Wizards (24 page)

"Fire!" someone shouted, not unreasonably under the circumstances.

"We must save the town," another screamed.

"Kill the witches! They must not escape!" shouted the familiar voice of Mr. Religious-Nut. Fortunately, no one paid any attention and most of the crowd ran towards the blaze to try and save their town.

"Go now," Urda urged and she had a point. I got the children to hold onto me and hopped to Salice.

Something cold hit me in the face. I spluttered as water got up my nose and into my mouth.

"Wake up Jake." Esmeralda urged.

"How long?"

"Only a minute, if that. These girls cannot speak our language but I could tell from the way they shook you that you still have work to do."

Amazingly, I felt much better than I had in Barren. Then I realized it was because the stress of maintaining the shield had gone.

"I have to go back. There are more children to rescue."

I reached for two of the children who were upright and willed them knowledge of the language of Salice.

"These two can act as translators, use them."

I hopped back to Barren and into carnage.

A big man in brown robes was down on his knees shielding his head with his hands as chain after chain swung down on top of him. His hands were already torn and broken and before I could get the girls to stop, one of the iron manacles smashed into his head and his skull caved in. He fell to the ground as his blood splattered in all directions.

I followed the length of chain in the man's head back to its owner and found Urda holding the other end with a look of grim satisfaction on her face. She noticed me staring at her in horror.

"This was Father Drog, the man shouting for our deaths. I am glad he will go to hell ahead of me."

I looked around the square trying to get a feel for what was happening. At least eight buildings on the far side of the square were on fire. The mob had gone from around us and the children in the corral were on their knees and crying. In the light of the fires, people ran around urgently. There was also a strong and incongruous smell of petrol.

Urda started to swing her weapon as two figures, one tall and one much smaller stepped towards us. Both of them wore cloaks with hoods and they could have been anybody.

Then the tall one pulled back her hood and it was Jenny.

"Don't hurt them, Urda, they're my friends!"

"I should think so," Bronwyn said as she pulled back her hood. She saw the dead man on the ground in front of her and pulled a disgusted face, "Looks like this one got his comeuppance."

"What's going on?"

"We created a diversion," Jenny said happily. She waved in the general direction of the burning buildings.

"Molotov cocktails are cool," Bronwyn said.

"How did you get here?"

"Jenny gave me a piggyback on the hopscotch court. After I lugged through loads of milk bottles and cans of petrol."

"Eh?"

"I climbed on Jenny's back and I hopped us using the court," Bronwyn said slowly, as if she was talking to an idiot. Looking back on it, perhaps she was.

"You try hop, skip and jumping with an eleven year old on your back," Jenny moaned. "My back hurts."

"We were hoping to get a lift with you to Salice. I've never been there so I can't hop there."

Before I could say anything, there was a scream from the side of the corral. It was the berserker kind of scream someone makes when they are about to attack. Bronwyn and Jenny turned to see what I already could. Tyden, holding a sword, ran at Bronwyn and there was pure murder in his eyes.

He never made it. A chain swung by one of the girls' standing guard hit him straight between the legs. I winced in sympathy because his testicles had certainly been turned to mincemeat by the force of that blow.

Tyden's face turned white as snow and his jaw dangled open leaving his mouth shaping a silent oh. I'm not sure he actually felt the pain because a second chain smashed down on his head caving it in like a melon. Tyden was dead before he hit the ground.

Bronwyn looked down on Tyden's smashed face and she turned to me and smiled in delight. I wanted to vomit, but I knew we didn't have the time.

"Everybody gather round me and drop those damned chains. Quickly, we need to get out of here before anybody else tries to be a hero."

The girls gathered around me. Bronwyn and Jenny spent a minute or two rounding everybody up and making sure everybody connected to me. Jenny reached over the girls and put her hand on my neck. Bronwyn grabbed Jenny's hand and paused to stare at Tyden's body one last time. A moment later I hopped us to Salice.

"I don't think any of them are wizards," Esmeralda said as she stormed into our bedroom without even knocking.

I stopped what I was doing with Jenny, not an easy thing for any man to do.

"I thought I locked that door."

"This is my castle. I have a key to every room."

Jenny pulled the sheets up to cover her nakedness. Esmeralda didn't look in the slightest bit bothered and I wouldn't have been surprised to discover she had been waiting, eye to keyhole, for the most embarrassing moment to enter.

"They may not be wizards, but believe me when I tell you, Urda for one, will be an asset to any kingdom."

"You promised us wizards."

"I promised you accused witches, and I still wouldn't be so sure of your facts. I felt powers stirring in the dark last night."

"That was probably Bronwyn," Jenny put in cheerfully. "The Friendship Ball is in two days’ time. Are you coming?"

Jenny sat up and looked straight at Esmeralda.

"You could join us. Do you fancy a threesome?"

Esmeralda's face went the brightest red I've ever seen on a person. She ran out of the room as if being chased by demons. I got out of bed and closed the door. I locked it and left the key half turned in the lock. She wouldn't find it so easy to get in the next time.

"Threesome?"

"Don't get your hopes up. I was annoyed with her and wanted to embarrass her as much as she embarrassed me."

I snuggled up to Jenny and put my tongue into her ear. She squirmed away from me in disgust.

"I think a threesome is a wonderful idea and since you were the one who brought it up…"

Jenny stared at me in horror. I tried to keep a straight face but I couldn't and burst out laughing.

"Not in a million years, Jake."

"I was joking."

"I'm not." Jenny snuggled up to me. "Now where were we?"

"Forget it," I told her and rolled away. "It's not just my pride you've hurt."

Jenny began to tickle me and one thing led to another. But even as we carried on a part of my mind was worrying about the police back in Wales and the smile on Bronwyn's face after she looked at Tyden's body. That girl was more damaged than I had thought.

Chapter Twelve
: Friendship Ball

S
alice is cool and Esmeralda is even cooler," Bronwyn said for what I swear was the hundredth time. Ever since we took her to Salice it was pretty well all she could talk about.

"Esmeralda said I could come to the Friendship Ball. She even got some strange man called Grimaldi to measure me for a dress."

"Bronwyn, your parents are watching you like hawks. Nipping out for a few hours to the Bat Cave is one thing, if you vanish for more than half a day your parents are going to notice."

Bronwyn glared at me and I heard the word 'spoilsport' whispered under her breath. Ever since we rescued her from the clutches of the now deceased Tyden she had been locking herself in her room and hopping to visit us. She took to ignoring her parents when they knocked at her door to get them used to getting no answer. The trouble was, while they would leave her alone for a few hours, they would get worried if she didn't answer for too long. If they broke into her room they would know she was gone. Given the interest the police were taking in my every move, this would be very bad news for me.

"There's also the question of school," Jenny put in. The Friendship Ball was taking place on a Wednesday as far as Wales was concerned. Bronwyn went back to school the same day. Salice time and Welsh time were within an hour of each other and the ball would run from five in the evening to two a.m. Unless Bronwyn only visited for a couple of hours, she'd never manage to get up for school on Thursday morning.

"I don't see why I have to go to school anyway. I'll just bunk off again as soon as I get there."

"I can imagine how that would go down with the school and the police," I said. "Don't you think they'll notice?"

"If it's any consolation, I don't think I'll be able to go to the ball either."

Jenny's statement hit me like a bolt from the blue. I thought Jenny was determined to go, if only to annoy the hell out of Esmeralda.

"You're planning on leaving me to my 'betrothed's' tender mercies? I'll never get out of the place virgo intacto."

"I trust you totally, Jake. So you better be in my room at two o'clock Thursday morning to prove you aren't up to anything."

I didn't point out how easy it would be for me to fool her if I really wanted to. She already knew that.

"Why can't you come?"

"I'm way behind on my course work." Jenny held up the thick volume she had been reading half-heartedly while we talked. "I need to read and absorb this entire book by the end of the week as we have a test on Friday."

I took the book off her to have a look. It was a critique of Shakespeare's plays by somebody I'd never heard of.

"Have you read it?" I asked, an idea forming in the back of my mind.

"Yes, but that doesn't mean I can remember any of it," Jenny said in exasperation as she grabbed her book off me.

I snatched the book back to her considerable annoyance.

"Put your hand on the side of it."

Jenny realized I was up to something and reluctantly stuck out her hand. When Jenny's hand was in place, I put my hand on the other side and absorbed the book from her mind in the same way I first learnt the language of Salice. Then I pushed the book's information back at her in the way I taught her the language.

"What was the point of that Jake?"

"Page 64, Shakespeare's Hamlet…"

"Is arguably the bard's finest work, though it contains a number of significant flaws… That's amazing. I can remember it word for word."

"You can fix my parents, Jake," Bronwyn said eagerly. "Make them fall asleep, or get them to forget I'm supposed to be in the house."

"I don't do that sort of thing, Bronwyn. It isn't right and you know it."

"You just don't want me to go."

She had a point, but that wasn't the reason I wouldn't do it. It was wrong to mess with people's minds, whatever Bronwyn thought about it. I didn't want to become one of the evil wizards out there and it seemed to me like a slippery slope. When you started using your powers for your own convenience, you were on your way.

"Inspector Thomas is in hospital because of his throat, and that's your doing."

"You just made that up," I accused.

"Daddy told me this morning," Bronwyn said and stuck her tongue out.

"I've to go fix him," I said anxiously. The man annoyed me and I wished him laryngitis. It was stupid and petty of me and it wasn't meant to last this long. I had to go and cure the man right now.

"Jake, what if someone sees you at the hospital? The two of us are supposed to be up in your bedroom. You know they have policemen following you everywhere."

"Let the Inspector suffer. He's a right bastard anyway," Bronwyn chipped in.

"I know the hospital. I can hop straight there and back. No one will see me."

"Jake, there are hundreds of patients in hospital. Are you going to try and cure them all?"

"Wouldn't that be something?" I said grinning. "You two stay here. I'll be back in half an hour."

I hopped to an alley filled with industrial sized bins on wheels. It was round the back of the hospital and as I expected, deserted. Going to a locked fire-exit with glass windows, I saw enough to hop into the empty corridor. I was getting better at this sort of thing as I gained more experience.

After twenty minutes of wandering through wards and getting strange looks from the nurses on duty, I admitted to myself that Jenny was right. Finding the Inspector in this warren was impossible. I needed to ask someone and that carried risks.

I just decided to phone the hospital and claim I was a friend of the Inspector wanting to send flowers when I saw Sergeant Jones at the end of the corridor. I dived into the toilets as he walked towards me.

"Is that you, Jake?" Sergeant Jones asked as he entered the toilets a minute later. I was stuck to the ceiling while commanding Sergeant Jones to not look up. He checked the empty stalls and that the windows were fastened before he gave up.