by Oxford, Rain
I reached out with my mind for the nearest candle. It was very different from sensing minds. Using all the training and practice I had with intense concentration and visualization, I focused on finding the heat of the candle. It would have been easier if I had created it myself or if the flame was bigger.
Soon, I noticed a vague warmth coming from the candle. Whether it was imaginary or not, I locked onto that. Using the same method as creating a shield, I imagined an air-tight bubble around the flame.
Nothing happened.
“Boring. Maybe if your girlfriend was about to be killed with fire, you would be more motivated.”
The image came to mind of Astrid and me in the science museum. When the light of the fire illuminated her face in the dark, there was no fear or worry on Astrid’s face. Really, I couldn’t remember her ever showing true fear.
“Interesting,” Nightshade commented, pulling me back to reality. “Imagine her burning.”
“No.”
“Fire isn’t about visualization and concentration. You have created it because you needed it. Feel and project. To put out a candle, you can use any element, but none of them will help you when you really need it. You have more power than you realize and I know you put a lot of work into controlling it your entire life. Now it’s time you learn to use it.”
I tried it again. I imagined a smaller, thicker bubble. When that didn’t work, I made it even thicker. I let my entire mind be consumed in smothering that tiny flame. I focused for over an hour before I the flame flickered gently… and went out.
“Good,” Professor Nightshade praised. “Do the next one.”
* * *
I received quite a shock when I returned to the room to find Darwin on the floor with Amelia on top of him. My initial reaction was to assume he was about to have a fit from the skin contact, but when he didn’t immediately scream in pain, I noticed how they were positioned. Amelia’s arms and legs were not touching his, and although their bodies were pressed together, there was no skin touching skin.
“I didn’t mean to interrupt,” I said, shutting the door. Deciding to kill an hour or two, I got some cucumbers from the kitchen and fed the kappa at the lake.
Remington sat beside me about half an hour later and took one of the cucumbers. “When I first attended Quintessence, murder was unheard of at the school. Fights, accidents, and betrayal were inevitable, but my father’s defenses were unbeatable. He kept the outside world out, so the school was one of the safest places in the world for us. Now my father learns one of his students is murdered and he just sighs.”
“You don’t think he cares?”
“I think he finds it inevitable now. I don’t know what is going on between him, Vincent, and Keigan, but it’s not good for the school. Rosin couldn’t have left at a worse time.” She shook her head, thinking. “I’m not sure what’s going to happen next, but I think it would be best if the school was shut down for a few years.”
“You know it would never reopen.”
“Yeah, I know. It’s better than more students getting killed because of some crap between those four. The world is a much darker place with every passing day.” She held out her hand and a small stream of water shot out to form a liquid butterfly in her hand.
I took out my penlight, clicked it on, and held the LED light against the water creature. Like a crystal, it projected bright sparkles and tiny rainbows on the lake surface in front of us and on Remy herself. “There are two ways of spreading light: To be the candle or the mirror that reflects it.”
She snorted and laughed. “Where do you come up with that shit?”
I shrugged. “I have no idea. It annoyed Regina, though, so that’s probably why I do it. She hated when she couldn’t goad me into a fight.” I stood and tossed the rest of the cucumbers in the lake. “I like this school. I don’t want to see it close down. Give me some time to try to stop this, and consider giving your father the benefit of the doubt. He has it rough right now, but he strikes me as the kind of man who will always come out on top.”
* * *
It was a bit late for dinner, but Amelia and Darwin were sitting in their usual spots in the dining room when I entered. I got a plate of food, carefully sidestepping the purple goo on the floor in front of the buffet. Amelia didn’t meet my eyes when I sat down, but Darwin pretended like nothing had happened. “Does this look like there’s butter in it to you?” he asked, scrutinizing his mashed potatoes.
“It could be margarine,” I said, then laughed when he shuddered dramatically. “So what happened this morning?”
Amelia blushed. “I don’t know.”
“Did you have any odd black-outs or…?”
She shook her head. “I had a dream and felt the need to act on it… Please… Please forget it. I don’t feel that way. Ever. Not about anyone. It was some weird hormonal imbalance caused by fear and probably dehydration. Maybe it was backlash from absorbing too much of someone’s mood.”
Darwin smiled brightly. “It’s called asexual. I can’t touch her and she doesn’t want me to touch her. We talked about it this morning and she agreed to marry me.”
I choked and spit my coke all over the table. The few students all turned to see the commotion. “You did what?!” That was all I could get out between coughs. Thank god it wasn’t coffee.
“Well, Mother has been pushing me to find a wife and Amelia can stand her.”
I took another drink, both to settle my coughing and to consider my words. Darwin was brilliant, so I figured he would at least take the time to think it over. “You’re twenty-two. Have you considered what you’re going to do after you graduate?”
“We both want to travel. We’re not going to rush into this. I mean, I’m not daft. We’ll tell our parents now, but we’ll set the date for years away. After graduating, we’ll spend at least five years traveling and living together first.”
I cleared my throat. “It sounds like you thought it through.” In half an hour. It wasn’t my place to talk him out of it. Marriage didn’t have to end in divorce… it could end in death instead. Besides, there were people who met in high school, got married, and lived happy lives together. At least I thought there were. Addison sat across from me and I sighed. “He’s safe and he’ll be back soon,” I said.
“I know. The council can’t hold him forever. I just don’t think he’ll want to be with me when he does return. I was upset and thought I should stay away so I didn’t say anything I would regret later. I never know what he’s thinking.”
“Henry rarely gives out expressive clues. I think you’ll find it a lot more helpful to ask him.”
She stood with a huff. “You have no idea what cat shifters–” she was struck mid-sentence by what appeared to be lighting, but on a smaller scale. She clutched her stomach and gasped as her fingernails shifted into claws. When her normal ears changed to ocelot ones, I sensed something was wrong. She didn’t grow fur, the rest of her body remained humanoid, and the gold-to-chocolate colored, furry ears were proportional to her person size instead of her cat size.
“Why are you shifting?” Amelia asked.
“I’m not!” she shouted in panic.
Hushed laughter from behind her clued us in and Addie hissed, baring sharp teeth. Three women who sat two tables down were trying not to laugh. One of them, holding a half-carved wizard’s staff, turned. “I am so sorry, Addie!” she said, completely insincere. She was one of the C-Five students who had tried to seduce Henry.
“What did you do?!”
“I was playing with my new staff and accidentally fired a spell I learned Friday. It’s like an electrical impulse that simulates a shifter’s magic just enough to cause a partial shift.”
Addie started to panic. “Why can’t I shift back?” Movement caught my eye and I looked down. The claws, teeth, and ears weren’t the only change; Addison also had a long, light brown, black-striped tail.
The woman laughed. “Don’t worry. It only lasts a few hours until your b
ody realizes it’s not right.”
Before Addie could attack her, I grabbed the shifter’s arm. “Is there a way to stop a shifter from shifting or make them reverse their shift?” I asked the woman.
She shrugged dismissively. “Probably. You’ll have to ask Professor Watson. He’s the one who teaches the C-Five self-defense classes.”
I let Addie go so she could attack the witch and turned to Darwin. “Can we take classes early? Is it against the rules for me to take a C-Five class?”
He scowled. “The only book in the entire school I haven’t read is the handbook. How would I know–” he cut himself off as something occurred to him. After a moment, he nodded. “Lanna is a C-Two fae and was talking to Jackson about Professor Lithos’s class, and he only teaches C-Four classes. She’s Lithos’s assistant, so I’m guessing that’s the way in. If you’re the teacher’s assistant, I bet you can take an advanced class.”
“You can’t change your schedule after ten school days, though,” Amelia said.
Maybe Watson would be willing to show me a trick or two.
“So, what are we going to do about Henry?” Darwin asked, watching Addison and her opponent. “Aren’t you gonna tell them to play nice?”
“Do you want to get in the middle of that? I don’t want to get my eyes scratched out. I’d rather deal with a guy fight any day. I don’t know what to do about Henry. At least Vincent stopped them from executing him until the end of the month.”
Becky came up to us. While her expression was tightly controlled, her eyes were worried.
“What’s wrong?”
“There’s been another death,” she said quietly, trying not to scare the other students.
“Nathan or Caleb?”
“Professor Watson.”
“But he wasn’t sick,” Darwin said.
She shook her head and swallowed. “It’s getting worse. He… He burned up. I didn’t see it, but Jackson did.”
“They’re all burning up. It’s the fever that’s–”
“No.” She lowered her voice even more. “I mean he burned all the way up. In minutes, he went from fine to dead. There wasn’t even a body left. You have to do something before we all die of this thing. If it’s killing in minutes…” She couldn’t finish her sentence.
“Why bring it to us?” Darwin asked.
She frowned. “You’re a cop, aren’t you?” she asked me.
Chapter 9
It was dark at first, but within a few minutes, my vision adapted. For the most part, at least, since it wasn’t my eyes I was seeing through.
“Henry? Are you okay?” The bed I could feel under him was considerably more comfortable than the cot from the council’s cell. In fact, Henry was in a bedroom that was bordering on over-the-top in comfort. Between the rich, calming colors, the warm lighting of several inconspicuously placed lamps, and the smell of incense, I had to wonder if Henry wasn’t sticking around on purpose.
Then I felt the slight sting around his wrists and ankles; he was chained to the bed, probably with silver-coated restraints.
“I have been better. Gale appeared in my jail cell at the wizard council and brought me here.”
“Did he kill your parents?”
“I don’t know. This is my bedroom in their house, so I do know they’re not here. How did Darwin do on his test?”
“He passed, we were attacked by a zombie, and the school is under quarantine. Where is the real amulet?”
“Safe.”
I sighed. “I went to your house. I also found your sketch book and know about Zoe and Scott.” There was silence for a moment, which was odd, since I was in his head.
“I suppose you never want to talk to me again.”
“Henry, you did not kill your wife, or that family. Your parents drugged you. They’re not even your–”
* * *
I woke with my skin crawling and knew instantly that something very bad was about to happen. Before I could get out of bed or wake Darwin, the room filled with light as a ring of fire erupted in the center of the room. Kristen appeared in the flames with patches of her skin charred.
“If you ever want to see the cat again, you will bring the amulet to the house you found your ex-wife in. Until you do, more people will burn.”
The door burst open and the room filled with bright white light. Similar to lightning, it struck her. She vanished along with the light. I reached for the spare penlight I kept under my pillow and clicked it on. Astrid, still standing in the doorway, put her hand up to shield her eyes from the light.
“How did you do that?” I asked.
“What, open the door?”
“Magic.”
“You must have been sleeping. I came in here because I felt something was wrong, opened the door, and saw a bright flash of light.”
“Darwin, what did you–”
“I didn’t see anything, hear anything, or do anything. Ask me when I wake up in twelve hours,” he muttered into his pillow.
Not surprisingly, Astrid got into my bed.
I wrapped my arms around her. “Go to sleep.”
After it was quiet for a few minutes, I relaxed and forced myself to think of anything other than Astrid’s body pressed against mine.
“I haven’t been up that long… I’m not tired,” she whispered.
“Too late. I’m already asleep and you’re trapped.” I felt her leave a little while later.
* * *
At breakfast, it couldn’t have been any more somber. Even the weather was gray and drizzling. A startled shout made us look up just as thunder cracked… inside. Suddenly, clouds formed close to the ceiling and rain poured down on us.
As frustrating as it was, it helped to break the tension.
Professor Nightshade was busy helping the sick students, so our class was cancelled, and since Professor Watson was dead, I didn’t have Elemental Configuration, either. Therefore, my only class was Professor Nakari’s, and she didn’t feel like trying to teach. Most of the students were afraid of the sickness, while all of them were concerned with the quarantine.
All of them except Lucy, who was more interested in using her newly-learned power to harass the shifters. She spent all morning sneaking up on the shifters and using her staff to force them into a partially shifted state. Her friends tried to warn her something would go wrong. Lucy specifically targeted Henry’s girlfriend.
At lunch, I watched her aim for Addison, but the ocelot shifter was standing right next to Darwin, and apparently, wizard staffs didn’t have very good aim. The burst of energy hit Darwin, throwing him to the ground with the force it.
I saw his ears change to stone-gray wolf ones an instant before I felt his mind forcing a link between us. He drew on my magic and half a second later, Lucy was on the ground, screaming in pain. Everyone gave Darwin space as he stood. The wolf ears shifted back into his normal ears, but there was something very wolfish about his snarl.
This wasn’t the goofy, laid-back, book-smart Darwin I knew; this was a very powerful creature that wasn’t a wolf or a fae, but some evolutionary combination of the two. And he was really pissed off. Everyone else got as far away as they could, but I approached him slowly. I didn’t make any sudden movements, just in case he was more wolf than man. He ignored me.
I felt dread. I felt like I had to stop him right that second.
He raised his half-shifted hand to her and squeezed it into a fist until his claws cut into his palms. She screamed louder and clutched her chest.
“Darwin!” He ignored me, so I grabbed his arm to pull him away. In the next instant, a dark gray wolf squirmed out of my grip and went after Lucy. Blinding light filled the room, causing me to shield my eyes.
When the light faded and I could see again, Hunt stood between Lucy and Darwin, who was back in his normal form, naked, and looking terrified. I picked up his torn hoodie off the floor and tossed it to him. He put it on, shaking. Lucy wasn’t screaming anymore. “What was that?” he asked.
/> “That, Mr. Mason, is what happens when you mix a powerful fae with a powerful wolf, lock him up for twenty-two years, attack him, and then release him. Your wolf was trying to eliminate his attacker.” He turned to address the room. “These pranks have gone too far. Everyone involved will step forward now or face immediate expulsion.”
Over two dozen students formed a group in front of Hunt, including Lucy. One of them, not to my surprise, was Jackson. “There are some vampires, too, but they’re asleep,” he said.
“We didn’t mean any harm,” a C-One student said. “We tried to tell Lucy she was going too far.”
“Explain,” Hunt said.
Several of the students looked at each other, every one of them wishing someone else would speak up. Jackson stepped forward. “A few of us weren’t satisfied with the clubs being offered. Although it would have made more sense to address the extra-curricular committee, we decided to make up our own club. We created the pranks club.”
“And whose idea was it?”
“It was more of a…” he trailed off.
“A fan club,” one of them volunteered, causing Jackson to wince.
“I wouldn’t call it that. More like we were inspired… by Darwin. We were hoping the pranks would get his attention and he would retaliate. We thought it would be fun and then Darwin would take over the pranks club, make it official, and help lighten the place up.”
“Mr. Sanders, I suggest you take your roommate away to calm him down. The rest of you, follow me.”
Darwin stood, still shaking, and followed me to our room. Instead of sitting on his chair, he sat on the floor and hugged his knees. I wouldn’t ask him if he was okay because I knew he would speak when he was ready.
It took him half an hour. “I almost killed her. She was just playing around.”