“Like burn marks after a fire?” I said.
“Precisely. Except magic tends to have a more dramatic effect than flame. Untempered magic blasting out from a dimension full of ethereal energies into a veritable vacuum of the supernatural would wreak havoc on the earthly realm. Oh, I am an absolute dullard! I didn’t just miss the scorch marks—I was there for the explosion itself! The day the council broke through, I was here! Douglas received the blast full force. I watched it happen, I just didn’t know what it was! It’s the reason he’s a duck! I have been living with one of the scorch marks for the past three years, feeding him bread crumbs and paying him quarterly to keep my tax receipts in order!” He pulled off his hat and ran his hand through his tangled hair. “I thought that had been the end of a caper—it was just the start!”
The church shook with another tremor.
“Why this church?” he said, stuffing the floppy cap back on his head. “Why Father Grafton? How was he all mixed up in all this?”
A thought occurred to me. “Grafton knew about the shield because he had the shield,” I said. “He must have had it for years. Maybe centuries. The twain said the shield was created to protect Hafgan against anything, even old age.”
Jackaby nodded. “That would explain why I couldn’t see a curse or a jinx on Grafton. He hadn’t been attacked when we saw him; he had just stopped being protected. He had left the shield behind. We were watching countless years catch up with him all at once.”
Another rumbling shudder shook the church. Dust trickled from the ceiling, and the lighting changed. I glanced around to find the source.
“But why leave it behind?” Jackaby continued. “Why give it up? If Grafton was invulnerable, what would make him afraid enough to abandon his protection?”
There was another window. I blinked. There, on our right, a twelfth apostle had appeared. The other windows hadn’t moved, their spacing hadn’t changed—the missing apostle was simply suddenly among them.
“And if he did leave it behind,” Jackaby rambled on, completely unaware of the window’s appearance, “then where is it now?”
“Simon,” I said, snapping my fingers. The window depicted a man with slightly wild eyes, a large saw leaning to one side of him. In his hands was clasped a book, presumably the Bible. Inlaid on the cover was the symbol of a ruby red fish. Vicar Peebles’ voice echoed in my memory. “He was called Simon the—”
“He said it’s in the Bible of the—” Jackaby began at the same time.
“—Zealot,” we finished together.
I looked at Jackaby. Jackaby looked at me. We both looked at Simon.
“Oh,” said Jackaby. “That window definitely wasn’t there the last time.”
“Something fishy about that fish?” I said.
“The quakes must have shaken loose a dimensional wrinkle.” Jackaby’s eyes were locked on the glass. The fish’s tail and fins were of a slightly lighter shade of red glass than the body. “He hid the gem in broad daylight where none of us could find it,” Jackaby marveled. “It was tucked halfway into the Annwyn. That meant even I couldn’t see it. Human beings couldn’t just stumble on it, and the Dire Council couldn’t just march through a church looking for it.”
The ground shook again. The building groaned, and another shower of dust sprinkled down around us. “I don’t think the building’s going to weather much more of this,” I said.
“Whoever Father Grafton really was, the last thing he did with his very long life was enlist us to keep that gem from falling into the hands of the new Dire King,” said Jackaby. “We need to secure Hafgan’s shield before the Dire Council sends their army storming through here.”
With another creative stacking of church pews, Jackaby and I erected a slightly sturdier ramp leading up to the window. I steadied the base this time while Jackaby ran up to the hidden gem. He pried it out with a little knife and held it up to the light. “This is . . . I can’t . . . it’s astounding, Miss Rook.”
“Well, bring it down. Let’s have a look,” I said. Jackaby tucked it into his pocket and slid down to me, but before his feet were on the ground the church rumbled again. This time the quake did not ebb, but grew only more and more violent.
“Oh dear,” said Jackaby.
“What’s happening?” I said. “Did we cause that?”
“Oh dear,” Jackaby said again. The rumble had built to a roar.
“What?” I yelled.
“I’m still an idiot! The gem wasn’t just hidden, it was right where it was supposed to be—holding the veil shut!” The whole structure was shaking like a carriage on a rough road. “Grafton made it a part of the church. He set the stone dead in the center of the fraying seams of the veil. He protected his church because this church was more important than he was.”
“Quick! Put it back!” I said.
As I spoke, Simon the Zealot cracked into two and then ruptured, raining colored glass down on us and all over the greatly abused benches. The walls fractured. Lumps of plaster crashed down, and Simon’s fellow apostles began to burst.
The ground beneath our feet cracked, and I hopped across the break before I found myself trapped on the other side of the cleft from Jackaby. Emerald light poured up out of the chasm. Through the swirling mist, I could just make out Hafgan’s Hold. I was looking down on the scene from across the courtyard. The medley of monsters was no longer milling about aimlessly. They weren’t forming ranks, precisely, but they were clearly at attention. Someone was at the head of the group, addressing the crowd. Over the heads of giants and ogres and hairy beasts, I caught a foggy glimpse. There he was! The Dire King! Red eyes glowed in the shadows beneath his brow, and on his head sat a midnight black crown of tall, wicked points. Each spike was like a crooked talon clawing at the sky. Even the tallest giants bowed before him. The Dire King was readying his troops to invade.
And Jackaby and I had just unlocked the door for them.
Chapter Twenty-Five
I caught my breath and pulled my head away from the massive chasm. Maybe there was still time to fix this. Maybe the Dire King had not noticed that the enormous rift had opened. I glanced around. Daylight streamed down on us. The church had ruptured in two. The ceiling was split wide open and the back wall had largely collapsed.
“We need to get back there,” Jackaby said, heaving a thick sigh. “We need to destroy that machine now. If the Dire King has found a way to manufacture a fraction of the power his acolytes seem to think he has, then this church is only a small sample of what’s to come.”
“We need Charlie,” I said. “We need our reinforcements. We have support in the city, remember? They should be amassing as we speak.”