Chapter 4

It was a couple of years later in 1955 that I did my first solo mission for the Department, an investigation into certain activities of a group of men in the British government. The front men became quite famous at a later date, now known as the Cambridge Five, Kim Philby, Donald Maclean, Guy Burgess, Anthony Blunt, and John Cairncross. Though it was not these men in whom Mage Morgana was interested, rather the shadowy plot behind their treacherous activities. That was the reason they stayed undetected for so long. They were useful to the Department for Investigative Studies in tracking down the activities of our opposition in Europe.

One of my first acts was to place a series of wards around the men that would activate if another magic user approached or attempted to communicate with them and that was where the problems started.

It soon became obvious that the wards were being tampered with, though it was subtle and difficult to track down exactly how, as I’d only detect it after the event. Yet the fact that I could detect it suggested that whoever was doing it was no great shakes in the magic department. I could also discern a pattern developing, certain wards would go down at certain times, regular as clockwork, always at night and always when the subjects were alone.

It seemed simply a matter of setting a trap for whomever or whatever was interfering with the wards and so blithely I set up an invisibility spell so I could monitor the subject when the wards were supposedly being interfered with.

My first mistake was not telling Morgana what I was doing.

My second was assuming that I was the one setting up a trap ... So using my powers I set myself up in the flat in which Philby was currently residing, he was of course unaware of my presence and I made sure he never got the opportunity to approach my hiding space, a minor aversion spell saw to that. At 2am he was sleeping and the room was silent, the wards were still in place and the time was due for them to be interfered with, so far as I could tell.

It took a few minutes and then my senses told me I was not alone, though as yet I could not detect any presence. I just knew with a cold dead feeling that whoever or whatever was in the room with me was far more than I’d expected.

“You can’t hide from me that way you know,” came a cold feminine voice.

“I’d already gathered that,” I replied. “Don’t suppose you have a name though?”

“Brianna,” came the reply. “Merlin’s daughter. You’re John, that whore Morgan le Fay’s dupe.”

I kept silent, taunting and other mind games can unsettle a magician’s mind and prevent him or her from getting all their power behind a spell, though I suspected that Brianna was well ahead of me in that respect. I already had the feeling I should have started running five minutes beforehand.

“So what is it that you want?” I finally asked, whilst carefully putting just about every ounce of energy I had into various shields and other defensive mechanisms held in my mind.

“You’re interfering with matters you don’t understand. Frankly we cannot allow this,” was the reply.

“We?” I asked.

“The Coalition of the Pure.”

“Who?”

“Those who believe that magic users should not have to skulk in the shadows hiding from the religionists,” Brianna replied haughtily.

“Not exactly doing a great job so far,” I mused.

“That’s because your ‘Council’ opposes the rule of magic over mundane,” she stated.

“Having seen the abominations your ‘Coalition’ has come up with in its attempts to rule I’m not surprised,” I murmured. “Hell, if it were not for an accident of birth you could be living in your Soviet Empire as a slave.”

“I am a Mage, my father’s daughter!” Brianna raged.

“I wouldn’t boast,” I flippantly replied. “Just ask him about Mordred, your half-brother.”

“How dare you!”

I saw the hellfire emerge into the room which gave me her location and whilst dodging I tried to cast a spell of sleep back at her. Fortunately my anti spell charm worked a treat and I wasn’t quite where Brianna thought I was, though admittedly the hellfire came far too close for comfort, however as I expected my sleep spell simply did not affect her.

The fact that she’d missed seemed to astound Brianna.

“How?” she exclaimed, before loosing another one at where she thought I was, again missing. In return I tried an air displacement spell activating an expanding bubble of highly compressed air which created an area effect throwing her against a wall giving me time to activate a teleport spell attached to a bracelet on my wrist. The spell was tied to a specific location, though Brianna also hit me almost full on with hellfire as I was just phasing out and the amount of free energy in the room gave it an unexpected twist as I arrived in the vicinity of my flat with a velocity of about twenty miles per hour straight upward encompassed in a diminishing hellfire spell. Fortunately in this case gravity was on my side and other than being rather disorientated and feeling a bit parboiled from Brianna’s parting shot I felt relieved to have gotten away mostly unscathed. I really should have known better however as unfortunately Brianna hitchhiked along with the spell to finish off the job. The velocity change appeared to catch her just as much by surprise and I at least recovered quicker. Chanting out a series of syllables I was able to use my mind to activate the room’s defences and rolled behind a sofa to try and get my breath and wits back. It soon became obvious that the defences were giving Brianna a few problems. I’d spent years on some of them and as is my wont, I’d opted for subtle rather than in your face. When dealing with people who rely on the mind to control their environment and needs, disorientation works far better than a direct attack, particularly if they don’t realise what’s going on. Rather than shields and attack spells I’d opted for deflection and reflection measures, which meant that Brianna was pretty much getting a taste of her own medicine, though not directly bounced back in her face, but from unexpected angles and directions. If she’d relaxed she’d have figured them out quickly enough, as it was she thought she was being attacked by some fairly impressive spells built into the room, rather than her own attempts to get at me. Finally though I was able to clear my mind and thought through and activated the glyphs and sigils in my flat for a state of Null before leaping over the sofa and launched a physical attack on Brianna.

Null as the name implies is a spell dampener, it makes it impossible to cast spells at all as it puts the magical equivalent of a lightning rod right under the area it covers. It requires years of practice and a pretty specific set of conditions to apply it, but even the masters of magic fear it as it puts them into the same position in life as a mundane and I was far closer in years to being a mundane than Brianna was. I was in a lot of pain with several first and second degree burns over my body but knew it was me or her so pushed myself to what I thought then were my limits. Brianna looked stunned as her magic failed and hadn’t the wit as yet to try anything else, a classic case of knowing what worked and keep trying until it does, rather than adapting to new conditions. I have sort of been conditioned against hitting women, but in a case of life or death I’ll make an exception and I managed a quick blow to Brianna’s solar plexus followed by a right hook to her jaw, which I suspect hurt me far more than it did her as she was knocked out and I realised I now had several broken knuckles to add to my burns. Going into my bedroom I unlocked a small cabinet and pulled out a set of handcuffs, these were designed to prevent anyone using magic by disrupting their thoughts as well as restraining the captive physically, though had the disadvantage of making a Mages mind unreadable too. Putting them on Brianna I then phoned Morgana via the office as there was no way in hell I was going to turn off the Null spell in my current condition if Brianna had back up of some sort.

Within two minutes of answering my call Morgana teleported to the edge of the Null field and let herself in.

“Oh, John!” she exclaimed, looking at me. “Are you all right?”

“Yes, my Mage.” I replied, “Just a little crispy on the outside. I’ll put it right when I turn Null off.”

“I have another team on the way. We’ve only had hints that Merlin had another daughter and a bit of a lack of imagination when it comes to names too,” Morgana mused. “Well done on capturing her, but really, John, you should have called in help long before this. You’re nowhere near able enough to stand against a fully trained Mage. You’ve barely got the basics of being a journeyman under your belt!”

All I could do was give her a pained grin as she shook her head at me.

“Still,” she said. “At least now we know who was operating Philby. We’ll allow the cabal to fall apart now. Elymas’ people will probably withdraw their attempts to infiltrate the establishment at this level at least and think again.”

“What about the spy ring?” I asked.

“Not important,” she said, “The regular security forces will clean it up, or not, as is their remit, some may even escape notice. Our job was to prevent the cabal from being able to influence policy to remove our office from the levers of power in the British government.”

A team from the Security Section of the office had arrived and took the still groggy Brianna into custody. A small van with a set of industrial strength wards to avoid detection and a shackled chair to act as the cuffs did would suffice to get her to a safe house where interrogations could begin.

Chapter 5 »