Paranormal University: Third Semester: An Unveiled Academy Novel

by Jace Mitchell

“We gotta get a good spot, or else we’ll be around all the riff-raff,” Frank explained as they hustled down to the sand.

  They’d gotten a good spot, though, and Claire couldn’t complain. One of the bikinis had fit, and so Frank didn’t have to “waste” any more of the day.

  Frank glanced at her. “Are ye sure ye aren’t a ghost? Ye are certainly as pale as some of the ones I saw.”

  Claire rolled her eyes. “Where’s Al?”

  Frank sat up and looked both ways down the beach. “That bum? He’s somewhere around here. He walks up and down the beach, pilfering things from the tourists. I don’t know why he does it. I think the lad might be a klepto.”

  Claire shook her head and sighed. “An alcoholic and a kleptomaniac. Who have I teamed up with?”

  Frank leaned back in his chair and crossed his feet over one another. “Ye’re more than welcome to leave. I have to watch TV back in me room now that ye are here, and I don’t like it too much, I can tell ye that.”

  Claire turned her head to the side. “Hey. I really do appreciate you letting me come and paying my way.”

  Frank rolled his eyes, his shaggy eyebrows making it more comical. “Hush now, lass. No need to get emotional.”

  Both of them fell silent for a while, the only sound that of the waves hitting the sand and people talking or yelling.

  Claire closed her eyes and basked beneath the sun, knowing that she’d probably end up burning—yet she couldn’t pull herself away. It’d been a long time since she could simply relax.

  She spoke without opening her eyes. “I don’t know what’s going to happen.”

  Frank shuffled slightly in his chair. “Ah, that’s easy, lass. We’ll spend another few hours out here, although I’d advise ye find an umbrella soon or ye’ll look like a lobster. Then when we’re done here, we’ll head to the bowling alley. You’ll get to meet Sally. She’s a foul-mouthed fairy that I think ye’ll like. And, if it’s the death of me, I’m going to teach ye how to bowl while ye are here.”

  Claire turned her head to Frank, one eyebrow raised behind her sunglasses. “You’re kidding, right? I’m not talking about what’s going to happen with the rest of this day. I mean now that I’m gone from the university. What’s going to happen with the world.”

  Frank slowly turned so that he was sitting up on the chair, with his feet planted in the sand and his body facing Claire. He put his elbows on his knees and held his beer with two hands. “There’s something ye and I have to get straight, lass. I don’t care about any of that. I don’t want to discuss it. Not now. Not tonight. Not ever. I did my part for Earth and humans, and now I’m going to relax. Ye understand?”

  Claire stared at him with a furrowed brow. “I get that you don’t want to fight anymore, Frank. But you don’t want to even talk about it? You’re not at all worried about what’s going to happen with more and more Mythers crossing over? Or what the cult is planning?”

  Frank turned his head so that he stared out at the beach. “Do I look worried? The only thing I worry about is whether or not I can beat Sally tonight in bowling. Al isn’t a problem, but that wench is good.” He turned back to her. “No. I don’t think about the Veil or Mythers or the cult. I think about my day from minute to minute, and I try to enjoy it. That’s all I’m going to think about, too. If ye are going to hang out with me, ye are going to have to respect that.”

  It was one of the most serious things Frank had ever said to her. He wasn’t joking around and Claire was somewhat shocked—she understood him not wanting to risk his life, but to not care at all about was going to happen?

  That was almost suicidal. The world would keep turning and the cult would continue operating, whether he paid attention or not.

  Frank took a sip of his beer, then laid back down on his chair. He didn’t say anything, just dropped the sunglasses from the top of his head to the bridge of his nose.

  Claire looked at her friend for a few more seconds, not understanding what was wrong with him.

  Claire stepped out of the bowling alley and looked around. It took her a few seconds to find who she was looking for, mainly because most of him didn’t exist in the normal sense. Al was to her right, and while she could see his clothes and the cigarette he was puffing on, she couldn’t see him.

  At least he’s not naked and without a cigarette, Claire thought. Then I’d never be able to see him.

  She walked over to where he stood and watched the cig’s smoke drift into the air. She grinned. “That stuff will kill you.”

  Al scoffed. “The only thing that will kill me is if that witch dies. Well, kill me or send me back. I don’t know, but I don’t like either of the options.” He took a drag from the cigarette. “And that’s why I don’t like you staying with us.”

  Claire turned slightly to face the ghost. “What do you mean?”

  The cigarette pointed toward her. “You’re the one who didn’t kill Tina to begin with. If it’d been up to anyone else, she would have died right next to Marilyn. But you’re not there anymore to keep your eye on things, so who knows when old Al might disappear?”

  The ghost turned again so that he was looking out at the parking lot.

  Claire understood the worry. Al’s existence on Earth depended on a woman staying alive, a woman that he would most likely never see again.

  “Why don’t you want to go back?” she asked.

  It was weird, talking to a ghost because she couldn’t see his facial expressions. All she had to go by was the sound of his voice, and Al’s voice always sounded like rustling leaves in autumn.

  Al chuckled slightly then, though it didn’t sound like it held much humor. “I worked for a god named Hades. Have you heard of him?”

  Claire nodded. “We actually just started studying the Greek gods before I left.”

  “Well, working for him wasn’t exactly the best job in the world.” Al paused, bringing the cigarette to his invisible lips. He blew the smoke out in rings, the later ones flowing through the earlier ones. “It’s not paid work, either. More like, we don’t have a choice except to sit down there and do whatever he tells us. Sometimes Hades lets his dog loose, and that thing’s crazier than him. I’d honestly rather quit existing than go back to the underworld.”

  “I don’t think they’re going to do anything with Tina. Not yet, anyway. They’re still trying to learn from her.” Claire shoved her hands in her pockets. They both knew the truth.

  The truth that Al couldn’t keep to himself. “Yeah, but killing her would clear out Miami, and there’s got to be international pressure on the President now. Sooner or later, they’ll see that they’ve gotten all they can from the witch, and then it’s bye-bye, Al.”

  He took another drag on the cigarette as Claire watched a couple leave their parked car and start walking into the alley. “Frank won’t talk about anything that’s happening, but have you seen those videos?”

  She could see the ghost nod this time because he had the cigarette in between his lips.

  Claire decided to keep going with the conversation. “It’s worrying me, and I can’t do anything about it now I’m not part of the university.”

  The ghost pulled the cigarette down, this time blowing the smoke out in one gust. “Frank won’t talk about it because he’s scared.”

  “Frank’s not scared of anything,” Claire corrected. She looked to her right, seeing Al’s clothes and cigarette, but not him. “He wasn’t scared on that roof. He just wanted to kick ass and couldn’t.”

  Al flicked some ash onto the concrete. “I wish that was the case. I don’t think Frank’s ever encountered something he couldn’t handle, at least not before those witches. When he ran into them, though, I think he came face to face with his own mortality for the first time, and it scared him. Frank’s my friend, but right now, he’s in a state of denial. I don’t think he ever realized that he could actually die. That anything or anyone was powerful enough to kill him since Father Time doesn’t seem to be interested in leprechau
ns. That’s why he won’t talk about any of this.”

  Claire hadn’t ever thought about it like that. She’d simply figured Frank didn’t want to deal with the FBI anymore. Everyone knew about mortality. It was practically ingrained into humanity’s DNA. We will die. We should do things to prevent this from happening.

  “You’re respecting his wishes? About not discussing it?” she asked the ghost.

  “For the most part,” Al replied. “If I don’t respect it, he just starts yelling. But to answer your question, yeah. I’ve heard about what’s happening out west, and it worries me. That’s the last time Frank and I argued. I brought it up, and he refused to talk about it.”

  This sparked Claire’s interest, and truth be told, this was what the FBI wanted. Some kind of inside information about what the hell was happening in the sky. If they had asked for Al, Claire would still be in school. “What do you think is happening?”

  The ghost was quiet for a moment, taking another pull on his cigarette. When he finished, he shrugged. “If I had to guess, it’s my old boss wanting to know where his workers are. On the other side of the Veil, some people understand what is happening, but some people don’t. Hades keeps away from everyone, waiting on the dead to show up in the underworld. He doesn’t pay attention to anything outside of his domain. But when he woke up and saw half his staff was gone, he probably started wondering. I imagined he left the underworld and asked a few questions. Might even have slogged up Mount Olympus and talked to the big man himself.”

  The ghost flicked the cigarette into the parking lot. The red ember still glowed. “But, if you forced me to bet, Hades figured out where everyone went, and so he’s showing up to collect.”

  A shiver went down Claire’s back. “What’s he going to want?”

  “That’s why I think Frank should talk about this stuff.” Al turned to the bowling alley entrance, ready to go back in. “Because Hades most likely is going to want his staff back, at the very least. I think he’ll want more, though. He’ll want payment plus interest, and that’s why Frank should be concerned. Hades charges a high-interest rate, and it could affect everyone.”

  The ghost walked off, leaving Claire to stare after him, wondering just what in the world was about to happen.

  Chapter Eleven

  The gas station in front of Hades and Cerberus looked to them like a fallen monument to a species that should have never existed.

  Hades stood on the road, his dog at his side, watching people pull in and out of it. Hades vaguely understood the chariots that the people were driving. He could read certain minds, and they thought of them as cars, or trucks, or vans. It was all the same to him, some kind of machine-driven chariot. They came to this station to feed the machine chariot, buy food for themselves, and then they rode off into the distance.

  Hades didn’t think anyone here knew where his staff had gone. He saw none of his dead workers, and these people certainly wouldn’t be walking around buying things if they had workers to do it for them.

  “This seems to be a large place, Cerberus, a large world,” Hades whispered to the dog at his side. He lowered his hand, and the dog’s closest head licked his palm in response. “I don’t know who took my staff, but I think maybe I should plant my flag here. Perhaps the thief will know I mean business. What do you think?”

  All three heads barked in unison.

  Hades reached up and took the helmet off his head, ready to let people see him. He left the collar on his dog and walked forward from the road to the gas station’s property.

  No one looked at him. Not a single person turned their head.

  Do they see me? Or are they simply lacking any and all respect for a god? he wondered. He walked over to one of the chariot feeding stations. A man stood at the metal chariot, holding a black instrument sitting inside what must have been the chariot’s mouth.

  “You,” Hades commanded harshly. “What is your name?”

  The man didn’t glance in his direction, just stared at his other hand, which held a small rectangular-looking thing that Hades couldn’t begin to understand. The god stepped closer, walking all the way up until they were nearly nose to nose.

  Cerberus growled menacingly behind Hades but didn’t approach the human.

  Still, the man did not look up or look away from the rectangular object at all.

  “They can’t see me, Cerberus,” Hades whispered, his eyes widening slightly. “They can’t see me at all.”

  The god stepped back, this interesting turn of events confusing him slightly. The helmet he held with his right hand turned him invisible, as did the collar on one of his dog’s necks. Apparently, they weren’t necessary because…

  “We’re already invisible.”

  Hades thought rapidly, wondering how much this changed things. He realized it didn’t. His workers had been stolen, and whether or not these idiotic humans could see him, it didn’t mean that he didn’t exist. Only they were blind.

  “Perhaps a little blood will make everyone see a bit more clearly,” Hades mused. He backed up a few more feet so that he stood next to Cerberus. He squatted down and took the collar from the dog. “Go ahead, Cerberus. Eat.”

  The dog’s three heads all gave a ferocious bark, and then it took off. Snarling and slobbering, the dog pounced onto the man Hades had just stood in front of. The dog’s middle head ripped out his neck before the man even hit the ground—the other two heads barked loudly and swiveled, looking at who it would attack next.

  Hades smiled as the dog raced across the parking lot. Cerberus pounced from person to person, and Hades began to see that the humans were slowly coming to see that Cerberus existed. For most of them, it took being attacked, but as screams roared across the lot and even inside the gas station, more and more appeared to see something. Hades didn’t move. He just watched as Cerberus attacked.

  His dog did all the work, and happily. People fell to the bleeding cement. Cerberus rushed inside the store and Hades watched from the outside as aisles full of food began collapsing. People ran smack into the glass doors, forgetting to try and open it. Cerberus grabbed two at once, hauling them both backward before mauling them.

  Hades watched it all with a sense of peace. The mortals may have stolen his crew, but that didn’t mean they were powerful. Just sneaky.

  Finally, with only a few wounded people left to give weak screams, Cerberus walked back to his owner. All three jaws were open, and the dog was panting.

  “Taste good?” Hades asked.

  The dog gave an excited yelp from all three bloody muzzles.

  “Come, let’s see what else this world holds. Eventually, I’m sure we’ll find our old friends.”

  Owner and dog walked back out into the road, leaving carnage behind them.

  Richard saw the news.

  Local gas station site of a horrific dog attack. Twenty-three dead.

  He’d been in Nebraska, driving around and hoping that something lucky would happen, and then the radio started broadcasting the massacre.

  Dog attack? he’d thought. One dog couldn’t kill twenty-three people.

  Richard didn’t know what he was looking for, but whatever killed those people hadn’t been from this side of the Veil. He looked up where the gas station was located on his phone’s map, then headed that way.

  It took him a few hours to get there, and the sun was down by the time he arrived. Richard was driving a Porsche; he always preferred to drive the best whenever he could. He liked nice suits, first-class plane tickets, and fast cars. The Five didn’t mind paying for them, either.

  Richard drove slowly as he went by the gas station with his sharp eyes searching for any clue as to what might have happened besides what the radio had said. Caution tape quarantined the place. Cops stood on one side of it and the media on the other, with television vans having hopped up onto the sidewalk. Other cars slowed down on the road as they came to the gas station, too, obviously looky-loos wanting to crane their neck and see what might have ha
ppened.

  Whatever had caused this mess was gone now, but Richard was betting that if it was on foot, it hadn’t gone far.

  Richard sped up and continued down the road, his lights shining out across the asphalt. He’d driven about ten miles when he was wondering if he should turn around and try the opposite way. He didn’t have any idea which direction the Myther had gone.

  “Maybe the thing is flying,” he mumbled. He didn’t have a clue, to be completely honest. He only knew that if he didn’t find the Myther, there would be consequences when he returned to the Five.

  At mile fifteen, Richard thought he saw something. He hit the brakes, and the vehicle slowed immediately. Richard saw a man walking away from him, a satchel of some sort over his right shoulder.

  To the man’s left, walking closer to the road was a—

  “Jackpot!” Richard shouted. He’d found the gas station killer, the Myther that had caused all the hoopla in the sky. No dog on Earth had three heads.

  The car’s headlights cast the man and dog’s shadows far into the distance. Richard slowly approached the two. The man turned and faced the street, lifting a hand up to shield his eyes from the white light. Richard kept approaching, not killing the lights, not wanting this Myther to be completely able to see him in case he needed to speed off.

  Richard rolled the window down, veering into the middle of the road. The dog had stopped as well. All three heads looked menacingly at Richard.

  “You can see me?” the Myther asked.

  Richard nodded from inside the car. “I can see you. Are you and your four-legged, three-headed friend the one who created the ruckus a few miles back?”

  The Myther chuckled. “He asks me questions,” he mused, appearing to be talking to his dog. “Yes. I’m responsible. Who are you?”

  “My name is Richard. I’ve been looking for you. My friends and I, well, we might be the ones you’re looking for as well.”

  The man stared in silence for a second. “Do you know where my staff is?”