Marissa nodded and started scooting over. “Would you mind sitting down with us, though? That sun is killing me.”
“Sorry!” Sam went to the towel and sat down Indian-style.
Jack picked himself up and sat with his legs tucked under. “You were looking for us, or just came upon us?”
“I was looking for you.” Sam didn’t glance away. She answered with strength. “You both missed all of our classes today.”
Jack knew he should keep his mouth shut, but he couldn’t help it. He really wanted to start off on the right foot with this girl, but his mouth simply didn’t listen to his brain most of the time. Or if it did, it listened to the portion of his brain that didn’t care what the rest of the world thought, and only wanted to get a few chuckles. “Who are you, our mom?”
Marissa’s eyes went wide.
Jack’s face turned red immediately. Now he wanted to say he was sorry. Explain that he had a problem. A disease. Tourette’s syndrome. Anything that might somehow let her know that he wasn’t really an asshole, he just played one on TV.
Instead, he gave a goofy-looking grin.
“If I was your mother,” Sam told him coolly, “I would have bashed your head on a rock the moment you came out of the womb.”
Jack’s eyes matched Marissa’s. He opened his mouth for a retort but had absolutely zero words. Marissa simply started laughing and then raised a hand in the air. Sam turned to her, saw the hand, and gave her a high-five.
“Well done,” Marissa said between laughs. “Really well done.”
Finally, Jack’s stunned silence turned into laughter, too. “Not bad.”
Marissa’s laughter died down, and she leaned back on her hands. “So, if you’re not trying to be our moms, why were you looking for us?”
“I’m a pretty blunt person, so I won’t beat around the bush,” Sam explained. “What happened to Claire?”
Marissa looked at Jack. No one had asked this question yet, although rumors had been circling. Neither of them had volunteered what they knew because it wasn’t their place to say.
Jack shrugged in response to Marissa’s look. “She left,” he answered.
“Why?” Sam asked.
“We can’t say,” he told her. “It doesn’t really matter. She left. That’s all that matters.”
“Is she coming back?” Sam asked quickly.
“We don’t know,” Marissa answered.
Jack could tell she was trying to keep the sadness out of her voice.
Sam looked at them both for a second, as if taking the measure of the two. “Well, I’m here to tell you what the rest of the class is thinking, even if they won’t say it out loud. Nobody knew Claire like you two did, though I think everyone looked up to her. When she left, a lot of that admiration turned to you two. But you both walk around here moping like you found your dogs dead in your dorm rooms. It’s affecting everyone, whether you know it or not. I didn’t know Claire at all. I’d only heard about her exploits. To me, it doesn’t matter whether she’s here or not, outside of the fact that it has affected the entire university.”
For the second time since meeting the gorgeous brunette he’d been wanting to speak with for over a semester, he was stunned. She quit speaking and Jack just stared at her, half-wanting to kiss her, half wanting to punch her—even though he would never actually hit a lady.
“You’ve got no idea what it’s like to—” he began.
Marissa raised her hand. “Stop.” She gave a short shake of her head, and Jack didn’t try to speak again. He was almost fuming right now at the sheer arrogance this girl was showing, walking out here and telling them…
What? What is she actually trying to get across? he asked himself.
Marissa didn’t whisper, nor shy away from Sam’s directness, but met it head-on. “You’re saying that because we’re feeling down, the rest of the university is?”
“Maybe not the entire university,” Sam admitted. “But our class? Yes. Right now, your attitudes are like a cancer that’s creeping into the rest of us. Or at least them. It only affects me in so much that they’re now shutting down classes because of this.”
Jack checked his breath, making sure that when he spoke, he wouldn’t yell at the beautiful girl he’d wanted to speak to for so long. “I’m sorry for being angry. Claire is important to Marissa and me. Very important. We’re like family, so her leaving is… It’s not something either of us can really put into words. But all of that to the side right now, what are you asking us? Why did you come here?”
Sam sighed and looked at the towel. “I didn’t mean to be a bitch. I just came here to make a difference, and it’s getting harder and harder by the day. I know I don’t know nearly as much as you both do about what’s going on behind the scenes. Our class…it’s falling apart, and we need you two to step up. We need you to put Claire and all that mess behind you right now.” She looked up. “You’ve got to kill the cancer.”
Dean Pritcham watched as Lance rolled the television into her office. It sat on top of a small cart, with a little cable box next to it.
“Where’s there an outlet?” he asked.
Remington came in next, closing the door behind him.
The dean pointed at the wall. “There’s one behind the couch, but there’s no cable hook-up in here.”
Lance didn’t look back at her as he spoke, simply moved to one side of the couch while Remington moved to the other. “It’s fine. The cable box we use connects directly to satellites over wi-fi.”
Dean Pritcham put her hand down, having absolutely no clue what was going on. “Are either of you going to tell me why you brought a television into my office?”
The agents lifted the couch and moved it a few feet away before placing it back down. “How much TV did you watch last night?” Lance asked as he plugged the television into the wall.
“None,” she answered. “I’m dealing with the aftermath of Claire leaving. It’s like someone let loose a disease inside the university. Every professor is upset, the kids are depressed, and morale is at an all-time low. So I haven’t watched any television.”
Remington grinned while Lance continued setting up the new TV. “That’s what we thought, and because we’re always looking out for you, we brought the television.”
Dean Pritcham was nonplussed. “How kind of you.”
It was finally set up, and both the FBI agents stepped back while Lance turned on the television. He flipped through a couple of channels quickly, finding a news station. The TV was muted, but the scrolling bar at the bottom told her everything she needed to know.
Explosion at military base. Multiple fatalities.
A building fenced-off with barbed wire was on the screen. The structure was badly burnt. There were military-style ambulances beyond the fence, although the camera crew couldn’t really capture what was happening.
“What am I looking at?” she asked.
Remington turned away from the television and looked at the dean. “That is where our witch friend from Miami was being housed. The key phrase there is ‘was being.’ She’s no longer housed there because someone walked in unseen and left with her. However, on the way out, multiple witnesses reported a three-headed dog, and our security system showed a man more chiseled than the 1970s Schwarzenegger walking out with the witch and the previously mentioned three-headed dog.”
Dean Pritcham fell backward into her chair, bringing a hand to her head. “I’m at the end of my wits here, fellas. I can’t deal with this right now. Legitimately, I have a meeting with all of the staff at the end of the day, and I’m pretty sure they’re going to demand that we apologize to Claire, and formally ask her to continue her education here. That means I’m going to have to come to you all and get you to sign documents saying the same thing, which I don’t think you’re too keen on. So this—” She pointed with her free hand at the TV. “I don’t have time for it. What do you want me to do?”
Lance was still staring at the television as he spoke, watching a woman
speak in silence while holding a microphone. “The ghost infestation is still rampant in Miami, at least as of an hour ago. We can show you the security cameras next, but they walked out with her and got into a vehicle whose plates we couldn’t identify. However, because the ghosts are still there, we think Tina must still be alive.”
Dean Pritcham looked at Remington, her face a picture of exhaustion. “Can he hear, or has he gone deaf? I don’t have time for this. What do you want me to do?”
Remington still held that little smirk, completely opposite of everyone else in the room. “We need you to bring Byron in. We need to sit down with him and discuss what’s going on. He’s up to date about both the students and is teaching Greek Mythology.”
Kristin put her hand down and closed her eyes. She leaned back in her chair, feeling a headache coming on. “You want me to just call him up right now? Just completely avoid any kind of schedule that we’ve worked so hard to set up and maintain?”
Lance turned away from the television. “You got it. Right now, the official word is this was an accident, but that’s not going to hold forever. ‘Hashtag-government-coverup’ is already trending on Twitter, with most of the commentary being directed at the explosion. We have to get on top of this right away.”
Dean Pritcham picked up the telephone on her desk and pressed the button for Dr. Byron’s office. “Well, I think Byron might actually curse both of you out for interrupting him, and that would be entertaining. Let me see where he’s at.”
“Dr. Byron,” he answered.
She kept her eyes on Remington as she spoke. “It’s Kristin. How busy are you?”
“Is that a real question?” the professor asked sarcastically.
“I need you to come to my office. The FBI is here, and they want to talk to you.”
A pause, then, “It’s about that explosion, isn’t it?”
“How the hell do you have time to watch TV?” Kristin asked. “Just come to my office. If you have class, you’ll have to cancel it.”
The line went dead, and the dean put down her phone. “You two might be destroying the entire school this summer. You know that, right?”
Lance’s response was stern. “I’ll destroy the school if it means I save the world.”
Dean Pritcham shook her head. “You’ll save it this summer, and the next. When the university is no longer here, and our students are gone with the wind, what will you do then?”
Remington stepped up and lightly touched her desk. “We’ll cross that bridge when we get to it.”
The knock on the door broke the tension.
“Come in!” Dean Pritcham nearly yelled, her own anger not subsiding.
Dr. Byron walked in. He was much older than everyone else in the room, but he had an inner strength that Dean Pritcham thought very few people would ever possess.
“You rang, master?” he asked Remington sarcastically.
“Sorry about this, Dr. Byron,” Remington apologized as he turned toward the door.
“They’re not sorry,” the dean interjected.
Remington smiled while Byron closed the door. “Well, we can pretend to be.”
Dr. Byron said nothing. He moved past the two agents and the television, then sat down on the couch. He looked at Lance and Remington. “Have you come to piss off more of our best and brightest? Or are you going to anger me so much today that I quit? I was noticing earlier that despite what you told me, Claire still isn’t back.” He pointed to the television. “And I imagine what I saw last night and what’s on right now doesn’t have much to do with the advertised accident.”
Lance raised an eyebrow as he looked at Remington. “We could just kill him.”
Remington smirked.
“I’d like to see you try, young man,” Byron shot back, although he didn’t move from his spot.
“Can you three quit with the dick measuring contest?” Dean Pritcham asked from behind her desk.
Remington raised a hand in his partner’s direction. “Please excuse Special Agent Lance’s humor. Dean Pritcham is right. We do need to focus on the matter at hand. No, that’s not an accident on the television. It’s a serious matter, and we need your opinion.”
Dr. Byron sighed, and as the air left him, much of his anger did too. “What do you need?”
“We’re pretty sure we know who is responsible for what’s on the television,” Remington continued. “Hades. The god of the underworld. First, what do you know about him according to Greek mythology?”
Dr. Byron looked at the two of them with an unbelieving stare. “How do you know it’s Hades?”
Lance pulled his cell phone from his pocket and opened it to a picture. He held it in front of Byron’s face. “This was taken from the security footage at the military compound. The man on the left we think to be Hades. The reason why is the dog on the right, with three heads.”
Dr. Byron peered at it for a second before leaning back. “Cerberus. What do you know? Well, it would appear we have finally met the gods. What do you want from me?”
“What do you know about Hades?” Lance asked.
Dr. Byron turned his attention to Dean Pritcham. “You do know I canceled class yesterday, right?”
The dean nodded. “I’m aware.” She didn’t finish with “And not happy about it,” although she wanted to. Byron held her gaze for another second, and she knew his pain. Things aren’t going well at this university.
Remington put his hands in his pockets. “Look, we know you don’t like us right now. Maybe we made a mistake with Claire. If so, we’ll have to fix it. We don’t have time to dwell on it right now. If this is actually Hades, what can you tell us?”
Byron took in a deep breath and then let out a long sigh. “Each god has different specific powers. Hades is rumored to have a helmet that will turn him invisible.”
“What about the dog?” Lance asked. “Anything to turn him invisible?”
Dr. Byron shook his head. “Nothing in the myths, at least.”
Remington walked over to the couch and sat down. “Well, we think there is something that keeps him invisible, too. It looked like some kind of collar. The cameras didn’t pick up their entrance, only their exit. So either they teleported in, or they both were able to turn invisible.” He leaned forward, placing his elbows on his knees. “They wrecked an entire compound, the dog and the man. What else besides the helmet?”
Byron pointed at the TV. “What else did the security cameras show you?”
“Sure,” Remington answered with a nod. “No locks stopped him or his dog. He appeared to be impervious to fire, gunshots, and explosions. When he or his dog did attack someone, the victim was defenseless.”
Now it was Byron’s turn to nod. “Superhuman strength and speed. I doubt many of our weapons are going to work against them. The gods have a tendency of not dying, only being banished. I imagine much of the physical world will do what they want it to.”
Lance crossed his arms over his chest. “What do you mean?”
“Telekinesis,” Byron said shortly. “That explains the locks and his ability to get through them. Most of this can be found in a book or on the Internet. You didn’t have to call me here.”
Remington, who had been staring at the floor, looked up. “We didn’t call you here just to understand his powers. We need a replacement for Claire.”
Byron laughed loudly, his eyes wide as he glanced at Dean Pritcham.
She put up both her hands. “This is news to me as well.” She looked at Remington. “I actually just checked in the Claire Replacement Shop out back. They’re fresh out.”
Dr. Byron slowly turned back to the agents, his laugh dying. “There are no other ‘Claire’s. There is only Claire. Have you tried getting her back?”
Lance crossed his arms. “Yes. She won’t come.”
Byron opened his eyes wide as he sarcastically responded, “Shocker.”
Remington stood up and walked to the center of the room. “All of this doesn’t matter. We�
��ve told you what we need—someone who can replace Claire. We have to go after this guy, or god, or whatever. Nothing else really matters right now, so you both can save your opinions.”
Dr. Byron sank back into his seat, looking both sullen and defeated. Exasperatedly, he asked Dean Pritcham, “What do you want me to do? We don’t have anyone else like her.”
“Who’s the closest?” Lance asked.
“Maybe Samantha Howard?” Dr. Byron responded hopelessly. “Maybe. She’s new, untested. Without a doubt, she shouldn’t be fighting a Greek god.”
Remington and Lance glanced at each other for a moment, then both moved directly in front of Kristin’s desk. “We were hoping you’d say Samantha. That was exactly what we wanted to hear. Those are our three. Jack, Marissa, and Samantha.”
Dean Pritcham leaned back in her chair and crossed one leg over the other. “Do you care what I think about this?”
Lance placed his hands on the desk. “We believe we’re going to have the location of the cult and Hades very shortly. The students need to be ready. We’re going to send everything we have at the leaders and this Greek god.”
Dean Pritcham shrugged, exasperated. “What do you expect me to say? Okay? I don’t really have any other choice. So, okay.”
Lance took his hands from the desk. Remington nodded, saying, “Talk to Dr. Mitchen and see where he’s at on that long-term project.”
“Yes, master,” Dean Pritcham replied dryly. She turned and looked at the opposite wall, feeling Dr. Byron’s eyes on her. She didn’t know what to say to him, to anyone. The summer semester was supposed to be a respite, a few weeks of peace, and now all of it had been ripped apart. Claire was gone, and somehow, they were supposed to find a replacement? What could she say?
“This is going to be a disaster,” Byron whispered.
Dean Pritcham nodded but kept silent.
He started speaking as if the FBI agents weren’t in the room. As if it were just him and her. “Is that what you really want to do, Kristin? Send those three kids out to fight a Greek god? This isn’t vampires. It isn’t ghosts or witches. It’s a god. That may sound a bit crazy or impossible, but it’s clearly not. He just went through an entire FBI compound, killing everyone, and didn’t get a scratch on him. Do you want to be the one sending those kids to die?”
Paranormal University: Third Semester: An Unveiled Academy Novel Page 11