by SJB Gilmour
Sarah suddenly felt much, much better. She gave a low cry and hugged her teacher. All the tension from the past few days was suddenly washed away as girl and teacher renewed their bond of friendship and love. They strolled along the pebbly shore while Sarah told Angela everything that had happened in more detail than what she had back at Gembrook. She explained how she and Melanie had found The Babylonian Heresies and fought goblins and sorcerers in the Congo jungle temple. Then she told her teacher how she had helped restore Jasper to youth and how she and Felix had got along so well at Wolfenvald. Next, she told her about her fight with N’butu, the evil master of fauna.
‘I guess after that, I kind of lost my temper,’ Sarah admitted. ‘I’d never killed a human until the fight at the temple. It kind of scared me.’
‘How do you feel now?’ Angela asked her seriously.
Sarah shrugged. ‘I dunno,’ she half mumbled. ‘I mean I did it because they were attacking us and then when I fought with that Noboto guy…’
‘N’butu,’ Angela corrected. ‘It’s very bad form to forget the names of the foes you defeat.’
‘N’butu,’ Sarah repeated. ‘It was because he was attacking me. And I didn’t really mean to kill that Moira woman. I just wanted to stop her escaping. I guess I was too slow.’
‘Moira Cromwell?’ Angela asked, surprised. ‘She’s dead? No great loss, of course. Even Marzdane hates her. What did you do to her?’
‘Well,’ Sarah hedged, ‘when I got to Conundrum she was there with these other sorcerers and well, she like, tried to escape through a portal so I kind of blasted it as she was going through.’
Angela rolled her eyes. ‘Teenage vocabulary,’ she observed to herself. ‘It comes on so suddenly.’ She sighed and nodded at Sarah. ‘Go on,’ she said wearily.
‘Anyway, that Moira woman got cut in half as she was going through and her portal exploded.’ Sarah shook her head. ‘I don’t think I’ve ever been so mad before. All I could think of was how I wanted to get rid of The Gate. I was there and it should have been so easy to blast it…’ she paused for breath.
‘So that was when Wolfenvald stopped you,’ Angela finished for her.
Sarah nodded glumly.
Angela shook her head briefly. ‘Amazing,’ she murmured. ‘How do you feel about the fight though, Sarah. You killed people.’
‘I know,’ Sarah muttered. ‘I’m sorry about that but they were trying to kill us and I didn’t have a choice!’ she protested, her voice escalating in her excitement.
Angela put one arm around Sarah’s shoulders. ‘I know, dear. No-one’s accusing you of anything.’
‘But—’
‘But nothing, Sarah,’ Angela told her more firmly. ‘I just had to make sure you hadn’t developed a taste for blood.’
‘Ew!’ Sarah protested, making a face. ‘I know when I was wolf at the dinner table, the blood the princesses were drinking smelled okay, but… Ew! I know I should be sorry those guys are dead, and I mean I am and all, but I’m not too, you know? I mean it was them or us and they were bad guys and we’re the good guys! As for Marzdane, I mean that guy had it coming. I can’t believe you were married to him. He’s such a jerk.’
Angela looked startled. ‘What did you do to Marzdane? You didn’t kill him too, did you?’
‘Nah, we didn’t kill him. Well, it wasn’t really we, it was just Mel and Apollo. I mean I kind of helped a bit but only to get Apollo to get off His bum and help her,’ Sarah told her. ‘It was mostly Mel. Remember that spell Oliver taught her to, you know, make people get a lot older all of a sudden? Well, she did that to him.’
‘Melanie?’ Angela repeated. ‘She used the petrifico curse on Marzdane? The old boy must be slipping.’ She looked at Sarah seriously. ‘You mentioned Apollo?’
‘Marzdane was attacking her containment orb and I was busy with the goblins and the other losers that Marzdane sent at me. I knew that Apollo’s always been keeping an eye on Mel in the back of her head, kind of like how Loki is with Cromwell except He’s nicer. He didn’t try to kick me out of Mel’s mind or anything. I told Him to help her, so He did.’
Angela looked very surprised, but said nothing.
‘It’s hard to explain,’ Sarah went on. ‘I guess you kind of had to be there. I didn’t really boss Him about. I sort of asked, kind of. Anyway, Mel cast the spell and Apollo helped and she shot some kind of enchanted arrow at Marzdane. He tried to get away, but it hit him anyway and when he got up off the ground he was like a thousand years old.’
She looked back up at the patch of ash that was all that was left of the goblins. ‘Three more of those Guild guardslins turned up here, too.’
Angela took this very seriously. ‘What?
‘Don’t worry,’ Sarah said calmly. ‘Felix killed ‘em. I was going to try to read one of their minds, but he bit off the top of its head before I got the chance.’
Angela swore. ‘Sarah if they were spies, there could be more any moment now!’
‘Yeah,’ Sarah agreed, ‘but that was ‘bout an hour ago and no more have come along. I think we killed them before they got the chance to report back.’
Angela sighed and shook her head regretfully. ‘It seems you and young Mister Marzec are every bit as impulsive as every other werewolf alive. Oh well, it’s too late to worry about it much now.’
A thought occurred to Sarah. ‘What did your mum…? I mean Cassandra mean when she said that stuff about you taking Apollo away?’
Angela shook her head with a resigned expression. ‘Well, you were bound to find out sooner or later…’ She modestly opened her shirt to reveal the golden tattoo of a drawn bow and arrow over her right breast.
Sarah had first noticed that tattoo back when they were on Captain Thunder’s ship, The Norse Wind. She’d always meant to ask about it but somehow had never found the right moment to do so.
‘The Mark of Apollo,’ Angela said, buttoning her shirt back up again. ‘It lasts as long as the wearer is His chosen one. My mother had it once a long time ago. She’s been a bitter old bag since.’
Sarah gaped at her teacher.
‘I wasn’t going to tell you until later, but since we’re talking, and you asked… This is the mark the succubi’s scroll was talking about. The Serpentine too, if I recall. They both called me The Marked One.’
Carefully and very slowly, Sarah said, ‘So you and Apollo are like, you know…?’
‘Yes, dear,’ Angela admitted with a happy smile then shook her head regretfully. ‘I can’t believe I put it off for so long! What a fool I was.’
‘Oh man,’ Sarah said with a grimace. Most of her thirteen year-old human self still thought the whole idea of human relations was absolutely disgusting. It seemed like something people from another planet would do. The problem was that lately, a very small part of her had not been so disgusted. In fact, that small part of her was becoming increasingly, and quite irritatingly curious about the concept. Still, she did not know what to say. She was very surprised to see this side of her usually very proper teacher.
‘You don’t have to say anything, Sarah,’ Angela told her.
Embarrassed, Sarah realised she had let down the barrier around her mind Oliver had trained to keep up — Angela had read her mind.
‘Yes, it was worth it…’ She paused, her eyes distant. ‘It’s not official yet. I guess you could say it’s the godly form of dating. When I am with Him, all I can think about is Him. When we’re apart, I still remember Benjamin… It’s almost as if being with Apollo has made the feelings I have for Benjamin even stronger. But I guess once we’re together properly, I won’t have those feelings any more at all, or they’ll change somehow.’
Sarah’s werewolf instincts told her exactly what was happening to her teacher. Apollo’s touch had awakened the feeling of love that lay dormant within Angela. Now that passion had stirred within her, no amount of godly persuasion could erase her feelings for the great Silver Shroud.
‘I wouldn’t call myself prop
er, per se,’ Angela went on. ‘Let’s just say a lady knows how to behave appropriately for the occasion. If the situation requires elegance and charm, then that is how we should behave. Of course, that’s all for public display. Privately, there’s no point being bashful. That’s something for uptight mortals to occupy their tiny minds with.’
‘Did it hurt?’ Sarah asked, anxious to change the subject.
Angela looked a little perplexed. ‘Sarah,’ she chided, ‘I think you’re still a bit young for me to go into too many details—’
Sarah blushed furiously. ‘I… I didn’t mean that!’ she protested. ‘I meant did it hurt when Apollo changed your mind?’
Angela coughed delicately. ‘Oh, I’m sorry, Sarah. No, it didn’t hurt. When I felt His presence in my mind, it just overwhelmed everything else.’ She glanced down and pressed the fabric of her shirt against her skin so that the golden mark glowed through the shirt. ‘This didn’t hurt either,’ she mused.
Sarah’s beautiful teacher looked out over the water for a long moment. Finally, she sighed and turned back to Sarah seriously. ‘And now, young lady, why don’t you tell me just what happened here? I thought you and young Master Marzec were trying to find a missing minotaur.’
‘We found him,’ Sarah reported glumly. ‘But Medusa turned him to stone and took him away.’
‘You let her get away? After all you’ve managed to do so far, that seems unlike you.’
‘I know,’ Sarah said muttered. ‘Mel and I work really well as a team. She’s like my best friend and I’m hers so we’ve kind of worked out how to do things and stuff, but Felix… He’s just so annoying!’ she fumed. ‘First he kills the goblins, then he blasts the troll into bits when I had everything under control, and then he wraps us in a containment orb when Medusa made the cave fall in. He keeps butting in! In the end I got so mad at him I sent back.’
‘I warned you once about causing explosions inside caves.’
‘I know,’ Sarah replied glumly. ‘But, I didn’t do it this time. I used a containment orb and Felix blasted through it. The troll blew up inside the orb. It was contained. He didn’t need to blow it up! Anyway, Medusa’s the one who made the roof fall in.’
‘I don’t understand, dear,’ Angela said. ‘Why were you so upset at him? Surely the rocks would have hurt you too.’ She nodded at Sarah’s freshly healed elbows and head.
Sarah shook her head. ‘Not when I’m a wolf.’ She paused for a moment while Wolfenvald explained more to her.
‘Power can protect you in either form, Golden Mane. It was simply unfortunate that when the goblin beasts attacked, you were not using any of your own, nor were you drawing any from Wolfenvald.’
‘It’s kind of hard to explain,’ Sarah continued glumly. She felt very embarrassed now she knew why she’d been injured.
Angela was silent for a few minutes as she absorbed this. She looked critically at Sarah’s freshly healed shoulder. ‘So how exactly did you manage to get hurt if being a wolf is so much safer?’ she pressed.
‘Ahh, I guess I was lucky,’ Sarah confessed. ‘I couldn’t climb up there with my paws.’ She waved at the top of the rocky outcrop. ‘I had to use my hands and feet. Thing was, I didn’t expect the goblins to be so close, and since I wasn’t using any power which would have protected me...’ She looked down at her feet, her face flaming. Then she looked up again and went on bravely. ‘One minute I’m peering over the top to have a look, then next there’s a goblin aiming a crossbow at me. That’s when Felix came barging in. Good thing he did because when the goblin fired, he missed and Felix got him. That’s when I fell down there.’ She pointed down to the rocks at the bottom.
Angela shook her head sadly. ‘My dear, you really need to learn how to fall. Some martial training wouldn’t hurt—’
‘Martial?’
‘Fighting dear. I’ve given you some basic training already, but obviously you need more, and from better trainers than I. There are going to be times when you’re faced with danger while still in your human form. I know just the people who can help.’
‘Who?’
Angela smiled. ‘Why, the Amazons, of course. Best fighting females around.’ She grew stern again. ‘Okay, Felix blew up the troll. What happened next?’
‘Medusa made the cave fall in,’ Sarah repeated. ‘Dust and stuff went everywhere. By the time we could see through all the dust in the air, she’d nicked off with Alf.’
‘Wait a moment, do you know what she was doing with the troll?’
‘That’s what I wanted to find out!’ Sarah exclaimed. ‘She said it was her prey but I don’t get it. Trolls taste horrid. Before I could find out for sure, Felix blew it up. He’s crazy. He gets all emotional about strange things and when serious stuff happens, he goes all calm and quiet and insulting.’
Angela chuckled. ‘He’s a Grey Mane,’ she said as if that answered everything. ‘They’re all like that. The more brilliant they are, the weirder they are.’
Sarah nodded glumly. ‘I think Medusa was hunting the troll. She got real mad at us when it exploded. She told us we owed her one troll.’
‘Hmm, she must be getting very hungry. The minotaurs have upped their security so she probably hasn’t had any luck hunting them. She must have gone after the troll out of desperation. I wonder what it was doing here in Crete?’
‘Maybe it was spying on the minotaurs?’
‘Possibly,’ Angela admitted thoughtfully. ‘I doubt it was working with The Guild. It might have been working for Thrag. This is the second time you’ve bumped into a troll unexpectedly, but I guess now there’s no way to tell. Right now, we need to track down this missing minotaur. Come along, Sarah,’ she instructed. ‘I think I had better have a word with Medusa.’ She began walking to the elevator. ‘It might be best if you’re in wolf form for this. Some of the folk we’re likely to meet are a little unsavoury.’
‘Okay,’ Sarah said, changing form. ‘Where are we going?’
‘If Medusa has taken her prey, she’s probably gone home to feed. We’ll try there first.’
‘Where’s she live?’ Sarah asked as they entered the elevator.
‘Where to this time?’ the elevator demanded rudely.
‘Kingdom of Hades, please,’ Angela instructed the elevator, ‘The Gorgon Burroughs on the island of Elysium.’
The elevator gave a shudder. ‘Oh, no you don’t!’ it refused. ‘I’m not going anywhere near any hell. Find your own way there!’ It began to shake violently. ‘Get out!’
Angela was terribly insulted. ‘I’ll take this up with your manufacturers,’ she advised the elevator crisply as she and Sarah stepped back out of the shaking elevator.
‘Bah!’ the elevator scoffed. ‘They’ve closed down. You can’t do a thing!’ It folded up its stairs, slammed its doors shut and vanished.
‘Very well,’ Angela said in a determined voice, ‘we’ll do it the old fashioned way.’
She pointed one long finger at the rocky ground and waved it in the pattern of a nine-pointed star inside a circle. A burning nonagram in a ring appeared to float several centimetres off the uneven ground.
‘Umm, don’t you need to be naked for this?’ Sarah asked nervously.
Angela grinned and tapped her shirt. ‘Not really any more. I’m betrothed to Apollo and that means that I’m now as immune to demons as you are.’
She spread her hands out towards the fiery nonagram and the flames shot up a couple of metres. Sarah’s teacher began to glow with a golden light as she began chanting the necromantic spells that could forge a portal between Earth and The Underworld.
Chapter Eight
Melanie woke up feeling sicker than she’d ever felt in her life. Her skin itched like crazy and her mouth felt as though it was full of dirt. Her eyes hurt. Even when she clenched them shut tight, she could still see red glowing images as if she’d stared at a light bulb for too long. Grumbling to herself, she hauled herself out of bed and went to the bathroom.
‘At
least they’ve got decent plumbing,’ she muttered to herself. The suite Jerrit provided her in the palace was huge and lushly furnished. It had a bedroom, a sitting room, and a small kitchenette. It had a large study fully equipped with a fairly current computer and a printer. It even had an exercise room with a stationary bike, a treadmill, a gym station and workout mats, mirrors and bars. But Mel wasn’t interested in any of that. She needed a shower.
She stripped off her fancy Vendorese cotton pyjamas and removed the amulet from around her neck. The silver outer part was a simple nine-pointed star, but set inside it was a gold coin, also nine-sided. It was that gold coin which was one half of The Star of Planes. Sarah had the other half — a silver amulet very much like the one Mel had, only it was enchanted with terrible power. Both Sarah and Mel carried these amulets everywhere they went, and never let them out of their sight. She chucked the heavy metal talisman onto the sink bench and stepped into the huge walk-in shower. She didn’t even look in the mirror. She just stood under the steaming water with her eyes shut for a long time. Then she looked down at the drain and got the fright of her life. A huge quantity of black hair was massing near the drain hole.
Very slowly, she reached up to her scalp with trembling hands. Her head was completely bald.
With an oath that would have left James to shame, she got out of the shower and only dried herself off enough that she wouldn’t slip on the tiles with wet feet. The mirror was fogged up so she reached out to wipe it with her hand. That was when she noticed her nails had fallen out. She wiped the mirror frantically and gaped in horror from her bald head to her nail-less hands and back again. Then she noticed her gums.