Victories (12 page)

“Sure,” Burke said unconvincingly.

“You know what’s going on,” Juliette said accusingly. “I know you do. You have to tell us! You
owe
us!”

“When we’re safe,” Spirit said, gritting her teeth. It was bad enough having to tell them the villain of the piece was calling himself Mordred without explaining they were all the reincarnations of Arthurian myths and Mordred was going to bomb Earth back into the Stone Age.

When they were near the van, Loch stopped. He glanced back at Spirit, his face questioning.

“We drove here in a van. It’s over there,” Spirit said, pointing, keeping her voice low. “Go there and wait for us. We’ll be back as soon as we can.”

Brett looked as if he wanted to argue, but Veronica put a hand on his arm. “Come on,” she said. “At least you won’t be out in the field, right?”

Brett nodded reluctantly.

“You— You’re coming back, right?” Brenda asked nervously.

“Of course we are,” Addie said instantly. “We won’t leave you. But you’ll be safer here than if we take you with us.” Before the others could say anything further, she turned and walked away.

*   *   *

“Wow,” Burke said comprehensively, as soon as they were sure they were out of earshot.

“I think they’re doing pretty good, all things considered,” Loch said. “At least there hasn’t been any screaming.”

“Yet,” Addie said darkly. “They’re going to be asking all the same questions we were asking two weeks ago—like why don’t we just go to the cops?”

“Maybe we can,” Spirit said. “If we can destroy the Tree, Mordred may panic.”

“Aye,” Burke said heavily. “The Kinslayer was always a coward.”

*   *   *

They circled wide around the school grounds, sticking to cover as much as possible. It was mid-morning by the time they reached the stables, the buildings farthest away from the school itself.

“Is anyone still here?” Addie asked in bewilderment. There was no one anywhere in sight.

“The horses are,” Loch said, coming back from a cautious inspection. “I guess that makes sense, if they’re using them to patrol. But I don’t see any people.”

“Well, if there’s nobody still here, it’ll be a lot easier to break in,” Burke said. “But they wouldn’t just abandon Oakhurst. They’d take everything they could move down to The Fortress. And we haven’t seen any sign of that. Let’s keep looking.”

“Carefully,” Spirit said, and Burke smiled at her.

There’d been a lot of new construction on the campus since Breakthrough had moved in back in January. It made sneaking around a lot easier than it would have been otherwise. The new Security building was next to the Motor Pool, and the four of them could hear the sound of a walkie-talkie long before they saw the security guard in Breakthrough black. He looked bored.

Eavesdropping on the chatter over his radio, they could understand why. Most of the security staff seemed to be inside the school building. The students were confined to their rooms. The whole place was on lockdown.

“That’s what we needed to know,” Spirit said, her voice a mere whisper. Burke nodded. He crept around the side of the SUV and sprang at the bored guard.

“All clear,” he said a moment later. “And I’ve got his keys.”

*   *   *

They went in through the back way, the doors that overlooked the gardens and the path to the little train station, the doors she’d gone in and out of a dozen times a day when Oakhurst had still been nothing more to her than the school to which she’d been exiled by her family’s death. The doors leading from the Refectory into the main part of the school stood open, but everything was changed.
It feels like sneaking into a haunted house,
Spirit thought. All the tables and chairs were stacked in the corners, and the room was filled with boxes. As Burke had said, they were clearly planning to gut Oakhurst to enrich The Fortress, but they hadn’t quite finished yet.

“We have to get to the Main Hall,” Spirit said, keeping her voice low. That was where the Gallows Oak—and Mordred’s entombed body—was.

“I’ll scout ahead,” Loch said.

Even with Spirit looking right at him, Loch just seemed to vanish. That was what the Shadewalking Gift did. It wasn’t invisibility: it was more like misdirection refined into high art.

Loch was back less than five minutes later, seeming to simply appear out of thin air. It was as if he’d been there all along and she just suddenly noticed him. He didn’t look happy.

“It looks like the Shadow Knights are having a party in the Main Hall,” he said grimly. “There’s no way we can walk in there and nuke the Tree.”

“Now what?” Addie demanded despairingly.

“We need—” Spirit began.

“Company,” Loch said in warning.

He indicated one of the storerooms off the kitchen, and they hurried to hide. It was completely empty. There wouldn’t be a lot of reason for anyone to come in here. They held their collective breaths and strained to listen. In a moment, they heard voices coming from outside.

“I don’t like this idea.” The voice belonged to Mark Rider—Mark of Cornwall, Mordred’s sworn knight. Spirit clutched Burke’s arm, whipsawed between Spirit’s terror and Guinevere’s rage. Mark had been Arthur’s sworn vassal before Mark betrayed him to ally himself with Mordred.…

“When I swore to him it was for wealth and power,” Mark went on. “I make no secret of that. I never have. How much of either is there in a radioactive wasteland? I have no interest in ruling a kingdom of ashes.”

“You should have considered that a long time ago, husband.” Madison Lane-Rider’s voice had the faintly formal inflection of her Reincarnate self, Morgause of Orkney. “Now your decisions all come down to one. Do you wish to live or die? Cross the Black Dragon, and you choose death.”

Mark’s only answer was a wordless growl, and the two of them passed on down the hall. It was a long time before Spirit could draw a deep breath.

“So much for convincing Mark to change sides,” Addie muttered.

“As if,” Loch whispered back, and Addie shrugged philosophically.

“Now what?” Burke asked Spirit.

“With the Shadow Knights in the Main Hall, we need two things: a way to destroy the Tree
fast,
and a big enough distraction to lure the Shadow Knights away while we do it. That means—” she swallowed hard, thinking of Doc Mac. “—that means we can’t just do it ourselves. We need to find someone who has a Gift that can destroy the Tree—and who’s willing to help us.”

“If everybody’s on lockdown, they’ll probably be glad to do anything if it means getting out,” Loch said. “By your leave—”

“No,” Spirit said instantly, already knowing what he was about to say. “We stay together. I’m the only one who can break a glamourie if— If any of you get, you know,
hit.”

“Lucky you; at least that’s one less thing for us to worry about,” Loch said without heat. “Come on, then. I’ll take point. Where do you want to start?”

“Let’s start with people who might actually be on our side,” Spirit said.

“Dylan,” Addie and Loch said in chorus.

Dylan Williams was the only other person who knew any of the secret truths of Oakhurst. He’d helped them spy on Mordred, and he’d listened to the recording that had proven that Dr. Ambrosius was their enemy. But he’d never been a member of their inner circle. Spirit could only hope he was willing to help them now.

And that they could trust him.

Dylan’s room was on the second floor of the Young Gentleman’s Wing. Sneaking around Oakhurst was creepy beyond imagining. Once upon a time they’d imagined a Shadow Oakhurst where kids without magic might be sent. Now Oakhurst itself had become a thing of shadows. With Loch to guide them—without him, they would have been completely lost several times over, with all the detours they had to make—they finally reached the Young Gentlemen’s Wing. The hallway was entirely empty.

And more than empty.

“Where are the
doors?”
Addie asked in a strained voice.

Spirit had only been here once or twice, but she knew the layout of the Young Gentlemen’s Wing was exactly like that of the Young Ladies’ Wing: a hallway full of numbered doors that led to dorm rooms, as bland and forgettable as a corridor in an expensive hotel.

Not any more. Now, the entire hall was featureless, blank-walled, empty. The only door was the one that led to the second floor; aside from that, there wasn’t a single door to be seen. Spirit tried to remember if she’d seen windows on the outside when they’d passed by the dorm wing, and couldn’t.

“Transmutation could take care of that,” Burke said. “Turn the doors into something soft, have someone smooth them flat, turn them back again into whatever. Easy.”

“Just hope there wasn’t anyone inside when they did that,” Addie said, and all of them shivered.

“Come on,” Loch whispered. He stepped into the hallway, and they followed.

The door to the second floor was locked, and none of the keys on the key ring Burke had taken from the security guard opened it. Spirit was about to suggest trying another door—or seeing if they could get in through the servants’ wing—when Addie produced her Hallow. The first key she tried opened the lock, and she smiled effortfully.

“Useful,” she said.

Spirit fingered the pen (the Sword) on its ribbon around her neck. They’d all brought their Hallows, but she wasn’t sure she could bring herself to use hers. There weren’t many things you could do with a sword besides hurt somebody.

Or kill them.

They all felt safer once they were in the stairwell. None of them could sense any spells in use—if there were kids being held prisoner here in this wing of the school, it was clear that Mordred was counting on nothing more mystical than locked doors to keep them where they were.

And why shouldn’t he? Why wouldn’t he expect them to just stay where they’re told to?
Spirit asked herself.
Most of the kids here have been at Oakhurst a lot longer than I was. And what’s the one lesson everybody did their best to din into all of us? Unthinking obedience.

They reached the second floor. Spirit took a deep breath of relief. The corridor looked normal: lined with doors on each side.

Loch walked halfway down the hall and turned toward a door on the left. “This is it,” he said, gesturing at the door.

Addie brought out her keys again and unlocked it, then pushed it open. The room inside was dim. She was about to step inside, when Burke put a hand on her shoulder and eased her back from the door. He stepped through first, and a moment later Spirit saw why.

Dylan had been alerted by the sound of the key in the lock. He was hidden beside the door, the curtain rod in his hand. He swung at Burke before he realized who it was, but Burke caught the weapon easily.

“Hold on there,” he said mildly.

“Oh my god, you came back?” Dylan said in disbelief and horror. “Get in here—
quick!”

He dragged Burke inside, and the others followed. Spirit quietly shut the door behind her. She realized the room wasn’t just dim, but as dark as if it was the middle of the night, and after a moment, she realized why.

It wasn’t because the curtains were drawn.

It was because the glass of the windows had been turned to stone.

“Oh my god,” Dylan repeated, sounding half hysterical. “Everyone was sure you guys were dead!”

“Muirin is,” Loch said in a flat voice, and Dylan sucked in a long shaky breath.

“I’m sorry,” he said honestly. “I.… I liked her a lot.” He scrubbed his hands over his face. “What do you need?”

“Information,” Spirit said instantly, concealing her surprise at the question. Dylan had hit the ground running.
He’s a credit to Oakhurst,
she thought sardonically.

“Okay,” Dylan said. “I don’t know much. You guys bailed on the Spring Fling thing. We all got sent to our rooms pretty quick after that. Doc A—I guess we should all call him Mordred now, like you said—called a general assembly in the chapel the next day—not even in the Refectory or over e-mail—and said Radial wasn’t in bounds any more. He said he’d had to launder the Townies’ memories for our protection—not that anybody really believed that, not that it mattered much. There wasn’t any more testing after the dance, either, so I guess it was you guys he was looking for. Anyway, classes were pretty much cancelled, and we were all stuck in our rooms twenty-four seven except for when we got herded down to the Refectory for meals. That lasted a couple of days, then they started delivering food to the dorms once a day—all the MREs you can eat—and we all got put on permanent lockdown. How it works is, they dump the food in the hall under guard, and then unlock our doors so we can go out and grab something. If you don’t hustle, you don’t get, either, because some of the guys are hoarding. About a third of us—not me—have been made into Proctors. They stay somewhere else, I think. Every two or three days we get herded out to the chapel again—just us, I guess the girls go on a different schedule—to hear a lecture about how our only hope for survival is to serve. I think they do it so we’ll try to run for it. A couple of guys did.” Dylan shuddered. “I never saw them again. Breakthrough has dogs now—Warded, so it doesn’t matter if you have one of the Air Gifts.” He gestured at his computer. “They took down the Intraweb, too. So much for doing a Spartacus and organizing a student uprising.…”

Spirit had only been half listening. She’d been more focused on looking. Dylan seemed to have a strange aura of magic around him. Nobody’d ever talked about being able to see magic in any of her classes. But she thought she knew what this was.

“Wake up!”
she ordered, interrupting Dylan’s ramblings.

He blinked, staring at her, and suddenly in his expression she could see the memories—the Reincarnate memories—flooding into his mind. And as they did, she knew him. So did the others.

“Well met, Gareth Beaumains,” Loch said warmly, stepping forward and clasping Dylan’s forearm in greeting. “Are you ready for the fight?”

“I…” Dylan was plainly still stunned. “My lord. My lady.… Oh,
euw,
Madison’s my
mom.
And Ovcharenko’s my
brother.”