Magi Saga 2: Shadows of Darkness (19 page)

‘Something like that,’ Amanda answered.

‘I do keep telling her that she needs to back off a bit, let those kids find their own way. They’re all perfectly alright.’

‘I know, I’ve told her that as well. She does seem to worry though.’

‘And she always will,’ he answered as he crouched down to gather up his things.

Suddenly remembering what she’d done, she immediately got down on her hands and knees and helped him pick up his stuff, feeling embarrassed once again.

‘Here you go,’ she offered as she handed him the last of the documents that she had picked up.

‘Now, the least you can do is come and have a quick drink with me Amanda, I’d love to hear a bit more about your travels, about New York. You disappeared so quickly last time you were here.’

Amanda looked up at her former teacher and felt taken aback by the offer. Had he just asked her out on a date?

‘What? To the Pub?’ she asked.

‘No, not the pub. Just come to the Staff Room. Some of your other teachers might be there and I’m sure they’d be interested in catching up.’

Amanda relaxed, he hadn’t asked her out as she had feared for a moment, he just wanted to catch up. She glanced at the little window in her vision showing the kids in the common room. Everything seemed ok, and she could excuse herself any time she wanted.

‘Oh!’ Mr Croft said suddenly, ‘you thought I’d asked you out on a date.’

‘Well…’ Amanda said.

‘I’m flattered, but no,’ he smiled.

‘Sorry,’ Amanda said, feeling a little stupid. She walked with him the short distance to the staff room, helping him carry his stuff and followed him inside. Only a couple of teachers were in here now, it being the end of the day, and she actually only recognised one of them, but not from her days as a student here.

William, the teaching assistant who had greeted her and shown her around the school when she had arrived on her last visit pottered about at the back of the room. He looked up when they entered the room and she noticed his expression go from confusion to recognition over the space of a few seconds.

Amanda placed the files she carried for Mr Croft down where he indicated and stood back.

‘Wait there a moment,’ he said as he stepped up to the nearby cupboards and pulled out a few mugs.

William skittered over, a large smile on his face.

‘Hi, err… wait, I know this…’ he said, as she looked on. She couldn’t help but smile at his attempt to impress her by remembering her name.

‘It’s Amanda.’ Mr Croft said, no doubt rolling his eyes while he stood with his back to them, preparing their drinks.

‘I knew that,’ grumbled William. ‘It’s lovely to see you again.’

‘And you,’ Amanda obliged. ‘How’s the training going?’ she asked. He’d been here on placement, learning the job last time she had visited.

‘I passed,’ he said.

‘Will here is a fully qualified teacher now Miss Page,’ Mr Croft said, ‘it seems that they let any young fool through these days.’

‘And they don’t kick out the old farts either,’ Will countered.

Amanda laughed.

‘It’s great to see you again Will. Congratulations are in order I think,’ she said.

‘You’re damn right young one,’ Mr Croft said as he turned round and offered Will and Amanda a Mug each. She could smell the distinct whiff of Alcohol quite clearly before she even got hold of it. She took a proper sniff and recoiled from the burning smell that filled her nose.

‘Are you trying to get me drunk sir!’ she said in mock horror.

‘And if I were,’ he said with a wry smile.

‘Tally-ho I say old chap,’ Amanda said and took a sip of the amber liquid in the bottom of the mug.

The guys smiled and sipped their own Whisky. Mr Croft clearly enjoying his, while Will struggled to get any of his down his throat.

Amanda enjoyed the taste, even if it did burn her throat a touch.

Mr Croft led them over to the sofas and they all sat down, Mr Croft ensuring that Will ended up sat next to her. She found his feeble attempts at matchmaking amusing, and went with it.

Will still seemed to like her and she’d already caught him looking at her a few times. It made her smile and took her mind off things, it felt nice to be appreciated.

Mr Croft started to ask her questions about her travels and she enjoyed telling them about some of the places she had visited, leaving out all the Magic and monsters she had encountered along the way while she enjoyed the drink that Mr Croft kept topping up.

Amanda soon found herself deep in conversation with Mr Croft and Will as the Whisky made her relax a bit. She ended up sat pressed up next to Will, teasing him with the odd playful touch on the leg or arm. She enjoyed listening to his thoughts occasionally as well, as he got slightly flustered over her latest tap of his knee. She found it cute and endearing, even if she had no intention of taking it any further.

She enjoyed their company so much and talking at length about her travels felt so great that when she suddenly remembered to check on the kids, she realised they were gone from the common room.

Realising her mistake, she quickly made her excuses and left Will and Mr Croft in the staff room claiming that time had got away from her and she had somewhere to be.

Once outside, she checked to make sure no one would see her, and Ported upstairs, appearing outside Christina’s room. She placed her senses inside the room and could quickly see that no one looked to be in. So she Ported inside the room and took a quick look around. Using her magic, she looked for links, items that had a strong emotional investment in them from Christina, and after a few moments, found a necklace that would work perfectly. She could see the feint aura about it that indicated that Christina clearly invested heavily in this item.

Amanda picked it up from its stand on her dressing table and held it in her hand, concentrating.

She focused on Christina, and used her Magic to reach out to her, to find her, and as she worked the Magic, she soon found the direction and distance, and over the next few seconds, she started to get an idea in her mind of where she might be. So she concentrated and placed her senses in that area and quickly scanned around.

It turned out that she’d sent her Magical senses to Donegal, and they seemed focused on a gap between some buildings in the town where she could see some commercial units on the other side. They looked somewhat overgrown and disused, which to Amanda’s mind made them a perfect place for kids to get up to mischief.

The area seemed clear so Amanda Ported from the room after returning the necklace to the stand and appeared between the two buildings just off a passing road.

In the twilight, the area beyond the road towards the disused buildings took on an ominous and creepy vibe, but Amanda could see better than usual with her enhanced senses and could see the golden mist of Essentia as well by using her Magic.

She walked forward along the track of hard packed earth and stone, but as she moved away from the road, it became steadily more overgrown with weeds, nettles and thorn bushes. Several paths through the foliage led off to the various buildings, but she could already see that the Essentia around one of them seemed to be acting strangely, moving about in ways that only Magic would cause.

She picked her way through the bushes and sent her senses ahead of her, but this time she used her Multitasking to split her mind, allowing her to concentrate on 2 things at once.

She felt she had been progressing well recently and splitting her mind once seemed fairly straight forward now, and she wondered if she could now split her mind into three or four parts.

Now wasn’t a good time to be messing about though, so she stuck with the two and sent her senses into the building.

The Magic wouldn’t work though, as she tried to scry into the building her Magic hit an Aegis of some kind that seemed to prevent anyone looking too close or maybe Porting in.

Feeling frustrated she moved forward more quickly and after a few minutes found herself beside the building. She could see a fairly clear path around the sides, but had no idea which way to go. Both looked well used.

Using her Magic once more she augmented her sight and suddenly she could see heat, in much the same way as a thermal camera. But it didn’t help as much as she would have liked as both paths had residual heat signatures, which she found confusing.

Not wanting to mess about much more as she could already feel the Magic inside the building growing and affecting her perception, she chose to get moving, and picked a direction at random, gingerly making her way over the grass and uneven ground.

Shadows shifted, the walls to the building seemed to not be there, and then there again. These were just the usual effects of strong magic as your brain questioned the reality around it. She didn’t notice it as much these days as she grew used to these effects, but it could be a useful warning system.

Walking around the building, she turned a corner to see an open doorway and dancing lights spilling out of it. Things were progressing and she needed to be in there.

She moved as quick as she could and ducked into the doorway towards the back of the building, closest to the road and found herself on a solid flat floor again.

She couldn’t see much from where she stood now, various machinery and other disused items still stood in place, and beyond those, the lights that danced towards the middle of the building cast strange shadows over the rear wall.

Despite the darkness, she could see quite well with her enhanced vision and moved around the machinery to see where the light had been coming from.

As she moved, the scene came into view and she wished she’d arrived here sooner.

The four students stood at the four corners of a summoning circle, one for each compass direction. Between them, on the floor, a circle had been clearly marked out with runes and candles. Christina held the book in her right hand, reading from its pages while she held her left hand aloft. Of the four, she seemed like the only one of them taking this relatively calmly. The other three, Scott, Tomo and Jake, all wore expressions of shock and fear as strange smoke rose from the circle and a flickering, pulsing light hovered in the centre, a good six foot off the ground. As she watched, a Dark form materialised within the light and started to grow and take form.

Amanda had no idea what this thing could be, but it didn’t look good.

She’d heard stories of Demons and Spirits living in the Abyss that could be summoned by Magi or those with the right tools such as this book.

Amanda stood and stared for a moment, not really sure what she should do. Disrupting the spell would be a good idea usually, but with the spirit now there in the middle of the protective circle and being held in place by the Magic that Christina conjured up, disrupting the ritual now might actually release the Demon in our world, not something Amanda felt keen on doing. So she watched and waited, hoping for an opportunity to end this craziness.

Christina finished chanting and looked up, apparently surprising herself by what the book had done.

‘It worked,’ she said in a shaky voice.

‘Shit yeah it worked, now what?’ Jake said.

‘Um…’ Christina said, and opened the book again, flicking through pages as fast as she could.

‘Oh great,’ Scott muttered to himself, no doubt realising that Christina had no clue what to do next.

‘Can you send it back,’ Tomo asked.

‘I’m looking, I’m looking. Give me a moment.’

‘You’re looking? It’s looking… at us!’ said Tomo, desperation edging into his voice.

Amanda looked, and indeed the thing, which didn’t look human at all, seemed to be looking around itself. The thing seemed to be little more than a black shape, the top half kind of looked like a Manta Ray, smooth and sleek, the top of its body bent over like a head. The bottom half of the thing tapered off and split into black tendrils and tentacles that writhed about like a mass of snakes across the floor. As she and the 4 kids watched, the thing turned on the spot and regarded each of the participants.

‘I don’t like this Chrissy,’ said Scott, a bit more worried now.

‘It’s in here, give me a moment, I can send it back,’ she replied.

‘Well hurry up, I don’t want to stay here much longer,’ Jake said.

‘Don’t you move! If you move or break the circle then you will set it free, that would not be good,’ she said sternly.

Jake lifted his hands in supplication.

‘I ain’t going anywhere yet.’

Amanda didn’t know a lot about these kinds of things, summoning creatures like this was not something she had ever really done before. Christina seemed to know what to do, and Amanda had no reason to doubt her, so she fuelled her Aegis and waited, hoping that Christina would pull this together at the last moment.

Amanda then noticed some movement on the other side of the circle, but she found it difficult to make out who or what the new arrival could be through the dancing lights and magical energy. She moved about, trying to get a better look and saw someone running towards the summoning circle on the far side, but by the time she had realised this, the figure had crossed the edge of the circle and stepped into the same space as the creature.