Wizard Hall Chronicles Box Set

by Sheryl Steines

  “Shit!” Joseph shouted as he tumbled from the portal.

  Annie shined a light on him. His shirt was covered in blood and he was missing part of his arm. “Damn. Where’s your hospital?” she asked anxiously.

  “Yours, now.” Joseph gritted out through the pain.

  Annie reached around Joseph and teleported to the U.S. Wizard Hall, outside the doors of the hospital. She whipped her hands out, sending the doors flying open, and summoned a wheelchair. A nurse ran from the hospital, helped Joseph into the chair, and wheeled him inside.

  *

  Annie paced outside the emergency room.

  “You got him here in time,” Fabien said.

  “I know. I shouldn’t have brought him with. Should’ve just left him at his booth.” Annie turned and walked in the opposite direction.

  “And he would have found out and been upset you didn’t ask,” Fabien replied.

  Cham ran through the front doors, finding Annie pacing. “How is he?” He looked toward the doors.

  “I haven’t heard yet.” Annie stopped and leaned against the wall.

  “I called his department manager. She’s on her way.”

  Annie closed her eyes and told Cham about the two new portals to the main market.

  “That’s three of the four. Think Sturtagaard will cough up the last one?” Cham asked.

  Annie nodded. “He’ll play it out as long as he can. I expect he’ll cough it up and offer something new to bargain for his life.”

  Cham touched her cheek. “Text me for anything new. I’m going to wait outside for the South African team rep.” He waved to Fabien before heading back outside.

  Fabien sat on the floor. “I’ve noticed just how hard you work here. How incredibly busy you are, with all the things you do.” He looked at her.

  “You have a smaller magical population. It makes for less stuff.”

  “I used to,” he murmured.

  “If you put yourself out here for us and the rest of the community, that might help you make a case for—” Annie turned as the emergency room door opened and Dr. Christine stepped through.

  “Annie. He’s fine. He’s alive. His left hand is missing.” Annie sighed as Dr. Christine handed her a crystal. “I have no idea what this magic is.”

  Annie glanced inside the pinkish rock, waved her hand, and searched through the magical signatures. The magic glowed an iridescent black.

  “This is the second bit of magic we’ve never seen before. Where is the Fraternitatem getting this magic?” Annie asked.

  “I think that is for the Wizard Guard to find out,” Dr. Christine said.

  “I’ll take it back, see what we can see. Thanks.” Annie pocketed the rock as Cham returned with a woman she didn’t recognize.

  “Annie Pearce, Fabien Arnault, Dr. Christine Andrews, this is Petra Johnson. She’s the department manager for the South African Wizard Guard.”

  They shook hands.

  “He’s healing. His hand was shot off with a curse I’ve never seen before,” Dr. Christine said. Annie showed Petra the crystal.

  “That’s quite disturbing,” Petra said. She looked at Annie. “So, you’re the famous Annie Pearce. Joseph is quite fond of you. He requested this job.”

  “I like him too. I appreciate all he’s done for us.”

  Annie offered a wan smile. Petra looked as though she’d rather get this over with and leave the group.

  “Well, if you’d like to see him, two of you can go in,” Dr. Christine said.

  Annie followed Petra into the ER.

  They were taken to first room on the right where Joseph lay in a drug induced haze. He smiled when he saw them.

  “Annie Pearce,” he said.

  “I am so glad you’re okay. I was so worried.” She kissed his cheek and squeezed his right hand.

  “Petra, meet Annie,” Joseph said.

  “I have. You can come back anytime you’re ready. You rest.” Petra kissed his cheek. “We’ll let you rest.”

  He closed his eyes and fell back into sleep, Annie led Petra from the room.

  “I was hesitant to send him to do this job.” Petra admitted as they walked past the ER entrance and into the hallway.

  Annie observed the manager carefully. “He volunteered?”

  “Yes. You were kind to him. When we had word the Fraternitatem of Solomon was coming, we decided a man inside would be the best way to help find the real market. He volunteered because of you.” Petra stopped at the door where Cham and Fabien waited.

  “He’s a good man and I appreciate that he’s here. He said the Fraternitatem is pulling out of the smaller markets.”

  Petra raised her eyebrows and looked at Annie. “They’re moving quickly, then.” She straightened her jacket. “I’ll be staying in your hotel across the courtyard. I’d like to be here for Joseph tomorrow. I don’t have many wizard guards, but please advise when you need us to mobilize.” All business, Petra nodded once and headed to the hotel.

  “Everything okay?” Cham asked when he saw Annie.

  “Joseph’s sleeping. He told me the Fraternitatem is pulling out of the smaller markets. Our time is running out,” Annie said.

  “I think we need to find that last portal. If anything, we can stop the flow in and out while we deal with the Fraternitatem,” Cham said.

  “I’ll lean on Sturtagaard or have Robin lean on his contact.” Annie startled a moment when she remembered what she had been doing earlier that day. She summoned the package from Arrowhead. “I saw Arrowhead. He’s still in the main market. He gave me this.” Inside the package were several poisonous leaves and, underneath those, a rolled scroll. She unrolled the paper and showed Cham and Fabien.

  The Fraternitatem is pulling out of the smaller markets and it is assumed they are ready to make a play for complete control. If you are to send wizard guards to the market, send someone other than Annie. It is not safe here for her as they know she has taken their spies.

  A

  Cham looked at her.

  “You don’t have to say it. I’m done with the markets. We have other guards,” Annie said.

  “I volunteer my services,” Fabien said.

  “You’re welcome any time.”

  “I will most definitely work with whomever you wish. For now, use me as you see fit. Having said that, you stay safe and I will see you in the morning.” He half saluted her and headed out of the hospital for the hotel in the opposite corner of the courtyard.

  Chapter 25

  The night passed slowly; Annie had persistent visions of hands and blood and Emily’s face. When she finally fell asleep, it was only for a short time before she woke and checked the window for the position of the moon. She rolled out of bed, heaviness in her muscles as she took to the pavement for an early morning run. While the run kept her awake, she found herself emotionally exhausted and had difficulty focusing.

  Cham had left before she returned, leaving her to ready herself for the day. She finished and found her way back to Wizard Hall, where she joined Fabien and Spencer as they sorted through Arden’s notebooks, maps, and books.

  “She’s very wordy,” Annie said as she closed her first notebook. “I’m not sure if this list of Fraternitatem members will help us now.”

  “Probably not. Even this map of the Cave of Ages is suspect. They could have changed something,” Fabien pointed out.

  “I think Bucky should get the list. It may help solve past cases,” Spencer said as he pulled down another notebook.

  “I think I’m going to take a walk,” Annie said.

  “Where do you want to go?” Spencer asked. With the Fraternitatem seemingly making a move, he had been assigned to trail Annie as her bodyguard.

  “I’m not leaving the building. I’ll be fine on my own,” Annie said.

  “You’ve been known to work around that before.” Spencer frowned.

  “I’m older and wiser. I need a break. I think I’ll head down to see Dave. If that’s okay?”

/>   “You do what you need and then come find me. I’m a little tired of going through Dr. Blakely’s notes. Thorough is an understatement.” Spencer sighed.

  Annie headed to Dave’s cubicle on the second floor. They had been friends since high school; he had been her first real boyfriend. While it had been a messy breakup, they had found their way back to each other, if only as friends. It had taken many years, but now Annie would sometimes make her way to his cubicle for a laugh or a snack. Today, she needed a break and knocked on his cubicle wall. He looked up and smiled.

  “Hey! I haven’t seen you in awhile.” He offered her a seat.

  “Haven’t you been in Colorado with the yeti for several weeks?” she quipped and rested her arms on the table with her chin in her hands.

  “Yeah, I guess this was my fault. What’s up?”

  Annie rolled her eyes. “You’re such a dork. How was the trip?”

  He studied her carefully. “The trip was fine.” He pushed his folder to the side and leaned against his desk chair.

  “What are you working on?” she asked.

  “I know you very well, Annie Pearce. What’s going on?”

  “I needed a break from research. Just thought I’d say hi.”

  Dave chuckled. “Fine. I’ll let you stall. I’m working on plans to create a more permanent settlement in the Rockies, at the yeti site.”

  Annie glanced at him and assessed him for a moment: good looking, smart, and relaxed.

  “What?” he asked.

  Annie shook her head. “You have no worries in the world except doing your job, coming home, hanging out.”

  “And finding a wife. At least according to my mom.” Dave smiled wanly. “So you came here to pick on me, or…?”

  Annie chuckled. “I wanted to say hi. When I’m in your cubicle, I feel normal.”

  She looked at the pictures he hung on his wall. There were ones of him and Cham; Annie herself; Cham, Dave, and Janie at Great America the summer after her father died. She sighed and placed three sets of coordinates on the table.

  “These coordinates show the location of portals that lead to the main market. There’s a large selection of dragon eggs and a few dragons crawling about. They’re up and running,” Annie said.

  Dave opened the sheet of paper and stared at the locations. “You are anything but normal. Look at what you’ve done. Some people might say you’re a superhero.”

  Annie flushed and looked away.

  “Sorry. I didn’t mean to embarrass you. I just meant you work hard, and you’re really smart, and you get what you want before most people know what they want.”

  “I just want to go home, have dinner, go for a run, drink a beer. I don’t want to come home to my dead dad walking around the house and the Fraternitatem coming to kidnap me.”

  Dave looked at the coordinates again and pulled up his computer software, looking for the locations on a map.

  “You’ve been to these?” he asked as he looked at the satellite pictures.

  “Yes. Sturtagaard gave me two of them. Fabien Arnault found one in Greece. There’s one more and I’m pretty sure Sturtagaard knows where it is,” Annie said.

  “Louisiana, Greece, and South Africa, interesting.” He stared at the map of each area. “It’s almost over and you can go back to being rather ordinary if you’d like.”

  Annie chuckled. “Yeah. I’m starting to make plans for that.” She glanced down at her ring. It sparkled against her skin. She sighed.

  “Think of the wedding. It’s the end of the tunnel. Let me know when Sturtagaard comes clean with the portal. We’re getting ready here to help you bring down the Fraternitatem. It’s good to know we can get to the market.”

  “Glad to help,” Annie said.

  “You will get through this. You always find a way.”

  She blew a kiss, touched his hand, and headed back out.

  *

  Annie landed herself and Spencer just outside Sturtagaard’s barn. The strong stench of smoke and water accosted them when they landed. Annie stared at the remains of the building; the ceiling had caved in, but the walls were mostly intact.

  “What the hell?” she muttered.

  Annie scanned the landscape. They were in the open, not a tree or building nearby.

  Spencer walked along the perimeter of the building that no longer stood, his crystal out and collecting magic.

  Annie took out a map, her crystal necklace, and a lock of Sturtagaard’s hair, scrying for the vampire. For a second time, it landed on this location.

  “The building is surrounded by magic I don’t recognize,” Spencer said as he held the crystal for her. She read what she could and shook her head.

  She stomped around to the small open door. Water dripped from the top of the jamb. “I scried for him, it said he was here.” Annie shined her flashlight inside. The car was covered in soot and ash; the vampire’s living corner had been caved in.

  “Annie, it’s dangerous,” Spencer yelled.

  “Leave the door open. I’ll teleport out when I’m done.” She carefully maneuvered around piles of ash, mushy boxes, melted nails, and charred wood. Sturtagaard’s corner had been destroyed in the fire. The sofa was gone, the chair, the stool—all piles of ash and garbage. The refrigerator no longer hummed and only a few burnt books remained on the shelves.

  She stood at the center of his open living space and turned, examining each direction.

  Spencer joined her, wiping water from his hair. “What are you looking for?” He tried to follow her gaze.

  “I don’t see any vampire ash, do you?” She felt panicked, as though his death would actually upset her.

  Spencer glanced at the floor, beside the sofa remnant. He squatted down and touched what looked like a pile of ash. He sniffed it.

  Annie glanced at him, wide eyed. “Is it?”

  “I don’t know. It would be a little anticlimactic if it was. What are you looking for?” He ran his crystal across the ash. There was no magic.

  “The Fraternitatem is pissed because we have all of their spies. They killed Rathbone, maybe they found Sturtagaard.”

  “They saved us the trouble,” Spencer said.

  “Yeah. He was so looking forward to me killing him,” Annie quipped. She walked around the perimeter of the eight-by-eight space, stopping at the bookshelf. “He was a reader. Proust, Shakespeare, Chaucer.” She ran her hand across the bookshelf, covered in burnt books. She picked up the first and opened the cover. The pages were brittle and turned to dust when she touched it. She put the book back. “There should be more here. This was packed with books.” She turned and looked around the space.

  “The Fraternitatem must have found him. Besides Zola, he’s the last living link to them that we had,” Spencer said. He kicked at the burnt rug at his feet. “Do you think he hid something for you?”

  “Yes.”

  Spencer knelt and pulled back the edge of the sodden rug. “Help me.”

  Annie removed the remnant of the table and pulled up her side of the rug. Beneath it was a plywood floor with a trap door.

  “Thank you, Sturtagaard,” Annie said under her breath as she pulled on the latch and turned on her flashlight.

  “This building isn’t safe,” Spencer said.

  Annie glanced around. “I know.” She looked inside the small hole in the ground, about four feet deep and four feet wide, before jumping down. “Bless that bastard,” she said.

  Spencer lay on the sooty, wet floor and looked inside. Piles of books lined the far wall. They were damp and smelled of smoke but otherwise, as Annie touched them, still seemed pristine. Attached to the pile, Annie found a note in Sturtagaard’s flowery handwriting.

  Girl,

  There is no way I would let them kill me. I’m reserving that pleasure for you. I also leave the books to you. You’re too intelligent to read anything but.

  “Cowards die many times before their deaths;

  The valiant never taste of death but once.

/>   Of all the wonders that I yet have heard,

  It seems to me most strange that men should fear;

  Seeing that death, a necessary end,

  Will come when it will come.”

  “What is that?” Spencer asked. “We need to get moving.”

  “It’s from Sturtagaard. He left me his books.” Annie read for Spencer the quote the vampire left for her. “Do you know that quote?”

  “I couldn’t tell you for sure, but I think it’s Shakespeare.”

  “I don’t have time for this.” Annie held her palms out and shrunk the pile of books, shoving them inside her field pack. When the room was clear, she teleported from the small hole. They placed the rug back and left the barn.

  “What’s he trying to tell you?”

  “I don’t know. Between him, Rathbone’s book, and Arden’s stuff, I get the feeling we’re on a very large wild goose chase,” Annie said as they teleported back to Wizard Hall.

  *

  Annie rebuilt Sturtagaard’s entire book collection he had left for her; it filled the rest of her cubicle. She pulled out her phone, typed in the quote, and discovered it was from the play Julius Caesar. She searched for the book among the large stacks.

  “What the hell?” Cham asked as he entered the already tight space.

  “Sturtagaard’s gone. The barn he was living in was set on fire. I don’t know he did it or if the Fraternitatem killed him. We found a pile of suspicious ash. Found these books—they’re his. They’re probably original copies. He left me this note. I’m looking for the book it came from.”

  Cham read the note.

  Annie found Julius Caesar and pulled it from the pile. “Got it.” She sat back in her desk chair and looked at Cham. “Can I help you with something?”

  “No. I just haven’t seen you all day, and I was wondering if everything was okay. Dave said you stopped by.”

  She pulled open the book and stared at the title page. The book was originally published in 1700.