‘You have been like a lion in a cage, pacing up and down, finding it hard to sit still. Your frustration is most obvious, and I apologise for making you wait.’
‘Sorry, Hugo. Something is going on down there, and being so close like this and not knowing what it is…’
‘You do not like not knowing. I understand that. Therefore, let us go and find out.’
‘Capital. Through the woods at the base of the cliff is the only way to go, obviously, but we need to choose the best place to cross the road.’
He brought the binoculars to his eyes to determine the best route but at that moment his field of vision was filled with blinding red light and he jerked back with an oath. Almost immediately, a cloud of dust and smoke rushed toward them, followed by a patter of debris, and he scrambled back into what he hoped was the safety of the cave. Blue-green spots danced in front of his eyes and he shook his head, trying to make them disappear.
The cave walls shook as another thumping concussion hit and dust rained down on them. Aubrey and von Stralick both lay on the rocky floor, arms over their heads as one more, then another explosion erupted, slashing through the narrow cave entrance with ragged orange brilliance.
Eventually, all was silent. Aubrey raised his head and crawled on all floors until he could peer through the dust and smoke.
Dr Tremaine’s estate was a ruin, with only the main house still standing. It was virtually untouched, almost huffily facing away from the blackened wrecks that had once been the newer buildings. A row of poplars that had separated the main house from the outbuildings had been shredded, but in doing so had probably shielded the old hunting lodge from worse damage than the single broken window on the second floor.
‘Someone didn’t want anything left,’ Aubrey said. The dust and smoke was quickly being driven away over the cliff by wind, but the nose-singeing, acrid smell of high explosives was enough to make him screw up his face.
Von Stralick rose and slapped dust from his sleeves. ‘Overly dramatic, but effective. A fire would have done just as well.’
Aubrey shrugged. Dr Tremaine rarely did anything without three or four reasons lined up behind each other like divers on the high board, each waiting to show off her new trick. With the estate’s clifftop position, the explosions would have been seen for miles. A signal, perhaps?
More noise rose from below. Shouting, then Dr Tremaine’s familiar figure bounded from the main house. He gestured in the direction of the gates, which were hastily opened, then he disappeared around the corner. The roar of an engine became a scream and the sporty red motorcar skidded into view, then blasted around the circular driveway. Flames from the ruins of the outbuildings glinted on his goggles. He looked possessed, a demon driver with a long white scarf trailing from his neck. The guards at the gate cried out and jumped back as the motorcar slid sideways on its approach. Dr Tremaine grinned maniacally as he dragged on the wheel, turning into the skid, then the powerful engine snarled, the back wheels bit, and the car shot through and onto the road. For an instant, Aubrey was sure Dr Tremaine’s scarf was going to get tangled in the gate, but the fringed ends twisted and untwined themselves with audacious, casual magic.
The car vanished into the dark avenue of trees that led down the mountainside. Aubrey grimaced. It appeared as if Dr Tremaine had cleared his plate before moving on to the next course.
The howl of the engine echoed from the stony face of the hills, growing fainter as it hurtled toward Bardenford. Aubrey made a fist and drummed on the stone in front of him. He had an appointment with Dr Tremaine, but it frustrated him that he didn’t know when or where it was going to be.
6
With the care they’d learned in their cross-country ordeal, Aubrey and von Stralick eased themselves out of the cave and down the rock face. As they approached the estate in the darkness, soft noises came from the multitudinous and unknowable doings of a forest at night time, overlaid with the settlings from the conflagration site – creaking timber and ashes hissing where dew was falling on coals. Occasionally a guard would call out to his comrades and once, as they neared, Aubrey could swear he heard a bottle clinking on glass. He decided that they must be confident that Dr Tremaine wasn’t coming back for some time, which was vastly reassuring.
The wall of the estate was built of stone, deliberately rough cast to give it a rustic appearance. The barbed wire on top of the twelve-foot wall, however, was definitely a new addition, quite out of keeping. The barbs glinted in the lights of the main house.
‘Someone has been busy.’ Von Stralick pointed at several tree stumps close to the wall to their left.
‘Clearing overhangs, I’d say.’ Aubrey was disappointed. It would have been handy to find a tree near the wall. ‘It suggests that whatever is going on inside is worth protecting.’
‘Or was worth protecting, before it was blown up. Time for some of your magic?’
‘Unless you have a very large stepladder hidden in your jacket. Ah.’
‘Ah?’
‘I’m rethinking, Hugo, as we speak, because I’ve just spotted the magic detectors on the wall.’
On the top of the wall, just beneath the lowest strand of barbed wire, was a series of featureless black boxes. Aubrey could see two between their position and the gates, the nearest only a few yards away. Turning to his left, he could make out another a stone’s throw away. He imagined the field of detection was limited to the fenceline to avoid unnecessary alarms from stray magic inside the estate.
Von Stralick scratched his chin. ‘This will make things more difficult, I assume.’
‘Definitely. Any magic strong enough to spirit us over the wall will set off the alarms. Even these guards wouldn’t ignore that sort of thing.’
‘I’ll go back to the cave and fetch my very large stepladder, will I?’
‘If you could, it would be handy.’ Aubrey stared at the nearest magic detector. Significantly, it didn’t stare back. It simply sat there smugly, daring him to try something.
Apart from an overactive imagination, he thought, perhaps I’m going about this the wrong way.
Instead of trying to avoid detection, why couldn’t he simply prevent the machines from alerting the dozy guards? After all, a magical alarm that couldn’t do any actual alarming was, essentially, a box – and a box wasn’t going to stop Aubrey Fitzwilliam from getting over a wall.
While von Stralick leaned against the wall with remarkable patience, Aubrey juggled the possibilities. Typically, magic detectors blared a warning, siren-like, when magic intruded into their area of scrutiny.
Sound travels through air. If I can remove the air from the vicinity of the detectors they’d be doing their best to alarm, but their efforts will be pointless.
Aubrey rubbed his hands together. Aware that he was letting a problem get slightly personal, he was looking forward to seeing how smug the magic detectors would be in a vacuum.
Aubrey had dabbled with air evacuation spells – an application of the Law of Transference – to render miscreants unconscious, so he had a foundation to work with. The range of effect and the dimensions of the spell were the crucial elements. He wished he could run a tape measure over one of the detectors, but he had become reasonably good at estimating by eye. A dome-shaped coverage would be best, he decided, and he opted for a volume that was – naturally – half of a sphere. Calculating?r ^ 3 in his head gave him a few forehead wrinkles, but in the end he had it. The spell would have to come into being and produce its effect with little time lag, so he concentrated on making it as condensed as possible. He added an operator that controlled copies of the spell, to account for the detectors either side of the stretch of wall they were going to breach, then he pronounced the spell crisply.
He tensed a little when he felt the domes pop into being – a tickle of saltiness on the skin of his face – and then nothing, and he grinned. He had rarely been so pleased to see nothing happening. Instead of announcing spell failure, in this particular case nothing happening meant success.
Von Stralick had fallen asleep. He was leaning against the wall, eyes closed, his chin sagging nearly to his chest. Aubrey shook him gently. ‘We’re ready.’
Von Stralick was alert immediately. He withdrew his revolver. Aubrey blinked, but it made sense – of a brutal kind. He could get them over the wall, but Hugo was going to make sure that they could deal with any unfriendly reception on the other side.
