The Second Prophecy (Part 1 of the Dragdani Prophecies) (31 page)

“
Maybe,” said
Principal Holmes.

“
Maybe. So
not only do you have no witnesses or proof but you also don’t have
whatever was used to damage the locker. Is that right?” said
Helen.

“
Yes,” said
Principal Holmes flatly.

Just then,
Mr. Weavger burst in through the door. He was pure white, whiter
than white, and his hands were trembling. He seemed to turn paler
when Helen was the first thing that he saw.

“
I need to
talk to you after,” he said to the principal as even his voice
trembled.

He slammed the door and was gone as promptly
as he appeared.

“
Oh, yes.
There’s something I wanted to say to you,” said Helen. “When that
man attacked Peter, you tried to make him apologize for defending
himself. What kind of a Headmaster are you?”

“
I don’t
think -”

“
Well
, there’s a shock,” said
Helen scornfully.

The principal
looked furious, and Peter tried his hardest to suppress a smile, as
did Helen herself.

“
I’m willing
to forget it all if you apologize to him right now.”

There was
utter silence.

“
I will stand
by Mr. Weavger, and I will not apologize for anything that he may
or may not have done,” said the principal loyally.

“
Let me put
this in a way you might understand. Peter is a minor. A grown man
manhandled him and physically hurt him. I’m sure that you don’t
want the authorities involved. And I’ll tell you something else.
That man doesn’t have the best reputation with most of the students
or their parents, which means we’ll have lots of people willing to
help us.”

“
You don’t
know that anyone will want to be involved in anything that you
would decide to do.”

“
This school
will be put under investigation, as will you and the rest of your
staff. But to stop that from happening, all you have to do is
apologize to Peter for your part in this.”

“
And has
Alistair Weavger himself apologized?” asked Principal Holmes,
knowing full well that the teacher would not have done
so.

“
No, simply
because I don’t want an apology from him, because it would only be
a lie from a bitter man and would mean absolutely nothing,” replied
Helen.

Holmes said
nothing to this. Helen reached into her handbag and took out her
mobile phone. As she pressed the first digit and its droning tone
sounded, the principal threw up his hands. “Please wait,” he said
pleadingly.

“
Admit that
you were too quick on the decision to suspend my son, and I’ll
forget any of this ever happened,” said Helen calmly.

“
I think that
you’re right. It was unfair to suspend Peter without any real
proof, and I apologize, but you must understand that if a member of
my staff tells me that there was no one else at the scene of the
incident, I must ask the only person who was there if they saw
anyone else. I’m sure if you ask Peter, he will tell you that I did
just that. I asked him if he saw anyone or if he was protecting
someone and if so, to tell, but he said that there was no one. So
you understand what I’m saying.”

“
What you’re
saying is that because my son saw no one there you, blamed him
whether he was guilty or not,” said Helen.

“
No, that’s
not what I meant.”

“
But that’s
what happened,” said Helen loudly and angrily.

“
And I’m
sorry for that,” said Holmes.

“
The
n I think that’s it,” said
Helen.

“
Well,
you won’t need to worry
about Mr. Weavger. I’ll talk to him, and I think it best that Peter
take the rest of the week off. Then when he comes back on Monday,
it’ll be as though this never happened,” said the headmaster more
confidently.

“
No,” said
Helen firmly. “Peter will never be back to this excuse for a school
again.”

“
But he
has to go to school;
it’s the
law.”

“
He will not
here. Come on, Peter let’s go.”

Chapter Thirteen

Peter emptied
his school locker then both he and Helen walked to the front doors.
As they came closer
, they saw Weavger and
two other teachers standing in front of the entrance.

“
The
re’s a back door if you want
to go that way,” said Peter to his mother.

“
No,” said
Helen, “we’re not going the long way because of that gimp.” They
walked up to the teachers and as they passed them, Weavger, who had
not seen them, or perhaps did not want to, stood talking to one of
his colleagues. “Do you have a match?” he asked him kindly as he
put the butt of a cigarette between his dry lips.

“My ass to your face,” Peter replied quickly
and most happily.

Helen instantly started into a fit of the
giggles while they walked on.

“
HOW DARE YOU
TALK TO ME LIKE THAT, YOU LITTLE RUNT,” yelled a fuming Weavger.
“What kind of a mother could raise a brat like that?” he said to
his colleagues, though loudly enough so Helen and Peter could hear
it. They heard it loud and clear, and Helen halted, turned on her
heel made rude gestures with her middle fingers. “I would tell you
to kiss my arse,” she replied, “but I’d be afraid of catching
something.”

The mother
and son walked on giggling and laughing as they went. When they got
to the car Helen pinched her pocket again. The doors of the car
unlocked, and Peter dumped everything from his locker in the boot
while Helen phoned home to tell Berlanin, Saren, and Henkot they
were on their way back. In doing so, she found that Delsani had
turned up at the house. He told her to get back as quickly as
possible.

She decided it was probably wise to do just
that, for the old Wizard sounded deadly serious, so they set off as
soon as she got off the phone.

“
What
happened with Weavger?” Peter asked his mother who looked very
anxious, but he just thought that it was because of all that had
happened in the school.

Helen laughed
as the memories flooded back into her mind. However, even her laugh
was a nervous one, and Peter could tell that there was something
wrong.

Helen saw that Peter was about to say
something else, so she got there first and told him what happened
at the school and what was said on both sides.

What neither
of them realized was that a black sports car had followed them out
of the school car park.

When they
reached the first set of traffic lights, the lights had just turned
red. Helen continued with her story, and still they did not know
they were being followed, not until it was too late.

The black car
raced up the road to meet them. It was only then that Helen saw it.
To her, it was like waking from a dream into a nightmare. It felt
as though a shroud was suddenly lifted, and she could see fully
again. She saw the car speeding toward them and quickly shoved the
gear stick into first and slammed her foot down on the accelerator.
The car shot forward. The junction was empty, though it did them no
good, as their attacker was already on them and smashed into the
back of their car and sent them flying across the junction. The
only thing that stopped them from slamming into a wall was Peter,
who threw out has hands, which caused a net of blue energy to stop
them instantly.

Peter felt
his head, which was the only part of him that hurt. Other than that
he was fine. There was not a mark on him.

Helen, on the
other hand, had a bruise on her left cheek, and her nose was
bleeding.

“
Are you
okay?” Peter asked her.

“
Yeah, I’m
fine. You?”

“
Fine.” Peter
said, still rubbing his brow; he looked across to where they had
been. Sitting at the lights was the black car behind the white
line. It did not have a scratch on it, as though the accident never
happened. On the bonnet of the car, there sat a boy no more than
sixteen or seventeen. When he saw Peter staring at him, he pushed
himself away from the car and stood waiting for
something.

“
COME OUT
HERE AND FACE ME, DRAGO KING!” the boy shouted to Peter.

“
This guy’s
some kind of head case or something,” Peter said.

As Peter
moved to open has door, Helen saw their attacker’s eyes turn
purple?

“
NO!
” she screamed at Peter.
“YOU’RE NOT GOING OUT THERE! JUST WAIT HERE WITH ME!” she emptied
the contents of her bag onto her lap as she panicked to find her
phone. Within a spit second, she spied it and used the redial
function. Saren’s mobile number came onto the display. As the phone
rang, she kept staring over to make sure that the boy hadn’t come
any closer. To her surprise, he was still waiting at the
lights.

The ringing
ended. “Hello,” said Saren.

“
Saren,
please listen. We’ve been attacked!” said Helen.

“
Ohmigod.
Where are you?”

“
I don’t
know. I can’t think. My head, it hurts.”

“
Are you
okay?”

“
Yes, apart
from this headache, I’m fine.”

“
And
Peter?”

“
Yeah,
he’s -” Helen was cut short
by the pure horror that shot through her, like ice in her blood,
when she turned her head and saw that Peter was gone. He had snuck
out as Helen and Saren were halfway through their
conversation.

“
So you’re
not as much of a coward as I first thought,” said the boy with the
black car.

“
Who the hell
are you?” asked Peter.

The stranger
laughed. “So what I heard is true. They have lied to
you.”

“
Listen, I
don’t know who you are, and I don’t really care, either. But if I
were you, I’d get out of here before the cops get here,” said Peter
shakily. He was clearly still in shock after the crash.

“
Please, boy.
The rules of this world do not apply to me,” said Ulicoth
arrogantly.

“
Who are
you?”

“
You wouldn’t
understand.”

“
Try me,”
said the boy King.

“
Very well.
The truth is, I’m not really standing in front of you, for this
isn’t my true body. This is merely a shell, constructed so that I
wouldn’t have to expose myself to you.”

“
Well,
that’s good, cause I don’t
really want you exposing yourself to me either,” said Peter with a
smile, as he was trying to conceal his fear in case this was really
some nut job, as all the evidence was beginning to point in that
direction

“
You
mock me,” said
Ulicoth, a hint of anger
starting in his cold voice. “It’s a pity that you will never know
who I really am.”

“
And what
makes you think that I’ll never know? I’ll just wait around for the
men in white coats to come and ask them,” this time Peter couldn’t
help but laugh.

At first
Ulicoth wondered what Peter had meant by that last remark and
thought perhaps he knew all and was just pretending not to.
Why else would he be standing in
front of me mocking me? He must know the truth
, thought the Dark Wizard-Elf.

“
The
reason for you not knowing is
simple; soon you’ll be but ash in the wind.”

As Helen
looked out of the passenger side window
,
she could see Peter standing about halfway between her car and
Ulicoth.

“
He’s out
there with that monster! I have to help him.”

Delsani
snatched the phone from Saren’s hand.

“
Helen,
listen to me. D
o you still have the
crystal the Grand Wizard gave you?” he asked
hopefully.

“
Yes it’s
here,” said Helen. “It’s on my lap.”

“
Smash
it.”

Helen grabbed
it and smashed it against the steering wheel. The white light that
sparkled within it surrounded Helen and Phazed her away. However,
it seemed that when Helen was whisked away, the sparkling light
then headed straight for Peter. Unfortunately Ulicoth had seen it,
and he threw out the hands of his disposable body and the light was
thrown back and vanished. The assassin’s eyes changed yet again and
were glowing purple.

Peter
recognized them, though from where he could not say at first. Then
it came to him; it was in a shadow that he had seen them before,
the darkest shadow that he had ever seen. It was the very thing
that had haunted his nightmares for as long as he could remember.
He was now remembering other things, bits and pieces; however, two
stood out from the others, two with long grey beards. The one who
held a staff tightly in his hands drew the most attention. It
seemed that he was fighting the shadow. Then in his memories, he
heard the one with the staff shout a name. He saw the eyes again
and knew that this was no dream. It was real.