Alchemy, Book Two of the Mercian Trilogy (4 page)

Someone called him from behind and he made his excuses and returned to work. Will and Eloise left Rachel and walked through to the house, sitting on the green sofas where Will had first confronted them about their interest in him. There was a sickly familiarity about the return of his suspicions, made worse by the realisation that Rachel and Chris had been privy to almost all his plans and movements these last two months.

They sat for a while in silence, listening to the distant sounds of the café winding down for the evening. Then Eloise looked at the bookshelves and said, “Do you think we’ll ever see the spirits again?”

“You mean the witches?” She nodded. “Perhaps not. Perhaps they told us all they wished to impart. At least we know we have nothing to fear from them if they do return.”

“I was just thinking, since Puckhurst nothing has actually … happened. I know we’ve just found the tunnels, but I thought things would keep happening, that we’d set something in motion.”

Whether she knew she was doing it or not, she
played with the pendant hanging round her neck as she spoke. She was right, of course. If this was the time of his destiny, where was it, and why had the messengers failed to show themselves? Lorcan Labraid was calling to him, that was the essence of everything he’d learned in November, and yet now he was met with silence, scrabbling forward on his own, understanding nothing of what he’d so far found.

He thought of that darkened passageway in the tunnels though, and even here in the safety of the city it chilled his spine. The witches would be a welcome sight now, if only that he might ask them about those tunnels, that one tunnel in particular.

Eloise wanted something to happen, a desire he appreciated, yet still he said, “You know that old saying – be careful what you wish for.”

As his words died away, Chris and Rachel came through from the café and Rachel said, “Can I get you anything, Eloise?”

“No thanks.”

Chris said, “How is it being back at school?”

Eloise looked at him with a bemused expression, eyebrows raised, as if asking if he really needed a response to that question. Will often forgot that she was sixteen, over seven hundred and fifty years younger than him, but right then, she looked very much a schoolgirl.

“Please sit down,” said Will. Eloise recognised his tone and suddenly looked adult again, nervous as to where this might lead. “I’ll get straight to the point because I’m sure there’s an explanation, and if there is, we can perhaps use it to our advantage.”

“This sounds intriguing,” said Chris as he and Rachel sat on the sofa opposite Will and Eloise.

“A pupil arrived at the school at the beginning of this term and for various reasons – not important at this moment – we’re convinced that he’s been placed there to spy on Eloise, and perhaps on me.”

Rachel said, “But no one knows you’re there.”

She was innocent at least. Will could see it in her eyes, hear it in her voice.

“So we thought. Eloise found out who’s paying this boy’s fees and it’s a charity called The Breakstorm Trust. You’re involved with them, aren’t you, Chris? I saw their brochures here last November, addressed to you.”

Chris nodded, glancing at Rachel as he said, “We both donate to different charities. Breakstorm is an educational charity – I’ve given them money, that’s about it.” Rachel looked as if she was about to remind him of something, but he jumped in quickly as if offering the information voluntarily. “Oh, and I attended a dinner for donors.”

“Where you would have met the trustees, including one Phillip Wyndham.”

Chris laughed a little to himself, bitterly, with the look of someone disappointed that he’d let it come to this, then said, “Yes, I met Phillip Wyndham. In fact, I met him a couple of times, when he was outlining the work they did, discussing my donation.”

Rachel looked astounded and said to Will, “Phillip Wyndham? The Wyndham who’s trying to destroy you?”

“No,” said Chris. “No, this can’t be the same man. That’s why I didn’t mention it because I knew you’d find it suspicious and because I knew this couldn’t be the same person. He’s a suit, you know, a guy in his fifties who’s been in business …”

“What business?”

“I don’t know, but trust me, this guy is no sorcerer, he just isn’t.”

Eloise cleared her throat and said, “After we got back from Puckhurst, when we were sitting at the kitchen table, you actually brought the subject up – you asked who Wyndham was, how he fitted into things.”

Chris nodded. “Because I’d done a check on Wyndham, just to be sure, and …”

“And?” Rachel looked as much in need of an answer as Will or Eloise.

“And I couldn’t find any trace of him, except for Breakstorm itself. That doesn’t mean there’s anything suspicious about him – lots of rich and powerful people are hard to trace – but I asked that night because I suppose I wanted a little more reassurance.”

No one spoke. Will was unsure what to think. Chris sounded like a person who was genuinely conflicted, finding it hard to believe the man he’d met could be the sorcerer trying to destroy Will. He also sounded desperate, but that said nothing of his guilt or innocence.

Finally Chris looked at Will, as if asking for a response.

Will said, “Tell me about the person you’ve met – Phillip Wyndham. What’s he like? What does he talk about? Everything you can remember.”

“Like I said, he’s probably in his fifties, could be older or younger, but he’s grey-haired, in pretty good shape, always very smartly dressed, the bearing of someone who’s been a powerful businessman, though he’s never talked about his past to me. He talked about education for the most part, a few polite questions about our business, about why we decided to open a café. He knew I was interested in the occult so he asked about that. But he didn’t actually seem interested himself – he was humouring me, that was all.”

Eloise said, “He didn’t ask about Will in any way, not even … I don’t know, sort of, leading questions?”

“No, that’s my point exactly. That’s why I can’t believe he’s the same person.”

Rachel had been frowning as she listened. “But you should have told us, or at least me. You must see how it looks coming out like this.”

Chris nodded and put his hand on Rachel’s, but she pulled hers away, reminding Will of Eloise’s gesture in the frozen parkland earlier. Was Rachel having a similar moment, wondering who this man was who was sharing her life?

“I didn’t tell anyone because I thought you’d cut me out of everything, and I was certain there couldn’t be a connection. Almost certain. But I should have told you all, and I apologise. I can try to find out more about him, but if you met him, you’d be as certain as I am that he has nothing to do with this.”

Will smiled, trying to believe that Chris was just incredibly naïve, and said, “He is a leading trustee of a charity that quite inexplicably placed a boy in Eloise’s school just as we returned there, a boy we do not doubt is a spy, and his surname is Wyndham. Do you not see, even if he isn’t the sorcerer – the sorcerer, let me remind you, who conjured my own brother from his grave in order to attack me – he is at the very least a relative or accomplice of that person?”

“Of course, when you put it like that.”

“Is there any other way of putting it?”

“No. I can’t believe I’ve been so stupid,” said Chris, and covered his face with his hands for a moment. When he took his hands away again, he looked determined. “You won’t be able to trust me after this, obviously, so I can have no more direct involvement. Tell me nothing of your plans or what you’ve discovered. It’s the only way you can be sure.”

Will stared directly into his eyes, but didn’t try to hook him in, wanting his answer to be completely uninfluenced, and said, “Have you betrayed me?”

“No, I swear on my life.”

“And I will hold you to that. But if you have given your word, I’ll accept it and we’ll speak no more of it. You will be as privy to our plans as you were before. The only thing I can ask of you is that you respond with caution if you’re contacted by Wyndham again.”

“Of course, and I’ll tell you, but I haven’t heard from him in months, since around the time we met you.”

“Good.”

There was another awkward pause, but then Rachel smiled, trying to draw a line under the discussion by saying, “So how are things going?”

“Still nothing happening,” said Eloise. “It’s really annoying actually, specially after me going back to Marland.”

“But we do have hopes of the school chapel and its crypt,” said Will and Chris gave him a small grateful smile. “It’s too soon to say if we’ll discover anything specific, but it makes sense that the chapel of the old house should be significant.”

Rachel looked up at the clock and said, “You won’t be going there now though? It’s late. I mean, Eloise, how are you managing to get up in the mornings?”

Eloise laughed and said, “I’m doing OK, and no, we’re done for the night, but I suppose we’d better be going.”

“Yes, if you don’t mind.”

Both Rachel and Chris accompanied them on the journey back, the conversation touching on the weather and Eloise’s studies and anything else that would put some distance between the four of them and the suspicions and accusations that had been so recently aired.

They dropped them at the school gates to avoid suspicion, and Will and Eloise started walking up the long drive, sheltered from view by the woodland on both sides.

As soon as the car had gone, Eloise said, “I don’t trust him.”

Will laughed and said, “That’s an interesting development.”

She laughed too, but said, “Clearly, I’m not alone – otherwise
you wouldn’t have made up all that business about the school chapel. Quick thinking.”

“Thank you. But to answer your point, I’m not sure whether I trust him or not. Perhaps giving him that misinformation will lead us in due course to an answer.”

A small branch snapped in the woods ahead of them. It wasn’t unusual, but they were cautious and both stopped walking and listened. After a moment, Eloise whispered, “Can you see anyone?”

Will couldn’t, and in fact the hoar frost would have made it hard for someone to hide even from regular eyes, let alone his.

“No, I don’t think there’s anyone there.” But he didn’t move and nor did Eloise.

Now that they’d been alerted by that snapping twig, they were both aware that something was not as it should be. Will could still hear Chris and Rachel’s car disappearing into the far distance, he could hear the hissing release of steam from the school boiler, Eloise’s breathing, but he could hear something else too, something faint and disturbing.

A moment later, Eloise said, “What’s that noise? I can hear something.” She looked up, her breath rising above her.

Will looked too, and could hear the sound more clearly now, like a sickening heartbeat, pumping,
growing louder, and then he could see something. He couldn’t make out what it was or how big because he couldn’t tell how far away it was, but something, a darker shadow against the dark sky, was flying fast towards them.

E
loise cocked her head to one side and said, “It sounds like …”

“Wings,” said Will. Not a heartbeat, but the beat of a wing, and guessing now that the dark shape was a bird, he was able to judge how close it was as it swooped in, aiming directly for Eloise’s head.

Dark against darkness, hurtling, and silent now as even the wings stopped. Will lunged forward, moving fast. Eloise let out a confused cry, but it was already done. Will snatched the bird out of the air as it neared the end of its dive. He felt it break in his hand with the impact. He looked at it, there in his fist like a broken umbrella.

“A crow?” Eloise sounded astonished more than afraid.

Will nodded, but before he could speak, he heard the same beating sound. He dropped the dead bird and looked around, trying to see where the other one was. It came swooping down from behind them.

“Run,” he said to Eloise. She hesitated and he pushed behind her and grabbed the bird out of the air. But the sound of beating wings didn’t stop. Eloise let out a cry and when he turned she’d been scratched on the head and was hitting another crow away, the bird flying back beyond arm’s reach before mounting another ferocious attack.

Will lashed out, knocking the crow into the trees at the side of the drive. And yet still he could hear more wingbeats in the air above them, and increasingly, the cawing of twenty, fifty, maybe even a hundred crows. They were ignoring him and it was clear that Eloise alone was their target.

He looked at her. The attack had left a small scratch at the top of her forehead, a bright patch of blood shining glossily in the midst of her pale skin. He felt the emptiness surge up inside him, the need to take in what that blood offered him.

But a shape swooped down from the dizzying carousel of shadows that was above and all around them. He hit out at the bird, its lifeless and broken body immediately falling to the ground a few paces away from them. And swiftly he removed his coat and threw it over Eloise’s head, as much to conceal the blood from his view as to protect her.

“Keep that over your head and follow me.” He took
her hand and led her forward quickly, fighting off the crows which attacked relentlessly now, some swooping low, but staying just out of reach, others diving straight for her. They remained blind to Will, even as he knocked them out of the air.

Eloise let out another scream and he stopped and saw that he’d missed one. It stabbed at her head through his coat, its beak hammering at her skull, determined. He knocked it away, but even as he did, three more swept in, grappling at her coat, pecking furiously.

He stopped trying to lead her forward and concentrated on defending her, knocking the birds out of the air, grabbing them when he could. But there were too many, and those he didn’t kill swept in again relentlessly. He couldn’t protect all directions at once, fearing even he would be overwhelmed.

Finally he realised there was only one option, to get Eloise inside. He started to pull her forward again, knocking the crows away when he could, reacting to her cries when they got through and clawed and pecked at her through the thick overcoat.