Wizards (21 page)

"Let her go, Jake. He deserves it." Jenny had never sounded colder. It took me back to when we first met. She’d been tied naked to a table with a madman cutting her. Perhaps she had reasons for her attitude, but I’m not a killer.

I pushed Bronwyn away and Jenny caught her. She hugged the girl and gave me a contemptuous look.

"What are you going to do with him? Teach him English and keep him as a pet?"

Tyden groaned and grabbed hold of his groin. Bronwyn's kicks had been aimed precisely.

"I'm taking you home in a minute," I said in Tyden's language.

"If that's okay with you two ladies."

Jenny sniffed in contempt.

"If you take me back to my family they will kill me," Tyden said in a bleak voice. "They will believe I am tainted with evil and need to be purged in flame."

"That sounds good to me," Bronwyn said in Tyden's language.

"I had to take you. My father demanded it of me. I did not want to do it to you and did not enjoy it."

"Dig yourself in deeper, why don't you?" Bronwyn said.

I turned to Jenny and shrugged my shoulders.

"Now do you see why I never want to get involved?"

Tyden sat in the far corner of the cave with Fluffy keeping watch over him. We couldn't allow him to escape. He might do all sorts of damage if he got away and into the town. The feeling of being trapped in an impossible situation was creeping over me, building up in my stomach like fluttering butterflies. I sat in my chair trying to look relaxed, but what I really wanted to do was scream.

Jenny helped Bronwyn clean herself up. Whatever else my magic had done, it removed the cuts from her neck. When they washed the blood away there was nothing to be seen.

Bronwyn came over to where I sat and pushed her body into my face.

"Use your magic to make sure I'm not pregnant."

"I don't know I'm equipped for that. We could go down to the chemists and Jenny could buy you a morning-after-pill. Aren't you too young anyway?"

"You're such a wanker!" Bronwyn told me furiously. "Just do it!"

I was never any good with kids, even when I was one, and this one was beginning to get under my skin.

"I may be a wanker, but I never hopped into a lava flow or got captured by a bunch of religious fanatics. So put a 'sir' on the end of wanker if you’re going to ask a favor of me. Either that or hop off out of here."

Bronwyn ran back to Jenny and I felt ashamed of myself. The trouble was I was already feeling guilty over Tyden. Everybody looked to me for solutions and what I wanted to do was go home to bed and pull a pillow over my head.

I was still fuming and staring at the cave floor a few minutes later.

"Please stop me getting pregnant, sir."

I looked up and she was there again. There was anger in her eyes and I could tell that her words had cost her a great deal.

"Pull your shirt up and away from your tummy. I need to touch your flesh."

She stood beside me for the minute I spent wishing all possibility of pregnancy from her. I combined that with the wish she be free of disease and physical damage. As soon as my hand left her tummy, Bronwyn turned and ran away. I went back to staring gloomily at the cave floor.

"Bronwyn needs to return to her parents, Jake." I looked up to find I faced a delegation.

"What will you tell them?"

Bronwyn stared at me defiantly.

"No bones broken, not a single scratch on me. I'm not bleeding or hurting inside since you touched my tummy. Hop me somewhere close to Fort Knox and I'll walk home. I'll tell mum and dad I went for a long walk."

"And then what?"

"Well, I don't have a fancy cave to come to, a dragon, or a friend I can talk to, but I'll get by."

"You can hop here any time. You know where it is and if you concentrate on it when throwing the marker you’ll end up here."

"Not everyone here is friendly."

"One way or the other, Tyden will be gone soon, Bronwyn."

"Who said I was talking about him?"

I stood up and offered Bronwyn my hand.

"I’ll hop you back."

Bronwyn took my hand and we hopped to the porch of her parents' house. Before she could say a word, I pressed the doorbell and held it down. A policewoman opened the door before being pushed aside by Bronwyn's father as he saw who I brought with me.

"Bronwyn has been through a great deal," I said. "Do her a favor and hold off asking any questions for a few days."

I stepped back from the door and left the policewoman with a dilemma, to stay with Bronwyn or to stop me from leaving. She reached for her radio as I stepped out of sight and hopped back to the cave.

"You just dumped her on the street?" Jenny accused.

"I took Bronwyn to her front door and told her father to be nice to her. You realize the police are going to be all over me over this? I could get accused of child abuse or something."

"But you’ll still have a girlfriend at the end of it. Doesn't that make it worth it?"

I hopped Jenny to a street a few hundred yards away from her house and we walked to her home hand in hand. The night was unusually dark with black clouds overhead obscuring the stars. As we turned into her road we saw the flashing blue lights of police cars.

"Dad isn't going to like all this. The residents association will go ape. Mrs. Watson thinks the presence of police cars brings down property values."

"You can remind him that if he hadn't rung Brian Mathews, none of this would have happened," I pointed out. I gave Jenny's hand a squeeze and we walked towards the lights.

Three police officers surged forward as we passed a street lamp and they saw me. Seconds later my hands were cuffed tightly behind my back and I was dragged towards the car.

"Next time Jake won't turn up when you ask," Jenny shouted at the police as I was dragged away. "Better pray it's not one of your kids that goes missing!"

I smiled in appreciation. I wasn't used to being defended.

They put me into the same interview room where I met Mr. Mathews. I admired the irony of the situation. The policemen who frog-marched me into the room removed my handcuffs and left. They were probably scared I would nick their shiny handcuffs if they left them with me.

Sergeant Jones arrived a few moments later along with a detective. The detective sat down opposite me while the sergeant remained standing.

"This is Inspector Thomas, Jake. He wants to ask you a few questions."

I gave the Inspector the once over. He was in his forties, thick set with a folded face like a bulldog. If you were to ask me, I thought he looked like a thug.

"I thought I was under arrest."

"Why would you think that, Jake?" the Sergeant asked.

"Oh, I don't know. Possibly the handcuffs your men put on me, or the bruises I have on my arms from their gentle caresses as they dragged me in and out of their car. I think it was those sorts of things that gave me a clue."

The Inspector leaned over the desk and banged on it with his clenched fist.

"Where did you find the girl?" he spat at me.

"Where she was, of course. How did you do in your search for her, by the way? Did you find anything at all?"

I don't know what had come over me. Possibly I was just tired, but it wasn't like me to talk back to authority figures. Normally I go with the path of least resistance. Ever since my trip to Valhalla I seemed to be using more words than I usually do. It was all very strange.

"It's a very reasonable question, Jake," the Sergeant put in calmly.

"As I'm not under arrest, I'll be going. I have no wish to be interrogated."

"Sit down!" the Inspector thundered, but I carried on heading for the door.

Sergeant Jones blocked my way.

"Jake Albert Morrissey, I am arresting you on suspicion of obstructing the police in the course of their duties…"

I listened to a radio program once where a lawyer said the best thing anybody could do if arrested was to say absolutely nothing except to ask for legal representation. It sounded like sage advice at the time and now that I had the opportunity I followed it precisely.

The Inspector switched on a recorder and then he and the sergeant asked me hundreds of questions. I started saying 'no comment' to each one as I got fed up with the Inspector's shouting, then I said nothing at all. I shouldn't have done it, but I wished him laryngitis after suffering a couple of hours of interrogation, and he retired from the fray, unable to speak.

"Nobody really thinks you had anything to do with hurting the kid, Jake," Sergeant Jones said. The Inspector was replaced with a policewoman who looked at me as if she believed I had hurt Bronwyn.

"Are you telling me Bronwyn is injured?" I asked very clearly into the microphone.

"Someone took her away from her family."

"Are you telling me she was kidnapped?"

"Jake, it's not like you to play mind games with us."

"This is the first time I've been arrested for helping the police. It will be the last time on both counts."

The Sergeant gestured to the policewoman and she switched off the tape recorder. He looked at me in exasperation and sighed heavily.

"The girl's clothes were ripped open and there is blood and worse all over them. The girl has absolutely no signs of injury or sexual assault, but her parents are screaming blue murder and demanding we find the person responsible. You’re the only lead we’ve got."

"I only save them, Sergeant Jones. I don't do scapegoat."

There was a knock at the door and a young constable entered. He and the Sergeant left the room to return a few minutes later.

"You're free to go, Jake," he said and waved at the door. I got up and then turned back to him when I reached the door.

"Never again. Tell that to anybody who asks, and don't bother trying to phone me the next time someone goes missing. It's over."

"You don't really mean that, Jake," the Sergeant shouted at my back as I walked out of the room.

Jenny was waiting at reception for me. Since it was four in the morning this came as a surprise. She gave me a hug and we walked out of the police station arm in arm. Her car was parked in a visitors slot and she drove me home. The lights were out and we crept up to my room as quiet as a pair of randy mice.

"Glad you're home safe!" my mum shouted as we slipped naked into my bed.

"Are you really going to give up helping people?" Jenny asked as she drove us to college. It was just past noon and she’d missed the morning lectures. We had been busy sleeping; well we slept most of the time. If she continuing missing lectures at this rate she’d find herself thrown off the course. I didn't want to be the man responsible for ruining her future.

"I think so."

"What are you going to do about Tyden?"

That gave me pause. The truth was he’d been out of my mind since my arrest and I think my subconscious was trying to find ways to keep it that way.

"Take him back to his own world."

"You can't let his family kill him."

"I'll take him to that town, Barren. Find someone to give him a job and a place to stay."

"You could take him to Salice."

I gave Jenny a look. Esmeralda didn't deserve Tyden. The boy was half religious fanatic and half animal. No one deserved him, except maybe his own family. The only place he would fit in was among his own people.

"Meep, meep, meep!" [Thank the stars you’re back. This creature has been driving me crazy!]

I had left Fluffy in charge of Tyden. Dragons don't sleep much and Fluffy could wake at the drop of a feather. I had asked him to make sure Tyden didn't escape while I was away.

"He can't be that bad."

"Meep, meep, meeeep." [Dragons read souls, Jake. That thing is demented. He thinks I’m a demon from hell, when the truth is he is.]

"There were times when I thought that about you. Like the time you set fire to mother's favorite skirt on the washing line."

"Meep." [A cat sprayed on it.]

"Well, you certainly won the battle to ruin it."

"Please sir, don't let the demon eat me." Tyden appeared from behind my chair. He looked as though he hadn't slept much.

"Come on," I said gently as I held out my hand. "I'm going to take you back to your world."

"My family will kill me."

"I’m not taking you back to your family."

Tyden reluctantly took my hand and I hopped us to his home world a little way from the oasis where we rescued Bronwyn. There were no caravans among the bushes.

"Where’s Barren?"

Tyden pointed across the desert in the same direction his family had been travelling.

"How far?"

"Two days. My family will be halfway there by now."