Fight and Flight (Magic 2.0 Book 4) Page 31

  The wizards chose to cut short the post-treatment sleep portion of the medevac protocol. It was an unnecessary piece of stagecraft for most of the patients, as they had only superficial wounds. For those who had required more extreme intervention, the residual pain from their stitches and the admonitions of the demons they’d encountered would probably be enough to make them take it easy for a while.

  Honor darted past the pews and nearly leapt at Sonny, who had barely lifted himself off of his belly and into a sitting position when she barreled into him, nearly knocking him down again. She threw her arms around his midsection and squeezed him hard. “Sonny! Are you all right?”

  “Yes, Honor. I’m fine. But my back does hurt quite a lot.”

  Honor quickly stopped hugging Sonny, muttered, “Sorry,” then threw her arms around his neck and squeezed just as hard as she had before. “I was so worried about you.”

  “I can tell,” Sonny croaked, fighting for breath.

  They spent a while hugging and crying, Honor out of relief that her brother was back, and Sonny because tears are contagious, and he was touched to see how much his sister cared for him. Finally, Sonny said, “I died, Honor.”

  Honor said, “You were asleep. The wizards did it. I’ll explain later.”

  Sonny shook his head. “No,” he said, quietly, “I know what I saw Honor, and for at least a little while, I was dead. I saw the afterlife.”

  Honor asked, “What was it like?”

  “Yes,” Bishop Galbraith asked, “what was it like?” He’d woken up at the same time as Sonny, and now sat on the pew behind Sonny, trying to fend off the two nuns aggressively fussing over him.

  Sonny painfully twisted in his seat to look at the bishop, and said, “Well, I didn’t see heaven. I saw the other place.”

  Galbraith raised his eyebrows and said, “Really?”

  “Yes. There were three devils. Two were female. I think they were there to tempt me. The third was male. I think he was in charge.”

  Galbraith nodded sagely. “He had a forceful manner, did he? The bearing of a natural leader?”

  “No. He was just older than the other two.”

  “Oh.”

  “Much older. Maybe hundreds of years.”

  “I see.”

  “And the other two moved around and did things while he just stood in one place and talked, like he was used to having others do things for him.”

  From several pews over, Sister Flora said, “Typical.”

  Bishop Galbraith said, “I understand. What did these devils say to you, Sonny?”

  Sonny looked at the bishop, then at Honor, and said, “That’s the strange thing. The very old one said that I was a good boy, and that I was on the right path. They said that if I keep going exactly as I am, that I wouldn’t ever have to go back, or see them again. Father, what does it mean?”

  “Probably exactly what it sounds like. Did they say anything else?”

  “They said to keep my back wounds clean and dry, and to wear loose-fitting, light shirts until my burns have healed. And the very old one said that it’s perfectly acceptable to pay my church tithes in meat or wool instead of coin, but to bear in mind that lamb would be preferable to mutton.”

  Galbraith said, “He sounds very wise.”

  40.

  When Honor and Runt streaked off into the distance to their reunion with Sonny and, to a lesser extent, Bishop Galbraith, Phillip remained, standing alone in the middle of the road, surrounded by people he thought of as his friends and neighbors.

  Before they’d played their ruse on the girl, she seemed to be the only one ready to accuse him of anything. Now they all seemed to be silently accusing him of terrible misdeeds with their eyes.

  He’d already claimed at least partial responsibility for the dragon problem, though he’d done so through an elaborate lie. To accuse someone of wrongdoing after they’d already confessed seemed unfair, even cowardly. The fact that Phillip knew that he and the wizards were responsible only made the silent accusations sting more.

  The other wizards joined Phillip. Predictably, Brit the Younger reached him first, followed closely by Martin, Gwen, and then the rest. Phillip addressed the citizens.

  “We’re sorry for the trouble. We regret any unpleasantness we may have caused. None of us ever meant any of you any harm.” He turned to his fellow wizards and said, “Let’s all go to my shop.”

  Phillip started walking down the street, his eyes locked firmly on the ground directly in front of him.

  Gary said, “Why don’t we fly there, or teleport?”

  Martin said, “Because this situation calls for slinking.”

  The wizards slunk down the street, feeling the eyes of the citizens follow them, the eight floats that made up the First Annual Leadchurch Parade of Shame.

  Phillip noticed Kludge, standing straight and tall, watching the wizards with open satisfaction. When he drew close to Kludge, Phillip told Brit to let everyone upstairs, and that he’d be right behind them. He stopped next to Kludge as the rest of wizards walked on.

  “Kludge,” Phillip said, “I don’t think we wizards ever properly apologized for what Todd did to you.”

  “No,” Kludge said. “You didn’t.”

  “We were never on friendly terms, the wizards and the Bastards, but that can’t justify what happened to you.”

  “No, it can’t.”

  “Well, I am sorry. We all are. It should have never happened. I know that doesn’t make up for anything.”

  “No, it doesn’t.”

  “If it makes you feel any better, we punished Todd, rather harshly, for what he did to you.”

  “Yeah,” Kludge said, “where is he now?”

  Phillip said, “Dead.”

  Kludge said, “I suppose that’s a start.”

  * * *

  By the time Phillip reached his rec room, everyone was already seated, including Louiza, who’d arrived first and waited for them. She had removed her mask, but still wore the remainder of her sexy devil costume. She tried to act as if she didn’t notice Gary staring at her.

  Phillip leaned against his bar and said, “That was a right mess, wasn’t it?”

  Roy muttered, “We went through all that just to end up exactly like we started, only now everyone respects us less.”

  Gwen said, “Yeah, but maybe we deserve to be respected less, or we didn’t deserve some of the respect we were getting.”

  Brit said, “And it was a learning experience.”

  “Yeah? What did we learn, exactly?” Roy asked.

  “Not to play God?” Jeff said.

  Martin said, “I dunno. Seems to me it depends on what you mean by playing God. I mean, creating the dragons in the first place wasn’t a great move, but since then, all of us have done a lot of messing with people’s lives, and made a lot of big messes. In the end, we had lie to an entire town to make it all right. I think at most we can say we learned to be very careful when we play God.”

  Tyler said, “That’s a stupid lesson.”

  Gary said, “We paid off all those merchants in Camelot, and you two drove those dragons out of that cave by triggering a gold rush. Maybe the lesson is that bribes work.”

  Tyler said, “That’s a stupid lesson, too, and we already knew it anyway.”

  Phillip said, “How about this, Tyler? Martin and I took care of your last dragon by getting that little girl’s parents involved. Brit and Gwen got rid of their dragons when they asked those shepherds for advice. I realize now that the little girl who just exorcized us is a shepherd herself, and probably could have been a helpful ally instead of an enemy if we’d only gone to her and her brother for advice to begin with. I think the lesson is that just because we know about magic doesn’t mean we know everything, and that
we aren’t just here to help the locals, they’re here to help us as well.”

  They all thought about that for a moment, before Gary said, “I don’t like that at all.”

  Phillip said, “Which is how you know it’s true.”

  Brit the Younger said, “Louiza, one thing I’d like to know is why you and Brit the Elder had those skintight devil costumes just sitting around ready. You didn’t have to magic them up or anything. They were just draped over a chair in your office.”

  Louiza said, “I can’t tell you that.”

  Brit asked, “Why not?”

  “Because Brit the Elder doesn’t want me to tell you.”

  “But she’s just my future self, supposedly. I want you to tell me. Surely that must cancel her wishes out. It’s like I’ve changed my mind retroactively.”

  Louiza thought for a moment, and said, “You want me to tell you. She doesn’t want me to tell you. I’m still not happy that you dragged me into this with no warning, so I don’t want to tell you either. That’s two votes to one. You and I have you outvoted.”

  Epilogue

  The next day, Bishop Galbraith walked around the church grounds as usual. Only his slower pace gave any indication that anything out of the ordinary had happened.

  The bishop stopped when he heard a voice behind him call out, “Your Excellency!” He turned to see Phillip walking quickly to catch up.

  “How’s your leg, Your Excellency?”

  “Sore, but nothing I can’t handle.”

  “And how’s the church doing, after everything that happened?”

  “Well, I think. It wasn’t damaged in any of the fighting. In fact, I strongly suspect attendance will be way up for a while.”

  “Yes, experiences like these tend to bring people to religion.”

  Bishop Galbraith smiled, and said, “Some of them much more than others. I see some of your friends are flying around the rooftops this morning. They seem awfully busy.”

  “Yeah, they’re trying to repair the damage.”

  “Making everything as good as if nothing had happened, eh?”

  “Better, hopefully. We plan to leave the roofs less leaky and the walls less drafty than they were before. The hope is that, in the end, people will feel like they were lucky that their house got broken by a fire-breathing dragon.”

  “But it doesn’t look like you’re fixing any carpentry.”

  “No, I got the hard job. I’ve spent the last two hours talking to Kludge.”

  “Never a pleasant prospect.”

  “No, and that’s part of why we wizards never properly apologized to him for what happened to him. You remember what I’m talking about.”

  “All too well. Did he accept your apology?”

  “No, but he is accepting our help. We spoke to the king. The chunk of land where they camp is now deeded to Kludge, and we’re going to help them build a house to live in.”

  “Help them build it? You’re not building it for them with your magic?”

  “No. We’re giving them the materials, the tools, and paying two carpenters to supervise them, but they have to build the thing themselves. The thinking is that they’ll respect the house more if they have to put some effort into it, and maybe one or two of them will learn a real trade. At the very least, for a little while they might be too tired to bother menacing anyone.”

  Galbraith said, “And perhaps they’ll be friendlier once they start sleeping indoors.”

  Phillip said, “Indeed. They seemed pretty happy about the idea. One of them, Stretch I think they called him, already has ideas for his dream kitchen.”

  Bishop Galbraith squinted up into the sky and said, “Here come some of your friends.”

  Martin, Gwen, and Brit the Younger soared gracefully through the air and landed in front of Phillip and the bishop. Martin asked, “How’d it go with Kludge?”

  Phillip said, “It went well. I just finished telling His Excellency about it. We can discuss the particulars later.” The others took the subtle hint from Phillip not to ask any further questions about the Kludge conversation, because he hadn’t quite told the bishop the whole story.

  “The fact that you’re all three here leads me to believe that you’re ready to go make our final stop,” Phillip continued.

  The bishop said, “And I must get back to the church. Phillip, it’s always a pleasure to talk to you. Gwen, good to see you. Martin, good day. Brit, it’s wonderful to see you. I do hope you’ll stop by the church occasionally. You’ll always be welcome.”

  “I, uh, thank you, Your Excellency. I’m sorry, I just haven’t talked to you that often. I didn’t think you really knew my name.”

  “I didn’t,” the bishop said, “but I do now. A woman I’m told is you in the distant future and I have become very well acquainted, and I hope that you and I can be good friends as well.”

  As Bishop Galbraith walked away, back toward the lead church, Brit said, “I’m not sure I like the sound of that.”

  Phillip said, “I know I don’t.”

  “So,” Martin asked, “Kludge went for it?”

  “Yes,” Phillip said. “Starting next week, instead of training by fighting fake dragons, we train by fighting Kludge and the Bastards. They were dubious at first, but they came around when I told them that we would promise to never hurt them, and that they’d be required to do their absolute best to hurt us any way they could. Is Jeff working on his end?”

  Gwen said, “He and Roy are already done. They just took the original, dumb, fake dragons, made ’em look like they’re made of metal, stripped out all of the behavior algorithms, and figured out a firing system for the fire breath. They just stand there like a statue unless someone rides them.”

  Phillip said, “Good. Telling them they’d get to use dragons to try to hurt us with was a big part of my sales pitch.”

  Martin said, “I wonder if the Bastards will be disappointed.”

  “In what?” Brit asked.

  “The dragons,” Martin said. “Because they aren’t like real dragons.”

  “There are no real dragons,” Brit said. “There never were. They were all fake, Martin.”

  “I know that. It’s just, these dragons are going to be even faker than the ones they’re used to. Really, they’re little more than mean-looking flying motorcycles that shoot fire.”

  “Mean-looking flying motorcycles that shoot fire,” Phillip said. “Yes, I can see how a gang of toughs would be disappointed in that.”

  * * *

  In Honor and Sonny’s pasture, the sheep grazed under the watchful eyes of Blackie and Harry. Honor sat, leaned back against a tree with her eyes closed, her left hand in her lap and her right hand listlessly scratching Runt, until a soft male voice said, “Pardon me,” at which point Honor’s eyes popped open and she let out a panicked yelp.

  Phillip, Brit, Gwen, and Martin were all standing in the grass in front of her. Phillip said, “I’m sorry. I was specifically trying not to startle you.”

  Honor glared at him and said, “You didn’t do very well, did you?”

  “No. I didn’t. We stopped by your house looking for you. Your brother told us you were out here.”

  “I am.”

  “Yes. Honor, we are all grateful to you, and quite impressed with what you accomplished. You suffered a terrible loss, stood up for what you knew to be true when all of the adults seemed to be against you, befriended people of whom even we wizards chose to steer clear, and confronted an adversary you had every reason to believe was far more powerful than you.”

  “I wanted my brother back.”

  “Well, we’re all very impressed, and grateful.”

  “So you say.”

  “Exactly. We’ve said it, and now we’re here to show it with our actions
. But first, we do have one question. We’re curious how you came to possess the Mego Demon Figure.”

  “Hubert gave it to me.”

  “Yes, the dung sifter. I thought that might be the case. We must reward him.”

  Brit said, “We could set him up in another line of work. Any other line of work.”

  “No,” Martin said. “He wouldn’t go for it. That business is in his blood.”

  Gwen said, “Then maybe a course of antibiotics. And a case of rubber gloves.”

  Phillip cut in, “We can discuss that with Hubert. We’re here to reward Honor.” Phillip knelt down and pulled out a small leather pouch. He opened the drawstring and showed Honor that it was full of silver coins.

  “This pouch will refill itself with silver coins once a month, rain or shine, for the rest of your life. You could use it to buy food. There’s enough for you and Sonny to just get by, or you could use it to buy more sheep, and pay for hands to help you tend them. Play your cards right, and this silver can help you make even more silver on your own, and if it doesn’t work out, you still have next month’s silver to count on. Also, if you’re ever in trouble, stick your hand in the pouch and snap your fingers twice. One of us will show up as soon as possible to help in any way we can.”

  Honor took the pouch. It felt heavy in her hands. She looked inside, rattled the coins around a bit, then looked at Phillip and said, “Thank you.”

  “You’re most welcome.”

  “It’s very nice.”

  “You deserve no less.”

  They lapsed into a long silence, during which everyone fidgeted uneasily. Finally, Phillip asked, “Do you have any questions, Honor?”

  Honor thought for a moment, then asked, “Why silver? Why not gold?”