Josh and the Magic Vial (21 page)

Blackstone smiled. He'd won. He had accomplished great things and would go on to do more. As soon as Elvira arrived at the shop, he intended a little toast. “To our enterprise!” he wanted to say, “and our patron Vortigen, Lord of Syde.”

Then they'd get down to business again. Vortigen was not the type of taskmaster who would let you rest on your laurels. They had to provide more candidates — more and more — if they hoped to retain his favour. Blackstone muttered angrily. Perhaps he had been hasty in destroying the sacrificial materials they'd had in hand. It would have been better to hide them somewhere. Now he and Elvira would have to start all over . . .

The jangle of the telephone interrupted these dark ruminations.

“Blackstone's,” Sirus barked into the mouthpiece.

“Is this Mr. Sirus Blackstone?”

“Yes, it is.”

“My name is Sam Jenkins, sir. I am a reporter with the London Herald.”

“What do you want, Mr. Jenkins?” Blackstone responded curtly.

“I just have a few questions, sir. It'll only take a moment.”

“I'm not interested in doing interviews, Mr. Jenkins. If people want to know my business, they can come round to my shop and ask for themselves. You can give them my address, if you wish.”

“Oh,” the reporter chuckled, “I don't think you would want people coming round to ask the types of questions I have to ask Mr. Blackstone. I think, once you have heard them, you will be glad we've given you an opportunity to respond.”

“What's the meaning of this?” Blackstone bristled, jolted by the reporter's tone.

“Do you know a police inspector named Horace Puddifant?”

“Yes I do. He's a nuisance.”

“Then you haven't heard that Inspector Puddifant has died?”

“My condolences, but what's that got to do with me?”

“Before he died, sir, he granted an interview to myself and my editor, Mr. Alfred Rawling. He told us many very interesting things concerning you, Mr. Blackstone.”

“Oh did he?” Blackstone stalled. “Tell me, what sort of lies are the police telling about the world of magic these days?”

“Do you know a man named Enver Skogs, sir?”

“Yes. Skogs worked for me up till a few days ago.”

“Worked?”

“The blackguard has run off, Mr. Jenkins,” Blackstone said angrily, “without so much as a word of notice. He's left me in the lurch. What's worse, he's left his poor wife, Elvira, without a word.”

“Elvira Skogs is a member of your coven, is she not?”

“Coven? What are you talking about?”

“The East London Coven, sir.”

“Look, I don't know anything about an East London Coven, and I shall sue you and your deplorable rag if you say I do. Inspector Puddifant was obviously delirious when you spoke to him. I'm going to hang up now, Jenkins . . . ”

“Then we shall have to run with the story we've got, sir.”

“Story!” Blackstone exploded. “I warn you, Jenkins . . . ”

“Are you threatening me, sir?”

“I'm warning you that I shall take legal action. I'll sue for libel and defamation if you print one scurrilous word . . . ”

“Oh, we're checking everything very carefully Mr. Blackstone. I'm quite certain our facts will stand up.”

“What facts!”

“Well, for instance, we've confirmed that Charlie Underwood . . . ”

“Charlie who?”

“Underwood, sir, He died at Great Ormond Street Hospital recently. About six months ago, a gang of thugs attacked Charlie. I have confirmed that they were hired by your Mr. Skogs to assail Master Underwood. Were you aware of that?”

“No! And what's it got to do with me?”

“Mr. Skogs was a police informant, sir. He reported to Inspector Puddifant. Skogs told the inspector that he acted on your orders. We've learned that he asked the assailants he hired on your behalf to take blood, hair and nail samples from the victims. Do you know anything about that, Mr. Blackstone?”

“No, I do not! Do you know that you are participating in a massive set-up, Mr. Jenkins? The police are out to get me, sir, and they are using the press as their instrument. Why would I want to injure an innocent boy whom I had never heard of?”

“Are you familiar with the Cult of Syde?”

A chill shot down Blackstone's spine. “Ruined!” All his work was crumpling into a ruin as they talked. All the years of patient effort, collapsing around him, burying him in the debris of his dream.

“The Cult of Syde believes in a Lord Vortigen, sir,” Jenkins was saying. “We've contacted two members who have confirmed that you head up a coven dedicated to Syde. They deny any knowledge of child sacrifice but we have spoken to an authority who tells us this Vortigen character lacks an heir and that in its purest form the Sydean cult would send ‘candidates' to him through a ritual of child sacrifice.”

“Child sacrifice! That's outrageous!” Blackstone roared.

“That's the information we have, sir. I take it you deny the charge.”

“You've been talking to that crackpot Wizer. He's been discredited by his fellow academics. You must know that. Why I'll wring his scrawny neck.”

“We've placed him under protection, Mr. Blackstone, so you needn't go looking for him.”

“Protection! You don't think I was seriously threatening Dr. Wizer, do you? It was just a turn of phrase, that's all, from a man in a state of shock.”

“It sounded like a threat to me, sir,” Jenkins said calmly.

“That's because you've tried and convicted me already, and you're just looking for more nonsense to print. I'll be ruined! Ruined, do you understand?” Blackstone pleaded.

“We just print the news, sir. Whether people want to believe it or not is up to them.”

“It's unfair,” Blackstone shrieked.

“I'm just doing my job.”

Blackstone hung up.

At that exact moment Elvira rushed into the shop, red-faced and out of breath. “Sirus!” she gasped. “I've had a phone call from a wretched man, a reporter named . . . ”

He lashed out in his rage, striking her on the cheek, sending her staggering back from the counter. “What did you tell him?” he raved.

“Nothing!” she wailed. “Nothing he didn't already know. He kept asking question after question. He knows everything, Sirus. Everything!”

“Aye,” the magician grimaced, staring out the shop window blankly. “And if we weren't damned yesterday, he'll make sure we
are
damned tomorrow. Enjoy your last few hours of respectability, my dear, for our names will be synonymous with infamy once Jenkins has written his story. The mob will be at our door.”

“What can we do?” she wailed.

“Flee, Elvira. Run for our very lives before the mob is set on us. They'll tear us limb from limb, if we aren't out of here before the newspapers hit the streets. They'll smash everything.”

“But what about our supporters.”

He laughed bitterly. “Supporters? They'll scurry into their holes like cockroaches when a light's turned on. The coven exists no more. We must take what we can and fly.”

“Where to?”

“To hell, my sweet,” Blackstone snorted. “Any place we inhabit shall be known as hell.”

I
N
S
YDE

36

P
uddifant paused in his story telling and glanced from one to the other of his three entranced companions. “So how did you end up with Endorathlil?” Millie asked after a while.

“She is Blackstone's granddaughter,” Puddifant explained. “Her story is tragic. She inherited both
The Book of Syde
and me when her uncle Andrew died. Andrew was Blackstone's son; Endorathlil's mother, Sarah Smythe, was Blackstone's daughter. After the revelations about the East London Coven were printed in the news, Blackstone and Elvira Skogs fled to Canada, where they established a colony called Ormor on the Sea. Ormor was not far from here, actually, near a place called Sechelt . . . ”

“I've been there!” Josh interrupted. “We went camping at a park on Sechelt Inlet once.”

“The Sydean cult arose there again,” Puddifant continued. “Andrew joined Blackstone and Elvira and acted as secretary to the colony; his sister Sarah rejected the occult and cut off all relations with her father and brother. When she was ten, Endorathlil — she was known as Lillian then — happened upon some correspondence and learned the whereabouts of her Grandfather. If she'd only known what disastrous consequences would follow, Lillian would never have disobeyed her mother and made contact with Ormor on the Sea. But she was a curious child, and clever. She did secretly establish contact, which gave her uncle Andrew the opportunity he sought. He carefully groomed and corrupted her over a period of several years during which they exchanged letters and he instructed her in the occult arts. He preyed upon her natural inclinations toward the occult and her childish desire to do good with magic.

“Eventually her uncle returned to London and quietly reopened Blackstone's Magic and Occult Emporium. He drew Lillian completely into his orbit. She became a devotee of Vortigen and eventually went through the Rite of Transformation, becoming one of Syde's ‘earthly citizens.' That's when her name was changed to Endorathlil.

“Her Uncle Andrew was a greedy, ambitious and stupid man. He plotted the downfall of Sirus Blackstone, looking for any means to destroy the old man. In the end, he cast a spell that banished Blackstone to a place called Desolation Isle — Vortigen's version of hell.

“If we had time, I would tell the whole sordid story. But all I need say now is that Andrew had miscalculated horribly. In his inexperience and haste, he neglected to read the spell thoroughly, so he didn't know he was condemning himself to Desolation Isle as well as his father. You can only imagine the reception he would get there from Blackstone.

“When her uncle died during World War II, Endorathlil acquired
The Book
and me. Eventually, she inherited the property where Blackstone's Magic and Occult Emporium was located. She decided to sell the land and leave England to escape the notoriety of the Blackstone name.

“But her money wouldn't last forever, so she started her own business — Lil's Magic Emporium and Second Hand. Lil's has never been much of a success story, of course. But Endorathlil doesn't much care. As long as the shop turns enough of a profit to pay her bills and leave her free to pursue her occult interests, she is satisfied. For more than fifty years she has practised magic and until now she has avoided the sins of her grandfather. Never once has she pronounced The Spell of Transmigration or any other that would take a life. You have the honour of being her first victim, Josh.”

“Why me!” he wailed.

“She believes you are Vortigen's heir and that by offering you to him, she shall end his quest for souls. Where Blackstone and his predecessors would send almost anyone to Syde, Endorathlil has waited for a true candidate.”

“Waited for me?” Josh groaned. “But that doesn't make any sense. I'm just an ordinary kid. I don't know anything about magic. Why would she pick me?”

“Endorathlil didn't pick you, Josh,” Puddifant said patiently. “She recognized you. There's a world of difference.”

“So she has cast a spell on me because she thinks Vortigen will accept me as his heir?”

“Correct.”

“And I'm going to get sick and . . . and . . . ”

“And die?” Puddifant interrupted. “No. We're not going to let that happen.”

“It's what happened to all the others,” Josh said gloomily.

“The others weren't prepared Josh. We will be. If I'd known what I know now, I think I could have saved Charlie Underwood. If I'd had allies like Millie and Ian, I'm certain Charlie would not have died. Over the coming days you three will be in training. We are preparing for battle and there isn't much time.”

Puddifant paused, exchanging a glance with each of them. “You will get sick, Josh,” he foretold. “There is no preventing that. If we can fend off the illness for three or four days, we'll be lucky. You will be taken to Syde. That is fated. Rather than crying about it, or struggling against the inevitable, I suggest we plan to survive it, and our plan must begin with
The Book
of Syde
.We need to get our hands on it.”

“The Book of Syde!”
Millie yelped. “How are we going to get that?”

“Well,” Puddifant chuckled, “I think it's time I paid Endorathlil a visit. She will not be happy to see her old companion, I assure you.”

“What are you going to do? Steal it?” Millie demanded.

“No, no. I am going to persuade her to give it up. I'll need some help, though.”

“If you need someone to help persuade her, I'm your guy,” Ian piped up.

“Agreed!” Puddifant said. “You shall accompany me.”

“I'll come too,” Josh offered.

“No,” the inspector said firmly. “It's late. Your parents and Millie's mother must already be worried. You two have to get home. Besides, you need to conserve your strength. Ian and I will take care of this assignment.”

“Speaking of parents,” Millie put in, “shouldn't we tell our parents what's happening? I mean, we're kids, right? This isn't kid's stuff we're talking about.”

“You're absolutely right, of course,” Puddifant agreed. “You should tell your parents and I cannot think of another circumstance where I would advise against such a course. In this case I do strongly recommend against it however.”

“Why?” Millie pressed.

“They will not believe you for one thing,” Puddifant said. “It is only because you three believe, that you are able to see me at all. To your parents I will be invisible and your story will sound like absolute gibberish. They won't allow things that must be done; and insist on actions that will waste precious time. As I've said, we have perhaps three or four days before Josh's symptoms become obvious. We need every minute to prepare.”