Instrument of Peace (Symphony of the Cursed Book 1)

by Rebecca Hall

  “I can change it,” Belle said, tears trailing down her face and freezing there.

  “Can you change it without hurting Cullum?”

  Mitch ground his teeth together, there were a million things that he could do to break Mindy’s concentration, a snowball in the face would probably do it, but he couldn’t do anything without endangering Cullum.

  “I hate you!” Belle yelled. She turned and started running back towards the Academy, stumbling over the uneven snow.

  “Shall I give her a ride?” Mindy asked. She sent the horse charging after Belle, Cullum bouncing and whooping at the top of his lungs.

  “Stop it,” Mitch said. He wished there was something that he could do but the horse was well out of his limited range.

  “You’re right,” Mindy said, “I’ve a better idea.” The horse changed course slightly and Mitch realised with growing horror that it was going to run Belle down instead.

  “Look out,” he yelled, beginning to run after Belle. His magic helped him to compensate for the uneven ground and avoid a twisted ankle but he didn’t think he could make it in time. Belle dived aside a second before she would have been trampled.

  “Brat,” Mindy howled, “did you really think I’d just let you replace me with that bitch. You’re mine.” It took Mitch a second to work out who she meant but it didn’t matter, Mindy had just tried to kill her sister and his brother was riding the murder weapon.

  Having overshot its target the horse reared, throwing Cullum to the ground. For a second Mitch thought his problems were solved, all he had to do was make it back to Mindy and distract her while Belle escaped and got one of the teachers, he just hoped that the fall hadn’t damaged whatever was passing for brains inside his brother’s head. Cullum sat up laughing.

  “Can we do that again?” he yelled.

  Maybe his brother had suffered permanent brain damage; there was no way he’d just asked to try and ride down Belle again.

  “No,” Mitch roared as the horse knelt, “get away from it Cully!” Belle was slowly picking herself up, her gaze fixed on the horse and his idiot brother who was already climbing back on.

  “Hold on tight,” Mindy said as the horse began to move once more. Mitch charged forward, bowling Belle out of the way and putting himself firmly between her and the horse for as long as it took Mindy to ride him down or decide to circle around. It wasn’t much but it was all he could do. He could think of any number of things that would stop the zombie horse but none that would do so without endangering his idiot brother. Without endangering him more anyway, riding a frozen zombie horse bareback was right up there on the list of lethally dangerous extreme sports.

  He urged Belle forward, her dark hair whipping out behind her and showing flashes of red in the sunlight. He’d just have to hope they could make it to the safety of the Academy in time. He started pulling up walls of snow behind him; they strained his magic to the limit but with any luck they would slow the horse a little and he had to limit his pace to match Belle’s.

  He looked over his shoulder and saw the horse clear the first hurdle. He started making them higher, hoping that it would be forced to circle around instead. For the first time he appreciated all of the impossible seeming challenges he had to face in class; a sane, safe lesson never would have prepared him for this. Mindy had started running after them as well, suggesting that her magic only had a limited range.

  “Belle,” Mitch gasped, “can you make Mindy trip?” Belle nodded. Mitch caught her hand and urged her to run faster, keeping her upright and trying to offer what support he could. Mindy swore and Mitch assumed that Belle had tripped her but he didn’t pause to look back. He kept running, pulling Belle along behind him. He could see the Academy’s walls now, they’d reach the lake soon and then they’d be safe. Mindy wouldn’t bring a zombie horse inside the Academy grounds.

  “You need to keep tripping her when she gets up,” Mitch said. He didn’t know what had got into Mindy but he was certain she’d be angry with herself when she snapped out of it. He didn’t want to think about what it would do to her if she actually succeeded in riding down her sister. Mitch kept dragging up walls of snow behind them, his ears straining for the sound of approaching hooves muffled by the snow.

  They reached the hole in the wall and charged through. Water flooded into his shoes but for once Mitch didn’t care.

  “You don’t really think those walls will protect you do you?” Mindy shrieked. Mitch swore, he’d been certain Mindy wouldn’t chase them inside the Academy but if she’d go that far she probably wouldn’t be adverse to damaging Academy property either and the closest buildings were the empty classrooms. The library or the infirmary then, the dormitories were even further away.

  It was easier to run on the neatly-swept footpaths between buildings. Mitch wished that were a good thing, it made it harder for him to stall the horse or for Belle to trip Mindy. There was an intersection ahead and by the time they reached it they would have to know where they were going. Infirmary Mitch decided, praying that the zombie horse didn’t corner very well. Even if it did, it appeared that Mindy needed to be able to see them to aim properly.

  “Infirmary,” he gasped dragging Belle to the right. They wound their way between blocks of classrooms until the infirmary loomed up before them. The nurse on the desk raised an eyebrow and pursed her lips when they pelted in.

  “I realise that you are concerned about your friend but that is not how you conduct yourself in here,” she said.

  “Zo... zombie horse,” Mitch panted, bracing himself on the desk. Belle sunk to the ground shaking.

  “What?” The nurse came out from behind the desk, probably to check on Belle when the doors burst open. Cullum yelped in pain as one of the doors wacked his foot. The nurse staggered back and Mitch half carried Belle behind the shelter of the desk. At least coming through the door had forced the bloody thing to slow down, all Mindy could do with it out of her sight was make it stand up.

  “Get down this instant,” the nurse snapped, “this is a medical facility not a cemetery.” Cullum sheepishly slid off the horse as the nurse continued to berate him. Mitch stayed huddled behind the desk and hugged Belle as the commotion started to attract attention from the wards and offices including Bates and Richard.

  “What happened to you two?” Bates asked.

  “Your psychotic bloody girlfriend just tried to murder us with that fucking horse.” Mitch tried to see if he needed to start running again but his neck wouldn’t stretch far enough to see around the desk and Belle was clinging to him too tightly for him to move. Bates went dead white.

  “I’m sure it was just a misunderstanding,” he said.

  “A...” Mitch couldn’t even find the words to respond. There was a zombie horse standing in the foyer and he was huddled behind a desk with a near hysterical Belle and it was all just a misunderstanding?

  “I’m going to go talk to her,” Bates said. Everyone else started moving away as well, as the nurses chivvied them out or back into their beds. The doctor came and crouched down before them.

  “It’s ok,” he said, “I’ve taken care of the horse and one of the nurses is watching your brother until someone arrives from the primary campus to collect him.” Mitch nodded, Cullum could be someone else’s problem for a few hours. “Now, why don’t the two of you come with me and I’ll get you something to calm you down.”

  “Come on, Belle,” Mitch said gently. He eased her to her feet and they shuffled after the doctor who seemed unconcerned by their slow pace. Instead of leading them into the ward that Richard had vanished back into, he led them down the corridor of private rooms.

  “Is he ok?” Mitch asked, seeing Nikola in his usual room.

  “He crashed after breaking Richard’s arm,” the doctor replied. “He was coming down with the flu anyway.” Mitch winced, he had wondered about the bright green cast on Richard’s arm but it hadn’t really seemed important at the time. He guessed it had been more than just luck wh
en Nikola broke his nose.

  They went into another private room and after a little manoeuvring Mitch managed to get the two of them onto the bed and wrapped in the blanket. There was a knock on the door followed by Mr McCalis.

  “Tell me what happened,” he ordered. Mitch talked while the doctor gave them as thorough a check-up as he could with Belle glued to his side. Part way through Hayley slipped into the room and sat on Belle’s other side and gently persuaded her to release Mitch’s arm. Mr McCalis asked a couple of questions and then left without a word.

  “Wait here,” the doctor told them, following Mr McCalis out.

  “I still have your feather,” Mitch said. It was the first thing that came to mind.

  “Keep it for now,” Hayley said running a hand through Belle’s hair. “It’s just a feather.” Belle was still shivering. Mitch shrugged off the blanket that had been draped over him and wrapped it around her.

  “You’re free to go Mitchell,” the doctor said, coming back with a steaming cup. “Rest, eat, and if you feel unwell come back immediately.”

  “Belle?” Mitch asked.

  “She is going to drink this and stay here for a little while,” the doctor said, holding out the cup. Hayley took it from him and pressed it to Belle’s lips. The doctor studied the three of them and sighed, “one of you can stay with her.”

  Mitch looked at Hayley and slid off the bed, following the doctor out.

  “You can visit him if you want,” the doctor said when he glanced into Nikola’s room. Mitch shook his head, all he wanted was a shower and some food. “Here,” the doctor handed him a slip of paper telling the kitchen staff to feed him now instead of making him wait until dinner. Mitch blinked at it and finally thought to check his watch; lunch had ended an hour ago. “Come back and visit later.”

  REVELATIONS

  “You do like me,” Nikola croaked when he crept into the room.

  “I do not,” Mitch retorted, “but you seem to be the only sane person around.” He’d only broken Richard’s arm after the idiot tried to get revenge for his nose. Nikola laughed and then started to cough. Mitch topped up the half-empty jug of water on the bedside table and sat down. “Why’s it so dark in here?” The lights were off and only a little of the weak winter sunlight was able to filter through the curtains.

  “Migraine, the doctor gave me something for it but it’s easier to sleep in the dark.”

  “I’m not disturbing you am I?” Mitch said, half rising out of his chair. He wasn’t really sure why he’d come other than the fact that the doctor had said that he should and he’d been driving himself half-crazy in his room.

  A part of him still insisted that Mindy hadn’t actually been trying to kill Belle, that it was just a practical joke that had gone too far. The rest of him pointed out that Mindy wouldn’t risk expulsion for a practical joke. He’d wondered how she’d become so completely unhinged without anyone noticing. He hadn’t been able to get the image of the zombie horse out of his head, to stop the morning replaying itself again and again. He’d even considered doing his homework to distract himself, his friends were all in detention or being expelled, but he’d done it all so he’d have the weekend free. He’d never regretted doing his homework before. That had left him with the doctor’s suggestion.

  “You can stay,” Nikola said, reaching for a tissue and blowing his nose, “just don’t expect insightful observations, my brain feels as if it’s made of jelly.”

  “So asking you why everyone else has gone completely nuts is out of the question then,” Mitch sighed. “How’d you break Richard’s arm?” he asked remembering the other person who was suffering from sudden onset insanity.

  “I was taught how to fight, the human body is alarmingly easy to break when you know what you’re doing.”

  Mitch nodded; it agreed with what he’d been taught in his lessons on Tai Chi. He was glad he had magic to reinforce his body.

  “No detention?”

  Nikola started to laugh and stopped himself before he could start coughing again. “I practically threw up on McCalis’s shoes, he decided that I could write a formal apology instead.” Mitch did laugh though he doubted that was a reliable way of getting out of detention.

  “You’re not taking notes on me for your friends are you?” Nikola asked, motioning towards the folder Mitch had set aside to refill the jug.

  “No,” Mitch said hastily. He was actually beginning to enjoy Nikola’s company, if only because he didn’t have to worry about what the other boy might think of him or who he’d blab to; everyone else would just ignore him. “The Taniwha gave me a message but I can’t work out who to deliver it to.” Nikola looked as attentive as someone with a high fever could so Mitch told him the whole story.

  “The names are from Grimm’s Other Fairytales,” Nikola said when he was done.

  “I’m an idiot,” Mitch groaned, he’d read those stories dozens of times when he was younger.

  “It is one of the more nonsensical stories if you lack the proper context.”

  Mitch grunted; he’d always thought that the moral of The Four Brothers was not to curse your siblings and he was seriously beginning to reconsider the wisdom of that particular piece of advice. “What is the proper context then?”

  “The start of the Eternity War. The names of the four brothers are Michael, Raphael, Gabriel and Lucifer.”

  Mitch swore under his breath; he’d already worked out that the message was meant for angels but he hadn’t realised that he’d have to try and track down an Archangel to deliver it. Or the devil. “Do you know how to talk to angels?” he asked when he ran out of swear words. It took a while; all of those languages the Academy had forced him to learn over the years were good for something.

  “The library here is painfully limited.” Nikola sneezed, the harsh sound making Mitch wince in sympathy. “And the Teratos disinclined to share.”

  “They seem to have shared a lot with you.”

  Nikola sneezed twice more and blew his nose. He stuffed the used tissues into the empty tissue box and threw it into the bin with unerring accuracy. It had taken Mitch hours of practice to develop that level of hand eye co-ordination and that was with his magic.

  “The cupboard by the sink,” Nikola said when Mitch looked around for another box. “Thanks.” Mitch dragged the bin over as well.

  “The Teratos like children,” Nikola said, “they find it difficult to have any of their own so they spoil the ones that they do manage to get their hands on, even me, despite what my guardian thinks of it.”

  “Sorry,” Mitch said, trying to think of something to talk about that wouldn’t involve prying into Nikola’s family. There were any number of reasons why Nikola wasn’t being raised by his parents and it was none of his business.

  “I guess you heard what happened earlier,” Mitch said, unable to think of anything else with that damned horse on his mind.

  “Some of it, I blacked out for a while.”

  “Lucky you,” Mitch wished he could black it out and pretend that the whole morning had never happened. What had his brother been thinking? Pouring acid on a teacher’s chair and then riding an undead horse. He wondered which of the thousands of other things he could do to get himself thrown in detention until graduation Cullum would try next. “God only knows what got into them.”

  “I’m not God but I can offer an educated guess. Someone at the Academy made a deal with one of the Fallen and this chaos is the price.”

  “You mean the Twisted Curse,” Mitch said. “Do you think the Taniwha knows?” It had mentioned the Twisted Curse when it talked to him. Nikola shrugged and started coughing, his face flushing as he struggled to breath.

  “Maybe I should let you rest,” Mitch said when he sank back on to the pillows, his chest heaving. He shook his head when Mitch offered him a glass of water. “I need to go study fairytales some more anyway.”

  “I like studying fairytales,” Nikola replied. Mitch grabbed his folder and left, easing
the door shut behind him so that he wouldn’t disturb the already slumbering Nikola.

  The library was silent when he arrived. Even the scritching of pen and paper or the muted murmur of whispered conversations was missing. The mass detentions following the dinner riot were keeping the Academy unnaturally quiet. Half of the rioters were probably skipping their detentions but unlike Mindy they had the sense to keep their nefarious activities quiet. Mitch scowled, was everything going to remind him of the charge of the zombie horse? He looked up the English edition of Grimm’s Other Fairytales but while it was in the library it wasn’t on the shelf and he didn’t have enough faith in his German to try the original. He didn’t expect it to contain anything useful but it still would have been a nice distraction. He ran a succession of keywords through the search engine only to discover that every other book that referenced angels was out. Apparently someone had reached the same conclusion as Nikola or the year above him was doing a report on angels for Teratology. Neither option was overly helpful.

  After a second’s thought he headed for the now familiar creeping chill of the cursed section. The books in there weren’t catalogued and couldn’t be removed from the library, at least not by students, perhaps he’d find something useful on their disordered shelves or another clue to the grandfather’s curse. He couldn’t help shivering as he stepped between the shelves. Greeves said that it was a good sign; it was when the cursed books stopped bothering him that he would have to worry. Since that was about as likely as him making out with a giant weta he figured he was probably safe.

  He flipped his folder open, pulling out a list of references he’d made from other texts and scanned it quickly. Some of the entries had been crossed off already, more or less at random. He wished that the cursed books were recorded on the library catalogue, some of the books on his list probably weren’t even in the library, or at least shelved in a discernible order but no one wanted their contents to be easily accessible. There was a surprising number of gaps on the shelves. Teachers, he told himself, there were almost no students in the library and they weren’t allowed to take the books elsewhere. As he made his way down the shelves it occurred to him that he should be glad that Cullum had restricted his vandalism to something mundane.