by Vance Huxley
Creepio eyed up the ogre. “That’s not full size. You should feed it more often.” His brow wrinkled when he looked from Zephyr to the score marks in the floorboards, then to Abel and back to Zephyr. “Though it’s much too solid for a wind spirit and it’s not bound, is it? You had no tether outside.”
“Zephyr comes and goes as she wishes, and takes whatever form is appropriate.” Abel ignored Creepio’s sudden interest, turning to explain the alternatives to the three captives. The woman, Guinevere or Ginny, seemed relieved that Pendragon had died but was terrified at the thought of going with Creepio. The two security men, on the other hand, seemed relieved they could go with the vicar. For the first time, the Taverners met God’s SAS. Two men in military uniform, but wearing prominent crosses, arrived to take the security men away.
“Do you want to come home, Zephyr?”
“Yes please.” The ogre began to fuzz, then turned into a boiling cloud that slowly shrank to nothing. Abel fought back a smile because Zephyr left the bright green eyes hanging in mid-air right to the end. He felt her relief as the sprite flowed into her tattoo. “I missed this.” From her tone of voice, Abel half expected the sprite to purr.
“Where did your dust go?”
“Back under the floorboards where it came from. There was plenty.”
The sorceress looked relieved as the last wisp disappeared, but not for long. “What about her?” Kelis glowered at Ginny, who flinched. She obviously remembered the last time they met.
“If she won’t accept a tether, I can’t take her.” Creepio shrugged, apparently unconcerned. “So kill her or stunt her.”
“No! I’ll accept a tether, but not from the church. Never from the church.” Despite being a captive, Ginny’s look at Creepio promised carnage, or at least a feeble attempt at it if he tried.
“Your problem, Abel.” Creepio turned to leave. “You’ll need some serious redecorating before the place opens as a refuge.” Abel had to agree. Scorch marks and gouges had wrecked a good bit of the new décor and damaged the furniture.
“It looks like a bomb went off.” Shannon looked down at herself. “While I look as if I’ve been in a car wreck. Oh dear, I have. Though most of it was the heat.” Her bright smile didn’t fool anyone, because she kept bursting into tears. “When my shield hit the cars, they glowed, and that’s hot.” Most of her exposed skin looked almost cherry red. “I should have put sun block on this morning.” Her voice faltered on the final word and Petra put an arm round her.
Creepio turned back from the doorway. “I am telling you this in front of your friends, Shannon, so they know I am not trying to influence you behind their backs. If you find that what happened today preys on your mind, the church will welcome you.” He came back and took both of Shannon’s hands. “Ask Abel to call me and a priest from your branch of the church, one who understands magic, will meet you. Just to talk, or to arrange a safe place if you wish to renounce magic, or to enrol you as one of our own. The Church Militant, God’s SAS, would welcome a warrior like you.”
Shannon looked around at her friends, settling on Abel. He smiled and shrugged. “Your choice, Shannon, it always was. Remember what we said right at the start, that maybe good is in the person, not the label? You can become a white sorceress or a bishopess, or abandon magic, but there’ll always be a place for you at a game of Bonny’s Tavern.”
She smiled her thanks, turning to Creepio. “I think I can fight for good without joining your Church Militant. A sort of apprentice Saint Georgeous?”
“If the cause is just, the heart and soul don’t care what armour they wear.” The vicar smiled and sketched a small bow. “And now I must take my leave.” Once outside, Creepio became sharper, more like his usual self. “I am assuming you don’t want another sorcerer moving into Stourton?” He nodded very gently at the horrified headshakes from Abel and his friends. “Then you’d better get down to Woods and Green and stake your claim. Since you wiped Pendragon out, nobody local will want to object.”
“We didn’t kill him, you did.”
“The platycroc finished him off, but all the hard work had been done. You defeated his apprentices and ran him off, left him alone and vulnerable. If he’d got away, the vultures and hyenas would have gathered. Pendragon would have been dead by tomorrow. I’d rather deal with a clean takeover by you and yours than all the others squabbling over scraps. To be honest I expected to have to fight him and wasn’t looking forward to it, but once again your happy band exceeded expectations.” An expansive gesture took in the street and, presumably, all of Stourton. “This town and all Pendragon’s business is now yours by right of conquest, providing you get the paperwork organised. That does not include any area protected by the magic from a church cross.”
“Is conquest legal?” Una looked a bit brighter. “Robin D’Ritche would want some plunder.”
“Start with that.” Creepio waved a hand towards the wreck of the Bentley. “Put a veil around it when we remove ours, then take the gold before the rest is carted off for scrap. My people put up diversion signs to stop any traffic and cast sleep glyphs over all the other houses as soon as the fighting started.” He looked up and down the peaceful street. “The local residents will find this morning passed quicker than expected, but if you tidy up the garden nobody will think twice about it. The Bentley will show up as stolen so the police will believe a car thief crashed it, and will concentrate on finding the driver.”
“That’s it? What about Natalie, won’t her parents come looking for her?” Abel gestured to take it all in. “All the damage and injuries get swept under the magic carpet? People died here, some of them security men who had no real protection against glyphs.”
“Men who fired on unarmed children, Shannon, for one. Though she didn’t kill that one, for which he should thank God because I would have. Natalie’s parents will be told she died in a hit and run, a long way from here. They will attend a closed casket funeral, and skilled magic users will blunt their grief and blur their memories. That has to be better than their daughter disappearing without trace, or finding out she helped to enslave and torture other students. As an apprentice she would have left home anyway, despite her age.” Creepio’s face and tone hardened. “As for Pendragon’s apprentices, they knew the score. When a magic user trains to be a sorcerer, they accept that they will be involved in disputes and one day a stronger sorcerer may kill them.”
“We didn’t accept anything. We started playing a game, then tried to clean up a village and a school because nobody else would.” Kelis looked at the scorched patch where the Taverners had killed an apprentice, then down at her hand. The other still held her cloak over her torn robe. “Now we’re all murderers.”
“You heard what I told Shannon, Kelis. Self-defence. Everyone is entitled to defend themselves, or would you rather have accepted a tether?” Creepio nodded gently at her vehement denials. “So you fought back but with restraint, with what used to be called honour, an outmoded concept and a refreshing change.” The vicar’s hand swept across the garden where the security men and Natalie had laid. “Most magic users would have killed those men and the girl without a thought. Those earth glyphs could have driven concrete spikes through the men, much easier than restraining them. None of your people killed in cold blood and until one of you does, I will keep cheering your Tavern on from the sidelines. Very quietly because you are on your own now, a part of the magical hierarchy, a player of a different sort. Under the Accord the church must stay neutral in magical squabbles.” With a sad smile Creepio took in the surprised expressions.
“So what happens now? You just walk away and leave us to try and sort this mess out? We’ve no idea how to fix the evening news, or police reports.” Rob looked around at the other Taverners, who were all shaking their heads and looking more and more worried. “How can we keep the Accords, keep everything secret, if we’ve no idea how it’s done? We don’t even have a copy of the Accord.”
“There’ll be a copy in Cast
le House, and in Pendragon’s headquarters, but I’ll send you another. I know how you’ll feel about the answer to the cover-ups, but this is the harsh reality of life. The church will still deal with those things, if you wish, but we will expect payment. We have a widely established web of agents throughout the law enforcement and medical services.” For once Creepio looked embarrassed. “Considering what you have already done for the church, without asking for payment, I will not send an invoice for today. But this is the last time. It really isn’t a game anymore, or at the least it’s a very different game with very real penalties.” With that he turned and strode off down the road. A small anonymous van stopped, Creepio climbed in, and moments later had gone.
“As usual, I still have a million questions.” Kelis didn’t sound even slightly amused this time.
∼∼
It came as a shock to the Taverners, but the whole fight including the talk with Creepio had taken less than half an hour. Clearing up would take longer, and they’d better get started. A priest came over to introduce himself, and let the teenagers know they had one hour to regrow grass and generally make the front of the house look reasonable. After that the street full of possible witnesses would be awake again, unless Abel wanted to pay extra. At least the four vacant trees in the orchard had plenty of magic for fixing the external damage. Better still, when a shaken and subdued Frederick asked them, the dryads in the orchard were willing to trade magic for honey or boiled sweets. They seemed much more approachable today, though several Taverners suggested the good mood came from killing a sorcerer.
The anonymous medics also arrived in what looked like vans, but unlike the church medics many of them were women. The paramedics dealt with the walking wounded, while anyone who needed hospital treatment left in the disguised ambulances. According to the first assessments, all the injured would be able to go home today. The medics administered ointments and dressings, assuring Abel that both had been magically enhanced. The lighter burns and smaller wounds would be gone by tonight or possibly tomorrow morning. Phone calls to parents arranged for some of the lightly wounded to stay overnight, allegedly to help with decorating the refuge. That would give them a better chance of healing before parents saw them. Unfortunately Shannon and several others had injuries and hair loss that wouldn’t heal quickly enough and couldn’t be disguised.
“It’s no good, I still look like a car wreck.” Even as she said it, Shannon’s face brightened a little. Her mood still swung from sentence to sentence. “Actually, that would cover it. We’ve got two damaged cars, both partly burned, one scorched and battered minibus and a large, heavy, completely wrecked car that has been on fire.”
“I don’t mind slandering the memory of Pendragon, though I’m glad I didn’t actually see his body.” Jenny grimaced, because whatever the God Squad removed from the wreck couldn’t have looked good. “Creepio reckoned the police would blame a car thief. We could tell our parents a drunk in a Bentley ploughed into our Tavern vehicles, then ran away?”
“The rest of the brave Taverners rushed out and pulled their injured friends free, which is why they have sundry bruises and scorch marks.” Jenny’s words brought relieved smiles to a good few faces, and a rush to move the damaged cars into the road before the priests woke the neighbours up. Within an hour two different garages had come to take away the minibus and one of the cars, while the other scorched vehicle had been fit to drive to a third garage for repair. Frederick placed the orders using Stourton Tavern Refuge letterheads, but Abel would pay in cash so nothing showed in the books.
Abel called the private doctor, explaining they would use a car crash as a reason for the injuries. A voice on the other end asked what reason she should give parents for the private medical care. Abel floundered until she suggested the Bentley’s insurance might pay for private medical treatment? Abel agreed, wondering how often this happened.
By then a possibly genuine policeman turned up at Frederick’s house, though he didn’t come inside. He certainly knew all about magic and keeping it secret, studiously ignoring the rapidly re-growing grass and new leaves appearing on the scorched bushes. He took their statements in his car, accepting the story about the wrecked vehicles without asking for more than the bare facts. The policeman stayed while concerned parents collected offspring, assuring them the police were looking for the culprit. Two hired medics stayed to meet the parents of the obviously injured and smoothed away any concerns, probably magically, considering how well it worked. A phone call promised the worst injured would be delivered home by ambulance. The docs were definitely worth the money, however much it turned out to be. Abel mentally allocated another of his vases or something similar to pay for it all.
There’d be plenty of money if anyone could sell gold. Abel, and several others when he mentioned it, had expected the magic store in Pendragon’s car to be magically altered lead or iron. They’d checked anyway, carefully avoiding the inside where Pendragon had died. Despite the chunks of car crushed into the solid block under the boot, Zephyr and Ferryl both declared it was real gold. The Taverners soon had proof because melting it, under cover of a veil, turned out to be the only way to get the precious metal out of the tangled steel. Ferryl suggested that Pendragon used real gold so damage wouldn’t leave him with a pile of dust.
∼∼
Getting the medics, calling Woods and Green, sorting out the garden, taking the gold, organising car repairs and trying to tidy up the house itself kept everyone going until lunchtime. As the initial excitement faded, one after another of the Taverners ran out of steam. Rob was the exception because he spent most of the time sat with Kathy, showing her little magic tricks and trying to explain how magic worked. Eventually Petra pulled Abel away from a scorched stretch of plaster, telling him he had to sit down or fall down. Since he’d been staring at it while thinking of something entirely different, she had a point. Frederick helped Petra round up anyone else still working, and the Tavern meeting finally started.
Una cheered them all up a bit by passing round takeaway menus. “While you all decide on what to eat, we’d better organise shopping expeditions. You five, six with Shannon, need new outfits. Your costumes are ruined, but you can blame that on the crash as long as your parents never see the actual damage. There’s several others who need clothing replaced, especially jeans or tops that aren’t costumes. We’ll need a mile of bandage as well. Then anyone who can cast a seeming on cloth can disguise their minor wounds if they don’t want parents to notice.” Una turned to Abel. “But first we’d better decide who’ll be going. The rest will be having that meeting you wanted.”
“We need rules more than anything else right now.” Rachel sat holding her brother’s hand, looking subdued. “I wanted to kill them all, especially Natalie, until Creepio said his piece. Even then I considered it, for Natalie at least. We need a set of penalties for anyone who breaks the rules, or betrays us, so nobody goes over the top.” Her wan smile accepted that maybe she needed them more than most. “It isn’t a game, so the rules have to work in the real world even if that’s inconvenient.”
“Excuse me, but did someone swap out my pestiferous sister for this serious young woman. Bring back Rachel!” A pale and still shaky Justin nudged her, bringing a little smile. “That’s better. You weren’t the only one, Rachel. I can promise you, if Pendragon or Natalie had been in here when the tether broke I wouldn’t have cared if they were tied up. I’d have burned them both.”
“I lost it again.” Claris looked down at her bandaged hands as her frost giant hugged her. Splinters from the bat had driven into her palms when it shattered on Pendragon’s shield. “I’ve got to stop doing that, losing it when I feel threatened. You know, leech sort of threatened. That’s what set me off with the fursomnium, those things reaching out to get in my head. When I realised what tethering meant I nearly killed Natalie without any magic at all, and I meant to kill Pendragon when I shot him.” After a long pause she continued, very quietly. “I can’t be sure
I wouldn’t have shot Effy.”
“How did you learn to do that?” Jenny frowned, obviously trying to remember. “You looked like those pictures on the TV, a proper police stance, not like a gangster or cowboy movie.”
“Dad goes to a gun club. I asked him to teach me but without telling mum.” Claris’s faint smile looked a little guilty. “He’s a soft touch really, since the divorce, and worse since I supposedly got into drugs. Dad sort of blames himself for that. Though he wouldn’t get me a gun. Probably a good thing.”
“We all felt like that, mad as hell and lashing out. That bloke, the apprentice in here, had to have been hit by at least thirty glyphs.” Shawn looked a little embarrassed. “We shouldn’t use fire glyphs inside, or against people, but I did both. We pushed on the other one’s shield until it collapsed and fried him.”
“But like Creepio said, not in cold blood.” Una had her sword across her lap, cleaning the scorch mark from the blade. “I threw this at his shield, but I couldn’t just stick someone who isn’t attacking me. Even if I threatened to if that woman didn’t behave.” She looked upwards towards the bedroom where a shimmer on the ceiling, one with bright green eyes, guarded Ginny. The rest of Zephyr still curled up in her tattoo, content to listen and watch. Bit by bit everyone began to talk, while Petra made her list and several of them helped her phone for the food. The talk carried on, in fits and starts, right through the meal. A strange sort of discussion full of bursts of laughter and occasional tears, but most people got the morning out of their system, for now at least.
“Time for all those notes, Abel.” Kelis looked round in alarm. “They didn’t get burned in the minibus, did they? We took ages over them.”