Chapter 7

"Gran, when would you use a Spell of Perpetuity?"

"A Spell of Perpetuity, Thomas? Why on Earth would you be asking me about that? Who told you about that?"

"Moon. And before you get mad, I asked him."

"Well, he still shouldn't have told you."

"And why not? Seriously, Gran, this has to stop. You're not helping me by keeping information from me. Not knowing about something isn't going to stop me from doing it, it just means I may not do it safely. This is Grim magic all over again. If you'd told me about that, I never would have used it. Instead I blundered in thinking I'd discovered something new."

"I'm sorry, Thomas, you're right. I think your father and I have this instinct to protect you from some things. After what happened with your mother."

"And maybe you had a point when I was 12. I'm not 12 anymore and in case you hadn't noticed, I'm dealing with a lot right now. More than I think you and Dad realise. Ignorance is not helping me."

"Ok, then, what did you want to know?"

"Moon said the Line of Twilight was a perpetual spell and the shroud as well. What I want to know is why it's a perpetual spell. Why would the spell need to be renewed like that?'

"Oh dear, you really have been friends with Benny for too long, haven't you?'

"Gran!"

"I don't know, Thomas. You know wizards don't ask questions like that. Things just are. Some spells require more than one wizard. Some spells require perpetuity. I don't know.

"But, say I changed a person into a rat. They'd stay a rat until I changed them back, right?'

"Yes."

"What if I changed a rat into a person?"

"Well then they'd change back by the next sunrise."

"See, I remember you telling me that when I was a kid but I still don't know why."

"Neither do I. Maybe it's because a human is so complex. It's not enough to cast the spell, you'd need to re-cast it every day."

"So if I wanted to turn a rat into a person permanently, I'd need to cast it into perpetuity?"

"Yes. Yes, absolutely. But why would you? I would think the rat would be happier being a rat. Don't you?"

"Maybe. Maybe the rat was human for a day and liked it."

"What an odd thing to say, Thomas."

And she didn't say anything else for almost a minute; just stared at him for the longest time, realisation dawning over her face.

"Oh, Thomas, please don't do anything stupid."

"I'll do whatever I have to, Gran. I have no choice."


There are still things that can come as a surprise to you, even if you're as self-aware as Theresa Sun was. Like how upset she was upon hearing a certain wizard had been detained for questioning.

She'd told herself she was helping him to avoid war; to keep wizardkind safe. She told herself that when it came to a war between wizards and aliens then perhaps the unenchanted should place more stock in alternative strategies than they usually did. Because the world had changed and the military had to change with it.

All these things were true and until that moment she'd believed those motivations completely. So it had come as a surprise to find it was mostly sophistry.

Get a grip, Theresa, he's a child.

Except that he wasn't. In some way she couldn't quite quantify, he wasn't. In that sparse, cold English garden, she'd looked into his eyes and she'd seen it. He'd understood her and everything she'd been through. Completely. No child could do that. They could sympathise but to really understand? It wasn't possible. But he had.

And as she sat in the conference room waiting to be debriefed by an impatient Spiers, she had to admit to the truth. She was compromised. All her hard work and it came down to this.

"You're pathetic," she said to herself in the empty room.

She could hear the bustle of a normal day in the Factory outside the door. And then she heard yelling. And then she heard the word, "Varg!" And then she ran. And now she was here. And once again she had no idea what to do next.


"The Nekross can disguise themselves as humans!"

As the bright light of the teleporter faded away, the soldiers around Tom stood in silent shock. Their weapons were still drawn and they didn't seem to have realised they no longer had a target.

Tom looked at Theresa, her still gun pointed at empty air. She met his eyes and shook her head; her lips settling into anger. Spiers started yelling almost as soon as the disturbed ions had settled from the aliens' passage.

"How long has he been in this facility?"

"About an hour," answered Benson, "he came in with a defence force civilian pass. We thought he was here to do an internal security check."

"Tell me you didn't give him access to our systems?"

"I'm sorry, Sir, he had the credentials and he looked completely human."

"I don't understand," said Benny to Tom, "I had the internal monitors scanning for him. It should have set off an alarm the minute he tried to get into the Factory."

"You knew about this?" Spiers said angrily, "Both of you knew about this."

"Yes," Benny told him, "but..." He looked at Tom for inspiration.

"But we didn't want to set off a panic," improvised Tom, "if people knew that the Nekross could use technology to look like humans there'd be chaos. We don't want people being attacked in the street for wearing bangles."

"That's why you didn't announce it on television," said Theresa, "It doesn't explain why you didn't tell us." Me.

"The Nekross won't usually use form filters," explained Benny, "They think taking the shape of a human is demeaning. And it's keyed to a specific Nekross physiology so once a form is programmed it doesn't change. We knew Varg's form so we didn't think..."

"Well, you were wrong," Theresa interrupted him, "And that doesn't explain why the technology exists. If the Nekross find the idea demeaning, then why would they invent it?"

"They didn't. Lexi did," said Benny before Tom could stop him.

"Lexi? Varg's sister. I thought she was dead."

Benny and Tom swapped a look. Nobody would have noticed it but Theresa had become somewhat hyperaware of Clarke lately mental kick and she did. Lexi again. When this was over and she could get him alone, she was going to find out what that was about.

And your instinct is still to protect him. Damn it. You should ask him about it right here in front of Spiers. Now.

"Varg has worn the form filter before but only because Lexi ordered him to," Tom said, "I told you, Lexi was the one with the plans. Only she would consider infiltration. Varg considers it... dishonourable...for want of a better term."

"And yet we had not one but two Nekross using form filters in this facility today."

"Look, the guy in the cells was named Jethro," Tom rushed to explain, "He's a Nekross technician who was part of the coup. His punishment was slavery. He was motivated to undermine Varg's rule and so I leveraged that to get intel. Yes, form filters exist but there's only one form we needed to worry about and we had that programmed into the security system."

Varg implied there was another reason. Say something!

"If the security system was designed to alert us when Varg's form was detected then why didn't it?" was all she said.

Spiers shot her an annoyed look. He was clearly still angry about being left ignorant and wasn't ready to shift to technicalities.

"I don't know," Benny admitted, "I..."

"Sir. Come in, Sir."

It was Benny's radio cracking to life. He gave everyone a resigned look, "Go ahead," he said, pulling it from the top of his trousers and pressing the button to speak.

"Sir, I need to inform you that we have detected the presence of a specific person of interest in the Factory. I apologise, Sir, but it was detected 20 minutes ago. There appears to have been human error involved. The person entered the facility by the south gate at 2043. Their current whereabouts are unknown."

Benny looked at Spiers, shrugged and gave him a sheepish look as if to say that human error was hardly something he could be blamed for.

Spiers shot Tom a determined look and said, "What I want right now..."

Tom never found out what it was because a second alarm went off deep within the Factory, one that he had hoped he wouldn't need.

"What is that now?" Spiers yelled.

"It's a magical alert system," Benny responded. "We programmed it to detect magic. The kind of magic that would break through the Shroud and get the Nekross' attention."

"Are you telling me we can also detect magic?" Theresa demanded and Spiers just shot her a grim look.

"I don't see what.."

"Ma'am." This time it was Sun's radio that went off.

"Major," she barked into the radio.

"Ma'am?"

"My rank is Major, Sargeant. I'm not your... kindergarten teacher."

"Sorry, Major. We're getting a signal here."

"From who?"

"The Nekross ship. It's Varg. He's demanding to speak with all of you. But especially Tom Clarke."

"Well then, let's put the court martial on hold and go and see what he wants now," she said. And she turned on her heel and stalked down the hallway not looking back to see if they were following you.

"Wow, she's mad at you, Tom."

"Yes she is."

"What are you going to do about it?"

Tom shot a look at Spiers.

"I think it's the least of my problems, Bennie."

And he took a deep breath and headed after her.


I had a choice between this chapter being slightly short and reallllyy long so I chose short. Besides, this way I get more reviews *Booming Brian Blessed maniacal laugh*.

Enjoy!