Blood & Magic

by George Barlow

  “What about the sight? How are you enjoying that?” Meyer said.

  “If you mean the fact that my life is now a walking fantasy novel, then yeah, it’s great,” Henry said.

  Sarcasm, just like his father. Tousled hair, constantly a mess — just like his father. Rebellious nature? God, Meyer hoped not, he was sure that was what had got Mark killed. Mark didn’t trust his friends, was endlessly suspicious of everyone and rebelled against the whole idea of the Inquisition. Suspicion might have been wise, but he had nobody to support him. He had lived and died, alone, arrogant enough to think he could fight the evils of this world on his own. A stupid man in the end.

  Gabriel stood up and made his excuses to leave, after guzzling his coffee. The room fell silent for a moment, Henry didn’t look the sort to start to a conversation, his gaze focused absently around the room.

  “It is just the two of us then Master Henry, so we may as well start. I will be teaching you some of our history and the etiquette that is expected of you. So much to cover and so little time. We do have an advantage though,” Meyer said.

  “An advantage?” Henry said.

  “Indeed, you are an Inquisitor. As you already know I hope, you possess the memories of your ancestors. I will teach you how to tap into that knowledge, but more importantly, how to stop it from overwhelming you. You are in good hands, trust me. I taught your father and, until he went off the rails, he was very successful. He died at quite an old age in all regards.”

  “Gabriel said he was fifty, how is that an old age?”

  “Not meaning to sound depressive, but the life of an Inquisitor is not a safe one. Your gifts mean you are trained quickly and ready for battle. This is how it works, you aim for twenty years working life maximum.”

  Henry looked pale all of a sudden and his leg had begun to bob up and down. This was the issue with not training Inquisitors from birth, they needed the mental discipline not to be phased by the world they occupied, but more importantly, by the role they are expected to play within it.

  “Looks like I have some learning to do,” Henry said.

  “Best place to start is the beginning. In the universe, there is matter, energy and magus. In older times they called magus, Magick, and it was the domain of Druids, Witches, Warlocks, Shaman and Sorcerers. This is all seen as fairy tale now, but trust me when I say it is not,” Meyer said.

  “So legends are not be fictional as they appear, like Grendal and-”

  “No, leave that topic for now, but it is fair to say legends contain a fair amount of truth within them. Moving to something more pertinent to you.”

  He fumbled in a drawer to the side of him and produced a piece of silver jewellery, throwing it to Henry, who caught it awkwardly.

  “What is it?” Henry said.

  “It is a triquetra, a three pointed star if you like. It is the symbol of the Inquisition and closely related to the triskele, which represents the three gifts of the alternate. The first point represents the fact that alternates are ‘powered,’ which means you have one of the five alternate abilities. We represent that with the pagan pentagram, which we will discuss at length soon. The second point represents the fact that alternates are also ‘charmed,’ and by that we mean they have an additional ability. This includes the second sight, which grants you your ability to see alternates in the world around us. You aren’t alone in that gift, but there are also four other charms. The last of the three points stands for the fact that alternates are ‘remembered,’ which means memories of how to use your abilities, and sometimes a bit more than that, are passed from generation to generation. You will notice the triquetra has a ring around the three pointed star, that is because the role of an Inquisitor is to protect the alternate community, do you understand?” Meyer said.

  Meyer found himself choking hard, his body doubling over bringing his chest down to his knees. The boy was up and by his side straight away.

  “Get off,” Meyer snapped.

  The boy withdrew, his eyes wide from the sharpness of his words. Meyer pulled his handkerchief from his mouth to find a bright crimson stain soaked the middle of it, the overuse of his own power had cost him more than he had expected, although he was all too familiar with the consequences.

  “I understand. Just to let you know, Gabriel already told me about a lot of this,” Henry said.

  “And you remembered it?”

  “Memorising stuff is something I'm pretty good at. Ten types of alternate, the main five and the daemons.”

  “Hybrids please, they don't like that term, it has such negative connotations.”

  “Oh, sorry. Meyer, do you think I am up to this? I know you don't know me, but can a person change so much?”

  “People change when they have to. You will be fine Henry, as long as you concentrate on the work and avoid certain people in our world.”

  “Like who?”

  “Wade Oswald, head of Inquisition. I would give him as wide a berth as possible.”

  “Noted.”

  “The last thing for tonight then, something pertinent to what I just said. Let us look at blocking mental abilities. I am going to enter your mind, lightly, so you can notice the sensation. When you feel this, you must push your thoughts away, distance them from yourself. We will repeat this a few times and then you can practice the techniques in your mind. Do you understand?” Meyer said.

  “I understand,” Henry said.

  Meyer reached out his thoughts and entered the clouds surrounding Henry’s consciousness. He brushed against the outer edges, his eyes focused on Henry’s to watch his reaction. The boy flinched and Meyer pushed a little deeper, his thoughts closing around the boys like waves against the shore, the tide continually rising. Then he released, the boys muscles relaxing as the pressure in his mind stopped. The boy was pretty useless at blocking, so, for the next half hour, they practiced again and again. Meyer would have carried on, if not for the droplets of blood that dirtied his handkerchief as yet another coughing fit took hold.

  “Enough for today. Take this book and start studying, you will need to have a good handle on it before we can progress,” Meyer said.

  With his shaking hand pointing to the copy of ‘Gwynne's Latin’ sitting on the coffee table, Meyer stood.

  “You can leave.”

  - Chapter 21 -

  Rude Awakening

  The bang was incredibly loud. While loud noises which wake you always feel much louder than they are, the noise really was loud. Henry jumped from his seat, his forehead marked from where it had laid on the corner of ‘Gwynne's Latin’ Meyer had given him. He had been trying to get through the book all night with little success. Who knew how difficult Latin was? His eyes adjusted and he spun around to see a short, rounded woman with wild grey hair holding a metre rule in front of his face.

  “What the hell?” Henry said.

  As he spoke, the woman swiped the ruler on the side of Henry’s arm. He could almost feel the size of the bruise on impact.

  “For Christ’s sake,” Henry bellowed.

  Immediately, she hit him on the other arm, with greater force than before.

  “Don’t you take the Lord’s name in vain,” the woman said.

  “What the hell?” Henry said, again.

  She brought the rule down on his head, his hands too slow as they rushed to block her.

  “Bloody-” Henry said, but before she could finish she interrupted him.

  “Be minding your language young Henry,” she said, her accent from the West Country.

  The old woman struck him across his now exposed side with the rule, he was defenceless to her attacks. Retreating to the corner of the room as quickly as he could, Henry tried to take stock of things. How did she know his name? More to the point, why was there a crazy woman in his apartment beating him up with a metre rule? Priorities Henry, priorities. He needed to start asking the important questions first.

  “Who are you?” Henry said.

  “Who? Me, my lovely? I
’m Ruth.”

  “Ruth who?”

  “Oh, did old Gabey chops not say I’d be coming? He is quite the naughty one. You must have thought I was mad!”

  “Thought had crossed my mind,” Henry said under his breath.

  “I’m here to train you.”

  Great. An old moody guy and a crazy old lady. Where was the young athletic personal trainer he had expected?

  “Wait,” Henry said, noticing the only source of light was from his desk lamp. “Did I sleep through the day again?”

  “No my lovely, it’s only morning,” Ruth said.

  Henry’s eyes adjusted to the light enough to make out the clock across the room.

  “It’s five o’clock in the morning! What the hell-” Henry said, his words cut off by Ruth as she swiped his arm with the metre rule. He really needed to watch his language around her. So far, she had caused more bruises than he had sustained the whole night he had fled from his life in the under-city.

  “Now my lovely, put on some suitable clothes and we’ll begin. We have a lot to cover,” Ruth said.

  Henry looked at her blankly.

  “You know, tracksuit or the like? I’m your physical instructor my dear, you don’t get to sit around and have a chat like you will with old Meyer.”

  Avoiding another strike, Henry rushed into his bedroom, frantically pulling out every item of clothing from his drawers in an attempt to find something to wear. Five minutes later, he had managed to find a pair of shorts that felt a little too short, an old t-shirt and a pair of plimsoll style trainers that just about fit.

  “All right then, outside we go,” Ruth said, standing uninvited in the doorway of his bedroom.

  Usually, Henry would have asked why they were doing this, but something told him asking Ruth would be a pointless endeavour. The morning air was freezing outside, the very oxygen he breathed bitter in his chest. With his keys in the pocket of his skimpy shorts and a mad woman to his right, Henry stood on the street and shook involuntarily. Disappearing for a minute, Ruth returned with an old bicycle, a wicker basket mounted on the front. With a little jump, she mounted it and cycled off, beckoning Henry to follow her.

  “Slow down and I’ll gently encourage you to speed up,” Ruth said, almost cheerfully.

  Ruth looked quite the sight on her bike, her stubby legs barely reaching the pedals as she jovially cycled through the streets of London, offering the promised gentle encouragement with the metre rule as Henry inevitably slowed down. They had been going for forty minutes, when Ruth came an abrupt stop in the middle of a council estate.

  “My, you are unfit. We are going to have to really step things up a gear.”

  “Why... Do I... Need to be able to run?” Henry said, heaving for air.

  “It’s not like you look that imposing my darlin’. I think you’ll be doin’ a lot of running, but hopefully you’ll get a little more intimidating as you get more… experienced. Right then, I have a training plan sorted out for you that should cover everything. You will get Sunday off.”

  “Well, that is kind of you.”

  “Rude,” Ruth said, resting the metre rule on Henry’s shoulder. “In you go.”

  She pointed to the caged basketball court beside them. Whatever was she going to do next, Henry knew it would involve him getting batted around with that rule some more. Begrudgingly, he stepped inside as Ruth followed him, indicating for him to stand in the centre of the court.

  “So, my darling, you are an Ink. As part of that, you have inherited memories that have been passed from generation to generation over the last 600 years or so. Essentially, you have a lot of knowledge that you don’t even know you have. Problem is, you need to access it. Now, I can’t show you how to pull individual bits of information, like how to fly a plane or make gnocchi, but I can show you how to rely on it as an instinctive reaction. See, I’m betting you don’t think you have a clue how to fight, but all of your ancestors did, which means that you already know,” Ruth said shuffling around him. “To allow you to rely of this, in training I am going to hit you and you are going to block me. It’s important you relax.”

  “Relax? How am I supposed to relax when you are hitting me?” Henry said.

  “I shouldn’t get that far, the instincts will kick in and you’ll be fine. That’s the plan.”

  That’s the plan, not the most reassuring of phrases.

  “I’m going to hit you now,” Ruth said, circling around him.

  Before Henry could register her words, Ruth brought the rule crashing into the side of his head, knocking him to the ground.

  “Bloody hell,” Henry said and immediately regretted it as Ruth whacked his left ear with the wooden rule.

  “Language,” she said. “Again.”

  The other ear was now ringing and that, unfortunately, caused him to curse again, which in turn meant Ruth hit him — again. It was a never ending spiral of pain being around her, although what had he expected? Maybe more of the ‘wax on, wax off’ Karate Kid approach.

  “This isn’t working,” Henry said.

  “You’ve not given it a chance.”

  “I’m not even trying to defend it. Maybe my ancestors were masochists and liked a bit of abuse like this? I don’t know.”

  “Oh stop complaining.”

  Ruth circled him again and Henry brought his arms up, ready to defend. Maybe if he pushed his instincts in the right direction, they would know what he wanted them to do. He was pretty sure it didn’t work like that, but anything was worth a try. Ruth lunged at him with the stick again and Henry raised his arms, trying to block. He failed and the stick hit him across the middle of his forehead causing the world to become heavy momentarily. The daze slowly wore off, but it would certainly leave an interesting bruise to explain.

  “What on earth was that?” Ruth said.

  “I was trying to block,” Henry said.

  “I said you don’t have a clue how to fight. Now isn’t the time to try and be Bruce Lee.”

  “Well, what do I do then?”

  “We keep practicing, we’ve got another forty-five minutes before-”

  “Forty-five minutes?”

  “Yes, forty-five minutes before you’ll need to run back and get ready for work.”

  The thought of returning to work certainly was a little worrying. Okay, it was a lot worrying. What would people be saying about him, what excuse could he give for his absence? God only knew.

  They practiced and practiced, first of all in silence, but eventually Ruth appeared to be getting bored. Henry pleaded with his subconscious to take over, even trying to make deals with it, but the damn thing wouldn’t kick in. He knew he must need to call it somehow, but everything he tried failed.

  “So what is it you do, my lovely?” Ruth said.

  Henry was struck across the chest with the rule, as Ruth attacked at random intervals. His arms weren’t getting any faster, although the pain of the strikes had now merged into a general ache across his entire body, which was weirdly preferable.

  “I am a haematologist at St. Bart’s,” Henry said.

  “Oh, well that doesn’t sound very interesting. Can’t imagine you meet many people?” Ruth said.

  “A couple, I’m not the most… sociable of people, but there are a few.”

  “This would be, now what did your file say…” Ruth said, pausing from hitting him for a moment to try and recall the fact.

  “Dixie?” Henry said.

  “No, it was some silly name, the one I’m thinking of. Edina, Eloise, something like that?” Ruth said.

  “Elle is not a silly name.”

  Ruth swiped the rule at the back of Henry’s legs and he fell backward onto the asphalt.

  “Concentrate Henry.”

  “I am,” Henry said, getting to his feet.

  Ruth hit him again on the shoulder, Henry’s arm nearly raised in time to block it, but instead only defended the air where the rule had been.

  “So I heard that you had a thing for,
what was that name again?” Ruth said.

  “Her name is Elle and I don’t-”

  “Yes, said you were crazy about her, but lacked the ‘princely delicates’, shall we say, to act on it.”

  “What the hell? I thought this was about training?”

  She moved to his left and thrust the tip of the ruler at Henry’s chin, gently pushing him of balance, forcing him to stagger in an awkward circle around her.

  “Inquisitors are supposed to be revered, respected. Not wimping around like a nervous dishcloth,” Ruth said.

  “I’m not-”

  “It’s not worth your effort on that one my dear. File says she is a bit of a tart.”

  Ruth sent the stick crashing down toward the side of Henry’s face, but before it struck, his arm raised and his hand curled backwards, guiding the stick away.

  “She is not a tart,” Henry said.

  Ruth swung the stick back and swept it horizontally at him. Henry blocked it. She swung again and he dodged it, taking a step back as it whistled past.

  “Sleeping with a married man and lying about it, sounds like a tart to me,” Ruth said.

  “Elle is not a tart. Matt must have forced her or something,” Henry said.

  Ruth came in with quicker attacks, moving the stick rapidly from one line of assault to another. Henry was blocking them without thinking, his eyes wide with anger.

  “Come off it, my darlin’. She is a grown woman, not somebody to be tricked into doing anything she don’t want to be doing,” Ruth said.

  “You don’t know her. You don’t know him, he’s-”

  Ruth dropped the stick and came in close, attempting to hit him with her fists as she kept the pace of the conversation.

  “More of a man than you are my dear?” Ruth said.

  “He’s a coward, she would never-”

  “Of course she wouldn’t. Come off it little’n.”

  “You don’t know her like I do.”

  “I don’t need to know her, to know she’s a tart.”

  In the seconds that had passed, Ruth had levelled several punches toward him and he had blocked each without losing trace of his thoughts. She had gone in for a haymaker, her arm swinging outwards, when Henry did something surprising. He stepped into the attack, blocking it by sheer proximity and, catching Ruth off balance, firmly shoved her with his shoulder knocking her to the ground.