Stacking the Deck

Chapter 13

It wasn't the voice of an angel that woke her. The sound insinuated itself into her dream, changing the jumble of color and faces into a grainy black and white movie. The set was a stylized representation of a castle, all hard angles and massive stone walls. As the singer changed songs, so did the imagery her brain spewed out. The castle was gone and Rose Jones strode across a flower-bedecked mountainside. Everything was lit with a golden haze of late summer. Warm and inviting, her dream self felt obligated to fling open her arms and twirl about to puff out the long dark skirt.

"....sound of music," Siegfried's baritone rumbled through the thin partition wall. In her half-doze Jones smiled and repeated the refrain.

Feeling warm and safe, she hugged her pillow tightly and faded back into the dreamscape. There she was, teaching a dozen bright-faced children. Only, in her dream, these children were learning basic spells, nothing dark. They all smiled up at her and took copious notes. In fast forward dreamtime, the children stood, stretched and transformed into teenagers cusping on adulthood. Their pinafores and ridiculous overalls turned darker and lengthened into long robes.

"...sixteen going on seventeen..." Eyelashes fluttering, Jones rubbed at her nose and grumbled.

Then, the scene shifted to dark-uniformed men pointing at her, accusing her of something. Muttering to herself, she rolled over and clutched the covers in a stranglehold. The uniforms shifted from historical to familiar. The military attire of one authority figure turned into the black Auror uniform. A larger-than-life Werner laughed at her and made her kneel before him. A taller and if possible thinner version of Baldung snicked out a fleam, demanding to measure how pure her blood was while a stone-faced Mueller folded his arms and looked away. Only Massys turned to help her, whispering, "Tomorrow belongs to me."

"Wrong musical," she muttered and woke fully. Her room was lit in light grays. It could have been almost any hour after dawn. Except for a few weeks of the year, the sun never hit the stone wall behind the Dark Arts building to reflect light into her room. Next door, it sounded as though Siegfried was working his way through popular musicals. Moving from "Sound of Music" to "Cabaret", his current song concerned money. Definitely, time to get up.

The night before seemed like a bad dream. She found her coat wadded into a pile on her office chair. Pushing it onto the floor, she sagged into her chair. Her hands trembled while she fumbled with the lighter. The wheel spun, but there was no flame. Jones clenched her hands into fists twice and tried again. The flame sputtered, then flared. Closing her eyes in relief, she slid a cigarette into her mouth and lit it. It tasted awful. Hacking and spiting, she tore it out of her mouth. The filter smoldered and stunk. Not a good morning. Her second cigarette tasted much better and sent a jab of nicotine into her brain. Plopping her feet onto her desk, she stared at nothing and tried to think about nothing, too. Annoying little memories poked out of niches. More and more often, the memories settled themselves into the condescending image of Heinrich Adler.

"Adler," she muttered, "what am I going to do about Adler?" He had won last night. He knew he had and she knew, too. She'd been set up to find him, but had she been set up to fail? And fail at what? Dieter Hasse had a lot of questions to answer, but first she needed to figure out exactly what those questions were.

A long shower knocked a layer of dust out of her head and yet another cigarette gave her something to concentrate on. After she stubbed it out, she reached for her wand and hesitated. It was undoubtedly later than she thought it was. Her stomach gurgled piteously. Breakfast had to be long over and there was a good possibility lunch was, too. An acidic burp, tasting faintly of bile, forced her hand. The Tempus spell glowed out ten o'clock, a particularly useless hour. Lunch wouldn't be served for two hours and Jones knew better than to enter the kitchens. At times like this, she almost wished she were on better terms with Loup who had free access there. Of course, Jones smirked, the great black mage had to work there in exchange for her upkeep. That thought alone made things better.

She rifled through what was left of October's care package. The Oreos were gone, as were all of the other cookies. There were plenty of chips, but her stomach churned at the thought of grease. Chocolate, ever the snack of choice, became breakfast. A cigarette and a Hersheys bar later, she could cope long enough to find coffee.

The staff room was empty. The place was its usual cluttered mess of mugs, glasses, papers and Wronski's ever-growing sprawl of magazines. There was, however, coffee. True, it was cold coffee, but it was coffee and that's what mattered. She poured a cup and stood over the sink, staring out the tiny window at nothing. All of the windows along the back of the building faced a tall stone wall and what was left of the moat. The wall seemed taller today. As she forced down the weak and tasteless brew, she meditated on the wall. In the past, it had been built for protection, the first defensive structure. Somewhere along the way, when Durmstrang Castle no longer had to fear attackers, it became a way to keep things inside. She wondered if that wall did anything other than delineate space. There were walls everywhere. Walls around the grounds, fragments of walls outside the main walls, walls inside the castle, some of which weren't even real. Walls made of stone and walls made of magic. Both degraded over time without maintenance. Nothing was forever.

She poured the dregs of the coffee out and rinsed her mug, eyes still on the curtain wall. She'd seen walls of magic before. Containment spells, repelling spells, rather showy but stupid cage spells... They were usually visible. Especially if you knew they were there and hunted for the trace magics. Hiding the existence of magic was tricky. It could be done. She'd done it quite a few times over the years, but not on that scale. Not on the scale that she'd seen last night. There were layers to that thing. The Aurors had peeled or broken a lot of it, but Massys hadn't cracked it down to the final enchantments. Adler or one of his people had terminated it before then. And then there was that glyph. Why was it hidden? She lit another cigarette and stood holding it. Maybe it hadn't always been hidden. Maybe it had been covered over time. Hadn't that spoiled brat made some mention of things being like that earlier? How much earlier? The questions started queuing. Layers of spells set at different times undoubtedly by different men and women. Massys had said he'd seen the glyph before, that it had been in some reports. A vile smell brought her back. Her cigarette had burned itself down to the filter and she hadn't taken a single puff. That was signal. It was time to do a little research.

She filled the time until the noon bells chimed reading. Her Dark Arts grimoires were only of little help. The spells they concentrated on tended to concern people, not objects unless it was to curse or poison something. She dug through her more generic spellbooks, leafing through the older volumes and ending at the mass produced paperbacks just when the bells began. She stuffed two paperbacks into her satchel and lugged it over to the castle.

Weekend meals were always more relaxed than the ones during the week. The Dark Arts table was stuffed full. The bench for the staff to sit on never had enough room, but today was worse than usual. Siegfried Kessler had invited a student to dine with him. Yet another in an endless series of pretty young things was curled up next to Kessler. Jones held back a dig that it was later in the year than usual. The rest of the staff sat crammed shoulder to shoulder. True, she could have grabbed one of the chairs scattered here and there in the Great Hall, but it was easier to walk across the hall and take a spot at the Defense Against the Dark Arts table.

The Defense table held only Jessup. Old Jessup looked up briefly, grunted something that might have been a greeting but could have easily been a "go to hell" before returning to his reading. Jones stretched to see a brightly colored brochure regaling the pleasures of retiring in Spain. With winter setting in, the warm weather photos looked particularly inviting. With her only other dining companion engaged, she served herself what looked to be the usual Durmstrang fare of sausages and potatoes and settled down to do some research of her own.

The paperbacks had been a Godsend years ago when she had begun seriously studying magic. During the seventies, there had been a lot of interest in the metaphysical. Books covering every aspect of the paranormal had been displayed everywhere. Trips to the local grocery could yield a book of spells along with milk and bread. She'd snapped up every book she could find on magic and the occult before the publishing trends had changed. Some were useless, but there were reprints of earlier works and modern spellbooks. The cheap paperbacks looked very out of place among her collection of grimoires and spellbooks. She resorted to her collection of sleazy paperbacks more often than the "serious" collection. Both paperbacks were falling apart. The cheap glue had broken. Rubber bands were the only things keeping the loose pages inside the covers. Between bites of yet another boring Durmstrang lunch, she refreshed her memory on detection techniques.

"What are you studying?" Heiniger slipped into the space next to her.

Jones glanced up from her reading, her mouth too full to answer. Instead, she shrugged and pointed at the chapter heading: "Identifying Spells and their Creators".

Nodding approvingly, Heiniger filled his plate. "Amazing what was published. I, too, have a collection of such things. The French have always had an interest in such matters. Do you read French?" He snapped his napkin out and carefully tucked a corner into the neckline of his well-worn robes. When Jones shook her head, he sighed. "That is a shame. Truly. Have you visited our library? There are some very rare volumes there."

The comment stopped her in mid chew. The dark bread and butter stuck in her mouth, rendering her response of, "Library?" into "Lbrrrrri?" It took two swallows of water before she sounded like herself. "Library? There's a Defense Against the Dark Arts Library?"

"Of course," he chuckled. Reaching for the basket of bread, he continued, "It is, of course, warded to identify only approved personnel into it. Until we hire our next two professors, it would be possible for you to access it." He sliced off a slab of butter and balanced it on the edge of his bread plate. "Some of the others may be uncomfortable with the idea that you would be allowed inside, but with Auror Werner's recommendation and from what I have seen, I do not believe that you would utilize the knowledge there for the Dark Arts."

Considering her response carefully, Jones took another sip of water. Heiniger's assessment was probably right, but it galled her to be dismissed as possibly harmless. True, she hadn't taken a client in four years, but she might.

"Professor Jones?"

Heiniger was watching her. The attempt to look nonchalant was a strain. He could control his hands, but his eyes were actively evaluating her as a possible threat. Somehow, just being considered as a threat was enough to ease over the slight. "Sorry, I was just thinking about last night." Closing her book, she took her time collecting her thoughts while she pushed away her plate and wiped off the area where it had been. Satisfied that she wouldn't land an elbow in a blob of gravy, she slid around on the bench to face him. "The glyph, I've never seen anything like it. Professionals don't leave calling cards like that. I use my sigil to verify things, but what I saw last night wasn't the same thing. What did you think about it?"

Pursing his lips, Heiniger looked across the hall. Jones followed his gaze, noting how his eyes slid towards the seventh years' table. She had to shift slightly to be able to see what he was seeing. In the middle of the long row, facing towards them, Heinrich Adler was being feted by his admirers.

"It was interesting. Most especially interesting was its placement. Do you not agree?"

"Yes. On the inside, like it was either to be viewed only from the inside or maybe it was the first spell placed there. Some of that work was very old." Jones dropped her eyes to the tabletop. Dragging her finger over the polished surface, she drew a line. Then, she marked out a space with two hashmarks through the line. "If this is the doorway to that room, the widest area I saw was three meters. I never saw anything flash or shimmer or have any other visible sign beyond that." She looked up to see Heiniger studying her diagram. "Did you?"

Shaking his head once, he pointed at her crude diagram. "When they began their attack on the area, did you feel the amount of energy that had to be expended? If it was not for someone with the power of Auror Massys, I doubt that the first layers would have ever broken. And," he added, stabbing his finger into the middle of the area where the door had been indicated, "when the layers began to fall away, did you see how the wards were broken? Not standard. Those were unique. I have never seen wards dissipate like that." Putting his hands together, Heiniger vibrated with poorly contained frustration. The bench jiggled and then the table, setting silverware to clink on plates.

"Wards." Jones stabbed her finger back at the waxy line on the tabletop. "See, there were more than just wards there. The wards themselves were layers underneath other spells. I don't think Massys ever finished breaking the wards themselves. He cracked a couple of different concealment spells, though. I want to know what set off that series of sparks. That happened twice." Staring at her marks, she leaned onto her hand and concentrated on what she'd seen. "Three times, actually. At the very end, just about the time the music broke through, there was a third layer. I don't know if those were wards or what. Maybe a different kind of ward than I'm used to. I usually use blood to set mine. Lowenstein uses life forces. I know those last longer, but I like my way better."

There was no reply. She looked up to see Heiniger staring at her, face impassive.

"What?"

"Life forces." He looked away from her again, this time towards the Dark Arts table. "Did you know that there are ways to increase the strength of wards set thusly? I have only read about it." Little lines etched their way around his eyes and mouth. Jones watched as his hands clenched into fists.

"I'm not familiar with any of the additive work that goes into it." She waited for him to respond; the retired Auror was lost in his own thoughts. "Professor Heiniger? Professor Heiniger?" When he focused back on her, she wet her lips nervously and asked, "How Dark are the additives? The usage of a sacrifice for protection is Dark enough all by itself. What are we talking about?"

"You do not know?" Heiniger's eyes flicked over her face, looking for any sign of deceit. It was easy for her to compare him to the other Aurors she knew.

"No. I don't work that way. Wards were my bread and butter back home. I set mine with blood. It was always more than enough for almost every situation." She knew smiling wouldn't work nor would anything other than the truth. Old Heiniger looked to be the sort of person who had seen it all in his years of service. Instead, she chose the closest thing to the truth she could. "I'm curious. I always am."

* * *

The Defense Against the Dark Arts library was on the top floor. Huffing her way up the last two staircases, Jones lagged behind the spry older man. It was a relief to reach the top floor. Heiniger led the way down a long hallway, past his area's offices, to stop in front of an ornately carved doorway. She tried to admire it properly while she wheezed. Heiniger told her to wait, something she was happy to do until she could breathe properly. The quick flash of the library when he walked in was enough to make her drool. The room wasn't large, but it was packed with volumes of every size and thickness. Plus, there was the smell. The Dark Arts had a definite odor to them. All the hate and petty vindictiveness poured into a book manifested itself in a certain aroma. Every use supposedly intensified the cloying smell. She got a good whiff and felt very alert. Hungry almost.

When the door opened again, Heiniger motioned her to the door. "I will only take a drop." He reached for her hand and Jones snatched it tight to her chest.

"I'd rather do it myself, if you don't mind. No offense, but if my blood's going to be used, I'll do it myself." At the sight of Heiniger's brow furrowing, she added, "Professional courtesy." She ignored his offer of a knife. Fat chance she would use it! Who knew what it had been used for? Of course, her own anthame, covered with pocket lint and grime, looked far less professional than she would have liked. Trying hard to hide her embarrassment, she wiped it off on her slacks and held it over her the base of her thumb. "I usually use a few drops from here. It's always worked fine for me, but I can also take from some other point."

"It will do."

The knife was still sharp and cut at the barest touch. Feeling uncomfortable at not being in control, she squeezed out a thick red line and was appalled when Heiniger passed her a glass slide to smear it onto. She never had liked the combination of magic and science, even when it did make sense.

In the end, she decided it had been worth it. The library was floor-to-ceiling in shelves with books. There were sections in languages she had never seen before and others where there were no words, only symbols and incredible illuminations. To one side of the door was a heavily-shielded case containing some prize works. The books radiated evil all by themselves. When Heiniger passed, she noted one glowed an orange color from a mounted stone set on its cover. Entranced, she stepped forward and held her hand over the case. For her, the stone pulsed a dark blood red and it called to her. It whispered enticements, promises of glory and fame. It held her until Heiniger called and, even after she crossed the room to join him, she could feel it tug at her.

There wasn't a lot of room in the library for anything that wasn't a bookcase, but there were two small tables and a desk. She took one table and, after he had pulled out a stack of books for each table, he took the other. Out of long habit, she pulled out her gloves and put them on before touching any of the volumes. During a break for her eyes, she caught Heiniger's measuring stare. Well, what did he expect? You didn't just touch one of these things without knowing how powerful it was. Feeling out of sorts, she reached for the next reference and heard the book again, this time louder.

How powerful you could be

, the book in the case whispered. How powerful you could be with me in your hands, teaching you, guiding you.

"I need a cigarette," she muttered. The book's voice was like that of a lover. It caressed her, finding her vanity and then that part of her that the Dark had made its own. The yearning to serve, be a part of, to feel the cold clasp of the Dark's power... Feeling weak in the knees, she pushed away from the table, fully intending to make the long hike down to the ground floor so she could stand outside with the rest of the smokers.

"Over there," he answered, one eye on his text while he inspected her with the other. "If you stand by the window, there has been a draft constructed to take the smoke away."

Jones goggled at him. "I can smoke in here? What about the books?"

"These books," Heiniger intoned, "would thrive on a human vice. Do you not think so?"

"Point taken." Feeling as though she was about to commit a horrible crime, Jones crowded close to the middle one of three large windows and lit a cigarette. As promised, all of the smoke was pulled outside. The first one steadied her nerves. When the book sighed in her mind, she lit a second one.

"Here," Heiniger said, picking up a volume and walking over to her. "This is what I was speaking of."

Flustered, she stuffed her cigarette into the corner of her mouth and scanned the pages. "Ewww." The additive spells were very Dark magic. Dark magic with specific instructions and requirements. Balancing the overly large book on one arm she plucked the cigarette butt out of her mouth and pinched it dead. Without an ashtray, she shoved it and its mate into her coat pocket and then wrestled the book into her arms. The text ran in parallel columns. One side was the incantation with the ritual description; the other, a listing of what was needed and what the deaths of an array of animals and people would provide.

"This would put out a lot of power. In all my years working with this stuff, I've never seen or heard of anyone doing this kind of thing." Her mouth felt tacky and her tongue thick. It wasn't the fact that the wards required a death to set them, it was the kind of deaths it required. She'd set exactly one ward using a life force to charge it. For someone able to kill another human being, having to sacrifice a white dove had made her squeamish. There was just something about blood when it was still hot and pumping that touched a part of her deep inside. Never again, she had sworn. Something as small as a dove wouldn't begin to provide the level of energy that these spells wanted. Big Magic and very, very Dark. "I can almost see why you'd want to sign your work, though. This would take a long time to set up."

"The glyph has nothing to do with this part. That is a separate matter." Heiniger took the book back, glaring at it as if it had performed the rites within itself.

"There were more than one of those set down there. Had to be. That would have explained some of the visual effects. Lot of work to hide a kids' private club." She leaned against the window ledge and stared off into space. Her eyes kept being drawn to the glass case and its contents. Maybe getting access to this place wasn't such a good idea.

"True. I do not believe that the wards were set for that purpose. We will never know the original intent of those magics. I feel that they are quite old. If the wards were set in the manner described there, then they could last hundreds of years, no?"

"Hundreds, definitely." A dull, headachey feeling started behind her eyes. "That glyph really bugs me. I keep hearing about family magic. What's 'family magic' about a sigil. Only, that wasn't a sigil, it was a glyph. Am I getting confused?"

"In some texts, they are the same thing." Heiniger sounded muffled as he paged through another book.

"But not in this case." She watched as he avoided looking at her. "What is it - in this case?"

"In this case," Heiniger said, putting down a book, "it was used to designate a cache. I am certain that is what it has been used for in the past."

"Really?" She wondered where he had gotten that idea. Heiniger began stacking books together and Jones recognized the fact that he was concluding their session. "In the past you say. In the recent past? Distant past? Cache for what?" She caught the quick flash of his dark eyes. "Oh, come on! You've told me that much. Tell me the rest!"

The first stack of books reshelved, Heiniger began on the second. Jones fought the urge to scream. He carefully inserted a thin volume between two larger ones. "In the past, a similar glyph has been found marking certain caches of objects, some of which had been stolen. It was never proven that the two were connected. One was found on Adler property. It could very well have been that these places were set up for other reasons, but someone had discovered how to locate them and use them as a place of storage."

"Like hiding stolen property?"

Heiniger resumed reshelving books as though it was his calling in life.

"I know my sigil doesn't really leave any energy per se. This thing, though, it was powerful and shielded." He didn't reply. Jones started walking towards the doors. "Why would anyone put so much effort into producing something to identify themselves and then hide it like that?" She stopped at the door and turned to check if he was following. She could hear books being slid back into place, but Heiniger was out of her view.

Oh, so curious, so avid! Use me! Together, our power will be untold! None will stand before us! All you have ever dreamed of will be yours...

* * *

The dungeons were cool silence. It was the perfect place to study and be as far away as possible from the seductive whisper of the Dark book. Jones holed up in her classroom and spent the time until dinner reading. The two paperbacks had an amazing amount of information stored in them. One had some interesting twists for detecting energy. The other had two good tie-ins for correlating spell to wizard. She memorized all of them and then did a bit of practice to see if they worked. When the bells called for dinner, she dug through her coat until she found a partial bag of pretzels and ate those. This time, she made herself go through the entire coat and throw out all of the empty wrappers and one very moldy whatever it was. Her satchel provided a crumbling mess of crackers. It wasn't much of a dinner, but it had to do.

She took her time climbing to the first lower level. The ever-so-busy wall from the night before looked much as it had the first time she'd seen it - a wall. Even knowing it wasn't a wall didn't help. Sitting cross-legged in front of it, she started working.

It was as though Massys hadn't destroyed any of its protective levels. She ran through all of the detection spells she knew, tried the ones she'd just memorized and then threw a few stunning spells just because. She knew there were still layers of magic present, but nothing reacted. It looked like a wall and, when she lost her temper and kicked it, felt like a wall. How could a posturing rich brat like Adler be able to handle this when she couldn't? It didn't make sense.

It was a competition. Or maybe it was a puzzle. Either way, it needed to be conquered. If Adler could pass through the wards, then she should be able to do so, too. Magic had a sort of logic to it. If you could figure out the parts, you could defeat it. Defeating Adler, now that had a nice ring to it. What was it about the thing that bothered her so much? Was it because Adler was a rich pain in the ass who would always get his way because of his family name? The arrogance of his pure-blood status? The dig at her own half-blood background? The incredibly prejudiced comments about Massys? All of that and more. Not being able to crack the remaining layers gave credence to the slight. She'd show him! Bloodlines didn't matter when it came to real power. She'd spent years studying and practicing, growing in power and ability. She'd be damned if she didn't find a way to find a way to get into that room! If she could, she'd lay her own sigil over the Adler one and count coup! It had a sick, twisted juvenile spin to it and very satisfying. She could never win the war, but she could at least claim a battle. Glaring at the wall, she saluted it and, as she turned to go, allowed one petty stab. If she didn't want to go near it, neither should they.

"Vitare!" She expected to see nothing, just feel the gentle feeling of repulsion from the area. Instead, the wall glimmered. Just once, but it reacted. That changed everything. Without thinking, she pulled out her package of cigarettes and tapped one out. For once, her lighter was exactly where it should be and she lit the thin cylinder. The wall sparkled, almost like it was reflecting her lighter's flame. Whoever had set at least this layer of spells, had looked at narrowing the reaction to only expected spells. Not a Vitare for example. "Illumino!" The light produced should have been a bluish glow, and the result was, partly. Part of the wall glowed the expected color, but the center, where the room should be, became opaque and dark.

Jones started to laugh. Pulling out a pen and a scrap of paper, she said, "Ok, let's see what else it does..."

* * *

It did a lot. Most of the responses were about what she expected; others were totally off. The lighting spells and charms had the oddest effects. She narrowed part of the work done to the chamber as some sort of light-bending concealment work. That was something she could follow up on. There was also any of a number of sound-dampening enchantments. Fully expected. The area affected by the different spells ranged in size from quite precise to wide-area, something else that spoke of many people working on it over a number of years. It was clear that she could work on this for weeks, if not years.

At nine, she called it quits, nullified everything and then dispersed her energies. There was something about the latter that felt incredibly fulfilling. Everyone looked at her as a former Dark Arts practitioner. While it was mostly true, the assumption annoyed her. Maybe she wasn't currently taking on clients, but she hadn't forgotten how to do the work. Putting thumb to nose, she saluted the wall with a loud raspberry. The wall rippled.

It was like a puzzle that you're just this close to finishing. Just a few more clues and it would all be there. Racking her brain for stupid things to say or noises to make, she spent another half-hour burping, blatting, mooing, snoring, cursing and shouting. As stupid as it felt, there were definite results. The best was a suggestion that Headmaster do something physically impossible. For one glorious second, the room blinked into view. It needed a key to go with the sound. A key... Jones smoked yet another cigarette and pondered all the possibilities. It would have to be something solid and quite probably not unique to the person. Maybe a signet ring? She'd seen the flash of silver and gold on hands and a few pendants. For the crowd she'd seen in that little room, it made sense. Even if the original purpose of the room wasn't that of a social club, that's what it was being used for now and there had to be a way for years of students, if not generations of families, to pass through all of those concealment spells and wards.

Groaning out loud, she slapped the wall. It gained her nothing but stinging fingers, but she had a definite start to the puzzle.