The Vault of Destinies (James Potter #3) (25 page)

"I can't hold her up like this!" the engineer yelled, struggling with the levers. "She's too heavy to go unsupported!"

"Then put her down!" Merlin commanded, still firing.

A blast of purple light engulfed the right side of the train, forcing it into a barrel roll just as it began to descend. James gripped his seat as hard as he could while the world rolled over ahead of them. The train righted itself just as it struck the pavement of the busy street below, squeezing between lines of dense traffic.

"We're going to crash!" Ralph yelled. "At the intersection!"

James looked ahead and saw what Ralph meant. A line of buses and cabs was lumbering slowly through the intersection, crossing directly in front of the train.

"Wands!" James shouted, producing his own and pointing it wildly toward the front of the train. "Zane and I will take the cabs! Ralph, you get the bus!"

Ralph's eyes widened, but he didn't argue. The three boys stabbed their wands forward and called the incantation—"
Wingardium Leviosa
!"—at exactly the same moment. James felt adrenaline surge up his arm, powering the magic, and the first of the cabs lofted immediately into the air, turning sideways. He dropped it a moment later, letting it fall halfway onto a blue police car as he aimed at another cab. Together, he and Zane succeeded in levitating the cabs out of the way. Ralph grunted and his arm trembled as the bus finally shoved forward, its rear end rising and sliding sideways. A moment later, the
Zephyr
rammed through the space, barely missing the disheveled traffic. The three boys fell back into their seats amidst the screams of their fellow passengers.

More bolts of magic fired between the train and the flying figures, and James sensed that his dad and the others were waging their own battle from further back in the train.

"We can't keep this up!" the engineer shouted, gripping the controls and veering the train through the Muggle traffic. "It's not what we're made for! And we're breaking nearly every code of railway conduct in the book!"

James scrambled in his seat, prepared to use his own wand to fight the flying dark figures, when a hand fell onto his shoulder, gently, but with surprising strength.

"Have a seat, James," a female voice said. "Don't you worry."

James craned to look. Behind him, standing calmly amidst the terrified passengers, was the unusual woman he had first met in the halls of Atlantis, the one who had told him he was so like his grandfather, James the First. She smiled down at him.

"Merlinus is doing his best," she said, almost whispering, "but this isn't really his element, you know."

She winked at him, and then stepped lightly over to the window on the opposite side of the train. She raised her hand, wandless, and pointed at one of the dark figures that flew alongside the train. There was a faint, bluish flash and the figure seemed to freeze in the air, so suddenly and completely that its cloak ceased flapping. It dropped to the street like a stone, crashing against the windscreen of a taxi. The other figures fell quickly thereafter, dropping the moment the woman pointed at them, her face mild, almost amused.

"Did you see that?" Zane demanded, gripping James' arm. "Is she with you?"

"I've never seen her before in my life!" Ralph called back. "But I'm glad she's on
our
side!"

James looked aside at Merlin, but the big wizard hadn't noticed. He was busy aiming for the last pursuer on his side of the train. His face was shiny with sweat, pinched in exertion. Whoever the woman was, she certainly appeared to be correct: the city definitely wasn't Merlin's element.

The last cloaked figure swooped upwards over the train and disappeared from view. A moment later, it appeared again, directly in front of the train as it hurtled forward.

"Go home, Harry Potter!" the figure yelled back, its face hidden behind a metallic mask, its voice magically amplified so that it resonated throughout the entire train. "Consider this a warning! Take your people and go home! Go home while the W.U.L.F. is willing to
let
you go!"

Merlin raised his staff to strike once more, but the figure spun on its broom and zoomed away, merging with the throng of broom-borne travelers high over the city's streets.

"Hold onto your hats, ladies and gentlemen!" the goblin engineer cried suddenly. "We've got the eastbound overpass dead ahead and we're
going
for it, ready or not!"

James leaned back into his seat as the engineer hauled backwards on both of his steering levers. The train leapt up from the street, following its ghostly rails once more into the air. It turned as it flew, angling toward another set of elevated tracks as they loomed ahead. The train seemed to falter, pulled down by its own weight and its failing inertia. James was quite certain that they were going to ram directly into the side of the overpass, even saw the shadow of the train fall onto the support girders. At the last possible moment, however, the train seemed to loft upwards. The engine jigged and snaked through the air, dragging its passenger cars behind it, and finally crashed down onto the tracks.

"Is everyone all right?" Franklyn called faintly, struggling to get up from the floor of the aisle, where he had apparently fallen.

"We're fine, more or less," Zane answered, looking from James to Ralph.

James nodded, and then remembered the woman in the black robe. He glanced around the darkened train as it continued on, rather more slowly, but smoothly once again. She was nowhere to be seen among the frightened passengers. Movement in the very back of the car caught James' eyes, however: a flicker of black fabric and a slowly closing door. It had to be the mysterious woman, but could she really be using the bathroom at a time like this? James moved into the aisle, watching the door as it swung shut.

"Take your seat, Mr. Potter," Merlin said faintly. James looked up and saw the Headmaster clinging grimly to the seats in front of him, still standing, but just barely. His face was solemn, sheened with sweat.

"Are you all right, sir?" James asked, peering closely at the huge man.

"As fine as anyone else, under the circumstances," Merlin replied. "Do sit back down, James."

"In a minute," James said, backing away toward the rear of the car. "I, uh, have to use the loo."

Merlin nodded, not really listening.

When James got to the bathroom door, he found it unlocked, still cracked open. Wind whistled and roared through the broken windows, rocking the door on its hinges. Inside was only darkness.

"Ma'am?" James called, leaning toward the door. "Everything okay in there?"

There was no answer but for a low, steady hiss. Steeling himself, James reached for the bathroom door. He pulled it slowly open.

There was no one inside the tiny room, but the sink was running. James peered closer. For some reason, both the hot and cold handles had been cranked all the way on. He stared at them and the empty room. Where had the woman gone? And who was she anyway?

Darkened and damaged, the
Zephyr
rolled onward through the city.

It had become readily apparent that the
Zephyr
wasn't going to continue the rest of the journey in its current state.

After a few minutes of discussion, Professor Franklyn and Headmaster Merlin had repaired some of the broken windows but were unable to fix most of them since the broken glass that had comprised them had been scattered along a rather surprising length of Lexington Avenue. The engineer himself was adamant that regardless of the operating condition of the
Zephyr
's engine, any 'non-standard Muggle interaction event' required the stoppage of the train at the nearest terminal or safe place and the alerting of the appropriate authorities. In this case, unfortunately, the 'appropriate authorities' included the New Amsterdam Wizarding Police and representatives from a mysterious agency known as the Magical Integration Bureau.

Shortly, the train had screeched to a halt on a side track next to an abandoned factory. The Hudson River sparkled nearby in the rising moonlight and traffic could be heard thrumming somewhere nearby, but for now, the
Zephyr
rested inconspicuously hidden among banks of brick walls and blind windows. Twin smokestacks jutted up into the indigo sky with nothing but pigeons at their tops. At their base, incongruously, perched a brightly lit wizarding establishment with a candy red pagoda roof and two golden dragon statues flanking the round door. The sign that jutted up from the roof proclaimed the establishment to be 'Chang's Magic Luck Hunan Palace'. A fleet of Chinese wizards in white coats and red pillbox caps came and went from the establishment, carrying large grease-stained paper sacks in special baskets attached to the tips of their brooms.

James watched from where he sat on the end of the
Zephyr
in the shadow of the factory and its perching wizard restaurant. Ralph sat next to James on his right while Lucy sat on his left, watching the Chinese delivery wizards with a mixture of curiosity and disdain.

"It's not true Chinese food, you know," she commented. "Not if you've had the real thing."

"So you keep saying," James said, rolling his eyes.

"An egg roll is an egg roll," Ralph proclaimed, rubbing his stomach. "I wonder when our order will get here. I'm starved."

"Shh!" James hissed, leaning. "I'm trying to listen in on this."

Zane stood some distance away on the side of the railway bed next to Professor Franklyn and the rest of the adults.

"I'm sorry, Professor," one of the wizarding policemen, a thin man named Trumble, was saying, consulting his little notepad. "You mentioned that these men came out of nowhere. They weren't provoked in any way?"

"I assure you," Franklyn answered, puffing out his chest, "we are not in the habit of provoking warfare whilst aboard moving trains. We have women and students aboard the train, as you know, not to mention any number of anonymous fellow travelers. These men attacked us in a coordinated fashion, and with no provocation whatsoever."

"That's not entirely true," Harry Potter said.

"What do you mean?" the larger and older policeman, Dunst, said, his face suspicious.

"The leader announced his affiliation with the W.U.L.F." Harry answered. "I expect it was Edgar Tarrantus himself, by the mask he was wearing.
He
certainly seemed to feel provoked. He threatened me and my people by name, telling us if we didn't leave the United States there would be trouble."

"I'd say there's been trouble already," Neville said, narrowing his eyes. "They weren't out to give warnings tonight. They meant to derail the train, at the very least. Warnings were what they resorted to only when we fought back and showed them a little what-for."

"Ah, that," Trumble said apologetically, sticking his pencil behind his ear. "It was the fighting back that was the problem tonight, when you get right down to it."

"Surely you didn't expect us to stand by and do nothing?" Denniston Dolohov said, raising his voice. James knew that, in fact, Dolohov himself had not fired a single magical shot, being a Squib, but James was impressed with the man's spirit nonetheless. "They were trying to kill us all!"

"That's hardly conclusive," Dunst replied, obviously unconvinced. "Probably just a bunch of local punks out looking for trouble. It was your overreaction that's caused this mess."

"Overreaction!" Franklyn sputtered. "I'll have your badge number! The impertinence!"

James noticed that throughout the conversation, Merlin stood some distance away, his face lowered in shadow, his arms folded.

The goblin engineer perked up then, apparently deciding that now was the time to distance himself from what had happened. "I didn't want to do it, officers," he said. "They
told
me to. It was all that big guy's idea."

"You didn't
have
to do it, you know," Zane said, cocking his head at the goblin. "As I recall it, we all did what we had to do to avoid being turned into highway hash,
you
included. Merlin made a request and you agreed to it."

"Well," the engineer said, scratching at his bald head, "he's Merlin, ain't he? Fellow like that is a hard one to say no to. Even if I didn't know at the time that's who he was."

Another voice spoke and James saw that it belonged to one of the two men from the Magical Integration Bureau. "According to a cursory survey of the scene of the incident, at least seventy-nine non-magical persons witnessed this train being piloted along Lexington Avenue," the man said in a rough, gravelly voice, consulting a clipboard. He had rugged features beneath a pair of dark sunglasses and a very staid black suit and tie. "At least thirty of those non-magical persons witnessed said train flying, either off the 21 Street southbound overpass or back up onto its northbound counterpart, some three blocks away. Initial damage estimates are in the hundreds of thousands, including a New York City police cruiser which somehow managed to end up beneath a Liberty Taxi." The man lowered his clipboard and glanced around at those present. "I can't be one hundred percent certain," he said in a different tone of voice, "but I think this might be the biggest violation of magical integration laws in at least a decade. Wouldn't you agree, Espinosa?" The last question he directed to his counterpart, a younger man with black hair and a pencil goatee.