male looked down at his robe. “So I am.”
“Do you think this happened recently?”
“I don’t know,” he snapped back, “but I do know I’m in need of some mystical attention.”
“Agreed,” Isabelle said. “Come this way!”
As they took the wounded male off to her tent, another male came up behind the shorter female. “Do you think there’s anything to that missing button?”
“There’d better not be,” the woman replied, “but you should run back and give the site a quick lookover before the authorities arrive.”
“Aye…” the man spat.
“Looks like arson, My Lord,” the big ogre told the small troll who had been summoned to Jack Spratt’s home early the next morning. “And at the hands of a force we once trusted.”
“The Night Guard,” Ogbert said, regarding the remnants of the singed cloak the ogre had brought him. “Though I haven’t known them to be so careless.”
“What of Jack Spratt?”
“Nowhere to be found. Gone along with the Wick.”
“Come along then, Her Highness will want a full report…as if she doesn’t have enough in her cauldron already.”
“What of the these damning cloaks from the Night Guard?”
“Damning, you say?”
“Why yes, you can make out this one’s owner right here…a Barister del Toro.”
“Del Toro? Oh dear, well, that’s not good.”
“No?”
“No matter, though; call it a family thing.”
Shackled
It was dawn and the big man was coming to consciousness. He was alone on a back road, his overcloak gone and his clothes in shambles. He pulled himself to his knees, trying desperately to recall what had happened the night before. Flashes of the night sprinkled before his eyes. He remembered Main—that unhinged cretin—and there had been others with him. Then he thought of his charges: Errol, Jettson and Samantha. There had been a battle. They must have been overcome, for he was alone now.
The winds suddenly picked up and the man turned to see a contingent of warlocks flying toward him. He noted the uniforms of the Warlock Sentry and worse still, their captain, his old friend.
“Barister Del Toro,” he heard his name.
“Good to see you, Godric.”
“Doubtful. After what you pulled.”
“You have me at a disadvantage, I’m sure.”
“Surround him. He’s quite powerful.”
“I don’t suppose you’ve seen my charges this morning?”
“I have, and they have been apprehended as well.”
“You wouldn’t be able to enumerate my crime?”
As Barister’s wrists were clacked into the heavy shackles, he felt his power leave him and move into the shackles.
“As if you didn’t know, Del Toro.”
“I assure you I do not.”
“Arson!”
Isabelle
“Where am I?”
Jack had run all night. Driven from the home in which he had pretty much secluded himself for all these years, the farmer wasn’t used to long hikes in the outside air. He recalled finding a small alcove in a neighboring inn where he had been tended to by that kind, red-haired waitress, but the rest was vague to him.
Now awake and in a bed that he did not know, Jack saw that he was in a small room, hewn from logs and sparsely decorated. He could tell that it was late in the day. Wherever he was, it was rural and probably hidden away. He heard voices outside of the room, all male. "Sorry to have troubled you, Professor," "Think nothing of it, Niall,"—all very pleasant, then all was silent again.
“He awakens at last.” A tall woman smiled at him from across the room. She was dressed in light blue and her eyes were silver. Her graying hair was pulled back into a long braid. She did not look familiar to him.
“Who are you?”
“I’m Isabelle.”
“Where am I?”
“You’re safe. I can assure you of that.” She adjusted the blinds and came to his bedside, looking at him with those piercing silver eyes that were almost intoxicating. “Do you know who you are?”
“I am Jack of the Lantern,” he answered, the words spilling out under her strangely powerful gaze. “I have recently been displaced from me home by a troupe of interlopers who shall be rightly brought to justice.”
“Well, I see.”
“They made off with me Eternal Wick, which must be restored—but why am I telling all of this to you?”
“People have a habit of telling me their deepest thoughts,” she said, holding aloft very large hands for a woman. “I don’t know why. Anyway, you must be famished. Let me see to your sustenance.”
Jack was hungry. He looked down. His clothes were fresh and his wounds and the burns sustained the night before had all been attended.
“You were in fairly dire straits when we found you,” Isabelle said, coming back into the room with a tray of a bacon, cinnamon buns and coffee. She placed the tray on the nightstand and helped him sit up in bed, using surprising strength. “Looked as if you’d been in a horrible scuffle—burns, cuts and the unmistakable scar of the werewolf. I was able to neutralize its poisons from affecting you, but despite this, I would have given you only middling chances. I must say you’ve healed wonderfully.”
“Yes, I call it a gift,” Jack said.
“Well, here’s your meal. You must eat up and get your strength back.”
The food smelled like ambrosia, yet true to his distrustful nature he found himself hesitating. “Join me?”
“I’ve eaten already, thanks,” Isabelle said. “Go on and eat. It’s not poisoned.”
As if poison would do anything to him, Jack thought.
Isabelle flounced out of the room. Jack ate.
Innocent
