The Ondine Collection

by Ebony McKenna

  “Can you please sign in?” The woman said. At first Vincent thought they were referring to him, but then he noticed Melody behind him. Melody signed the book, showed her driver’s licence and they allowed her through.

  “She will be in the gymnasium,” the guard said to Vincent, then checked her watch, “Although training won’t be over for another half hour.”

  He nodded. “I’ll get to see her in action then.”

  How his chest puffed at the sight of the gymnasium. Dozens of male and female cadets, their heads universally shaved short, snake crawling under a low net, running across obstacle courses, shimmying up ropes, huffing and puffing but otherwise making as little noise as possible.

  In the centre of it all stood Mrs Birgit Howser, dressed in a heavy winter witch-cloak with military-style epaulettes on the shoulders. She was quietly directing the human traffic to go harder, faster, stronger. She didn’t need to yell; she had them all completely under her control with hand gestures and a baton, conducting the students like an orchestra.

  Melody sidled up closer to him. “Are they all . . . ?”

  “Cadets, yes.”

  “But are they under some kind of spell?”

  “No, this is normal. I’m sure we’ll be treated to the cadets under a spell soon enough.” If Vincent had harboured any doubts about Mrs Howser’s usefulness, they evaporated as he took in the sight of her working the cadets into the fine fighting specimens he saw before him. And to think, all he’d had to do was remove Mrs Howser’s ego from her soul trapped in the dust bag and she’d become so . . . what was the word he was looking for? Useful.

  No, even better, she’d become reliable.

  Mrs Howser spotted him near the doorway and made her way over. “It’s an honour to see you, My Lord,” She said with a Brugelish military salute. Her right hand came over her heart and formed a fist, while she nodded her head.

  Outranking her, Vincent returned the right-fist-over-heart salute but without nodding his head. “You’re settling in well here,” he said.

  “It’s good to be using my talents.”

  Melody did not greet Mrs Howser, nor did the old witch acknowledge the younger.

  Noticing they had an observer, the cadets worked harder. The room filled with the noise of their heavy breathing from lifting their knees higher and climbing faster. Vincent smiled and nodded to the class in appreciation. “I like your talents. When will they be ready?”

  “They will be ready when you give the word, My Lord.”

  “And what will you be expecting in return?”

  “Nothing, my lord. I live to serve.”

  A wry grin formed, but he fought it back as he watched one cadet fight off three others in hand-to-hand combat. “I recall a time where you demanded a great deal for your services.”

  “That was a lifetime ago. I find without ego to cloud judgement, one can achieve so much more.” Mrs Howser turned to the battle scene playing out before them and said to the cadet under attack, “Finish them off.”

  The battle was quick and exacting. The cadet’s defeated opponents writhed on the ground in various states of distress.

  “Has she broken their bones?” Melody whispered to Vincent.

  “So what if she has?” He shot back. If he wanted to be Duke, he needed warriors, not wimps.

  “Very good,” Mrs Howser said to the triumphant cadet. “Come here.”

  Puffed but steadying her breath, the cadet obeyed, doing her best to salute and show due deference to her betters, despite her exertions. Sweat trickled down the side of her face, which she wiped away with the back of her hand. This revealed her marked palm.

  “What is that tattoo?” He asked Mrs Howser.

  Mrs Howser smiled and turned to the cadet. “Introduce yourself and answer his Lordship.”

  “Raluca Pflüg, My Lord. The marks indicate I’ve reached level six.”

  She held her hand out, so Vincent could see what looked like a wheel with eight spokes. On closer inspection, he saw the spokes were not quite perfectly aligned, and some were more recently marked than others. She must have earned each stripe as she rose in the ranks.

  “Very good,” Mrs Howser nodded to Raluca to take her hand back. “You are ready to move to the advanced group.”

  “If you deem me worthy,” she said.

  What an obedient student, Vincent thought.

  “If you will come this way, My Lord, Ms Pflüg and Melody,” Mrs Howser said, indicating a door at the other end of the training hall, “We shall see how the enhanced students are developing.”

  Enhanced students? He already liked the ones from Raluca’s group. All except the moaning trio on the ground, who were only now getting to their feet and saluting, the slackers. The enhanced students were down a hall, up a set of stairs and behind another security door, which Mrs Howser opened with a series of palm and retina scans. Vincent wasn’t even aware Brugel had that kind of security.

  “Bought it from the Broaku markets,” Mrs Howser said, without prompting. [296]

  Inside this training hall were twice as many cadets as the last one. This group carried the close-cropped hairstyles of the other cadets, but that was where the similarity ended. These cadets had weapons, built into their bodies. One man who looked barely Vincent’s age, had an arm that turned into a whip, slashing at his assailants and tripping them down. The fallen cadets flicked their hands into long knives, slashing chunks off the end of the whip each time it neared them.

  Screams filled the air, along with gunfire.

  “Is that –?” Melody started.

  “ –Live ammunition? Yes,” Mrs Howser said. “Which is why we need to remain behind this protective glass. Raluca, come here and get a closer look.” The old witch took the young cadet by the hand and held it, palm upwards. “You are level seven now. Be careful what you wish for.”

  Vincent’s ears pricked at that last phrase. He didn’t want to say anything stupid such as ‘what do you mean by that?’ but at the same time he couldn’t help wondering exactly what Mrs Howser did mean by that.

  “The mutating magic is still going, isn’t it?” Melody asked. She was standing on the edge of the group, the furthest away from Mrs Howser, yet her words were directed to her former mentor.

  Ignoring that they were talking over him, Vincent listened in.

  “Of course it is. My separation only placed the spell in hiatus. Now that I’m whole, the magic is fully operational once again.”

  “But it was just to cause chaos around Ondine and Hamish,” Melody said. “Wasn’t it?”

  “What a waste if that’s all it was going to be. Don’t you see? Ondine was the stone in the pond, these cadets are the ripples.” Mrs Howser waved her hand out in front of her, encompassing the group of mutated cadets. “What we have here is the third wave; the magic feeds their need for obedience and order.”

  Raluca saluted Mrs Howser. “I am ready.” A second set of arms sprouted behind her back, giving her the appearance of Kali, the Hindu goddess of destruction. “I am the end. I am the beginning.” Then she charged into the melée of cadets and fought all who came near her.

  It was impressive viewing. Whips, shields, live bullets, a flamethrower too! Vincent was in heaven. Whoever survived this kind of training would be invincible. The exact kind of soldier he wanted on his team.

  The noise of battle rattled the protective glass. Melody took a step back. “We’re perfectly safe,” Vincent assured her.

  “What makes you so sure they’re on our side?” Melody didn’t have to keep her voice low, not with the cacophony around them. All the same, Vincent only just heard it.

  “You make a good point.” He turned to Mrs Howser and asked, “Birgit, how do we know the cadets will remain loyal to me?”

  “They have sworn an oath, but even so, you shall know their loyalty through their actions.” Looking over the crowd, Mrs Howser singled out Raluca, battling four assailants at once, cracking skulls together with her multiple arms. “Cad
ets, stop now!”

  All fell silent. Mrs Howser’s smile widened. “Cadet Pflüg, confirm your fidelity to Vincent.”

  At once, Raluca fell to one knee and spoke with the deepest sincerity. “Lord Vincent is the true born Duke of Brugel. He has my lifelong allegiance, in word and deed.”

  Another cadet sprang forth to attack Raluca while she knelt. Raluca rolled with the attacker’s weight and quickly dispatched her with a resounding thud into the mats, her four arms pinning the other woman down. The other woman’s legs turned into octopus tentacles, wrapping around Raluca, ripping and whipping her face and body. With magical speed, Raluca knotted the octopus legs into pretzels.

  “Show me your loyalty,” Mrs Howser said. “Finish her off.”

  Another cadet stepped forward. “Please, no! She could be useful.”

  “Raluca?” Mrs Howser raised her brows.

  With a slash of something sharp through the air, Raluca grabbed a sabre from the shield of a nearby cadet and stabbed it through her octopus attacker’s heart.

  Melody gasped and ran from the room.

  Stunned by the savagery, Vincent couldn’t fault the effectiveness of Mrs Howser’s training.

  “Clean the training area, then you may take breakfast.” Mrs Howser said. Then she turned to Vincent. “I hope you never have need to question my methods, or my cadets again. They are precious to me and I would hate to lose another one.”

  ​

  ​

  Chapter Five​

  There were noises of family waking up and getting on with work in the pub, but Ondine refused to join them, pulling the covers over her head and chasing a few more minutes of sleep. She’d just had a particularly thrilling dream about spending private time with Hamish. Then Melody had to go and ruin it by astrally projecting into her space.

  Wait, Melody was here. Or at least, astrally here. That meant something important must have happened.

  “Ondine, I have to be quick,” Melody said. “Something important has happened.”

  “Why isn’t Hamish here?” Much to Ondine’s embarrassment, this was her first thought. She quickly added. “Are you all right?”

  “No, I’m not.” Melody said, joining her cold hand to Ondine’s warm sleepy one. “I’m at Fort Kluff. Mrs Howser is back in one piece and the mutating magic is worse than ever. I’ve just seen her training cadets. They’re unstoppable. It’s the same magic she put on you and Hamish. It didn’t end when we took her soul away; it only took a rest. Now she’s back and the magic is more powerful than ever.”

  Images of mutated army trainees filled Ondine’s sleepy vision. One of them had four arms, taking on all comers and sending them flying. Then Vincent asked Mrs Howser something about loyalty and the scene played out in all its horrible detail, the four-armed cadet impaling the tentacle-legged one into the mat. “Someone’s coming,” Melody said. “Tell Hamish. Tell everyone. Anathea won’t stand a chance against them!” The young witch pulled her hand away and blinked out of the room.

  Sitting up with a jolt, sickness rocked Ondine. The cadets she’d just seen. Were they real or a figment of Melody’s fevered imagination? No, they had to be real. Melody had never lied before. Sure, she might have a thing for Vincent, but she was keeping Ondine updated with events, just as she’d promised. And what horrible events they were.

  Climbing out of bed and pulling on her dressing gown, Ondine headed to Hamish’s room to pass on Melody’s message. And to figure out what to do next. Warning Anathea would be high on the list.

  “Hamish, wake up,” she said, stepping into his room and closing the door behind her.

  He did not wake up. The little light that seeped under the curtains made it hard to see, but the lump in the bed didn’t move. Hamish must be fast asleep.

  “Wake up, Melody just gave me terrible news.” She pushed against the lump in the blankets and her hands felt no resistance. “What?” Pulling the covers back, she found Shambles the ferret curled up into a tight ball. Furious, she scooped the ferret up into her hand and dangled him in mid air. He still didn’t wake, hanging there limp like a dead animal. Fear overtook her, was he dead? No, his little heart beat against her palm. And he was warm to the touch. And soft and floppy. He had to be alive. But why was he sleeping as a ferret? “Wake up!”

  “Whoa! I am awake!” Shambles twisted and turned in her hand and flipped himself onto the bed. “I’m awake, where’s the fire?”

  A thousand questions fought for attention, but she kept calm and concentrated on the important things first. “Melody just appeared to me in an astral projection. Mrs Howser is training the cadets in Fort Kluff. They’re all affected by mutating magic and they’re unstoppable.”

  “I’m listening,” Shambles said as he dived under the covers. The fabric bulged and stretched, he groaned a little from the pain, then a moment later, properly human Hamish poked his head out.

  Ondine reached for the side lamp and had a good look at her charmingly dishevelled boyfriend. Here they were, alone in his room, and they couldn’t take advantage because there was so much mayhem going on all around them.

  One day, though. One day.

  “Your hair,” she said, running her fingers through it. “The grey is gone.”

  “Thank goodness for that,” Hamish let out a huge breath of relief. “I wasnae sure it would work, but remember when I broke my jaw at the palace and when I changed intae meself it was all fixed? I was hoping that would be the same.”

  “We have bigger things to worry about than you going grey,” Ondine said, remembering the bigger picture just in time.

  “We must tell Auntie Col about the cadets and work out what to do.”

  “Between you and me, best let her sleep a little longer, she was into the lunatic soup last night.” [297]

  “I was not,” a voice said from the doorway. They looked up to see Auntie Col, dressed and ready for a new day. “It was a drop of plütz with dessert to calm my nerves. Now, what’s this about Mrs Howser’s magic?”

  They quickly relayed the news, Ondine remembering more details with the second telling.

  “This can’t be good,” Old Col said after a moment of turning things over in her mind. “It sounds like Mrs Howser’s magic is stronger than ever. If she’s still using the two of you to set off the mutating magic, more and more people keep catching it. Perhaps it would be best if Hamish was a ferret as much as possible, to stop you kicking off a new wave of magic?”

  “It’s not that bad, is it?” Ondine said.

  “We need to find a way to stop it,” Hamish said.

  Ondine and Col said together, “Exactly.”

  SLEEP-GLUE KEPT VINCENT’S eyes shut as he slump-rolled over in bed, wondering what vengeful deity he’d offended to feel so hideous this morning. It was the morning, right? Grey light filtered through his closed lids. There were morning-type noises funnelling down his ear, like a coffee machine and somebody stacking crockery. The chug and thrum of the traffic outside crept into the room. Somebody was walking around; their footsteps growing louder as they came closer.

  A radio blasted out good cheer.

  As long as he kept his eyes shut, he could pretend the world didn’t exist. It wasn’t that he had a hangover. He knew how to hold his plütz.

  It wasn’t bad food eating away the lining of his stomach either. It was that horrible, inner-nag of a conscience, kicking him from inside his head. He thought he’d stomped on that voice years ago, yet here it was, telling him how stupid he was.

  Worthless.

  He wasn’t worthless, he reminded his brain. He was the rightful Duke of Brugel. Mrs Howser’s cadets at Fort Kluff would provide the muscle; the Balakhans would provide the money.

  “Good morning, affiance.” A woman kissed him on the forehead.

  His eyes snapped open. He was in a hotel room. It took a few shakes of his brain cells to remember the hotel was in Slaegal. He’d come back here after visiting Fort Kluff. He was awake now and looking around him in horr
or. The bed sheets were covered in orange smears, as if someone had washed half the bed in fruit juice. Memories flooded him. Last night, he’d met with the Balakhans in Norange again. Last night he’d drunk plütz again.

  “Look at you!” The woman – it was Ruslana – said, “relax, you idiot, nothing happened. But you fell asleep before you could be a gentleman and offer to sleep on the sofa.” She said the last thing with a shrug, which made Vincent look at the sofa and wince. Made of white leather, it would have been a vibrant citrus colour if she’d slept on that. He reached for his dressing gown and shrugged out of bed.

  “I called for breakfast. It came a couple minutes ago,” she said, lifting a silver lid off a plate.

  Tentatively, Vincent walked to the table and sat opposite Ruslana Balakhan, his fake-tan fiancé.

  “Relax.” There was that word she liked to use. “You’re not my type.”

  Spearing his bacon, he dared to ask, “What is your type?” He shoved it into his mouth and crunched down.

  She cast a meaningful look at his groin and gave a conspiratorial grin. “You. Not my type.”

  Vincent couldn’t help smiling. Relief, yes, that was the emotion coursing through him. He only had to sleep beside an Oompa loompa, not with one. “Then we’re going to get along great.”

  “I know what you’re thinking,” she said. “Why bother with the marriage if it’s of no use? Yes?”

  He needed more vitamin bacon. “That did cross my mind.”

  “Because it will please Daddy. He wants the best for me. As far as he can tell, you are the best for me. And for him. And it will not be forever. I can spare a few years to make Daddy happy.”

  He topped up his coffee. “Does he know about your . . . type?”

  “Of course. But he also thinks I . . .” she made quotation marks in the air with her fingers, “Haven’t met the right man yet.”

  Fragments from the night before came back. He, Melody, Babak and Ruslana had signed papers and agreements and sealed the deal with plütz. There had been singing at some point. It was all a bit of a blur. Melody had been quieter than usual. He didn’t blame her. The scenes at Fort Kluff had been unsettling but necessary.