Deadly Magic Read online

  Phoenix nodded slowly. ‘These photos are his map, aren’t they? Look, they’re all taken at junctions where the tunnels split.’

  In each photo, Mariner’s head was tilted to the side, either left or right, towards one of the possible tunnels. ‘Left, then right, then left, left again, then right …’

  I flicked through the photos quickly. It was like watching a stop-motion animation, or a child’s flipbook, as Mariner voyaged deeper into the tunnels. One picture showed an enormous cavern, brimming with stalactites, where Mariner stood on the edge of an underground cliff. His head tilted down towards the river below, and there was the barest hint of a smile on his lips.

  ‘Follow the river,’ I said quietly.

  On the next page, a photo showed a smaller cavern. A multitude of narrow tunnels wormed their way out of the cave, barely large enough for a man to wriggle through on his belly. In this photo, Mariner had placed his camera on a nearby boulder, apparently using the timer function. He was fully in the frame, thrusting his hands above his head in the shape of a triangle.

  ‘What’s he doing?’ Riff said. ‘Looks like charades, or something …’

  The next two pages of the album were stuck together. I’d skipped them earlier when I’d been flipping through, but now I carefully pried them apart.

  The final photo was missing.

  It had been ripped from the page, leaving a torn shred of cellophane behind. A smear of crimson stained the page – and with a lurch of nausea, I realised what had glued the pages together.

  ‘It’s blood, isn’t it?’ Phoenix whispered. ‘This photo must have shown the location of the second vial. Whoever killed Mariner stole it, so no one else could find it …’

  ‘Why’d they leave all the other clues, then?’ I asked. ‘The dragon statue, and the plaque on the wall …’

  ‘Well, Mariner’s death was supposed to be an accident, right?’ Riff said. ‘It had to look like he was alone when he carked it. If the Inductors nicked a bunch of his stuff, someone might’ve noticed it was missing.’

  Phoenix nodded slowly. ‘It’d make it obvious there was foul play involved. They could probably get away with stealing one photo, but not all of them – and definitely not the dragon or the plaque.’

  ‘But they’ve left blood on the page!’ I pointed out.

  ‘Just a mistake, I reckon,’ Riff said, examining the album. ‘The Inductors might’ve grabbed the photo quickly, and not even realised there was blood on their fingers. Bet they were in a hurry to flee the crime scene.’

  For a long moment, no one spoke.

  ‘We’ve gotta tell Nephrite!’ Riff said, finally. ‘This was our job – to find out where the other vials are hidden.’

  ‘But if the Inductors stole this photo, they must have already beaten us there!’ I said. ‘They’ve had a massive head start, they must have gone down into the caves and stolen the vial by now.’

  ‘Not necessarily,’ Phoenix said slowly. ‘Remember what Pickles said this morning, about the heavy rains? It’s been too dangerous to go down into the caves for almost a fortnight, it’s only just starting to stabilise again.’

  ‘Tonight,’ I said. ‘They’ll go tonight.’

  ‘How do you know?’

  ‘Because it hasn’t rained today. It’s the first chance the Inductors have had to go down there safely. They wouldn’t risk it during the day, not with tourist groups and rafting tours all over the joint, but at night –’

  ‘– they’ll have free run of the place,’ Riff finished, nodding. ‘Yeah, I reckon you’re right. If we tell Nephrite, she might have time to get down there and stop ’em.’

  At that moment, Orbit gave a jubilant shout. I had almost forgotten him, over on the far side of the room – but then I realised he was still fiddling with the safe. ‘Got it!’ he said. ‘Come and have a look.’

  As we bustled over, Orbit swung the safe door open. It was empty, which wasn’t a surprise. According to Nephrite, this safe had been used to store the Sunset Vial. Even so, I felt a little sting of disappointment. After all of Orbit’s efforts to unlock the safe, its emptiness was something of an anticlimax.

  I reached into my pocket, where I’d stashed the Converator. When I pressed the button it buzzed in my fingers. At the other end, Nephrite should be receiving a high-pitched ring from her own device.

  The buzzing halted, as if someone had picked up at the other end.

  ‘Hello?’ I said. ‘Nephrite, are you there?’

  The Converator clicked.

  Silence.

  ‘Did she just hang up on you?’ Riff said, startled.

  I called again. It buzzed for a moment this time, before there was another click. The only sound was our own breathing, tense and ragged, and a rustle of fabric as Riff shifted his weight from foot to foot.

  ‘I think we’re in trouble,’ Phoenix said.

  She didn’t need to explain. We had no mobile phones, and we couldn’t trust the local landlines. The Converator was our only contact with the outside world – and it could only connect to its twin.

  ‘You don’t think something’s happened to her, do you?’ I said, mouth dry. ‘If the Inductors are still hanging around …’

  ‘We’d better head back,’ Riff said. ‘We’ll try again later. Maybe she’ll answer after dinner, or something.’

  There wasn’t much hope in his voice, but we all nodded.

  I was tempted to take the photo album, but it was too bulky to fit in my backpack, let alone to smuggle back into camp. Instead, I pulled out the waterproof camera that Dragon had sent on our mission. I flipped back through the album and took a careful picture of each page, creating a copy of Mariner’s directions. Then I stuffed the plaque and the dragon statue into my backpack, just in case.

  Outside, I sucked down a deep lungful of fresh air. It was a relief to be out of that cottage, with its musty curtains and its mementos of death. But the relief didn’t last long. Instantly, my gaze fell on the lonely old tree by the door. There was a vivid red marking, smeared across its crooked trunk …

  A gigantic letter ‘X’, painted in blood red.

  ‘Oh dear,’ Orbit breathed. ‘That’s really quite nasty, isn’t it?’

  I almost laughed at the understatement. Then, as my shock subsided, the seriousness of the danger hit me. I thought of the ‘X’ spray-painted on our cabin door, dripping with reddish paint like a smear of blood …

  It was a warning.

  ‘That wasn’t there before!’ Phoenix hurried forward, scanning the nearby foliage. ‘The tree was bare when we arrived, wasn’t it?’

  Orbit pressed a cautious fingertip to the ‘X’. ‘It’s still wet,’ he said. ‘I’d say it was done while we were inside the cottage.’

  ‘It couldn’t have been Steel?’ I said, half-heartedly. ‘He might have woken up from that dust stuff by now …’

  Orbit shook his head, looking sombre. ‘By the time he regained consciousness, we would have been long gone. Steel isn’t a professional tracker; how could he possibly find us in all this forest?’

  ‘The Inductors.’ Phoenix’s voice was brittle. ‘It was the Inductors, wasn’t it?’

  The idea chilled me. What if she was right, and the Inductors knew we were onto them? While we were prancing around the cottage, playing detective, someone had been lurking outside. They might have even watched us through the windows.

  They could still be nearby. Right now, they could be hiding in the trees. As the realisation settled, the skin on my forearms began to prickle.

  ‘They know,’ I whispered, glancing around. ‘They left this message for us. They know we’re here, that Dragon sent us …’

  ‘How could they know?’ Riff demanded. ‘And if they knew that, wouldn’t we be dead by now?’

  ‘Maybe they don’t want to draw any more attention to what they’re doing,’ I said quietly, my mouth dry. ‘If a bunch of cadets died suddenly, there’d be an uproar, and HELIX would have an excuse to check out the area again.’


  Riff nodded. ‘It’s a warning, then. A warning to leave them alone.’

  ‘Guess they don’t want any competition,’ Phoenix whispered. ‘When they go hunting for the vials, I mean.’

  ‘Well, they’re not getting any from us!’ Riff shook his head. ‘When we get back to camp, we’ll call Nephrite again and let her deal with it. Dunno about you lot, but I’m starting to think this mission is way above my pay grade.’

  As we scurried back through the bushland, anxiety slipped into my stomach, twisting like a strand of quintessence. I flicked my head from side to side, searching for any signs of movement in the trees. But the bushland lay dark and silent, as lifeless as the Converator in my pocket.

  Slightly nauseous, I thought again of that click. Nephrite had hung up on us. She was unwilling, or unable, to answer our call. What if she had been captured, or tortured, or even killed by the Inductors? Or worse, what if she had betrayed us?

  Either way, we were on our own.

  Back at camp, we tried to act normally.

  We lined up with the other teams to receive our orienteering results. Since we’d only devoted the last twenty minutes of our allocated two hours to the task, we came in a very solid last place.

  Steel’s team came second last. As they hurried away from us, I could hear them bickering. Apparently, they had wasted half their time looking for Steel, who had abandoned them only minutes into the challenge. He had rejoined them later, covered in leaves and dirt, and refused to tell them what had happened.

  I was relieved to see the last of the Dizzy Dust had faded. There might have been some awkward questions if Steel had turned up looking like a blueberry. As it was, he had no proof that we had ambushed him – and I doubted he was keen to explain why he’d followed us in the first place.

  And so, we had a stalemate.

  At dinner, my friends and I chose a table in the back corner. Luckily, Pickles chose another group to chat to, allowing us to quietly discuss our plans. We ran through our options, again and again, until my mouth felt dry and my fingers twisted under the table. Even a gulp of wheat-grass juice couldn’t relieve the tightness in my throat.

  ‘It’s up to us now,’ Phoenix said. ‘The Inductors are probably going after the Midnight Vial tonight, and we’re the only ones who know where it’s hidden.’

  ‘Yes, but if we could inform an adult first …’ Orbit began.

  ‘There’s no one to tell!’ Phoenix said. ‘Dragon said not to trust anyone. We’re trapped behind a firewall, the local phone lines are probably tapped, and the Converator’s useless if Nephrite won’t or can’t pick up. Face it; we’re on our own.’

  We all stared down at our dinner plates. I had tried the Converator again, three more times, yet there was no answer.

  ‘We don’t have to fight the Inductors,’ I said slowly, thinking aloud. ‘We just have to steal the vial before them. They probably won’t go until late tonight, when the whole area is quiet and abandoned. But if we go straight after dinner, maybe we can grab the vial before they show up?’

  ‘It’ll be pushing it,’ Riff said, glancing at the clock.

  A map of the region adorned the far wall, and we’d studied it carefully while we queued for dinner. As it turned out, Camp Adventure was located partway between Otorohanga and Waitomo, which cut down the distance we needed to travel. Even so, it would take well over two hours to walk to the caves.

  ‘Mountain bikes!’ I said. ‘The camp’s got a set of bikes, right? That’s what the older cadets were doing this morning. We can levitate them over the fence.’

  ‘Can everyone ride?’ Phoenix asked.

  We all nodded. I was relieved to see that Orbit’s nod was quite confident; given his history of asthma, I hadn’t been sure about him.

  ‘Well, that should cut the travel time,’ I said. ‘If we ride east to Waitomo Valley Road, and then follow the road south …’

  A heavy silence settled over our table. Until now, the idea had still been a vague theory, a plan of last resort. I hadn’t allowed myself to seriously consider it. But tonight, we might really face the Inductors, down in the caves and tunnels of Waitomo.

  Tonight, we might die.

  After dinner, we met near the bike shed at the back of the campsite. The night arched high above us, speckled with moonlight and drifting clouds.

  We each carried a clear plastic water bottle, and had stuffed a few protein bars into our pockets, just in case of emergency. I didn’t know how long or deep the tunnels might run, and I didn’t fancy being lost underground without provisions.

  ‘Ready to go?’ I asked.

  We couldn’t afford to waste time. The quicker we retrieved the vial, the smaller our chance of meeting any Inductors. At least, that was the theory. I began to push the shed door open, when –

  Click.

  A torch flared into life.

  I spun. My stomach sank when I recognised our assailants, and I heard a few exasperated groans from my friends. It was a pair of cadets, quiet smirks on their faces as they caught us breaking the rules.

  ‘Well, well, well,’ Steel said. ‘What do we have here?’

  Beside him, Ultra stood with crossed arms. A nasty glint shone in her eyes, and she looked almost ghoulish in the narrow beam of torchlight.

  No one spoke.

  ‘You lot are up to something,’ Steel said. ‘We’re not stupid, you know. Sneaking around in the bush, whispering in the corner at dinner, creeping out here after dark …’

  ‘We’ve never had a Wilderness Camp outside Australia before,’ Ultra said, with a little curl in her voice. She knew she had us trapped, and she was enjoying herself. ‘Not until now, not until the last minute. Something fishy is going on.’

  ‘You’re on a mission for Dragon again, aren’t you?’ Steel demanded. ‘Just like in London.’

  There was something oddly eager in his expression, something almost hungry. He took a step forward, shining the torch into our eyes. ‘Dragon trusts you lot. I saw you getting summoned to her office, just before we left on camp.’

  ‘What’s your point?’ Phoenix snapped.

  ‘My point is that it’s not fair! Why do you lot get to be heroes again, get sent on special missions, get to save the day? It should be me! I’m the best cadet in years, I’m the one everyone looks up to.’ Steel gave us a spiteful look. ‘Who decided you were the saviours of HQ?’

  Riff stared at him in disbelief. ‘You’ve gotta be kidding me. You think that matters right now?’

  ‘Listen to me,’ I said, stepping forward. ‘There are lives at stake and we don’t have time to muck around. If you let us go, we’ll put in a good word for you with Dragon when we get back to –’

  ‘I don’t want a good word from you!’ Steel snarled. ‘I want to earn some respect on my own. If you lot are rushing off on a mission, I’m coming with you.’

  Silence.

  ‘Um … what?’ Riff managed.

  ‘You’re insane,’ Phoenix said. ‘We’ve got orders from Dragon herself, we’re not gonna mess them up by dragging along a whiny little –’

  ‘You will take me with you,’ Steel snarled, ‘and I will share in the glory this time. Otherwise, I’ll dob you in to the idiots who run this dump, and you won’t be going anywhere.’ He paused. ‘And I’ll report you for attacking me during that stupid orienteering task. I don’t know what you did, but I’m sure it broke a few rules about assaulting a fellow cadet.’

  ‘This isn’t about glory, Steel,’ Phoenix said. ‘This is about life and death. You should know that. After what happened to your family …’

  Steel laughed. ‘My family? That was years ago. Unlike some people, I don’t waste all my time dwelling on the past.’ He gave her a nasty grin. ‘I’ve got a future to plan, and it’s gonna be a glorious one.’

  Phoenix’s entire body went rigid. She was likely exercising every single shred of self-control she possessed not to punch Steel in the face. If we wanted to avoid any serious injuries, we nee
ded a distraction.

  ‘What about you?’ I said, whirling on Ultra. ‘You want to come along too, share the “glory”?’

  Ultra gave a mocking laugh. ‘Me? God no. I’m not the type to go out seeking fame and riches for myself. I’m just a humble little cadet, doing my duty.’

  I bet you are, I thought.

  Ultra wasn’t the type to rush out and risk her life on a whim. She was too smart, and too manipulative. She was the sort of person who hitched her wagon to another, and shared in his glory while he took all the risks. I wouldn’t have been surprised if Ultra was the one who’d figured out that we were on a mission, and given her boyfriend a subtle nudge towards joining us.

  ‘You realise we might die, right?’ I said sharply, turning back to Steel. ‘This isn’t a game. It’s not just a training exercise at HQ.’

  ‘I know that,’ Steel said impatiently. ‘That’s the whole point! You can’t be a hero without any danger.’

  I glanced at the others. They stared back at me, their expressions helpless. We couldn’t fight both Steel and Ultra – not without attracting attention. No time to argue, no time to slip away. With every minute we wasted, we lost another chance to steal the Midnight Vial before the Inductors arrived.

  One by one, my friends nodded.

  ‘All right,’ I said, finally. ‘Looks like we don’t have a choice.’

  In the shine of the torchlight, Steel smiled.

  Our bike ride was long, bumpy and exhausting. It began with an awkward attempt to levitate our bikes over the campsite fence, and it only got worse from there.

  It took about twenty minutes to cut along a bush track, and then across open countryside. We tore through the undergrowth, then across a field, pedalling hard as we bumped and bounced over grass and pebbles.

  When we finally hit the road, it was a relief to feel flat asphalt under my tyres. It was a rural road, lined with paddocks. In the daytime, it might have been a pleasant bike ride: green grass, occasional dotted trees and warm sunlight.

  At night, it was eerie.

  There were no streetlamps. There were no cars. All was black, apart from the narrow torches we’d nicked from a cupboard labelled ‘Fun Night Activities!’ back at camp. Orbit had taped them to our handlebars with masking tape from a tub of craft supplies. Even so, I could barely seethe road ahead. It was as if we had been swallowed by a black hole – nothing ahead, nothing behind, nothing to either side.