The Witch Hunter's Gauntlet (10 page)

“
There she is,” Constable Albion said, rising from his chair. “The girl who unleashed the beast upon us.”

Before she knew what was happening
, Sam was floating in the air, her arms and legs pinned by some unseen force, while alarms were going off all around her again.

The two guards drew their stun guns, but Agent Sampson was fastest on the draw. He withdrew so
me sort of fancy ray gun from the breast pocket of his suit and had it trained on Albion’s hands in no time. It was only now that Sam realized that Albion’s hands were glowing a dull yellow.

“
Albion, would you kindly stop floating my students around my office and setting off my magic detectors,” Dean Futuro said calmly. “You may not have realized this, but they are quite annoying.”

“You are harboring a felon here, Futuro,”
Albion said.

“And you are about to get zapped like you wouldn’t believe,” Dean Futuro said as he steepled his fingers.

The glowing stopped and Sam fell to the floor. She just barely got her footing in time to not fall flat on her face. Zack cracked a bit of a smile, but Sam was terrified. She didn’t know what was going on or why Constable Albion had come back into her life; but, no doubt, it had something to do with some magical doodad she supposedly had stolen or some other crazy thing she had never even heard of before.

“So what did I do now?” Sam asked.

“The resurrection of a known murderer leading to the deaths of twenty-three wizards and witches, resulting in the siring of at least fifteen new vampires,” Albion rattled off in rapid-fire police speech.

Every eye in the room was on Sam. Even Zack seemed a bit shocked and maybe even a little impressed.

“What?” Sam squeaked out, completely dumbfounded.

Agent Sampson slipped his ray gun back into his pocket and turned in his chair to face Sam. “It appears Prince Cervantes has returned.”

“Returned!” Albion shouted. His nostrils were flaring wildly. “He did not simply return. No one, not even Cervantes could return from death. He was brought back. Brought back by her.”

Sam’s eyes locked on the
yellow tipped finger that was pointing accusingly at her.

“You have no basis for that accusation. In fact
, we have sufficient evidence that Ms. Hathaway never left Presley, Illinois all summer and has stayed on school grounds the entire semester,” Agent Sampson said.

Sam’s life seemed pretty dull when described out loud like that.

“Evidence.” Albion spat the word out. “You think I don’t know that you can alter pictures with your computers? We are not as naive as you think.”

“You didn’t know about my magic detectors,” Dean Futuro said.

“How much more of your trickery do you expect the ISG to put up with, Futuro?” Albion clinched his fist and it seemed to Sam that he would have liked nothing better than to punch the frail old man as hard as he possibly could. But he was greatly outnumbered and knew it. He slowly sat back down, but his glare could freeze lava.

“Listen, is anyone going to tell us why we are here?” Zack asked. Apparently now that Constable Albion was somewhat subdued
, Zack’s insanely overdeveloped confidence was rearing its ugly head again.

“You are here,
Mr. McQueen,” Dean Futuro began, “because the ISG has lost control of the magical community and needs someone else to blame for their inadequacies.”

He shifted his gaze to
Albion--who was about ready to explode, from the looks of him.

Agent Sampson quickly
interjected. “Prince Cervantes—or, quite possibly, someone who has assumed the alias of Prince Cervantes--has begun terrorizing the magical communities of Europe and Africa. There has even been one unconfirmed Cervantes sighting in Japan.”

“But my parents killed Cervantes,” Sam said. She wasn’t sure if and how a vampire could come back from the dead.

“Yes, they did,” Agent Sampson said in a serious tone. “That is why we need to talk to you, both of you.”

“What have you done with the Lantern of the Blue Flame?” Albion snarled. His eyes were wild, and he was snorting through his nose.

Dean
Futuro smiled as he typed away on the laptop on his desk. He actually smiled. It was the single creepiest thing Sam had ever seen in her life. Judging by the way the wrinkles on his face ran away from his smile rather than with it, Sam figured he must not smile much.

“What is so special about this thingy?” Sam asked. She was so tired of being out of the loop.

Zack snorted in amusement.

“You don’t know what it does?”

“No, and no one will tell me!”

“It brings people back from the dead,” Agent Sampson said.

Well, that didn’t seem possible.

“It does what?”

“Roughly three thousand years ago, the Great Dragons of China left this realm for the Transcendental Spheres,” Agent Sampson explained. “Before they left, one of them, a blue Spirit Dragon, lit a lantern with its breath, the breath of Eternal Life. The Lantern of the Blue Flame, as it came to be known, allowed anyone who was in possession of it to bring people or animals back to life. It also gave the possessor complete control over the things he or she brought back.”

“Zombie armies,” Zack said excitedly.

“Yes,” Agent Sampson said dismissively. “That is why it was so fortunate that the Lantern disappeared and also why it was so sought after over the centuries. It was assumed to be lost forever until Dr. Samuel Hathaway, Sr. found it.”

“And then the fool turned it over to the ISG,” Dean Futuro mumbled from behind his computer screen.

“Only after several years of the ISG petitioning the BEA for the return of a priceless relic that clearly belonged to us in the first place,” Albion snapped.

“Finders keepers,” the old man replied. It was strange to see someone so old acting so childish.

“Anyway,” Agent Sampson said, steering the conversation back on course. “The lantern is one of the extremely few items on this planet that could resurrect a slain vampire. That is why we were so concerned when it was stolen four months ago.”

“Who would want to resurrect a vampire
wizard?” Sam asked.

“Two names spring to mind.”
Albion bared his teeth in a nasty self-righteous grin. “Hathaway and McQueen.”

Sam had more than enough of this. “Why do you people keep thinking I would steal this thing?”

“Because your names are scary to them,” Dean Futuro said, cutting off both Agent Sampson and Constable Albion. “The Hathaways and McQueens have been the premier names in relic acquisition for generations. If anyone was going to steal the Lantern of the Blue Flame from a high-security magical vault, it would have to be someone from either of those two families, especially after the death of that fraud and opportunist Alexander Nero Sr. No one else has embarrassed the ISG quite as thoroughly. Isn’t that right, Albion?”

Albion
huffed and looked away.

Dean Futuro hit a button on his computer
, and the screen showing a shot of the Eiffel Tower turned into a shot of an icy windblown cliff overlooking an ocean somewhere.

“Does that look familiar to anyone?” Dean Futuro asked
, pointing his cane at the screen.

Sam nodded. She wasn’t likely to forget that cliff anytime soon.

“Ellesmere Island,” Zack said.

“Very good
, Mr. McQueen,” Dean Futuro said with genuine praise.

“How about this?”

One of the screens behind Dean Futuro changed from a shot of a tropical beach to some unknown, dark, stone-walled room with what appeared to be hundreds of dead bats all over the frost-covered floor.

“
Baldorag Castle I presume,” Zack said, all smart-alecky.

“Correct again.”

Albion jumped to his feet and slammed his fist on the dean’s desk.

“This is insufferable. You claim to be an ally, and yet you spy on us-“

“Unlike you with your silly crystal balls, oracle pools, and mind reading?” Dean Futuro interrupted.

“What about your secret magic detectors?”

“To make up for your invisibility and memory-altering spells.”

“Which are necessary to protect ourselves from your small-minded
bigotry.”

“Gentlemen,” Agent Sampson said sternly. “We have to focus here.”

Albion let out another strained sigh.

“Very well,” he said in what seemed to be a physically draining attempt to appear calm. “
Have your machines revealed the identity of the thief?”

“No,” Dean
Futuro said. “Unfortunately, I overestimated your ability to maintain security on an abandoned castle. My wanderwindow just reached the castle.”

“
Wanderwindow?” Sam asked.

“A cloud of flying nanobots with cameras that I can remotely control,” Dean Futuro rattled off quickly as he tapp
ed on his computer and the image on the screen shifted. It came to rest on a corner of the icy room. Sam wasn’t exactly sure what she was looking at, but there seemed to be a person-sized hole in the ice.

“The armor is gone.”

“Stop wasting my time,” Albion shouted. “Where is the Witch Hunter’s Gauntlet?”

Sam ran her hand through her hair. When were they going to realize that she didn’t know anything and just leave her alone?

“Miss Hathaway, Mr. McQueen, do either of you know the present location of the Witch Hunter’s Gauntlet?” Dean Futuro asked.

“Nope,” Zack said quickly. “And I would like to point out that I am a minor, and any further questions you have should wait until my parents and lawyers are present.”

“I don’t even know what it is,” Sam said. Her shoulders drooped.

Agent Sampson cleared his throat. “The
Witch Hunter’s Gauntlet, also known as the Gauntlet of Gilgamesh, Brace of Hercules, Hand of Guan Yu, or simply the Hero Glove is a very-“

“Very powerful magically doohickey that you aren’t going to tell me anything about, because if I don’t have it then I don’t need to know what it can do,” Sam said with a burst of sarcastic bravery that bubbled up from somewhere deep inside.

“More lies!” Albion screamed. “We know that Joanne Hathaway used the gauntlet to destroy Prince Cervantes. You have been hiding its location ever since. I have an official proclamation from the International Sorcerers’ Guild demanding that you turn over the Witch Hunter’s Gauntlet to us immediately.”

He pulled a piece of parchment from his robes and unrolled it on Dean Futuro’s desk. Someone with amazing handwriting
had painstakingly written the document in large, looping letters.

“Please remove that dirty piece of animal hide from my desk,” Dean Futuro said
, twitching his nose as if the parchment smelled.

Agent Sampson delicately picked up the document and read it thoroughly.

“Believe me, Constable Albion, the BEA wants Cervantes dealt with as much as the ISG. If we had knowledge of the gauntlet’s location, we would make it available to our allies. But it was never in our possession,” Agent Sampson said in a very sincere-sounding tone.

“Isn’t that very convenient for the BEA,”
Albion said with acid dripping from every word. “The vault containing the Lantern of the Blue Flame was burglarized by someone with highly detailed information about magical vaults and access to very sophisticated technology. Then someone uses the lantern to resurrect the greatest threat the magical world has faced in over a century-“

“Second greatest,” Dean Futuro interjected.

Albion nodded. “Too right. The second greatest, thanks to your science.”

Dean
Futuro smiled back.

“And
do not think it has escaped our notice that Cervantes has only struck magical targets,” Albion said accusatorially.

“What are you suggesting?” Agent Sampson asked in the sternest tone Sam had heard yet.

“It just seems odd, doesn’t it?” Albion asked in a fake calm voice. “Last time Cervantes struck multiple targets among both of our communities. However, this time he has focused solely on us. And we all know that, if Cervantes was resurrected by the Lantern of the Blue Flame, he has no choice but to act out the orders of his master. It would seem his master is purposely neglecting to attack the BEA, perhaps because he works for the BEA.”

Sam wouldn’t have thought it possible for this situation to get more uncomfortable, but
apparently she was wrong--very, very wrong. It looked like the war that Agent Sampson and Agent Rosenberg had mentioned was just a few minutes away.

“An observant person might draw the conclusion that the BEA is purposely undermining the ISG in order to mount an attack on the magical community.”

“Never,” Agent Sampson said, calmly but firmly.

“Then provide us with the necessary weapon to defend ourselves,”
Albion said. “Or we may have to cancel this useless alliance and retrieve our rightful property.”