The Lost Heir (The Gryphon Chronicles, Book 1) (6 page)

Ducking back into the maze of alleys, he brushed off the thought of trying his luck at that mansion Derek had ordered him to go to—Beacon House. No boy of the streets who had lived by his wits for as long as Jake had was about to go and blindly trust himself to strangers. He had seen the place before, a great, hulking, old mansion on the river, but he wasn’t sure who owned it or what went on in there.

He prowled through the back alleys until he came to the Strand and spied on the place from across the street for about ten minutes. But he didn’t go in. No, he needed to think carefully about all this before deciding his next move.

Recalling Dani’s promise to meet him with the potpie at his hideaway, he picked up his pace to return to the only place he thought of as home. It wasn’t much, but his uncle’s minions wouldn’t find him there.

Nobody would.

It was a safe place. A hidden place.

Where freaks like him belonged.

CHAPTER FOUR

Dani O’Dell

Dani O’Dell headed home to the rookery, back to the rough, grimy world she hated. But she only stayed long enough to put her apple-cart away. As she angled it into the ground floor apartment in the tenement house where the O’Dells lived squashed into two small rooms, she dreamed of a day when she might be respectable and live in a nice home, where everything was pretty and clean, orderly and quiet. Where no one was drunk or crude-mannered, and a dirty word bellowed at the top of a person’s lungs would have been unthinkable.

In her neighborhood, such things passed for normal conversation. On the other hand, rookery life had made her tougher than she looked. The world saw a poor-but-decent girl, small for her age, but when provoked, Daniela Catherine O’Dell had all the Irish fight as her pack of brawling elder brothers.

Fortunately, they weren’t at home right now; otherwise, Jake would not have seen his mincemeat pie again. “Come on, Teddy.” She let her dog out of the sack, secured his leash, then retrieved the potpie off the lower shelf of her cart and concealed it under her dark woolen cloak. “Let’s get out of here before anyone comes,” she whispered to her dog.

With that, she left the apartment, locked and bolted the door, then set out with a businesslike stride for Jake’s hideaway. Teddy trotted along by her heels.

Though she was nervous about carrying Jake’s stolen contraband for him, it was her self-appointed role in life to manage that stubborn blockhead.

Somebody had to do it, and he didn’t have a mother. They had that in common, but at least Dani had known her sainted Ma before she died. She still had all the mementoes and the single precious photograph of her that Da had set up on the mantel as a sort of shrine. Poor Jake knew nothing of his parents and she knew he ached about it, though he’d never say so.

From the first time she had laid eyes on him three years ago, being pushed around and bullied by her brothers, Dani had realized she had found herself an ally in the harsh rookery world. Her brothers did that sort of thing to
her
all the time, shoving her this way and that like a football, having fun at her expense. She had shrieked at them like a banshee the day she had found them jovially beating the poor young stranger to a pulp—just to toughen him up, they said, as if they were doing him a favor.

When they had finally lost interest in their sport, she had gone over and scraped the boy called Jake Reed up off the cobblestones. Something about the way he pretended to be all right, though his eye was swollen and his chin trembled with his refusal to give way to angry tears, well, it had wrenched her heart—all the more so when he had told her he came from the orphanage.

Dani had made it her business since then to look after him, as much as he would let anyone do so. Now, as the world’s best expert on all things Jake, she was extremely worried about the weird things happening to him of late.

These days, it was one bizarre surprise after another. It was not so much his seeing ghosts that alarmed her. Her Irish granny, rest her soul, used to say the second sight was not uncommon. ‘Twas a gift the Good Lord gave to certain people, to let them give the news to those who grieved that their loved ones were in Heaven, or to deliver a message for them, like maybe some money they’d stashed somewhere in a shoebox.

What really worried Dani was the other bit, the way her friend could move things with his mind. It made her want to reach for her Rosary. Of course, Jake laughed at her for thinking that it might signify something evil, but that was why she had been so strict with him lately, making him promise not to steal or do anything bad. For if the devil had taken an interest in Jake, then her friend had better watch his step.

Teddy and she pressed on. After the usual trek across the bridge, they finally arrived at the once-grand, arched entrance to Elysian Springs Pleasure Gardens. The old, abandoned amusement park had once been one of London’s main attractions.

Now the paint was peeling on the weathered white pillars, the colorful letters on the curved sign fading into oblivion. She walked through the archway into the park’s green acreage and skipped up the winding drive with Teddy. She loved coming here to Jake’s hideaway. Elysian Springs was decades past its glory, but it was still a place that made the regular world and all its cares seem a thousand miles away.

The big pavilion with its fanciful pastel turrets had been closed for years, but once upon a time fashionable ladies and gentlemen had come here for dinners and concerts and dancing in the garden under the stars. She could just imagine them. There had been strolling musicians and all sorts of acts for entertainment: jugglers, acrobats, a tightrope walker, a fire-eater, daring trick-horse riders, a man with a dancing monkey, and clowns on giant stilts.

Back in the old days, there were fireworks shows and carnival games. You could stroll the flowery walkways in the moonlight, or hire a gondola shaped like a swan and go for a boat ride with your sweetheart. The park had many interconnecting canals and small, manmade lakes and ponds; the water flowed in from the river.

Across from the main pavilion was a smaller one where you could pay a penny to go in and see the freaks: the bearded lady; Mr. Lilbit, the world’s smallest man; Big Tess, the fattest woman; Lizard Boy; the Siamese twins; or the odd fellow who drove nails up his nose with a hammer.

They all still lived here, quietly minding their own business, still happy to let people come and gawk at them, which, to Dani, seemed very rude, but as they said, it was a living. The freaks were not ashamed of who and what they were, and so, as Jake put it, “Bully for them.”

But Dani did not stop to visit the carnival people today on account of delivering the potpie back to Jake.

With a tug on Teddy’s leash, she strode down the graveled walkway toward the lily pond. The fountains no longer ran, but frogs chirruped everywhere amongst the pussy willows. Dani scooped up Teddy and carefully stepped into one of the old, faded swan boats. Tail wagging, Teddy put his front paws up on the edge of the swan’s wing as Dani put down the oars. “Here we go, boy.”

She rowed toward the little overgrown island in the center of the manmade lake, where Jake had taken up residence in an old white gazebo. It was very peaceful gliding through the still waters. Her hard day at the market was forgotten. Soon she spotted Jake standing on a boulder near the water’s edge.

His back was to her, and with three rocks flying in circles above him, she thought he was trying to juggle, but then she saw that his hands were not moving, and she scowled.
Boys! Why don’t they ever listen?

As soon as her swan boat bumped against Jake’s island, Teddy bounded over the side and dashed up onto the land to go and see him. The dog’s barking broke Jake’s concentration, and the three fist-sized rocks he had been levitating with his mind plunked to the ground.

Dani put the oars in their holders and carefully stood up. “I thought you weren’t going to do that anymore,” she said as she threw her sack over her shoulder and hopped off the boat.

“Huh?” Jake pretended not to hear her over Teddy’s happy barking.

“Don’t complain to me when you get the headache.”

“It’s not as bad as before.” He squeezed his temples with one hand. “I think I’m getting stronger at it.”

She was not sure if that was such a good thing. The headache at least kept him from using his powers too much.

She produced the potpie from under her cloak and his blue eyes lit up. “Ah, Dani O’Dell, you’re a right plum lass, you are.”

“I know,” she replied.

He took it from her and went to sit on his favorite boulder. The next thing she knew, he was shoving huge bites of mincemeat pie into his mouth in a most unmannerly fashion.

“Give Teddy some. He’s starving.”

“Dance,” Jake ordered through his mouthful of food. The terrier danced, and Jake tossed him a good-sized crumb.

Reluctantly, Dani went over and broke a piece of the potpie off for herself. So much for her good intentions, she thought with a shrug. Then she sat down with a flounce of her dreary drab skirts on the top step of the gazebo that Jake had made his temporary home. His few belongings were strewn about inside it.

“So what happened after you ran off?” she asked. “I saw those men chase you. I guess you got away.”

He paused in his chewing and gave her a guarded look.

“What?” she asked, nibbling on the famous pie-crust.

Jake snorted like a half-wild colt and tossed his dirty blond forelock out of his eyes.

“What did they want?” she demanded.

“To kill me,” he said matter-of-factly.

“What?”

Perhaps he shouldn’t have told her, Jake thought.

Dani’s green eyes grew as round as the algae-covered pond surrounding his little island. She stared at him in dread. Once he had said that much, however, it was too late to back out from telling her the rest.

The truth was, he was glad to share it, because secretly, this was one of those rare occasions where he could admit he might be in just a wee bit over his head.

He told her all about it, though he skipped over the magic bits. He knew that topic gave her the willies. Instead, he simply told her about his so-called uncle, the Earl of Griffon, and Derek Stone and his unjust arrest.

Jake was all too familiar with the process that Derek would undergo after the police wagon took him away.

The bobbies would haul him into the nearest police station, where he’d be thrown in a holding cell for a few hours until it was his turn to stand before the magistrate. Known in street language as a “beak,” the magistrate served as a sort of first-round judge, who would determine if there was indeed a case to be made against the person arrested.

When it was Derek’s turn to be brought into the courtroom, probably this evening, the beak would ask questions of everyone involved. Their answers would help the court decide if there was enough evidence to formally charge Derek with the crime. If not, the case would be dismissed and he’d be free to go.

But
if the beak determined there
was
enough evidence to take the case to the next step, then formal charges would be filed, and Derek would be sent to London’s dreadful Newgate Prison to await trial.

Those accused of murder were rarely allowed out on bail. In the meantime, the detectives would carry out their investigation. Finally, at the trial, if Derek Stone were found guilty, he would be sent immediately to the gallows.

“And I can’t let that happen,” Jake told Dani. “This man saved my life. He didn’t kill anyone! It wasn’t even him who threw the knife, the bald man did it! He hit his fellow henchman by accident. Derek was only trying to save me. I’m not even sure how he knew I was in that alley, but you should’ve seen him, he was brilliant. And now he’s doomed. They’ve got it all wrong! Constable Flanagan’s already made up his mind that Derek is guilty. You know the bobby’s the only one the beak is going to listen to.” Jake shook his head, dismayed. “This is all my fault.”

Dani searched his face in worry. “So, what are you going to do?”

“Only one thing I
can
do,” Jake said grimly. “I have to go in there and speak up for him, tell the magistrate what really happened.”

“What, like a witness?”

“Aye. They’ll hang him if I don’t. Believe me, I don’t want to, but the beak needs to hear the truth of how it all played out. Then maybe they’ll see they have no case against him. They’ll have to throw out the charges and let him go free. And then I can make him tell me what he knows about my father,” he added in a darker tone.

“Jake, they’re not going to listen to you,” Dani exclaimed. “You’re just a kid—with a criminal record! What if they don’t believe you?”

“I have to try. He stood up for me; now it’s my turn to stand up for ‘im,” he said with a scowl.

“But you could go to jail! You realize what could happen if they remember you nicked this potpie today? They could toss you into Newgate right along with him!”

“What choice do I have?” he argued. “I’m not a coward! Anyway, it’s the honorable thing to do!”