerable. I need leadership here. Charlie is my strongest general. Chief Nudd and Mr. Hudson should be back by daybreak to assist him, and the rest of our allies will be arriving throughout the day.”

  “And if we should fail?” I asked.

  “Let’s not, shall we? Whatever comes, the rest falls to Charlie.”

  There was silence for a beat, and then Jackaby clapped his hands together. “Right!” he said, and marched off down the hall again. “Let’s go collect our ghost and vampire and get moving while we still have a few good hours of darkest night left ahead of us.”