by Vance Huxley
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Abel left the dryads to think until lunch-time when despite a chill in the wind he, and some others, took their lunch to sit under the trees. They’d barely sat down when the shimmering of a veil around each tree announced the arrival of the dryads. No talking from inside the trunk now, at least a dozen were in plain sight. Abel noticed the veils didn’t include his own group, leaving them in view of the other students braving the weather. The plaque landed on the grass next to him. “There is no harm in there. The intent is protection, with some sort of healing that is not activated.”
“The additional part gives some relief from pain and encouragement to heal.” Kelis glanced at Abel. “As the original creator intended. That only works when drawn on the skin.”
“Or bark.” Twiggy digits scraped the front of the nearest dryad. “Does it matter where the mark is?”
“No.” Kelis seemed content to discuss it so Abel kept quiet. “We put them where we can stroke them. It is comforting.”
“That might be a new thing. The wind hints of a dryad rescued, and others who live protected but without marks.” Abel reflected that the wind seemed very well informed. Something more than birdsong and mouse chatter had passed that information though the dryads weren’t trusting to the wind, not entirely. As the discussion worked through what had been done at Brinsford and Frederick’s house, the dryads admitted to knowing of Dead Wood and Sorcerer’s Keep.
The talking went on all dinner break, a windy, cold hour. Luckily every student under the trees had practiced fire and wind, though they kept the warm air away from nervous wood-creatures. Eventually the dryads somehow came to an unspoken, silent consensus and the spokes-dryad passed it on. If the humans would come tomorrow and explain exactly what the barrier would do, and the amount of magic involved, they would seriously consider an agreement. After explaining they’d be away until Monday, the quietly jubilant group made their way back to classes.
Not all were jubilant. Abel, Rob and Kelis were pleased but cautious as Ferryl explained how difficult the weaving must be. To include dryads but not all dryads, and those with Tavern marks but not everyone who drew a Tavern mark, took carefully orchestrated intent. In addition, this barrier would dissuade teachers and pupils from coming into the trees, but couldn’t harm any who pushed hard.
Designing that kept all four busy during the weekend, instead of worrying about the Firstseed’s ultimatum. In four weeks they had to find the Leech lair, the place most of the nest lived, and come up with a plan to keep Firstseed from seeding students. If they couldn’t, all four agreed they’d have to send in Vicar Creepio Mysterio and God’s SAS.
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The weeks crept by, filled with school and glyph homework as well as building what really did become a very complicated barrier glyph. A dozen drawings were scrapped as a tiny test version showed a flaw. Eventually the dryads copied the Tavern glyph onto their bark in permanent ink before Kelis, Rob, Abel and Jenny, orchestrated by Ferryl/Claris, spent hours crawling under trees hidden by a veil. Despite what she’d said about keeping her distance, Jenny had somehow become a permanent part of their group. According to her, watching Abel with Ferryl/Claris had removed most of the weird factor. She now felt sure he’d never broken their guidelines, and instead took to occasionally teasing him about never getting a real kiss.
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Ferryl worked hard on searching Claris’ memories, and found clearer views of what the internet showed to be old cinema selling second-hand furniture and carpets. Claris never went outside the lair, possibly because of her emaciated appearance, so she never even saw the front door. The weekend before Halloween, in pure desperation, Abel and Ferryl/Claris went to look for the house.
After the taxi dropped them off near the store, the pair of them walked over to browse. Abel wore a hoody and Ferryl/Claris a seeming of a young schoolgirl with long blonde hair, and both wore gold belts and carried extra lead bars full of magic. Rob, Jenny and Kelis lurked around the corner, also loaded for magical bear. Ferryl/Claris had a casual look round. “It is somewhere close because Claris could see this side of the shop from the front window. We must hope there is some sign.” Unfortunately the area all looked a bit run-down, covered with creatures, litter and graffiti. The pair of them walked along the road on the same side of the road as the cinema, casually glancing across at the opposite buildings.
Ferryl stopped and turned to Abel. “Put your arms round me for a few moments, and look over my shoulder. There are no creatures actually going into the tall building with the glass doors covered in posters. There are hexes around the windows, but I need to get closer.”
“I see them. Why are there none on the door?” Abel moved his shoulder closer to Ferryl/Claris so Zephyr could ask her by spooky-phone.
“The Leeches would find them uncomfortable. We will have to walk in through that door, because the window hexes will include alarms. Unless I can break them quietly.” Ferryl/Claris turned but held onto Abel’s hand. “Let’s cross the street and innocently wander up that alley at the side. Then I can judge how strong the hexes are. If we walk near the building wall, Zephyr can fly straight upward to inspect the higher windows.”
A few minutes later they were walking slowly down the alley hand in hand, aimlessly kicking at trash. Zephyr shot back into Abel’s arm as a door further down the alley opened, connected briefly to Ferryl, then snatched the spooky-line back. “Leech coming.”
Four men came out, all wearing jeans and hoodies, led by an impeccably dressed young woman. “Time to go.” Ferryl’s arm tugged gently and Abel turned to head back to the street.
“What do you two want?” Abel felt a chill and a wash of compulsion telling him to answer the woman. It was gentle but he thought he’d best pretend it worked. Either that or start running.
“Nothing, just looking around for someplace private.” Abel kept his head down inside the hood so his face stayed hidden.
“We can find you somewhere private back here?” The compulsion came again, pulling at him, but Abel wasn’t going any nearer the door.
Ferryl/Claris butted it. “We want someplace without people.” She tugged at Abel’s arm. “C’mon. I’m getting itchy. Need my fix.”
“I’ll pretend I’m an addict needing my fix. Leech compulsion has difficulty overcoming Morphine and opium addiction.”
“We can fix you up in here?” One man indicated the doorway. “Good stuff, and cheap.”
“No.” Ferryl put a hand in her handbag, tugging Abel back a few more steps. “I’ve got the stuff, just need a place. You touch me I’ll cut you.” One of the men took a step forward and Abel tensed just a little.
“Shall I bop him?” Zephyr sounded wound up and raring to go, which calmed Abel down.
“Not yet Zephyr. Not unless they get close, then smack the Leech.”
“Ffod bop ready.”
But the Leech-woman put out a hand to stop the others. “Typical junky. Let her go. She’s not worth the noise and aggravation.” Meanwhile, Abel and Ferryl/Claris made the last three steps to the alley entrance, turned and walked quickly away.
“Now we know. The sides are watched, and that door is guarded. Those are very good hexes for a Leech, they are not usually very adept. I cannot break into the windows to sneak in, so it is smash and grab or walk in the front door. Unless the higher windows are less well protected?” Ferryl raised her voice, whining a little. “Come on, let’s get home. There’s no-place round here.”
“Just hang on until then, all right. No cutting anyone.” Abel tried not to smile at that. “Zephyr, what about the other windows?”
“The same glyphs as the bottom ones. Very strong. I could get in the door and bop the guard?”
“Not all four.” Abel passed on the rest as the pair walked around the corner to find the other three waiting impatiently. “We found it, but we’ll have to go to the meeting with Ferryl/Claris pretending to have a Leech.”
“Curses. She’ll not let us all in.
You could try for taking a bodyguard, just one of us?” Kelis looked past Abel to the corner. “Were you spotted?”
“Sort of but Ferryl got us out.” He explained. The discussion in the bus on the way back had to be quiet and guarded, but even when they could talk freely nobody had a better idea. Though if it came to it, they now knew exactly where to direct God’s SAS.
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Abel called Firstseed as instructed, and she didn’t sound happy. “I have received more information on the school attack. You are more powerful than expected so I will not meet you at our lair. Write down this address.” Abel wrote it down, mind racing.
“How will I know you?”
“You won’t and my appearance is irrelevant. Leeches can detect each other regardless of the host, so the youngling will tell you who I am. That way I can be sure your companion is the youngling, not one of your sorceresses in a seeming.” The Firstseed still seemed wary. “You bear the bloodline of the sorcerer? If not, you cannot touch the key.”
“Yes.” Ferryl swore his relationship to the sorcerer had allowed Abel’s blood to break her binding seals.
“Come alone, except for the youngling. Do you still wish to buy the host?”
“Yes. What’s the price?” Abel crossed his fingers for something he could afford but it didn’t work.
“If you can touch the key, we will bargain. If not, you have nothing I need. Come at six pm, without your apprentices. I will have watchers.” She paused for a moment. “Walk across the square. Come by taxi, not in your own vehicle.”
“Your people keep away from me. If they close in I start throwing glyphs. If we go into a room and I see more than one other person I blow a wall out.” Abel thought hard but that covered it. “I’ll be there with the youngling.”
The new instructions spoiled any vague plans they’d already made, though Ferryl still felt hopeful. The Firstseed would probably take Abel to her lair anyway because she wouldn’t want the key exposed. At least they now knew why nobody had tried to get into Castle House, the key needed a blood relative of the sorcerer. The Leech recognition signal seemed insurmountable until Ferryl/Claris suggested taking Leech-toad with her, in a pickle jar in her handbag. Hopefully the Firstseed would think Claris was still the host. That left the other problem, how to recognise the Leech.
Zephyr’s quiet excited voice sounded in Abel’s head. “I can do that?”
“How? She will be an adult, and they are almost impossible to detect without getting very close.” Ferryl paused. “How did you know a Leech would come out of that door, Zephyr?”
“I can feel them, ever since I fought the Leech in the garden. I went into it, a little.” Zephyr shut up, the whole incident still worried her. After a pause, she continued. “I feel the Leech in Castle House garden as soon as we pass the barrier, but didn’t realise I would feel any others.”
“You almost became part-Leech, spreading through it to possess the creature, which gave you a true understanding of them. You recognise their scent, or a vibration, whatever they use.” Ferryl/Claris smiled happily. “She will not expect that!”
“I still don’t want Abel swanning off someplace I can’t follow.” From the set of her jaw, Kelis wasn’t budging on that. “I’d rather bring Creepio. He’d catch her right out in the open.” Kelis closed her hand, as if crushing something.
Rob glanced at Abel’s arm. “Zephyr can’t go and look for her anyway. She’d see the tether.”
“I can set her free?”
“No! Too soon!” Zephyr sounded close to panic. “Struggling with the leech, and healing Rob, and sometimes hunting or fighting, I lose myself. I must have my way home!”
“Can Abel attach the tether again afterwards?” Jenny shrugged. “Since he tethered her in the first place? Then if Zephyr just followed, without any fights or hunting? If she stayed high but well back, Zephyr could send us a spooky-phone and direct us if I borrow dad’s pickup.”
All eyes turned to Abel’s tattoo, then Abel. He shrugged. “I didn’t set the tether. As far as I know, if I tell Zephyr she’s free, she is.”
“True if you have intent. I can teach you to reset the connection, because it isn’t a real tether. It would take both of you. If Zephyr liked freedom, she needn’t come back.” Ferryl looked at the tattoo. “Even Zephyr can’t be sure until she is free.”
“I am sure. I do not want to go, but if it helps Abel I will do it. I will be the fearless Ffod, but I will come back without bopping anything.”
After a short, very simple lesson for Zephyr and Abel, talk turned to what-if. Anything could happen once the Firstseed found that Ferryl/Claris wasn’t the youngling. Even if that worked out, the best scenario they could come up with ended in a pack of Leeches chasing Abel and Ferryl/Claris through Stourton. They’d need backup waiting, preferably the sort that could tackle a Leech head-on.
A score of possible plans were dissected, discarded or adapted but all of them relied on the Taverners, all the stronger magical ones, being willing to take chances. By the time they’d made provisional decisions on who to ask for diversions and who might fight, Jenny had to go home. Another fifteen minutes and her dad would be phoning to remind her about the time, and right now she needed him in a good mood. Kelis went off to make a private phone call of her own. She wanted all the backup possible, even an ex-boyfriend.
Firstseed Firefight
The next few days passed quickly, with many Taverners at school distracted by Halloween. The magical ones were planning on using their new skills to liven the night up, but as a diversion and without actually breaking the compact. Abel worried exactly where that line might be, but with his skin at stake he wasn’t going to be too picky.
Some Taverners, the younger ones, couldn’t get permission to be out late at Halloween, but most of the older ones promised to be there. The Taverners had all been revolted by what the Leech did to Claris and horrified by the attack on the school, and were keen to dish out some retribution. Eric had the number for Creepio, to ask for God’s SAS to rescue Abel or to flatten the Leech lair once Abel and Claris escaped.
Abel, Rob, Kelis and Claris had a late pass for Halloween, allegedly to join their friends in haunting Stourton. All four wore old sheets torn into rags and fake blood. At least when Frederick arrived on the back of Shawn’s scooter, the age of their chauffeur reassured the parents. The pickup truck parked under a veil outside the church, filling up with Goblins, might have caused misgivings.
The conversation on the way to town would have caused parental palpitations. In Stourton Jenny waved goodbye as the pickup peeled away to deposit the goblins and collect her troops, while Frederick pulled up by a taxi rank. After some last frantic good wishes Abel and Ferryl/Claris took a taxi to meet the Firstseed. Kelis and Rob took another taxi, but they’d keep back out of sight. With a big smile Kelis dropped a bright yellow colour glyph on the roof before climbing in, so Zephyr could find her.
When Abel and Ferryl/Claris arrived in a small square outside a pub throwing a Halloween bash, Zephyr went on alert. She slipped out of Abel’s shoulder and began to swoop around low to the ground, where nobody would notice a ripple in the moving shadows. Within a couple of minutes she arrived back. “Tall, thin woman in black trousers and top and a red cloak. She has long black hair. Over near the pub door.”
“Fly free, Zephyr.”
“Back soon.”
Abel’s arm felt empty, just when he’d got used to a resident again. He didn’t have time to reflect on that, because as the pair of them walked towards the woman Zephyr described she smiled to welcome them. Abel had to choke back a comment. The Blood Leech had come dressed as a movie vampire in skin-tight leathers with a crimson cloak and plastic fangs. Instead he braced to throw glyphs, because if Leeches communicated more than a feeling of being nearby the youngling would be screaming for mummy to rescue it.
“You feel concerned, youngling. Do not worry. Soon you will be home again.” She turned to Abel. “We will wait while friends
check the crowd. You are young for a sorcerer. I am told it is not a seeming.”
“I’m an apprentice. My teacher wants me to get the key.”
She held up a hand to stop Abel saying any more. “You were not followed. Youngling, take him by taxi to the lair. That one over there. I will follow with others, in case of trouble.”
“Remember, you and one other.” Abel didn’t want a car full pouncing on him, even with Ferryl/Claris to help.
Ferryl/Claris had already turned away, heading back towards the taxi the Firstseed had indicated. Her hand slipped into his. “I dare not speak to her. I do not know what voice a Leech would use, or what it would call the Firstseed.” “Look, the taxi is empty.”
“A proper hackney cab, loitering about so far away from the cab rank in the town centre. How lucky.” Which Abel knew it wasn’t, the Leech must have called for it or owned the driver. He inspected the taxi driver as they got in, wondering if the man could be carrying a Leech. According to Ferryl’s hand he wasn’t, so Abel relaxed. At least everyone would know exactly where to go because Zephyr would recognise the building.
The trip didn’t take long. When the taxi stopped Ferryl leant forward to whisper “Please stay,” and touched the man’s hand, held out for the fare. He slumped, asleep. A car pulled up behind, a low, sleek red convertible with the Firstseed driving and two other young women aboard. When Abel held up two fingers, one pouted and stayed in the car. The Firstseed didn’t even pause. Even as she opened the glass doors a shadow flickered along the bottom of the building where it met the pavement, then up Abel’s leg and arm.
“The Ffod returns!”
“Are you staying?”
“Of course. Shake hands please.” That came closest to describing the sensation of reconnecting. Abel reached out with his magic to clasp an ephemeral something, and the two twined around each other. With a little zing they were one, connected. “Home again.” Zephyr sounded even more hyped than usual. “The others follow, but well back. I was to tell them if it is not this house.”