The Spellbinder (Tom & Laura Series) (25 page)

Virtue stopped, more from fear of the bloody knife in Snood’s hand than any other consideration.

Snood looked at the body on the floor and had an idea. He took the Headmaster’s knife and stabbed it deep into the hole his own knife had made.

“Come here girl, I need a bit of your dress.”

Virtue had recovered a little and reluctantly shuffled over to Snood. He tore off a strip of her dress and put it into the Headmaster’s hand and curled the man’s fingers over it.

Blood still poured from Virtue’s breasts and had soaked the front of her blouse. Snood knew he had to get her out of here. He checked that the corridor was empty before heading towards the kitchens with Virtue in tow.

Daisy stood up. There was no hesitation when she spoke and what she said was an order.

“We have to go to the kitchens now. Come on.”

Without looking to see if anyone was following her, she left the room. Cam and
Nan
followed, more with the intent of stopping her than anything else. But Daisy moved quickly and stayed ahead of them. Mick made an attempt to get out of his bed, but fell back as dizziness overcame him.

Daisy reached the intersection of two corridors at a set of stairs.

“It’s all right. You can come,” she said loudly as
Cam
reached her. Snood and Virtue came down the stairs as Tom and Laura rushed up them with three strange girls in tow.

“Come with me. Quickly now,” Daisy said as the three groups stared at each other in confusion. She harried them back to the room she had just come from. It proved to be a tight squeeze.

“Tom, heal Virtue,” Daisy commanded and Tom went over to her, seeing the blood on her blouse for the first time. Tom had performed a lot of healing in the last few hours and healing Virtue exhausted him. Nobody spoke while he healed her. Daisy had taken command and even the presence of Snood did not dismay her.

Snood for his part, was trying to take in the fact that he had found a place to hide Virtue and that the two or them would not be caught in the next few minutes. He thought their fate had been sealed the moment he intervened.

As Tom healed Virtue, she sobbed out what had happened to her, and how Snood had saved her life. Snood found it difficult to cope with the admiring looks he received and the claps on the back. He had never been a hero before and he found it felt good.

Chapter 30
   
The Last Meal

“I have to go,” Snood looked around him, at Virtue who was weeping in a corner with Daisy holding her hand, to Tom and Laura with their strange new friends and at Cam who would not meet his eyes. He ignored Mick and
Nan
as they were merely servants. “With Virtue hidden here I can go back to the Captain and pretend I’ve had nothing to do with the Headmaster’s death. I intend to kill the Captain if I get the chance, but in any case you must do what you must.”

He looked deep into Laura’s eyes and she stared back at him.

“Do whatever you must to survive. I bid you good day.” Snood turned to walk out of the room.

“The Captain will be in the cellar, the tunnel leading to his boat has collapsed. I doubt he will be in a good mood.” Tom told him.

Snood smiled. “Is he ever?” he said and walked away.

“He’s a brave man,” Laura said. “Brave…, but almost as evil as the Captain. What ever are we going to do next?”

Mick noted the rifle Tom had placed against the wall when he healed Virtue. “Did you free the fishermen?”

“My Pat…?”
Nan
asked. She gave a sob when she saw Laura’s face. For a few moments nobody spoke.

“Devil gun,” Anne blurted out. The triplets had been trying to appear invisible up until then. Of the three, she seemed to be the one most likely to speak. “When we dock.”

Tom tried to find the right words. “We didn’t see them. Only a single body weighted down with stones at the entrance to the harbor. They could be…”

Nan
shook her head. “They’re dead. I’ve known it for a while in my heart. But tell us all that occurred.”

Laura sat down on the side of Mick’s bed and told their tale. She found it difficult to talk of the man and boy they killed and Tom had to explain that part.

“I do like your clothes,”
Cam
said. “Very saucy. I want some.”

“I think the uniform suits, Tom,” Daisy said and winked.

Nan
insisted on stopping the story to get food for the triplets when they got to the bit about how they had found them.

Cam
explained what she and Daisy had been up to as soon as Laura finished and then they all sat in silent contemplation for a while. The only sounds in the room, being the triplets eating.

 
“
Nan
, what’s t’ watch for t’ snipers on t’ roof?” Mick said as he decided it was time to make plans.

“They change at eight at night and again at eight in the mornin’,”
Nan
said.

“Then we must take t’ snipers in t’ mornin’. After t’ new shift 'ave settled in. It’s vital no one sees us. That’ll be a job for me, Laura and Tom.”

Mick turned to Daisy.

“Is there anythin’ else tha’ gift can tell us lass?”

“No, I have dreamed that moment on the stairs a thousand times, when Laura and Snood meet, and it always went wrong. They would shout at each other, or run, or stand and talk, and in every case the soldiers would find them and they would be killed. And that would lead to everybody being killed. I have changed it, so now we have a chance.”

Daisy looked ready to burst into tears. She had done her bit. She had been strong and now it was up to the others to save her.
Cam
reached out and took Daisy’s hand in hers.

“You did well, Daisy. You have saved us. Now we have to go back to the others. We need to get them away to safety, but the fields around Hobsgate are too well guarded.”
Cam
looked at Laura expectantly.

Laura could barely contain her excitement as a solution came to her.

“I know just the place. You can hide in Smugglers Cove.”

“Go over the cliffs?”
Cam
knew how strong her fear of heights was. “I think I would rather die here.”

Laura became even more animated and took a small piece of parchment from her pocket. “There is no need. The tunnel is only
bound
to appear collapsed. I made the stone stretch down from the roof and shape itself into boulders. When this bind is torn the tunnel will be whole again. They won’t be guarding it anymore so you can get everybody into the harbor.”

Laura grinned in triumph and Tom was astonished. He thought the tunnel collapse had been real, though he supposed that in a way it was.

“All the servants too, the young uns. Though we ‘ave to keep one back to serve them coffee.”
Nan
’s contempt was clear in her voice.

“As many as possible must go,” Tom stated firmly. “They will kill anybody we leave behind.”

“’appen,” said
Nan
. “But we ‘ave a duty to save our own first.”

Nan,
Cam
, and Daisy huddled together and planned the route they would use. Laura would go to the cellar and break the bind. When everyone was in the cave she would remake the bind it so the Captain wouldn’t know where they had gone. While they discussed the quietest routes through the buildings, Mick got Tom to give him the rifle and he started taking it apart to clean it.

Cam
and Daisy went back to the other students, giving a last hug to Virtue who would have to stay where she was until it was time to escape.

“What about the teachers? They are as innocent as the rest of us,” Tom asked.

“Too dangerous,” Mick said gruffly. “We don’t know for sure they are who they say they are. They’re also t’ best guarded. The enemy needs ‘em to be standin’ outside t’ buildin’ when t’ Prime Ministers coach arrives.”

Mick turned to
Nan
.

“Do yer best if they notice any one missin’ in the mornin’. They’ll be panickin’ over t’ coach and rushed. It’s up to us to stop t’ snipers on t’ roof and protect t’coach. A lot will rest on your head, Laura.”

“I will not kill anybody else,” Laura stated and folded her arms in a gesture of defiance. “Nor will I transform them so they might be trampled to death.”

“’appen,” Mick said and went back to cleaning the rifle.

“We don’t wanna go back to the Pride.” Anne said on behalf of her sisters. All three pouted. The others had forgotten they were there, they had been so quiet.

“Nor shall you,” Tom told them. “You can stay here with us, and hide here after we’ve gone to the tower.”

Nan
left them to return to the kitchen. The evening meal would need serving soon. They would hide in Mick’s room for now. They knew they would have to be quiet, because when the Captain discovered that the Headmaster was dead, Hobsgate would very likely be torn apart in the search for Virtue.

The Captain was in the kind of rage that leads to murder. His soldiers brought him down to the cellar, waking him up from his siesta to tell him the tunnel was destroyed. He had gone to see for himself, ranting and raving when he saw the state of it. Drawing his pistol he shot at the rock as if he expected to intimidate the tunnel back into existence. As his third shot rang out, Snood strolled into the cellar, hands in his pockets.

“Where’ve you bin, you bastard. Where’s Turner?” The Captain was so angry spittle dripped from his mouth. Snood considered that the Captain was seriously unhinged and so replied in as mild a manner as he could manage.

“I’ve been in Snood’s office. I’m almost attached to it. I haven’t seen Turner for a few hours. I think he went to talk to one of the female students.”

To Snood surprise this enraged the Captain even more.

“That sonofabitch. I told him to keep his pecker outta sight until after the mission. He’s probably cutting some girlie right now, damn him.”

The Captain put his gun back into his holster and paced through the smoke his shots had created. He appeared to have forgotten that Snood and the soldiers were in the cellar as he muttered angrily to himself. Then he snapped back into the real world and turned to the nearest soldier.

“Get some men and start searching the place. I want Turner found.
 
He’ll be in a room with a carpet. Likely he’ll be a mite messy when you find him, but bring him straight to me. Glen, you come with me.”

The Captain made his way back to the Headmaster’s office with Snood in tow.

On the way, they encountered a team of men moving the Gatling Gun down the corridor. The Captain stopped them and they saluted him.

“Is the tent set up properly?”

“Yes sir, Captain Wayne, sir!” the leader of the group said smartly.

The Captain turned to Snood and winked.

“Make sure you got them shootin’ angles right, soldier-boy.”

“Gunner Harris, sir. Yes, sir.”

“You gotta love these soldier-boy’s. You set that gun up right an’ proper, Gunner Harris.”

More salutes followed and the Captain touched his hat in mocking salute.

Once they were back in the Headmaster’s study the Captain poured Snood a whiskey. He then poured himself a much bigger glass.

“Do you remember that time in
Atlanta
? We’d had a skin full and Turner vanished. By the time we found him he’d only gone an’ killed the Mayor’s daughter. We sure had to get out of that town in a hurry. Course that was before we went legit into the spyin’ game, and before the boss pulled us outta that hangin’ we were gonna play leadin’ parts in.” The Captain slumped in the big leather chair behind the desk. “A chance to get back at the Limeys is all I ever wanted. Guess we got that, eh’ Glen?”

“Sure Brent, we’re getting’ our revenge,” Snood did his best at an American accent, or at least half a one. But the Captain didn’t notice one way or the other. He sat brooding and nursing his drink.

They were on their second bottle of whiskey where there was a knock at the door and a soldier entered. He walked round the desk and whispered in the Captain’s ear. Snood noted that no one ever said things out loud when reporting to the Captain. It was always a whisper in his ear. It was like he didn’t want anybody to know what he knew.

Whatever was said energized the Captain. He leapt over the desk in a single bound and was halfway down the corridor before Snood could get to the door. Snood ran after the man letting him stay ahead. He was pretty certain where they were going.

Snood entered the room a minute or more after the Captain. The Captain was kneeling on the floor hugging the Headmaster’s body and crooning to it. “Can’t be dead. Can’t be dead.” Snood stayed by the door and said nothing.

Some time later the Captain looked up at him. There were tear stains down his face. “Some straight-laced tart killed Turner, Glen. Some stoopid English whore ripped his guts right out. I want her found, Glen. Tear the place apart and find the bitch. I’m going to enjoy torturing her. She’ll scream so loud they’ll hear her all the way over in
London
.”

Snood considered carefully what to say. He consulted his fob watch before answering

“The students will be at dinner. One of the soldiers guarding them may know what she looks like.”

“Hah! What she looks like is cut on the breasts, cut bad I’d say.” The Captain pointed to large spots of blood on the carpet leading to the door. “Cut and running. She won’t be at the meal and I’ve got business there that won’t wait. Get the men to search every inch of this place and find her.”

He stalked out of the room, not looking back. Snood called over a soldier and explained what the Captain wanted. The soldier saluted and ran off to get aid.

Most of their men were guarding the captives, but those that weren’t would start searching for the missing girl. Snood was pretty sure they would not find her and smiled at that pleasing thought.

The Captain entered the mess and seconds later the room became silent.

“Now here’s a nice howdy-do!” The Captain paced the front of the room, “Seems while all you people were a eatin’ of your dinner, my good friend..,” he paused and surveyed the frightened faces staring at him. “My good friend who has bin playing at be-in’ your Headmaster has taken a knife through the guts.”

Cam
faked a gasp of surprise as did several of her brighter friends.