Siggy paused, head cocked, and then said, “Around the corner of the corridor on the left, heading for Chanson.”
“We’ve got to stop her,” Rachel cried.
Fear raised its smoky head, trying to cloud her thoughts. Rachel let her mind go calm and clear, as if she were flying. The fear remained, but it did not cloud her thinking.
Siggy turned to Nastasia. “Princess, there are two ways to get to that corridor. Straight through here on the left, or go down that last corridor and take two right turns. What would you like me to do?”
The princess’s face paled. She looked around at the brick room, confused and uncertain. “Um…”
“She just cast a spell at Chanson. He’s petrified,” Siggy reported what his amulet showed him. “She’s about to do something else to him.”
“How do you know all this?” Joy asked confused, struggling to get free of the purse.
There was no time to wait for Nastasia to make up her mind.
People could die.
Her handsome boss the P.E. teacher, in particular, could die.
“I am going after Mordeau.” Rachel raced down the corridor the way Sigfried had indicated. She called over her shoulder. “If I don’t petrify her, at least I will distract her. Sigfried, sneak around the other way and free Mr. Chanson with the Word of Ending cantrip. Leave Lucky here. He can tell me when you’re ready.”
“No!” Joy cried after her. “She will kill you!”
Might she die? The thought did not frighten Rachel.
It did not even disturb her.
The thought that someone else might die, because she had failed to act, that frightened her.
Pausing an instant, she looked back and met Siggy’s gaze. Their eyes locked. An understanding passed between them, a mutual resolve.
He nodded.
Rachel nodded back.
His eyes burning with something hotter than anger, Sigfried ran off, heading down the other corridor. Rachel cast the bey-athe cantrip. When the crystalline shield glittered like a heat shimmer before her, she moved to the corner.
“Okay. He’s ready,” Lucky whispered a moment later.
Rachel winked at the dragon. Then, stepping around the protection of the corner into the open corridor, she whistled.
Dr. Mordeau stood before Mr. Chanson, who sat slumped over in front of a doorway. The Math tutor spun and gestured with her fulgurator’s wand. She caught Rachel’s spell and sent the stream of blue sparkles back down the corridor. The rebounding spell shattered Rachel’s shield and hit her, freezing her in place. She was stuck in the center of the hallway, exposed.
“How fitting,” the Math tutor drawled, her voice deep and husky. She gazed at Rachel as if she were a curio in some pathetic amusement. “Your father destroyed mine. And now, I shall destroy you. How deliciously ironic.”
Oh!
So, that was why Mordeau hated Agent Griffin! Rachel thought about the eared snake. A puzzle piece clicked into place. Dr. Mordeau must be the daughter of the Serpent Master, one of the chiefs of the Morthbrood captured by her father and his then-partner, James Darling.
Mordeau raised her wand.
Behind her, Sigfried shouted, “Obé!”
Mr. Chanson stirred. Then, he had already slammed into Dr. Mordeau. The two of them went sprawling across the hallway. Siggy cheered. Rachel stood absolutely still, unable to move, her mouth still pursed as if to whistle.
From her position, Rachel could see both Mordeau wrestling with Chanson and the chamber where she had left her broom. The princess still stood there, immobile. Her eyes darted this way and that, as if uncertain what she should do. Joy looked to her expectantly, waiting for Nastasia’s command. As the two tutors struggled, Mordeau tore off her outer robe and threw it down the hall. The black cloth writhed and broke apart into dozens of sinuous shadows. Mordeau shouted, “Spread out. Find students with wands. Possess them. Use the wands to kill the others.”
The shadows rushed past Rachel and up the stairs. Joy stared, open-mouthed. Pulling herself together, the princess took Joy by the hand and hurried down the corridor toward Rachel.
Siggy leapt and cheered, urging Mr. Chanson on. Rachel thought of fifty things she would like to do, or say, or suggest Sigfried do, but she could not move her paralyzed lips. Frustrated and impatient, she occupied her time by playing back her memory of the last few seconds.
In her mind, Mordeau’s black snake slithered down the hallway, heading directly for her. It glided over the square bricks that made up the floor, its black tongue flicking, its feather-like ears twitching.
Rachel willed herself to shout, to squawk, to squeak, but no sound emerged. She willed herself to move, to jump, to run, but no limb stirred. She willed herself to cast a cantrip, to whistle a wind, to do anything at all, but no change occurred.
She was frozen, as helpless as a tree before a chainsaw.
The snake continued to move toward her. Remembering back, she broke the obscuration that kept it hidden. She could see it coming for her. She stared at it, hypnotized, unable to close her eyes or look away. The snake hissed. It drew its head back, preparing to strike. Her heart beat quadruple time.
Thweeeek. The screech of bow on string cut through the silence. Princess Nastasia stood beside Rachel, her violin tucked beneath her chin, her long golden curls blowing around her. Twirling silver sparkles lifted the eared snake and threw it pell-mell down the hallway. As the snake slid backwards, Lucky swept by and leapt on it.
The two serpents rolled over and over, wrestling.
The princess tried the Ending cantrip on Rachel; then Joy tried. Neither of them pronounced it correctly—even though Sigfried had just used it. Rachel sighed mentally. It was obvious to her. She had heard it once. She would never forget it. Alas, that did not work that way for other people.
Mr. Chanson pinned Dr. Mordeau down. She squirmed but could not break free. Relief spread through Rachel. It was over. The villain had been captured.
Gaius was safe.
As Rachel continued to watch, Mordeau’s body began to swell. She grew larger and blacker until the woman was gone, and an enormous dragon rose in her place. It was not a slender ribbon of a dragon, like Lucky, but a huge scaled monstrosity that filled the entire corridor and breathed out a gout of orangey-yellow flame seven feet long.
Oh no.
The dragon’s fire smelled like rotten eggs. Rachel wanted to cough or pinch her nose, but she could not. She wondered how she continued to breathe when her chest did not move.
“Ace!” Siggy shouted. “I knew people could turn into dragons!”
Mr. Chanson leapt to his feet and barreled into the dragon at full speed. The flames curled over his body, but not so much as a hair got charred. Rachel suspected that the rest of them would not fare so well if struck by the fire. Who was Mr. Chanson? Or rather, what was he? How did he do what he did? He was fast as a flame, strong as a giant, and tough as a troll.
Yet, she had yet to see him cast a single spell.
He was strong but not strong enough. He strained to lift the creature, but fifty feet of sinuous muscle and shiny black scales proved too much. The dragon lunged forward and grabbed Chanson in its jaws. He must not have made an appetizing morsel, however, because it spat him out again. He flew backward, landing sprawled. The dragon’s tail drew back and lashed out, slamming him into the wall so hard that he left a Mr. Chanson-shaped hole in the bricks.
Siggy gawked. “He went through the earth, under the moat and came up on the grass above. That’s over a hundred and fifty feet!”
“Is he…dead?” Joy squeaked.
“Nope. He’s moving. Has a pretty big bump on his head, though.”
“Mr. Chanson must be relying on more of the new magic.” The princess grabbed Rachel and began dragging her toward the corner. “He was knocked through fifty yards of rock earth and survived? There is nothing like that in the history books.”
“Not even in True History?” Sigfried asked. To Rachel�
��s surprise, his voice sounded close by. Apparently, he had come back after freeing Mr. Chanson.
Lucky’s voice called, “Uh…Boss? The snake just bit me. Is that…bad?”
The great black dragon turned its head toward them.
Joy ran. Siggy took Rachel from the princess, swung her up over his shoulder, and lugged her around the corner. He set her down in the side corridor that led back toward the chamber with the staircase. Then he rushed back to check on Lucky.
Her nose itched. Her eyes felt dry. Her view consisted of six bricks.
“Nastasia? What are you doing here? I told you to stay in the infirmary!” Dean Moth’s voice echoed in the hallway.
“Mordeau turned invisible. She was about to kill Mr. Chanson!” Joy cried.
Nastasia nodded. “It is as Miss O’Keefe has stated. We knew that Mr. Chanson had not been able to see her snake. We feared for his life.”
“I see,” the dean snapped, annoyed. “Stay here!” As an after thought, she added, “Obé.”
Rachel’s body sagged. She gasped, air rushing into her lungs. Turning, she took two running steps after Dean Moth, but the dean had stepped in front of the great dragon.
She carried no wand, but lifting her hands, she began to chant.
Rachel bounced on her toes, wanting to call her back, to warn her about Dr. Mordeau’s cloak and the danger to the other students. It was too late. Their duel had begun. Golden bands of light flew from the dean’s hands, one after another. They encircled the math-teaching dragon, who breathed fire back up the hallway. Dean Moth gestured again, and the fire curled around her without touching her. But the dragon had already broken the first few bands and was lumbering down the hallway.
The hair on the back of Rachel’s neck stood up. She had never heard of anyone breaking Glepnir bonds.
“We have to do something!” cried Rachel.
“The dean said to remain where we are,” Nastasia reminded her sternly.
“But…we didn’t tell her about the shadows!”
“Shadows?” the princess asked. “You mean the dark shapes that rushed by?”
“They came out of Mordeau’s cloak. She sent them to possess students and kill people,” Rachel said. “We’ve got to warn someone.”
“The dean told us to stay here,” Nastasia repeated.
The machinery of obedience clanked and strained in Rachel’s head. The dean was a powerful and admirable person, who should be obeyed. But she did not know that students were about to be killed—the same way she had not known that Dr. Mordeau could turn invisible. Surely, if she had known, she would have wanted people to be warned. It did not make sense to obey orders given by someone who did not know the situation, especially if the results would be that children died.
In her imagination, Rachel reached over to the lever that turned the crank of obedience-to-adults and removed the screws fastening it in place. The lever turned, but no gears moved. For the first time in her life, she felt free from the constraints of grown-ups.
Rachel grabbed her broom. “I am going to warn everyone.”
“You can’t. The dean said to stay here,” Nastasia repeated firmly.
“And I am going after Chanson!” Sigfried called, running down the other hall again, the one that would bring him out on the far side of the battle between the dean and the dragon.
“No, Sigfried!” Nastasia ordered. “I order you not to go, Mr. Smith!”
Siggy did not pause.
From where she balanced on her toes at the corner, Rachel could see him crawling into the tunnel Chanson’s body had left behind. Lucky was draped around his shoulders. So far as she could tell, the evil snake’s bite was not slowing him down.
The body of the eared snake lay charred on the bricks.
Rachel raced back to the brick antechamber and jumped on her broom. “I’ll be back!”
Chapter Thirty-Two:
The Midday Ride of Rachel Griffin
“Alarm! Alarm! Alarm!” Rachel shot across the commons, shouting. “Beware! Alarm!”
Classes were in session, but the weather was beautiful, with a too-blue sky and a mild breeze that smelled of new autumn leaves. Many of those who had an open period, and perhaps a few who were supposed to be in class, had chosen to study on the lawn, frisk about with their familiars, or to fly bristlelesses up and down the paths.
Rachel rushed by them, pell-mell, shouting and hardly looking where she was going. She nearly flew headlong into a peacock, whether a pet of the school or someone’s familiar, she did not know. The creature screamed, an eerie, ear-splitting sound that reminded Rachel of a child yowling for help. This startled the other students and made them look in Rachel’s direction.
“Alarm! Mordeau’s gone crazy!” she shouted. “She is sending the thaumaturgy students to kill everyone! Alarm!”
Students gawked at her. A few started to laugh. Eunice Chase pulled out her fulgurator’s wand and fired a blast of greenish brown energy at Rachel. Her eyes were a milky white. The sizzling beam shot toward her head. Rachel locked her gaze on Eunice and whistled. Blue sparks rushed toward the older girl.
Rachel bent close over her handle and rotated, flipping underneath the broom and shooting up on other side again. The horrid-smelling spell burnt the air where her head would have been.
“Look at her fly!” Lola Spong exclaimed. “I couldn’t do that!”
A smile flickered across Rachel’s lips.
Serious again, she pointed a finger at Eunice, who stood frozen in the act of firing her wand, blue sparkles dancing around her body. “Look at her eyes! See how cloudy they are? Mordeau is possessing students and sending them to kill people! Anyone you see with eyes like that is possessed! Stop them!”
• • •
She sped through the trees, along the gravel paths that ran between the dorms on the western side of the campus. The pale pyramidal towers of Marlowe Hall flashed by. At her warning, the students playing croquet on the lawns of Spenser Hall scattered like startled doves. As she darted toward the spires of Dare, she shouted to those on the steps to retreat inside and block the doors against anyone with a wand. Then, she dodged white birches as she circled around to the back of Roanoke Hall.
The birches parted, revealing the grassy area filled with sprouting tree stumps behind Roanoke Hall. Sitting in the middle of this field, rubbing an angry red bump on his forehead, was the P.E. teacher. Rachel leapt from her broom, landing beside him at a stumbling run.
“Mr. Chanson! Are you okay? Can I help you to the infirmary?”
“No, no, child.” He smiled up at her, rubbing his forehead. “I will be fine in a few minutes. Got the wind knocked out of me.”
Rachel bent down and offered her hand, helping him to rise. “Sir…no offense, but you flew through fifty yards of earth. Are you sure you didn’t lose more than your wind?”
“Must have been a tunnel here all along,” he replied mildly. He started to stand, but paused on one knee, overcome by dizziness.
Laughter snorted out of her mouth in spite of her wish to restrain it. “Um. You left a Mr. Chanson-shaped hole in the brick wall, boss. Also, you move faster than I can see.” Rachel leaned forward, her dark eyes dancing. “I think the time for pretending everything is normal has passed.”
He tried again, rocking forward as he rose, clumps of dirt falling from his suit and half cape. Making it to his feet, Mr. Chanson ducked his head and gave her a sheepish smile. “Will you keep my secret?”
“Of course!” Rachel straightened and saluted. As she hopped back on her broom, she added, “I have more people to warn. I’ll have to interrogate you about what you know about Metaplutonians later.”
“Meta…”
“Metaplutonians,” she called over her shoulder as she took to the air. “It’s Mr. Smith’s term for people who come from beyond Pluto…people from outside. Like Lucky and the Lion.”
Mr. Chanson gave her a very penetrating look. “You know a great deal for one so young.”
She shot off, barreling through the trees toward the dorms on the far side of Roanoke, rocketing past somber De Vere Hall. Ahead was Drake. How was the battle going there? Had the dean won yet?
And what would happen if Dean Moth lost?
Dark images rose up in her mind as she flew: Gaius lying on the floor, dead; herself dropping to her knees, clutching his limp body and rocking back and forth, wailing; herself dressed in the black crepe of mourning, going through the motions of her life as if in a dreary dream; herself as an aged spinster, explaining to her great grand-nephews and nieces how she had never married because, long ago, her true love had been slain.
Rachel blushed at that last thought. She had no evidence this boy was her true love; she was not even over John Darling. But the thought of Gaius dying, before she discovered whether he might be…
He was not going to die!
A group of students had gathered on the pathway leading to Drake. Even with her naked eye, Rachel could see black shadows around them. A shadow surrounded a tall blond boy holding a wand. He turned and raised his hands, calling out a cantrip she had not heard before. “Tur lu!”
Vroomie stalled in mid air. The steeplechaser entirely ceased moving, but Rachel did not. She flew from her seat, shooting forward. Her stomach tried to stay with the broom, but physics did not allow for that. The unfamiliar sensation of open air under her backside was disturbing. It was like that moment in a dream when one walked into a crowded room only to realize one was naked. Only, this was more like waking up to discover that you really were in a crowded room and you really were naked.
Gravel lay below her, promising a particularly painful landing. She could concentrate on saving herself, which was going to be uncomfortable, even if she succeeded. Or she could stop the kid who attacked her before he hurt anyone else. Or himself. She hated to imagine how it would feel to come out of a geas and discover that you had committed a murder. Even if others told you it was Dr. Mordeau’s fault, would you ever believe it?
No student would bear that burden on her watch, not even a gangly boy from Drake.
The Unexpected Enlightenment of Rachel Griffin (Books of Unexpected Enlightenment Book 1) Page 34