James Potter And The Morrigan Web (28 page)

“Hold on!” he cried. The awning swept up beneath them, tilting and yawing as James completely lost control. He braced himself and closed his eyes.

The impact was much harder than he expected. The taut canvas was shockingly stiff, but the framework beneath broke away with a screech of startled metal. The awning collapsed beneath them, taking them with it as it crashed down, half onto the sidewalk and half onto an abandoned yellow taxi.

James bounced off, losing his grip on the broom and ricocheting off the door of the cab. He struck the pavement hard enough to rattle his teeth and for a few seconds his vision went swimmy.

Shadows passed over him as the others swooped down to land nearby.

“James!” Rose called anxiously. “Are you all right? Tell me you’re all right!”

“I’m fine,” James said mushily, forcing himself to a sitting position in the shadow of the taxi. “I think. What about the others?”

He looked around, fearing the worst. Nastasia was tangled in the remains of the awning, which seemed to have folded around her in a sort of green canvas cocoon. She moaned irritably and began to struggle out of the wreckage. The mysterious blonde woman had fallen onto the taxi and rolled down onto its bonnet, where she stirred limply. Miraculously, she seemed to be physically all right, if near exhaustion. She slid off the bonnet and her knees buckled.

“Run,” she muttered tensely. “Go, Lissa. Don’t let him collect you. Run, babe, run!”

But her legs rebelled, refusing to hold her up. They jiggled beneath her and she sprawled pathetically to the sidewalk.

“Is she all right?” Zane asked, ditching his broom and running to her side.

“Who is she?” Ralph added, dropping to his knees next to her.

Rose joined them. Together, the three students helped her into a sitting position. “Miss?” Rose asked her carefully. “Is that your name? Lissa? What are you doing here?”

“Have to run,” the woman, Lissa, insisted dully. She glanced around, saw Rose and Ralph, and suddenly her eyes sharpened. She grabbed at them. “Have to run!” she repeated frantically. “The Collector is coming!”

“The who?” James said, climbing awkwardly to his feet.

“The Collector,” a deep voice announced from behind him.

James startled and spun around, nearly unhinging his knees again. A figure was standing against the lowering sun, casting James in its shadow. It was a man, very tall, wearing a heavy burgundy robe with gold scrollwork on the sleeves. A deep hood concealed his face, revealing only his chin and the tip of his nose. He seemed to stare at James from the depths of the hood, as if weighing him.

“I apologize,” he said, smiling suddenly. He raised his pale hands and pushed back the hood, revealing a handsome, if unremarkable face. Dark hair, threaded with steely grey, was combed back from the temples. “I didn’t mean to startle you. I am the person she is referring to, the Collector, although it is not so much a name as a sort of… title.”

“What do you want?” Rose called out, putting her arm protectively around Lissa, who had begun to hyperventilate in apparent terror. “Why are you chasing her?”

“This poor creature is one of my charges,” the man answered, a hint of sadness in his voice. “Just one of the unfortunate, forgotten people left to fend for themselves in this ghost of a city. I have taken it upon myself to care for them, whenever my duties allow it.”

“If you are caring for her,” Scorpius asked, taking a step forward. “Then why was she running from you? Why did she nearly kill herself trying to get away from you?”

“Alas,” the Collector said, moving carefully closer to Lissa and descending to one knee. “She is not in her right mind. Few of them are. This is why they were left here to begin with, why they did not heed the warnings to evacuate along with the others. She is confused. And as you can see, she is a danger to herself. I will take her back. I will care for her, as I do the rest.”

Lissa suddenly laughed. It was a ragged, desperate sound. “The rest!” she gasped. “There are hardly any of us left at all! You’ve ‘collected’ so many! You’re a monster! A… a
beast
!”

The Collector bowed his head and spread his hands. “Unfortunately, some delusions are much more stubborn than others. I do what I can to help them, but some… require special attention.” He raised his head again and spoke directly to the woman. “Come along, my dear Melissa. You know there is no way out of the quarantine zone now, not unless you wish to get arrested by the authorities. They would imprison you. Your many crimes…”

Lissa laughed again, a wild, animal cackle. “Imprisonment! Yes! Let them take me! I’ll go willingly!” She giggled, and the giggle was half sob, as if the Collector was teasing her with a wonderful treat rather than a threat of capture. A shiver rippled down James’ back.

“She doesn’t want to go with you,” he said, moving to get between the Collector and Lissa. “She can come with us. We can look after her. You’ve… done your bit.”

The Collector glanced up at him without raising his head. His eyes were cold, his smile a mere mask.

“How generous you are… James Potter,” he said.

James took a step backward and reached for his wand. Narrowing his eyes, he asked, “How do you know who I am?”

“Come, Lissa,” The Collector said again, extending his pale hand. “You don’t want to involve these nice young people in your troubles. Do you?”

The threat was obvious. James glanced back at Lissa, saw the frozen fear on her face. If she didn’t go along with this man, her fate-- whatever it was-- would be extended to those helping her. Slowly, haltingly, she disengaged herself from Rose, Ralph and Zane. She began to stand.

“I don’t think so,” Scorpius said impatiently, raising his fist. His wand protruded from it, levelled at the Collector. “I have nothing against you, friend, but personally, I’m weary of veiled threats. Believe me, I know them when I hear them. The woman stays with us.”

The Collector looked at Scorpius’ wand, his eyebrows raised slightly. “Is this how all of you feel?” he asked, a tinge of disappointment in his voice.

James raised his own wand and moved alongside Scorpius. He nodded resolutely. A moment later, he felt Ralph and Zane on either side, their own wands levelled.

“Really, James?” The Collector said, ignoring the others. “This is the stand you wish to take? Risking all for the sake of a sad, wasted Muggle woman? A woman even her own kind cannot deign to be bothered with?”

James swallowed hard and nodded, renewing his grip on his wand.

“You really should consider,” the Collector said, rising again to his full height, “choosing your battles
more wisely
.”

He raised his arms, showing them the white palms of his hands, as if he was about to perform a magic trick. And then, furthering this image, black smoke began to pour out of his dangling sleeves. The smoke swirled, condensing into tendrils, and then collapsing horribly into shapes. Two creatures formed out of the smoke, both taller than the Collector himself, and both equally terrible.

“You will not yet have learned of the Wendigo,” the Collector said calmly. “It is native to this country, ancient and starved nearly to extinction. Until, that is, a certain Warlock associate of mine revived them. They are cannibal spirits. And as you can see… they are
hungry
.”

The Wendigoes looked like horribly emaciated humans, with mottled grey skin stretched taut over their bones. Their feet were grotesquely elongated, raised at the heels like wolves’. Long, spindly arms dangled to the ground, ending in spider-like fingers. The worst part, however, were their heads: oversized, hunched forward between their shoulders, with deep, wide-set eyes as white as marbles and thin, bloody lips peeled back from their teeth. Ragged antlers sprouted from their temples, sharp and ridged with serrations.

The Wendigoes raised their long fingers, hooked into talons, and coiled to pounce.

“Run!” James called, levelling his wand at the monster on the right. He shot it with a stunning spell, but the jet of magic merely exploded from its nearly translucent skin. It launched itself at him, unleashing its rancid breath in a low roar.

James ducked sideways, throwing himself under the collapsed awning. The Wendigo landed atop it with a screech of metal and immediately began tearing at it. The other roared viciously. James heard its thumping footsteps as it galloped past in pursuit of the others. Someone screamed. Spells were fired, illuminating the street. A whoosh of air told James that at least one of the brooms was airborne again. He scrambled out on the other side of the broken awning and began to run.

Scorpius, Rose and Lissa were crammed onto one of the brooms, but they were too heavy to get any lift. The second Wendigo pounced after them, leaping over abandoned cars and snarling hoarsely.

A heavy thump struck the ground behind James, accompanied by a gust of stinking breath. He knew the first Wendigo was right behind him, sensed its long arms lunging toward him.

He ducked to the left and leapt through a broken shop window. Mannequins toppled before him, skating away on pebbles of broken glass. He tumbled over them, scrambled up and threw himself into the darkened store. Behind him, the Wendigo roared, smashing through the remains of the window and dashing aside the mannequins effortlessly. James glanced back, saw its milky eyes glowing faintly in the dimness. It saw him and pounced.

Down James crouched, ducking under a rack of clothing. The Wendigo crashed into it, knocking it sideways, but James scrambled out the other side and hurled himself through a rear door. Darkness met him, crowded with boxes and more mannequins. Shelves stood in rows, cluttered with merchandise. The only light came from a tiny window in the back, set into a grey metal door. James made toward it, dodging frantically around the shelves.

Behind him, the storeroom door burst from its hinges. The Wendigo hefted it in its spindly arms and threw it at James like a discus. The door whooshed over his shoulder and crashed against a shelving unit, sending boxes flying in all directions.

Gasping with terror, James reached the rear door. It was equipped with a push-bar, which James slammed downward with both hands. Thankfully, the door heaved open before him, dumping him out into a narrow alley, choked with trash bins and wooden pallets.

James ran, threading through the trash bins. Distantly, he heard screams, crashes, the fizzing whoosh of magic.

The Wendigo exploded through the rear door, blasting it off its hinges and sending it crashing against the brick wall opposite. The Wendigo saw James and dropped to all fours. With a scrape of gravel, it launched itself after him, galloping between the trash bins with horrible speed. It was nearly upon him. With a deep, grating snarl, it leapt.

James threw himself to the broken pavement and covered his head.

A shadow flicked over him, accompanied by a strange metallic noise:
FPANG!
A split second later, a heavy, ringing crash filled the air.

James looked up in time to see the Wendigo hurled, upside down, against a chain-link fence that divided the alley. The fence bowed under its weight, and then recoiled, flinging the horrible creature against a stack of pallets.

“Stay! Where! You! Are!” a deep voice commanded sternly.

James craned to look back over his shoulder. A man in a heavy green tunic, studded with black leather armour, hovered over the alley on a nasty-looking black broom. His arm was fully extended as he sighted down his wand, pointing it at the Wendigo.

The Wendigo scrambled to its feet, apparently unfazed by its encounter with the fence. It saw the man on the broom and snarled, wrinkling its bloody lips from its black gums. Then, with a lithe speed that was terrible to watch, it lunged for the nearest trash bin. James thought it meant to hide. Instead, the thing heaved the enormous bin into the air, hurling it like a projectile.

The man on the broom feinted left instantly, just enough to allow the trash bin to whistle past, crashing against the wall behind him. He fired a green spell, briefly illuminating the dim alley and producing another strange metallic
FPANG!
The spell struck the Wendigo squarely in the chest, knocking it backwards with incredible force. The Wendigo hit the brick wall and smashed completely through it, creating a jagged hole into darkness.

“Come!” the man on the broom commanded, lowering a large gloved hand to James. “They can’t be killed, only repulsed! Hurry, before it revives itself!”

James glanced from the broken brick wall to the man on the broom. This was obviously one of the Harriers that Scorpius had mentioned. Without a second thought, he reached up, grasped the man’s forearm, and felt himself pulled bodily off the ground and onto the broom.

“Hold on!” the Harrier barked hoarsely, turning swiftly in the narrow confines of the alley.

Behind them, the Wendigo roared. There was a crash of bricks.

The green-clad Harrier hunched over his broom and it rocketed forward, more swiftly and powerfully than anything James had ever experienced. He scrambled for a handhold, grasped two fists full of the man’s short cape, and held on as tightly as he could. The force of acceleration was breath-taking. An instant later, the broom sped out into sunlight, leaving the alley behind.

“My friends!” James called over the rush of the wind. “There’s another of those things after them!”

The Harrier didn’t reply, but he banked hard to the right, soaring out over the avenue where the fight had begun. James saw the broken awning and the crooked taxi. The broom banked again as its pilot surveyed the scene, seeming to ascertain which direction the fight had gone from a thousand subtle clues. He tilted the broom upwards and accelerated again.

As they hurtled around a corner, James spied a flash of electric blue ahead. The Harrier ticked his broom straight toward it and raised his wand again.

“It’s them!” James called as they closed in.

Sure enough, Scorpius, Rose and Lissa were limping along on the blue broom, barely twenty feet above the street. Beneath them, the second Wendigo leapt onto a bus, coiled, and sprung at them, stretching out its incredibly long arms. It swiped, meaning to swat them straight out of the air, but another blue flash lit the street, emanating from an orb of magic that flickered around the broom, repelling the Wendigo’s grasp. It fell back to the street in a furious crouch and roared.