Jake & The Giant (The Gryphon Chronicles, Book 2) (9 page)

Henry’s cry of anger turned into a brief, canine yelp of pain as the base of his spine shot out into a furry tail.

Jake was aghast, watching it.

Although the change was nothing new to Henry or Helena, both being descended from a proud French shapeshifter lineage that boasted some of the finest bloodlines in Europe, Jake personally never could have imagined having to go through something like that.

As soon as their tutor had
fully become a great brownish-gray wolf, he shook himself like a large dog to free himself from his neat tweed coat. All that was left of his clothes was the cravat tied around his neck like a dog’s collar, but he tore free of it with his front paw.

The DuVal twins, usually so civilized, were now in their most savage form, and both of them were furious.

They began circling the smug Loki, the wolf growling, the leopard snarling. Their white fangs gleamed in the moonlight as they warned their mysterious kinsman of his imminent doom.

Just as Henry and Helena lunged at him, Loki turned himself into a swarm of insects; the two big predators leaped harmlessly through the black, buzzing cloud of bottle-flies.

As the wolf and leopard landed and whirled around with angry snarls, Loki reconstituted himself into a man-shaped swarm of flies, laughed at them again, and flew away.

Jake’s eyes widened as the cloud of insects whooshed straight toward
him,
standing at the end of the green aisle near the entrance of the boxwood maze.

He tried to jump back around the corner to get out of Loki’s way, but he was not fast enough.

“Hullo, Cake,” Loki taunted as he rushed toward him, then the flies were upon him.

The bottle-flies swarmed Jake, swirling all around him—disgusting!—trying to get into his ears and his nostrils. All he could hear was the deafening buzz of their wings. Jake thrashed about and waved the insects off madly, but they just kept coming back, crawling through his hair, and trying to wriggle their way down into the collar of his shirt and up the edges of his sleeves.

“Get off o’ me!” he finally yelled, spitting out one fly that tried to crawl into his mouth when he spoke.

Having had his
fun, the Loki swarm withdrew; the cloud of insects whooshed away.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Unchaperoned

Jake was left spitting with disgust and brushing off horrid, buggy, tickling sensations, while the trickster god, heading back down the garden path, turned himself back into his usual shape with a low laugh.

Coolly tugging his jacket
into place, Loki strode back toward the dining hall.

Jake turned to find Henry and Helena as their respective animals loping toward him down the green boxwood corridor. Even though he knew they meant him no harm, he took an instinctive step back from the two large, wild-looking
animals running straight for him. They stopped in front of him, both looking quite distressed.

The black leopard-Helena hissed in the direction Loki had gone, while wo
lf-Henry looked at Jake and tilted his head with a nervous whine, as if to ask,
“Are you all right?”

“I’m fine, i
t’s you two I’m worried about! How could this happen?” he cried. “Is that really Loki—the Viking trickster god?”

The wolf and leopard looked at each other, then at him, nodding their furry heads reluctantly.

“He’s real? And he’s your kinsman? Gadzookes, I don’t believe it,” Jake breathed, then he shook off his astonishment as best he could. “Never mind—just put yourselves back to normal and let’s go after him!”

When both animals made sad noises, Jake began to understand
the situation. “What is it? What’s wrong? Can’t you turn yourselves back?”

The twins nodded.

“No, no, no. You’ve got to! Try harder! We need you! You can’t leave us like this! We’re just four kids in a foreign country, with a mad Norse god on the loose! Please!”

The pair exchanged a worried gl
ance, and then proceeded to give it their best.

The wolf braced himself on all four paws and stared at the ground with his furry eyebrows knitted, like a dog trying with all his might to remembe
r where he had buried his bone.

The leopard shut her golden
-green eyes and let out a low meow of effort, plainly willing something to happen.

Nothing did.

Jake was getting seriously scared. “I’ll go send a message to Great-Great Aunt Ramona. I’m sure she’ll have some sort of spell that we can use to undo this…” The wolf suddenly bounded off while Jake was still speaking. “Where’s he going?”

His leopard sister turned around and watched Henry run back to his abandoned pile of clothes. The wolf rummaged around in his coat with his snout, then came back a moment later carrying his fob-watch in his mouth.

Henry dropped it by its small gold chain at Jake’s feet, much like a dog who had been taught to fetch.

Jake fought the urge to say “good boy
,” since that was still his tutor in there. Immediately, he bent down to pick up the watch and grimaced as he wiped the canine slobber off it.

Henry let out a low yip.

“Oh! I get it! A watch…Time! Give it some time and maybe the spell will wear off? Is that what you’re saying?”

Wolf-Henry wagged his tail.

“Right! Of course. No need to panic yet. He’s a trickster god, not
evil
evil, like Miss Astrid said. This is probably just one of Loki’s pranks. I knew he was a loon when I met him earlier today in the Exhibit Hall. So, what do you think, then? We give it twenty-four hours, and if the spell hasn’t worn off, then send a message to Aunt Ramona?”

Both beasts seemed satisfied with
this solution, though no one was happy about Loki’s trick. Wolf-Henry huffed as if to say,
“This is very inconvenient!”

Leopa
rd-Helena let out a low, vexed meow.

“Don’t worry, I’ll look after the others,” Jake assured them. “You two
just stay out of sight some place until this wears off. Maybe I’ll do some snooping and try to figure out what Loki’s up to—”

Both twins growled at him in disapproval.

“Why not?”

Henry bared his teeth while Helena slashed the air with her claws in warning. Their message was obvious: “
Too dangerous!”

“Fine. Don’t worry about Miss
Langesund, Henry. I’ll tell her that you’re, er, sick.”

At that moment, Jake heard Loki yelling in distress from the direction of the terrace behind the dining hall.

“Help! Someone, help! Wolf! There’s a wolf on the grounds!”

Hang it, Loki was up to more mischief! Jake whipped around to face the terrace with a gasp. “That devil!”

But Loki wasn’t finished. Jake could hear him up on the terrace, shouting to the other men. “Somebody, do something! I just saw a wolf in the college gardens menacing a child! Quickly, bring a rifle! Shoot the beast before it eats the poor boy!”

Jake could hear the commotion growing louder as more of the gentlemen
who had been smoking out on the terrace harkened to Loki’s alarm.

“Where did you see the beast?” one ye
lled.

“Near the garden maze!” said Loki.

“Call for the campus guard! He carries a gun!” another shouted.

Jake spun back to face Henry and Helena. “You’ve got to get out of here! Stay out of sight or they’ll shoot you
. Hurry! Go to the woods! You’ve got to hide!”

The black leopard shrank into the shadows in fear, but the great wolf hesitated.

“Go, Henry! You’re in danger! I’ll leave your clothes under these bushes so you can get them later.” Jake was already shoving their clothes and shoes under the branches of a towering rhododendron, hiding them away. “If you’re not back with us as your regular selves in twenty-four hours, I’ll telegraph Aunt Ramona. She’ll know what to do—”

The sound of a gunshot
interrupted him. The crack of a rifle tore through the night as someone on the terrace fired a shot into the air to scare away the “wolf.”

Jake turned to them, aghast.
“What are you waiting for?
Run!”

At once, the
twins bounded off through the garden and disappeared into the night.

As they headed for safety, Jake immediately raced back toward the banquet hall to make the men call off this deadly wolf hunt.

Running through the garden, he could hear the commotion on the terrace growing louder. A crowd was gathering. Alarmed guests in formal attire were shouting suggestions at each other about what to do, and of course, there was Loki, right in the middle of the chaos.

“Did you say you saw the beast menacing a youngster in the garden?” one of the scientists cried.

The trickster god nodded earnestly. “Yes, it’s probably eaten him already. The poor lad probably never had a chance to scream!”

“How horrid!” a lady gasped.

“I’m fine, I’m right here!” Jake yelled as he pounded up the steps onto the terrace. “I’m the boy he saw, and there’s no danger! Everything’s all right, people!”

They seemed almost disappointed to lose out on their sport.

“Are you sure?” People gathered around him, while Loki stood back smirking.

“It wasn’t a wolf, it was just a dog
, and he already ran away. Besides, he was friendly! Perfectly harmless, I assure you. The owner probably lives nearby. Anyway, he’s gone now,” he told them. “There’s no danger! No wolf hunt tonight, everyone!” he declared with as much authority as a boy-earl could muster. “Please, go back inside now. You’re going to miss out on your supper!”

This must ha
ve sounded reasonable to them, for the crowd dispersed, shuffling back inside to sit down for their meal.

All except for Loki.

He feigned a caring frown. “So, it wasn’t really a wolf after all?” the prince mocked him.

“Of course not—a
s you know perfectly well,” Jake shot back with a glare.

Loki glanced at the last of the adults heading into the dining hall, then he eyed Jake warily. “Well, you’re
rather clever, aren’t you, Cakey boy?” he murmured. “But are you clever
enough
? That’s the question. After all, you’re not exactly a genius like the rest of us here, are you?”

Jake
clenched his jaw at the insult, considering it was aimed at the exact weakness about which he already felt self-conscious in this place. He knew he didn’t belong here, but no matter, he told himself. He had come for Archie’s sake—to cheer on his cousin.

Refusing to be intimidated, he
took a bold step forward as Loki drifted toward the shadows. “What have you done to the twins?” he demanded.

But the tricks
ter merely gave him a sly smile, lifted his arms out to his sides, and suddenly, in the blink of an eye, turned himself into a crow as black as night. He let out a raucous caw and went flapping off into the sky.

Jake shu
ddered to witness such a thing.

As some sort of
shapeshifter god, it seemed that Loki did not have to go through any pain to transform himself like Henry and Helena did. He could do it instantly, and unlike the twins, could assume various shapes, based on what he had told Jake earlier in the Exhibit Hall. A salmon, a horse, a fly.

E
ven a woman.

A chill ran down Jake’s spine as it sank in that Loki could be anywhere, turn int
o anything…

Take on
the appearance of anyone.

No wonder Ragnor the Punisher had tattooed the trickster’s cheek so he could be identified.
Loki must have figured out a way to cover it up most of the time.

I’m going to need those Lie Detector Goggles,
Jake thought. He glanced around uneasily, scanning the darkness in case Loki had doubled back.

His expression hardened.
There was no telling what the devious fellow was up to, but Jake had not forgotten the mad prince’s interest in ‘those talented children.’

He
had promised Henry and Helena that he’d protect the others in their absence. Without a moment to lose, Jake pivoted and marched back into the banquet hall to make sure Dani and his cousins were still safe. He might not be a genius, but he had guts.

If Loki wanted to harm the girls and Archie, he was going to
have to get through
him
first.

CHAPTER TWELVE

Not The End of the World…Or Is It?

“There you are! Finally! I was starting to worry,” Archie said when Jake slid back into his seat at their table.

He was relieved to find the boy genius and the two girls just as he had left them, with Professor Schliemann still rattling on about his favorite method for removing di
rt from his archeological site.

Jake was glad t
o see that Miss Langesund had not yet returned from fetching her father. Nice as she was, he was not looking forward to lying to her about Henry.

But it
was not as though he could tell her the truth.

“Where are
Henry and Helena?” Archie whispered. “What happened out there?”

Isabelle studied Jake with a
worried gaze, but Dani frowned at him. “You all right? You look…weird.”

Jake did not answer directly. “Everybody, outside. Now.
C’mon. We need to go.”

At his grim tone, Archie’s eyes widened beh
ind his spectacles. “Something wrong?”

“You might say that,” Jake
muttered.

“What is it?” Dani exclaimed.

“I’ll explain later. Come on, you lot.” He mumbled a hastily made-up excuse to the adults about why they were leaving the table, though none of these seemed the slightest bit interested. They did not know them, after all.

The four children
left the table. Jake hurried the girls and Archie outside. Glancing around, thankfully, he saw no sign of the loon-bat. He gathered them into a corner of the terrace and told them what had happened: that Loki was real, that he’d put Henry and Helena under some sort of spell, and that the twins were now stuck in their animal forms.

All three stared at him in shock.

“Well, what do we do?” Dani cried.

“D
o you know where the twins have gone?” Archie prompted.

“They ra
n off into the woods,” Jake replied. “At least there they should be safe for now.”

Archie leaned against the brick wall shaking his head. “
Loki’s real? I can’t believe it! What does he want? What is he doing here?”

Jake lowered his head in thought
, recalling Loki’s fascination with the Gatling gun earlier today. “Maybe…” he started, then quit. “Nah, it can’t be.”

“What?” Dani prompted.

“Well, you remember what Miss Langesund told us about Loki’s final battle against Odin? The ancient prophecy, remember?”

“The Battle of
Ragnarok,” Dani said. “It’s in my Norway book.”

“Right.
Miss Langesund said Loki wants an army of giants to overthrow the gods. Well, I know it sounds daft, but maybe he’s here to buy some weapons or hire some scientists who can design them.” Jake shrugged, well aware of how farfetched it sounded. “Loki talks in riddles, but he definitely told me starting wars is his hobby. Maybe he’s trying to get his hands on some newfangled kind of gun or cannon that Odin and Thor have never seen.”

Dani’s eyes widened. “Y
ou’re saying Odin and Thor are real, too?”

“I don’
t see why not, if Loki is,” Jake replied.

“But this is impossible!
” she said. “They’re only myths! How can they really exist?”

“Ghosts and gryphons aren’t supposed to exist, either. Or fairies, for that matter,” Jake said with a pointed look.

Dani gazed at him, crestfallen, for indeed, she had ridden across the sky with him on his gryphon and had held the fairy Gladwin on the palm of her hand.

“We’ve got to come up wi
th a plan,” Jake added impatiently.

“Jake,” Isabelle said in a tentative voice, “d
idn’t Miss Langesund say that Loki’s great war against Odin was supposed to bring on, um…the end of the world? The Viking version of Armageddon? The apocalypse?”

They stared at each other in renewed dread, for of course, that
was
what the lady-archeologist had claimed.

Archie cleared his throat.
“Well, now, logically speaking, if that’s what Loki’s here to do, he wouldn’t have wanted Henry and Helena getting in his way.”

“Or us,” Jake said grimly, glancing around at the others. “W
hatever he’s up to, we need to stop him.”

“A god?” Archie asked.

“Hold on. You’re overlooking one very obvious ingredient,” Dani pointed out.

They all looked at her hopefully.

“The Viking prophecy says that Loki needs
giants
to bring on the end of the world! I don’t see any giants around here, do you?”

As her
always-practical, common-sense observation sank in, looks of relief passed over all their faces.

“That
is an excellent point,” Archie agreed with a brief chuckle. “If there were giants around here, I think we would’ve noticed.”

“They’d be hard to miss,” Isabelle agreed in a cautious murmur.

“There! You see?” Dani said, pleased with herself. She propped her hands on her waist. “This is just Jake being paranoid, as usual. Well, you’re always waiting for the worst!” she chided. “The end of the world, on our first-ever holiday? Come
on
.”

H
e scowled at her, but Dani wasn’t finished. “Of course, it’s a bit of a shock that Loki’s real, I admit, but then again, nothing in our lives is exactly normal, is it? You with your ghosts and telekinesis. You talking to animals. You with your big brain,” she said to each of them in turn. “Honestly, you lot are lucky to have me ’ere to bring you back down to earth!”

Jake couldn’t help smiling ruefully
at that. He supposed it was true.

“
If we start seeing giants,
then
we panic,” Dani declared. “Until then, I vote we concentrate on helping the twins.”

“
Makes sense to me,” Jake conceded after a moment with a nod. “After all, just because Loki
wants
to cause Viking Armageddon, it doesn’t mean he
can
.”

“True
,” Archie agreed. “And really, if he hasn’t done it yet in all the centuries since Viking times, why should he succeed now?”

Isabelle
let out a sigh of relief. “I say we go back to our rooms in the dormitory and wait for Henry and Helena to come back. Somebody’s got to be there in case they need our help when they return.”

Jake nodded. “We should try to stay out of Loki’s way, too
, in the meanwhile—just to be safe. Why tempt him?”

They
all agreed to this, then started walking back across campus to the dormitory where their party had been assigned four rooms: one for the boys, one for the girls, one for Henry, and one for Helena.

As they went down the stone steps off the terrace onto the graveled path
that led across the wide green lawn, they suddenly saw the figure of a lady approaching.

In the darkness, th
ey couldn’t tell who it was, so Jake held up his hand, discreetly warning them back. “Remember,” he murmured, “Loki can take any shape, look like anyone…”

The footsteps in the darkness grew l
ouder, but when the woman passed beneath one of the iron lampposts that lined the walkway ahead, they saw a golden gown and blond hair, and quickly recognized Miss Langesund.

If it was really she.

Blimey, thought Jake, maybe the carrot-head was right. Maybe he
was
a little paranoid.

W
ith good reason!

As the alleged Miss
Langesund approached, Jake studied her suspiciously, ready to use his telekinesis to defend the others in case it turned out to be Loki in disguise.

H
e could
really
use those Lie Detector Goggles. That would help them see through Loki, no matter his disguise.

But as Miss
Langesund hurried toward them, Jake was quickly convinced it really was the lady-archeologist. There was none of Loki’s mad, wild humor in her eyes, only worry. “Children, are you leaving already? I’m so sorry I missed dinner! Is Henry with you, by chance?” She glanced around for her gentleman friend.

“Er,
no, sorry, Henry’s indisposed at the moment,” Jake said. “He suddenly started feeling—not quite himself.”

“Oh
, no! I’m so sorry to hear that! I hope the salmon wasn’t bad—”

“No, nothing like that, he’ll be fine,” Jake assured her.

“Miss Langesund, is something wrong?” Isabelle asked, stepping toward her in concern. “You seem upset.”

“Bless you, my dear, w
ell—the truth is, I-I honestly don’t know. There may be,” she confessed. “I can’t find my father anywhere!” she burst out, sounding slightly panicked. “I’m really beginning to worry.”

“How now?” Archie murmured, frowning.

“I checked his room. He’s not there. I looked in the library, too, but nobody’s seen him. I’m going over to go check the museum next, and I—well, I hate to be a bother, but I was going to see if Henry would go with me. Sometimes Father has trouble with his heart, and if he’s had a medical emergency, I don’t really want to be alone when I find him.”

“We’ll go with you!” Archie volunteered
at once.

“Oh,
it’s all right! I could never impose,” she said. “I’m sure I’m just being a worry-wart. He probably got caught up in his work, that’s all. Besides, you children must be off to bed soon—”

“We’re not babies!” Dani retorted
. “It’s early yet. We’ll go with you.”

“Quite right!” Archie said.
Though he was only eleven, he was a true English gentleman down to his fingertips and could never resist the chance to aid a damsel in distress. “Don’t fret, dear lady! We’ll be glad to help you find your father,” the boy genius assured her.

Chivalrous pipsqueak,
thought Jake, slightly annoyed to be taken away from their own worries, which were bad enough.

Miss
Langesund forced a smile, but the fear in her eyes told a different story. “You’re all very kind.”

“Archie and I will help you look for your father,” Jake quickly intervened. “The girls should probably go back to the rooms in case the twi
ns, um, need any help. Since they’re not feeling well.”

“Oh, right!” Dani answered, catching on. “They might need us to help take care of them.”

“Helena’s feeling poorly, too?” Miss Langesund echoed in surprise.

“You know how it is with twins,” Archie said, thinking fast. “One can’t get sick without the other feeling the same symptoms. It always happens that way with the two of them. But don’t worry, I’
m sure they’ll both be fine soon.”

“Till then, you’ll just have
to make do with us,” Jake said with forced cheer, reassuring her with a nod.

“Very well, then, if you don’t mind coming along. If Father’s had an attack of some sort, I may need one of you to run for a doctor
,” she said with a grateful smile.

B
ut as soon as she turned away, Jake leaned toward Dani. “Stay sharp and get to safety,” he whispered. “I don’t want that loon-bat anywhere near you girls.”

With a firm nod in answer, Dani took hold of Isabelle’s arm, then t
he girls headed back toward the dormitory buildings, following the lighted path.

The boys turned again to Miss
Langesund.

“Shall we?” Archie asked.

She nodded, then the boys followed her back to the little museum. It dawned on Jake as they went that this was the perfect chance to speak to Ragnor the Punisher again—if his spirit was back, hanging about in the ethers.

The fierce Viking ghost might be able to tell him more about the trickster god and his devilish ways.
Perhaps he’d have a few tips on how to manage Loki.

Unfortunately,
when Miss Langesund unlocked the door, they quickly found that her father was not there.

Nor was the phantom warlord.

While Archie checked beneath the boat and up across the catwalk, Jake glanced around the darkened museum with a frown.
Blast.
It seemed he had done too good a job of convincing Ragnor the Punisher to quit haunting the museum and return to Valhalla.

Miss
Langesund headed for the back door of the little ship museum. “Maybe Father’s outside. Sometimes he likes to step out back for a break and smoke his pipe on the park bench near the edge of the woods.”

When she opened the door, Archie picked up a lantern and followed her out. Jake drifted out a few steps after them, still warily eyeing the
Viking ship over his shoulder. But as soon as he stepped outside, he saw Miss Langesund ahead.

Holding up the hem of her long dinner gown, she left the trail of stepping st
ones that led away from the museum toward the woods. “Master Archie, bring the light, would you?” she called.