SWNOVELS Chapter Chapter Thirty-Two
It was deathly quiet in the yard. No one dared breathe.
Two or three minutes passed in this stony silence before murmured moans and cries of pain began to fill the night air, and Duchaine spoke the words, “It’s over,” marking the official end of the battle. As teachers and staff who had been watching from a safe distance trickled over to help the injured Ussanes, Duchaine marched through the yard, delivering sharp thrusts with his stang into the bodies of fallen trolls, making sure they were well and truly dead.
“Nick, to me,” the warlock growled.
Head drooping, Nick followed Duchaine over to a private spot. “Sir?”
“Are you injured?”
Nick shook his head.
“Then help me drag this trash into a pile to burn,” indicating the mythic bodies and limbs.
“Sir?” said Nick, tossing a stone forearm and hand into the pile, “How did the trolls—”
“What were you doing out here?” Duchaine snapped. “You have any idea how dangerous it is around a troll horde? You could’ve gotten yourself killed. You don’t think, boy. You never think.” The big man dragged a corpse over to the pile and impaled it when it groaned.
When he felt brave enough to speak again, Nick said to Duchaine, “You’ve never called me ‘boy’ before. The other teachers use that word as an insult. But you never used it—until now.”
The warlock did not respond.
Ten minutes later Nick was standing around the blazing bonfire, the stink of burning troll flesh filling his nostrils like the stench of burning rubber. On the other side of the flames Duchaine stood conversing with Dean Delacort in hushed tones. Another few minutes passed. The warlock trotted over to Nick and said in a whisper, “Follow me, b—Nick.”
Duchaine led the way through the labyrinth, never making a wrong turn. Nick’s few attempts to explain why he’d remained behind—“I wanted to help,’ ‘I figured I was good in the Dreaming, maybe I could take them on’—failed to lure the big guy into conversation.
On his cabin’s porch Duchaine finally spoke, but even then he refused to face Nick, speaking instead to his door. “I have to contact the Department, let them know what has transpired here tonight. Once the Mage officers and warlocks arrive, you and I are going to the DME, where we will make real tangible progress on the Project.”
“Tonight?” Nick asked. Oh good, he thought, I haven’t felt the chill fingers of fear in nearly twenty minutes. I was almost starting to feel normal again. “It’s so late.”
Duchaine whirled around, stooped to stare Nick straight in his eyes. “Yes, tonight. And every night, until we succeed. Because these beasts, these mythics, are getting stronger and smarter, and we are all that stands between them and the rest of wizardkind. If we continue to fail at the Project, these mythics will slaughter us to the edge of extinction, and then they will overrun the wards and fences of this Preserve, and the buffers will become their next prey.”
“But no pressure, right?” Nick said.
He couldn’t be sure, but he thought he spotted the corner of Duchaine’s beard curl into a slight smile. Timidly Nick followed Duchaine into his cabin. There were strange scorch marks on the walls, and vines crawled through the windows. While the warlock uncovered a small quartz ball, Nick watched, enthralled. He knew what this was. Indeed, as Duchaine laid it in one hand, dropping it from its microfiber cloth, it began to brighten, smoky teal light whirling within.
Duchaine put the malachite stone to his lips, activating it. “Grand Vizier Vinculus?”
A minute later the stone began to glow. “Who is this?” said a voice from within the device, and its light pulsed with each word. “Duchaine?”
“Sir,” the warlock spoke in a melancholic but firm voice. “There’s been a breach.”
A pause. “At the Institute?” came the Vizier’s voice.
“Yes, sir.”
“Casualties?”
Duchaine explained about the Ussanes’ injuries. He wasn’t on the stone with Vinculus much longer after this; once everything had been explained and Vinculus had agreed to send out a team of Mage officers and warlocks, the big man covered the speaking stone with its cloth and set it back on its shelf in the little baseball holder.
By nine it was full dark and Nick sat, hands on the edges of the canoe, as Duchaine rowed them up North Creek. The big man had insisted on leaving the moment the warlocks had arrived and he’d showed them the exact location where the horde had breached the ward.
They were passing old North Creek Depot Museum when Nick finally drudged up the courage to ask the question that had been burning its way through his mind for weeks.
“Do you think I can do it? Make the wand, I mean.”
Something rustled in a bush near the bank, and Duchaine’s sharp eyes seemed to glint.
“Sir?”
“Quiet,” Duchaine hissed. “We’ll have to postpone this convo.”
Nick glanced around in the direction Duchaine was staring. He could see nothing in the darkness. “Why do we have to—”
“Because we’re being hunted,” Duchaine explained. “No worries.”
“Like hell no worries,” Nick whispered. “What’s hunting us this time?”
“I don’t know.” To Nick’s terror Duchaine rowed over to the bank and got out of the canoe. “Let me go ask.” The big man took the talisman from around his neck and gave it to Nick.
“Don’t you need this?”
A strange, half-mad smile wormed its way across Duchaine’s face. “I’ve got other defenses. Besides, giving it to you makes me come across as noble and brave. See you in a few.” He drew his athame, assumed a hunched over posture, and then rushed into the shadows and the brush of the woods. Within five seconds all trace of the warlock had vanished.
As he was neither highly trained nor ferociously armed, Nick placed the charmed necklace around his neck, grabbed the paddle, pushed off from the bank until he was safely in the center of the creek, and then sat perfectly still. It was difficult to focus on the woods, as the canoe kept rocking, its fiberglass sides sloshing in the water. “Sure, you go running off into the forbidding forest while I sit here in the dark and wait for some werewolf or Dementor to finally finish me off. No-no, you go on ahead. I’m fine with waiting alone—”
His lips smacked shut as the crack of a twig snapping caught his attention.
An ear-piercing shriek followed the crack. Nick was tempted to row down the creek when more rustling and other, stranger sounds began to fill the night air. Capping off the cacophony was the growl of a large cat. His dad had warned Nick about there being cougars in the Adirondack Mountains, but what with all the hoopla he’d been hearing about mythics, he’d yet to give proper frightened thoughts to good old fashioned wolves, bears, and cougars.
As water continued sloshing against the canoe, sounding more and more like some nefarious beasty trying to claw its way up, Nick fingered Duchaine’s talisman. It was too dark to make out any details; with the cloud cover there wasn’t even any starlight to go by.
This realization prompted a memory. He dug into his pockets and found it: the gobstone he’d dug out of the earth an hour or so ago.
Nick clutched it tightly in both hands, and then poured a minute portion of his energy and will into it. The dark blue stone, jagged with veins of amethyst, began to glow. Its eerie yet warm light expanded. Ripples in the water glowed as the gobstone did its work.
From darkness beyond the reach of his light came an echoing cry; the cougar was getting closer, and by the sound of things it had found some prey.
“Stop shaking, scaredy cat,” Nick chastised himself as he noticed the light trembling in his grasp.
From the bank of the creek came a sudden rustling. Footsteps pounded against the dirt.
Reeds wavered as a hulking figure came trouncing out of the darkness; Duchaine was racing for the bank, and he was carrying something over his shoulder. Could it be the cougar?
“Nick!” the warlock hissed. “Row over here, now.”
Nick flinched at his tone, dropped the gobstone and paddled over to Duchaine. The moment Nick reached the bank the big man dropped his burden into the canoe, parked his generously sized rump into his seat and kicked off. He snatched the paddles from Nick and rowed away with gusto. Within two minutes they’d lost sight of their unfortunate debarkation.
After grounding the stone’s light, Nick leaned forward to steal a better look at Duchaine’s quarry.
He recoiled, bolted back upright. It couldn’t be.
“Is that . . . is that Wut Wen?”
The warlock nodded.
“Wh—did you kill her?”
“Can’t really be sure it’s a ‘her’,” Duchaine continued to paddle, his breathing starting to return to normal.
Nick asked, “You mean you think Wut is a transgender?”
Duchaine snorted, a response that disgusted Nick. “Shifters don’t possess gender until they choose the sex of the person they are imitating.”
This was too much. It was out there, beyond-the-left-field-pole out there, but then, so was his entire life.
“The Wen twins are shifters?” Nick deduced, still not quite believing it. “What were they doing at the school? They didn’t attack anyone.”
“Don’t know,” Duchaine muttered. “But you can bet your bottom dollar I’ll be asking it that when we get it back to the Department. My guess is they were stationed there because of you. The Wen twins never registered at the Institute before this year—or in other words, until you showed up. Probably they were seeking information on the W.A.N.D. Project.”
“What?” Nick shrilled. “How could they even know about it, let alone that I was in it?”
A sarcastic laugh erupted from Duchaine’s mouth. “Sometimes I have to remind myself what all you don’t know. But then, I haven’t taught you about shifters yet, so we’ll look the other way on that hole in your education. Shifters make the perfect spies. Down to the last cell they can replicate anyone and infiltrate anyplace. For years now there’s been some paranoia that there’s a shifter in the Department. This—” he kicked at the unconscious form “—would seem to prove the rumors. If there was a shifter in the Department, it would know about the Project, and therefore about you. Wut was probably cozying up to you, hoping to eventually seduce information from you.”
“Eew,” Nick shivered. “Wait, what information? About how to make a wand?”
Duchaine paused in his rowing and leaned forward. “Can you imagine wands in the hands of mythics? In some ways it would be worse than in the hands of a sorcerer. After all, there are only about a dozen sorcerers on the Preserve. There are thousands of mythics.”
A minute or two later Nick realized something else through the fog of his unease. “Where’s her—its—sister?”
“Dead.”
Nick was speechless.
“It paused to shift into a cougar,” Duchaine explained. “I found the dead cat beside the shed skin of Hu Wen. It wasn’t difficult to figure out what happened. So I followed the paw tracks and pretended to back away once I tracked it down—then I pounced. Took it by surprise. No worries.”
He couldn’t believe it. The twins were shifters, mythics in disguise.
The Department of Magical Enforcement was a hive of activity when they arrived a half hour later. Mage officers marched by as Nick and Duchaine entered. No one gave them a second glance, despite the slender unconscious body slung over the warlocks’ shoulder. Maybe the sight of Duchaine with dead or subdued mythics was a common sight in this place.
“Go up to the clubhouse,” Duchaine commanded. “I’ll meet you up there in a few. I need to put this one on ice.”
Nick found Arthur Penrose working alone in the laboratory, attempting to affix a gem to one of a half dozen wand blanks arranged along the bench top.
“What is that? Amber?” Nick asked, spotting the yellowish stone in Arthur’s pliers.
“Yep,” the young warlock said, tongue poking out from between his lips like a gopher out of its hole as he worked. “Amber is an all-purpose spell strengthener. I figure, what the spell? You know?” He laughed at his own quip, a hiccupy sort of noise. “Anyway, this is the one,” he held up both gem and wood shaft and shook them a little. “I’m sure of it this time.”
“And how many times has that been said in this place over the past decade and a half?”
“Once or twice?” Arthur joked.
Nick gave him a quizzical look. “You haven’t heard, have you?”
“I haven’t heard anything,” Arthur said. “I’ve been holed up here for the past two days cutting and fitting blasted gems. Why, did something happen?”
Nick explained about the breach. This, at last, convinced Arthur to set his work down and turn his attention onto Nick. “You’re kidding! I can’t believe that. The Vizier has sent people there, right?”
“Yeah,” Nick said. “Duchaine waited until they arrived before he would let us leave.”
Arthur was quiet a moment, shaking his head. “Duchaine expects you to work overtime on the Project, huh? Well, this should help: those metal rods you ordered came in,” Arthur turned back to his amber gem. “Master Bailey left them on the break room table—after opening the box, of course.”
“Of course. Thanks,” Nick muttered, walking away.
Old Bailey had unofficially declared himself Nick’s den mother. Everything Nick ordered and every experiment he wanted to try required Bailey’s approval first and every failure reinforced the old man’s determination to question everything Nick did.
He found the box on the table. Lying snugly inside were two dozen metallic rods, varying in length from ten to sixteen inches and in diameter from one-quarter to three-quarters of an inch; some were tapered, some boasted luscious curves and intricately knurled handles. Comprised of bronze, gold, copper, tin, silver, and various alloys, they held—for Nick—the promise of success.
He opted for the foot-long tapered silver blank and returned to the lab to settle in for the working. By the time Duchaine showed up, Nick had engraved the shaft with Enochian sigils he believed would act as focusers for his will. The big cold shadow fell over his hunched form.
“Hey,” Nick looked up at the warlock, stretched. “How’d it go?”
“Wut confirmed it—eventually.” Duchaine dropped heavily into the chair beside Nick. The big man was holding a bowl, and Nick observed fresh bruises on his knuckles. “Oh, I miss the old days. There was us and sorcerers. You tracked a sorcerer, you grabbed the sorcerer—or he killed you. Nice and simple. Now you got shifters who can be anyone at any time, and wraiths lurking in the shadows, poised to drain your chi. You’ve got trolls rampaging about. And now their king has gone missing, and they run amuck. Herd of animals without him, they are.”
The big man rubbed his face and sighed before leaning forward to inspect Nick’s work. “Whatcha working on?”
“Well,” Nick began, “I’m operating on a theory. Gauss’s Law of Magnetism states that the dispersal of magnetic charges creates magnetic—or, plane—waves, right? Well I think these waves are actually magical in origin, or at least based on principles of magic, primarily the one that says ‘a force effects and alters everything it contacts.’”
A distant look took over Duchaine’s features. “Gauss. Yes, I read him. He said that plane waves require their polarization to be transverse to the direction of propagation. Only, old Gauss didn’t realize what this meant where it concerned magic, did he?”
“Exactly,” Nick continued. He hoisted the powerful magnet he was planning on shaping to fit onto the silver shaft. “Basically my thinking is that if we can channel our energy through the silver, allowing the magnet to harness our bioplasma, we will then be able to direct it transversely, or outwards, in a concentrated force.”
Duchaine smiled at Nick, nodding with eyes closed.
“You have that look,” Nick complained. He practically slammed the magnet onto the bench.
“What look?”
“That look you get whenever I come up with an idea that you or some other warlock has already come up with. Someone already tried this idea, right? Right?” he added impatiently.
Duchaine set his bowl aside and wiped his hands on his jeans. “Ten years ago a fellow warlock named Ryan Mars tried it. As far as we could tell, he managed to attune himself to the vibrational frequency of the earth’s magnetic field. It boosted his psychic energy exponentially—for about five seconds. And then he . . . dematerialized.”
For twenty full seconds Nick could only gawk, mouth agape. He tossed his pencil aside.
“Well that’s just dynamite.”
“It’s okay,” Duchaine said, leaning back tiredly in his chair. “You’ll get it.”
“I’ll get it?” Nick hissed “I’ll get it? How can you say that? Everything I come up with some fecking warlock has already tried. It’s gonna take me fifteen years just to think up the attempts you guys have already done! It’s just . . . I don’t know how you can expect me to come up with the answer. You guys are trained, educated, experienced. I’m just a kid.”
“A kid with magic we don’t fully understand.”
Nick’s felt his face burning. There was no point to this argument; Duchaine just couldn’t understand. So he decided to turn the focus around. “Grand Vizier Vinculus said I should ask you about Agamemnon’s wand.”
The big warlock froze briefly in his movements before setting the bowl onto the countertop. “Ask what, exactly?”
Nick shrugged. “What happened to it?”
For the longest time Duchaine said nothing. When he opened his mouth to speak again, his voice was lower, with a harsh edge to it. “So, he let you in on his little theory, I see. And tell me, Nick, do you believe him? Do you believe Agamemnon’s wand still exists, that it’s been handed down to me and that I . . . what, think it’s just the cat’s pajamas to watch these guys struggle to create something I already have?”
Though he tried, Nick could not read Duchaine’s eyes. He shook his head, stood, and walked away, towards the break room. Maybe he could find a nice Nutri-Grain bar to enjoy.
There were no Nutri-Grain bars to enjoy in the break room.
Duchaine found Nick chewing disinterestedly on an oatmeal cookie and perusing an old edition of Wizards Weekly ten minutes later. He let his shadow hover over Nick until the boy finally glanced up. “Come on. Follow me.”
“Where are we going?” Nick tried to keep the interest out his voice.
“To see an old friend.”
In the dizzying hallway on the path to the stairs, they ran into Bailey. “Hello, Agabus. I just heard from the Vizier; they’ve reconstituted the ward and stationed Martin at the gate to the creek.”
“Excellent,” Duchaine said.
“So,” Bailey eyed Nick suspiciously. “Where are you two off to so late?”
“I’m taking him down to the dungeons to meet Francis.”
Bailey’s wrinkles crinkled. “Why?”
“The boy needs to understand something,” Duchaine said pleasantly. “I believe Francis can help him understand better than anyone else.”
The two grizzled warlocks stared each other down, then Bailey turned to leave with a parting warning: “The door stays closed.”
“Of course.”
Dug out of the mountain itself, the dungeons of the Department were a cold damp display of craftsmanship—and depression. Tepid water dripped from condensation along the rocky ceiling. There was an intense silence Nick heard by the ringing in his ears. For some time they walked along the uneven stone floor until reaching a cavity in the rock, barred by a solid metal door. Only a small foot-square barred window permitted them a view inside the cavity.
Duchaine thrust out a restraining arm, gestured with a nod at the floor. Nick looked down. A faded yellow demarcation line painted about three feet from the door lay before his shoes.
Nick stopped moving and tried not to let his fear show.
In a whisper Duchaine spoke into the cavity. “Hello Francis?”
No response.
“I know you can hear me,” Duchaine said. “You can hear a bear roar a mile away, and you never sleep. So—”
“Good evening, Agabus.” The voice issued from the cavity like a soothing kiss.
A full-body flinch shook Nick to his core. He realized, as he trembled, that he could smell something unnatural here; almost like the otherworldly scent of a mythic.
“How are you this evening?” Duchaine asked.
“I’m still me, if that is what you are asking,” the voice said, smooth as syrup on pancakes. “There is someone with you, old man. A boy wizard. He stinks of alien magic. What is your name, boy?”
Nick cleared his throat and declared in his boldest tough-guy voice, “Nick Hammond.”
“Ah, that explains it,” the voice said. “They’ve been blathering on about you for months. Sometimes, when the air is right and the wind blows south, I can hear them discuss you. Would you like to know what your warlock pals really think of you? What they fear, what they know?”
More than anything, thought Nick. But before he could say this, or ask how the voice could know such things, Duchaine interrupted.
“Nick, this is Francis Ragoczy. He was once a warlock, a thumping good one, too.”
“Why not tell young Nicholas what you believe I am today?”
Duchaine hesitated, hemmed and hawed. Finally he looked Nick in the eyes. “Francis is a vampire. Or rather, he is infected with vampiric venom and is becoming a vampire. One day he will—”
“One day poor Francis will fully turn, or so Agabus here believes. But it hasn’t happened yet, and it never will. I am still me.” The clanging of chains erupted from within the cavity.
While backing up a step, Nick said, “But I thought you said in your book that the warlocks hunted the vampires to extinction within a couple years of M-Day.”
The clanging chains went silent. A quiet insane laugh took up their song.
“We did,” Duchaine nodded. “As soon as we realized one of the mythic species was vampire, and that one bite—without being drained—would infect and turn anyone, including animals and other mythics, we dropped everything and devoted ourselves to experminating the vamps. Soon they were all burned to ash. All except for Dracula.”
“Wait,” Nick almost laughed, “you mean, Dracula? As in, Dracula Dracula, fangs and no reflection?”
“Of course not,” Duchaine said. “It’s just what we called the vampire king. He was faster, stronger, and harder to kill than his minion vamps. We tried everything: spells, curses, herbology, those grenades you saw Smoot using. A warlock named Veronica managed to get close enough to stake him in the heart—he removed the stake and returned the favor. Michael Delving even managed to chop off Dracula’s head, but the bastard put it back on. It wasn’t long before we realized the only thing that would work against this super-mythic was the sun. But no matter our efforts Dracula always escaped before sunrise. We could lead him into a trap, surround him, but he always got away.”
Duchaine paused in his tale.
“Go on, Agabus,” Francis hissed through the door. “Tell them your clever plan.”
“We were desperate, Nick, we had to think outside the box. So I went out and found a buffer sniper. Name of Mason.” He scratched his beard. “Can’t remember if that was his first name, or his last. Hmm. No worries. He was recently retired, dishonorably discharged for unlawful conduct. Apparently he’d killed one too many high ranking Isis baddies. Anyway, I explained the situation, ready to dose him and pull a Mesmer on him if he declined, but wouldn’t you know it, this Mason sniper agreed to help! Turned out he was a fetch. Born into a family of practitioners, but without any magic himself.”
“He believed, then?” Nick said.
Duchaine nodded. “He loaded up a very special old rifle and returned to the Preserve with me. We had a Mage officer with a speaking stone watching his back and keeping in touch with us while we hunted and cornered Dracula one night.”
“And here’s the good part,” Francis said. It came out as a lament. “Don’t leave anything out now, Agabus, old friend. The boy deserves to know. It’s why you brought him here, yes?”
Duchaine continued. “We tracked Dracula to a cabin out on by Keeseville.”
“Keeseville,” came the sibilant voice of Francis. “Now there’s a place to visit.”
“Shut up,” Duchaine pounded on the metal door. Once he’d calmed, he turned back to Nick. “Unfortunately Francis here ran ahead, reached Dracula first. We didn’t know it at the time, because Francis failed to tell us—”
“I had it under control—”
“It’s never been under your control, you can’t control it!” Duchaine peered through the barred window into the door. It was several seconds before he stood back again. “When we caught up, Francis was sitting on a stump. He gestured that Dracula was inside the cabin. We surrounded it, keeping a good distance back, and I contacted the Mage officers. A few minutes later they informed us that Mason was in position. So, we set the cabin on fire.”
“And out came big daddy vampire,” Francis said. “Agabus old man, are you going to tell the boy why you won’t kill me? It is rather telling, the reason. AND IRONIC!”
Nick clamped hands over his ears at the sound of the enhanced voice. It seemed to penetrate his mind.
With Francis’s words echoing in the air, Duchaine continued. “Dracula marched out of the cabin, tore off his burning clothes and stood half naked before us.” Duchaine was quiet a moment, his features haunted with the dark recollections of the past.
“So we engaged him,” he finally said. “It was a mess. People died.”
“Did Mason help at all?” Nick asked.
Duchaine nodded. “Eventually the sniper put a round into Drac’s heart from half a mile away. Damn fine shot.”
“Did it kill Dracula?” Nick’s heart was racing, and he’d almost forgotten he was down here to learn some sort of lesson. He hoped there wouldn’t be a test on this. He sucked at tests.
From the cavity a staccato beat of laughter escaped.
“No,” Duchaine said sadly. “As Dracula clutched his chest, Mason fired another round. This one straight to the head. That brought Drac down. He got back up a bit later. Michael Delving decapitated him, but even that . . . Anyway, the sun finally came up and I said, ‘Hasta la vista, baby.’”
“No you didn’t,” Nick accused.
“No,” Duchaine chuckled. “I didn’t. But the sun did kill him.”
Nick exhaled. “Wow.”
“And now we’ve reached the meaty part of Agabus’ little cautionary tale, isn’t that right, old man?” you could almost hear the sarcasm oozing off of Francis’s words.
“As the sun rose,” Duchaine explained, “Francis started complaining of nausea. His skin was hot to the touch, feverish. He retreated to the shadows. Then he puked his guts up. We figured out what had happened and dragged him down here. It took three of us to restrain the man; he was already getting stronger.”
“And here I sit, thirteen years later. For no reason!”
“You know why you’re down here,” Duchaine said in a whisper. He turned his focus onto Nick, and there was heaviness in his eyes. “If we let him out he’ll drink blood, and once an infected person does that, the transformation will be complete. He’ll lose his connection with humanity—and then we’d be forced to kill him.”
“I’d never drink anyone’s blood,” Francis said.
“Why don’t you just do it now?” Nick asked quietly, though there was no doubt Francis could hear him. “Put him out of his misery.”
“We do not kill our own kind.”
“And there’s the rub,” Francis crooned. There was another rattle of chains. “By not killing me they admit I am one of them, but if they truly believed that I was still a wizard, they’d release me. You see, boy? It is folly and madness. If they would only release me I could help them. I am strong and fast, and my senses are beyond anything they know. I could track and kill mythics all night long without ever tiring.”
“We do not kill our own kind,” Duchaine repeated simply. “It is our highest, most unassailable law. Ask Mr. Pitts why. He’ll love to explain it. Listen, Nick. I brought you down here, I showed you Francis Ragoczy and I told you the tale because I wanted you to understand that warlocks are brothers. And brothers trust each other. When one of us starts keeping secrets, very bad things happen.”
“What an ironic thing for Agabus Duchaine to say,” Francis said.
What secret of Nick’s did Duchaine know? He tried not to think about all his secrets, in case the grizzled warlock was clairsentient. Then again, perhaps if he displayed some trust here, now, with Duchaine, the man might feel obliged to provide some information.
“I just want to know how my parents overcame the voodoo infertility curse to have me.”
Not unexpectedly, Duchaine seemed to grope for a change of subject. He was still muttering nothing important when Francis spoke up.
“Knock the old man out and I will tell you everything you wish to know, young Hammond.”
Duchaine’s eyes widened. He marched back over to the door and gazed through the barred window. For a few moments all was silent. A few muffled words escaped the confines of the cavity, and then Duchaine collapsed, apparently asleep, at the foot of the door.
“Wh—” Nick bent down over his teacher.
“That took longer than expected,” Francis’s voice was clearer, as if the man/vampire were speaking directly into his ear. “Agabus is a tough nut, to be sure, but like all men, he has his buttons. Self-hatred is his. That’s an easy button to push, it just takes time.”
“What did you do?”
“It’s called a glimmer,” Francis explained. “Don’t worry. He’ll recover in a few minutes. I needed a moment to share something with you, without any biased opinions interrupting.” He spoke this last part with a sneer. “You asked why they expected you to solve the wand issues.”
“How could you . . . you heard that? From all the way down . . . oh man,” Nick stammered, mind reeling with the implications. “You’ve been spying on everything that goes on in the Department for thirteen years, haven’t you?” Though he wanted to, though Nick felt a powerful compulsion to step up on his tiptoes and peer through the window into the cavity and sneak a peek at this vampire, he remained crouched over Duchaine’s unconscious body.
He shivered in the damp dark corridor.
“It is curious, is it not?” Francis continued. “You were created on M-Day. Strange coincidence, don’t you think? Wait, wizards don’t believe in coincidences. So then, it must mean something, right?”
He’d often wondered about that geneticist, especially since meeting the man in the mall all those weeks ago. But until recently Nick hadn’t known that he’d been created on M-Day. What Francis said seemed to confirm it. Still, Nick attempted denial: “It doesn’t mean anything.”
“Or, isn’t it much more likely that your creation and the arrival of the mythics are connected? That the man who opened the gateways also had a hand in your creation?”
His flow of blood seemed to stop at this revelation. “You think the Mythmage created me?”
“Can you think of anyone else with the power to overcome the voodoo infertility curse?” Francis’s voice, still so soothing and inviting, had taken on an obnoxious knowing lilt, as if it were kin to Richard’s knowing grin. “Vinculus himself told you that wizardkind knows no such magic. I’m sure most people assume your parents summoned a demon to obtain the knowledge. Your fathers’ summoning skills are, after all, first class.”
It was silent, save for the sound of dripping water for several minutes while Nick riddled this conundrum out.
“It would explain why I share a connection to the mythics, just like the Mythmage. I have his magic.” The world melted away as he considered the implications of this taboo knowledge, kept hidden from him for so long by conniving adults.
Almost hyperventilating in his shock, Nick said, “Wait, if this is true, it means my parents—”
“It means your parents summoned the Mythmage,” Francis confirmed this Worst Possible News Ever. “It means they brought him here and made it possible for the doorways to be created and the mythics brought into our world to wreak havoc and slaughter at will.”
His stomach lurched. Nick turned away from Duchaine just in time to hurl the contents of his last snack onto the cold stone floor. It was too much. It couldn’t be true. But he knew it was. It explained so much. Everything was his parents’ fault. They’d probably cut a deal with the Mythmage to lift the curse. And their sending Nick to the Institute was a pretense; in all likelihood they’d struck another deal, this one with the Department, to have Nick offer his Mythmage-invoked gifts to solve the mystery of the W.A.N.D. Project.
His entire life was just part of some grand scheme.
No! some other part of his brain vehemently declared. My parents love me.
There was only one way to confirm these suspicions and theories, only one way to know for sure exactly what had transpired fifteen years ago.
“You need the Black Mirror,” Francis said, as if reading his mind.
“Yes,” the word escaped Nick’s mouth before he could think or react. “But how?”
A pause.
“You already know how to undo its tethering enchantment. All you need is someone to teach you how to use the Mirror. And the sorcerer who can teach you is on his way here as we speak.”
Still panting, still barely resisting the urge to stand up and peer into the cavity, Nick said, “How can you possibly know all this?”
“Thirteen years with nothing to do but meditate,” Francis’s tone was one of livid animosity. “I’ve learned to travel the back roads of the Dreaming. I’ve discovered ways and means of countering all manner of enchantment. I have even entered the halls of the Akashic Records, where all knowledge and thought is stored.” The man/vampire lowered his voice to a barely audible level. “I know how you can create a working wand.”
“How?” Nick practically begged.
“Release me and I will share everything I know with you.”
Dang and blast. Of course it would come to this. “I’m not releasing the world’s only vampire. If you don’t tell me, the mythics will soon wipe us all out and then they’ll overtake this place. You’ll become some filthy troll’s plaything.”
“You have some fire in you,” Francis laughed, a horrible echoing sound. “That’s good. Tell you what, let’s take a page out of your parent’s playbook; we’ll make a deal. I’ll give a hint, point you in the right direction, and then when you create the wand and do what you must, you will release me.”
“How could I trust you not to kill me once I release you?”
“By that time you will have wizardkind’s most powerful weapon, enabling you to subdue even me.”
“What is the hint?” Nick asked as Duchaine began to stir.
“Only this,” Francis said. “The warlocks have never been able to create the wand using wizarding techniques. And they never will. Though that doesn’t keep Duchaine from trying.”
Five seconds later Nick understood—everything but that last part, about Duchaine. “You mean I’ll need sorcery to create a wand?”
“How fortunate for you, then, that a sorcerer is on his way to take you back to his place, where he is sure to have plenty of instructive grimoires lying around.”
“My head,” Duchaine grumbled as he sat up. “Nick, you all right?”
“I’m fine,” Nick lied.