Jake's Justice, Book Three of Wizards

by Booth, John

  “It will not happen,” I said and left the group, striding towards the door. “I shall find a way to stop it.”

  4. Needs

  A wizard without power is a pretty pathetic creature. Magic trickled into me and slowly built up my reserves, but I would be able to do little more than hop for a day or two. The logical thing was to take to my bed and do nothing. However, I wasn’t noted for being logical.

  Jenny found me pacing our apartments. I ignored her and she went to brew some tea. We had servants for that sort of thing, but Jenny kept them at arms length. She much preferred to do such things herself.

  She set the tea tray on a table and sat down.

  “Jake, are you having some?”

  I sat at the other side of the table and she smiled. She hadn’t smiled at me like that since the wedding.

  “Am I forgiven then?”

  Jenny poured a little milk in my tea and then put in three spoons of sugar, just the way I like it.

  “Esmeralda was more mad at you than I was, and the King brought it home to me today. You did what you did to save our lives. We should be grateful.”

  I put my hand on hers and squeezed it gently.

  “The baby’s been kicking a lot today.”

  Moving my chair around the table I placed my hand on her swollen tummy. There was a little kick that sent butterflies through me. This was my child inside her.

  “Probably a bit disturbed by all the dragons shouting at him.”

  “What if the baby’s a girl?”

  “Then she’s bound to be pretty, given her mother’s looks.”

  “She could take after you, Jake.”

  I smiled. “There’s always plastic surgery.”

  Jenny gently pushed me away from her. “I want to have our baby in Wales, Jake, in a proper NHS hospital with surgeons and midwives and things. Not here where they have an old woman for a midwife and you’re expected to squat when you give birth.”

  “You have to squat?”

  “That’s what Esmeralda told me.”

  This brought up something that had been bothering me since the wedding. The King and everybody else in Salice assumed that we would all move into the Palace apartments permanently. But all Jenny’s family and friends were back on Earth, as were my parents. We could hardly live in Mam and Dad’s house. My room was barely big enough for me, but on the other hand I couldn’t keep Jenny from the people and things she was familiar with.

  “What about Esmeralda? You’re both due about the same time. Will she come with us?”

  Jenny’s eyes went wide. “You think Princess Esmeralda would allow the heir to the throne of Salice to be born on another planet? She’d rather die in childbirth. Besides which, how would that look to her people? Running away to somewhere safer?”

  I saw the logic, but I also made a decision that would undoubtedly hurt Esmeralda. “You and I are moving back to Wales. I’ll find a way to buy a house. Somewhere nice and normal in the suburbs.”

  Jenny took my hand. “Jake you’ve got no money, a part-time job, and no qualifications.”

  “I’m also a wizard. I’ll find a way.”

  Jenny’s face broke out in the happiest smile I’d seen from her in months. Then she sobered. “You can’t abandon Esmeralda and your other child.”

  “I won’t, but Esmeralda and Salice don’t own me.”

  Jenny slid her arms around me and we got up to embrace.

  “Let’s go to bed, Jake. I’ve missed you.”

  “What if Esmeralda walks in?” There are some things frightening enough to put me off sex.

  Jenny smiled slyly as her hand moved south and found me more than ready for her. “Lock the door if you’re scared.”

  I made a scoffing sound and lifted her into my arms to carry her to the bedroom. Enough magic had trickled into me to lock the door remotely and quietly. I didn’t want Jenny to know I had done it.

  After the best five minutes I’ve spent in weeks, I pondered the money situation. Jenny snuggled up to me and giggled. “You must have been gagging for it, Mister Fastest-gun-in-the-west.”

  I pulled her closer. “It’s been two whole weeks. Let me get my breath back and I’ll demonstrate my slow draw.”

  She snuggled into my shoulder. “No need. I’m satisfied. We mustn’t wear your pistol out. Not for at least another half-hour.”

  Jenny can be highly distracting when she wants to be and it was difficult to concentrate. I reluctantly dragged my mind back to the question of money. I could buy a lottery ticket and then, if I could get close enough to the lottery machine, I could force the right balls into the slot. But the manipulation might show up on television, which would be a very bad thing. As I thought about it I came to the conclusion it was just too difficult.

  A few months ago we’d broken up some royal jewelry from the Palace and I’d sold the gold for cash in a market back home. But even the smallest house in Wales cost a fortune these days and moving that much gold onto the streets might be spotted. What I needed was a windfall, a bit of luck that no one would question. The problem was … what?

  I was brought back to reality by the things Jenny was doing to me. Where an innocent girl from the valleys had learnt these thing was beyond me. She giggled when I joined her below the sheets and forty minutes later I was too exhausted to worry about money, conferences, or even a hoard of angry dragons.

  Esmeralda banged loudly on Jenny’s door. Sliding my girl’s arms off of me as she continued to sleep, I hopped to my room in Wales. I love Esmeralda very much, which is why I ran rather than let her find me in the arms of my other wife. To minimize any pain she might feel. Well, that was my rationalization at the time and I’m sticking to it.

  “Is that you, Jake?” Mam called up the stairs.

  I yelled back in the affirmative.

  “I’ll make you breakfast,” she yelled back and I went for a quick shower. Mam’s cooking was the best in the multiverse and I was starving. My reserves of magic were filling up much faster than I expected. At this rate I’d be full in days rather than weeks. That was strange and had never happened before, but I wasn’t going to knock it. The faster I got it back the better.

  “Hullo love, how are Jenny and Esmeralda?” Mam placed a plate laden with bacon and eggs on the kitchen table and I grabbed a knife and fork from the dresser. I love Mam’s fry-ups.

  “They’re fine. We had a bit of a diplomatic crisis with Fluffy’s brethren yesterday, but it’s all good now.”

  Mam looked a little worried. “You’re not in trouble again, are you Jake?”

  I put on my most innocent face. “Nah, Mam. Nothing as bad as Bronwyn.” I paused for a few seconds as Mam’s eyes drilled into me. “Jenny wants to have the baby back in Wales and I need some money. Got any ideas?”

  Mam smiled. I knew she’d be delighted at the thought of Jenny coming here. It’s not like she and Dad could hop to Salice whenever they wanted.

  “Your Dad and I have a bit put by for a rainy day.”

  I shook my head. “I need a lot more than that, Mam. Probably a couple of hundred thousand. I have all these powers. There must be a way to make some money from them.”

  “Not the cash for gold thing again, then?”

  “Too risky, it could come back and bite me. I need an idea that doesn’t rob anybody and doesn’t get the police interested.”

  Mam sat down and looked thoughtful as I demolished the king-sized breakfast she’d put in front of me.

  “You could find buried treasure,” she said as I took the next to last piece of toast.

  “You mean stuff from Salice?”

  “No you could find real buried treasure, like people do with metal detectors. There was a man in the paper who found a Saxon hoard. It gets declared treasure trove, the government buys it and you share the money with the land owner. You used to find those missing hikers. You must be able to find buried treasure.”

  Mam had a point. I could buy a metal detector and pretend I’d used it. Or
borrow one. Malcolm bought a metal detector a couple of years ago. And he owed me for getting him sex with Silvia. He would never have got to first base if I hadn’t let them come to the wedding.

  I picked up the last piece of toast and waved goodbye. “I’ll give it a try.” It took less than a second to hop into the office at Mr. Griffith’s woodyard.

  “Oh it’s you,” Malcolm said as he looked up from his desk. “I don’t think Mr. Griffith has any work for you. He’s not in.”

  I gave Malcolm my ingratiating smile. For some reason that seemed to frighten him.

  “Didn’t you once buy a metal detector?”

  “Right waste of money that was. All I ever found were old ringpulls and beer cans.”

  “But have you still got it?”

  Malcolm nodded.

  “It’s in the wardrobe in my bedroom.”

  “You still living in that flat on Bedford Street?” He nodded. “Mind if I borrow it?”

  “Sure, but…”

  I smiled and hopped.

  Bedford Street is lined with those turn of the 20th century houses the rich used to own back when they had live-in servants. When servants became too expensive or whatever, the houses were turned into flats and the street went downhill. I’d had to visit Malcolm once when he was sick and Mr. Griffith wanted me to check he was all right. I’d never got into the flat though. Malcolm had refused to open the front door of the house when I’d buzzed him.

  Pretending to use a key, I magicked the front door open and slid inside.

  There was a staircase next to a musty corridor. Malcolm’s flat was number five and a quick trip down the corridor showed only the first three flats were downstairs. The carpet on the stairs looked at least a hundred years old. Or possibly that was only the last time it had been vacuumed. Flats four, five and six were on the next floor up. I stood in front of Malcolm’s door and unlocked it.

  Silvia gave a shriek as I walked in. She brought her legs together as she stood up from where she had been lying on the sofa. Her dressing gown dropped over her legs and I had already seen she was wearing nothing beneath it; at least from the waist down. Naughty girl.

  Once upon a time I’d have been embarrassed at catching her at it, but I was a man of the world now. Having recognized me and recovered her poise, she smiled.

  “Hi Jake. I was just thinking about you.” She let go of her dressing gown and it opened enough to reveal she was completely naked. “Would you like… something?”

  This sort of thing never used to happen to me. I wasn’t interested in her consciously, but one specific part of my body had taken up a different position. Holding what remained of my slice of toast strategically to cover my embarrassment I decided on using sophisticated humor to defuse the situation.

  “If I’d known you were coming, I would have waited.”

  Note to self: Never try sexual humor with a Welsh tart. Silvia took my comment as an invitation and slipped out of her dressing gown, dropping it on the floor. She really was a good looking girl. Her nipples looked stiff enough to knock a man’s eye out.

  “I’ve never had a wizard before.” She pouted engorged lips at me. “And I can see you’re as ready as I am.”

  ‘Margaret Thatcher, Margaret Thatcher.’ I chanted in my mind along with imagining the iron ladies image. It used to work when I was younger, but not so much this time. I needed a bigger distraction and an escape strategy.

  “Is the bedroom through there?” I pointed at a door. My peripheral vision caught Silvia’s nod. When looking at her, I found it difficult to get my eyes up to her face.

  “I thought we could start on the table,” she said a little petulantly.

  But I was already through the door and into the wardrobe before she could tempt me further. There was a box with the picture of a metal detector on it in the bottom corner of the wardrobe. It looked unopened. Grabbing it like a long lost lover I hopped back to my room in my parent’s house.

  I slumped onto the bed and wiped sweat from my brow. “You are a married man,” I said severely to a part of my body that didn’t seem to agree with me.

  5. Treasure Hunt

  Once the swelling went down and I got my breath back, I sat up and examined the contents of the box. From the pristine state of the device, it was clear that Malcolm had never used the metal detector. I put the bits together without consulting the instructions and flipped the red switch while holding one of the headphones against my ear. Not so much as a pop let alone a crackle.

  Reluctantly, I reached for the leaflet that came with it. Reading the instructions always felt like cheating. In this case, cheating wasn’t possible. The whole damned thing was in Japanese, or Chinese or Korean. Well, one of those languages with lots of pictograms instead of letters. I searched through the box, but there was no English manual. The box had English writing on it, along with a picture of a young nubile female smiling as she wafted the machine above the ground like a grass cutter. All I got from it in the way of information were the words ‘Made in Japan’ in very small print.

  It hasn’t come with a charger and though one of the diagrams suggested there were batteries, I couldn’t see how to get at them. Stalemate. Dad had a hammer downstairs, a big heavy hammer that was beginning to call to me.

  To give myself time to think, I checked my magic reserves and was astonished with how high they’d got. Something very peculiar was going on here. Not only were enormous amounts of energy flooding into me, a lot of it was sloshing over the sides. I couldn’t see what I was doing with it, but I was using it for something, that was for sure.

  There was a way I could learn Japanese quickly. All I needed to do was find someone who could read and write it.

  A hop to Jenny’s college and a quick look through the campus map on the wall proved unedifying. If they had an oriental studies department, they were keeping it well hidden. I stepped back from the map and saw an oriental looking girl walking past.

  “Excuse me, miss?” I put a hand on her shoulder.

  For a second she looked furious and then she smiled broadly.

  “Do you speak Japanese?” I asked.

  “You are very handsome. You have a girlfriend?” She reached out to touch my face with her fingertips. All this sudden female attention must be the married-man effect, I have to say I was enjoying it.

  I took her hand from my face and held it.

  “Do you speak Japanese?”

  “And Korean, my country.”

  “Could you think in Japanese, pretend you’re teaching it me?”

  A blur of words and symbols rushed through my head. “Thanks so much.”

  “Anytime, pretty boy. You want come back to my flat?”

  I dislodged her hand from mine. “Some other time.” It wasn’t sensible to hop in public where someone might see and I headed off before she could try for my phone number. I turned into an empty corridor and hopped back to my room.

  The instructions now made perfect sense and I slid the edge of a 5p piece into slot A and twisted, popping off the top of the battery case. A quick hop to the local Newsagents and I had the batteries I needed. An LED display lit up when I flipped the switch and the headphones made a weird whooping sound.

  A few seconds later I located the nails in the floor boards and the door keys under a blanket. I assessed my situation.

  Working Metal Detector – check.

  Hoard of treasure – not located.

  Friendly farmer with hoard of treasure on his land – not found.

  What seemed to me like eons ago, I used to help worried relatives find missing hikers. It didn’t happen every day, but more often than you might think. Unfortunately, by the time such people came knocking at my door, their children, lovers, etcetera were usually dead. I would borrow an item that belonged to the missing person and throw it down my hopscotch court where it would hop to wherever they were. Then I could follow. Back in those days I need a court to hop. These days the court was in my mind.

  I’ve
learnt a lot about magic since then. However, though I wouldn’t need the court, I’d still need something they had owned recently to find them. How did I do it for a gold hoard though? What I needed to do was to examine some examples.

  Do you know what happens when you turn on your computer after over a month of leaving it off? Neither did I. It was past noon before my laptop stopped plaguing me with update messages and demands I reboot. A quick search showed that there was a hoard being shown in Birmingham, which was lucky because I had been to the museum in question.

  It would have been better if I could have held the large bundle of coins inside the display case. However, I felt I’d seen enough. Returning to my room I tossed an imaginary set of ancient gold coins down an imaginary hopscotch court and as it vanished, I followed, metal detector in hand.

  I arrived in a herd of cows with my feet descending into the warm stinking matter of a fresh cowpat. Hopping a few feet away I cursed as my socks were soaked, along with the shoes and the bottom of my jeans. Magic is good for some things and the stinking goo and liquid vanished, though my toes still felt unusually warm. The cows were uninterested in my colorful curses and after taking off a shoe to confirm my toes were not marinating in manure I calmed down enough to look around.

  The field looked pretty much like any other field. There were farm buildings in the distance. An ugly corrugated metal building was the biggest thing in sight. The sun was shining and flies buzzed around me and the cow pat I’d landed in. It looked to be the only one in the vicinity and was easy to distinguish anyway, given the two perfect footprints in the center of it. After some quick detectoring it was clear that the only signal I could find was dead center below the pat. It would be the work of a moment to remove it, but on the other hand it did provide a very visible marker of ground zero, so I let it stay.

  I trudged through the field towards the big ugly shed. What I needed was the farmer who owned the land and that looked to be the most likely place to find him.