Read Dark Tidings: Ancient Magic Meets the Internet Book 1 Online

Authors: Ken Magee

Tags: #Science Fiction & Fantasy, #Fantasy, #Paranormal & Urban, #Teen & Young Adult

Dark Tidings: Ancient Magic Meets the Internet Book 1 (21 page)

BOOK: Dark Tidings: Ancient Magic Meets the Internet Book 1
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Chapter 41 - Believe Me

Madrick knew this was going to be a tricky spell to use; worth the effort though, because this spell had the potential to be their salvation. The big problem was that success would ultimately depend on Tung. Tung would need to apply intelligence, common sense and judgement if this was going to work. Oh dear, oh dear. Having said that, he’d not let them down so far, so maybe he was worrying more than he needed to. The lad had been stupid on more than one occasion, but so far no task had been beyond him.

He started to explain the spell and its workings to Tung and Michael.

“What we have here is the Believe Me Spell. When you invoke the spell you will be seen as totally truthful. Everyone you speak to will accept every single word you say. Whatever story you choose to tell will be believed verbatim, no matter how unbelievable it may be. Imagine the power you’ll have.”

The look on Tung’s face showed he was imagining something, hopefully something to do with the spell and how he could use it to help them.

“I can’t remember exactly how long your ability will last for. I seem to remember it’s just a few hours, but I’m really not sure,” he said with a puzzled look on his face. “I’m also not sure how long the ‘victims’ will continue to believe the story. I’m pretty sure it’s the time it takes us to travel once around the sun, but no one knows how long that takes.”

“It takes a day,” said Tung. “Obviously it takes a day. The sun comes up, the day passes and the sun goes down. So we’ll have a day. That’s not particularly powerful, but it could certainly get us out of a scrape or two.”

“Once around the sun is a year,” said Michael.

He didn’t want to try and explain astronomy and the planet’s orbit around the sun to a pair who probably still believed the world was flat.

“Trust me, it’s a year. I’ll explain it to you both someday.”

Madrick looked even more puzzled, but he’d learnt to respect Michael’s wisdom. He recognised that Michael knew about an awful lot of things which were still a mystery to him.

Anyway, he had other things on his mind, like trying to remember the classes at the Academy. He reflected on the ‘once round the sun’ duration and the more he thought about it, the less sure he was that he was right. He also recalled something about the spell affecting some people more than others. It was all a bit of a muddled memory. No point in sharing the uncertainty.

“Anyhow, the important thing is to plan carefully how to use this one. This could be our deliverance if we’re clever and careful. We just need to make sure you get the chance to tell the story to the people who are in control. You need to tell them something which gets us off the hook and you need to have the story ready, practised and perfect.”

Tung looked as if he was in a world of his own. Was he concentrating or daydreaming or scheming?

“You also need to remember that if we,” he indicated himself and Michael, “hear the story then we’ll believe it too. So you must tell us the truth later. You must undo the lie for us. Is that all clear?”

“Clear as a crystal,” said Tung.

“Great, so let’s work on the story and sort out when we should bring the spell into play.”

They discussed the options. They knew they’d be brought before the Council if they were captured so that would clearly be the perfect opportunity to ‘fool’ the members. After all, they were the only ones who could set them free and halt the hunt forever.

“Failing that,” said Michael “we probably only need that guy Buckingham to believe us. I’m pretty sure he’s the one who runs the show. If we don’t get a chance to hex the whole Council, let’s make sure we get Buckingham to believe us.”

“Believe me,” said Tung smugly, “they will buy my story.”

“Don’t get cocky. This will literally be a matter of life or death if they catch us. You heard what they plan to do to us.”

“I’m only kidding. I know how important this is.”

“Moving on,” said Madrick moving on. “There is one other thing we should plan for.”

Madrick explained how it may be possible to stop someone saying a spell so it was important the bad guys thought he, Madrick, was the wizard. They only had to fool people long enough for Tung to say the spell and then tell the lie.

After an hour or so they believed they’d made all the preparation they could. They were as ready as they were ever going to be in the event of capture. Michael then started to outline his plan for not getting caught in the first place.

He told them he’d already started robbing IIBE. He didn’t try to describe how, but he did explain why he thought it would distract at least some of their hunters. He told them about his false identity and how he’d created it many months earlier for the express purpose of making himself disappear.

“Like how we disappeared to escape from Mifal’s dungeon?” quipped Tung who knew it was a completely different sort of disappearing which Michael was talking about.

Michael threw him a sarcastic smile and continued to outline their next steps.

“We’ll head north. I have a house in Liverpool which I bought under my new name. It’s quite private and we won’t arouse any suspicion with the neighbours when we arrive. We have plenty of cash and I’ll have a lot more soon. We won’t sell any more gold coins for now because they’ll be looking out for that. If we keep our heads down for the next few months I don’t see how they’ll ever pick up our trail.”

For the next half hour he shared the rest of his ideas.

“That’s it, guys. I reckon that’ll give us a good chance of never being caught.”

“Fingers crossed,” said Tung, crossing his fingers.

“Right, now I’m going to do something I’ve been looking forward to for years. Have a good look, this is the last time you’ll ever see Michael Phillips.”

He went to the bathroom and looked in the mirror.

“This is the face they’ll be looking for,” he said to his reflection as he started to shave off his beard and moustache. “No one has any idea what clean-shaven Michael looks like. No one has any idea what Michael Baker looks like.”

He was right. All the photographs which were recorded at IIBE, and indeed Noviru, showed him with his full facial hair. Another bit of great planning, he thought as he washed off the white foam and admired his new look.

Chapter 42 - Shut it Down

Deep in the bowels of the IIBE headquarters the bank’s top security people buzzed about like angry worker bees. A cacophony of noise echoed off the grey walls as keyboards clattered and suited men shouted at computer monitors, and each other. It was a hive of activity, everyone jostling for position, each trying to get a better view of the rivers of numbers which streamed across the banks of screens. Their trained eyes knew exactly what these digital waterfalls meant. Tens of thousands of pounds were being transferred from their biggest accounts to individual personal accounts all over the planet. The moment they’d first spotted these unusual patterns, the account holders were informed. They, in turn, were now frantically checking whether the transfers were valid. The panic was spreading. As time went by, the transfers got bigger and increasing numbers of the major account holders were being targeted. What the hell was going on?

Buckingham convened an emergency meeting of the IIBE Board. Tempers were fraying as the scale of the problem became ever clearer. He listened to a range of proposals, some madcap some sensible, but no one came up with anything which was particularly palatable. Anxiety levels were approaching meltdown as it dawned on each board member the scale of the damage to their own personal fortunes. It was downhill from there, the discussion becoming ever more heated, cantankerous and argumentative. What a truly despicable sight it was to see greedy, wealthy men squabbling viciously like paupers fighting over a dropped penny. He hated these people, small men with small fortunes… he was much more at home with his Occultus Populous peers.

He slapped his palms hard on the table. The sudden, sharp noise brought some semblance of control back to the meeting.

“Gentlemen, gentlemen, we need to get back on track, back to working out what to do rather than trying to find someone to blame. I propose we shut down the whole system. At least that’ll stop the leakage of money and give us a chance to work out exactly what’s gone wrong.”

Silence.

Everyone knew a shutdown would cause total chaos in the global financial markets. They weren’t even sure if they could shut down the whole system. And any sort of interruption would cost them multimillions. What about the bank’s reputation? It would be trashed if they went down that line, but what were the alternatives? The longer they waited the bigger the problem became; the rate of transfers were spiralling as every minute passed.

“We have discussed all the options,” said one of the board members. “We know what our choices are so we should table them formally and take a vote. Let the majority decide.”

“A vote? The majority? A majority simply means all the fools are on the same side,” bellowed Buckingham. “Shut it down. We’ve no choice but to shut down the whole system. Get every one of your experts to work on the problem. Find out what’s gone wrong and fix the damned thing. The priority is to minimise the downtime. Then I need you people to use your contacts to pressurise all the banks which accepted cash transfers. We need to get our money back. After that, we can concentrate on who caused this mess. Someone needs to be punished.”

Tirade over, he stormed out of the boardroom. He was content he’d stamped his authority on the situation; he just hoped they could follow his instructions. Stop the losses and fix the problem. They knew what they had to do. Finding the guilty could wait.

He made his way to the secret teleconferencing facility. An emergency meeting of the Occultus Populous Council had also been scheduled. In a way it was convenient that the Council members were all on hand; still available to deal with the Scroll crisis. He could utilise their collective financial muscle to minimise the effect of this IIBE banking disaster. At least minimise the effect on the members of the Occultus Populous. As was often the way, those in true control of the wealth can benefit when a financial crisis destroys legions of ordinary people. A decent crisis ensured the common man didn’t climb above his station. It was a bit like the way a bush fire was necessary every so often to keep the bush healthy. A lot of animals get cooked in the process… shame. A good old crisis was needed on a regular basis to weed out the weak and the sick.

Buckingham knew this only too well. His grandfather had initiated the ‘great depression’ in 1929 and that one event had helped his family amass billions albeit at the expense of millions of small investors.

By the time he reached the teleconferencing facility, he’d calmed down, at least externally. He nodded to his fellow members who were already in the room. He surveyed the faces on the large screens; the displays indicated everyone was present.

He began to outline the latest catastrophe and explained the action he’d just ordered. A babble of frenzied conversations swamped the room. It was an understandable initial reaction. He waited until the noise subsided and then began to set out the defensive actions they could all take to protect their personal fortunes. Once everyone realised how thoroughly Buckingham had thought through the consequences for them personally, things calmed significantly. Many of them were already calculating how much they could make from this situation.

“So we need have no fear as far as our own wealth is concerned. We can engineer restarts and shutdowns which will favour us and knowing exactly when these will happen will allow us to fully exploit the massive swings which there’ll inevitably be in the markets. Lots of money to be made, but we have other things to which we must turn our attention.”

He began to outline his plan to track down and destroy the people who had perpetrated ‘these despicable acts of unauthorised magic’ as he called them.

“I’ve put my best man on the job. He’s assembling his team as we speak. I’ve told him he has our collective resources at his disposal. We’ll give him whatever he needs to get the job done. He’s been authorised to do whatever he needs to do to find the travellers. There’ll be no hiding place. He will find them, mark my words gentlemen, he will find them. These people will suffer. They have no idea just how much they will suffer.”

“Head crusher,” shouted one of the members.

“Head crusher,” echoed the others.

“Too lenient,” said Sir Samuel, “too lenient by a long shot.”

Chapter 43 - In my Liverpool Home

Tung, Madrick and Michael grabbed their packed bags and left the apartment for the last time. Michael knew he could never return. A wave of sadness flowed over him; a goodbye wave. All in all, this had been a happy place. He’d miss it.

He’d planted a few red herrings before they left. At some stage the hunters would find this apartment and examine everything in the minutest of detail. They’d find nothing. There were absolutely no useful clues left for them to follow, six months of meticulous planning had taken care of that. Planning was the key, no rushed decisions. Rushing things was the recipe for disaster, straight from the cookbook of poor preparation.

He led the group to the underground station, paid for their tickets in cash and after a short wait boarded a train heading out of the city. They rode in silence as the carriage hurtled through the dark tunnels. They were all on edge. Were they being followed? Were any of the other passengers taking an unhealthy interest in them?

This was déjà vu for Madrick and Tung. Their lives seemed to be going around in a great big circle. It wasn’t long ago, in the timeline of their lives, that they were being chased by Mifal, and the Black and White Wizards.

“I wonder if we’ll ever be done running,” said Madrick. “There’s always someone chasing us. Our sad lives are just one damned chase after another.”

“Or is it all the same damned chase? Is it actually the same people who are after us, but now they’re in a modern guise?” said Tung.

“You guys got away last time, so why not this time? I think we’re in good shape. I don’t think there’s any way they can find us.”

After a number of train changes, all paid with cash, they arrived in Liverpool. It hadn’t all been plain sailing though; there had been two unfortunate incidents on the rail journey.

The first was when Tung managed to get himself locked in the toilet. They needed the conductor to help him out, but they passed it off as him being a bit ‘slow’ in the brain department. The conductor didn’t seem fazed at all. He’d already dealt with aggressive fare dodgers, a punch up in the buffet car and a clutch of drunken party girls. Someone locked in the lavatory was ‘light relief’.

The second incident was a bit more serious. Michael and Tung had left Madrick to keep their seats while they headed to the buffet car to buy some sandwiches. There was no problem with the purchasing because Michael did the talking; three bacon butties and a couple of ham sandwiches would certainly fill the gap nicely.

Tung led the way along the corridor back to their seats. The man in the wheelchair seemed to come out of nowhere and bumped gently into him. He reacted instantaneously to the ‘threat’. Years of living on the dangerous streets of Mifal’s Thamesius had honed his lightning quick reflexes. Anyway, he’d never seen a wheelchair before and he was taking no chances. Before the man could apologise for nudging him, Tung knocked him backwards, tipping man and chair onto the ground. Michael could only gawp in amazement as Tung stood aggressively over the man shouting.

“Get up. Get up and fight. Is there something wrong with you?”

It took all Michael’s diplomatic skill to stop the incident escalating into something which would draw in the growing band of on-lookers. He calmed Tung and sent him back to Madrick. He righted the chair and helped the man back into it.

“I’m so sorry. My friend had a nasty accident once when he was knocked down by a bike. He’s scared of anything with wheels now.”

The words were out of his mouth before he realised just how ridiculous his explanation was.

“Actually he’s on a day out from a mental hospital.”

He made the universal ‘he’s nuts’ sign with his finger. The man was shaken, but he seemed to accept the apology. Before he could change his mind, Michael dropped the bacon and ham sandwiches in his lap.

“Here. Please take these. It’s our way of saying sorry.”

He was so embarrassed he didn’t even wait for a reaction. He turned on his heels and hurried off after Tung. The man in the wheelchair could only watch him in disbelief.

“Surely he must have seen my skull cap?” he said to the nearest bystander. “Is this some kind of sick joke? Why else would he drop a load of pork on a Jewish man’s lap?”

“I think they’re probably both on a day out from a mental hospital,” said a bystander. “But you’d think there would be someone sane to accompany them.”

“You’re probably right. No real harm done, I guess. And here, would you like some sandwiches?”

“Are you having a laugh, mate? Look at the beard. I’m a Muslim.”

Michael knew nothing of the ethnic chaos he’d left behind him. He thought he’d dealt with the problem quite well, but he was nevertheless glad to get back to find Tung sitting quietly beside Madrick.

“You’re a troublemaker,” he said, totally unaware of how much worse he’d made the situation.

“Where are the sandwiches?” asked Madrick.

“You don’t want to know. Trust me, you do not want to know,” he replied as he gave Tung the dirtiest of dirty looks.

Apart from the toilet imprisonment and the wheelchair incident, it was an uneventful journey. They hadn’t noticed anyone following them and there were no strangers paying any special attention to them. The first part of their escape had been a success.

When the train rolled into Liverpool, they gathered their bags and hopped off. They walked along the platform and saw the man in the wheelchair being helped off. Michael waved and nodded, but the man completely blanked him.

“How rude, I wish I hadn’t given him our sandwiches now.”

Michael decided they should walk from the station to his Liverpool home rather than take a taxi. It was a couple of miles, but it was a sensible precaution; less of a trail for anyone to follow. They also walked separately. Why be a group of three if their hunters were looking for a group of three? Madrick was fifty yards behind Michael and Tung a further fifty yards back. Maybe he was being overly cautious, but they might as well leave as few breadcrumbs as possible for their hunters to pick up on.

They’d been walking for about ten minutes. Michael was checking the street behind them for the umpteenth time. They weren’t being followed. He was still looking over his shoulder when a small man leapt out from a narrow entry and knocked him to the ground with a rather dramatic karate style kick. That hurt. He was stunned. The man was trying to rip off his backpack. He hung on tight. Nothing was going to separate him from his precious computer. The man, who looked of Japanese origin, pulled a small knife from his pocket and waved it in Michael’s face.

“Let go of the bag, man,” he growled. “I’ll stab you in the eye if you don’t let go of the bag… NOW.”

Suddenly, the man released his hold and dropped heavily to the ground. Above him stood Tung who had just landed a fearsome, double-handed blow on the back of his head. Michael looked up at him gratefully. He was shaken but not badly hurt.

“This is what I do,” said Tung looking rather pleased with his work.

“You were really brave,” said Michael, getting up unsteadily and brushing himself down.

“Anything for a friend.”

“That was so random. I’ve never been mugged before. Let’s hope he was just an opportunist thief and not something to do with the men who are after us. Let’s move on before we attract any attention. At least we can be pretty sure that this guy won’t be reporting anything to the police.”

They moved on, again fifty yards apart. Tung felt slightly sorry for the mugger. Every man’s got to make a living after all.

Michael quickened his pace. He wanted to get to his house as quickly as possible. The sooner they got behind closed doors and away from curious eyes the better. He hoped above hope the attack had been the work of an opportunist and not something more sinister; only time would tell.

A wave of relief engulfed him when he caught sight of his house. Safety was only a few hundred steps away. He opened the door and waited for the other two to squeeze in past him. He slammed the heavy wooden door and pushed home two big bolts. He let out a great lungful of air, as if he’d been holding his breath since the mugging. Relax… the world’s shut outside, we’re home free.

They were in the hallway of an imposing Victorian brick house which lay about two miles south east of the city centre. He’d bought it eighteen months earlier using money he’d inherited when his mother and father had died… been killed.

His mind flashed back to the dreadful night when he’d been given the distressing news. Unshed tears filled his eyes as he relived the moment his uncle George and a policewoman had broken the news to him. Pain filled his heart. Madrick broke into his bleak reminiscences.

“This is a beautiful house. Why did you live in the other place when you have this wonderful home?”

“This is my secret getaway place. I bought this as a safe house where I could hide after I robbed IIBE. No one can link this house to my old identity. This is Michael Baker’s house, nothing to do with Michael Phillips. This is where I planned to lay low for a while before starting my new life, clear and free. And now it’s working for all of us. As far as our pursuers are concerned, we’ll have disappeared off the face of the earth.”

“Yeah,” said Madrick. “Been there and done that.”

“That’s quite a bump you have on your head,” Tung said poking Michael’s skull. It was nice to see someone else getting head bashes.

“Yep, I’ve taken one for the team.”

His brow furrowed as he wondered if the Japanese martial arts mugger might have connections to IIBE. He kept his concerns to himself.

“It’s a bump, but it’s not a major ninjury,” said Michael smiling.

Tung looked at him with a blank expression.

“You don’t know what a Ninja is, do you?” said Michael disappointedly.

“No more lessons for a while, Michael,” chipped in Madrick. “Let’s have some relax time. I think we all deserve it.”

“Fair enough, I think you’re right, we do deserve some down time.”

“I think we’ve found the plot,” said Tung feeling pleased with how his language was adapting to the twenty-first century.

“How do you mean ‘found the plot’?” queried Michael wondering when Tung would get a better grip on twenty-first century language.

“Well, things are pretty good now. When things were going bad you told us we’d ‘lost the plot’. Well, I think we’ve found it now.”

Michael nodded, it actually made sense. Things were pretty good now.

BOOK: Dark Tidings: Ancient Magic Meets the Internet Book 1
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