A band of golden light appeared in mid-air, its glow glinting off the falling snow. It encircled the lead Wili. The rest of the ghostly women backed up, hissing. Sigfried cheered and punched the sky. Payback barked excitedly. Being the well-trained dog that she was, she stayed obediently beside her mistress.
“Yes! Take that, creepy, dancey, freak-women!” Sigfried shouted. “Who’s going to make who dance now, hmm?”
The Wilis backed away, dragging with them the one Sigfried’s Glepnir band had trapped.
Rachel watched them go with relief. She glanced nervously at the dark around them, but saw no sign of motion. For the moment, all was quiet, which meant that now was the time to get her friends back to safety.
“Well done, Blood Brother. Hey, let’s head this way! I thought I heard something that might have been a cry for help,” Rachel lied casually, as she started moving back toward the central wisp-sculptures.
Nastasia and Joy followed her. Siggy lingered behind shouting at the Wilis, but Valerie took his arm and began dragging him after the girls. Rachel allowed herself a secret smile in the darkness. It looked like she would be able to lead them back without Sigfried realizing what she intended.
Ahead through the trees, the brilliant wisp-sculptures and Ginger Snap’s golden circle were but a distant gleam. Rachel judged that she and her friends were at least a quarter mile away from where the proctors were collecting students to bring them back to campus.
As Payback trotted past her, Rachel glanced around. “Where’s Beauregard?”
Nastasia held up her purse. “I put him in the house. He did not care for so much ice.”
“That makes…”
Three white columns of light flared momentarily against the northern sky. Then they were gone. Someone had jumped. Rachel judged the beam of light to have been far enough away that the people were likely not on school grounds.
“Aw!” Siggy swore, sliding to a stop. “They escaped!”
“Who escaped?” asked Valerie.
“The baddies! The people who opened the wards.”
“What?” Rachel asked. She peered northward. “Could you see them from here?”
He shook his head, disgusted. “No. They are out of my range. Lucky went to check out the wards, to see where the break was. He’s been circling the property. He came to that spot up there—where that light flashed—and found three people, but now they got away. They were at one of those breaks in the tree wall with big rocks.”
“A ward-lock?” Rachel prompted. There was a ward-lock due north, just about where those pillars of jump-light had appeared. “I bet Gaius would be interested in hearing this.” She spoke her boyfriend’s name with the intention of calling him.
“Yeah, whatever.” Siggy shrugged, unconcerned with the proper name for the breaks in the trees, or maybe that was his reaction to her mentioning Gaius. “The three people dug up one of the big stones. Only they had bags over their heads or hoods or something. Lucky couldn’t see their faces.”
“Hoods like Veltdammerung?” asked Rachel. She tried to start skating again, but Sigfried was standing still, looking northward into the night.
Siggy shook his head. “More like black pillowcases with eyes cut in them.”
“Oh.” Rachel blinked. “I have no idea who that might be.”
“What were they wearing?” asked Valerie. She pulled out her notebook, but it was too dark for her to see the pages. Twice, she tried the lux cantrip, but she produced only a tiny fizzle of light. Sighing, she glided over into the illumination of the floating light ball that hung beside Nastasia’s shoulder. “Sorry. Reporter Girl habits require note taking. And my flashlight doesn’t work on campus. Sigfried, describe what Lucky saw, now, before you both forget the details and report that you saw giant frogs carrying toy helicopters.”
“Now that you mention it, they were rather frog-like,” Siggy began.
Valerie glared at him.
“Ouch!” Sigfried exclaimed gleefully, throwing up his arms, as if to parry a blow. “Looks really can wound! Wow! Okay, Fearless Reporter Girl, far be it from me to mislead the press. They were dressed like us, in school robes, only with black pillowcases with holes cut in them over their heads. They were kind of tall, so probably college kids or adults, not our age.”
“They must have been on our side of the wall,” Rachel murmured. “Or else even physically removing the stones would not have opened the wards at the ward-lock to the north of us.” She spoke the last phrase clearly for the sake of her hopefully-listening boyfriend.
Nor was she disappointed. Over the bracelet, Gaius’s cheerful voice spoke in her ear. “Thank you, Miss Griffin. We’re on it!”
Amidst her nimbus of blue and violet wisps, Rachel smiled happily.
“We should head back,” Nastasia said primly. “The proctors are conveying students back to campus. They’ve brought kenomanced bags and a few flying umbrella carriages.”
No. No! Rachel mentally pictured herself waiving her hands furiously in front of Nastasia, don’t bring it up so directly! I had him heading back!
“But we haven’t found the ogre!” objected Siggy. “Lucky saw him around where we found the Wilis.”
Sigfried turned left and right, as if suddenly realizing that he had been skating away from his goal. Then he stopped moving and inclined his head. Rachel guessed that meant he was scanning the area with his amulet.
“The ogre!” cried Joy, frightened. “You didn’t tell us the ogre was on campus! It has a charmed life! There’s nothing we can do!”
“Charmed by Baba Yaga, right?” countered Sigfried. “Then there’s definitely something we can do. We just don’t know what it is.”
“What do you mean?” asked Joy uncertainly.
“Baba Yaga’s magic can be overcome,” replied Siggy. “Otherwise, she never could have been defeated by a dancing girl and some mermaids.”
“And a sword that no longer exists,” quipped Valerie, wryly.
“And the sword that I should have re-forged,” nodded Sigfried.
“Rachel said, “Baba Yaga was defeated—which means her charms can be overcome. I wish we had asked Varo more questions about how the sword Nothor was able to harm her.”
The princess sighed in exasperation. “Really, Mr. Smith, this behavior of yours is a dereliction of duty. The brute might not have had a chance to escape, if you had shared what Lucky told you with the rest of us right away.”
“If we’d waited, the ogre might have gotten away!” cried Sigfried.
Nastasia made a ladylike noise of frustration. “But the ogre did get away, Mr. Smith. From us and from the proper authorities—whom we failed to inform. We were right beside two members of the Brotherhood of the White Hart before you led us in this direction. We could have notified them immediately, instead of heading off on this foolish wild dragon chase! I suspect we are probably breaking six different rules just being out here in the dark by ourselves. Let us head back, before we compound our infractions.”
“If we stay, we might be able to break twelve rules! Or thirty-six!” Siggy crowed happily. “What’s the record?”
“Really, Mr. Smith. This is unacceptable,” the princess exclaimed, exasperated. “Miss Griffin, will you please help me explain why, in the interest of everyone’s safety and well-being, rules must be obeyed?”
Siggy, meanwhile, was looking off into the distance. “Come on, Griffin, get your broom. If we hurry, we might make it to the ogre’s lair before it gets back.”
Rachel suddenly wished she had brought her broom. They could have slipped through the open ward-lock and flown to the far end of the island, while the monster was here, attacking the school. After all, once the ogre had already invaded the campus, the bargain about leaving its belongings alone would be void, right? She shook her head, chagrined. She was supposed to be getting her friends back to safety, not rushing off into the dark. The feeling of foreboding that had troubled her earlier had suddenly returned a hundred-fold. She shi
vered.
Looking around, she realized that the princess was still gazing at her expectantly. Rachel groaned inwardly. Now if she moved toward the wisp-sculptures, it would seem as if she were backing Nastasia, and Sigfried would feel she had turned on him. She hated being thrown in the middle of her friends’ arguments. More and more, they seemed bent on pulling her in two.
“Um…” She threw Valerie a pleading look.
Coming to the rescue, Siggy’s girlfriend slipped her arm through his. “Come on, big guy. This police detective’s daughter thinks that six is the maximum number of rules she can violate in one day.”
Rachel breathed a quiet sigh of relief.
The five of them continued skating back through the falling snow, with the princess’s shimmering ball of lux-light illuminating the way. Snowflakes danced in the pale gold light. Siggy and Valerie skated very close together, Payback trotting close beside them. The dog’s presence comforted Rachel. If something bad approached out of the night, surely the dog would smell it.
It was much more pleasant to skate through the night with Nastasia’s ball of lux-light illuminating the trunks and branches than it had been to rely on the fainter wisp-light, but it was scarier, too. She could not see much beyond the ball of light, and with all the noise her friends were making, she feared she would not hear something approaching out of the night. As the darkness grew more oppressive, Rachel sought a topic to discuss to distract her.
“By the by,” she declared suddenly, as they glided through the dark trunks, “I talked to the Comfort Lion about Siggy.”
“Did he tell you that I was a robot?” Sigfried crowed. “His father the emperor made me.”
“He didn’t really make you, Sigfried.” Hearing Valerie’s voice, Rachel could perfectly picture the Fearless Reporter Girl’s eye roll, even though it was too dark to see her.
“Actually, he did,” Rachel insisted. “Leander told me so.”
“The Comfort Lion’s father?” asked Valerie.
Even in the darkness, Rachel could hear the other girl’s skepticism.
“I don’t think he’s really a Lion,” Rachel said slowly as she glided along. “Any more than the Raven is really a raven.”
Ahead, something growled in the darkness. Rachel could make out a motion, low to the ground. Payback barked and would have lunged forward, had her mistress not grabbed her collar.
Valerie pressed closer to Sigfried, pulling the elkhound with her. “Whatever that is, it must be able to cross running water.”
“Do your thing, human encyclopedia,” Joy squeaked. She also skated back to hide behind Siggy. “Tell us what it is!”
“Um…” Rachel balked, her heart hammering. Her mind raced back to Mr. Tuck’s lecture and the drawings she had hung on the wall of 321. “Based just on a growl? Water Panther or Mexaxkuk, maybe? Too low to the ground for the ogre, and most of the others don’t growl. Unless it’s the phooka. One can never tell what a phooka will look like.”
“Wow!” Valerie sounded impressed. “You’re good! I’m going to pay more attention to this stuff in the future.”
Rachel shrugged and glided closer to the others. “Dartmoor can be a dangerous place, if one isn’t careful. It’s important to know your fey.”
Siggy said, “It’s a snaky thing. Like the bastard child of an alligator and a giant anaconda with the horns of a horned toad. I can also tell you what it looks like from behind or underneath.”
“That would have been the Mexaxkuk,” said Rachel. “Man-eating horned lizard.”
“What stops a…whatever it is?” asked Joy nervously.
“Um? Fresh bread, maybe?” said Rachel. “Though I don’t think things that growl eat fresh bread. Rowan branches? Almost everything is stopped by salt or cold iron.”
“Siggy used all the salt. Don’t think we have any iron,” Joy’s voice broke. “Unless the princess has some in her house. Do you, princess? You have everything, right?”
Nastasia replied somberly, “No, I don’t. But if we make it back alive, I will remedy that.”
“We so need a friend from De Vere,” muttered Valerie. “Do our steel knives count?”
“I’d be perfectly happy to introduce them to my knife!” cried Siggy.
“Stop!” cried Valerie. “Don’t you dare get that close to them!”
“Iron, smiron,” scoffed Sigfried, sounding not the least bit disturbed. “I bet this stops it.”
He pulled out his trumpet and played a trill. A whoosh of silver sparks lit the darkness, revealing a horned lizard at least twice as big as Lucky squatting on the ice in front of them. With a vanilla-scented whoosh, Sigfried’s sparkly wind picked the creature up and threw it through the air. It made an odd, sad cry as it sailed off into the darkness.
“Good blowing, Tex!” Valerie punched her boyfriend’s shoulder fondly.
“That’s why you keep me around,” crowed Siggy, sounding quite pleased with her compliment. Turning his head, he called, “Lucky, the yellow-bellied monster turned tail and ran, that coward! It’s running right toward you. Get that thing!”
They continued skating through the dark trees. Rachel gauged they had covered half the distance, putting them about an eighth of a mile from their destination. The cheery lights ahead were closer now, though so were the dark shadows cast among the trees. Only a little longer and they would all be safe. With a happy little sigh, she began to breathe more freely.
Payback startled a tiny silver fox out of a bush. Rachel recognized it as a familiar from Spenser Hall. The little thing ran from them, hiding in a thicket, but Nastasia, thanks to the Gift of Moira, could be understood by any creature. When she called to it gently, it came creeping out. Joy picked it up and climbed awkwardly into the princess’s house to keep it safe.
“Um, princess?” asked Valerie, “Can Payback go in the house with Joy? She doesn’t have an anti-lightning charm, and I’m afraid she’ll run after something that can hurt her.”
“Of course, she’s a good girl, isn’t she?” Nastasia opened her bag and smiled at the elkhound, petting the dog’s forehead. Valerie spoke a word and pointed. Wagging its curly tail, the silver and black hound ran down the staircase to join Joy, the fox, and Beauregard.
Only four of them remained. Valerie and Siggy skated close together. That left Rachel and Nastasia. The princess moved closer and linked her arm through Rachel’s. She offered her muff, and both girls stuck their outside hands into the white furry softness. Some of Rachel’s wisps had wandered off, but a halo of lavender and pale gold still surrounded both girls.
The princess sighed sadly. “Rachel, I am beginning to worry about Mr. Smith. He seems to be getting…wilder.”
Rachel laughed and squeezed her friend’s arm. “No. He’s always been that way. The first time I ever spoke with him, he wanted to put bombs on brooms, so we could blow up lecture halls if the classes were too boring.”
Nastasia was silent for a moment, and then she began to giggle. She pressed the hand that was linked through Rachel’s arm against her lips. “Oh, my. Yes, I guess you are right.”
“It’s just his way of expressing himself. The world seems cold and arbitrary to him. I think he likes to think that he can take everything that comes his way.”
Before Rachel could say more, tall pillars of light began flashing in the distance, first to south, then the east, then the west.
“What’s that?” called Valerie, pausing in an attempt to take a photo of the flashes in the dark. Rachel and Nastasia skated over to join her and Sigfried.
“Agents,” replied Rachel with confidence. “They are checking on the ward-locks. As soon as they find the damaged one, they will—”
Sure enough, one, two, and then five pillars of light flashed to the north, where the broken ward-lock was. Rachel gestured to the north and smiled.
“Agents of the Wisecraft,” sighed Valerie, wistfully. “I’d like to be an Agent.”
“You should!” replied Rachel. “They always need more g
ood people.”
“Are you going to be an Agent?” Valerie asked curiously.
“And follow directions all the time?” Rachel shuddered. “Not for me!”
Lightning flashes lit the entire sky, illuminating something the size of a boulder flying through the snowy sky.
Boom!
The earth shook.
Crack!
The sound of breaking ice spread to their left.
Rachel’s heart leapt into her throat. She tightened her hold on Nastasia’s arm. Not now. Not when they were so close!
“What was that?” yelped Valerie in surprise.
Nastasia squinted upward, “I believe the Heer or his servants are tossing boulders.”
“Ace!” exclaimed Siggy. “Incoming!”
“That’s…not good.” Valerie looked up nervously.
“We have nothing to fear from boulders,” Nastasia replied. She pulled her hand out of her muff, preparing herself to cast cantrips if needed. “Nothor will deflect any flying object.”
They glided forward more quickly. Another flash of lightning illuminated the sky, and then a third and fourth. Twice more, the ice trembled and cracked. Then, it was quiet for a bit. The central lights grew close.
Suddenly, as another dark boulder sailed through the snowy sky, there was white light and crackling almost directly overhead. A lightning imp hovered high above them, amidst the swirling snow. It gazed down at the students, its eyes dancing with malicious glee. The little creature seemed to be made of lines of blue-white electricity, all buzzing and bright. Its javelin crackled in its hand. It gave an impish grin and drew back its arm to strike.
“Do your worst!” Sigfried shouted at imp. “I’m properly grounded!”
The imp laughed and cast its javelin. Nastasia and Valerie grabbed the protective oak keys hanging from their necks, but Rachel had nothing to grab.
She had given hers to Astrid.
Chapter Thirty-Seven:
Spells and Cantrips Against the Lightning
Rachel had only a split second to act, or she would die.
A split second was enough. Suddenly, her comprehension of the scene shifted. Instead of a lightning bolt coming at her, she saw a thrown javelin, an object flying through the air.
The Awful Truth About Forgetting (Books of Unexpected Enlightenment Book 4) Page 42