The Wicked Passage (A Blake Wyatt Adventure) (3 page)

“I just think you should sit down. You look kinda … bad.”

The old man grabbed his arm. “Blake, listen! This book is very powerful and very dangerous if it falls into the wrong hands. You need to be told about--”

The door exploded open. Principal O’Connor stood among several policemen and Mr. Mancuso, who shouted, “That’s the man!”

One of the policemen strode into the classroom and grabbed the frail old guy by his upper arm. “Please come with me, sir. We need to speak to you.”

“Of course you do,” he said to the policeman before he turned his head in Blake’s direction. “Do not open it, Blake. He will find you if you do.”

“Who?”
Blake asked.

“Now!”
The policeman said, pulling Price from the classroom.

Blake listened for a short time to the group forcing the old man down the hall. Then he turned back to the box. What could be making the book glow like that? He wanted to touch it, find out what was making it light up,
maybe
locate a battery pack attached to it somewhere.

He closed the door and eyed the box that contained his weird inheritance. Price told him not to open the book, but so what if he did? It belonged to him. What could be so dangerous about a book?

He reached down and
muscled
the heavy text out of the box, admiring the glistening jewels on the iridescent cover. The thing had to be worth a fortune. He rested it on a desk and ran his fingers across each jewel. Whatever was written in this book must be pretty important. Maybe he’d just peek inside. What’s the worst thing that could happen?

He gently peeled back the cover. It was the biggest mistake of his life.

CHAPTER 2

THE TOLUCAN

Imperial Regent Dagonblud, tall, imposing, with black waves of hair cascading down his back, sat on the dais and looked down in disgust. Swirling the last gulp of coriane tea around his mouth, he flicked a piece of lint from his red velvet sleeve. He swallowed the warm, green liquid and assessed the power-hungry barbarians below him. Generals brayed and croaked about ridiculous battle details, and high commissioners manipulated land deals, carving up the globe like a piece of meat. The grand assembly debates were nothing but empty-headed blather.

Dagonblud ran his long index finger over his eyebrow, trying to tame the bushy growth. He checked his fingernails for dirt and stood, thinking. Democracy was done for the day. He raised his empty magenta-colored goblet above his head and then hurled the priceless chalice to the gray stone floor, sending a spray of shards in all directions.

“Enough! You imbeciles are a disgrace to the Tolucan Empire.”

Eight hundred and fifty generals and high commissioners quieted. The indignant leader waited, unblinking, still, indestructible, until every voice was silent and every head turned toward the most powerful chair in the chamber--
his own
.

“Are you all brainless about what’s at stake here?” he demanded. “Ultimate power is within our grasp, and you pollute this chamber with nonsense. Idiots!
The whole lot of you!”
Dagonblud’s resounding voice echoed down the giant spiral of seats and into every ear in the chamber. “Soon history will be ours. Do you know what that means? When we control history, we control the future!”

He looked around the great hall and collected his anger. “The Wyatt problem has been eliminated. The conquest of history begins tonight. One of our best operatives is aboard Columbus’s flagship. The Santa Maria, however, will not find the North American continent, nor will the other two ships traveling with her. Christopher Columbus will be erased from the Chronicle of the Rellium, and the transformation of the future will begin.”

A small pool of whispers flowed through the chamber. Dagonblud focused on the sound and scouted for the offenders. Two generals, quietly talking, looked up.

“Clearly, as generals of the Tolucan Grand Assembly, you would direct your full attention to this matter,” Dagonblud fumed. “However, other issues are apparently more important to you than complete control of the future!”

The imperial regent spat into his hand. The assemblage gasped, and the officers near the two generals scrambled out of the path of the impending destruction. An unnatural force spun in Dagonblud’s hand as the deadly saliva gathered intensity. He blew the storm at the doomed men. The lethal vapor enveloped the violators and consumed their bodies, leaving only empty, limp uniforms where they had sat.

“Would anyone like to discuss my decision to remove those men from the grand assembly?”

Dead silence followed Dagonblud’s question. “That’s what I thought.” He returned to his seat. “Now let’s begin the festivities.”

Tolucan drumming started near the lower end of the spiral, and soon every hand pounded the great twisted table in celebration of Tolucan victory. Satisfied, Dagonblud allowed a triumphant smile to curl along his brutish lips. After centuries of planning, the conquest of human history was mere hours away.

“
Your
Excellency,” a weak voice whispered from behind.

Dagonblud turned to find his pale, jittery servant, Ickbarr, bowing his head. “What now?” he snapped.

The dismal scrawny man knelt on one knee. “My apologies, sir, but I have word of great importance.”

“Get on with it. You’re wasting my time.”

“Yes, Your Excellency,” Ickbarr said, continuing to bow. “I wouldn’t have bothered you if I hadn’t thought you needed to hear this news immediately, but it’s just that--”

“Yes, yes, what is it?”

Ickbarr struggled to his feet and spoke barely above a whisper. “Your Excellency, Hugo Price is nowhere to be found. And even worse, Blakemore Wyatt has the Chronicle of the Rellium and has opened the text.”

“Impossible!” Dagonblud snatched Ickbarr’s thin arm and squeezed it until the frightened servant’s face flushed to the color of sun-scorched clay. “What else, you little worm?”

“Nothing, sir,” he squealed, grimacing through the torture.

Dagonblud released the terrified servant as hundreds of scheming and restless voices swelled in the chamber below them.

“Silence!
This assembly must remain united!” Dagonblud glared at the agitated devils and decided to remain quiet about the missing chronicle. None of the weak nitwits knew the true power of the Rellium anyway. And once he seized its power, never again would the conniving vultures challenge his authority. “This meeting is adjourned!”

He strode through a door behind his chair. Worn stone steps zigzagged up a cold turret. A massive mirror gleamed on the upper landing and beyond the mirror
lay
the Tolucans’ most precious treasures: the lost relics of human history. Dagonblud stomped up the stairs but slowly sank to his knees when he approached Nura, an intricate wooden statue of an eagle with a lion’s head that glared angrily down the stairway. The regent ran his hand down her back as though real feathers lay flattened against her body.

“Come to me, my little darling,” Dagonblud said, petting the lifeless, carved piece of oak.

The wooden statue shook, sending small bits of sawdust to the floor. The wings extended, stretching wide until the creature flew down and then up the stairwell. She finally landed lightly on Dagonblud’s shoulder.

“Yes, yes, stretch your wings, my unsettled companion. Soon you’ll no longer be a prisoner in this timber tomb. The Wyatts will be gone forever, and your power will be all
mine
. You’ll see. It will be better this way.”

The griffin squawked furiously and flew to the top of the mirror.

“Stop these stupid games! I’m in no mood for them today. Do you want the leash again?”

Nura shrieked.

“Ickbarr!” he shouted. “Ickbarr, where are you?”

After a few adjustments to his elaborate velvet costume, Dagonblud studied himself in the mirror. His long black hair was graying, and gauzy films clouded his glacial blue eyes. The effects of the coriane tea were wearing off quickly.

“Ickbarr!”
Dagonblud reached into his pocket. A few delicate coriander seeds remained nestled in the velvet fibers. He pinched the seeds between his fingers. “Where’s my coriane tea?”

“Yes, sir, coming, sir.”
The slight man scrambled up the steps with the rare drink.
“Coriane, sir.”

Dagonblud grabbed the tall glass and looked inside. “Where’s the rest of it? Spilled again?”

“Sir, my apologies, sir, it’s just that these steps are so--”

“You complain about the steps? Twenty-five hundred years have tried to rot Tolucan flesh, but the tea you so carelessly spilled keeps you from becoming bones heaped in the dirt!”

“Yes, sir.
It does, sir.”

“I saved every single one of you. Without the coriane, the whole blasted empire would be a pile of ashes by now.”

“Yes, sir.
I know, sir. It has been quite a long time. It’s just that, well, sir, I get so tired sometimes. Perhaps the young ones should--”

“All these years you’ve been my servant, Ickbarr, and now you want me to toss you into the dungeon like a common criminal.
Pity.”

“No, sir!
Of course not, sir.
I would never suggest such a thing. I was merely trying to--”

“Find sympathy somewhere else, you sniveling insect.”

“Right away, sir.
We are fortunate to have the tea, Your Excellency. The Wyatts don’t seem to be so lucky with the coriane.”

“Of course not, you idiot.

“Their special abilities can’t tolerate the substance, so it certainly seems like an unfair advantage, Your Excellency. I mean the coriane tea makes us stronger but--”

“An unfair advantage?
You thankless mud turtle! Perhaps you’d rather be a shriveled sack of skin in a pine box?”

“No, sir, it’s just that--”

“What? You’d rather live among the pitiful mortals who walk that planet?”

“No, sir, of course not, sir.
It’s just that I have noticed that coriane affects the Wyatts much more than typical humans. It seems a bit unfair that--”

“Enough!”

“Yes, sir.
I’ll fetch more tea, sir. You seem to be graying faster today.”

“Out!
This time double the seeds! No more of that diluted wash water you brewed last time.”

“But, sir, almost the entire supply of coriander seeds was destroyed by Michael Wyatt. There’s not enough to go around.”

“There’s enough for me, isn’t there?”

“Yes, sir.”
He turned toward the uneven stone steps.

“And don’t spill any this time!”

“No, sir,” he called from the staircase.

The tea was made from crushed coriander seeds. It was yellowish-green and contained a compound that had preserved the youthfulness and strength of the Tolucan for over two millennia.

Dagonblud almost couldn’t believe that that much time had passed since he opened the rift into this strange new world. The memory of the first time the plant touched his skin in that musty forest thrilled him all over again. His skin, rough, creased, and overworked, had smoothed to the vibrancy of his youth as he walked through the woodland. He had grabbed a leaf and chewed it. As he swallowed the pungent, foul-tasting spit, his hair darkened and his eyesight improved. The herb gave him power over death, and he was the only one who knew where to find it.

Now, Dagonblud rolled the coriander seed between his thumb and forefinger. It was the same substance that would pierce the Wyatts’ unprotected underbelly, the potion that would destroy them all.

“Ickbarr!” he shouted down the stairs. He then turned his attention to the squawking griffin atop the mirror. “Open the mirror, you mutant little beast!”

Nura stretched her wings and loosed an earsplitting screech.

“Enough! No one defies me!” Dagonblud threw out his hand, and a force coiled itself around the creature’s neck and yanked her into Dagonblud’s waiting clutch. Nura expelled a low, sickly moan.

“Who controls your bloodless abilities?” He squeezed harder. “I control your power, and you will do what I want when I want it. Is that clear? Or have you suddenly forgotten what I can do to you?”

He threw Nura to the ground, then kicked her aside and walked to her empty perch. The shiny black column was about five feet high and a foot wide and had occupied that spot at the top of the staircase for thousands of years. The regent ran his hand along the column’s smooth surface and waited for the heat to warm his skin. “Your perch seems especially hot today, Nura. Your planet must be bleeding again.”

Nura raised her head.

“Oh, what’s the matter now?” Dagonblud feigned concern. “Are you worried about that wretched place? It must be terribly difficult to feel the destruction of your world just below your little feet. But don’t fret. Soon your planet will be dead, and you’ll never have to worry about it again.”