The Wind in the Willows Was Never Like This
Braefoot Business Park, Lanark, 34 miles west of Edinburgh.
Almost ten-thousand Scots found themselves stranded outside the country at the end of their holidays with airlines unwilling to land in Scotland and shipping companies refusing to let their vessels even enter Scottish waters.
The returning holidaymakers were waiting for the British government to accept them into England but as panic spread through the parliament in London, some MPs were demanding funding for a new version of Hadrian’s Wall to cut Scotland off from the rest of the UK before what they were calling, “The results of a terrorist germ-warfare attack,” spread any farther and had voted to refuse to take citizens back, saying that they may have been infected before they left, leaving them in refugee camps abroad.
When the government extended martial law to the whole of Scotland, some of the thousands of troops brought in from England (after being DNA tested to exclude any of Celtic ancestry) started supervising vital industries, with food production under military control, and only local produce available, it wasn’t long before ration books were being issued for the first time since World War Two.
In the meantime, the military’s position was becoming increasingly untenable with Morrigan’s stranglehold on Edinburgh tightening, her thralls were blocking all the surface routes to the South with the ash cloud having spread the width of the country, cutting them off from England by air.
Not that any of that really mattered as the government had warned that anyone who breached the quarantine would be shot on sight, even their own soldiers, so, with aviation fuel in increasingly short supply, and nowhere else to go, they were preparing to evacuate by road to the West.
In the meantime Cassie had finally convinced the supply sergeant that her books were essential to her work and he sent her with a lorry to collect them, they returned three hours later with two pallets stacked high with hardbacks and paperbacks, accompanied by soldiers with shocked expressions on their faces at the mess they’d found in her flat.
Whilst the Department for the Quantification and Utilisation of Luck (or all that was left of it) was being evacuated in the early hours of the morning, it didn’t escape anyone’s notice that Morrigan was herding them slowly, inexorably towards the sea.
Cooper and Cassie’s new home in Lanark was a pale-blue portacabin with two offices below and two bedrooms above. It was in the farthest corner of the big car park, where it backed on to woodland. An adjoining unit housed a chemical toilet and showers with separate male and female entrances. They only had to go to the main building (a plain, grey two-storey office block) for meetings and to eat.
With the national electricity grid becoming increasingly unreliable, the whole facility had backup military-grade diesel generators.
The first time Cooper walked into the cafeteria and saw all the worried faces staring at him, as he swung his staff, he realised that they were keeping him as far away as possible, rather than house them both in the main building, where there was plenty of room, which, he had to admit, was understandable after some of them had returned from patrol to find chunks of his enemies melting on the canteen floor.
After lunch he walked into Cassie’s office, which she’d crammed with books piled up in columns on the floor and detailed maps circled in red marker pinned upon the walls. The volumes that wouldn’t fit there or in her bedroom were in a storage room in the main building.
Only the red hair on the top of her head was visible above the pile of intelligence briefings on her desk, as she bent over, studying them, so she could advise on their next move.
“Tell me how magick works,” he said, sitting opposite her, after navigating through the chicane of books that reminded him of her flat.
“What do you want to know?” she said eagerly, already picking out a reading list in her head.
“I know that it’s, well, magickal, but I used three words that…”
“Don’t say them now!” she said. Half-panicked.
“I wasn’t going to,” he smiled, laying his staff down to reassure her, like he was putting a weapon away, “what I’m saying is that each word did a different thing, and there has to be some sort of structure, or abracadabra would cover it all. But I don’t get how one word can call my staff, another freeze everything I touch and a third fire glowing bullets.”
“None of them can, they’re just triggers.”
“I don’t get it,” he said, puzzled.
“It’s like turning on a light,” she said, manoeuvring through the obstacles to get to the wall beside the door. She was wearing baggy jeans and a black T-shirt with “I Told You So!” in white lettering on the front. “when I click this switch, it closes the circuit and lights the room.”
“Why don’t you pretend, for a wild moment, that I cheated to get my physics degree because I never studied in school and explain the significance of that to me.”
“The point is, that what I just did would have looked like magick to someone before electric light was invented, but without electricity coming in from outside to a fuse box, through wires to a light fitting and into a bulb the switch would be useless, and that’s the way it is with spells,” she said turning the light back off, as it was making no difference to the afternoon sunlight streaming into the room.
“Oh, I get it now, you’re saying that they wrote the framework of the spells a long time ago and the words work like the switch.”
“Some are only a few hundred years old, whereas they created others long before the Celts arrived in Scotland and they named them so that the function would be obvious to future generations, or so they thought. For example, ‘Reoth’ (which I can say because I don’t have the magick gene) means ‘freeze’ in Scots Gaelic.”
“Then that’s why I suddenly know all forms of Gaelic, because without that knowledge I wouldn’t have a clue about what spell to pick. How do I write one from scratch?”
“You don’t need to, there are tens of thousands of ready-made incantations you can literally pluck out of thin air…”
“I need a specific one,” he interrupted, “one that nobody would ever have wanted or thought to create before.”
“To do what?”
“It’s only the glimmering of an idea at the moment, I’ll tell you when I know for sure.”
Cassie rummaged through a pile of books before handing him a hefty tome, “This has step-by-step instructions on writing and conjuring incantations.”
It was a lot thicker than he would have liked, but he was grateful to see that least it was in written in modern English. “Okay,” he said, “keep the noise down whilst I plough through this.”
“By all means, I wouldn’t want you to have to walk ten feet to your own office,” she said through gritted teeth as she returned to her work.
After nearly an hour of reading and taking notes, he walked over and dropped the book on top of the first pile he came to. She tut-tutted as she jumped up and moved it back to the exact place in the stack it had come from.
“That and the other book you gave…”
“Lent,” Cassie said, hurrying to correct him.
“Lent me,” he said, with a roll of the eyes, “talk about warlocks’ runes glowing blue or green but mine were red, why was that?”
“Red shows that emotion (usually anger or fear) is weakening your spells,” she paused to get a drink from the water cooler, before continuing, “back when children started showing any magick ability (usually around the age of two) were taken from their parents and apprenticed to a mage of the same sex…”
“Mage, I don’t know what that means,” he said, interrupting her.
“That’s a practitioner of magick, they sent the boys to warlocks, the girls to witches where they started training. Before they could even read and write they learned the discipline they needed to strip their incantations of any emotion and maximise their power.”
“Hmm, I see… I must work on that,” he said, handing her the list he’d been scribbling as he read.
“Is this your idea of a joke?” she said after reading it.
“Not at all, I’m just following the logic in your book. I need printouts of one of every kind of Internet conspiracy you can find, but first we need to go shopping for a chemistry set.”
“Of course we do,” she said with an exasperated sigh.
It was only an hour before the shops shut when she was signing for a car from the rental-fleet next door the military had commandeered at the start of martial law.
They were standing in front of a convex, cherry-red reception desk with, “iCar! Internet Car and Van Rentals,” in white lettering on the front. The room had gold-painted walls with a row of plastic chairs the same colour as the desk to one side.
The corporal sitting filling out the requisition form carried out the entire conversation with her as he stroked the trigger of his holstered sidearm nervously with his free hand as he glared at Cooper intermittently, who smiled inanely at him the whole time.
A couple of minutes later they pulled out into traffic with her driving, this far from Edinburgh things were almost normal (at first glance anyway) and they hoped it would stay that way for a few days more, although most people had started believing in magick, but were afraid to say so.
He couldn’t find a chemistry set large enough for his needs, so they left the shop carrying four, the combined cost being over seven hundred pounds, which Cassie had paid for using an army credit card.
The accountants would not be happy with him when they saw he was the joint signatory of the requisition form, but he saw no reason that they should be any different from the rest of the base. And at least it was a legitimate expense, he’d conned millions more than that out of them in his time.
He was placing them carefully in the boot, the back seats being folded flat to accommodate his staff, when he heard, “Warlock!” In a high-pitched yet masculine voice.
Cooper straightened up and spun around in a full circle, but there was no-one there, “Oh, great, a visit from the invisible man, that’s all I need,” he said, the runes pulsing faintly on his staff as he lifted it from where it was leaning against the rear of the car.
“Down here, genius,” the voice said again as he felt a stabbing pain in his ankle.
“Ow!” he said as he jumped back, looking at the ground. A fat black rat was standing upright, like a human, holding a darning needle with a gold eyelet like a sword in one hand and the jagged lid of a ring-pull tin as a shield with the other.
“Finally, you look down. You’re not the sharpest tool in the shed, are you?” the rat said.
“Insulted by a rodent, that seems about right for the way my week’s going.”
“I am no mere rodent, I am Rattus Rattus Rex,” he said, drawing himself up to his full nine-inches in height, his long tail trailing out behind him.
“How come you’re not theeing and thouing like the rest of them?”
“To, you and me, those who are made of magick were gone for centuries but for them it was the blink of an eye, and they speak now as they spoke the last time they were here. Whereas I, like you, am a mortal, born into the modern world, carrying the magick gene.”
All the time they were talking Cassie was hiding behind Cooper’s back, frantically tugging at the sleeve of his black polo shirt.
“Rex, like a king, correct? Anyway, excuse me a moment, your, er, majesty, my colleague would like to discuss the deleterious effects of pulling on cashmere with me for a moment,” he said, before they walked away, out of earshot, leaving the rat looking like he was guarding the gutter.
“Where did you get all the clothes you bought with you, anyway, when you couldn’t get to either of your homes and the shops were all closed?” she said, not taking her eyes off Rattus.
“I told you before, I always have backup plans B through to G, is that what you dragged me over here to ask?”
“I wanted to warn you, I think he’s a lavellan.”
“Never heard of that, but you don’t sound too sure.”
“Well, pardon me,” she said sarcastically, “I’ve never seen one in the flesh before, but, if I’m right then watch out, he can spit enough poison to kill both of us from a hundred feet away.”
“And naturally we can’t walk away because he’s standing next to the last of the chemistry sets in the shops,” he said with a sigh, before stepping back in front of the rodent.
“Sorry about that, now, correct me if I’m wrong, but you want me on Morrigan’s payroll. Am I right?”
“No, I want you to beat her so I can die as a normal rat six months from now, instead of having awesome power and living for centuries. Of course I want you to join her, idiot!” Rattus said, poking him in the sock with the darning needle.
“Pack that in!” He said, hopping away on one foot.
“You’re not used to dealing with rats, are you?”
“You wouldn’t say that if you’d followed my career.”
“Ignoring that terrible old joke, you should know that we’re pragmatic creatures, and Morrigan will pay well for you alive and in her service but dead and no longer a threat is an acceptable but less lucrative, alternative,” he said stabbing at his ankle.
“Shouldn’t you be humping Minnie Mouse by now?” He said, blocking the thrust with his staff.
“Think about the benefits being one of Morrigan’s generals can bring you, for a minute, she’ll give you Scotland as a reward,” he said, deftly switching hands and stabbing Cooper in the other leg.
“Ouch! I don’t know about that, I mean it’s not a big country, but I wouldn’t want to have to dust it. Look, let’s be realistic, for a moment, discounting all the disgusting diseases you carry, a rat can’t kill a human, so suppose it’s me that hires you? I know people at Disney, you can have your own cartoon show on TV and all the food you can eat, do you guys like cheese, or is that just mice?”
“Are you mocking me, warlock?”
“We’re just swapping job offers, no need to get ratty.”
“What did you just say to me?” Rattus screeched.
“I don’t know what you want from me, it’s just a common expression, no need to get you whiskers in a knot.”
Rattus took a deep breath before continuing, “I know what you’re doing, warlock, you’re trying to goad me into losing my temper so I do something stupid, but I’ll give you one last chance to dump Librarian Barbie, hiding behind your back there, and drive us into Morrigan’s territory, where you’ll surrender to her.”
“When did you enrol in the Callum Cooper Charm School?” Cassie said, standing on her tiptoes to peer over Cooper’s shoulder.
“I think that’s a no,” he said.
He watched as Rattus’s cheeks puffed out and slammed his staff down with a yell of, “Dheich!”
A second later green, smoking spit hit the translucent repulsor field that had appeared in front of him and blew it back at ten-times the speed, Rattus dived to one side just in time to avoid being hit by it, not that it would’ve really hurt him, but standing dripping in green sputum would have certainly have made him look silly, and he was obviously someone who valued his dignity.
When Rattus saw the repulsor field flicker out of existence, he jumped onto the bonnet of the car, bouncing higher to ram the darning needle into the back of Cooper’s hand. He yelled as he dropped his staff and threw a punch, but Rattus had bounced away, too small and fast to hit.
As he fell, he slashed at his trouser leg with the jagged edge of his shield, opening a long gash in his thigh. Cooper stumbled, tripping over the kerb and sat down with a painful thud.
“What are you, part kangaroo?“ he said as he stood up and grabbed his staff. He held it out above his head and yelled, “Me-annt!” just as Rattus landed back on his feet, inches from where he’d left.
A column of torrential rain drenched the rat, leaving everything around him bone dry.
He jumped to one side, but the rain followed him. “Is that the best you got?” Rattus spluttered under the downpour, stepping sideways into a clear sky, only to have it move with him again, as the sound of meowing started in the distance.
“I’m new at this, so I don’t know if it’s my best, but it’ll do,” Cooper smiled as the cats got closer and more strident.
“You’re embarrassing yourself, warlock,” Rattus sneered, “do you think a little water can hurt me?”
“It’s not water,” he said as cats appeared from all directions, “its liquid catnip.”
Rattus gave a squeal of fright as more cats ran out from under cars, sprung over walls and jumped down from low roofs. A hissing tabby leapt towards the rat, and he hopped on its back and onto the roof of the car, bouncing high enough to strike at Cooper’s throat with the razor-sharp edge of his shield as the rain followed him.
He moved his staff to block it, spluttering as the catnip hit him full in the face. The shield struck the wood and skidded off without even marking it. That knocked Rattus off balance, slowing him down enough for him to be caught by the tail as he fell.
Cooper held him out at arms length above a pack of jumping and howling cats, “This is over, Ratty, come back and I’ll market you as rat-flavoured cat food,” he said as he threw him into the air and batted him towards the gutter with his staff.
“I will destroy you, warlooock!” Rattus squeaked, his voice fading as he bounced off the storm drain grating and dropped out of sight into the sewer, the rain stopping as suddenly as it had started.
“If we’re going to keep running into characters like that then can you please ask for a car with more room for my staff next time?” he said, struggling to fit it back in as dozens of cats purred and rubbed against his legs.
As they drove away, a witch in a pointy hat riding a broomstick crossed the sky, silhouetted against the setting sun. She tipped over, hanging upside-down for a second, before righting herself with a shout of, “Woo-hoo!”
“Well,” he said with a sigh, “there goes the neighbourhood.”