Student Bodies (19 page)

“Constable Ewanchuk, huh?” I said, still keeping her firmly in my grip. “I know that you're Adriel's adherent. You were at Mike Olsen's house, probably trying to figure out if he remembers who the hell it was that saved his ass at the C-Train station on Saturday. I don't know a lot about black mages and blood covens, but I do know one thing, you were once a witch's adept. I should release you and mark your spirit like my father did to your mistress.”

Twyla placed a hand on my shoulder. “She's got my fetish. I can feel its energy.”

“Hand it over, Ewanchuk!” I ordered. She maintained her defiant glare and reached into the pocket of her trousers. She tossed Twyla's fetish toward us and Twyla knelt down to pick it up out of the snow.

“Adriel has the boy now,” she spat. “There's nothing you can do about it because tonight we're going to destroy every stinking witch in your coven. And here's one for you to chew on – the city police service hasn't heard from me in more than four hours. They're already scouring town looking for me and when I turn the GPS on in my cruiser, they'll immediately know our location. Won't it be a party then, huh? They're going to take you in for questioning. You're screwed now, kid. Both of you are royally screwed!”

“You
abducted
us, bitch!” Twyla shouted. “There's duct tape in the trunk of your car and marks on our bodies. If anyone's going down, it'll be you.”

I motioned for Twyla to calm down. “Where did you take Willard Schubert? I heard you talking on a cell phone, now where the hell is he?”

She started to laugh. A wild, maniacal laugh that could have been a put-on for all I knew. This was my first encounter with a blood witch and I wasn't about to drop my guard.

“You won't find him. But Adriel will find you – our entire coven of more than thirty witches will find you and when they do, they're going to wipe every last one of you off the face of the earth. So, do what you have to do, Shadowcull.
I'm under a geas
.
I couldn't tell you where to find that kid even if I wanted to.”

“You're under a geas, huh?” said Twyla as she opened her pouch and pulled out a single tiny white bead. She walked up to the policewoman with a look of murder in her eyes and dropped the bead on top of Ewanchuk's head, covering it with her palm. I felt a strong surge of magical energy as Twyla began to whisper in her native tongue. Ewanchuk struggled against Twyla's will; she twisted and turned in a weak attempt to break Twyla's iron grip, but it was no use. Seconds later the native sorceress turned her back on Ewanchuk and calmly stood behind her
dlézi
.
 

“Nobody said that a geas can't work in our favour, Julie. She's under another geas – this time it's one of mine. So, here's what's going to happen, constable, you're going to take us back to the city. And while you're at it, you're going to smooth things over with your superiors long enough for Julie and me to make a quick exit from your cruiser. You didn't see us, you've never seen us, you've never heard of us and if anything lands on our doorstep, you'll admit to having abducted us. That's my geas, that's what you're going to do.
Now march
!”

Twyla Standingready was full of surprises. She'd laid out what was going to happen in no uncertain terms and she did it in a way that would ensure both her ass and mine were covered. I maintained my grip on the constable as she got back to her feet and brushed the snow off her legs. She didn't reach for her weapon; she didn't fire off another diatribe about how the end was nigh when the moon was high on the longest night of the year. Instead she simply walked back to her cruiser and climbed in the front seat. She grabbed a handset and hailed her dispatcher on the radio.

I climbed in the front seat beside her and looked into the rear-view mirror to see Twyla send her
dlézi
back to the spirit world. She grabbed our backpacks from the trunk and tossed them on the back seat. Minutes later we were cruising down a snow-covered back road and I spotted a sign saying that we were five kilometres from the town of Bassano. By my calculation, Ewanchuk had driven more than an hour and a half east of the city to kill us and dispose of our bodies.

“Pull over at that service station,” said Twyla after about ten minutes of icy silence. “I don't like sitting in the back seat of a police cruiser. We'll call my grandfather.”

“Fine,” said Ewanchuk as she signaled right and drove up the paved ramp to an old Shell station that looked like it had been in business since the discovery of petroleum. We hopped out of the car and I finally released Constable Ewanchuk from my binding.

“Thanks for the ride, officer,” I said as I climbed out of the passenger side. “If you make it back to your blood coven in time, tell Adriel that Julie Richardson and Twyla Asskicking Standingready send their warmest regards.”

“Bitch,” she spat as I closed the door. I reached over and opened the rear door and Twyla hopped out. She tossed me my backpack and the cruiser sped off, kicking up a plume of snow in its wake.

“You're a quick thinker,” I said, patting Twyla on the shoulder. “I've never learned how to place a geas on someone, before.”

“I'll show you sometime,” she replied as she watched the cruiser disappear up the highway. “Too bad we can't find Willard.”

“I know,” I said, sounding slightly deflated. “I need to call my mother and fill her in on what's happened. Want to go inside the gas station where it's warm?”

She nodded. “Sounds better than freezing our asses off. Let's go.”

 

 

CHAPTER 20

 

I called my mother to let her know what had happened and calmed her down. Not an easy task when you've got a lump on the back of your head the size of a goose egg and you're standing inside an old gas station with a pair of elderly grease monkeys looking on. I broke the news that Adriel had Willard and that I had a ride home with Twyla's grandfather.

And surprisingly, she didn't protest. Instead, she just instructed me to get back as quickly as possible, so Twyla and I sat down at a small table covered with fishing magazines and waited. After about forty minutes of listening to old country music and sipping on piping hot coffee (or possibly boiled paint stripper, it tasted awful), an old Ford half-ton truck pulled up in front of the gas station. Behind the wheel was an old man wearing a green toque. He climbed out of the truck and hobbled over to the doors and walked inside.

“Twyla, you owe me for the gas, yeah?” he said with a thin smile on his face. He stuck out a leathery, arthritic hand in front of me. “George Standingready is my name. What kind of trouble has my granddaughter gotten you into, young lady?”

I shook his hand and got a massive jolt of supernatural power that was unlike anything that I'd felt before. Normally someone's magical signature tingles when I brush up against them, but what I felt when I took George Standingready's hand wasn't a tingle at all; it was more like a full-blown electrical field. “I'm Julie Richardson,” I said as he released his grip. “And I think I'm starting to understand that I have a ton of stuff to learn about native magic.”

“You'd be right on that, eh?” he said with a grunt. He motioned for us to follow, so we stepped out into the cold again and headed over to his pickup truck. Twyla climbed in the passenger side first and shifted her weight to the middle of the sheepskin-covered seat. I climbed in after her and slipped on my seatbelt as George Standingready slowly maneuvered himself behind the steering wheel. The interior of the truck smelled like stale cigarettes and I glanced at the dashboard to see an ashtray that was full to overflowing with cigarette butts.

“Your people would call it spirit harnessing or something, eh?” he said as he turned the key. The engine roared to life and he slipped it into reverse. “We have another name for it, but it doesn't matter, yeah? It's all about energy – it takes energy to make what you call magic work. It's just like how you need gasoline to make this old truck turn its wheels.”

“Grandfather, have you seen anything in your visions that can help us find where the person who killed that boy might be hiding?” asked Twyla.

He shook his head as the truck clunked into high gear and roared down the highway. “I don't know, I haven't had a vision today and I sure as hell won't be looking for one until I get back to the city. So, you found yourselves in the trunk of the cop car, eh? Assholes used to do that to our people all the time back in the day. They'd toss you in the back seat or even in the trunk and drop you off in the middle of nowhere – it didn't matter if it was minus twenty like today or a heat wave in August.”

I looked out the window at the farmland blowing by as we sped up the highway. “The cop is a member of a blood coven, sir,” I said as I massaged the bump on my head. “I'm sorry that you and Twyla have been dragged into something that should only be involving witches. It's our fight, but I wouldn't be here if it wasn't for Twyla, so thank you.”

Twyla snorted and gave me a sharp nudge in the ribs. “You didn't drag us into your fight. Our people have a stake in this, too.”

I blinked. “What do you mean?”

The truck shuddered for a moment and then backfired as George Standingready stamped down on the gas pedal to pass a slow moving vehicle. “Everything that lives in this world has a spirit of some kind,” the old man said as he turned up the heat so we could shake off the cold. “It's a delicate balance and there are times when people like us have to step in to maintain that balance. Folks who shape the spirits into something other than what the creator intended do so at their own peril, because they always wind up on the losing side. This world likes to be at peace with its purpose, but sometimes it needs people like us to set things right. I don't know who this Adriel might be, but she'll be set right, you can be sure of that.”

I turned my head to look at this strange old man who seemed so absolutely certain of himself. His large, leathery hands gripped the steering wheel and his penetrating eyes gazed out on the road ahead from beneath a pair of bushy gray eyebrows. Sprigs of gray and white stubble adorned his unshaven face, covering up a series of deep crevice-like wrinkles that ran down his cheekbones.

He looked like he'd clocked a lot of miles and I was about to ask how old he was, but I stopped myself, deciding that it would be disrespectful to ask anything of someone who looked at magic as something to be revered. The way he spoke of how our world was bound together by actual spirits was a completely different take on magic; a world where people with the gift had an obligation to protect those spirits and maintain the delicate balance of living energy that surrounds us. For George Standingready and his granddaughter Twyla, their role was a sacred one; to protect and preserve the natural order of things. And from what I'd seen from Twyla's abilities, anyone who messed with the natural order of things would pay dearly for it.

In the distance I could see the Calgary skyline, its skyscrapers standing like giant sentries overlooking mile upon mile of rolling, snow-covered farmland. Somewhere out there was a black mage named Adriel and a terrified boy named Willard Schubert. A boy that was a living vessel with so much pent-up anger and rage that he literally pulsed with malicious energy. I didn't have a clue how to find him. Being the powerful mage that she was, Adriel would most certainly have concocted a spell that would shroud his whereabouts from even the most skilled practitioner.

George Standingready signaled right and the truck turned down a ramp leading to a dirt road. “Where are we heading?” I asked.

“Shortcut,” he replied. “I don't want to get stuck in gridlock on 16th Avenue. This road connects up with Blackfoot Trail and it's a quicker way back to the south side of town. Oh, and we're being followed by a police car.”

A tremor of panic shot through me as I turned my head around sharply and looked through the rear-view mirror. The blue and white cruiser was gaining on us; its tires kicking up a massive spray of snow in its wake. I slipped my amulet back into my Shadowcull's band and reached out with my Sight. A sharp, vibrating field of magic encased the cruiser that was now no more than a hundred meters behind us and I gulped as I recognized the magical signature: it was Constable Ewanchuk.

“That's the cop who took us,” I said. “She's coming after us.”

George Standingready stomped on the gas pedal and the truck snapped into a higher gear. “Yep, and there ain't no way in the world this old pig of a truck is going to outrun her. She's going to try and force us off the road.”

I'd never slung magic from a moving vehicle before, but I wasn't about to waste a moment considering whether I could do it, either. I slid open the rear window and twisted my body around so that I was perched on my knees.

“What the hell are you doing?” Twyla shouted, her voice nearly shrill.

I gritted my teeth together as I pushed my shoulders through the window opening. “Your grandfather just told me what I had to do. This old truck won't outrun a police cruiser, and I don't feel like dying today in a car wreck outside of town. Mr Standingready, keep this truck moving and for crying out loud, don't hit any major bumps or you'll throw me from the box.”

“Shit,” he said angrily. “You hold onto something when you get back there, girl. This road ain't exactly paved.”

I groaned as I tried to wedge myself through the narrow opening. The cruiser was gaining on us and my face was getting pelted by pellets of ice and sand the half-ton truck's rear tires were kicking up.

“Damn!” I barked as my winter coat got hung up on the window latch. “Twyla, give me a push now!”

I felt Twyla's arms wrapping around my thighs. The truck rattled along hitting washboard ruts in the road and the entire vehicle shook violently. I felt Twyla leaning into me so I grabbed onto either side of the rear window and pushed with all my strength. My legs slipped through the window and I tumbled onto the floor of the box with a final groan, rolling hard until my head smashed into the tailgate. I looked up to see Twyla's worried face peering through the opening. She was just about to try and squeeze into the box herself when I saw her grandfather grab a big handful of Twyla's hood. He pulled her firmly back into the cab and he pointed to the bench seat, ordering her to stay put.