Something powerful is drawing Ward back to Devil's Island. Something he thought he had forgotten. He must evade vicious lighthouse keeper George Jaggles in order to rescue it, but Jaggles will soon be the least of his worries. Because an assassin is...
"Don't spill it, it's all you're bloody gettin," he said, dumping the mug on the table.
Nick blew the steam off the top of it and settled back in the chair. "How'd you catch him?"
"Who?" Jaggles said from the kitchen, to which he had already returned.
"Ward. I can't imagine he was planning to return here for good."
"You can't imagine much then," Jaggles said to the blackleaf pot. "He had a grand old time here."
"Where's the boat?"
"What boat?" Exaggerated pottering sounds from the kitchen.
"Uncle George. I'm not leaving without the boy."
"Better make yourself comfortable then."
"What do you want?"
"Bit of peace and quiet'd be nice."
"What do you want him for? Formed an attachment, have you? Getting soft in your old age?"
Jaggles laughed. "Yeh, that's what it is." Having run out of things to potter, he stumped back to the table with his own mug. He didn't sit down though, as if it might put him at a tactical disadvantage.
"I think I know what you want," Nick said.
"That so?" Jaggles said over the top of the mug.
Nick threw a bag on the table. It clinked.
"Bingo," Jaggles said.
"You're a coarse man, Uncle George."
"Nope, just a sensible one. Someone in the family had to be. Where you off to anyway? Let me guess. The North."
Nick was silent.
"Yep," Jaggles said. "I'll eat me frying pan if you're not."
"What do you know of the North?"
"Plenty. Got inside infermation."
"Your pere would've been the man to ask."
"If he wasn't dead. Had about as much sense as the rest of you. Called himself an explorer for Hatto's sake. No doubt explored himself off the edge of the earth."
"What's that thing behind the lighthouse?"
Jaggles gave Nick a crafty look.
"Looks like a windmill," Nick went on. "But even if you could grow grain here you wouldn't take it all the way out there to mill it."
Jaggles gave him an appraising look. "You're not completely stupid, I'll give you that."
"Where's it come from? What's it do?"
"Nowhere. Nothing."
"If I had to guess," Nick said slowly, "I'd say that it's a generator. The wind turns the blades and it generates power somehow. For the lighthouse."
Jaggles remained silent and watchful.
"If I had to guess," Nick continued, "a merchant from the North sold it to you."
Jaggles laughed, but there was a note of unease in it. "Guesses. That's all you got."
"If the Brotherhood knew what you were doing -"
"Can't a man have a few comforts?" Jaggles blurted suddenly. "I get no credit. None. Out there freezing me old bones, night after night, just so some miserable sloughs don't smash themselves to flinders on the rocks. And what thanks do I get? None. Just suspicion. Suspicion and condycension."
"That's how you caught him," Nick said. "He thought you were manning the light. But you've automated it somewhow. It runs by itself."
"You breathe a word of this -"
"Tell me how it works."
Jaggles gave him a venomous look, then he flumped into a chair. "Electrickly. Runs on electrickly from the wind. Buggered if I know how. It's made out of some fancy metal."
"Steel," Nick said.
"I bought it fair and square."
"No, the metal is called steel. It's forged from iron. The ancients could do this. I thought the knowledge had been lost."
"Where did it go?" Jaggles said suddenly, for the bag of coins, as if by magic, had vanished from the table.
"You will have my silence," Nick said, "in exchange for the boy. That is my offer."
"You bloody cretin. Of all the low acts."
"Must run in the family. Now take me to the boy."
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