by G Mottram
Cadaveril was everywhere and nowhere throughout the afternoon. Jason would suddenly half-glimpse him in a corner and then he’d be gone. Nothing touched the master, no flying body, no shattered furniture or shard of sugar-glass. You didn’t even know he was there most of the time yet under his all-seeing eye, every student fought harder than ever to reach their target. By Jason’s reckoning he’d ‘died’ about twenty times by the end of the afternoon.
Even given this high mortality rate, when at last Cadaveril called a halt to the maiming and destruction, Jason decided that he’d done well. When he’d hit any attacker out of cover, without exception, they stayed down for the rest of that bout. A steady stream of wounded had limped and crawled out of the pub only to return for the next round after patching themselves up.
They all knelt facing a sour-faced Cadaveril in front of the seemingly bomb-struck pub.
‘Crude and obvious most of the time,’ Cadaveril said, his hawkish eyes slashing across the kneeling students, ‘but some of you are startin’ to fight like you mean it at last. Now, warm down, sort your wounds out, eat a belly-full and sleep – tomorrow we’ll do some real work.’
He motioned for the students to leave. As they stood and sank into the respect, Cadaveril waved Jason over to him. Jason limped across the mat – in the very last bout, Marshal Martin had managed to clip his knee with a bo-stick a split second before Jason had air-pushed him over the bar.
Cadaveril’s eyes, set deep in his bone white face, swept over the walking wounded filing out of the training hall. Then he surveyed the half-demolished pub with its sugar glass windows and decimated furniture scattered out on the mat behind Jason. The last student closed the door quietly behind him. Cadaveril’s voice, when he finally spoke, was just a whisper.
‘You learn quickly, boy – you’re a natural. Even for the most powerful Gifted, this amount of control and power so early on is unusual.’
‘Thank you, Master,’ Jason said, bowing his head. What was this about - Cadaveril never praised him?
‘You will be a great loss to the Watch.’
Jason snapped his head up and Cadaveril’s black eyes bored into him. ‘Twenty two times dead.’
‘I…’ Jason began but Cadaveril stopped him with the slightest narrowing of his eyes.
‘There’s a hell of a lot more you need to learn if you’re going to survive out there in our world. We do our work in pubs like that one where you’ve just been slaughtered. Flats, offices, restaurants, slums – you name it, we hunt there. Stealth, the unseen blow, the whispered death… sometimes, boy, these will be the only things that can save your supposedly valuable skin.’
‘I understand…’ Jason began but Cadaveril cut him off.
‘No you don’t, not yet. Demon huntin’ with Mr Brash all over Europe I’ve seen too many Gifted who think they can take on anythin’ with their powers - most of them are dead now, their teams slaughtered with them.’
‘Yes, Master. I know I’ve got a long way to go,’ Jason said, ‘but I want to learn everything there is to know about my Gift.’
Cadaveril continued to stare at him. Jason felt as if the man was burning into his head with twin laser beams. He dropped his gaze. ‘Then you’ll ‘ave to bloody well commit to it, boy, commit to us… work out who can learn you to stay alive and do what they say.’
Jason glanced up – Cadaveril didn’t scare him anymore. ‘I will.’
The master gave thin smile. ‘We’ll see. Go and rest up – using your wonderful magic makes you superheroes a little bit tired I believe. You’ll need to be in full working order to get through tomorrow.’
Jason nodded and sank into his respect. ‘Yes, Master,’ he said and limped out of the training hall.
Chapter 20
The bedside alarm woke Jason up at five-thirty and it didn’t have a snooze button. Jason sat on the edge of his bed trying to work out what happened. He’d sank into the bath after leaving Cadaveril yesterday and he just thought he’d close his eyes for a few minutes on the bed before dinner…
‘Bugger.’ He ached all over and had significantly added to his collection of cuts and bruises.
He struggled to get out of bed into the half-dark, cheerless room. There would be no Dad and Miranda waiting for him with a massive, Sunday morning breakfast today. Maybe he could try to call Miranda at Ilena Russof’s this evening to touch base. The trouble was there didn’t appear to be any telephones in the guesthouse.
‘Food,’ he muttered to himself. After missing dinner last night he was starving. He stood up and groaned as muscles twinged and tensed all over.
A hot power-shower loosened him up somewhat and soon he was tapping in his number on the inside door lock and pressing his thumb to the pad. The door clicked open and he trotted out along the corridor ignoring the last of his aches and pains.
Anna was waiting in one of the big white chairs in the entrance hall.
‘About time too – I was just about to come up there and knock you up. We’ll miss first breakfast if we don’t hurry.’
By the time they reached the refectory it was almost full of students and security guards. “First breakfast” consisted of bowls of muesli and cut fruit of all descriptions. Jason wasn’t a big fan of muesli but he piled in lots of strawberries, bananas and apple at the self-service breakfast bar after Anna warned him he was going to need it. They squeezed onto a bench and ate quickly. Students were already beginning to leave.
Anna glanced at the big clock above the grand steps and doors out to the cloister. ‘Time to run,’ she said and got up with her bowl only half emptied.
They dumped their dishes in a pile at one end of the serving table and went out into the cloister. Six-thirty in the morning and it was already warm on the perfect square of pristine grass. The central cross almost seemed to pulse with the sun’s heat as its iron manacles hung down in the stillness. Jakra students were spread all over the grass and under the shaded colonnades, stretching out and loosening up.
‘Our day begins with a gentle jog,’ Anna explained, ‘– about five miles or so around our pretty grounds to warm us up. Such a shame you missed it yesterday morning.’ She moved on to the grass and began reaching for her toes. Jason followed her and began his usual series of warm ups.
Suddenly, the low talk and groans of stretching students stopped and everyone turned to face the northern edge of the cloister where the church rose up high into the perfect blue sky.
Jason eased up from touching his toes. Below one of the church’s towering, sun-shining windows stood Master Schmidt.
‘So – we begin now,’ he said and led them through the garages and out onto the large gravelled area. Then they began to run.
Twenty minutes in, Jason dropped behind the pack of sweating students for the third time. He’d never been much of a distance runner - he could hold a steady jog for a while but the pack were maintaining a leg-jellying pace.
Schmidt who had been regularly dropping back from the lead to yell at any of them who fell behind, fell back with Jason.
‘Breathe in, push out.’ the master intoned. ‘Just like the punching but send your energy into your legs… small pumpings of force with each push away. Feel the rhythm of your heart, the throb of each of your steps.’
Jason imagined a whirling, sparking ball in his stomach pulsing energy along the arteries in his legs with each stride, a force throbbing through him, pushing his feet hard away from the ground.
It worked. Suddenly he surged ahead as his strides lengthened into fast, low leaps. The grass flashed under him in measures of two or more metres. The ball of energy inside sparked and roiled, beats of force pulsated through him and he flew past the others.
Just how fast could he go? This power, this Gift he had – was there nothing he couldn’t do with it?
Schmidt caught up with him, matching his leaps exactly. ‘Slow down. Put less force into each step… you will be spent before you finish the course.’
Reluctantly, Jason toned
it down. He slowed the ball of energy inside him, letting it fire down as he envisaged the surges of energy pulsing slower and slower through his arteries. His strides shortened, taking him down to a more normal cross-country pace.
‘Now – keep using your Gift until the end of the run,’ Schmidt said, ‘… for the practice.’ Without looking at Jason, he joined the front of the pack as they caught up with them.
Jason nodded.
He easily stayed with the leaders for another mile to the finish point – the small stone bridge outside the refectory. However, when he finally let his Gift go, a wave of exhaustion swept over him. He sank to the grass and tugged off his trainers and socks before dousing his burning feet deep into the river and flopping back on the grass.
‘Come on fit-meister general – we get a second breakfast now.’
Jason forced open his eyes, blinking away slug trails of sweat. Anna stood or rather bobbed over him as she loosened up. ‘A little more sustenance to see us through the halls of pain. Come on.’
‘I’m dying,’ Jason moaned, closing his eyes again. Distance running was definitely not his thing – with or without his super powers.
Anna kicked him in the ribs – gently. ‘Rubbish. Schmidt let you use your Gift most of the way – he’s never let any of the other Gifted do that.’
Jason groaned and sat up. Carl walked past him, his lip-curl already in place. ‘Pathetic – you can’t even run without using your “magic”. Enjoy showing off, did you?’ He spat in the grass a foot from Jason’s head and walked away.
Jason got to his feet. Tomorrow he’d run the entire course without his Gift.
Inside the refectory, students were all hurriedly tucking in to ‘second breakfast’, as Anna called it, which consisted of more fruit, bacon and eggs, toast and water. Jason had just twenty minutes to snack it down before following the rest of the students out of the small refectory door, along the river and into the cool of the long, white corridor that led to the training halls.
Everyone was worked harder than ever during the morning session. After non-Gift sparring for an hour or so, Jason was taken off into the “steel jungle” room again by Schmidt where he practiced Gift strikes and blocks endlessly whilst dodging between and over the gleaming apparatus. For the last hour, he was back in the halls for two-on-two sparring where you worked with a partner to defeat another pair. When Jason joined with Anna they were almost unbeatable and he even worked well with Carl – the two of them winning three out of four bouts.
At last they were allowed out for lunch.
‘Is it always this bad?’ Jason groaned as Anna led him over to sit with Carl and the Martin brothers in the refectory.
‘They’re just getting us psyched for the invasion exercise in a couple of days.’ Mark Martin said through half a mouthful of food.
‘Invasion exercise?’ Jason asked.
‘It’s where we get invaded.’ Carl said.
‘Really?’ Jason said.
‘Now, now you two,’ Anna cut in, ‘don’t start arguing. You played really nicely together in training.’
Carl grunted then, amazingly, began to explain. ‘Half of Security and some of the Masters and students act as Brethren forces breaking into the abbey. We have to try to stay alive and clear the place of the baddies.’
‘Sounds great,’ Jason said. This was the most civilised Carl had ever been to him.
‘We practice it all the time in small teams,’ Mark Martin added, ‘just defending a small area. But this time the whole abbey’s involved – they’ve been buying in extra weapons and vehicles and stuff for weeks...’
‘Even a couple of little choppers,’ Marshall cut in. ‘It’s going to be amazing.’
‘And,’ Anna added, lowering her voice, ‘rumour has it that Brash has even flown back a few of his most trusted teams for the occasion.’
They chatted on about the forthcoming exercise, Carl continuing to be almost human, until it was time for the afternoon session.
The improvement in relations between Jason and Carl had come at just the right time because for most of that afternoon, Carl and Anna acted as Jason’s bodyguards or shields as Cadaveril put it. Gifted students and their team of two or three shields alternately defended a room in one of the mock buildings and then tried to clear a floor. Their opponents were the other students, all armoured and armed with an array of wooden weapons.
The students were kept at it for three solid hours. Finally they were allowed a water break and finished off with weapons practice. Mark Martin was assigned to Jason to show him some very basic attacks and blocks with wooden Katanas. Jason was shattered but thought he picked up the sword-work fairly well – Mark was a very patient teacher.
Finally the session was over and the students were dismissed. Jason hung back and approached Cadaveril and made his respect.
‘Master… is it possible for me to telephone my sister from somewhere this evening? There don’t seem to be any phones in the guesthouse.’
Cadaveril shrugged. ‘I’ll check with Mr. Brash,’ he said.
‘Thank you,’ Jason said, sinking into the respect position and turning to leave.
‘Don’t hold your breath, though,’ Cadaveril added. ‘Comms in and out of the abbey is limited… for security purposes.’
‘I understand, Master,’ Jason said. Perhaps he should have asked Schmidt.
Cadaveril watched him leave in silence.
***
Jason made it to the refectory this time. He had just sat down next to Anna with a steaming plate of coq au vin when the refectory’s main doors opened wide and Schmidt and Cadaveril entered. They took positions on either side of the second step down as Brash appeared with the sunlit shining in behind him.
The chatter and clatter of the refectory immediately stilled.
‘Good evening to you all – I hope you’re enjoying your dinner,’ Brash started, beaming down benevolently on his assembled students and security. ‘I just wanted to wish you all well in the forthcoming training exercise – the “not-very” surprise attack on the abbey will kick off within the next few days.’
‘Now - I’d like to introduce you to a minor legend from the Watch who has literally just arrived on our doorstep.’
Brash moved a little to one side and Marakoff joined him with a curt nod to the captive audience. His limp was much more pronounced than Jason remembered and he noticed something like a sneer flash across Cadaveril’s face although the Jakra Master hardly glanced at Marakoff.
‘This is Sergei Marakoff, one of our most highly regarded ghosts before his injury. The Watch Council asked me to help Sergei retire to Britain several weeks ago and now he has finally arrived…’ Brash grinned at Marakoff who gave a tight smile and shuffled awkwardly. ‘It’ll be no gentle retirement here though,’ Brash said, slapping Marakoff on the back, ‘we’ll put you straight to good use in training all the little ghostlets out there.’
Cadaveril started to examine his nails – obviously bored with the introductions.
‘Now,’ Brash said, beaming his smile back across the audience like some dental lighthouse, ‘don’t let me hold you up any further – eat, drink and be merry for tomorrow we… work even harder.’
Brash, Marakoff, Cadaveril and Schmidt all left and noise returned to the refectory.
‘I’m not sure that Marakoff bloke is very “highly regarded”,’ Mark Martin said, ‘did you see Bone Head’s face?’
‘We might get some first-hand news of what’s happening in the Carpathians though,’ his brother said.
‘Yeah, right,’ Anna grinned, ‘’cos ghosts are always so chatty, aren’t they?’
‘Mr Brash said something about him training us - surely they’re not going to make him a master?’ Carl said. ‘The guy could hardly walk.’
Jason stayed out of the following discussion and soon after made his excuses and left for an early night.
Marakoff turning up like that had unsettled him. Jason had known he’d be coming int
o the abbey to keep an eye on him while Dad was checking on Mawn. However, now he was here, it made Jason realise how much he was actually missing his family.
Despite the full-on day and the exhaustion from using his Gift catching up with him, it took Jason a long time to get to sleep.
***
Jason woke up in the dark.
It took him a moment to shake the strips of his familiar nightmare from his mind – the multi-storey murder, the agents’ shots echoing all through his head; mum’s warm blood soaking through her new blouse. How still everything seemed for a moment after her death, how frozen – no sound, not a breath of concrete-dusted air; Miranda and him petrified, staring at her twisted body on the ground. Dad’s whisper – ‘Say goodbye to your mother.’ And then sound bursting in again – their car roaring down the ramps, crunching away out onto the road – all far too loud.
Jason sat up, reaching for his watch – the face just visible in his room half lit by moonlight – 3:20am.
The traffic sounds from his dream were still there.
Jason kicked away the duvet that clung to his feet and reached for the button to open the window. It slid silently outwards but stopped with just a twenty centimetre gap. He pressed the button again, twice, but the window wouldn’t open any further. Was that to keep danger out or him in at night?
The cars noises were real. He couldn’t see anything apart from the dark silhouette of the oak tree rising from the courtyard below but there was plenty of noise. Smooth car motors, rough, throaty jeep engines and the odd growl of perhaps a small lorry all reverberated around the inner courtyard. All the vehicles were coming closer, parking up, he guessed, in the large gravelled area in front of the garages and guesthouse.
What was going on? Was this part of the invasion exercise – starting already. Jason went over to press the door release but nothing happened. No one had said anything about being prisoners in their own rooms.
He went over to the window again and tested the frame. It was well made but he was sure he could break through it using his Gift. Still, what would Brash or Cadaveril say in the morning when they discovered part of the wall and an expensive, motorised window casement in pieces on the courtyard floor?