Knight of the Black Rose (49 page)

Will followed Lucy as she walked across the large room towards the benches as far away from the Disa lot as she could get, as they seemed to have divided the room up, not wanting to be working near the other. Will frowned at Lucy as she stood ready to go, he was starting to worry that perhaps he should have had a word with her before hand, he was sure that she would have understood and gone easy on him.

"So which one do you want to do first?" Lucy asked him.

Will thought that wasn't too bad, if he didn't have to go on the defensive straight away at least he wouldn't have to look like an idiot. "Do you mind if I try the disarming first?"

"Sure, that's fine," Lucy said smiling broadly at him.

Will knew Lucy too well, meaning that he knew when she smiled like that; she was enjoying herself way too much. In this case, he suspected that she probably knew how to do both spells, and was just looking for someone to practice with; and normally that would be fine with him because she had helped him improve in the past, but not today.

"Give it your best shot," Lucy teased smiling cheekily.

Will waved his wand just how he was supposed to and shouted. "Exspellus!"

Light shot from his wand straight at Lucy but she was already ready for him, waving her own wand.

"Relectus!" Lucy shouted and a purple shimmering shield appeared before her, startling several others close by.

"Miss Shepherd, that's very good..." Domnus said approvingly. "Five points,"

"Yey me!" Lucy said smiling even more as she turned back to Will to try it again. "Come on Will, I know you can do it,"

"I probably could have done it, if you hadn't learnt the spell before class," Will told her, not that he completely believed that at the moment with how tired he felt, but if things had been different then he knew that he would have stood a better chance; but he wasn't really one for giving up, so he'd give it another go. "Exspellus!"

Light shot from Will's wand again, but this time not as bright as the first and then disappeared before it was half way across towards Lucy, so she didn't even bother to deflect it. Will swayed on his feet suddenly as he reached out trying to find something to hold onto, but there wasn't anything.

"Will...?" Lucy said panicked as she rushed forward, but she didn't catch him in time before he fell to his knee's.

Even though she hadn't shouted his name, they had still managed to draw quite a bit of attention to themselves, as everyone close by stopped to find out what had happened.

Domnus walked over to them while Lucy tried to get Will to his feet and back towards the benches. "Is there a problem?"

"I'm fine," Will lied.

"Was Miss Shepherd a little overly excited again?" Domnus asked.

"Probably..." Lucy answered blushing.

Domnus looked at them both as though he didn't believe them, Will had paled and looked as though he might actually pass out and Lucy looked extremely nervous even though she tried to look somewhat guilty. He was pleased to see that she had his back, but he still wanted to know what was really going on, he just hoped that it wasn't more side effects with what had happened, as they hadn't thought that it had taken much of his energy. Once the class was over he would have to talk to Will's other teachers to see if they've noticed any difference in him; he did kind of hope that it was Miss Shepherd who had gotten a little over excited.

"Okay then, take a couple of minutes before you try that again," Domnus told them, Will nodded without saying anything else, he wasn't happy about that, but at the moment there wasn't much he could do about it, except keep an eye on him.

Lucy waited until Domnus had walked away before she started on Will. "Why didn't you tell me it was so bad?"

"I don't know what you're talking about," Will said dismissively.

"Will, I've told you that I'm in contact with the department who's in-charge of trying to find a cure for this," Lucy told him as she waved at him. "Which means, that I know just how bad it is. The thing is though, you're test results weren't that bad...so what, you've just gotten worse since they let you out or something?"

Will looked at her, not sure if he was surprised or if he was angry. "You've seen my test results?"

Lucy guiltily nodded. "But we needed to see them...to make sure that everything was alright. And according to them, you should be...but, it's like it's still got a hold of you and draining your powers...but slower than any of the others,"

"But that's just stupid, right?" Will said dismissively.

Lucy quickly looked up to make sure that no one was looking their way before she moved a little closer to him. "What about the book...you said that it could hold power over that thing? And you still have it,"

Will thought about that, part of him didn't want to admit it, but she could be right about the book as it was the only thing connecting to the Knight that he had, considering that he had gotten ride of all the roses.

"So what do you think we should do with it?" Will asked.

Before Lucy could even think of an answer there was a knock at the door drawing everyone's attention as Eldamar walked in, he quickly scanned the room for Domnus who was already making his way over to him, and then they both went through to the classroom without a word.

"What do you think that's about?" Troy asked as he and Alex came over to join them on the benches.

"You don't think there's been another attack do you?" Alex asked nervously.

"I can't really think of anything else," Lucy said and then turned back to Will. "We'll have to think where to move it, but still somewhere safe,"

"Why not just put it back in the library?" Will asked. "There are millions of books; I doubt that anyone will find it,"

"It's a magical book, if it wants someone to have it, then it'll just make itself known like it did with you," Lucy told him.

"What's going on?" Troy asked wondering what he had missed this time.

"Are we getting rid of that book finally?" Alex asked hopefully.

"We might have to," Lucy told them.

"Is this because Will's been so tired?" Troy asked.

"Yes..." Lucy answered and Will glared at her. "It might be the book...or an after effect of the attack,"

"Guys, seriously I'm fine..." Will told them trying to hide another yawn.

"Well, I'm convince, what about you guys?" Alex said sarcastically.

"Fine, whatever," Will said dismissively, he hated having everyone fusing over him like this, but he did want to know one way or another if he really was losing his powers; and if he was, they needed to stop it as soon as possible.

Will walked into the food hall, barely keeping his eyes open, the bus back to the estate had taken it out of him; but they had told him that he still needed to eat which was why he had allowed them to bring him here instead of just going back to his room and going to sleep straight away.

The food hall unlike normal was packed full, almost every table taken and the noise was something else, with some talking loudly across tables and some whispering; they tried to find a table big enough for them all, or at least a couple of tables close to each other.

"Something's happened," Troy said over Will's shoulder, who just shrugged; but Troy directed him over to a table that he spotted seeing as he was still kind of out of it.

"Do you think that it's to do with Domnus being called out of class?" Lucy asked.

"It can't be that serious, they're still letting us walk around like normal," Selena pointed out.

"Maybe it's not at the school," Troy suggested as he got himself and Will past the last lot of students for the empty table; they all rushed for a seat, claiming the table before they would go up in turn to get their food so that they wouldn't lose it.

Lucy almost jumped out of her chair when someone kissed her on the cheek, she swung around to find out who it was, as there were just too many people in the room to focus in on just the one; she found Travis behind her smiling broadly with his two friends flanking him.

"Hey," Travis said smiling.

"Can you not do that again," Lucy told him kind of uncomfortable and embarrassed that he had actually kissed her.

"You know, all the girls in our class would love a kiss from me," Travis told her.

"Then go and kiss them," Lucy told him as she turned back around to ignore him.

"That's not very nice, especially considering that we came over to tell you what's going on," Travis told them.

"You mean, you lot know?" Troy asked wondering how they found out all of this before anyone else did.

"Of course we do," Liam told him as though this was obvious.

"There's been another attack, and in board daylight," Travis told them.

"Half a dozen, in three cities; all today," Reed told them.

This made Will look up. "That can't be,"

"Yes it can, unless you actually thought the thing behind all of this had been stopped and forget to tell the rest of us," Travis said.

Everyone at the table all looked at Will, they had thought the same thing, that whoever was behind this wouldn't be able to carry on without the book, but it looks as though they've somehow found away around it.

"Do you lot know something that we don't?" Travis asked annoyed. "Come on guys, we've kept you in the loop, do the same, share and share a like,"

"We thought we found something out, but I guess it was nothing now," Will told him as he slumped back in his chair; wanting to get rid of that book now as soon as possible, especially considering that it now has no hold over this Being.

"Okay seriously guys, you need to tell us what you've found out," Travis told them.

Liam looked around the room. "We'll come over to your common room later and you can fill us in on what you've found,"

"Liam's right, they're just too many people here," Reed agreed. "We might be able to help,"

"We'll see you in a bit then," Travis told them, before he allowed his friends to steer him away.

They waited a couple of minutes before any of them spoke, just in case.

"I thought it was the book," Jess said.

"We all thought that it was the book," Lucy told her.

"I want to get rid of it," Will told them yawning again.

"Hey, I know what we can do with it...we can berry it in the forest behind the dorm," Alex said smiling. "No one will know where it is then."

"That's just stupid," Selena told him. "Some one will see if you go out with that book and start digging up the grounds,"

"He might actually have a point," Eddie told them. "We don't want anyone else to have it, and we want to know where it is; but no where near any of us. It'll still be close,"

"It's insane," Selena said as she stood with Libby to get something to eat, also thinking that it was strange that Eddie of all people would agree to one of Alex’s stupid ideas.

"At the moment that's all we've got, unless we can think of anything else," Lucy said getting up quickly following them, as she was kind of hungry.

They all ate before going back to their common room to check if Travis and his friends had turned up yet, not wanting to sneak off anywhere with them three lurking around to find out what else they knew; and unfortunately they were already there waiting, which meant they couldn't deal with the book just yet, unless they split up.

"Will you be alright?" Troy asked.

"Cause, simple," Methos said dismissively walking off with Eddie. "We'll be back soon,"

"We're so going to get into loads of trouble for this," Alex said before they went in.

"We were starting to think that you weren't going to turn up," Liam said as they all walked into the room and over to join them, and watched as Lucy sat in-between Jess and Selena making sure that Travis couldn’t get her; which Liam of course found quite funny but managed to keep a straight and not say anything. It didn’t mean that he wouldn’t say anything later once they were alone.

"So what do you want to know?" Travis asked.

"How bad were the attacks?" Lucy asked straight away.

"A couple of them are already dead, the rest are in that statue like coma," Travis told her.

"There were sightings this time, and the attacks were different," Reed told them.

"Veins and did anyone finally see it?" Will asked as he tried to focus sitting forward.

"How'd you know about the veins?" Travis asked.

"Does it matter?" Will said dismissively.

"It does, if you lot know more than us...especially being first years and all," Travis said.

"Some one said that they saw a figure in black armour," Reed told them, and they all looked at each other. "So you know about that as well,"