The Dire King (Jackaby #4)(61)
“Quick! Put it back!” I said.
As I spoke, Simon the Zealot cracked into two and then ruptured, raining colored glass down on us and all over the greatly abused benches. The walls fractured. Lumps of plaster crashed down, and Simon’s fellow apostles began to burst.
The ground beneath our feet cracked, and I hopped across the break before I found myself trapped on the other side of the cleft from Jackaby. Emerald light poured up out of the chasm. Through the swirling mist, I could just make out Hafgan’s Hold. I was looking down on the scene from across the courtyard. The medley of monsters was no longer milling about aimlessly. They weren’t forming ranks, precisely, but they were clearly at attention. Someone was at the head of the group, addressing the crowd. Over the heads of giants and ogres and hairy beasts, I caught a foggy glimpse. There he was! The Dire King! Red eyes glowed in the shadows beneath his brow, and on his head sat a midnight black crown of tall, wicked points. Each spike was like a crooked talon clawing at the sky. Even the tallest giants bowed before him. The Dire King was readying his troops to invade.
And Jackaby and I had just unlocked the door for them.
Chapter Twenty-Five
I caught my breath and pulled my head away from the massive chasm. Maybe there was still time to fix this. Maybe the Dire King had not noticed that the enormous rift had opened. I glanced around. Daylight streamed down on us. The church had ruptured in two. The ceiling was split wide open and the back wall had largely collapsed.
“We need to get back there,” Jackaby said, heaving a thick sigh. “We need to destroy that machine now. If the Dire King has found a way to manufacture a fraction of the power his acolytes seem to think he has, then this church is only a small sample of what’s to come.”
“We need Charlie,” I said. “We need our reinforcements. We have support in the city, remember? They should be amassing as we speak.”
“There isn’t time.” Jackaby’s words were heavy. “Miss Rook,” he said, “you should go. Be with Charlie. Bring them back. I will hold the threshold as long as I can, but I cannot leave now. The war has begun, and we are already losing it.”
“You’re losing it if you think I’m going to let you go marching into that mess alone! With all due respect, sir, you can’t handle a hot breakfast without me—do you really intend to save the world on your own?”
“Miss Rook.” He looked pained.
“Maybe Charlie is already on his way!” I said, stepping over the rubble toward the demolished wall to get a peek toward the street.
“Charlie doesn’t even know where we’ve gone,” Jackaby said. “None of them do. Pavel never told us before we left. He only showed us the way in. Even if they did heed our call, they would still be hours away on Augur Lane.”
“Charlie is resourceful. He’s cleverer than you give him credit for, sir. Maybe he worked out where we are.” I reached the broken wall and looked out, the sun hot on my face.
I gazed at an empty lane. There was no Charlie. There was no Hudson or Nudd or even Douglas. There were no reinforcements. We were staggeringly, achingly alone against the end of the world.
“We’re it,” Jackaby said behind me.
I nodded. My throat felt dry.
“Virgule may come through,” Jackaby said. “He may have reached Lord Arawn by now, and there’s a chance the Fair King might actually take the threat seriously for once.”
“Yes,” I said. “Yes, I suppose that’s true.” I crossed back to Jackaby. “What’s the plan?”
The building shook—the quakes weren’t really stopping at all now, just ebbing and surging in intensity. A massive section of the back wall crumbled, rocks cascading and gonging off a toppled pipe organ in discordant tones. The enormous cleft running through the middle of the church had gotten larger.
“We stop the machine to protect the whole world—that’s our priority. Next, we stall that army, as long as we can. They’re preparing for battle, and we’ve just unlocked the gate for them. If we can delay the army, even for a minute, it gives Charlie more time to arrive, gives New Fiddleham a chance.”
“All right,” I said. “Let’s save the worlds.”
After examining the rends from our side, we determined that our best bet was not to drop straight through the biggest gap, but to slip through a small rip in the corner of the church. It deposited us sideways into an unoccupied space at the far end of Hafgan’s Hold. Tall weeds and creeping vines had taken over in the centuries since Hafgan had last held power, and we crouched low among these as we hurried to take cover against the nearest wall.
The keep was ahead of us, troops lined up in front of it. The enormous tower had felt the effects of the quake as well. I stared at it. Like the church, the keep had been rocked and ruined—but unlike the church, the tower was held together by forces stronger than bricks and mortar. The base of the structure still stood intact, and the dome high atop the tower remained where it had been when we left it. In between, however, the building was effectively gone. Every floor was laid bare, the Dire King’s device naked to the elements. Cracked stones orbited the building weightlessly, the remnants of the ruined tower spinning aimlessly around the massive framework of the machine.
I couldn’t see the Dire King from this angle, but now and then the troops would respond to whatever he was saying with a roar of malicious excitement. The frenzy was building.