Crusader

by Andrew Smith

  “I’m beginning to think I should have stayed behind,” Leila said. “I only seem to get in the way during these things.”

  “These things?” Benny repeated

  “Yeah. Admittedly I’ve only done these things twice before, but both times I was un-useful.”

  “When was that?”

  “Did your aunt tell you about finding the Standard of Ur at that Spanish villa?”

  “I think she mentioned it, yeah.”

  “I basically did nothing before I was rendered unconscious. The last time was when I first came to the city. I dropped right out of the air—”

  A small safe popped into existence ten feet above the ground, and crashed to the ground. Benny and Leila side stepped it with practiced ease

  “Like that,” Leila continued.

  “I wish people would be more careful when they dispelled things,” Benny commented.

  “Well, I landed right on the sidewalk outside the tea shop. Twisted my ankle pretty bad. Mme. Rumella came out to help me, and she was in the middle of some caper—”

  “As ever,” Benny interjected.

  “—and I got roped into it.”

  “What was it? Robbery, theft, murder, arson?”

  “Murder. We finally tracked the bastard down. The Peelers were no where to be seen, of course. We broke into his place, he was behind the door with, get this, a frying pan. He knocks me out, and the next thing I know, I wake up in the shop, and the murderer is spirited away to wherever the Peelers put murderers. I don’t even know how she did it, and now I’m walking into a necromancer’s castle? I can only hope all I get is unconscious and not undead.”

  “There’s nothing to worry about, I’ll protect you,” said Benny

  “You’d better,” said Leila.

  The temple loomed ahead of them as the afternoon dwindled. It rested on a slightly raised piece of earth. There was daylight ahead, but the sky above was already tinged with orange. The triangular top of the temple was just visible over the perimeter wall.

  Mary stopped them at the wall. There was no gate to speak of. “I’d better run a check,” she said, hefting a small stone of the path and throwing it over. It landed with a clacking noise on the path within

  “That’s running a check?” Leila asked incredulously.

  “Did you hear anything happen to it?” Mary asked in answer

  “No, but... Ah whatever.”

  Mary flicked her wrist outward. The baton she had been carrying became a torch. She cast the feather spell and leapt over the rustic wall. Mme. Rumella followed suit.

  “I so can’t do that one,” Leila said ruefully.

  “Not to sweat,” said Benny, as he grabbed her by the waist and pulled her close. He removed his wand from the pocket of his flight jacket and pronounced, “Icarus.”

  “Wait, that’s not the same spell.”

  “No,” was Benny’s only reply.

  The pair lifted slowly up from the ground until they hovered about a foot above. Then they shot up, over the peaked wall and into the air above the courtyard of the temple. Mme. Rumella and Mary were walking cautiously forward, Foci out and ready for any sign of trouble. They looked up as a rush of air announced Benny and Leila’s arrival.

  Mary shook her head and muttered ‘idiots’ to the floor.

  “Benny! Get down here right now!” Mme. Rumella pointed her wand and called, “Catena!” A length of chain burst forward impossibly from the Focus to wrap itself around Benny’s ankle. Mme. Rumella ordered the chain to retract, and Benny was dragged to the earth as each link disappeared back whence it came.

  “Hey!” Benny protested.

  “No,” said Mme. Rumella. “Don’t. You can show off for Leila another time, one when we are not doing something dangerous. A basic tip that will keep you in good stead: when breaking into the necromancer’s fortress, being conspicuous is incredibly stupid.”

  “Sorry, auntie,” he mumbled.

  “Mme. Rumella, I’m sure he didn’t mean-”

  “Not now, pet. Come on, two at a time until we reach the door,” she ordered and turned away.

  She and Mary lead the way again. “And stay sharp. Usually when there are no outer defenses, it means the inner ones are twice as deadly,” Mary advised.

  Their path remained quiet on the short distance to temple. There were half a dozen pillars on the short wall, and a small space before a solid wall.

  “The opening is around back,” Leila explained. She looked at the inner side of the defensive wall. “There sure are a lot of porticoes,” she noted. “Actually, I expected that: they were excavated in the normal world a while ago. But how can you tell which one leads to the normal world?”

  “That one,” said the others, pointing.

  Leila said nothing, just walked off down the length of the building. She rounded the wall into the antechamber and stood staring. The original open doorway had been closed of by a giant set of black lacquered doors with iron handles that reached all the way to the ceiling.

  “That unbelievable bastard! How could he do this to an ancient Doric temple. How? This is horrible,” Leila fumed as the others appeared behind her. “And tacky. This isn’t vegas.”

  Everyone looked the door over. Mary tapped four points around it with her Focus. “Stand back,” she warned. “Apriti Inferno,” she said, and the door exploded inward in a thousand shiny, black fragments.

  “You need to teach me that,” Benny announced after a moment’s stunned pause.

  “Some other time,” said Mary, blowing on her torch to light it.

  “You know that sort of sounded like you were opening the gates of hell,” Leila remarked as they stepped through burning debris of door.

  Mary’s only note came in the form of a ‘hmm’ as she pressed forward into the temple. Leila choked on the smoke of the burning lacquer. Benny was behind her, glancing over his shoulder every so often. Leila had removed her fountain pen from her breast pocket. For all the good it’ll do, she thought bitterly.

  They looked around the interior space. There was a large altar at the far side of the room. The temple was fairly large, but open and it didn’t take much of an inspection to reveal it as empty.

  “This is beautiful,” said Leila. “The only thing on this spot in the normal world is like three columns and a bunch of rubble. The site is on an isthmus, hence the name Isthmia. There were some fortifications here in the 12th century, B.C., but the site was abandoned because twelve-to-eight hundred B.C. was basically the dark ages for Greece. The country was seriously depopulated, and they hardly built anything, but then there was a population boom, and they built this Temple of Poseidon. The Isthmian Games started here in the five hundreds, but it looks like the temple appeared in the city before the sports complex was built. Which is too bad, since I’d really like to get a look at-”

  “Leila!” Mme. Rumella whispered urgently. “Could you please be quiet? We don’t know what may be waiting for us round the next corner.”

  “I’ll tell you what. Dust. That’s all we’ve seen so far, dust and that broken chair in the corner. It’s obvious that nobody has lived here for a while. If they ever did. Are you sure this is even where that Lionel guy lived?”

  “Certain,” Mme. Rumella replied. “Look down.”

  “Oh no,” said Leila. There was a large Oriental rug on the ground. “If what I think is under there is actually under there, I’m going to be vein-burstingly angry.”

  Mme. Rumella grabbed one corner of the red and gold carpet and Leila another. They threw it off to reveal the trap door.

  “Never let me near him,” Leila said through gritted teeth, “I will tear him limb from limb I swear, I swear I’ll do it. That, or get him a job decorating at the Luxor.”

  The space below appeared to be a castle dungeon. Mary lit her torch: the ones on the wall were out. There was a living space and a large bed with black linens that Mary cracked jokes about whenever she got the chance

  There were several cell
s along one wall. One was occupied by a trio of cobwebbed skeletons. Leila closed her eyes and asked aloud, “Those are real, aren’t they?”

  “Probably, yes.”

  The space below appeared to be a match in dimensions for the space above, and just as devoid of necromancers. There was another Oriental rug. Leila kicked it aside, but there was just a stone floor beneath it.

  “There’s nothing here. We should go,” she said.

  “I fear you’re right. This place has been uninhabited for some time. If Lionel moved, it must be for a reason,” Mme. Rumella mused

  “Maybe he couldn’t pay the rent,” said Leila. Everyone looked at her. “Okay, joke.”

  “I should hope so, pet.”

  “So what now?” Mary inquired.

  “I don’t know,” said Leila, “but I’d be grateful if we could discuss it elsewhere.”

  Mme. Rumella agreed, cast the feather spell and leapt from the nearest window. The others followed.

  * * * *

  Delilah Runestone cast the feather spell and leapt over the fence at St. Vrain manor, heading to her favorite window. Tina Virtue’s advice was still ringing in her ears from the previous day. Perhaps it would be easier if she weren’t doing this alone. They might believe her, after all, she had a reputation for being dangerous, but it was nowhere near as bad a reputation as Mary, Queen of Scots’ was. And she was a good guy. Plus, she had no evil schemes on her record as yet. Still, she had her doubts. There was a small voice in the back of her mind, telling her that she must do this alone. As much as she wanted to tell it to shut up, it rang true, and Delilah had resigned herself to that truth, to this course.

  In her distracted walk across the garden, she had almost walked straight into the wall. She barely stopped herself, and quickly ducked into naked bushes under the office window. The street nearby was already dark, but the sun was only now setting. She could see no sun, fairly usual in the city, but the sky above was tinged orange and cooling rapidly.

  Delilah settled herself in to listen. Suerte would be mayor in a matter of days, that she knew. The thing that was bothering her, to the point of distraction, was that she had no idea what he was up to. Other than a rather flashy death wish, she saw no reason why someone would want to be mayor of the Woven City. There must be something she was missing. When in doubt, eavesdrop. Or at least, that was Delilah’s current philosophy. She hoped Suerte would say something specific about his plans. He had received a report from what sounded like somewhere outside the city, from a ‘Mr. Trainer’. Deiliah wondered if it was Holden Trainer. She hoped that, if it was in fact him, he wouldn’t be showing up for a while yet. Trainer was a top-flight professional bad guy, and there were enough of them on the scene already.

  The Spanish-accented voice came out through the window as the candidate whisked into the office. He sounded upset. His voice was overloud and layered with anxiety. “Are you sure there wasn’t a woman with him?” Suerte demanded. “Are you absolutely sure?”

  “We’re sure,” came a second, beefy sort of voice. “It was just the one little guy.”

  Suerte uttered something in Spanish that, Delilah was relatively certain, was terribly rude. “That’s not a hell of a lot better,” Suerte spat at the other man, tripping a little over the colloquial phrase.

  Delilah frowned. What was he talking about?

  “Listen,” said the second voice impatiently, “the Service sent over two full dozen more guards. Half of them are top rated, and know a lot more offensive sorcery than the rest of us, but it’s going to cost you.”

  “You’ll be paid when I am in office,” Suerte assured him

  The man didn’t reply, not verbally at least. Suerte wasn’t talking about his plans for that office, but suddenly Delilah was more interested in the mysterious ‘little guy’ who had the candidate so rattled.

  “Care to join me in a drink?” Suerte asked over the clinking of glass.

  “Just one,” said the second man.

  They were quiet. Delilah wondered whether she should wait and see if something else would be said. Her question was answered for her as a cry went up and half a dozen large men in dark suits appeared, rushing around the side of the building, nightsticks in hand. Each one had a small gold star pinned to his lapel. These must be the top rated men she had heard of. Delilah had tucked her Focus back up the sleeve of today’s black dress, but there was something she could do without it. Her eyes flashed and the world became painfully black. The guards we immediately lost and disoriented. Delilah alone could see the blackness. Suerte rushed to look out the window. From the outside, the blackness was a strange amorphous shape, with jagged edges everywhere. Some jutted into his house, and the walls there ceased to exist. He swore and ran like hell.

  Delilah flicked the wand from up her sleeve. She said an old Japanese word, the infinitive ‘to bind’. Sorcerous ropes of a twisting blue-black leapt from her open hand to one of the guards. They were still running, albeit in a scattered fashion now. The ropes secured themselves around his hands and feet. His momentum carried him forward and he planted his face in the withered grass. In the darkness, he appeared to be floating. His surprised shout set off a volley of force-of-light orbs from the others. Red and yellow orbs flew this way and that. One guard managed to hit another in the face with a yellow one. He flew into what Delilah could tell was the mansion’s wall and slid to the ground. She quickly bound the guard who had fired the shot.

  From the spring in her step, she could tell that the feather spell had yet to wear off. She leapt towards one of the other guards, carrying easily through the air. Approaching, she pointed the heel of her boot towards his face. It made contact with a satisfying crack as the guard was pushed to the ground. Delilah landed softly with her heel still on his temple, then stepped off and kicked him in the back of the head for good measure. She could sense the blackness beginning to weaken. It could only last for so long, she knew. She quickly bound the last two, recast the feather spell, just in case, and leapt away from the scene. The blackness flickered out, and she had to close her eyes for a moment before she could survey the scene. The six top men lay fallen all about the yard, four still awake and struggling futilely against their bonds. Delilah smiled wickedly and leapt away along the rooftops into the waning light.

  * * * *

  On the walk back, the Mary and the others had already decided to call it a day. It was getting dark. Dark was no time to sneak into the necromancer’s manor if you didn’t have to.

  The tea shop came into view as they entered the curving street a short distance away. Mme. Rumella noticed two indistinct figures sitting at the bar. As they came into focus, she recognized the first as Voz. And the second.

  Mme. Rumella rushed to the head of the group and entered. There he was. “Hunter Blue!”

  “Hi,” he said, with what could be considered a sheepish wave.

  She shuffled across the room and gave him a big hug. “Well, blue-eyes, what brings you back to town? Have you heard about Lionel?” Mme. Rumella inquired, puzzled.

  “Lionel? No,” Hunter replied as Mary silently shepherded the others to the far side of the room.

  “Just here to visit me, are you? I knew you couldn’t stay away forever,” Mme. Rumella said slyly.

  Hunter grinned. “Actually that’s not it. I’m here for Suerte,” he revealed

  “The mayoral candidate Suerte? Why?”

  “He was the one,” Hunter said.

  Mme. Rumella appeared puzzled once again. “The one who...?”

  “He killed her. He killed Annalisa.”

  “Oh, Hunter so he was the other person in the manor.”

  The others looked on from the far corner while pretending not to look on from the far corner. A wooden chess set that was intended to stay in the far corner, but often found itself on other parts of the floor, lay in front of them. Leila absently arranged the pieces in the proper initial order

  “What’s their deal?” Leila whispered to Mary

/>   “Hunter was one of the people who helped Mme. Rumella stop Lionel last time. He disappeared afterwards,” Mary disclosed. “Do you play?”

  “Um... Sure,” said Leila.

  Mme. Rumella broke off and attempted to straighten out Hunter’s shirt. “Would you like a cookie? I have some left over from this morning,” she offered.

  “This morning?” Hunter inquired.

  Mme. Rumella quickly explained the situation and this morning’s trip to the Mulhoy, as well as the temple search from which they had just returned.

  “So he’s out of the temple?”

  “Not just out, but long gone as well. There was dust an inch thick in there.”

  “Temples get dusty,” Hunter shrugged.

  “Perhaps,” said Mme. Rumella. “Would you like to help us with this?”

  Hunter’s mouth twitched. “Maybe,” was all he said.

  “Come on: ancient, written sorceries. It’s bound to be dangerous,” she enticed.

  Hunter grinned again. “Alright, but I’m still busy with Suerte. I don’t want to risk that one woman getting to him before I do.”

  Mme. Rumella frowned. “What woman is that?”

  “I don’t know who she is, but she’s been eavesdropping under Suerte’s window often enough. No idea what she’s up to.”

  “What does she look like?” Mme. Rumella asked urgently

  Hunter told her.

  “Won’t you excuse me for a moment? And do help yourself to cookies,” she said, summoning them. The safeguard prevented instantaneous summoning even within the building, but on command, the leftover cookies lifted themselves off the counter of the upstairs kitchen and flew downstairs. Without waiting for a reply, she hurried across the room. “Mary!”

  “What is it?” Mary asked, pondering her next move on the chess board in front of her.

  “Hurry up,” Leila implored.

  “Patience,” said Mary.

  “It’s Delilah, Mary,” Mme. Rumella intoned

  Mary looked over her shoulder at Mme. Rumella. “Where?”

  “Outside Suerte Headquarters, apparently.”

  “What’s she doing out there?”

  “I haven’t the vaguest idea,” said Mme. Rumella. “But it is something to think about. As I earlier suggested, perhaps her point in telling us not to get involved was in fact the opposite. Perhaps she wants us to work on finding the Standard for her while she does other work.”