Beneath this stood the detective himself, hammering in the final nail to rehang his horseshoe door knocker. The new door was a bit wider and sturdier than its predecessor, but it was already painted the same brilliant red. Built into the frame above it was a new narrow window as well—a single pane of frosted glass, into which were etched the words:
r. f. jackaby
private detective
“Good morning, Mr. Jackaby,” I said. “The new entryway looks lovely.”
“Contextual relevancy,” he said, although the words had to wend their way through a mouthful of spare tacks.
“Come again?”
He spat the nails into his hand. “The transom. Here, come closer.”
I stepped up to the landing, and the frosted glass clouded over momentarily, clearing just as quickly to reveal a revised set of words:
r. f. jackaby
mentor & employer
“That’s incredible!” I said.
“Bit of a special order. The limited clairvoyant effect is achieved through a psychic crystal suffusion in the glass. It senses the needs and expectations of each caller and generates a respective title. Come, see it from the inside.”
I followed him in. The letters should have been reversed, but the transom read the same from within as it did from without.
“The house now knows what our potential clients really think of my services before we even open the door,” he said. “I thought that might be a convenient forewarning, given a few of our most recent visitors.”
“A wise precaution.”
“Yes. I took the liberty of having them enchant it with a glamour-inhibitor charm, as well. I have no trouble telling who is what and what is who, but I thought you might appreciate knowing who you’re dealing with. Now then, speaking of visitors,” he said, depositing his hammer and spare nails casually into a drawer marked Receipts, “have you fed our unwilling guest this morning?”
“Yes, sir. And I locked up tight behind myself.”
“Good. Checked the exterior wards?”
“Just now, sir.”
“It’s Tuesday. Be sure you leave a saucer of honeyed milk out for the pixies.”
“Wednesday, sir. And I already put out fresh strawberries for the sprites.”
Jackaby gave a satisfied nod. “Excellent. Get yourself ready, then. We leave within the hour.”
“Yes, sir. Where are we going today?”
“Seeley’s Square, and from there through the veil to see a king about a council.”
“The king of the Annwyn?” My breath caught in my throat. A pair of blood red eyes burned in my memory. “Sir, we aren’t remotely prepared yet!”
“What?” Jackaby said. “Oh, not that king. There are as many kings in the otherworld as there are kings on earth. As many bad kings and as many good, but there has never been one king to rule them all, in spite of what that nasty nixie’s father says. No, no. It has taken some time, but I finally arranged a meeting with a king of a very different sort. If there is anyone in the Annwyn with a vested interest in protecting the barrier between that world and this one, it is the Fair King, Arawn. His emissaries will meet us at noon precisely to escort us through the veil-gate.”
“I suppose at this point I shouldn’t be surprised to learn you’re friends with the magical king of the good fairies,” I said. I occasionally wondered if I would ever wake up from my bizarre life in New Fiddleham to find I had really just dozed off on a pile of storybooks and scientific journals, and that I was back home in Portchester, still in England, where life made sense and fairy tales were fiction.
“Friends is not necessarily the term I would use,” said Jackaby. “I am in Lord Arawn’s debt. He presented me with the dossier of the Seer when I was a boy, just as he had presented it to the Seer before me. I would know nothing of the history of my gifts if it were not for—” Jackaby froze and looked up at the open door.
I followed his gaze to see a white-haired old man stumbling up to the landing panting heavily, his skin wan. He reached out to steady himself on the door frame, but missed, collapsing to his knees on the threshold.
Above him, the cloudy glass of the transom window was already clearing.
R. F. Jackaby
Desperate last resort
Chapter Two
The devil’s come for me,” the old man wheezed. “He’s come for me at last!”
Jackaby knelt beside him, offering him a steady hand. “There are no devils here,” he said. “Catch your breath a moment. That’s it.” His eyes narrowed. “Hold on, now—you’re familiar.”
“We have met, Detective,” the man croaked. “The church—” But he collapsed into a fit of dry coughs.
Recognition dawned and Jackaby cocked his head, startled. “My word! It’s Gustaf, isn’t it? No, Grossman? Grafton!” The old man nodded weakly. “Father Grafton. Yes. Good God, you’ve grown old!”
“Sir,” I chided.
“Miss Rook, allow me to introduce Father Grafton. We last met—what was it—three years ago? When Douglas and I were investigating a rather grisly series of killings on the outskirts of town.”
“Not my doing,” Grafton managed. “The killings.”
“No,” confirmed Jackaby. “The pastor was doing everything in his power to prevent any further harm from befalling his parishioners. Made a good show of it, too. Of course, he was at least thirty years younger then.” He whipped back to the old man. “Three decades in just three years? Have you been meddling with the occult? You know firsthand how dangerous that is! I’ll have you know Douglas hasn’t been the same since he left that church of yours!”
“Put the fear in him, did it?”
“A bit. Mostly it turned him into an aquatic bird.”
“D-dim hud.” The man’s eyes seemed to be having trouble focusing. He shook his head, blinking. “No magic. Not anymore.” A patch of wispy white hair fell from his head and drifted to the floorboards.
Jackaby peered intensely at Father Grafton. “You’re getting older by the second!”
Grafton nodded weakly.
“I don’t understand.” Jackaby peered into Grafton’s ear and then took a sniff of his wispy hair. “I don’t see any sign of a curse, no traces of paranormal poisons, no visible enchantments. Who did this to you?”
“Time,” Grafton rasped. “Not much time.” Wrinkles cut across the man’s face like scars and milky white cataracts formed in his eyes. His shoulders shook. “Harfau o Hafgan,” he breathed.
“Harfau o Hafgan? What does that mean? Is that Welsh?”
“Mae’r coron, waywffon, a darian,” Grafton mumbled, his head drooping with each word—and then he lurched up so suddenly it made me jump. He clutched Jackaby’s arm. “The crown, the spear, the shield. You cannot let him collect them. He has already taken the crown. The spear . . . it was destroyed, but I fear it has been remade. The shield . . . the shield . . .” He was gasping with each breath, his whole body shuddering. His eyes were wide and wild. “He trusted me. Now I have to trust you. The shield is in the Bible. The Bible of the zealot.”