The three of them followed Raven into the Euro Star check in and managed to just catch the first train of the day that had been waiting to depart. Within half an hour, they were sat in the carriage and watching the city fade away to countryside outside the window.
Stephan had relaxed, he sipped on a can of cola as the tension drained from his body finally. He felt safe, for the moment, across from him on the other side of the table, the Twins sat there quietly, also nursing drinks. No one had really spoken yet, but Raven seemed to still be alert and a touch nervous where he sat next to Stephan.
Stephan felt he had to break the silence somehow; they can’t sit here and not speak, not when the man who’s helping them can use Magic.
‘So, Raven, how did you find us then? You came right to us in the police station.’
‘Through the use of my Magic, I’m able to locate people and things fairly easily, but each time I tried it on you guys, I couldn’t get it to work, which was because of that book. It interferes with that kind of Magic, so I kept on doing it, hoping you would leave the book somewhere. So when I suddenly found that the locating Magic worked, which must have been when the police took the book away from you, I Ported right to you.’
‘Ported?’
‘Teleported,’ said Raven
‘Oh, of course. Well, yeah, the Police needed to examine and log the book apparently, which is probably how Nate found us too.’
‘Most likely.’
‘So, it really is Magic you’re using then,’
Raven looked down at Stephan and smiled. ‘Yeah, it is. It’s real. I hope I didn’t scare you with it.’
‘No, no you didn’t. It was, um, surprising, to see it in real life, you know, up close and personal like. But I wasn’t scared, not of your Magic.’
‘I suppose you’ve had plenty of other things to be scared off recently, haven’t you.’
‘Yeah,’ Stephan said. ‘So you’re a Wizard then?’
‘A Magi, but yes.’
‘Oh, a Magi, okay, and there’s lots of Magi in the world?’
‘At least ten or fifteen thousand, not many.’
‘Thousands is loads.’ Stephan said.
‘But when you think about the population of a major city, New York for example, which has something like six million people in it; a few thousand Magi seems a lot less.’
‘When you put it like that, I suppose so.’
Stephan continued to ask a few more questions, the twins listening in and commenting occasionally. Soon they were in the tunnel, and leaving England, on their way to France.
During the journey, Stephan showed Raven the book, leaving it in the bag so as not to attract attention. Raven seemed happy with it and left it in the hands of Stephan, telling him to keep hold of it.
A couple of hours later, although still early in the morning, they arrived in Paris, their trip to France being largely uneventful. Raven took out three passports for Stephan, Liz and Fran from his pocket and handed them out. Stephan looked inside his and was surprised to find that it was actually his.
‘I got them from your parent’s houses earlier on. I thought we might need them.’
Stephan was more than a little impressed with Raven’s foresight. ‘I wondered how you got us onto the train in London,’ he said. He had sat with the girls while Raven had dealt with check in.
Leaving the terminal without problems they hailed a taxi and got in, Raven gave the driver an address in fluent French and sat back in his front seat. He turned and looked at his three charges in the back seat. ‘You all OK?’
‘We’re fine,’ Stephan said, Fran and Liz agreed.
‘We’ll be better once we’re at wherever you’re taking us,’ Fran added.
Stephan agreed.
The Taxi cut through the traffic, the lights nearly always green and the way nearly always clear. Raven winked at them at one point, he’s using Magic again Stephan thought, and he realised that he could feel it.
That unreal feeling, when the shadows seem to move but don’t, when the dimensions of things seem to change but stay the same, it was Magic being used.
‘Can you feel it?’ he asked Fran and Liz, ‘Can you feel the Magic?’
‘I can, I thought you might not have noticed it.’ Fran said.
‘I’ve felt it a few times, at the police station, at Waterloo, and now here, but I only just figured it out.’
‘Yeah, I felt it too, it's odd isn’t it.’
‘A bit weird yeah,’ Liz joined in.
The driver yelled something in French, and the Taxi’s tires screeched as the car slammed into the side of a black car that had pulled out in front of them. Stephan jerked forward from the impact before falling back in his seat as the sounds of the two cars hitting each other died away with a tinkling of metal.
He looked up at the car they had hit, and Stephan’s jaw dropped to see a Man leaning out the front passenger side window that was facing them, holding a shot gun and aiming it at the driver.
‘Get down!’ Raven shouted.
Stephan ducked as the shot gun went off, hitting the man sat in the driver’s seat in front of Fran. ‘Holy shit, what the hell’s going on?’ he shouted.
The twisted reality feeling came on once more and there was a small explosion outside, Stephan looked up and saw that the Shotgun had exploded in the shooters face. Blood splattered everywhere and the man wailed.
Stephan was suddenly aware of the other people walking up to the car, surrounding it on all sides, all of them carrying guns, and off to the right, on Stephan’s side, there stood Vito, his hands behind his back and a smug grin on his face.
‘Oh no you don’t!’ muttered Raven, and Stephan felt Magic all about him again. The car in front of them which they had hit, suddenly leapt up into the air a good twenty or thirty feet while the Taxi’s engine revved into life again, the car wheel spun and then shot forward as the tires caught the road, taking them underneath the jumping car.
Stephan got thrown back into his seat by the force of the acceleration and kept tight hold of the bag. Then there came another surge of Magic which Stephan felt a second before the effect.
The door next to him flew off its hinges with a screech and pop of torn metal, and then he himself flew sideways from the car. He made a last ditch attempt to grab the seat, something, anything, but it was too late and he hit the road, hard.
He groaned from the pain, and then suddenly, realising the danger, started to get up, only to look up into the barrel of a shot gun pointed at his face. A man in a suit muttered something in French, probably something like, don’t move, but Stephan wasn’t sure. He caught a last glimpse of the taxi disappearing off down the road, Fran and Liz’s terrified faces in the back window.
There was a loud crash as the car that Raven had made jump in the air, slammed back down and came to a rest.
Stephan sat back onto the curb, keeping a tight hold of the bag containing the book as Vito walked up the road and came to a stop before him. Other men were stood about, pointing their shot guns at him now.
‘Stephan, you shouldn’t have run out on me. That was unkind. You’ve forced us to do things the hard way, now give me the bag.’
‘You’re only going to kill me anyway so get on with it, you can have it when I’m dead.’ Stephan said with spite. At least Fran and Liz were safe he thought, that was the main thing.
‘Stephan, that’s very noble of you, and I will kill you if I have to, but you have a chance to survive this, if you cooperate. There’s no reason for you to die. We need to ask you some questions, so you’ll be coming with us to Rome, but once we’re through with you, we’ll let you go. But only if you work with us.’
Stephan looked up at Vito, he didn’t seem to be lying, why would he. He could kill him right here and now and be done with it, there would be no repercussions for a Magi after all. Maybe if he played along, there might be a chance for escape. He made up his mind, and handed the bag to Vito, who unzipped the main pocket and pulled ou
t the golden book.
Vito smiled triumphantly at the Artefact in his hands.
Inquisitor de Luca
Congratulations on retrieving the Artefact from the apprentice Witches. Please be advised I am in Paris and will meet you at the Gare de Bercy train station where we have an Inquisitorial Car to ourselves. Please make all haste.
Mary Damask
Boarding Action
Paris, France.
Half an hour later
Amanda checked herself in the mirror one last time before breakfast. After what had ended up being quite a fun night at the ball, Amanda found herself rising a little later this morning then she might otherwise have been. She had banished the hangover into nothing more than a memory with her Magic and started to get up. Showered and dressed, she checked herself in the mirror.
She had chosen to wear a dull green top, an above the knee flared black skirt, black tights and knee length black velvet boots with a block heel. She kept her hair loose today, and as she finished up her last check, the Mirror came to life, the face moving as it spoke.
‘Amanda, Gentle Water requests your presence in the entrance hall to the house.’
Amanda looked up, a little startled. ‘I didn’t know you could pass on messages?’
The face winked.
Amanda smiled and left the room, heading along the corridor, and down the stairs. As the lobby came into view she saw Gentle Water waiting at the bottom of the stairs, Royston stood there, and so did Raven, looking tired and stressed. Two young girls, perhaps about fourteen years old stood amongst the Magi, holding onto each other and looking terrified.
They were wearing jeans and tops that looked like they had been worn for days. They were grubby and there was an unwashed smell in the air. They were pleading with the three men.
‘We have to go and get him, we have to save him, we can’t leave him with them…’
They all looked up at Amanda as she descended the stairs, almost as if she might be the answer to their questions, but she didn’t have a clue what was happening.
‘What’s the craic?’ she asked as she arrived at the bottom step, next to Gentle Water.
‘It’s the mission I was on,’ said Raven. ‘I believe you know of the Artefact from the Tomb in Egypt?’
‘We went there yesterday.’
‘Well, it ended up in the hands of Fran and Liz here, along with their two friends Stephan and Ben.’
Liz sobbed at the mention of Bens name, Fran held her close.
‘Nate, one of Yasmin’s apprentices tried to get it from them, killing all their parents and Ben in the process.’
‘My god!’ Amanda gasped, she looked again at the two girls, clearly they were sisters, twins maybe, and saw the sadness and horror behind their eyes.
Amanda crossed the room and stood before them, putting her arms around them. ‘Come here, come here,’ she said softly, the girls started to cry, hugging Amanda. ‘Hey it’s okay, it’s okay, we’ll help you. Don’t worry.’ As they sobbed in her arms, she looked over at Raven, ‘Have they eaten anything?’
‘Very little,’ he said.
‘Well, let’s get them to the kitchen, you can continue after we have given them something to eat.’
‘But Stephan, we have to go after him, they’ll kill him.’
Amanda didn’t know what they were talking about, but these girls needed some food and comforting. ‘Yes, I know, but you need to eat, we’re going nowhere until you eat,’ she said, taking the girls through to the kitchen where food was summoned, and as they ate Raven told the others his story from finding the bodies in the houses to their encounter with the Inquisition in Paris.
She had felt simple wonder and amazement when she had first arrived at the Mansion, discovering all the new things and new people. Gentle Water had spoken to her many times of some of the horrors that filled the lives of the Magi, but it had always seemed somewhat remote, distant and separate from her. But seeing these girls and hearing their plight, she suddenly felt much closer to it all, but she also felt a kind of exhilaration, as here she had a chance to help someone, to do something right and good. She felt that she could also relate to their feelings somewhat, after all, it wasn’t all that long ago that she had lost her friends, and seeing the desperation in the girls faces made her want only to help them.
‘So the Inquisition has Stephan and the book and no doubt will be taking them to the Vatican. They can’t Port there with the book, so they’ll be going via mundane transport.’ She looked up at the three men stood before her, ‘Is there any way for us to find them?’
‘In theory, yes, we’re looking into it now,’ said Royston.
‘I guess it might take some time?’ she asked.
‘It might.’
‘Then I’ll get these girls cleaned up so I will.’
With a little bit of persuasion, Amanda finally got the girls to have a shower and Magically cleaned their clothes for them. It was half an hour later when they went to the basement room where Ekkehardt Möller kept his Lab and she found people hard at work tracing the Inquisition team. Royston walked over to Amanda and the girls and asked if they were feeling better. The girls nodded and thanked Royston.
‘So, are we any closer to finding them?’ Amanda asked.
‘We think so, Ekkehardt is doing some conventional research and computer hacking while a few of the rest are helping Magically.’
As Amanda watched, she saw Ekkehardt finding trains and other vehicles that would suit what the Inquisition was doing and passing the details on to one of the other Magi to Scry it and see if the Inquisitors were there. Ten minutes passed before there seemed to be a little bit of excitement happening. Leaving the twins in the chairs they had sat in, Amanda walked over to where Royston, Gentle Water, Raven and Ekkehardt were standing, over a Map.
‘Have you found something?’
‘We think so,’ said Raven. ‘There’s a train, heading along this line, about here,’ Raven traced the line on the map, ‘which has a whole car shielded by an Aegis. It all fits, it started from Paris, it’s heading to Rome, the times are about right, and the tactics of the Inquisition are recognisable. We think it’s them.’
‘Then what are we still doing here then?’ she asked.
Amanda turned to the twins and waved them over.
‘Did you find him?’ Liz said urgently as she stepped up to the table.
‘We think so. If we’re right, he’s on a train heading for Rome,’ said Amanda.
‘So, come on, let’s go,’ said Fran quickly.
‘Are you sure you want to go? This could be dangerous.’
‘I don’t think it’s a good idea for you two to go,’ said Royston, his voice urging caution.
Amanda knew that Royston was just thinking of the twins safety, but she knew without looking how that would have gone down with the twins. Amanda was only a few years older than the girls and felt that she could relate to them and their situation a little better than some of the older Magi here. She knew they would want to be a part of this mission and be there to save their friend. After losing their parents and Ben just a few days ago, she was willing to bet that this current crisis served to focus their minds and keep them from dwelling on the horrors they had seen.
‘What?’ said the Twins as one, clearly horrified.
‘Why not, he’s our friend,’ said Liz.
‘If it was your friend, you’d want to go,’ said Fran.
‘That may well be true, but we can protect you better here,’ argued Royston.
‘We don’t need protecting,’ said a defiant Fran with a frown. ‘We want to help.’
‘What do the rest of you think?’ Royston asked the others, looking for back up.
‘There is risk if they go,’ said Gentle Water, glancing at Amanda as he spoke, Amanda looking back and knowing he was seeing some parallels between their situation and Amanda’s after Georgina had died. ‘But they are already involved’.
‘They might also come in u
seful when it comes to dealing with Stephan, when we find him,’ Raven said.
Amanda looked round at Royston, smiling inside at the way Gentle Water and Raven were backing her on this. ‘OK so, how about, Gentle Water, Raven and I go, and we take the girls as well. Raven can hang back and look after them while us two,’ she motioned to herself and Gentle Water, ‘take the lead. What do you think?’ She said to Raven.
‘Sounds like a plan to me,’ he answered with a half-smile.
‘Okay,’ said Royston, resigned to the groups decision, ‘but I don’t like it. Bring them back safely.’
‘We will. Now, how do we get to the train?’ Amanda asked. ‘Not all of us can Teleport.’
The twins looked at each other, frowning slightly. Amanda could feel the confusion they were feeling as they listened.
Israel Roth, who had sat quietly in the corner so far, stood up and walked forward. ‘That’s where I come in. Are you about ready?’
They checked their things and finally all stood together. The girls asked Amanda what was going to happen, but knowing time was short, she just asked them to trust her and enjoy the ride.
‘We’re ready,’ said Amanda once everyone was finished checking their stuff.
‘One moment then please, I just need to find somewhere to place you,’ he said, and closed his eyes. Amanda could feel the powerful Magic surging through the Master Magus, until a few seconds later he opened his eyes. ‘And off you go!’
There was a surge of energy, and the brief disorientation that Amanda had felt a few times before whenever she had been Ported, and they suddenly found themselves stood in one of the end sections of a carriage where the passengers embarked or disembarked from the train. It was empty, but there were people in the two carriages on either side of them.
The two girls, clearly shocked by the Porting, stood there wide eyed and open mouthed, shocked at what had just happened. Amanda gave them a smile and a wink.
'Yee haa!' Fran whooped, the excitement of this little magical feat thrilling her and overcoming the fear she had been feeling if only for a moment.
Magi Saga 1: Epic Calling Page 41
