The Zero Blessing

by Christopher Nuttall

  “You sure?” Bates asked with a raised eyebrow.

  “Yeah.”

  “You’re insane,” Bates said, “just look at her.”

  A couple of girls were walking past her table. Gwen ‘slipped’ on the hardwood floor and her glass of orange juice went flying as her companion helped her regain her balance. The juice splattered across Hayley’s shirt, staining the previously white cloth a sticky yellow. It shouldn’t have, Hayley had slid out of the way but the juice had followed her with the tenacity of a homing pigeon. Mitch quickly scanned the room and Bates did the same, technically they were allowed to use magic out of class but that probably didn’t extend to ballistic juice attacks.

  “Oh, I’m so sorry,” Gwen said, “I can’t believe I did that, I’m not normally such a klutz.”

  Neither could Mitch but Gwen was a much better actor than he was and she managed to sound sincere. Angel Girl brushed them off and left, taking her half eaten lunch with her as the room filled with sniggers and whispered conversation.

  “Are you sure you want the whole term?” Bates asked, watching her leave. Not that there was much to watch, Angel Girl really couldn’t afford to miss meals. Gwen on the other hand...

  “I’ll give you till the end of the day to change your mind,” Bates said, completely derailing his train of thought, “assuming she lasts that long of course.”

  “I’m sure,” he replied, returning his attention to his food. “What do you have after lunch?”

  “Teratology.”

  “I had that this morning,” Mindy said, “it’s basically social studies with monsters and we aren’t even getting to the monsters till next term. The teacher’s a real bore as well.”

  Mindy proved to be right on both counts. Once Dr Henly had finished reading out the class roll, first and last names, he informed them that they would spend the term tracing their genealogy back ten generations, including illegitimate lines, and then pick an angle of the family history on which to write an extensive report. At least the report wasn’t due until the last day of term, but Mitch thought the entire thing sounded unbelievably tedious. Who wanted to write a report on ten generations of Archibald and Bartholomew Mitchells?

  At least the legitimate lines would be easy enough, the Academy library maintained extensive records on past students and notable wizards, but he preferred not to think about illegitimate lines and what his parents and grandparents may have got up to before he was born or they were married. Hayley raised a hand.

  “Is there a problem Miss Lake?” Dr Henly asked.

  “I’m adopted sir.”

  “Well then this is an excellent opportunity to learn a little more about your birth family,” Dr Henly replied. Adoptions were common enough in the magical world. The life of a trained magician tended to be short and exciting or long and boring and many of their fellow students had been raised by their grandparents or aunts and uncles.

  “No one knows who my birth parents are,” Hayley said.

  “Adoption records can be unsealed,” Dr Henly said, “I believe you’ll be able to look up the proper procedures in the library.”

  Hayley flushed, her eyes seeming to pale. “I was abandoned, no one knows who my parents are,” she repeated. Mitch and Bates exchanged glances; that was unusual though it did explain how she’d gone unnoticed for so long.

  “Well, I expect a thorough investigation will turn up something,” Dr Henly replied, rubbing his hands together and turning his attention to the rest of the class. He clearly didn’t want to deal with any more awkwardness. “I suggest you get moving. I very much doubt you will find the information you need in here.”

  Chairs scraped across the floor as everyone repacked their bags and headed for the library. Forewarned by Mindy, Mitch and Bates hadn’t bothered to get anything out and were the first to leave.

  “What do you think?” Bates asked once the door closed behind them, “she could be from one of the old families.”

  Mitch shrugged, he actually felt a little bad for her. At least he had ten generations of family to research, no matter how boring and inglorious they proved to be.

  “You have to realise that she’ll never make the whole term now,” Bates added, “as soon as this gets out everyone will make her life a living Hell, remember some of the things we used to do to Nikola?”

  Mitch grunted; he’d never done anything to Nikola but he hadn’t wanted to risk becoming a social pariah by befriending him either.

  “Yeah, and look where that got us,” Mitch said aloud. Nikola had ignored them right up until the day he thrashed Richard, a monster of a guy who was easily twice his size. Everyone had left Nikola alone after that but he had a hard time imagining Hayley breaking anyone’s nose. He threw his weight against one of the library’s heavy double doors and shoved it open, wondering for the hundredth time when the Academy was going to replace them. They were ancient and badly balanced and more than one unsuspecting student had been bowled over by them. While most of the Academy’s fixtures were updated and well maintained, the library doors were a torture instrument in disguise.

  Bates followed him in and they trooped up to the third floor where the Academy’s historical records were kept, trying to find their families before anyone else arrived. He found the M’s and leaned on the railing to watch as the final members of their class trailed in and headed up the stairs. Hayley started tapping away at one of the computers instead, waiting for the sluggish network to log her in. Supposedly the Academy had the most up to date equipment but that couldn’t make up for the fact that they were in the middle of nowhere and none of their teachers actually knew how to maintain the technology.

  “Seriously Mitch?” Bates asked, following his gaze, “you keep this up I’m going to start thinking you like her. Is that why you bet on her lasting the term? I was stuck with her in Xenobiology and she’s cold enough to make interstellar space look warm.”

  “Of course not,” Mitch protested, swallowing uneasily. His first Xenobiology lesson had been alright but it was only a matter of time before they got to the blood and squishy things. “I’m just trying to work out the best way to win everyone’s money.” He turned away and opened the book at random.

  Bates laughed. “You won’t get very far with that.” He pointed to the open page and Mitch scowled; ‘Mara Malik 1500-1567 AD’ the heading read.

  “Neither will you,” Mitch retorted returning to the table where he’d left his bag and flipping to the right page.

  He had just finished documenting the short and surprisingly uneventful life of his great grandfather, Archibald Mitchell the no-one-could-be-bothered-counting-any-more, when the fire alarm went off. He exchanged puzzled looks with Bates; drills were never held this early in the year and it was usually a couple of weeks before anyone started experimenting with Pyromancy. They hadn’t even had their first magic classes yet. The rest of the class looked just as puzzled.

  The alarm kept ringing, loudly and annoyingly. Bates shrugged and in contravention of every fire-drill they had ever had they started shoving their notes into their bags. They left the books on the table; it was an emergency after all and there was no telling when the library might spontaneously combust.

  Together they wandered onto the field, staying well away from any burning buildings that had yet to start smoking. There were more people than he had expected milling around in small groups, he hadn’t realised how big the year nine class was this year. The vice-principal, Mr McCalis, was yelling for everyone to line up in their classes for roll call while some of the more practical teachers simply walked through the crowd checking people off as they broke up conversations.

  “Any idea who set it off?” Bates asked Mindy when she worked her way over to them.

  Mindy shook her head, “Our Cryptozoology lesson was about lake monsters not fire sprites.” Mitch looked across the field to where there was still a definite lack of smoke and billowing flames and wondered what the penalty was for setting off the fire alarm.
<
br />   “Think it...” Mindy cut off as the ground heaved.

  “Earthquake!” someone yelled unnecessarily as the ground continued to heave up and down.

  Mitch staggered and fell, next to him Mindy and Bates were desperately using one another to stay upright. They failed and Mitch barely scrambled out of the way in time to avoid being flattened by Bates. A minute later the shaking stopped but Mitch could still feel the ground trembling, promising more. It was a good thing the fire alarm had gone off when it did. He gulped and lurched to his feet, the primary and secondary campuses weren’t linked, his brother would have been inside.

  “Oi, what do you think you’re doing?” Bates yelled. Mitch glanced over his shoulder in case Bates tried to stop him and saw Mindy and several of the other students following his lead; those of them of who had younger siblings.

  There was a low fence separating the two halves of the school but it was meant to keep the younger students in. Mitch cleared it easily and charged across the field to where the primary kids were clustered together while their teachers tried to restore order.

  “Cal?” he yelled as he panted for breath, “Cullum?” The other students caught up and started doing the same thing, some of them receiving answering shouts and pushing their way into the crowd.

  “Cullum?” he screamed again. There was no answer. At his side Mindy was becoming increasingly frantic as she shouted for Sarabella with no response. He scanned the crowd and failed to see Cullum or Sarabella. He grabbed Mindy’s arm and towed her over to a harassed looking teacher.

  “Where are Cullum and Sarabella?” he demanded.

  “I’m sorry?”

  “Cullum Mitchell and Sarabella Lamdon,” he repeated, his hand tightening on Mindy’s arm. “Where are they?”

  “I...” the teacher looked around wildly and ran a hand through already dishevelled hair, “I don’t know, one class hasn’t made it out yet.”

  Mitch swore and tried to think. It didn’t have to be Cullum’s class, he could have been injured while escaping. The ground buckled underfoot and he reflexively tightened his grip on Mindy’s arm in an attempt to stay upright that only succeeded in pulling her down on top of him. The children were screaming and crying and the teachers were trying to calm them but the only way they could make themselves heard was by shouting. It was a nightmare, the youngest students were only five, many of them away from home for the first time and the ground wouldn’t stop shaking.

  It did finally and Mindy pried herself free of his hand and rose unsteadily to her feet.

  “I’ve got you,” Bates said, closing his arms around her. Mitch blinked and looked around. The rest of the secondary school had followed and were trying to calm the children. They were notably more successful now that the ground had stopped shaking. A group of senior teachers were huddled in an impromptu conference and the school doctor was deep in conversation with Nikola, though as far has he knew Nikola didn’t specialise in healing magic.

  “What are you waiting for?” Bates asked, “go find them.” Mindy was crying softly in his arms.

  God he was an idiot; one of the first spells any magician learnt was how to find a blood relation. It was usually used to find lost children on shopping trips since it was more or less useless at long range. Unless that was just him of course; he was terrible at ranged magic and it had taken him weeks to learn how to do it properly. Their teachers frowned upon using incantations and the like but he wasn’t calm enough to do it without them, he muttered a quick spell under his breath and set off at a run, following his blood ties to Cullum.

  The ancient building had not stood up to the quake well. There was dust and broken glass everywhere. Holes gaped in the ceiling where the panelling had fallen down and water seeped out of the bathrooms. The lights flickered fitfully and made it seem like a scene from one of those horror movies Mindy liked so much. Mitch ran past it all, swearing every time he tripped or caught his clothing on something. He found a door that hung crazily, one of the hinges having pulled away from the wall. For once he was glad of his speciality in self-manipulation, it gave him the strength he needed to rip the door aside. He wished he’d thought of that sooner, maybe if he had he wouldn’t have grazed palms, a skinned knee and an ankle that refused to take his weight.

  He hesitated but his brother was definitely down there. Mitch just couldn’t work out why; there was nothing in the basement but darkness and storerooms. And dust, he coughed as his irrational speed down the stairs added clouds of the stuff to what was already falling from the ceiling. It wasn’t enough to slow him but the dark was. It was years since he had last come down here on a dare and almost got lost, there was no telling what it was like now.

  He choked out another spell and his hand started to glow softly. He could just imagine the lecture his teachers would give him if they heard his improvised incantation. They had been taught how to make light with a second’s concentration but all he could concentrate on now was his brother. He didn’t even care about the inevitable teasing he would get for having a hand that glowed in the dark. He held his hand up like a torch and resumed running, it wasn’t far now, Cullum was just ahead.

  A door stood open to his left, faint light spilling out of it and Mitch felt a second of relief, his brother was through there. He braced himself on the door-frame and stared into the room panting. He threw up a hand to shield his eyes as a torch swung around to point at him, almost blindingly bright after the gloom of the corridors and his luminescent hand.

  “I need the torch Abby,” said a soft voice.

  “Someone’s here to rescue us,” Abby said as the torch swung away. Mitch blinked and lowered his hand, desperately scanning the room for his brother and all too aware that Cullum should have said something by now. Other than Abby’s high piping voice and the occasional pain filled whimper it was silent, almost eerily so after the cacophony outside.

  “I told you someone would come,” the voice replied, it was maddeningly familiar but Mitch’s eyes still hadn’t adjusted to the gloom and he couldn’t place it. He longed to rub the dust and flashing afterimages from his eyes but he knew that that would be the opposite of helpful.

  Finally his vision cleared and he was able to confirm his worst fears. The room was small and narrow, occupied by a huddle of kids his brother’s age but no Cullum. There was a gaping hole in the ceiling and a pile of rubble where the rest of the room should be. The blood tie pointed directly to the pile of rubble. Mitch gulped, the blood tie just told him where his brother was not if he was alive and Mitch couldn’t imagine anyone being alive under that.

  Two boys and a girl that he vaguely recognised stared at him through fear-widened eyes while the torch-wielding Abby kept its narrow beam fixed on a whimpering boy who was cradling a broken arm. Mitch felt his stomach lurch, there was a piece of bone sticking out of the boy’s arm. If that had been him he would have been screaming in agony, or unconscious; the latter he hoped. He looked away before the sight could make him throw up but not before he saw Hayley crouched at the boy’s side, doing her best to fix his arm in place with strips torn from her cardi. He swallowed again, the Academy gave them all regular first aid training but he had always known that he’d never actually be able to use any of it. Mindy had laughed at him for that, she was good with blood and with her affinity for necromancy she would make a great evil scientist one day.

  “What are you doing here?” he asked, carefully not looking at the boy with the broken arm. He couldn’t understand how Abby was managing to hold that torch so steady.

  “Trying to get them out,” Hayley replied. “How is that?”

  “It still hurts,” said the boy.

  “I know.”

  Mitch heard movement and forced himself to look in their direction, Hayley was helping the boy to his feet. It didn’t look so bad now but there was still far more blood and bone on display than he was capable of handling.

  “That’s Mitchell,” Hayley said, ushering the rest of the children to their feet
. “He’s going to help everyone get out aren’t you Mitchell?”

  “Yeah, sure,” it wasn’t as if he could do anything else and their teachers knew better than to rush into a collapsing building during an earthquake.

  “Take his hand Adam, that way you won’t get lost or separated.” Adam shuffled over and silently took his hand. Mitch couldn’t imagine Cullum doing that, you didn’t hold your brother’s hand when you were twelve years old. Of course Cullum had never had a piece of bone sticking out of his arm.

  “Give me the torch Abby, I’ll follow you out.” Abby handed over the torch and came to stand by Adam, the other children crowding around.

  “Mitchell... Mitchell,” Hayley repeated when he failed to respond. He shook his head slightly, trying to think or at the very least focus on something that wasn’t the pile of rubble that had buried his brother. “You need to lead the way out,” Hayley instructed. Mitch nodded, even covered in dust from head to foot she looked good, her eyes, so pale they were almost white, shining in the gloom. It seemed almost perverse that he should be so aware of her now when Cullum...