A Hero at the End of the World (8 page)

“Don’t you ‘aha’ me,” said Sophie. “Why are you so happy?”

“Because this means that the Sazzies couldn’t have been trying to gift their leader with their power. It means that whatever they’re doing, it’s much bigger.”

“Or it’s all smoke and mirrors,” Sophie replied, but Oliver tuned her out, deep in thought over what his next move would be.

Chapter 7

E
wan sat at a polished table in the grand dining room of the Gardener Hobbeses’ Hertfordshire residence. He would have been more comfortable having tea in a museum; there was a certain do-not-touch air about the place not unlike his grandparents’ flat in Hong Kong, where he had once broken a vase and been made to sit out on the balcony for three hours. Outside the tall, narrow windows was a beautiful back garden, filled with roses that shifted color as the light changed and gnomes that were puttering about on the grass. A sphinx dozed in the afternoon sun. It was lovely.

He was only half certain he wasn’t Louise’s prisoner. Twenty percent, if pressed. “I can’t help you kill Oliver,” he said for what must have been the tenth time. “That’s—that’s horrible!”

Someone—a housekeeper, assistant, or even, given the Gardener Hobbeses’ wealth, valet—set a cup of tea and a piece of cake down in front of him. He picked up his fork but quickly set it back down again when Louise peered at him a tad too eagerly.

“What a pity,” replied Louise, stirring sugar into her tea. Beside her, Archie picked at his cake, his gaze drawn to everything but Ewan, despite Ewan’s desperate attempts to meet his eyes.

Eventually, Louise added, “Unfortunately, Ewan, the problem is that
I
do not wish Oliver Abrams dead.
He
wishes Oliver Abrams dead.”

She nodded at Ralph the Ravager, who sat at the head of the table.

“And what the Lord Ravager asks, the Lord Ravager shall receive.”

The Lord Ravager, it had been explained to Ewan, was the founder of Zaubernegativum. He was about Ewan’s granddad’s age (which was somewhere between one hundred and two and one hundred and six; Ewan could never remember), but where Grandpa Li was tall and soft round the middle, Ralph the Ravager was short and gaunt, practically skeletal in his black suit. His ruddy skin was covered in liver spots, and one of his colorless blue eyes was clouded over. His unhealthy look was compounded by the fact that he didn’t didn’t appear to be altogether there, mentally. He had spent most of his time thus far nibbling on Jammy Dodgers and staring blankly out of the large eastern window of the dining room.

Despite Ralph the Ravager’s frailty, there was something odd about him. Gazing directly at him gave Ewan a funny feeling in the pit of his stomach. The Lord Ravager seemed real enough, but looking at him was like staring into a black hole—like the space where a person should have been was instead an empty pocket.

Ewan was rapidly coming around to the idea that Louise might be significantly more evil than she let on.

“I don’t understand,” Ewan said nervously. “I know Oliver’s an arsehole and all—pardon my French—but why does, uh, the Lord Ravager want him dead?”

Louise sent him a stony look, and Ewan tried his hardest not to shrink back. His height had always intimidated people, so he straightened his sloping shoulders, hoping to appear more self-assured than he actually was.

“As you may have noticed, our Lord is getting on in years,” Louise said matter-of-factly. “He believes that the power he’d gain from killing Oliver Abrams could give him another ten, twenty years of life. He’s a great man; think of all the
wonderful
things he could accomplish in a decade.”

Ewan wasn’t precisely sure what Ralph the Ravager was accomplishing right now, but he replied, “I see.”

“What?” asked Ralph the Ravager loudly, cupping a hand around his ear. “I can’t hear a thing.”

“Why do you need me?” Ewan asked. “He has to kill Oliver himself if he wants his power.”

“We want you to lure Oliver Abrams to a certain location so that our master can defeat him in a duel.”

Ewan looked over at Ralph the Ravager. He was staring at a bird outside the window, rapt; he looked as though a strong breeze could knock him over.

“Right, defeat him,” echoed Ewan weakly.

Louise leaned forward and dropped her voice to a whisper. “I know what you’re thinking: our Lord Ravager will not survive a duel with Oliver Abrams. I believe you’re right.” Her blue eyes glittered. “But who am I to argue with him?”

The implication slowly dawned on Ewan.


You’re
not the evil ones,” he said with sudden clarity. He began to feel a tingle of excitement. “You want me to help you
defeat
evil.” He pointed at the Lord Ravager. “
This
evil.”

“Do lower your voice,” Louise replied shortly with a sideways glance at her liege. “But, yes, that sums it up. I told you, it was far from coincidence that we entered each other’s lives; you were brought to us to carry out this task.”

“Why didn’t you just tell me that from the start?” Ewan demanded. “Why tell me that you wanted to kill Oliver? You really freaked me out.”

“Mum
loves
theatrics,” Archie murmured, fiddling with his teaspoon.

“Archibald’s right, it was more dramatic that way,” said Louise, shrugging.

“I’m still don’t understand what’s happening,” said Ewan. “You want me to get Oliver to fight him? Why can’t we do it ourselves? Between you, Archie, and me—”

“Because,” Louise interjected, “only Abrams can kill him.” She delicately dabbed her lips with her napkin. “Let me explain. The Lord Ravager keeps a complex shield spell around him at all times. Observe. Archie?”

Archie used his spoon to catapult a biscuit across the table. It hit Ralph the Ravager and bounced off; the spot on his shoulder that the biscuit had touched shone with a faint, silver shimmer. Ralph the Ravager, still watching the sprite, didn’t react at all.

Ewan’s eyebrows shot up; he was impressed in spite of himself. “Okay?”

“I’m ashamed to say that it’s far too strong an incantation for me to penetrate.” Louise tapped her nails on the fine edge of her cup. “However, even if Abrams can’t break the shield with a spell, the Lord Ravager considers him to be one of his greatest rivals. He would happily make himself vulnerable in exchange for the chance to defeat Oliver Abrams, the slayer of Duff Slan.”

Ewan shook his head, overwhelmed. It was too much information to take in at once.

“Pity that Abrams must never know what’s going on,” she continued. “Let’s hope he’s still the man he was five years ago.”

Before Ewan had a chance to respond, she waved her wand and a map fluttered to the table. He recognized it immediately as being of North London.

“We need you to escort Abrams here,” she told him, using her free hand to point at a familiar wooded grove in Hampstead Heath, the massive stretch of common land in the north of the city. “The Lord Ravager will be lying in wait. You must ensure that Oliver Abrams keeps his totem and anything else he may have on him, and, more importantly, that he arrive completely uninjured. The Lord Ravager wants a fair duel, after all. Now, once he’s—”

“Why can’t Oliver know?” Ewan interjected.

Louise sighed. “Abrams has made it abundantly clear that he suspects me of conspiring with the Lord Ravager.”

“He does?” Ewan asked, confused.

“Do you really want him to know of your involvement in this? He’d arrest us all.”

He had a foul taste in the back of his throat. “So you want me to help him get even more glory.”

“Have you not heard a single word I’ve said?” Louise snapped. The cords of her neck stood out sharply. “I didn’t go to Abrams with this; I came to you. This is for
you
, you ungrateful child. I’m giving you the opportunity to end the life of one of Britain’s greatest thinkers. This time it will be your
choice
, not your
destiny
, and when Oliver Abrams kills him, it will be
because you wanted him to
. Abrams will be putty in your hands—you’ll show him just how easily manipulated and weak he is.”

Speechless, Ewan stared first at her, then at Archie, who was resolutely stirring spoonful after spoonful of sugar into his tea, and finally at the oblivious Ralph the Ravager. “You—you want me to be a hero?”

“The world may never know what you’ve done, but amongst those of us in the Society for the Advancement of Zaubernegativum, you’ll be a hero. There are hundreds of thousands of us across the world, and we’re only getting stronger.”

She was giving Ewan something that he had never dared hope for: the opportunity to shed his former identity as the slayer of Duff Slan. He could become a whole new person, and this time with none of that destiny nonsense to get in his way. He would be the puppet master, the slayer—no, the
wrecker
of the Ravager.

And all he needed to do was trick Oliver into killing someone.

The Lord Ravager was about a million years old; he would probably die soon even if Ewan didn’t lift a finger. And as for Oliver...

Ewan remembered how much it had hurt when the prophecy had turned out to be false. It still hurt every day of his life. Oliver had done that to him—he had stolen the only thing that had ever made Ewan special. Walking Oliver into a trap, proving to everyone that he wasn’t a
real
hero, that he wasn’t as clever as everyone thought he was—that was
nothing
.

He could picture it now: the look on Oliver’s face when he found out that Ewan had been the one behind the defeat of Ralph the Ravager. It would be so satisfying to have one up on the brave, gifted Oliver Abrams.

Ewan licked his lips. “I—”

“Splendid,” Louise said, clapping her hands.

“I haven’t agreed to anything yet,” Ewan said. “If I do this, I have some conditions. One, I get to choose my title. I want to be the wrecker of Ralph the Ravager.”

Louise winced. “Are you certain about that name?”

“Who’s the hero here?” he demanded. He crossed his arms over his chest. “Two, I want you to start teaching me Zauber-whatsit. I can’t be your hero if I don’t know how to do your magic.”

“I was planning on beginning your instruction as soon as our little problem was taken care of,” she sniffed. “Once it’s complete, we’ll have all the time in the world to train you properly.”

“And three, I want to tell people.”

Ewan fought the urge to take those last words back when Louise’s face hardened and her blue eyes went cold.

“I mean, if that’s okay with you,” he said hurriedly.

“Isn’t making Abrams realize that he was never a hero its own reward?” she asked.

“I suppose so...” Ewan trailed off.

Louise leaned back in her chair without saying a word, watching him.

“I’ll think about it,” she said finally. “But only once we’ve made certain that Abrams won’t make the connection between you and I.”

Relief flooded Ewan, but he still felt reluctant. “What are
you
getting out of this, exactly?” he asked without thinking.

For a moment, Louise looked startled, as though she hadn’t thought that he would worry about something like that. Then she looked away, frowning. “A clear conscience, I suppose. I recently discovered some of the more
unpleasant
things the Lord Ravager did in his search for power. It made me realize that he needed to be stopped before he could do any more harm.”

He studied her face for a long moment, but she remained indecipherable.

Abruptly, Ralph the Ravager banged his fist on the table, startling them. He pushed the chair back with a loud scrape before unsteadily getting to his feet, using the back of his chair to support himself. His place at the table was covered in biscuit crumbs.

“Louise, I wish to rest,” he announced, his voice raspy. An unhappy scowl crossed his face. “Take me to my room.”

“He’s living with you?” Ewan whispered.

“I don’t want to talk about it,” Louise replied with more poise than he would ever have had in her situation. She took Ralph the Ravager by the arm. “Come along, my Lord.”

As she led him away, Ewan thought: that was the evildoer he was going to help kill. He was going to be a hero again.

Chapter 8

A
s much as Oliver wanted to spend all of his time focused on the Ralph the Ravager case, he had other work to do. The next morning, he had to appear in court. Despite having a degree in law, it was his least favorite part of his job; it always reminded him of being in the chambers at Westminster Palace, wearing a too-big suit and with wounds still bleeding, wondering if he was about to be told that Parliament had decided to prosecute him after all. He would never forget the way that the Prime Minister had looked at him with fear in his eyes.

It was midday by the time Oliver made it to the Home Office. The way the building blocked the sun and cast a wide shadow across the pavement and over the surrounding buildings made it seem as if it were much later, particularly since the day was already cold and dreary.

At her desk, Sophie was reading a paperback book that was so fat that she seemed to be struggling to hold it open. He recalled that it was the same one she had taken from the Forensic Divination Office the day before.

“Hey,” he began, “what did the guv say when you told him—”

Sophie held up a finger, silencing him mid-word. “I’m on lunch.”

Oliver glanced down at her desk. She had a half-eaten flapjack and a carton of apple juice. “I’ll get you a sandwich,” he said, re-wrapping his scarf around his neck.

“Hmm,” she replied without looking up.

Westminster was filled with expensive sandwich shops, overpriced pubs, and chain cafés built specifically for tourists and professionals on their lunch breaks. Oliver ducked through the misting rain and brick buildings and nipped into the nearest shop for two baguettes; Sophie claimed she didn’t eat meat, but she never said no to a tuna and sweetcorn sandwich. When he returned to the office fifteen minutes later, now damp and cold, she still had her nose in the book.

He set down the sandwich on her desk, watching her. She pursed her lips when she was deep in thought. “What are you reading?”

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