The Wizard Heir (29 page)

Frowning, she reached up and picked leaves from the
tangle of his hair. “If you don't come back, Witch Boy, I'm coming after
you.” Then she crawled back into the shadows between the great trees.

Reasoning that those hunting him would most likely
target the beach where they'd landed, Seph walked east, away from the beach. An
overgrown path followed the shoreline. It was easier going on the trail than
through the tangle of trees and briars and poison ivy. The humid air had
cleared in the wake of the storm, and it had cooled considerably. Clouds sailed
east, driven by a brisk wind, and a few stars pricked the western sky. The
birds were beginning their predawn chorus.

He had walked nearly a mile when he came upon a
ramshackle dock and padlocked, boarded-up cottage. He judged that it would make
a better shelter for a cold, wet person than a hollow between two trees. Not
only that, the padlock looked flimsy. Seph stooped and pried up a stone from
the walkway.

A slight sound behind him alerted him to danger. Then
a nervous voice, mangling the language of magic. He turned, still in a crouch,
so as to make a smaller target, and threw. The stone struck Peter Conroy in the
forehead, shattering his glasses and putting an immediate end to the charm.
Seph tackled him around the knees, and they rolled down the slope into the
water. They wrestled in the shallows, spouting charms and counters until Seph
got Peter in a headlock and held his head under water long enough to lay an
immobilization charm on him. Then he gripped Peter by the shoulders and dragged
him up onto the beach, not an easy task since Peter probably outweighed him by
half.

Peter was agitated, wheezing, red in the face.
“Inhaler!” he gasped. Seph dug in Peter's jacket pocket, found the
inhaler and gave him a puff. The wheezing subsided and Peter no longer looked
as if he were asphyxiating, though he still looked terrified.

“Please don't tell Dr. Leicester,” he
begged. Despite the chilly air, sweat pebbled his forehead and ran down his
face.

“I won't say anything if you tell me what's going
on,” Seph said. “Where are we?”

“I … I … S-s-Second Sister. We're on Second
Sister.”

Seph sat back on his heels. “Second Sister? Isn't
that the island where the Interguild Conference is being held?”

Peter nodded miserably. “Dr. Leicester wanted us
to bring you before they all got here.”

“You brought
me? How'd you do that? I thought wizards can't control the weather.”

“Usually, they can't. But Dr. Leicester, he uses
us, he links us, and with all of us together, he can do whatever he wants.”

“What do you mean, he links you?” Jason had
used that term, but Seph wasn't sure what it meant. “You mean, like what
he wanted to do to me at the chapel?”

“It's a charm. Back at school, I … I didn't even
know about wizardry, and I was having these terrible nightmares, and Dr.
Leicester said if I would agree to link to him, the nightmares would stop. And
they did, only … he just takes over, and makes you do terrible things. It's
like being p-possessed.” He swallowed hard. “I'm sorry about Trevor.
At Christmas, you came to dinner, and we'd just k-killed him, and there you
were, and you didn't know.”

Seph recalled the bizarre Christmas dinner, the
relentless drinking. Warren Barber accusing him of being too good to join the
rest of them. Martin Hall holding Barber off with his knife, tears running down
his face, saying, Hasn't there been enough bloodshed already?

“Can't you leave? Or gang up on him?” Seph
said.

Peter's pale eyes swam in tears. “He's linked to
us. All the time, he's linked to our stones. If we try to resist, it's like he
sets fire to our insides.” Tears spilled over. “I used to think the
dreams were bad.”

Seph shuddered, thinking of what might have been. What
could still happen. “What's Leicester planning to do? What does he want
with me?”

“I don't know. But we're all out looking for
you.”

Seph couldn't help looking over his shoulder, scanning
the dark shoreline. “Who's here?”

“Dr. Leicester. The fourteen of us who are left.
Aaron Hanlon died, you know, after … uh … after he and Warren and Bruce tried
to bring you back.”

An image of Hanlon lying on his face in the Vermilion
River surfaced. “What else is here on the island?”

Peter blinked in surprise. “The winery, of
course. And some abandoned cottages and fishing camps. He owns the whole thing.”

So much for finding help. “How did you get here?
Is there a boat?”

“Dr. Leicester has a boat,” Peter said.
“There's a dock at the winery. And some of us flew in.”

“How do I get to the winery from here?”

“You could keep following the shore path. But they're
waiting for you. There's also a path across the island. They're probably
watching that, too.”

“Any suggestions?”

“Turn yourself in?”

Seph thought of Madison hiding near the beach where
they'd landed. He should go back and find her, get her to someplace safe.
Wherever that was.

There was the problem of Peter. Leicester might
suspect Seph was on the island, but he didn't know for sure. Seph preferred to
keep it that way.

Peter stirred, reading something in Seph's expression.
“Don't leave me like this. If Dr. Leicester finds me, he'll know I screwed
up.”

“What am I supposed to do with you?” Seph
asked.

“Well.” Peter cast about for an idea.
“You could kill me.”

In the end, Seph left Peter alive, tied up and hidden
in the boarded-up cottage. He knew Leicester and the alumni might search the
place, but he couldn't think what else to do. Eventually, he reasoned, Peter
would work himself free.

Seph loped back down the trail toward Madison's hiding
place. They'd find a less-traveled sanctuary closer to the inn, and then maybe
they would find a way to steal the boat or call off-island or something.

He found the place where the two trees leaned
together, the cavelike hollow between. But the hideout was empty. Madison was
gone, leaving only a trampled-down place where her body had lain. He just had
time to register that fact when the immobilization charm smashed into him.

He went down in the leaves, and a dozen hands grabbed
him. They propped him up, and he saw a kaleidoscope of familiar faces: Bruce
Hays, Kenyon King, Martin Hall, Wayne Eggars. Then Warren Barber loomed up in
his field of vision. He gripped Seph's shirtfront and jerked him to his feet.
Bracing Seph against a tree, he punched him, once, twice, three times. Face,
stomach, face again.

Finally Barber released him. Seph hit the ground hard
and lay there, his leg bent at an uncomfortable angle, the world spinning.
Someone kicked him.

He heard sounds of a struggle, Barber swearing, saying
something about Hanlon, and King saying, “Warren! Hey, Warren! Are you
crazy? You know Dr. Leicester wants him alive.”

Why did Leicester want him alive? And where was
Madison?

He had little time to speculate. They flipped him face
down and tied his hands securely behind his back. Many hands hauled him to his
feet. Then they were moving down the path in the direction of the inn. They
carried him, hands under his arms, holding on to the waist of his jeans. He
dangled like a poorly put together puppet in their grip.

Lights bled through the dripping trees. A hundred
yards farther, and he could see a great, hulking mass of stone. It was a huge
house, a castle that resembled a large outcropping of the rock itself.
Elaborate walkways and gardens surrounded it, illuminated by tiny lights that
glittered like stars through the wet foliage.

They brought him in a side entrance, which led into a
long corridor paved in stone and lined with elaborate metal wall sconces and
slitted windows. The interior was layered in velvets and hand-loomed tapestries
depicting hunting scenes. They turned some corners and pushed open a door,
ending in a large study lined with bookshelves, a stone fireplace at one end.
Oriental rugs covered the floors. A desk and credenza anchored one side of the
room, loaded with computer and communications equipment.

“Dr. Leicester?” Hays cleared his throat.
“We found him.”

Leicester materialized from the shadows at the
perimeter of the room like a predator with perfect camouflage.

He surveyed Seph dispassionately. Seph hung between
Hays and Eggars, soaked and slimed with blood, sand, and mud, an anomaly in the
elegant room.

“Release the charm and step away.”

Hays disabled the charm and propped Seph up on his
feet.

Leicester opened a drawer in the desk and brought out
a digital camera. He took several photographs of Seph from different angles,
then set the camera down next to the computer. Retrieving a knife from the
drawer, he extended it to Eggars, along with a small plastic bag.

“Get me some of his hair. Then cut him free and
remove his shirt.”

Eggars carefully lifted a lock of Seph's hair, sliced
it away, and dropped it into the plastic bag. Then he cut Seph's hands free.

Seph rotated his shoulders and rubbed his chafed
wrists.

“I'm sorry, Joseph,” Eggars whispered, not
moving his lips.

He and Hays stripped off Seph's filthy, blood-smeared
T-shirt. Leicester held out a larger plastic bag, and they stuffed it in.

“Get him something else to put on,” Leicester
said, and Martin Hall left the room.

Seph stood shivering while Leicester opened a small
cabinet at one side of the fireplace, chose from the bottles clustered on a
sideboard, and poured several inches of amber liquor into a glass.

“Would you like something, Joseph?” he
asked, without turning around.

Seph said nothing.

Leicester laughed. “Will you relax? Believe me, I
plan on keeping you reasonably intact. For at least a few more days.”

Martin returned with a worn navy sweatshirt and handed
it to Seph. He pulled it on.

“Wait outside,” Leicester said. The alumni
obediently filed out.

“So,” said the headmaster, in a way that
suggested that matters were just as they should be, “welcome to Second
Sister.” He paused, anticipating a reaction, and looking disappointed when
it didn't come. “Yes. The site of the Interguild Conference. We're quite
anxious to show it off.”

“Why did you bring me here? I have nothing to do
with this.”

“You'll be staying here a few days, at least
until your father comes.”

Father. A
percussion began inside Seph's chest, reverberating into his throat.

Leicester misread his expression. “Really. How
long did you expect to keep it a secret?”

“My father is dead.” The old lie came back
to him. Software engineer. Died in a fire. …

“He sent you to the Havens to spy on me, yes? And
then sent Linda Downey to extricate you when you were about to be
exposed.”

“What?” It was just like when he was back in
school and he was being accused of things. Except in those days he was always
guilty.

“Though I'm surprised the Dragon would put his
own son in harm's way. He must have considerable confidence in your
abilities.” Leicester swirled the liquid in his glass. “I often
wondered why you were so resistant to persuasion. You and Jason Haley were the
only recruits who refused my offer. I should have known you were getting
help.”

“You think the Dragon is my father.”

Leicester smiled, returned to the sideboard, refilled
his glass.

“Why? What makes you think so?” Seth said.

“We launched an operation against the Dragon's
hideout in London. He escaped, unfortunately, but we found a file on you.
Joseph McCauley. Correspondence to and from a law firm, admissions papers from
a school in Scotland. Dunham's Field, I believe it was.”

Dunham's Field. He'd lasted six months at Dunham's
Field.

“When we looked into your background, we
discovered certain … discrepancies.” Leicester sipped at his drink.
“You see, we've developed considerable scientific capabilities that will
make it easier to track the lesser guilds, to ferret them out of their burrows.
We'll come to power in a different world. You left a large quantity of blood
behind in my office. We've made a DNA match.”

The tempo of Seph's pulse quickened. “A match
with who?”

“Now I suppose we'll see whether your father
feels any sort of obligation toward you.”

“A match with who?”

“Since you and the Dragon have been working
together, perhaps you can tell us where to find the others involved in your
organization. Those who won't be attending the conference.”

“Right. Well, you know, I don't think the Dragon
really exists. I think you all use him as an excuse. Someone to blame things
on.”

“I had hoped that by now you understood the price
of resistance. That you would want to cooperate.” Leicester didn't look
disappointed, though. His expression was that of a man sitting down to a feast.

Leicester set his empty glass on the table and came
toward him. Seph took one step back, another, then held his ground, his body
tensing with remembered pain. He searched his memory of the lessons with
Snowbeard. Countercharms. Focus.

Leicester gripped his shoulders. His lips were moving,
speaking the charm, but Seph wasn't listening. He was shaping the counter.
Flames coalesced on Leicester's fingertips, but when he launched them, Seph gathered
them up and sent them roaring back.

Leicester screamed and released him as though he'd
been scalded. He managed to throw up a shield—a hardened wall of air—in time to
turn Seph's following volley of flame. Seph assembled his shield, hardened it,
pressed against Leicester's barrier, forced the headmaster back; back to the
wall, flat against the wall; pressed harder. They stood face-to-face, the clear
shields between them. Leicester's eyes stretched open in surprise, the white
visible around the ball-bearing centers. Sweat rolled down the headmaster's
face, his jaw clenched with effort. His hands came up, palms pressing against
the shield, trying to force Seph back. Flame ran in rivulets on both sides,
like rainwater down a window, eagerly seeking a way through.