Josh and the Magic Vial (7 page)

Picking up the needle and a swab, she jabbed at his arm then daubed at the trickle of blood. The swab she put into a third container, and using a fresh swab dipped in antiseptic, cleaned the puncture and stanched its bleeding.

“All's ready; all's done,” she breathed. “Your fate is sealed. You shall be heir. The choice is up to him, of course — him alone, my dear. But you just wait and see, in two week's time you shall dwell in Syde forever.”

Finished her ministrations, she put away her instruments then, turning, she remembered the boys. Endorathlil shot them a threatening look. “What are you two spying for?” she snarled. “Get out, and stay out unless I call for help.” As they backed out of the room she added, “And if either of you breathes a word of what you have seen, you will rue the day. Rue the day you were born!”

They watched from the doorway as Endorathlil turned and bent over her victim. “Awake, dreamer!” she commanded, clapping her hands. “Awake!”

Josh rolled and moaned, then opened his eyes and struggled onto his elbows. “Wha . . . what happened?” he slurred.

“Oh my!” the witch fretted. “Oh my Master Josh! You gave me such a fright. I only wanted to show you the power — just a little trick. I meant no harm.”

“What happened?”

“You fainted. Fainted like a canary in a coalmine, my dear. I
am
sorry.”

“But there were others,” he remembered.

“Yes. I called my assistants to help get you to the cot. I was just about to call an ambulance.”

Josh managed to sit on the edge of the cot with his head in his hands.

“Shall I call one?” Endorathlil hesitated.

“No,” he mumbled. “I'm okay.”

“I do hope so.”

“I was warned,” Josh muttered, still groggy.

Ian's heart leapt and the hair on his neck stood up. He didn't flinch though. Not under Conky's fierce gaze.

“Warned?” Endorathlil inquired, sweetly. “About what, my dear?”

“About coming here.”

“Oh?”

Ian balled his hands into fists and crouched slightly, thinking this could end in a fight for his life. “Idiot,” he thought. “Friggin' idiot!”

“Who would have warned you about coming here?”

Endorathlil wondered, hoping to coax more information out of him. “And why?”

Glancing up, Josh caught Endorathlil's predatory gaze. Then he remembered the postscript on the anonymous letter. “I have risked my life to warn you,” it had said. “Please do not tell anyone about this letter . . . ”

“Uh, my friend Millie Epp warned me,” he lied. “She told me not to come here because something bad was sure to happen.”

“Well,” Endorathlil huffed. “I'm sorry to hear your friend has such a low opinion of me. I don't know what I've done to deserve it.”

“Millie's a bit uptight,” Josh explained.

Endorathlil could see he was lying. Conky still glared at Ian.

“D'ya believe that Lytle?” he asked.

“Why shouldn't I?” Ian responded, too quickly.

Conky shrugged.

12

I
an had to do something. What he'd seen in the back room scared him. Stealing a guy's backpack was one thing; turning a blind eye when he was in mortal danger another — and Ian had no doubt the Dempster kid was in deep. He had to warn him.

Then run for cover.

Endorathlil and Conky were sure to find out he'd ratted. How, he could not say, but they would sniff him out. And then? They might go after Adele, if they couldn't get at him. Ian wasn't taking any chances. He had an aunt across town. She would take Adele in for a couple of weeks. He would call if things got hot. That would mean more money from Adele's bankroll to cover expenses. Ian resented it, but had no choice.

“Jeez!” he cursed, rummaging around through a barrel full of eyeglasses. Value Village was the place to go, if you wanted to put together a disguise. And Ian needed a disguise. You could end up looking like just about anyone
or anything
with their selection of used togs and accessories. He tried on a thick pair of horn-rims. “Holy smokes,” he yelped, almost swooning. The glasses warped and blurred his world, transforming it into a drunkard's nightmare. “Perfect!” he smiled. “I'll take 'em.”

Next, he pried a curly, black wig off its Styrofoam stand, and tried it on. Ian laughed. With a hat it would work fine, he figured. Of course anyone with any smarts would figure out he was wearing a costume. That was okay. The disguise only had to work for a couple of minutes, that's all. Just long enough for him to issue his warning, then get out.

Ian couldn't go directly to Josh. Conky was suspicious already and might have the Dempster place watched. What about the mail? That would take too long. Telephone? Ian had a better plan. He would deliver his message to Josh's friend, the girl with the frizzy red hair and the bright, emerald eyes. After his embarrassing episode outside Café Java he wanted to redeem himself. “Nobody believes you over the phone,” he reasoned. So he'd invited Millie to a clandestine meeting at Café Java — a place she seemed to like going.

Jamming a battered old fedora over the wig, he checked himself out in a mirror at the end of the aisle. He beamed. The get up was worthy of Bozo the Clown, which was okay as far as he was concerned. When people noticed your getup, sometimes they didn't notice
you
.

Conky had never been invited up to Endorathlil's apartment before, and looking around, he wasn't sure it was such an honour. “What a dump,” he thought. He'd kicked her fat, ugly cat away a couple of times, but the thing kept coming back, coiling around his legs, purring loudly.

“Lumpkin likes you,” the cat's mistress cooed from the kitchen, where she was preparing tea and cookies for her guest. “That's a very good sign. My Lumpkin knows who I can trust.

Her judgment is infallible.”

He'd been lining up a really good punt to get rid of the mangy feline, but Conky checked himself and, despite his squeamishness, stroked the cat a couple of times. “Nice kitty,” he said stiffly.

“We need to talk, Conky,” Endorathlil was saying. “I think the time has come for you to progress.”

“Progress?”

Conky wasn't sure he liked the sound of that. Nothing in this world came for free, especially not from a stingy old hag like Endorathlil. Still, it was worth his while to listen. Besides, after what he'd seen her do to the Dempster kid Conky didn't really have much choice. “She could paralyze me on the spot,” he shivered. “Turn me into an instant zombie.”

“I've not had an apprentice now for many years — I'm afraid my last one didn't work out — and I do not have many years left to pass on what I know. I'm at an age when I have to think of the future.”

The future, as far as Conky McDougal was concerned, suddenly meant getting out of Endorathlil's apartment as fast as he could. “Apprentice?” That sounded a lot like work. Creepy work.

“Have you ever thought of sorcery as a vocation, my dear?” Endorathlil asked, rattling out of the kitchen, carrying a tray loaded with a teapot, cups, and cookies.

“No, ma'am,” he answered, then added quickly, “Not that I don't believe in the power of occult. I've seen what
you
can do with my own eyes.”

“What you have seen is nothing compared to what might have been,” she said bitterly. “But never mind that. There's still time for great deeds, and I intend to pick up the wand, my friend, pick it up and use it.”

“What kind of deeds?” Conky gulped.

She poured two cups of tea and gestured for him to take a cookie. Then, with a grunt, Endorathlil lowered herself into the armchair opposite. “I needn't remind you that the road to power is not open to the faint of heart. You know that from personal experience, eh?”

He nodded.

“You can never stay still once you have taken that trail,” she whispered, conspiratorially. “They'll pull you into the ditch if you do — the levelers, I mean.”

“Who?”

“You know them,” she snorted. “The subordinates who question your authority, not because they want if for themselves, but because they resent your having it. The ones that snicker behind your back, or ask impertinent questions . . . ”

“Like Ian Lytle, you mean?”

“Ah! Master Lytle,” she smiled mysteriously. “He's something more than a leveler, Conky.”

“What do you mean?”

“I thought you would have seen it by now, an intelligent boy like you.”

“Seen what?” he cried.

“That he's a challenger,” she answered impatiently. “For a boy in your position there are two sorts of enemies: levelers and challengers. The first type is more common, the second more dangerous. Ian Lytle is of the second class, and you must be careful or he shall win.”

“Why do
you
care which of us wins,” Conky demanded.

Endorathlil smirked. “Very good!” she applauded mockingly.

“In truth I wouldn't care a fig, except I
do
favour you. Then there's the matter of loyalty.”

“He's a rat!”

“Exactly,” Endorathlil agreed.

“Then let me take care of him!”

She laughed and shook her head as if she were disappointed in her star pupil. “You are a rash young man,” Endorathlil admonished. “To catch a rat, you must set a trap. If we are to make an example of Master Lytle, we must make sure he's an example that suits our purpose.”

“I don't follow,” Conky complained.

“Of course you don't, fool!” she snapped, thrusting her contorted face at him. With some effort Endorathlil smiled, then she continued. “If we are to make an example of him, we must first have a crime. My suspicions and your hatred are not enough, unless we want to prove to your followers that we are merely cruel and arbitrary, instead of being stern and disciplined.”

Conky had to admit she had a point.

“Never act on instinct, boy. That is your first and most important lesson. Instinct is the fire that makes the metal glow; experience is the anvil we lay it on; reason is the hammer we shape it with, blow by well aimed blow.”

“Huh?”

“Dolt! We need a pretext.”

“A pre-what?”

“Arghh,” Endorathlil howled, holding her head in her hands as if she intended to pop it off and throw it at him.

“Have him followed,” the exasperated witch ordered.

“Is that all?”

She leered, an evil grin that made even the likes of Conky McDougal cringe. “Not quite,” she answered, nibbling the corner of a cookie. “There is one other thing I want you to attend to personally.”

He watched and waited, knowing better than to interrupt.

After a long, excruciating pause, Endorathlil spoke again. “Ian has a little brat of a sister. She goes by the name Adele.”

“Yeah,” Conky swallowed, nervous.

“Oh, I don't want you to harm the girl,” the witch soothed. “I just want you to fetch a lock of her hair and a few drops of her blood — no more than a mosquito might draw. Consider it a little test of your loyalty.” She grinned.

“But . . . ”

“Oh, and some fingernail clippings would be nice, if you can get them, although they are not altogether necessary.”

“She's just a kid!”

“That's why she's valuable to us,” Endorathlil said sweetly.

“Once we hold her fate in our hands, we control Mr. Lytle, do we not?”

“But she's a kid!” Conky wailed.

“Coward!” Endorathlil hissed. “Instinct is the fire; experience the anvil; reason the hammer. Forge the armor of greatness, and put it on.”

13

M
illie could have done without the cloak and dagger stuff. “Meet me at Café Java, four o'clock, tomorrow.” the note instructed. “Come alone. Do it for Josh's sake, and don't say a word to anyone.” That was it. She had found the note lying on her notebook at the library. She had a pretty good idea who it was from.

“Rude so-and-so.” Millie snorted. Her resentment smouldered as she waited for Ian show up. The only reason she had come to Café Java at all was to say a few choice words to the ignoramus, but now he was adding to her indignation by keeping her waiting. Four o'clock had ticked by ten minutes ago, and still no mystery man.

Millie was always perfectly punctual herself.

“I should get up and go,” she stewed.

But she didn't. The whole thing might have been a prank; then again, it might not. She sighed. “Ten more minutes, then I'm outa here.”

She had just settled on this final, final deadline when a thump and clatter drew her attention to the entrance. Someone had walked into the plate glass door. A commotion ensued as passers-by helped the unfortunate to his feet, then the door swung open and in stumbled the most outlandish character Millie could have imagined. He was young, perhaps her age. But he had a battered fedora jammed onto his head, a crop of curly black hair — obviously a wig — sprouting out from under its greasy brim. And the glasses! She almost laughed out loud, for the bottle-bottom lenses were doing more to impair the unfortunate's vision than improve it. He groped along, bumped into the first table he came to, causing another commotion, then staggered down the aisle toward her.

“Oh God, no!” Millie flushed. “Please, no!”

Pray as she might, the character jostled and crashed his way toward her with the inevitability of a pinball bouncing off every rubber. Feeling his way into the chair opposite, he sat down carefully, then said, “Hello.”

“Why don't you take those stupid glasses off,” Millie hissed in her most caustic voice. “I know who you are.”

“It's not you I'm hiding from,” he answered in a nervous whisper. “I didn't think
you'd
be fooled.”

“Why are you following us around?”