by R K Dreaming
“It’s a bit weird that they left the window open,” said Nan. “You wouldn’t expect hardened criminals to be so careless.”
“It looks like mainly Humbles live here,” said Shara. “I reckon they think Humbles are a bunch of idiots and wouldn’t dare climb in.”
“Hold on,” said Percy. “Why don’t we just go in through the open window? It’d be easy. I could climb inside in just a few seconds.”
Nan shook her head, looking alarmed. “Someone might see you doing it from the street. Best not risk it.”
Shara nodded. “Let’s try the front door with Nan’s wand first.”
The Rapioperta incantation worked on the main door too, much to their relief. It led into a small lobby with an elevator and some steps going upstairs.
They were confused. They had expected a corridor leading to the ground floor apartments, but all they could find was the way upstairs or back out again via another door.
It took some looking around before they realized that the second door led where they needed to go. To get to the ground floor apartments, you had to go via a large courtyard inside the apartment building complex. The front doors of each individual apartment opened up into this inner courtyard garden.
The courtyard garden itself was quiet. The only sounds were those of the distant traffic going by and occasional voices or television sounds coming from out of open windows.
They found the apartment that they wanted by counting the windows across from the far side of the building. The two doors on either side of it were a freshly painted red and blue, but the door of the Sheedys apartment was old brown wood that was worn from years of weather.
“Do you reckon they might have booby trapped it?” said Shara, eyeing it anxiously. “If I was a witch on the run, I would be paranoid enough to do that.”
“I don’t think they will have,” said Percy. “If they were using magic, why would they have used a car? I think they’re too scared to use their stolen wands because they’ll get caught. The conclave will be tracking them. They definitely won’t want to use them where they are staying.”
To give the others some encouragement, Percy walked up to the door and pressed her ear against it to listen. Nan and Shara loitered casually behind her to block the view in case any neighbors happened to look out of their windows.
“It’s quiet in there,” said Percy. “Let’s just do it and get it over with.”
Nan pointed her wand at the lock. She was so nervous that her incantation came out squeaky the first time she tried and it did not work. The three girls laughed.
“Do it properly,” said Percy.
Nan took a deep breath and pointed her wand again.
“Well, well. What’s going on over there then?” said a voice behind them.
With a squeak of alarm from Nan, the three girls whirled around, Nan whipping her wand out of sight behind her back.
Percy’s hopes it might be a Humble neighbor were dashed.
One of the Sheedy cousins had just entered the courtyard the same way they had come. She did not know which one, but he was definitely a Sheedy given his height and his carroty hair and his long face that was full of freckles.
He sauntered up to them with an amiable grin on his face. In his hands was a paper-wrapped parcel that had been torn open. Steam was rising from the tear and Percy could smell the sharp tang of vinegar from what must be fish and chips.
“You girls have got the wrong flat I think,” he said, coming to a stop in front of them.
“Sorry!” squeaked Nan in a high pitched voice.
Percy added more casually, “Oh, we thought this was our friend’s house. Is it yours?”
The Sheedy cousin nodded. He held out his parcel of food towards her and said, “Chip?”
“Er, no thanks,” said Percy, though her stomach had suddenly started growling. “Anyway, our mistake. We’d best be going.”
“Go on,” he said, still holding out the parcel. “I’m sure I heard someone’s tummy growl.”
“Yep, we’re going to our friend’s for dinner,” said Percy.
“Don’t want to ruin our appetites,” added Shara.
The Sheedy cousin’s gaze lingered on Shara’s face for a while. Percy felt a jolt of nerves. The grey tinge of Shara’s skin would tell him she was finfolk. It would be better if he thought they were Humbles.
“Although they do smell delicious,” Percy said quickly, to bring his attention back to herself. “Thanks for offering.”
The Sheedy cousin shrugged. He grinned even wider until the corners of his blue eyes crinkled. “You’d better call your friend to check her door number. Maybe I can help you find it. It’s a proper maze in here.”
He stood there, not moving out of the way, his eyebrows raised in that amiable manner that was never-the-less slightly menacing. That freckled face was one of the last things that Brad Jolie had seen before he’d died.
And yet he looked harmless in his baggy jeans and his hoodie, with no wand in sight. His hands were busy with the chips he was continuing to stuff into his mouth as if he was starving.
Percy felt Nan twitch beside her as if she was considering whipping her wand out and blasting him.
And then there was a sudden BANG! Nan buckled. The Sheedy cousin dropped his chips and shoved her hard. Nan fell through the doorway that was now open behind them. The other Sheedy cousin standing on the inside caught her and dragged her in.
Percy and Shara had no time to react before the first Sheedy whipped his wand out of his pocket and pointed it at the two of them.
“Inside,” he said. “Quietly. Or your friend gets it.”
The other Sheedy inside the house was now holding both his own wand and Nan’s, and he was pointing them right at Nan who was lying unconscious in the hallway inside. A large cast iron frying pan was lying on the ground beside her where he had dropped it. He had hit her over the head with it.
Without a word Percy stepped inside the apartment and Shara followed her. The first Sheedy picked up his dropped fish and chip parcel from the ground before following them in, and locking the door firmly behind him.
He examined his food and seemed pleased to find most of it was still inside its wrappings. “Good job you didn’t ruin me dinner,” he said. “Or I’d have been really mad.”
At wand point Percy and Shara were forced to drag the unconscious Nan into the lounge, where the first Sheedy cousin — who was the shorter of the two — patted them down to make sure they didn’t have any more wands. He took their bags away, and then tied them up with their hands behind their backs.
He tied Nan up last. While he was doing so, Nan came back around, much to Percy’s relief. She looked slightly disorientated for only a moment, and then immediately horrified to see the quandary that they were in.
The second Sheedy cousin, the taller and slightly skinnier of the two gangly men, pointed at the window of the lounge. The curtains had now been drawn across, but Percy could see that this was the very window that she had offered to climb into earlier.
“See that scuff on the wall?” he said, pointing to a black boot heel mark on the white wall just beneath the window ledge. “That’s your fault, that is. You’ve made me climb in through the window to ambush you. Totally ruined our evening, you have. We were gonna watch a bit of TV, and enjoy our fish and chips.”
“Three little girlies sitting in a row,” said the first one. “Now don’t you scream girlies, or Freddy here will have to shut your mouths with that wand you’ve so kindly brought for us. A wand which hasn’t been reported as stolen. What a lovely gift!”
Fred Sheedy pointed Nan’s wand at each of the girls in turn. “Which one should we off first, Georgie?” he said in a playful tone.
“Take your pick, Freddy.”
“Eeny, meeny, miny, moe. Catch a fishy by its toe,” said Fred, pointing the wand in turn at each girl.
“Fishes don’t have toes,” said Percy.
“You’re a fishy,” said Fred, “An
d you have toes.”
“Caught you, didn’t we?” said George. “Just like a fishy.”
“That one’s definitely a fishy,” said Fred, pointing the wand at Shara.
Shara’s cheeks went slightly pink.
“There’s no need to be rude,” said Percy angrily.
“Ooh!” said George. “She doesn’t like you calling her friend a fishy, Georgie.”
“A silly billy, then,” said Fred. “Three silly billy girlie whirlies.”
“What are you? Morons?” snapped Nan.
“Ooh, the little one is feisty, Georgie,” said Fred.
“Do you think it’s because you clonked her over the head, Freddy?”
“It’s definitely because I clonked her over the head, Georgie,”
“Three silly billy girlie whirlies trying to break into our apartment, Freddy.”
“I wonder whatever for?”
“Do you think we should ask them, Freddy?”
“We should definitely ask them, Georgie. What do you say? Which one is the ringleader?” Fred flicked Nan’s wand back and forth again. “Eeny, meeny, miny, moe. Catch the greentop by the toe.”
George nodded. “I was gonna say greentop too.”
Fred pointed the tip of Nan’s wand into Percy’s forehead. “Explain yourself, ringleader.”
“We told you,” said Percy, pretending to be in a panic, looking wide-eyed from Sheedy to Sheedy. “We got the wrong house. Our friend is expecting us. Please let us go, mister. This is all a big mistake!”
The Sheedys chuckled.
“I like her,” said Fred.
“I like her too,” said George.
“It’s too bad she and her buddies tried to break into here, because now I’m going to have to remove her toes one by one until this little fishy doesn’t have any toes anymore.”
“Don’t start with the ringleader,” said George. “Start with the little one. That’ll make greentop talk.”
Fred Sheedy menacingly pointed Nan’s wand at Nan’s shoe.
“You wouldn’t dare,” said Percy. “She’s underage. You use her wand and the conclave will think she’s been doing underage magic, and they’ll send someone right away. You might have noticed that she’s the sort that has already got a record. They’re keeping a close eye on her.”
“Do you know what I think?” said Fred, looking at Nan’s wand closely. “I think your little friend wouldn’t be doing magic if she was worried the conclave was keeping a close eye on her. She doesn’t look the sort who’s got a rich daddy to get her out of trouble. In fact, I think this here wand is not registered like it should be.”
Percy’s heart sank. This was true. Nan, who did everything by the book, had done just one thing that was not in line with conclave guidelines. She had not registered her wand.
“Brilliant gift that,” said George. “An unregistered wand to convicts like us. Imagine what we can do with it!”
Nan gave a little moan of dismay at the thought of her precious wand being used to do terrible deeds.
“Not my wand,” she said in a small voice.
“I’m getting bored, Georgie,” said Fred. “If they don’t tell us what we want to hear soon, I think I might have to do a very bad thing with this here wand.”
“What do you want to hear?” said Percy.
“We want to hear where Juliet Jolie is.”
Percy burst into incredulous laughter, trying to make it sound realistic for all she was worth.
“Juliet Jolie? The Hollywood actress Juliet Jolie? How the heck are we supposed to know where she is?”
“Ooh, very convincing,” said George. “But the thing is, we reckon you’re the ones who set that trap for us earlier today. You might like to think that we’re as stupid as you are, little girlies, but we really are not.”
Percy was sick of his condescending crap. “We are not stupid, and we are not little girlies,” she snapped.
“We are little girlies,” said Shara quickly. “You two wouldn’t want to kill little girlies, would you?”
Fred and George laughed.
“Not if they tell us what we want to hear,” said Fred. “Because we already know the only reason you could be here is because Juliet Jolie has got you mixed up in all of this funny business. It would be just like her to do something like that. Because she doesn’t care about kids at all. She only cares about herself.”
“Funny that,” said George. “I never would have thought she’d send kids, but there we are.”
He picked up one of the bags from where he had dumped them on a table. It was Shara’s satchel. As he rifled through its contents, Shara watched him with wide anxious eyes. He pulled out a letter and grinned.
“Well, what have we got here?” he said, and read the address on the envelope out loud.
Shara gave a little moan. It was her home address.
George Sheedy looked very pleased with himself indeed.
Percy’s heart sank. Shara’s little brother had only just escaped a brush with death. Liro was still at the hospital, but what if one of Shara’s parents was home? What if the Sheedy’s went round there and did something to them? From the pale look on Shara’s face, Shara was frightened of this too.
“Do you reckon Juliet Jolie might be at this address, Freddy?” said George.
“I reckon we ought to go round there and check it out,” said Fred.
Shara started breathing very fast, almost hyperventilating. Percy remembered that Shara had said her mum would be at home taking a rest. Home alone.
“Fine,” said Percy. “We do know where Juliet Jolie is. And the reason we know is because we are working with the Eldritch Council.”
The Sheedys gave her incredulous looks, and then giggled.
Percy added, “How else do you think that we baited a trap for you? How else do you think that we tracked you here?”
Fred and George Sheedy started frowning. They looked at each other slightly nervously.
Sensing an advantage, Percy pressed onwards. “They’ve got a trace on us, you know. They’re going to turn up here any minute, so you might as well let us go, otherwise you’ll have a hostage situation. Wouldn’t you much rather flee before they get here?”
“You’re bluffing,” said George, the mocking playfulness gone from his tone.
“Tell us where Juliet Jolie is and we’ll let you go,” said Fred.
“Why do you want to know where she is?” said Percy.
“Because she’s got something we want,” said Fred.
“No she hasn’t,” said Percy. “She hasn’t got the wildmagic ampoules. She has no idea why you two are coming after her.”
The two Sheedys looked startled at this. They exchanged a glance, and unspoken words seemed to silently pass between them that Percy could not decipher.
“She has to have them,” said Fred. “How else do you explain her going from being a poor little London wannabe to a global Hollywood superstar? All her wildest dreams have come true. All that fame that she wanted.”
“She got everything,” said George. “We’re the ones who served nearly a decade in that awful prison. And there she is, sitting pretty with our loot, having the time of her life!”
“She really doesn’t have it,” said Nan. “The only reason she’s rich is because she married Brad Jolie. They fell in love. He was such a megastar already, so obviously she became a megastar too after they got married.”
“That’s not true,” said Fred resolutely. “She has it. She has to have it.” He sounded a little desperate.
“You two are the whole reason she is rich,” said Percy, stalling for time.
If only she could keep them at bay for long enough, then Octavia and Felix might do what they had set out to do and they might find the Sheedy’s on their own. Heck, they might even be on their way here already.
It was her only hope. She hated the thought of Octavia rescuing her, but it was all that was left.
“Yeah,” said Shara, maybe realizing thi
s same thing, or may be eager to stop the Sheedy’s thinking about her family and her address. “If you two had not stolen that wildmagic from Antioch Blaze, then Juliet would never have made friends with Antioch and Lucilla Blaze, and never have met their buddy Brad Jolie.”
“She hates you,” said Percy. “Even if she did have the wildmagic, she would never tell you where it was. You’ve killed the love of her life.”
“The love of her life?” Fred guffawed. “I hardly think so. That woman doesn’t love anybody but herself.”
“Yes she does,” said Nan hotly, glaring at the two defiantly.
“Yeah, whatever,” said George. “It doesn’t matter whether she’s got the wildmagic or not. She’s got gold now. A lot of it.”
Fred nodded. “She can afford to give some to us to get rid of us. And we’ll need a lot. Antioch Blaze won’t ever stop hunting us. We mean to disappear forever into the sun. She’ll give it to us just to shut us up, so you had better tell us where she is or else.”
“Tell her where she is so you can kill her too? Like you killed Brad Jolie? I don’t think so,” said Percy.
The tip of Fred’s wand was shaking now. “We never killed Brad Jolie!” he hissed. “We never killed anyone.”
“And we’re going to make her admit it when we find her,” said George.
“If you never killed him, then who did?” said Percy scathingly.
“She did of course,” said Fred. “It would be just like her, the scheming witch! She probably wanted to get rid of him for ages. And when we escaped from prison, she thought we were the perfect patsies!”
Nan gasped in outrage. “You evil gits!” she cried. “You want to steal from her and you want to blame her for her husband’s murder? Do you think people are stupid?”
“You’re the ones who are stupid,” said George heatedly. “You’ve fallen for her crap hook, line and sinker, just like we did once.”
“Fallen for what?” said Percy, suddenly feeling uneasy. She did not like the way this was going.
“She was the mastermind behind everything,” said Fred.
Nan and Shara gasped. Nan looked outraged, but Percy’s stomach sank like a stone. It couldn’t be true. It couldn’t.
Except it could.