Free Brimstone and Lily (Legacy Stone Adventures) by Terry Kroenung

fright.
    “Dunno,” I said. “Is it breathin’?”
    “Well, go look.”
    “ You go look.”
    Eddie raised an eyebrow at me. “You’re the one with the ferocious fist.”
    I looked at Jasper. The tin cup had sprouted a shiny steel cartoon fist almost two feet square. My own eyebrow went up, because Jasper’s weight hadn’t increased. This magick stuff could almost be fun. Well, except for the screaming, running, and perhaps dying horribly part.
    “OK, you win,” I said with a shrug. “Jasper, sword, please.” The big funny hand shimmered and shrank into Morphageus again. I crept up to the fallen giant with as much stealth as I could manage. For all I knew he just shammed to draw us closer.
    “He’s movin’ a little,” I said. “Boy, he’s a big cuss. I think--whoa! Eddie! Come here and help me!”
    I knelt next to the tree I’d felled. With Eddie on the other side of him we managed to haul him up till he sat upright. It took a lot of effort and energy, which I had in short supply, to hold him there. He smiled at me. My Stone returned a rosy hello. This is no enemy.
    “You packs a mighty punch, Miz Verity,” said Romulus, rubbing his sore chest. Giant knuckle marks still lived on his shirt. “How do, Mister Eddie.”
    “We thought you was gonna eat us,” I said, hugging him. My arms didn’t reach anything like all the way around him.
    “Child, that’s the first time anybody said that to ol’ Romulus since---”
    “Since he almost ate me,” Ernie said, hopping out of my haversack and onto the big man’s belly.
    “Why, Mister Ernie! I’m sho’ glad you’s here to look out for these here chil’n.”
    My eyes bulged. “You can understand each other?”
    “Course we can. We’s both Marshals of the Equity.”
    Great. One more thing I don’t understand a lick of. If the monsters don’t get me, sheer ignorance will do me in.
    “Will somebody please tell me what’s goin’ on! I’m at my wit’s-end here.”
    Romulus touched the top of my head with his giant paw. It amazed me how gentle it felt, like a baby’s breath. “We been yo’ bodyguards, Miss Verity. Lookin’ out for you ever since you got to Washington. Keepin’ you safe.”
    “From what?”
    Ernie turned to look up at me. “From the Hon’rable Merchantry, of course.”
    That didn’t help me any. “And just who is this Merchantry? Evil bankers and railroad men and such?”
    “Oh, no, miss,” said Romulus, standing with a groan. Ernie scampered up his bulky body and onto his shoulder. “The Honourable Merchantry is sorcerers. And they runs the whole world.”
    “You mean…like black magick?”
    “The blackest, lovey,” Ernie nodded. “And they want to get hold of you and your Stone.”
    “You a threat to them,” said Romulus.
    There was a long pause while I thought about this. I could hear gunboats swooshing through the Potomac half a mile away. An owl hooted from atop the Smithsonian’s turret and at St. Bart’s the clock tolled ten. My nose caught the scent of flower beds a block distant, even when competing with the gagging smell of the Canal. All this I could accept, no matter how unbelievable. But the thought that wicked magicians were bent on pursuing a twelve year-old tomboy to the ends of the earth because of her daddy’s gift? Too much.
    “This is all some kinda mixup,” I protested. “A mistake.”
    Jasper’s voice piped up inside my head. “Do you know what would’ve happened if anyone but you had tried to take the Morphageus off the chamber wall?”
    “Nope. An alarm bell would’ve rung, maybe?”
    “Their bones would’ve collapsed into ash and their skin would’ve
    fallen to the floor like an old gunny sack. Then their brains would’ve run out of their ears like warm custard.”
    I winced. “No mistake, then.”
    Romulus shook his head. “Oh, no, miss. You’s the Stone-Warden, that’s certain.”
    “The Anointed One,” added Ernie.
    “She who will restore Accord and Harmony,”