“Cute,” Dervish grunts, then smiles and waves me through. I push past and he hurries after me. The mechanical rack slides shut behind us, cutting out the cries of the werewolves and sheltering us from the bloodthirsty beasts. We share a grin of relief, then hurry down the corridor to the safety of the second cellar.
A minute later we arrive at a large, dark door. It has a gold ring handle. Dervish tugs it open and we slip through. It’s dark inside.
“Give me a moment,” Dervish says, moving ahead of us, leaving the door open for illumination. “There are candles and I have matches. This will be the brightest room in the universe in a matter of—”
The door slams shut. A werewolf howls. Meera and I are knocked apart by something hard and hairy. Dervish cries out in alarm. There’s the sound of a table being knocked over. Scuffling noises. The werewolf’s teeth snap. Meera is yelling Dervish’s name. I hear her scrabbling around, searching for the mace which she must have dropped when we were knocked apart.
I’m calm. There’s magic in the air here. Old-time magic. Not exactly like it was when I first walked the Earth, but similar. I fill with power. The fingers on my left hand flex, then those on my right. Standing, I draw in more energy and ask for—no, demand light.
A ball of bright flame bursts into life overhead. The werewolf screeches and covers its face with a hairy arm. Its eyes are more sensitive than ours—perfect for seeing in the dark. But that strength is now its weakness.
As Dervish huffs and puffs, trying to wriggle out from beneath the werewolf, I wave a contemptuous hand at the beast. It flies cle
ar of him and crashes into the wall. The werewolf whines and tries to rise. I start to unleash a word of magic designed to rip it into a hundred pieces. Then I recall what I learnt in the hall of portraits. Instead of killing it, I send the beast to sleep, drawing the shades of slumber across its eyes as simply as I’d draw curtains across a window. As it falls, I flick a wrist at it and the werewolf slides sideways and out through an open door, the one it must have entered through before we arrived.
Dervish sits up and looks at the door. “We have to shut it,” he groans, staggering to his feet. “Block it off before…”
At a gesture from me, the door closes smoothly. Blue fire runs around the rim, sealing it shut. I do the same with the rim of the door we came through. “Sorted,” I grunt. “Balor himself couldn’t get through those now.”
Dervish and Meera gawp at me and I smile self-consciously. “Well, I was a priestess.”
Dervish starts to chuckle. Meera giggles. Within seconds we’re laughing like clowns. I’ve seen this many times before. Near-death experiences often leave a person crying or laughing hysterically.
“I wish I could have seen you go to work on those werewolves,” Meera crows. “We could hear it, but we couldn’t see.”
“It’s just a pity you couldn’t do it some other way,” Dervish sighs. “Some of my finest bottles were stored back there.”
“You can’t be serious!” Meera shouts.
“A Disciple can always be replaced,” Dervish mutters, “but a few of those bottles were the last of their vintage.”
My smile starts to fade, but then Dervish winks at me. “Only kidding. You were great.” He wipes sweat and blood from his forehead, then coughs. “I’m beat. Meera was right—I’m getting old and slow. I need to sit down. I feel…”
Dervish’s face blanches. His lips go tight and his eyes bulge. He staggers back a step, gasps for air, then collapses. Meera screams his name and rushes to his side.
“What is it?” I cry, whirling around, testing the air for traces of a spell being cast against us.
“Dervish?” Meera asks, holding his arms steady as he thrashes weakly on the floor.
“Who’s doing this?” I bellow. “I can’t sense anybody. I don’t know what sort of a spell they’re using.”
“Quiet,” Meera says. She tugs her cardigan off and slides it under Dervish’s head. His face has turned as grey as his beard. His eyelids are closed. His chest is rising and falling roughly.
“But the spell! I must—”
“There isn’t any spell,” Meera says softly, stroking the tufts of hair at the sides of Dervish’s head. She’s studying him with warm sadness, like a mother nursing a seriously ill baby.
“Then what is it?” I stumble towards her, stopping short of Dervish’s twitching feet. “What’s wrong with him?”
Meera looks up. There’s fear in her eyes, but it isn’t fear of demons, werewolves or magic. “He’s had a heart attack,” she says.
WAITING FOR THE CAVALRY
Heart attacks were rare in my time. People didn’t smoke (tobacco wouldn’t be introduced to our part of the world for nearly another thousand years) or eat unhealthy food. Most of us didn’t live long enough to suffer the modern curse of middle-age. A few of my clan died of weak hearts, but they were exceptions.
Nevertheless, I’m a healer. Once Meera has explained Dervish’s condition to me and we’ve laid him in a comfortable position, I set to work. Without touching him, I feed magic to his heart, softly warming it, keeping the valves open. Some colour seeps into his face and he breathes more easily, but he doesn’t regain consciousness.
“Will he live?” Meera asks quietly.