Avis Blackthorn: Is Not an Evil Wizard! (24 page)

“Okay,” I said, still wary. Robin was too, he
kept shifting around and sniffing - he always did that when there
was someone around he wasn’t keen on.

Robin sniffed. “What do
you
want?”

“I wanted to speak to Avis, and you I
suppose. You were there
that
night,” he looked grave.

I frowned, curious. “Go on…”

“Well, look, I told Straker that it wasn’t
you who did that to Hunter…
eventually
. But, it’s just.”

“Spit it out,” said Robin.

“Just wait…” said David whispering and
looking around as the crowd roared at another goal. “I saw
him
, that night,
Malakai
,” he mouthed. “So I knew it
wasn’t you. I told Straker it wasn’t… anyway… this is about,
something I saw the other night,” he played with the end of his
scarf. “I was coming out of the boys’ bathroom on a midnight toilet
dash. I had to go to the old ones, because they closed the toilets
near us, and as I came out I saw…
him
.”

“Who,
Malakai
?” I whispered.

David nodded, his face hangdog and limp.
“Yeah.”

“Why are you telling us this?” said Robin
suspiciously.

“I just thought, well, I think he saw me… and
I don’t want what happened to Hunter to happen to me. And if we all
go to Straker and the Lily, everyone who’s seen him can tell them
and let them read our memory, they will see we aren’t lying! And
they can stop him coming here and attacking me! And others of
course,” he added.

“Pah,” said Robin, turning to me. “He’s only
telling us so he can get his ass off the line.”

“What was
he
doing?” I said,
inspecting David’s patchy face for clues.

He blinked. “Just going through this door,
when he turned I think he
saw
me…”

Something dropped in my stomach. “Did you say
going through a door?” David nodded. I turned to Robin, the
eyebrows on my face must have been raised very high because he
blinked rapidly trying to work it out before I told him. I turned
back to David, speaking quickly. “What door? Where was it?”

“It’s the door near the old bathrooms…” said
David in a small voice.

“No, no, more specifically than that!” I
said, my voice rising.

“I don’t know the exact door!”

“If you don’t tell Avis,” said Robin. “Then
you will be
got
by Malakai, that I can state for certain,
but if you do tell him where that door is, I’m pretty sure you’ll
be
spared
.”

David looked from Robin to me before getting
some parchment and a pen out of his pocket.

Me and Robin looked at each other with
incredulity, we knew what door this was. Neither of us could
believe we’d forgotten! It was the door that Tina had first
attempted to get through at the start of the year, the one we saw
her outside, near the boys bathroom!

“We have to get out of here and get to that
door!” I said to Robin who began to look around for a way out of
the stadium. I had already noticed that it was particularly strict.
There was a sixth year guarding every entrance and two ghosts! But
then, Robin tapped me, his face white as a snow.

“What?” I whispered. His eyes were fixed on a
place just over the rim of the stadium, in the distance. “What
Robin?”

He pointed. “It’s him.”

I followed his gaze. My heart beating fast,
as chatter and noise around me faded. Adrenaline began pumping
through my body. It was Malakai. Gliding along the surface of the
grounds, hidden only by a long hedge. He was making his way into
the school to stake his claim on the Book of Names. And I was the
only one who could stop him.

I jumped across the gang way. “Oi! Watch it!”
called a couple of third years.

“Sorry, sorry!” I said, pulling Robin by the
sleeve along behind me. We had to get out of here and get to that
door. I tried to sneak past the sixth year guarding the stairs
down.

“Stop,” he said. “Where you going?” He was
tall and bullish, with eyebrows that could rival Magisteer
Simone.

“Toilet,” I said.

“Sorry, don’t believe you. Go back to your
stand please.”

Me and Robin lumped back to the stand. There
was a great roar of light and fireworks as the Centaurs gained
another Libero-Manus! The sixth year guarding the exit began
jumping around.

I began to panic, this churning ball in the
pit of my stomach, time was fast vanishing and we had to get out of
the stadium. “I didn’t realise we would be here all day and night!”
I said.

“I know,” said Robin. “I expected to at least
be able to leave for the toilet!”

I cursed the fact that I had even come to
this match, I should have just stayed in the clock tower and
fulfilled the plan and saved Tina. The sun was setting and a cold
chill moved in. I looked all around for potential exits but all
were guarded. I watched as one boy, a first year like us hopping
around on the spot pleading with them to let him to go to the
toilet.

“Please!”

“No… orders are clear, no one is allowed go
to the toilet during matches,” said the sixth year. I realised the
only way I was going to get away was to create a distraction. The
ball of panic in my stomach grew as Robin showed me the time. It
was time to act, even though everything in my body was screaming
NO
!

“Robin,” I passed him the letter. “This
explains everything you need to do. Don’t open it yet. And give
this one to Partington when you see him. Open it at 11pm…”

He blinked at me as there was another loud
roar of applause for the Centaurs. I turned away, and held my hands
directly above my head. “
Avertere…
”

I knew it worked because Robin began looking
all around, his eyes darting here and there for me, but averting
away from where I actually was.

My heart was thumping so loud in my chest I
almost thought it might eclipse the noise around the stadium. For a
moment, I just stood and watched. Everyone’s faces so entranced in
the game, even the Magisteers. Flags and scarves waved in the air
across the rickety hexagonal stadium. I hoped I would see this
again. But, this was it, taking a deep breath I raised my arm high
into the air.

“
Beratater-Lut…
” my channeller lit up
white hot with the effort of the Spell as directly above the pitch,
a bright orange circle appeared. Then, a spectacular thunderstorm
erupted above the habitat.

CRASH! BANG!

Long streaks of blue light lit up the sky,
scorching across the stadium. There were muffled screams from all
around the stadium as people ducked. Magisteers stood as one and
raised their arms. The Centaurs and Manticores ran for cover as
Magisteer Underwood began scouring the pitch for the culprit -
thinking that it must have been one of the players. I took my
chance, as the bullish sixth year guarding the nearest exit left
his post to help. I jumped up onto the rail and, balancing nimbly,
ran all the way along to the stairs. I jumped the rickey stairs
three at a time as the crowd in the stadium began to boo whomever
had just ruined the game.

It felt incredibly lonely going back to the
school. Tiny gas lamps popped on up the hill as darkness set in.
Large black clouds overhead thundered once more then stopped. I
jumped the last of the steps and climbed the hill back to school. I
could hear all the people in the stadium still shouting, annoyed
and confused as to what just happened. The large black cloud
overhead began to rain. I made it inside the main hall just in
time. The school was eerily silent. No noise, no movement, nothing.
I had just one pit stop to make…

“Hello again,” said the Healer. “Has the
curse cleared up?”

“Yes, thank you,” I said. “Just came to see
her one last… I mean, to see her again.”

I took a seat next to Tina’s bed. Green light
folded around me once more. Tina’s wounds had completely healed
now, all that remained was tiny, barely noticeable, white scars.
She looked so peaceful.

“I know I am a weakling, that it takes you to
be cursed for me to be able to tell you how I feel. But, I… really
care about you. More than anyone else I’ve ever met or had the
privilege of knowing. I had a dream a few weeks ago, at least I
think it was a dream. You and me, we, grew old together. And we,
told our Grandchildren all about the time we saved each other, in
the first year of school,” I sighed. “Please don’t wake up and be
mad with me. Just know that I had to return the favour. You saved
me, so I must save you.”

I stopped talking. She lay peaceful and
quiet, her chest rising and falling, eyelids fluttering.

A few ghosts gave me confused, apathetic
looks as they whizzed past me in the corridors, carrying their
dirty laundry and huge boxes of dirty dinner plates. My heart was
hammering. Something in the back of my mind was telling me that
there were holes in my plan, there had to be, there had to be Magic
that he knew that could counteract mine. Perhaps he would just
laugh in my face. But, I had to take this chance, there would never
be another opportunity like this one again. The clock in the bell
tower began to chime, calling ten o'clock.

This was the door I had been searching for. I
just knew it. The one I had forgotten about the first time me and
Robin caught Tina behind that suit of armour. I wondered what would
have happened if I hadn’t have spotted her there. How would things
have turned out?

How could something so wooden and plain lead
to something so unknown and mysterious. Yellow light flickered from
gas lamps on the wall behind me. The key felt cold and dead in my
hand. I pulled the string off round my neck and checking the
corridor one last time, put it in the lock. A loud clunk echoed
along the corridor. I twisted the golden handle slowly, readying
myself for him. Inside was darkness, it was impenetrable. All I
could hear as the door shut behind me was the beating of my own
heart. The stairs leading down were uneven and I had to hold onto
the wall to remain steady. I was going down to the same place as
Ernie had in the vision, I just knew it. After a long way down I
finally saw light. Flickering yellow firelight, just a dot at first
but growing. At last, they stopped. I tip toed along a long dark
passage towards the light. Then, I faced three entrances. The light
was coming from straight ahead. But in the alcoves to the left and
right were small rooms filled with stuff, hidden by greying cloths.
Up ahead, the passage got tighter, the walls closing in, the
ceiling just an inch from the top of my head.

And then I saw him… The huge, hunched figure
of Malakai.

I put my hand over my mouth. Gas lamps around
the side of the room hung wonky, casting a dim light over the man
who stood seven feet tall. He was stood bent over a tall lectern,
on it I could see the edges of a humungous old book. Silver
instruments lay half covered in dirty cloths around the filthy,
cobwebbed room.

He hadn’t spotted me - I could Spell him now,
the one I’d agonised for months over. I raised my hand.

“
Don’t even think about it
…” his voice
rumbled.

My heart jolted as his long white face turned
slowly, independent of his body. “Avis Blackthorn…” I was paralysed
by fear, frozen to the spot as if a shard of ice had run down my
spine and freezing me to the floor. His glowing blue eyes bored
into me. “And how did
you
get in here?”

“I… I… a key…” I managed. The Book Of Names
behind him was shimmering with golden light.

“So it’s the runt of the Blackthorn family!”
he said. “Come to get revenge for his poor, little, meddling
girlfriend.”

The blood began boiling in my veins as he
mentioned her. “How dare you talk about her,” I said, my voice
rising high.

He didn’t move. “Is that why you’re here? To
stop
me?” he mocked.

“Yes!” I called.

He let out a raucous laugh. “You?” he
continued laughing, his skulled face rocking. “All I needed was you
to do something like this and it would give me the perfect excuse.
I promised your parents that I wouldn’t harm you, even though
you’re a
seventh son
. They are very
useful
to me.”
His words whirled through my head. “Yes, your brilliant parents do
have one weakness. Their remaining ounce of compassion. But
now
…” he said, chucking his huge skeletal arms in the air.
“Now you have forfeited that promise. Under my terms and conditions
your are now
in my way!”

I had to act. “Go ahead, do it! See if I
care!”

“You were already this close after that stunt
- pretending to be
me
. I could have set that demon on
you…”

My legs shook and I did everything in my
power to try and steady them. “Instead, I realised how much more
fun it would be for everyone to think it was
you
. I mean,
who on earth is going to think it was
Malakai
?” he laughed
to himself.

“
Flutteryout!”
I cried. A white light
burst from the amulet as Malakai toppled. I lunged forwards as
quickly as possible, hands outstretched for the Book of Names. A
single sharp swipe sent me sprawling backwards against the wall.
“DON’T!” I called as Malakai who rose instantaneously, raise his
arms. “I know your TRUE NAME!”

Malakai stopped dead. A long hand an inch
from my throat.

“What?!” he said deathly slow. His boiling
hot breath scorching my face.

“Yes,” I said panting. “I know your true
name. St- Steeeee…
Owww
!” My tongue cut again. But Malakai
stepped back, dropping his hand. For the first time I saw fear in
his eyes. “I will stop you from getting the Book of Names!” I said
as blood dribbled down my chin.

His blue eyes dimmed. “
How
?”