He appeared to take savage delight in pushing me to my gasping limits as I struggled to stay on my feet.
“Look at me!” He demanded, sweeping my feet out from under me when I looked away. For the third time in as many minutes.
“Maintain eye contact, anticipate my move.” My teeth ground together as my backside ran into the ground and landed a stunning blow to my tail bone.
But what I lacked in skill, I made up for in stubborn. I should have stayed down and called time. Instead, I rolled to my feet before my legs were done trembling, bending low and holding the staff parallel at precisely the angle he’d told me not to.
Thwack. A knock to the side of my head and I saw stars. I moved the staff up to block and Woof. I doubled over as the pointed end jabbed my solar plexus and had me gasping for lost air.
“Jack-Ape!” I hissed. His eyebrows flew north, and I used the opportunity to bring the end of my staff down on the inside arch of his foot. I crowed my triumph with a yell that was short lived as my feet flew out from beneath me again and my bruised tail bone landed on the hard ground once more. I moaned.
“You can call this farce a day anytime you want Sadie Cross, just say the magic word.” I looked up at him, towering above me, amusement dancing in his light eyes. With a snarl I swept a foot out and sent him flying to land on his back next to me. His eyes met mine, but they weren’t laughing at me anymore. I sucked at the staff, but I could wrestle with the best of them.
I stuck a forefinger up in the air and made a weak check mark in the air. His eyes narrowed in promised retribution.
“Uncle.” I moaned and lay back. No more.
Marcus Tannon yelled from the other end of the field and called a halt to sparring. It was time to wrap things up and store weapons. Marcus always ended each session with a question-and-answer session and last minute observations. I rolled to my feet and gathered my things, refusing to look at Nick as he did the same.
I grabbed my water bottle and headed for the water station.
Thomas was in class with me and I settled in beside him. Sirris had the same class, but a different hour and I missed her. I knew she was an ace with the staff though, I’d seen her use it.
Thomas looked over at the growing number of bruises along my arms and shoulders and grinned.
“Not one word, son.” I hissed. He snorted. Thomas was excellent with it all and easily Marcus Tannon’s star pupil, out pacing even Nick, who though excellent with sword and staff, couldn’t hit the broad side of a barn with a knife or bolos. I wondered how he fared with the bow.
Challenge me on that one Nick Seul. We’ll see who sucks and who doesn’t!
Marcus Tannon ended questions and answers and we got to our feet. “The next couple of weeks we’re going to spend some time focusing on hand to hand combat. We’d join forces with Mr. Chang and combine classes for some additional time on a few different Tai Chi moves.
I nodded and glanced at Nick Seul. His eyes met mine with a scowl, dark brows dipping low. I grinned and swung away, happy suddenly. Let’s see how your skills fare against mine when you don’t have that staff in your hand.
I fell in line behind Thomas, walking back towards the Commons. It was lunch time and my stomach rumbled obnoxiously. Nick had moved up ahead and fallen in with several of the older students in class.
My eyes narrowed. I had no idea why he rubbed me the wrong way. Something about him irritated me. At least it was mutual. He found me an equal pain in the rear.
I thought about the night before and our trip to Bane Lake. I wondered about the shadowed figure on the other side. And the entry into the mountain we hadn’t known about. As a first-year student, there was a lot I didn’t know. But Thomas was a second year and given what he was, had spent a decent amount of time exploring Drae Hallow and its lake and forest. He would have noticed something like a random light in a place it didn’t belong. It had to be something new.
I was curious too, about the portal. “The main doorway? Where we all came in on the first day? Is that the only way in you know of, other than what we just found I mean?” I murmured.
He shook his head. “I know of another on the west side of Drae Hallow. Council uses it, and the Guard. No one else uses it.”
I nodded. The council appeared to do a lot of things no one seemed aware of. A secret society within a secret society.
“Whoever was there the other night didn’t have a light, but they were up to no good. They weren’t happy to be seen.”
He was right. We needed to find out who was sneaking around in the middle of the night where they shouldn’t have been besides us.
BUT TODAY I HAD SOMETHING else on my mind. I stared at Thomas’ broad back ahead of me and reached to tap his shoulder. The others were ahead of us and we were at the end of the line. He bent his head to the side to listen.
“Thomas, what are the doors that come off the halls down by the bathrooms? Where do they go? I tried them. They’re locked.”
He frowned. “I’ve seen no students use them. But I think that is where the council holds their meetings on Tuesdays in the basement.
It made sense.
Thomas finished. “I wonder how much of what’s going on outside of Drae Hallow on Shephard’s Mountain they know about themselves? They seem to be pretty well informed about what happens inside the shield, I’m not so sure about what happens out.”
I wanted to hear about anything that posed a risk to the Tuttles. And I worried about everyone else further down the mountain and inside the town of Breathless like my mom, and Jerry Waverly. I determined I’d do what it took to protect them.
“Do you think they keep records down there? Files we can look through and for information. Combine it with what we’ve found out...” I left the sentence unfinished. I needed to know what, if anything, was down in the basement.
Thomas snorted. “You talk about taking risks? Mine was minor compared to that. That’s the last place I want to get caught snooping around.”
He wasn’t wrong. “I think it might be worth the risk. We’re running out of options and we need answers.”
“I don’t like at all,” he finished with a growl.
But I knew he’d be there.
“THAT WILL BE $1500 for landing on Park place please. Sirris smirked at me. I looked at my light blue monopoly with one house on each little lot. I was down to ones and fives in cash. I shoved it all in and sat back.
“That’s it Sirris, you’ve wiped me out.” Thomas and Kimmy had fallen out several rounds ago. Sirris was ruthless at monopoly. I looked at the clock on the wall. It was 10:30 on Friday night Game Night. Kimmy stood and stretched her back.
“I’m heading back. You guys coming?” My eyes slid to Thomas’. “In a bit, I’ve gotta check a book out before I go.” Thomas pulled a book from his pack. “I’ll walk back with Sadie and Sirris, I have to return one,” he added.
The three of us walked down the hall and watched as the front doors closed behind Kimmy. We headed for the library. Thomas added his book to the return pile just inside the door and then followed as we all moved deeper into the library towards the back corner, past the Prefect behind the counter, busy playing some game on her phone and ignoring us.
We moved beyond the aisles of books and rounded a small doorway tucked in back. The Microfiche room. We didn’t bother with the lights. Instead, we moved into the darkened room and along the long tables in the center. Crouching low, we shuffled chairs aside to make a space just big enough to slither into, hunching our knees to our chins and sitting in the dark. We settled in to wait.
A LITTLE PAST ELEVEN the light glimmering in the doorway to the main part of the library winked off. A few seconds later we heard a muffled thump as the double doors swung shut. We were alone in the building. My heart was loud in my ears. I had no desire to get caught sneaking around in the Commons after dark by any of the guards.
Another fifteen minutes slid by before we crawled out of our hiding spot and stood, stretching
the kinks out. I led the way, stopping at the doorway to confirm the darkened library and the absence of any workers—or guards. Especially the guards.
We saw no one on our way towards the cafeteria and the bathrooms located just down the hall there. We were cautious, especially along the enormous bank of glassed walls at the front of the building we had to move past on the way.
Thomas had mentioned that the council had meetings on Tuesdays. That meant that hopefully, no one was here now.
We stopped in front of the first door and I reached out a hand and grabbed the doorknob and twisted. It surprised me when it opened, but disappointed that it held nothing more than a walk-in supply closet. Past the bathrooms at the end of the hall was another door. It was locked.
I looked at Thomas and Sirris, dim shadows in the blackened hallway. “Anyone bring a key?”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Locked doors. Duh! Why hadn’t that been a thought when we first hatched this crazy plan of breaking and entering? Thomas grinned, his teeth gleaming in the dark as he held something up in his hands. I relaxed when I saw the lock pick set.
Didn’t mean his bumble fingers would know what to do with them. Sirris snatched them out of his hands and elbowed us both aside.
Her nimble fingers inserted a long pick in the lock. Thomas might not, but I bet she did.
A sound out front made us all freeze. My heart raced in panic when I heard voices moving our way. Wide eyed, we looked around. On impulse I snagged them both and pulled them with me to the door next to ours and edged the women’s bathroom open, careful to not let it swing behind us as absolute darkness closed in. I was counting on the fact that most of the guards were men. Even if they needed to use the facilities, it wouldn’t be this one.
We held our breath as the voices drew nearer and then passed by. We waited as the guards checked the cafeteria and swung back the other way towards the library, their muffled voices echoing down the empty halls. They moved along, checking through the buildings for interlopers, like us.
We heard the outside doors close behind them, and we moved back into the hallway. Sirris wasted no more time and went to work on the lock.
My speeding heart urged her to hurry as the minutes passed by. That was some lock, or Sirris lock-picking skills needed more work; I wasn’t sure which.
When I heard the click of chambers turning my breath hitched. Because right behind it came the sound of the outside doors opening again. The guards were returning for round two.
“Hurry, they’re coming back!” I hissed in a bare whisper beneath my breath.
“Shh!” She hissed as the last tumbler clicked in place and the doorknob turned in her hand. She smiled at me as Thomas opened the door and shoved us both inside and closed it behind us in the inky blackness. We could only hope the first step wasn’t straight down.
We froze in the absolute black of the stairwell landing, terrified to move or make a sound as the guards moved closer, standing for several moments on the other side of the door. A creak next door and footfalls through the walls told us that someone had entered the ladies restroom. We’d been wrong. One guard was female. We’d just been lucky. We waited until they finished and the door swung shut behind her and the two guards moved on, the footfalls bare and fading on the other side.
A sudden light shining in my eyes blinded me and I blinked, seeing spots. Sirris held her phone above our heads, the flashlight on. We nodded and looked down. We weren’t ready to turn on any wall lights, just in case the thin beam shone beneath the door when the guards returned for the next round. A set of concrete steps led down to whatever waited at the bottom. Sirris hesitated and then as a group we moved down the stairs. Once at the bottom we didn’t worry overmuch about being quiet. Nobody was down here but us. I pulled my phone out along with Thomas and we turned in a circle at the bottom and shone the lights as far as they extended. A long central hallway extended left and turned another left again at the end. We faced a long corridor, several doors led off to the right, maybe twenty feet apart. Concrete walls lined our left.
Thomas decided and started walking, checking out doors as he moved. Most of them were locked. A door in the middle stood unlocked, but as before, it held cleaning supplies and nothing more. He shut it with a dull click, and we kept going. Around the corner, the hall stretching another thirty feet further. More doors. Even as we turned the corner, and I stepped ahead to reach for a doorknob, the basement door above us opened and all the lights came on. We froze, my hand still on the steel handle of the door. The sound of voices and footsteps reached us. A group of people were coming down the stairs. Seconds separated us from discovery. No time to be subtle, as I raced along and started turning door knobs. Locked. Every. Single. One. We froze, eyes round. They would catch us red-handed. If we were lucky, we’d only be looking at expulsion for this. I couldn’t even attend magic school without getting in trouble. It was laughable. I wanted to cry.
Footsteps approached and as they neared the corner where they’d turn and see us all standing in the light at the far end, we all closed our eyes.
I was still registering the click of a door opening right behind me when a hand reached out and pulled us into an inky room. I was just able to hold back the scream that threatened. The unseen hand pushed the door shut to a whisper of light. From a distance it appeared closed. I tried to control my breathing. Who were we standing in the dark alone with?
The approaching footsteps stopped at the last door before the turn. I snuck a peak through the crack, watching the shadows snake up the walls and expand and narrow where the hall turned as they shuffled outside the door. The sound of a key in the lock and a light switch being hit reached our ears along with words that were too far away and low for us to hear.
The voices and footsteps became more muffled as they entered the room and swung the door closed behind them. But it didn’t quite latch, making the almost-sound doors make when you know you need to go back and pull them the rest of the way shut.
Chairs scraped, and I heard people take their seats. Though the voices appeared distant and muted, I recognized Lucas Seul easily enough. I turned to look at the others. We were all breathing heavy and blinking in remembered panic. Too close. That had been too close. We were trapped.
Apparently Tuesday wasn’t the only day they held meetings.
THE CADENCE OF MAYOR Seul’s voice fell and rose as he talked to the council members present.
I inched the door open a foot and peered down into Fern Hodges cool eyes.
What was she doing down here? I grimaced, realizing how dumb that sounded. What were we doing down here?
I turned back to watch in horror as Thomas eased the door open and took a step into the hall, and then another. I reached out and grabbed the back of his shirt. He turned and glared at me and leaned close. “If they’re gonna kick me out, I might as well listen to what they have to say first.” He whispered so low even my ears strained to hear him. He turned and took another step. We followed. He was right. We’d come here for information, hadn’t we?
Three feet from the corner we stopped. The door stood ajar, a slim shadow of bright light bleeding into the dimmer corridor. We heard a low conversation and a chair scrapping forward. Or back. If we concentrated with our preternatural hearing, we made out most of what was being said. I hugged the wall and slid along it, glancing through the long narrow window in the door from the side. I couldn’t see the entire room, but from my angle I saw a sliver of one side. I recognized Carol Shamon, and further along sat Will Bennett too. Several others circled the table, but I didn’t recognize them. The others huddled behind us and I realized how precarious the position. Thomas must have realized how vulnerable we looked, gathered in one spot. He glared at Fern and Sirris and nodded towards the stairs. Sirris looked like she wanted to argue, but both ducked beneath the slim rectangular window in the door and moved towards the bottom of the stairs.
What we did was risky enough on its own, but it would be a lot quicker a
nd quieter to move two people up the stairs than four. I followed the others but only to the other side of the door, leaving one of us on either side listening in and the others near the stairs waiting to spring up at our signal.
I concentrated on what they said. “... Another guard was wounded this week. At this rate we’re running out of qualified personnel to man the ranks.”
I knew that voice. I met Thomas’ grim look. Marcus Tannon continued. “It’s imperative we find out what’s going on behind these attacks. What are they trying to accomplish?”
Someone I didn’t recognize spoke up. “They tore the livestock apart. That doesn’t strike me as a human attack.”
“They aren’t human. They appeared to be wolves. Or they at least resembled them. Not like any we’ve ever seen, though.” Marcus explained.
“Agreed, whatever it is, it’s at least Other. This would be so much easier if we weren’t trying to coddle the humans and keep everything a secret. Could be it’s time we pricked their over inflated egos.” That from Will Bennett.
Lucas Seul intervened. “We’ve been over this before and the council agrees. The humans aren’t ready to know about us. There’d be widespread panic and with today’s technology, we’d have more than a witch hunt on our hands. We’d be forced to retaliate and... well, none of that would be good,” he finished.
“Agreed. We’re not arguing that point. But we need to find out who’s behind it then. If not humans or Other, then what?” the same mysterious voice went on.
“There’s something else. Not sure if it’s related. Something is effecting the capacity of the shield. In the last two weeks it’s moved from the safe range of +95% to below 82%. It’s still falling.
Fire Born Dragon (Rule 9 Academy Book 1) Page 15