Twist of the Blade by Edward Willett Read Free Book Online

presence known to his ensorcelled software.
    He checked his schedule. Unfortunately, though the search for Excalibur was his priority, he couldn’t just drop everything and fly to France. (Fly. He shuddered. He hated flying.) Almost as important as the sword to his plans were the prestige, influence and high-level contacts Rex Major Industries provided, and there were several important meetings scheduled for the next week with officials from Canada’s Department of Defence, followed by more sit-downs with representatives from the Pentagon. Both militaries were interested in the newest version of his Excalibur software, the most secure yet....
    ...and the most infiltrated with my magic , Major thought.
    When the sword was whole and in his possession, the military servers would be key to forging all the powers of Earth into a weapon he could use against the world he really wanted to control: Faerie.
    The Queen and the rulers of the Clades know how to fight against swords and magic , he thought grimly. But we’ll see how they fare against tanks, jets, machine guns and cruise missiles.
    He shook his head. No, he couldn’t fly to France right away. He had to keep those appointments. But the moment they ended....
    He drafted a brief e-mail to Gwen, his secretary, asking her to schedule one of the corporate jets for his use. But then he hesitated. Important though they were, he was taking a risk by not cancelling those meetings. Now that Ariane had banished the demon, her power would start to return. Which meant she might soon be able to sense the second shard. And if she got to it first....
    He fingered the ruby stud in his right earlobe, as he tended to do when thinking about Excalibur. But I won’t let that happen , he thought. Her every move is watched. If she does anything suspicious, I can change my plans and leave at once.
    No. He’d keep the appointments. And then he’d go to France...and claim the second shard.
    He sent the e-mail to Gwen and was about to leave his desk – he needed to rest his pounding head – when a new message arrived. He barely glanced at it, intending to deal with it in the morning, but when he saw the sender’s name, he sat down again.
    Major didn’t dare use anyone closely connected with his business to keep an eye on Ariane and Wally: not since Keith Pritchard, his former Regina sales manager, had been arrested for breaking into Ariane’s bedroom. So he had hired, through untraceable channels, someone from outside his organization to watch the two teenagers: just watch, for now. Major couldn’t take the shard from Ariane by force and still use its power: she either had to give it to him of her own free will, or he had to retrieve at least three of the remaining four shards, so that he could then call the rest to him. But even if he couldn’t steal the shard, he wanted to know exactly what Ariane and Wally were up to.
    As Merlin read his spy’s account, his eyebrows shot up. Ariane had had a busy night. She’d not only banished his demon from her dreams, she’d used the power of the shard to attack four girls.
    She is becoming more dangerous , he thought. But not just to me. To herself and those around her. I may be able to use that. And then he continued reading, saw who one of the injured girls had been and smiled a cold smile: a smile that widened when he also read that Wally had hit his head and was in the hospital...and that so far, Ariane had not gone to visit him.
    To forge a sword, one must strike while the steel is hot , Major thought. It was a saying he’d coined sixteen hundred years ago, and it was still true today.
    He reached for the telephone.
    ~~~
    The ringing of a phone woke Wally from the doze he’d fallen into after Mrs. Carson had left. Again, it took him a moment to figure out where he was – and another moment to understand that the ringing phone was on the table beside his bed. He started to reach for it with his right hand, was brought up short by the IV