The Witch Hunter's Gauntlet (12 page)

Nero had to take his headphones off. He couldn’t stand listening to them pick out their dates anymore. Besides, he was recording the entire conversation; his computer would listen for any important keywords and alert him later. It was a simple but effective program.

Finally
, after endless weeks of listening to inane teenage girl prattle, Nero sifted out the mother lode of information.

It had been a simple trick to sneak into her room the first week of class and plant the bug. He
hid the tiny transmitter in Samantha’s laptop so he could listen to her conversations everywhere she took her computer, which it turned out was practically everywhere except the bathroom. It also allowed him to monitor her emails and web surfing. She wasted a surprising amount of time on pointless social networking sites.

“’Take your oldest friend to the place where the four monument
s of endless winter meet and a Pendragon’s weapon waits’,” Nero repeated to himself.

It looked like he was heading back int
o the cold. But where?

Clearly the clues where not meant to be taken literally. There was no such thing as an endless winter. Even perpetually frozen places like the
Arctic or the tops of mountains experienced all four seasons.

T
here was a good chance that he wouldn’t have to go anywhere cold at all. The clue referred to four monuments of endless winter. They could be scattered across the globe.

And then it hit him. He knew what the four monuments were. It was so obvious. Now all he had to figure out was where they met.

He also knew what the Pendragon’s weapon was, but again he didn’t know where it was waiting. No one did. If anyone did know they would be the King of England right now. So that clue had to be a metaphor.

He tabled that problem for now and put his mind to work on the first part of the riddle.

Nero called up Samantha’s file on his computer. Her first friend was Tabitha Crenshaw. They had play dates together when they were four. But they hadn’t seen each other since they were five. Samantha had had few friends growing up because the Hathaways moved around so much. But even when she finally settled down in Presley she had made very few close friends. This had made it easy for him to get her dimwitted co-worker at the Cookie Emporium to collect a few hairs from Samantha’s hair net so he could make a voodoo doll of her. But now, her lack of a social life was proving very inconvenient for him.

Maybe he was thinking about this the wrong way. The hologram was
made just before she was born. There was no way her father could have known who her oldest friend was going to be.

It was possible then that the clue did not refer to a particular perso
n. It could be a magical lock, like a kiss-of-true-love spell, that wouldn’t require a specific person to do the kissing as long as their love was true. Magical spells of that sort could be very subjective. The riddle might not refer to Samantha’s first friend after all. It could refer to the friend she had had for the longest period of time, or a friend she held in her heart more deeply and longer than any others, or it could literally refer to her oldest friend by age.

Nero
was somewhat impressed with Samuel Hathaway’s riddle-making ability. But there wasn’t a riddle on Earth that Nero couldn’t crack in time, but time was not his friend. The fastest way to solve this riddle would be to get Samantha to solve it for him.

There was no telling how long that could take so
he decided that a little incentive might speed up the process.

He grabbed his phone.

“Hello, Master Nero,” Cervantes said on the other end of the phone, the sound of rushing wind threatening to drown out his voice.

“Where are you?” Nero
asked.

“
Ulan Bator.”

“That is wonderful news,” Nero
said. Still, it is a long trip from Mongolia to California, even as the vampire flies and every minute wasted was another minute Sam would sit around not solving the riddle for him.

“
I need you to come to California now.”

“On my way.”

Tossing the phone aside, he flipped through his latest acquisition--a copy of
Advanced Hexology
, the textbook for the highest Hex class offered at the California Institute of Magic. Calmag jealously horded their teachings from competing magic schools and especially from the non-magic world, but they couldn’t stop a few angry and desperate dropouts from selling their old books to Nero. Over the last several weeks he had pored through four years of Calmag’s curriculum.

All of their precious secrets were now his. 

Sam woke up with a mission.

She had spent the last several days trying to decipher her father’s clue with absolutely no luck. Google was absolutely no help
, and she couldn’t find anything in the library that seemed remotely helpful. Not that she had really expected it to be that easy, but it would have been nice.

Her homework had taken a substantial hit recently; it was pretty difficult to write a ten-page paper about the communist undertones of
Death of a Salesman
while trying to stop a war. It also didn’t help that the Sam Curse had caused her brand-new computer to crash twice in the last two days either. But the second computer crash had given her a brilliant idea, one that required Lucas’ help.

Today the only class they had together was Physics with Doc Frost. It was going to be tough to find a quiet time to talk to him in private. Doc Frost’s classes were always the most fun.

On the first day of class, Doc Frost took them outside to watch the launch of a ten-foot-tall rocket. It exploded on the launch pad, raining bits of metal all over the field and setting Sharon Foster’s clipboard on fire. But that was still pretty cool. A few weeks later they got to remote-pilot miniature submarines around the lake. It was Sam’s favorite, and yet most difficult, class.

Sam got to class early to catch Lucas before class started, but unfortunately
, he walked in mere seconds before the bell rang. He slumped into his chair at the table next to hers. There were dark circles under his eyes; and his hair was a mess, like he forgot to comb it after showering.

“Long day?”
Sam asked.

He shook his head. “Natch would not let me sleep last night. He refus
es to accept that I am better than him at, well, anything. So we were playing
Mario Kart
for six hours last night.”

Natch
. What a jerk. It was a shame that Lucas had to live with him for a whole year.

“Why don’t you just tell him you don’t want to play?”

“Oh, but it is so much fun to see the look on his face when he loses. Again and again and again.” His smile was downright devilish. But in a good way.

“Hello
, class,” Doc Frost said as he took his usual place behind the lab table at the front.

Doc Frost was in his late sixties
, but he still spiked his short white hair and he wore an odd set of glasses with tinted lenses that changed colors randomly. Over the last few weeks, Sam had come to notice that he only had three different white lab coats. She could tell because each of them had distinct stains and burn marks.

Once the class quieted down
, he continued. “Today we are heading out to the testing range for another field experiment. So bring your goggles.”

The class moaned a bit as they got up. It was great to get to go outside for class, but not when it was fifty degrees outside. Fall was proving to be especially cold this year. Fortunately
, Sam was adjusting to life in the mountains and brought along her coat. Lucas, apparently, was not adjusting as well. His short-sleeved shirt and faded jeans were not nearly as cozy as her fluffy pink coat.

“Freaking cold,” he muttered as they stepped out into the chilly wind.

“Doesn’t it get this cold back in Iowa?” She had spent the last several years in Illinois, which was right next door. She had suffered through the same winter storms as he had, just a day later.

“Yes, but this is
California,” Lucas said, rubbing his arms for warmth. “I came out here expecting beaches and sun.”

“The beach is somewhere that way.” She pointed west.

“Thanks a bunch.”

“Watch your wallet
, Lucas,” Sharon Foster yelled from ten people away.

Naturally everyone’s head turned to look at Lucas and Sam. Most of them chuckled
, so Sam knew that they had heard the stories about her. Lucas’s confused glances revealed that he had not.

“What?” he asked patting down his pocket.

“Yeah,” Sam started slowly. “Someone has been spreading the rumor that I got into Miller’s Grove because I am the best orphan pickpocket in Chicago.”

“Natch!” he said through grit teeth.

“Natch? Why would he have done it?”

“I don’t know. It just seems like something he would do,” he said with a shrug.

“I’m pretty sure it was one of Tiffany’s minions actually,” Sam said.

They marched along with the rest of the class to the grassy field behind the physics building. Three large burnt patches of grass on the field stood as testaments to failed experiments. On the opposite side of the field sat a flatbed truck parked on the grass. A large white sheet covered something big and boxy in the back of the truck.

The class formed a loose semicircle around the truck.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” Doc Frost said in a booming voi
ce. “Prepare to have your lives forever changed.”

Doc Frost grabbed o
ne end of the sheet and gave a quick tug to reveal a large, square machine with a big pulsing yellow light in the middle. It was certainly science fictiony and all that, but to Sam it was just a big confusing mess.

“Neat
,” Lucas whispered in her ear.

“This is a
fully functional portable ion generator. We just recently got it working properly. It is the most powerful portable generator in the world.”

Another chorus of yawns ensued. Sam wasn’t sure if it really counted as portable if it had to be hauled around on the back of a truck. That kind of seemed like cheating with the definition of portable.

“But this is not what I wanted to show you.” He stepped behind the machine and returned carrying a black plastic saucer that was attached to the generator by a long silver cable. It reminded Sam of the cheap round sled Helen bought for her the first winter after she came to stay with them. Except this sled had all sorts of high-tech circuits and lights and foot straps.

“What the heck is that?” Felix
asked rudely.

“Th
is is what I wanted to show you.” Doc Frost set the saucer down on the ground, as giddy as a toddler, and excitedly stepped back from the saucer. He bit his lower lip as his finger slowly crept next to a green button on the generator.

“Here we go.”

He pressed the button.

Nothing happened.

Sam looked from the saucer to Doc Frost. He didn’t seem bothered by the fact that nothing was happening. A chorus of oohs and aahs drew her attention back to the saucer on the ground. Except it wasn’t on the ground any more.

The underside of the board had tu
rned a bright blue while it hovered an inch off the ground. Slowly the saucer rose higher and higher in the air. Soon it was a foot off the ground, then two feet.

“You invented a hoverboard,
” Lucas exclaimed.

The rest of the class applauded.

Doc Frost waved the clapping down.

“Not completely,” Doc Frost said. “First we need to get it to stop exploding.”

Everyone took a giant step back.

He laughed. “I’m kidding. We have haven’t blown one of these up in weeks.”

“Can I ride it?”

“How does it work?”

Felix and Sharon had asked their questions at exactly the same time.

“Simply put, it works on the principle of polar repulsion,” Doc Frost began. “Just like when you push the positive ends of two magnets together
and they resist and push away from each other. They already use this principle on high-speed trains in Japan. The train and the track are both positively charged and therefore repel each other, allowing the train to hover above the track. This board is charged to repel against the very Earth itself. The real trick is generating enough power to keep the board in the air.”

Doc Frost tugged on the extension cord. The board wobbled in the air. “So for now the board has to be tethered to the ground.”

He seemed more disappointed by this than he should have been.

“Now, I believe someone wanted to go for a ride.”

Everyone’s hand went in the air. Even Sam raised her hand, although she was very afraid of falling off or breaking the board. Doc Frost eyeballed the eager students for a moment. He was clearly enjoying toying with them.

“Mr. Manning,” he said finally. “I believe you are our resident skateboard expert.”

“Yes,” Felix said, pumping his fist in the air.

The rest of the class gently moaned their disappointment. Sam wasn’t sure if she was more disappointed about
not being picked or about Felix being picked. She had to admit it made sense, though. He was an egotistical jerk, but he was also an X-Games champion.

Felix
stepped up to the hoverboard.

“Uh, how do I do this?” The board was two feet off the ground now.

“Just step up onto the board, get your shoes into the bindings,” Doc Frost said, less than confidently.

“Okay,” Felix
said warily.

He lifted his right foot up and slowly slid it over the board. The second he lowered it onto the board it tipped and his foot slid right off. He tried it three more times, but the board just wouldn’t stay level long enough for him to step up onto the hoverboard.

“Okay, that doesn’t seem to work,” Doc Frost said. He slapped the red button on the generator. The board dropped instantly onto the grass.

Felix
stepped onto the grounded board. He slipped his shoes into the bindings and stood there stuck to the board.

“Let’s try this again,” Doc Frost said
, turning on the generator.

Everyone watched silently as the bottom of the board lit up and
the board started to rise. Felix was obviously trying to stay as still as possible, but even so, the hoverboard wobbled slightly.

“Steady, steady,” Doc Frost coached. He kept a close eye on the board.

Finally the board hung in the air consistently at about a foot and a half off the ground.

“Very good,” Doc Frost said excitedly. “Now let’s see if you can move around a bit. There are sensors hooked up to the footpads. If you lean forward the board should go forward, lean back to sl
ow down, right to turn right, left to go left. Simple.”

“How do I go higher?” Felix
asked.

“Oh, we’ll worry about that later,” Doc Frost answered. “Let’s just see if you can move around at this height.”

Felix leaned forward and the front of the board dipped down a little, but it also started moving forward. He glided across the grass field.

Everyone cheered.

He leaned back, and the board slowed down and eventually stopped. Suddenly he leaned forward with all his weight and the hoverboard took off. He whooped with excitement as he shot across the field, pulling more and more cord behind him.

“Not so fast,” Doc Frost yelled after him. “Remember you don’t have any friction with the ground to slow you down.”

“How fast can it go?” Lucas asked.

“No idea,” Doc Frost answered
, keeping his eyes on Felix.

After making a few practice circles
, Felix was swerving and looping around the field as if he were surfing on an invisible wave--although one time he looped around too fast and nearly choked himself with the extension cord. He was starting to get really cocky now, rocking the board back and forth, dancing in the air.

“Give other people a chance,” Lu
cas yelled in a half-friendly, half-impatient tone.

Felix
responded with a rude hand gesture.

“Bring it on back,” Doc Frost said, his finger resting next to the power button.

Felix hovered back to the truck at high speed. He leaned back and stopped immediately.

“That was the coolest thing ever,” he said as he freed his shoes from the bindings and jumped off the board.

Doc Frost hit the stop button, and the board fell lifelessly to the ground.

Luc
as went next, followed by Carla and two other students before class ran out. Doc Frost made his apologies to everyone who didn’t get a ride. The hoverboard was going back to the lab, but if he could arrange another field test they might get a shot. Otherwise everyone was going to have to wait a few years for the boards to show up in stores. Apparently there was a lot of safety testing to do first.

Lucas remembered he was cold as they walked back to the building to grab their books. Not surprisingly
, he had forgotten all about it while sky surfing. Fortunately this was their last class for the day, so there was no need to hurry back.

“Seriously
, that was insanely cool,” he said while rubbing his arms for warmth.

“It looked cool. I bet they’ll be really expensive.” Sam knew she would never be able to afford one.