Bad Apple (The Warner Grimoire) (19 page)

“I never said quiet,” Nathan said. “Just unofficial.”

Kate smiled. “You have something clever in mind?”

Nathan took a bite of his food. “Werewolves.”

The suggestion clunked onto the table. Kate and Simon stared at him. “Excuse me?” they said together.

“What?” Nathan said. “I don’t mean on the grounds. Just...you know, a sighting, or six. Out in the woods.”

Kate raised her eyebrows. “And how are you planning to create six sightings?”

“Cynric’s agreed to help sound the alarm. Besides, I’ve been working on my Air trade,” Nathan said boastfully. “I’m becoming quite the amateur conjurer.”

“Conjuration?” Kate gave Nathan a doubtful look. “I seem to remember someone causing a rather large rift over the lake when they were first learning how to conjure.

“Like you said, I was learning,” Nathan said. “I’ve had plenty of time to practice,” he said defensively.

“Conjuring,” Simon said blankly. “Werewolves.”

“Well, yeah,” Nathan said, shoving another forkful into his mouth. “Well, just wolves, really. Wolf-shaped. It’ll work. They’ll think they’re werewolves, anyway, so it’s a bonus, really.” Another forkful. “Conjuring is easy, well, easier, than some forms of magic. Very little mess to clean up if things go wrong.”

“
When
they go wrong,” Kate said. “You really need to know what you’re doing,” Kate added, looking at Nathan.

“I said I’ve been practicing the trade,” Nathan repeated.

“Why are you calling it a trade?” Simon asked.

Kate glance at Nathan. “He doesn’t know?”

Nathan paused, the fork already halfway to his mouth again. He set the fork back down slowly. “No,” he said quietly. “Sam kept him in the dark. He was going to let the magic fade from him.”

“You poor thing,” she said, turning to Simon. “No wonder. This must be very confusing.”

“I’ve got most of it,” Simon said defensively.

“It’s okay not to know. I understand why Sam kept this from you.” Kate looked to Nathan before continuing. “Air is one of the six trades of magic. Illusions and conjuring, mostly. If your trade is air, then you have a chance of being a powerful illusionist--of learning all its secrets. Now, others...” she glanced at Nathan. “Your talents can be anywhere, but that doesn’t mean you can’t learn other trades. You just have to practice more to get the spell work right. Right, Nathan?”

“I
said
I’ve been practicing,” Nathan said, almost hurt. “Why just last month I conjured a, well, it was...”

Kate and Simon both waited for Nathan to answer, eyebrows raised.

“A boot.”

“Oh, well.” Kate bit her lip. “There we go. A boot.”

“It was a very fashionable boot.”

“Nathan, maybe you should just leave the conjuring to me,” Kate said. “Stick to your own talents on this one.”

Simon looked at his hands. “What are the other trades?”

“Five others,” Kate said. She turned to Nathan. “You didn’t tell him any of this?”

“I was getting there,” Nathan said. “We’ve kind of had larger hounds to hunt, Kate.”

She stared at Nathan, then turned back to Simon. “Six total. Air, like I said, is for conjuring. It’s counterpart is Earth. Then there is Fire and its counterpart, Water.”

“He’s seen fire magic at work already,” Nathan said. “It was how Boeman got Sam out in the open, past the warding spells.”

“He was running out after me,” Simon said bitterly.

“You had no choice,” Nathan insisted. “That wasn’t regular fire, Simon. Spellfire is wicked, vicious, cruel. Sam couldn’t fight it for very long. Not even the Archmancer could. He wanted you to run out. Staying inside would have meant death, for both of you.”

Simon looked down. “It’s meant death for him.”

“Don’t,” Nathan said. “Don’t you start talking like that. We are going to find him.”

Simon stared quietly at the plate in front of him. “What are the last two?”

“Magic of the soul,” Kate said softly. “Split in two parts, called Light and Darkness. They’re the very first trades, the truly cosmic forces, and the oldest and most dangerous of all the trades. From before even the days of the First Secrets.”

“They’re strong stuff,” Nathan said. “Strong enough to find Sam. We just need a little...assistance.”

“Mr. Nettle won’t help,” Simon said. “So what do we do?”

“We don’t need him necessarily,” Nathan said, dumping a small amount of sugar on the table. “We only need some...
tools
he has in his office. Peter wasn’t always such a choir boy, don’t forget that.” He tapped his finger three times on the table. His eyes flashed bright blue, and the tiny pile of sugar began to form into a shape. It thrashed and moved quietly, growing multiple nubs, six in all, each stretching and taking shape slowly. The pile stood, taking four nubs for legs, then the other two on each end becoming a head and a tail. The blob shook itself like a wet dog, and the form of a wolf finally coalesced. It started to trot happily around the table between the plates, itself no bigger than a walnut.

“See?” Nathan said, folding his arms, clearly pleased with himself. “Simple as that. Except, well, you know...bigger.” Nathan held his arms out wide. “
Big
.”

Kate and Simon stared at the pile of sugar on the table. “Sugar wolves,” Kate said. “Well, you were right. “That’s certainly not quiet.”

* * *

That evening Simon stood outside the door to his room waiting for Luke. He had tried to catch some sleep in the afternoon but couldn’t, so he had killed some time by skimming through some of the books that had appeared on a small bookshelf next to his bed. One book,
An Introduction to Conjuring
, had caught his attention. He flipped through it idly, thinking on the off chance he might see what spell Nathan had used to conjure the wolf. After several more minutes of searching Simon gave up, utterly frustrated with the inaccessibility of the subject matter. These were books for people raised in the trades, not him. He was
an outsider
here, the only place he really belonged.

Just another way of being broken.

The rest of the books seemed surprisingly like schoolbooks, however. They all had straightforward, inelegant names written in gold across the covers: CURSES, said one book, and next to it was a slightly larger book with the title COUNTER CURSES. Next to them he found six more books, each with the name of one of the halls of magic, each title written in shimmering gold lettering, and at the end of the shelf was a book unlike any of the others, smaller than a textbook, and its cover was plain brown leather. He flipped through it, front to back, but found nothing written inside. It was just as out of place as Simon.

The most peculiar item on this newly bestowed bookshelf, though, was a small felt bag, and on it was the same snake symbol as Boeman’s business card. Inside the bag was a chunk of crystal, no bigger than a rabbit’s foot. Simon rolled the clear rock over in his hands, feeling the smooth lines with his fingertips. Something about this crystal was unsettling, and undeniably connected to Boeman. Finding nothing obviously weird with it though, he set the crystal on the bed and picked up the felt bag--the serpent was embroidered in gold and silver thread, and it felt sharp to the touch. The harder Simon thought about it, the more he began to shudder. He set it down and tried to push it from his mind as best he could, trying to focus on searching the rest of the room. It had been changing off and on all day, growing numerous little touches that made it look more like home--a trunk like the one they used as a coffee table had appeared in the corner, next to a stack of old video game magazines, and Simon had found some shirts under that bed that matched ones he had at home, even down to the rips and stains. There was even a loose floorboard behind the couch, but nothing was in the space beneath. Despite all the best efforts by the room, nothing could shake the foreignness of it all, and the shelf and its contents were the centerpiece of all the strangeness.

There was a knocking at the window--Luke peered at Simon from the outside. Simon set the plain brown book back on the shelf. “I thought I said to meet me in the garden.”

“This way’s quicker.” Luke eyed the crystal on the bed. “I see you’ve hit the gift shop.”

“Shut up.” Simon put the crystal back in the felt bag on the shelf, then hesitated for a moment before grabbing his backpack from the floor. He dumped the contents out of the bed and slung the empty pack over his shoulder. “We might need this,” he said.

“Good thinking,” said Luke. “When we get to the Archives, we go straight to Dark Bargains, okay?”

“We need to go to Mr. Nettle’s office.”

“Well, good for you,” Luke said. “After I get what I want. That was the deal--you help me, then I help you. In that order. We shook on it,” he added when Simon started to object.

Simon felt a small pang in the palm of his right hand, reminding him of his promise. “Okay,” he said. “What you want first, but we can’t take forever.”

“I wouldn’t, even if I could,” Luke said. He looked to his shoulder.“You ready?” A small magenta blip on his shoulder winked once. “All right, let’s go.”

“This way?”

Luke was already halfway to the ground. “Yep,” he whispered.

Simon sighed and swung his legs out the window. He had forgotten that his room was on the seventh floor, and the shock of how high up he was killed his breathing. His head swam dizzyingly, and he fought against the wild panic which was suddenly shaking him, and he grasped tightly, clinging as hard as he could to the window sill and vines.

“Relax!” Luke hissed. “Find the vine next to you. Use it to climb down.” Luke lowered himself down the vine, reaching the ground before Simon had even moved.

Simon steadied himself. He could do this. All he needed to do was keep a firm grip on the vine and don’t look down. Keep his eyes straight ahead at the side of the manor, and work his way to the ground. If Luke could do it, he could too.

Yet despite all these very compelling reasons, his hands and feet stayed planted where they were. He was stuck to the side of house, and he suspected he might stay there until morning, and he just might have, if Luke had not hissed “We had a deal!” The words not only roused Simon from his thoughts but also caused a great stinging pain to bloom in his hand. In shock he let go of the vines, and then he was losing his footing. In an instant Simon went from imitating one of the numerous stone gargoyles that perched along the exterior into a free fall.

CHAPTER TEN

THE ARCHIVES

Simon hit the ground with a sickening thud. He lay there, completely motionless as the stars heaved in a dizzying dance overhead. Terror fed on him while he laid there, unable to move. He was numb everywhere, save for a sick feeling in his stomach. He closed his eyes, and darkness swam all around him, coating him like sticky, black tar. He lay there and breathed, one breath, two breaths, one after another, no sense of time until his head stopped swimming and feeling began to return to him. Luke’s voice slowly floated down to him.

“Bats,” Luke said. “This is just bats. Simon, can you hear me?”

Simon
could
hear him, but he could not tell if he gave any sign he did. At most, Simon was confident he had managed a weak grunt and maybe a moan. Feeling slowly crept back over his body as he lay there, silently cursing. There had been no pain, he realized, only numbness, which scared him. It was scarier to feel nothing, he realized, than to feel pain.

Slowly, excruciatingly, he worked his arms, and then the rest of his body slowly followed, sitting up but still breathing heavily. When he opened his eyes, Luke stared at him wide-eyed.

“Dogs and devils,” he said. “How are you even still alive?”

Simon continued to breathe deep. “I’m not sure,” he said.

“That was over a hundred feet,” Luke said, still in disbelief. “Maggey, how?” The twinkle shot from Luke’s shoulder and looped quickly around Simon, zipping into his face and tangling his hair. She flitted so close to him that she made his forehead tingle.

“We need to get going,” Simon said, managing his way to his feet, uncertain at first but finding his balance quickly.

Maggey zipped back towards Luke’s shoulder, bobbing around his head a moment. Luke seemed to be listening to her. “What?Nothing?” He looked at the fairy, then back to Simon. “There’s something not right about you, Stray.”

“Good for me.” Simon grabbed his backpack. “Let’s go.” He moved quickly away from the spot where he fell. They were out in the open, and that was bad enough, but the spot also unnerved him.

They made their way away from the manor, finding the North path in the dark. Walking along the path, Simon saw the Grim House again, standing silent witness to their sneaking about. The huge empty windows stared into Simon, the darkness behind them appearing every bit as sticky and alive as the darkness that had coated him when he fell. He shuddered and quickened his pace.