The Spellbinder (Tom & Laura Series) (6 page)

“You will hold an investigation?”

“No, the traitors would go to ground if I did that. Then I might never find them. I need bait to set a trap. I think I have two young people who will fit perfectly to the task in hand. Yes, I think they will do fine.”

“You have never stooped to using children before,” Belinda said disapprovingly. “I take it you are referring to our two young survivors?”

“That’s the point, Belinda, they have proved themselves to be survivors, and they will need that and more for the task I have in mind. Oh yes, they will have to be more than that.”

“You are planning to put a Class A at risk, Ernest. If anything happens to her you will be lucky to escape the noose.”

Trelawney hit the mantelpiece with his clenched fist. “All of our Class A’s are in jeopardy if there is a traitor amongst us. She will be safer inside the system than outside it on her own.”

Chapter 8
         
Setting the Bait

Children of
Britain
are first tested for magical ability at the age of seven and testing continues once a year until the age of thirteen.
 
Those identified as having any of the seven talents are dispatched to schools to be trained at government expense. There is some resentment among the poor as this almost always means their children being taken away to a boarding school, but this is considered a small price to pay when the future of the Empire is at stake.

A ten year service period follows schooling, normally from the age of seventeen to twenty-seven. Some students are selected for special training at this point and are sent to special academies, which means they do not finish their formal education until the age of twenty-one, or in some cases twenty-four. In these cases their military service period begins at the age they finish training.

It is known that MM3 selects its agents at the age of seventeen and that there must be facilities where these young agents are trained in the arts of espionage. However, no official document exists to this effect, though there are dark rumors that the training process is so rigorous that some students die before graduating.

- from A Short History of Military Magics by Sir Anthony Barrett

Next morning Tom and Laura were present with an immense breakfast of pickled herrings and kipper followed by bacon and eggs,
Lincolnshire
sausages, and toasted bread. Laura began to wonder if her figure could survive living like this. Tom tucked in without a thought for his waistline, much to Laura’s annoyance.

Once they were finished, they were ushered down to Trelawney’s office by his secretary, a woman who introduced herself as Belinda Mann. Tom thought she looked kindly and she reminded him of his mother.

“Have you been with Mr. Trelawney long?” Laura asked.

Belinda smiled at her. “I’ve been in this post with Sir Ernest for nearly fifteen years, but we first met long before that, when I was a field agent.”

“You were a spy?” Tom asked in surprise.

Belinda nodded, “I served in
Vienna
when I was a young woman. Sir Ernest was my contact at the British Embassy.”

When they entered the office, they found Trelawney deep in conversation with the short man with the large moustache who had been so hostile to them in the park.

“Those are my orders, James,” Trelawney said firmly.

“I shall record my protest in writing. They are both too young to be sent to Hobsgate and the girl’s final classification is still far from certain.”

Trelawney nodded. “Do what you must, Saunders, but my orders stand. See about that other matter too. I was impressed by the man during his interrogation.”

“Very well,” Saunders said and briskly left the room.

“He always seems to be in a hurry,” Laura said.

Trelawney looked over at them and smiled.

“He’s my Director of Operations, James Saunders. A good man who I’d trust with my life, but we often have arguments on operational matters. It’s the nature of the job.”

Trelawney beckoned them in to sit down where they’d sat the previous day and Belinda closed the office door behind them. He looked at them with great seriousness.

“The man behind
Carmichael
is Dominican Snood. He tutored
Carmichael
in the Spellbinding arts at his school.”

Tom was not surprised. He had met the man and taken an instant dislike to him. There was something more than a little creepy about him.

“Behind Snood, there must be a nest of spies or perhaps criminals leading back into this organization. I am telling you this in strictest confidence and you must not breathe a word of it outside my office.” Tom and Laura nodded their understanding.

“We must find the people Snood works for. We must root them out and destroy them. They threaten the security of the Empire and the Royal Family. I have formulated a plan, but it relies on your cooperation. Are you ready and willing to serve your country?”

Laura and Tom looked at one another. An imperceptible nod passed between them. Laura spoke for both of them, “Yes, sir. We are prepared to serve the Queen in any way we can.”

Trelawney relaxed, if they had not been willing agents he could not, in all conscience, have sent them on such a dangerous mission.

“Good. I cannot prove anything against Snood. He has been clever in covering his trail. Nevertheless, his very cleverness will prove his undoing. I plan to promote him.” Trelawney paused while Tom and Laura stared at him in surprise.

“There is a training school for MM3 agents, you two are a couple of years too young for normal entry into the school, but we sometimes make exceptions in special circumstances. I am going to send you there. It is a self-contained facility out in the country. I plan to promote Snood to take up a post as a teacher within it. As an expert in Spellbinding, he will tutor you, Laura.”

“This mission will be dangerous. I want you to find out who he works for and report back to me and no one else. You must find ways to protect yourself, but do not tell anyone in MM3 including me, what those protections are. It might be that even this conversation is overheard.”

Trelawney leant towards them and dropped his voice.

“Snood has some reason to kill you. He has already tried through
Carmichael
, and I’m sure he killed the boy to cover his tracks. Having heard all this, are you still willing to undertake this mission?”

“Yes sir, we are,” Laura said without even a glance at Tom.

“My secretary will take care of anything else you need and answer any further questions.”

They realized they had been dismissed and left the room to join Belinda in the outer office.

“We were told you could supply us with anything we wanted?” Laura asked Belinda, “Because I have a list.”

As soon as she finished the list Belinda smiled. “Follow me; I think you’ll find we have everything you need.”

A short while later, Laura and Tom found themselves alone in a small oak paneled room. Heavy black curtains covered the windows while a single gas mantle provided the only light. Laura had in front of her the strongest Spellbinder paper the Ministry of War were able to produce, along with a bottle of the best copper based ink and a variety of metal pens.

She also had a set of copper plates within which each bind would be placed. The copper plates could be compressed against the paper, removing air and providing a heat-conducting surface to help preserve the bind. This did not help a lot, the paper would still burn to dust eventually, but it was the best that current technology offered.

Laura made a drawing of Tom again, taking her time and getting it as perfect as she could. She included the same elements as in the previous bind, but this time she attempted to increase his healing power, drawing him confident and powerful. Tom watched and wondered how disappointed she might be if she was ever to compare the real thing with her drawing.

Laura then drew herself, also naked, and tried to encapsulate her own power in the drawing. She knew for a fact that no Spellbinder had ever tried to increase their power, or anyone else’s for that matter, by using a bind. Laura’s opinion was that there had to be a first time for everything, and that this was the ideal time to try out her idea.

When she finished her drawings, she asked Tom to use his power to heal them, for him to run his finger over the lines of the drawing and to try to apply his gift as if he was filling the paper with the power to heal. Neither of them was sure what he accomplished, but they both felt that the bind had altered when he finished.

Laura placed the sheets within the copper and screwed the plates together. She planned to take the drawings to her home and hide them in a place they would never be found. Meanwhile she took extra paper and copper sheets to go with her to the training school where she was sure she would find a use for them.

There was a servant outside the room who informed them that carriages were waiting to take Laura to her home and Tom to his school. They parted on the front steps of Lord Magus House.

“Don’t get into any trouble,” Tom suggested as he gave Laura’s hand a squeeze. He stepped into his carriage without looking back, scared Laura would see how worried he was.

“Men,” Laura said. She sighed as she watched Tom’s carriage until it was out of sight. A polite cough from her driver reminded her that she would soon be facing her parents.

“Laura, how could you do this to your mother?” her father asked with considerable displeasure before Laura’s feet were fully in the house.

“Survive a gas attack?” Laura enquired innocently.

Her father made a sound similar to a bull about to charge. “It was not an attack.
The Times
was most clear on that part. Do not change the subject. This morning I received a letter from Sir Ernest Trelawney informing me that you would be leaving your school and joining MM3 immediately. How could you do that to your mother?”

“Let Laura be, George,” her mother said, putting a hand on her daughter’s shoulder. “She always has her reasons.”

“It was an attack, an enemy attack aimed at me.”

Laura’s father grew red in the face, angry at Laura’s impertinence. Laura wondered why he still became so angry. She thought he should be used to it by now.

“One hundred and thirty seven people dead, just to try and kill you?”

“I am a Class A, Father. Sir Ernest told me himself.”

The room fell silent for a few moments and then George Young closed the morning room door to address his daughter and wife in private. He had a worried look on his face.

“I have feared that for some time. You should not have announced it where the servants might hear.” He took his daughter by the shoulders and pulled her towards him, squeezing her tight. “I had hoped to keep you for another year.”

“I am sorry, Father. It wasn’t my idea.”

“We must sort your clothing,” her Mother said, turning away so her daughter should not see her tears. “We must do it quickly, as they will be coming for you in the morning. I shall get Cunningham to get your father’s travelling case down from the loft. There is so much to do.”

Laura managed to extricate herself from her Father’s grasp and went to cuddle her Mother. “I’m so sorry, Mother. I shall do my best to stay alive.”

“You had better, young lady,” her Father said gruffly behind her. “Or I shall give you such a whipping when you get home.”

Daughter and mother smiled through tears at the magnificent illogic of his statement.

Tom returned to find his school a dark and lonely place. The death of
Carmichael
cast a shadow over its pupils and the staff, and in some strange way the other students seemed to blame him for it. They shunned him when he tried to talk to them.

Just before he retired to his bed, there was a knock at the door and his tutor Mr. McCain entered the room and shook his hand. Mr. McCain told him that he had assessed Tom as a worthy student and was sure he would do well wherever he went.

As Tom shook his tutor’s hand, he detected that Mr. McCain had a tumor growing near the heart. Tom had never been able to do such a thing before. Without a moment’s hesitation or a sign to Mr. McCain he destroyed the tumor as they talked. It left him weak and a little giddy, but he managed to avoid his tutor noticing.

Tom sat alone in the dorm room for a long time before gathering up his meager possessions, most still in the large travelling case that he had brought them in. By the time he went to bed, he had convinced himself he had imagined the healing magic he’d used, as it seemed so unlikely.

Tom stayed awake for most of the night. In the morning he found a cab waiting for him, transport Trelawney had arranged to take him to the railway station.

Snood fretted as he waited in the King’s Tavern in
Soho
for his controller. Why did the blasted man want to see him now? He was pretty sure he had not being followed, but to meet so soon after the attack on the Spellbinder and Carter seemed unnecessarily stupid.

He nursed a glass of warm beer close to his chest. He could smell the living yeast in it. It formed a thick frothy edge against the mottled pint glass. Someone played a concertina on the other side of the room and he suspected a floozy must be giving some kind of performance from the clapping, yells and other appreciative noises. Public display of the female body was illegal, but such behavior was ignored by the constabulary in this part of
London
.