Deadly Truth

by Laney Powell

  Apparently, I wasn’t the only one remembering.

  My good mood vanished as Madame Karathos and the members of the Concilium walked by our table. Madame Karathos was calm and unperturbed, her face a smooth mask. She stopped just as they were almost past us.

  “Miss Washington, would you please stop to see me today?”

  “What’s this about?” Councilor Dandros peered back at me.

  “Miss Washington has some challenges in one of her classes, and we’re working on making sure she keeps up,” Madame Karathos said without missing a beat.

  I opened my mouth to protest. I was one of the best students in nearly all of my classes, but Matty gently bumped me with his elbow.

  “One of the outstanding things about Nobledark is the way all students are served,” a man I didn’t know said pompously.

  “Absolutely,” Madame Karathos said. She nodded at me and moved on as though she hadn’t just thrown me under the bus.

  “Wow,” I said.

  “Imagine Olivia as a challenged student,” Thalia said, trying not to laugh.

  Jade didn’t even try. She covered her face, though, as she laughed.

  “It’s obvious they don’t know you,” Jake said.

  “Now they’ll remember me as that poor student who needs lots of help!” I fumed.

  “I think that’s the least of your problems,” Silas said. “Better they remember you like that.” He nodded, his eyes smiling at me.

  “You’re right,” I said with a sigh. “Just irritates me. I guess it helps that I meet with her every week already.” Madame Karathos and I continued our meetings on Wednesday evenings. She was helping me to keep others out of my head, the better to keep people from sensing my siren and demon sides. It had already saved my ass when I’d been interrogated by members of the Concilium, mainly Wendi Tennyson’s mom.

  “The world is upside down, and you’re still worried about grades,” Matty said.

  “Always!” I shot back.

  They all laughed then, and I joined them. One of the things I heard from both the guys and my friends was that I needed to give myself a rest on the studying. I did tend to get obsessed.

  But while we ate, I was quiet. What could Madame Karathos have to talk to me about?

  Chapter Three

  Silas

  I watched Olivia leave, and I noted that both the Pearsons did as well. I’d known, from the moment I met Olivia Washington and she burned the daylights out of me with hot water, that this was a girl I couldn’t ignore, couldn’t let get away.

  It had become obvious quickly that I wasn’t the only one in the running for her affections. I could smell the interest of other males. That’s part of the pain in the ass of being a shifter. You always know when you have a rival. The nose doesn’t lie.

  But I liked them, Jake and Matty Pearson. They were good guys. I figured they had it harder than me—supes who weren’t shifters didn’t understand the idea of putting the good of the pack ahead of your own petty bitching. It’s why I told Olivia I liked being part of a pack.

  I wasn’t lying. I did. I was kind of the odd man out in my family. I’d been the only one in my age group that was both a shifter and an elemental mage. So it was off to Nobledark. I would have rather gone somewhere else—anywhere else. This place was full of people who wore righteousness like a cape. They expected to be rewarded for it as well, which made it even worse.

  “Something’s not right,” Jake said, turning back to me and Matty.

  “I agree,” I said. “But what?”

  Matty shrugged. “It’s not like there’s not a lot to choose from.”

  “Yeah, but something has happened with Olivia.” Jake rolled his eyes. “Something she hasn’t shared yet.”

  “She’s not one to just blurt things out,” Matty said. “She takes her time to think about it before she speaks.”

  “Which can be problematic,” I said. It was true. Olivia kept a lot to herself. She was getting better, and she’d started to share with all of us. I knew that she was sleeping with both Matty and Jake, and I found that I didn’t mind. It made her happy. The three of us were different. I liked to believe that we met different needs, but that could have been my own vanity talking.

  I thought back to the hastily assembled meeting in the theater this morning. The Concilium wasn’t in a full blown panic, but they were having kittens behind the scenes. I’d talked to my father last night.

  “What’s up?” I’d asked when I answered his call.

  “There is a lot of concern among the members of the Concilium,” he said without any preamble.

  “About what now?” As far as I could see, there was always a lot of concern among them.

  “About what’s happening at Nobledark. Demon fire, brimstone burns, missing students. What do you know?”

  My family, the Tomberles, had been shifters and leaders for centuries. Hundreds of years ago, some ancestor realized that the Concilium, pain in the ass bigots that they were, were here to stay. The magical community liked having an organization to take care of all the messy shit. So the Concilium thrived, and grew, and managed what they saw as problematic supernaturals in a way that allowed everyone to go about their business.

  Even now, the Tomberles were seen as “good” shifters. My father was part of our pack leadership, as well as the larger leadership for a lot of packs. We used our status as “good” to help all the wolf shifters. That had been decreed by that long ago ancestor. We help all our people, not just our blood pack. Which meant that my father kept up to date on the regular shit the Concilium felt was important.

  “It’s a demon,” I said. “There’s a pop up hellway in the library.”

  “What does that mean?” Dad asked.

  “It means it’s there at times. But generally, it’s hidden. There have also been reports, unsubstantiated, that the hellway is affecting students.” I ran a hand through my hair.

  “How so?”

  “They are compelled to do things—”

  “Like what?” He cut me off.

  “Kidnap other students, drag them to the hellway?”

  “Did any of these attempts succeed?”

  “Not that I’m aware of,” I said.

  “Do you know any of the students involved?”

  Yes, I’m sleeping with one, I thought. “Yes,” I said.

  “And?”

  “And what?”

  “What makes him a target?” Dad asked.

  “It’s not a him, the one that I know.”

  “It’s a girl?” His voice changed. “Are you involved?”

  I didn’t lie to my father, even if I might not tell him everything immediately. “Yes,” I said.

  “What’s her background?”

  “She’s a water mage, parents are witches,” I said. I didn’t know why, but I wasn’t ready to tell him anything else.

  “Good student?”

  “Really good,” I said. “Better than she realizes.”

  “Hmmph.” His response was noncommittal. “Well, keep your focus on your studies, and what’s going on. Don’t get distracted by a girl.”

  “I know, Dad,” I said. I rolled my eyes.

  “And don’t roll your eyes at me, pup.”

  I laughed. “You don’t know that I did,” I said.

  He laughed with me. “I know my son.”

  “Love you, Dad.”

  “Love you, too, son. Be safe. I think things are going to get worse.”

  He’d been more right than he knew, I thought, going over our conversation again. I’d have to tell him not only the truth about Olivia, but that she’d formed her own pack, as an alpha female did.

  If anything, that would impress him that a non-shifter would be so evolved. But I wasn’t ready to share with him just yet. I liked keeping Olivia, and my growing friendship with Matty and Jake, to myself.

  “I think I’m going to run the school boundaries tonight,” I said to the brothers. “I notice that the Councilor hast
ily moved on by the fires along the edges of the school.”

  “You think this is something to do with Olivia?” Jake asked.

  “Anything that comes from Hell is suspect, in my opinion,” Matty said.

  “I happen to agree,” I pointed at Matty.

  “Come by and let us know what you’ve found,” Jake said. “Doesn’t matter how late.”

  I nodded. I was impatient to get through the rest of the day. Matty was going to be with Olivia tonight so I would be able to take my time and investigate. It always struck me as shortsighted that the Concilium never called in shifters to see what they could discover as part of the initial on the ground team in anything.

  Later that night, as it got dark, I left my pod and headed for the wooded areas around the school. Leaving my clothes in a pile near a tree with a hollow at the bottom, I shifted, and immediately, the night came into a sharper, more vivid focus. I lifted my head to smell the scents of the night. It was a crisp evening, with an underlying coolness that suggested there might be rain tonight.

  Which would make it easier to find any fires.

  I yipped in warning to any other shifters that might be around. Not that I thought there were, but it didn’t hurt to be careful. I heard nothing in response and began running toward the edges of the school grounds.

  I’d been running for a bit when I got a whiff of what I knew was brimstone. I sped up, wanting to be able to spend some time at the place of the smell.

  When I got there, the brimstone was so strong it made me sneeze. I blinked, letting my nose get used to the acrid smell. It was strong enough when I was in human form. It nearly burned my eyeballs and nose right now.

  Nose to the ground, I moved slowly across the small clearing. I could smell the demon that had been here. He was old. I didn’t know how else to describe it, but this was old magic, and he was angry. It came through in his magic.

  I stopped. That couldn’t be. I moved back over the area, wanting to be sure that I’d smelled what I thought it was.

  It was.

  I was so surprised, I sat down on my haunches. How in the hell did she get out here?

  I finished moving around the small clearing, making sure that I didn’t miss anyone. I needed to find the other spots where fires had been started. This didn’t make sense.

  There were three other spots, some older than others. And in all of them, I smelled the same demon. And the same witch. I ran back the way I’d come, wanting to make damn sure. Nothing had changed. Everything I’d smelled was the same.

  Once I’d shifted back to my human form, I got dressed. I hoped Jake and Matty were still up. We needed to talk.

  Chapter Four

  Olivia

  After lunch, I left my friends to go see Madame Karathos. The guys had wanted to come with me, but I’d declined. If anyone was there, it would look weird. I didn’t want to attract any more attention than I already had.

  As I did every time I went to her office, I stopped in front of the office doors. Tall, wooden, and covered with carvings, they looked old. I brushed my hand along some of the carvings, one that looked like a man battling a lion, and knocked on the door.

  “Come in,” I heard.

  I pushed open the door. Madame Karathos sat at her desk.

  “Thank you for being so prompt, Olivia. I’m sorry to paint you as a struggling student, but anything else would bring oversight I would prefer to avoid,” she said.

  “Thanks,” I said. “Not that I liked it,” I admitted.

  She laughed a little, then. “I know, and I’m sorry. I was kind of operating on the fly there, so you have my apologies.”

  “You were working on the fly?” I felt my eyebrows go up. “That doesn’t seem like you.”

  She sighed. “Sit down, please.”

  I got a bad feeling. “What’s going on? I don’t feel like you gave us the whole story,” I said.

  “I did not. Not even the Concilium members know what I’m about to tell you,” she said.

  “This sounds serious,” I replied.

  “It is, and worse, I’m not sure what is causing it. I generally know everything that happens in my school,” she paused to give me a look, “But this, I can’t trace to the source.”

  “What is it?”

  “Last night, I was walking the grounds. I do that, you know, because it’s my school,” Madame Karathos smiled, but her smile looked strained. “Just so you know, Olivia. I came upon a student named Katherine Munroe. She’s a second-year student, a fire elemental.”

  “I don’t know her,” I said. “What were you looking for last night?”

  “No reason you should. She was confused and not making sense when she spoke. I look for, as you put it, anything that seems out of the ordinary.”

  “So there’s not a student missing?” I asked, trying to get my head around what, exactly she was trying to tell me. Did that mean I hadn’t set anything on fire around school? I hoped so. Councilor Dandros’ words about brimstone around the edges of school property came back to me, and my skin went cold.

  “No, there is a student missing. Another boy. There have also been students that have wandered off for a day or so, to return later with no memory of where they’d been.”

  “Like the guy I saw wandering near the hellway, and the one who tried to drag me into it,” I said. A couple of weeks ago, I’d been snooping around the hellway that sat in the library—one that came and went by some manner I hadn’t yet figured out—and watched someone lurch around it, obviously under some sort of spell. Then someone else had grabbed me from behind and tried to bring me closer to the hellway.

  I still couldn’t believe all those words went together—that we had a hellway in our school. In Nobledark. Madame Karathos had no idea why it had opened here. I had my thoughts on the matter, but I deferred to her.

  “Exactly,” Madame Karathos nodded. “The Concilium is aware that we have had a hellway open here, and they assume, as do I, that it’s connected to the two cases of demon fire. Combined with students that are going missing, and returning, they are concerned. As am I.” She frowned.

  “So, Katherine?” I asked.

  “Yes, Katherine. I thought, at first, that this was another case of a student losing a day or so. Which is worrisome enough. I spoke with her, and it seemed like whatever spell or enchantment she was under began to fade. But then she grabbed my arm, and her grip was very strong.”

  “What did she say?” I asked.

  “She told me that the Stones of Arabethym were no longer lost,” Madame Karathos said. “That the Trinity was complete and only needed to be found.”

  I sat back, stunned. I didn’t think anyone here would know about the Stones of Arabethym. It was something that the sirens knew, and not all the sirens, either. There were three origin siren families. The Karidias, the Mantilae, and the Pelagos. Each family held the keeping of a stone. What no one outside of the families knew was that the eldest daughter in each family turned into a stone, in order to hide herself from the demons.

  Why demons? I thought about how my—how Iliana, my birth mother, had explained it. The sirens pissed off the gods, and as punishment, the gods told the sirens they were in charge of keeping the demons from overrunning the earth. With their lives, if necessary.

  There were three stones. Our family held the power of the Persephone’s Blood stone. The Pelagos were the deep blue Ocean’s Light. And the Mantilae were the Night Stone, a black obsidian stone.

  As if that wasn’t confusing enough, these three families only had daughters, so that there were plenty of women available to be the stones when needed.

  Along the way, since the gods had decreed this, someone must have told the demons about this arrangement. When the three eldest of the Arabethym Trinity had their daughters, all six of them could join together, and be able close all the hellways, and block the demons in Hell forever. It was no surprise to me that this had never happened. In the couple of months since I’d learned all this, starting
with the fact that I was adopted, and not the daughter of Patricia and Roger Washington, the main demon working on this project, Marbys, had gotten his hands on all the stones, and tried to destroy them. Essentially killing the eldest women of each family and making it impossible for the Trinity to do its thing.

  Oh, and Marbys was also my birth father. Great, right? I called him the Giant Asshole, with good reason.

  Right now, all three women, Iliana, Aella Pelagos, and Kassandra Mantilae were alive and in this world. Raven, Aella’s daughter, and me—we were also here. Kassandra had a daughter, but no one knew where she was, or anything about her. The last time I’d spoken to my birth mother, Iliana, she’d said that Kassandra was still unconscious.

  “How could she know about that?” I asked finally.

  “I don’t know,” Madame Karathos said. “I have guesses, but that’s all.”

  “Well, what are your guesses?”

  “Are you still seeing Marbys in your dreams?”

  “Sometimes,” I said. “Not as much as I have recently, but he’s like a weed. He never goes away completely.” I didn’t tell her about this weekend. I hadn’t seen the face of the man talking to me, although I was sure it was Marbys. Nor did I mention the blackened, sooty hands I’d woken up with.

  She nodded. “I think he’s behind this. He is determined. There are six women who are part of the Arabethym trinity, and they are all here, right now. I can see where this would be a dangerous time for him.”

  “Hasn’t this happened before?” I asked. “Moms and daughters all together at the same time?”

  She shook her head. “Look how much chaos Marbys is creating. The demons are determined to have free access to this world.”

  “Iliana told me that this was the punishment of the gods,” I said.