Blackbriar (21 page)

“Aha!” lisped the voice from the mask. “Two children. They have been watching us.” He spun them roughly around to face the excited crowd clustered about them. “And how did you like what you saw, my two young spies?” All the eyes were on them, and the people were talking and whispering to each other. The dwarf was there, hopping about, and the tall, wiry young man who had built the fire at Blackbriar, but now his gaze was icy and calm. And was that the librarian, crouching and jiggling somewhere behind?

Danny struggled, but the grip tightened painfully on his neck. “I need your help!” the voice barked, and a hundred hands seemed to be holding him. He clung to Islington with all his strength; the mask swung before him now, and the powerful hands reached out for the cat.

“No!” Danny shouted. “You can’t have him, you can’t!” But the two hands were like iron, and they twisted and pried at the cat, and other hands pulled at Danny’s arms, and he was powerless. Islington snarled and scratched out, but the man held him in one hand, high above his head.

“He belongs with us!” he cried. “He
is
one of us! It is he who led us to you. Let the festivities continue!” He marched back toward the fires, ahead of the crowd. Lark and Danny continued to struggle, but there were too many people all around them, and their efforts were useless. The leader turned as he reached the central mound. “The children,” he said, “will come up here with me. You others can let them go. They know they will be caught if they try to run. And I don’t think they want to leave their precious cat.” Grandly, he climbed the mound.

The hands dropped away and the crowd quickly dispersed, as though they had already forgotten about Lark and Danny. The moment she was free Lark turned and ran, blindly. She was caught at once, kicking and twisting. “Unwise, my dear little girl,” came the voice, “unwise. But now you know how futile any attempts at escape will be. Bring her to me.”

Lark was hysterical. She tossed her head about and struggled uselessly. Danny was free now, and he hurried to her side, pushing his way through the three women who held her. He rested his hands on her shoulders. “Please,” he said, “it’s all right. We’ll be better off if we do what he says.” She stared at him blankly for a moment, then her face weakened, tears poured down her cheeks, and she leaned forward in heavy, painful sobs. It was Danny who led her up the mound.

Two small, mad eyes glared at them through the holes in the mask. “Do you know who this is?” The voice sounded hollow from behind the motionless mouth. He held the cat in front of him, not noticing Islington’s busy claws and the blood dripping from his hands. “Do you know who this is? It is Belial, come to join us in our festivities.”

“He’s Islington,” Danny said. “I recognize him. He knows me. He belongs to us.”

“Perhaps he
was
Islington, once.” The voice was shaking with excitement; firelight flickered in his eyes. “Perhaps. But now he is Belial, one of the most powerful fiends of Hell. We drew him here, from the other world, we drew him into the body of this cat.”

“So you
did
have him that day we couldn’t find him.”

“And now he no longer belongs to any human being.”

Below them the people had begun to dance once more. The music was inside Danny again, and he could hardly keep from moving in time. It filled his mind so that he couldn’t think, any more than he could control his words.

“You must be crazy!” he shouted above the music. “You must be crazy to torture a poor cat and then think a devil is inside him!”

“Be careful, young man, be careful. You do not know to whom you speak.”

“Of course I do. You’re Lord Harleigh, anybody could recognize your voice, that silly mask doesn’t disguise you one bit.” Lark had stopped crying and was looking at Danny with surprise.

“Be quiet, you young fool! Tonight I am not any man. Tonight—I am the Evil One himself!’’ His voice rose triumphantly.

Danny snorted. Lark grabbed his jacket in an attempt to keep him quiet. The pocket had been torn in the struggle, and when she jerked the jacket something fell from the pocket to the ground at Danny’s feet.

Lord Harleigh stepped back in amazement—and then moved quickly. But as his bloody hand touched the doll, Islington squirmed out of his grasp. He pounced at the cat, catching him just in time by the tail, and swung him into the air. “Got you!” he cried.

But Danny had the bloodstained doll.

“Where did you get that?” Lord Harleigh shrieked. “How did you find it? I thought it was gone forever. Give it to me!” He held Islington by his tail, and the cat wailed and twisted about. “Why did you bring it here? It’s not yours. You have no right to it!”

“It belongs to me now!” Danny held it up. The doll’s face was streaked with Lord Harleigh’s blood. A strange idea leapt into Danny’s mind.

“You must give it to me, you
must
!”

Was it fear shaking in his voice? Was Lord Harleigh afraid of the power of the doll? Danny clutched it tighter than ever.

Islington, who was still dangling, squirming in agony, suddenly swung himself over and dug deeply into Lord Harleigh’s stomach, putting his whole weight into his claws. Lord Harleigh cried out, and instinctively flung the cat away from him.

Islington flew screeching into the fire.

Danny did not think. Holding his breath, his eyes wide open, he stepped into the flames. He heard Lark shriek and the music stop and his hair crackle, he felt the fire around him like boiling waves, and he saw Islington staggering and crying at the edge. He bent down, grabbed the cat by his withering fur, and stepped backwards, almost collapsing in the sudden coolness of the night air.

“Danny, Danny!” Lark was screaming. “Are you all right? Oh, your hair, your hair!”

He touched his head and felt the brittle strands crumbling to ash.

Lord Harleigh turned toward him from the fire. His whole body was shaking. It was not the cat he cared about now. “Give me that doll!” he shrieked, and lunged at Danny. Danny thrust the whimpering cat into Lark’s arms and darted away. Lord Harleigh could not see well, through the holes in the mask. He lunged at Danny again, and missed.

Danny held the doll above his head, dancing across the top of the mound. The people below watched silently, transfixed. “You’ll never get it now,” he cried. “I’m not afraid of you anymore.
You’re
afraid of me!”

Grunting, Lord Harleigh ripped the mask from his head and tossed it aside. His face was long and pale, and twisted with fear and rage.

Danny danced away again as Lord Harleigh grabbed for him. “This doll is you now, isn’t it! Isn’t it! It has your blood on it. Whatever happens to it will happen to you.
That’s
what you think it does! That’s why you want it so much! Well, see how it feels!” he cried, and pitched the doll into the fire.

A cry of many voices rose from the people gathered below. Lord Harleigh stumbled. He raced to the fire and thrust in his arm, trying to reach the doll. But the fire was too hot for him, the doll was at the center of the blaze, and in a moment it was only a charred lump of wood. He turned to the people. “Help me!” he called. “Oh, help me! We shall burn them, as we have been burned!”

From all directions the crowd surged up the mound. No one noticed Islington now, and Lark held him tightly as she and Danny flew together and clutched each other in panic. Many hands grabbed them, pulled them apart, and down the mound toward the fire around the people.

“No! Oh, no!”

Everyone stopped and turned to the sound of Lord Harleigh’s voice. He was still on top of the mound. And even though the fire was behind him, suddenly a clear, bright light flashed across his face. He squinted. He held up his hands to shield his eyes from the glare. He staggered and almost fell.

Is it really true? Danny thought wildly. Does the doll really work? But then he turned with the others and saw where the light was coming from.

Two headlights were bouncing toward them across the plateau. They were moving very quickly, and soon the shape of the car was clear. Danny pushed his way through the stunned crowd to Lark. He grabbed Islington and pressed him against his chest. “It’s Lil!” he said. “She’s come to save us!”

The noise of the engine was the only sound. As the car drew closer the people huddled together. Suddenly they seemed embarrassed.

Lark and Danny stood close to each other, watching the car. Danny turned back briefly to look at Lord Harleigh. The lights had left him, and he was now only a scrawny shadow before the flames.

The car shuddered to a stop at the edge of the crowd. A tall bearded man stepped out. Lark ran into his arms. Two policemen leapt from the back, surveyed the scene, and hurried toward Lord Harleigh. Philippa emerged from the driver’s seat, and Danny started toward her.

She gasped when she saw him. There were tears in her eyes. “Danny!” she cried. “Oh, my God, what happened to you?”

“The fire,” he said, “Lord Harleigh threw Islington into the fire, and I pulled him out.”

“
You
risked your life to save Islington? You? But, are you all right?”

“Yes, it’s just my hair.”

“And Islington?”

The cat’s fur was blackened and curled, but he did not seem to be in pain. He rested comfortably against Danny’s chest. Reluctantly, Danny handed him to Philippa, who cuddled him against her, rocking slowly back and forth. “My poor darling,” she said softly to the cat, “at least I haven’t lost you as well.”

“As well . . . ?” Danny asked, but he knew what she meant, and a strange kind of joy, half mixed with sorrow, rose inside him.

The policemen were back now, each with a firm grip on Lord Harleigh’s elbow. “Didn’t even put up a struggle,” one of them said. “Came as gentle as a baby, he did.”

The other policeman spoke to Danny. “Young fellow, I wouldn’t have been in your shoes for anything. And this poor girl!” Lark and her father had approached. His arm was around her, and she was wiping her face with the back of her hand. “No,” the policeman went on, “I wouldn’t have done what you did, and neither would anybody else around here. We’ve known about these goings-on for years. But nobody dared to interfere with this fellow.” He shook Lord Harleigh’s arm. “His family’s been in control in these parts for centuries. Just look at all the followers he has, all these poor, misguided people whose lives he runs.” Lord Harleigh snorted. “They live in fear of him, I can tell you.” Danny searched for the librarian, and thought he saw him crouching behind a shivering group of fat ladies. “But we could never take steps. We never had proof that he did anything against the law, and so many people were involved who he can get to do anything for him, anything.” The policeman paused and cleared his throat. “But
tonight
, why, we
had
to come here, we had to stop this thing, once we heard you children were here, and possibly in danger. There was nothing else we could do. If it weren’t for you, young man, and the girl, why this might have kept going on and on. But because of you, we had to put a stop to it.”

“Sniveling adolescent,” Lord Harleigh murmured, but no one seemed to hear him.

“I don’t know what to say,” Danny said. “I suppose it was dangerous. I just had to find out what was going on here.”

“I must say,” said Lark’s father, “I wasn’t particularly pleased when I heard you two were up here.” His voice was deep and rather rough. “But I know my daughter. She’s just as foolhardy as they come.”

Lark looked up at him. “But what happened? How did you get here so soon?”

“Well, I
was
worried. You’ve always been curious about things, and I knew the two of you were up to something. I was almost sure you had come up here, and I was furious.” He shook her gently. “But just when I was really getting frantic, I heard a knock on the door, and Philippa stumbled in. I knew who she was immediately.” He looked at her. She still seemed rather dazed. “And the whole story came out. Philippa had a good wash with cold water, and I rang the police.”

“We’re always on the alert on one of these nights,” the policeman said, “just in case, you know.” He turned back to face the huddled, confused crowd. “We’d better get going. We’ll have to take your car, ma’am, to get his lordship down to the station.”

“Of course,” Philippa mumbled.

He raised his voice to speak to the others. “All you people, go on home now. We’re going to forget about most of you, pretend we never saw you here. Unless anything like this starts up again, then we’ll know who to look for. And there’s some of you, you know who you are, who better get out of this county, and quick, or you’ll end up behind bars for a long, long time. Get on, now!” In groups, they began to move slowly away. “And one more thing, young man. What did they do with you here? How did your hair get burned? Did they try to hurt you?”

“Be careful, you little fool!” Lord Harleigh whispered hoarsely.

“Shut it!” snapped the policeman. “Ignore him. He can’t do no witchcraft in jail.”

“Well,” Danny said, “yes, they did try. After Lord Harleigh threw the cat in the fire, and after I got him out—that’s how I burned my hair—it all went so fast, it’s a bit confused in my head—I burned this doll that was supposed to be magic. And Lord Harleigh sort of went crazy and made the people grab us, to throw
us
in the fire—and just then you got here.”

“Oh, my God,” Lark’s father said, and tightened his arm around her.