Chapter Eighteen
Through The Woods

 

Dennis started crying in Jacob’s arms. Everyone looked at each other. Emily wanted to reach over and hold him, and saw both Simon and Jenna resisting the same urge. Dennis’ little howls bounced off the trees.

Vigours’ face dropped, and he lowered the sword.

“I swear, Samuel,” the Great Dane next to him said, “you are the worst with kids.” The flaming sword disappeared completely, and the silence, broken only by Dennis’ scared sobbing, grew more awkward by the second. “Well? Say something?” The dog nudged his leg.

“Um,” Vigour said as he sheepishly rubbed the back of his neck, “don’t be scared. I’m not going to hurt you.” Emily looked at him in disbelief. He had threatened them with a flaming sword, for Pete’s sake. “Look I… they’re having me…” He rubbed his face. “I have to push you and when I went to this school… the point is… the point is that we still haven’t figured out the right way to… will you please stop crying?!”

Dennis sniffled a couple of times and looked at Vigours with tear-stained eyes. “I’m sorry,” he said quietly.

“No, you’re… you’re fine, Wilmot,” Vigours said. He looked at the Great Dane, who raised its eyebrows. “What more do you want from me?”

“You could start by apologizing?” 

“I… But…” Vigours turned around, and briefly, a bubble of yellow light appeared around him, much like the way he had when he’d intervened in the alleyway in the fight against the spirit. He just stood there for a good minute, and Emily saw his hands clench and unclench. When he turned back around and the sphere around him popped like a soap bubble, he was a little red in the face. 

“Had a good scream, Sam?” the dog asked sardonically. 

Vigours pointed an accusatory finger at the dog. “You and I are going to have a serious talk…” He took a deep breath and straightened himself out, and turned back towards the student, clearly realizing he’d completely lost control of the situation. “Okay, everyone, obviously I’m not going to actually hunt you to death. I… overdid it, and I’m sorry for that. If it’s any consolation, I am, in fact, not physically capable of hurting you while we’re on school grounds.”

“But aren’t we, like, seven miles away?” Jacob, still holding Dennis, asked. 

“Um, no,” Vigours said. He snapped a finger. The clearing they were in opened on one side. The school was visible from where they stood. “That was a bit of a lie, too. I was going to just make you run a big circle around the school.”

“You’re really bad at this, aren’t you?” the haughty Cat said. 

“Usually, I’d tell Terence to shut up,” Sylvie said, “but he’s right.”

“This is my first time,” Vigours said, rubbing the bridge of his nose between his fingers. “I promise you, the last guy would’ve done worse.”

“You’re so freaking soft, Sam,” the Great Dane chuckled. 

“Could you do it?” Vigours said, waving his arm at Dennis. “Look at that face and tell me you can play the ruthless hunter, Havelock.”

The Great Dane looked up at Dennis. “You okay, kid?” Dennis nodded. “Atta boy.” He looked back to Vigours. “Nope, couldn’t do it. But maybe I wouldn’t have messed it up that bad, have you thought about that?”

“Anyway,” Vigours said. “New plan. Everyone runs a lap around the school. Me and my Familiar are going to… play tag. Advanced tag. If you get tagged, you go back to the school and get extra homework. Try to work together.”

“Why not do that to begin with,” Simon asked, “instead of traumatizing puppies?”

“Because originally scaring the living daylights out of you lot was the point,” Vigours said, and he turned back to the Great Dane. “Tell ‘em!”

Havelock nodded. “He’s right. I thought the devil was on my heels, when it was my go. Taught me how to survive in the woods at night.” He cocked his head. “It was night, right? My memory isn’t what it used to be.”

“Yeah, just past midnight,” Vigours said, rubbing his chin. “I had nightmares about that night for months. Woke up screaming a few times. The scar still hurts sometimes.”

“Do we want to know?” Simon asked, still glaring. Vigours shook his head. 

“So what now?” Emily asked. 

“Well… you still run. I mean, I wasn’t going to make you run seven whole miles. I didn’t figure any of you were gonna make it more than half a mile before I caught you anyway.” He looked at the school, and then snapped his fingers. “There. Now there’s a flag. Kids like flags, right?” Everyone just looked at him. “No? Capture the f— Whatever. Run around the school perimeter and grab the flag there, without me catching you.” Emily also looked at the school. “And no, you can’t cut across it. In fact, if you set foot inside town, you’re disqualified. They won’t hear you or see you, so no trying to ask for help from friends either.”

“What will you do?” Dennis sniffled. 

“Like I said, Wilmot,” Vigours said, “I’m not going to hurt you. The big fancy sword—” He conjured it again. “It’s for show. If I touch you with it, you’ll just be in the center of town. Look.” He waved it through his arm. “Totally ‘armless.”

“You’re the worst,” Havelock said. “As for the rules: you can’t hurt yourselves or each other on school grounds, and those extend for a while. Now, that isn’t to say that you can’t use spells that would hurt people, you’ll just get whisked away at the last second. But don’t attack each other, and, well, I know how you kids are. Running full tilt through a forest, try not to trip and break something.”

“And feel free to attack us all you want,” Vigours said, “if you think it’ll help slow me down, feel free. I will only use this sword to attack you, but I can use magic to defend myself.”

“But… most of us don’t have wands or focuses or anything,” Jenna said. “We’re not getting that until later this week!”

“Yeah,” Vigours said, “but that doesn’t mean you’re defenseless.” He lowered the sword again. “Look, I can only give so much leeway. You’re still going to have to learn to defend yourselves in some pretty precarious situations.”

Dennis started kicking his feet, and Jacob put him down. “Okay,” Dennis said, clearly doing his very best to look and sound resolute. “Let’s do this then.”

Vigours knelt down in front of the puppy. “If you’re sure you’re ready, Wilmot.” Dennis nodded courageously. Vigours stood back up. “Alright, everyone clear on the rules?” He pointed at Dennis. “If he’s ready, the rest of you better be.” Jenna put Emily down too, and immediately he tensed up. But not in the way he had been before. 

“Do we have a plan?” Emily asked Jenna, who just shook her head. 

“I’ll just try to keep up,” she said. “I’ve never been the best at tag, but I played a killer hide-and-seek.”

“Maybe that’ll be enough,” Emily said, just as Vigours took a few steps back. 

“I’m going to count to five. Or down from five. You better be gone by then,” Vigours said. Emily and Jenna didn’t need much more encouragement than that. 

“Five.” Emily was used to running full tilt as a cat now, as long as he didn’t focus too much on the fact that he had four legs now, letting his tail do the balancing for him. The only important thing to do was to make sure he didn’t outpace Jenna. Behind them, he heard footsteps of the various students who were all making a mad dash for it. 

“Four,” Vigours said. The treeline was still a little bit away. Emily saw Benjamin on one side, Simon riding on his shoulders. The boy clearly wasn’t used to running that much, but Simon was squeaking encouragement. On his other side, Jacob, holding Dennis close to his chest again. There was no way the Malamute would be able to pick up speed, so that did make sense. 

“Three.” They reached the treeline, and Jenna took a moment to catch her breath, and Emily made sure everyone else had made it too. 

“Two,” Vigours said. Emily saw him, still standing in the circle. Terence and his mage, Ricky, were still standing in front of him. Vigours had his arms crossed. 

“We can’t hurt you, Professor,” Terence said, “but if you’re only using that sword, we just have to keep you from getting close.” 

“One,” Vigours said, and put his hands on his hips. Ricky raised his hand. He didn’t look nearly as convinced as the cocky cat by his feet, but he was still standing his ground. Vigours took a step forward, and Ricky’s hand burst with light. 

A large burst of fire came forward and engulfed the teacher. Even from this distance, Emily could feel the heat. Everyone at the treeline gasped. After several full seconds of the fireball surrounding Vigours, Ricky lowered his arm. 

“See?” Vigours said, his hands in his pockets, the golden shield around him shimmering softly. “I told you you should’ve run.”

“You can’t get closer to us, Sir,” Terence said. “And we can just walk to the flag.”

“Nah,” Vigours said. He held up a hand, and two chains appeared in it. He dropped them to the ground. 

“You can’t attack us with those, Professor. Not without disqualifying yours—” 

“I’m not.” Vigours said. The chains flew forward and wrapped themselves around Ricky and Terence. He nodded to the Great Dane. “He is.” He walked over to the two yelling boys on the ground. “My magical reserves might not be what they used to be, but they don’t have to be if I can just outsmart you two.” and poked them with the sword. They both disappeared in a little cloud. There was a flash from the center of the village, even visible from where they were, indicating they’d arrived exactly where Vigours said they would. He looked towards the treeline. “Show’s over, everyone! Start running!”

Emily couldn’t move, for a second. He looked up at Jenna, whose eyes were also fixed on Vigours. “We should go,” he said quietly. “I don’t know how fast he can—” With that same loud bang, Vigours suddenly stood only feet away from them. “Run,” Emily squeaked. 

“Boo.” With a start, they all started running again. Benjamin tried making himself fly, with Simon still on his shoulders, and made it several feet into the air, but the trees were slowing him down. 

Jenna and Emily ran as hard as they both could. Even with his cat form, running that hard still had his heart hammering in his throat. In fact, it hammered faster as a cat than it ever had as a human. He also saw Jacob a little bit ahead of them, weaving between the trees. Despite holding on to Dennis, he was still managing to make good ground.

With another thunderclap, Vigours was standing on a high branch, in front of Simon and Benjamin. They only narrowly avoided the sword as it swung over their heads, but clipped the tree. “Ah, bollocks,” Vigours swore.

“Simon!” Emily yelled, as the ferret fell off of Benjamin and tumbled to the ground, yelling loudly. In his panic, Emily ran and stretched out as far as he could, but he knew he wouldn’t catch his friend in time. He focused as hard as he could, feeling every muscle in his body tense and then some. If he pushed just a little bit harder. Just a little bit…

Simon stopped in mid-air, and so did his scream. “Wh?” he said. Emily realized he was holding on to the ferret. He could feel something, almost like a hand, stretching out. He could very vaguely feel Simon’s coarse fur against the invisible appendage. Except that it wasn’t really invisible. He could vaguely see a shape in the air, like a glass under water. Carefully, he lowered his friend to the ground. “Did you do that?” Simon asked. 

Emily looked around. Benjamin carefully landed next to Simon. “I think so,” Emily said, just as the other two disappeared in a cloud of smoke. 

“That was pretty good, Rosewood,” Vigours said. “Keep your eye on the ball, now.” With that, he started to approach, and Emily felt himself get picked up by the armpits by Jenna, who broke into a sprint again. All around them, they heard the sounds of people running in various directions. 

“Can you use magic?” Emily asked Jenna. “Like… anything useful, I mean?”

Jenna shook her head. “Not really! Without a Familiar, it’s… huff… really hard to recharge, so it always took a long time in between practice. All I can really do is a lot of wind and stuff!”

“That might be enough,” Emily mumbled as he looked around. He couldn’t see any invisible appendage anymore, but it had helped him see something else. It had been a kind of emptiness, a vacuum moving through water. But now he could sort of see the water, if he focused. “I think,” he said carefully, “I can see magic. A little bit.”

“You... what?” Jenna said, out of breath. Somewhere to their right, they heard another thunderclap, a scream from Sylvie — or was it Erinna? — which was immediately cut short. Damn. He looked to his left. Going by the part of the town he could see, they were only barely past halfway. But maybe that was going to be enough?

“Yeah,” he said, “and I think I have an idea of how we can stop him.”