Victories Read online

  “Sure,” Burke said, smiling. He rooted around in the box for longer than either of the others had, and finally came up with one of the pens. It was a cheap ballpoint, the kind businesses used to give out, but whatever name had been on the white plastic body had been worn away. He held it for a long moment, then frowned. “I think this is yours, not mine,” he said, offering it to Spirit. She took it automatically. As she did, there was a single bright flash in her mind, and she knew Burke had been right. This was the Sword. This was hers. She knew that beyond doubt.

  What she didn’t know was how to turn the pen into the Sword, if that was what she was supposed to do. She stared down at it in puzzlement.

  “Well? What is it? Or which is it, I should say?” Addie demanded.

  “It’s the Sword.” It was Burke who answered. He held up his prize. “Because I have the Shield, so that makes all four.”

  The Shield Hallow of Britain was a set of men’s rings tied together with a scrap of pink yarn. They were both cheap pot-metal, with a gold plating that was mostly worn off. Their squared tops had symbols on them, picked out in rhinestones that were miraculously all still there: one an ace, and one a diamond.

  You’re nothing but a pack of cards, Spirit thought giddily.

  “Well, that was … suspiciously easy,” Loch said, sounding puzzled.

  “Nice that something is,” Addie grumbled.

  “Anybody want the rest of this stuff?” Burke asked, nodding toward the box.

  “Not unless there’s a large, well-equipped army in there somewhere,” Loch said. He poked at the box hopefully. “I don’t suppose any of you action figures come to life when I call you? No? Right then.”

  Burke nodded again and opened the back door. He climbed out with the box and set it on the ground next to the nearest garbage can.

  “Anybody feel any different?” he asked when he came back.

  Spirit saw the others shake their heads. She shrugged. Except for knowing the object she held was the Sword Hallow, nothing was any different.

  Burke climbed back in and pulled the door shut. “Well, maybe later,” he said. “At least we found them.”

  Spirit couldn’t figure out quite how she felt. Finding the Hallows seemed almost like an anticlimax. And yet … it also felt like it was the beginning of something, as if this was right before a tornado, and she had looked up and the sky was turning green.

  “Yeah,” Loch said. “Too bad Vivian didn’t mention the booby trap.” He made a face. “It’s a good thing nobody noticed us playing statues back there, or we could have found ourselves locked up or something.”

  “Maybe she didn’t know,” Spirit said. “But … imagine what would have happened to Mark if he’d found them? Or Teddy? Or Madison?” She thought about that. She kind of wished it could have happened.

  Clearly, so did Loch. “Or Ovcharenko,” Loch said with a dark smile. “Too bad there’s no way to know. I’d pay real money to watch.”

  “I think we can guess, though,” Spirit said. “It wasn’t a booby trap, not really. It was a test. Of worthiness. The grey place turned all our best qualities inside out. It showed us our dark sides, to see if we could rise above them—or had risen above them, ever. And, you know, that makes me wonder—now that we’ve all seen that—why does anyone become a Shadow Knight? Or really, stay a Shadow Knight once they know what’s involved besides fancy limousines and penthouses, or whatever they get? Because—oh, I don’t know!”

  “I do,” Addie said. “Who wants to be the bad guy, knowing they’re the bad guy? I mean, usually there’s a certain amount of … rationalization going on in the mind of your average supervillain. You know.”

  “So to speak,” Loch said. “But yeah. The whole ‘this hurts me more than it hurts you’ thing. My— My father said once that the secret to success in business was knowing that nobody is the villain in their own story. And this isn’t exactly that, but.…”

  “Some people just like knowing they can always get their own way,” Burke said quietly. “They don’t think about other people enough to care what they’re feeling.”

  Loch frowned. “Actually … some people just can’t see other people as anything other than props. There were more than a couple of CEOs like that. They’d laugh about firing people, as if other people just weren’t real to them. Then they’d run out and drop five hundred bucks on dinner. Maybe that’s it. Maybe in order to be a Shadow Knight—everyone else is a shadow to you.”

  Burke nodded. “So, nobody else matters because nobody else has feelings or importance except you. No reason why you can’t just shove them around, since they’re just extras in your play.”

  “That isn’t you,” Spirit said firmly, meeting and holding his gaze. After a moment he smiled ruefully in acknowledgment. “But,” she added, turning to include the others, “are we going to be immune? I mean, we beat it once, but if someone—Mordred—offers us—”

  “The kingdoms of the Earth,” Burke said.

  “Right,” Loch said. “Come to the Dark Side! Not only are there cookies, but there’s safety and luxury and peasants to torture!”

  “If that’s the sort of thing you want,” Addie said dryly. Loch made a rude noise and shook his head.

  “We’ve just got to hope we’ll be smart when the time comes,” Burke said. “Or.… I dunno … valiant. And now we’d better get a move on. Because I don’t think keeping Vivian waiting is real smart either.”

  * * *

  The house-turned-museum was an old square two-story building that Loch instantly dubbed a “house kind of a house” on a back street. They pulled up and Burke went inside to see if Vivian was there and returned with a handful of pamphlets. Bess Streeter Aldrich turned out to be an author none of them had ever heard of, who’d published her last book around the time their grandparents probably started dating. About fifteen minutes later, Vivian showed up on her bike. Burke jumped out and opened the back so she could load it in.

  “Anything?” he asked.

  “Not here,” she said briefly, tossing her backpack in after the bike. She walked up to the driver’s side and opened the door, holding out her hand for the keys.

  “I can drive,” Loch protested.

  “And I have an actual license,” Vivian said. Loch shrugged and got out.

  They stopped on the way back at a roadside hamburger stand—a kind of freelance McDonald’s—for lunch. There were no other customers, no drive-through, and no carhops. They had to walk up to the window themselves to get served. Nobody talked much. Vivian wasn’t the type to encourage conversation, and for their parts, Spirit and her friends were still freaked by the idea they now had ancient magic artifacts of mysterious (but vague) power in their possession. When they got back to the silo—Spirit could tell from Loch’s expression that Vivian had taken a different route this time—they all pitched in to bring the stuff down below. By the time they had it stowed away, every cupboard in the tiny kitchen was stuffed.

  “Looks like we won’t have to go shopping for a while,” Burke said mildly.

  Vivian smiled darkly. “Not unless you want fresh milk, but I figure you’re going to be running around trying to scare up the Hallows. You’re on a deadline, you know.”

  Addie looked at Spirit. Loch glanced from the two of them to Burke. There was a moment of guilty silence.

  “You really can’t tell whether or not we have them?” Spirit asked carefully. “Because we do. We found them today.”

  Vivian’s shock was genuine. She sucked in a sharp breath and leaned back against the counter, gripping the edge tightly. “Holy Epona be praised that the Great Hallows are safe again,” she said. “It’s true?” she added sharply. “You’re telling the truth?”

  “It would be a pretty stupid thing to lie about,” Loch said tartly. “Here—see?” He held out the phone charm on his palm. “I know it doesn’t look like much, but—”

  “It’s the Spear,” Vivian said. She closed her eyes for a moment, and Spirit thought she s
aw a glitter of tears. “I.… I’ve hoped for so long.…” She turned around to face the cabinets and took another deep breath, clearly trying to compose herself. “That makes this easier,” she said.

  “Makes what easier?” Spirit asked, trying not to sound as apprehensive as she felt. Vivian was certainly on their side, but Spirit suspected she was telling them as little as possible.

  “I have to go away. I’m leaving in the morning. I may not be back. Ever.”

  “What?” Burke said. “Why? Where?”

  “To perform a task—if I can. But you don’t need me any longer. The next part in this is yours, not mine. I have always known that.”

  “But— Can’t we help you? With … whatever-it-is?” Spirit asked.

  Vivian just shook her head.

  “Isn’t there anything you can tell us?” Addie pleaded. “We’ve found the Hallows, but we don’t know how to use them. We can’t even turn them into what they’re supposed to be.”

  “The Hallows themselves will instruct you,” Vivian said, still sounding a little rattled. She turned around to face them again. “You must have faith. Truly. Ask Merlin, and he will tell you the same. The Hallows will show you the way.”

  “But—” Loch said.

  “No,” Spirit said firmly, somehow sure that Vivian was right, and that this was the way things had to be. She didn’t know where this sense of certainty was coming from, but she knew it was true so solidly that it was as if it had always been true. “This is up to us now. If Vivian could’ve stopped Mordred, she would have. If she knew how—or … anything—she’d tell us.”

  Vivian smiled at Spirit with genuine warmth. “Got it in one, kid. Good luck with heading off the Apocalypse.”

  “Thanks—I think,” Spirit said ruefully.

  “Can’t you even tell us which Reincarnates we are, and how we get our memories back?” Loch asked. “Oh, come on,” he said, looking at the others, “anybody who didn’t figure we had to be Reincarnates to find the Hallows hasn’t been paying attention.”

  “You’re right, my—my dear boy,” Vivian said. Spirit had the feeling she’d changed what she was going to say in the middle. “But I’m not crazy enough to stick my nose into the middle of magic this powerful. You’ll find out when you’re meant to.”

  “This is like every bad teen slasher movie ever filmed,” Loch complained. “You know things we need to know. And you won’t tell us.”

  “Yes,” Vivian said, sounding more like her usual exasperated self. “Because if I tell you before you know, you might never know at all. Things have to come in the right order, or nothing works. It’s like a spell, only a lot more powerful than any spell you’ve ever been involved with before. You know how spells work. Do the steps out of order and you get nothing. Or something really bad. You’ve been hidden carefully—even from yourselves. If something goes wrong this time, you won’t be reborn to try again. And Mordred wins. Forever.”

  Because Merlin will die, Spirit realized. Whether Mordred knew where—and what—Merlin was or not, when Mordred blew up the Internet, Merlin would be gone.

  “Let it go, Loch. She’s been right so far,” Spirit said.

  Loch waved his hand irritably—agreeing or arguing, Spirit couldn’t tell—and stalked out of the kitchen.

  “So … what should we do now?” Addie asked hesitantly.

  The question startled Vivian into a sharp bark of laughter. “Do? Do anything you want. It’s all up to the Hallows now, so do whatever you want to until they decide the time is right.”

  * * *

  Spirit wanted to talk to Merlin. They’d done the first thing they had to do, and she was hoping he might be more forthcoming than Vivian had been—or at least tell her what had to happen next. But she felt oddly shy about saying so. When the others agreed the best thing to do was try to figure out how to use the magical weapons they’d been given, Spirit went along with it. She suspected none of them wanted to admit to the others that they were afraid that mastering their Hallow would awaken their Reincarnate memories. Becoming someone else—remembering being someone else—seemed like amnesia-in-reverse. Or dying.

  But if they hadn’t been willing to die, they would all have gone along with Mordred. Of all the people at Oakhurst, at Breakthrough, or in Radial, they, the five of them (because it had been Muirin’s choice, too), were the only ones who had a true understanding of the choice they’d be making: join Mordred as his favored sorcerous henchmen in a post-Apocalyptic wilderness, or …

  … or do exactly what they were doing now, and fight back any way they could.

  No matter the cost.

  Since none of them had really destructive Gifts—not like Van Cartwright or some of the other Fire Witches or Weather Witches they all knew—by unspoken agreement they designated the rec room next to the bedroom as a sort of practice room. There, one by one, they sat trying to figure out how to use—or even just activate—the magical weapons they’d been given.

  Burke, of course, went first.

  * * *

  With nothing else to do while the others were practicing—Spirit had asked to go last—and with the prospect of Vivian deserting them looming on the horizon, Spirit decided to ask Vivian to show her how the computer console worked. It was the only way for her to talk to Merlin, and she wanted to be sure she’d be able to.

  Vivian walked Spirit through the procedure for powering up the huge old computer. It ran on tubes, not chips, Vivian told her, so she couldn’t just flip a switch and expect it to start immediately. And once the system had power, there would be another long wait while the system—a modem dialing out over telephone lines—could make its connection to the Internet.

  “Can I ask you a question?” Spirit asked, waiting for the amber lights on the console to go green.

  “You can ask,” Vivian said cautiously.

  “It’s about my— My Gift,” Spirit said hesitantly. “You were at Oakhurst a long time ago, right?”

  “Don’t make it sound like it was sometime in the last century,” Vivian said. “Oh … wait.…”

  Spirit smiled faintly at the tiny joke. “I just wondered … did they teach the Fifth School when you were there? Doc—One of the staff there had heard of it, but.…”

  Vivian looked sympathetic. “I’m sorry, Spirit. Ms. Groves talked about it a little, but she said Spirit Mages were so rare, there was no point in teaching that School.”

  “That doesn’t sound … like her,” Spirit said, swallowing against the lump in her throat.

  “She’s dead, isn’t she?” Vivian asked quietly.

  Spirit nodded, unable to speak.

  “I’m sorry. She was a holy terror, but she never played the games a lot of the staff did. And you’re right. It doesn’t make sense. They taught all of us about all the Schools, no matter what our Gift was. Why not that one?”

  “I don’t know,” Spirit said, scrubbing at her eyes angrily. She was tired of crying. And she was tired of people dying, too. “It’s like they all just … forgot, or something.”

  Vivian nodded soberly. “There was a lot of that going around, and not just the students. Stuff like some of the teachers just forgetting about the kids who disappeared, not even trying to track them down, even when the kid had been someone they were trying to give extra attention to.”

  Yeah. And three guesses who did that.

  Spirit wondered why Mordred had been trying to cover up the existence of the Fifth School. It would have been so much easier to deny it even existed. How would the students know?

  And that meant … the School of Spirit was important.

  Important enough to bring Mordred down?

  That would sure have been a good reason to keep anyone from finding out about it.

  Her thoughts were interrupted by the hiss of static over the speakers—an indication of an open phone line—followed by the “bong bong” sound that Vivian called a “handshake.” It meant their system had made a connection.

  “That’s it,�
� Vivian said. “You’re live. I’ve still got some stuff to do before I leave, so I’ll leave you two to chat. Be sure to shut the system down when you’re done using it. If anything breaks, you’ll need to build a time machine before you can order parts.”

  “I won’t forget,” Spirit said.

  Vivian left the control bunker, and Spirit took a deep breath, watching the square green cursor pulse hypnotically on the little screen.

  HELLO, QUERCUS, she typed. OR SHOULD I CALL YOU MERLIN? It was an effort to hit each key hard enough to activate it, and her fingers were starting to ache already.

  YOU MAY CALL ME WHAT YOU WISH, SPIRIT. The letters formed one by one on the screen. Spirit didn’t know if the slowness was due to the ancient technology they were using, or the fact that Merlin was thinking carefully about each word.

  VIVIAN CALLS YOU MERLIN, SO I WILL TOO. SHE’S LEAVING TOMORROW. SHE WON’T SAY WHERE SHE’S GOING. BUT

  Spirit’s fingers hovered over the keyboard indecisively. She trusted Merlin completely, but she wasn’t sure whether she should talk about the Hallows. What if someone was eavesdropping?

  SPIRIT? YOU MAY SAY ANYTHING YOU WISH TO WITHOUT FEAR. IF IT WERE POSSIBLE FOR OUR ENEMIES TO FIND ME, I WOULD HAVE BEEN DESTROYED LONG AGO.

  Spirit released a deep breath she hadn’t known she was holding. WE FOUND THE HALLOWS, she typed. BUT THEY DON’T WORK. I MEAN, WE CAN’T MAKE THEM DO ANYTHING.

  BUT YOU WERE CONSECRATED TO THE HALLOWS, came the response. Spirit wasn’t sure whether it was a question or not.

  YES, she typed back.

  THEN HAVE PATIENCE AND FAITH. ALL WILL BE WELL.

  HOW CAN YOU BE SURE OF THAT? The keyboard was too slow for her to type all the things in her mind: how was patience going to stop Mordred? How could she—how could any of them—have faith that they could defeat Mordred? How could they have faith in the power of the Hallows when they couldn’t even make them work?

  I AM A VERY OLD MAN. (Spirit could almost hear the wry chuckle accompanying those words.) I HAVE HAD TIME TO LEARN THE POWER OF FAITH. AND OF TRUST.