Knight of the Black Rose

by Nissa Gordon

  "It's a magical book, if it wants someone to have it, then it'll just make itself known like it did with you," Lucy told him.

  "What's going on?" Troy asked wondering what he had missed this time.

  "Are we getting rid of that book finally?" Alex asked hopefully.

  "We might have to," Lucy told them.

  "Is this because Will's been so tired?" Troy asked.

  "Yes..." Lucy answered and Will glared at her. "It might be the book...or an after effect of the attack,"

  "Guys, seriously I'm fine..." Will told them trying to hide another yawn.

  "Well, I'm convince, what about you guys?" Alex said sarcastically.

  "Fine, whatever," Will said dismissively, he hated having everyone fusing over him like this, but he did want to know one way or another if he really was losing his powers; and if he was, they needed to stop it as soon as possible.

  Will walked into the food hall, barely keeping his eyes open, the bus back to the estate had taken it out of him; but they had told him that he still needed to eat which was why he had allowed them to bring him here instead of just going back to his room and going to sleep straight away.

  The food hall unlike normal was packed full, almost every table taken and the noise was something else, with some talking loudly across tables and some whispering; they tried to find a table big enough for them all, or at least a couple of tables close to each other.

  "Something's happened," Troy said over Will's shoulder, who just shrugged; but Troy directed him over to a table that he spotted seeing as he was still kind of out of it.

  "Do you think that it's to do with Domnus being called out of class?" Lucy asked.

  "It can't be that serious, they're still letting us walk around like normal," Selena pointed out.

  "Maybe it's not at the school," Troy suggested as he got himself and Will past the last lot of students for the empty table; they all rushed for a seat, claiming the table before they would go up in turn to get their food so that they wouldn't lose it.

  Lucy almost jumped out of her chair when someone kissed her on the cheek, she swung around to find out who it was, as there were just too many people in the room to focus in on just the one; she found Travis behind her smiling broadly with his two friends flanking him.

  "Hey," Travis said smiling.

  "Can you not do that again," Lucy told him kind of uncomfortable and embarrassed that he had actually kissed her.

  "You know, all the girls in our class would love a kiss from me," Travis told her.

  "Then go and kiss them," Lucy told him as she turned back around to ignore him.

  "That's not very nice, especially considering that we came over to tell you what's going on," Travis told them.

  "You mean, you lot know?" Troy asked wondering how they found out all of this before anyone else did.

  "Of course we do," Liam told him as though this was obvious.

  "There's been another attack, and in board daylight," Travis told them.

  "Half a dozen, in three cities; all today," Reed told them.

  This made Will look up. "That can't be,"

  "Yes it can, unless you actually thought the thing behind all of this had been stopped and forget to tell the rest of us," Travis said.

  Everyone at the table all looked at Will, they had thought the same thing, that whoever was behind this wouldn't be able to carry on without the book, but it looks as though they've somehow found away around it.

  "Do you lot know something that we don't?" Travis asked annoyed. "Come on guys, we've kept you in the loop, do the same, share and share a like,"

  "We thought we found something out, but I guess it was nothing now," Will told him as he slumped back in his chair; wanting to get rid of that book now as soon as possible, especially considering that it now has no hold over this Being.

  "Okay seriously guys, you need to tell us what you've found out," Travis told them.

  Liam looked around the room. "We'll come over to your common room later and you can fill us in on what you've found,"

  "Liam's right, they're just too many people here," Reed agreed. "We might be able to help,"

  "We'll see you in a bit then," Travis told them, before he allowed his friends to steer him away.

  They waited a couple of minutes before any of them spoke, just in case.

  "I thought it was the book," Jess said.

  "We all thought that it was the book," Lucy told her.

  "I want to get rid of it," Will told them yawning again.

  "Hey, I know what we can do with it...we can berry it in the forest behind the dorm," Alex said smiling. "No one will know where it is then."

  "That's just stupid," Selena told him. "Some one will see if you go out with that book and start digging up the grounds,"

  "He might actually have a point," Eddie told them. "We don't want anyone else to have it, and we want to know where it is; but no where near any of us. It'll still be close,"

  "It's insane," Selena said as she stood with Libby to get something to eat, also thinking that it was strange that Eddie of all people would agree to one of Alex’s stupid ideas.

  "At the moment that's all we've got, unless we can think of anything else," Lucy said getting up quickly following them, as she was kind of hungry.

  They all ate before going back to their common room to check if Travis and his friends had turned up yet, not wanting to sneak off anywhere with them three lurking around to find out what else they knew; and unfortunately they were already there waiting, which meant they couldn't deal with the book just yet, unless they split up.

  "Will you be alright?" Troy asked.

  "Cause, simple," Methos said dismissively walking off with Eddie. "We'll be back soon,"

  "We're so going to get into loads of trouble for this," Alex said before they went in.

  "We were starting to think that you weren't going to turn up," Liam said as they all walked into the room and over to join them, and watched as Lucy sat in-between Jess and Selena making sure that Travis couldn’t get her; which Liam of course found quite funny but managed to keep a straight and not say anything. It didn’t mean that he wouldn’t say anything later once they were alone.

  "So what do you want to know?" Travis asked.

  "How bad were the attacks?" Lucy asked straight away.

  "A couple of them are already dead, the rest are in that statue like coma," Travis told her.

  "There were sightings this time, and the attacks were different," Reed told them.

  "Veins and did anyone finally see it?" Will asked as he tried to focus sitting forward.

  "How'd you know about the veins?" Travis asked.

  "Does it matter?" Will said dismissively.

  "It does, if you lot know more than us...especially being first years and all," Travis said.

  "Some one said that they saw a figure in black armour," Reed told them, and they all looked at each other. "So you know about that as well,"

  "Well, haven't you lot been busy?" Liam said smirking.

  "Actually the real question is who's controlling the Black Knight?" Lucy said.

  "The Shadow Order," Will told them. "But I haven't a clue what they're called...they just want the power that it can absorb,"

  "You actually saw that?" Lucy asked him surprised.

  "Among other things," Will said rubbing his eyes.

  "Is he alright?" Travis asked.

  "Just tired," Will answered.

  "They said that you weren't seriously harmed by that thing," Reed said; and again they all looked at each other as though wondering how much to tell them.

  "We thought that it was controlled by an...object...which we found...I think it's that what's draining me," Will told them. "But we're dealing with it,"

  "So you've given it a name and you found an object. Well that puts us to shame," Travis said scowling.

  "We found several stories...but no name for what it is," Reed told them. "Only Black Rose of Death,"

  "It summ
ons it and targets," Lucy told them, making them all look at her. "It’s what it’s made up of, as it's not a real rose but a magical one,"

  "So, we've found the same thing, how come the teachers or the police haven't yet?" Travis asked.

  "Perhaps they didn't know about the rose," Troy suggested. "They're probably still thinking that it's just part of what's been killed off around the same area,"

  "Shouldn't they have still tested everything that was affected?" Lucy asked.

  "She's got a point," Liam agreed. "Perhaps, they do know something like us, but just not enough to actually do anything about it,"

  "Have you lot got a plan?" Travis asked.

  "We don't do we?" Jess whispered nervously leaning into Lucy.

  "At the moment no..." Lucy answered, and disappointment seemed to settle over them all as they waited for Methos and Eddie to return and tell them how it went moving the book, of course they were all hoping that it would get done without any problems.

  Lucy finally got back to her room after cornering Will and getting him to properly agree to a few more tests in their own arena, she wanted to know how bad it was and just hoped that he would get better now that the book wasn't so close to him; but she was still going to contact Doctor Wray and tell him what's happened. Which is how she found herself sat at the computer again, but she was a little nervous considering the attacks today, meaning that he was going to be even busier, but he had found the time to contact her the last couple of times, so hopefully he'll be able to now.

  To: - Doctor S.Wray

  From: - Luna

  Doctor Wray

  I know you must be even more busy with the attacks today, but I was hoping that you could spare a couple of minutes to check something out for me. The student who was attacked, is still showing signs that he's being drained; he's tired and his magic isn't as strong as it should be.

  I believe that it could still have some sort of hold over him, like with the black roses' that I told you about, perhaps you could look further into that with the others that were affected to see if they're showing the same signs. If they are then you'll have to up the dose that you're giving them, or even something else stronger.

  I hope this helps.

  Luna

  Lucy sent the message hoping that he wouldn't think that she was an idiot, but she couldn't help but worry about this, especially considering there wasn't anything else that she could do to help. She sat there a couple of minutes wondering if he would even get back to her, not that she was expecting anything that night and was about to log off when the computer signalled that she had a new message.

  From: - Doctor S.Wray

  To: - Luna

  Dear Luna

  Thank you for keeping me updated with everything that's going on over there, it is helping us a great deal and you're right it is quite busy over here.

  The cure that we thought was working for a while doesn't seem to be having the affect that we would like it to have. I've got them checking to see if there was any sightings anywhere of black roses' and of course in the wards where they're being looked after, I just hope that it isn't as you fear.

  We're trying to come up with a stronger dose, I've sent you a link with everything that we're using if you would like to add any suggestions I won't be offended; I just hope that we'll be able to figure this out before it's too late.

  Dr S.Wray

  Lucy couldn't believe it; he had actually gotten back to her straight away, meaning that he would have been sat at the computer when she sent the message. Even more surprising was that he was asking her for help, she didn't have a clue about these sorts of thing's, but she would still take a look at what he had sent her; so she opened the attached file which was just a list of ingredients that was in the potion that they had created.

  2parts Bay

  1part Carnation

  2parts Costmary

  3parts Eucalyptus

  2 ground Garlic clovers

  1part Ginger

  1part Lemon

  Lucy knew the ingredients worked well with each other, even if they were just all human ingredients, but what she thought was that it was kind of simple, basic even; something like this should carry more of a punch.

  So she decided to get out all of her books and go through everything that she thought would be helpful in something like this, as it wasn't as though he was expecting her to come up with anything there and then as this was going to take quite a bit of time.

  She told herself that she could do this, she could come up with something to add to these potions, find out just how bad Will is and also revise for her up coming exams; all she had to do was focus.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  The arena was brightly lit with everyone spaced out doing their own thing, as they all had wanted to practice before their exams started, after all of their teachers had given them a long list of things that could possibly be on the tests.

  "Colrus!" Will shouted again, pointing his wand at the table with half a dozen objects scattered on it, but only a small greyish light sparked out of the end of his wand. "The more I try, the worse it gets,"

  Lucy was stood on the other side of the table holding a book, watching what he was doing; she looked over at him as she put her book down still open on the page that she had been reading. "It's not getting worse, actually...you're changing their colour like you're supposed to, but it isn't lasting as long as it should be. Just focus on one, and one colour. You know how it works,"

  "It's like learning all over again," Will said frustrated as he stepped closer to the table. "But it wasn't this hard before, it's like starting over with little or nothing that I had before,"

  "It's just going to take time," Lucy told him, and then asked more hopeful. "Do you think any of those brews I made you helped?"

  "I guess, I don't feel as tired...it's just my magic that I'm worried about," Will told her.

  "It's just going to take time...start small and then work bigger again," Lucy told him. "As long as you can get through the exams, you'll be fine,"

  "I guess," Will said unconvinced, but he still wasn't at the giving up point, but he did need a distraction. "So how are you coming with this new project?"

  "Slow," Lucy admitted, but it had only been a couple of days since the doctor had asked for her help, and she had tried out a couple of brews already on Will.

  Jess came over to join her scowling at the book Lucy had picked up again. "Are you going to help them?"

  "Help who with what?" Lucy asked confused, as there were a few people who now wanted her help and she really didn't have time to do much else.

  "Travis...he asked if you could come up with a summoning potion," Jess reminded her.

  "Oh...that..." Lucy said remembering running into him and his friends earlier that day. "I don't see the point of summoning it if we have no idea how to defeat it. If they can come up with a way to defeat it, then yeah; I'll do the summoning potion,"

  "You can actually do that?" Will asked wondering how she could possible do everything that she said that she can, let alone everything else that she's supposed to be doing, it made him wonder if she even slept at all.

  "Of course...I guess...we have the ingredients for the potions...it'll be the spell to call it to us that'll be the hard part," Lucy told him.

  "Lucy, do you even know how to do a summoning spell?" Troy asked her as he dodged a spell from Alex.

  "I'm sure that we'll all be able to figure something out," Lucy told him.

  "So no," Troy said sounding pleased about this.

  "What's that supposed to mean?" Lucy asked him annoyed.

  "You're kind of scary as it is Lu, before you even started school, and now...well, you know more than us all put together," Alex told her.

  "I read, it wouldn't hurt you to pick up a book," Lucy told him.

  "We read as well," Eddie informed them. "Summoning spells are kind of hard to do, especially considering that there's going to be so many of us. Normally it would j
ust be one person to focus on what they want, with all of us.... Well it'll either help, with there being more power, or it won't work because there's too many minds thinking different things. Some want it to come and some won't, no matter how much we might say we do. We won't because of what it can do to us,"