The Lazy Girl's Guide To Magic : The Complete Series

by Helen Harper

  Darn it.

  Rather than take us up to his office, the Ipsissimus led us towards a small room on the ground floor of his building. No wonder renovations were underway around the Order; we were in the room that time forgot. It was cramped and, quite possibly, dustier than the top shelf in my bedroom that I couldn’t see over so I never cleaned it. One side of the room was crammed full of books, most of which probably hadn’t been opened in decades. The other side was filled with the strangest examples of taxidermy I’d ever seen.

  ‘Is that a stuffed deer?’ I asked.

  The Ipsissimus didn’t look up. ‘Yes.’

  ‘With floppy rabbit ears?’

  ‘Hare,’ Winter interjected helpfully.

  ‘My favourite is the cat,’ Maidmont said.

  I looked round. ‘The one with the horn?’

  He nodded cheerfully.

  I stared at the three of them. Still in my arms, Brutus growled. ‘What the hell is this place? Have you lot been experimenting with magically spliced animals?’

  The Ipsissimus waved a hand dismissively. ‘Don’t be ridiculous. These were all completed post-mortem, and not even by a witch.’

  ‘They were donated,’ Maidmont said. ‘Along with a generous annual stipend on the proviso that the collection is on display.’

  I didn’t care how generous the stipend was, these things were damned creepy. ‘That winged bear is staring at me.’ I bent down to Brutus. ‘Kill,’ I whispered to him. ‘Kill the bear.’ I released him onto the floor with a gentle nudge in the bear’s direction. Brutus threw me a baleful look and darted under the table to avoid the creature’s glassy-eyed gaze. I shuffled over to Winter and hunkered down next to him. He was a bigger target.

  ‘So,’ the Ipsissimus said, settling back into an ornate mahogany chair with flea-ridden velvet cushions. ‘What exactly have you discovered?’

  Winter spoke clearly and succinctly, outlining everything we’d found out so far from Clare Rees, her family and Professor Wiggins. As he spoke, it occurred to me that none of it was good.

  The Ipsissimus pursed his lips. ‘I’ve been back here for several hours. I’ve had reports from Human Resources regarding Rees and her coven’s application for admission to the Order. I have to say, there’s not much information. Their application was received two months ago and background checks and initial interviews with friends and family members were started.’

  Two months ago. By that point they were all already dead.

  ‘Is there any record of the coven’s interviews?’ Winter asked.

  ‘That’s the only interesting part. They were due to take part next week. They’ve been delayed because apparently the coven is away on a meditation holiday to improve their magic.’

  ‘How do you know that?’

  ‘About the holiday? We received a letter from them. It is how we usually communicate, Ms Wilde. Email and telephone are too unreliable and dangerous with all the magic around here, so we rely on the old-fashioned methods of posted letters or face-to-face communication. It’s why so many people consider us dinosaurs. But you can learn so much more from someone’s facial expressions or penmanship than you can from an emoticon.’

  I raised an eyebrow. ‘Really? And what did you learn from the penmanship of seven dead witches?’

  He grimaced. ‘Alas, all the letters we received were typed. The police have taken them away to check for fingerprints but the only prints that have appeared so far belong to our own staff.’

  That figured. ‘Well,’ I said, ‘I guess all you Order geeks are kind of screwed.’

  Winter winced at my turn of phrase but the Ipsissimus seemed amused. ‘Why do you say that?’

  I shrugged. ‘It’s obvious, isn’t it? Blackbeard hates witches but loves killing. He massacred an entire coven but has drawn out the process of disposing of their remains so that he can savour each and every death. But the coven’s murders are still only a means to an end. That’s why he’s stepped up his timetable for scattering their ashes – he has a date.’

  I jabbed a finger at the Ipsissimus. ‘He’s coming here. His end game is to come to the Order and murder again and he’s used Clare’s coven to gain admittance. That’s why he’s had all their letters redirected. He doesn’t want their postcards as trophies, he wants to use their identities to sneak into the Order. He’s honed his skills with a group of weak, non-Order witches so he can step up and make a move against the big boys.’ I paused. ‘In other words you. It’s why he’s kept his murders so quiet. He’s saving up everything for one grand finale.’

  The Ipsissimus drew in a breath. ‘That’s quite some theory.’

  Maybe, but it felt right. I knew it in my bones.

  ‘He wouldn’t get very far,’ Maidmont protested. ‘Even if he is some kind of magical null, as you say, there are thousands of witches and only one of him. We wouldn’t need to use magic to stop him.’

  ‘But,’ Winter said, with a troubled expression, ‘how many would die before we got to that point?’

  I sat up straight. ‘Fewer now that we have regained the element of surprise. He doesn’t know that we know what his plans are. We lost the upper hand by accident when we were in Dartmoor. We need to make damn sure we don’t lose it again.’

  ‘The media embargo is in place,’ the Ipsissimus said.

  I shook my head. ‘Even with the best will in the world, someone will end up blabbing something. The police need to back off from the coven’s homes. Everyone needs to lay low. Then, when Blackbeard arrives for his supposed interview, we take him down before he so much as shakes anyone’s hand. We don’t need magic, we just need a baseball bat to whack him over the head with. Job done.’

  A fleeting smile crossed Winter’s lips. ‘You make it sound very easy. It will be even easier if we can find out his real identity and get to him before he gets close to the Order.’

  The Ipsissimus sighed. ‘The police have been looking at crematoria but there are a lot of them and they operate under very strict guidelines, as you would imagine. So far there’s been no one who meets the description of our killer. Whatever he’s been doing to burn the bodies of coven members, we haven’t found it yet.’

  ‘Maybe he works somewhere with industrial fires that get to the required temperatures to cremate bone,’ Winter suggested.

  ‘He may do – but bear in mind that the police are trying to conduct their enquiries without tipping him off. With more time, we might get somewhere. If we broadcast a photofit of the man, we certainly would.’

  I sighed. ‘But if we do that, we could well be unleashing hell. What about the mail redirection? All the coven’s post has to be going somewhere. It can’t just disappear into thin air.’

  ‘All the letters have been sent to a PO box. The police have discovered that it’s registered under a fake identity.’ The Ipsissimus looked grim. ‘A Mr Ripper.’

  I rolled my eyes. ‘He’s not very imaginative, is he?’

  Winter cocked his head. ‘You named him Blackbeard because he has a … black beard.’ Touché.

  ‘I’m here,’ Maidmont said helpfully, ‘because I’ve been researching nulls. I’ve managed to trace several historical figures who may or may not have been nulls in the past. It’s quite interesting, really.’

  I raised my eyebrows. ‘There are bloodlines we can follow?’

  He slumped into his chair. ‘No. It appears to be a condition that just occurs at random. Truthfully, there haven’t been enough nulls for us to conclude any definitive evidence about them. That’s probably why we didn’t know anything about them. The trouble is that absence of evidence doesn’t equate to evidence of absence.’

  We lapsed into silence. There had to be some way of working through the problem of Blackbeard’s real identity. Winter, Maidmont and the Ipsissimus were super-clever; If they thought hard enough, I was confident they’d come up with an answer.

  Rather than tax my brain pointlessly when there were others around who could do it for me, I leaned back in my
chair and yawned. The past few days had been considerably more energetic than I liked. If it weren’t for the creepy stuffed animals, I’d probably have asked the Ipsissimus if I could bed down for a quiet nap but, with all those dead eyes staring at me, I wouldn’t manage to sleep – and, for me, that was saying something.

  Brutus, slightly braver now that none of the stuffed creatures had twitched, ventured out towards the horned cat, sniffing warily. He raised a paw and struck it sharply on the head then backed away again, as if more disturbed by the stuffed cat’s lack of response than that it looked like Dr Frankenstein’s favourite pet. Why anyone ever thought that taxidermy was a good thing was beyond me. I loved Brutus to bits but if he died before me, he was either going in a hole in the ground or…

  I shot to my feet. ‘Pets!’

  The others stared at me in alarm. Winter’s eyes flicked from side to side. ‘Who are you talking to this time, Ivy?’

  ‘You! I’m talking to you! Look,’ I said, feeling an ecstasy of urgency flood my veins that was most unusual. ‘The police have investigated the crematoria, yes?’

  ‘All the ones with a reasonable radius of Dorset and Dartmoor,’ the Ipsissimus answered.

  ‘All the crematoria?’ I pressed. ‘Or just the human ones?’

  Maidmont looked confused but Winter immediately grasped my meaning. ‘Pet crematoria,’ he said. ‘The temperatures to cremate the body of a dog must be the same as those required to burn a human’s.’

  I nodded. ‘And while I’m sure they have strict rules, they’re probably not as rigorously inspected as human crematoria.’

  ‘There won’t be that many of them,’ the Ipsissimus said. ‘It wouldn’t take long to pinpoint any which Blackbeard might have used.’

  ‘How would he sneak a human corpse into a pet funeral service?’

  I shook my head. ‘Maybe he works in one. Maybe he lives next to one.’ I shrugged. ‘I don’t know. But it has to be worth checking out.’

  Maidmont got to his feet. ‘Give me fifteen minutes,’ he promised. ‘I’ll find out if there are any around that area.’

  ‘They probably won’t be in Weymouth or on Dartmoor,’ Winter said. ‘He’ll be using different locations to avoid detection.’

  ‘But,’ I added, ‘he won’t want to travel too far for the same reason.’

  Maidmont frowned. ‘You do know I’m a librarian? Research like this is my bread and butter. I know what to look for.’

  I grinned. ‘Sorry. We trust you, Phil!’ He raised his eyes to the heavens and left.

  The Ipsissimus knitted his fingers under his chin and watched me. ‘Are you sure, Ms Wilde, that you wouldn’t like to return to the Order? I really do think you might fit in better than you realise.’

  ‘She’s sure,’ Winter snapped. Then he looked apologetic. ‘I’m not trying to speak for you,’ he muttered to me.

  I gave him a quick, reassuring smile. ‘I know.’

  ‘Pfffft!’

  I jumped as Ipsissimus Grenville’s head appeared next to the stuffed bear’s. Brutus hissed and darted away again. ‘He should speak for you,’ the ghost said. ‘He’s a man. He has a far better understanding of Order matters than you ever could.’

  I gritted my teeth. ‘Yes, he does, but only because he used to be in the Order. Not because he happens to be a man.’

  Grenville frowned. ‘What do you mean used to be in the Order? Has he been expelled? Did you conspire to have this good man thrown out?’

  I didn’t deign to answer that question. I’d already had words once with Grenville about his rudeness and I wasn’t going to repeat myself. Frankly, at this point in time he needed me a great deal more than I needed him.

  Ipsissimus Collings looked fascinated. ‘Is that Ipsissimus Grenville?’ He clapped his hands. ‘How wonderful! I’ve been reading his old journals. They’re quite fascinating.’

  Grenville harrumphed loudly and floated down from the bear to the Ipsissimus’s face. ‘You’ve been reading my journals? Those are private, sir! In my day a gentleman would never stoop to such an act.’

  ‘I’ve just reached the part where you went back and perused the diaries of one of your predecessors,’ Ipsissimus Collings burbled happily. ‘And you realised that there was a lot you could learn from the past. Now we can communicate with each other through Ms Wilde, we can learn from you. This is truly a fortuitous opportunity.’

  I snorted at Grenville’s expression. His face contorted further and he whipped round. ‘Shut up, woman!’ he thundered. ‘This is all your fault,! Do you have any idea what a mess you’ve created? Just as things finally seemed to be looking up, I’m getting spirits from all over the damn country complaining to me because of what you’ve done!’ His voice was still rising. Whether that was a special gift granted to all ghosts, or whether he’d managed to achieve similar decibels when he was alive, I didn’t know but it was an impressive sound.

  I leaned back further in my chair and lifted my legs, propping my feet on the table. Both Ipsissimus Collings and Winter frowned but they were too intrigued by what Grenville might be saying to admonish me. I made a show of inspecting my fingernails; out of the corner of my eye, I could see that steam was almost coming out of Grenville’s ears.

  ‘Ivy,’ Winter said, ‘does Ipsissimus Grenville have any insights to offer about Blackbeard? Could he perhaps send some ghosts to search for him? They could prove to be our salvation.’

  Grenville didn’t react to Winter’s suggestion. His attention remained wholly on me. ‘Don’t you want to know what you’ve done?’ he demanded.

  I started to pick at a hangnail as Grenville started to stamp his feet. Perhaps we all regressed into childhood after we died. Spending the afterlife throwing temper tantrums didn’t seem like the best use of a phantom’s time, but maybe with eternity to contemplate there wasn’t much else to do. What did I know?

  ‘Maybe he could speak to Clare Rees and the other coven ghosts again,’ Ipsissimus Collings suggested. ‘Ask them if they noticed anything to do with animals, or if they had any pets that died recently. If they used a pet crematorium to dispose of their pet’s remains, that might be how Blackbeard targeted them in the first place.’

  I looked up. ‘That’s a really good idea.’

  ‘I can’t talk to anyone else!’ Grenville yelled in my face. ‘They won’t talk to me any more! And it’s all your fault! Because you’ve screwed everything up, the others all want a new representative! We’ve spent a long time working out a schedule. There is a hierarchy and some people have been waiting here for generations. The queue has been established for over a century and you leapfrog it willy-nilly! That last spirit whose curse you smashed had only been here for a decade or two. He was number 22,633 and you put him at the front of the line! And that idiot who couldn’t keep his penis in his clothes wasn’t much higher. This is what happens when women are given a bit of freedom. They mess everything up!’ He held up his palms towards me. ‘I can’t even bear to look at you. You have no understanding of anything.’ He shook his head and vanished.

  Winter raised his eyebrows. ‘Well?’

  I bit my lip. ‘I don’t think Ipsissimus Grenville is in a good mood. We might be on our own for a while.’

  The door banged open and Maidmont reappeared, clutching a piece of paper. His face was shining. ‘I think I have the place,’ he said. ‘I think this might be where Blackbeard is burning his victims.’

  There was a brief mutter from underneath the table. ‘Thank fuck,’ Brutus said. ‘We need to depart this hellhole tout suite.’

  I started and looked down at him. Had I really just heard that? He blinked innocently and started to lick his paws.

  Chapter Fifteen

  ‘We should call the police and get them to visit the place,’ Ipsissimus Collings said.

  Winter pursed his lips. ‘They don’t know what they should be looking for. It’ll be like sending in a barber to do the work of a plumber. It’s not about using magic, it’s about having the knowl
edge to follow the right clues and find the right person.’

  ‘There are Arcane Branch witches nearby, some very talented ones. We could send them in.’

  ‘But they haven’t seen Blackbeard in person. Ivy has. She’ll recognise him faster than anyone else. Besides, if one of the Arcane Branch witches gets twitchy and uses magic by accident, they could ruin everything.’

  The Ipsissimus grimaced. ‘But if Blackbeard is there because he works there, he’ll recognise you both and the game will be up.’

  Winter drew back his shoulders. ‘If Blackbeard happens to be there, he won’t be walking out of that building unless he’s in our custody or a body bag.’

  Even I sucked in a breath at that one. Winter had a way of saying things that could send serious shivers of fear down your spine. It was probably the military blood in him, and the way he managed to be so sincere and yet completely matter-of-fact whilst discussing killing another human being.

  The Ipsissimus was prepared to continue arguing. ‘You are both civilians. You have no place…’

  ‘When you put Ivy on Dead Man’s Hill with an incantation to draw a necromancer’s magic and martyr herself, she was a civilian.’ Winter stared at his old boss, his eyes like chips of blue ice. The moment of silence that followed was one of the most uncomfortable of my life.

  ‘Fine,’ the Ipsissimus finally said. ‘But don’t screw this up.’

  Winter was very still. ‘You forget who you’re talking to.’ With that, he turned on his heel and stalked out, Brutus and I close behind him.

  It was fascinating to see Winter transform into icy action. It was if he shut down part of himself so he could focus on only one thing. As a testament to his witchy commando mode (and if only he really would go commando under those well-tailored trousers) I even gave him the keys so he could drive. Then the three of us piled into my trusty taxi.

  ‘Put your seatbelt on, Ivy,’ he instructed.

  ‘This pet crematorium is only a guess, Rafe. Blackbeard might have nothing to do with the place.’