“That’s a lovely thought,” I said. “But we haven’t come close to halting the Dire King, and it hasn’t been for lack of trying.”
“You didn’t have me before.” Pavel gave a crooked smile that pulled the scars all over his face in sickly contortions. “The rend. I will take you to it. The council’s stronghold. The machine. The Dire King. He’s yours. Everything you want is everything I want to give you.”
My pulse quickened. Jackaby narrowed his eyes. “And what’s in it for you?”
Pavel chuckled again. It sounded something like a badger being strangled to death. “That’s the beauty of it. Your success is my success. I show you the way, and then I go my own way. Everybody wins. Except the Dire King, of course.”
“If we accept your terms,” said Jackaby, “that does not make us allies. The next time we meet, you will still be held accountable for the lives you have taken.”
“Wouldn’t have it any other way,” Pavel replied with a courtly and rather melodramatic bow.
Jackaby’s jaw was set. He glanced at me and I swallowed.
“Sounds foolish and decidedly dangerous,” I said.
Jackaby took a deep breath, his face leaden. And then he made a deal with the devil.
“Come in,” said Jackaby.
Pavel’s eyes were half-lidded as he grinned drunkenly across the table at me a few minutes later. He swayed in his chair.
“Am I the only one who sees that this is a terrible idea?” Jenny said, hovering anxiously over us.
“No, no,” I assured her. “We are all well aware. That’s why we’re moving forward at all. Obviously, only an absolute idiot would trust Pavel after everything he’s done. The Dire King knows that we are not absolute idiots, so he knows we would never trust Pavel. Which is why we’ve chosen to trust Pavel. It has the element of surprise.”
“So does a trap,” said Jenny. “He shows up the exact same night Morwen escapes. That doesn’t sound a little suspicious to you?”
“I don’t bother with traps, love.” Pavel smirked. “When I want someone dead, I . . . well, just ask your boyfriend.”
Jenny’s face darkened, and the air in the room dropped several degrees.
“Oh, ho, ho!” Pavel said, shivering a little in the sudden chill. “Very impressive. She must be handy to keep around in the summer. You’re better than an ice chest.”
“Jenny’s right,” Charlie said. “I don’t trust him.”
“Of course not.” Pavel flopped his head toward Charlie. “But that’s only because I would happily throw you to my least favorite wolves if I thought it might give them indigestion. See? Honest. It must not be denied but I am a plain-dealing villain. That’s Shakespeare, love. Much Ado. Don’t look so surprised. I like Shakespeare. Makes me feel classy. Classy and honest—I’m the whole package.”
“We don’t have to trust him,” I said. “But we can trust his nature. He’s a self-serving coward. He wouldn’t have come to us this vulnerable if it weren’t in his own self interest. He wants something, and we can deliver it. That’s what I trust.”
“You’re a shameless flatterer,” Pavel drawled. “Compliments will get you everywhere, my darling.”
“Please don’t,” I said. “We find the rend. We find the Dire King’s war machine. We disable it. I am not your friend. I am not your darling.”
“You think I enjoy slumming it with you lot? Misery acquaints a man with strange bedfellows, Miss Rook.”
Jackaby strode back into the room. He had one sleeve rolled up past the elbow and a slim bandage tied tightly around his upper arm. Under his left arm was tucked what appeared to be a small bundle of firewood, and his right hand held something slim that clinked like glass. “All right,” he said. “If we’re doing this, we are doing it now, tonight, before word reaches the council; before we lose the element of surprise.”
Pavel’s nostrils twitched and his lip quivered. “Detective?” he said. “Is that what I think it is?”
“You get one.” Jackaby held up three vials filled with a deep red liquid. “You will receive the next one only after you’ve shown us how to reach the rend and the council’s stronghold. You’ll get the last when I’m certain you haven’t betrayed us.”
“You’ve bled yourself?” Jenny exclaimed. “Oh, that’s brilliant. Because you’re sure to be at your sharpest right after a bloodletting.”
“Pavel will need his strength.”
“Of course he will.” Jenny rolled her eyes. “If there’s anything we should be doing, it’s making the vampire you invited inside our house stronger. Nothing could possibly go wrong.”
“Time is of the essence, Miss Cavanaugh,” Jackaby said. “Pavel’s vitality is fading. Pig’s blood has done little more than stave off death. I cannot afford to have him collapsing on us, or shambling along until the sun comes up and it becomes too late.”
He passed the first vial to Pavel. “I did not ask you for this,” Pavel said.
“I would not have offered it to you if you had,” said Jackaby. “As for the rest of you . . .” He shifted the bundle in his hands, and I saw that it was not firewood but sharpened stakes. He passed them out, one to each of us, and tucked the last one into a long, slim pocket in the lining of his coat. “These have been treated with garlic and silver dust for good measure. Add them to your traveling supplies. If Pavel gives you the faintest indication of duplicity, aim for his heart.”
Jenny leveled her stake directly at Pavel. “The faintest,” she repeated pointedly.
“Aww. It feels nice to be a part of the team, doesn’t it?” Pavel said. He popped the wax stopper out of the vial with his thumb and clinked the glass against her wooden stake. “Cheers,” he said, and downed it in an eager gulp.
Chapter Eighteen
I am going with you.” Alina was adamant. She stood in the middle of the hallway, blocking Charlie’s way.
“You need to stay here,” Charlie insisted. “I can’t take you where we’re going. It’s too dangerous.”
“Oh, but the haunted house where people get stabbed and kidnapped is safe?” she said.
“Technically, it won’t be haunted while we’re away,” Charlie tried. “Because Jenny will be with us.”
“Mr. Barker, may I have a moment?” Jackaby asked. He was tucking a slim hourglass into his coat pocket.
Charlie nodded, gave his sister one more pleading look, and then padded off up the hall after Jackaby.
“He cares about you,” I said. Alina looked at me with contempt. “He only wants you to be safe.”
“You have no idea what it’s like,” she said, “being told to wait day after day, year after year, while your big brother goes halfway across the world and leaves you behind.”
“No,” I said. “Not exactly. For me it was my father.” Alina closed her mouth and cocked her head at me.
“He was a paleontologist,” I said. “Discovered amazing things all over the world. I was supposed to stay at home and learn the piano.”
“And did you stay at home and learn it like a good girl?”
“I learned to hate it,” I said. “I understand how you feel, I really do. But this is different.”