" Child!"
Mr. Canis roared. "You have tested my patience long enough today!" He leaped forward, talons already drawn as if prepared to rip the fairy to shreds.
"Wolf!" Hamstead shouted, stepping in between Moth and the old man. "Back away."
Canis eyed Hamstead for several moments.
"I can see you in there, mongrel," Hamstead said. "You come out and you'll get more of what the Three Little Pigs gave you before."
Something inside of Canis seethed but it did what it was told. Most of the old man's wolflike features shrank away.
Hamstead turned and addressed everyone. "We need to regroup here, folks. We're trying to catch Cobweb. Not kill him." He looked at Moth. "And we shouldn't be fighting among ourselves. If anyone can't work as a team, she should go back to the hotel. 'Cause to be honest, you're in the way. But if you want to catch our suspect, and he is only a suspect right now, then let's start working together."
Bess gave Hamstead an admiring look and a squeeze on the arm. Moth, however, gave the portly ex-policeman an angry scowl and muttered something offensive under her breath.
"Look, he left footprints in the snow," Daphne said, finally pulling free of her sister.
"Daphne Grimm! Well done!" Mr. Hamstead said. "If we follow these prints they'll lead us right to him."
Everyone nodded, even Moth, and they set out to follow the tracks.
As they walked, Sabrina tried to engage her sister. "That was stupid of you to get into that fight," she said. "You're stupid," Daphne said.
"You could have been hurt. Why would you take such a risk?"
"I'm going to have to take bigger risks now that I'm on my own," Daphne replied.
Sabrina stopped in her tracks, and watched as her sister hurried to catch up with Mr. Canis, who was leading their group.
Granny joined Sabrina and gave her a sad smile. "This is her choice, liebling,"
"So I should just let her get killed?"
Granny shook her head. "As long as I'm around I won't let that happen."
The prints led into Battery Park. In warmer weather, the park would be filled with tourists waiting for the boats to the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island. Now it was almost empty. The Staten Island Ferry, a commuter boat that took people to the city's remote island borough, docked nearby as well, and it was into the ferry terminal that Cobweb's tracks led. Sabrina helped her grandmother up the snow-covered ramp to the waiting room inside. There the group drew many stares from the terminal staff. Sabrina realized that most were gazing at Mr. Canis--all seven feet of him.
"Look, there's Cobweb!" Moth shouted. Sabrina turned in the direction the fairy girl pointed only to see a boat pulling away from the dock. Cobweb sat on the railing looking back at them. His face was grim and cold.
"I'll get him!" Moth said as her fairy wings popped out of her back.
Granny snatched her arm and held the girl back. "We'll wait for the next boat." Moth reluctantly retracted her wings.
"By the time we get to Staten Island, Cobweb will be long gone," Daphne said.
"You have bigger problems than that," a rough voice said from behind them. Sabrina turned around and saw a half-dozen men with skin the color of copper and jet-black hair coming toward them. Their leader had dark eyes as fierce as any she had ever seen. He spoke again, "You know as well as I do that fairies are not welcome on docks controlled by Sinbad the Sailor."
Sabrina instinctively stepped between her sister and the stranger. She'd read
The Arabian Nights recently, researching jinnis that might help her rescue her parents. The story of Sinbad was fresh in her memory. He'd gone on seven voyages and each trip had nearly killed him, though he had seen some fairly amazing things, including ogres, jinnis, and fish disguised as massive islands. He'd killed hordes of monsters, too. She didn't remember him as a villain, but she'd learned the hard way that sometimes the good guys switched sides.
"Is that so?" Moth said angrily to Sinbad. "Well, what are you going to do about it?'
The sailor's men pulled nasty-looking daggers out of their coats.
"No fairies on the ferry," Sinbad said. "Oberon may have been able to force us to pay his lousy taxes, but he's dead. I'm not about to let some other fairy come in and take our hard-earned money."
"We're not fairies," Daphne said. "We're detectives and we're trying to find the person who killed Oberon."
Sinbad cocked an eyebrow. "Praise be! Can it be you? Can it be that I am in the presence of Veronica Grimm's children?"
Daphne nodded, and the men put their daggers away.
"I am honored to meet you," Sinbad said. "It was a dark day in my heart when your mother vanished. What brings you here?"
"The fairy who killed King Oberon is on the boat that just left," Granny Relda said.