Victories

by Mercedes Lackey

  With a last effort, Spirit forced her dream-self to open its eyes. She caught a glimpse of a horse—impossibly large and impossibly white—with a rider, a woman, her face contorted with urgency. She was the one whose cries Spirit had heard, and Spirit opened her mouth to answer, but when she moved, the dream twisted and jumbled and vanished. Instead of cold wind in her hair, she felt the lumpy hardness of the mattress at her back, and the air was still and metal-smelling.

  She was awake.

  She tried to hold onto the fragments of the dream—to make sense of them—but they were already becoming vague and meaningless. A woman on a horse, telling her to hurry. I’ve dreamed about her a lot since the February Dance, Spirit thought, frowning. Is she a Reincarnate? Is she me? Who is she? I wish they all came with labels.…

  The idea that she was a Reincarnate was somehow even more disturbing than knowing she’d gotten her magic—not that she had any idea of what it was. Maybe Vivian or Merlin could help.…

  The last of the dream faded. She realized the lights were on, and she could smell breakfast—somebody was frying bacon and toasting bread. The smell reminded Spirit that she hadn’t eaten in an awfully long time. She opened her eyes, swung her feet over the side of the bunk, and sat up cautiously.

  Addie was still in bed asleep, her black hair spilling across her face as she clutched her pillow. The bunk above—where Loch had slept—was empty. When Spirit got to her feet, she saw Burke’s bunk was empty, too. They were probably where the food was. She sorted quickly through the clothes they’d left in such a mess last night, and found a pair of jeans that looked like they’d fit, and the disco-is-dead pink sweater Addie had rejected last night: it had a wide V neck, and a bunch of glittery silver bits woven into it, but at least it wasn’t in the Oakhurst colors, and it was warm. There were even a pair of canvas slip-ons she could wear—years of shopping in secondhand stores had made her a good judge of sizes. And Burke had found socks last night for both of them. She bundled the garments up with a sigh before sorting through the underwear. None of it was really in her size, and there weren’t any bras at all. She was stuck with the one from her prom outfit, and it was strapless.

  As she went down the hall to the bathroom, she could hear voices coming from the kitchen. She washed and dressed, and when she went back to the bedroom to make the bed and dump the other clothes, Addie was starting to stir.

  “Breakfast,” Spirit said. Addie groaned and rolled over. Spirit glanced at the clock. It said it was six, but whether it was six in the morning or six at night, she didn’t know. “Come on,” she said, with a cheer she didn’t feel. “You don’t want to miss the Apocalypse.”

  Addie groaned again, and felt around on the floor for something to throw. She didn’t find anything, and rolled over on her back. “This is your brain. This is your brain on magic. Any questions?” she muttered.

  “Bacon,” Spirit said.

  “I hate you,” Addie answered, but she started moving. Spirit went off in search of the kitchen.

  * * *

  “—computer programmer. It’s the kind of thing I can do remotely, and I only have to go into the city once or twice a month to pick up my mail and cash my checks,” Vivian said.

  The kitchen was tiny, with a two-burner electric stove and a table crammed into one corner. Loch was perched on the table, and Burke was crammed into one corner, watching Vivian cook. They were both wearing hand-me-downs—Burke in sweatpants and a T-shirt, Loch in jeans. Loch was wearing the shirt from his prom outfit, with the collar unbuttoned and the sleeves rolled up. There was already a pile of crispy bacon draining on a plate, and Spirit’s stomach rumbled. The sandwiches in the van seemed like at least a week ago.

  “Hi,” she said a little uncertainly.

  “Morning,” Vivian said. “Breakfast will be ready in a couple of minutes, so you better go wake up Addie.”

  “She was moving when I left,” Spirit said.

  Burke smiled at her and handed her a piece of toast; Spirit nibbled it to give herself something to do. A moment later Addie joined them. She was wearing jeans and a red sweater with a pattern of green Christmas trees knitted into it. Spirit winced sympathetically.

  “Cozy,” Addie said, looking around.

  “These places were designed for two sets of two-man crews,” Vivian said, “so it’s going to be a little crowded in the kitchen with five.”

  “So what’s on the menu for today?” Loch asked. “Besides breakfast.”

  “I tell you the rest of what Merlin needs you to know, and then I’m headed into town. I didn’t want to lay in a bunch of stuff until I was sure you’d get here alive.”

  Spirit repressed a shudder of unease at Vivian’s matter-of-factness. “What.… What would you have done if we hadn’t?”

  “Yeah, considering we’re apparently all there is in the way of opposition to Mordred’s evil plot,” Loch said.

  “Get used to it,” Vivian said. She put the last of the bacon on the plate and tucked it into the tiny oven. “If the plan to get you out of there had failed, I would’ve done whatever I could to bring the Feds down on Breakthrough. There probably wouldn’t’ve been much of Montana left when the dust settled, but it would be better than the end of the world. Assuming, of course, that they listened to me, and the Feds won.”

  “It still sounds like a better option than us against Breakthrough,” Burke said. “So why not do it anyway? As a backup?”

  “Because it would lead Breakthrough straight here,” Vivian said. “Mordred’s stuck in the Dark Ages, but his Shadow Knights aren’t. If Mark doesn’t have a snitch in one of the Alphabet Agencies, I’d be really surprised.”

  “But—” Loch said.

  “And there’s even odds Breakthrough could put out enough black information on me to make the Feds ignore anything I had to say,” Vivian said, taking out the carton of eggs and beginning to crack them into the skillet. “And Mordred knows about it.” She sighed irritably. “Just before Eternal September, when everybody found out about the Internet.…” She paused, clearly choosing her words carefully. “My dad was a phone phreak. I grew up learning how to program—and hack—computers. So one day a bunch of Men in Black show up at the house and we all get dragged off to jail. That was the last time I ever saw my parents. Nobody would tell me anything about what was happening and meanwhile, I’m sitting in Juvie—fourteen, no relatives, you do the math. So this slick Oakhurst creep shows up and says my mom sent him and I get to come live at Oakhurst until the whole legal thing is settled. My mom knew some weird people, so it seemed almost reasonable—and anyway, I thought any place would be better than Juvenile Hall, right? So I get to Oakhurst, find out—surprise!—I’m a Teen Witch, and about a month later I get called into Mordred’s office and he tells me my parents want me to stay at Oakhurst where I’ll be safe.” She broke off, staring silently into space for a moment before picking up the spatula and starting to flip the eggs.

  “Oakhurst had a computer center even back then, and once I’d settled in, I started phreaking the line to dial out to my old BBSs. When I talked to people, they didn’t believe I was me—everyone’d heard my mom, my dad, and me were all dead. And I knew it was true, because my parents would have posted if they were alive, and they didn’t.” She shrugged. “I figured ‘Doctor Ambrosius’ just didn’t tell me the truth because he was afraid I’d flip out. I spent a lot of time online—there wasn’t any kind of firewall or anything back then; this was the early nineties, remember—and that’s where I met Merlin. I thought he was just another hacker, but he was nice. After I got my other memories back, I was pretty desperate—the ‘problem’ kids were going missing and I was pretty sure I was on the list. He told me how to get out of Oakhurst without being grabbed by the Wild Hunt, and where to find him. And here we are. Breakfast’s ready.”

  * * *

  “So you’ve been living underground all this time?” Addie asked, when they were settled in the monitor room with their food.

 
“Merlin helped me papertrip myself,” Vivian said. “Including the academic credentials I needed to get work—at least, once I looked old enough to have been to college. But once I try to blow the whistle on Oakhurst, the first thing the Shadow Knights are going to do is drag up the ancient history and convince the Feds I’m a cyber-terrorist.”

  “If they can find you,” Burke said.

  “They would,” Vivian said darkly. “And that means they’d find you, too. So we’ll try this Merlin’s way first.”

  “Which is what, exactly?” Loch asked. “Finding these ‘secret weapons’ Merlin’s hidden so carefully even he can’t find them?”

  “If he knew where they were—or for that matter, if they stayed in the same place for very long—anybody with Scrying Gift could locate them eventually. Since they can’t, we’re hoping Mordred thinks they’re lost.”

  “But what are they? And how do they work?” Spirit could hardly believe she was asking these questions, but what other choices did they have? And what makes you and Merlin so sure the four of us can use them?

  “They’re the Four Hallows of Britain: the Sword, the Shield, the Cauldron—or Cup—and the Lance. Spear, you’d say. The Cup heals anything placed in it, and can provide whatever you most need—”

  “Must be a pretty big cup,” Loch muttered. Vivian shot him a poisonous look.

  “—the Sword confers victory on the wielder, the Lance can pierce any object it’s cast at—and the Shield cannot be breached by spell or by weapon. Merlin managed to get them to America, but without their proper guardians, they radiate enough magic to be instantly perceptible to Mordred. So Merlin hid them. Or, more precisely, told them to hide themselves. Find them, and you’re all set.”

  “You aren’t telling us everything,” Spirit said after a moment.

  Vivian looked at her with an expression of grudging respect. “I’m telling you everything you need to know,” she said. “You’ll understand the rest when you have the Hallows.”

  “So where do we start looking?” Spirit asked.

  “Yeah, seeing as we’re kind of on-the-clock here,” Loch said. “First of May, Armageddon Day!”

  “Too bad,” Vivian said. “I told you: I don’t know where they are, and neither does Merlin. They have to find you. There’s this thing about them: they find their rightful owners. Which should be you. If you aren’t and they don’t, well, then we’re screwed and I’ve already told you how well Plan B is likely to work.”

  There was a moment of disbelieving silence, and then Addie, Loch, and even Burke all started talking at once. Yelling, really. This was ridiculous, this was unfair, the four of them against all of Mordred’s Shadow Knights—and people with guns—and all they were getting were a sword and a spear and they weren’t even getting those, they had to go looking for them and nobody knew where—

  “What if they’re in California?” Loch demanded. “Or Vermont? What if they’ve gone back to England? What if Breakthrough grabs us while we’re looking for them?”

  “How are we even supposed to try to do something if all you’re going to do is put more obstacles in our way?” Addie shouted, near tears. “It’s like you want us to lose!”

  “What if we don’t find them in time?” Burke bellowed. “How do we even use them once we find them? I—”

  “We don’t have any choice!” Spirit screamed at the top of her lungs.

  Suddenly the room was dead silent.

  “We don’t have any choice,” she repeated more quietly. “You’ve all spent your time doing magic. Well, all I’ve been able to do until yesterday was study it—and I still have no idea what these so-called ‘School of Spirit’ powers are, or what they’re going to actually do for me. But what I do know is that you can’t argue with magic. You just can’t. You have to do things its way, and I happen to think that sucks. But you can’t argue with it. It won’t listen. So.… I guess I won’t blame any of you if you don’t want to do this. But I’m going to go look for these Hallows. And hope.”

  None of the others would look at her except Vivian, and Spirit couldn’t tell what Vivian was thinking. All Merlin said was that when their wielders were found, they’d appear. It wasn’t particularly helpful, but Vivian insisted she didn’t know anything more. Spirit had the strangest feeling that now that they’d gotten here, Vivian was content to let the four of them make all the decisions—which would have worked out a lot better if any of them had the slightest idea of what to do. We’re just kids, for crying out loud! In the real world, no one would expect us to make a decision about what car to buy, much less something like this! And what if we aren’t the “wielders” the Four Hallows are looking for? What then?

  She wondered if they’d taught the Fifth School of Magic when Vivian had been at Oakhurst. Doc Mac had known about it. He’d said it “dealt primarily with gifts of mental control and influence” which made it sound pretty creepy. And dangerous. She took a deep breath. You don’t have time to think about that now. Even if thinking about it is a lot better than thinking about the four of us being the only ones on Merlin’s side.…

  Loch finally broke the silence. “Muirin would have liked to be here,” he said softly. “And she can’t be. So I don’t want to do this—like, a lot—but I’m going to.”

  “Me too,” Burke said unhesitatingly.

  “I think it’s useless and it won’t work, even if we find these ‘Hallows,’” Addie said in exasperation. “But.… I’m in. Muirin was the first real friend I ever had. And they killed her.”

  In that moment, Spirit loved all of them more than she ever had before. This was ridiculous—like playing a game of Candyland against Death for the fate of the world—but no matter what her friends thought, they were all willing to try.

  “So,” Spirit said, turning to Vivian. “How do we … let them find us?”

  * * *

  “We’ve got about an hour before we meet up with Vivian,” Burke said, stopping the van in the parking lot. Spirit resisted the urge to look around for danger as she got out. She knew she wouldn’t see the Shadow Knights coming: Shadewalkers and Illusionists could both make themselves pretty much invisible. If Breakthrough found them, they were toast.

  “Vivian said to meet her at the Bess Streeter Aldrich House and Museum,” Loch said, waving the map Vivian had given them. “Anybody know who she is? Or, more likely, was?”

  “Somebody famous enough to have a museum,” Addie said wearily.

  “This is Elmwood, Nebraska,” Loch said. “How much is that saying?”

  Burke snorted. “Come on. I’m hoping I can find a pair of shoes—and maybe some real pants. This just looks weird,” he said, gesturing at the dress shoes he was wearing with his sweatpants. There hadn’t been much at the silo in his size—at least the rest of them had sneakers.

  It seemed bizarrely anticlimactic to take time out from worrying about the fate of the world to go shopping, but Vivian had pointed out that the more they moved around, the more likely it was they’d manage to run into the Hallows. And she said she wanted to see what she could find out about Breakthrough and Radial using someone else’s ISP, which meant a trip to the local library or some other WiFi hotspot.

  “And I’d like to find something that makes me look less like a Hallmark Christmas Special,” Addie said, wrinkling her nose.

  “Or a very special episode of What Not To Wear,” Loch said helpfully.

  Spirit met Addie’s gaze. Underwear, she mouthed silently, and Addie nodded vigorously. “Hey, we’ve got fifty bucks,” she said, striving to sound cheerful. “We can come up with whole wardrobes for that—and besides, I can sew, remember?”

  “And whatever it is, it won’t be gold, brown, or cream,” Addie said feelingly.

  * * *

  Addie and Loch looked completely baffled as they followed Spirit and Burke through the store. Well why not? Spirit thought. Addie’s heir to a billion-dollar pharmaceutical company. Loch’s father did something that left Loch with a fat trust fund.
She doubted either one had seen the inside of a Goodwill Store—or any other thrift shop—in their lives, while the White family had shopped at them as a matter of course.

  Taking pity on them, she led Loch and Burke to the racks of men’s clothing. There weren’t any jeans in Burke’s size, but there were a pair of work pants in good condition. The real find was work boots in his size. They were battered and worn, but they’d certainly last as long as …

  … as long as we have to live if we don’t win, Spirit thought. Every time she managed to stop thinking about Mordred and the Apocalypse, something happened to remind her.

  She left Loch and Burke browsing through shirts and went off with Addie.

  “You’re really good at this,” Addie said, watching Spirit swiftly sort an entire box of underwear into two piles: possible purchases and totally hopeless.

  “Not everybody’s born rich,” Spirit said absently. A moment later she heard her own words and turned to Addie in horror. “I’m so sorry! I didn’t mean—”

  Addie smiled ruefully. “It’s okay. Really. I know I’ve led a pretty sheltered life. The way Oakhurst was run—not the magic and the craziness, but the uniforms and the rules about what you could have—covered up a lot of the distinctions between—”

  “The haves and the have-nots?” Spirit asked with a smile.

  “The haves and the have-even-mores,” Addie corrected. “In my old life, I would never even have met someone like Loch, or—” she broke off suddenly, her face twisting with grief. “Or Muirin,” she whispered. “I would never have met Muirin.”

  “She—” Spirit said. She stopped, shaking her head. It was too soon. “Come on,” she said, “let’s see if we can find tops that don’t suck this much.”

  There wasn’t a huge selection, but Spirit found a couple of long-sleeved T-shirts and a couple of heavyweight shirts to go over them. The shirts were plaid flannel, but at least they weren’t gross. Since they were still under budget, she grabbed a couple of the nightgowns. The ones in the best condition were circus tent huge, but she could cut them down later.