The Spellbinder (Tom & Laura Series) (29 page)

“Yer a good lass,” Nan said as Anne put a cold compress against
Nan
’s head. “Do yer know what’s ‘appening?”

As if in answer they heard the ominous rattle of the Gatling gun.

“They’re not bringing that thing back in my house,”
Nan
said and with Anne’s aid staggered towards the door. It took nearly five minutes for the two of them to reach the front door, which
Nan
then locked and bolted. The firing stopped just as she accomplished her task.

She sat down on a chair and smiled at Anne. “That’ll show ‘em.”

“What will show who what?”

Dan stood at the other side of the room with Mary and Sue holding him upright.

“I’ve locked ‘em out,”
Nan
said cheerfully.

Chapter 34
   
Snood Makes Amends

Snood hid behind the tent as soon as he saw the coach turn to steel, but kept an eye on the Captain and the woman he now knew was someone called Jill. When the Gatling gun stopped firing the Captain stood up as if about to run over to it and take up the gunner’s position.

Jill pulled him back. Snood was close enough to hear her shout angrily.

“Give it up, Bren. They have a Spellbinder with them, and a good one at that.”

“Without the gun we’ll lose.”

“We’ve already lost, Bren. You’re a fool if you can’t see it.”

The Captain dithered, resisting the woman’s urgent attempts to drag him to the cliffs.

“Stay here and die then,” Jill announced.

She let go of the Captain and began to run. The Captain hesitated for another few seconds, made his choice and began to run after her. Snood followed them at a crouch using the long grass as cover wherever he could.

Up on
Hobbs
Tower
it was clear that the battle was won. Laura walked around the battlements looking for anything unusual when she spotted movement in the direction of the cliffs.

“Look,” said Laura, pointing towards the cliff. “The Captain and Miss Pruitt are heading for the edge. They must know about the way down.”

“And we’ve made it easy for them by leaving a rope for them,” Tom said in self disgust.

Laura was incensed. “They’re trying to get to their black boat and escape. Well, I am just not going to allow it.”

She ran to the door and turned the key in the lock. Laura had disappeared down the stairs before Tom figured out what was she was planning to do.

“For someone who doesn’t want to kill anybody, she can be quite determined to put herself in harms way,” Tom said to nobody in particular. “But the students and servants are down in the cove and someone should warn them.”

“Best get after her then,” Mick said. “I’m not up t’ runnin’ yet. Don’t forget to take a gun.”

He flung his revolver at Tom. Tom caught it much to his surprise and Mick’s. Mick saluted him as he headed after Laura.

“They could get their selves killed, but I’d bet good money they won’t,” he said sagely before struggling to his feet.

“It appears that we have won.” Trelawney said as he peered out from behind the forward coach. He could see that the cavalry had rounded up a dozen or so men in unusual black uniforms. ‘
Good discipline’
he thought seeing the bodies of their fallen comrades and dead horses in front of the coach,
‘Not to kill them all on the spot.’

“This is excellent spellbinding,” the Prince said tapping the side of the coach. “I don’t think I’ve seen cleverer. I take it this is the work of Miss Young?”

“Undoubtedly,” Belinda said. She had found her knitting and was sitting on a step on the coach as she started another row.

“Membership of a Royal Order would seem an appropriate reward for saving me, don’t you think?” the Prince mused. “I am the heir to the throne, after all.”

“I don’t think you’ll find she is the kind of girl who takes her orders from a Prince,” Belinda said absently. “However handsome he might be.”

The Prime Minister gave Belinda a stern look, which she affected not to see. The Prince laughed, amused at how well Belinda understood him.

“We shall have to see about that.” The Prince turned to Trelawney. “Exactly whom do you think was shooting at us, and why?”

Trelawney shrugged. “I fear that the only way to discover that is to make our way to Hobsgate. Shall I get someone to get you a horse, Lord Palmerston?”

The Prime Minister struggled to his feet and pointed his walking stick at Trelawney.

“It is only a few hundred yards, Sir Ernest. I am not yet an invalid.”

“Belinda?” Trelawney offered his hand to her, but she shook her head.

“I shall sit here awhile and join you later. I expect there is still a lot of male posturing to be done.”

As they walked past the bodies of the fallen, Trelawney addressed the Prince, “Is your Highness having second thoughts about joining the army? Now you have seen action and death at first hand.”

“This is not the time for such discussions,” the Prince told him curtly. He looked pale in the face, but did not flinch from looking directly at the bodies of the men in front of him

The Prime Minister used his cane to move the arm of a man in his way. He seemed unmoved by the sight of the dead.

“This is your responsibility, Trelawney,” he said irritably. “The Class A better be unharmed. You should never have sent her somewhere so insecure.”

Trelawney bit back a comment about the Prime Minister’s foolishness in announcing his visit to Hobsgate to the world in the first place.

Down in the cellar, Laura broke the bind that blocked the tunnel and it reshaped itself as the bind burnt to ash at her feet.

“Wait for me, won’t you?” Tom called from the cellar door. He put his hands on his knees, out of breath from running down the stairs.

Laura set off down the tunnel at a run, without saying a word.

“Women,” Tom muttered irritably, before running after her.

Smugglers Cove was crowded. The students had taken the dock as their place while the servants sat the stone steps leading to the tunnel. The dock was also laden with the provisions the servants brought from the larder. Laura found her way blocked as she exited from the tunnel. Four kitchen maids sat on the first step, cheek to cheek across it.

“Get back to the house. The Army has recovered Hobsgate,” Laura shouted as loudly as she could.

A ragged cheer echoed around the cave.

“Do it now,” Tom shouted from behind Laura. “Quickly.”

Something in Tom’s tone told everyone he was serious and a wave of humanity started up the steps, with Tom and Laura trapped on either side of the tunnel as they went past. It took a long time for them all to get out. Laura stamped her feet impatiently while Tom leant against the wall and marveled at how disciplined everyone was being.
Cam
and Tompkins were the last to leave and they stopped at the mouth of the tunnel.

“What’s going on?”
Cam
asked Laura.

“Just go, Camilla,” Laura said urgently.

Cam
looked over to Tom and he inclined his head towards the tunnel. “Go, we’ll be with you soon.”

Cam
shrugged and pushed Tompkins ahead of her into the tunnel.

“I shall want an explanation later,” she muttered darkly as they disappeared.

“So shall I, Laura,” Tom said as soon as they were alone. “Exactly how do you plan to stop the Captain from escaping?”

“I shall show you how when we get down to the dock.”

They walked down the steps, keeping their eyes on the ones ahead as they were difficult to navigate. Laura stopped as soon they reached the dock and Tom promptly bumped into her.

“Tom, I forgot my paper. It’s back on the roof.” Laura sounded desperate. Before he could reply they were interrupted by another voice.

“Well, well, if I don’t get to kill the little Spellbinder and her beau after all. Jill pointed you out to me so I thought I’d stay up on deck and finish the job.”

Tom and Laura looked around for the source of the voice in panic.
 
Laura looked down at the black boat and gasped. Miss Pruitt and the Captain were on the boat and had already cast off. Pruitt disappeared down the hatch as she watched, giving her a little wave.

The Captain stood on the deck with his feet apart to keep his balance as the electric engines started up and the boat began to pull away. He had his revolver in his hands, raised and pointed at them.

Tom desperately brought up his revolver in a rush and gasped as it slipped out of his hands, bouncing along the dock before splashing into the water. The Captain’s laughter made him cringe. He could think of only one thing left to do. He stepped in front of Laura, putting his body between the Captain’s gun and her.

The Captain nodded at Tom with something like respect in his eyes.

“Won’t work, boy. Bullet from a Colt Dragoon will go straight through you. But you’ve got spunk, I’ll say that.” The Captain aimed carefully. They were close enough to be an easy shot and he didn’t plan to miss.

Laura stood like a chicken mesmerized by a white line in the dirt.
She should be doing something, writing something. Why had she come down here like this? Why hadn’t she waited for the Army? Why had she been so stupid?

“Bye, bye now little children,” the Captain said, a broad smile on his face. A smile that stayed in place for a second as a well pitched cricket ball knocked the gun from his hand.

Tom turned to see Tomkins and Camilla at the entrance to the tunnel. Bowled by Tompkins, the cricket ball had been travelling at over seventy miles an hour when it hit the Captain’s hand. It knocked the revolver off the boat and it dropped into the water with a highly satisfying splash.

The Captain shouted something obscene and anatomically impossible at them. Laura curtseyed in response as best she could in cabin boy clothing. Nursing his injured hand, the Captain made his way to the hatch and clambered into the boat. They saw the hatch cover swing into place and lock.

Tompkins and Camilla ran down the steps to the dock to join them. Tompkins seemed embarrassed. He took Tom’s hand and shook it when Tom offered it up to him,

“I owed you that one Tom. I’m sorry that I beat you up.”

Tompkins turned and made his way back to the tunnel leaving Tom and Laura staring after him, open mouthed.

“What he will not tell you,”
Cam
said, almost in a whisper. “Is that he was a Telepath, paired with the brother that got killed. He saw through his brother’s eyes as a Healer passed him by to heal an officer with a minor injury. That was the last thing he ever saw through those eyes. He took out his anger on the only Healer he could find and regretted it immediately afterwards.”

“Look.” Laura had been gazing at the receding boat still making its way to the devils teeth and freedom. She pointed at it. “It’s Snood. He was hiding behind that black mast thing.”

Snood was carefully writing on a piece of parchment. He saw Laura and Tom waving at him and he lifted the parchment so they could see what he was doing. Then he waved them back towards the tunnel and made gasping motions while holding to his throat.

It was Tom who understood first. “He’s going to make the air bad like he did in
London
. He’s warning us to get clear.”

“But he’ll be killed. He’s in the centre of the circle.” Laura was appalled. She hated the man, but he had saved her life and then Virtue’s. That ought to count for something.

Tom pushed Laura and
Cam
up the steps towards the tunnel. He had nearly been killed by this bind once and had no intention of letting it get him again. He pushed the girls into the tunnel as the bind took hold and they tasted the bad air behind them as they stumbled deeper up the tunnel to safety.

Snood carefully put the spell on top of the hatch where it would be safe. Dizzy from the lack of oxygen he fell into the sea. Inside the submarine, the Captain and Jill screamed in panic as the air turned bad. They scrambled to try and unlatch the hatch. The Captain pulled Jill away with so much force that she smashed her head into the instrument panel, killing her instantly.

Despite his best efforts to open the hatch he did not make it.

When Tom, Laura and
Cam
reached the cellar, they were greeted by Trelawney and two other people, who they gathered were quite important. There were a lot of people slapping them on the back while demanding explanations, and there was much confusion.