Chapter Thirteen: Festival Redux
I actually managed to sleep pretty well, rousing a few hours before the girls were scheduled to arrive. I showered in the big stall - large enough for at least two people, I noted - and got my hair and outfit planned for festival day. Then, clad in my bikini, I padded down the walkway to the little spa area. It was still an hour before dawn, but the lights were on, so I went on inside and requested a massage from the lone attendant there. Full disclosure: I'd never had an actual massage. Fuller disclosure: they're pretty amazing.
"You've never had a massage?" my masseur asked. His name tag read Paul, and he was a beefy guy with an Australian accent and almost as many tattoos as me.
"Nooooo," I said, my response drawn out by the way he'd just dug into my shoulders - big, strong hands, surprisingly gentle but kneading deep.
"You're really tense. That's a shame, a girl like you all tense. You're one of the witches for the festival?"
"How could you tell? Ohh..." his hands moved lower, lower... dangerously low. And, with a twinge of regret (but nary a muscle twinge), I added: "I'll have the R-rated massage please."
"Say no more, miss. I can do a very pleasant R. And I could tell the witch bit because not too many girls have moving tattoos. Now... I'm about to flip the towel up... you did say R and not PG..."
As Paul's fingers sank into my thighs, I almost rescinded the R limitation, but kept my libido in check - a full-service massage was too close to cheating. "Definitely R," I groaned.
After half an hour, I hopped off the bench, legs wobbly but more relaxed than I'd been in a long time. I resolved that I'd get another massage tomorrow, this time with at least one of my lovers, so I wouldn't feel bad if we indulged in full service. Even with only an R rating, I'd come awfully close (as I've no doubt mentioned, I'm very receptive), and Paul had to have smelled my arousal, though he hadn't mentioned it. It took half an hour of sitting on the pier, breathing measured as I watched the pink and orange sunrise, before I felt cooled down enough to welcome Cassie and the others to the resort without lunging at her in mindless lust. I grabbed by clipboard, checked my hair one last time, and marched out to meet my St. Circe's girls.
The St. Circe's girls arrived on time to the minute - the Chauffae do good work - twelve chrome and black SUVs escorting our delegation to the festival. I stood there, violet dress whipping about in the breeze, hair done up into one of the elaborate buns that I liked, trying to look as teacher-ly as an adorable almost-17 year-old was capable of looking. I didn't have to try too hard - the girls knew that Miss Bryce meant business. And, to maintain those bona fides, I couldn't jump Cassie. I offered her a little smile and nothing more as she filed in with the rest of the crew team.
"All right, girls, you have three minutes to do whatever warm-up stretches you need to do…" this was mostly directed toward the gymnastics team, who had a little performance for their bit in the opening pageant. "Then I'll call each group and we'll proceed down this big road running west toward the invocation ceremony. That ceremony should take maybe an hour, and then I'll show you to your rooms, where you can get changed and get ready for the start of events an hour after that. Any questions?"
"Miss? Can I use the rest room?"
I shook my head. "You'll have to hold it for an hour, Miss Huygens. We've got two minutes, so it's either march in with us now or don't march in at all. Okay?"
The crew team marched in first, tall and beautiful and carrying two shells (though they'd only be rowing in one), waving to the crowd. Dr. Clay insisted that they go first, and there's not a chance that I'd have argued with her. Instead, I jogged over to the stands and sat behind Mrs. Bishop and Ms. Sturm, screaming encouragement and cheering as Cassie marched in, followed by Michelle and the gymnastics team and then Simone with the girls doing magical events. A few minutes later, St. Lovelock's marched through, and I screamed for Liam with his compound bow for archery and Magnus, swaggering past in his wrestling gi. And each time I screamed, I could see Mrs. Bishop flinch a little, annoyed at my lack of decorum. Well, she was welcome to suck it - if she didn't want me in the stands and cheering for my friends, she should have done a better job as festival liaison last year.
The headmasters of the 'Big Eight' schools sat upon a dais overlooking the parade - Dr. Sauvage, Headmaster hurt, and the others looking very serious as they oversaw the procession of students. Three Ganging Men were there, too - I think one of them was the man who'd tried to take me yesterday - but I couldn't tell for sure, since all of them look pretty much the same. Along with those luminaries were about a dozen VIPs from the witchcraft and warlockery communities, including (just my luck) Byron Bryce - Rowan Bryce's father, Lucian Bryce's grandfather. He was Amanda's grandfather, too, and technically mine - whatever bit of magic had fueled my original transformation had made me a Bryce by blood, no matter how much I might hate certain members of that family. Not Amanda, obviously… but the rest of them could go to hell.
As if sensing my dark thoughts, Byron Bryce took that moment to turn his icy eyes toward me, locking gazes for an instant before turning away to remark on something about the procession. I kept a leery eye on him for about three minutes, but the parade and the event invocation were soon over and it was time to see the girls to their rooms before the events started in earnest. The girls would barely have time to get situated before the first events started - and Cassie and the rest of the crew team were going second after the archery competition. Even so, Dr. Clay gave me ten minutes to show Cassie my digs.
"This is your room?" Cassie laughed. She threw herself onto the oversized bed, kicking her legs in the air. "I'm so jealous!"
"Why? It's your room, too!"
"Oh yeah! The benefits of dating a teacher, I guess."
I lay next to her on the bed, rolling onto my back to stare up toward the ceiling. My hand sought hers out and our fingers meshed, my hand small in hers. "We haven't been on many dates," I observed.
"Well… we can this afternoon!"
I sighed and turned to kiss her cheek. "I only have like half an hour between event stuff. But we'll have a proper date after the contest… assuming we don't get carted home early in disgrace again."
"Don't even say that," Cassie said. "I mean… you aren't cheating, right? Not that you actually cheated before…"
"No, of course not!" I laughed. "Lesson learned. Plus, I think it's a lot more serious if a teacher does it. And, speaking of teachers, and as much as I'd like to lie next to you in bed all day, Dr. Clay will crucify me if I don't get you back."
+++++
Dr. Clay castigated us for taking fourteen minutes in my room, but we still managed to get everybody to the arena with a few minutes to spare. There, I was afforded a front-row seat because I had to be on the event floor for some of the competitions.
They were taking cheating really seriously this year, with a panel of judges from several of the schools inspecting each competition area for artifacts and enchantments before each event. Afterward, they'd inspect the first- and second-place contestants again to make sure there'd been no trickery, as well as inspect the area again in the case of a challenge (which the last place contestants sometimes raised). After last year's debacle, a competitor would have to be crazy to cheat, but I suppose they needed a big show about how serious they were.
The first event of the day was archery, in which Sandra McManus from my electronics club was one of St. Circe's contestants. But I have to admit that most of my cheering went for Liam, with Cassie and me screaming encouragement from the front row until one of the judges told us we'd have to quiet down or go back to the spectator rows (rows three and back), at which point we took turns screaming - it was only about half as loud, right? Liam looked like a modern Robin Hood in his black and green and gold outfit decked out in the St. Lovelock's colors. We weren't actually allowed to touch him or any of his equipment - that would have resulted in an interminable (five-minute) check for tampering - but he looked in our direction after each shot, pearly smile gleaming in the midmorning light.
"Two hundred seventy-five points for Liam Langley of St. Lovelock's!" the officiant announced.
"Go Liam!" I shouted - that was two points better than his second place finish from last year, and would have tied him for first then. There was also a lot of general cheering from behind us - most of it female. It seems our Lord Langley had a bit of a following… which was fine, I suppose, so long as those girls were clear on who the young lord actually belonged to.
Of course, the next archer was some wiz (not an actual wizard, but probably an actual warlock) from Occultus Imperial who managed to take the wind out of Liam's sails and score a 278. Fortunately for Liam, his teammate came in fourth and their combined score barely edged out Occultus and St. Circe's for first place overall. Unfortunately, Cassie had to go and prep for the crew competition before she could even see Liam and Alex (the other St. Lovelock's archer) step to the podium to accept first place in the archery contest.
"Wish me lummmph!" Cassie said. I guess I muffled her 'luck' when I shot in and kissed her on the lips, my eyes gazing into hers, her lips soft against mine, just the hint of flitting tongue passing between us.
"You don't need luck," I said.
There was light applause behind us, though I couldn't tell if it was from our romantic display or from whatever was happening on the archery field - I wasn't too interested in that any more since Liam and the St. Circe's girls had already shot. Two minutes later, though, Liam marched up to the podium for his medal. It was up to me to congratulate the young lord for his excellent (if not quite first place) performance.
I wormed my way past event security, which was pretty lax now that the shooting bit was over, and dashed toward Liam, only to be beaten to the draw by Magnus, who whispered something to Liam and pulled him into a kiss. I was left awkwardly standing next to them, the conspicuously small redhead next to two large and kissing men, tapping my foot for the thirty seconds it took them to finish (which, if you've ever had to wait for two people to stop kissing while being watched by a few hundred people, is a very long time). When they finished, there was more polite applause. I rolled my eyes.
"Two congratulatory kisses?" Liam said, his smile giddy.
"I think Magnus got all the good stuff," I said.
I leapt at brawny, gi-clad Magnus, making him catch me to prevent me from immediately falling away from our kiss. He held me up, pulling me against his strong chest and palming my butt through the violet fabric of my dress, his lips hot, his eyes mostly-closed. As soon as my tongue flitted out, his probed forward, our tongues sliding past one another in that strange and beautiful frisson of deep kissing. The faint musk of his body filled my nose, and I melted into him with a sigh. And, as soon as the thirty-count ticked off in my head, I pulled my mouth away from his and squirmed out of his slackening grip. Of course, if Magnus really wanted to hold on to me, I couldn't do much about it without resorting to magic or biting.
Once back on the ground, I turned to face a vaguely-amused Liam. "Well… now that I've got all the good stuff, you'd better kiss me if you want it back.
Grinning, he lunged forward and swept me off my feet, pulling me into another thirty seconds of sensual kissing. I pulled away with a giggle and, when Liam set me back down, there was more polite applause. Applause that was definitely for us, because Magnus offered a little bow… and there was nothing else to applaud. They'd already announced men's crew in ten minutes down by the beachfront, to be followed by women's crew. People were already filing out - thankfully, I already had a front-row seat reserved.
"You boys had better draw straws to see who gets to sit next to me because I'm only allowed one guest at a time," I said.
Magnus frowned. "Wait… really?"
I rolled my eyes. "Technically, yes. But I can sit on somebody's lap. Which you will have to figure out between yourselves."
However they decided between themselves, it was Liam who got the honor of serving as Natalie's elevated chair. We arrived just in time to watch the last half of the men's competition, which was the best bit, as far as I was concerned. The course was generally oval, with eight buoy markers around the oval that the crews had to navigate around. The competition started at the right end of the oval, proceeded in front of the spectator area to the opposite end of the oval's long axis, continued around the back curve of the course, and then came back around to the front of the oval, circling one and a half times in all, so everything was pretty close to the audience for the first and last thirds of the contest.
Oceania Occidental won that contest easily - they were renowned for their crew teams and finished first in both most years. And word on the grapevine was that they had two new girls on their women's crew who were Olympics-ready. When you could change your students' bodies with magic, even to a limited extent, it was possible to transform promising athletes into world-class ones. Indeed, watching their crew saunter down to the water, there were two tall girls, not especially broad but powerfully built and clearly a few inches above the already-tall average for crew. Cassie was about the same height as the other girls on the Oceania crew, but these girls were three or four inches taller than that and solid.
"Shit," I said. "I don't think they're going to make this easy."
"The women's crew competition will begin in two minutes!" the officiant boomed.
"Cassie has been working her butt off for this," Liam said, giving my rear a squeeze. "I think she'll do fine." Despite his playfulness, he sounded less confident than he normally was.
"Is that cheating?" Magnus asked. "If you 'punish' your girls into specifically having a body built for crew?"
"If they put in the practice, they can't help what gifts magic's given them," Liam said. "Let's face it. Nobody in their right mind would want to wrestle against you, you magnificent lunk. Is it cheating that our school made you that way?"
"Hey, I practice my ass off, too," Magnus said.
"That's precisely the point. As Dr. Mostov says: tenacity and talent only pay dividends together."
"But being six-three and one-eighty probably doesn't hurt," I added. I felt a bulge and re-adjusted myself on Liam's lap. "I can't believe you have an erection now, of all times."
"I'm about to watch Cassie pushing through the water like a beautiful Valkyrie and I've got the cutest girl in Australia sitting on my lap… the cock wants what it wants," Liam said. "Now please be a good sport and ignore the old boy - there'll be time enough later to pester him about what he wants."
I nudged Liam with my elbow to get his attention and pointed out over the water. There, a hundred fifty meters or so to our right, the women's crew boats were lining up in the waves, preparing to push out. With the crack of a pistol, the shells (the narrow, four-woman boats used in the contest) pushed out from the starting line and the race was on. There were six schools in all - the two all-boys schools didn't have a women's team for obvious reasons (just as St. Circe's didn't have a men's team).
The St. Circe's team pushed out to an early lead - at least that's what it looked like due to the slight staggering along the starting oval. The teams were expected to stay in their 'lanes' for the first bit of the track and would afterward have to jockey for position - no ramming, though incidental bumping was bound to happen. However, it soon became clear that the Oceania team was faster, pulling ahead a few inches at a time with each powerful stroke, the two amazons on their crew forcing the boat through the water, frothing the stern slightly as they pulled. Soon, they had a half a boat lead… three quarters… a full length by the time they were half-way along the back side of the oval. A full length and starting to stretch further as they rounded to the race's starting spot - half an oval to go!
"Pull, Cassie! Pull!" I screamed. And, a second later, I heard Cassie shouting, her voice unmistakable and carrying all the way across the water.
"Pace faster, Tiffany! I'm not coming in third fucking place!"
Not that there was much chance of that. Oceania and St. Circe's were one and two with Occultus a distant third. Even so, Tiffany Chalmers picked up the pace ever-so-slightly. They were already giving it everything, and now they were giving a bit more, a far more punishing pace than they were used to, even in sprints. And it showed - it showed on the worried grimaces of their faces, and it showed with them inching forward, forward, only half a length behind Oceania and slowly gaining…
They came into the last turn, and some uncharacteristic bit of sheer daring had Tiffany juke the oar, swinging the boat quickly around the buoy and tipping against the Oceania boat, sending both shells veering off course and giving the Occultus girls an opportunity to surge against the two leading boats. Cassie did something with her oar - a little impromptu adjustment, and pulled, screaming for the other girls to pull. And they did - once, twice, three times, surging forward toward the finish line…
"We have a tie!" the officiant boomed. "A tie between Oceania Occidental and Occultus Imperial for second place! St. Circe's takes first by inches!"
I think Liam tried to grab me. The security personnel definitely tried to grab me. I think I vaulted clear over one guy who was close to Magnus's size. Nobody could stop me, though. I sprinted over to the beachfront and sprinted down the pier to where the St. Circe's team was debarking, pushing right past a very-proud Dr. Clay. Cassie staggered out of the shell, sweaty and exhausted, but I didn't give her a second to rest.
"Oh my stars, Cassie, you're amazing," I said, planting little kisses all over her face. "You're so amazing!"
"Apparently we all need lessons from Natalie in how to be properly encouraging," Magnus chuckled.
And amid our delirious celebration came a familiar voice: "What in the hell have you done with my grandson, you harlot?" Byron Bryce said.
+++++
It was wishful thinking to imagine Byron Bryce might not make anything of my presence here - his son was after me, his grandson had been missing for months (and it was not illogical to presume I had something to do with that), and his family held a strange affinity with the Gangling Men, who were also after me. There he was, dark-clad, cold blue eyes, his patrician face barely containing the fury he surely felt.
"I don't know what happened to Lucian," I said. And, at the same time, I felt something strange within me, some disquieting force at the back of my mind trying to worm its way out. A repressed memory? A sliver of guilt? I pushed it aside, though its niggling presence never quite went away. "He and his friends attacked me, I blacked out, and when I woke up all of them were gone. As far as I knew, he'd gone with the rest of the little pricks." I didn't mention that I myself suspected that I'd done something horrible with the boy that I couldn't remember. It had been a very trying time.
"You're a lying cunt," he spat, taking a step toward me. "Give me my grandson, and I'll see that that's the end of it. And if you don't, I will make a spectacle of you in front of all these people."
As tired as she was from her competition, Cassie stepped right up, standing between myself and Byron. And, when he raised his hands to do some bit of complex magic, perhaps to turn Cassie into a toad (very difficult to do to somebody with Cassie's talent for witchcraft) or zap her with lightning (which will work on just about anybody, though a seasoned witch can block it easily enough), Magnus and Liam butted in. And then who of all people should move in to stand beside them? None other than my erstwhile-nemesis Tiffany Chalmers - who, so far as I knew, still hated me. And then the other two girls on our crew team joined them - four very sturdy girls and two very sturdy boys standing between myself and Byron Bryce. It was Byron's lucky day, I suppose. He turned to the Gangling Men with him.
"You're after the girl almost as much as I am - get her. I demand it."
The men gave him an odd look. "You do not demand of us, Bryce. You know our pact. And know this - we are reconsidering our approach on your granddaughter's matter…"
"She is not my granddaughter…"
"By blood, she is - this folly was your son's and not ours. Her body transformed to be yours by blood in all ways. And her witchcraft is strange and strong - we've twice failed to contain her. Thrice failed and we may fail forevermore, as the rule of threes goes. This is not the time for battle."
"Listen to your man," Cassie said. "Anybody who wants at Natalie has to come through me."
"Through us," Tiffany said.
"I will not let you destroy my family and my legacy, girl. There will be consequences." And, with that, Byron Bryce stormed back off to the VIP area.
"Are you okay?" Magnus asked.
I nodded uncertainly. As often happened with me, now that the threat was gone, I was all shaky hands and wobbly knees. I gripped his forearm for support, lest I totter over into the water, and returned to the spectator area, leaving Cassie to accept her first place prize with the rest of the crew girls.
Liam could tell I was still a bit shaken up. He squeezed my hand. "We're not going to let that bastard or anybody else get to you," he said. And that was easy for him to say - he only ever saw me at group outings once a month or so. I had to be worried about the Bryce men and the Gangling Men both 24/7. Still, his concern was a nice sentiment.
"Thanks, Liam. I'll be fine for now. After Cassie's award, I have to make sure my girls are ready for the spellcasting competition, and I think Magnus's wrestling competition is after that."
Magnus nodded. "I should get ready." He kissed me on the cheek. "You're so amazing." I blushed.
"I'm not going anywhere," Liam said. "If event security wants to get rid of me, they'll have to pull me off."
Liam was a reasonably imposing boy - he was 'only' about 6'2" and 195 pounds, which made him a bit smaller and leaner than Magnus, but escorting me around, he probably looked like a giant. And when Cassie joined us after her award ceremony, a little gold medallion around her neck, I must have looked like a very important person, being escorted around by two much larger and very comely bodyguards, one of them a dashing archer and one a rippling, curvy amazon in her form-hugging crew attire.
We actually didn't have any issue with getting my 'security detail' through event security. I think it had more to do with everybody watching Byron Bryce stare me down and sulk away, seemingly defeated, but I suddenly had cred. He was a VIP, which made me (I guess) a super VIP, even if I was only an event liaison and assistant coach for one of the schools.
While they set up for the wrestling tournament, which would consist of four simultaneous matches until the semifinals for each division (which were two at a time) and division finals (one at a time), the schools had a 'destructive magic' spellcasting competition. This contest was pretty straightforward - a one-hundred pound sphere of rock (actually, they were concrete and only 45 kilograms) rested upon a ring-shaped pedestal. The goal of the contest was to knock the stone off of the pedestal from ten meters away without using a bauble or any other tools to help your magic. Most students opted to gust wind at their targets, or else try to crack the ring at the top of the pedestal with zaps of lightning - and it took quite a bit of well-aimed gusting and zapping. Some students tried raw force, but that was almost impossible to aim from ten meters out. The average time to completion was somewhere around two minutes, though a few students usually didn't manage at all during the five-minute limit and more powerful students could do it in a minute or a bit less.
Of course, me being who I am, I'd read up on the rules and discovered that you didn't have to use destructive magic (any magic involving direct force or energy) for the contest and only had to be behind the ten meter mark when you used your magic to topple the sphere from the pedestal and could not directly interact with either sphere or pedestal except via magic. Those limitations guaranteed that most students just stood behind the line and cast spells at the spheres to knock them over, but I had a different plan for St. Circe's.
Now, in recent years, witchcraft had taken a second seat in the St. Circe's curriculum and we were generally expected to finish in the middle of the pack in the magical categories… but we actually had a lot more talent than people thought. Simone was the most powerful student witch at St. Circe's and Cassie was probably a distant second - one or two other girls were almost as skilled as her, and one of those, Constance Jessup, had an additional year of witchcraft training to help. Since Simone was doing transformation magic (and any individual student could only compete in one magical category to prevent a prodigy like Simone from cleaning house), Lily had tapped Constance to be our spellcasting competitor. She was pretty decent in both aim and power, but our trials back at St. Circe's had convinced me that there was far too much chance involved and a far easier hack to be exploited in the event. When the contest started, I had Constance jog past the ten-meter mark (hopefully, everybody else slinging out spells had reasonably decent aim or they might hit her) and up to the podium, at which point she'd scoop up a tiny bit of soil with her fingernail, and then run back behind the line. From there, it was a very simple matter of using the sympathy between the soil on your hand and that still on the ground to cause an uplift or depression in the soil (a practice called geomancy). From behind the range line, Constance was able to use her bit of dirt to pull the rest of the earth near the pedestal down, tipping the whole thing off-balance, the stone sphere rolling free and settling itself in the little depression.
"That's cheating!" the boy from Schwarzwaldakademie shouted. After last year's debacle, their students were still allowed to compete and get medals even if they couldn't earn points for their disqualified school during their two years of probation.
"Where in the rules is that cheating?" Constance asked - I'd warned her about this possibility.
The judges conferred among themselves, consulted the rulebook, and decided that geomancy to get the stone sphere out of the ring was not cheating. And, while the German (or maybe Austrian?) boy pouted over the unfairness of our tactic, the other students continued at their own spheres, some of them continuing to blast or zap at the circle and one or two others trying their hands at geomancy with mixed success. Flustered, the Schwarzwaldakademie boy returned to his task, barely knocking his sphere off under the five-minute limit.
"First place in spellcasting goes to St. Circe's! Second place to Valarium Academy, third place to St. Lovelock's!" the officiant boomed.
I can’t help but feel uneasy about the obvious PDA between Natalie and Cassie right in front of the Ganglies immediately after they just tried to steal away Natalie using the one girl a year rule. Of course that could also be extended to Simone as well.
I don't know what happened to Lucian," I said. And, at the same time, I felt something strange within me, some disquieting force at the back of my mind trying to worm its way out. A repressed memory? A sliver of guilt? I pushed it aside, though its niggling presence never quite went away.
HAH!
He's still in there isn't he? She wrapped around him or something I think. That's what the twin soul thing was! He's been in her head or something the whole time I bet!
Simple yet effective. Lovely.