David Baldacci - The Keeper

I reached out my hand and Harry Two obediently opened his mouth and allowed me to retrieve the ring. I wiped it off and put it on, careful to keep the three-hook side up so I wouldn’t vanish. Then I took the book back and looked down at it.

“An awful, terrible Wug,” said Delph solemnly.

“I know. But with this book, I think we have a chance to make sure he’s an ex-king, Delph.”

“How d’ya mean?”

“This is proof of the evil things he’s been doing to the ekos and gnomes.”

His features widened in understanding. “Right, we can give it to Luc and he can... he can use it to fire up the ekos like. There’s no way they’d remain loyal to Thorne after learning he’s been killing their own kind like that.”

“But first we have to make sure that Thorne can never attack Wormwood.”

“This has to end soon, Vega Jane,” said Delph. “He knows we’re up to something. We’ll never get another chance.”

“It will end soon, Delph. It will end next light in fact.”

Delph looked at the ring.

“There’s a lot more to your grandfather than we thought,” he said.

“I think there’s a lot more to everything than we thought,” I said back.

And I did not mean this in a good way.

The next light found us outside for another go at flying Thorne around.

As I readied for our flight, he looked at my arm.

“Cut yourself, did you?” he said pointedly.

I shot a glance at where he was pointing. There was blood on my sleeve from where the stone fragment blasted off by the morta shot had hit me.

“I caught it on a jag of rock.”

He gave me a dismissive look and stared up at the sky, which was quickly turning dark and foreboding. “Looks like a storm is coming. Shall we get on?”

When I started to strap Thorne into the harness, he shook his head.

“Positions reversed this time, my dear. I shall carry you .”

Since I had no choice I allowed him to harness me up and then we kicked off and sailed upward.

The ride up was bumpy as the winds pummeled us. We quickly became soaked as the rain began pelting down. I was glad of my goggles. A skylight spear shot sideways above us and the accompanying thunder-thrust was nearly deafening. I felt Thorne tense above me. It seemed the bloke was scared of a bit of rain and noise.

“Everything okay, O mighty king?” I asked snidely.

He didn’t answer. Instead, I felt him wriggling above me. I couldn’t tell at first what he was doing. But then it became quite clear as the harness started falling away from him. He had unbuckled it from around his torso. And since he was the only thing keeping me up, that presented a bit of a problem for me. A problem I solved by reaching back and grabbing Destin with one hand.

Unbalanced, we immediately went into a dive.

“Let go,” he roared, kicking at me.

“Not bloody likely,” I yelled back.

We swooped, barrel-rolled, somersaulted and plunged across the stormy skies.

He kept kicking at me and I kept parrying the blows.

Then I grew tired of that and drew back my fist and walloped him across the face. Blood from his nose spurted so fiercely that it splattered over both of us.

He looked down at me in shock. “You broke my damn nose.”

“Here’s another just for the Hel of it.”

I punched him again, giving him a black eye, and then I added a kick in his belly for good measure. I was a female, ’tis true, but I was tougher than just about any male of my acquaintance, including this git!

He gripped my hand with both of his and tried to peel my fingers from the chain. He managed to pry three away. So I turned to face him and wrapped my legs around his torso. With my legs supporting me, both my hands were free. And I used them to sound effect.

I struck Thorne over every part of his body I could reach. All the hatred, loathing, disgust and just sheer fury I had pent up for this bloke was finally unleashed. I was hurting him for every vile thing he’d done to us. For every ekos and gnome he’d cut up. For every grubb he’d killed. For murdering Murgatroyd. And simply for being the biggest, most evil prat I’d ever had the misfortune to meet.

After a dozen hits, I thought I had very nearly knocked him out. But there was more fight in the old Wug than I gave him credit for. I didn’t see the blow coming in time. His fist slammed against my face so hard I thought I felt all my teeth loosen. Thorne was old but he was big. Another blow to my face caused blood to fly from my nose and my face to puff up. I felt woozy and sick. But I was not about to let this git beat me. Thinking he had an advantage, he threw another blow, but I blocked it with my arm, the pain rattling up and down the limb. Then, keeping one leg wrapped around him so I wouldn’t plunge to the ground, I drew my other leg back and kneed him in a spot no male ever wanted to be hit. He groaned and went limp.

“Oh no!” I cried out.

Though I had won the fight with Thorne, our combined equilibrium had now been upset by his nearly being unconscious. We fell into a steep dive. I bent my head back and looked down. The only thing I could see was a mass of tree canopies coming at us sickeningly fast.

Thorne must have seen this and roused himself. “You’re going to kill us both,” he screamed between the gap in his teeth I had caused by knocking a front one out.

“Well, you were trying to kill me,” I shouted right back.

I spun us around so that I was on top. I gripped Destin with both hands, like the reins on a slep, and arched my neck and shoulders. Foot by foot we started to point up. As we finally soared upward, my boots brushed the tops of the tree canopy.

Then a skylight spear and accompanying thunder-thrust struck so close that it jarred me loose from Thorne. He seized on this opportunity by grabbing me by the hair with both hands and ripping me away from him. Then he let go, which was perfectly fine with me because unbeknownst to him I had slipped Destin from around his waist while he was mauling me.

I secured Destin around my waist and looked up just in time to see Thorne falling like a boulder.

The mighty king was screaming like a frightened baby Wug.

“Help me, Vega!” he screamed.

Part of me didn’t want to do a thing. Let him fall and good riddance to the jumped-up git. But another part of me couldn’t let the bloke die, at least not like that.

I suppose that’s what separated the likes of him from the likes of me. And the fact was, a fast death was not justice enough for him. Not by a long shot.

I pointed my head and shoulders downward and shot that way as if I was propelled from one of Thorne’s cannons. I grabbed him by the hair, to see how he liked it. When we landed, we hit softly enough to barely cause a stumble.

The next moment, a short-barreled morta was leveled against my head.

I had beaten Thorne to a bloody pulp. His face was swollen, nearly unrecognizable. And I’m pretty sure I had cracked a rib or two in addition to my facial injuries.

“I just saved your life,” I snapped.

“And I’m about to take yours,” he said, a completely deranged look on his bloody face.

The next instant, he was lying facedown and his morta had flown away. I looked down at Harry Two, who was perched on Thorne’s back. Harry Two then bit Thorne in his left buttock. The king screamed before I coshed him on the head with my booted foot, knocking him out.

“Come on, Harry Two,” I said urgently. “Quick.”

I snatched up the harness, which had hit the ground near us, and donned it. Harry Two jumped into my arms and I quickly buckled him in. I jumped straight up and we soared into the stormy sky like a fired arrow.