Kingsmouth Academy was a square red brick building, surrounded by a brick wall. There was an annexe for the dorm rooms and a gym. The grounds were large, with open areas for the students to walk and sit, a football ground and a tennis court. It seemed like a pleasant place to study and live if it wasn't for the screaming monstrosities that ran aimlessly around the campus. They weren't zombies, even I could tell that much.
They were pink, lumpy and vaguely humanoid. Suddenly I knew what they reminded me of; the playdough figures my daughter used to make. With blobby arms and legs and a blobby head. I know that is a terrible description, but it's the best I can do. And like most of the things on the island, they were trying to kill me.
Up to this point, I hadn't really used frost spells very much, but now they came in useful. A flurry of icy cold air and ice shards spread from my fingers, freezing the fleshy things in their tracks, a thin layer of ice creeping over them. A second spray of ice shards shattered the frozen bodies into lots of little pieces. Gross.
I carefully stepped over the remains and made my way into the building.
I could hear voices coming from the reception office, it seemed people were still alive here! Arcane wards glowed on the walls of the reception area, presumably to keep the fleshy things out.
Was this… was this a magic school? I tried not to geek out too much and promised myself I wouldn't make any references to a certain book series about a certain young wizard who goes to a certain magic school in England.
"Don't worry, you're not interrupting a parent-teacher meeting or nowt," a red-haired woman in a red blazer turned around and greeted me. "I'm the witch doctor in residence. My name is Annabel Usher. So, this really pissed the curriculum up the wall" she said. Her accent was Scottish.
"It was a great setback for us all." a man in a grey suit agreed and introduced himself as the headmaster, Hayden Montag. The only other person in the room was a teenage girl with short tousled hair dressed in an oversized hoodie. Her name was Carter, she was Danny's friend. There had been no other students in residence at the time the fog rolled in, but the faculty members had all still been there. The people in the room were the only ones left alive, and they were having problems of their own.
The fleshy things out there were the students' familiars and were now running wild.
"They look a fright, but well, think back about your first shop class projects and see how they turned out." Annabel Usher explained.
That was all very interesting of course, and under different circumstances, I would have loved to have learned everything about an actual 'Academy for the Magic Arts'. But I was chasing after a crazy cult leader with a magic sword that wanted to destroy the world or something like that, so regretfully I didn't have the time.
"Ah, so you are trailing after our mythical weapon of mass destruction then?" Miss Usher asked.
"She's not too late, right?" Carter asked. She looked worried, poor kid.
"I pure hope not, I have a reputation to uphold as the only thing that is Scottish and dangerous on the Island," Usher replied.
Wait, what now? What was Scottish? But I didn't get a word in edgewise.
"I should have called in the calvary as soon as I knew it was on the island. But honestly? It caught me with my metaphorical knickers down. I had no idea what it was."
It was not your fault Miss Usher," Cater reassured her. "No one has ever removed anything from the academy before and gotten through the wards. Not in one piece, anyway."
"That open day could have gone better," Miss Usher admitted.
"What happened during the open day?"I asked horrified, but Annabel Usher kept talking.
"Anyway, I suspect that whoever possesses the weapon lacks the knowledge to use it."
I could have told her that, if she would have let me get a word in, I thought grumpily.
"The Illuminati built this place with secret passages and tunnels out the wazoo. Supposedly, all the records containing centuries of occult lore are kept in an archive, but the archive is hidden…"
"...below the school." Carter finished. Usher looked at her in surprise.
"The seniors might have tried to crack the lock a few times," Carter admitted. "You can see it through the floorboards in the old dorms, or so I've heard." she finished lamely.
It didn't take long to persuade Carter to show me where the archives were, all I had to do was ask. Persuading her teachers was harder, but they agreed in the end. It was not as if Carter was defenceless, it turned out.
Carter was a Bee as well. But she had magic powers long before that. Carter was psychokinetic at birth, her parents quickly learned there was something strange about her. With no one to train her, her powers manifested at seemingly random times throughout her life. Matters only became worse when she started attending school.
Eventually, the Illuminati found her and offered to send her to be taught to control her powers at the Academy.
"And just as I started to learn to control my powers a bit, I got my bee," Carter explained, while I took care of another group of familiars.
"And now my powers are super unstable again. Now, when I have a nightmare, everyone in a 30-foot radius gets a nose bleed!"
I felt sorry for Carter, being a teenager is hard enough without having to deal with that as well. I gave her my phone number as well.
"If you ever want to talk, I'm there, okay?" I gave her a big hug as well. She hesitated for a second, then hugged back.
"Thanks! The building is right here."
The old dorms were placed in a squat red brick building, the windows dusty and dirty. Inside it was quiet, it seemed like neither zombie nor familiar had made its way inside. There were footsteps in the dust on the floorboards though, made by a man from the size of them. Had Beaumont beaten me to the archives?
"You'd better go," I told Carter, "and call me if you ever want to talk to another Bee!"
I followed the footsteps in the dust. I was feeling incredibly nervous. The zombies and familiars I had fought so far were mindless creatures, but if that really was Beaumont down there I'd be up against someone powerful and cunning, someone who hadn't just gained his powers a week ago but who was a practised sorcerer. I was more than a bit scared. I barely made a dent in the hellhound he'd summoned, after all. The two things that kept me from running were the fact that I was practically indestructible, and that someone had to put a stop to what was happening on this island. And that someone was going to have to be me.
I quietly tiptoed around the corner. The floorboards in the hallway had been pulled up and put against the wall. Below them were stairs leading down to a large wooden door surrounded by glowing runes. It had been opened to a gap. I girded my loins, or at least I would have if I actually knew how to gird them, but you get the point, and pushed the door open.
Behind the door was a cavernous space, a luxuriously decorated library with thick carpets and large candelabras lighting the multitudes of bookcases.
Frederic Beaumont was standing with his back to me, and for a moment I thought I might have the element of surprise. That hope was quickly squashed as he spoke.
"I've been in exile for a very long time. I was forced by a false prophecy to flee my homeland in disguise, to degrade myself by pretending to be something much less than I truly am."
Was he monologuing?
"I spent a long time cursing my kind. Planning my revenge and victorious return. Eventually, I got on with my life, and now…"
He was monologuing!
He turned around. Beaumont was of medium height, with black slightly too long hair, blue eyes and a scraggly beard. He wore a green tunic embroidered with what looked like daisies (I later realised they were meant to be suns) and a necklace made out of beads with a golden medallion. His skin was ruddy and he looked, well, the word 'seedy' came to mind. If he would have sat next to me in a bar I would have covered my glass with my hand if you know what I mean.) In his hands was a sword, glowing softly with a golden light.
He continued with his monologue. I know I should probably have said or done something, but I figured that if he wasn't attacking me maybe we could talk things out, and I was geeking out too much at the thought of an actual villain monologuing at me like in the movies. It was kind of awesome!
"...and now they're all forgotten by those who once worshipped them. There's a lesson in there somewhere, I'm sure. Thing is… are you smirking?" he interrupted himself.
I quickly sucked in the insides of my cheeks and bit on my bottom lip. Not trusting myself to say anything I shook my head.
"Because I'm certain you were grinning," he continued suspiciously. "Now where was I?"
"There's a lesson in there somewhere," I repeated helpfully. I wanted to hear the rest of what he had to say, and if I kept him talking there might be a way out of this without having to fight him.
"And I am free, and I don't plan on anything…" he glared at me, "or anyone, changing that!"
Beaumont lifted up the sword which began to shine brightly. He swung it around a few times, a golden trail lingering in the air where the sword had just been. Was he showing off the sword to me? I wasn't sure what the etiquette was here, but it still felt a bit rude to just attack him.
"It's beautiful, isn't it?" he asked. "And to think this thing was out there all along… while I wasted my time coveting a fucking hammer!"
He seemed to think I knew what he was referring to, but this was the first thing I heard about any hammers.
"I got what I came for and I need to be moving on. Places to go, spells to cast… gods to wake."
He paused dramatically. He was a skilled orator, I had to give him that.
"Spoiler alert: We'll fight, I'll win, you'll track me down again just in time to watch your world tumble into chaos. Titles scroll, lights come back on."
He waved a finger in the air and grinned a mirthless smile. "Oh wait, no they won't."
He raised the sword and pointed it at me. I took a step backwards and fumbled for my effigy.
"If I could kill you, I would. I really, really would."
'Bit rude,' I thought.
"I don't like leaving matters unresolved. I'd do it quickly and cleanly. No need to prolong it, I'm not that sort of villain, no stage magician."
Should I attack him now? I had no idea what that glowing sword would do to me though, and he had just sort of said he wasn't going to kill me. I found it all rather confusing.
"I take pride in my work, and I'm not afraid to get my hands… filthy. But unless I grind you into fine dust, the bees will just whisk you away to safety. I've seen it happen enough times."
So he knew who I was, what I was. And he had been watching me.
Here's the point where I may have to admit I might have neglected to mention dying a few times while fighting zombies and draugr. Not to mention the incident with the landmines. What can I say, they aren't exactly happy memories. And this is my story, and I just wanted you to think I'm at least a little bit awesome for a while.
"I'll just make sure you're stuck here a while so I can get on with things. Farewell."
Wait, what was happening? Before I could say or do anything the world exploded in a bright flash of white, and the next thing I knew it was hours later, I was on the floor of the archives, and my phone was ringing.
Beaumont was gone.
Of course, in hindsight, I should have attacked him sooner.
Richard, my handler, was on the phone. He'd gotten worried after not hearing from me for hours. I explained what happened, fearing I'd be in trouble. But Richard reassured me and told me to look around the archives to see if I could find what Beaumont had been looking for.
There were footprints in the dust, making my job a lot easier. They lead to a desk, with an old journal on it. The page it had been opened on was dated January 19th, 1881.
"Beaumont came by for supper. Though I am beginning to suspect his motives for visiting here so often…"
I wondered if the Beaumont mentioned there was related to the one I was chasing after now. I couldn't read the rest of the sentence because it was covered by a modern-looking business card with an address on it, belonging to one Frank. R. Devore. The address was on the island, and he was the owner of the local mine.
It was getting late, and my head was splitting after Beaumont's spell. My hands were shaking and I was feeling woozy. I called Richard again who told me to go home and get at least a few hours of sleep before chasing after Beaumont. I didn't like it, but I had to agree I was in no shape to continue on for now. A few hours of sleep would allow my bee to do its work and help me recover. I just hoped Beaumont wouldn't destroy the world in the meantime.