The gathering darkness swirled and grew thicker. It coalesced into a ten-foot tall bull with huge horns and massive wings of smoke and flame. The fiendish creature had a human face. Its eyes burned like live coals.
The fiend moved its head from left to right. When its gaze fell over the young sorcerers, it gestured impatiently. An invisible force lifted Rachel and her friends and threw them.
“Varenga, Vroomie!” Rachel shouted, as she careened through the air. She reached out toward the broom, where it lay by the side of the duck pond. If she could catch it before she struck the ground, she could avoid more bruising.
The broom rose obediently and shot through the air toward her.
It did not reach her in time.
The ground rose rapidly and slapped her, knocking the air from her lungs. Only then did her broom arrive. Breathless, she grabbed at it and missed. The front of the polished haft thumped her in the forehead.
Rachel lay on her back, unable to breathe, the scope of the world reduced to the throbbing pain in her head. She blinked several times, fighting tears. Around her, the others stirred. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Sigfried and Nastasia sit up, unharmed. Xandra and Joy were both moaning, and Zoë had grabbed her shoulder and was rocking back and forth. Valerie must have landed painfully, because Rachel could hear her whimpering.
Yet, somehow, she had kept her hold on the goose.
The fiend looked upward. It gestured with its horns. From the gaping hole in the tower, five figures in purple robes emerged. They floated though the air, coming to land on the ground before him. Three of them moved freely. Two were still frozen. Despite the throbbing in her head, Rachel could not help smiling.
The fiend snorted fire. The two paralyzed men began to move.
Rachel sighed.
Caw!
The harsh cry of a raven sounded nearby. Or perhaps it was the Raven, for a cut appeared across the fiend’s shoulder. Black ichor flowed from the wound. It bellowed. Rachel and the others grabbed their ears in pain. Snorting, the fiend pawed the ground with one foot. The earth shook. Sniffing the robed figures, it indicated one of them with its long horns. “You! Come forward. I must clothe myself in living flesh, else my brother will evict me from his world.”
The man stepped forward nervously. The bull dissolved into darkness, which swarmed through the air and down the man’s throat. The man in purple gasped and gargled, his eyes bulging. Then he straightened, looking suddenly larger. His eye sockets held burning coals.
“Great Moloch!” The tallest man knelt before his possessed comrade. “We thank you for answering our call. Our master, Azrael, has been captured. We ask that you come to our aid and free him. Or, if it should please you, help us to destroy this world!”
“Destroy the world?” The fiend regarded him with his burning eyes. “It does no good for my kind to destroy a world. Calamities are but breeding grounds for martyrs. Opportunities for victims to turn to the Enemy in their last hour.”
“B-but…” The man faltered. “Are you not one of the demons who serv…,” he cleared his throat quickly, “…who lead Veltdammerung?”
“I am not Moloch. He sleeps. I am his servant Morax. My lord hungers after the destruction of worlds—but those dwelling within must be the engines of their own downfall.” Morax lifted the head of the man he now wore like a coat, scenting the air with breathy sniffs. “Too much innocence and hope still clings to this place. But soon…soon, with our help, it will be ready for harvesting.” He looked left and right. “Where is the sacrifice prepared for my coming? The tender morsel?”
“Lord Morax, we furnished the sacrifice as was due, but…,” the tall man’s voice shook, “these meddlesome children stole it from us. Eat them instead!”
Valerie’s voice also trembled, but that did not keep her from quoting under her breath: “If it wasn’t for those meddling kids and their dragon…”
Morax glanced toward where the Roanoke students lay sprawled across the ground and dismissed them with scowl. “They are too old. Too impure.”
“We are not impure!” the princess murmured indignantly.
Xandra, her hood askew, so that it revealed one lavender eye, leaned over and lay a hand on Nastasia’s shoulder, whispering, “Princess, this is one you just might want to let go.”
“Come on, Lucky!” Siggy rolled onto the balls of his feet, crouching with his trumpet in hand. “I think we can take him.”
“No!” Valerie rammed into him, bowling him over and falling on top of him, miraculously still holding tight to the goose. “Are you crazy! He’s letting us live. Let’s go!”
Siggy lay on the ground, his expression fraught with conflict, as if torn between his desire to attack the fiend and the assault on his senses from the sheer cuteness and feminine warmth of his girlfriend, who lay on top of him.
“Ub! Glab!” he cried, waving his arms and legs.
The goose honked raucously.
Rachel regarded the possessed man intently. She replayed the portion of her memory of when the Bull stood outside his fleshly vessel. This was not the one. This fiend was not the thing that had started to appear in the tower chamber. That thing must have been the master, Moloch. Rachel shivered at the memory.
“I thirst. Bring me the blood of innocents to drink,” called Morax. “I hunger, bring me the flesh of suckling babes.”
“Eew,” murmured Zoë.
“Ditto,” Xandra muttered. Rising to her feet, she pulled her hood down over her eyes. “What is that thing?”
“A demon,” Rachel whispered back. “A creature of malice that desires to do as much harm as possible.”
Xandra tugged her hood lower over her nose.
“Yes. Lord,” cried the tall man in purple. “Of course, your wickedness. Immediately.”
“I go now to my place of power. There to prepare all that is necessary to wake my lord. We shall call him upon his name day. He shall rise again and wrap all the world in his ruthlessness. Men shall slay their wives for favors. Women shall sell their children for trinkets. Thus the whole world shall rush willingly to its destruction.”
“Of course, Great One.”
“Call me when my feast is prepared.” The fiend gestured toward Rachel and her friends, without even bothering to glance their way. “And kill them.”
The fiend started to fade. As an afterthought, before it van-ished, it waved its other hand toward the nearly eight-hundred-year-old keep.
Grrrrrrrcckkkrruuuukkkk!
The keep imploded. Rocks tumbled. With a cacophony of grinding basalt, the entire structure collapsed inward. The earth shook. Dust rose in a huge cloud.
Joy screamed.
Rachel and her friends fled from the falling rocks. They ran until they were in the midst of a grove of fig trees, some two hundred feet away from the pond. Behind them, stray pieces of the tumbling tower slammed into the ground. The purple-clad men followed more slowly—ugly, eager expressions on their faces. The falling chunks of rock did not hit them.
The tallest one drew out the fish-headed rod. The other three remaining men held up their Kalesei Astari and began to chant. The quartz crystals glowed with an eerie blue light.
“Quick! We must retreat!” cried the princess. She glanced at the tumbling keep, the wide garden, and the high basalt wall encircling them. “Perhaps all but one of us should climb into my purse, and the last person could take Rachel’s broom and fly us over the wall to safety!”
“Escape!” Siggy cried in outrage. “Let’s attack!”
“If we leave,” Rachel spoke urgently, “they’re going feed a baby to that…thing! It’ll take time for their fetches to manifest. We must stop them now…before the fetches come!”
“Attack how, Mr. Smith, Miss Griffin?” Nastasia asked severely. “With the three spells we have learned in the month since school started?”
“Yes! Exactly! And with our knives or fists or sticks. Bite through their kneecaps, if we can’t do anything else!” cried Siggy, gnashing his teeth to show his willingness. “Besides, we have Lucky. He can light their heads on fire and then eat them from the feet upward, while they’re burning alive, screaming. That’ll teach them to kill babies! What an outrageously ridiculous idea—even for evil blokes!” He paused. “Oh, wait. You all are girls.”
Siggy turned to Lucky. “Boys are yellow-bellied cowards when they turn tail and flee. Does that rule apply to girls?” Lucky shrugged. Sigfried turned back to the others. “On second thought, the princess is right. You girls should retreat.”
“I’m not running anywhere.” Zoë scrounged around in her backpack and drew out her greenstone Maori war bat. “I’m ready! Let’s jump ’em!”
“Too late,” murmured Rachel. “The fetches are here.”
Creatures manifested before the robed men: a large black horse with glowing red eyes, a two-headed wyvern-like beast about five feet in length with fins for feet, and a dog made out of smoke and shadows. All three beasts turned and glared at the children. The horse pawed the ground. The dog growled. The two-headed dragon-thing spat a sharp glittering gemstone, which flew quite a distance to clatter at Joy’s feet. It looked like a ruby.
Siggy picked the gem up eagerly. It burst into flame on his palm. Shouting, he dropped it into a flower bed, where it smoldered among the dry stalks of last summer’s irises.
The earth beneath their feet shook again; more of the keep collapsed. The northeast tower, on the far side, crashed to the ground.
“Kill the Romani children,” the shortest of the purple-clad men ordered the beasts.
“Master, beware!” The smoky dog spoke in a voice that barked and snapped. “They are more than they seem!”
“What did that guy just say we were?” Siggy cleaned out his ear with a finger and then leaned forward, his hand cupped around his ear as if to listen better.
“Gypsies,” replied Rachel. Her eyes were fixed on the fetches. Her mind whirled, searching for options.
“Why do they think that?” Joy glanced from the men to the princess’s blond ringlets.
“Because Siggy and I used enchantment against them,” Rachel murmured back. “In this part of the world, those kinds of spells are secrets known only to Gypsies or Bavarians. Not a lot of Roanokeans here.”
She eyed the men carefully. If the Veltdammerung followers understood that they were not facing mere enchanters would they be cowed? Might they listen to reason? Or even flee?
Between the students and the purple-robed men, the gardens were strewn with debris from the fallen keep. Rachel broke away from the others and ran toward the men. About fifty feet from them, she leapt onto a large chunk of masonry. The purple-robed figures watched her, curiosity warring with their sneers of disdain.
“Listen to your fetch!” Rachel’s voice rang out. “We are not merely enchanters! We are students from Roanoke Academy for the Sorcerous Arts!”
“Roanokeans!” All four men took a step back.
Rachel crossed her arms and glared at them.
“We should flee,” the master of the kelpie urged.
“We cannot,” said the tallest. “Lord Morax has commanded us to kill them.”
“But…they are Roanokeans,” cried the shortest one, the master of the barghest. “They know spells we have never heard of.”
“They are but children,” the tallest one scoffed. “How much can they know?”
“A great deal,” Rachel shouted fiercely. Her eyes blazed, her face shining with righteous fury. “Information loves us. It comes and finds us.”
Both the robed men and her friends gazed at her oddly. Blushing, she hurried on. “Before you kill us…answer a question: Why? Why destroy the world? I mean, you live here, too!”
“Yeah,” Sigfried chimed in, coming closer. “Where will you keep all your stuff?”
“This world has become poisoned and corrupt,” said the tallest one. “It is polluted by the filth that lives here. Filth that abuses children; mistreats minorities; destroys the resources of the earth; cares only for selfish pleasures. This filth must be eradicated.”
“So you are going to sacrifice an infant to keep people from abusing children?” Rachel rubbed her temples, his craziness threatened to make her head ache. “What about the innocents…the people they are abusing? Won’t they die, too?”
“They are better off dead than living in such squalor and depredation,” said the tall one. “We shall be doing them a favor.”
He pointed the fish-headed rod at Sigfried, whom, after the fight in the tower, he perhaps deemed most dangerous. Siggy grabbed his throat, choking. This did not stop the orphan boy from using his other hand to point his wand at his attacker. Apparently, he had a spell left after all. A wintry blast of silvery sparkles swept up the tall man and threw him head over heels.
As the tall man tumbled, the fish-headed rod went flying. The master of the kelpie scuttled after it. Rachel leapt onto her broom, whistling as she shot forward. Blue sparkles danced through the air toward the scuttling man. The spell caught him, half leaning over, as he reached for the rod. It froze him there. Unable to steady himself, he toppled to the ground.
Rachel pointed at the rod. “Tiathelu!”
The fish-headed rod rose into the air. The two purple-robed men still standing leapt after it, but it soared up, over their heads, and into Rachel’s hand.
Rachel grinned and waved. “Sure you want to fight Roanokeans?”
The owner of the barghest, the shortest man, threw off his robes. Underneath he wore a charm bracelet and intricate ar-mor, each plate enameled with arcane symbols and leering faces. Unhooking a metal fan from his waist, he opened it, forming a circular buckler. A shimmer went out from the device, like the magical shield formed by the bey-athe cantrip.
“An alchemist,” Xandra shouted. “Take him out first!”
Zoë ran forward, brandishing her patu and shouting ob-sceneities.
The alchemist shook his bracelet. A charm dangling from his wrist glowed orange. Zoë shouted and grabbed her eyes. Her greenstone war club tumbled to the grass.
The three beasts stalked forward. The dog-thing growled and bared smoky fangs. The two-headed lizard spat an emerald. The horse snorted a foul-smelling mist from its nostrils.
“Lucky, get them!” gasped Sigfried, still rubbing his throat.
Leaping forward eagerly, Lucky engaged the two-headed serpent-creature. The two heads spat more gems. Lucky returned dragon fire, charring one head. The smell of roasted reptile rose into the air. The girls scrunched up their noses, but Siggy breathed in deeply.
“Keep some of that, Lucky!” He shouted, pointing his wand again. “We can eat it later.”
“Right on, boss!”
The serpentine enemy darted forward, biting Lucky with its second head. Lucky bit it back. The two of them tumbled across the gardens like a giant snaky hoop, splashing through the pond and sending ducks quacking.
“What are those things?” cried Valerie, clinging to the honking goose. With her arms full, she could not perform cantrips. Having been a freshman for one month, she did not yet know any other magic. “Those beasts?”
Xandra had taken out a small device that looked like a pepper shaker. With it, she sprinkled black powder on the ground in a line in front of the other students. “A kelpie, a barghest, and…I don’t know the other one.”
As she flew back to the others, Rachel mentally riffled through reference books she had read in the past. She recalled a picture of a similar two-headed dragon creature with fins in Daring Northwest’s, Dragons, Drakes, and Other Fire-Breathing Foes.
“It’s a balaur,” she called down to Valerie. “Local to the mountains of Eastern Europe.” She gestured at the peaks rising to the north. “They are poisonous. Their saliva forms gems. They are not related to the dinosaur of the same name.”
“Thanks,” Valerie called back dubiously. “That tells me… nothing.”
Rachel circled above the others, whistling again. Siggy’s wand had finally run out of charges. He went back to blowing his trumpet. As their respective spells swept forward, the alchemist lifted his round shield. The blue sparkles of her spell and Siggy’s silvery ones swerved from their targets and were sucked toward his alchemical buckler. They splashed harmlessly against it.
Below, the other girls had leapt into action, except for Zoë, who was still clutching her eyes and occasionally rubbing her injured shoulder. The princess had taken out her violin and played a wind blast. Silver sparkles swirled against the glistening coat of the black horse, but the wind was not strong enough to stop the creature. Frowning in annoyance, Nastasia ran her bow across her strings again.
Joy raised her hands and shouted. She was one of the best sorcerers among the freshman. She had not brought an instrument; however, and she knew only the few cantrips they had learned in class. Whatever she had attempted accomplished nothing. She tried a second time.
Xandra continued sprinkling the warding powder, tracing a circle around her fellow students. The smoky dog charged to the edge of her ward and then drew back snarling. The black horse slowed its forward trot.
“That’s an Enochian ward!” cried the alchemist in dismay. “The power of my talismans will not reach them now!”
As Lucky fought the now-one-headed reptile, Rachel hefted the fish-headed rod. Some talismans needed a special key. Others could be used by anyone. Should she try it? It was one thing to paralyze a man. It was another thing to smother him to death, which was the purpose of this device. True, these men were trying to kill them—and to feed an innocent babe to a demon. But did that mean that Rachel should lower herself to their level?
Frowning, she slipped the rod into the pocket of her robe.
The alchemist shook his charm bracelet. With his other hand, he drew out of a bag at his hip an amulet carved with the head of a dog. He pointed it at the princess. The charm and the hound-head amulet glowed orange. Whatever he had hoped to accomplish must have been stopped by Xandra’s ward, however, for nothing occurred.
Siggy blew his trumpet again. Again the sparkles swerved toward the alchemist’s shield. He scowled. The master of the balaur picked up a sharp chunk of basalt and chucked it at Xandra’s head, possibly hoping to keep her from finishing her ward.
“Tiathelu!” Rachel shouted again, gesturing. Her cantrip caught the rock and sent it flying off into the duck pond. It landed with a plop and a splash.
“Cantrips, Rupert!” cried the man who had thrown the rock. “They have enchanters, an Enochian, and a canticler, too! We cannot beat them! We should flee!”
Rachel glanced around to see who responded to the name Rupert. It was the tallest man, who was groaning and holding his head as he rolled to his feet. Glancing at his height and build, she referenced a thousand-thousand news glass images—pictures and names flashing through her memory.
“Rupert Lawson,” she shouted, pointing, “head of security for Smiths, Smythe, and Smullyan, Fine Amulets and Talismans Shoppe on Fifth Avenue? You should be ashamed of yourself, Mr. Lawson!”
“She knows who you are,” the alchemist shouted in alarm.
The tall man scowled and grabbed his own Kalesei Astari, which began to glow. “Kill her! Kill them all!”
Xandra completed her ward. The circle closed. Zoë stopped grabbing her eyes.
“That was disturbing. Everything had gone black.” Zoë retrieved her fallen war club. “Okay, now they’re in for it!”
Zoë stalked forward. Joy lifted a rock with the ti cantrip, which was a much weaker version of tiathelu. She bounced it off the side of one man’s head. He cried out and grabbed his ear, his hand coming away with blood on it.
The kelpie broke into a canter, bearing down on the students. Foul-smelling mist steamed from its nostrils. Unlike the barghest, it did not stop at Xandra’s ward but barreled over it, unhindered. Joy, Valerie, and Nastasia scrambled backward, skirting behind the fig trees. Zoë leapt forward swinging her patu. The Maori war club connected with the fey horse. There came a loud pop. The monstrous face carved into the green stone of the patu let out a piercing screech.
The girls, other than Zoë, all grabbed their ears. The horse reared up, neighing in pain and dismay. Across the lawn, the robed cultists also grabbed their ears. One yowled in pain.
A second blast of silver sparkles from the princess’s violin struck the kelpie. Again, the black horse was unmoved, but the wind caught Zoë, who lost her footing. Her feet flew into the air, and she slid underneath the bulk of the steed’s body. One of the heavy hooves trod on her, as the kelpie continued forward.
Zoë screamed.
Rachel, who remembered vividly what it felt like to have been stepped on by a sheep, winced in sympathy.
The goose began honking madly. Valerie knelt down behind Sigfried, using his body as a shield. She wrapped herself around the bird to protect it.
“No, Dad! Don’t do that! It’s okay!” She glared up at Xandra. “I am so going to kill you, if this turns out to just be a goose.”
The alchemist shook his arm again. A glowing spear of golden light flew at Joy. Lucky, still crunching the remains of the balaur, bathed the spear in dragon-fire. It popped with a weird crackling noise Rachel had never heard before.
The paralyzed man remained prone. The master of the balaur wept over the remains of his fallen fetch. The alchemist examined his charms. He also called to his barghest, urging it forward, but the smoky dog could not cross Xandra’s wards. It paced back and forth along the line of black powder, barking and growling. Rupert Lawson crowed in triumph as a fierce, evil looking creature with a man’s head, a lion’s body and a huge stinger tail appeared before him. The manticore immediately leapt forward, running directly at the girls.
“Back off, Ugly!” shouted Lucky, descending upon it with a burst of dragon fire. The manticore made a high-pitched sound of extreme pain, its stinger tail flailing wildly.
“Argos!” shouted Joy.
A Glepnir bond shimmered in mid-air, encircling the kelpie, but the glowing golden band constricted the black beast’s body rather than its legs, accomplishing little. More mist poured from its nostrils, causing Joy, Sigfried, Xandra, Nastasia, Valerie and the goose to cough.
Rachel looked down from her broom in concern. She whistled. Silver sparkles came from her mouth, but the burst of breeze she summoned did little against the miasma. Another burst of silver sparks from the princess’s violin; however, and a brisk breeze cleared away the foul fog. Behind the horse, Zoë climbed slowly to her feet, holding her stomach.
Rachel turned back to their attackers. She whistled, but her sparkles swerved to strike the alchemist’s shield. This happened three times in a row.
“Siggy! We must stop the man with the shield!” she cried. “It’s diverting our enchantments!”
“I’m on it!” Sigfried shouted.
Leaving the protection of Xandra’s circle, he charged at the alchemist. In his hand was the Bowie knife that had been a gift from his girlfriend. Rachel followed him, diving. The alchemist’s armor protected him from the boy’s blow. The knife skidded sideways on the leering enameled faces, but the man was so distracted by Siggy’s attack that he did not notice Rachel. Flying up beside them, she grabbed the enchanted fan that was his shield talisman and yanked it from his hand.
“Take that!” Sigfried shouted, punching the man in the face. Blood spurted from the alchemist’s nose.
The shield stung her hand. Rachel yelped and dropped it.
Unfortunately, Sigfried’s departure from the circle had scuffed Xandra’s ward. The barghest leapt through the opening. Landing on Valerie and the goose, it bit Valerie’s shoulder. She screamed.
Sigfried thrust the alchemist away and pelted back across the distance to his girlfriend. Throwing his weight against the insubstantial dog did nothing, but the more of Valerie’s blood the creature lapped, the more substantial it became. Sigfried’s knife began to leave long rents in its smoky substance.
Lucky landed on the barghest and breathed. A huge gout of fire barely missed Valerie and her goose-father. The shadow dog let out an ear-piercing shriek and ran, its back flaming and smoking.
Xandra blew five notes on her oboe. The sparkles were blue, like the paralysis spell, but they smelled of grapes. Rachel, who was trying to figure out how to pick up the shield without its defenses going off, recognized those notes. She had heard her parents play them while facing down a giant who had left his chair on the Dartmoor.
It was the Spell of Bedazzlement.
With the alchemist’s shield no longer protecting them, the sparkles struck Rupert Lawson, as he was pulling out a second Kalesei Astari. He dropped the large red quartz and began walking in circles, muttering to himself.
“Dreaming!” Zoë shouted. “Whatever just hit that joker, he’s dreaming! Quick, everyone! Grab my hand! Let’s get out of here.”