Novel - Arcanum 101 (with Rosemary Edghill)

by Mercedes Lackey

  That came out of nowhere. Tomas felt his eyes fly open. “Que?”

  “Psions, like me. Empaths, healers. There’s other things, some people, they can feed off us or use us, or both. There I was wide open, an’ there was someone lookin’ for something just like me.” Kurt sighed. “Almost got me too, except there was someone on his track, and I was lucky; he showed up just like on TV, just in time to keep me from bein’—well, I dunno. It felt like this guy was pullin’ my brain out through my ears, when this other guy all in cammo kind of appeared outa nowhere, cold-cocked him. Some dude from LlewellCo, only I didn’t know that then. He grabbed me, grabbed the guy, called in a chopper, dumped me here, flew off with the guy in restraints.” Kurt laughed again. “Real Men In Black stuff, except it happened.”

  “What about your ‘rents?” Tomas wondered.

  “Ms. Llewellyn fixed it with ‘em. I don’t know how.” A sigh. “Hell, I was never what they wanted anyway. They wanted a football player. First time I told ‘em I wanted to be a nurse, Dad just about had a coronary that, and that was before all the healing an’ empathy stuff started. Aaron—that’s my little bro—he’s everything they ever wanted. Nothin’ but football, an’ that’s all he wants. So I guess they’re happy. I get cards and presents, but they never come here.”

  Tomas didn’t have to be an empath to feel the pain on the other side of the tent. He thought about saying something, but what? Nothing he could, really. What would Mamacita say if she knew what he was doing? Would she still love him? Or would she write him off, or worse, be afraid of him? The silence deepened, and finally, turned into sleep.

  #

  Monday morning.

  The banging of doors in the hallway woke him a little after six, just as it always did. Tomas muttered and grumbled and rolled over, pulling his pillow over his head. His alarm was set for seven, but it was a rare school morning where he got to sleep that late. There were twenty-two boys in his building, and the bathrooms were on the first floor—where he was—so there was a lot of traffic in the mornings.

  The dining hall opened at six—if you were a really early riser—and stayed open until 8:30—if you just wanted to grab something on your way to class, which was usually what Tomas did. Classes ran from nine to noon, there was a ninety-minute break for lunch, and then half the poor slobs were back in the classrooms till four, while lucky guys like Tomas were off doing cool things like working in the garage until Señora Davies threw him out for the evening. Then he’d come up, maybe hit the end of the dinner serving (though usually he just made do with sandwiches down at the Garage, except for Friday nights), hit the books for a couple of hours—because weekends and time after four at the Garage depended on good grades and getting his course assignments in on time—and then maybe cruise on over to the Student Union to hang out. Aaron was almost always there—he said the noise helped him study—and Kenny shot a mean game of pool. He didn’t use his powers—it actually hadn’t occurred to Tomas that he would—but one Friday night Kenny had taken him downstairs and showed him what he could be doing. He’d sunk every ball on the table with one shot, time after time.

  “You could make money at this,” Tomas had said, frowning faintly.

  Kenny shrugged. “It’d be cheating. Like if Gordy used his power and you played poker with him.”

  Gordon Riley, Tomas knew by now, could read minds.

  “So…” Tomas said. “Would you?”

  Kenny looked at him oddly. “I’d have to have a really good reason. Can’t think of one offhand.”

  And actually, Tomas couldn’t think of one, either.

  He didn’t know when he’d stopped thinking of his special abilities as something he’d be able to use to get over on everyone who didn’t have them. Certainly nobody here spent all their time preaching about how he was going to have to Use His Great Powers For Good. Not even Mr. Bishop, who was the one who spent the most time talking to Tomas about his powers. But what Mr. Bishop talked to Tomas about was living with them and controlling them, as if the ability to start fires with his mind was some kind of large dog Tomas had accidentally adopted and was now going to have to learn to take care of properly, like it or not.

  He wasn’t really sure when he’d stopped thinking he was just going to stay here for a little while, either. It wasn’t the day VeeVee and Chris and a bunch of the other kids had come and helped him repaint his room and all his furniture. That had been the first week he was here, and he’d still been thinking about leaving. It hadn’t been when VeeVee had gone down to the Storage Room with him to help him pick out some more furniture for his room, or when Brian had burned him some really cool mixes to play on his computer. Or when his wardrobe had gotten mysteriously filled out one day when he was in class. (Not too much, and none of it had been new, and nothing he wouldn’t have worn. But he’d been pissed-off enough about the invasion of his personal space to mention it to Chris. Chris had shrugged, and taken him back to the Storage Room. Next door to the furniture was another room with racks and racks of clothes. “Some kids show up with nothing,” Chris had said. “Some kids don’t take all their stuff when they go. Some of the teachers hit garage sales every weekend, and what doesn’t get sold on ebay ends up here. You don’t like what you got, change it out here.” Tomas had kept the clothes. He’d suspected VeeVee was behind it, but he’d never asked her.)

  It wasn’t the day of the first Friday Night Dance, or the second. Or the first time he’d fired up the engine in his junker, just to try her.

  It wasn’t standing out in the rain on a windy hill, pouring everything he had into something that shouldn’t be able to exist, hoping and praying it would be enough.

  But somewhere, between there and here that, St. Rhia’s had become, well, not home exactly, but not a place he was planning to escape from as soon as he could, either. There was too much to do here. Things to learn—things he wanted to learn. And, Tomas realized with a faint hint of surprise, things he trusted people to teach him, from Mr. Balinsky in his English class to Mr. Bishop in his, well, Psionics class.

  And then there was VeeVee.

  She wasn’t like any girl he’d ever met.

  And he was pretty sure she liked him. A lot.

  Oh, she tried to play it cool. But they were spending a lot of time together with this whole “Mentor’ gig, and, well, a guy could tell. Besides, the other guys had ragged him about her enough by now that he had a pretty good idea she was a lot more interested in him than she’d ever been in any of the other guys here at St. Rhia’s.

  The funny thing was, they all talked about her like they were afraid of her or something, and that was just loco. It wasn’t that she didn’t have a temper that could peel paint right off the wall—he’d seen plenty of sign of that by now—but she was pretty, and she was smart. And it couldn’t be that they were afraid she was going to beat them up or something, because even if she could—he didn’t know whether she could or not, because while what you could do wasn’t exactly a secret, not everybody was a showoff like Johnny Devlin—Tomas did know she wouldn’t. Not unless they deserved it, and maybe not even then.

  So what was the problem?

  He didn’t know, but he didn’t exactly mind. It meant she’d been unattached when he got here.

  The noise in the hallway had reached riot proportions, just as it did just about this time every morning. Tomas sighed and rolled out of bed. No point in trying to sleep in this madhouse.

  Madhouse.

  Funny, funny joke.

  As he walked over to the closet, he glanced at the calendar displayed on his computer monitor, and realized he’d been here just a few days over two months.

  The last class of the morning was Biology and Chemistry, so they were over in the Science Lab today. Tomas actually liked Bio & Chem, especially when the teacher, Ms. Bosworth, was doing cool science experiments like mixing sugar and sulfuric acid to create foaming black columns of snaky stuff that boiled up out of the Pyrex beaker as if it were alive. She cal
led it “kitchen science,” and pointed out that knowing the weird things that basic chemistry was capable of producing—or that you might encounter in the realm of regular old Biology—could help you determine whether you were facing something Arcane or Mundane.

  The bell rang for the end of the class—not a lot of action today, though they’d spent a few minutes on the fluorescing properties of common foods, like Wintergreen Lifesavers and Mountain Dew—and Tomas was stuffing his books into his backpack, not thinking of much except spending the afternoon down at the Garage, when Ms. Bosworth’s voice interrupted his pleasant train of thought.

  “Tomas, would you come up here for a moment?”

  Puzzled, he got to his feet and walked up to the front of the room. There was a kid standing next to Ms. Bosworth—a dark-haired boy in glasses and a blazer. Tomas had seen him around a couple of times, but he wasn’t in his dorm. As Tomas reached the front of the room, the boy turned around and walked out, smiling at Tomas as he went.

  “You need to go over to Admin for just a moment and talk to Kayla Smith. Do you know where her office is?”

  “Uh…” He wasn’t quite sure. It wasn’t like he’d exactly gotten a tour of the Main Building, and, in fact, he hadn’t been back inside it since the first day.

  Ms. Bosworth smiled. “Well, never mind. I’ll walk you over. You aren’t in trouble or anything, so don’t worry about that.”

  Tomas nodded, still puzzled. Kayla Smith was one of the teachers here, he knew that much. She taught the advanced Computer Science courses—Chris had her—and she was a Healer, so she was teaching Kurt the way Mr. Bishop taught him—because if there was somebody who actually had what you could do and knew how to use it, it was a whole lot easier to learn from them thatdoThat. Or so Tomas guessed.

  He followed Ms. Bosworth out of the classroom. When they stepped outside, she paused and looked up at the sky appreciatively. “Wonderful weather. I’m glad we’re going to have good weather for the picnic.”

  “Yeah, well, I guess some people are taking care of that. So I hear,” Tomas said.

  It was almost the end of June, and the school was planning a big party to celebrate July Fourth. A school-wide picnic—and a barbeque—with music, and dancing, and—of course—fireworks. Not only the traditional kind, so Tomas had been hearing, but a lot of M-track specials as well. Everybody was looking forward to it.

  He was looking forward to it for reasons of his own.

  He was hoping to persuade VeeVee to actually, sort of… date him.

  It was true that the off-campus day-trip was coming up—this weekend, in fact—and to Tomas’s surprise, he was apparently getting to go along. And as far as Tomas could see, half the rest of St. Rhia’s student body was hooking up, and used the day off-campus as a good way to get out from under the watchful eyes of the faculty and the student advisors. But he wasn’t completely sure what she’d do if he asked her to go along with him on something that… definite. All Tomas was sure of what that he wanted VeeVee to be his hyna—his girlfriend. And that meant going out on a date—and not a study-date, either. But stuck out here on a campus in the middle of nowhere, he didn’t have a lot of ways to do casual.

  “Well, what’s the use of magic if you can’t use it—sometimes—to make your life a little easier?” Ms. Bosworth said cheerfully, breaking into his thoughts. “A little weather-working—if you’re careful, and know what you’re doing—never hurt anybody.”

  Tomas nodded, not really paying attention. Bus trip? Picnic? If she said “no” to the bus trip, he could still try to sweet-talk her around at the picnic…

  When they reached the Main Building, Ms. Bosworth pointed him down the long hall on the right. “Second door,” she said. “Just knock. She’s expecting you.”

  Tomas went gingerly down the hall. Fortunately the door had a name-plate on it. He knocked.

  “Come i-i-in,” a voice sang out.

  He pushed the door open and walked in.

  Kayla Smith was sitting behind her desk, her feet propped up on it. She waved him to a chair. “Come in, sit down, take a load off. Relax.”

  Tomas did as he was told, taking the opportunity to take a quick look around since he’d never been in here before. Kayla Smith didn’t seem to be much older than some of the students here, but Tomas wasn’t about to say so. She dressed more like her day job was being a VJ on Fuse or VH1 instead of a teacher—or maybe being in a band. Plenty of color and glitter and high-heeled boots, and lots of silver jewelry. He wasn’t really sure what to make of her.

  Her office was pretty neat, though. The walls had a wallpaper design on them that was giant pages of old newspapers, photos and all, and hung on them were a couple of the largest flatscreen TVs Tomas had ever seen—almost as big as the one in the Student Union, but these looked bigger because the room was smaller. One was set up to pretend it was an aquarium, all full of tropical fish and everything, and the other was showing some kind of snow-covered mountains from above, with the camera soaring over them so the effect was like you were flying. There were a couple of electric guitars hung on the walls, too.

  The desk was completely transparent. Maybe it was glass?

  “I guess you wonder what I want?” Ms. Smith asked. “‘Course you do,” she said, answering herself. She swung her feet off the desk and sat up. “There’s gonna be another field trip in a couple of days, and you’re going to be going along, so I’m going to tell you a little about it.”

  Tomas couldn’t quite repress a flinch. “Like the last one?” he asked, to cover his unease.

  Ms. Smith snorted in a very un-teacher-like fashion. “Nothing like the last one, homeboy. No, this is going to be a simple meet’n’greet. You, and me, and Eric, and Mr. Moonlight, and about five other kids—we haven’t picked all of them yet—are going to go Underhill to visit some friends of ours. It should be fun. But since you aren’t enrolled in Music Arts, we figured you sort of needed a crash course in Underhill 101.”

  Tomas raised an eyebrow at her. “So… you mean stuff like “where’s Underhill?’”

  Ms. Smith grinned at him. “Underhill’s where the Elves live. You gonna tell me you don’t believe in Elves?”

  “That depends,” Tomas said cautiously.

  “Good answer,” Ms. Smith said. “Now. What you need to know is—”

  Fifteen minutes later Tomas walked out of Ms. Smith’s office feeling as if somebody’d slipped him a dose of giggle juice while he wasn’t looking. Psionic powers he could deal with. Magic, he was just starting to get a grip on. Now they were asking him to believe in magic doors that lead into other worlds where Elves, fairies, and just about everything he’d ever heard of, imagined, or disbelieved in lived.

  And that he was going to go there on a field trip.

  Life had seemed so simple this morning.

  He got to the dining hall, but VeeVee wasn’t at their usual table. All the others were: Kurt, Lalage, Kenny, Annabelle. But no VeeVee.

  “If you’re looking for VeeVee, she’s still in the library,” Lalage said. “But if there’s anything I can help you with…?”

  Tomas favored her with a slow smile. It was nice to have a girl actively interested in him—and Lalage was, he could tell—but she wasn’t the girl he was interested in.

  “Thanks, chica. But not right now. See you around. I gotta run.”

  He headed for the library.

  CHAPTER SIX

  Like the Psionics Lab, the Library had originally been one of the dorm buildings, and—like the Psionics Lab—though it still looked just the same on the outside, on the inside it had been completely gutted and rebuilt.

  It was still two stories, and the first floor was a popular gathering place for students to do research in the usual study groups, with large oak tables to spread out on, wireless LAN access for anyone who wanted to bring in their computer—some of the kids had laptops or notebooks—and not only a wide variety of reference materials, but current newspapers from all across the country,
magazines, and (to Tomas’s surprise when he’d found out) plenty of popular reading and up-to-date manga that and the latest graphic novels and comics as well. thatThe Second Floor was a different matter.

  Tomas walked into the library and glanced around quickly. He didn’t see VeeVee at any of the tables, so he walked up to the desk.

  “Yo, Mari,” he said.

  The pretty young Latina woman behind the desk looked up from the book she was reading and smiled at him. Her last name was “Morales”, but she refused to let anyone—even the youngest students—call her “Ms. Morales”, insisting that everyone call her “Mari.” Tomas had tried talking la lingua to her when he’d first met her, and been stunned to discover that Mari didn’t know a word of Spanish: she’d laughed and told him that her family had been in the States for three generations, and only her grandmother was fluent.

  “What can I do for you today?” she asked.

  “I’m looking for VeeVee. Lalage said she was in the library, but…”