by Sean Stone
Ashley drove us to Mote Park. We couldn’t exactly walk through town with a massive sword; I’m pretty sure that’s illegal and Inspector Richards had enough reason to harass me without me giving him anymore. Ashley parked a block away from the park in case Richards was watching the place or had someone else doing so. Between him and Rachel, I was fairly certain that somebody was always watching me. I kept my invisibility illusion spell up whilst we walked so we could go undetected. We were heading to a different entrance because the main one still had a police guard on it.
“You’re scared she’ll come for you again,” Ashley said breaking the silence. She must have noticed me looking at every car I saw.
“I’m not scared so much as being vigilant,” I said with false bravado. I was pretty scared but she didn’t need to know that.
“Don’t lie, Eddie. Seriously, you’re one step away from shaking.” She gave me a cheeky wink.
“Shaking? Hardly! Rachel’s a scary woman but she’s not that scary,” I said.
“So you admit you’re scared then. Why don’t you tell me about her?” Ashley asked. She softened her tone and was no longer messing around. She really wanted to know more. As it was I hadn’t told her much at all; just that Rachel wanted me to work for her and had killed my parents when I refused.
“There’s really not much to tell.”
“You’ve been running from her since you were thirteen. I think there is.” She stopped walking and put her hand on my bare forearm. Her palm was soft like freshly washed sheets. Unless you use crap conditioner in which case her skin was nothing like your sheets. “Come on, Eddie. You need to get it out. You’ll feel better for it.”
I sighed. “Alright. Alright.” I haven’t exactly been honest about my history with Rachel. I mean, I haven’t lied, I’ve just left certain parts out which you are now about to learn. I left them out because I would much rather forget them but that was never going to happen.
“The first time I learned of my ability to take magic without killing was when I was thirteen. My parents were both fully-fledged ordinaries. No magic in them whatsoever. But I had a cousin who was a witch. He came from magic.”
“So, your mum or dad were born into a magical family without magic?” Ashley asked. It was a rare phenomenon but not an unheard of one.
“My dad was. My mum’s family never had magic,” I explained. He never seemed that bothered by not having magic. Maybe he just hid it really well. “I was messing around with my cousin and we got into a fight over the telly remote. He was a rotten kid. Always bullying other kids into doing what he wanted. Me included. If I refused he just used his magic on me. His parents turned a blind eye and there was nothing mine could do about it. He tried to use magic on me and then…” I shrugged. “It just happened. I grabbed his fist. He shook a bit. The lights smashed. Then he had no magic. His parents threw me out of their house and told me never to come back. They said I was some kind of monster. They didn’t realise that I’d actually taken his powers. They thought I’d just muted them somehow. I didn’t know the truth either. None of us learned the truth for a few days.”
“How did you find out?”
“I’m getting to that if you’ll be patient,” I said in a feigned telling off. Ashley smiled and nodded for me to continue. “I was at school and my cousin decided to start on me. Told me I was a dirty little freak and I’d ruined his life. He came at me and I accidentally blasted him across the playground. The look of abject terror on his face is still one of the happiest memories I have. The moment he realised just how much the tables had turned. It didn’t stop him, though. He still got up and attacked me again.”
“Eesh,” Ashley said and grimaced. She’d grown up with magic and knew what it was like for an untrained sorcerer.
“I’d never had magic before and had no idea how to control it. It wasn’t like it is for others. Their powers come on gradually but I had it hit me all at once. I lost control.”
“What happened?” she asked quietly.
“I don’t want to go into detail. I’m not proud of it but I’m not ashamed either. It wasn’t my fault,” I said firmly. It’d taken years for me to start believing that.
“What happened?” she said again.
“I turned him into a vegetable. Not literally. He’s not a Brussels sprout. I hit him with so much magic that his brain just turned off.”
“Is he…”
“Still like it? Oh, yeah. Hasn’t said a word since that day. His parents tried to bring him out of it for a whole month before they just dumped him in a facility. They tried to get me to give the magic back but I had no idea how and even if I could have I never would. He’d just use it against me. He was better off without magic.”
“That’s terrible. But what does it have to do with Rachel?”
“I’m getting to it. My cousin’s parents—”
“Your aunt and uncle?”
“Yeah. They reached out to other sorcerers. They were trying to find a way to get the magic out of me and back into my cousin. They thought that might wake him up again. The problem was nobody had ever heard of anything like it. Most people thought they were crazy and the ones who did believe them were too scared to come near me. I mean, a kid who sucks magic out of people. Too risky. They thought I was a mockery to the natural order of things. Then one day someone answered their pleas. Rachel. She met with them and listened to their story. Then she told them that the only way to get the magic was to extract it after death. They told me everything when they came to kidnap me. As soon as they touched me I took their powers and then used them against them.”
“Did you…”
“Kill them? No. Rachel did when she turned up. She made it seem as though she was saving me. I eventually realised the whole thing was set up and went exactly according to her plan. My aunt and uncle were just pawns to demonstrate my ability. And of course, to get me to trust her. To be grateful to her. She made me think I owed her my life.”
“What a bitch,” Ashley said.
“That’s putting it mildly,” I replied with a dry laugh. “She told me I needed a teacher. Someone to help me control my powers and hone my ability. I took her to meet my parents. They invited her to stay for dinner. We all had a really nice evening. She was so nice. All just an act. She keep the act up for months whilst she taught me to cast spells, perform rituals, brew potions. Despite being an evil bitch she was a fantastic teacher. All my skills in magic came from her. And she taught me fast. She said I picked it up like a natural. She said I was her greatest student. Cameron hated that. He’s her… you know I’ve never been sure what he is to her. Either way he travelled with her so when she stopped off in Horley he came too. He went to my school. We became friends, best friends. I’ve honestly never had a better friend than him. But he always resented me for being the better student. It was something I never realised until we parted ways.
“One day she asked me to join her. To become a permanent part of the team.”
“She wanted me to leave my family and become a part of hers. It would be me, her and Cameron. She told me she wanted me to gather magic for her. She’d discovered by then that I could transfer magic to others. If it hadn’t been for her I wouldn’t have figured it out. I said no and ran home. When I arrived Cameron was there. He threatened to make my life hell if I didn’t go with them. He said that the whole time he’d just been pretending to be my friend because Rachel told him to. He said he despised me. I thought he was lying. I wanted him to be lying. He was the best friend I’d ever had and I did not want to accept that it was all a fraud. I told him to leave and he did but he came back that evening with Rachel.”
“You don’t have to tell me this bit if you don’t want to,” Ashley said gently and gripped my arm again. Her touch was comforting. Rachel would use that against me if she found out and I was certain that she already knew. That’s why she was taking so long to appear. She was doing her homework. Ever the diligent tactician.
“It’s fine,” I said. “She asked me to join her again. I refused. She had Cameron murder my parents in front of me. The whole time she’d paralysed them so they couldn’t move. She had them sitting on the sofa watching the BBC news. Even when Cameron slid the razor across their throats they didn’t move. Only their eyes did. And I will never forget the terror in them.” I took a minute to shake the memory off. A bit of deep breathing usually helped. “Three therapists and I’m still not quite over it,” I said with a wry smile.
“It’s okay, Eddie,” Ashley said. Her voice was soft and soothing.
“I went with them after that. Rachel showed me her collection. She likes to collect supernatural beings. Not for science or anything; she had them so they could serve her. She only collected the useful ones. She took me to this warehouse that was full of cages. The place was huge. About the size of a Tesco superstore. The whole placed was filled wall to wall with cages. Each cage had a creature in it. Creatures I’d never seen before. I still don’t know what some of them — most of them — were. But some of them looked human. They spoke like humans. Humans in cages. She told me I was her new favourite and as long as I served her well I wouldn’t have to live in a cage.”
“Jesus,” Ashley gasped.
“I stayed with her for a few months. I stole so much magic for her. I never killed for her. She said I would when I was older. She made me watch her murder enough people, though. She said it was to prepare me. Sometimes she liked to torture them first. That she did make me do. She liked using people’s own magic to hurt them. Each time I carried out one of her orders I felt myself becoming a worse person. This… darkness was growing inside me. She continued to teach me all about magic but I didn’t enjoy the lessons any more. I didn’t enjoy much of anything. One day I got lucky. A person like Rachel builds a long list of enemies. I contacted one of them and we hatched a plot to take Rachel down. I did what I had to.” I looked way from Ashley not wanting her to see the shame in my eyes.
“What do you mean?” Ashley asked. She looked concerned.
“I knew the plan wouldn’t work. I led that person into a trap and used the distraction to escape. I fled whilst they fought. Once I was far enough away I made sure Rachel couldn’t track me down and I kept running. But that plan I came up with. It frightened me how much like Rachel I’d acted. But I did what I had to do to survive. And I will always do what I have to do to survive. That’s one of Rachel’s life lessons that I’ve always kept with me. It’s me above everybody else.” That wasn’t entirely true anymore. If it was then I would’ve fled town the moment Rachel arrived. But instead here I was making sure Ashley, Matt and Emma didn’t get killed. Or maybe I wasn’t doing it for them at all, maybe I was just tired of running.
“The sun will set soon. We should get going,” Ashley said and we both headed on towards Mote Park.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Getting into Mote Park was easy enough. All of the conventional entrances were guarded by police officers but I’m not really a conventional guy anyway. We hopped the fence.
“Where do we start?” Ashley asked as I landed on the grass and she passed the sword back to me.
“The cave I suppose,” I said. Hopefully there’d be some sort of sign we could use to start tracking it. It couldn’t have left the park unless whoever had trapped it here had decided to release it. To be certain that was not the case I went to the nearest of the magic trapping symbols and checked that it was still infused with power. It was so the wendigo was still here. I was clever enough not to touch the symbol again. My hand still hadn’t fully recovered from when I’d tried to read the magic.
There were no police officers inside the park thankfully. That would have been rather inconvenient. I could easily put them all to sleep but there was a chance one might’ve been able to radio in a distress call before I got to them. Luckily I didn’t have to worry about that.
The cave was heavily cordoned off with yellow police tape and a canopy had been positioned over the entrance. I’m not sure why. It was almost like they’d given the wendigo a porch for his cave, or hers. I edged over to the entrance of the cave. I knew that the wendigo wasn’t in there, that it had moved on, but I was still hesitant to go inside. Maybe it had returned once the police were all gone.
“Here,” Ashley said, saving me from going inside. I turned around and went over to investigate what she’d found. She was pointing down at the floor at what was quite clearly a massive footprint. It looked human apart from the size and the holes in the mud that its claws had left behind. I brought my gaze up and looked at the trail the thing had left right the way through the trees.
“Do you think it’s a trap?” Ashley asked. She whispered in fear of the wendigo hearing her. I had no idea how good its hearing was. The book had nothing about that in it.
“It is a highly intelligent creature, apparently.” I recalled that part of the book. It liked to spring traps. “We might as well follow it. It has no idea we have the sword after all.” That probably wasn’t true. The bloody thing was no doubt out in the trees watching us and it knew what I had in my hands. Nonetheless we followed the prints through the trees until we finally happened upon a fork in the trail. I knew it was coming but that didn’t stop me from being disappointed.
“Definitely a trap,” I said grimly. “Unless it sprouted a clone and they went off in separate directions.”
“So what do we do?”
I knelt down and examined the right trail. Then the left. They were identical. “No way of telling which path it had actually taken. We’ll just have to follow the right and if that fails come back and do the left.”
“Or we just split up and follow both,” she suggested.
“Are you mad? That’s exactly what it wants; to split us up.” Ashley had her moments of dimness but this was bad even for her.
“Exactly. It wants us to split up. So if we don’t do what it wants then it’ll just stay hidden and unless you have a spell to track a wendigo it’s our only choice. Do what it wants to get it to come out.” It was a clever plan. And no, I know of no spell to track a wendigo. They’re resistant to magic which makes tracking spells futile.
“Alright, you go left, I’ll go right,” I said. “Here.” I held out the sword for her.
She shook her head. “ I can barely lift it let alone use it. I’ll never be able to take its head off. Best if you keep it.”
“Ash, you need protection.”
“A sorcerer always has protection, remember?” She wiggled her fingers at me. I wasn’t filled with confidence. She’d already admitted that she wasn’t great at magic. Although, she did seem to be able to throw a good spell around when she was given the right motivation.
“Just call me if anything happens,” I said. There was a moment where we both stared into each others’ eyes. Hers were so bright and pretty. I had an urge to hug her. I shook it off and after a polite nod, which seemed to confuse her, I went off on my own.
The woods seemed to grow a lot darker and quieter once Ashley was gone. Maybe it was loneliness. Maybe it was fear. Maybe it was actually darker and quieter. Who knows? Who cares?
The trail led me down to the lake where it abruptly stopped at the waters edge. That meant Mr Wendigo had either gone for a swim, or I’d taken the fake trail. I looked out at the lake. There were a couple of boats nearby that people hired out during the day. I’d just have to hop in one and go investigating. In the middle of the lake there’d be no escaping from it if it attacked. I could swim just fine but I’m not sure I’d be able to fight whilst treading water.
“Eddie!” Ashley screamed from the woods. Her voice was high and filled with terror. Panic seized me like a heart attack. I rested the sword on my shoulder and ran for the trees. I didn’t bother trying to move quietly, I only concentrated on speed. Ashley was alone and effectively unarmed. Even if she was the most astute sorcerer in the world magic had a very limited effect on the wendigo.
I tore through the trees using the sword to chop away branches that hung in my way. I didn’t know which way to go. The woods were silent. I stopped and listened. I sent a little magic to enhance my hearing but I couldn’t pick anything up.
“Eddie help me!” Ashley called again. I headed for the voice. She continued to call and I moved closer and closer until I could hear her just on the other side of the bushes. I crept around the bushes quietly, not that there was much point. The wendigo knew I was coming for sure after the racket I’d made running through the trees.
“Eddie!” Ashley called out again just as I came around the bush. I froze in front of one of the most spine tingling sights I’d ever seen and I’ve seen a few. Standing a few feet away from me, hunched over in the gloomy woods was the wendigo. To clear any doubt in my mind as to what had happened it opened its mouth and said, “There you are, Eddie,” in a perfect imitation of Ashley’s voice. It could only be described as disturbing.
The sword hung limply at my side as I realised I’d been tricked. I glanced around but Ashley was not there. No doubt she’d heard the thing imitating her and was on her way. Unless… Unless it had gotten to her first. Snapped her neck before she could scream. Or maybe it had just eaten her.
“You son of a bitch,” I spat the words at it like they were poison.
“You son of a bitch,” it said back, replicating my voice and even the emphasis perfectly.
“Where’s Ashley?” I demanded. I had no idea if it could understand human language or if it just imitated it mindlessly. I guessed that it could understand. According to the book it had been human once.
“Time to learn your lesson, Eddie,” it said but this time it did not use my voice, nor did it use Ashley’s. The voice coming out of its mouth belonged to Rachel.
“Rachel?” I asked hesitantly. Then I realised what a stupid thought that was. Rachel hadn’t become a wendigo she’d just caught it and trapped it here. She made those symbols. She’d been my first guess but I’d ignored it. Thought I was wrong. Why would she do this? How could she know that I would end up investigating? Unless… She’d told the council woman about me. Maybe she’d even used the mind control serum to make her hire me. The whole thing had been a big manipulation. But why? It also meant that Shay had been telling the truth. Rachel had disguised her stolen magic from me otherwise I would have sensed it the first time I went near one of those symbols. I’d sensed power but not whose it was.