Simon laid an aching hand on his shoulder and climbed up. He went to Charlotte and tilted her chin. “Reckless. But admirable.”
“I knew you wouldn’t let me go.” She embraced him. “Even without your magic.”
Simon caught sight of Kate’s grateful, expressive eyes. That look was always well worth any risk.
Chapter 7
When Simon heard the first explosion rumble through Hartley Hall, he ran for the library. They had secured Ferghus in the cellars below yesterday and he was relieved to see the door intact. Simon opened it and heard no disturbances from below.
“Nick!” he shouted. “Are you all right?”
“Yes.” Nick appeared at the base of the stairs and started up. “What the hell was that noise?”
“I thought it was Ferghus.”
“No. He’s still down here coated in that goo. And he’s still not talking.”
Another boom sounded in the distance, and Kate appeared in the library door as Simon turned to the French windows. “The wards to the north. Something supernatural has entered the grounds.” He reached for the door handle when a series of rolling explosions shook the room, vibrating through his chest.
Penny rushed in behind Kate, balancing her brass cannon on her shoulder. She had a collection of pistols shoved in her belt, and she carried Simon’s gauntlets as well. She tossed the heavy metal gloves to him.
He shoved his hands in and flexed the fingers to test the charge. “Where are Malcolm and the girls?”
Penny stepped past him out onto the terrace. “Malcolm went for the roof with a scope. The girls went to find Hogarth and get the servants to safety.”
The floor rocked and Simon only kept his feet by grabbing a chair. He staggered out beside the stumbling Penny. The stones of the terrace were quivering and cracking.
“Simon!” came a hoarse shout from above. Malcolm hung off the eaves at the northeast corner at the front of the house, clutching a stone gargoyle with one hand and a brass spyglass in the other. He gestured out beyond the front of the mansion. “Something is in the forest. Something big. I can see the trees moving!”
Simon ran to the front corner of Hartley Hall, watching flocks of birds circling overhead and others streaming away into the distance. Kate, Penny, and Nick followed him. The vast manicured lawn stretched away from the house for about two hundred yards, dotted by shrubs and ornamental trees before reaching the distant line of heavy woods. The trees were shaking as if in a stiff wind, but the air was still. The disturbance continued to come closer accompanied by the cracking sound of wood.
A gravel road led from the front of the house and into the forest. The ground around it shuddered and undulations surged outward. Ancient trees teetered and were torn from the earth. The noise was deafening. Branches and trunks snapped as the massive forest giants were tossed aside as if a huge child were digging sand at the beach. Trees toppled into terrifying heaps of rolling and tumbling colossi, shedding landslides of dirt from their roots and raising a cloud bank of dust and debris.
Then the ground rose into a wall. That embankment became a solid wave of dirt and stone and timber some twenty feet high roaring toward Hartley Hall. Turf and arbors and statues were all dragged into the thundering swell that smashed everything in its path into bits of flotsam.
Simon grabbed Kate and Penny. Running was the only option. There was no standing up to this. As they neared the house, stones clattered loose under their feet. One by one, they fell. The moving mountain closed in on them, filling the air with a roar that pounded through their heads.
The wave seemed to slow as it came nearer. The rippling line of rocks and brush along the crest was blasted backward like an ocean wave fighting a heavy gale. Barely twenty yards from the house, the avalanche stopped dead, crashing against an unseen barrier and smashing itself to bits. The air exploded with choking dirt. Debris rained atop the huddled figures.
Then everything went still except for the sound of stones and sticks clattering to the ground. Simon was on his knees, stunned. Kate stared with her mouth agape at the proof of destruction beginning to show through the clearing haze. The entire facing grounds of the hall were a churned field. Beyond that, the grand old forest was a jagged wasteland.
“My God,” Kate breathed. “My God.”
Penny felt for her cannon, which was partially covered in sand and stones, but her eyes were wide. Her lower lip clamped between her teeth.
In the distance, something moved through the dust. A man-sized shadow grew clearer. A tall man with white hair and beard emerged from the smoking hell that just had been a peaceful forest. He stopped and stared at Hartley Hall in surprise. His eyes were angry; his mouth drew tight with bitter acceptance. Brushing dirt from his fashionable suit, he started toward the house. The ruined earth seemed to flatten out before him.