Midnight Read online

  Omen laughed a little. “Yeah, I suppose.”

  “My sisters – I grew up with sisters – they love the romantic comedies. Have you seen 10 Things I Hate About You? Heath Ledger pursues Julia Stiles. You should sing to Axelia during morning assembly.”

  “That’s a terrifically bad idea.”

  “A Partridge Family song, maybe.”

  “I’m not sure who they are.”

  “They were a musical group. One of my older sisters, she loved David Cassidy when she was a teenager. David Cassidy was in the Partridge Family. According to my sister, he was the main Partridge.”

  “Did they have costumes, or …?”

  “I don’t know if they dressed up as partridges, I just know the David Cassidy song. But you can’t do that song – that was used in the movie. You want another one, a song that may once have been cheesy, but now is sort of cool.”

  “I don’t think I’m going to sing to her, though.”

  “That’s a pity,” said Filament. “It would work. I’m sure of it. But there are other ways to woo a lady. Send flowers every day. Write her poems. Or appear at her door one evening with cue cards professing your love.”

  “Is that wooing, though? Or is it, you know … stalking?”

  Filament frowned. “How can it be stalking? It’s for love.”

  “I get that, I do, but everything you’ve just mentioned sounds a little like harassment. I’d really prefer to be the guy who, you know, is rejected and then is kind of cool about it. I don’t want her to regret knowing me – that’s basically what I’m trying to say. I don’t want to be the bad guy, or the guy who can’t take the hint. You know?”

  Filament didn’t respond.

  “Filament?”

  “Your words have made me sad,” Filament said.

  “Oh.”

  “All those romantic comedies I watched.”

  “It’s fine for movies.”

  “No,” said Filament. “No. I shall never watch another. From here on out, it will be horror movies and only horror movies. Not even musicals.”

  “Musicals are OK.”

  “Maybe one or two musicals, like Grease.”

  “Grease is funny.”

  “It was nice talking to you, Omen, even if you did make me sad.”

  “I’m really sorry about that.”

  “I will try to be as brave as you.”

  “I’m not being brave, though.”

  Miss Wicked approached. “Filament,” she said, “it’s a Saturday morning. Do something better with it than sitting outside the Principal’s Office.”

  “Yes, miss,” Filament said, and hurried away.

  Miss Wicked frowned at Omen. “It’s ten o’clock. Why are you out here?”

  “I, um, I haven’t been told to go in.”

  “Our appointment is for ten,” she responded, striding to the door. “We go in at ten.”

  She walked in and Omen hopped up and hurried after her.

  He’d never been in Principal Rubic’s office before. He was immediately struck by the number of books on the shelves and the huge window behind the desk. Rubic himself sat at his desk, an elderly man with a face that longed for a beard it didn’t have. Standing before him was a tall man with dark hair swept back off a high forehead, a man who looked just like his son.

  “Ah, Miss Wicked, Omen,” said Rubic, waving them in, “I was just about to call for you. Of course, you will both recognise Grand Mage Ispolin, here from the Bulgarian Sanctuary. The Grand Mage is, very naturally, concerned about Jenan’s well-being.”

  “It’s been seven months,” Ispolin said, “and nothing has been done.” His accent, like that of so many sorcerers, was both distinct and soft, the result of hundreds of years of living. “My son remains missing, and this woman is still teaching at this school. I’m here to demand answers.”

  “Of course,” Rubic said, “of course. Your concern is understandable.”

  “For seven months, I have been met with nothing but excuses from the High Sanctuary.”

  Rubic nodded sadly. “Investigations of this nature do, unfortunately, tend to take a lot of time, Grand Mage.”

  “I am aware of the amount of time investigations take,” Ispolin said slowly. “What I am interested in learning is why this woman is still employed here.”

  “I believe you know my name,” Miss Wicked said.

  Ispolin looked up. “What?”

  “My name,” she said. “I believe you know it. Please use it. Every time you say ‘this woman’ I look around, wondering who you’re talking about. I am here, I gather, because of the altercation outside the boys’ dormitories. Is that right?”

  “That’s right,” Ispolin said. “When you attacked Jenan. Is this the type of teacher you have here, Mr Rubic? One who goes around assaulting your students?”

  Omen cleared his throat to speak, but could only croak. Ispolin glared at him.

  “Yes? You have something to contribute?”

  “I’m sure Omen was about to remind you that the altercation began when your son attacked him,” said Miss Wicked.

  Ispolin sneered. “So he claims.”

  “Now, now,” said Rubic, “we have no reason to doubt Mr Darkly’s version of events.”

  “Jenan attacked me,” Omen whispered.

  Ispolin folded his arms. “And I say that you are a liar.”

  Omen flushed red.

  “Look at his face,” Ispolin said. “Only the guilty blush.”

  “Nonsense,” said Miss Wicked. “Omen blushes at the mention of his own name. Please don’t make my student feel any more uncomfortable than he already does, Grand Mage Ispolin. Blushing means nothing, and Omen is not a liar.”

  “How can you be so sure?” Ispolin fired back. “His brother is the Chosen One, isn’t he? Jenan told me all about him, and, from where I stand, this is a boy who has been starved of attention his entire life. His brother is the one people know. His brother is the one people remember. But this boy here is so desperate for a moment in the spotlight that he has fabricated this entire story.”

  “I didn’t,” Omen said, shaking his head.

  “You’re a liar!”

  “Grand Mage!” Rubic said, rising slightly in his chair, “I must ask you to calm yourself!”

  “I want him expelled.”

  Rubic frowned, and sat back again. “I … Grand Mage, I cannot do that.”

  “I want him expelled and I want her fired.”

  “Grand Mage, please …”

  Miss Wicked adjusted the sleeve of her blouse. “Are we done with this nonsense?”

  Rubic held up a hand. “Just a moment—”

  Miss Wicked ignored him, and focused on Ispolin. “I walked by and found Jenan choking the life out of Omen. I intervened. Jenan proceeded to physically attack me. I restrained him.”

  “You nearly broke his arm!”

  “It could have been far, far worse. Headmaster, you realise this, do you not? I could have hurt Jenan far, far worse than I did?”

  “Of course,” Rubic sighed.

  “In which case, I restrained him with an admirable amount of, dare I say it, restraint. For which I should be thanked. Of course, I don’t do this for the thanks. I do this for the love of teaching, of moulding young minds.”

  “If this happened the way you say it happened,” said Ispolin, “then you won’t mind a Sensitive verifying it to be the truth.”

  Miss Wicked smiled. “No Sensitive is going to poke around inside my head, Grand Mage. You are just going to have to take my word for it, as an educator.”

  “I’m afraid I can’t do that.”

  “I’m afraid you don’t actually have a choice,” said Rubic. “Miss Wicked has been before a Review Board, and we have cleared her of any wrongdoing. Grand Mage, we have taken this meeting with you as a courtesy, but please don’t be under any illusion that you have any sort of jurisdiction here.”

  Ispolin glowered, and Rubic turned to Omen and Miss Wicked.

/>   “Thank you both for coming.”

  Miss Wicked gave a curt nod, and led the way to the door.

  “Not the boy,” said Ispolin. Omen turned. “She can leave, but I haven’t finished with the boy.”

  Omen looked to Miss Wicked for help, but her face was impassive.

  “Very well,” said Rubic, sighing. “Omen, stay behind a moment, would you?”

  “I will take my leave of you,” said Miss Wicked, opening the door. “But, as I had foreseen something like this occurring, I have arranged for someone to come in and speak on the boy’s behalf.”

  She left, and Omen frowned. Then he heard footsteps. Familiar footsteps.

  They entered the room with a flourish – Emmeline Darkly and Caddock Sirroco, grand and good-looking and imperious. The room seemed to shrink around them, like a lens being refocused. Rubic stood up quickly and even Ispolin diminished slightly in their presence.

  “Hi, Mum,” said Omen. “Hi, Dad.”

  His mother threw him a sharp glance, but his father was too busy looking furious to acknowledge him.

  “We were listening,” Caddock said, turning his gaze on the Grand Mage. “So you haven’t finished with the boy, have you? The boy?”

  Ispolin bristled. “I have a legitimate grievance to—”

  “The boy is our son,” Emmeline cut in. “The boy is a Darkly, and his brother is destined to save the world. You should be thanking him. You should be thanking us for our very existence.”

  “Instead,” Caddock said, “we find ourselves being dragged from our commitments – at the weekend – to defend our son for, what, exactly? For surviving your son’s attempt to murder him?”

  “How dare you—”

  “How dare we?” Emmeline shot back. “How dare we what? How dare we side with the truth?”

  “Jenan did not attack anyone.”

  “Jenan is part of the First Wave,” Emmeline said. “That’s what they’re calling themselves now, is it not, this little group of terrorists formed here, at the Academy, by Parthenios Lilt? The headmaster has enough questions to answer about how he allowed this man to teach here, how he allowed this rot to fester in his own school, and they are questions that he will answer, but today, Mr Ispolin, we are focusing on you and your son.”

  Ispolin smoothed down his tie, though it looked perfectly smooth from where Omen was standing. “Jenan is easily led. His friends pressured him into joining. It’s this teacher, this Lilt, who is responsible for what happened.”

  “I don’t think you’re giving Jenan enough credit,” Caddock said. “Everything we’ve heard indicates that he’s a natural leader – and now he’s with this Abyssinia person, in a flying prison populated by convicts and criminals. He’s the enemy, Mr Ispolin. We didn’t do that to him. Our son didn’t do that to him. He did that to himself.”

  Ispolin glared. “It’s Grand Mage,” he said. “Grand Mage Ispolin. You will refer to me as such.”

  Emmeline observed him with a sneer on her lips, and turned to Rubic. “I presume we are done here, Mr Rubic.” It was not a question.

  “Of course,” Rubic said, nodding quickly. “Thank you for coming in. Omen, would you see your parents to the gate? There’s a good lad.”

  13

  “I’m sorry about that,” Omen said to his parents as they walked away from Rubic’s office. “I know how busy you are.”

  “We are very busy,” said Emmeline, examining everything that they passed. “Please tell that teacher not to call on us again.”

  “I will,” said Omen, though he knew he wouldn’t.

  “Where’s Auger?” Caddock asked. “We were hoping to see him before we left.”

  “I’m not sure,” Omen said. “I can pass on a message, if you like.”

  “We don’t have a message,” said Emmeline. “We just wanted to see him. Never mind.”

  “I could show you around,” Omen suggested brightly. “If you have time, like. If you’re not rushing back.”

  “We are rushing back,” Caddock said.

  “Oh, OK. I’ll walk you out, then.”

  They walked on, Caddock a few steps in front. Silence descended.

  “How are your classes going?” his mother asked eventually.

  “Good,” Omen responded. He wondered for a moment if they’d heard about his failed test. But no. His parents were formidable people, but they weren’t omnipotent. “Really good. They’re all going well. Even maths, and I’m terrible at maths.”

  “Are you?”

  “Um, yes. I’ve always been terrible at maths. Remember?”

  “Of course,” Emmeline said in a tone that let Omen know she didn’t, not at all. “And that’s going well for you, is it?”

  “Yep. I mean, I still don’t understand most of it, but I don’t think that’s too important.”

  Caddock looked back. “You don’t think understanding maths is important?”

  Omen shrugged. “Not really. As long as the numbers fit, that’s the only thing that matters, isn’t it?”

  Caddock sighed irritably, a sound Omen knew only too well. “Understanding a subject enables you to master the subject. What you’re doing is skating along the surface of your education, Omen. It’s time you committed. It’s time you took it seriously.”

  “OK,” Omen said quietly.

  “Auger takes his studies seriously,” Caddock continued. “Wouldn’t you like to be like that?”

  “I suppose.”

  “There you go again. Humming and hawing. You’ve got to be more decisive. You can’t go through your life like this. Be definite. Do something. Commit to something.”

  “I’ll try.”

  Caddock turned and Omen had to stop quickly to avoid bumping into him. “You’re not listening to me at all, are you?”

  “I am.”

  “You’re hearing me, you’re just not listening to me.”

  “I’m going to be late,” Emmeline said, glancing at her watch. “Omen, do something with your life, will you? Auger volunteers for things; he gets involved in extra-curricular activities. He puts the work in at school, but he also has so many outside interests. Be more like that. Now we have to go.”

  “OK,” said Omen, watching them walk on without him. Then they turned a corner and they were gone and, as usual, he was left feeling curiously empty.

  He didn’t know what to do so he went walking. He should have been used to it by now, his parents’ ability to rob him of himself. In the same way that Ispolin had seemed diminished around them, Omen became lesser in their presence. Smaller. Even more insignificant. He wished it had gone on longer, their defence of him. Even though he knew their outrage was actually about Ispolin’s assault on the family name, he had enjoyed listening to their words. It had almost been like they cared. It had almost been like they approved of him.

  But of course they didn’t. Their approval was reserved solely for Auger who, Omen admitted, more than deserved it.

  Not for the first time, though, he wondered what he’d be like as a person if he’d had his parents’ approval. Would he be more confident? Would he be more popular? Would he be more daring?

  Miss Gnosis was setting up a table outside the dining hall, a table with a blank clipboard resting on it. He liked Miss Gnosis. She’d made him rethink his attitude towards Necromancers. Sure, her discipline was death magic and she wore black like all Necromancers, but she was bright and fun and a really good teacher. Plus, she had red hair and she was in her twenties, and she still had her strong Scottish accent.

  “Good morning, Omen,” she said. She pursed her lips and turned her head slightly, looking at him from a new angle. “Everything OK? You look a little down in the dumps.”

  “I’m fine. I was just … No, I’m fine.”

  “I heard about Axelia.”

  “Seriously?” said Omen. “Even the teachers have heard?”

  “Staffrooms are sad places unless we have something to gossip about. Guys like you, Omen, they get the girls later in lif
e. You just wait till you hit your twenties.”

  He blushed, and tried to hide his smile by nodding to the clipboard. “What’s this about?”

  Miss Gnosis held it out. “We’re collecting food and blankets for the Leibniz refugees. Would you like to sign up? We’re going down to the camp on Monday to distribute whatever we’ve got, and we need all the help we can get. You interested?”

  “Would … would this count as, like, an extra-curricular activity?”

  “It’s practically the definition of the word.”

  “And signing up for it, that would be a commitment, wouldn’t it?”

  “It certainly would.”

  “Yes,” said Omen, and paused. Then he said, “Yes,” again, more forcefully.

  “Good man,” said Miss Gnosis.

  “I’ll do it.”

  “All right then.”

  “I’ll help.”

  “I have to tell you, Omen, this sounds like it’s a bigger deal to you than it is to me. Put your name down there like a good lad, and I’ll explain what you’ll have to do.”

  14

  Valkyrie was curled up on the couch with Xena, watching Saturday evening TV, when she saw Skulduggery drop slowly from the sky and land outside the window.

  She moved the dog to one side and got up, padded on bare feet to the hall and opened the door.

  Skulduggery’s jacket had bullet holes in it.

  “You look like you’ve had fun,” she said, leaning against the doorjamb.

  “I punched many bandits,” Skulduggery responded. “Temper did, too, but I punched more. Not that it was a competition. But, if it had been, I’d have won.”

  “Well, I’m proud of you for winning what wasn’t a competition. Have all the refugees passed through the portal?”

  “Not even close. By the time we were returning, there were perhaps two thousand waiting to go through, with plenty more arriving every few minutes. China finally sent in a battalion of Cleavers to offer protection.”

  “Well, that was nice of her,” said Valkyrie. “Any sign of Mevolent’s army?”

  “Not so far.”

  “Well, you know, be grateful for small mercies, or whatever it is that people say. Also, have you seen your jacket?”

  “Ah,” he said, “yes. Most unfortunate.”