Faculty of Fire (21 page)

“You’re burning up,” Alice gasped eventually.

Yes indeed ... who wouldn’t burst into flame at a sight like that! I was feeling really hot.

I reached up to loosen my collar ... and I burnt my hand!

“It’s hot,” I squeaked plaintively, suddenly realising the reason for the strange heat.

I really was on fire, or rather, my new outfit was. All of it.

“I’m on fire!” I said in a much louder voice.

Alice grabbed hold of my arm and dragged me into her room. While I was trying to understand what was happening to me, the vampiress flitted into the bathroom like an elusive shadow. A couple of seconds later, I was soaked from head to foot by water. A basin had mysteriously appeared out of nowhere. I didn’t have a basin like that in my room ... phooey, what was I thinking about? Just a moment ago I was on fire! No, phooey, what was I thinking about, when such a beautiful girl was standing in front of me with almost no clothes on!

While the vampiress was running backwards and forwards to the bathroom her entire outfit, which was held together by a wish and a prayer, had finally fallen apart.

“Oh,” Alice exclaimed and darted into the bathroom, pressing the “livery” against herself.

Now I thought I understood what that lousy rotten waiter had been talking about. Just let me get my hands on him ...

“Alice came darting out of the bathroom, fully dressed.

How could she have managed all those fastenings so quickly? And I should mention, by the way, that she looked just as good in full livery as she did in almost none.

I could read a similar train of thought on the vampiress’s face – apart from that last part, of course.

“Now look, I’ll never be able to figure out how I got all this on,” Alice complained. “I was relaxing. And then you appear, ablaze with passion outside the door.”

“Not with passion,” I said, trying to explain.

“Not with passion,” Alice teased me. “As if I didn’t see the expression on your face.”

“And what connection do you think there is between the expression on my face and the combustion of my clothes?” I almost shouted.

“Who knows with you?” Alice said with a shrug. “And by the way, now I’ve got to mop the floor after you.”

What arrogance. You could say I’d saved her from inevitable ... well, all right, not quite death, but I’d certainly saved her from vengeance. How ungrateful of her! I’d almost been burnt to a cinder! And all she could do was joke about it! Or was it her nerves? Yes, the poor thing, she must have been terribly worried about me ...

“I’ll clean up the mess myself,” I suggested timidly

“And who’s going to fix my shattered nerves?”

Who was going to fix
my
nerves? Which one of us was on fire, anyway? She could at least have a bit more tact.

“Anybody might think I came to your door and burst into flame on purpose,” I said, abandoning any attempt to conceal my annoyance. “And by the way, if it wasn’t for me, you could have fallen into that trap yourself!”

“Do I look like a fool to you?” the vampiress retorted. “Do you think I didn’t hear those halfwits outside my door? Or do you think it’s that easy to hoodwink a hereditary vampire, even one from the Day Clan, with a simple little fire spell?”

“I don’t think anything,” I muttered. “But you could be a bit more polite.”

Alice shut up, although she obviously had something else uncomplimentary to say about me.

“So just what was it that brought you here to see me?” she asked in a gentler voice.

“Well, you never know when we might need to find you in a hurry. We have to know where you live. We’re on the same team now, or had you forgotten?”

That was a very smart move I made, shifting to “we”. As if I hadn’t gone there on my own initiative, but by decision of the team. Only somehow I got the impression that she didn’t really believe me ... I’m not very good at lying ...

“I believe you, I believe you,” said Alice, narrowing her eyes. Then she added, more seriously. “You could have burnt to death thanks to those jokers ...”

Aha, so she really was worried. May a dragon take me, but that felt good.

“I’m not so sure,” I said.

I walked over to the nearest chair. I was tired of standing, and anyway, I could feel that my knees were still shaking. I didn’t want to appear weak in front of Alice.

“I think our livery is pretty good protection against all sorts of fire attacks.”

Alice walked up to me and put her hand on my shoulder: “And not just fire. It’s completely dry, even though I emptied a basin full of water over you just a minute ago.”

“Eh?” I asked, with my mind focused completely on the touch of her hand. “Yes ... of course.”

My clothes might be dry, but my shoes were an entirely different matter. The water squelched in them when I moved my feet.

“Am I imagining things, or are you a bit distracted today?” Alice remarked as she took her hand off my shoulder.

And why wouldn’t I be distracted? Only two days earlier the Academy couldn’t have been further from my mind, I didn’t take my strange dreams seriously and I genuinely believed that all the songs I had written down were my own. But now what? Now I was studying in the Academy, although it didn’t really feel like it yet, and I’d been awarded the high-sounding title of “plagiarist”. I really didn’t have the vaguest idea what the word meant, but I could tell it was something very, very offensive.

“I think someone’s got serious trouble coming for this little joke ...” I declared, running my hand through my wet hair.

“And I know who that certain someone is,” Alice hissed ominously. She started pacing across the room. “How can we take our revenge on him?”

I didn’t even bother to ask how she knew who we had to pay back for what had happened. Vampires have very sensitive hearing, and hearing some young guy haranguing a crowd outside the door is as simple for them as sneezing is for me.

“Atchoo!”

There, see, I told you.

I sat on the chair, pouring the water out of my shoes, with Alice marching round and round me. This wasn’t how I’d imagined my visit to a girl – even if she was a vampire – would turn out.

“Well all right, never mind,” I said eventually, tired of seeing Alice flashing by in front of my eyes. “So the lads had a little joke. I haven’t really suffered any damage ...”

Alice stopped and looked at me closely.

“You haven’t? Shall I give you a mirror?”

“All right,” I said in a voice that was suddenly hollow.

What could have happened to me? I didn’t think I had any burns – I would have felt them. Maybe my eyebrows were a little bit singed. But that was nothing.

Alice went into the bathroom and came back with a mirror.

“See what a fine handsome fellow you are now,” she laughed.

“Right, then,” I hissed a few seconds later. “We have to find those ... those creeps and give them a good ...”

“Now I understand you,” said Alice, interrupting my furious rant. “I thought you were only pretending to be a pacifist, but there was a really sweet boy hiding away somewhere deep inside.”

This statement left me feeling rather confused. Just who was it she thought of as a sweet boy? On the other hand ... with my hair in its present state, I really did look like a boy. A very angry boy with a very short haircut.

“So, let’s get back to thinking about what we can do to these cruds. As I recall, they were second-year students, right? So what have we got to use against them?”

“Nothing,” I said uncertainly, startled by the change in Alice. Only a little while ago you couldn’t drag a word out of her, but now she couldn’t stop talking, her eyes were positively blazing. But then, that was understandable – vampires enjoy any kind of destructive activity, especially plotting against their neighbours.

“That’s right, nothing,” Alice suddenly agreed. “Right now. But we have to look out for opportunities, learn the official and unofficial rules of the Academy, discover our enemy’s weak spots.”

She was getting really carried away. Just like a general before a battle.

“We have to reconnoitre,” I said, trying to say something intelligent.

Alice gave me an even more respectful look.

“Good idea, you can do that.”

I’d have been glad to, only for the life of me I couldn’t remember what that highbrow word actually meant.

“And now let me trim your hair a bit, it has a terrible singed smell.”

I gave a positively heartrending sigh and waited meekly for Alice to bring the scissors, then patiently endured the final destruction of my hairstyle.

“Well, that’s a bit better,” she said eventually. “You look almost normal again.”

“Listen, I’ve been wanting to ask you,” I said, taking the plunge. “Why did you kiss me at the reception?”

“Why, didn’t you like it?” Alice asked in surprise.

What sort of stupid question was that?

“That’s not the point, I just don’t understand why you made such a public spectacle of it.”

Just who was that performance intended for? Not for my aunt, surely? How could the vampiress possibly know Aunt Eliza? When she told my aunt about the wedding she was probably just acting in self-defence.

“I needed to explain something to someone,” Alice said reluctantly.

“Meaning?” I persisted.

“Meaning that just at that moment some ... friends of mine appeared in the hall,” Alice added.

That explained everything. She was hiding from her friends in my room, they came to the hall for her, and she proved something to them by kissing me. Right? No, wrong! How did vampires get into the hall at the Golden Half Moon without being noticed? Only someone who was blind and deaf could have missed Alice’s entrance, and if her friends had shown up at the reception ... there would have been total uproar, complete with thunder and lightning (in the literal as well as the figurative sense).

“Somehow I didn’t spot your friends there,” I said, trying to sound casual.

“Nobody spotted them,” said Alice with a shrug. “You know, if a vampire really doesn’t want to be seen, a High Craftsman will walk past without even noticing him.”

“And where were they sitting?” I enquired, trying not to sound sarcastic. “At the tables beside the Craftsmen?”

“Not far away from us,” the vampiress laughed. “Quite close, in fact ...”

In my mind I ran though all of our surroundings that evening, but I didn’t come across vampires anywhere.

“No, I don’t recall seeing them.”

“But did you try looking up?”

Up? Why should I look up? That was where the ceiling was ... ah, yes! I did see some shadows on the ceiling that evening. The sly dogs! Vampires could easily walk on the ceiling.

“Now I understand everything,” I muttered. “So what was it you and your relatives were arguing about?”

But apparently Alice felt she’d revealed enough secrets for one day.

“Can we leave that for some other time?” she asked, yawning ostentatiously. “I don’t know about you, but I’m supposed to be sleeping right now.”

“Whatever you say,” I agreed meekly, realising that asking more questions wouldn’t improve her attitude towards me. “Is it okay if I wash up before I go?”

I got up off the chair and took a step towards the bathroom.

“No!” said Alice, blocking my way. “I’m very tired and I want to sleep. So please get washed at your own place. Okay?”

“Okay,” I said with a shrug. “Whatever you say.”

“So, see you tomorrow, before breakfast?” Alice asked as she showed me out.

“Yes, we’ll call to get you,” I said to the door as it slammed shut in my face.

Scene 9

That night (although how could it possibly be night, when outside the window the sun was hanging still in the sky, without the slightest intention of sinking down behind the horizon?) I dreamed of strange bald men, sitting on the floor of a huge temple. Their eyes were closed, and they were chanting a strange melody. What could that mean?

It was the first duel of my life. Or rather, it was the first duel I’d ever seen in my life. Or, to be absolutely precise, it was going to be the first duel I’d ever seen in my life. And since the argument was between third-year students, it promised to be extremely interesting.

At precisely eight o’clock, as arranged, our team of five was standing in the sparring hall. In actual fact, our entire class was there. I didn’t actually count them, but I was sure not one of the new pupils from our faculty had decided to ignore this remarkable event. Who’d want to miss the first duel of his life! So far all we knew about duels of magic came from patchy rumours (mostly spread by enthusiasts like Chas), but those rumours were more than enough to intrigue even the greatest sceptics.