Page 32 of Reluctant Witch (A Course in Magic #2)

32

Ellie

The campus was alive with a revelry that made post basketball- or football-game madness seem tame. Ellie wasn’t a stranger to seeing students in the street with cars toppled and random brawls. In her college days, she’d made the mistake of going to a basketball game between two rivals. Drunken groups of fans—some with full face and chests painted—had roamed like lost warriors. Fights broke out; fires flared to life. It was a memory she’d never forget and an event she had no desire to repeat.

This was worse. A fight in the quad had turned into a mess with what looked like a boar.

“Is that a pig?” Ellie nodded toward it. The poor thing was surrounded by students who were waving jerseys at the pig.

“We are here for the witch, love.”

“But that poor pig—”

“Student,” a young man interrupted. He was sitting astride a nearby statue of a giant pig with massive tusks. The tusks held a leather backpack and a hoodie, presumably the property of the young man, who looked up from his notebook. “He was a student a few minutes ago. The whole thing is fascinating. I’m chronicling it all.”

“Prospero?” Ellie looked to her side for help. “He’s… not affected.”

Prospero glanced at the young man and pronounced, “Witch.”

The young man chortled and then muttered, “Medieval superstitions. That’s new. I wonder if the delusion comes in stages.”

“He’s one of us—or will be eventually.” Prospero motioned for Ellie to keep walking. “We have a mission. He’s not it, nor is the porcine student.”

Ellie hustled to keep up with her wife. Prospero walked with an authority that made people part before her like a predator through a field of prey. Men and women separated at her approach, almost unconsciously giving her space.

And Ellie followed in her wake.

“He’s behind us,” Ellie said, glancing back at the young man, who had hopped down from the statue and was striding after them now.

“His life, his choices.” Prospero looked around, gaze drifting over the crowds of students as if looking for something particular.

“What are we tracking?” the guy said as he caught up.

From this angle, Ellie reevaluated him closer to midtwenties than traditional college-age student, probably a grad student. No one else seemed immune to the spill of debauchery across the campus. Maybe he would be useful.

“Magic,” she said.

“You’re not lying,” he enthused. “I know it sounds odd, but I can—”

“Tell,” Prospero cut him off. “Yes, we know. It’s a witch thing. You ought to take shelter somewhere until this is all resolved. Magic can be dangerous.”

He shoved his notebook in his backpack and slung it over his shoulder again. “I’m in. Where to, boss witch?”

“Step back.” Prospero pushed Ellie behind her just as a herd of person-sized pigs came charging through the quad.

The last few pigs stopped, and suddenly, the rest came to an abrupt halt and turned back. Within the next moment, a veritable wave of grunting and snorting pigs was running toward them.

“Steps! Go. Go!” Ellie called, grabbing Prospero’s hand and pulling her toward a stairwell on the side of a building several yards away. “Faster!”

“Magic them!” the student who’d joined them called out. He kept pace, but he had a chivalrous streak that had him at the back. “You say you’re fucking witches. Magic the damn hogs.”

“Can’t,” Ellie huffed. “Magic is forbidden here. Up up up, Prospero.”

“Tell that to them!” The man half shoved them up the steps in front of him as the pigs squealed in apparent irritation as their prey escaped.

Pigs aren’t predators.

But these aren’t really pigs.

And people? Sometimes people are predators.

About halfway up the flight of stairs, Prospero pulled Ellie closer to her side. “Are you injured?”

“No. You?”

“Fine.” Prospero looked back at the man who’d joined them. “Look. Things are atypical right this moment. Magic doesn’t stay in this world, and you are impervious to this leak because you’re meant to be a witch someday.”

“When?” He folded his arms, leaning against the stairwell and staring at them as if this was all perfectly normal.

“Typically, when you have a near-death experience.”

A strange look came over him. “Like if I got trampled and then walked it off?”

“Fuck.” Prospero closed her eyes for a moment, and Ellie knew what had happened without hearing her next words.

“ Did that happen?” Ellie asked him anyhow.

“Yep. Then suddenly they were all pigs, and I was walking away.” He shrugged. “Got a shower. Felt fine, so I went for a walk and…” He gestured at the chaos behind them. “Things are weird as shit around here.”

Prospero looked at him and then Ellie. “He ought to go back.”

“If you say I should take him, you’ll end up sleeping at your desk eternally and not in my bed,” Ellie warned. “I am here to help you.” She pointed at the young man. “What’s your name?”

“Ian.”

“Right. Ian can stay here while we go fix this, or he can tag along. He’s not my priority either.” She looked back at Ian. “Sorry.”

He held up his hands, palms out, as if to say, “No problem.”

“Fine.” Prospero glared back at her. “Stay here and be in peril, but if you get injured by roaming pigs or whatever else, I’ll be furious with you.”

Ellie smiled and promised, “I’ll be as careful as you are.” That earned her another glare. “Maybe the pigs won’t follow. They seem to be angry at him, probably because he’s why they’re pigs. ”

Prospero glanced at Ian. “Stay.”

“No.” He smiled. “Take me to your wizard president or whatever the saying is.”

“I swear Sondre will be…” Prospero paused and called, “Hob!”

Clancy, one of the castle hobs Ellie particularly liked, popped into existence on Ellie’s shoulder. “Hello, Trouble Witch.”

“Shit! There’s a… there’s a…” Ian pointed. “On your shoulder.”

“Hobgoblin,” Prospero supplied. “The headmaster needs to retrieve this.” She pointed at Ian. “Remedial witch. He’s not ready to deal with what we are here to handle, but he’s trailing us like a bad smell.”

“Hey!” Ian folded his arms and glared at her.

“A new student! How lovely!” Clancy clapped his hands together cheerily. “And how goes the hunt?”

“There are pigs.” Prospero gestured. “We are stuck on the side of a building because pigs. ”

“Might I transport you to your field of battle?” the hob asked in a cheerful voice. “As I am already here?”

“After the headmaster is made aware of…” Prospero nodded toward Ian, who was trying to poke the hob’s foot where it rested on Ellie’s shoulder.

Ian leaned closer, as if to look at the hob’s suit-clad little body.

Clancy winked, turned, and farted loudly in Ian’s face before he vanished.

“Gross. What was that?” Ian scrunched up his face.

“Hob.” Sondre’s voice appeared before he did. He looked around at the pigs, the fights, the fire, and then met Prospero’s gaze. “Why are you calling me here?” He scowled at Ian. Paused again. “Oh. I see. Remedial witch.”

“Indeed,” Prospero said.

Sondre gave her a look. “Are you able to handle this hunt? I can—”

“I have Ellie,” Prospero said, which was sort of an answer.

“I see that. Miss Brandeau.” Sondre dipped his head to her. “Is it… Aggie?”

Prospero shook her head. “Dionysus.”

“As in the god? ” Ian exclaimed. “Let me stay with you. I could change my thesis and—”

“Hush.” Prospero rolled her eyes. “Go home, Headmaster. Take the child with you.”

Sondre gave her a long look. “How did you know I wasn’t going to accept Grendel?”

“You’re a good man, Sondre. Go home to your family. I’ll handle this one, although I may ask for aid with the last Grendel.” Prospero turned her back on him and called out, “Clancy?”

“Grendel? As in from the book?” Ian sounded like all his birthdays were coming at once. “Oh. I’ll be good. Let me stay! I just—” His words cut off as Sondre and Ian departed for Crenshaw.

The hob appeared again, and Prospero held a hand out toward Ellie.

Not two moments later, Ellie and Prospero were standing at the doorway of what appeared to be a biology lab—at least it had been a lab before House Dionysus arrived here. The room was formed in a rectangle with tall, glass windows, so passersby could look into the laboratory-style classroom. Even with the crowd, they could see the tall, black-topped lab tables with sinks in the surface. Shelves lined the back wall, still visible over the heads of the writhing, drunken, dancing crowd.

At least one window was broken, and an amorphous blob with one milky eye stared up from the glass that was littered around it like shards of ice. Whatever had been in the jar had been tossed at the window, apparently. Now there was a decaying specimen, glass, and a foul odor.

“Are you ready?” Prospero asked, pulling Ellie’s gaze to her.

“No. You?”

Prospero laughed. “Use the stones. Try to avoid magic, but if it’s either magic or death, use the magic. Do you hear me? We’ll deal with any complications later.”

“I do.”

Prospero pushed open the door and they waded into the crowd.

It only took a moment to find their quarry. Allan, Lord Dionysus, was standing on a makeshift throne that had begun life mostly as a beer keg. Now, however, the whole of it was decorated with bits and pieces of things. A painting of a farm was lashed together with a houseplant to make a chair back, and the arms were fashioned of empty water bottles in vibrant patterns. Dusty silk flowers were woven onto a tangle of fabric to create the seat of the throne. The whole mess was twisted together with enormous grapevines that dripped from grape into wine that was caught in bowls and other containers around him.

The problem, aside from the whole using-magic-in-the-world, was that this room had obviously been a lab of sorts. Animals soaked in formaldehyde were spilled across the floor in a horrific mess. Rats, snakes, fish, and others she couldn’t identify had been dumped out, and those same glass vessels were now being used as punch bowls for magically created wine.

“Formaldehyde and wine,” Ellie muttered. “What could possibly go wrong with that?”

At her side, Prospero looked at several motionless bodies who were sprawled on the lab floor as if they were no different than the creatures in the jars. “Death. That’s what usually goes wrong.”

Ellie felt like the eels in her belly were swarming. People died here because of his hubris. It wasn’t surprising. On some level, she’d expected it after the mess across campus. What was surprising was the apathy of the crowd. People stepped over the dead bodies as if they were mere inconveniences, tripping on them as they came for refills of the poisoned wine.

“No magic outside of emergency?” Ellie asked, staring at the wine. “Not even a little ‘change this wine into water’?”

Prospero shook her head. “Life or death only, and even that magic will be unpredictable. He’s destabilized everything, so any magic outside of spell stones is not going to react as it should.”

Ellie saw a fire alarm on the wall. “Be right back.”

“Allan?” Prospero called.

Ellie looked over and realized that the head of House Dionysus was wearing dark sunglasses, so that it was impossible to tell if his eyes were open or closed. He looked like an old lecher in modern clothes.

As Prospero approached the drunken man on his odd throne, Ellie wove through the crowd to reach the far wall. She pulled the alarm, and instantly, the wail blared into the existing chaos. The crowd, however, was unconcerned.

“Dance! Dance, my faithful!” Allan’s proclamation boomed louder than the siren, which shifted into a song at his apparent command. Chanting voices and drums suddenly replaced the alarm, and the crowd gyrated throughout the room.

The music seemed to draw acolytes from beyond the lab, and soon the crowd swelled to double the size. Just what we need: more bodies. Minute by minute the crowd seemed spurred to a frenzy, moving faster by the moment, as if they couldn’t stop dancing.

Several people were vomiting, and even though that foul mess was on the ground and people were nearby, no one left. No one retreated or even seemed to notice. People were still twirling as if they couldn’t control themselves, bodies flailing and crashing.

Across the crowd, Ellie saw Prospero moving closer and closer to their target, and for a moment, she thought things would be resolved quickly. Then, just as Prospero was at his side, Allan turned his gaze on Prospero.

“Do you know what Dionysus had, my dear? Maenads.” He smiled a vicious smile. “Would you like to meet my madwomen? If not, you need to stop this.”