Page 57 of Fiendish Delights
Otis wrinkled his nose. ‘Be careful! It might be dangerous!’
I nodded. Carefully holding the box in front of me as if it might somehow attack me, I thumbed the catch and flipped open the lid. When I saw what was inside, my jaw dropped.
It wasn’t an old cloak or a wooden goblet: nestled inside the box were a lot of tiny statues, half made of silver and half of gold. Everyone, including Gordon, crowded around to peer at them. There were thirty-two of them. ‘Chess pieces,’ Miriam breathed. ‘They’re chess pieces.’
I picked one up and turned it over in my hands. She was right: it was a rook. It was exquisite, carved out of gold with a level of detail that I’d never seen on a piece of metal before.
‘There’s a chessboard underneath,’ Rizwan pointed out, looking into the gap the rook had revealed.
‘The research team indicated this might be one of the treasures,’ Hugo told us. ‘If it’s set up accurately, you can play a game without the need for another player.’
Hester scratched her head. ‘So it’s a board game for people with no friends?’ She pulled a face. ‘At least it’s made out of silver and gold, I suppose.’ She looked up at me. ‘You could always melt it down.’
‘Chess is the game of kings, Hes!’ Otis protested.
She glanced at him. ‘Nerdy kings.’
‘Those pieces are larger than we are!’
‘Everything is larger than we are, Otis.’
I returned the rook to its spot and looked at Hugo. ‘We’ve got what we came for. We should get back to the car park and head for the British Museum as quickly as possible. This needs to be put in a secure vault before anyone catches wind of it.’
‘It’s exuding strong magic,’ Miriam agreed. ‘We need to get it to safety before any fiends sense it.’
Hugo smiled. ‘We can be in London within six hours if we leave now. There’s no need to stop on route. Mud’s treasure will soon be safe.’ He reached across and, without warning, pulled me into a hug. ‘You did it, Daisy,’ he murmured in my ear. ‘You found it.’
‘Wefound it,’ I said. My words were muffled by his shoulder but my glee was unmistakable. ‘We all did this.’
‘Do you hear that?’ Hester asked, interrupting the moment. There was panic in her voice.
I pulled away from Hugo. ‘Hear what?’
‘That sound.’ She shot an alarmed look around the graveyard but it remained silent.
I tilted my head and listened. Hester was right – there was an odd noise. It wasn’t coming from anywhere beneath us, andit had nothing to do with the graveyard or the abbey. The sound was coming from the sky and whatever it was, it was growing louder. A rush of air, perhaps. Or a fast drum beat. Or … wings. The beat of large, leathery wings hoisting aloft a huge body.
I turned my head up to the sky and the glowing white orb of the moon. A second later my heart stopped when I saw the outline silhouetted against it.
Cumbubbling bollocks. There was a dragon and it was coming right for us.
Chapter
Eighteen
Although this was the group that had taken on a posse of vampires in hand-to-hand combat, the sight of a dragon made everyone scatter. Gordon, who didn’t utter a sound, twisted in a lithe movement and threw himself over the graveyard wall and away from us.
Becky screamed, and so did Slim. Within a heartbeat, they were both sprinting for the abbey ruins as if hoping the old magic retained in the land and the crumbling stonework would hide them. Rizwan cowered behind the tree before making a run for the car park. Even Miriam darted away with Otis following her, his tiny arms flapping as furiously as his wings.
I gaped upwards, temporarily frozen. I might have stayed that way if Hugo hadn’t thrown himself at me, grabbed my waist and hauled me towards one of the large stone monuments erected in memory of a long-dead dynasty. He shoved me and the silver chess box to the ground behind the stone, then used his body as a shield. Only Hester stayed where she was, hovering in the air as the dragon dived towards her.
‘Hester!’ I shrieked, trying to pull away from Hugo so I could return to help her.
‘Stop it, Daisy!’ Hugo barked. ‘You have to stay down! Even you can’t beat a damned dragon!’
The dragon’s enormous shape filled the sky. It wheeled around Hester’s tiny body before landing on four massive, clawed feet. The ground shook and the vibrations affected not only the yew tree but also the gravestones.
Then the dragon opened its mouth and roared, a chilling sound that echoed around us. The force of its bellow sent Hester tumbling through the air until she smacked into the tree trunk.
