I opened the door. Hard breathing, fell out of the car. The road was completely deserted.
- Are you okay?
- A pillow! - Abigail was squeezed into the air. I would have used magic before, but I wasn't sure if the spell would work as it should, so I bypassed the car and freed Abigail myself. It was the first time I'd seen her so scared.
- She's coming to us. The tower.
I thought she hit her head, too, until I took a closer look.
The tower was moving at the speed of a tired, heavyweight man.
We got close enough to see the small details: what I thought was a black pillar wasn't a tornado: there were a bunch of crows circling around the tower. And what was worse - like a strong glamour, it was a terrible drag to get closer. I thought I noticed a human figure out there somewhere. A wizard. Maybe the Faceless found what he was looking for, an artifact of great power. Leslie could have been with him, so all I had to do was get closer to find out for sure and stop him - not that I could really stop him, but I had to...
- Peter! - Abigail called me out. - I don't think they're making a movie. And those cars around, it's weird. It's scary. Look.
There was a broken Land Rover 500 meters away from us. The road was empty because the field around the track turned into a car cemetery.
- There's no pictures of her filming anywhere," Abigail continued, "and her hair looked even more shattered from the wind than usual. Peter?
- Get in the car," I said. - Quickly. We are leaving.
Even if Leslie May was sitting in that tower, I would have only put Abigail in danger. Whether it was a strange natural phenomenon or an evil wizard, I had to contact the traffic police to shut down the A12. And with the airport - I didn't know how high the whirlwind around the tower went up into the sky.
The engine started at the third attempt. The tower disappeared from view as soon as we crossed the river.
- A dark tower? - Nightingale was surprised to ask again. - Are you sure you really saw the "tower woven out of darkness"?
The epithet belonged to Abigail, but it was really there.
- It was there," I repeated aloud. - The tower.
- Segundus mentioned it in his work, but I always thought it was just stories, tales of old times.
- I can assure you, sir, that the crashed cars along the route were quite real.
- Was anyone hurt? - Now Nightingale took my words seriously. - You said she was moving. How fast?
- Not fast, but she didn't need to. She is drawn to come closer to her - that's how those drivers crashed. If Abigail hadn't been with me, I'm not sure I could have stopped and turned back.
- How close did you get?
- I saw ravens and a man at the gate of the tower.
- Vestigia, what was it like?
- Dark," I never described the message with this word, but it was the most appropriate word. - Dangerous. It was as if you were walking in the woods, stumbling, falling into a ravine with your foot twisted. That feeling, well, when you watch the horror movie, and something comes along. It's coming.
- Like Hitchcock? - Nightingale suggested.
I was surprised he knew who Hitchcock was, but nodded.
- This magic was stronger than in Skygarden.
- When it disappeared, how did you feel?
- Is it a good thing we survived? - It was a strange question, but when he asked, I realized that there was something else. - Abigail cried. The Vestigia was sad.
Even sadder than Simone and her sisters.
- I don't think the wizard runs the tower," Nightingale said. - I think he was cursed. I hope you're making progress in Old English as fast as you are in Latin.
And after that, Abigail still complains that I read nothing but magic books.
- A magical tornado? - I don't know if I was more shocked by how confident Nightingale said that, or that Sivelle had really agreed to close the A12 circuit and part of the sky in the southeast. There was something truly British about how people didn't believe in magic, but willingly agreed to blame it all on bad weather.
The jaguar was moving forward at high speed, Caffrey's guys and the ambulance were driving a little further, and the electronic alarm clock on the dashboard was still counting time.
- Why have I never heard of this wizard, Jonathan Strange?
Don't get me wrong when you've been working on any object for several years, you get to know the names of the most prominent figures: the author of any multivolume book thinks it's necessary to mention and thank them in the preface so kindly, as if he knew them personally, even if they died long before his grandfather was born. The magicians were even more sentimental than the architects and began the list of thanks from Merlin.