Twist of the Blade (2 page)

Wally grinned. “Thanks, Coach.”

“You’re welcome.” Coach Mueller gave him a long, hard look. “Okay, we’ll try it.”

Wally blinked. “Try what?”

“The Chinook Open.”

Wally’s heart jumped. “The tournament in Swift Current?”

Coach Mueller nodded. “I want you to compete.”

Wally let out a whoop that made Nick Barber, who was just heading into the locker room, shoot him a surprised look over his shoulder. “I’d love to!”

“There’ll be extra practice,” Coach Mueller warned.

“No problem,” Wally said. He grabbed her hand and shook it. “Thanks! Thanks a lot!”

“Don’t mention it.” Coach Mueller smiled. “Just live up to my expectations.”

Feeling as if the gym floor were three feet beneath the soles of his sneakers, Wally headed for his locker. Ordinarily he’d have gone to the showers with the other guys, but he’d signed up for swimming lessons at the YMCA, and the first one was today, in less than an hour. He didn’t see much point in showering at school when he’d soon be showering at the Y. Sweaty hair plastered to his forehead, he trotted through the hallways. Him, Wally the Klutz, fencing in a nationally ranked tournament? He couldn’t believe it.
Wait until Ariane hears about this!

He reached his locker, dialed the combination, pulled the door open, and was reaching for his books when he heard multiple footsteps and a babble of girls’ voices coming closer.

One voice stood out.
Flish!

His eyes searched the hallway for an escape route. His sister had been difficult to live with when they’d still shared a house. But since she’d moved out, things hadn’t gotten any better. She was constantly hitting him up for money (their parents had cut off her allowance when she’d left home), shoving him around, making fun of him in front of her friends.

There was nowhere to hide. Except....

Thankful for once that his adolescent growth spurt had yet to materialize, Wally took a tip from numerous bullies down through the years and stuffed himself into his own locker. Unlike the bullies, though, he left the door slightly ajar so he wouldn’t be locked in.

Cramped, uncomfortable, and wishing he hadn’t forgotten to throw away his uneaten tuna-fish sandwich from last Friday’s lunch, he tried not to gag as he waited for Flish and her gang to move on down the hall.

Naturally, they stopped right outside his locker.

Through the door’s ventilation slits (which, in his opinion, did not provide
nearly
enough ventilation), he could make out the back of her head, less than a foot away. He did his best not to breathe. The miasma of rancid tuna, mingled with his own sweaty self, made it easier.

“Where is he?” Flish sounded irritable. “Cindy said she saw him down here just a minute ago.”

“Probably knew you wanted money,” said another voice that he recognized as Shania’s. She
used
to be the ringleader of the “coven,” as Wally had dubbed Flish’s group of friends, until Flish took over.

“Or maybe his witch of a girlfriend spirited him away,” said one of the coven’s other two members, girls whose names Wally could never keep straight. She laughed as if joking, but he heard a touch of fear in her voice. Wally wasn’t surprised: the last time Ariane had confronted the coven she had punched a hole in a locker with a magical spear of ice.

Flish must have heard the fear too. “She’s not a witch,” she snapped.

“Then how does she pull off those tricks?” said the fourth girl.

“I don’t know.” Flish lowered her voice. “But I do know one thing: it’s always around water.”

“So?” drawled Shania.

“So
, all we have to do is catch her somewhere
away
from water. No lake, no swimming pool, no drinking fountains.” Her voice was colder than the wind he had ridden his bike against that morning. “I owe her.”

“You got a plan?”

“The tennis courts,” Flish said. “Pavement everywhere. Not even a sprinkler.”

“And how do you plan to convince her to show up?” said Shania. “Send her an invitation?”

“I don’t have to convince her. She cuts across the courts on her way home.”

“Before dark,” Shania pointed out. “Those courts are wide open. Someone will see us.”

“Not on Thursdays,” Flish said. “On Thursdays she stays until 5:30 for remedial Algebra. By the time she leaves, it’s already dark. And this Thursday – tomorrow...” Flish’s head swiveled right. “Someone’s coming. Let’s clear out. My little twerp of a brother can’t be too far away, and I need some cash.” She sniffed. “Besides, it reeks around here. I think something’s died in someone’s locker.”

The coven headed down the hallway. A moment later a janitor pushed his cart past, whistling tunelessly. Once Wally could no longer hear him, he climbed out of his metal cage. Massaging a crick in the back of his neck and taking deep, grateful breaths of non-tuna-scented air, he stared down the hallway in the direction Flish and the others had gone.

I’d better pay Ariane a visit
, he thought...but first he had to get to swimming lessons. He checked his watch – he had just enough time to make it.

He stuffed his books into his backpack, slung it over his shoulders, closed his locker...then paused. Flish was looking for him. And she’d gone the way he’d normally go, toward the front doors – which meant she was very likely lying in wait outside for him to emerge.

He smiled.
Oh no, you don’t.
He turned and went in the opposite direction. Students weren’t supposed to use the emergency exit at the back of the gym, but Wally happened to know, because Coach Mueller had once sent him that way to get something from her car, that the EMERGENCY EXIT ONLY: ALARM WILL SOUND sign was a bluff.

Coach Mueller was still in the gym, rolling up one of the long, thin mats the fencers used for practice. She looked up as Wally came in. “Forget something?”

“Just taking a shortcut,” Wally said. “Is it all right if I go out the back?”

Coach Mueller, despite her tiny size, lifted the rolled-up mat as though it weighed nothing. “Be my guest. But be careful. Last week’s snow left an icy patch.”

“Thanks,” Wally said. He checked his watch again. He was going to be late if he didn’t get a move on –

He ran across the gym, banged open the door, and charged through.

Mindful of Coach Mueller’s warning, he jumped over the sheet of ice just outside the doors. But he didn’t see the even bigger patch, black as the pavement, at the corner of the gym.

His right foot skidded out from under him. As he fell, he twisted, trying to catch himself.

Then his forehead cracked against the concrete, and an explosion of stars and pain blew Wally into darkness.

~~~

Ariane trudged up the broken walkway to the crumbling steps of the house she shared with Aunt Phyllis, weighed down by her book-filled backpack, a shopping bag containing two two-litre bottles of Diet Coke, and her own inescapable weariness. Her breath formed clouds in the cold air. In the last two weeks the temperature had plunged. Daytime highs barely rose above freezing; nighttime lows were a frigid ten degrees lower. In January, similar daytime temperatures would feel almost like a heat wave, but right now they were a pain.

Literally. It felt like a small rodent was biting the tips of her ears.

Ariane glanced up to the window of her room on the second floor, wishing she was already in bed. Aunt Phyllis’s house looked as if it hadn’t been painted since it was built. On the roof, turned orange by the light of the setting sun behind her, shingles curled up like rose petals. But the house did boast two brand new features: gleaming metal mesh blocking every window, and a white reflective triangle on a metal post by the front steps that bore the words “Protected by SecureTek.”

Ariane fished her keys out of her pocket. Like the bars and the security system, they were new, fitted to the heavy-duty locks that had also been added after Rex Major’s district sales manager, acting under Merlin’s power to Command, had broken in through her bedroom window. Ariane supposed the additions provided some protection against Major’s human henchmen, but she suspected her enemy hadn’t sent anyone else mainly because he still had to maintain a scandal-free public persona. A second kidnap attempt by yet another person linked to Major would raise awkward questions.

But his fear of embarrassment wasn’t much of a hook on which to hang their security. Which was why Ariane wore the shard strapped to her midriff beneath an elastic bandage at all times. That was their real security. With her own abilities bolstered by the extra power from the shard, she hoped she could drive off any attack.

Except for that damn sleep-stealing demon
, she thought. She sighed, a sigh that turned into a yawn, then unlocked the front door, walked into the small enclosed porch, turned and locked the door again, unlocked the inner door, went through, turned and locked
that
door, and finally faced the dim entrance hall of Aunt Phyllis’s house.

“You’re late, dear,” her aunt called from the living room. “I was beginning to worry.”

Ariane walked through the French doors and found her aunt reading the newspaper in her favourite seat, an ancient, overstuffed armchair upholstered in giant pink roses. “Sorry,” Ariane said. “I went down to 7-Eleven to get some pop. We ran out last night.” She held up the plastic bag.

“You should have phoned,” Aunt Phyllis said, peering over the tops of her reading glasses.

“Sorry,” Ariane repeated.

Aunt Phyllis nodded, closed the newspaper, and put it aside. She removed her glasses. “How was school today?”

“Not great,” Ariane said. She plopped down in one of the smaller armchairs on either side of the fireplace. “I fell asleep in English class.”

Aunt Phyllis looked concerned. “Still not sleeping well at night?”

“No,” Ariane said. Ariane hadn’t told her aunt about the demon, instead claiming she kept having “bad dreams” about Rex Major. After all, Aunt Phyllis could do nothing about the haunting and would just worry more than she already did.

“It’s been two weeks,” her aunt said in a reassuring tone. “Major would have come after you if he was going to.”

Ariane said nothing. Merlin had waited millennia to claim Excalibur as his own. What were two weeks?
He’s biding his time
, she thought.

“Any...hint...about the next shard?” Aunt Phyllis asked.

“It’s out there,” Ariane said. “But I can’t tell where. Not yet.” She slumped and closed her eyes. She was so tired, so drained. She’d started hearing the song of the second shard the night she’d returned home with the first one...but then the demon had appeared, and she hadn’t heard it since. And in her current exhausted condition she didn’t think she could summon enough power to travel through water
even if she did know where to find the second shard.

If I went down the drain I might get as far as the sewage treatment plant
, she thought.
But that’s about it.

But the shard
was
out there. She thought – hoped – that Major didn’t know where it was either. As she understood it, he’d expected to find the second shard using the power of the first. Since Ariane had claimed the first, he would have to wait and hope that the second revealed itself the same way that one had...not that she and Wally had any idea how it had happened.

“Did you see Wally today?” Aunt Phyllis asked.

Ariane nodded. “Just in passing.” Ariane had promised to meet him at lunch, but had fallen asleep at the library again. Guilt mingled with her exhaustion. Wally was her ally, her partner in this quest...and yet, lately, she hardly saw him. “He said he was starting swimming lessons tonight at the Y.”

Aunt Phyllis laughed. “Guess he wants to be prepared next time.”

Ariane’s smile faded.
If there is a next time,
she thought. She yawned hugely once more.
Merlin doesn’t have to attack. He can just sit back and let sleep deprivation do me in.

Aunt Phyllis stood. “I think you should take a nap,” she said decisively. “I’ll call you for supper in an hour. Then straight to bed again after that. I’ll put away the pop.”

Ariane nodded obediently, hauled herself to her feet and climbed the stairs to her room. She collapsed on her bed. Her eyes closed. In seconds she was asleep.

The demon was waiting.

The landscape in which she met it could be anything. The twisted black wood of her afternoon nightmare was one she had seen before. Sometimes they met in a desert. Sometimes they met in downtown Regina, ruined and deserted as
though ravaged by war. And sometimes they met in swirling fog, like now. And those times, the demon talked.

As usual, she sensed it rather than saw it. She had
never
seen it, except for a glimpse of red eyes in a swirling fog. That didn’t lessen her dread.

You cannot ressst
, the sibilant voice said softly, seeming to come from behind her as always. No matter how fast she turned, she could never see it, never get more than a glimpse of burning red eyes out of the corner of her eye. Dread choked her. She wanted to run, but if she did, the demon would just chase her, as it had that afternoon and on many occasions before.