Tracked by Terror (13 page)

She still didn't seem to hear him. She was flailing at the gorilla's huge hand, crying and pleading.

The ape's nostrils twitched. Its brown eyes narrowed in suspicion, and it looked right at Jarvey. Maybe the spell didn't work with animals! Jarvey began to back away.

But the gorilla sniffed again, then tugged Betsy along. Jarvey breathed a little easier, and he fell into step behind the two. He suspected they were going his way.

And sure enough, the ape hauled Betsy along to the park, through the gate, between the guardian cobras. Jarvey had a nasty moment when he passed between them, but the snakes paid him no attention. Only when they had passed through the park did he finally see the palace, a shining white building with a multitude of towers, turrets, and domes, something like the pictures of the Taj Mahal he had seen.

The ape held tight to a struggling Betsy with one hand while it raised a heavy bronze knocker with the other. The knocker sounded like thunder in the distance, hollow, echoing booms. A moment later, the door opened and a man stood staring down at Betsy. “So here's the one causing the trouble,” the man said. “I will take her to the master.”

The gorilla released its hold on Betsy as the man seized her other arm. She tried to pull away, and the man, with an irritated snarl, said, “Stop that, you fool! The serpents know you're here. You won't get far, even if you pull away.”

Jarvey took advantage of that moment to slip past them. No one, not the man, the gorilla, not even Betsy, noticed him. The man dragged Betsy inside and closed the door. “Come with me.”

As quietly as he could, Jarvey followed in their wake, down a carpeted hall. They stepped out into an airy room, its walls crimson and hung with trophy heads. Jarvey saw the head of a great cat, something like a lion, and other heads that sprouted weirdly shaped horns. He didn't look too closely at the top row. They looked too ... human.

Two men stood across the room, bending over a table. “My lord,” the servant said, “the guard has just brought this.”

One of the men, young, athletic-looking, and blond, turned around. “Ah, my quarry,” he said. “Well, you must be the clever one, damaging my property the way you did. Is this the person who caused you so much trouble, brother?”

The other man turned around then, and it was all Jarvey could do not to yell out in surprise and alarm.

“No,” said the displeased, dry voice of Junius Midion.

 

Jarvey sat huddled in a corner, hoping that his magic spell wouldn't wear off He had watched as the blond man ordered Betsy locked up in an adjoining room, and now he listened as the two brothers argued heatedly. “Kill her, Haimish,” Junius said. “And then find the other one, the boy. He's the one who took this.” He rested a hand on the Grimoire, which lay atop the table.

Haimish Midion, the blond man, lifted his cane and gently nudged Junius's hand away from the book. “My dear brother, you always want to act so rashly. Kill her? Why kill her when we can use her as bait? If we let the town know that I'm holding her as a prisoner here, I'll wager the rogue will hear of it and will come to save her. People are so predictable, you see, just as in those dreary dramas of yours.”

“Do whatever you want, but do it quickly and let me go back,” Junius growled. “You know how the theater begins to decay if attention is not paid.”

“It's not my fault you created such a shoddy little spell,” Haimish retorted. “My world could function quite well without me. I've built up a whole civilization: Port Midion, and six other cities that provide us with our little luxuries. Of course, my people are real, not ghostly automatons.”

“Don't tell me how to run my life,” Junius said. Looking at the two of them side by side, Jarvey could tell they were brothers. Both of them had the dark, glittering blue eyes of the Midion family, and both of them had streaks of reddish hair interwoven with the blond. Junius looked at his brother with evident distaste. “And you will not disparage my art, Haimish. If I had not thought quickly and diverted him into your world, the boy might have gone anywhere. Without my warning, you would not even have known of this ...” Junius reached to caress the book's cover.

Again, Haimish moved his cane to sweep Junius's fingers aside. “No, kindly leave the Grimoire alone, Junius.”

“I shall take it back with me, of course,” Junius Midion said carelessly as he stepped back from the table.

“You shall do no such thing. Oh, you managed to warn me to look for the Grimoire, but I remind you, my servants found it. It is mine. Remember, I shall use it to send you back, of course, but after doing so, I shall see that it is safely kept.”

“Safely kept?” sneered Junius. “You just admitted the people in this world of yours are real. It would be far safer with me, where there are only the actor automatons and the spectral audience. No one in my world could use the book.”

“How about that son of yours, that frustrated young Augustus?” countered Haimish. “Oh, dear, I can just imagine what might happen should he get his hands on the Grimoire. You know what would occur should he open the book to your chapter whilst in your world, of course.”

“The spell would reverse,” Junius said. “It would cast our whole family back into our time and place on Earth, and we would age and die. Of course I'd let them all know that, and that would be enough—”

“No, it would not be enough,” Haimish said smoothly. “Not nearly enough, not when your theater-mad family is involved. If you go back to Earth, the book goes back to Earth as well, and I'll not have the gateway to my world available to any meddling fool who can use a simple spell.”

Junius glared at his brother with something like hatred. “Need I remind you that I am the elder?”

“And I am the wiser. Junius, be reasonable. I agreed to consult with you and learn why this book has turned up here, of all places. It poses us quite a problem, but after all, I have the Grimoire, Junius, and here it shall remain.” Haimish Midion picked up the book, crossed the room, and stopped in front of a massive desk. He fished in his pocket for a key, unlocked a drawer of the desk, and dropped the book inside. “There it shall rest until we find this boy, and once we have dealt with him, I shall use it to send you back to your poor decaying theater. But I shall keep it, make no mistake.”

Junius had been watching him with an expression of rage. “Oh, very well! We shall decide what to do with the Grimoire in due time. But first capture that wretched boy, Haimish.”

“If only you could tell me his full name. A good magician can control anything if he knows its true name, but of course you have no idea, do you?” Haimish asked in a nasty tone.

“I may not know his full name, but I warn you, he is a Midion. He said he was, and anyway, I could recognize him by his features—eyes midnight blue, hair like rusty gold, all that. He may be dangerous.”

“How old is he?”

Junius shrugged. “I don't know. Twelve, thirteen perhaps.”

“Then his training surely is nowhere near complete. I can deal with any trifling spells he might have mastered.”

“You couldn't find him in your precious forest!”

Haimish shrugged. “Peasants are so easy to hunt. I fear my abilities as a stalker have become dulled by hunting mere criminals. Yes, I agree, I should have had the two wretches brought here to the palace. I thought it would be fun to hunt some real game for a change, and that was a mistake. He used a lightning spell! Crude, crude, but so crude I did not expect it.”

“What if he does it again? What if he blasts your animal guards?” Junius sounded upset and angry. “If he got close enough, he might even destroy the Grimoire with a spell like that, and you know that would be the end of us!”

Haimish snorted. “He won't even be able to try, not in town. My magic rules here, you know. Come, it is time to eat. I shall send my servants to post notices in town. Anyone who finds him and brings him here will be exempt from the hunt forever, him and all his family. That will make people eager to find our young Midion for us. Do you know, I almost hope this boy has some real power. I haven't had a really challenging hunt in so long now....” Still talking, Haimish escorted Junius from the room.

Jarvey immediately hurried over to the desk. It was enormous, made of some heavy, very dark wood. He tugged at the drawer, found it firmly locked, as he had expected, and hunted around for something to use to break the lock. Nothing. He heard the door rattling, and realized that in the next room Betsy was trying to find a way out.

He paused, biting his lip. If he opened the door, Betsy would ignore him, because of the spell he had cast. If she slipped away, the cobras might get her, or Haimish might hunt her. She was safer locked up, at least for the moment.

Jarvey found a poker in a stand in front of the fireplace, but it was too big and clumsy to use. A pair of crossed swords over the mantel offered a possibility. He dragged a chair over, climbed on it, and took down one of the swords, but its blade was too thick to force into the crack around the desk drawer. Jarvey was feeling more and more frustrated and upset. All he needed was something to open the stupid drawer. He made a fist and pounded on it once.

Crack! The wood split with a sound almost as loud as a pistol shot, making Jarvey jump in surprise. He opened his hand and looked at it in wonder. Had he just worked another spell? He must have. The wood was thick and tough, and yet a half-inch wide crack had opened right across the top of the drawer. He tugged at the handle, and the drawer creaked out of the desk, just far enough to let him reach in and pull out the Grimoire.

Then he crossed to the locked door, turned the latch, and the door swung open. Betsy had hauled chairs over and was climbing up, trying to get over the transom. She looked down in shock. “Jarvey!”

She could see him again. “Come on. I've got the book. We have to—”

“Stop right there!”

Jarvey spun around. Haimish and Junius Midion had burst into the room, and they stood staring furiously at him. Haimish had raised his cane and waved it, reciting some spell.

“Grab my arm!” Jarvey yelled, opening the catch of the Grimoire. Betsy grabbed the book instead, but he had no time to lose.

Just as Junius and Haimish Midion shouted out spells of their own, Jarvey yelled,
“Abrire ultimas!”

The Grimoire writhed, and with explosions of light all around him, Jarvey plunged into the unknown.

I
t was like being on a runaway amusement-park ride, and the spinning made him feel deathly sick. He and Betsy were holding on to the Grimoire, but they were on opposite sides, and they were whirling around each other, so it was hard to hold on. Jarvey felt his grip begin to slip on the leather cover, and desperately he tightened his fingers.

No use! He lost his hold, clawed frantically at nothing but air, and then he felt himself flipping head over heels and heels over head through a dark, terrible tunnel. He couldn't yell, he couldn't see, he couldn't even breathe. It felt as though he were free-falling from a great height, and he cringed as he imagined the bone-shattering impact.

But it never came. Jarvey opened his eyes in darkness. He lay tangled in sheets, and he was sweating so much he felt soaked. Jarvey kicked and writhed and flailed until he had unwrapped himself, flipped over onto his stomach, and then he saw the red digital display of his clock radio: 5:10.

“No,” he groaned. It was all happening again. He felt around until he located the lamp on his bedside table and switched it on. Warm light flooded his room, and this time it
was
his room, without any doubt, red curtains, black blinds, his junk on the desk, his clothes on the floor, everything in place, just as he remembered it from dreams, from real life.

The air felt hot, though, very hot, and stuffy. He went to the raised window and leaned his head against the screen, feeling the cool touch of morning air on his forehead and cheeks. He could see his yard outside, dimly illuminated by the one light far down at the end of the cul-de-sac. Crickets chirped and chattered in the flower beds. Jarvey took a deep breath and then padded barefoot out to his parents' bedroom door. He hesitated for only a moment before rapping on it with his knuckles, quickly but softly,
rat-tat-tat.

He heard his dad's sleepy voice: “Hmm? What is it? Come in.”

Jarvey pushed the door open. “Dad? Mom?”

His father clicked his bedside lamp on and sat up, his hair sticking every which way as he fumbled around on his bedside table for his glasses. “Jarvey? What time is it? What's wrong? House on fire?”

Jarvey stood in the doorway, breathing hard. The rumpled man sitting up in the bed was his father, Dr. Cadmus Midion, and the sleepy-looking woman just getting up on her elbows was his mother, Samantha. “Are you guys okay?” Jarvey asked in a small voice.

“What's wrong, sweetheart?” his mom asked, brushing her hair back out of her eyes. She sounded startled and concerned.

His dad had finally found his glasses, and he peered through them at his watch. “Five fifteen on a Saturday morning! This is a fine way to start your summer vacation, son. What's wrong?”

“I—I thought I heard something,” Jarvey stammered. “A kind of—of explosion sound.”

“Thunder?” his mother asked, reaching for her robe. “Is it raining?”

“No,” Jarvey said. “It—it wasn't really like thunder. Just a kind of boom.”

His father yawned. “Um. Sonic boom, maybe. Jet flying over very fast, but I didn't hear anything. Did you, Samantha?”