Ghostly Echoes (Jackaby #3)(28)
“Couldn’t he have just climbed down the other side?” I asked. “Or turned himself into a bat or something and flown off? He’s the devil. He does that sort of thing literally all the time.”
“That isn’t how this sort of story works. Anyway, when Will arrived at the Pearly Gates, Saint Peter shook his head. Will had veered off the path of righteousness with all his drinking, his gambling, and his dealing with the devil. There was no place in heaven for the likes of him. Forlorn, Will made his way down to the dark gates, but the devil, true to his word and wary of another trick, wanted nothing to do with him, either. Out of respect for a fellow deceiver, the prince of darkness did offer him a single coal from the fires of Hell to keep him warm as he wandered the earth for eternity. With that little glowing ember, Will has contented himself to trick travelers forever after, leading them from their paths, just as he veered from his own.”
“So, we’re looking for a moderately clever tradesman with a lump of coal? That’s actually a bit disappointing.”
“You have no appreciation for the classics. That’s just one of the stories, anyway. Others attribute the phenomenon to fairy fire or elemental spirits. One of them involves gourds. All I know is that general consensus places them in the Unseelie Court, the branch of fairy taxonomy encompassing most of the more malevolent and malcontent of magical creatures. I told you, I’ve never seen a wisp in person. I have no idea what we’re actually looking for.”
A sudden flash of white-blue light lit the forest not twenty meters from where we were standing. It was accompanied by a loud, fizzing hum, and blinked out as quickly as it had started with a sharp snap like the crack of a whip.
“I take it we’re looking for that,” I whispered.
Jackaby nodded his agreement, and we crouched low as we moved toward the source of the light. “That wasn’t remotely what the legends suggest,” he said in a hushed tone. “In the accounts I’ve read, the fire is usually a feeble, elusive thing. Generally just a little hovering orb, like a bubble of flame.”
“So we’re up against a really enormous wisp?” I asked.
Jackaby took very deliberate steps as we neared a clearing. A dull, yellow glow lay beyond the line of trees, more like lantern light than the ribbon of white we had just seen. “There are living things ahead, but the aura isn’t like any magic I’ve ever seen. I don’t think it’s a wisp at all. Or any kind of fairy folk. The energy is all wrong.”
I could hear small, frantic animal squeaks, and there was movement on the far side of the bushes right in front of us. Jackaby put a finger to his lips, not that I needed the caution. Something whirred and clicked, and an instant later the forest burst into light with another arc of electric blue. It was as though lightning had struck the clearing directly ahead. For three or four seconds a snake of brilliant energy writhed just beyond the foliage, and then, with another crack, the forest was even darker than before.
I might as well have been staring at the sun. The after-image of the coil of light floating in front of me was all I could see for several seconds. I dropped and pressed myself into the ground, hoping whatever lay beyond those bushes was as blind as I was for the moment.
A high, shrill whine cut the silence, followed by a chorus of squeals and squeaks. “No, no, no, no,” someone grumbled. It was a male voice. “Output circuits still coupling. Damn! Need to recalibrate for diffraction.”
Jackaby stood. “You’re not doing magic,” he said aloud, cheerfully. “You’re doing science.”
And then a spanner hit him in the face.
Chapter Fifteen
The sketch of Owen Finstern turned out to be very true to life. The inventor’s hair was coarse and wild, and it drifted off behind him in tangled red-orange tufts like flames. His eyes were emerald green and ever so slightly offset. They moved constantly, darting between my employer, the surrounding woods, and me. He had been wearing a pair of perfectly round goggles with ink-black lenses, but he pulled them down to hang loose around his neck as Jackaby and I revealed ourselves.
The man was short and slight. He wore a dark waistcoat and a white shirt with the sleeves un-cuffed and pushed halfway up his thin arms. One sleeve had fallen back down and flapped loose as he moved about the little campsite, but he didn’t seem to notice. I wasn’t sure if he was wearing an overly large bow tie or a very short, thin ascot—and judging by the crooked knot at his throat, Finstern wasn’t sure, either. He raised a second spanner over his head, preparing to launch another hand tool assault.
“Wait! At ease! Cease fire! We’re not with those hooligans, Mr. Finstern!” Jackaby insisted, rubbing the bridge of his nose gingerly. “You have nothing to fear from us.”
The man looked skeptical, although something told me paranoia was one of his principal expressions. “You can’t have my rabbits.”
“We’re not here for your rabbits. For goodness’ sake, we’re not even here for you! Miss Rook, why is it the one time we seem able to find something straightaway it’s when we’ve actively decided not to look for it?”
“That does seem to be the way of things, sir,” I said.
“What do you want? How do you know my name?” The man’s accent was distinctly Welsh.
“It’s all right,” I said. “My name is Abigail Rook and this is Detective Jackaby. We’re not going turn you over, but the men who kidnapped you are looking for you. I think you may be in terrible danger.”