by Vance Huxley
∼∼
On Saturday morning the four in Brinsford needed a diversion because they were still confined to the village. While others were busy in Stourton, negotiating contracts for magical protection, Abel decided to test his access to Castle House. After a quick text he waited until Jenny came over so she could back up Rob, Kelis and Ferryl/Claris in case of trouble. This time Abel walked right in and up to the double doors at the back of the entrance hall without any trouble. He tried the doors, which stayed locked, nodded to the frog-dragon when it opened its electric blue eyes, then turned and walked back out. Abel even stopped on the way back so that Zephyr, safely tucked away inside her tattoo, could inspect the magic flows inside the door.
Rob’s magically inscribed rounders bat had definitely caused an overload when it stopped the door closing on the first attempt. A burned patch around a stone glyph set in gold marked a magical dead spot. Once outside, Zephyr explained to Ferryl, and the pair tried to decide if the emergency door closing glyph had been disabled.
Despite neither Castle House nor frog-dragon reacting to Abel going inside again, the letter and coin were useless until Abel’s, Kelis’s and Rob’s groundings ended. Just Abel’s grounding really, because only he could open the chest so the message “If ye lay claim, bring the box and coin” had to be for him. Jenny had gone into town to look so they knew the address below the message referred to a solicitor’s office. After some debate Jenny suggested putting the chest with the letter and coin back inside Castle House. As she pointed out, that had to be the safest possible place to keep it, even better than burying it in the gardens.
Before Abel moved the coin beyond their reach, all five tried to pick up the magically aware gold sovereign. None of them could even remove it from the tiny wood and gold chest Abel had taken from Castle House. Every time anyone but Abel put a hand near the chest or coin, Zephyr and Ferryl warned of magic building up. Abel went back inside Castle House to place the chest on the table at the back, but the dead vine and frog-dragon didn’t react beyond the eye-opening. Zephyr tentatively tried to come out of her tattoo, but barely and she stopped immediately. The air still felt as if it would burn her.
The five of them reverted to glyph practice and filling lead bars with tree magic, which still made Jenny giggle a bit. Her glyphs had improved rapidly because Jenny rode her moped over to Brinsford to fill up her diamond every night she didn’t have Acro practice. Not only did that let her practice glyphs more often than most, but she also tried to fit in some tuition from the experts. Although she’d become competent with wind, Jenny preferred fire glyphs, and could already throw reverse fire to cause instant frost on her target dead branch. Despite coming to magic later than some other Taverners, she would soon be as adept as anyone but Abel, Kelis, Rob and of course, Ferryl Shayde.
The five went home for lunch, then came back to Castle House gardens to practice and wonder how the interviews for magical work were going. At last Kelis’s phone rang, soon followed by Rob’s and Abel’s and then Jenny’s. Ferryl/Claris didn’t get any calls, despite allegedly being Abel’s girlfriend, because none of the Taverners trusted her. Prior to her falling prey to the leech, the young woman had been a very unpleasant ally to the school bully.
As the calls continued, the group in Brinsford relaxed because most of the interviews had gone well. Either Creepio or the Magical Council had been thorough. Every person on the list had received a letter notifying them that Pendragon Enterprises had cancelled the contract for magically protecting the property. The letters didn’t explain that Pendragon was being punished by the Magical Council, backed by the church, so several clients wanted to check the cancellation was genuine. Another client accepted the letter as being genuine, but wanted to speak to the sorcerer or sorceress in charge.
Much of the initial suspicion seemed to be about dealing with teenagers, rather than the adult apprentices Pendragon had sent. Most of them were satisfied when the Taverners produced tiny, controlled magical flames, well beyond the skill level needed to fill a hex.
The reactions to making payments as charitable contributions answered the Taverners’ curiosity about how HM Internal Revenue dealt with magic. Magical protection for business premises had its own tax designation, but needed proof that only sorcerers could provide. Magical protection for private property couldn’t be set against tax, but charity donations could, which explained why some of the new clients were so happy. The tax savings might be why the initial doubts over teenagers taking on the work were quickly abandoned.
Abel’s calls were interrupted by an entirely unexpected one—from Creepio. “Since you are usually the spokesperson, can you make a decision about using your leech?”
“All five of us are here, including the leech’s mistress. Do you have another seeded host?” Abel wondered if Creepio had found another one elsewhere. If it wasn’t from the local nest this leech might not be able to help.
“No. We have a crisis.” The phone fell silent but Abel waited, because that didn’t need an answer. After a long pause Creepio continued, sounding less certain than usual. “The older leech, Fourthseed, has realised why we took the seeds away. If we try to remove Father Curtis it has instructed Thirteenseed, the leech inside him, to kill the host in the most painful manner possible. Now Thirteenseed has started hurting its host, hoping we will release them rather than kill a priest. We were resigned to killing the leeches so that Father Curtis could at least die free of infection. Meanwhile several of our trainees were reading the reports from Brinsford, as a part of their education about blood leeches. One young priest came up with a question we couldn’t answer. You tricked an adult leech out of a young man, Henry, and killed it. We had overlooked that, probably because of your fuller description of the later removal.” Another long silence followed. “Can you do that again?”
“I doubt it. The leeches will be expecting a trick, and will know you or God’s SAS are nearby. Hang on, let me put you on hands-free so the rest can hear.” Abel explained to his friends and they moved closer to listen and join in. Unfortunately everyone agreed Abel had been dead right; the leeches wouldn’t go for something as simple as the trap that caught Henry. That had been cast in desperation, in the heat of a fight, by a very inexperienced trainee sorcerer. The only reason it worked was because Abel had made a purely magical trap, not realising anything non-magical could still pass through it.
“What if the leeches think someone has taken their hosts away from the church?” Jenny’s eyes sparkled. “Someone who really, really hates leeches, more than the church does. Someone who might want to bind them and make them suffer a long, long time so they’ll take any chance to get away. Especially if their new prison has a flaw.” She looked around the other four with a little smile. “If it’s a choice between taking their only chance or facing someone like the Hunter on the Wind?” That was the leech name for the entity now called Ferryl Shayde, the entity Creepio called Braeth Huntian. The leeches passed down partial memories of her, memories that terrified them.
“But you’d have to convince them the real hunter, a very old and dangerous hunter, had caught them. That will not be easy.” Creepio stopped talking for a moment as the five teenagers started laughing. He didn’t see the joke, but then he’d never met the real Ferryl Shayde. “Braeth Huntian is no laughing matter!”
“But those leeches already believe Braeth Huntian attacked their nest. They were shrieking about it when you caught them, so unless you told them it was only Abel’s tethered Spirit?” Kelis smiled at Ferryl/Claris, because Creepio would never know Braeth Huntian really had been there.
“No. The leeches are so sure we began to wonder, until Abel finally showed me his shy passenger.” There wasn’t any humour in that, despite Creepio’s name for Zephyr.
“So if something magical is nearby, hard to see and flitting about?” Kelis warmed to her theme. “We even have a bound leech to prove what the hunter is after. It will lie if we order it to. We can convince them.”
Now Creepio sounded as if he’d seriously consider it. “It still won’t be easy. How can we explain Braeth Huntian gaining control of leeches captured by the church? We would kill the creature if we ever found it, especially if it had captured a churchman.” That sobered the teenagers, especially Ferryl. On the bright side Creepio had never connected the names, maybe because Ferryl Shayde was a cat-sorceress in the Bonny’s Tavern game. The five of them, with Creepio and whoever else he had listening at that end, began to really plan.
At least Creepio wasn’t expecting the impossible. If everything else failed he’d settle for Father Curtis dying leech-free and hopefully not in agony. The archbishop had no interest in Fourthseed surviving, unless it had been firmly bound and the church held the leash. Abel noted that for all Creepio’s sneering about enslavement, the church definitely bound useful magical creatures. Despite Abel’s misgivings, the other teenagers considered that would be poetic justice, because the church would use Fourthseed to detect and kill other leeches.
Carrying off the leeches would be difficult even with church collusion, but Creepio solved the main problem when he offered transport and equipment. Bonny’s Tavern would supply the kidnappers and drivers, because the possessed Father Curtis might sense the church magic in members of God’s SAS. Creepio agreed to bringing the mobile hospital, but refused to give them the glyph to nullify a church ward. That meant the plan couldn’t rely on either the bound leech or Ferryl getting inside Father Curtis to save him, though Abel couldn’t mention the second option.
Once Creepio rang off, all five began to make phone calls to find out which drivers and older Taverners were up for a late-night adventure. There was no time to waste, not if Fourthseed had started making threats about killing the churchman. Everyone who could get away from home tonight immediately volunteered, once they learned the mission would be to kill leeches. Unfortunately most Taverners were schoolchildren so only the oldest of those could be out that late, but there were also six people who didn’t live at home and eight Taverners had driving licenses. Once that part had been settled, Abel and his friends went through the back gate into Dead Wood to talk to the only dryad allowed in there. They needed as much help as possible to both trick and trap their prey.
Dryad Sycamore discussed their plan and checked their preparations. Once it understood there would be no sorcerers fighting, no fire being thrown about, the dryad even offered to actively help them. After discussing ways and means, Rob looked relieved because despite being the best at it he wasn’t really confident in his earth magic. The bound leech in Jane Doe seemed keen to help with killing the last members of its old nest. Learning it would be facing a much older leech didn’t seem to worry it, as long as its mistress would be there.
Jenny went home just before dusk, leaving the rest to finish filling in the trenches. She took a new glyph, carefully cut into wood. Once activated it would ensure that her family slept soundly once they went to bed. They’d never hear the vehicle when a Taverner collected her.
The conspirators finished their preparations, went home for tea, and generally tried to act normal until bedtime. They daren’t check by phone to see how the leech-nappers were getting on in case that distracted or alerted someone. At least a few more calls from Taverners in town, confirming contracts for magic protection, helped to divert them. The Taverners were down to the last few, all private houses on a gated estate.
∼∼
Once in his bedroom, Abel waited for the silent vibrations to tell him he had incoming messages about tonight. The ones from the leech-nappers started soon after nine p.m., but he didn’t answer those. The text messages reported success, so far. With God’s SAS planning the kidnap-come-jailbreak and acting as the victims, Abel didn’t really expect an upset yet. His only worry was that a kidnapper would say the wrong thing, a casual remark that let the leeches know the church had agreed to them being snatched. If Fourthseed or Thirteenseed realised the Tavern had captured them it wouldn’t matter, because they’d soon know anyway.
The first call that concerned him personally came at 10:30 to tell Abel that Kelis’s mum had gone to bed. Almost an hour after Kelis’s call, Abel’s mum came upstairs. When he couldn’t hear her moving about any more Zephyr slipped out through the crack around Abel’s bedroom door and reported she was reading in bed. Abel mentally apologised for how stiff his mum would be when she woke up, and activated the sleep glyph. Once Zephyr confirmed it had worked Abel texted Rob to let him know, then put on his jacket and sat by his window.
Since Rob was the last one, he put a little magic into his glyph to make his family sleepy, but even so his big sister Samantha stayed up until almost midnight. “Rob is coming.” Zephyr had flown out into the street to keep watch. Abel cast a veil and joined him, quickly texting Kelis. Kelis and Ferryl/Claris, also veiled, were waiting when he reached the church. Abel’s phone vibrated with a message saying Jenny had been picked up.
“Where are you going, sneaky but intriguing apprentices? You have Huntian with you, and are veiled, so is there danger?” Like all those aware of magic, the dryads on the village green could see through a standard veil although a shimmer betrayed its presence. The veils were to stop the non-magical humans seeing things that might send them crazy.
“No, Chestnut. The answer is free, a special offer just for tonight.” A joke because the humans never charged Dryad Chestnut for answers, though it was notorious for demanding honey if they asked questions. “We are going to trap blood-bags, with the help of a dryad. One who trusts us a little more than you will.” Abel pointed to the big Yew in the front corner of the churchyard. “Though you trust us more than they do. I left a jar of honey as a thank you for the magic, but even so, the Yew dryad didn’t speak. Though the jar was empty when I came back.”
“That one is very old, and is still angry about humans building a place of worship near its tree. If it ever talks to you, it knows more about Sorcerer’s Keep than any of us.” Dryad Chestnut creaked a few branches in humour. “Though you will need many, many jars of honey.”
“But not tonight. I really must go, Chestnut.” Abel waved goodbye and hurried to catch up with the others. He would have loved to ask more about trees that were here before the church, but not tonight. When he caught up, four goblins under a veil were already carrying Jane Doe out of the church, supervised by Ferryl/Claris. “Did Claris agree?”
“Yes, twice. I woke her a few minutes ago to ask again. She’ll live with a few more nightmares if that’s what it takes to save another leech victim. I’ve wiped out a big section of Claris’s memories about the leech growing in her but she won’t tell anyone about the gap. That way the doctors won’t get involved and try therapy.” Ferryl/Claris sighed and glanced at Kelis, who nodded.
“I was there both times and heard Claris agree. She seemed happier the second time, after losing all those memories. She wants to stay at my house for a while before going home, so she can come to terms with it all.” Kelis gave a wry smile. “Regardless of what a cow she used to be, I’ve got to agree to that.” None of them mentioned the real fear, that once free, Claris would go running off to the church or the cops screaming about possession.
All four headed towards Castle House, extending the veil to cover the goblins and Jane Doe on the stretcher, but only Ferryl/Claris went into the gardens. Rob took the goblins and the stretcher round the edge to the rear of Dead Wood. He would send the goblins home and watch over Jane Doe until the rest arrived. Ferryl/Claris would take advantage of the privacy and virtually unlimited tree magic in the gardens to tear out her wits, magical knowledge embedded in bone, and heal the wounds. Abel and Kelis carried on past Castle House and out of Brinsford.
∼∼
Neither Kelis nor Abel felt like talking, Abel, for one, was much too nervous and worried about all the ways this could go wrong. In the absolute worst scenario, Creepio might realise Braeth Huntian lurked inside Claris and start a pitched battle to kill her. He stood mulling over ways to delay
the vicar so Ferryl could get away without getting anyone killed, until the first vehicle lights came up the road. Both stepped onto the verge, because with their veils activated anyone non-magical might run over them. Instead the large black SUV with tinted windows pulled up next to Abel and the window purred down. “I want to keep these wheels!” Shannon patted the leather seats. “Do we have to give it back? Oops, sorry, that’s sinful but so are these seats. The other two are about five minutes behind me, driving vans, each with a leech aboard. I claimed the decent transport to pick up your ex and her moped.”
Jenny waved from the passenger seat. “Hi Abel, Kelis. Nice to get a word in. We’ve brought extra muscle.” Two hands thrust forward between the seats to wave. “Is everything set?”
“All ready.” Abel tried to look stern. “When they get here, try to keep quiet please, Shannon. We want silent, threatening, mysterious figures stood all around while the legendary leech-killer Braeth Huntian terrifies them. Comments about nicking the church transport would sort of spoil the effect. Have you left your cross at home?”
“Yes, don’t worry. Sorry, I can’t help being a bit excited. I’m only an innocent church-going schoolgirl, not an agent of darkness. Or I wasn’t one until tonight. I should have brought my Saint Georgeous cloak to hide under so the minions of evil don’t realise I’m an angel in disguise.” With an obvious effort Shannon stopped, her face sobering as she peered up the road towards Castle House. “I’ll stop babbling now. Though to be honest, if it wasn’t for the archbishop being in on this I’d be a bit worried. Thank God we won’t be dealing with the real Braeth Huntian, whatever that is.” She glanced at her watch. “I can only stop for another hour because my parents think I’m at a dance, and three of the others have to be home by one.”
