Science and Sorcery (25 page)

...But it still didn't feel right.

As the night wore on, he walked from cage to cage, watching how the different werewolves reacted to their confinement.  Some were howling balls of anger and rage, tearing away at the cages and themselves, others just watched and waited for their captors to make a mistake, as if they’d fallen into a different subspecies of werewolf.  Golem
had
said that there were several different kinds of werewolf, including some who could shape-shift from human to wolf and back again at will.  Maybe the genes of all kinds had been passed down from generation to generation, none of them knowing of the time bomb buried within their DNA.

***

By the time the sun rose, everyone on the base was tired and worn out.  At Matt’s suggestion, Caitlyn called in reinforcements from the nearby Marine barracks and ordered everyone to get some rest before they started to put their reports together.  Caitlyn rather doubted that they would make good reading; one werewolf had burst out of an impregnable cage – which proved that their imagination had been more limited than anyone had realised – and two others had injured themselves for no apparent reason.  The doctors had noted that the wounds had regenerated almost at once, at the cost of some of their bodyweight.  They’d gone on to note that inflicting heavy damage on a werewolf would probably kill it eventually anyway, with or without the silver bullets.

“Poor girl,” she said, looking down at the images of the dead girl.  The preliminary examination suggested that the silver bullets had inflicted massive internal trauma, to the point that the body hadn't been able to return to human form when it had died.  Caitlyn had a theory that at least part of the damage had been
caused
by the shift, just like the werewolf Matt had shot.  “What are we going to do with the body?”

“I think that's your decision,” Chief Warrant Officer Lesage said.  The SEAL didn't look tired, somehow.  But the parts of his file that hadn’t been classified had spoken of feats that made him sound like Batman.  “I’ll tell you something, though; if she hadn't been in a confined space, we might have had difficulty handling her.”

“You killed her,” Caitlyn pointed out, sharply.  She regretted it a moment later.  There had been no choice, not when so many lives were at stake.  “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be,” Lesage said.  “Some of the frogmen aren't too happy with what they did either.  They didn't sign up to gun down civilians...”

Caitlyn scowled.  She’d seen contingency plans for outbreaks of diseases that made Smallpox look like a harmless cold.  The army would be deployed to prevent anyone from fleeing the cities, trying to preserve as much of the countryside as possible.  And the civilians wouldn't
want
to remain trapped in the cities.  They’d start trying to break through the barricades and the army would have no choice, but to open fire.  What would happen if one of the diseases from Golem’s era got out?

Coming to think of it, what if someone came up with a magical biological warfare weapon?

“Leave the body in the freezer for now,” she ordered, finally.  “We can have the doctors carry out a full autopsy later.  And please thank your men for me.  It could have been a great deal worse.”

It
was
a great deal worse, she knew.  Some reports of werewolf attacks had already started to come in and there would be others, once the reports had finally filtered their way up the chain to the Mage Force.  And there were going to be several days of hell for the werewolves, and their families, before the full moon dropped away until the next month.

Cassie Lang had
joked
, according to the report.  She'd said that now she had two monthly curses, one that turned her into a rampaging monster and one that turned her into a werewolf.  And now she was dead, shot down to save others.

Shaking her head, she turned and headed for the sleeping quarters she’d taken for herself.  There was no point in going back to her apartment now.  She just needed to sleep.

Chapter Twenty-Five

New York, USA

Day 30

Something was
definitely
wrong at Fairview High School.

Misty had been in seven different school since she had qualified as a teacher and none of them, even one within the inner city, had had such a looming sense of fear and desperation.  The pupils had seen two murderous incidents within the space of two weeks, one within the school itself and they could not help, but be traumatised.  It wasn't just the teachers who were seriously considering quitting; apparently, over two hundred children were being kept out of school by their parents, at least until the school guaranteed their complete safety in future.  That was illegal, technically, but right now there weren't going to be very many consequences.  The last thing the Mayor wanted was to unite the parents of New York against him. 

Pupils – and their parents, sadly – often believed that teachers went home just after they did, enjoying themselves for the rest of the day.  That wasn't even remotely true; teachers were expected to work on lesson plans, mark completed assignments and supervise detentions, as well as attending endless training sessions that tended to demoralise more than they educated.  Naturally, Misty had come into school much earlier than even the first pupils, even though she was only a substitute teacher.  It had given her time to walk around the school and take a look at the first murder scene.  Her senses had flared into life the moment she’d neared it, but the sheer force of the murder had blotted out all impressions of the murderer.  It was very nearly the perfect crime. 

At the suggestion of one of the NYPD officers, she’d gone through the school’s records for everyone in the same grade as the murder victims, but come up with nothing.  The male victims appeared to have been bullies – she knew the type well – and it would be easier coming up with a list of people who
didn't
want to kill them.  Sandra Yeager had been reasonably popular, but hardly spectacular; her parents, apparently, kept pushing her to stretch her mind to the limit.  Certainly, there was nothing in either set of files that shouted murder, although she could easily imagine the guys getting into trouble with a criminal syndicate.  The NYPD officers had told her that some drug gangs recruited schoolchildren to serve as pushers, selling their wares inside the school.  It always ended badly.

Miss Hoover, a literature teacher, had taken a class that included three of the four murder victims, the NYPD had noted after a great deal of cross-checking.  They weren't paid to believe in coincidences; it was quite likely that the murderer was one of the forty-five
other
pupils in the class.  The principal had prevailed upon Miss Hoover to take a junior class, allowing Misty a chance to take
her
class.  If anyone in the class was using magic, it was possible that she would sense it.  Or she might pick up on something else that was being concealed. 

But first, there was to be an assembly.  Misty wandered down to the main hall and took a seat in the back row, watching as the pupils filed in with very little enthusiasm.  Judging from their faces, they seemed to expect a monster to jump out at them from the shadows, or death to strike them down without warning.  Even the ones who would normally be boisterous and rude seemed subdued, as if the lassitude affecting the entire school was wearing them down quicker than anyone else.  But surely someone with half a brain could guess that Moe’s death might have resulted from his bullying habits. 

As always, pupils kept trickling in after the doors closed and the principal began speaking, confirming – for those who didn't already know – that a fourth pupil had died in mysterious circumstances.  Several girls began to cry; few had bothered to mourn Moe and his cronies with anything more than crocodile tears, but Sandra had been different.  She’d had genuine friends.  Misty tried to keep her mind wide open for hints of magic, yet there was nothing, apart from the looming signature of where Moe and his friends had died. 

Poor girl
, she thought, keeping her eyes on the pupils. 
What did she do to deserve that
?

***

Calvin skipped assembly completely; indeed, he would have stayed at home if his mother hadn't ordered him to get out of bed and escort Mindy to school.  The email from the principal had said that they would be honouring Sandra and he didn't want to risk showing anything that might be taken as evidence of guilt.  Marie putting two and two together and concluding that he’d been the murderer had been a nasty surprise; he’d always taken her for a dumb bimbo.  Who, but an absolute idiot, would seriously consider hanging out with worthless guys?

The memories rose up in his mind as he waited for first period to begin.  Marie had been soft and warm and yielding, although he could tell that her heart wasn't in it.  Harrow had taught him spells that would induce more interesting mental changes, but she’d warned him not to use them unless he wanted to attract attention.  One spell that seemed to work as a love potion – except without the potion – also caused a significant IQ drop for the subject, as long as she was under the influence.  If Marie wasn't the bimbo he’d taken her to be, he couldn't risk having her scrutinised by the cops, or anyone else.

Now that the lust had faded away, terror flickered through his mind.  He’d ordered her to clean herself up, but what if she’d forgotten something that would make her wonder, later, what had happened?  The commands he’d inserted into her head should ensure that she would clear it up without ever even thinking about it, yet what if they didn't work?  He’d done something terrible, something unforgivable, stepping right over a line.  And yet, everything about his life told him that the line only existed for those who didn't have the power to do whatever they wanted to do. Why should he not do what had been done to him?

No one ever raped you
, part of his mind pointed out. 

But that would have been preferable
, a different part said. 
Moe might have been jailed if he’d raped you
.

Carefully, Calvin called on the mental disciplines Harrow had hammered into his head and put them into place, one by one.  There was no choice now, but to proceed with Harrow’s plan, which meant finding another victim to kill and then one more, before heading to a place where the unlocking ritual could be performed.  Harrow had had him reading about places of mythical power, but most of them appeared to have been sealed off by the military.  Calvin might have had enough power to slip by unnoticed, yet he didn't want to take unnecessary risks.  There would be somewhere unnoticed where the spell could be carried out and then...

...Part of his mind wondered if Harrow intended to betray him just after she was freed.  The rest of him knew that it no longer mattered.  He’d crossed the line and now no one would ever trust him again, certainly not knowing the power he held.  They’d either find a way to strip him of his power, the first taste of
real
power he’d ever enjoyed, or kill him outright.  And he was too frightened to die.

He barely noticed Gayle until she appeared in front of him and poked his arm, hard.  “You should have gone to the assembly,” she snapped.  “Sandra is dead and you’re just sitting here.”

Calvin felt a hot flash of anger, which he controlled as best as he could.  Gayle was right; in hindsight, it might have been stupid not to go to the assembly.  Besides, she wasn't quite the bitch that Marie had acted, someone willing to kick him after he’d been knocked down by Moe and the other bullies.  She didn't deserve to die.

“I came in late,” he said, finally.  It was a weak rejoinder, but he’d often been late for assembly in the past, normally because Moe or someone else had waylaid him on the way to school.  “And I will pay my respects later.”

Gayle looked as if she would have liked to say something more, but the substitute teacher appeared at that moment, striding into the classroom as though she owned the place.  She looked formidable to Calvin’s eyes, something tickling at the back of his mind that suggested that he should find the new teacher familiar.  The class seemed pretty subdued, unsurprisingly.  Sandra had been popular, if not as popular as Marie, and they’d taken her death pretty hard.  He looked over at Marie and wondered just how she could look so...normal.  But she'd forgotten what he’d done to her.

“Good morning, class,” the substitute said.  “My name is Miss Reynolds and I am here to take Miss Hoover’s class for this morning.  I understand that you have all been reading
The Importance of Being Ernest
?”

There was a general chorus of assent from the pupils.  Calvin, who had read ahead as well as watching the production Miss Hoover had shown them on the TV, found the whole play to be funny at first, but then boring.  There were just too many plot holes in the whole story, starting with two men both pretending to have imaginary friends and then the haughty bitch refusing to permit one of them to marry her niece until discovering that he’d actually been born into the English aristocracy.  Calvin had never been anywhere near an English aristocrat, but he’d had enough of the school’s sporting aristocracy to last him a lifetime.  And he was pretty sure that all aristocratic families, if one went back far enough, started with one person stealing plenty of gold from his neighbours, building himself a castle and declaring himself the master of the world.

“Excellent,” Miss Reynolds said.  “So, let us consider the
meaning
of the ending.”

Contrived
, Calvin thought, as the class did their best to respond.  Having one of the heroes unwittingly being called Ernest...somehow, it didn't seem very plausible.  If Oscar Wilde had intended to point out the fallacies of noble blood, he could have done it by having Gwendolyn marry Jack
anyway
, while leaving Lady Bracknell alone eating her cucumber sandwiches, in the knowledge that playing Miss Grundy had cost her everything. 

“We could also take note of the choice of name;
Ernest
,” Miss Reynolds said, towards the end of the lesson.  “To be
earnest
means to be sensible and serious; the lesson Jack learns is that he would have gotten into a great deal less trouble if he’d been honest and truthful right from the start.”

“But then he wouldn't have gotten the girl,” Frank said, sticking up his hand.  “That Gwen said that she admired Ernest because of his
name
.”

Calvin would have rolled his eyes a few days ago.  Frank wasn't as bad as Moe – no one could be as bad as Moe – but he’d summed up the core problem with courting a girl.  If you told her the truth, she might not want you any longer – and if you lied to her, your lies would inevitably come out.  Of course, girls did have a remarkable talent for digging up the past when it should have been left safely buried...

He laughed at himself in the privacy of his own head.  How could he complain about Frank’s theory of female courtship when he’d done far worse?

“Then perhaps he would have realised that Gwen wasn't worth marrying,” Miss Reynolds said, bluntly.  “Lust is one thing; building a relationship is something a great deal harder.”

She smiled at the class.  “Miss Hoover didn't leave us any homework assignments for you” – there was a brief outbreak of delighted muttering – “so I’m going to ask you to read through the play again, if you haven’t read it already, of course.  Dismissed.”

“Hot teacher,” Frank muttered, as they pushed their way out of the classroom.  His girlfriend promptly elbowed him in the side.  “I would do her if she asked.”

Calvin stopped dead as he suddenly realised what it was about Miss Reynolds that had called to him.  She had
magic
.  Not the strange magic that was preparing to Change Sandra into something else, but true magic, the ability to manipulate
mana
.  He wasn't sure how he knew, yet he was certain of it.  Miss Reynolds was a magician.

And a perfect target
, Harrow’s voice said.  She’d been oddly silent all day, not even bothering to comment when he’d wondered about her motives.  Now she was breaking into his thoughts again. 
She would supply enough mana to be the second sacrifice.

“Now hang on,” Calvin said, out loud.  Several pupils glanced at him and he found himself flushing, just before Frank tossed him a handful of mocking comments about talking to himself.  He was careful to subvocalise the next few words.  “She’s a teacher.”

She is a waste of space
, Harrow said. 
She doesn't teach you anything useful
.