by Laura Wylde
“Where is Megan?” I demanded a little too excitedly. “I could talk to her about this…”
“Unfortunately, Megan and the dragons are out on an assignment at the moment. Because of their success with the demon, they have been sent further afield in to Europe this time, and I don’t know where.”
“Right.” My eyes hit the floor. “So, I guess that’s the end of it then, huh? Until they get back…”
“Why don’t you go and deal with it?” Professor Eccles shocked me by asking. “If you truly believe that there is something here, and I have to say that I agree with you, then why do we have to leave it to Megan?”
“Well, because we have classes and training…” I trailed off as I caught the glint in her eyes.
“Part of what you’re training for is things like this, keeping the world safe from demons such as this one. We can teach you all that we want in the classroom, but out in the real world is where all the actual training happens.”
My blood ran ice cold and I froze on the spot for a couple of moments, before an intense heat washed over me. Was this really happening? Was I about to be sent out in to the real world to make this happen? To attack a real demon? It was a little thrilling… but also incredibly terrifying at the same time. To do this alone…
Not that I was going to be alone. I would have the four guys behind me to support me on this journey. Evan, my over protective best friend and a wolf shifter, Trent the cheeky fox, Andrew, who no one liked but had a lot to offer with his elf abilities, and Joshua… who I didn’t know enough about yet because he was new, but who had a smart brain inside of his head so would definitely be able to help us. Well, as long as everyone agreed to come. That I wasn’t sure of.
“So, you want us to do it?” My voice shook as I asked this. “To find out what is going on?”
“Why not? This is your finding, isn’t it? This could be something huge. You should get the credit.” Professor Eccles glanced behind her. “Look, I will clear this with everyone else first, check that all the other teachers are fine with this. Then I will get everything set up for you. Give you some time to think about it as well before I send you on your way… but don’t take too long because we don’t know how dangerous this could be and how long the magical trace will stick around the Big Ben. How does that sound?”
I didn’t have any choice but to nod silently. Then after the staff room door was shut, I turned to face the others. They all looked a bit shell shocked, aside from Joshua who had the naïve excitement of a first year already about to be sent out on his first big adventure. He could only see the positives that could come his way when he was a hero, not the danger that he was going to have to face to take him to that place.
“So…” I made a sweeping gesture with my hands to try and ease the tension. “What do you think?”
“If you’re going, then I will as well,” Evan piped up before anyone else could have a chance to speak. “You know that. I’m not letting you face potential danger alone again. Particularly if it’s linked to the drama from last year, because Professor Eccles forgot to mention how dangerous it was. She was happy to say that Megan and the dragons killed the demon, but not how they got hurt along the way.”
I wasn’t sure if Evan was relying on rumors, or if he knew something that that the others didn’t, but I didn’t want to know. I didn’t want to be put off this mission before it even began.
“Okay.” I lifted my shoulders in to what I hoped was a sign of indifference. “Well, I am going…”
“Me too.” Trent grinned happily. “It sounds more fun than classes anyway. I want to see the Big Ben in person.”
“Well, I don’t see any reason for me to come.” Joshua blushed sheepishly. “I mean, unless you guys want me to come along. I don’t want to intrude on anything if you’d rather do it alone. I won’t be offended if you don’t want me to come. I know that I am only a first year and I have a lot to learn, plus a hawk might not be of much help…”
“Oh my God,” I blurted out excitedly. “So, you can fly? Then we definitely want you to come along.”
He smiled and nodded, making him more endearing. There was something about Joshua that I liked a lot, and I was looking forward to spending more time with him, getting to know him better. He would fit in with the rest of us well, I could just tell. He had the right personality. Unlike…
“Where is Andrew?” I barked as I span around to see him gone. “Did he just take off?”
Yep. The hallway was empty and he was nowhere to be seen, which was strange behavior, even for him. It caused guilt to swirl around in the pit of my stomach, like I had done something wrong, but I wasn’t sure what.
“Well, that’s good,” Evan growled. “I didn’t want to say it in front of him, but I don’t want Andrew to come anyway. He’s so unpleasant and would only be a drag. We need to be motivated.”
“But he knows so much,” I argued. “He might not be your favorite person in the world, but we need him.”
“Why? You know a lot too. Why do we need him to tag along with us? That’s just weird, Felicia.”
Evan might be happy to let Andrew walk off like that, but it didn’t feel right to me. I needed to speak to him, to find out what I had done wrong. I didn’t expect Evan and the others to understand, but this was my instinct.
“Look,” I told Evan firmly. “I’m going to find Andrew, to speak to him. I need to know what’s going on. I will wait to hear from Professor Eccles and let you know as soon as I do.”
“Don’t be silly,” Evan called out to me as I stalked off quickly. “Let’s talk about this.”
But that was exactly what I intended to do. Just not with him. He didn’t seem to have any sympathy for Andrew, but I did. Sure, I didn’t really get him, I didn’t know his story or anything, but there seemed to be a lot underneath the surface that I wanted to understand.
I raced around the whole campus searching for him… at least it felt that way, but he was nowhere to be found. Somehow, he had managed to sneak away, and I had no idea where. I had to assume that he didn’t want to come on the mission, which would be a real shame because despite what Evan said, he would be missed. He knew more than me, I was sure of it. If he didn’t want to come because it wasn’t his thing, that would be one thing, if he didn’t want to come because of us, then I would have to sort it out.
“Andrew,” I whispered to myself as I finally spotted him in the library with his head curled over a book. Of course, he was here, why didn’t I come here right away? “Andrew, oh God, I’m so sorry.”
As I raced over to him, my eye was drawn to the book in his hand. It was about the Big Ben. It seemed like he was interested in the mission … he was just strange, is all.
“Oh, Andrew.” I slid in to the seat beside him. “I have been looking for you all over. I wanted to make sure that you’ll be coming along with us, but it seems like you’re already prepping…”
“For you,” he told me seriously. “Because you’re going to have to be fully equipped with knowledge. I was just about to copy all of this for you, to make sure that you don’t miss me while you’re gone… not that you will.”
“So, wait, you aren’t coming?” I asked to clarify. “Because I want you to.”
He smiled weakly at me. “You might want me to, or even think that you do, but the others definitely don’t, and I don’t want to cause tension between all of you. I don’t know how many of you know this, but it was arguments that caused all the drama for the others in the first place and allowed the demon to get free. I don’t want to start that…”
“There won’t be any arguments,” I insisted, making a promise that I knew might be impossible to keep. “We are all adults. We can work together. I mean, arguments come from feelings, don’t they?”
Was that sympathy in his eyes? Why? “Evan hates me, Felicia, and I don’t think that Trent has a high opinion of me either. Joshua, well we don’t know one another yet, but it won’t take him long to hate me too…”
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Woah, this was what I meant about Andrew. He had a vulnerable side, many layers inside of him, that he didn’t let anyone see. Perhaps if everyone could see that in him, if Evan could just see that in him, then all would be okay.
“Andrew, please come,” I begged him. “I want you to come with us. Photo copies aren’t the same as a real brain. It’s all well and good for you to print me stuff off about the Big Ben, but what if we need to go somewhere else? Huh? There is no telling where this mission will take us. The last one started in Inverness and ended in London. Or headed to London along the way, I don’t know. Anyway, there is no telling which way we will need to go, and I have a feeling that you are important for the mission.” This wasn’t enough for him, I could see it in his eyes, I needed to be truly honest about my feelings. “Andrew, I want you to come with us, okay? I like you; I enjoy talking to you, and it would make everything a whole lot better if you came. Please.” I shot him a look with my puppy dog eyes. “Please?”
It took him a couple of moments, but eventually he nodded. “Sure. If that’s what you want, I will come.” He smiled thinly. “I like talking to you as well, by the way. You are a good person, Felicia.”
Andrew agreeing to come with us made me feel all warm and happy inside. This was the right thing to do, I was sure of it. He was going to be a great addition to the team. The others would see it, eventually. Hey, perhaps they would even come out of this as friends. Anything was possible.
Chapter 4
Andrew
“So, the funny thing is,” I began, happy to have an audience who actually wanted to listen to me. This was why I loved being around Felicia so much… because she seemed to really like me. She was interested in the same things as I was. “Some people believe that the Big Ben was named after Sir Benjamin Hall, the First Commissioner for Works, because his name is inscribed on the bell. But there are other people who disagree and think that the bell was named after Ben Caunt, a champion heavyweight boxer, because that was his nickname…”
“Yes, that was what I heard,” Felicia agreed. “That it became famous because of him…”
“Well, that wasn’t the case at all. It was actually named for Benjamin Magnus, the man who magically enchanted the structure as soon as it was built to make sure that no one could ever take it down with bombs or any other world ending invention. But he didn’t want to become famous because of it, since that was during the time when magic was scorned upon, before we stopped letting ourselves be seen altogehter, so he let the world believe whatever they wanted to. After reading up about him, he probably started the Ben Caunt rumor.”
“Oh wow, that’s incredible.” She smiled at me with such happiness that I was over the moon and I was glad that she convinced me to join her on her mission. I was nervous about it, even more so now that we were just outside the campus grounds waiting for Evan and the others to get here, but her grin made me forget all of that. “I love that you know that.”
God, I couldn’t stop myself. I knew that I should stop talking because this was about the time where I would turn from being interesting to incredibly boring, but for some reason around Felicia, I couldn’t stop it from happening.
“So, you know how the bell first rang out on July 11th, 1859, before it went silent in September the same year…”
“No, I didn’t know that at all.” Her eyebrow cocked in surprise. “So, it really didn’t ring for that long after it was built? That’s amazing, you would have thought they could get someone to do something about that.”
“Oh, they tried. But they couldn’t. They tried to tell the world that it was because of a crack, but it was really because Benjamin Magnus had died. It actually stopped chiming the moment he passed away, and they couldn’t get anyone to get it working again. They thought that it was some kind of magical anomaly.”
“And it wasn’t, was it? Because it was a magical anomaly for the nine months of silence in 1976 and again, for seven days in 2007. Am I right? I don’t know as well as you, but I read…”
“You are right.” I was shocked by her knowledge. “There was something ingrained in Benjamin Magnus, linking him to the bell. It took them a while to discover that he had a secret son, the product of a scandalous affair, particularly shocking in that time, and they used his magical abilities to fix things…”
I trailed off as I saw Evan in the distance, with Trent. They were an issue for me. Them and the rest of the student body, they hated my guts and seemed to think that I didn’t realize, but I did.
I had always been different. My entire life, even in my birth family. All of my elder brothers and sisters were born with the traditional elf look. But not me. I was not blessed with pointed tall ears and an elongated muscular body with sharp features. I looked far too human, which was always an issue for them. On top of that, if you counted my sandy brown hair with grey eyes, as opposed to the standard elf features of bright blond hair and blue eyes, I was considered a freak. Enough of a freak to make it easy enough for my family to abandon in the woods. Like I was a sacrifice to feed the hungry witch to keep everyone else safe.
Luckily, it wasn’t some elf eating beast who found me, but a wolf shifter who immediately took me to the nearest orphanarium for magical creatures, where I was raised for most of my life. I was adopted time and again, and lived with foster families who wanted to try and look after the freak elf, but it never worked out. For whatever reason, usually judgements from other people, I would end up back at the orphanarium.
No one had ever liked me, or even accepted me. I thought that adults studying at the Academy might be different, but my hopes were quashed. If anything, my lack of social skills made me even more unlikable and unwanted, it would seem. Guys like Evan and Trent who found it easy to socialize were an enigma to me. So, even if they despised me, I couldn’t quite feel the same way. Instead I was just sad that I never really had a chance. No one had given me a chance so I couldn’t work out how to be their friend, how to make this work, I could only keep being me.
Thankfully, I had Felicia who I could half hide behind. She seemed to pretty much accept me, and while I hadn’t quite found a way to make it in to her ‘friend’ circle, she would look after me for now.
“You’re coming?” Evan demanded, looking past Felicia and straight at me. “I thought you didn’t want to.”
“He is coming.” Felicia didn’t care who the question was directed at, she was answering it anyway. “I told you that. We need Andrew because he knows more about these monuments than any of us could hope to.”
Evan didn’t hide his disgust about me as he stared at Felicia, which caused me to pull my mask back on. It was a side of me that people referred to as arrogant, but it protected me so I hid behind it. I didn’t know who else to be. The hopeless abandoned elf who didn’t fit in anyway, or the arrogant know it all who survived.
“We are all going together as soon as Joshua gets here, so we need to find a way to get along…”
“Guys!” Before this could turn in to any kind of argument, Joshua’s voice grabbed us all. “I just met Professor Eccles and she wanted to give me this before we went off. She wants us to go to Edinburgh Castle first.”
“Edinburgh Castle?” Felicia screwed up her face in confusion. “Not the Big Ben? Did something happen?”
“She said that there has been some activity there, although she didn’t specify what, she just said that we need to go.”
Felicia’s eyes ran all over the page in front of her while Joshua tried to catch his breath. I had to assume that he was much better at flying than running, because it didn’t seem to suit him at all. As she read, her expression changed from misunderstanding to one of pure acceptance. There had to be a reason.
“Okay, well it’s much less of a journey to get us started, I suppose. I mean, I was keen to get back to the Big Ben, but if this is what we need to do then so be it.” She smiled at everyone before turning to look at me. “What do you know about this place, Andrew? I’m sure you have so
me facts tucked away in the back of your brain.”
This was it, my time to show these guys that I was going to be needed on this mission. Luckily, I did know a lot about the place, so it worked out well. I just needed to decide what was most relevant to this mission.
“Well, it’s been in the same spot since the twelfth century, inhabited for two thousand, eight hundred, and sixty-five years. It was a big deal in the era of the witch trails, many were supposed to be burned there and rumours are that they still haunt the place…” Felicia visibly flinched at this which reminded me that I needed to be a bit more cautious with my tone. This could have been her ancestors that I was referring to here. “There were prisoners of war kept there during the magical battles, and the world wars too, and there are rumors of dark magic surrounding it.”
“Dark magic?” Immediately, Felicia was captivated, but the others I wasn’t so sure about.
“Yes. You may have heard about the Scottish crown jewels going missing for a hundred years.” I was shocked when Felicia shook her head. “And the swastika painted on it… although that definitely isn’t dark magic because it was painted there before the Nazi’s commandeered the symbol, when it was still a Buddhist and Hindu sign of peace… oh, but the KGB.” I smacked my palm to my head as I remembered the Russian rumors too. God, there was so much about this castle. “They were supposed to alter the castle a few years ago to block up spying windows… but people say that they might have been covering up demon portals which could break free at any given moment.”
“You don’t think that’s what’s happened, do you?” Felicia gasped with her hand on her mouth. “It’s broken free? I mean, you said that it was bad, didn’t you? That the harem from last year had a hard time fighting the demon. So, what if the same happens to us? What if we need to fight one? Can we? I don’t know…”