Chapter 35

 

“Where’d that come from?” Johnny yelled.

Almost simultaneously, Uncle Ez let loose a string of expletives. “Blast!” and “Blimey!” and “Oh, darts and daggers!”

“Not fog! Not now!” Nina moaned.

Uncle Ez twisted around and bellowed at his two passengers.

“Have to take Thumper up above this muck. And hope that we fly beyond it.”

Nina turned to Johnny. “If this fog doesn’t clear up, we won’t be able to land,” she explained. “We need a visual on any landing strip, and for navigation, too.”

“And if we can’t get a visual?” Johnny gulped, thinking he might know the answer already.

“Then we fly until we run out of gas. And we crash. And die.”

So yet again, out of the frying pan and into the fire. It seemed that every time they turned a corner, there was another rotten corner that needed turning. What Johnny would have given to be back home in Zenith, listening to Captain Justice on the radio, and being an ordinary kid.

That rotor up above was awfully loud. Thump-thump-thump-thump… It was now pretty clear where the gyrocopter’s nickname had come from.

Johnny felt Thumper climb, as the air was getting colder and colder. With their luck, they’d probably fly right into a driving rain. So when they crashed, they’d be all soaked and chilled, in addition to being dead. But it was all out of his hands anyway. There was still the chance, though, that Quintus and Petunia would get through, and alert Mel and Dame Honoria about Percy’s plot.

It wasn’t exactly comfy being jammed into the rear seat with Nina. Talk about a tight squeeze. And she was getting kind of heavy. His legs were starting to go numb. He could barely move, besides. Of course, it probably wasn’t much more pleasant for her.

When this was all over, Johnny wanted the two of them to make a pledge to never admit that this lap-sitting thing had ever happened. If word ever got out, they would never hear the end of it.

With nothing better to do, Johnny shut his eyes and tried to doze awhile. Wouldn’t do any good to get all panicky. But sleep didn’t come. Not a big surprise.

Johnny started daydreaming about taking up the quest again for his lost parents—if he lived that long. He thought about the good times he and Mel and their mom and pop had had together. The trips. The family projects. The fun and games at Birchwood. He remembered how they often went to eat at Tony Weller’s restaurant, where Johnny usually got the tenderloin steak burger with its delicious mushroom sauce, or the Monte Cristo sandwich. And they would talk and talk and talk, the four of them, in the middle of this busy bustling eatery, yakking out loud about school and hobbies and work and…

Uncle Ez’s voice yanked him out of his reverie.

“We’re over twelve thousand feet now. I’m heading roughly south by southeast. That’ll get us closer to Blackfield.”

Johnny wasn’t enjoying the watery mist that was accumulating on his face, his hands, his clothes. Apparently it was real fog, not that dry stuff that had been plaguing MacFreithshire.

Just a couple of days ago he had been cold and miserable after nearly drowning in that dreadful culvert. And here was the water, coming at him once again. Not just blinding him, but soaking him. At the risk of being morbid, Johnny wondered which would be worse. To die by water? Or by flame? Well, naturally, the answer was that it’s best to live forever.

Nina had put her etheric goggles on. Johnny didn’t know why. Maybe it was to keep the mist and wind out of her eyes—the aviator goggles’ original purpose. Or maybe she thought if the goggles could help her see ghosts, they might help her to see through fog. Johnny wished they could, but he knew better.

“We just hit fourteen thousand feet,” Uncle Ez shouted over his shoulder a bit later. “Not much more room upstairs, I’m afraid. Have enough petrol for another hundred miles.”

A moment later they popped up through the top of the massive cloud and fog bank. “I can see the end of the clouds off ten or fifteen miles,” Uncle Ez announced.

That was music to Johnny’s ears. They’d be able to observe the ground again, and maybe get back on track. And if the gas was running out, they’d have a decent chance to find some place to land.

His attention had been toward the ground. But Nina urgently nudged him with her elbow and pointed skyward. “Look.”

Johnny blinked up into the blue, cloudless sky stretching above them to infinity. It was so much brighter than being in the fog that, at first, he couldn’t see much. The light overwhelmed his eyes.

Then he saw what Nina had seen.

“Holy maroley,” he said, his jaw dropping.

Soaring along, faster even than the gyrocopter, were hundreds of ghosts, scattered off into the distance. Many were mounted on horses. Others flew under their own power. And they all seemed to be warriors. From the Middle Ages. From the Dark Age. From more recent centuries and wars. Scattered among them were sea raiders and Steppe Warriors and cavaliers.

We’ve flown right into the middle of a regiment of ghosts, Johnny realized. It had to be the force that Percy was sending to attack Royalton. And down below there were probably a whole bunch of bog zombies heading toward the great city.

Johnny had to get down on the ground now and sound the alarm. This was real proof that an attack was on the way.

“Uncle Ez,” he hollered. “We’ve got to land as quickly as we can. We’ve got to tell people what we’re seeing.”

Uncle Ez twisted around as best he could, looking puzzled. “What’re we seeing, then?”

Johnny had forgotten that Uncle Ez didn’t have etheric vision. He had no idea they were surrounded by deadly combatants.

“There’s a ghost force all around us,” Johnny said. “And I think they’re heading for Royalton. Take us down first chance you get.”

Uncle Ez nodded, then gave Johnny the thumbs-up sign.

“Uh-oh,” Nina said rather loudly.

Johnny’s blood was cold already from the fog, but it cooled a few more degrees upon hearing her utterance.

“What?” he asked dismally.

“Over to the left. Is that who I think it is?”

Johnny twisted his head. There, a hundred feet away, was a Steppe Warrior charging along, seemingly oblivious of the gyrocopter. It looked an awful lot like Burilgi. If it was him, and he should happen to see who was sitting in this rear seat, they were utterly defenseless.

“Nina, you’re right. I think it might be Burilgi. Pull up your hood and slump down, like you’ve fallen asleep. I’m gonna do the same. With any luck, he won’t even notice us. And take off your goggles—they’re a dead giveaway.” Nina did just that.

Johnny leaned against the side of the aircraft facing away from the Steppe Warrior. He would wait a moment, then take a peek. By then, Burilgi should be gone. The ghost, after all, was flying faster than the gyrocopter.

Johnny counted up to sixty seconds. Then he slowly moved, still keeping his face hidden, until he could see off to the left.

He managed not to jerk in surprise. If he had, it would have been the end.

There was Burilgi, not forty feet off Thumper’s port side, galloping along, regarding the aircraft and its occupants with a certain curiosity. Of course, Uncle Ez wasn’t aware of those empty eye sockets coldly studying him. But Johnny and Nina had to convince the warrior wraith that these wet, chilly passengers were unworthy of his interest. Lucky, Johnny thought, that Nina was wearing the black, hooded jacket. Burilgi couldn’t even see her face.

But the Steppe Warrior came in closer yet. Johnny thought that those bleeding eye sockets revealed some glimmering of recognition. The specter seemed to know who they were!

A scowl formed on Burilgi’s flat, cruel face. He began to withdraw his sword from its scabbard.

Johnny was frozen in place, unable to do anything but watch that curved blade reveal itself. There was nothing he could do to defend himself and Nina. Without even thinking, he held on to her even tighter. Twelve and three-quarter years wasn’t a long time to be around, but at least he’d packed it with a lot of neat adventures. It could’ve been worse. And they wouldn’t die alone.

Just as Johnny was saying his final goodbyes to the world, their rescuer—who had no idea he was rescuing anyone—came dashing out of nowhere, right up to Burilgi. Another Steppe Warrior.

The two ghosts exchanged a few words. With the noise of the rushing wind and the thumping rotor above, Johnny had no idea what they said to each other. But it caused Burilgi to re-sheath his sword, give one contemptuous look in Johnny’s direction, and charge forward with the other ghost. They easily outpaced the gyrocopter and flew quickly out of sight.

“I think we’re okay,” Johnny told Nina. “You can straighten up.”

“What happened?” she asked breathlessly. “I feel practically blind now without my goggles.”

Johnny told her. He was about to inform Uncle Ez that they had just had a very close call when he noticed that the gyrocopter was descending. There was clear visibility beneath them, the rolling green landscape stretching out ahead.

Uncle Ez twisted around and shouted back to them. “We’ve had a bit of luck. I can see Chapswith Castle down there, with its oval moat. Blackfield and Wickenham aren’t too much further.”