A Life Less Ordinary (9 page)

The shock somehow unlocked some of the magic in me. I reached out, using powers I hadn’t known I had, to snatch the statues out of the air and bring them over to me. One of them landed hard, shaking the floor, but it had survived intact. I was tempted to try to restore them, yet I knew better than to bring them out into a battlefield. Mr Pygmalion and Master Revels were still fighting and there was no sign of a winner, not yet. I erected wards over the statues to protect them and stood up. I knew some spells and I could help Master Revels. I threw a curse at Mr Pygmalion, but his wards deflected it back towards me. I ducked sharply as bits of broken stonework cascaded down onto the statues.

Mr Pygmalion paused for a moment and threw a second spell at me. This one struck me directly, burning through my wards and reaching into my mind. I stumbled forward, my head a jumble of thoughts and feelings that seemed to contradict themselves, as if I wanted to attack my master in the back.
You’ve been hexed, you fool
, a voice said in the back of my mind.
Do something about it
! My hand was lining up to toss a spell when I finally fought off the compulsion and relaxed. Mr Pygmalion couldn’t catch me that easily.

He looked astonished as I stood up and threw a second curse and then a third, trying hard to break through his defences. With two of us to fight, his position was weakening; if he turned his attention to me for longer than a second, Master Revels would break through his wards and get him. If he kept his attention focused on Master Revels, one of my curses – weaker though they might be – would break through and hurt him. It wasn’t a good position to be in and he clearly recognised it. Using a word that sounded like broken glass, he disintegrated the floor below his feet and plunged down into the next level. Before we could follow him, he was running past a whole array of adult statues. I found myself hoping that they were not magical as Master Revels lowered us down and gave chase.

It was a nightmare. The statues were coming alive and lashing out at us, stone hands reaching out to crush our skulls. Master Revels blasted each of the living statues – I hoped that that meant that they were not living humans – as we passed, wrecking statues that had cost the building millions of pounds. Mr Pygmalion was still ahead of us, but unless I missed my guess we had blocked him from reaching the exit. I realised, almost too late, that as an artist he would probably know about the backrooms used by the staff, including the emergency exits. I ran forward and blocked his escape, gasping in pain as one of his curses sank red-hot needles into my body. The pain was excruciating, yet somehow I managed to stay aware. I couldn’t afford to collapse now.

Mr Pygmalion stopped, pressing his back to the wall. I could feel powerful magic shimmering through the air, but I couldn’t understand what he was doing until I felt the building itself began to shake. His power seemed focused around stone and the entire building was made from stone! Master Revels stepped forward, holding up his cane. There seemed to be no way to prevent him from bringing the entire building down on us.

“It’s over,” he said, quietly. Mr Pygmalion snorted. “Your time is up.”

Master Revels threw a blistering series of curses, one after the other. I watched in horror as Mr Pygmalion struggled to counter him, shifting his wards to provide protection...and uncovering his back. I saw the opportunity and threw a reflecting curse of my own, backed with all the power I could muster. It reflected off the wall and struck Mr Pygmalion’s back. He screamed as his wards collapsed and failed and, a second later, collapsed to the ground. Master Revels was on him at once, casting binding spells to hold him in place before transporting him into his jacket.

“We’d better get the statues as well,” he said, heading back towards the stairs. I followed him, wondering if anyone would notice the changes in the building. How badly had Mr Pygmalion damaged the foundations before we’d stopped him? “And then we have to get out of here before all hell breaks loose.”

I laughed. “And what are you going to say to the building’s owners?”

“Nothing,” Master Revels said. He grinned. “The whole thing will be blamed on a gas explosion, or maybe terrorists; terrorists are popular these days. The insurance will pay for the damage. Polly will be the lucky girl who escaped being killed, which will explain her blurred memories of the incident. She’ll get paid a few hundred thousand pounds worth of compensation. The girls will be found somewhere safe and well and our statue-loving friend will be explaining himself to the most suspicious and paranoid minds in the magical world. They won’t be too pleased that it got so messy, but they’ll be glad of the conclusion. This guy could have caused a lot of trouble.”

“The Thirteen,” I said, thoughtfully. It was an unanswered question and I hate those. “Who
are
the Thirteen?”

“Don’t say their name out loud,” Master Revels said. He cast his eyes heavenward. “They’ll hear you.”

I glared at him until he relented, slightly. “I’ll explain once we’ve finished clearing up this mess,” he said, finally. I wasn’t sure I believed him, but given how much care magical folk took with their names, maybe they
could
hear if someone spoke their name out loud. “It’s a very long story.”

Chapter Eight

The house was an ordinary suburban one in Morningside, towards the edge of Edinburgh. There was a small garden – complete with garden gnome – a pair of cars parked outside and an atmosphere that suggested that the owner of the house was very fond of housework. I walked up the path, checked the gnome to make sure that it wasn’t one of the transformed girls and then rang the doorbell. A moment later, a sour-faced woman peeked out. Somehow, I had no difficulty in guessing who wore the pants in that family. Her expression was unpleasant enough to curdle milk.

I held up my spelled ID card and smiled. “Mrs Evens?” I asked. “I am Sergeant Dorothy Woolworth of the Stolen Arts Department.” The magic in the card would take care of any doubts she might have, although I had no idea if there even
was
a Stolen Arts Department. “I understand that you recently purchased a small stone statue of a young girl-child?”

Mrs Evens stared at me and then beckoned me into the house. I wasn’t too surprised. She struck me as the kind of woman who spent most of her time spying on the neighbours and gossiping about them to her circle of friends and she wouldn’t want to give the neighbours something to chatter about to
their
friends. The interior of the house tended to confirm my first impression. It was filled with china knickknacks and decorations and they had all been carefully placed exactly where she wanted them to go. I doubted that a dust speck would have a long lifespan in her house.

I caught sight of two young boys and smiled at them, suspecting I saw a pair of teenage delinquents in the making. They reminded me of boys I’d known at school, whose parents had been so strict and confining that they’d rebelled against them as soon as they grew old enough to understand what that meant. I wondered, absently, what the two boys would do; drugs, smoking, girls, rock and roll...there was no way to know. And besides, it was hardly my problem.

“Now,” Mrs Evens said, as she invited me into the kitchen and closed the door firmly, “what is all this about?”

“The artwork you purchased was stolen from its rightful owner,” I explained, patiently. It was even true, in a sense; the girl’s childhood had been stolen to produce the little statue. “I am here to recover it.”

Mrs Evens stared at me for a long moment. I watched various emotions battling it out over her pinched face. Anger won. “We paid good money for that statue,” she said, sharply. “We have original documents and everything proving that the status belongs to us...”

“Forged,” I said, calmly. I held out a sheet of paper that had also been spelled. It would be very convincing to anyone who was reading it, without any little errors that might cause embarrassment later down the line. “I’m afraid that I will have to take it with me now.”

Mrs Evens stood up. “I have never heard such nonsense in my life,” she said, clinging desperately to false hope. “If you want to remove the statue, you can pay for it and...”

“The statue does not belong to you,” I said, firmly. I held her eyes, willing her to believe me. “If you refuse to hand it over now, I will have to go to the local police station, round up a team of policemen and return to search your house for the statue. Should we fail to find it, you will be held on a charge of receiving stolen goods until the statue is produced. There is still time to avoid dragging the police and the media into this.”

She stared at me for a long moment. I kept my expression blank. She didn’t know it, but if she refused to hand over the statue, I would have to use magic to take it by force. It would be difficult and it would risk her remembering something that might be dangerous later. On the other hand, we couldn’t bring the mundane world’s police into the affair. I willed her to believe me.

I could have used Compulsion, but judging from her appearance, she would be very resistant to it unless I applied it heavily, which would be impossible for her to forget. Even if she never worked out the truth, it would risk drawing attention towards the magical world and we couldn’t allow that to happen. Master Revels had been very insistent that the statues were to be recovered peacefully, if possible. Towards that end, I had a final incentive to offer.

“I understand that you paid two thousand pounds for the statue,” I added. It struck me as proof that some people will buy anything if they thought it was exclusive enough. “We recovered the funds from the person who sold it to you and we are happy to recompense you now, in full, once you hand over the statue.”

“It’s in the living room,” Mrs Evens said, finally. She stood up and strode through the door. I heard sounds that suggested that the kids had been trying to listen in before hearing their mother’s footsteps and running for cover. She led the way into the living room – it was so fancy that I couldn’t understand how anyone thought it was suitable for kids – and nodded to a small table. The statue – one of the missing girls – sat there, right in plain sight. I could see the magic surrounding it; Mrs Evens clearly could not. I had never met a more unmagical person. “Is that the one you meant?”

I pretended to compare it to the documents in my hand, but the truth was that I’d known it the moment I saw it. “Yes,” I said, flatly. I picked it up, wincing at the weight, before putting it down on the larger table. It was covered in framed photographs and one of them, a beefy man with a florid moustache, leapt out at me. He had to be Mr Evens. He looked thoroughly unpleasant, but at least he didn’t look as if his wife could walk all over him. “Do you want the money now?”

Mrs Evens nodded firmly. I reached into the briefcase and produced a bunch of notes. I had suggested giving them a cheque, but Master Revels had insisted on giving them the money in cash, pointing out that it would be harder for them to make a fuss later. They’d also have to explain where they got two thousand pounds in used banknotes. The mundane police kept an eye on such transactions on the grounds that most of them were used for drugs or terrorism. Mrs Evens stared at the pile of banknotes in astonishment, before her eyes lit up with greed and she started to count them. I had to smile watching her. It took her several minutes to count them all, partly because the kids stuck their heads into the room and she had to scream at them to get out.

I did the maths in my head. I’d given her two thousand pounds in ten pound banknotes. There were two hundred notes in all, but she lost count twice and then tried to argue over the results. I looked at her patiently and eventually she accepted the money, not very reluctantly. I passed her a sheet to sign, in which she acknowledged the receipt of two thousand pounds and gave up all claim to the statue, and then picked up the statue again.

“Thank you for your assistance,” I said, piously. Mrs Evens glowered at me, although I was sure that with a little creative editing, she could turn the story into one she could be proud of. If she was like some of the other folks from the suburbs, she might be proud of her brush with a criminal, even though some people would probably call her a fool for accepting stolen goods. It hardly mattered, one way or the other. “I hope I will not have to call again.”

Mrs Evens started to wring her hands together. “And what do we do if we want to buy a replacement piece of artwork from the original producer?”

I sighed, inwardly. “I’m sure that he will be happy to contact you if I give him your details,” I said, truthfully. I had no intention of doing anything of the sort. “The statues are modelled on a particular child and cost upwards of a million pounds each.”

Her mouth fell open. She had had no idea that the statue was worth that much. I left her and walked out the door, staggering slightly under the weight of the statue. The van was parked several meters away – parking had been a headache – and carrying the statue all the way was difficult. I bent down and whispered what reassurance I could into the statue’s ear. I didn’t know if the girl was aware in there, or if she could hear me or not, but I hoped that she could. Her ordeal was nearly over.

I put the statue in the back of the van and then climbed into the front seat, beside Master Revels. “Success,” I said, with a grin. We’d spent the last two days going from house to house, recovering statues. The bastard who had transformed the girls had finally talked, giving us a list of names and addresses. Even so, it was a hard task. At least one of the purchasers had given him a false address, leaving us with an impossible mission. How could we recover the lost girl if she’d been taken into the mundane world and far from Edinburgh? “How many more do we have to find?”

“One more,” Master Revels said, as he started the engine and guided the van away from the kerb. “And then we will have to free the girls and return them to their families.”

I’d been wondering about that. “How are we going to do that without attracting attention?”

Master Revels grinned, unpleasantly. “There is a genuine paedophile in Livingstone, not that far from Edinburgh,” he said. “It’s actually outside the police borders for Edinburgh, so when the police searched the houses of the usual suspects, they didn’t search his house. The girls will be taken there and restored, after which the police will get a phone call reporting that they’re there. The paedophile will be arrested and charged with kidnapping them, although he won’t have touched them. The girls will have been drugged, which will explain their blurred memories and loss of any time sense. They go back to their parents, the paedophile goes to jail and the magical world remains undiscovered. A handful of spells will see to that.”