Mary collapsed onto the ground. “By the founder! Who would have thought that attacking a piece of wood would be so tiring?”
I laughed and pulled her to her feet, then set about showing them all how they could use their feet as well as their hands to develop and implement attacks. That was less successful, and both Aqmar and Deborah lost their balance twice, falling backwards and leaving themselves open to potential side attacks, but I was satisfied for now. I set them all homework: to come out and practise at least three times over the next week, and then left them to it, the four of them lying on the ground and giggling like school children. Which I supposed they actually were.
Heading back to the main building, I undid the corner of my robes, and let them fall softly down to my feet, noting that once again I seemed to have managed to crumple and wrinkle the material. I shrugged to myself, for a moment idly wondering how on earth the other mages managed to always look so pristine and well turned out.
At least the mages weren’t obliged to always wear the robes once they were out of the academy, I figured. I still had a vivid image seared into my brain of the bizarre clothes that Martha, Mary’s sister, and her Star Trek buddy, had been wearing when I’d kicked the shit out of them up in Inverness, and I knew I’d definitely never seen Alex wearing any robes when he’d been in either Cornwall or London. Maybe their, um, individual attire was as a direct result of being made to dress like idiots when they were training.
I rounded the corner of the main bu
ilding, wandering back on a different route, this time swinging left rather than right so that I was closer to the training blocks than to the gardens. Humming away to myself with the success of the morning, I didn’t notice the figure leaning against one of the walls until I’d virtually passed him.
“Well, someone’s having a truly bodacious day,” drawled a familiar voice.
I spun round, heart suddenly leaping in my chest. “Alex?” I bear-hugged him then pulled back to look him over. “I was just thinking about you! How the bloody hell are you? What are doing here? Are you staying long?”
“It’s good to see you too, Mack Attack. And I’m good, here to see you and staying for as long as you need me.”
This was almost too good to be true. The last time I’d seen my magic surfer buddy had been after I’d broken into the Ministry’s headquarters. I’d kind of had the idea that I’d perhaps gotten him into trouble by mere association. That, and the fact that he’d been a true friend to me by refusing to give up my real identity as a Draco Wyr to the Arch-Mage. I hugged him again.
“Really? You’re really staying?”
“A little bird told me that you might be in need of a bit of help and support. So as long as there aren’t any Otherworld nasties around that I have to fight on your behalf then I am here, natch. The Arch-Mage dude has released me from my other duties. I will be the surf to your swell, the flat to your gnarly, the bomb to your point break.”
“You realise I have no idea what you’re talking about, right?”
“Mack Attack,” he shook his head sadly, “nobody ever does.”
I beamed my happiness at him, ignoring for once the stupid nickname.
He leaned over and whispered in my ear, “Mack, I also really need your help. I’m in so much trouble and I’ve really screwed up.”
This time, when he pulled away, his eyes were filled with worry and his brow was uncharacteristically creased.
Prickles of answering heat pulsated through my veins.
There wasn’t any time for Alex to even open his mou
th to begin to explain what the matter was before the damn bell rang again, presumably for lunch as today was a Saturday, and the area suddenly filled with initiates wearing robes of every potential colour under the sun. Fractious flames rippled up and down my spine at the forced interruption.
“Where on earth do they all come from?” I muttered.
Alex smiled half-heartedly and began to pull me in the same direction as the others were heading. “I’m now your Divination teacher,” he said, in a voice that was considerably calmer than the one he’d used to broadcast his whispered plea.
“Huh,” I replied, mirroring his attempt to appear completely normal. An utterly pointless act given that anyone watching our movement through the crowds would have picked us out as anything but
ordinary. It was as if there were some kind of strange invisible barrier about a metre around the pair of us that no-one else dared to cross, even though they were squashed between the exterior walls of the various surrounding buildings. I would have been tempted to start veering off in different directions, just to see what happened, if it hadn’t been for the gravity of what Alex had just said and my desire to get somewhere fast where we could talk without being overheard.
“So how did you swing that one, then?”
I said, with every semblance of appearing unconcerned that I could possibly muster up.
“
Turns out it wasn’t that hard after all. I went to speak to Higgins, the normal Level One Divination dude and he seemed only too happy to let me take you off his hands. It was almost as if he was frightened of you.” Alex raised his eyebrows slightly, floppy blond hair falling to the side over his suntanned face. “I can’t imagine why anyone would be afraid of a skinhead ex-shifter who can shoot freaky green fire from her fingertips and who was prepared to break into the Ministry stronghold just to have a little chat.”
I shrugged. “
The skinhead thing is only temporary. And it wasn’t just a little chat that I wanted. I was trying to save my friend - I’m
still
trying to save my friend. It turns out your ‘Magnificence’ is the commitment type.”
He put his arm round my shoulder and glared a
t a fresh-faced looking initiate who was staring at me with what could only be described as the same way an arachnophobe would inspect at a giant hairy tarantula. And I’d thought that between Mary and her friends, relations between myself and the other Initiates were improving. More fool me.
“Yeah, where is your friend?” asked Alex. “Last you told me she was in Inverness with you. I know the place you were in burnt down to the ground, and I know that it can be virtually impossible to move someone with enforced inhibitory gnosis even if they are as strong as you.”
I was surprised that the
Arch-Mage hadn’t already told him, and despite the throng of students around us couldn’t see that it was supposed to be a secret. “She’s in Tir-na-Nog.”
I could feel Alex’s
muscles stiffen even through the thick material of my robes. “No way, dude.”
I nodded solemnly. “Yes way, dude.”
“Is that where you left your hair?”
I winced. “No, that’s another story.”
“Well, now I’m here full-time you’ll have plenty of opportunity to spill it to me.”
I smiled, trying to focus on my happiness that my old friend was here with me, and not on the tug of fiery worry that churned inside me.
Chapter Ten
Rather than following the streams of hungry students i
n the familiar direction of the cafeteria, Alex and I peeled off and wound our way through the other buildings until we reached the end. He led me to a small stone bench set into a snug bricked off alcove round the corner of the crumbling Protection block. We both sat down, facing outwards.
Alex wrung his hands and sighed deeply. Then he turned to face me. “Mack Attack, I’ve really fucked up. I don’t know what else to do or who to talk to.
”
I stared across at him, empathy and
concern filling me. “You can tell me, Alex. What has happened?”
A bird chirruped overhead and he almost jumped out of his skin, his eyes tracking it nervously until it flew off. “You never know who might be listening,” he muttered.
Feeling nervous now, as well as worried, I reached and put my hands over his. “You know you can trust me, Alex.”
He nodded, then looked up to me with angst filled eyes. “I had a job last week. A Divination job. That’s where I have to…”
I interrupted him. “I know what Divination is.”
He shook himself. “Of course you do. Anyway, the job was to track down some daft objet d’art for this vamp.”
“You work for vampires?” I couldn’t prevent myself from recoiling ever so slightly.
“Of course we do. Do you think that shifters are the only ones who need to use a bit of magic now and then? They’re not all bad, Mack
, they just have some unpleasant eating habits. Anyway, are you going to keep interrupting or can I tell my story?”
I shook my head in apology, now more worried than ever. The note of irritation in Alex’s voice was not at all the friendly surfer dude that I knew. I squeezed his hands to continue.
“Anyway, I had to retrieve this thing, some kind of statue. A wooden sculpture of Athena called the Palladium. According to mythology, it was held within the walls of Troy and the legend went that as long as it remained there, Troy would remain undefeated. So, unsurprisingly, Odysseus and his mate Diomedes sneaked in and nicked it, Troy fell and blah de blah. Then the Palladium ended up in the hands of the Romans, but of course it didn’t stay there for long. The vamps somehow got their hands on it and used it as a symbol of their omnipotence and undefeat. Naturally it was all bullshit though.”
“Naturally,” I murmured.
“The vamps’ stronghold was broken into years ago by a wraith thief called Tryyl, and several artifacts were taken, the Palladium among them. Tryyl was caught and tortured horribly and the vamps recovered everything pretty much apart from the statue. Nobody really cared all that much. It was ceremonial and the vamps felt their honour had been restored through the mental and physical destruction of Tryyl so although they looked for it, they didn’t really search all that hard, you get me?”
I nodded.
“But this old vamp, powerful dude, someone who’s been around for several hundreds of years, was reminiscing with a bunch of his bloodsucking buddies and decided last month that he’d like to see if he could get it back. I think it was some kind of dare or something, I dunno. So instead of getting his own hands dirty, he calls in me – or rather he calls in the Ministry – and pays us a bunch of money to get the Palladium back for him. I track it, eventually find it buried in an old cellar in a cottage up in the Lake District and give it back.”
I was puzzled. “So what’s the big deal? It doesn’t do anything, it’s not going to hurt anyone and you did your job.”
“See that’s just the thing,” said Alex, pulling his hands away from mine to run them through his hair. “When I initially started tracking the Palladium, my inveniora, that’s…”
I nodded, “Yeah, I know what that is.”
“Okay, my inveniora did something really strange. It sort of split off into two. At first I thought maybe it was because the statue had been damaged somehow and was in different sections – we’ve had that kind of thing happen before. So I just chose one randomly and followed it. When I got to the end, the statue was there all whole and shipshape and not damaged in the slightest, so I picked it out from the rubble and gave it to the vamp.”
“Right. But?”
“But then I got curious. I wanted to see what else had triggered the inveniora. So I went looking and found this.” He dug into a satchel that was lying by his side and pulled out a small wooden statue.
“Uh, Alex, that looks like it might be…,”
“The Palladium,” he said miserably.
“So what did you give the vamp?”
“Well, I checked up on the Othernet, trying to see if maybe there had been two statues. There hadn’t. But what I found was another wooden statue called the Ancile. It’s meant to have appeared on earth much later than the Palladium, but it’s much more powerful. It’s made of the same stuff as the Palladium, and is meant to be indistinguishable from other similar wooden statues if it’s stolen. Which is why my inveniora couldn’t tell the difference between it and the Palladium. What the Othernet also said is that it belonged to Mars himself, and that if wielded in battle and touched by blood, it would cause fire and war and destruction.”
“And you think that you gave the Ancile to the vamps?”
“Yeah.”
“And that because blood is their dejeuner du jour, you think that they will set off the Ancile if they touch it.”
“Yeah.”
“Okay. Well, why don’t you just tell the vamps that you made a mistake? Get them to give you the Ancile in return for the real Palladium.”
Alex looked unhappily down at his feet.
“Oh, I see,” I said slowly. “Because you think that once the vamps realise what they have in their possession, then they won’t want to give it up.”
“Got it in one. Yeah, vamps aren’t always as bad as everyone makes out, but they’re not going to give up a relic of that kind of power just because I asked them to.”
“Get the
Arch-Mage to ask them to. Surely they’ll want to keep in his good books.”
“Yeah, I could do that. The thing is…” His voice trailed off.
“What?” I prodded.
“Well, the thing is that the
Arch-Mage isn’t doing so well right now. A lot of other factions are unhappy with the way he’s running things. They’re just looking for an opportunity for him to screw up and they’ll jump right in there with a vote of no confidence.” Alex looked at me with panic in his eyes. “Mack, I can’t let that happen. I can’t let my fuck up be the reason that he’s ousted from power. The Ministry will disintegrate. There’ll be in-fighting and power struggles, and people will die. And it will all be my fault! And that’s even if the vamps decide to give the Ancile back. If they decide that they’re going to ignore the Arch-Mage – which they might well do – then things will be even worse.”