Pixels And Poltergeists: An Unveiled Academy Novel (Penny and Boots Book 3)
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“I didn’t bring you here to fall for my dad,” Cisco teased. “But we’re almost out of time. Eat!” He scooped up a bite of shredded chicken into a torn-off piece of tortilla, dipped it into a sauce on the side of the plate, and held it out for Penny.
She opened her mouth and tried to bite it, but his hand wavered at the last moment. The dressing smooshed her nose.
“Oh. Oh, wow, I’m so sorry.” Cisco snatched up a napkin and held it out. He managed to keep his expression of concern for a good three seconds before bursting into laughter.
Penny laughed with him, and the rest of their meal was eaten in between childhood stories, teasing, and laughter. Occasionally Cisco would reach out and rub a thumb over Penny’s wrist, or she would inch her fingers close enough to link with his.
The wine had warmed Penny’s cheeks. She leaned back in her seat to wave her hands at her face. “It’s warm up here.”
Cisco nodded, but before he spoke, his eyes brightened. “The sun is almost down. It’s time!” He stood and took Penny’s hand. She followed him, gripping his fingers tightly when he urged her over the edge of the building and down onto the tiny landing of a fire escape.
Penny sat on the blanket that had already been laid on the platform and dangled her legs over the edge. When Cisco was settled next to her, she moved closer to him.
He reached out to point at the river. The water was dark now that night had fallen. “Look.”
Penny’s eyes ran over the Willamette river, wondering what she was supposed to be looking at. The river was beautiful, true, but his insistence suggested there was something else…
A flash of blue light sparkled in the depths. “What… Oh. Oh!” Penny’s breath caught as the flash of blue became a mass of sparkles. The tiny flashes darted back and forth, leaving streaks of gentle light behind them. One sprang out of the water, sailing through the air before diving under again.
“They’re beautiful,” Penny whispered, afraid she would break the spell. “What are they?”
“Sprites.” Cisco wasn’t watching the river. Instead, his gaze was locked on Penny. One arm slid around her waist and when she leaned against him, she felt him give a satisfied sigh. “I’m probably going to owe Paddy my soul for eternity for organizing it—”
“You organized it?” Penny asked.
“Uh...” Cisco pulled back to look at her. “That’s a good thing, isn’t it? Because if not, I had nothing to do with it.”
Penny kissed his cheek. “I’d have been happy with pizza and a movie. This? This is…wow.”
Cisco blushed, dipping his head and grinning. “Oh. Good. I hoped you’d like it.”
Penny pulled his face to hers. This time when she kissed him, it was on his lips. “I love it.”
Chapter Eleven
The next few days passed in a whirl. Despite Amelia’s complaint that she hadn’t “put the empty dorm room to good use,” Penny was grateful to see her friend had stepped back a little from teasing Penny and Cisco about their burgeoning relationship.
Classes zoomed by. Penny drowned in a sea of homework, assignments, and projects. Glass had warned his class that their marks for the semester would take into account their fitness levels, so she had been spending more time at the Academy gym. With three mythology projects assigned and her shifts at Paddy’s bar, though, that didn’t leave much time for socializing outside of class.
It wasn’t until Professor Anand commented about Trevor’s second absence that Penny realized he hadn’t spoken to her about his case. Come to think of it, I haven’t even bumped into him this week. She resolved to hunt him down by the weekend to see how he was progressing.
The only blip in her week other than Trevor’s absence was her class with Professor Steele. Yet again, the professor suggested Boots would be happier if she had the chance to return home.
“Boots, do you want to go home?” Penny asked the serpent directly.
Boots shook her head emphatically.
“See?” Penny told the Professor. “She wants to be here. I didn’t make her come with me. I didn’t even think it was a possibility. She chose to do that all by herself.”
Professor Steele softened. “I’m not saying you coerced her into coming. Just that, if the two of you had formed a bond, it may have caused Boots to make a decision based on your best interests, not hers.”
“I’ve lived with Boots for almost three years now.” Penny glared at the professor, unwilling to let her accusations stand. “I think I know her well enough to say she’s happy here. Thriving, even.”
“That may be the case, but your home country has a claim on her too.” Steele began to pack the textbooks away. One fell to the ground, scattering a bundle of papers that had been tucked under the front cover. Steele cursed and began to pick them up.
Boots slithered over and nudged the papers closer to the professor with her tail.
“Leave those alone.” Steele snatched them away, making Boots jump back in surprise.
“Come here, Boots.” Penny loosened the top of her backpack, and Boots made a beeline for the safety of her regular hiding spot. Penny stood and slung it over her shoulder, then turned to the professor. “No one has a claim on Boots. She’s her own person, and she can go where she damn well pleases.”
“Of course.” The odd calmness in Steele’s voice belied her earlier actions. “I didn’t say otherwise, dear.
“What does she expect you to do?” Amelia threw a shoe at the wall in frustration. “Force Boots into a cage, shove her on a boat, and deport her?”
Penny flopped back onto her bed. “Maybe? I don’t know. Maybe I’m just blowing it all out of proportion. Now I’ve slept on it, it doesn’t seem so bad.”
“Something is up with her.” Amelia jabbed a finger at Penny. “You listen to your gut, girl. It’s never led you astray before.”
A knock at the door interrupted their conversation. Boots raised her head and gave a happy hiss.
“Oh, shit!” Penny glanced at her watch, knowing even before she did that she was late. “I bet that’s Cisco. I told him I’d catch up with him in an hour. That was an hour and a half ago!”
Cisco’s voice was muffled through the closed door. “Are you decent?”
Penny scrambled to tear off her pajama top. Snatching a clean shirt from the cupboard, she glared at Boots, whose tail was surreptitiously reaching for the door handle. “I swear to God, you cheeky lizard. If you open that door before I’m dressed…”
She didn’t have to finish the threat for it to be effective. Boots dropped her tail and wiggled impatiently. As soon as Penny nodded, she pulled it open and threw herself out and wrapped around Cisco’s legs.
“Woah, there, Boots.” Cisco leaned down to pat her. “Someone’s in a good mood today.”
Penny gave him a dry look. “You’ve got coffee in your pocket again, don’t you?”
“Coffee?” Amelia looked from Penny to Cisco, face scrunched up in confusion. “How do you hide coffee in a pocket?”
Grinning sheepishly, Cisco pulled out a bag of chocolate-coated coffee beans. He dangled it over Boot’s head as he asked Penny if he could give some to the serpent.
“You’re not leaving me much choice, are you?” Penny sighed and gave him a nod.
Boots frolicked happily for a moment, then opened her jaws wide so he could drop one in.
“Girl, you better put a stop to that before you have kids.” Amelia shrugged off the look of horror Penny shot her way. She waved her hands, shooing them out. “Go! Go serenade each other against a backdrop of water nymphs or whatever it is you two do when you’re together these days.” Once she’d hustled them all out, she shut the door firmly behind them then yanked it back open. “If you love me, bring me home a coffee.”
This time when the door thudded shut, it stayed closed.
Cisco waited for Boots to climb onto his shoulders before setting off down the hall. “Did they make any progress last night?”
Amelia and Red had spent
the previous night’s full moon sequestered in one of the safety rooms beneath the Academy. The sprawling labyrinth below had even escaped Cisco’s knowledge of the building but had been judged by the dean to be the perfect place to study Red’s changes.
Every month, Red, Dean March, Agent Crenel, and a squad of FBI researchers—and Trevor, who was in training to join them—had gathered in the dungeon-like rooms to watch and observe.
When Amelia had insisted on going with them, Penny had worried at first. Not for her safety, Red had already shown he was capable of coherent thought in wolf form by the second change—but for her relationship. Seeing her boyfriend sprout fur and claws had shaken Amelia the first couple of times, but now, several months later, she’d grown rather accepting of his condition.
“They made a new discovery last night,” Penny informed him. She knew Cisco wouldn’t have heard yet as Red normally spent the day after the full moon gorging on food in between naps.
“Oh?” Cisco pushed the Academy door open and they stepped into the morning sunlight together. “A cure?”
“No.” Penny held back a bubble of laughter. “Apparently, Amelia has some kind of connection with him in wolf form.”
“How so?” Cisco frowned.
“Every time she says the word ‘sit,’ his ass drops to the floor like a ton of bricks.” Penny let the giggles loose. “She said he was getting so furious, but she just kept telling him to do stuff. He’d be sniffing, scratching, anything. He’d just do it.”
Cisco chuckled at his friend’s plight. “Oh man, Crenel would have loved to have been there to see that!”
“He wasn’t?” Penny asked. Amelia had only mentioned that Trevor wasn’t there.
“He was called away to see his mom.” Cisco’s voice dropped to a soft note. “My mom said it sounded urgent.”
“Oh.” Penny’s heart sank. She hated the thought of Crenel having to deal with personal grief.
“Oh. Did Amelia mention if Trevor was there?” Cisco’s sudden change of topic was accompanied by a hint of concern in his voice. “I haven’t seen him around for days.”
“He wasn’t.” Penny resolved to hunt the missing genius down by nightfall. “But maybe Tony’s seen him? He might have gone into the cafe to check out that game again.”
When they arrived, the coffee shop was a little busier than usual. Violet had a line five people deep, and Tony was frantically pushing out lattes and cappuccinos, though he took the time to give Penny and Cisco a quick grin.
“The usual, guys?” he called. “On the house. You might have to wait a bit, though.”
“Sure.” Penny gave him a distracted wave, heading over to the arcade machine. The machine itself looked identical to the one taken away, right down to the glowing “Polybius” sign across the top. However, instead of the pixelated spaceship, the screen now showed imagery of a small ball hopping over obstacles toward a gaping doorway at the end of the platform.
“Damn,” Cisco cursed. “I like space shooters. I really suck at platformers.” He plucked a coin from his pocket and stepped forward but stopped when Penny grabbed his arm.
“Seriously?” she asked. “You know Trevor thinks these things are dangerous.”
Penny watched until the end of the demo game. She wanted to see if Trevor had been in and played it again. She watched as the bouncing ball jumped over a row of spikes, onto a moving platform over a wide chasm, then toward the ledge on the other side. The ball missed, plummeting into oblivion.
Blip, blip, beeeep. The simplistic tune of the eighties-style arcade game signaled the imaginary player’s demise and the screen flicked to darkness. A peppy tune struck up as the credits began to roll.
1. pennyits trevor … 92,012
2. ithinkifoundthem … 77,369
3. dontworry but … 72,568
3. ifimnotback in3wks … 62,751
4. send help … 62, 461
5. Maximillian Bucks … 50,000
6. Space Invader … 42,000
7. Win Ner … 40,000
8. Gr8 Gamer … 30,000
Penny’s stomach dropped. “Did you see that?” she whispered to Cisco.
“Yeah,” he managed, his voice hoarse. “That is the biggest cake I’ve ever seen!”
She turned to him in disbelief. “Cisco!”
He blinked at the urgency in her voice. “What? That’s what you were talking about, right?”
Penny had her phone out before he’d finished speaking. She pulled up Crenel’s name and pressed dial, then cursed as it bumped directly to voicemail. “Fuck!” She gave Cisco a very quick explanation of what she’d seen. “What a goddamn time for Crenel to be away!” She knew that whatever the agent was going through personally, Trevor’s safety would be his priority
“He said ‘don’t worry,’” Cisco pointed out. “Maybe we should just hang back a bit, let him handle it.”
“Cisco?” Penny waited for the penny to drop. It didn’t. “This is Trevor. Not Red, or Clive, or Jason. Trevor.”
“Oh. Right.” Cisco grabbed his own phone. “I’ll try Dean March,” he offered.
Call me. Super urgent emergency. Penny tapped send on the text message to Crenel, then clicked through to her camera. When the credits rolled again, she snapped a picture. “Let’s get back to the Academy,” she suggested when Cisco had rattled off a voice message to the dean. “He said someone was working with him. We need to find out who.”
Cisco didn’t falter. He ended one call and began another. “Mom? Yeah, look, we’ve got a bit of a situation. No, we need Agent Crenel, but he’s not answering, and neither is Dean—” he stopped to listen a moment. “Oh. Damn. No, we can handle it. Thanks, Mom. You too.”
Penny didn’t wait until his phone was away before asking what Madera had told him. “What did she say?”
Cisco grimaced. “Before they left, they asked not to be contacted. Guess we’re on our own.”
Penny sighed. “Then we’d better come up with a plan. We said we’d be here for Trevor if he needed us. Well, now he does.” She was headed out the door of the coffee shop when her phone rang. Despite her confidence just moments ago, she was relieved he had called back so fast. “Thank God.”
“Penny? What’s wrong?” The agent’s voice was terse and Penny was hit with guilt for interrupting him at such a sensitive time.
“Agent Crenel? I’m so sorry. Is your mother okay?” If he says no, maybe he can put me in touch with DeLouise, she decided. Though Trevor had said he was fine, she wasn’t about to risk the life of her friend, even if he’d be embarrassed if it turned out she’d called in the entire bureau as backup for nothing.
“Well, she’s close to the end. Just a few minutes to go, but that’s fine. We’ve planned a quick celebration for afterward, just tacos and a few drinks. Nothing that can’t be interrupted.” Crenel covered the phone, but it didn’t quite muffle his voice. “Not now, damn it. I’m on a call. Yes, I know she’s close, but is it really the end of the world if I miss it?”
“Uh, should I call back in a few?” she asked, thrown by Crenel’s talk of celebrating his mother’s demise. The agent’s brisk demeanor in the face of apparent tragedy was unexpected, to say the least. “I mean, I’m really, really sorry about your mum, but—”
“Sorry?” Crenel barked. “What for?”
Geez, he really didn’t like his mum, did he? “Look,” Penny gave up, her urgency over Trevor overriding her concern for the agent’s apparently unaffected feelings. “I know this is a terrible time for it, but I just found a really cryptic message Trevor left behind. It sounds like he’s in danger, Crenel, and he needs our help.”
“I’ll leave right now.” He snapped something else, but this time covered the phone well enough that Penny couldn’t make it out. “Jessica and I are two and a half hours away. I’ll call you back as soon as we’re in the car.”
Rather than walk back to the Academy, Cisco called a cab, letting Penny grill the staff while he waited outside to flag it down.
Tony shook his head slowly, then froze. “Wait. Maybe I can. Violet, wasn’t he playing that game when those weirdos in suits came to swap the change box over?” He turned to Penny. “They come in on Wednesdays.”
Violet pursed her lips, thinking. Then her eyes lit up. “That’s right! He left just after them. He hadn’t even touched his quarter-shot-soy-caramel-frappucino.”
Tony stared at her. “You remember that god-awful chain of coffee combinations, but not what day it was?”
Violet shrugged, the dishcloth squeaking as she rubbed the inside of a glass. “I’m a barista, Tony. Not a walking calendar.”
Once Penny was sure they couldn’t offer any more information, she left to wait with Cisco. “Tony said he’ll email us the security footage from the last few days, but he and Violet are pretty sure he hasn’t been in since Wednesday.”
Crenel phoned back just as they pulled into the parking lot of the old building.
“Tell me everything you have,” Crenel barked, not bothering to say hello.
“All I know is that Trevor is missing,” Penny told him quickly. “The only lead we have is a badly-coded message left on the high scoreboard of an arcade game.”
“What? Dammit, I should have listened to the boy.” Crenel paused. Then, quieter, “If you say I told you so, Jessica, I swear to God…”
“Crenel?” Penny pulled the agent’s attention back to their conversation. “Look, the message said he had a lead. He told us not to worry for a couple of weeks, but that’s ridiculous. I mean, it’s Trevor.”
“I get your meaning, don’t worry.” Crenel hissed air through his teeth. “Fool boy. He should have kept you in the loop.”
“That’s our fault, too,” Penny protested. “He’s never worked a real case before, not in the field. We should have been checking in more frequently.”
“Didn’t he say something about outside help?” Crenel asked. “Let’s chase that person down. They might know what lead he was chasing.”