Deadly Magic Read online

  ‘Course I am!’ Riff puffed up his chest. ‘I’ve got plenty of animalistic tendencies, you know. The strength of a bear, the grace of an eagle, the cunning of a fox, the courage of a tiger …’

  ‘The voice of a drunken hyena?’

  Riff clapped a hand to his heart. ‘You wound me, fair lady.’

  ‘Your face is a fair lady,’ Phoenix retorted.

  ‘Oh yeah? Well, your nose is a –’ Riff stopped himself. ‘Hang on, that doesn’t really work as an insult, does it?’

  ‘Shh!’ I cut in, stiffening. ‘Did you hear that?’

  ‘Hear what?’ Riff said. ‘The sound of beautiful music, flowing from my lips into the air in an exquisite serenade?’ He winked at me. ‘If you want an encore, I reckon I could rustle up a decent version of Twinkle Twi–’

  I grabbed his forearm, glaring to make him shut up. Miraculously, Riff must have picked up on the seriousness of my expression, because he cut off his babbling halfway through the sentence.

  Crunch.

  There it was again. A footstep, somewhere in the foliage behind us. I didn’t know much about New Zealand wildlife, but I was fairly sure they were understocked in the heavy, stomping land animal department.

  ‘That isn’t a kiwi bird,’ I whispered.

  I narrowed my eyes, ready to plunge into the shroud and seize my quintessence. Riff and Phoenix stepped forward, scanning the trees. Orbit reached for the button on his jacket sleeve, preparing to engage whatever gadget he’d managed to smuggle through the camp’s security.

  ‘See anything?’ Phoenix whispered.

  We all shook our heads. There were only the trees, and the jostle of a breeze in the canopy. We exchanged a look, pointed a few fingers, and then nodded.

  ‘If you hear a whistle,’ Orbit whispered, ‘crouch low and cover your mouths.’

  I took the left-hand route with Phoenix, while Riff and Orbit headed right. We circled slowly, creeping through the trees with every skill we’d studied in Combat and Weaponry class. The art of silent prowling was a tricky one, and I wasn’t particularly confident. One wrong movement could betray our position: a broken twig, a leaf, a breath …

  I grabbed Phoenix’s arm. She froze, and we slipped back behind the nearest tree. She peered around the edge of the tree and her entire body stiffened.

  It was Steel.

  ‘I’m gonna kill him,’ Phoenix muttered. ‘That scumbag! What’s he playing at?’

  Steel was alone, with no sign of his orienteering team. Clearly, he’d abandoned his teammates to pursue a more interesting target.

  ‘Probably figures he can catch us off guard, teach us a lesson for embarrassing him.’ Phoenix’s face was tight with disgust. ‘And to think he calls himself a HELIX cadet …’

  ‘We’ve gotta get rid of him,’ I whispered. ‘Any ideas?’

  ‘A few, but I doubt Dragon would approve.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘I’m betting she prefers her cadets’ noses unbroken.’

  A sharp whistle echoed through the trees.

  ‘Get down!’ I gasped. We grabbed each other’s shoulders, threw ourselves into the undergrowth and covered our mouths.

  The world exploded into dust.

  It erupted outwards, expanding like a ripple in a pond. The dust shone with a faintly bluish light, crashing between the trees, spraying and ricocheting. A tang of copper stained the air, mixed with the smell of rust. The dust rushed around us, fierce and flurrying in a rush of wild breeze.

  When it was finally over, I glanced up, blinking. Steel was staggering in circles. He looked dizzy, or perhaps even drunk, as he lurched from one foot to another. Then, with a wild flail, he fell to his knees and slumped into the dirt.

  I hurried over, my heart racing. What on earth had Orbit done? I exhaled in relief when I saw that Steel was breathing. Just knocked out, then. He lay unconscious in the undergrowth, coated in a sheen of blue.

  Riff and Orbit emerged from the smoky haze, coughing and spluttering. They were coated in the bluish dust – and with a rumple of spiky blue hair, Riff almost resembled a mutated Cookie Monster.

  ‘What was that?’ he choked.

  Orbit examined Steel’s unconscious form, checked his pulse, and gave a nod of approval. ‘Well, technically it’s a discombobulatory dust, mixed with several milligrams of a quintessically-twisted anaesthetic.’

  ‘In English?’ Riff prompted.

  ‘Er …’ Orbit looked slightly embarrassed. ‘Well, some of the other gadgeteer cadets call it “Dizzy Dust”, if that helps.’

  Phoenix gave him a flat look. ‘Dizzy Dust?’

  ‘If you inhale a small amount, you may experience some mild dizziness or confusion. A little more can lead to a temporary cessation of consciousness …’ Orbit caught Riff’s expression. ‘It makes you pass out.’

  ‘How long?’ I asked.

  ‘Oh, it shouldn’t last more than five or six minutes,’ Orbit said lightly. ‘It’s quite harmless, really, but it should give us time to get away.’

  ‘Really?’ Phoenix said. ‘Then why don’t agents use it all the time? I mean, this stuff would’ve been pretty handy on the London job.’

  ‘Well, the ingredients are quite rare,’ Orbit admitted. ‘The sorcerous anaesthetic used is extremely difficult and costly to manufacture, and it’s generally reserved for medical procedures.’

  ‘How’d you get your hands on it, then?’

  ‘Well, I may have borrowed a pinch from my tutor’s laboratory,’ Orbit admitted, looking sheepish. ‘Only when I heard about this mission, of course! I thought it best to come prepared, if we could. And now that I’ve used the dust, I intend to fully reimburse HELIX by making a small contribution from my pay each fortnight until –’

  ‘Hang on,’ I interrupted, ‘so you don’t have any more of this stuff?’

  ‘Er … no.’ Orbit hesitated. ‘I do have a portable lethargy circuit mixed with a fog simulator in the button in my other sleeve, but it requires direct contact with the enemy’s skin to work.’

  We all stared at Steel’s unconscious body.

  ‘Well, that’s just great,’ Phoenix said. ‘Absolutely fantastic. You smuggle in a tiny amount of this stuff, perfect for fighting Inductors, and then we waste it on this idiot.’

  ‘I could only see him from the back.’ Orbit twisted his fingers together, looking apologetic. ‘I thought he was an Inductor, I’m afraid. Otherwise, why would he have been following us?’

  ‘Because he’s a brainless nincompoop?’ Phoenix suggested.

  Riff grinned. ‘You know, that sounds like something Dragon would say. She’s having a bad influence on you, I reckon.’

  ‘It doesn’t matter!’ I said. ‘We’re wasting time. We should get out of here and find the cottage before Steel wakes up.’

  As we spoke, the dust was beginning to fade. It dissolved gently into the air, like icing sugar on the surface of a hot cake. By the time the final traces of blue had faded, Steel would no doubt be awake.

  Awake … and angry.

  Mariner’s cottage nestled in a clearing, backed by trees and a gurgling stream. I’d expected something cute and quaint, like a cottage from a fairytale, perhaps with flowerbeds out the front and birds chirping merrily in the trees.

  What I got was a tumbledown shack, with wooden boards nailed to the windows. It was old and dingy, with a patchwork roof and a tiny wooden shed out the back that could only be an outhouse toilet. One lonely old tree loomed by the door, littering the roof with twigs and dead leaves.

  Inside, it was dark. The windows were shrouded in heavy curtains, which Riff twitched aside to let in a little light. As daylight spilled through the cottage, I caught a better glimpse of the building’s guts.

  A wardrobe sat in one corner, while a kitchenette filled the other. The wallpaper was striped blue and white, an old-fashioned nautical pattern, and the curtains looked like canvas sails. The mantelpiece was topped with memorabilia – from an antique tea kettle to a statuette
of a dragon – while a mishmash of old paintings, strings of seashells and wooden carvings hung above the bed.

  ‘Awesome,’ Riff said, with genuine approval on his face. ‘You know, I’ve gotta give it to this Mariner guy, he really had style.’

  Then his face fell, as he spotted the far side of the room. A broken vase lay on the floor, with dried flowers strewn like drops of blood. A painting lay shattered beside it, shards of broken glass winking in the daylight. It reminded me of crime scenes I’d seen on TV cop shows.

  ‘Guess this is where they killed him,’ Phoenix said. ‘A dissection circuit, right? That’s what the official report said.’

  Her tone was blank, and her expression was impossible to read. With a cold start, I remembered that her own family had died violently. Was this bringing back bad memories?

  ‘Look, Phoenix,’ I began, cautiously. ‘If you want to wait outside, we can …’

  Her glare was enough to shut me up.

  According to Dragon, Mariner should have left some clues to help us find the Red Sky Vials. Unfortunately, the cottage was such a clutter of odd items and strange decorations that it was almost impossible to guess what might be a clue, and what was merely a sign of Mariner’s eccentricity.

  ‘I found his safe!’ Phoenix called, running her hands down the wall. ‘It’s camouflaged pretty well, though.’

  The safe was concealed in the wall, in the shadows of a wooden shelf. On the shelf sat a jade pebble, a carved wooden albatross, and a framed painting of a shipwreck beneath a stormy sky.

  Orbit’s eyes widened as he bustled over to the safe. ‘Oh, and it’s such a beauty, too! Look at how the protean surface helps to disguise the door. You know, I’ve always liked this particular strain of quintessic locking mechanism; the way the deadbolt interacts with the protective circuits is really quite ingenious …’

  ‘Must be where the Sunset Vial was stored,’ I said. ‘Whoever killed Mariner stole the vial from his safe, remember?’

  ‘Can you open it?’ Phoenix asked.

  ‘Well, that depends,’ Orbit said. ‘Obviously, a mere unlocking circuit won’t work on something as sophisticated as this. I’m certain Mariner would have interwoven a few surprise circuits and quintessic traps, as it were, to catch the unwary thief.’

  Phoenix nodded. ‘See what you can do. There might still be a clue inside – something the murderers didn’t spot.’

  Orbit was already regarding the safe as if it were his newborn child. ‘Oh, it would be my pleasure.’

  We found a drawer of odds and ends, including hammers and screwdrivers. As soon as Orbit had a toolkit in his hands, he set to work. A minute later, he stood there with threads of wire between his teeth, a couple of spare screws in his hands and a smile of pure joy on his face.

  While Orbit fiddled with the safe, the rest of us continued searching for clues. I found a stack of old photo albums on the bedside table, and idly started to flick through them. The pictures featured locations around New Zealand – the bustling streets of Auckland, the Waitomo glow-worm caves, the rolling sea around the Bay of Islands, and the breathtaking glaciers of the south. The photos were a few decades old, and the man featured in them had to be Mariner. He was thin and wiry, with the weathered face of a man who had spent years at sea. He looked friendly, with rumpled hair and a hearty smile.

  The next few pages were dedicated to brochures for local tourist attractions. Most advertised companies with corny names like ‘Zip-line Exhilaration!’ or ‘Delightful Rafting Adventures!’

  ‘Hey, look!’ I said, startled, when I stumbled across a page of particularly old photos. ‘Isn’t that Dragon?’

  ‘Yeah, it is!’ Riff said, slightly awed. ‘Wow, it’s weird to think she wasn’t always ancient.’

  In the photo, Dragon’s hair was dark and her face was unlined, but I could still see the familiar cheeky glint in her grin. She and Mariner stood smiling on a seaside clifftop. A large tourist map sign stood behind them, although it was too blurry to make out the details. At the bottom of the picture, the camera had printed an automatic date-stamp: 16/08/84.

  ‘August, 1984 …’ I said. ‘That’s only a few weeks after the Auckland job, when they first discovered the vials.’

  ‘Maybe they went to the beach to celebrate,’ Riff said. ‘I mean, that’s what I’d do, I reckon, if I’d just saved the world from a deadly biological weapon.’

  I pulled the photo from the album and pocketed it. Perhaps Dragon would like to have it, as a keepsake of her old comrade. With a sudden tightness in my chest, I continued flipping through the pages. Mariner looked so happy in the pictures. So full of life. In some of the later photos, he held a baby girl on his knee – and I was shocked to realise it must be Nephrite. Hard to reconcile this sweet little baby with the hardened HELIX agent who had chased us through the streets of Melbourne.

  ‘Hey guys,’ Phoenix called. ‘Wanna take a look at this?’

  Her voice was blank, just as it had been earlier. I knew she was bottling up her emotions again. Normally, I would have tried to talk to her about it. But we were running out of time, and we had to make it back to camp before the end of our ‘orienteering’ session. This wasn’t the time for touchy-feely discussions.

  ‘What’s wrong?’ I asked, hurrying over.

  She pointed at the mantelpiece. ‘Remind you of anyone?’

  It was the statuette I’d noticed when I’d first entered the cottage – but at the time, I’d been too overwhelmed to think anything of it. Now my eyes focused on the creature, and my heart picked up a few extra beats.

  ‘It’s a dragon,’ I breathed.

  Riff let out a low whistle. ‘I’d bet fifty bucks that’s our clue.’

  The porcelain dragon was small and glittery – the sort of trinket you’d buy at a gaudy gift-shop, or perhaps an outdoor market. It perched inside a tiny wooden sailing boat, head tilted upwards, as if it were sailing towards the horizon.

  Slowly, I followed the statue’s line of sight. My gaze settled on the cabin’s far wall, where a small wooden plaque hung above the bed. The dragon was sailing directly towards the plaque – and although I wasn’t a gambler like Riff, I was willing to bet it wasn’t a coincidence.

  The words of the plaque were carved in fancy calligraphy. It was bordered by the months of the year, while the centrepiece was an etching of a short poem.

  ~ January, February, March, April, May, June ~

  Red sky at night, sailor’s delight.

  Red sky at morning, sailor’s warning.

  Keep your troubles at bay.

  ~ July, August, September, October, November, December ~

  I stared at the poem. ‘Red sky at night … like the Red Sky Vials?’

  ‘It’s a famous old saying, isn’t it?’ Riff said. ‘Hundreds of years ago, sailors used it to predict the weather – you know, to guess if it was gonna be stormy, or dangerous, or whatever.’

  Phoenix blinked at him. ‘How did you know that?’

  Riff looked slightly embarrassed. ‘Well, when I was a kid, I went through this phase where I wanted to be a pirate.’

  ‘A pirate?’ Phoenix said. ‘Hang on, is that why you’re so obsessed with that stupid pizza joint?’

  ‘I like pirate costumes.’ Riff shrugged. ‘Anyway, I figured I should know something about seamanship, so Mum bought me these old books about sailors having adventures and stuff. Put me off being a pirate, mind you, but I remember the saying. Red sky at night, sailor’s delight …’

  ‘Why’d it put you off?’ I asked, amused.

  Riff shrugged. ‘Too much “yo-ho-ho”-ing, and not enough Led Zeppelin.’

  I was about to laugh, but something else about Riff’s words had snagged my attention. It was niggling at my subconscious now – a recent memory that his words had triggered …

  ‘What did you just say?’ I asked him.

  ‘I said there wasn’t enough Led Zep–’

  ‘No, before that!’

  Riff looked bewild
ered. ‘Just the old rhyme. Red sky at night, sailor’s delight.’

  I exhaled in a rush. ‘That’s it! I knew I’d just seen that word somewhere else!’

  ‘What word?’ Phoenix demanded.

  ‘Delight!’

  They all looked at me as if I’d gone bonkers, but I was already back at the bedside table, rifling through Mariner’s photo albums. I reached the page of tourist leaflets and pulled out a brochure that had caught my eye.

  ‘Look at this!’ I brandished it like a treasure map. ‘It’s a local company: Delightful Rafting Adventures.’

  ‘Weird name for a company,’ Riff said.

  ‘Exactly! That’s why I noticed it before, it’s so old-fashioned … but look at this brochure!’

  The brochure showed a pair of exhilarated tourists rocketing down an underground river, encased in wetsuits and black rubber tubes. According to the description, the company offered rafting tours in the glow-worm caves near Waitomo.

  ‘Waitomo …’ I said, straining to recall the map on Dragon’s office wall. I was sure I recognised the name as one of the tiny towns near Otorohanga. ‘That’s just near here, isn’t it?’

  Riff grabbed the photo album. He flipped back through the pages until he landed on a collection of pictures he’d seen over my shoulder earlier. They were pictures of Mariner in the glow-worm caves, smiling at the camera for a series of cheesy tourist shots in the dark.

  ‘That’s it!’ I said. ‘He hid one of the vials down there, in the caves.’

  ‘The Midnight Vial, I reckon,’ Riff said. ‘I mean, if I was gonna hide something named after “midnight”, I’d put it somewhere dark.’

  The photos were ordered chronologically, showing Mariner’s journey through the cave system. It looked as if he were part of an organised tour, and someone – perhaps the tour guide – was taking the snapshots for him.

  Then the photos changed. Mariner was suddenly on his own, and his outstretched forearm was in the pictures, as if he had switched to taking selfies.

  ‘He left the group,’ I said. ‘He must’ve nicked off down one of the other tunnels, or through a different cave when the tour guide wasn’t looking.’