Charlie Bone and the Wilderness Wolf

  Charlie practically fell up Benjamin's steps and together they jumped into number twelve.

  "Keep the noise down, boys," shouted Mr. Brown from his study. "We're very busy."

  "Isn't Maisie going to give you lunch today?" called Mrs. Brown in a disappointed voice.

  "I'm not going home for a bit," Charlie replied. "It isn't safe."

  "Oh?" Mrs. Brown didn't sound very worried. As a detective she was used to unsafe places. Grandma Bone had a bad reputation, of course, but she had never actually killed anyone - as far as Mrs. Brown knew.

  Benjamin had an idea. He looked into the study.

  His father was sitting at the desk and his mother was writing at a small table, littered with papers. When she finally became aware of Benjamin, Mrs. Brown looked up. "We've been given another case," she told her son. "It's so intriguing we couldn't turn it down."

  "Any news of the wolf boy?" asked Mr. Brown. "I called the mayor, you know, but he said Wilderness Wolves were out of his jurisdiction. A bad business, Ben, very bad."

  "Well, there's no news, exactly," said Benjamin, adding, "I don't suppose you'll be having lunch today?"

  Mrs. Brown looked slightly guilty. "I think there's some bread ..."

  "It's OK, Mom," said Benjamin cheerfully. "We'll go to the Pets' Cafe."

  "What a good idea." Mrs. Brown smiled with relief. "There's lots of money in the sugar bowl."

  The sugar bowl hadn't seen sugar since Mr. and Mrs. Brown decided to give it up. It was now used for spare cash, which could mount up considerably when the Browns were on a job that required many quick-change disguises.

  At that moment, Chattypatra chose to introduce herself. She came bouncing up to Mrs. Brown, trustfully wagging her fluffy tail.

  "Not another dog!" moaned Mrs. Brown, melting slightly as she stroked Chattypatra's silky head. "She's very cute, but we really can't..."

  Charlie popped his head around the door. "It's OK, Mrs. Brown. We're taking her to the Pets' Cafe."

  "Is she a stray?" asked Mr. Brown.

  "No, but her story is tragic," said Charlie. "Ben will explain later. And please, can you tell Grandma Maisie where we've gone?"

  The Pets' Cafe was not as crowded as it had been on Saturday. There were plenty of dishes full of delicious-looking food set out on the counter. Charlie and Benjamin were the only two in the line and they were able to have a quick chat with the Onimouses. When they heard Chattypatra's woeful history, they agreed to keep her at the cafe until her fate was decided.

  "But what aboutthe little girl?" askedMrs. Onimous. "I'm sorry to say this, Charlie, but those aunts of yours should be locked up - and your grandma."

  "I agree," said Charlie grimly.

  Mr. Onimous leaned over the counter and, cupping his hand around his mouth, said softly, "And you say the brother is a ... a stone animator?"

  "Looks like it," said Charlie.

  "Nasty business. Something must be done. Mrs. Pike's perked up a bit. But she'd be a lot better if she could find her son." Mr. Onimous moved farther along the counter as a small white-haired woman and her miniature pony joined the line. "Miss Blankhoff, good to see you," said Mr. Onimous. "And how's Brunhilda today?"

  Charlie carried two plates of cheese straws, gooseberry tarts, and cinnamon cookies to a table by the window. Benjamin followed with a large bowl of beef treats, chicken drops, and kidney chips. He put the bowl on the floor and was surprised to see Runner Bean sit politely beside the bowl while Chattypatra bolted down every one of his favorite treats.

  Chattypatra withdrew her head, happily licking her lips, but Runner Bean didn't attempt to move in on the bowl until he was quite certain that Chattypatra had had her fill.

  "Will you look at that?" said Benjamin. "I mean that has to be love."

  Charlie agreed but his attention was held by something else. From his position in the window he had a very good view of Frog Street and, although he couldn't be certain, he thought he saw a familiar figure dart along the side of the wall and disappear into a group of fast-approaching goats.

  "Five goats," Benjamin observed. "Will there be room for them all?"

  "They're tiny," Charlie murmured. "Benjamin, I think I saw Joshua Tilpin out there."

  "It's not so surprising. He's always spying on you, Charlie."

  "Let him." Charlie bit into a cheese straw.

  They had to prolong their meal for another hour. The girls weren't expected until the afternoon, and by the time they turned up, Charlie had eaten twenty-five cheese straws, according to Benjamin. Charlie hadn't been counting. He felt a bit queasy.

  "Chrysanthemum tea," Mrs. Onimous suggested, when Charlie staggered up to the counter, hiccupping constantly.

  Charlie took the mug of tea and sniffed it suspiciously. Flowers floated on the top. They did smell rather nice. He'd just sat down again when Lysander arrived with Gabriel Silk. Lysander hadn't been able to persuade Tancred to part from his girlfriend. His own relationship with Lauren was far more easygoing, he informed them. Lauren had asked Lysander to say hi to everyone for her, because she always went to see her grandmother on Sundays.

  "Lauren's cool," said Benjamin appreciatively.

  Charlie hadn't spoken to Gabriel since the nasty incident with Dagbert. He felt slightly uncomfortable when Gabriel came and sat beside him.

  "How are you doing, Gabe?" Charlie cast a sideways look at Gabriel's long, permanently sad face.

  Gabriel couldn't help his expression. He might look sad but today he was feeling quite upbeat. "I'm doing all right," he said, putting Rita, his favorite gerbil, on the table.

  "Look, you didn't believe all that stuff Dagbert said, did you?" asked Charlie.

  "Of course not." Gabriel gave a melancholy smile. "I'm not stupid, you know, Charlie. I know what that fish boy's trying to do: drive us all apart so we don't help each other anymore. Well, it didn't work with me."

  "Well done, Gabriel Silk!" Olivia gave him a congratulatory thump on the back.

  Gabriel went pink. "Are you going to tell me what's been going on, then?"

  So much had happened. First they had to bring

  Gabriel up to date with the search for Asa and the death of Mr. Pike. And then Gabriel and Lysander listened incredulously to Charlie's description of the moving troll and the rescue of Chattypatra. When Olivia repeated Mrs. Kettle's account of the knight and the sword, Lysander could contain himself no longer.

  "Who is he? And what's he going to do with that sword?" Desperate curiosity caused Lysander's deep voice to squeak like a parrot's.

  "Even Mrs. Kettle doesn't know that," said Emma.

  Gabriel seemed puzzled. "Hold on," he said, putting Rita back in his top pocket.

  "What do you mean, 'hold on'?" said Olivia.

  "Hold on! Hold on! Hold on!" screeched Homer from Lysander's shoulder.

  "Shhh!" Lysander tapped the parrot's foot.

  "Shhh!" said the parrot.

  Gabriel waited until the parrot was silent and then said, "The knight was definitely wearing a red cloak when you saw him?"

  "Definitely," said Olivia. "And he had red feathers in his helmet."

  "That's interesting," said Gabriel.

  "Why?" asked everyone else.

  "Because the Red King's cloak has vanished." Gabriel looked around the circle of bemused faces. "You know the one I mean, don't you?"

  Could there be any doubt? Charlie's immediate worry was that the cloak had fallen into the wrong hands. He had always wondered how such a precious garment had survived for nine centuries. He knew that Guanhamara, the Red King's daughter, had taken the cloak to Italy when the king disappeared. It had been passed down through her descendants, ending up in a battered trunk in Gabriel Silk's dilapidated house in the hills. And just once, Charlie had witnessed the cloak's extraordinary magic. For Gabriel had worn it in a battle with Harken the Enchanter. Mild, weedy, passive Gabriel had withstood the enchanter's murderous attack and come away completely unscathed.

  "How could
the cloak just disappear, Gabe?" asked Lysander. "I mean, a priceless thing like that? A thing of inestimable value? The Red King's very own cloak?" As Lysander spoke he began to throw his arms about in a kind of frenzy. "I mean, don't you keep it LOCKED UP?"

  "Of course we do." Deeply offended, Gabriel's face was now bright red. "We are the guardians of that cloak. I suppose you don't think we deserve the honor? We treasure it; we guard it with our lives."

  "Where did you keep it, Gabriel?" Emma asked softly.

  "In a chest under my parents' bed. Sometimes, when I'm feeling a bit down, my father lets me put it on. He knows it comforts me. You understand my endowment, don't you?" Gabriel looked at Charlie and Charlie nodded. "Well, that cloak is the only thing I have ever been able to wear that once belonged to someone else. Last weekend I was depressed. I asked Dad if I could put the cloak on, just for a few minutes. He refused. When I begged him, he said, It's gone, Gabriel. Disappeared. We don't have the cloak anymore. "

  The others stared at Gabriel in dismay.

  "So it was stolen," Lysander said grimly.

  For the first time Charlie wondered if the knight on the bridge had been trying to save them, after all. And what of the sword? Could Mrs. Kettle have been mistaken? Perhaps the knight who came to her door was not one of the trusted. Perhaps he had learned of their secret language and used it to obtain a magical sword, a sword that might be used against the very people who were most in need of his help.

  Charlie got to his feet. "We've got to warn Mrs. Kettle. I'm going there right now, before she hands over that sword to a ... an impostor."

  "Charlie, wait," said Lysander. "Just because the cloak was taken, it doesn't necessarily follow that the knight is an impostor."

  "Doesn't mean he ISN'T, either." Charlie pushed back his chair.

  The next moment, Charlie was grabbed by a strong, hairy hand. "Charlie, my boy," said Mr. Onimous. "Don't go yet. I meant to tell you before. I've REMEMBERED."

  "Brace yourself!" croaked Homer.

  Lysander put a hand over Homer's beak. "What have you remembered, Mr. Onimous?"

  "Where it was - the passage under the castle. Where the wolf boy might be kept." Mr. Onimous beamed at them all, so pleased with himself for having remembered such vital information. "My great-grandma worked at Bloor's you know, just a cleaner, but a very inquisitive one. She found a trapdoor at the back of the stage. She opened it and climbed down, into a dark room with old clothes hanging in cupboards. She wanted to go farther, but her lantern went out and she was a tiny bit scared, so she came up. Later, she asked the other staff about it. There was an old man, a footman or some such, who'd been born in 1 799 - imagine - and he said, Ah, yes, there's a passage leading off that room, and it goes down and down and down, into the deep, dark earth. And there's an old, old story that says once, long, long, long ago, that passage carried on and on and on, all the way to the river."

  "We've been in that room!" said Olivia, her voice cracking with excitement. "But it was so dark at the back we didn't go too far in."

  Mr. Onimous lost his smile. "There's a good chance they're keeping that poor lad down there." He looked at Charlie. "But I'm not saying you should go there, kids, no, not at all. I wouldn't like to think my words had set you on a dangerous, maybe deadly path."

  It was too late for Mr. Onimous to take back his words. Once spoken, they had an immediate effect on Charlie. He was already bound on that dangerous and deadly path.

  16

  CHARLIE MAKES A DANGEROUS JOURNEY

  Charlie's intention was to get to the Kettle Shop as soon as possible, but there were those in the city who were determined to stop him. Maimed and scarred as he was, Manfred Bloor still exerted a terrible power over some of the endowed children. Joshua Tilpin was one of his most fervent admirers, and he was more than willing to help Manfred take his revenge on Charlie.

  Manfred knew that the Flame cats were responsible for his dreadful injuries, but they had been acting in Charlie's defense, so it was Charlie who must be punished. Besides, there was the matter of Asa. Manfred hadn't given up on the Wilderness Wolf, as everyone was calling him. A few more weeks in the dark, Manfred figured, and Asa would be his again: a savage creature of destruction who would do Manfred's bidding without question - unless Charlie Bone found the beast boy and released him.

  Charlie was aware that certain dangers lurked in the city, but he had no idea where they were, and it took him several minutes to realize he was running in the opposite direction from the one he intended. By then it was too late for him to do anything about it.

  Charlie had stopped running. He was descending a flight of narrow wooden steps that led down into an alley of impenetrable darkness. "What am I doing here?" he asked himself. "I was going to the Kettle Shop. How did this happen?" He tried to turn and climb back into the light, but he seemed to be stuck fast on the steps. The only way he could move was downward.

  "Well, I won't go!" Charlie shouted into the darkness. "I'll stay here all night if I have to."

  The steps shuddered. Charlie put his hand against the wall and, to his horror, found it sliding away beneath his fingers. The steps were moving farther and farther away from the light. As they speeded up, Charlie was thrown forward. He landed with a thump on cold hard stone. His legs felt like lead; it was useless to move them. He felt as though all the breath in his body had been knocked out of him, and he didn't have the strength even to cry out.

  Fear had caused Charlie to close his eyes. Slowly, he opened them. There was a light a few meters ahead. It came from a large, ancient-looking lantern standing on the ground. Above the light three faces were illuminated, unsmiling faces lined with hard shadows. Joshua Tilpin and the Branko twins.

  Dazed as he was, it didn't take Charlie more than a second to realize that the combined energy of Joshua's magnetism and the twins' telekinesis had drawn him down into this sinister alley. Their power was stronger now than it had been before, and pitted together, they created an almost irresistible force.

  Somehow, Charlie managed to drag a voice out of his aching body. "What do you want?"

  "We certainly don't want you," one of the twins answered with a brittle laugh.

  "You've got to make a promise," said the other twin whose voice was deeper and more aggressive.

  "A promise?" groaned Charlie.

  It was Joshua's turn to speak; in a hard, expressionless voice he said, "You're to give up this foolish quest to find Asa Pike."

  And if I don't?" Charlie muttered through chattering teeth.

  "No ifs," said the twins in unison. "You WILL give it up."

  There was a scraping noise high above Charlie. He turned his head just in time to see a large lump of stone dislodge itself from the high wall beside him. Charlie shrank back; covering his head with his hands, he waited for the inevitable blow to his skull.

  The stone never reached him. A violent gust of wind swept down the alley; caught in midair, the stone was flung off-course and came crashing down beside Joshua Tilpin. There was a high-pitched scream as Joshua was lifted off his feet and carried away. The twins, clinging to each other, suffered the same fate. Charlie could hear their feet hitting the walls of the alley as they tumbled through the air, wailing like banshees.

  There was a deafening crack of thunder and a cloud of black dust whirled overhead. The screams of the airborne children blended into a pitiful, endless wail that was gradually drowned by the crackle of thunder and the steady patter of raindrops on the ground.

  Charlie drew himself into a miserable huddle and waited for the storm to pass.

  It takes considerable energy to rouse such savage weather and the perpetrator was left feeling a little tired. He would rather let the storm die slowly than bring it to a sudden conclusion.

  When Charlie finally summoned up the courage to lift his head, he noticed that the lantern, though covered in dust, still burned. Someone had brought it closer to him. He saw two long legs encased in a pair of damp blue jeans. Dreading
an even worse attack than the one he had already suffered, Charlie's eyes traveled nervously upward. He saw a thick navy jacket, a gray scarf, and above the scarf, a smiling face topped by a shock of blond, spiky hair.

  "Charlie!" said Tancred.

  "Tancred," breathed Charlie, "is it really you?"

  "Of course it is. Are you OK, Charlie?"

  "Well, I'm not dead." Charlie attempted to get to his feet but needed Tancred's arm to steady him.

  "How did you know I was here?" asked Charlie.

  "Followed your moth," said Tancred. "I knew it was her immediately. She was in quite a state, fluttering around my head, butting my cheek; she actually bit my chin when she thought I wasn't going fast enough. As soon as I saw the great drop where the steps should have been, I knew something pretty nasty was going on."

  Charlie looked back. The steps lay in a broken heap, well below the level of the road.

  "Had to jump down." Tancred examined a splinter in his thumb. "We'll never get out that way."

  "The twins," Charlie murmured, "they're so ... so strong now, and so coldhearted. And Joshua..."

  "They'll be out of it for a bit." Tancred grinned. "Come on, Charlie. Let's get you home."

  The candle in the lantern finally burnt out, and the two boys inched their way forward while the white moth flew ahead, lighting their way. Charlie was half expecting to stumble over a body, but there was no sign of Joshua or the twins.

  "They'll be lying in a field somewhere," said Tancred. "I made sure the wind was strong enough to carry them out of the city."

  Charlie marveled at Tancred's incredible endowment. "I wish I could do something useful," he muttered.

  Tancred patted him on the back. "You're always doing something useful, Charlie. I feel ashamed to tell you the truth. Tracy Morsell kind of blew me off course for a while." He watched the bright moth hover, as she waited for them to catch up with her, and he laughed. "Do you know, that moth made me see the light?"

  "How?"

  "Tracy gave me an ultimatum. Follow that stupid moth and you're dumped, Tancred Torsson, she said. I saw her for what she was, Charlie. A manipulative airhead."