Hunt and Power. Stephen Hayes

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СКАЧАТЬ to be alone while I handle that rejection.”

      I lay back down in bed, and Peter did the same. “Your choice,” I said quietly.

      My mind was ticking over again. Peter’s point had been more convincing than any of Nicole’s. I didn’t want to be alone either, while I watched Natalie pashing Tommy, or James and Erica, or Kylie and Peter, or Marc and Amelia. I felt a stab of sympathy for Nicole; she may not have a choice in the matter, but I did. In fact, if Stella was as genuine as Lena, I had two possible options.

      I lay there in the dark and listened to the pressing silence. I thought I could hear, somewhere outside, a distant siren, like a fire engine, but it made no impression on my thoughts. My insides were churning, not with pleasure or determination, but with guilt about Marc and Amelia, loneliness, dread, and many other miserable feelings I couldn’t quite identify. My final thought before dozing off was that, once I got the Light Crystal back in my possession, I was going to make sure that nothing else could happen to make me feel any worse.

      * * *

      If I’d thought I could sleep off my bad feelings and make them go away the next day, I realised very quickly how very wrong I was. Things took a drastic turn during breakfast the next morning. Our parents had needled us for information and anecdotes for ten minutes before finally falling satisfied that we’d behaved and nothing had gone wrong. I was on the point of getting up and heading upstairs with James and Peter to start on some homework when my phone rang in my pocket and I pulled it out to see an unfamiliar number on the screen.

      “Hello?” I said curiously when I answered, and the whole table fell silent to listen.

      “Hi John, Liam here,” he said, and his voice sounded strange, quiet and shocked. “How’re you?”

      “Er—fine,” I said, a little anxiously. How did Liam get my number? I had no recollection of ever giving it to him. “We had no problems. What’s up?”

      “Well,” he said, and I could tell he was struggling to find the words to describe what he wanted to say, “not everything’s good. Not everyone knows yet, but something went wrong.”

      “What? What happened?” I asked urgently. The silence in the room was oppressive now, as we all waited for his answer.

      Liam took a deep breath and said, “It’s Daniel. We found him a couple of streets away from where he lived. We think they must have thought he was Marc; they do look alike.”

      My stomach lurched at his use of the word 'lived' instead of 'lives'. I also remembered how Moran’s ghosts had attacked Daniel for no reason other than the fact that he looked like Marc.

      “What did they do?” I asked, dreading the answer. “Where is he?”

      “We think it must—have b-been—quick and c-clean, ‘cause his b-body looked—un-unharmed.”

      My mouth fell open. I felt light-headed; my world was spinning out of control. It couldn’t be—it couldn’t. Everyone was looking at me, terrified of what they didn’t yet know. When I could speak again, I said, “Do they know? Marc? Amelia? Stella?”

      “Marc does,” he said. “He was the first one I rang, and maybe he’ll have told the Sorcerers by now.”

      “What’s going on then?” I asked. The initial shock had worn off enough for me to realise the magnitude of the crisis. “Is there going to be a meeting, or—”

      “Perhaps,” he said. “But Marc will let you know in the usual way. Don’t do anything just yet, okay? Just tell the others, and—and—yeah.”

      I could tell he was in complete shock and didn’t know what to say, and I was little better. “Okay,” I said. “I’ll see you later, maybe.”

      “Yeah. Bye.”

      I ended the call and looked up at my family, who were still staring at me, terrified.

      “What’s happened?” asked Jessica in a small voice.

      I took a deep breath, much as Liam had, and said, “Daniel’s dead.”

      The reaction was much as I had expected; gasps echoed around the table, hands clapped to mouths and many eyes filled with tears. Shocked exclamations were the initial reaction, but soon came the realization of what the Hammersons had managed to do, and our mothers were onto it right away.

      “I thought you said they’d set up spells to stop them using magic. How could they possibly—”

      “Maybe it was because they attacked him so far from the party,” suggested James.

      “Or because the party had pretty much finished,” said Felicity.

      “I don’t care,” said Marge, standing up and towering over the whole table, which was incredible seeing as she wasn’t normally a very large woman. “It’s settled. None of you are going anywhere near those Sorcerers anymore, do you understand?”

      “What?”

      “You heard me!” she shrieked. “No Hammersons! No Woodwards! No Morans! No nothing!”

      “This is my fault,” sobbed Nicole, and I realised now that she was crying harder than anyone. “All my fault. I made him do that reading, and we know he saw something bad, and we—we—”

      My stomach lurched again. I couldn’t even begin to imagine what Nicole must be going through right now, on top of what she’d been going through last night. There was no denying it; she was more to blame for Daniel’s death than anyone other than whoever had actually delivered the final blow, and of course for Daniel himself, who had been happy to comply. Jessica, who was sitting next to Nicole, put her arm around her and whispered something that was probably meant to be soothing.

      “You lot are spending time with the wrong people,” said Mum, standing up to join Marge. “I don’t care what points you’ve got to defend yourselves. This is proof of what we’ve been saying all along. It isn’t safe.”

      “Daniel wouldn’t have minded,” said Peter suddenly and loudly.

      Everyone looked at him. “What are you—” James began.

      “He said he’d been expecting it,” said Peter. “Remember, he said it should have happened long before now, and he said he’d make sure he died with style.”

      I could remember that too. Now that I thought of it, it was more Daniel’s fault than anyone else’s, if he’d been killed for doing magic at that party. After all, he’d done that reading for Nicole, when many of us had warned him against it. On top of that, he’d chosen Nicole, not the other way around, so it wasn’t Nicole’s fault at all. That also explained his behaviour at the party; he’d been prepared to give me a psychic reading, not because he didn’t think it counted as performing magic, but because he knew he had nothing to lose. He’d already done one, so the damage was done. But had that really resulted in his death?

      I looked at our parents. Mum and Marge were the only ones who seemed to be determined to hold us down; Hilda and Violet were watching the scene, looking alarmed, while Dad, Charlie, William and Carl looked shocked at the news of Daniel’s death, but they didn’t СКАЧАТЬ