Wand: A Fantasy of Witches, Wizards, and Wands
Chapter Thirty-Three

As expected, Duchaine pestered Nick about the time he’d spent unconscious. Nick promised that nothing had passed between him and the vampire—and he kept on whistling to this tune as Duchaine kept on drumming him for the truth. The warlock was not convinced.

“The whole point of showing you Francis was to serve as a cautionary tale, to not keep things from your warlock brothers!” the man reiterated every few hours, as if Nick could forget.

He would not budge. Let Duchaine consider the trip a fruitless venture; Nick had acquired vital information.

It was full dark out Saturday evening as he walked back to the Institute from Duchaine’s cabin following a full schedule of two straight days of classes in the day, and wandcrafting in the evenings, with an all day session in the Department on Saturday. Head drooping, feet shuffling, he slowly shuffled home.

He was just cresting the hill above the scene of Thursday’s battle, when he heard someone else walking.

Richard, it seemed, was out late too, making his way across the grounds.

Despite his misgivings and weariness, Nick sensed that something was up, and decided to follow Richard. Within two minutes the boy’s destination was clear: Richard was heading for the cave. What wasn’t clear was why. Richard seemed half asleep, his eyelids—as Nick observed whenever he passed beneath the light cast from a pathway torch—drooping, his movements sluggish, as if he wasn’t quite aware of himself.

As Nick watched his bunk mate slink into the cave, he pondered events from the last three days. Richard had displayed an increasingly indifferent air, ambivalence towards not only his schoolwork, but, more telling, toward his mission to convert his fellow students.

Inspiration struck.

With all the excitement of the past week Nick had forgotten about Richard’s inexplicable disappearance and strange behavior in the cave on Thursday. Now all the pieces came together and created one cohesive puzzle.

“You met an efrit in the cave, didn’t you?” he whispered, looking at the black hole through which Richard had disappeared.

He plunged into the cave.

Glowing gobstone light provided somber illumination. With the stone held high, Nick trekked deeper into the cave. At the chained off entrance to the tunnel down which Richard had originally vanished, Nick paused. He bent down, showing the light over the ground.

Sure enough he discovered evidence of recent movement; the dust had been disrupted by what looked to be lazy shuffling feet. He gazed into the tunnel.

“Okay,” Nick whispered to psyche himself up. “You can do this. One step at a time.”

He was five steps-at-a-time in when he decided this was far enough for now. He needed a break. Five long minutes passed. At this point his pulse had slowed and Nick felt ready to resume his hunt.

Fifteen steps further in he heard the distinctive sound of feet dragging across dusty stone. He clamped both hands over the gobstone and retreated, taking baby backward steps. At the entrance to this forbidden tunnel Nick rounded the corner and hugged the wall. Something cold and multi-legged crawled over his right hand. He ignored it.

Seconds later Richard emerged, looking like an extra out of a zombie flick.

The boy paused, turned very slowly. From out of the tunnel, a voice issued. It was mesmerizing, even more so than that of Francis Ragoczy’s voice. It said: “You will return to me again two nights hence.”

Richard nodded. He turned around and loped away. Before he was ten paces, Nick acted.

He uncovered the gobstone and, holding it out, turned the corner to face the efrit. Under the gobstone’s light the tattoos on the efrit’s back glowed, an intricate conglomeration of alien sigils and glyphs, some of which made Nick want to fall to his knees and puke.

But he maintained hold of the gobstone, keeping its light over the mythic as it turned.

“Nicholas Hammond,” it said.

“Shut up!” Nick hissed. His hand began to tremble. He kept his eyes averted. “Undo the enthrall thing, the hold you have over Richard.”

“And why should I do—”

“I order you to do it, you blue-eyed creep!” A shiver ran through his body. The words, emitted extempore, had emerged almost as a Command. Were they unknown Words of Power?

The efrit hesitated. Its tattooed face, glowing and demonic under the light of the gobstone, seemed to transform; the marks themselves were moving, slithering about the creature’s face.

“You dare? You dare try to—”

“Shut up!” and Nick stomped his foot. The ground trembled. But that might just have been his nerves shattering.

In the span of a second the efrit was on him. It grasped his face in both its hands. Supernova blue eyes pierced his soul. This was it. His time and place of death. And just as he’d finally uncovered some truth about his parents and his origin.

His left hand, the one not holding the gobstone, reached up, almost of its own accord, and latched onto the efrit’s bald, tattooed scalp. The skin was hot, much warmer than human flesh, and it seemed to writhe beneath his fingers. Steam rolled off the scalp as the cold air merged with its body. Nick felt his eyes roll up, too far. The heat of the efrit’s body was almost enough to kindle a fire.

Even as he thought it a single flame ignited beneath his hand, only it didn’t burn Nick. Rather, it traveled downwards, through the slimy scalp of his enemy and into the efrit’s brain.

The mythic released Nick and screamed. Blue eyes burst into flame. The sound of the screeching mythic sent Nick scrambling away; behind a stalagmite he covered his ears. Flailing around, shrieking, its entire body now a living torch, the mythic sought desperately for water.

It ended quickly, though not quick enough for Nick’s ears. They were bleeding when he stood to look at the charred remains of his victim. The stink of burnt flesh filled his nostrils.

“What in blazes happened?” Richard said, standing a few feet away. “Where are we?”

“How do you feel?” Nick asked, trembling but disturbingly not weakened.

Richard looked over his limbs, patted his body. “I think I’m good. Was that an efrit?”

“Yes it was. And you were enthralled to it.”

This seemed to shock Richard more than the sight of the dead mythic. “I was?” For the longest time neither boy spoke. Something had passed here tonight, a new kind of ritual, perhaps. Together two journeymen wizards had fell victim to and overcome a mythic.

As though hearing the same bell the boys started heading for the exit simultaneously. Richard spoke first, while they walked.

“Thank you.”

“Yeah, sure,” Nick said, and he was reminded of a scene from Goblet of Fire, between Harry and Cedric. “You know, I’m surprised it happened to you. I mean, where was your God on that one?”

“Oh, I suspect He was watching.”

“And you’re cool with that?”

Richard grinned under the moonlight. “I’m sure He had His reasons. And I imagine they have more to do with you, than with me. Maybe God was preparing you for greater battles. How did you do it, by the way?”

“Oh, um, I’m not sure, exactly,” he lied. Though the act had been unpremeditated and unintentional, Nick understood all too well what he had done and how he had done it.”

“Well,” Richard patted him on the back. “However you did it, I’m grateful, and I’m sure God is proud of you.”

As he watched Richard saunter back up the path, Nick said, “Somehow I doubt that,” and dropped the dull, lifeless gobstone. If he hadn’t had the stone on him, and if it hadn’t already been imbued with energy, Nick’s actions would likely have drained the life out of Richard.

Instead his act of sorcery had merely drained a stone. What dumb luck was that?

He needed to get a handle on his powers—and soon.

He’d taken two steps when a tall bald man wearing mirror shades stepped out of the shadows.

“Who—”

“Come with me,” the man stepped closer, into the weak light cast from a torch.

“You’re Agravaine.” He stared the sorcerer up and down. “So, you here to kidnap me?”