The Excalibur Chronicles: Camelot Rising

Chapter One - Veronica

CHAPTER ONE - VERONICA

“…the appointed time was at hand…for there was seen, though no man had seen it come, a great slab of marble stone…and set point downwards a great, shining sword of steel…”

Thunder rumbled above the city but no rain fell. The sky was on the precipice of breaking open but for now, it held, heavy and oppressive and threatening to pour.

Glorious, thought Veronica, as she slurped hard on her flavoured ice drink, relishing the horrible cold pain in her forehead that followed. She pressed her knuckles against her brow and waited until it passed. A throaty laugh came from her mouth, startling an old lady who was passing, but Veronica didn’t care if she thought she was mad. It was good to feel pain, anything, especially after so long being asleep.

The body was taking some getting used to though. Oh, she’d been a woman before - more often than not, actually, as bizarre as that was. But this body was all angles; sharp elbows that stuck out, long limbs that seemed to have lives of their own, and nothing in the way of a bosom. For a short while upon awakening, she’d wondered if she were a woman at all.

She was rather fond of the clothes this time around though. The black jacket was…what had the girl in the store said? Pretty badass. The form fitting trousers and canvas shoes would be far more practical than the bell bottoms and platforms from the last time she’d been awoken. And if she never saw a lava lamp again as long as she lived, it would be too soon.

She went for the packet of candy beside her - long red tubes that were supposed to taste like cherry but only really managed perfumed plastic at best - and chewed thoughtfully. She was going to need money, and somewhere to operate from. She’d already picked a name to use from a poster outside a movie theatre. She’d had to charm the girl in the clothes store and the man in the supermarket but she couldn’t go around enchanting all the inhabitants of the city to get what she wanted.

Sitting back and stretching, she sighed. It was good to be alive again and enchanting people. Her magic pressed against her skin and tickled, practically itching to be used, but she was taking her time, savouring it. In fact, she’d spent all afternoon on the bench she was sitting on, working her way through a veritable feast of convenience food, enjoying the sun on her new skin.

But now it was late evening, the thunder continued to rumble and she scowled up at the thick dark clouds as she bit down on the last stick of candy aggressively. But there was no ignoring the storm; a flash of lightning lit the street and shoppers quickened their step and bunched their collars to shield themselves from the wind. Veronica watched as some of her food packaging was swept away, skittering down the street before being blown into the sky and vanishing into the dark. The trees opposite her bench began to sway and creak, branches bending their will to the wind. More lightning, more thunder crashing overhead, and then the rain; the sky snapped like an elastic band and big fat drops began to pour, unrelenting and loud.

Veronica sat on her bench untouched. A barrier of magic kept her warm and dry but she still sighed in an irritated fashion. A storm like this always preceded a visit, and although she’d been trying to ignore it all afternoon on the off chance she might escape it, Veronica knew her brief vacation was over.

She stood and looked up to the heavens expectantly. Sure enough, moments later, another fork of lightning illuminated the sky and all below it. She waited for the clap of thunder to follow it but there was nothing. The street around her had grown deathly silent. The rain still fell as hard and as fierce as it had before, but she was trapped in a pocket of silence - she could hear nothing. The droplets of rain caught in it with her hung like glass beads in the air, frozen in their descent. Veronica knew any person walking past could not see or hear her - their mind would pass over it.