Quest for the Secret Keeper Read online

  Ian spotted several people walking past looking at them with disapproval, and he knew it was only a matter of time before a policeman was notified and came to investigate. “Quickly, quickly!” Ian said, picking up as many coins as he could get his hands on, all the while willing more of the shadows to disappear.

  “You there!” they heard when only two of the shadows remained. “Stop this instant and get out of the fountain!”

  Ian glanced up to see a French officer with his hands on his hips yelling at them. “Yes, sir!” he said, reaching for the only coin left in the fountain.

  “Why is there still a shadow?” Carl whispered when Ian had snagged it.

  Ian began moving with his cache of coins to the edge of the fountain and noticed that the policeman was walking over to them too. Ian looked down. The shadow was still pointing due east, and with great dread he realized that the sundial had not forgotten to point the way to the Lafittes.

  Still, Ian had bigger issues at the moment. The French officer approaching them looked mad enough to cart them off to jail if Ian didn’t think quickly. Before the officer could even open his mouth, Ian thrust his cache of coins at him and said, “We’re terribly sorry, sir. We were just having a bit of a lark, and we realize we’ve been awfully inconsiderate.”

  The policeman took the wet coins, albeit with irritation because they were dripping all over his uniform, and Ian nudged Carl to give up his portion too. Carl did, and quick as a flash they were out of the water, snatching up their shoes and making a hasty getaway. “Just a moment!” the officer warned.

  But Ian didn’t wait. He bolted out of the square in his stocking feet, carrying his shoes and hoping Carl would follow suit.

  Behind him he heard a sharp, piercing whistle and knew the officer was calling for others to chase them down, so Ian snaked his way through the bustling streets to a side street well off the square.

  To his immense relief, Carl came up right behind him, panting heavily and wearing a huge grin. “That was bloomin’ marvelous!”

  Ian leveled a look at him. “Might I remind you that we still have the issue of the sundial to deal with?”

  Carl’s smile faded, but only slightly. “Is it still pointing to a franc?” he asked.

  “No,” Ian said, unclenching his palm and showing Carl the surface of the relic. “It’s pointing to the Lafittes, and I don’t know how to get it to stop.”

  Carl eyed him curiously. “Really?” he said. “Well, I do.”

  “How?”

  “We’ll simply locate Océanne and her mother and the dial will stop pointing.”

  Ian blinked. He’d been so concerned that the dial was sending out waves of magical energy, which might attract the sorceresses to them, that he hadn’t even focused on the fact that the dial was able to lead them directly to Océanne and her mother.

  “Come on,” he said, squishing his soggy feet into his shoes. “We’ll have to be quick about it and keep alert for the sorceresses.”

  Carl caught him by the arm just as Ian was turning to dash down the alley. “What if we see the sorceresses coming before we find the Lafittes?”

  Ian pressed his lips together, hating what he was about to suggest, but knowing it would be the only choice left if it came to that. “We’ll have to toss the dial,” he said. “I’ll throw it as far away from us as I can, and we’ll have to make a run for it.”

  Carl appeared shocked by Ian’s suggestion that they quit one of their most prized magical possessions, but soon he nodded and the young men set off again.

  A COLD CALCULATION

  Caphiera the Cold paced the floor of the abandoned steel mill, mumbling curses and curling her long fingers into fists. “They are after the Keeper!” she snarled as her sister stood nearby, the rags that made up her clothing blowing in her own wind.

  “Of course they are, Sister,” Atroposa agreed.

  Caphiera stopped her pacing and stared hard at the witch, sitting huddled in her cloak, blue with cold while frost formed on her crystal ball. “Can you see them?” the sorceress screeched, making the witch jump.

  “No, mistress,” she admitted meekly. “I can sense that they are still in Paris, but until they use their magical instrument again, I am hard-pressed to locate them.”

  Caphiera spat irritably on the ground, a nub of ice forming where her spittle landed. “Intolerable!” she snapped. Turning to Atroposa, she said, “We must find them, Sister, before they reach the Keeper!”

  “Yes, Caphiera,” said her sister. “And we shall. They will use the instrument soon enough.”

  Caphiera spun away in irritation from Atroposa. How could she remain so calm? They were about to give a report to their father, and Caphiera feared his reaction, but perhaps if she worded their status carefully, he would allow them a few more days?

  “Light the fire,” she said to Atroposa.

  Her sister walked over to the large stone hearth in the center of the mill and lit a long match, which nearly blew out as she lowered it to the wood they’d made the witch gather.

  Atroposa then stood back and blew softly in the direction of the kindling, and soon a roaring fire was blazing. Caphiera took several steps away from it—the heat being most disagreeable to her—as they all waited in silence while the wood crackled and burned, filling the large space with a sweltering warmth.

  Before long there was an insufferable noise like grating boulders and crushing rocks, and it filled the room until, finally, a deep voice said, “My daughters …”

  Caphiera bowed low, as did her sister, then held her pose until her father spoke directly to her. “What news have you to tell me?”

  “We are here in Paris, Sire,” Caphiera said. “We are searching for the Keeper and we feel he is very close.”

  More sounds of boulders churning echoed out from the hearth. “I had expected you to find him by now, Caphiera.”

  The sorceress tamped down the nervous tension those words inspired, and pointed to the witch, who was still sitting in front of her crystal, staring terrified at the hearth. “We have a seer at our disposal who is helping us locate the Keeper,” she said, hoping her voice sounded confident. The grating sound, however, was a key that her sire, Demogorgon, was not satisfied with that answer, and Caphiera was near panic. She knew what would happen if her father grew too impatient, and already she could feel the tingling along her skin, which she knew would quickly turn into a burning sensation.

  She looked at her sister and saw that the constant wind about Atroposa was beginning to fade, and her clothing whipped less frantically. In fact, it was now blowing gently, as if lulled by a soft breeze.

  “The children we seek are also here in Paris, Sire! We know they are nearby, in fact,” Caphiera said in a rush.

  The tingling along her arms stopped. “You have seen them?”

  “The witch has,” Caphiera said, pointing to the woman at the table. “She has seen them and is helping us to hunt them along with the Keeper.”

  “Where are they now?” said the voice, and Caphiera felt another tickle of fear creep along her backbone. Demogorgon did not seem to be addressing her or her sister, but the witch, and Demogorgon never addressed a mortal.

  She turned her attention to the woman across the room, who still appeared to be paralyzed with fear. “Answer, witch!” she shouted, willing the woman not to say anything stupid.

  The woman jumped, then looked back down at her crystal as sweat ran into the creases of her brow and dripped down the sides of her face. Caphiera felt another few seconds tick by, and that tingling sensation crept along her skin again. Her father was quickly running out of patience. She was about to shout at the witch again when the woman leapt to her feet and said, “I have seen them, mistresses! They are at the fountains!”

  “Which fountains?” Caphiera asked quickly, ready to pounce on any new information to offer her sire.

  The witch stared hard again at her crystal. “I believe they are at the Fontaines de la Concorde! I went there o
nce when I was a little girl, and I would recognize them anywhere.”

  “You’re sure?” Atroposa asked, and Caphiera glared hard at her, wanting very much to slap her sister.

  But to her relief the witch nodded vigorously and said, “Yes. And they have employed the magical instrument again. I believe if we leave now, I can lead you straight to them!”

  Caphiera whirled back to the hearth, eager for her father to release them so they could be on their way. For a long moment, however, he did not. At last the roaring flames simmered and he said, “Go, my daughters. Use the witch. Kill the children. Bring the Keeper to me, alive if you can.”

  Caphiera bowed low, attempting to suppress the smile creeping along her lips. They had escaped the wrath of their father for another day. “Thank you, Sire,” she said, then stood to turn away.

  Just as she’d taken a step, however, Demogorgon called her back. “Caphiera,” he said.

  She stiffened. “Yes, Sire?”

  “After you bring me the Keeper, you and Atroposa will go to the aid of your brother. Lachestia keeps him in a prison of her making, and my patience with her is at an end. Find and release Magus, kill Lachestia, and await my return.”

  Caphiera’s sly smile returned. “As you wish, Sire. As you wish.”

  A PERILOUS MISSION

  Ian and Carl ran through the streets of Paris, dodging motorcars, lorries, pedestrians, bicycles, and horse-drawn carts. All the while Ian kept a close eye on the sundial as it led them block after block farther east. “How far do you think they are?” Carl asked, his breathing labored as he worked to keep up with Ian.

  Ian shrugged. “I hope it’s not too far,” he said, eyeing the sky worriedly, thinking about how he’d told Theo they’d be gone only an hour or two.

  “If we don’t find them by nightfall, we’ll have to hide the sundial and go back to the flat,” he said, knowing that eventually Theo would become so worried that she’d go looking for them, which would put her in danger too.

  At the next intersection he and Carl paused, waiting for the traffic to part, when Ian heard what sounded like a rumble of thunder. He glanced again at the sky, which was crystal clear, without a cloud in it.

  “Did you hear that?” Carl asked just as the last motorcar moved out of their way.

  Ian nodded, focusing again on the sundial, which was pointing him left down a quiet street filled with flats. “There must be a storm coming,” he said. He was used to the weather in Dover changing unexpectedly.

  Another rumble sounded, and then another and another in quick succession. Carl, who’d been trotting along beside him, stopped abruptly. Ian looked back to see his friend staring off in the opposite direction, and Ian had no choice but to stop as well. “It’s this way,” he said impatiently.

  But Carl seemed to be ignoring him, and to add to Ian’s frustration, the rumble of thunder was growing closer. They’d be drenched soon if they didn’t hurry. “Carl!” he snapped, but when his friend finally turned to look at him, Ian could see the fear in his eyes. “What is it?”

  “That’s not thunder, Ian,” he said.

  Ian blinked just as another round of loud rumbles drifted to his ears, but oddly, the ground under his feet rumbled too. And then he knew, and a terrible foreboding came over him. “Bombs!” he gasped, his voice no louder than a whisper.

  Carl turned away from the oncoming torrent, dashing straight for Ian and catching him by the shirt collar. “Run!” he yelled. “Ian, run!”

  Ian and Carl raced down the street, looking anywhere to find shelter. Behind them the thunderous noise was joined by sirens, and Ian knew that the city was being attacked by the German Luftwaffe.

  He and Carl darted this way and that, running up steps to the flats and pulling on the doors, but all of them were locked. It seemed there was no place to hide, and what was worse, there was no one about on this quiet street to aid them.

  “Where do we go?” Carl shouted just as the sound of an approaching plane rose above the explosions, coming closer and closer.

  Ian turned his head this way and that, looking for a doorway or overhang where they might huddle, but he was so panicked his eyes found nothing suitable. He was about to tell Carl to duck in the stairwell of one of the buildings across the way when an explosion at the back end of the street sent both of them to the pavement.

  Ian covered his head with his arms as another explosion shattered one of the flats they’d passed after first turning down the street. Ian could feel small particles of debris sprinkling his back and hair. He knew he was screaming, but he couldn’t hear his own voice above the battery of noise. Getting to his feet, he reached behind him, grabbed Carl by the collar, and pulled him up and along the sidewalk, searching for someplace to hide from the falling debris, but the pair quickly tumbled to the ground again after another bomb exploded nearby.

  When the rain of debris stopped, Ian lifted his chin and saw that poor Carl had a large cut on the side of his head, which began to bleed.

  Ian shook Carl’s shoulder, but his friend only lay there, limp and lifeless. “Carl!” Ian screamed, afraid the injury was much worse than it appeared.

  Carl showed no signs of recovering himself. Ian got to his knees and lifted him by the shoulders. Ducking low, he pulled Carl along, desperate to find shelter.

  Another explosion was so near it caused a percussion that sent Ian tumbling to the ground for a third time. He landed on his backside with a hard thud, and it was a moment before he could collect his wits.

  Coughing and choking on the mixture of dust and smoke, Ian attempted to regain his footing, still terribly worried about Carl. However, as he was struggling to do that, a hand gripped his arm firmly and jerked him up.

  The cloaked figure who’d grabbed him then moved over to Carl, lifted him under the shoulders, and pulled him into a nearby doorway.

  Ian blinked, wiping at the soot and dust stinging his eyes. The ringing in his ears wouldn’t allow him to think straight. A moment later he felt someone take hold of his hand and pull him toward the same doorway.

  He followed numbly along and managed to keep his feet underneath him even when another building just down the street was shattered by yet more bombs.

  Once inside the doorway, Ian stumbled, belatedly realizing there were stairs leading down. The cloaked stranger prevented him from tumbling, but just barely. He was all but blind within the darkened stairwell, and his free hand gripped the railing tightly.

  Finally, he reached the bottom and leaned against the wall, attempting to collect himself. Unable to hear much of anything above the distant barrage of bombs and the ringing in his ears, he felt something brush past him, and a moment later the dark was illuminated by the strike of a match. He coughed several times to clear his lungs as the stranger lit a lantern. By its light Ian could see that Carl was lying nearby, bleeding badly from the head.

  Ian moved to help him, but the cloaked stranger shot out an arm to bar him from doing so, and then the stranger pointed to the floor. Ian was to take a seat.

  Obediently, Ian slid down the wall to sit and coughed several more times. His lungs felt thick and heavy, and his eyes burned. As he squinted at poor Carl, he felt terribly guilty.

  He wished he’d remembered that he’d been carrying the sundial when he asked to locate Océanne and her mother. If only he’d kept his thoughts to himself, he and Carl would be back at the flat with Theo …

  “Oh, no!” Ian shouted, jumping immediately to his feet. He’d left Theo all alone on the fourth story of a building in the heart of Paris! What if their flat had been bombed? What if she’d been injured … or worse!

  Ian would have run straight to the stairs if he hadn’t been stopped again by the stranger, who latched fiercely on to his arm. “No!” the stranger shouted directly into his ear. “You will not go out onto the street yet!”

  Ian realized two things at once. The first was that the stranger was a woman; the second, that he could now hear her above the ringing in his ears.r />
  Still, thoughts of Theo being trapped and defenseless in their flat fueled his panic. “My sister is in terrible danger!” he said desperately. “You must let me go!”

  But the cloaked woman would not release him. Instead, she pulled him away from the stairs and pointed firmly to the ground. “Sit!” she ordered. “You can do nothing for her until the bombs stop.”

  With great dismay Ian listened to the thunderous booms still echoing from above. He knew it was suicide to go dashing through the streets of Paris as it was being bombed, but that didn’t stop him from worrying about Theo. He was nearly beside himself with fear.

  Nearby, Carl moaned, and Ian’s attentions were diverted temporarily to his injured friend. “What’s happened?” Carl said, attempting to lift his hand up to the large cut on his head.

  “Stay still,” said the woman.

  She got to her feet then and regarded Ian, who could barely make out her features within the folds of the cloak. “I must get water and a fresh cloth for your friend’s wound,” she told him. “You must promise to stay here.”

  Ian was so dismayed he didn’t have the ability to reply. Instead, he merely nodded.

  The woman moved away from them, down a long corridor and beyond the ray of light from the lantern.

  Carl opened his eyes, squinting through his lids with a pained expression on his face. “Where are we?”

  “Belowground,” Ian told him.

  “How’d we get here?”

  “A woman helped us.”

  “What woman?”

  Ian shrugged. “Dunno. You were hit on the head by some rubble and knocked out, and a woman came and helped get you here.”

  Carl looked about. “Where’d she go?”

  “To get you some water and cloth for your head.”

  Neither of them said a word for a time after that, but then Carl seemed to read Ian’s troubled mind. “Theo,” he whispered.

  Ian balled his hands into fists. He was angry at himself for leaving her behind. “I should have listened to my instincts,” he said. “I nearly invited her with us but then I remembered what the earl had said, that she would be safe at the flat, so I left her there.”