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Chapter Three
The brothers in the Chapter House watched in stunned silence as Mr Dunkley was escorted out by the Factor. Josh made to climb to his feet to go after them.
The Chairman of the Synod waved him down. With a smug smile on his lips, he returned his attention to the previous speaker. “Did you have anything more to say, Mr Toller?”
Toller sank into his seat and shook his head.
“Good. You and Dunkley’s prentice may go and sort out Dunkley’s office.”
Josh scrambled to his feet and followed Mr Toller out into the Chapel.
“I didn’t mean…” Toller trailed off.
“Yeah, well perhaps you should have trusted Mr Dunkley to change the policy at an appropriate time.”
They entered the corridor that linked the Chapel to the College. Josh took off at a run.
“Hey wait!”
“I need to talk to Mr Dunkley,” Josh shouted back. “You start on the office.”
The warmth of the lobby curled around him after the cold of the Chapter House. He raced to the main entrance as Mr Toller started up the Grand Staircase.
“You’ll want your coat and staff, Mr Analay.”
The porter’s words checked Josh in his headlong flight. Even the porter looked stunned at today’s events.
“Yeah! I’d better.” Josh shifted impatiently as he waited for his equipment.
The world traipsed past the glass door, unaware of the activities that happened within. A red van drove up and parked just outside.
Josh pushed his arms through the sleeves of his heavy coat as soon as the man held it out for him. He shrugged on his back pack and accepted his staff before stepping out onto the pavement. Here in London he barely needed a prayer to shield his appearance; every other person was dressed in something odd, so someone stepping onto the pavement practically dressed as Gandalf the Grey was hardly going to faze the common pedestrian.
He turned right out of the door. The Royal Mail van parked at the pillar box caught his eye. Josh whipped the letter out of his pocket and handed it to the postie with a smile.
She grinned back. “You should get your Christmas cards out sooner.”
“You know how it is.” Josh joined in the teasing. “There’s always someone who sends you a card and you’ve forgotten them.”
She laughed and dropped the letter in her sack before emptying the pillar box. There, that was the official notification done. He could imagine Mr Trewithick had been sitting with his bags packed waiting for that text Dunkley sent. At least the Synod had granted him Mr Trewithick his Christmas break before sacking Mr Dunkley.
Josh charged towards Tower Bridge. Dunkley’s London flat was on the south bank, and the quickest route led over the bridge.
He shivered in the cold. The light wind tugging at his coat chilled him more than the frigid Chapter House. He drew heat around himself—one of the better tricks of Witch-Finders.
About half way over, he caught sight of his quarry and increased his stride. “Mr Dunkley!”
Mr Dunkley turned and smiled as he saw who followed. “I doubt you should call me that any more, Josh.”
“Oh, what am I to call you then, Laird Dunkley?”
Dunkley laughed. “I turned that business over to my cousin after my father died. I’d be Laird Alasdair at most these days. My friends call me Alasdair.”
Josh ran a hand over his hair. “Fine. Whatever. You’ve got to come back, and get a hearing. A tribunal or something. They can’t just sack you like that.”
“Actually, they can,” Dunkley said. “It’s written into the contract you signed right back at the beginning of your training.”
“I don’t want this,” Josh said. “Not yet!”
Around them the crowds of London split and merged again, none of the passers-by noticing the two men hogging the middle of the path.
“It’s never the right time to take on this job,” Dunkley said. “Though I’ll admit I had more warning when my master retired.”
“I can’t do the job,” Josh said. “Who would listen to me? I’m too young. And, I’m not one of them.”
Dunkley shook his head. “I’d been an active agent for five years before I had to take over. I wanted to give you that, but I’m tired, Josh. I want to go and finish the renovations of my home in Yorkshire, get a couple of bitches for Ross and Rory and breed Wolfhounds.”
“You never struck me as the country gentry type—you’re more of an urban fox.”
A slight smile. “I’ll keep my London flat, in case I feel the urge for the theatre or bright lights.”
“With your girlfriend?” Josh spat out.
Dunkley bowed his head, the smile draining away. “I should have told you, at least, I agree. It wouldn’t be fair on Gillian for me to just vanish. Though, knowing Gillian, she would seek you out and demand a blow by blow account of my death. Then she’d curse my grave for my carelessness.” His smile had a wicked edge to it.
Josh walked out of the foot traffic and rested his elbows on the guardrail of the bridge. “I’d have sworn… I mean is she a real girlfriend or just a woman you happen to talk to?”
Dunkley scratched his beard. “It’s none of your business. The definition of ‘girlfriend’ seems malleable enough to include both prospects. Gillian is my lady friend. I know the definition of that.”
“I’ve worked with you; you gotta admit I’m going to be curious.”
“No, I don’t think that I do.”
“Fine,” Josh said. “I don’t even know what needs immediate attention from your in-tray.”
Dunkley thought for a moment. “The most important thing is…” His eyes went blank. Josh recognised the state immediately: a vision. Dunkley was an indifferent visionary, but sometimes…
“No! Don’t open that box!” Dunkley took off towards the college as if the Hounds of Hell were on his heels.
Josh took a second to react and then he scampered after his former boss. He dodged around oblivious people rather than try anything fancy with Practical Theology.
The world exploded. Dust, bricks, glass and noise rained down on him. When he uncurled, he found he had ducked against the nearest building.
People screamed. The building that had blown; it was the College. He forced himself to his feet and pushed through the crowds running away.
The College burned. The vault was breached. Creatures once contained leaked out into the evening, highlighted against the flames. Josh stood for a moment staring. The porter he had just talked to lay on the street. A Witch-Finder tended him. Others stood and wept.
Mr Dunkley huddled in the shadow of a doorway. “That was meant for me, it was in my office, and there are students still in there.”
“The fire brigade…” Josh trailed off. The fire was spreading fast. “There’s a fire demon in there.”
Dunkley nodded. “Cover me!”
Josh lifted his staff and blocked out everything around the two of them. No one would see them—not even one of their kind.
Dunkley removed the rubber ferule from the bottom of his hiking staff, exposing the metal spike. Josh frowned. In all lectures on the inherent cræft used by Witch-Finders, the importance of remaining insulated from ground was stressed. It was too easy to be distracted by the outside world from the Divine Within, which answered their prayers.
A blade of grass forced its way through a crack in a paving slab. Dunkley gently placed the spike of his staff on the hint of Nature breaking through to the modern world.
Josh watched and shielded without question as Dunkley gathered his strength. The power burst in on Josh’s other sight. From somewhere, Dunkley had received a gift from a fire elemental. The power rose around him, the heat cut through the chill.
Dunkley separated himself, sending his image into the building. Josh opened his own Sight fully and saw the enormous concentration of power in the hands of one delicate man.
It was not a sure touch.
Dunkley may have held the gift of fire, but he had never before used it. And, he was not naturally attuned to fire.
With the hesitation of unfamiliarity, Dunkley tried to suppress the flames with the power from a fire elemental. Josh screamed as the sun began to fade.
The winter day plummeted below freezing. Rain turned to snow.
He slapped Dunkley’s face. “Get back here.” Josh backhanded Dunkley’s other cheek.
Groggily, Dunkley’s eyes refocused. “I’ve got to-”
“You direct the fire to burn something else, stupid! Never try to put out fire with fire.”
Around the fiercely burning building the snow melted and fell again as rain.
“Did you hear me?” Josh demanded.
“I hear.” Dunkley de-focused his eyes and stared at the buildings around the college. He lifted his left hand, leaving his right holding the staff to ground.
Flames engulfing the college died. A building site that was to be another huge mirrored spike of offices, exploded into flames. Glass mixed with the falling snow. Josh raised his staff higher. While still holding the invisibility over himself and Dunkley, Josh spread out his will, holding the shard up high. Breathing hard at the effort, he raised up a Western Wind to force the debris out to sea.
The wind carried a blizzard over London. Snow fell sideways, whiting out the world. It battered against the warding Josh held.
Unseen cars rumbled along the roads, their roaring muffled by the white blanket. Even in this short space of time, snow settled on stone paving and asphalt roads. People lurched in and out of view as the wind tossed around the white curtain.
Only Josh’s warding held off the fall from the two exhausted men. He and Dunkley stood together in an inverted globe—the snow fell on the outside.
Panting at the effort from raising the wind, Josh leaned on his staff. “Well, that’s going to disappoint all those bankers and traders who bought office space there. No doubt their friends, the insurance companies, will take up the slack.”
Dunkley stared at him in horror. “The office was empty.”
Josh shrugged. “It’s gone now. Where did you get a gift of fire?” he asked, as casually as possible.
Dunkley stared at Josh: a witch facing down a Witch-Finder. He spun on his heel and fled. The fleeing man burst Josh’s wards and the snow pelted him. Dunkley vanished into the white.
Josh shook the flakes from his face and charged after Dunkley, yet again towards the River. Josh expected Dunkley to head for the bridge. He called on the wind to clear his path. After a glance over his shoulder, Dunkley skip-hopped down the steps to the riverside.
Josh trotted behind him. “Wait! I didn’t mean…”
Dunkley pulled a hat and gloves from his pocket. He yanked on the gloves and stuffed the hat on his head, covering his hair. Hidden by the blizzard from the eyes of the general population, he dived into the River. Mid-air, he transformed and slid into the water with the ease of familiarity.
Josh skidded to a halt on the quayside and leaned on his staff, watching a seal power through the water of the Thames towing Dunkley’s hiking pole.
“Fuck me! He’s a Selkie.”
Unlike Dunkley’s efforts to control the gift from the fire elemental, his transformation into a Selkie had been perfect, practiced.
Josh staggered back up the Riverside steps and sank to the ground, sheltering from the weather in a doorway. Karl found him covered in snow, and dragged him to thaw out in a nearby pub with a pint.
“The Synod have called an emergency meeting. They’ve ordered all the miraculously rescued upper students home. Would you know anything about that rescue?”
Josh shook his head and drew on his beer.
Karl stared at him as if trying to see inside his skull. “There’s this meeting so I expect you should be there. You’re almost not a student and…”
Three of the Inner Circle were gone, with only untried students to hold their places.
“And I’m the new Watcher,” Josh finished for him. The chill from the snow made him shiver. “And my first job will be to hunt down Mr Dunkley.”
“What!”
“You know how the students got out?”
“I heard one of them say that Mr Dunkley walked through the fire to lead them to safety in the Chapel. Someone recommended sainthood.”
“He… oh god! He had a gift from a fire elemental. He tried to use it to put out the fire. I was watching him.”
Karl grabbed Josh by the shoulders and shook him. “Mr Dunkley has not gone bad!”
Josh looked blankly. “I saw it.”
“Well, you can shut up. It’s easy to misinterpret anything seen through a vision.”
What? Oh yes. Only those who needed to know knew about his witch sniffing ability. The ability was mostly found in people on the opposition. Like most of his colleagues, Karl believed Josh was a regular—if more accurate than most—visionary.
Josh shook his head and opened his mouth to tell Karl.
Karl flung him away. Weakened, Josh fell off the bar stool with Karl towering over him. “Mr Dunkley would never go bad.”
Around them the few remaining clientele not driven off by the dual blast which destroyed two nearby buildings, ignored the men arguing finer points of theology. At the level Josh and Karl operated, they held permanent exclusion fields around themselves.
Karl strode out the door, leaving Josh to use a bar stool to heave himself to his feet. He supposed he’d better join the meeting, but he was going to keep his mouth shut. Mr Dunkley really was a saint to most of these people, as Karl’s reaction had shown.
He tottered across to the burned out college. The Chapter House and Chapel still stood—the stone wasn’t going to burn down anytime soon. He pushed open the door, prepared to go to Mr Dunkley’s old seat.
It was occupied.
In the time it had taken Josh to chase down Dunkley, the Synod had found someone else as the Watcher. It really was time Josh resigned from the College and returned to work as a double-glazing salesman. He had been right in what he had told Mr Dunkley; they didn’t trust him. He was too inexperienced and not part of their class.
Then he saw who they had installed. This had to have been planned before the explosion. Josh stared straight into the eyes of the man who had run the Nocturn Seminary scheme: Dave Green.
To Be Continued…
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