The Witch Hunter's Gauntlet (2 page)

Sam’s brain was shorting out. She was trapped in a mall with a bunch of
time-frozen people and two seriously weird guys in robes who were trying to arrest her. Two guys who claimed to be from some organization with ‘magical’ in the title — which, judging by her new transparent blue energy handcuffs, seemed more likely than she would have believed thirty seconds ago.

Sam knew magic existed, of course. Her parents had told her that there were real witches and wizards in the world. They had also told her that most of them were nice normal people that liked to live separately from the rest of the world. She remembered her parents mentioning the International Sorcerers Guild too; they were some sort of police force in charge of keeping the magical community a secret from the rest of the world. This was the first time she had ever actually encountered magic
, though, and so far she didn’t care for it much.

“I cannot express to you how much I have no idea what you are talking about,” Sam said. Her mind was racing uncontrollably. “Just tell me what is going on.”

“I really have no interest in playing this game with you, Miss Hathaway,” Chief Constable Albion snarled. “You are going to prison and we are recovering the Lantern of the Blue Flame. The Judicial Council may go easy on you if you tell us where it is now.”

“I don’t believe you read Samantha her rights
, Chief Constable.”

The two robed men startled at the voice. An African-American man and a pale redheaded young woman with lots of freckles approached them. They each wore black suits and sunglasses. They looked like stereotypical Sec
ret Service-type government agents, but Sam was willing to take that over freaky guys in robes any day.

“Are you all right, Samantha?” the woman asked.

“I don’t even know. Please, what is going on?” Sam asked, hoping that the nice-looking woman could explain why her entire world went completely crazy in the last few minutes.

The female agent pulled a badge out of her pocket. It was a badge Sam remembered well. When she was nine and a pillar of glittering white light erased her grandfather’s house with her parents inside a dozen men with similar badges arrived to tell her that her life would never be the same again.

“I’m Agent Rosenberg,” the woman said. “This is Agent Sampson. We’re from the Bureau of Extraordinary Affairs. We handle delicate matters of a paranormal or otherwise unusual nature. We’re going to straighten this all out, okay?”

Sam was well past her limit for weirdness today. She wanted some straight answers.
“Paranormal or otherwise unusual?”

Agent
Rosenberg nodded, a big smile spread across her face. “The three ‘M’s. Magic, monsters, and mad scientists.”

“Miss Hathaway is in our custody Agent Sampson. We will be taking her back with us,”
Albion snapped. “She broke into a secured top-level vault, stole an extremely powerful artifact, and desecrated the tomb of an ISG council chairman.”

Sam was willing to admit that she was completely in the dark on this situation, but she was fairly certain she had not done any of those things.

“We are aware of the charges,” Agent Sampson said in a calm, controlled voice. “Your boss informed our office of them just minutes ago. He also agreed that Samantha Hathaway is clearly within our jurisdiction and that your organization is to cooperate in the investigation.”

Agent
Rosenberg handed Constable Albion a very official-looking document. Sam didn’t know exactly what official orders looked like, especially the magical kind, but the glowing purple seal on the back was a dead giveaway.

“Investigation!”
Albion exploded as he broke the seal and quickly read the document. “Bureaucratic fools. We all know she is guilty. You can’t possibly believe you will get away with this. The Hathaway family may have gotten away with crimes against the magical community in the past due to the sentimentality of certain members of the Council, but even they cannot over look the evidence in this case. Or the theft of such a dangerous weapon.”

“And what evidence is that?” Agent
Rosenberg asked politely.

A smug
, victorious grin spread across Chief Constable Albion’s face as he withdrew a glittery silver box from his robe. It looked like an elaborate jewelry box with images flashing on every side like tiny movie screens stuck on fast-forward. Without a single word he opened the box.

“Samantha, don’t move!” Agent
Rosenberg yelled.

Everything went white.

He had blinded her with some magical flash of light. Sam was sure of it. She could be blind for the rest of her life.

Then the whiteness blew away.

It wasn’t white light at all. It was snow.

As the snow cleared
, Sam found herself on the edge of an icy cliff overlooking the ocean. Large chunks of ice smashed violently against the jagged rocks below. Instinctively Sam huddled over for warmth, doing her best to wrap her still magically cuffed arms around her self, and backed away from the edge.

“Samantha, stop,” Agent Rosenberg’s voice cut through the wail of the wind.

Sam looked up to see the others standing exactly where they had been standing in the food court. None of them seemed the slightest bit worried that they were perched on the edge of a cliff in the middle of frozen nowhere. In fact, Deputy Colver was stifling a laugh.

That’s when Sam realized she wasn’t cold. Not even a little bit. She
couldn’t even feel the wind swirling the snow around her. Cautiously she straightened up.

“I know it looks like we are
in the Arctic right now, but we’re not,” Agent Rosenberg said.

“Arctic?”
Sam was very confused.

“We are still in the mall. Honest.” Agent
Rosenberg laughed a little. “Can’t you smell it?”

Sam had been too concerned with all the snow around to worry about the smell. She took a deep breath. The familiar scent of pizza, egg rolls, grease, and stale pop flooded her nose.

Agent Rosenberg waved her arms. “This is not real. It is called a glamour; sort of like a magical hologram.”

Chief Constable Albion cleared his throat loudly.

“It is a security recording.” His angry eyes fixed on Sam. “Of your theft.”

“Of her alleged theft,” Agent Sampson corrected.

“Whatever,” Agent Rosenberg said dismissively. Both Albion and Sampson took offense. She pressed on anyway. “You can’t see it, but we are still standing in the food court so you don’t want to move around too much and run into a table or a person.”

Sam nodded in agreement.

She casually pushed her right foot forward, gently kicking at a chunk of ice. Her foot passed right through it. She pulled it back quickly.

“The evidence speaks for itself,” Chief Constable Albion said gesturing to something behind Sam.

Sam spun on the spot to see four people she somehow hadn’t noticed before. They were all dressed head to toe in thick, puffy, black cold-weather gear, complete with fancy goggles. Four sets of sled dogs played in the snow behind them. Two of the guys (she assumed they were guys, even though it was impossible to tell with all the impressive Discovery Channel-level gear they had on) were anchoring a machine to the ground.

“Can they see us?”

“No,” Agent Rosenberg said reassuringly. “They are part of the recording.”

“Sort of a Ghost of Christmas Past kinda thing?”
Sam asked.

Agent
Rosenberg chuckled. “Sure, that’s a good way to look at it. Although this happened less than an hour ago.”

“What is that machine?” It looked like some sort of futuristic laser cannon
, and it was being aimed right at her.

“As if you don’t know,” Chief Constable Albion said.

“It is an electromagnet,” Agent Rosenberg explained. “Although I’ve never seen one this small with so much power.”

“What does it do?”

“You’ll see.”

The other two Arctic adventurers trudged up to the cliff’s edge. Sam could ha
ve reached out and touched them-- if they were solid, of course. It was an awkward feeling being so close to someone who didn’t know you were there.

Even though they wore winter masks and goggles that completely hid their faces
, up close the differences between the two were startlingly obvious. She mentally nicknamed the taller one Big Guy. He was well over six feet tall and had the V shape of a professional wrestler, although the puffy coat probably added a bit. The smaller one was about her height and skinnier than the others.

Most likely a teenager, Sam thought.

“Wait! You think this is me don’t you?” she asked Chief Constable Albion.

“We know it is you,” he said matter-of-factly.

“That’s insane!”

“Let’s just keep watching,” Agent Rosenberg said calmly.

The Fake Sam adjusted her goggles. They were clearly far more impressive than Sam had originally thought. The lenses changed colors and little mechanisms wiggled and whirred on the sides. Sam didn’t know what any of that meant, but the goggles were obviously meant for more than just protection from the elements.

Sam jumped as Fake Sam
bent down and picked up the very chunk of ice she had earlier tried to kick. Fake Sam flung the ice over the cliff, watching as it tumbled all the way down to the ocean below. Satisfied Fake Sam and Big Guy stepped away from the edge and Fake Sam gave the electromagnet guys a thumbs-up.

The magnet hummed to life. It was pointed at the edge of the cliff, facing a vast emptiness. Sam had no idea what they thought they were going to attract.

A few seconds of nothing passed. Then the whole machine began to shake with slight vibrations at first, followed by violent thrashing as it tried to leap right off the cliff. The anchors struggled to hold it in place.

The air began to wiggle and wave like heat lines on a hot summer highway. With a loud pop the wavy air vanished
, revealing a train car-sized block of roughly chiseled granite with a large steel door similar to a bank vault. The block hovered in the air just a couple feet from the cliff.

“The Vault of the Blue Flame,” Agent Rosenberg said as if it was something important Sam was supposed to know about.

Before she could ask any questions Sam noticed that the great steel door was vibrating wildly. Cracks cobwebbed their way across the face of the stone as the door strained against its hinges. The next thing she knew a dark gray mass rushed toward her, and her ears ached with the squeal of twisting metal followed by a loud crunch.

The steel door flew right through her body
, leaving her stunned and staring into a dark vault.

“Whoa!”

Sam turned around to find that the door had completely smashed the electromagnet. Bits of scattered machinery glittered across the ice and snow. The guys operating the magnet had run for safety just in time and were now slinking back to survey the damage.

Agent Sampson chuckled. “The fabled Vault of the Blue Flame, one of the ISG’s most secure secrets, cracked in under a minute. You might have tried something a little
more creative than just an invisibility charm.”

“We did,” Chief Constable Albion said darkly.

A series of loud thumps drew Sam’s attention. The thumps came from inside the dark vault and they were getting louder. Something in the darkness emitted a deep gargled growl like gravel in a mixer.

A large stone gargoyle leaped out of the vault
, slamming onto the icy ground in front of Big Guy and Fake Sam. The gargoyle slashed at Fake Sam with its clawed hand, knocking her to the ground. Fake Sam rolled away from the gargoyle until the stone beast pinned her to the ground between its talon-like toes. Flames erupted from the gargoyle’s gaping mouth and poured down on Fake Sam.

Sam didn’t even know that gargoyles could breathe fire. Then again
, she didn’t know that stone gargoyles could walk around either. It looked like her fake counterpart was also quite surprised. Fake Sam tried desperately to pat out the flames on her winter gear.

The gargoyle rais
ed up its hand to squash Fake Sam when Big Guy leaped onto its back. It tried to shake him off, but Big Guy had looped his left arm over the creature’s wing, anchoring him in place. He brought his free hand up to his face. 

Sam couldn’t believe it;
Big Guy had a grenade and he pulled the ring out with his teeth like an action-movie star. Despite the fact that it was still spitting flames, Big Guy jammed the grenade into the gargoyle’s mouth before jumping free. The creature staggered back, clawing desperately at its head. Its stony hands were too large to fit between its long jagged teeth.

Big Guy threw himself onto Fake Sam just as the gargoyle’
s head exploded. Pieces of stone flew everywhere. The remains of the beast’s body fell in a heap on the ice.

Big Guy rolled Fake Sam over the ice smothering the flames. Her coat was still smoking as she stood up. She gave the gargoyle’s body a powerful kick
, snapping off the left wing. Satisfied, Fake Sam faced the vault once again as if daring it to try something else.