The Dark Portal (The Gryphon Chronicles, Book 3) Read Free Page A

Gryphon’s feathered head, hiding at least part of his large, unusual pet from the hundreds of people streaming past. “Sorry, boy,” he added when a low, indignant “caw” came from underneath his coat. “You know we can’t let you be seen.”
    With Red safely hidden, Jake rose from his seat and opened the door, leaning out with one foot braced on the metal carriage step. The brisk wind riffled through his dark blond forelock as he scanned their surroundings.
    Hmm. On the hill opposite the cemetery stood a decidedly spooky-looking, old institution building. With its redbrick towers, it was designed to look like a castle, but to him, it looked more like a jail. Or maybe a madhouse. A wrought-iron fence wrapped around the property, with tall gates closed across the entrance to the long drive that led up to the place. Then Jake spotted the sign planted outside the gates: The Harris Mine School .
    Well, t hat explained the presence of the few dozen children he now noticed milling around up by the building. The students must have been at recess, but most had stopped playing and stood motionless, watching the funeral procession in silence.
    It was odd to see so many kids in one place and yet hear so little noise, he mused. Then a robed figure caught his eye, walking back and forth along the school’s porch—a teacher or headmaster in long black robes and a tasseled cap. He seemed to be in charge.
    But when the teacher suddenly dissolved into thin air, Jake’s eyebrows shot up. Oh, a ghost.
    Right. First one he’d seen today. He had had his abilities for six months now; seeing spirits rarely startled him anymore. Still, he couldn’t help but smile wryly to himself. Those kids must love going to a haunted school, he thought. But although the headmaster ghost was his first apparition of the day, it wouldn’t be his last.
    Across the way, scores of them were floating around the cemetery—transparent, bluish versions of who they had been in life. It was a busy day up there, all right.
    A t least a dozen spirits wandered among the headstones. Some sat idly on their gravestones, chatting as they leaned against Celtic crosses or sculpted stone angels while they watched the living crowd into the cemetery to bury the new arrivals.
    I t wasn’t as though they had much else to do.
    For a moment, Jake watched a couple of child ghosts chasing each other in circles around one of the fancy white marble mausoleums where the richer folk were laid to rest.
    As he scanned the row of miniature mansions for the dead, he barely noticed the little gargoyle statue peering down from atop the roof of one, watching the proceedings with a sinister grin.
    Or maybe he had just imagined it, because when he looked again, it was gone.
    Jake frowned, ducked his head back into the carriage, and sat down in his seat again.
    Archie was right. This was an altogether grim way to start a holiday.
    They had been so jolly a moment ago, but now a vague, creepy feeling had silenced all four. Of course, the grand funeral was a tad depressing, but it was more than that.
    Something just felt…off.
    An ominous undercurrent of something very wrong in this place.
    He conceded, however , that it could be just his own private dread of their upcoming tour of the goldmine that he (a former pickpocket, of all people!) had inherited from his parents.
    H e looked askance at Isabelle.
    Unusual talents ran in their family, and if the eerie atmosphere around here—the presence of evil he felt—was real, then surely his cousin the empath would sense it, too.
    I nstead, her delicate face betrayed the fact that all the sadness at the funeral was starting to affect her sensitive soul like a contagion. Her porcelain-doll complexion looked even paler than usual; her golden curls drooped with sorrow that did not quite belong to her.
    Ja ke realized she was picking up on the grief of all those hundreds of mourners. We need to get her out of here, he thought, but the road ahead was