Once Every Never

  Clare turned to Al, who stood rigid, hands balled into fists, glowering at Morholt. “Did Milo pull teenage ‘girl power’ bravado crap after I left?” Clare asked.

  “Yeah,” Al said sourly. “He did. And then Ninja Assassin here karate-chopped him.”

  “It was judo.” Morholt rolled his eyes. “And I’m not about to apologize for taking corrective behaviour against an impulsive young fool. There’s a time and place for gallantry. That was neither.”

  “You sonofa—”

  “Language, Miss Reid.” Morholt tutted. “He’ll live. Let’s see if you two can manage the same feat.” He glanced at the smouldering laptop and his lip twitched. “Interesting. It seems your ability throws a mean electrical charge upon activation. I dare say you’d short-circuit just about anything you came into contact with that had a live current running through it. You’re a veritable walking thundercloud, my dear.” He smiled at his little joke. “Something to keep in mind for our future jaunts, eh?”

  “What exactly do you mean by ‘our future jaunts’?”

  “In good time. Now. Let’s have some answers. Where did you go and what did you see?”

  Clare felt her jaw clenching. She didn’t want to tell him. Sharing the intimate details of Comorra’s father’s funeral with someone like Stuart Morholt … well, it just seemed like a further betrayal of the princess. And her grieving mother,Boudicca. I could lie, Clare thought. Make up the details. Fudge the truth …

  But Morholt’s eyes narrowed at her as Clare hesitated, and she knew that, with his knowledge of the ancient Celtic world, he would probably see through any lame-ass story she could make up.

  “What did you see?” he asked again, less gently this time.

  Clare took a deep breath and told him everything.

  WELL … SHE MAY HAVE left out a few of the less important details about a certain flirting Druid. Still, once Clare got into the telling of the tale, even Al seemed to forget her righteous indignation and listened, rapt.

  “There’s one thing I don’t understand—why did she give the Romans Prasutagus’s torc?” Al wondered when Clare had finished. “And why did your Druid pal say she’d started a war by doing that?”

  “It was an insult,” Morholt murmured, half to himself.

  Al raised an eyebrow. “A big, shiny, gold insult?”

  “On such an occasion,” he explained, “it should have been the Romans bringing Boudicca gifts. By giving them one instead, she was pointedly drawing attention to that breach of etiquette and respect. And by making it a gift of such richness, of such significance, she was adding insult to injury. In the eyes of the Iceni, Rome and their emperor would have lost face—hugely—because of it. And even though it may not have been the Roman custom, that officer surely would have understood Boudicca’s intentions in the context of Celtic tribal traditions. He would have been perfectly well aware that she was flouting Rome’s authority and sending a message that she, as queen, would not be as biddable as her husband before her.”

  Clare shook her head in admiration. “Wow. That was pretty … um …”

  “Ballsy?” Morholt said dryly. “We are talking about Boudicca here.”

  “Yeah. I guess that was the word I was looking for.” She sat down on the edge of the desk, feeling suddenly exhausted from everything she’d been through in the last few hours. “Are we done here? You got your in-depth report about what life was like back in the day. Can’t you just leave us alone now?”

  “No …” Morholt’s expression had started out thoughtful. Now it looked as if he was hatching a nefarious plan. Clare felt her stomach clench in apprehension. “No,” he said again, “I don’t think I’ll be doing that.”

  “What?”

  “I shall require your services, Miss Reid.”

  “What?” Clare gaped at him. “After all that? Look—you know now that I don’t have some kind of power of invisibility, so you know I’m no use to you.”

  “We shall see about that. Let’s go.” He motioned Clare toward the elevator.

  “I can’t go anywhere,” she said. “Because whatever it is you want from me, I can’t shimmer without Al.”

  “Oh please. Do you think me a fool?”

  “You don’t want to know what I think of you,” Clare muttered sourly. “Believe me or not, I don’t care. Irregardless, I can’t do my little magic trick without her.”

  “‘Irregardless’ isn’t a word, you ridiculous girl.”

  Clare just glared at him.

  “Fine,” Morholt sighed. “Then I guess you’re both coming for a little ride.”

  Shit. That wasn’t what Clare was hoping for. She was hoping that she could stall him and keep him at Milo’s office long enough for Milo to regain consciousness. Three against one and they might have had a chance.

  “What about Milo?” she said desperately. “I … uh … I need him, too!”

  Morholt snorted. “Your lying skills need almost as much work as your vocabulary. I’m willing to hedge my bets with your little sidekick, but I’m afraid Prince Valiant stays here.” He walked over to a desk and picked up a packing tape dispenser, tossing it to Al. “Wrists behind his back,” he commanded, gesturing to the unconscious Milo. “Bind his ankles, and a piece over his mouth for good measure, please.”

  Al did as she was told—she was smart enough to know that they were pretty short on options to the contrary. When she was done, Morholt gave the binding job a cursory glance and rolled an eye at Al.

  “A predictably shoddy job. Don’t worry. I didn’t expect cello-tape to hold him for long. Just enough for the three of us to get reasonably long gone.” Morholt scribbled with a Sharpie on a piece of letterhead. Clare read the words as he wrote them:

  You’re smart enough to know that calling the authorities would be a very, very bad idea. The well-being of your lady friends depends on your good behaviour. So behave.

  Cheers, S. M.

  “Long gone?” Clare asked as Morholt tucked the note in the collar of Milo’s T-shirt where he’d be sure to find it on waking. “Long gone where?”

  “You’re both coming for a little ride.” He pointed to Comorra’s brooch where it lay on the desk. “Wrap that up and bring it along,” he ordered Al. “And let’s not dawdle.”

  Clare and Al hesitated, the seriousness of the situation sinking heavily upon them. They were being kidnapped. At gun-point. Clare swallowed and felt herself grow pale.

  “Oh, go on,” snarled their abductor. “I’m not going to shoot you. Yet. But please don’t think for a moment, ladies, that I will put up with any further crap from either of you. The car is in the garage. Now, mush, you two.”

  Al wrapped the raven-shaped pin back up in its sock and stuffed it in the side pocket of the messenger bag she carried. Then she fell into step beside Clare as Stuart Morholt marched them toward the elevator, down to the deserted parking level, and over to a sleek, silvery-grey car.

  “Wow,” Al said. “Choice ride, Evil-doer.”

  “A limited-edition Bentley Mulsanne. And yes. It is rather choice.”

  Morholt pressed the button on a key fob as they approached and the engine started up remotely with a sonorous growl. The car was elegantly muscular, with a distinctive snub-nose front grille and long, sweeping lines along the body. It sported gleaming chrome detailing, ominously tinted windows, and—the girls soon discovered—a roomy trunk, good for hauling antique furniture, stolen artifacts, or two kidnapped teenagers.

  “WAS I SEEING THINGS back there, or was that a cut on your neck?”

  “It was. Has it stopped bleeding?”

  “Looked like it.” Al wriggled around in the dark confines of the trunk, elbowing Clare in the head as she shifted and squirmed. “What happened?”

  “I got a little too close to my friendly neighbourhood Druid,” Clare said, gingerly touching the side of her neck. Way too close, actually. She felt herself blushing at the memory and thought she could actually feel Al’s stare intensify. “Anyway. Not reall
y the issue at the moment. How are we going to get out of our present predicament?”

  “We could start banging really loudly on the trunk lid,” Al suggested.

  Except that Morholt suddenly began blasting rap music at an insane volume—no doubt to mask any attempts the girls might make at attracting the attentions of passersby. Besides, they could tell that he was driving fast enough that no one would have time to notice. He’d probably planned a route with the least traffic stops just in case. Seemed like the type. The fact that he hadn’t duct-taped them or tied them up meant that he was pretty sure there was no way they could escape. However, that didn’t stop Al from blindly exploring every inch of the inside of the sedan’s generous trunk.

  “Tire iron,” she muttered, “bolted down …”

  Clare shifted her butt as Al’s hands patted around. “

  Emergency road kit … okay, some of this could be useful …”

  She could hear Al rummaging through the kit, but she couldn’t imagine what it could possibly contain that would prove useful. A tire gauge and socket-wrench set still weren’t going to make them a match for Morholt’s firearm. But it seemed to provide a nice distraction that kept Al from freaking out. Clare wished she felt the same.

  “Nice bluff back there, telling Morholt you needed me to help you shimmer.” Al pitched her voice over the thrumming bass coming through the car speakers.

  Clare shrugged as much as the close confines would allow. “Wasn’t.”

  “Er.” Al stopped rummaging. “What?”

  “Well …” Clare shifted around so that she was facing Al, even though she couldn’t see her in the darkness. “I don’t so much need you to go as to get back. I think. That’s my, you know, working hypothesis. Maybe.”

  “Okaaay.” Al sounded skeptical, but willing to explore the possibility. “What makes you think that?”

  “Did you shout out Milo’s name just before I shimmered back last time?”

  “Um, I think so.” Al paused, remembering. “Yeah. Right after Mr. Ninja took him out. Just a natural reaction, I suppose … Why?”

  “Because I heard you. Only you sounded like a bird.”

  “You’re kidding.”

  “If I could glare at you sardonically right now, I would,” Clare said dryly. “That is not something I would likely make up, is it?”

  “Good point.”

  “And I’ve started to realize … there’s always a bird. A raven. It’s what brings me back. I think it’s you. Your, um, spirit? Or something. You’re like my anchor to the present, I think.”

  “Wow. A raven, huh?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Quoth me—‘Nevermore.’”

  The girls both laughed a little. It sapped some of the tension out of the situation and for that Clare was grateful. Al really was the best kind of friend.

  “Hey Clare … remember what you told me Llassar said about ‘blood magic’? And how you’d pricked your finger on the brooch?”

  “I thought about that maybe having something to do with it. But it’s not like we’re related, Al.”

  “No, I know. But remember when we did that stupid ‘blood sisters’ thing when we were kids?”

  “Yeah.” Clare snorted. “I remember. My mom almost killed us and our thumbs nearly fell off.”

  Al laughed again. “Yeah. It was dumb. But maybe that single drop of blood meant something more than either of us realized at the time.”

  Clare thought about that for a moment. It had only been a single drop of blood that had fallen onto Comorra’s brooch, too … “You really think so?”

  “I don’t know. It’s just a theory. But whatever happens, I guess I just wanted you to know that it’s always kind of meant a lot to me, anyway. I’m not sure I’d cope very well without you around.”

  “I feel the same way, pal.”

  “Okay. Just remember that when you’re shimmer-tripping, okay?”

  “I promise. Just remember to keep bringing me back.”

  “I will. And then, if we get out of this mess—”

  “We will get out of this mess. I promise you that, too. Stuart Morholt has no idea what he’s gotten himself into.”

  THE BENTLEY FINALLY rolled to a stop and the thump-thump-thump of the stereo speakers fell silent. Footsteps, then the opening of the trunk and a shaft of blinding late-afternoon sunshine as Al and Clare blinked up at Stuart Morholt and his gun. He motioned them out and the girls unfolded themselves, clambering stiffly onto the cracked cement floor of a dilapidated, saggy-roofed warehouse that slouched on the banks of the Thames. They could see the river and a seedy stretch of industrial neighbourhood through the gaping shipping doors at the far end. The building itself looked as though it had been abandoned sometime before the Beatles hit it big. It was empty except for a series of sturdily built plywood-walled container rooms with slide-bar locks on the outside and bare-bulb light fixtures that cast ghastly yellowish shadows. The place smelled of diesel and machine oil and the rotting-vegetation funk of overgrown river weed.

  Morholt led them deeper into the warehouse. When he reached the last locker he stopped and pointed the barrel of the PPK at Al’s messenger bag that held her super-sleek laptop. “Leave that,” he said curtly. He’d already confiscated their cell phones when he’d locked them in the trunk of the car.

  Al reluctantly unslung the strap from across her body and lowered the bag gently to the cement floor. Clare knew it was killing her to do it. Al was never more than five feet from her computer at any time. Even when she slept.

  Morholt pointed at the locker. “Get in. I’ve got an errand to run. Contemplate your futures while I’m gone. Scream your heads off all you want. There’s no one in a ten-mile radius to hear. Cheerio.”

  With a nasty grin, he shut the door and the girls heard the slide-bar lock slamming home against its fittings with a bang like a judge’s gavel falling, sentencing them to doom. They shivered together at the sound of Morholt’s expensive Italian loafers striding back the way they came, the jungle-cat purr of the Bentley starting up, the slam of the car door as Morholt got in … and then the car fading into the distance as the modern-day Druid drove off.

  THE GIRLS HAD been quiet for almost half an hour, listening for any sound that Morholt had come back. For the last few minutes Al had been crouched down on all fours, peering through the crack under the door of their little prison cell. Finally she sat back and turned to Clare.

  “Friendship with you is not dull.” Al smiled wanly. “Have I ever mentioned that?”

  “Sorry.”

  “Never mind.” Al stood up and undid the clasp of her belt. “I think I might have figured a way to get us out of here.” She held up the belt—it was made of plain black leather and it fastened by hooking a single claw on the back through one of the holes in the leather. The buckle was a silver disk with an X-Men insignia on it. She’d bought it at a comic book convention.

  “You’re going to call the X-Men to come rescue us? I hope it’s one of the cute ones and not the big fuzzy blue guy …”

  “We don’t need mutants to save us.”

  “We don’t?”

  “Not with your wicked-ass magic and my mad super-spy skills, we don’t.” Al grinned and dropped down on all fours again. The gap between the bottom of the door and the floor was about an inch—plenty of room to slide the belt under. Al began the tricky job of manoeuvring the hook of her belt so that she could snag the strap of her messenger bag and gently—oh, so gently—drag it over closer to the locker. She sweated and swore for what seemed an eternity until she could just reach and grab the strap of the bag with her fingertips. “Excelsior!” she muttered as she dragged the bag right up to the outside of the door and rolled over onto her back, panting with the effort.

  “Al? Even if you could get your computer out of the bag, I don’t think it’ll fit under the door—”

  “Don’t need the computer,” Al grunted as she rolled back onto her stomach. After a bit more swearing and scrabbl
ing she shimmied back away from the door and held up Clare’s pompom sock triumphantly.

  Clare was unaccountably relieved to see the cloak pin again. “But how would—”

  “Look,” Al explained. “When you touch the brooch, you go … but the brooch stays here. When you come back, you come back to where the brooch is. The test of my working theory is this: you touch the brooch, you zot—”

  “Shimmer.”

  “Shimmer. After you’re gone, I slide the brooch under the door, you un-zot—”

  “Un-shimmer.”

  “Un-shimmer outside the storage container. Get it?”

  Clare felt a grin spreading across her face. “This officially makes you the best sidekick ever. You know that, right?”

  “Okay … see, how come I’m the sidekick? I’m the one with the plan!”

  “Yeah, but I’m the one with the superpowers.”

  “Good point.”

  Clare suddenly grew serious. “Al … what if something happens to you while I’m gone?”

  Al shook her head. “It won’t. But, y’know—don’t dawdle.” She shook the brooch into her palm and held it out. “After you shimmer, count to one hundred. Meanwhile, I’ll get the brooch outside the container. Then we both concentrate hard on bringing you back.” Al paused. “Worth a shot?”

  “Hand it over.” Clare glanced around, making sure she wasn’t near anything electrical this time. “Here goes nothing …”

  14

  Clare hadn’t planned on materializing in a sunlit, frost-crisp meadow directly in the path of a galloping horse kicking up clouds of sparkling ice-fog as it thundered directly toward her. The creature loomed huge in her field of vision, the size of a tank and just as terrifying. As the ground beneath her shuddered Clare screamed and threw her arms up in front of her face. The horse’s piercing whinny shattered the cold air and it reared back, pawing at the air and almost taking Clare’s head off.

  “Whoa!” the rider shouted, sawing on the reins. “Whoa, Meryn!”

  Clare risked a glance between her upraised arms as the rider pushed back a hooded cowl and a cloud of strawberry-gold hair tumbled out around her shoulders.