Flicker (36 page)

Chapter Thirteen:

Through the Dark

Filo broke into the high school through a window on the first floor. He didn’t have to smash the glass or jimmy the lock—for Filo, getting the window open was as easy as focusing a small burst of magic on the locking mechanism and pushing the window open.
He hopped over the sill,
landed soundlessly on the blue and white tile, then straightened to examine the interior of Bridgestone High School.

He’d been summoned by a message from Rodney telling of a group of brownies-turned-boggarts gone rogue in the school. They’d been causing trouble for months, apparently, and for some unfathomable reason, Rodney thought tonight of all nights would be a good time to drive them out. Filo didn’t generally deal with boggarts if he could help it. But a trip to the local high school was too tempting for him to resist.

Though he would never admit it, Filo was fascinated by normals.
He
had precious few opportunities to pee
r in at normal life, and when one
arose, he snapped it up.

Pacing through the classroom, Filo committed what he saw to memory. Desks sat in skewed rows, facing a long, cluttered
desk at the front of the room.
Microscopes and beakers lined the counters. The walls were
crowded with
posters of people he didn’t recognize. One face stood out: a man with wild white hair and a moustache with his tongue sticking out.

He plucked a textbook from a shelf, opened it to the middle.
Blocks of text described
something called “cell division,”
with
illustrations of the different stages. The words and pictures were as meaningless as scribbles.

Filo could name almost any plant or animal shown to him. He was familiar with
human anatomy
. H
e knew how to set bones and sta
nch bleeding.

But cell division. That was a new one. Most science was useless to him in the same way that mathematics more advanced than b
asic multiplication
were useless. He had no use for them, so he hadn’t learned them. Why should he bother? Still
…

Quite suddenly, he remembered himself—how he didn’t belong here—and was filled with intense embarrassment.

Filo
dropped the book unceremoniously on a counter and ste
pped
into a long, dark corridor. Filo’s Sight made the darkness shimmer and slide, but it was sti
ll too dark to navigate
. When he opened his bag, Filo discovered that his flashlight was gone, probably fallen out during the encounter with Jenny. Damn. No contained lights this time. He’d have to do this the old-fashioned way.

As he walked, Filo gathered a ball of energy in his left hand that glowed brightly enough to illuminate several feet in all directions.

Scampering footsteps filled the darkness around him. Boggarts. Filo kept walking. The shuffling continued, growing louder.

The hall
opened into a
cavernous
space. Raising his hand, Filo brightened the energy. Blue-white light cut through the darkness, illuminating tables, trash cans, and stacks of chairs. Perfect.
He had enough room to work.

“Spirits,” Filo called, setting his bag down
and shrugging off his coat
. “Do not flee or hide yourselves. I am a Seer, and I have business with you.”

He turned, trying not to startle them. Most of the boggarts stood or crouched on the floor. A few clung to the walls, or hung from the ceiling like spiders. Two boggarts peered suspiciously out at Filo over the rim of a nearby
trash can. There were twenty
, give or take.

The boggarts were hunched and dirty, with matted hair. Their clothes looked as if they had been cobbled together from scraps of cloth. They were small creatures
, muscular and compact, none
taller than Filo’s knee.

“What business, Seer?” demanded one boggart gruffly, crossing his arms over his chest. He was probably the leader of this group.

“You are no longer welcome in this house,” Filo explained, firmly and clearly. “I am here to escort you from this place.”

For a moment, the boggarts just stared at him. Then they began to laugh. Soon, the whole room was filled with the sound of their cackling.

“Do you understand, spirits?” Filo
raised
his voice above the din.

The lead boggart broke of laughing abruptly. “This house is ours, Seer. It has been ours since its foundation was built.”

“I understand.
But the
family is not satisfied with your work.”

“This family is disrespectful,” the boggart insisted, and his fellows nodded. “They’ve forgotten the customs. They’ve forgotten
us
.”

“
But it’s
their house, and they don’t want you here. You
can’t
stay.”

“We’re not going anywhere,” said the lead boggart. The others chorused their agreement.

“Think carefully. Please.
I don’t want any conflict. Leave. Find a new home, a new family. If you don’t go now, I will make things hard for you.”

If these were brownies, he would have taken an entirely different approach. He would have praised their hard work and presented them with clothes, releasing them from the service of their household. But these weren’t brownies anymore, and boggarts could not be talked out of a dwelling. They had to be forced out, and
they usually came back. He’
d
do what he could tonight. A
fter that, it wasn’t his problem. He wasn’t even getting paid for this.

“We’re not going anywhere, Seer.” Beady eyes narrowed, the boggart growled something in Old Faerie.

Half a second later, the boggarts attacked.

* * *

They had wandered far into the cemetery, and the warmth of Nasser’s hand twined in
Lee’s
was comforting. He seemed so sure and so calm; she couldn’t help but be affected by that.

Suddenly, Nasser raised a hand, motioning for her to stop walking. He crept forward a few paces and knelt behind a statue of a weeping angel, pulling her down beside him. Pointing, he whispered, “There they are.”

Seven redcaps were clustered around a nearby headstone. At first, they looked like nothing more than grizzled old men dressed in ragged, old-fashioned clothes, none much taller than three feet. Then L
ee noticed their long, clawed
fingers and the sharp
yellow
teeth that jutted from
their mouths
. Hats the color of long-dried blood were perched atop their heads; wiry gray hair stuck out from beneath them.

The redcaps were digging feverishly at the grave, clawing the grass and dirt with their fingers and flinging it behind them, chattering incessantly. On the headstone, the largest redcap sat like a
grimy
king, toying with his knee-length beard, apparently directing the work. His hat was grander than those of his fellows; it was dark red and damp, as if recently soaked in blood.

Slowly Nasser reached into his pocket and withdrew a palm-sized iron cross on a chain. He pointed to the redcaps, then mimed wielding the cross at arm’s length. Lee n
odded. She’d seen this
done to
enough
vampires in the movies to know what he meant.

As he passed her the cross, he mouthed, “On three,” and held up fingers to count.

One. Two. Three.

Jumping up, Nasser rushed around the statue. Lee did the same, holding the cross out. A small redcap caught sight of the cross and nearly fainted; he let out a dismal yell, spun on his heel and took off running the other way. Lee felt oddly accomplished as she turned the cross upon the other redcaps.

Some of the bolder redcaps stood their ground: They growled or tried to claw at her, but they couldn’t reach her, and didn’t dare come closer
to the poisonous artifact
. Gathering her courage, she rushed toward them, swinging the cross wildly on its chain, and they fled.

Behind her, Nasser was
stood
before the headstone, where the big redcap still sat. The redcap was now clutching a gnarl
ed wooden walking stick. His eyes glowed with malice
.

“Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be Thy name,” Nasser intoned rapidly. The redcap flinched visibly at each word. “Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done on earth as it is in Heaven
…
” Nasser reached
for a chain around his neck, but
t
he redcap
launched himself at Nasser. Hissing and spitting, the redcap landed on Nasser’s chest, bowling him over, and began to beat Nasser about the head with his stick.

While Nasser tried to shove the
redcap away
, Lee did the first thing that occurred to her: She chucked the cross as hard as she could at the redcap’s head.

It struck the redcap on the side of his fa
ce; his flesh sizzled
. The redcap let out a terrible yowl as Nasser flung him away. Nasser pulled a plastic bag of salt from his coat pocket and hurled it at the redcap. The bag burst on impact and the redcap, still howling, sprinted away faster than Lee
would have thought he could move
.

“
Good
work,” Nasser panted as Lee went to retrieve the cross.

She smiled
, but before she could speak, his face went slack and he collapsed onto the grass
, like a marionette with his strings slashed
.
For a second
, h
is whole body
went
rigid—then hi
s eyes rolled back and
he
began
to
convulse
.

* * *

The boggarts seemed to hit Filo all at once, throwing him to the floor. His focus faltered; the light
cupped
his hand went o
ut, plunging him into darkness.

Boggarts grabbed at his arms, his face. Rolling onto his stomach, Filo covered his head with his arms. Claws raked his back
, tearing through the fabric of his shirt
. Sharp teeth bit into his shoulders and arms. There was a great deal of screaming, and Filo couldn’t tell how much of it was coming from him.

Filo managed to
get on
his hands and knees, and then his feet. He staggered forward a few steps before the boggarts tripped him. His face slammed into the floor,
hard, and he tasted blood
. A boggart sank its teeth into his calf.

Bracing himself and taking short, shallow breaths, Filo pushed the pain from his mind, the way
Morgan
had shown him when he was younger. Pain was purely mental, she’d taught him, so in times like these, he could keep it at bay for a short time by focusing his mind elsewhere: on the magic
flowing through
him, where pain did not exist.

Struggling to sink himself into a calmer frame of mind, he concentrated on the magic stirring in his blood, anchoring his thoughts on it, forming a spell. The pain dulled substantially, as
did
the rest of his physical sensations
. His body went numb.

He directed waves of magic toward the surface of his skin and held it there, then cracked his eyes open and looked down at his hands. His veins were faintly visible through his skin, like a tangle of glowing threads. He pushed the magic harder. In a moment, his skin was giving off the faintest of blue light. It was the best he could do.

Exhaling, he let the magic go. His magic flared and roared outward through his skin in a blinding blue flash, so suddenly and harshly that he cried out in pain
as it passed through his skin like a wave of fire
, just as all the other pain he’d blocked out rushed back into his consciousness.

And then
it was over. Filo was lying face-down on the floor, panting, feeling as if his brains had been shaken loose.
He smelled smoke.

He pushed himself up onto his knees, then nearly collapsed as nausea overtook him and he vomited
. Shakily, he crawled
away from where he had been sick and dropped onto the cold floor. He lay very still.

Filo closed his eyes and
extended his senses, trying to locate the boggarts.

But he felt nothing out there in the darkness.
They were gone.
 

* * *

As the redca
p’s shouts faded
,
Nasser
was overcome by a powerful foreboding, a black haze that obscured his vision and blocked his hearing. His body went nu
mb; he
was faintly a
ware of impact with the ground
, of his body moving of its own accord
.
The heavy scent of blood and b
ile choked him. Filo’s unmistakable blue energy prickled over Nasser’s skin.