Page 45 of A Spot of Tea and Sorcery: Vol. 6

He would have one shot. One spell. It had to be a big one. Decisive.

He had to know Luna would be safe from this day forward.

“Just promise me,” Nigel said at last, breaking the long silence, “that you’ll get her to safety. That you’ll . . . you’ll look after her. Make certain she’s settled somewhere. Back with heraunties, perhaps. Or somewhere else. Somewhere she can be happy.”

Another long silence followed. More clicks and clacks of the tracks, a piercingtoot-tootof the horn, a gust of black smoke rolling by the window.

“Ah, hells,” Ward growled at last, “why does it have to bemeto say it?” Cursing again, he leaned forward and pushed Nigel’s shoulder roughly. “Hey. You. Sad sack. You do know she loves you, right?”

Nigel turned, lancing Ward with an icy stare.

“Damn!” Ward sat up, tossing his hands. “Come on, man, you don’t want to go blowing yourself up! Do you think that’s what she wants? Do you think she’ll ever be happy again if you do something stupid like that? Don’t you go pulling some idiotic ‘noble sacrifice’ bullshit routine for her sake. You’ll break that poor girl’s heart.”

Nigel set his jaw. “As long as even one member of the Brotherhood is alive—”

“We’ll get ‘em, Grimm. We’ll hunt ‘em down. My boys and I have done a pretty good job of it, you know? In the last couple of months, we’ve taken two of your former buddies into custody. Montesquieu Fairfax from the granary and that fella from the warehouse the other night, Lancelot Mortimer. We’ll get the rest of ‘em.”

Nigel turned away again without comment. He knew how impossible everything Ward said would prove to be in the end. He knew that, even if every wardsman in Brython were summoned for the sole purpose of tracking down the Brotherhood, every resource devoted to their eradication, it wouldn’t be enough. They would always take Luna. Sooner or later.

Luna who . . . who loved him?

No. He couldn’t think about that. He wouldn’t. Besides, what did Ward know about Luna’s true state of mind? Nothing worth listening to, surely.

Ward ran a hand down his face, muttering angrily to himself. Then he pulled the Mark IV out from its case once more and leaned across the space between benches. Opening the cylinder, he showed Nigel the cartridges. “Six shots, you get me?” He snapped it shut. “Keep your finger off the trigger until you’re ready to fire. Grip it firmly. Front sight on the target. Squeeze, don’t jerk.”

Nigel eyed the gun disdainfully before turning an equally disdainful gaze on the wardsman. “Why are you telling me this?”

Ward heaved a sigh. “Just in case you decide to fight for a life with that girl rather than take the coward’s way out. All right? Now shut up and listen.”

The train was running ten minutes behind by the time it finally pulled into the station at North Sobbington. Ten minutes might seem like nothing to most of the travelers. But Nigel fairly leapt onto the platform and might have set off running right then and there if he’d had any idea which way to run.

As it was, he cursed, flexed his fingers, cursed again, and paced up and down with his celestial robe flapping dramatically behind him, while Ward calmly spoke to a man about automagic mobile rentals. It felt as though the very essence of time was slipping through his hands like sand, and the more Nigel tried to grasp it, the faster it poured.

“Hey, cool it, Grimm,” Ward said when at last, brandishing a set of keys, he emerged from the rental office. “You’re gonna self-combust, and what good will that do anybody?” He gripped Nigel by the shoulder, pivoted him around, and pointed him in the direction of the rental he’d secured. The little touring coupe was squat, dark green, with rounded fenders and circular headlamps, the brass trim all a bit dim and dirty. The perfect respectable country vehicle. Ward gave Nigel a push toward thepassenger’s side before claiming the driver’s seat for himself. “I’ll make up for lost time, don’t you worry,” he said, jamming the key into the ignition. The engine grumbled resentfully to life, spewing a puff of thaumatic exhaust. “These old country roads won’t know what hit ‘em!”

Perhaps Ward the Wardsman was simply covering his own tension with bravado. Surely that was the only reason for his broad smiles and confident laughter as he sent the little coupe zipping along the much-too narrow lanes in the dusky evening twilight.

“Shouldn’t you put on your high beams?” Nigel suggested as they took a turn on, he could swear, two wheels.

“Oh, sure.” Ward flipped the switch, and the headlamps intensified their glow, illuminating the startled face of a poised deer.

“Look out!” Nigel barked, but Ward answered by laying down the horn along with his foot. With a thaumatic surge, the vehicle surged even faster, startling the deer into flight. Nigel wasn’t at all convinced they hadn’t taken part of its flashing white tail with them as they sped on their way.

“Relax, Grimm,” Ward said, cooly steering the vehicle with one hand on the wheel. “I know my way around an automagic mobile, you know. It’s like a woman. You’ve just got to . . .”

“Oh, gods on high, deliverme from all metaphors!”Nigel muttered, sinking deeper into his seat. It was possibly the most ardent prayer ever to cross his heathen lips.

The miles slipped away beneath the turning wheels, and Nigel could only hope Ward truly did remember the way to this abandoned granary. As they went, Ward told story after story about his recent adventures up in this part of the country, tracking down Montesquieu Fairfax. Nigel, for the most part, tuned him out. He halfway wondered if he should have left the wardsman behind at the station. That being said, Nigel’s drivingskills were morecapablethanheroic,and he certainly couldn’t have made the kind of time Ward managed.

Just as the hands on his watch hit 5:36, Ward turned the coupe down a certain country lane, rolled down the window, and pointed out a stolid, square tower with a peaked roof, looming across a fallow field. “There it is,” he said. “One granary-turned-sorcerer’s lair, as requested.”

Daylight had all but drained from the sky by then, and the evening gloom contrived to cast the tower in menacing shadows. Not a tortured and twisted construction of malice like Nocturnus, to be sure. But it did the trick.

“You’d better stop here,” Nigel said. “I’ll walk the rest of the way by road. You cut across, using those trees for cover. They’ll be expecting me to arrive in full Dire-mode and will be baffled when I don’t. This alone should distract them enough for you to make your approach. The last thing they’ll anticipate is that I would bring an SSSD officer along.”

“Yeah, it’s not as though wardsmen and sorcerers team up every day, am I right?”

“We are not a team, Ward.”