Blood & Magic (13 page)

“Noted.”

“The last thing for tonight then, something pertinent to what I just said. Let us look at blocking mental abilities. I am going to enter your mind, lightly, so you can notice the sensation. When you feel this, you must push your thoughts away, distance them from yourself. We will repeat this a few times and then you can practice the techniques in your mind. Do you understand?” Meyer said.

“I understand,” Henry said.

Meyer reached out his thoughts and entered the clouds surrounding Henry’s consciousness. He brushed against the outer edges, his eyes focused on Henry’s to watch his reaction. The boy flinched and Meyer pushed a little deeper, his thoughts closing around the boys like waves against the shore, the tide continually rising. Then he released, the boys muscles relaxing as the pressure in his mind stopped. The boy was pretty useless at blocking, so, for the next half hour, they practiced again and again. Meyer would have carried on, if not for the droplets of blood that dirtied his handkerchief as yet another coughing fit took hold.

“Enough for today. Take this book and start studying, you will need to have a good handle on it before we can progress,” Meyer said.

With his shaking hand pointing to the copy of ‘Gwynne's Latin’ sitting on the coffee table, Meyer stood.

“You can leave.”

The bang was incredibly loud. While loud noises which wake you always feel much louder than they are, the noise
really
was loud. Henry jumped from his seat, his forehead marked from where it had laid on the corner of ‘Gwynne's Latin’ Meyer had given him. He had been trying to get through the book all night with little success. Who knew how difficult Latin was? His eyes adjusted and he spun around to see a short, rounded woman with wild grey hair holding a metre rule in front of his face.

“What the hell?” Henry said.

As he spoke, the woman swiped the ruler on the side of Henry’s arm. He could almost feel the size of the bruise on impact.

“For Christ’s sake,” Henry bellowed.

Immediately, she hit him on the other arm, with greater force than before.

“Don’t you take the Lord’s name in vain,” the woman said.

“What the hell?” Henry said, again.

She brought the rule down on his head, his hands too slow as they rushed to block her.

“Bloody-” Henry said, but before she could finish she interrupted him.

“Be minding your language young Henry,” she said, her accent from the West Country.

The old woman struck him across his now exposed side with the rule, he was defenceless to her attacks. Retreating to the corner of the room as quickly as he could, Henry tried to take stock of things. How did she know his name? More to the point, why was there a crazy woman in his apartment beating him up with a metre rule? Priorities Henry, priorities. He needed to start asking the important questions first.

“Who are you?” Henry said.

“Who? Me, my lovely? I’m Ruth.”

“Ruth who?”

“Oh, did old Gabey chops not say I’d be coming? He is quite the naughty one. You must have thought I was mad!”

“Thought had crossed my mind,” Henry said under his breath.

“I’m here to train you.”

Great
. An old moody guy and a crazy old lady. Where was the young athletic personal trainer he had expected?

“Wait,” Henry said, noticing the only source of light was from his desk lamp. “Did I sleep through the day again?”

“No my lovely, it’s only morning,” Ruth said.

Henry’s eyes adjusted to the light enough to make out the clock across the room.

“It’s five o’clock in the morning! What the hell-” Henry said, his words cut off by Ruth as she swiped his arm with the metre rule. He really needed to watch his language around her. So far, she had caused more bruises than he had sustained the whole night he had fled from his life in the under-city.

“Now my lovely, put on some suitable clothes and we’ll begin. We have a lot to cover,” Ruth said.

Henry looked at her blankly.

“You know, tracksuit or the like? I’m your physical instructor my dear, you don’t get to sit around and have a chat like you will with old Meyer.”

Avoiding another strike, Henry rushed into his bedroom, frantically pulling out every item of clothing from his drawers in an attempt to find something to wear. Five minutes later, he had managed to find a pair of shorts that felt a little
too
short, an old t-shirt and a pair of plimsoll style trainers that just about fit.

“All right then, outside we go,” Ruth said, standing uninvited in the doorway of his bedroom.

Usually, Henry would have asked why they were doing this, but something told him asking Ruth would be a pointless endeavour. The morning air was freezing outside, the very oxygen he breathed bitter in his chest. With his keys in the pocket of his skimpy shorts and a mad woman to his right, Henry stood on the street and shook involuntarily. Disappearing for a minute, Ruth returned with an old bicycle, a wicker basket mounted on the front. With a little jump, she mounted it and cycled off, beckoning Henry to follow her.

“Slow down and I’ll gently encourage you to speed up,” Ruth said, almost cheerfully.

Ruth looked quite the sight on her bike, her stubby legs barely reaching the pedals as she jovially cycled through the streets of London, offering the promised gentle encouragement with the metre rule as Henry inevitably slowed down. They had been going for forty minutes, when Ruth came an abrupt stop in the middle of a council estate.

“My, you are unfit. We are going to have to really step things up a gear.”

“Why... Do I... Need to be able to run?” Henry said, heaving for air.

“It’s not like you look that imposing my darlin’. I think you’ll be doin’ a lot of running, but hopefully you’ll get a little more intimidating as you get more… experienced. Right then, I have a training plan sorted out for you that should cover everything. You will get Sunday off.”

“Well, that is kind of you.”

“
Rude
,” Ruth said, resting the metre rule on Henry’s shoulder. “In you go.”

She pointed to the caged basketball court beside them. Whatever was she going to do next, Henry knew it would involve him getting batted around with that rule some more. Begrudgingly, he stepped inside as Ruth followed him, indicating for him to stand in the centre of the court.

“So, my darling, you are an Ink. As part of that, you have inherited memories that have been passed from generation to generation over the last 600 years or so. Essentially, you have a lot of knowledge that you don’t even
know
you have. Problem is, you need to access it. Now, I can’t show you how to pull individual bits of information, like how to fly a plane or make gnocchi, but I can show you how to rely on it as an instinctive reaction. See, I’m betting you don’t think you have a clue how to fight, but all of your ancestors did, which means that you already know,” Ruth said shuffling around him. “To allow you to rely of this, in training I am going to hit you and you are going to block me. It’s important you relax.”

“
Relax?
How am I supposed to relax when you are hitting me?” Henry said.

“I shouldn’t get that far, the instincts will kick in and you’ll be fine. That’s the plan.”

That’s the plan
, not the most reassuring of phrases.

“I’m going to hit you now,” Ruth said, circling around him.

Before Henry could register her words, Ruth brought the rule crashing into the side of his head, knocking him to the ground.

“Bloody hell,” Henry said and immediately regretted it as Ruth whacked his left ear with the wooden rule.

“Language,” she said. “
Again
.”

The other ear was now ringing and that, unfortunately, caused him to curse again, which in turn meant Ruth hit him — again. It was a never ending spiral of pain being around her, although what had he expected? Maybe more of the ‘wax on, wax off’ Karate Kid approach.

“This isn’t working,” Henry said.

“You’ve not given it a chance.”

“I’m not even trying to defend it. Maybe my ancestors were masochists and liked a bit of abuse like this? I don’t know.”

“Oh stop complaining.”

Ruth circled him again and Henry brought his arms up, ready to defend. Maybe if he pushed his instincts in the right direction, they would know what he wanted them to do. He was pretty sure it didn’t work like that, but anything was worth a try. Ruth lunged at him with the stick again and Henry raised his arms, trying to block. He failed and the stick hit him across the middle of his forehead causing the world to become heavy momentarily. The daze slowly wore off, but it would certainly leave an interesting bruise to explain.

“What on earth was that?” Ruth said.

“I was trying to block,” Henry said.

“I said you don’t have a clue how to fight. Now isn’t the time to try and be Bruce Lee.”

“Well, what do I do then?”

“We keep practicing, we’ve got another forty-five minutes before-”

“Forty-five minutes?”

“Yes, forty-five minutes before you’ll need to run back and get ready for work.”

The thought of returning to work certainly was a little worrying. Okay, it was a
lot
worrying. What would people be saying about him, what excuse could he give for his absence? God only knew.

They practiced and practiced, first of all in silence, but eventually Ruth appeared to be getting bored. Henry pleaded with his subconscious to take over, even trying to make deals with it, but the damn thing wouldn’t kick in. He knew he must need to call it somehow, but everything he tried failed.

“So what is it you do, my lovely?” Ruth said.

Henry was struck across the chest with the rule, as Ruth attacked at random intervals. His arms weren’t getting any faster, although the pain of the strikes had now merged into a general ache across his entire body, which was weirdly preferable.

“I am a haematologist at St. Bart’s,” Henry said.

“Oh, well that doesn’t sound very interesting. Can’t imagine you meet many people?” Ruth said.

“A couple, I’m not the most… sociable of people, but there are a few.”

“This would be, now what did your file say…” Ruth said, pausing from hitting him for a moment to try and recall the fact.

“Dixie?” Henry said.

“No, it was some silly name, the one I’m thinking of. Edina, Eloise, something like that?” Ruth said.

“Elle is not a silly name.”

Ruth swiped the rule at the back of Henry’s legs and he fell backward onto the asphalt.

“Concentrate Henry.”

“I am,” Henry said, getting to his feet.

Ruth hit him again on the shoulder, Henry’s arm nearly raised in time to block it, but instead only defended the air where the rule
had
been.

“So I heard that you had a thing for, what was that name again?” Ruth said.

“Her name is Elle and I don’t-”

“Yes, said you were crazy about her, but lacked the ‘princely delicates’, shall we say, to act on it.”

“What the hell? I thought this was about training?”

She moved to his left and thrust the tip of the ruler at Henry’s chin, gently pushing him of balance, forcing him to stagger in an awkward circle around her.

“Inquisitors are supposed to be revered, respected. Not wimping around like a nervous dishcloth,” Ruth said.

“I’m not-”

“It’s not worth your effort on that one my dear. File says she is a bit of a tart.”

Ruth sent the stick crashing down toward the side of Henry’s face, but before it struck, his arm raised and his hand curled backwards, guiding the stick away.

“She is not a tart,” Henry said.

Ruth swung the stick back and swept it horizontally at him. Henry blocked it. She swung again and he dodged it, taking a step back as it whistled past.

“Sleeping with a married man and lying about it, sounds like a tart to me,” Ruth said.

“Elle is not a tart. Matt must have forced her or something,” Henry said.

Ruth came in with quicker attacks, moving the stick rapidly from one line of assault to another. Henry was blocking them without thinking, his eyes wide with anger.

“Come off it, my darlin’. She is a grown woman, not somebody to be tricked into doing anything she don’t want to be doing,” Ruth said.

“You don’t know her. You don’t know him, he’s-”

Ruth dropped the stick and came in close, attempting to hit him with her fists as she kept the pace of the conversation.

“More of a man than you are my dear?” Ruth said.

“He’s a coward, she would never-”

“Of course she wouldn’t. Come off it little’n.”

“You don’t know her like I do.”

“I don’t need to know her, to
know
she’s a tart.”

In the seconds that had passed, Ruth had levelled several punches toward him and he had blocked each without losing trace of his thoughts. She had gone in for a haymaker, her arm swinging outwards, when Henry did something surprising. He stepped into the attack, blocking it by sheer proximity and, catching Ruth off balance, firmly shoved her with his shoulder knocking her to the ground.

“Oh my God. Ruth, I’m so sorry - I didn’t mean to,” Henry said.

Ruth lay on the floor giggling to herself.

“Well, it bloomin’ took you long enough. Key was to getting you to stop thinking,” Ruth said.

“What?”

“Did you just miss all of that my dear? You’ve been pretty useless for the past hour, as it is I am going to get a mouthful from Gabriel for beating you up. Then, something Gabriel said set off a firework in my head, and, as my mother said, never ignore a firework.”

“A firework?”

“Yes, but I can’t remember why she said that. I suppose you shouldn’t ignore a firework, they do tend to explode. Not those in your mind, mind you. Now, where was I? Anyway, you just needed a little distraction. Get that mind of yours out the way, so your inner Ink can do its thing.”

Henry’s memories flashed back thirty-seconds, “You mean, if someone tries to beat me up, I need to get them to distract me so my inner Chuck Norris can take over?”

“You weren’t quite Norris dear, but yes, that seems to be the case at the moment.”

“Are you okay? I didn’t mean to-”

“Don’t be daft. I’m a Dragos, we don’t get hurt that easily, especially not by a by a little scrawny thing like you my dear.”

“Dragos?”

“Oh, I’m not here to teach you that. Can’t you see me at any rate? No, I’m being stupid, aren’t I. You’re still a fresher, not learned how to control the sight yet and my lot don’t give it away so readily. By the way Henry, I meant some of what I said — you have to fight for what you want, it won't come looking for you.”