Eddie Lancaster Box Set 2, page 64
part #4 of Eddie Lancaster Series
I hit the sorcerers’ barrier and a pulse tore through me like a thousand electric shocks. It flung me back towards the town, a piggish squeal escaping my lips. I hit the ground hard and cried out again as I skidded across the concrete. Pain was lashing my body from the force of the barrier. I laid still and waited as the tremors of agony subsided. Then I lifted my head. My situation sunk in and I looked back at my pursuer in despair. That was why the magic hadn’t been in a hurry to kill me. It knew it had all the time in the world. The barrier kept magic in and I was full of magic. Cedarstone was as much my prison as it was the magic’s.
The magic reduced in size and took on the shape of a person but with no human features. What stood a short way away from me was a figure of pure magic. Angry red shimmers rippled across its body as it walked towards me.
‘Here were are together again,’ said the magic. It was using Nick’s voice. It had no voice of its own. It wasn’t a person. It wasn’t even alive. This was ridiculous.
I climbed to my feet and turned to Zeke and Lydia who were now as close to me as they dared without crossing the barrier. Zeke was dragging his hands across the barrier, inspecting it.
‘Get me out of here!’ I shouted.
‘I’m working on it,’ he replied shortly.
I turned back to the magic, not wanting to turn my back on it at all. It hadn’t moved. It was standing in the street watching me impassively. It was facing me anyway, I wasn’t sure if it was watching me because it didn’t have eyes. I felt like I was in the final stage of a chess match. It had me in a check and there was only one way out of it but I didn’t know what the move was. If I fucked up it was game over for me.
We stood in stalemate for a long time. The longer I stood the more anxious I got. I could feel the sweat building up on my palms but I didn’t want to wipe them on my jeans in case it took it for a sign of weakness. Weak. As if I was anything else to this entity.
‘What? What are you staring at?’ I suddenly screamed, unable to take the pressure anymore. That was what it wanted. It wanted me to crack. It was a psychological genius. I didn’t even know how. Sure, it had been inside me, but did that really give it an all-access pass to my brain?
Then it hit me. It wasn’t trying to attack me at all. It was waiting. Zeke was going to break the barrier to allow me to pass through. When he did that the power was going to escape too. I very much doubted that Shirley would forgive me for that. Nobody would. That thing would rip its way through the world.
It needed to be destroyed but that was beyond my ability. The only way to keep it trapped would be to imprison myself in here too.
‘I’ve nearly got it, Eddie,’ Zeke said. His voice was strained and when I turned I saw that he looked like he was wrestling with an invisible man. His whole body was tense and his hands were pushed into the air where the barrier was. Sweat was pouring down from beneath his hair.
‘Hold off a minute or two,’ I said to Zeke whilst my mind worked overtime for a solution.
‘Not gonna happen, pal,’ he said firmly. I could see in his face that if he stopped fighting the barrier now he would never be able to start again.
A spark ignited in the air right where his hands were working. Then a few more. Movement behind me snatched my attention and I saw the red man step forwards. The barrier was breaking. The sparks flourished into a burst of multi-coloured energy that formed a small circle about five feet above the ground. A hole in the barrier. Zeke strained against the edges of the circle and forced it to expand.
The red man ran forwards.
I ran too.
If I could beat it through the gap then maybe Zeke could close it again before the red man escaped. The problem was old red wasn’t really a man, and I was. There was no way that my little human legs could run faster than pure magic personified. It practically flew past me towards the hole. Zeke’s eyes nearly bulged from his head when he saw what was coming. I could see the dilemma in his mind. Let us both out or leave us both in.
And I knew I was damned.
He had nothing invested in me. Sure, he wanted me to help him fight whoever had the ring but he could find another tag team partner. It didn’t need me.
Lydia must have picked up on his thoughts because the words she spoke were full of threat. ‘Close that barrier and I will rip you in two. See if I fucking don’t.’
Zeke glanced her way, his nose wrinkling in irritation. He held the barrier though. I’d never been as thankful for Lydia than I was now.
I was still several feet away when the red man had nearly made it. He wasn’t even running anymore. He wasn’t even a man. He was red blob shooting through the sky, hurtling towards the hole in the sorcerer’s barrier. I had lost. There was no way I was going to make it.
What if it got out and then closed the barrier trapping me inside?
I tried to push myself harder but I was already going at full speed.
It was literally inches away from the gap. And then the humming began. A great metallic thrum filled the air. A sound wave so powerful the earth actually shook. Whatever was making the noise sent a blast of pain right into the very core of my brain. I thrust my hands over my ears, dropping to my knees and screaming in agony. I could feel the veins in my forehead protruding angrily at this attack. My head was actually going to explode. The red man was cheating.
Only it wasn’t. The sound, which was like a giant magnetic force powering up around us, was attacking the magic too. It lost its humanoid form and was just a giant red cloud hovering in the air, flickering like a faulty light. A strange feeling accompanied the sound. It was kind of like someone had dug fishhooks into my body and was tugging them. I wasn’t being pulled but something within me was.
My magic.
The thing that was producing that God awful sound was pulling at my magic. The red magic let out a banshee award-worthy shriek and then it got sucked away. The massive red cloud flew backward over my head toward the town centre as if a giant vacuum had siphoned it away. I watched it vanish into the distance in alarm.
I looked back towards the barrier and saw Zeke shouting something but I couldn’t hear a word he was saying over the mind-blasting sound that was threatening to give me an aneurysm.
I battled back to my feet and ran against the force that was trying to suck my magic right out of me. It was a sensation I’d never felt before and I wondered if this was how all the sorcerers I’d siphoned had felt. It wasn’t pleasant. I felt violated in ways I’d never be able to wash off. It was like fingers were groping around inside me, grabbing at things that no person should ever grab at.
I felt like I was running in slow motion but I got to the barrier nonetheless. Zeke had managed to tear open a hole that was the size of a dwarf’s doorway. I threw myself the last few feet and went hurtling through it. As I flew I both heard and felt the magnetism within Cedarstone increase tenfold. I felt blood begin to trickle out of my nose. Then I soared through the barrier. Zeke let go and it closed up at once, sealing Cedarstone back into its nice bubble. The hooks released my magic and the noise vanished. I was lying on the ground on the edge of Cedarstone. My head was still pounding but the pain was diminishing quickly enough. Somewhere overhead I heard birds chirping away. I closed my eyes and smiled.
I was the jammiest fucking git in the world.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
‘Having a nice rest?’ Lydia said. I opened my eyes and saw her staring down at me, one eyebrow raised and her arms folded across her chest.
‘Well, I did just beat the biggest conglomerate of magic in the world so I feel like I’m owed a little rest,’ I said playfully. I sat up all the same, but I wasn’t quite ready to stand up yet. My legs were still a little woozy. I looked back through the barrier but the red man was gone now and hadn’t returned. What had sucked it away?
‘That was weird,’ Zeke said, staring back into the town as well. ‘Even I hadn’t expected it to be so… personified.’
‘Yeah, it was weird. We can all agree on that. Now can we get moving?’ said Lydia, motioning for me to get up.
‘I would like to know what summoned it, though.’ Zeke stroked his beard making himself look like Merlin or someone.
‘You and I both,’ I muttered.
When I was ready we headed back to Lydia’s place. There Zeke nicked what I considered to be a lot of my blood, but he only called a sample. Anything that fills up more than one phial is not a sample. He took so much that he needed a small bowl. He laid out a map and some kind of ancient gold compass and then closed his eyes and got to work.
‘How does this spell work?’ I asked, watching him intensely. I knew a few different tracking spells myself but nothing quite like this.
‘You don’t need to know,’ he said dismissively. Rude.
‘After what I went through to get that magic’s trace in my blood I think I deserve to know,’ I quipped. Even though I was going to be dead in a day or two I still wanted to get my fix of answers. I like to know things.
Zee’s eyes flipped opened and pinpointed me. ‘I’m not in the habit of sharing my spells with warlocks.’
‘Oh, that is it!’ I yelled, jumping to my feet. Lydia backed up fast, not sure how to react to my sudden outburst. ‘I have had it up to here with all this condescending wizard shit. Just because you were born with magic it doesn’t make you better than anybody else you elitist shit. Yeah, you were born with magic. You know what? I was born with my ability to harvest magic. You’re not better than me. Nature gave us both gifts. The only difference is you got a proper education with your magic and I didn’t. It isn’t my fault that warlocks don’t know how magic really works. Maybe you should stop being such an arsehole and teach me! But no, you’d never do that. I’m good enough to help you out when you need it but you’d never let me into your special little proper sorcerer’s club.’
I stood seething at him, my face as red as lava. He stared back with his mouth open in dumbfounded surprise. It was clear that he didn’t know how to react. The longer the silence hung the more I started to feel like I’d made a terrible mistake. It was like when a kid finally decides to stand up to his parents and quickly learns why he should not.
‘Do you need a nap?’ Zeke asked calmly. There was only a little condescension in his tone.
‘What? No. I’m not tired. I’m angry,’ I argued. I could feel the heat rising up my neck again. He was mocking me.
He nodded patronisingly. ‘Mmhmm. You could do with a nap.’ He waved his hand at me and before I knew what was happening I was falling into a deep and beautiful slumber.
I woke up furious.
I sat up on Lydia’s sofa and looked over at Zeke who was sitting in the armchair watching me curiously. A small smirk twisted the corners of his mouth when he saw me rise. He held up a palm to stop me from saying or doing anything. Not that I was going to. I was angry, but also groggy from my nap.
‘You’re a bastard,’ I told him savagely.
He nodded. ‘I know. I’m sorry I put you to sleep and I’m sorry I’ve been looking down my nose at you. You have to understand that my whole life my people have been hunted by warlocks who want to kill us for our magic. A hatred towards them is ingrained in me. Note how I said them and not you. You are different and I need to acknowledge that.’
It was my turn now to look at him in surprise. I hadn’t expected that. It was very mature of him. I guess it was my time to be mature too.
‘I’m sorry I shouted at you,’ I said begrudgingly.
‘I suppose I may have deserved it,’ he admitted. ’So,’ he continued, moving swiftly on to business. ‘The tracking spell revealed that the dagger is in Maidstone. But it didn’t say where. It was exactly the same thing that happened when I tried to track the stolen ring.’
‘What does it mean?’ I asked, scratching the top of my head. How could we be hitting so many dead ends? Didn’t the Universe know I was against the clock?
‘My guess is that Maidstone has some kind of cloaking spell over it. Somebody, probably whoever has the dagger, cast the spell so we wouldn’t be able to track it. The spell is so powerful that it stops us from tracking anything in Maidstone.’
‘Oooooh,’ Lydia said from the doorway that she was leaning against. I hadn’t even noticed her standing there. ‘Maybe the same person has both the dagger and the ring. Seems more likely, no?’
Zeke burst out laughing. It was a great belly laugh that could rival the drunken god, Dionysus. I sniggered a little bit myself. It was kind of a naive thing to say.
‘You think somebody actually has two incredibly powerful objects and they’re just sitting here in Maidstone with them? Bit of a coincidence don’t you think?’ asked Zeke. I didn’t mind his condescension when it wasn’t aimed at me.
‘I don’t see the problem,’ she said with a shrug. ‘But whatever.’ She turned to me. ‘Dude, Shirley called. Wants you to go see her. She’s got new info on the kidnappers.’
I jumped up and immediately regretted it as the blood rushed to my head and the room spun around me.
Since we’d hit dead ends on the dagger search maybe this kidnapping thing might shine a light for me. It would be a very handy coincidence if all of it was linked. I got the feeling it wasn’t though.
The three of us split up again. Lydia went to go and report to Malek again, he liked regular reports apparently. I didn’t know why he couldn’t just come and ask me what was going on himself, did he dislike me that much? Zeke went to catch up with some old informants in the area. It was his last-ditch attempt to try and find something out. And I went off to see Shirley.
Shirley greeted me at the door this time. She shook her head with a dour expression on her face as I walked across the driveway towards her. ‘This is a right mess, Eddie,’ she told me. ‘Still, things were a bit gloomy before you showed up. You never fail to light a match, do you?’
‘I don’t know what you’re implying,’ I replied, feigning innocence. It wasn’t like I’d intentionally caused any of this to happen. In all honesty, I didn’t even know what was happening.
I followed her into the entrance hall and we headed straight to her office. The halls were empty as they had been last time. It made me wonder where all the students were in this place.
‘One of the kidnappers got in touch,’ Shirley said. ‘Came to visit me himself.’
‘Who is he?’
She shook her head. ‘He won’t say. Yet. I will get the truth out of him by the end of the day, though. Mark my words.’ I didn’t doubt her. I’d never seen Shirley in action so to speak, but if there was anybody capable of prying the truth from unwilling lips I got the impression it was her. Actually, she had stood with me in the fight against Nick and his minions, but I was too preoccupied to see how she fought. She survived so that was pretty telling.
‘What has he said?’ I asked. I knew it wouldn’t be anything good otherwise she wouldn’t have called me. I was going to receive some very bad news.
‘His people want you dead,’ she said flatly. We stopped outside the closed door to her office. ‘He won’t say why but he did say it was for the good of everybody. He said if I killed you then he would return Katelyn to me. ’ She raised an eyebrow and then pushed open the door. ‘Maybe he’ll be more willing to answer your questions. If not… Well, I’ll just have to employ some less comfortable interview techniques.’
I was about to enter her office when it suddenly occurred to me that this could be a trap. She could be luring me into her office so she could kill me and get her granddaughter back. She looked at me and sighed with impatience.
‘If I wanted to kill you I would have done it the moment I saw you. I wouldn’t bother wasting time with the conversation first. Get in there.’ She gave me a small nudge on the shoulder and I walked into her office.
Everything looked the same as it had last time except now there was a man sitting in a simple wooden chair in the centre of the room. He wasn’t restrained in any visible way but I guessed that Shirley had him under some kind of spell that was stopping him from escaping. That was impressive.
‘What is he?’ I asked. I’d been assuming he was a sorcerer but seeing him so easily subdued I thought perhaps not. No sorcerer worth his salt could be kept in a chair without some sort of rope at least. Iron was always the best bet.
‘He tried telling me he was human. But after a couple of quick tests that turned out to be a lie.’ She pointed at a jagged hole in his trousers. Blood had stained the fabric and dried on the skin beneath but I couldn’t see an actual wound. He must have healed. ‘I stabbed him with a silver knife. He didn’t like it very much.’ She nodded at her desk where a row of different knives was laid out on a tartan cloth. She was quite the torturer. I was surprised.
‘Werewolf,’ I said under my breath.
He glared up at me as if saying his species was some kind of an insult. He had shaggy blond hair and light brown eyes. A thick scar ran down his left cheek. There was a story behind that but it would have to wait for another time.
‘Do you know who I am?’ I asked him. He rolled his eyes. Cheeky for a guy who was stuck to a chair.
‘Yes,’ he sighed.
‘So why do you want me dead?’ I tried to keep my voice casual as if someone trying to kill me was no big deal. To be honest it wasn’t like he was the first to try and kill me or have me killed.
‘You shouldn’t be alive,’ he retorted.
‘That’s not it, though. You’re not trying to kill me to keep the balance of nature or any of that. I’ll be dead in a day or two anyway. You’ve got a better reason.’
His eyes flicked around as if something in the room would be able to help him. When they came back to me I saw no malice in them. He didn’t seem to have any kind of grudge with me which meant he didn’t want me dead for any emotional or personal reason. ‘It is in everybody's best interest that you die now.’
