Page 43 of Searching for the Prince
Alex conjured a hand held mirror and handed it to Robin. “Spelled for vampire use.”
Robin’s face was now much squarer and his nose flat and broad. Gwil didn’t think him bad-looking but not as attractive as his normal self. “I wouldn’t recognise me, so it worked.”
Then it was Gwil’s turn. The casting started with a gentle tickle, three waves of magic circled his body, dancing across him almost playfully. He was used to Hyax’s magic but the other two were different, and when all three waves combined, they were no longer gentle but like thousands of pinpricks and getting deeper and fiercer with every second. His pain threshold must’ve been lower than Robin’s because he couldn’t hold in the howl as his bones and ligaments shifted and his skin stretched. It might have been seconds but it felt like an eternity, and as the magic dissipated, the relief flooded him and swept away the nausea from the pain with it.
They moved on to Jack, but Gwil was still too frazzled to pay much attention and a few minutes later a blond with a round face had replaced the black-haired man with a square jaw. Jack hadn’t appeared to have suffered in the same way and Gwilwondered if it was his magic that had cushioned him from the pain.
Alex handed out new clothing. After changing into jeans, a T-shirt and a sweater that were certainly not the designer clothing Robin preferred, Ashley handed them their mobile phones which he had taken earlier. “These are now adapted to your new identity—your old information is still in there but hidden, but you can access it through the calculator app.”
Gwil slipped his into a pocket. “Do you think they’ll work in the facility?”
“I’ve developed a spell, I hope it will work, but it might not and I would limit the use of phones as much as possible—best kept for emergencies.”
Gwil followed Robin and Alex outside where a sleek, black Mercedes was waiting. Hyax pulled Gwil to the side as Robin got into the car.
Hyax cupped his face. “You don’t look right. I already miss your curls.”
His face was sharper, his hair straight and lighter. “I’ll be in touch when I can.”
“I meant it when I said to be careful. There’s not a force in this realm that will hold me back if something happens to you, understand?”
“I love you too.”
Hyax kissed him, and Gwil clung to him for a moment, but he had to leave. He stepped away. Gwil didn’t want to go, but he had to and he’d be counting the hours before he was back with Hyax. He would need to be careful, this wasn’t a simple mission, and he could get in real trouble if he lost his concentration. With a final kiss, he got into the car.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
They both knew their back story and were running through it a final time when they reached the rental place where they were going to pick up their car. The conversation had been all right, after an initial probing about Hyax’s views on what was going on. Gwil hadn’t wanted to be pressed more on the situation with Hyax, not knowing how much Robin knew about Metra, as Solivatus might have shared.
Robin had declared he wanted to drive the hire car, but once he’d seen it was a Fiat 500, he changed his mind. Gwil suspected he hadn’t been in a car this small. According to the satnav, they were about twenty minutes away from where Dr Mettle would be holding his meeting. The journey took them down country lanes, which Gwil hated driving on, only his reflexes kicking in to save them from coming a cropper as the locals thought nothing of doing sixty miles an hour around a blind bend.
They pulled into the carpark of a village hall, the sort of place where a vicar with squeaky shoes would do Sunday school and a slimming club would weigh in on a Thursday.
“You ready to be William Carpenter?” Robin asked.
Gwil nodded, the first name was close enough to his own he shouldn’t have an issue answering to it. “As I will be. So, how’s it feel to be Robert Black?”
“Itchy. Due to the pox you gave me.”
“I told you, I didn’t mean to… how was I to know that doing the nasty in a bath with spelled water would do that.” Gwil grinned. He liked Robin, he was less of a self-absorbed arsehole than he’d expected. “I’m sorry, babe.”
Robin laughed. “It’s fine, sweetheart, we’ll get through this.”
Gwil was expecting there’d be a fair amount of interest, but he was surprised to see at least a hundred people waiting as they joined the back of the queue. While the spell holding their changed features in place would also mimic the infection, they would also need to come across as genuine.
Robin took hold of Gwil’s hand. “Don’t look so worried. I’m sure Dr Mettle will be able to help.”
Robin nodded in the direction of a man carrying a clipboard, he had a crop of curly black hair and eyes that shone in a shade that wasn’t human. The streetlights didn’t help but Gwil suspected there was a bit of wolf about him. He held a lump of quartz, the stone glowing with different intensity and colour as he walked past different people in the queue.
The quartz flashed red three times when next to them, and he stopped. “Gentlemen, can I ask you to answer a few questions? To see if you will benefit from being here?”
“Yeah, sure,” Gwil said, taking the lead, as Robin was to be his submissive and somewhat put-upon partner.
“Please follow me.”
They walked hand-in-hand around the side of the village hall. Gwil clocked the raised stage as they entered, and there were a hundred or so chairs with less than a dozen already filled. The young man directed them to sit at one of three school desks at the back of the hall.
“My name is Nurse Helm, I’m one of Dr Mettle’s assistants this evening. Just to explain, the quartz is an early warning system, while we understand that everyone who comes is looking for help, not everyone will be able to be treated, or even if they are, it might not be treated during a single session.”
