It was a crisp autumn day; moments after the bell had just rung for classes. The smell of rain was in the air and dark storm clouds hung overhead. Still, with the momentary reprieve from the showers the student body was out in force, mingling with friends in front of the school entrance as they began to slowly enter the building. It was their first week back for the new term.
Being back at school was in Colin’s case something he had actually looked forward to. Not that he didn’t love going home and spending time with his mum, but after a few days she always started hinting that perhaps he should consider reviving his vendetta against Mystery and reclaim his father’s criminal empire. By the end of the hols, her hints had evolved into hysterical pleas. No, he was glad to be back at school.
Colin shivered as a couple of cold drops of rainwater ran down his spine. It was almost Halloween and the pupils were getting excited about the school’s Halloween Ball and the other various All Hallows festivities that have been scheduled for that weekend, especially as some students from Walford Defence Sixth-Form College would be attending as part of the annual interschool exchange.
Walford had a public Meta-training facility so their visit meant interschool combat sessions for the HCP students. Cadet was being paired up that afternoon against someone who looked to be a couple of years younger than himself who was ominously named ‘Lethal’ while Firewall was scheduled to fight against a youth called ‘Plastique’. They would also be attending the Senior’s Ball on Saturday night.
The tutor accompanying them on this visit, Alan Archer, seemed to be an old friend to several of the HCP staff, especially ‘Old man’ Summers.
All Hallows Eve was a major thing at the School. In the couple of days before Halloween, there was a myriad of events and activities around the school including inviting speakers to impart advice to the students. The events culminated with the junior school’s Halloween Party complete with a spook alley on Friday night and the grand finale—the Seniors Halloween Ball on the Saturday night.
His study mate, Ryung Myan, ‘Ryan’ kept on reminding Colin that he only had a day left to choose who he wanted to invite as his date to the dance, never mind decide what to wear given it was a costumed event. He had already decided that he wanted to avoid any romantic complications and so he’d invited Bubbles to come along, just as a friend. He just hadn’t told Ryan. He’d also managed to put together a costume that he thought would work on the night.
Chris came over and seemed excited about something but refused to say why. Then they saw a familiar face strutting towards the main building, Ces’ Morgan had been allowed back in the school at the start of term after the incident with Gus’, which admittedly was a bit of a downer. Chris was careful to avoid getting too close to him and his groupies.
What Chris was really excited about was that he’d finally been approved to start undertaking the gender transition process. He just wished he had someone he could share the news with.
Much to his ‘blessed’ parent’s absolute horror, he’d passed the psychological evaluation and the therapist had confirmed that he had gender dysphoria and no, shock therapy wouldn’t work in getting their little baby girl back. Although they refused to give permission for the full treatment, they had reluctantly agreed to him identifying as male even at home and to allow him to start a course of androgen hormones. The effect had been dramatic. Within a week of starting the hormone therapy, he had begun to feel more relaxed, less intense and uptight, more balanced.
He wouldn’t be allowed to undertake the full hormone therapy or have surgery until he was at least 18 but was now allowed to take hormones to delay female maturity and he was sure as a result that his voice already sounded deeper.
As Chris made inconsequential conversation with Colin, they couldn’t help notice that Ces’ and his crew were still being bullies and they seemed to be teasing a new girl who for some reason had to wear a fully enclosed skinsuit under her uniform. Then as they heard Kelvin MacKenzie joke with Ces’ about something, Kevin’s ‘mate’ Owen Sauvage made a comment about her being “Toxin by name and toxic by nature” and suddenly Chris understood. She had to be a Meta and that marked her out as a potential target for the Keep Claremont Human bunch of pre-sentient hominids.
She pulled the hood of her jacket down further over her head and tried to pretend she was concentrating on looking at her ‘shocking pink’ coloured phone when she was approached by Lilly Chiang from year 4 who’d apparently been appointed to be her primary guide during her first week. Chris had to wonder why she had been chosen and not someone from her own year five.
He quietly explained to Colin that during the school holiday, he’d finally managed to hack into the student files although Navigator had again tried to prevent him from accessing them. He’d found out that a new student, Charlene Hart was being transferred from St. Mary Mede Secondary School at the end of the last term after her Meta-abilities had manifested and resulted in her developing toxic skin. Her ability meant she might have to spend the rest of her life inside a containment suit. There had also been an incident where she had accidentally poisoned another pupil.
As Kevin and the others continued joking about the girl, he had to wonder how Ces’ would act if he ever discovered that Kelvin was himself a Meta? Now that had come as a bit of a revelation he had to admit, since Kevin often hung out with Ces’ and his cronies though he wasn’t a member of their posse. No, Owen was supposedly his best ‘mate’ though the way Kevin acted towards him made it clear he didn’t consider him his equal. Actually, Chris thought it very unlikely that Kevin thought of anyone as his equal. He was always surprised that Owen willingly followed Kevin around, as he was popular, primarily because he was good-looking, physically fit and a rugby player on the school’s first team.
As far as Chris was aware, none of the other students at the school knew about Kevin’s Meta-abilities. It probably helped that he wasn’t participating in the Special Curriculum programme and refused to train in the use of his powers or even admit that he had them, though he hadn’t been averse to using them when it benefited him. The teachers had codenamed him Casanova in the student files. He had mind control powers and he primarily had used them on girls before he’d been uncovered and sent to Claremont. That didn’t alter the fact that he was a rapist even if the court had elected to accept that he hadn’t been in control of his powers at the time. He was now forced to covertly wear a CrimePrev Technologies power negation collar beneath his shirt.
Chris smiled, he was familiar with the IC-29 model, which worked by setting up a neural inhibitor field around the wearers brain stopping it from sending signals that would result in the activation of a meta-human ability whilst not inhibiting innate or normal bodily functions.
Ces’, Kevin and their so-called friends continued to follow Charlene and Lilly. Dimitri, Nathaniel and Angel, what Gus had nicknamed the ‘Hate Squad’, burst out laughing as Ces’ raised his outstretched forefinger and thumb to his forehead to form a loser ‘L’ as Charlene and Lilly walked past them. Colin was about to say something only to hear Lilly mutter to Charlene, “Just wait. They’ll all be sorry…”
Kevin’s teasingly melodic voice was heard over the babble: “Careful Toxin, watch where you’re walking! I don’t want to end up puking for a week like your girlfriend. Sorry… Your EX-girlfriend.”
A few cruel laughs followed as the girl in the containment suit shrunk back from the small pack of feral students. Ces’ responded, “It’s okay, Kev’. Her powers don’t do anything. The only thing that made the girl puke for a week was having to kiss little Charlene here!”
Charlene had begun to slink away, tears in her eyes but when she heard that she tensed up, whipped around and ripped off her gloves. The laughter abruptly halted as Charlene screamed, “You really want to find out which it was, you assholes?” over her containment suit’s crackling speakers, before Lilly pulled her indoors.
As she went inside, the two of them overheard her cursing. No one else seemed to want to intervene and draw the bullies’ attention to themselves and Colin understood why, he knew from experience that getting involved in a “discussion” with Ces’ and his cronies was pointless and counter-productive as Gus had proved, they were completely incorrigible.
Instead, he said goodbye to Chris and rushed into the building where he caught up with the two girls. He tried to say some kind words to Charlene. “Look I’m Colin; I’m in the same year as you, I think, Year five? Try not to let them get to you. They’re like that to all of us, it’s not just you. It all comes from deep-seated feelings of insecurity, I think. They’re scared, basically. We have to be better than they are. Because we are,” he grinned.
“Oh and welcome to Claremont by the way…” He smiled as he rushed off to class. As he headed to his ‘Interrogation’ class, he heard Charlene ask Lilly, “Us? What does he mean by us? Is he a Meta too then?”
Later he tried to find out a bit more about the incident, which has brought Charlene to the school. It had been all over social media at the time. Charlene Hart’s powers had first manifested a few months ago while she was attending St. Mary Mede Secondary School. Presumably, she had been a quiet student, as she had almost no internet or social history prior to that, that he could find. While the posts explained a bit, it lacked any real background.
Her powers first became known when she accidentally touched some chemicals at school and accidentally caused a reaction that resulted in a minor explosion; thankfully, no one was hurt. It was sufficiently serious though that META, the Meta-human Evaluation and Tracking Authority, quickly concluded that she couldn’t control her new abilities and after some long discussions with the school they finally agreed she could return but only if she wore a containment suit. Then a couple of weeks ago a girl from her school was apparently poisoned by her and she was either expelled or asked to leave.
Most of the reports had her pegged as an evil mutie seeking revenge on the other girl for some reason, possibly due to Charlene being gay and supposedly being rejected by the victim, or else they claimed that her containment suit had failed because she burnt through it due to Charlene’s unbridled and apparently unreciprocated passion for the innocent girl. It was all complete speculation, no confirmed facts though.
In the end, he decided to seek out Greg Griphon who was a local lad himself. He had transferred over from St. Mary’s the year before but still had a lot of friends at the school. In return for a quick chess game during the break, Colin was able to mine him for everything he knew about Charlene.
The story about the explosion in the Chemistry lab was true as was the fact that a girl in her year had been poisoned but Greg had a very different story about why she had left St. Mary’s.
She had apparently been offered a transfer to Claremont when her powers had initially manifested but she or her family turned the offer down, as she wanted to stay at St. Mary’s even if it meant wearing the containment suit.
It was a few weeks later, that things took a turn for the worse. One of the reasons that Charlene hadn’t wanted to leave St. Mary’s was that she had apparently been having a budding supposedly secret relationship with a fellow student before her metamorphosis, a girl Zoe who was also attending St. Mary Mede’s.
Neither of them had publicly come out about their sexuality but both had wanted to take the relationship to the next level. The thin barrier of the containment suit meant any physical contact was impossible and this had frustrated the two teens as their relationship has grown. Proving that frustrated teenagers make bad decisions, Zoe had apparently obtained several illegal immune boosters from somewhere (though initially the reports claimed that Charlene had been the one to obtain them for her) and then she convinced Charlene to risk a date together without her containment suit.
Greg had also been at the cinema that night and had seen the two of them holding hands during the film. However, as the film ended, Zoe leaned over and gave Charlene a quick, experimental kiss on the lips and immediately collapsed in a fit of convulsions. Charlene’s screams of panic soon attracted the attention of others and Zoe was rushed to the Intensive Care Unit.
A combination of the illegal immune-boosting drugs Zoe had used and Charlene’s poisonous powers left Zoe near-comatose for several days, and the event had been hot gossip around the high school ever since. Charlene, already withdrawn and isolated by both her sexuality and the containment suit she needed to wear to protect others from her powers, has been almost entirely silent and the target of constant whispers and harassment.
While Zoe recovered over the course of several days, the two were admonished by the staff and Charlene’s isolation from the rest of the school’s students became even lonelier. Apparently, Zoe must have told Charlene she wasn’t sure she wanted to try again and regardless needed some time to herself, which caused Charlene to fall into a deep depression. Needing to find a way to control her powers, she agreed to the school transfer even though the term at Claremont had already started a few days earlier.
He thanked Greg for the information even as he checkmated him. He headed back to class but his mind wasn’t on the lesson. The Trials with Walford Defence Sixth-Form were planned for that afternoon and he still had no idea what powers he and Chris were going to be facing.
In I.T. class he tried to do a search for some information on the web about the Walford pupils but accurate information was severely lacking given he had no access to their background or their real identities which were kept confidential by the school. He did however manage to meet up with one of their group by the playing fields and got to talking.
Lee was extremely friendly and when he learned that Coin was a HCP trainee himself confided that the codenames they used during training weren’t chosen by the students but were given them by their trainers for a variety of reasons, they didn’t get to choose their own codenames until their graduation ceremony. He asked who he was facing and on hearing it was Lethal smiled and hoped he was a good loser. He did confide that Lethal could appear very unsociable at times. “And what about Plastique? He’s up against my friend.” Again Lee smiled, “He is exactly what his name suggests, regardless of how you spell it.”
As Colin walked across the playing fields towards the Big House, he still wondered why their teaching staff had chosen to call his opponent Lethal? He walked through the main door and suddenly realised that the main entrance to Down Below, via the mansion’s Library, wasn’t going to be usable today. Mr Rhymer, the School’s Chief Librarian was holding a mixed class from years three and four in it, looking at the school’s collection of old and rare reference works. Colin almost laughed when he saw the frustration on his and Alice Moore’s faces as the students ran around pulling down two hundred-year-old atlases to examine.
Alice was a sixth year student who stood about five foot tall, a mousy brunette with a pixie haircut that Henry had roped in as his assistant. She appeared to have her hands full keeping the class away from Mr Eldrich’s collection of arcane grimoires that he kept in the Library for teaching his “specially inclined” students.
As he headed towards the other concealed lift entrance in the currently “out of bounds to others” games room at the back of the mansion he meet up with Chris and some of the others heading through the chaos of almost a hundred 15 and 16-year-olds packed into the Library, lounge, floor and sitting en-masse on the stairs. Only the Grand Piano next to the stairs remained unpopulated through the piano bench had been claimed by several students and repositioned near the main couches in the middle of the lounge.
As he walked through the masses of students, he noticed, off in the corner of the lounge, Lilly Chiang secretively muttering with Ali Mayson and her brother Alan while looking at an old, mouldy book with metal hinges. Colin looked around but there was no sign of Charlene in the crowd. Not surprising really, she was in a different year to everyone here except for the Special Curriculum students trying to make their way through the (occasionally) sentient chaos.
That Lilly Chiang and the Mayson’s were huddled around such an unusual book sparked Colin’s interest and he moved through the crowd in “socially invisible and silent” mode towards them. Coming up behind them, he peered over Lilly’s shoulder, looking down at the book to see what it was before asking, “Alice and ‘the Poet’ know you’re looking at this, right?”
The name engraved into the green leather cover was in Greek but he knew enough of the Greek alphabet from “Creaky” e’Azam’s classes to be able to read the name before Ali hurriedly hid it from view. “Monopáti ton Daimónon”. He memorised it intending to look it up after his match was over.
There were several other old books open on the table and he smiled as Lilly momentarily looked guilty then started to gather them up.
No time to wait and see what they did next, he had a match to get ready for. He hurried to catch up with the others and head into the games room. They shut the door and stepped over to the wall unit that concealed the lift down to the changing area. One by one, they headed into Down Below.
As they waited their turn, Cadet passed on what little information he has found out about Plastique to Chris, adding that it sounded as if these Walford kids were well-trained and tough. Chris nodded in agreement.
Cadets’ match was first up. Standing opposite him in the S.A.F.E. room was a youth, 14 possibly – too young to be attending a sixth form college anyway. He had short, dark hair, an unemotive face and was dressed in Walford’s version of a training costume, except their base colour was a dark blue rather than white. In his hand was a staff.
As they were waiting for the start light, the boy watched him intensely, his head tilted slightly to the left, as he seemed to absorb Cadet’s movements. Colin shouted over a “good luck” but the boy they called Lethal did not reply. Then the light on top of the observation booth flashed red.
Cadet stepped into a stance and to his surprise the kid copied him exactly. Cadet was cautious, intending to test and counter-punch first rather than assault directly. Both the kid’s name and the fact that they were putting him up against someone older and more experienced sounded warning bells in his mind.
He raised his staff and again noticed the boy opposite mirror his actions perfectly. He went to step forward only to feel something hit the back of his head hard. A solid unusually hard rubber sphere about the size of a golf ball bounced back into the boys’ hand. Damn, not only did that hurt but also he hadn’t even seen it being thrown – he must have bounced it off several surfaces to perfectly position the strike. He rubbed his head and for a split second the kid seemed about to do the same action but stopped himself when he realised it wasn’t part of an offensive move. Still no smile, no smirk, nothing only his continuing to watch him closely at all times.
Cadet rushed forward wanting to test his opponent. He reverse punched towards his opponent’s face and missed, as his target ducked and carried out a perfect elbow strike to his kidneys – just a fraction of a second slow as though he was recalling the move from memory. Cadet twisted slightly and the blow struck his ribs instead. He stepped back and did a roundhouse kick aimed above the kid’s head. For a split second, Lethal was confused – in his mind’s eye he knew that the move was intended for the side of his head not above it. The deliberate change confused him just enough that Colin was able to palm a couple of flash bombs into his hand unseen. He threw them at the ground hoping to blind his opponent but through the flare and flash, Lethal continued to advance, every move, strike and blow textbook perfect but now with his eyes closed.
Cadet pulled out his cloak and swirled it round, hardening it as he did so, so instead of the memory cloth flicking his opponent in the face it had solidified and hit him across the cheek drawing first blood.
Not wanting to risk waiting, Cadet swung up and into the roof area using his grapnel as he threw another flash pellet as well as a tear gas one at Lethal’s feet. To his amazement, the boy anticipated the move and stepped well back, somersaulted over the fumes using his staff and then used the wall to bounce into the air and carry out a double strike to Cadet’s temple and nose before executing a perfect landing in front of him, still with his bloody eyes closed! Blood from Cadet’s nose spurted down the front of his costume but he closed off his bleeding nostrils using the nose-grip on his visor and ignored it.
Cadet automatically camouflaged his costume to match the grey of the walls and ceiling intending to disguise himself and hopefully hide in plain sight but the boy tilted his head and seemed to be tracking him by sound alone even though he could have sworn he was being perfectly silent.
Okay, he needed at least one good strike even if it was just for his ego. His eye-shield was down as he slipped his re-breather in then he tossed a couple more tear gas straight at him rather than at his feet. As Cadet had hoped, with his eyes shut, all the boy could tell were that some spheres were heading towards his face and he went to catch or redirect them only for at least one of them to shatter as he went to knock it away. Cadet couldn’t help notice that the kid had palmed one of the pellets so he needed to be ready for that being returned to sender at some point.
He swung in and found his legs entangled in his opponents’ staff, which proceeded to do multiple strikes to the back of his legs and face. He managed to get a kick in but the boy again seemed to read him just from the sound of his movements alone and twisted his body like a pretzel as Cadet swung over the top of him. As he passed overhead, he felt a punch to the small of his back. He tried to hold on to the line and failed. The shock to his spine made it impossible to hold on and he collided with the wall opposite but managed to roll with it and land in a knelling position just in time to watch Lethal grab hold of the line and execute a perfect imitation of his swing. Cadet smiled and reached up to hit retract as the line loosened its grip on the ceiling and reeled in. Even Lethal had to obey the law of gravity and he fell towards the ground only to execute the same landing manoeuvre Cadet had done a second before. It was an opening, not a brilliant one but an opening nonetheless. He unclipped his staff into two Escrima sticks and ran towards the boy attempting a double-strike to his opponent’s head and throat.
Lethal ducked a fraction of a second early and the blows passed over his head. He immediately snapped his own solid staff into two and followed it up with a double blow to Cadets’ kidneys and he was forced to retreat as the sharp, fractured ends of his opponent’s makeshift sticks tried to cut through his costume.
Cadet readied himself for the next attack; trouble was he was starting to think his opponent had the ability to perceive even the slightest facial movements making him a human lie detector, able to read his intentions before he even carried them out. One good thing though, he’d regained his cloak which he deactivated and allowed it to return to being cloth again. Suddenly he again felt a small, very hard sphere hit him between the shoulders before bouncing off and after three more bounces made it back to his attacker’s palm. Cadet looked at the boy’s face expecting to see a smirk or at least a look of satisfaction at again catching him unawares but there was nothing, his face was void of any emotion.
He had a theory that his opponent was using muscle memory to copy his skills. That meant he was likely a polymath, which may have stunted his emotional growth and social abilities. He almost felt sorry for the kid. It would however explain why someone so young was attending a sixth form college though.
If he was right, the kid was learning how to be him and the only chance he had was to try to ignore his plans and instead fall back on instinct.
He immediately carried out three back-flips to get away from the dangerous little guy with the pointy sticks. As he flipped, he re-united his Escrima sticks back into a Bo staff – which is at least one move Lethal couldn’t now imitate. Landing facing his opponent, poised ready to duck or dive in reaction to whatever Lethal might be trying.
He was not surprised to see that Lethal had closed in by carrying out three forward flips and was about to rush him. He swung out with his bolos even as he used his staff like a spear to force him to keep his distance. Neither succeeded in hitting but it did give him time to make sure his visor was securely on, the rebreather clenched tightly between his teeth and his jacket and hood zipped up to cover as much of his face as possible. It was some protection against the splintered halves of the staff, he hoped. Lethal wasn’t the only one in the room that could read muscle movement; as he’d anticipated the boy turned lethal and tried to stab him in the eyes and throat with the sharp ends of the shattered staff. The S.A.F.E. room lights blazed into life indicating that the judges had ended the session but the boy was oblivious to the signal and carried on with his assault even as tutors started to flood into the chamber.
Rather than move back and away from the pair of makeshift shiv’s, Cadet stepped in and smashed at his opponent’s face and the back of his heel with his reintegrated staff even as he swung his cloak off his shoulders and around the boy before activating the harden function. The swung cloak covered the boy’s upper torso completely before it solidified into a makeshift straitjacket, admittedly one he would likely escape in just a few seconds. No time for sentiment, he reacted and smashed the tip of his staff onto the boys’ temple rendering him temporarily unconscious even as the tear gas pellet in Lethal’s hand shattered and the gas mixed with the air.
Someone grabbed at Cadet’s arm and he spun round, expecting the boy’s tutor, Alan Archer, to berate him for the use of excessive force. Instead, he apologised and said that he had thought his pupil had moved beyond such violent behaviour. He quickly moved over and started to talk quietly to the boy even as he managed to squirm out of the prison that was Cadet’s hardened cloak.
Cadet was escorted out of the chamber by the ‘Old Man’ himself all the while assuring him that he’d done the right thing, he’d used reasonable force and that the student clearly wasn’t yet ready for combat against non-class members. Cadet stopped and walked back to collect his cloak, offering the still dazed boy his hand to shake. The boy just stared at his hand then turned and walked back with Mr Archer to one of the debriefing rooms.
He passed Firewall as he entered for his own match. Cadet saw him mouth asking if he was okay? He nodded. Once he was outside, he asked Mr Summers if he might observe the next contest before his own match debriefing? Summers smiled and nodded.
Unlike the Claremont students, none of the Walford students tried to disguise their identity so Colin was surprised to discover his up-top ‘informant’ Lee was in fact Plastique. Unlike Lethal, Plastique immediately walked over, shook Firewall’s hand and wished him luck before the session light went on.
The match itself proved very frustrating and ended in a draw. As he’d said earlier, Plastique’s powers matched his name; he was able to stretch and morph his elastic body and contort it into a myriad of shapes. Worse, as far as Firewall was concerned, while in his morphed biopolymer form his body was somehow immune to electricity which rendered most of Firewall’s attacks virtually useless. Firewall was forced to defer to using laser shots and that risked a replay of Colin’s own match in reverse. Plastique also had the ability for his punches and kicks to become concussive hits whereby he apparently was able to convert kinetic energy into focused explosive blasts.
In return, Firewall was immune to all of his opponents’ attacks whilst he remained in his data format. Despite the power of their attacks on each other, they seemed unable to score a hit that really affected each other beyond the superficial.
In the end both sides agreed to call it a draw and walked out to rapturous applause from their fellow students as the next two students took their place in the chamber.
As they were leaving Down Below (having elected to leave their costumes on under their school uniforms though neither could explain why), they thankfully discovered that the classes were finishing for the day, as the students were being allowed out early to prepare for tonight’s Junior Year’s Ball. Mr Rhymer walked through the study areas to remind everyone to start wrapping up their projects. He encouraged anyone who needed to check out books to come up now, rather than waiting to the last minute.
The groups of students immediately begin packing up or rushing towards the main door resulting in Colin and Chris having to wait rather than force their way into the centre of the massive scrum. The general noise level amped up as books were closed and notebooks shoved into backpacks. Some students immediately lined up to check out books.
Through the window, they could see that most of the students were walking across the sports fields towards the school and the fleet of buses waiting in the car park.
As they waited for the chaos to die down a bit, a near hysterical Alice approached the two of them, distraught and shaking as she explained that one of the restricted books had gone missing. Could they help her find it?
Chris asked her what had actually happened and between sobs, she explained that apparently some of the kids that had been using the library had got their hands on one of Mr Eldrich’s forbidden books and it hadn’t been returned. Thankfully it had a security strip hidden in the spine so, as the alarm hadn’t sounded Alice was sure it had to be still in the room but she really did not want Mr Rhymer to know that she’d not noticed someone take it.
Colin immediately thought of the old book that Lilly and Ali had been looking at and asked, “What was it called?” Alice shrugged her shoulders, “It’s a copy of an English translation of the Second Testament of Carnamagos, published in the late 1890s. Can you check the tables and I’ll check the shelves in case someone’s shoved it in there?”
Colin immediately headed to the table where Lilly and the Mayson’s had been gathered. Sure enough, their table was covered with books on various religious practices and rituals but there is no sign of the book they had tried to hide.
In fairness, it was probably not the same book. That one had looked a lot older than late Victorian, medieval at least and hand bound in a green leather.
He asked Chris if he could see where Lilly and the Mayson’s were. By now, the majority of students had already left the mansion. He checked but there was no sign of the Mayson’s or Lilly crossing the fields outside, either they’d moved fast when they’d left or they hadn’t gone in that direction.
Colin couldn’t help notice that one of the remaining students had taken a pile of books to be signed out. He could see that two of the books in the middle of the stack had black bars on their spines, indicating that they were reference books that could not be checked out.
‘Poet’ Rhymer started to check through the stack, recording the loan on his laptop. When he reached the reference books, he explained to the youth that they could not be booked out. The subsequent discussion quickly escalated into a shouting match by the boy about censorship and how some of the students could check out anything they want, but not him. When Mr Rhymer firmly refused to release them, the student threw the entire pile of books at him and stomped away, heading for the door.
Chris rushed over, stopped him and asked what that was all about? The boy, close to tears with frustration, explained that he’d seen another student in his class, Ali approaching the desk with an old reference book and nobody told her she couldn’t take it.
Mr Rhymer immediately explained to the angry and frustrated boy that the other student claimed she’d found it on a table and had been returning it to him, she had not booked it out. He leaned behind the desk and picked it up to show him that it hadn’t been booked out – It was a copy of ‘Dark Rituals and Modern Mayhem’ written in the 1920s by one Sir William David-Astor and it apparently discussed using ‘modern’ technology to enhance mystical rituals.
Serena Vervaine, Seven, came into the lounge at that moment and was immediately roped in, given that according to Rhymer she was one of the few that may have actually read the missing book. She explained, that “The second Testament of Carnamagos was also known as The Pathway of Demons (in Latin it would be called ‘Tractus Daemoniorum’). An English translation had been secretly made just before the original had been destroyed by the Vatican. What made this version of that translation really special was that the original cover hadn’t burned and had been smuggled away and subsequently used to rebind this particular copy.”
“Cover of mouldy green leather with metal hinges, titled in Greek as Monopáti ton Daimónon?” asked Colin.
“Yes!!! Where did you see it? ‘Monopáti ton Daimónon’ means Pathway of Demons, it’s Carnamagos’ lesser work about how to create bridges between the dark realms and here and summon forth its inhabitants.”
Twenty minutes later, after an unsuccessful search, Colin approached ‘Poet’ Henry and to Alice’s dismay told him what he’d seen, though none of them could figure out how the kids had managed to smuggle the book out given the alarm system in the building.
Mr Rhymer made a call to the head office to ask if school security could keep an eye open for Lilly and the Mayson twins and stop them from leaving the grounds? In addition, could the residential house assistants possibly check their rooms for the missing book?
It soon became apparent that whatever they were up to, they weren’t in their rooms and as far as Camille could tell they hadn’t left the grounds. So where were they?
The only thing they found was parcel wrappings and a large empty box in Lilly’s room but she’d received no deliveries recently and no one knew where the package had come from or what had been in it.
Colin asked Mr Rhymer if he could check the book that Ali had brought back. Poet pulled it out again and handed it over. Colin spun through the pages and sure enough someone, presumably Ali, had removed several of the illustrations from the book, torn clean out. He pointed this out to Mr Rhymer and a near hysterical Alice, who was really upset at the deliberate wanton vandalism.
He examined the mutilated book to see if there were any references in the text to the missing plates, which might indicate what they were intending to do. What he feared most was that the trio were intending some sort of demonic summoning. He tried to piece together clues as to what illustrations and pages had been stolen from the text on the pages opposite.
As far as he could tell, the missing plates stolen from the book had been a really mixed bag. One had apparently been a diagram for building and operating some sort of spirit radio, another was possibly a recipe for making a tisane drink called Ayahuasca, yet another may have been of an unspecified device that utilised vacuum tubes and crystalline diodes. The remaining missing pages had apparently been diagrams showing how to build techno-mystical protective wards or glyphs that supposedly could be used to summon demonic beings.
He couldn’t imagine what they might be hoping to achieve by such foolishness; revenge of some kind, or bargain for some sort of extra power? Whatever it was, the outcome was unlikely to be good.
Seven apologised and said she had to leave as she had promised to help the other year six students decorate the gym and set up the spook alley but if she heard anything she’d let them know. The wink she gave them both signified that she also intended scrying for the book and the miscreants as soon as she could.
Leaving Rhymer and Alice who seemed determined to blame herself for this, Colin and Chris stepped outside and almost collided with someone they assumed had been one of the guest speakers. He was a tall man, six foot three if he was an inch with wild looking hair and a beard to match. He wore a dark coat and leaned heavily on a skull topped walking cane and looked to be in his early 50s, his clothes despite long being out of style were quality made. Everything about him spoke of the aristocracy. He apologised and asked the way to the treehouse.
Chris pointed as Colin winced over the recent repairs that had to have been made to it after his earlier escapade. “Can I ask why you want the treehouse, sir?” asked a curious Chris. The man smiled, a smile that seemed more feral than humorous, “I’m an old boy here, from back when the school was called St. Thomas Aquinas’. I wanted to see if my initials had survived the decades since my classmates and I carved them into the bark. I don’t think I saw either of you two scallywags at my lecture on the history of the school… Well, at least my memory hadn’t failed me yet, I was heading in the right direction after all. Thank you young sirs, hopefully we will meet again.”
With that, he tapped the cane against his right leg and a metallic ring sounded as he again set off towards the treehouse. Chris was for following despite the number of guests wandering the school today something had felt off about him but Colin was for trying to track down the missing book.
He headed to the school first where Ces’, Angel and the others were busy putting together the spook alley. The first chamber was a slaughterhouse with buckets of blood, corpses and skeletons hanging on hooks and a severed head on a platter (it was Ryan who winked at him before standing up breaking the illusion since he was wearing the balsa wood table and platter round his neck). Colin walked through into the room next door which was being set up as a graveyard complete with spring up zombies and rubber hands emerging out of the ‘soil’ to supposedly grab at his legs. He did get a bit of a start when a hand emerged from a coffin and grabbed him by the shoulder. It was Serena. “Sorry, hope I didn’t startle you… too much that is. I couldn’t trace the book, wherever it is, it’s being shielded in some way, same applies to Ali and Lilly. I ah, couldn’t manage to get hold of anything personal to Alan to search for him but if the other two are not to be found I must admit he would likely be the same. Any idea what’s going on Colin?”
“I could make some guesses but best thing I can suggest is to keep an eye on things this weekend and hope I’m wrong. Can you tell me any more about this book or its author?”
“Well, Carnamagos was believed to be some ancient mythical sage and seer from before the rise of Babylon. His two testaments were discovered over a thousand years ago in a tomb, I think it was in Greece somewhere and were translated by a monk into Medieval Greek before the monastery discovered and burnt the originals as well as the monk for heresy. His translations though survived, smuggled out, apparently hidden inside corpses.
According to legend, only two copies of the First Testament ever existed and both were destroyed. A couple of copies of his second volume survived the Inquisition’s purges and although the Greek versions are missing, it has been translated several times over the centuries first into Latin and French and subsequently into English. However, according to Sallah, Eldrich’s companion, the translations became diluted with each subsequent translation and are considered weaker and incomplete versions of the original chronicles.”
“What was it supposed to be able to do?” Serena shrugged, “I never actually read it, just thumbed through it a couple of times, it contains spells by which demons could be called up, controlled and dismissed. Perfect for All Hallows Eve eh? Hopefully the little buggers only borrowed it as a prop…”
He asked if she could mystically check out the wrappings and empty box found in Lilly’s room to see if she can pick up anything helpful. She agreed she would try but she needed to finish helping out here first.
He made his excuses and headed over to chat with Chris and grab some food from the cafeteria. He wanted to see if he could get any sort of trace on the suspect trio. After the incident with the Rejects, the school had increased its number of radio towers in the grounds to make it easier to track the students’ ID badges. Chris admitted that he daren’t try and hack into the school so soon after his last infiltration but if Colin could find out their phone numbers he could try and trace them that way?
Who might have their mobile numbers? The school probably did but again they had the problem of how to access that information without Navigator catching them online and reporting them? No, better to try to find one of their friends and get their mobile numbers from them.
In the end it was Patsy Sutcliffe who was able to give him Lilly’s number. Wherever she was, she was off the grid but was apparently still in the grounds somewhere. Serena also dropped by to say that she had no luck tracing them either. He racked his brain to think if there is anywhere in the grounds that was normally screened against scrying. The Mansion definitely was shielded because of it being used by Mr Eldrich for his training classes but wasn’t sure where else might be though Serena did warn him that Ali and Alan were capable of blocking her mystical sight on their own.
She also admitted she’d ‘gone into’ Lilly’s room and confirmed that there were the remnants of a large package but the only clues she’d uncovered was that there were wrappings of at least two largish items, one of which had traces of oil on it. There were also the wrappings from a smaller package and she’d found traces of exotic dried leaves and stalks in the paper though she was unable to identify them.
In the end, he went direct to the source. He phoned Lilly’s number. It went straight to answerphone but he left a message anyway. “Lilly, it’s Colin Duncan, I’m in the year above yours. Look, you need to come back to the school okay? The teachers know about the book you stole and cannot get away with it. Whatever you’re planning you need to desist before anyone gets hurt. Either phone me back or come back, people are concerned about you, and that includes Ali and Alan.”
He figured that whatever they planned it would likely materialise that night. He decided to head back to the gym intending to investigate the scare alley a little ahead of its first intended participants but when he arrived almost everyone was gone, only some of the juniors trying to grab a peek at the decorations or see what food and drink would be available on the night. He saw Chris Templar, Andrea Avery and Gabriel Freespirit carrying out large bowls of blood-red or black fruit punch to place on tables around the room. He sneaked past them heading for the spook alley intending to eavesdrop on Ces’ and co and make sure they were not planning anything too mean or destructive.
To his surprise, they had already finished decorating and had left to get themselves some dinner. Despite the redecoration, the spook alley was still just the school corridors and classrooms and he couldn’t identify anyway that he could hide until they came back so instead he looked for anything they might have done that went beyond a little scare. He sincerely hoped that young Ashley DiNozzo wasn’t planning to take a trip through the corridors later as he had to admit that Angel and Ces’ had done a good job of making it genuinely scary. Still, what he was looking for was booby-traps not shocks.
He discovered that the door to the graveyard had been rigged to create a ‘Carrie’; a bucket of the pig’s blood he’d seen earlier had been set above the door to the ‘graveyard’ intended for some unfortunate soul. He managed to exchange that bucket with another filled with red confetti and emptied the buckets of blood down the toilet. He also short-circuited a couple of other attempts to create mischief such as using leather straps on rotors to batter at people going through a narrow passageway. He removed the straps and replaced them with red ribbons. The trap would still work but without causing serious injury.
Then as he set off back to his room to get ready, he saw a pulse of light in the twilight coming from the direction of where the Curse, which took its name from its blood-red colour, merged with the River Mercia. The light only lasted for a second but he couldn’t help think that one place they hadn’t checked was where they had found the skeletons when they’d been trying to rescue Rudi the Werewolf, some months before. To get to the glade you had to wade through the water, passed an outgrowth of trees and bushes until you found the gap in the undergrowth that concealed the covered glade.
The area had been declared off limits to students and a metal grate had been locked over the entrance to keep people out. It had battery powered lighting installed for the archaeological team that had been investigating the historical aspects of the site. They had finished their initial research and returned to University some time ago, having removed the skeletal remains and photographed the glyphs and hex marks that had previously been located underwater before the grove had been pumped out. The site was now supposedly empty though some basic equipment had been left behind ready for when they planned to return in the New Year. He imagined that with all the rain over the last week that the floor of the covered glade would have flooded again.
Behind him, he heard the music start announcing that the Ball would begin soon. A number of the juniors were already trooping across the grounds from the cafeteria or dorms in full costume then he saw rushing towards them across the sports fields a short, hairless creature with a scabrous green hide and large, flopping ears. Whatever it was, it had an excessive number of eyes and teeth and it appeared to be manifesting extra arms and legs as it ran.
He almost burst out in a laugh as he spotted the demon-thing as so many puzzle-pieces fell into place in his head (but also because the monster looked so absurd and abnormal). In his mind, this confirmed what he’d suspected, that Lilly and her mates were trying to get revenge for all that backlog of assault and abuse by Ces’ and his clique.
The talk of mechanically enhanced demon-summoning and the traces of oil and herbs in the packages Lilly received now made sense as did their using the supernaturally-charged hideout in the glade. Questions remained, of course – like who sent Lilly those things (whatever they were) and why – but they would have to wait until he’d stopped this from going any further. In a way he could sympathise with Lilly’s motives, and wished he could be less responsible for once, but this is an uncontrolled attack, innocents could get hurt, and even Ces’ and co. didn’t deserve to be killed or maimed just because they couldn’t help being expletive-deleted’s.
He noticed the creature speed up and head towards the entrance to the gym; an entrance crowded with costumed children waiting to enter.
Then he saw it grow a stinger, like a scorpion’s tail and speed up even more. He turned, pulling off his school uniform as he ran just dropping the jacket, shirt and trousers on the grass. He would have to collect them up later but speed was of the essence if he was to intercept the creature before it reached the gathered menagerie of costumed kids.
Recalling his recent improvisation, he unleashed his grapnel and fired it at one of the nearby floodlights that surrounded the football pitches then hit partial retract so he swung across and over the beast. Up close, it appeared to be an unholy amalgam of arachnid and feline. As he swung above it, he tried to sweep it up in his cloak. It got caught in the cloth just as it leapt towards the back of a child dressed as a mummy and became entangled, allowing Cadet to pull it up and swing it away in a tumble of cloth and beast.
A cheer went out from the kids watching the field who assumed this was all just part of tonight’s show. The beast’s target even stopped, turned and cheered in appreciation.
Unfortunately, before he could stiffen the memory cloth of his cloak and show off his straitjacket, ‘burrito-making’ skills again by wrapping it inside, it pulled the cloak out of his hands. It went to leap at him as he swung back over the creature. He pulled out some flash bombs and aimed them at the creature’s multiple eyes that declared it had a permanent twilight existence wherever it had come from. The bombs flared into bright phosphoric light and seemingly blinded the creature as it howled in pain. Again, the remaining kids waiting at the entrance to the gym clapped and cheered in appreciation of the fireworks and theatre then turned and entered the hall. The light however had revealed to Cadet that there was also a squadron of insect-like, dragonfly-winged creatures with bony faces, an excess of eyes and hook-like arms, each creature the size of a first year entering through upper windows of the school. Damn it, he needed back up and quickly.
He hit retract, the cable loosened and he landed in a crouch in front of the beast, which had its tail raised ready to try to strike and was now rushing towards him at an unnatural speed. He extended his staff and swung it round his body in an arc as he prepared to dodge that tail. The staff intercepted the strike from the tail but its teeth caught the material of his trousers and threatened to hold him ready for a second strike. He brought the staff down and wedged the tip in its mouth before deliberately falling backwards using the staff as a lever to toss it high into the air. To his surprise it never landed. He looked up to see a flying angry girl, her face almost as red as her hair, rip the beast in two. Outrage had obviously been contacted by Chris and wasn’t in the mood to take prisoners. He hoped the thing hadn’t been sentient however given its murderous rage, he couldn’t fault her for using extreme prejudice on it. He still breathed a sigh of relief though when it turned to dust and he heard Judith say, “Donna said it would return to its own realm if its physical body was destroyed here. Oh Cadet,” she and Seven said “they’d follow you to the summoning site, apparently they’ll follow your aura or some such.”
At the nearest fire exit, he saw Firewall and Bubbles gathering, intending to make their way inside the building and hopefully deal with the winged intruders he’d seen earlier. “You with them?” he shouted up to Outrage. “Yeah we’re the first line of attack, the teachers are aware and have pulled everyone out of the spook alley and into the gym where they will defend them if necessary, but they can’t do so without revealing their other identities…”
Cadet nodded, “if you get a chance, tell Seven and Donna to hurry. I think they are using the cursed glade to summon these things.” He turned and ran back towards his scattered clothes and bundled them into the branches of the nearest tree as he ran towards the location of the glade. He had a feeling that what he’d seen so far was merely the beginning.
He entered the brook in the same place as the last time he’d visited and as silently as he could, splashed his way downstream. He reached the entrance and could see dimmed lights coming from inside the unnatural chamber. The grill had been unlocked and swung open (the padlock still had the key in it). Cadet stepped down into the wet, large covered glade overgrown all around by plants and trees. As he’d experienced before, there was something that felt ‘corrupt’ and foul about the inside of the covered chamber but wasn’t sure what it was exactly that felt so unnatural.
On one side, next to the entrance there were a stack of shovels, trowels, brushes, sieves, and buckets. Near the back of the concealed glade three figures stood upright, unmoving. Beside them on top of a flattish root was a weird-looking radio in a large glass jar with a pair of large copper spiral antennae coming out of the top of it. A page from an old book lay beside it, presumably the operating instructions.
It appeared to be unpowered yet a voice emanated from it that set his nerves on edge, like listening to chalk scratching on a blackboard; an ear-splitting noise on the same frequency as that of a human scream. <<Another comes to feed us my children, soon the bargain will be complete and we will be free to feast…>>
Cadet raised his staff in readiness as he looked around but the chamber was empty except for the three people he’d expected to find. Lilly, Ali and Alan appeared to be paralysed as they stared with blank, unblinking eyes at a projection onto the pool of dark water at his feet. An unplugged and apparent unpowered projector that looked as though it had been designed before the Second World War shone demonic images and symbols onto the dark, unmoving water at his feet. This projector also had a torn page wedged under one of its angled feet.
Pages showing mystical symbols and glyphs were placed in the branches at the four points of the compass. He quickly counted. There were two pages missing, one had been the recipe and the other, possible a diagram of a summoning circle. Where were they?
He stepped forward into the shallow pool to get a better look around when he felt something large, hard and scaly grab his ankle and pull. He fell backwards into the stagnant water and for a second he felt the muddy water flood into his mouth and up his nose, then he found himself somewhere he could breathe though going by the foul taint, only just. He appeared to be floating several metres beneath the liquid effluence of the pool. Surely, no part of the pool had been that deep when he had been here before? He tried to look around but the misty darkness prevented him from seeing more than a few centimetres in front of his face. Something large and scaly again tried to grab at his legs, which he immediately swung up to his chest as he lashed out with his staff hitting something very solid. As he did, something feather-soft brushed against his head and he reached out and grabbed it, only to find himself pulled out of the ‘shallow’ pool by another of the flying demon things. Behind him a scaly claw, easily as wide at the wrist as his waist, emerged from the water and tried again to grab him. Above him, the winged creature that had pulled him free tried to gnaw at his arm as it was joined by several others of its kind.
He ignored the bites and pinched bruises, thankful that their small triangular teeth and hooked needle-like limbs seemed incapable of tearing through the material of his costume, resulting in bruising rather than them tearing at his flesh. He did fear it would only be a matter of seconds before they realised that and went for his face, or at least the parts that were unprotected. He had the advantage that the attacking winged creatures were keeping him up above and out of the pool as he tried to ignore their attacks for the moment. The massive claw trying to grab at his legs however was more of an immediate threat. Especially as he felt himself dropping towards the outstretched claw as some of the creatures holding him up let go to search for a better part of his anatomy to attack.
As he dropped closer to the grasping hand, he slammed one end of his staff down hard onto the claw itself and pole-vaulted towards the projector. Caught off-guard, only one of the gnawing beasts remained attached, its teeth still trying to tear through the costumes’ protective material to get at the flesh of his arm underneath. As he was about to land on a nearby root, he swung his captive arm wide. The last remaining creature attached to it was caught unprepared. It went spinning off upside-down and tumbling, unable to control its wings and crashed uncontrollably into the antennae of the radio. The voice from the speakers immediately stopped its infernal screech, much to Colin’s relief. As the other demonic bugs again prepared to swarm, he kicked out at the nearby projector causing the filament of the bulb to shatter as the remaining mechanics went flying towards the trunk of a misshapen tree. To his horror, he felt the talons of the giant claw below him rake at this other leg and felt its nails tear through the cloth and the flesh of his leg as it tightened its grip on his calf.
A second later the projector hit the tree; there was a loud bang and a burst of steam from the pool, which was immediately followed by a foul odour that enveloped the chamber. Cadet desperately scrambled to grab hold of the root and pull himself up and away from the demonic grasp clasping onto his leg. He scrambled round ready to try to batter away the claw with his staff only to see the giant claw fall into the water, severed and cauterised at the wrist. The rest of the creature was apparently (hopefully?) still trapped in wherever realm had been below the water.
No time, the flying beasts immediately regrouped and attacked en-masse. Both feet now firmly planted on the roots he spun round so his other foot impacted with the bony collar of his nearest attacker and sent it flying to crash into the smouldering, disembodied claw lying in the water.
As two more made for his face, he grasped both sides of his staff and separated the two halves into his Escrima sticks and proceeded to batter them away. As they swarmed, he followed through almost mechanically aiming his blows at their delicate wings rather than their bone-crested heads. As soon as he was able to draw breath, he reached over and grabbed the radio apparatus and tangled it in the end of his grappling hook.
He then proceeded to whirl it around his head as he went to step tentatively back into the water. To his relief, the pool was once again just a pool of stagnant water and the severed claw made no attempt to reanimate as he swirled the cord with its deadly weight round and around his head smashing away at any of the flying ‘tooth fairies’ stupid enough to get too close. The draft created by his swirling also tore the pages loose from the branches and scattered them around the chamber, which he hoped would make it less likely that the demons could again cross over.
Unfortunately, it didn’t banish the creatures already here, nor did it revive Lilly or her two companions so he doubted it would be having any impact on events back at the school.
In his earpiece he could now hear Chris keeping up a running commentary, how they’d defeated the demons in the spook alley but couldn’t find Ces’ who had to be hiding somewhere. He was possibly more scared of them than he was of the demons. He made a wry comment about going into the gym, disguised as himself and seeing all the boys lined up on one side of the hall trying to get up enough courage to cross the near empty floor and ask one of the girls clustered together on the other side to dance, risking being mauled by the predatory pack of girlfriends that surrounded their target or worse being roped into a group dance by the circling groups of girls.
It was a far cry from his own battle against the flying carnivorous beasts trying to eat him alive. Then, through his earpiece he heard Chris cry out, “They’re collapsing! All the kids are starting to collapse catatonic to the floor, twitching as though drugged and a portal’s opening; I can see a squadron of the bloody creatures about to come through into the gym heading for the spook alley. I’m also not convinced that Ces’ and his buddies are their only target any more.” Then his earpiece went dead.
Seems this glade was no longer the only doorway from there to here but how is it being done?
Frustrated, he swirled the cord faster and knocked one of the demons into the body of someone standing outside the entrance to the concealed glade. The girl stepped forward gesturing, muttering something not in English and the creature suddenly erupted into a cloud of dark dust. Donna smiled as she focused her power on the next creature even as Seven glided in behind her, pointed at the pool and it suddenly animated and proceeded to try and drown the remaining demonic assassins.
Seven looked embarrassed. “Sorry, we got here as fast as we could. You’ve closed this breach already I see and trapped the Urgoth, injured it. How the hell did you manage that?”
Cadet nodded as the remaining, demons, their wings already damaged from his own attack were unable to flee from Seven’s watery prison and dissipated into dust.
“No time to explain, can you manage to break Lilly, Ali and Alan out of their coma? We need to find out what’s going on here and if possible stop the assault on the school. A gateway has opened there even as all the junior years and teachers have collapsed.”
Donna waded over, through the angry frothing water that seconds before had been drowning demons and headed towards the three bodies. “I think I can get them out of this coma but it may take time and I doubt they are linked to the second breach that just opened up. There has to be a glyph, a mystical symbol somewhere in the school to summon the remaining demons there once the gate here closed. I can open a portal so you and Seven can head to the school, find the gateway glyph and destroy it or deface it somehow. The bad news is that the Urgoth is probably there now with his remaining army of servitors.” At the momentary confusion on his face, she pointed at the black dust floating on the surface of the water, “these beasties! I need to try and gently pull these three out of their comas but not destroy their minds in the process. I’ll join you as soon as I can but my focus has to be on saving them and find out what has happened to the others to see if I can counter whatever foul magic has been used on them. Go!”
With that, she waved her hands and a bubble of multicoloured light grew in front of them showing the school gymnasium, which had been invaded by a large lumbering beast easily four metres high, with large goat-like horns, and legs that ended in hooves. He couldn’t help notice that it was missing a hand or that it was surrounded by dozens of the servitors as Firewall, Outrage, Lethal and a couple of the still conscious teachers stood between the advancing horde and the kids on the ground. As Seven and he stepped through, the gateway behind them collapsed.
For the moment, the invading creatures seemed determined to get to the entrance to the spook alley for some reason. On either side of the hall, the kids in their costumes lay either unmoving on the wooden floor or twitching as they hallucinated, though given what was going on around them, their hallucinations probably wasn’t as bad as the demon-imposed reality swarming through the gate. Cadet couldn’t help notice that the breach was on the side of the hall facing the grove he’d just left and directly in front of the entrance to the spook alley.
From inside the entrance to the spook alley an explosion of bubbles erupted each contracting round a demonic servitor trying to either bite or pierce through the armour-like bubble as it squeezed the life out of them. Well, that explained where Bubbles was currently.
Seven muttered, “There had to have been someone already here to activate the second breach. I don’t think Ali and the others were working alone. Someone activated this gate and that means the demons are still bound to complete their contract whatever it was, before they can be free agents again…”
Cadet immediately scanned the hall. There were no obvious symbols he could see on or near the breach but it occurred to Cadet that perhaps the gate hadn’t been intended to open where it had. He shouted over at Seven as she began to gesture towards the servitors as one of the teachers suddenly grew in size and began to wrestle with Goatee McBillygoat, as he renamed the Urgoth demon. Frustrated, Seven immediately changed her focus towards the nearest servitors.
“Seven, is the school warded against mystical assault?” Seven muttered something and extended her arm and suddenly two servitors burst into flames, leaving only fluttering clouds of black ash. “Of course. Oh, I see what you mean. The invading demons are appearing just inside the wall of the gymnasium because the school’s wards prevent the gate from opening any further in the school but that doesn’t mean that the mystical anchor is there, it could, probably would, need to be located inside the school itself to allow them access, but where?”
Colin shouted up, “Try looking in the spook alley. I think the target of the summoner’s is Ces’ and his cronies and they were only here tonight to manage that aspect of the event. Can you help Bubbles look for it while I try and organise the resistance.”
Seven shouted down, “No, you go I’m needed here, if Whoop-Ant can’t hold the Urgoth, then I need to try… Go!”
He used his comms unit to contact the oversize ‘Ant’ Andrews and his schoolmates fighting opposite to tell them to hold the line but that he and Seven were here to help, then dashed for the entrance to the spook alley. He rushed through the creaky swing doors and found himself in the slaughterhouse as an overwhelmed Bubbles was under assault from three of the insect-like servitors.
He extended his staff and swung out, battering one of her attackers into the wall where in shattered and disintegrated. Bubbles extended her bubble shield and caused the last two beasties to fly backwards. Cadet smiled, and swung his staff like a baseball bat into another, causing it to fly into an infrared sensor, which activated a skeleton to pop up in front of it. It immediately attacked it, ignoring Bubbles and Cadet. Cadet rewarded it with a battering from the rear. It cracked its skull and it began to flutter away even as Bubbles extended a bubble, which engulfed it and contracted, smothering it into black dust. The final servitor was dispatched by a frustrated Cadet who grabbed it by its wings and, spinning round, tore it in two. That’s when he saw it, projected above the double doors to the hall, a projection of a torn page with a mystical symbol printed on it. He followed the beam back to a scanner and overhead projector hidden above one of the doors. Someone had set it up so that an old piece of school equipment was projecting the glyph above the door, in the direction of the grove.
He rushed over and pulled the plug out of its socket and the image vanished. Over his comms unit he heard Seven cheer, “The breach has closed. Well done, get to Ces’ and make sure he’s safe then join us if you can. We need all the help we can get out here.”
He spun on the spot then asked an exhausted Bubbles, “You see Ces’ anywhere?” “No, the others ran into the hall but Ces’ wasn’t with them. I did hear sobs though coming from next door when I was fighting out here.”
Cadet rushed through the door only to find himself covered in red confetti. Seems someone had activated the bucket as they had escaped into the hall and he’d set it off. Oh well, better than being covered in blood! He shook off the paper fragments and pushed into the room. As he looked around he realised that there was only one location that someone could seriously hide and he’s already aware of how good a hiding place it was. He walked over to the coffin that Seven had surprised him from earlier that night and pulled open the lid. A high-pitched scream washed over him as Ces’ slid down and huddled in the bottom of the coffin, his face covered in tears.
“Hi! Time to leave I think…” Ces’s eyes went wide, tears streaming down his face as he hugged himself as he muttered “No, no, no!” and tried to pull the lid of the coffin closed again.
Colin smiled and pulled out his mobile to take a picture before allowing the lid to close again.
Given all the servitors in the spook alley were now dealt with, here was probably as safe here as anywhere. He rushed back through the door, banging his head on the hanging bucket, and rushed through into the gym. Sure enough, the breach on the opposite was gone. Unfortunately, the Ulgoth and several of the flying beasties were still in our reality, trapped here even.
A gigantic Ant Andrews was on the ground, wounded from several bites on his shoulder as he tried to wrestle with Goatee McBillygoat even as ‘Old man’ Summers tried to stab at it with a sword stick he had concealed in his cane. Cadet rushed over, oblivious of Bubbles’ effervescent shield projected above his head, as he emptied out his utility belt of pellets into his hands. He got close and leapt towards the beastie throwing everything he had at its face. Flash bombs, tear gas and sleep pellets collided with its eyes and nose even as he twirled his staff round and slammed the butt into its temple as it responded with a roar of pain.
Firewall, Lethal and Outrage had systematically been dealing with the remaining servitors when Lethal realised what was happening and saw an opening. He pulled a pair of stiletto blades out of a sheath hidden in the small of his back and rushed at the temporarily blinded Ulgoth. He got in close and stabbed the creature several times in the radial and femoral arteries, he then just walked away leaving it to bleed out. After a few seconds, the black liquid that served as its blood turned into dust as the screaming Ulgoth dissipated out of this reality with the remaining servitor.
All that was left was a room full of unconscious hallucinating schoolkids, a cowering Ces’ hiding next-door, a floor covered in black ash and a well and truly outed Whoop-Ant.
Mr Andrews shrunk down to normal size and immediately asked Seven if she could do anything to revive the mind-afflicted kids, possibly explaining away what they have witnessed and / or experienced as a Halloween prank by someone with a warped sense of humour?
“Not my speciality. Donna may be a better bet. I suggest we clean up and get the kids comfortable until Donna gets here.” With that, she gestured and the hall filled with focused winds that gathered all the ash and push it outside, into the night.
It was about ten minutes later that a multicoloured ball of light appeared in the middle of the hall. Donna stepped through with an exhausted threesome of Lilly and the Mayson twins in tow.
Seven was busy working on a banishment spell as they approached. Donna stepped forward and looked at ‘Old man’ Summers, “How you want to handle this sir? Do you want me to disguise this in the folds of time or we could claim this was a hallucination caused by someone putting acid or some such into the drinks…” Summers smiled, “Actually I’m reasonably sure that’s what happened.” Donna continued, “Alternatively I could just erase the last half hour from everyone’s memories, everyone who isn’t shielded that is. I appreciate there will need to be an off-the-books inquiry carried out, but it would mean the school wouldn’t be facing lawsuits from parents, unwelcome Ofsted inspections and intense public scrutiny..?”
“Just so, you make a good case Donna. Let’s get everyone off the floor and into chairs first and can you make sure that Mr Morgan and his followers are exposed to the spell as well even though they didn’t suffer from the hallucinations? You’ll need to purge everyone’s systems first with a cleansing spell.”
“Ah, Mr Du.. Cadet, can you and Bubbles remove all the drinks from the hall including any in glasses and take them to Mr Smith’s lab for analysis? I’m sure that the punch bowls were spiked but we need to confirm what was used. Neither Mr Andrews nor I drank anything tonight and I noticed that Lethal over there only drank water. I think everyone who collapsed drank the punch.”
“Mr Andrews if you are up to it, please break out the crates of coke, I think my budget can cope with treating the students for the rest of the evening.”
“Seven can you make sure the school’s wards are re-energised and fully operational again?”
Donna and Seven prepared then cast a ritual, the Occult Exorcism of Obroros, to free the minds from any residual mystical influence and purge whatever had caused everyone to collapse then Donna unleashed the Wheel of Chronos to remove the last half hour from their memories. It was only the teachers, HCP students and the three conspirators that were left unaffected.
As the spell was woven and washed over the gathered crowd, including a now mystified Ces’ who was trying to figure out why he was in the hall, they heard Summers on the DJ microphone explain that they had played enough games for the night. “Thanks everyone for participating, hope you enjoyed playing. The ball will now restart. Could everyone get on the dance floor for Thriller?”
Confused at having the last 30 minutes wiped from their memories, but unwilling to admit to anyone that they didn’t remember what had just happened, the kids gathered on the floor as the music started. A very confused Ces’ wiped tears from his face and wandered back into the spook alley. After a few seconds there was a loud bang and a shout as he banged his head on a low-hanging bucket.
Half an hour later the HCP were all gathered in Mr Summers’ office with the three very embarrassed students. Lilly and the twins admitted that they’d wanted revenge on Ces’ and the others for their bullying. It was Ali that had suggested they scare him by calling up a vision of a demon. They had never expected it to go down the way it had.
Despite being asked at the start by Mr Summers to just stay quiet, Cadet and firewall kept on interrupting, wanting to know more. To their surprise, Summers merely smiled and let them ask the trio their questions.
“Why did you steal the book and where is it now?”
Ali remembered seeing the Second Testament in the library and it was Alan who suggested using the old Glade to summon a demon but they didn’t think they would be able to do more than make the bullies see them, not actually bring them here. Lilly had also been ‘inspired’ to check out ‘Dark Rituals and Modern Mayhem’ but none of them could remember why or how they’d known what to take from it. Cadet had to know. “So what happened to the Second testament? I mean, it’s not been found. I’m not even sure how you got the book out of the Big House?”
When they stole the ritual book from the library, Lilly had put it in her bag while the others caused a distraction. What she hadn’t told them what had really happened. She’d got a message that morning, she just couldn’t remember how or from whom, that she should return to her room at lunchtime. When she arrived, she had found a package waiting on her bed. Inside was the spirit radio, the projector, a new backpack identical to her own but with a weird pattern on the lining and the packet of herbs and stalks.
The herbs she passed to a friend. No, she refused to say who, who agreed to mix it into the punch as instructed. She then made her way down to the glade and hid the radio and projector there knowing she’d find instructions in how to use them in a book she had to get from the library of the Big House later that afternoon.
“How did you get in? It should have been locked.” asked Firewall. She went quiet for a few moments then explained, “The entrance to the glade was already open when I got there.” Alan went quiet for a few seconds then muttered that he remembered seeing a silver skull on the top of a walking stick when they went down after school but couldn’t remember anything more.
Chris and Colin exchanged glances. The glade was in the same general direction as the treehouse.
Lilly continued her explanation, “In the library I placed the book in the new bag. Not sure why I’d swapped and taken the new bag rather than my usual bag this afternoon. Anyway, I placed it in the bag whilst still inside the library and when I looked it had vanished, mystically transported, I assumed to the glade.”
Seven picked up the school bag and confirmed that the lining inside the backpack had been enchanted with a one use only teleportation matrix. When Lilly had placed the book inside the pocket of the bag, it must have activated the matrix and instantaneously transported away. This was how she got it out of the library without triggering the door alarm. The others were unaware, too focused on leaving the building to notice that the alarm never went off.
She continued, “It wasn’t there though when we arrived at the glade for a second time and for some reason I never though any more about it until now. Instead, we got busy setting up the spirit radio and projector and placing the pictures of the glyphs at the right points within the glade.
She had no idea what has happened to the book and assumed that ‘he’ must have it, though she couldn’t remember who ‘he’ was. In fact, none of them could remember anything that happened after they had switched on the radio. She had a blank, intense look on her face as she tried desperately to remember anything that had happened after that.
Colin and Chris asked who had drugged the drinks in the gym and set up the glyph to project onto the wall? She looked blank, before admitting that her unnamed friend had drugged the punch though neither of them thought the mixture would actually hurt anyone. She must have also put the last illustration inside the spook alley as the man with the cane had instructed. No, she wouldn’t name her friend under any circumstances and she had no idea who the man was as she apparently had no memory of meeting anyone.
Why did they do it? Lilly looked stubborn then explained that it was all the fault of the school. They had allowed Ces’ and his mates to bully everyone else and didn’t do anything about it. That’s why she’d felt justified in taking things into their own hands.
Lilly and the twins were sent to have a ‘little talk’ with Dr Lockheart next and told that they would find out their punishment on Monday, but no, they would not be expelled.
Next morning, despite it being a Saturday Cadet, Firewall and the others were invited back to Mr Summers’ office for an update. When they and the others had arrived, ‘Old man’ Summers explained that Mr Arnyal had identified the herbs and plants added to the fruit punch as being from the leaves of the Psychotria viridis shrub while the stalks were from the Banisteriopsis caapi vine. This mixture was used in certain South American mystical rituals as a ceremonial mixture known as Ayahuasca.
Most people would start to feel its effects within 20 minutes. The effects are dose-dependent, and trips could last for 2 to 6 hours Those who take Ayahuasca can experience symptoms like vomiting, diarrhoea, feelings of euphoria, strong visual and auditory hallucinations, mind-altering psychedelic effects, fear, and paranoia go through severe anxiety and panic. Thankfully, the spell cast by Donna and Serena had meant there had been no withdrawal effects.
That hadn’t stopped a rumour going round the school that Gabriel Freespirit from year 4 had tried to spike the drinks, which explained the vague feeling of lost time some of the pupils were now claiming that they had experienced the night before. Admittedly, there was no evidence to substantiate this claim though several parents had phoned the school to check. The school rumour mill had found Gabriel guilty by public opinion as he had the reputation for using cannabis though in reality he only smoked some weed at home apparently with the approval of his parents.
The description that Colin and Chris had given of the man they’d met coming out of the Big House, who had claimed he had been looking for the treehouse, unsurprisingly did not match any of the invited guest speakers, nor did anyone remember anyone matching his description being signed in to the school. Like Lilly’s package, he had apparently just turned up inside the school grounds. In addition to which, no one knew what had happened to the Second Testament.
This was definitely not over yet, by a longshot.
Saturday Evening
It was as though nothing had happened the night before. Colin went to the Ball that night dressed in a Chinese silk top and trousers he’d found in Dragon’s Gate and used a bald wig to hid his hair – when asked, he claimed to be Akira of the Balance. Alaina accompanied him dressed up as Banshee and they had a good time. Much to Chris’ annoyance Dimitri went dressed up as a very effeminate and frazzled version of Firewall. He attended as a Roman Centurion that had been mummified claiming to be the ghost of Mark Antony. His date for the night, Tara Tobias, went as a mummified Cleopatra complete with a rubber asp.
Colin looked around at the crowd but it seemed that Charlene had decided not to attend which he felt was a real pity. Might have been an opportunity to for her to have made a few new friends at the school.
Growing up Meta, UK-Style! 