"Across the Pond"
Chapter Eight
Uriel and Mercury dashed to the broom-hangar. They took off at once, and began their flight westward. They flew nonstop all night, and landed at the Anderson estate at about 1:00 AM. Nobody seemed to notice their arrival, so they flew over the fence and landed in a dark section of the side yard, where they ditched their brooms.
"Uriel," said Professor Mercury, "I'm going to try and get him to surrender peacefully. If he resists…we may be compelled to use deadly force."
"I understand," replied Uriel. They crept up to the front door, where he waited in the shadow of the stoop as it met the house. Professor Mercury strolled up, and knocked.
An old butler answered. "Yes?" he asked in a lugubrious monotone.
"I seek an audience with the masters Anderson," replied Mercury in a cool tone.
"Whatever for, and at this hour of the night!" demanded the butler.
"They are guilty of several serious crimes, and I have come to place them under arrest." The butler suddenly pulled out a wand. Mercury quickly disarmed him, and, with a loud bang! threw him across the entrance hall. Using incarcero, he bound him up with ropes. Mercury then stepped into the house, with Uriel in tow. There before them, on the main stairs, stood Ptolemy Anderson, Jr.
He cast some anonymous petty spell at Uriel (this time, the magical energy actually left the wand, which indicated he had been practicing.) It was quickly deflected, and hit Ptolemy in the rear end as he fled up the stairs. Rather too late, he moved to cover his milky white buttocks.
"Halt!" cried Professor Mercury. The two ran after Anderson. "Stop immediately!" Of course, even Anderson wasn't stupid enough to stop when he was being chased by impromptu policemen.
"Locomotor Mortis!" cried Uriel. Anderson fell to the floor, his legs locked. With another blast of incarcero, he was subdued.
"Now for the father," said the professor. "I wonder where that weasel has dug his burrow." Uriel and Professor Mercury began to search the house. They encountered many traps and guards, but defeated them all. They left no stone unturned as they (illegally) pillaged the house, but could find Anderson Sr. nowhere. Finally, on the third floor of the north wing, they discovered a secret tunnel hidden behind a tapestry.
At first, the tunnel took them straight down in a tight spiral, but after a few minutes, began to widen more and more in its course, until it ran straight, and was a spiral no more. Snagging torches from the niches in the wall, the dynamic duo stalked down the tunnel till they came to a small, thick door, stoutly bound together with iron rivets. As he had feared, it was impervious to alohamora, so Professor Mercury was compelled to use the much more violent method of simply blasting the door into oblivion.
When the dust cleared, they saw a very shocked Mr. Anderson, whose finger still rested on a line in the book he had had his son steal. On a small table next to him, surrounded by candles, was the Gauntlet.
Professor Mercury pointed his wand at Anderson. "By the authority of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement," he said, "I arrest you in the name of the law. Now surrender your wand and come peacefully." He, of course, did not, preferring to snatch up the gauntlet, book, and candles and run from the chamber. Mercury and Uriel followed him. They were drawn down yet another tunnel, one whose stones were, unbeknownst to our heroes, weak with age. The sound and energy of the magic the adversaries cast at each other eventually caused several pieces of masonry to fall, creating a wall of rock between Uriel and Professor Mercury.
"Uriel!" called the old man. His voice was barely comprehensible through the stone. "I'm all right! I'll signal for assistance…don't you dare try to fight him by yourself! Oh, we should never have come alone!"
"Don't worry, professor! I won't attack!" lied Uriel.
Breaking his promise, Uriel ran off after Mr. Anderson.No other tunnels came off this one, so he basically had to run straight. Soon, he came to a large chamber, bisected by a huge, seemingly-bottomless gorge which was spanned by a narrow stone bridge. Standing at the apex of the arch was Anderson Senior.
"Mr. Anderson," said Uriel, "if you give me the book and the gauntlet, and surrender yourself peacefully, I will spare you. Otherwise, I may have to hurt you, and—though I can't say it would cause me displeasure—I would like to get this over with as quickly as possible…you've wasted a fair bit of my extremely valuable time."
Anderson laughed insanely. "No."