“Come back here!” she called.
Both the little dragon and the girl were soon lost amid the massive trees.
Zurfina looked at Baxter.
“You’re supposed to find her.”
“Bloody hell!” growled Terrence, pointing to his brother and two nearby mercenaries. “You’re with me!”
They went running in the direction the girl had gone.
“What the hell are you waiting for?” Zurfina demanded of Baxter.
He pulled his pistol from its holster and ran after the other men, weaving in and out of the great trees. He had almost caught up with them, when they suddenly stopped. In the clearing ahead, Senta was being attacked by a flock of velociraptors. The creatures were like turkeys from hell, covered in hairy feathers, yellow but green near their small arms. Instead of beaks, they had long mouths filled with razor-sharp teeth. One of the creatures was on the girl’s shoulders, and another was nipping at her legs. One was lying on the ground, apparently injured, while the little dragon savaged another. And several others circled, squawking.
Terrence pulled his rifle to his shoulder. The others followed suit. A flurry of gunshots rang out through the redwoods.
The velociraptor on the girl’s shoulders fell to the ground dead. Two others as well. They hadn’t needed to shoot the beast fighting with the dragon. It was already dead.
“Gawp!” said the dragon, licking the blood from its whiskers with a long forked tongue.
Captain Dechantagne rushed forward and scooped Senta up into his arms. He looked at the tears in her dress and the tears in her skin beneath.
“These don’t seem too bad,” he said. “Are you hurt anywhere else?”
She shook her head.
“Looks like we got here just in time,” said one of the riflemen.
“Velociraptors,” said Augie.
Zurfina stepped out from behind a tree, walked over and picked up the dragon, which wrapped itself around her shoulders just as it had Senta’s before. Captain Dechantagne set Senta down and faced the sorceress.
“You’re this little girl’s guardian!” he said angrily. “She shouldn’t have been brought ashore.”
Zurfina stepped toward him and placed her forefinger on his chin.
“Guardian,” she said derisively. “My dear Terrence, we’re going to be living here. Children are going to be eaten.”
Dechantagne’s mouth dropped open.
“She’s fine,” said Zurfina. “Let’s get back to the others.”
As a group, they turned and began walking back the way they had come. Terrence pulled the little girl along by her hand. As she passed, Zurfina stopped and stared into Baxter’s eyes. A look of disgust formed on her features.
“You’re worthless.”
Baxter jerked awake and sat up in bed. His body was covered with cold sweat. Bryony reached up a hand and touched his cheek.
“You’re burning up,” she said. “Let me get you a cool compress.”
“I’m fine,” he said, but she got up anyway.
A minute later, she returned and insisted that he lay back down. She pressed a cloth moistened with cool water onto his forehead.
“Just try to calm down and get some rest.”
“I’m calm,” he replied.
She climbed back into bed and put her head on his shoulder. A minute later, she was gently snoring, but he knew that he was getting no more sleep that night.
* * * * *
The Port Dechantagne Hospital was one of the newest additions to the downtown business district. It was a three-story building of red brick, with white stonework along the corners and the windows, very much in the same style as Police Headquarters. Inside there was very little similarity. The hospital had a large entryway that led to three wings stretching out to either side and to the back. At an oak desk just inside the door was an aged nun who smiled pleasantly as Saba Colbshallow stopped to inquire the location of Maro McCoort.
A young girl in a candy-striped dress was summoned to lead him to room 128 in the east wing. The room was typical of the hospital, large and with four beds, two on either side. All four were filled with patients, all but one of whom were unconscious. McCoort was in the bed on the far left. A nurse standing beside him was writing notes on a clipboard.
“How is he?” Saba asked her.
“Oh, Chief Colbshallow.” She stopped writing and fiddled with her hair for a moment before answering. “Mother Auni and the doctors have done all they can for him, but he still hasn’t come to.”
“Do they expect him to?”
The nurse shrugged. “He was frozen… I mean, rock hard. I don’t think anyone has seen that happen to a person… who survived, I mean.”
“I want to be contacted immediately, if he wakes. I intend to see that the person responsible pays.”
“I for one am a little surprised that you’re so vehement,” said a voice behind him.
He turned around to find a young man in a Colonial Guard captain’s dress uniform. With him was a girl, a few years younger, in an expensive green day dress.
“And why exactly would that be, Tiber?”
“Maro was never very generous in his editorials about the police department.” Tiber Stevenson smiled crookedly. “Oh, you remember my sister Mona, don’t you, Chief?”
Saba nodded to the girl and then turned back to her brother.
“All the more reason to be vigilant in the execution of my duties. People need to know that the police department is here to maintain law and order for everyone, no matter what may or may not have been said in the past.”
“Very judicious of you.”
“You’re looking very sharp,” observed Saba. “Not dressed up just for a hospital visit, are you?”
“No. We’re on our way to the wedding.”
“Oh, Sam Croffut’s. I had forgotten that it was today. I had to send my regrets, what with all that’s going on.”
“I’m standing up for Sam,” said Tiber, “as well as acting as Mona’s escort. Her fiancé is in Mallontah on business. She’s engaged to Fitzroy Norich, you know.”
“I hope you’ll be very happy,” Saba told her. “Do you suppose your older brother will ever find a young woman?”
“You’ll find out soon enough,” said Tiber.
“He means you’ll find out when he’s disinherited,” said Mona.
“Really! Prepared to give up everything for true love? I would never have thought you had it in you, Stephenson. You’ve grown three-fold in my esteem.”
“That and a pfennig will buy me a cup of coffee,” said Tiber. “Now if you’ll excuse us, Chief, I would like to spend a few minutes with my sick friend.”
Saba nodded and left the two young people beside Maro McCoort’s bed.
* * * * *
Kieran Baxter stepped off the trolley in front of the shipyard. Beyond the loading area and the office building, he could see two massive freighters sitting at the dock. He really didn’t want to continue on to the desk that awaited him in the shipping office. His eyes still burned with lack of sleep.
He reached up and wiped away the perspiration that was forming above his brow. Then he looked at the moisture in the palm of his hand. It was already a hot day, but perhaps not hot enough to warrant so much sweat. He stepped over into the shade next to one of the warehouses.
Suddenly he stopped and looked around. The dock was over there. Up the hill near the Governor’s Warehouse… He stepped back up the hill to stop in front of the largest of the area’s many buildings. “This would have been right where we were standing when the tyrannosaurus roared.” He walked swiftly downhill again, cutting between two warehouses and then maneuvering through a lot overgrown with weeds and filled with broken and rusted equipment from the shipyard. Finally he stopped next to a shed, which was leaning over precariously. This would have been about where Zurfina had spoken to him.
He struggled to think for a moment. The dream had been so vivid that he could no longer remem
ber if the sorceress had really said anything to him or not. He looked around on the grown, though he couldn’t for the life of him think of what he was looking for. Then he saw it, sticking out from beneath a broken piece of plywood, dirty and torn. Pushing aside the wood, he picked up a doll, with a cloth body and a porcelain head. Whatever dress it had once worn was long gone. Its head was damaged: there was a small crack just in front of the left ear and the hand painted mouth had been worn away.
“This can’t be Senta’s doll,” he said to himself.
Then the doll raised its hand to where its pink lips had once been and blew him a kiss.
Dropping the cloth demon, he jumped back, tripped over a piece of equipment and fell on his back. Agonizing pain shot through his side, causing him to pass out. He thought, though he wasn’t sure, that it was only a minute or so later when consciousness returned. He was looking up at a large fluffy cloud passing between him and the sun. His hand was wet and he lifted it up to see that it was covered in sticky red blood. Then he looked down to see a long pointed piece of rusty metal sticking out of his lower abdomen.
“Kafira’s twat!”
This was it. He was going to die. But then the image of a sweet face looking down on him from above changed everything. It was Bryony’s face. She was at home. She would spend the day cleaning the house and watering her flowers, stopping only for a cup of tea and a biscuit, and then she would cook a lovely meal just for him. She would stand waiting at the door for him at a quarter to seven, and he wouldn’t be there. She would worry about him until they found his body and then she would be devastated.
No! That wasn’t going to happen. Hyperventilating and bucking up his courage, he pulled his feet up under his knees and bent his elbows. Counting aloud, “one, two, three,” he lifted with arms and legs at the same time. Oddly it didn’t hurt any more than it had, until he was almost off and the jagged point raked across his back as he moved to the side.
Rolling over onto his hands and knees, he began crawling through the weeds. When he reached the back corner of the warehouses, he had to stop. He was dizzy and sure that he was losing a great deal of blood. But it wasn’t that far to go. All he had to do was make it to the road just ahead. Someone would find him there.
He continued, at first counting his steps, but losing count along the way. He concentrated then on nothing but crawling. Then he lost what remained of his conscious thought, but his body kept crawling, until it stopped. He felt the warm stone on his face and wondered if he had made it. But it was too much trouble to open his eyes to see. And then all was black.
* * * * *
“This is it,” said Eamon Shrubb, glancing around the corner of the apartment building. “That’s the two of them.”
“Are you sure we want both of them, Sarge… um Shrubb. He’s got no warrants as far as we know.”
“He’s a wizard. That’s good enough for me. And she’s definitely wanted.”
“If you say so.”
“Here we go.”
Eamon stepped out from behind the building and casually walked into the Beanery. He took a seat just behind the wizard, who had previously been identified as Wardstone—he didn’t know if that was a Kafiran or last name or a nickname. Wardstone’s dinner companion, Tendra the Enchantress, was facing him. When she glanced at him, he nodded politely and then raised his hand for the server.
As the lizzie approached and took his order for one meal, he saw Brimley walking past, to take a spot behind the woman. Eamon picked up the single sheet printed in someone’s garage, that was all that was left of the Birmisia Gazette. If the headline was any indication, Geert McCoort was no fonder of the police department than his brother had been. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the lizzie stepping over to take Brimley’s order. Eamon reached under his shirt and grasped the handle of a blackjack.
“You have any eggs?” asked Brimley.
That was the signal. Eamon turned as he whipped out the weapon and smashed it across the back of Wardstone’s neck. Tendra’s large eyes grew even larger for a moment, until Brimley hit her across the back of the head with his own blackjack. Both magic users fell to the floor. Eamon pulled out the gag and fastened it into the man’s mouth and then slid the constrictive leather gloves over his hands. Finally he fastened the manacles over them. He looked up to see that Brimley was doing the same with the woman. Seconds later, a police lorry skidded to a stop in front of the restaurant and two uniformed constables jumped out. The four of them half-carried, half-dragged the unconscious duo from the establishment and tossed them into the back of the lorry. Then they all piled in and drove away.
* * * * *
For the second time that day, Saba walked through the halls of the hospital. This time it was the north wing, but the room he stepped into might as well have been the same one. Except for the four patients, it was identical. Baxter lay on the foremost bed on the right. He looked bad. He was as pale as a ghost, and had the entire center of his body wrapped in bandages. Two bottles of blood were being drained into him through long rubber tubes. His eyes were closed, but when Saba approached, they opened.
“I know,” said Baxter, when Saba didn’t speak. “I look like death warmed over.”
“How bad is it?”
“Not as bad as it looks, but I’ll never be able to do whatever it was I did with my appendix again.”
“Were you attacked? Was it one of the wizards?”
“No.” He closed his eyes again and for a moment Saba thought that he had lapsed into sleep, but then he spoke three more words. “It was Senta.”
“Senta? She’s safe at home…”
“Not her. The mother.”
“All right. Try to get some rest.”
Saba turned and walked away. When he reached the doorway, he came face to face with Mrs. Baxter.
“He’s having another breakdown. If you’d like me to, I can arranged to have him taken somewhere as soon as he’s strong enough.”
Her eyes narrowed and her mouth became a thin line.
“He’s not going anywhere except home with me.”
* * * * *
Police Chief Colbshallow stood up as Wizard Dominot entered, followed by another man. Fulbright Coote was a surprisingly young man for a wizard reported to be fairly powerful, two or three years Saba’s junior. He was a person one would remember having met, tall and thin, with extremely large blue eyes, and hair so blond that it was almost, but not quite, white. He was really too pretty to be a man, but Saba new that some women liked that.
“Wizard Coote,” said Saba, offering his hand. “A pleasure to meet you.”
“The pleasure is mine.”
Saba’s face twitched in annoyance as Coote sat down in a chair that Saba had not yet offered him. He waved to the other chair, which Dominot took, and then sat down behind his desk.
“Has Dominot explained why you’re here?”
“No, not really, but it isn’t too difficult to divine. Birmisia Colony is overrun with wizards, some of them quite undesirable and powerful. You’re looking for someone to keep them in check.”
“Um, someone to help us keep them in check.”
“Of course. I find the idea intriguing and would be happy to help you.”
“Are you capable?” asked Saba. “No offense, but you are very young.”
“I am a third level master, the most powerful magic wielder currently in the colony, by a factor of four.”
Saba looked at Dominot, who nodded.
“Good. What we were thinking…”
Saba’s voice trailed off as he realized that neither wizard was listening. Their eyes were staring off into space as their mouths slowly gaped open. A second later, one after the other, they slid to the floor, as if all the starch had gone out of them. Hurrying around the desk, he stared down at them, unsure of what to do. Then they began jerking spasmodically. The police chief was not a trained medic, so he did the only thing he could think to do. He pushed the chairs back and made sure that t
hey wouldn’t smack their heads into something or knock something off the desk onto them. He had just finished when an out-of-breath constable rushed in.
“Sir, it’s… them too?”
“What? What is it?”
“Wizard Dillingham was downstairs by the cells… He was interviewing the two hedgies Shrubb and Brimley brought in and…” He pointed to the two stricken men before him. “Well, that happened to them too.”
The two wizards stopped their seizures just as suddenly as they had started. They went limp and unconscious.
“Do we have any other wizards other lock-up?”
“No, sir.”
“Good. Now get down to the telegraph and call for emergency medical. We need Mother Auni and a doctor.”
“Yes, sir.” And he was out the door.
Dropping to his knee, Saba checked the pulse of men. Both were strong and steady.
When he touched Dominot, the wizard stirred and spoke. “I drink you… uastium peregorum... there is no return... destus beithbechnoth... I bring you death...” He opened his eyes and looked around as if trying to make sense of where he was.
Saba grabbed a coffee cup, hurried out of the office, and ran down the hall to the W.C. He rinsed the cup out in the sink and filled it with cold water. When he returned, Dominot was sitting up on the floor. Helping the man into a chair, he gave him a few sips of water.
“What happened?” wondered the wizard, his eyes still a little glazed.
“I don’t know, but it happened to every wizard in the building.”
By the time Mother Auni arrived with her medical team, Dominot seemed to be completely back to normal, but Wizard Coote was still unconscious. As she examined him, several constables stopped by to report to their chief. It seemed that wizards all over the colony were affected in the same way, and as far as anyone could tell, at the exact same moment.
A Plague of Wizards Page 14