JAMES POTTER AND THE VAULT OF DESTINIES

      'Me?' James rasped. 'I thought you were in charge of that detail?'

      'I got the verse to get us through the Warping Willow!' Zane frowned defensively.

       Ralph glanced worriedly from Zane to James. 'And, er, I'm the one what found old zombie Professor Straidthwait! Without him, we wouldn't have gotten anywhere at all!'

       'Hold on,' James said, poking a finger into the air. 'We got this far and none of us has any plan for how to actually get the unicorn's horseshoe from Magnussen?'

       'Well,' Zane shrugged, 'we could just send Ralph out there with his Godzilla wand. I'd put your wand up against that evil cane of his any day, Ralphinator.'

       'No way I'm dueling a bloke like that,' Ralph replied, shaking his head vigorously. 'Not after the way all those portraits talked about him. Let's not forget that the man's a bloody murderer!'

      James nodded soberly. 'That's true. We have to be dead careful.'

      'Or just plain dead,' Zane gulped.

      'Don't get spooked yet,' James said reasonably. 'We still need to follow him to the Nexus Curtain. We can figure something out along the way.'

       'Yeah,' Zane nodded. 'Figuring stuff out along the way, that's always worked out great for us in the past.'

'Shh!' Ralph hissed, peering back around the corner. 'Here he comes!'

       A door thunked shut in the darkness and was followed by the tromp of boots on squeaky stairs. James peeked around the corner, followed by Zane. Together, the three boys watched the shadowy form of Professor Magnussen as he stalked along the alley, his feet splashing in the puddles and his cane glinting in the darkness.

       'Hey,' a man's voice called out suddenly. James startled, as did Zane and Ralph. Magnussen stopped in his tracks, wary as a jackal. After a few tense seconds, the voice spoke again, timidly, but with stubborn resolution.

       'She knew you'd come back,' it said, and there was a hint of a disbelieving laugh in it. 'I told her she was crazy. You'd never come back here, not after what happened. But here you are, bold as brass, big as life.'

       Magnussen hadn't moved. His voice came out of the darkness silkily. 'You have me at a disadvantage, friend,' he said. 'Come into the light so I can see you.'

       'What, so you can do to me what you did to her?' the voice scoffed nervously. In spite of its words, however, a figure moved into the mouth of the alley. He was a young man, barely twenty years old, very thin and wearing a bowler's hat. Braces were slung over his shoulders, holding up a pair of ill-fitting flannel pants. He was less than fifteen feet away from James, Zane, and Ralph where they hid in the shadow of the broken crates.

      'Have we met, good sir?' Magnussen asked calmly, taking a step forward.

       'Oh yes, we've met,' the man spat. 'Although I doubt you'd remember it. Fredericka even talked to you about me. She was worried that you might get the wrong ideas about her, a big fancy man like you from up in the Heights coming down here to engage the services of a common seamstress. I heard all about how you stared at her when she delivered your mended coats and capes, how you looked like you were measuring her up with your eyes, like she was just a piece of meat and you were a butcher. She told you she had a fiance just so you knew where you stood with her. To me, she said not to worry, that she could handle herself and she needed the money you were payin' her. But turns out she was right about you, wasn't she? Poor little Fredericka who never would've hurt a fly. You were a butcher after all. You killed her, mangled her, and left her in the street for us to find. And now here you are, come right back to the very scene, just as bold as you please.'

       'This is a misunderstanding, my good man,' Magnussen said soothingly, still stepping forward. To James, he looked like a cat slowly creeping up on its prey. Silently, James drew his wand from his pocket. Next to him, he sensed Ralph and Zane doing the same.

'Helen said you'd come back,' the man said, and then he laughed a little hysterically. At his side, he held a length of iron, a crowbar. 'Helen is Fredericka's little sister, you know. She has a sense about these things. I didn't believe her, at least not completely. But you know what? I believed her enough to keep a watch on this here alley. When I saw you come here tonight, saw you stand right here on this spot, looking around like you owned the place, I barely believed my own eyes. But Helen was right. You came back.'

       The man began to stride forward then, raising the crowbar. He looked like he barely knew what he meant to do with it.

      Magnussen didn't move. 'Now look here, my good man,' he said with a smile in his voice.

       Suddenly, the thin man flew up from the pavement, flailing wildly in the air and dropping the crowbar. It clattered loudly to the cobbles, spinning away into a puddle. A moment later, the man himself crashed into a stack of barrels at the rear of the alley. The barrels toppled and tumbled over each other, burying the man.

       'So much ugliness,' Magnussen sighed to himself, turning toward the rear of the alley. 'When will these people ever learn…'

       A barrel clattered sideways as the skinny man scrambled to his feet again, his face pale but determined in the dimness. 'I don't know who or what you are, you demon,' he breathed, 'but you aren't leaving this alley. For Fredericka…'

       'You know,' Magnussen said magnanimously, 'the young lady did speak of you, now that you mention it. Your name is William, isn't it? Yes. She screamed your name, in fact, near the end of her life. I wouldn't have thought that she'd been capable of something so strenuous at that point, but that just goes to show the difference between theory and reality. It was highly instructive, in fact. I'll tell you what. As thanks, I will grant you your greatest wish. I will send you to join your dear departed Fredericka. Perhaps you will scream her name as well.'

       The skinny man barely seemed to hear Magnussen. He lurched to his feet, limping pathetically, and began to lope toward the older man, his bare hands held before him, hooked into claws. In the darkness, Magnussen raised his cane, smiling malevolently.

       'No!' James cried out, leaping out into the alley and brandishing his wand. His voice, however, was drowned out by a loud, echoing crack, nearly deafening in the confined space of the alley.

       Too late! James thought hectically, still aiming his wand wildly at Magnussen's back. He's killed him! The skinny man, William, did not fall, however. James blinked into the darkness of the alley, waiting for Magnussen's evil spell to take effect. Instead, Magnussen lowered his cane and then dropped it. It clattered to the alley. A moment later, Magnussen himself fell to his knees.

       'How…,' he asked, looking up at William. Slowly, almost ponderously, Magnussen fell forward, flat on his face in the center of the alley, dead.

       'For Fredericka,' a girl's voice said faintly. James looked to the side. A young woman, barely older than James himself, stood nearby. She stared at Magnussen's dead body, her face a mask of pale resignation. In her outstretched hand, smoking lazily, was a small pistol.

'For Fredericka,' she repeated faintly, 'from her fiance, William. And from me, her sister. Helen.'

       The girl, Helen, had seen the three boys, but didn't seem particularly interested in them. Zane, being wise enough to opt for the truth when it was most appropriate, simply told her that the dead man in the alley had stolen something from their school, thus he and his friends had followed him in the hopes of getting it back.