“Look, Dusty.” Eli spoke so softly that I almost thought I imagined it.
I pulled my gaze off Rosemary and saw that another shadow man had joined the first. This one looked smaller, more diminished, and yet I could tell at once he was in charge by the way the first shadow man deferred to him.
“She doesn’t know,” the first said. “I’ve tried my best.”
The second nodded. “Yes, I know. It’s all right. We will discover the others in time. Now stand her up. We need to finish this quickly.”
The first hesitated. “Do we have to? Isn’t there some other way?”
“No. I’ve already explained to you the nature of the spell. It must be done. It is the only way for you to get what you want. And for me.”
The first hesitated a moment longer, then he stooped and grabbed Rosemary by her arms, dragging her to her feet. He held her there as the other stepped behind her. A chain rope made from some shiny metal hung from his hand, glistening with an iridescent hue like fish scales in sunlight. He wrapped it around her throat. Rosemary began to scream.
Eli took a step forward as if to intervene.
“Don’t,” I said, fighting the same urge. This was just a dream, nothing but shadow and vapor. But there was something I could do that would make a difference—I needed to see beyond those blank faces.
Like I’d done on the clock, I concentrated on the shadow men, focusing all the strength of my imagination, of my magic. I pictured noses, mouths, and eyes. I willed them to come into focus.
“What are you doing?” Eli hissed, pressing his hands to his temple.
I was vaguely aware that the dream world around us was trembling as if from an earthquake. I pushed harder. Sweat broke out on my skin. My whole body began to ache, but I could tell it was working. I could see the faint outline of the shadow men’s faces. In a moment, I would know who they were.
Both of those shadowed faces turned toward me in eerie unison. Their unseen eyes bored into me as they stood frozen in place.
I heard Eli’s quick intake of breath.
“It’s just a dream. They can’t hurt us,” I said. But they definitely knew we were there. And they didn’t like it.
The second shadow man’s form began to change shape. The vague outline of a person gave way to something solid. Something sleek and shining, as black as onyx and with eyes as bright as the moon. It took a moment for me to realize what it was. When I did, a jolt of fear surged through me as if from a lightning strike.
The black phoenix let out a shriek that was both beautiful and terrible at the same time. It made me want to fall down on my face before it, prostrate and willing to give myself up as its prey.
It swooped down at us. Even though I knew this was a dream and not real, I dove to the right on instinct while Eli dashed left. Time to leave. I closed my eyes and pulled back from the dream, willing my consciousness to rejoin my body.
I couldn’t. Something blocked the way.
Terror seized my heart like a clenched fist. Eli was across the cemetery, far away. “I can’t get out.”
“What?”
“I’m trapped. You need to kick me out.”
He started to run toward me, but the phoenix made another pass at us. I hit the ground as the loud whish-whish-whish of massive wings beat in the air. I heard the clack of a sharp beak snapping. The bird shrieked again in its deadly musical voice.
I focused on changing the dream, trying to imagine the glass box my mother had used on Bethany, but I was too panicked to concentrate.
Something blocked out the moonlight above me, and I covered my head with my arms. Air swept across my body, followed by a hot sear of pain as the phoenix’s talons sliced my right arm from shoulder to wrist.
I screamed. The pain was so real. It was impossible. This couldn’t be a dream. Not with pain like that. Blood soaked my hair. What would happen if I died in here?
“Dusty!” Eli shouted, drawing nearer. “Grab my hand!”
I pushed myself up and dashed toward him. We collided like opponents in a football game. The dream world exploded around me in a shower of light and pain, but I welcomed it as my consciousness rejoined my body where it belonged.
I leaped backward off Eli, landing on my feet, ready to keep running if the phoenix had managed to follow us out somehow. I looked around at the dorm room, convinced it was here. But we were alone, and I breathed a sigh of relief.
Eli’s eyes flicked open, and he looked at me with a stunned expression. “Well,” he said in a dry, sarcastic voice. “That was fun.”
I couldn’t help it; I started laughing. The reaction was involuntary and borderline hysterical. “We should try it again sometime,” I said between guffaws.
Eli’s expression hardened. “I don’t think so, Dusty.”
I wiped away a stray tear, finally getting control of myself. “Why not?”
He stood and came over, taking hold of my wrist with one hand. “Look at your arm.”
I glanced down. The sleeve on my right arm was torn. The skin beneath glowed red from three long wicked scratches.
They were the exact width of a bird’s talons.
19
Exchange
I woke late the next day and contemplated blowing off classes. My head ached, and my arm was throbbing, despite the makeshift bandage Eli had made for me. Worst of all, I felt like I hadn’t slept a wink. When I left Eli’s last night even my bones were tired. I barely made it back to my dorm room and had passed out without entering a dream journal.
Crap.
I sat up, moaned once, then did a double take when I saw the time.
Crap, crap, crap.
I jumped out of bed and raced into the living quarters.
“Where’s the fire?” said Selene. She was already dressed and ready, looking perfectly refreshed.
I scowled. “I didn’t do my dream journal. And why didn’t you wake me up?”
“I did, but you must’ve gone back to sleep. We had a conversation and everything. Mostly surly grunts on your part. Don’t you remember?”
No, I didn’t remember, but that wasn’t surprising—Selene had told me on more than one occasion that I talked in my sleep. I switched on the eTab, opened a dream journal, and started typing. Two words into it, I decided to do some serious editing. For one thing, I didn’t have time to put in all the details. For another, there was no telling how Lady Elaine would react if she knew I’d been physically hurt in a dream. She might not insist I stop dream-walking with Eli, but I wasn’t willing to take that chance. After seeing what happened to Rosemary, I wanted to find her killer now more than ever.
Two killers, I thought, remembering the shadow men. So Eli had been right in his hunch. And they were both men. Maybe my mother wasn’t involved after all.
You can’t be sure, a dark, cynical voice said in my head. The first was likely male, but you didn’t see either of them. Not even their voices were distinctly male.
That was true, but I chose to ignore it. The impression had been male.
Ten minutes later, I followed Selene down to the cafeteria. Silence descended when I walked in, as everyone turned to look at me. It was the first time they’d seen me since I attacked Coach Fritz. The silence was even worse than my first day here. Then the stares had been mostly curious. Today it was open animosity.
“Come on,” Selene said over her shoulder. “Ignore them.”
I trudged after her, doing my best to keep my head up. I glanced at Eli’s table. To my surprise, he smiled at me. It seemed our newfound friendship held even in a public arena. I smiled back, grateful for the support, although I couldn’t help but notice how tired and pale he looked this morning, as if he hadn’t slept in weeks. I’d noticed him looking drained after one of our dream-sessions before, but never this bad. Beside Eli, Katarina glowered at me, but she was easy to ignore.
The day went from bad to worse. Everywhere I turned, people were whispering about me in voices loud enough to overhear. I caught snippet
s like “She tried to kill Coach Fritz.…” and “I heard she found Mr. Ankil. Maybe his death wasn’t an accident.…” and “You can’t trust a Nightmare.…”
Selene regularly defended me, of course, and I’d even caught Eli telling off a senior boy for saying stuff about me. The guy stood nearly a foot shorter than Eli and looked terrified. I appreciated their help, but it failed to keep those words from doing damage. Barely an hour into the day, I felt as if my spirit had been flayed alive.
I did my best to ignore the comments, and focused on figuring out the clues in last night’s dream. I’d learned some important things. The sword was somewhere on campus. Assuming, of course, that the conversation between Rosemary and the shadow man had been literal and not symbolic—as I suspected it was. Actually, I’d begun to think the entire dream had been literal. There was no denying the welts on my arm were real. Maybe that meant the black phoenix was real, too, a shape-changer or something.
The last ten minutes of history, Mr. Marrow gave us free time to do some extra studying for midterm exams next week. I took advantage of the opportunity to pull out my eTab and do some Internet/e-net searching. I kept it hidden under the desk. Marrow might be supportive of my endeavor to find the killer, but I didn’t think it extended to wasting class time on nonschool work.
I typed in the search box: Who is the black phoenix?
The e-net results were more or less the same as they had been the last time I tried to find out about phoenixes, lots of links to sites concerning the birds as a species, detailing their magical properties, and the countless numbers of foolish magickind who’d gone hunting them.
When I flipped over to the Internet results, I received a shock from the very first entry—The Black Phoenix Will Rise Again.
Surely, it had to be coincidence. Only, at this point, I didn’t believe in coincidences. I clicked on the link and was immediately greeted by a log-in box. I blinked, experiencing déjà vu. I clicked on the register as a new user button and started entering the necessary information. When another message popped up asking me to identify the name of my initiator, I realized why this seemed so familiar. I’d tried to access this website before when I’d been researching Keeper spells. I glanced at the name and saw Reckthaworlde.com.
Definitely not a coincidence.
I stared at the screen, contemplating some way to get in.
“Excuse me, Dusty.”
I winced and glanced up at Mr. Marrow. “Yes?”
“I believe you should be studying now.”
“Right.” I put the eTab to sleep and stowed it in my bag. I forced my eyes on my textbook, but my mind remained fixated on getting into the website.
The solution to the problem presented itself less than twenty minutes later when I spotted Paul standing in the hallway outside of the cafeteria before lunch. Paul Kirkwood, computer genius.
I beamed at him. “I’m so glad to see you.” I gave him a hug, feeling totally unselfconscious about it.
“Same here.” He wrapped his arms around me and kissed the top of my head.
I pulled back from him but stayed close enough that he could hear me whisper, “I need a favor.”
He twined his fingers with mine. “Whatever you want.”
Tough opening to resist—there was so much I wanted from him. But I kept it simple. “I need you to hack into a website for me. That is, if you think you can.”
He laughed. “Sweetheart, if it’s got an IP, I can hack it.”
“Huh?”
“Forget it. What site?”
I pulled a piece of paper out of my backpack and wrote down the address before handing it over.
“What’s it about?” Paul said, reading the address.
“No idea. You’ve got to have special permission to log on, but I think there are some answers in there about what’s been going on.”
Paul raised his eyes to mine. “What exactly do you want me to look for? I mean, a website can have a lot of info on it.”
I glanced around, making sure no one was close enough to overhear. “Anything about a black phoenix.”
“As in the bird you keep seeing in Eli’s dreams?”
“Yeah, only I think it’s a person. Like some kind of shape-shifter.”
His eyes widened. “Weird. Well, I’ll take a look and let you know what I find.”
My stomach rumbled. With everything going on, I hadn’t been able to eat much for breakfast. “Excuse me,” I said, rubbing my tummy.
Paul smiled. “I don’t mean to keep you from lunch, but I wanted to give you this.” He handed me an envelope from his coat pocket.
“What is it?”
“Some stuff about your mother.”
My stomach dropped. “Is it bad?”
He tucked his hands into his pockets, looking nervous. “Not sure. Maybe. Depends on what you make of it. Just don’t open it where anybody else can see, okay? My uncle would really kill me for this one if he found out.”
“I won’t,” I said, finding it hard to speak.
Paul kissed me. “See you later.”
I walked into the cafeteria, clutching the envelope tight enough to crumple it. I ignored Selene’s questioning look as I joined her at our usual table. Hunching over, I opened the envelope, pulled out the paper inside, and began to read. It was an e-mail addressed to Magistrate Kirkwood from Consul Vanholt. There was nothing in the subject line and the content was brief:
The Nightmare must be involved. We should bring her in but keep a close eye on her. She can’t be trusted, but I’m sure she’s the key to solving this.
I read it three times, trying not to jump to conclusions. My mother wasn’t mentioned specifically, after all, and the overall meaning was pretty vague. Still, it didn’t exactly give me a warm fuzzy. Not when I considered how few Nightmares there were in Chickery.
“Aren’t you going to eat?” asked Selene.
I nodded even though the idea of food made me want to throw up. I tucked the e-mail back in the envelope and hid it inside my psionics textbook. I went through the motion of getting food and pretending to eat it, but I didn’t manage more than a couple of bites.
After ten minutes of silence, Selene broke down and said, “Do you want to talk about it?”
I marveled at how long she resisted asking. Selene was my hero in that way, the epitome of self-control.
I shook my head. “I’ve got to go, actually. I want to get to psionics early.”
Selene narrowed her eyes. “You going to talk to your mom?”
“Something like that. I’ll see you later, okay?”
“Be careful. She’ll be mad if she catches you snooping.”
I grimaced. Leave it to Selene to guess my real purpose for leaving early. During the lunch hour, I figured there was a good chance my mom wouldn’t be in the classroom. There was also a good chance she’d left her purse in there, too. She had a chronic habit of doing that. Sort of defeated the purpose of carrying a purse, in my opinion, but that was my mother for you.
I’d been hearing rumors about the new psionics teacher all day, most of them surprisingly positive, like how cool and fun she was, and how pretty, of course.
When I arrived at the classroom, I stopped outside the door and listened for noise inside. I didn’t hear anything, so I went in. The room looked the same as always. This was the first time I’d been in here since the dance, and the sight of what remained of Mr. Ankil hit me like a sudden plunge into icy water. The sadness was almost unbearable for a moment.
With a huge effort, I bottled up the sorrow and focused on the task at hand. I spotted a leopard print purse on top of the teacher’s desk and made a beeline for it.
I was halfway done riffling through the obscene amount of contents—lipstick, travel-sized hairspray, toothbrush, wallet, and so on—when I heard footsteps outside the door. The lunch bell hadn’t rung yet, and I panicked—it had to be my mother. Shoving the emery board I’d been holding back into the purse, I yanked the zipper closed and raced
to the closet.
I stepped inside, wedging myself in between the items and pulling the door shut. Something was groping my butt, and I glanced over my shoulder to see a head-and-hand dummy. Thank goodness it was just bad positioning and not because of animation. When I looked back, I realized the door hadn’t closed all the way. I reached for the handle then stopped. Through the small slit, I watched my mother enter the room with Mr. Culpepper trailing behind her. My curiosity did a wild leap inside my chest at the sight of them together.
As they approached the desk, Moira said, “Do you have it with you?”
Culpepper pulled a handkerchief out of his back pocket and wiped his brow. “If you’ve got the payment.”
“You’re sure it will do all you claim?”
“Cut from the same stone as mine, in a manner of speaking. But if it don’t work you can return it for a full refund.”
“What a comfort.” Moira opened the purse, pulled out some money, and gave it to Culpepper.
He handed her a brown paper package the size of a small jewelry box. “What’re you planning on using it for?”
Moira smirked at him. “Do you ask that question of all your clients?”
“Nope. Most of the time it’s obvious.”
“Well then, I think the same can be assumed here. And if I’m not mistaken, this concludes our business.”
Culpepper grunted then stalked out the door in his slight, shuffling gait.
Moira slid the box into her purse then cut her eyes to the closet. I stepped back from the crack in the door, my pulse quickening. There was no way she could’ve seen me. Not unless she had X-ray vision.
“You can come out now, Destiny,” my mother said.
I froze, dumbstruck.
She waved. “Come on. I know you’re in the closet.”
Wishing I knew an invisibility spell, I pushed the door open and stepped out. “Hey, Mom.”
“Don’t ‘Hey, Mom’ me.” Moira put her hands on her hips. “What are you doing in there?”
“Looking for a broom?”
“Ha, ha, ha. Why are you here?” She tapped the toe of one boot.
“Um, class is starting?”
The Nightmare Affair Page 19