Jake's Justice, Book Three of Wizards (7 page)

Sir Grendon paused. He hadn’t been expecting my fall and he might have struck me while I got to my feet, but I had hoped he was not that kind of man and I was right.

“I see you plan to fight with honor,” he said, nodding towards my sword.

“I intend to win, Sir Grendon, and for that I apologize. Tell your masters that I may not look so kindly on any others they send against me.”
 

“A brave speech, young wizard. But even a sword conjured by magic cannot stand against my blade.” He held his sword vertically and saluted me with it. Then he struck.

I parried with my sword, stepping back as I did. His sword went through mine as though it wasn’t there, which in most ways it wasn’t. The unexpected impetus of his swing sent him spinning off balance. I stepped in close and swung my sword through his body diagonally one way and then the other. Nothing happened and I stepped back.

“A sword that isn’t there? Has madness overtaken you?”

“Look,” I replied

A black stain had formed in the part of his blade where my blade had passed through it. As he stared at it in disbelief, the front half of the blade parted at the stain and then both ends of the sword turned to dust eaten from the point where they split.

“Impossible,” he whispered as a black X formed across his chest. I knew there would be an identical one on his back. His chain mail fell from him and crumbled to dust as it touched the ground.

The suppression field was gone and I snapped my fingers. Sir Grendon fell to the ground in his pink underwear and lay still.

 
“Have you killed him?” Betty asked as she stepped cautiously towards us. “Should I call the police?”

That was all I needed. I shook my head to both questions and reached down to touch the man.

I imagined Sir Grendon as a stone I could throw across an imaginary hopscotch court. His image bounced on its squares before vanishing on the last bounce. I sent Sir Grendon after his imaginary doppelganger. He would wake within seconds when he was back on the world he came from.

Betty was shaking with reaction and I put my hand on her shoulder. She grabbed my arm tightly in hers. “Take me now, on the grass and I won’t say a word about what happened.”

I pulled away gently. “Betty, I’ve got a confession. My subconscious has been spilling out a magical command for girls to desire me. I don’t know why, since I just got married to two women.”

She gave me a quizzical look. “
Two
women, I’m surprised you can walk.”

“Well they haven’t exactly been putting out.” God knows what led me to tell her that.

“I can stop it now. You’ll feel the difference.” I closed the leaks. It was easy now that I knew what they were doing.

“Is that treasure real?” She nodded at the hole, where the hoard glinted.

“Absolutely. I need some money to buy a house and I located it by magic. It must have been there for hundreds of years.”

She stepped closer and put her arms on my shoulders. I was uncomfortably aware how luscious she looked. “So Mr. Wizard, have you removed that magic love charm you were talking about?”

I nodded. She moved her full lips till they were practically touching mine. She smelled wonderfully hot. “Have you ever considered that when you are having sex with one of your wives you’re cheating on the other?”

I nodded again. That was exactly why I’d run when Esmeralda had knocked at Jenny’s door.

“So it really wouldn’t be much different if you cheated on both of them and had sex with me, now would it, Mr. Wizard?”

One of her hands had left my neck and was working on my zip. Her lips touched mine and I felt an electric tingle run through me. The adrenaline from the fight was still coursing through my veins and my mind ceased to operate at a rational level.

When we showed Mr. Hardy the treasure, he grunted. His eyes took in the grass stains on our jeans at the knees.

“Messy business, finding treasure. I’ll look up who we have to call.”

“Messy, but very satisfying,” Betty said grinning at me. “I don’t think I’ve felt so satisfied in a long while.”

“Well, I’d call it more a stroke of luck. It should get our overdraft down.”

“When do you think we will get the money?” I asked.

“Think years rather than months, boy. Treasure trove isn’t decided overnight.”

“I think its
wizard
that Jake will have to keep coming here while we sort it all out,” Betty said cheerfully. “I can see him coming quite a lot.”

I kept my groan mental. How did I get myself into these things? And I was no nearer to getting the money to buy Jenny a house.

7.
          
Complications

I arrived in the Bat Cave and dropped onto the beaten up couch with a heartfelt sigh. Throwing the broken metal detector into a corner I wondered what I’d tell Malcolm when I next saw him, but when it came right down to it a broken toy was the least of my problems.

Before I left the Hardy’s, Mr. Hardy had arranged for us to meet an archaeologist to come to the farm the next day at two o’clock. The archaeologist would determine what our objects were worth and look at the hole we’d taken the pot out of. Apparently, if he thought the hoard was worth anything, then we could apply for treasure trove. As the finder, I had to be on the farm tomorrow to make the claim.

I’d beat a hasty retreat as Betty indicated she was up for seconds and I was already certain that the firsts had been a disastrous mistake. Mam had a way of sensing when I’d done something wrong and as for my wives, well; Esmeralda’s forensic ability could detect a single foreign body hair on my clothes. That only left the
Bat
Cave
as a place to go and lick my wounds.

The
Bat
Cave
was the massive place I’d found for Fluffy in the mountains when he had grown too big to hide at home. It had a launch platform hidden by magic that he used when he went out hunting for sheep. The local shepherds lost a lot of sheep and were always moaning about it. They believed there was a big cat, like a lion or a panther roaming the hills and killing their stock.

[Jake.]
Judging by the smoke swirling around me (with just a hint of mutton mixed in with the sweet smell of dragon oil) my dragon was displeased with me.

“What have I done now?”

[You vanished on Jenny this morning, and don’t think for a minute that Esmeralda doesn’t know what you two have been up to.]

“I’m not sure that what I do with my wives is any of your business.” There were limits to friendship and Fluffy was pushing it. I was feeling guilty enough as it was without him rubbing it in.

[It is not. Nor do I care about your mating habits. Though you should wash the female’s scent from your body before you see either of your wives. The point I am making is that when you vanished on Jenny, you vanished on me. Have you forgotten that I am tasked with protecting the multiverse from you and your mistakes?]

He moved his head closer to me and nudged me with his nose. [This is serious, Jake. I need to stay close to you.]

“You were keeping an eye on me through Jenny?”

[I always do.]

“I returned to Earth and had a home cooked breakfast from Mam, borrowed a metal detector from Malcolm, which I’ve broken, found some buried treasure and fought a knight from another world equipped with sword and amour that negates magic.” I summarized. “And it isn’t tea time yet.

[Only stopping on the way to take a maiden’s virginity after you vanquished the knight?]

“She wasn’t?” I was shocked.

Fluffy sniffed me again. [No, she wasn’t.] He sounded almost disappointed. [Who was this alien Knight?]

“Called himself Sir Grendon and claimed to be a member of the Knights of Justice for the Diamond Worlds. Bit of a nutcase, but he knew who I was and claimed to be carrying out a legal death sentence on me.”

Fluffy screwed up his face and I knew he was communicating with all the other Dragons because I’d seen him do it before. According to Fluffy, it wasn’t like a conversation, more like searching a library of all their shared knowledge. I knew it must be stronger than that though, because I knew they would know instantly if something happened to Fluffy.

Fluffy stopped concentrating and looked at me in astonishment. [And you defeated him?]

“Yes… Why?”

[Because it has never been done before.]

I grinned.

[
Tell me exactly how you did it.]

That wasn’t Fluffy asking the question, “Who wants to know?”

[The Knights have killed many dragons over the millennia. Their idea of justice is notably one sided.] It was Fluffy speaking to me this time. I could see he was shocked that his mind had been taken over so casually.

That fitted in with my experience and I couldn’t argue with the dragons’ right to know. Though the dragons were almost as bad as the Knight in some ways, they hadn’t killed me in the end. The idea of Fluffy getting killed by a Knight swung it. I couldn’t tell him without telling them. I explained my method and the thinking behind it.

[Ingenious; and it can be adapted. We are in your debt, Wizard Morrissey.]

Fluffy shuddered and sat down on all fours.

[I did not know they could do that to me.]

“Perhaps they are watching you as closely as you are watching me?

Fluffy laughed and I beat at the couch to put out the flames. We sat for a while without speaking, each lost in thought.

[I thought you were going to be faithful to your wives?]

“I planned to be faithful. I’m just having problems with the execution part of it.”

[It has been barely two weeks since your marriage.]

He had a point. I rubbed Fluffy on the back of the neck in the place he likes.

“I know. Don’t rub it in. But girls have been all over me because my subconscious has been using magic to make them. And then when Betty threw herself at me
after
I turned it off…”

Fluffy nodded sagely as if he totally understood, which is more than I did.

[You were frightened that marriage had neutered you.] He didn’t say it as a question.

“That’s stupid.”

[You have the powers of a god with no one who can stop or judge you. That is why the wizards of
Valhalla
become evil, no one can stop them and they do not choose to judge each other. The Spirit people of the Hidden Worlds are equally powerful, but do not allow such behavior in their society. The Diamond Worlds have created the Knights to mete out justice on errant wizards. But who judges you, Jake? Who judges you?]

I gave him a rueful look. “You do, Retnor. You, me, Jenny, and especially Esmeralda. Isn’t that enough?”

[If Esmeralda has you skinned and made into a rug, I promise to give what is left of you a decent funeral and I will not walk over your pelt with dirty claws.]

I thumped my friend on the scales. Not that he would notice. Dragon scales are hard and my hand throbbed afterwards.

“Do you have any idea how the Knight found me?”

Fluffy laughed and I extinguished the couch. I was going to have to buy a new one soon, as this one was burning through.

[You were told your image has been posted. That means everything that you are. Enough of you for any wizard to hop to your side.]

“They learn English?”

[Welsh too, and all the other languages you speak. That is also part of who you are and other delegates will be expected to talk to you.]

“I think I should go and see this notice board.”

Fluffy stood. [Get on then.]

I climbed onto his back and he slipped us into glim.

A dragon doesn’t hop in the way of Wizards. As a species they are less connected to the multiverse than the rest of us. They can choose to dissociate themselves from the universe and at the first level of dissociation they are invisible, then they become insubstantial and then they can step outside of everything into Hop Space. They call this process glimming and it is a noun, a verb, an adjective, and largely indescribable.