by R K Dreaming
“At least you’re still alive,” said Percy. “They didn’t kill you immediately. There has to be a reason.”
“It’s just luck,” said Cousin Opal sadly. “Horrible, terrible coincidence. I don’t know why they came for me. All I know is that I’m scared, and I’m so glad to be your Cousin Opal, because it means I don’t have to be scared all the time anymore.”
“It’s the magical loot,” said Percy. “It has to be the wildmagic that they want from you.”
Cousin Opal shook her head vehemently. “That’s what Gwen said when she popped by at lunch.”
“Mum came to see you at lunch?” Percy asked sharply.
Opal shook her head. “I went out to meet her in a restaurant. She’d just come from her meeting with the High Minister.”
“What did he say?”
“Gwen said the conclave thinks the Sheedys are coming after me because of the wildmagic too. The conclave always was desperate to find that magic. I told them years ago that the Sheedy cousins already had it stashed away. They were the masterminds behind the theft. I don’t know why the Sheedys came for me. I don’t know what they think I know. I’ve wracked my brains. Gwen thinks they must want to shut me up about something, but I don’t know anything. If only I could find them and tell them that I don’t know anything. If only they would leave me alone!”
In the silence that followed, a knock sounded on the classroom door. Cousin Opal jerked and gave a squeal of shock.
Percy recognized the figure on the other side of the wavy glass. “It’s only Felix,” she said.
Nan went to open the door for him, and locked it again after he had stepped in.
His cheeks were slightly pink as if he had been running. He looked relieved to find them.
“I hoped you might be in here,” he said.
He waved a rolled up newspaper.
“What’s that?” said Percy.
“As special evening edition of The Daily Oracle. You’ll want to read it.”
He handed it over to her. Percy unrolled it and her heart sank as she saw the front page. On it was a grainy photograph of two shifty-looking men in hooded jackets, with a headline urging the public to get in touch with any information.
“The Humble CCTV picked it up,” said Felix. “It’s the Sheedys. They’ve been spotted in London.”
7. Of All The Stupid Things To Do
Cousin Opal gave a cry of shock, and her hands flew to her mouth. Her big eyes opened wide in despair, and Felix suddenly looked very regretful that he had blurted it out like that.
He winced. “Sorry.”
Percy laid the paper flat on the teacher’s desk and they all crowded around to read it.
Felix summarized it in a gentle tone for Cousin Opal, who was refusing to look at it.
“I’m afraid the Sheedys accosted two wizards to steal their gold and left them for dead. It happened this morning just outside of Magicwild Market. They etherhopped away before anyone could stop them, and got seen doing it by a whole bunch of Humbles too. The conclave had to send watch witches to modify their memories.”
“M-magicwild Market is… is…” Cousin Opal stammered.
“Is less than an hour away from here,” finished Percy.
“Left them for dead!” moaned Cousin Opal. “Left them for dead! Oh why did they do it? Are they out of their minds? They’ve come for me, I know it!”
“The real question,” said Percy. “Is how did they know that you’re in London now?”
Cousin Opal gasped. Her hands flew to her mouth as if she had suddenly thought of something terrible.
“What is it?” asked Percy quickly, before Opal could try to cover up her reaction.
Opal shook her head, looking both frightened and guilty all at once. “I can’t tell you. I can’t… How could I have been so stupid?”
“Did you tell someone you were here?” Percy demanded. “Of all the stupid things to do!”
“Percy!” Nan admonished.
Opal’s cheeks had flushed with embarrassment. She kept dabbing at her face with her tissue. She seemed uncomfortable at looking not her best in front of Felix.
As if sensing he was putting Opal off, Felix discreetly backed away and hovered near the door. This seemed to make Opal feel better.
“I never told anyone,” said Opal to Percy. “I would never tell anyone.” She swallowed hard. “Oh, your mother is going to be so angry with me.”
“Well, you either have to tell her or you have to tell us,” Percy insisted.
“Please promise me you won’t tell her,” said Opal. “How could I have been so stupid?”
“We can’t promise that,” said Nan, looking worried.
“If it’s put you in danger, then we need to tell her,” agreed Shara.
Percy saw a closed off expression coming into Opal’s eyes, as if she was regretting saying this much. She was going to refuse to tell them.
“But if it hasn’t put you in danger,” said Percy quickly. “Then there will be no need to tell mum, will there? So are you going to tell us or not?”
Opal hesitated.
“You might as well tell us,” cajoled Percy. “We said we would help you, remember?”
Opal chewed her lip. “I didn’t tell anyone I was here. But…” She looked down at her hands. “I was feeling so lonely the other day. I kept remembering how good it had been to talk to Max back in the old days after everything had happened. How sweet he’d been. He was my shoulder to lean on. And… I sent him a message on my phone.” She added that last bit in a whisper.
“What did you say in the message?” said Percy, feeling angry but keeping her voice calm in case she frightened Opal off. “Did you tell him you were in London?”
Opal shook her head quickly. “Of course not. I just said that it would be so good to meet him. He and Hank grew up in Old Windsor, you know. It’s not that far from London. I said how lovely it would be to walk around Windsor with him again. But I regretted it immediately and I deleted the message. I don’t even think he saw it!”
“But what if he did?” said Percy. “Do you think he could have guessed from what you said that you were here?”
“I can’t see how,” said Opal. “And anyway, you’ve got him all wrong. Max was such a big sweetheart. Even if he did figure it out, he would never have done anything to let anyone know that I was here. He was so protective of me.”
“Even if he did figure it out?” repeated Percy. “That means you think there was a chance he did.”
Opal shook her head. “He couldn’t have.” But she chewed her lip, as if she was uncertain.
“Was Max a wizard too?” Nan asked.
Opal nodded.
“Do you think he might have gone to the Conclave of Magic when you messaged him?” said Percy. “To tell them that he suspected you’re in London? He could have done it because he was worried about you and wanted them to find you to keep you safe. You said that you think there’s a mole inside the conclave. What if that is how the Sheedys found out you are in London? Through the mole?”
Opal shook her head firmly, completely in denial by now.
“No, no, no! Max couldn’t have done it. He can’t be the reason why the Sheedys are in London. I simply won’t believe it. And anyway, look at this picture in the newspaper. It’s so grainy. You can’t see their faces. It might not even be them! I don’t want to talk about this anymore!”
She snatched up her briefcase and ran out of the room, slamming the door shut behind her.
“Darn it!” said Percy, running after her.
As she brushed by Felix, he caught her by the arm to stop her.
“I don’t think she’ll tell you anything else,” he said. “It’s probably best to just leave her alone for a while.”
“But I wanted to ask her for this guy Max’s phone number, so we could anonymously call him from one of our phones to see if he is even still using it. She said they lost touch years ago. He might not have even seen the text message.”
“Do you know his last name?” said Felix.
Percy screwed up her face as she tried to remember.
“Maximillian Marlowe,” said Nan promptly.
At Percy’s look of surprise, Nan shrugged, saying, “Mum used to know a witching family called the Marlowes down in Windsor. I wonder if he is any relation to them?”
“Can you ask your mum?” said Percy. “Without making her suspicious?”
Nan shook her head. “You know how she’s been since we got involved in finding the murderer the other week. She was frantic, telling me that I can’t get involved in anything like that ever again. She says we’re lucky we weren’t killed. If I start asking about these Marlowes out of the blue, she’ll be suspicious immediately. She gets suspicious even if I eat something out of the ordinary these days! She wouldn’t even agree to let me come to your mum’s Halloween party until I told that she and dad were invited to it too.”
“There’s no need for you to ask your mum,” said Felix who had gotten his phone out and was tapping something into it. “I think I can look him up in the database.”
His phone was new and sleek, and of a kind that Percy had never seen before.
“Nice phone,” she said to him. “A perk from the Eldritch Council, is it?”
He shook his head distractedly, still typing away. “From the sentinels.” He whispered the last word, even though there was no one but the four of them in the classroom.
Felix was half sentinel, half angelus. Half demon-hunter, half eldritch blood. An unusual combination. And a total secret.
He had been sent as part of a special collaborative project between the Sentinel Alliance and the Eldritch Council to study at Humble High School, and act as an undercover operative to keep an eye on the school’s eldritch students and make sure that nothing illegal or dangerous was happening there.
He was a spy.
The eldritch community had a centuries old distrust, and even fear, of the sentinels. If the eldritch half of the school knew what he was, Felix’s life wouldn’t be worth living.
Despite this, Percy trusted Felix. He had saved their lives, and put himself out on a limb to prove one of Percy’s wild theories. However, she didn’t think so much of his partner Octavia Smythe-Smith, a half sentinel, half vampire, who was also an undercover operative studying at Humble High.
Percy eyed Felix’s shiny new phone suspiciously. Any technology developed by the sentinels was not to be trusted.
“Why do you need such a fancy phone?” she griped.
“It’s a bit more resistant to magic,” he explained. “Doesn’t die after five minutes like normal phones.”
This made Nan eye up the device with great interest.
“I can hardly ever switch my phone on unless I need to use it,” she complained. “If I leave it on all the time, the electrics in it get messed up any time there is a spurt of magic. Do you think I could get one of those?” She looked hopeful.
Percy burst into laughter. “No way. If it’s sentinel technology, you can bet they’re going to protect it with their lives.”
Felix looked up from his screen just long enough to frown at Percy.
“What?” she said. “You know it’s true. I bet they’re even suspicious of you for being half angelus.”
Felix did not reply, but she could tell by the look on his face that she had struck a chord.
Sentinels were highly suspicious of the eldritch community, since it was their responsibility to hunt down and kill any werewolves or vampires or such that went feral. Percy supposed that they must think all of the eldritch were monsters in waiting.
Heck, they didn’t even approve of any witches and wizards who did not belong to their own organization.
“Found it!” Felix said. “We’ve got an address for a house registered to a Maximillian Marlowe in Old Windsor. It has to be him, right?”
“How come you have witching addresses in your database?” said Nan suspiciously. “I thought only the Conclave of Magic kept records on witches and wizards!”
Felix flushed slightly. “Er, inter-agency cooperation?” he mumbled.
“Bullshit,” said Percy, “The conclave would never share witching records with the sentinels.”
“I knew it!” hissed Nan. “So the sentinels are keeping an eye on us witches and wizards now too? The cheek of it!”
“Bad things are happening in the world these days,” said Felix apologetically. “Ever since the Scourge and Chaos…”
The Scourge and Chaos had been the most powerful dark wizard and witch of recent decades. The former had been wiped out after a witching war, and the latter by a magical fluke involving her own infant daughter. It seemed they had left behind a legacy of distrust.
“Bad things that most witches and wizards aren’t responsible for,” snapped Nan. “Most of us are normal people just trying to live our lives. What are the sentinels going to do? Monitor everyone just in case they drop some litter? It’s an invasion of our privacy!”
“Never mind all that,” said Percy, impatient to get to the matter at hand. “Old Windsor isn’t even that far from London. I bet we can get there in an hour. Who wants to go?”
Nan looked surprised, like this idea had not even crossed her mind. Shara looked baffled.
“What?” she said.
“Now,” said Percy.
The only one who put his hand up, was Felix. But he said regretfully, “I can’t today. I have a meeting with Octavia and Councilor Strickt soon. Can we go tomorrow instead?”
Percy shook her head. “We have to go tonight. This can’t wait.”
“But I’d really like to come too,” said Felix.
“Why?” demanded Percy. “You think a bunch of girls can’t go on their own?”
Felix flushed a little. “That’s not what I meant,” he mumbled.
“You’re darn right that’s not what you meant,” said Percy. “I can handle a civilian wizard. It’s not like it’s some feral off his head. So, which of you two is coming with me?”
She looked hopefully at Shara and Nan.
Shara shook her head. “I have to go to the hospital to watch my brother. Dad has a nightshift on, and I want to give mum a break. She’s been with Liro all day.”
“Nan?” said Percy brightly, tucking her arm into Nan’s. “I guess that leaves just you and me buddy.”
“No way,” said Nan. “I can’t. I told you that mum gets anxious if I do anything out of the norm.”
“Then you can tell her that your new norm is to do your homework with me after school. After all, my mum’s home now to supervise us, and we even have the new English teacher at my house. How much more supervision do we need? You aren’t going to let me go to Windsor to meet a strange man on my own, are you?”
Nan groaned. She knew Percy well enough to know that Percy would go on her own if she had to.
“Fine, I’ll message her. But I’m telling you now that she isn’t going to like it.”
“But she’ll believe you,” said Percy with a wink. “The benefits of having such an angelic daughter.”
“One of these days you are going to be the death of me,” grumbled Nan.
“Not until we’ve lived a long and full life,” said Percy.
“Because you are in a position to make such guarantees,” said Nan.
They continued bickering in this manner all the way out to the school gates, where they said goodbye to Felix and Shara.
“You two are worse than my parents,” said Shara with a grin.
“Did you hear that, Nan?” said Percy. “She thinks we’re like husband and wife.”
“So long as I don’t have to be the wife,” said Nan in a vicious undertone.
Parting ways with Felix and Shara, Percy and Nan went into the nearest tube station and headed to Waterloo train station, where Percy quickly paid for both of their tickets before Nan could object.
“I’m paying,” she insisted. “My mission, remember?”
Even s
o, Nan frowned, like she didn’t like it.
Money was always tight in Nan’s house, and the last thing Nan needed was to pay for things that she hadn’t budgeted for. She wouldn’t even allow Percy to pay for taxis to get around London, and always insisted on taking the tube.
The train journey took nearly an hour, with Nan fretting about what would happen if her mother turned up to Percy’s house to check on her.
“She won’t,” Percy said.
“You don’t know how anxious she’s been. She’ll definitely call to check up on me for sure. She told me to keep my phone on.”
“We can just say that you didn’t answer because the magic in my house was interfering with it. We’ll say that Jeeves flew through your phone by accident.”
“And what if she turns up on the doorstep to get me?” said Nan.
Percy shrugged. “We can always claim we were in but she didn’t find us. We’ll say we moved around because Jeeves kept disturbing us. I mean, how is she going to know if we were in the conservatory or the library or the garden or the private lounge or in any of the guest wings? Or even up in Jeeves’s attic, which is the last place anyone would think of looking for us. So long as we get you home before your curfew, it’ll be fine.”
Nan did not look comforted by this rationale.
When they got to the local train station near Old Windsor, they were forced to walk the rather long distance to Max Marlowe’s address because Percy hadn’t accounted for the fact that the train station was slap bang in the countryside, with not a taxi in sight.
“Can you believe this?” muttered Percy, looking around in disgust at the quiet country road surrounded by trees. “This is unheard of!”
Finally they arrived at Max’s Street, where rows upon rows of detached houses stood snugly inside their own little front gardens. Every front garden had its own short wall and gate, and Max’s one also had an overgrown hedge to discourage prying eyes.
Percy and Nan took a first pass down the street, ambling past the house like two lazy schoolgirls, and both cast casual glances at the house as they went past.
The front garden was massively overgrown, with weeds choking the brick path that led to the front door. The windows were covered up with old curtains inside, and they were all dark. No lights were on inside at all. The house had a lonely air, as if no one had been in there in a long while.