Bagsy Beetlehorn and the Vampire Affairs (The Bagsy Chronicles 4)

Return to the Shadows

'It needs a conduit... It needs direction... it needs a shepherd...' The voice was at her other ear now, but Mezrielda resisted the urge to check for the owner. She knew she wouldn't find one. 'Show us...' it breathed, its voice hoarse with anticipation now. 'Show us you're the one we've longed for...'

The hairs on Mezrielda's arms stood up. She could feel energy crackling through the air like flames. Was that the power they spoke of? She looked back at the magpie staring expectantly at her.

She hadn't shifted for a long time. The last occasion had been in her desperate attempts to escape the Nuckelavee. Mezrielda was scared, in truth. Scared that somehow, as the time had gone by and the memories of her spells hadn't returned, that her ability to become a bird would leave her too. So long as she didn't shift, she'd never know, but she couldn't avoid it any longer.

Mezrielda calmed her mind. Shifting was like pulling on a coat. It was stepping into a warm bath or wrapping oneself in a soft towel.

With a swish of her hair, Mezrielda shrunk and, with an uncertain flutter, landed on her talons.

The surrounding birds spread their wings and cawed at the crimson sky.

'It is done,' they cried, over and over. Mezrielda turned back into a human, eyes darting from side to side, nervous in the noise.

Eventually, the avians calmed, returning their beady eyes to her. 'To finalise the contract you must choose a gift. Something to be destroyed, or something to be reformed, or something to be returned... you may only choose one, so think well on this monumental decision...'

Mezrielda, sharp tongue ready to respond, hesitated. The obvious answer was to ask for the memories of her spells back. Her spells would turn this impossible mission into an easy task.

But then, hadn't that been exactly what she'd thought about breaking Winifred and Robin out of the Ministry's ship? She'd trusted her abilities so strongly she'd never considered for a second that a person existed, young or grown, that could defeat her but even at the height of her abilities Mr Mortem had taken her memories away.

Mezrielda looked down at the wand in her hand – the wand that felt foreign to her and resisted what she asked of it. She could relearn her spells. Now that she was actually trying, it may take her a year, or a bit longer, to regain all the knowledge she'd had before, but she could do it. What she could never do was bring her old wand back.

'Reform my wand and give it to me,' she said. 'On its acceptance, I will become your queen.'

The birds exchanged looks, fluffing their feathers and tilting their heads. 'It is agreed,' they murmured, the energy Mezrielda had felt earlier rising in a crescendo. It crackled with electricity so that she was concerned her hair might become the tangled mess it had briefly been in her first year.

The ground, the trees, and even the birds crumbled like a collapsing building into darkness, and Mezrielda found herself hovering in a void of black. In the pitch dark, a pin prick of light glimmered in the distance. Mezrielda, finding herself now a magpie, flapped towards it.

In a tangle of shifting limbs, she stumbled out of the shadow, and back into the Eagle Club room. She fell ungracefully onto the floor as a human. With a moan of pain, she pushed herself onto her feet, taking a second to dust herself off and neaten her hair.

Her eyes instantly fixed on the white wand lying on the floor at her feet.

Pulse racing, Mezrielda leant down and picked it up, rolling it in her hands. At the touch of the aged wood against her palm she felt a jolt of power surge down her arms and into her body, and there was a brilliant flash of green from her eyes.