by Oxford, Rain
He was Astrid’s grandfather.
* * *
I was halfway between the dorms and the castle when my instincts warned of danger. I had been in my head, trying to come up with ideas on where Henry might have hidden the amulet, so I didn’t notice the six wolves closing in on me. “Really? We have to do this now?” I asked the shifters.
The largest one changed back into his human form. He was a muscular man, as most shifters were, with dark skin to match his wolf’s fur. “Flagstone is gone and Watson is dead. Some of the pack wolves think you should be the new alpha. I will fight for the position.”
I shrugged. “Who will you fight? I’m not a shifter; I don’t want to be your alpha.”
“It is not your choice. A pack that is split in their loyalties is a dead pack. I will fight you to win their loyalty.”
I sighed and focused on the calmness inside me. My instincts took over instead. “You do realize I can kill you with my brain, right?” I asked, surprising myself. I wasn’t trying to goad him, but I knew backing down would incite the others to attack. “Also, I have a gun, and I will shoot you in the fucking face.”
“I’m not afraid of your–”
“The bullets are silver.”
His confidence waivered for a split second before he shifted. His change wasn’t as fast as Henry’s, which made him vulnerable for half a minute. Unfortunately, I didn’t really have my gun on me. I reached forth with my power, just as I heard the strangest sound. There was something about a hyena’s laugh that was psychologically chilling.
Brian came running out of the dorms in his shifted form and barreled into the large wolf before anyone knew it was coming. They rolled, teeth snapping, claws tearing, until blood soaked the ground. In a fight between a wolf and a hyena, I would usually bet on the hyena, but this wolf was twice Brian’s size.
I pushed my power into both of them and felt the instant when I gained control. “Stop,” I demanded. They broke apart.
Brian was covered in blood, but he stood tall and ready for the command to attack again. The wolf, however, couldn’t stand on his two front legs. It was his blood all over Brian.
“Shift.” When they did, I realized Brian was injured. He had a long cut from his throat to his gut, but it wasn’t bleeding. “What happened? Did he do this to you?”
“Not today, Alpha.”
I decided not to correct him about the title in front of half a pack of wolf shifters who were just waiting for an excuse to attack. “Explain.”
“Since Alpha Flagstone left, Henry, me, and some others have been fending off threats to you. When Henry was arrested, it was just me and a few others. Then Professor Watson died and the pack got more violent.”
“You’re all idiots,” I told the wolves, letting my power go.
“I will be the alpha,” the wolf shifter said.
“Tell that to Alpha Flagstone when he returns in a few days.” The man’s eyes widened in shock. “Come on, Brian.”
* * *
I immediately recognized Hunt’s office. Of course, Hunt’s presence made it easier. The headmaster, who cared so much for his students, was asleep at his desk, leaning back in his seat just barely enough that he didn’t topple over. Stress and worry, probably equally due to his missing familiar, the missing key, and the deaths of his students, weighed heavily on him.
From what I had learned about the man over my first year at Quintessence, Hunt was quick to offer help to someone in need, slow to trust, and relentless in his responsibilities. Thus, he was a wise wizard, a caring father, and a dedicated headmaster, but not a happy man by any means. If he kept pursuing the key, he would end up alone. Unfortunately, if he didn’t get it, death would spill across the world, unstoppable and insatiable. At least, that was what he was afraid of.
There was something else nearby. It wasn’t quite a consciousness, but something much more sinister. If hate and greed had a physical manifestation, that was what I felt approaching. It was also burning. I sensed multiple realities and multiple minds at once. I could see Rosin sense Hunt’s danger, I could feel that Hunt wasn’t psychically here, and I knew the loss of Hunt’s life would be a landslide that would result in more deaths than the plague.
* * *
I woke expecting to feel urgency and on the verge of panic. Instead, I felt like everything was okay, although I knew it wasn’t. I used my penlight to check my watch and saw that it was barely past midnight.
Not willing to take the chance that my instincts were wrong, I got up, dressed, and left. Frigid rain fell in thick sheets as I made my way between the dorms and the castle. As soon as I opened the castle’s main doors, I heard a commotion. The vampire students were swarming the halls on the way to Hunt’s office. I shoved my way to the front of the mess to find the night teachers trying to hold the students back as a professor put a sheet over a body. Just as he picked the body up to take it to Dr. Martin, Astrid and Hunt came out of Hunt’s office.
Before I could ask Hunt what was going on, Astrid spotted me, went around the frustrated teachers to my side, took my hand, and calmly led me to an empty classroom. “I had a really weird dream,” she said once the door was closed.
“Weird how?”
“Weird as in I was awake. I was pacing in my cell when I started dreaming that Hunt was in trouble. I saw him sleeping and felt something moving in on him. I broke out and found him sleeping in his office exactly like he was in my dream. I thought he was in a coma or something because he was hard to wake.”
“Who died?”
“I don’t know. I was inside with Hunt when it happened.”
Still facing her, I opened the door behind me. “We need to talk to Hunt.” I turned and jumped back. Nicholas Grigore, the vampire who had attacked me when he was working for Mrs. Ashcraft, blocked my way. He was about my height and build with a Cuban descent. He wore a black leather jacket over his steel-gray shirt and black jeans.
“Professor Watson killed Conner.”
“Professor Watson is dead, and so is Conner.” Can a dead person kill a zombie? What the hell is my life coming to?
“I was at the corner, looking for the headmaster’s office, when there was a bright red flash. I saw Professor Watson dropping Conner on the ground.”
“Did you hear any sounds?”
“A slight choking sound,” Nicholas answered.
“Do you think it was like what happened with Len and Kristen? That Watson was being controlled?”
“No, I don’t think so. Not without a body. Conner, on the other hand…”
I thanked Nicholas and we left as casually as we could. Instead of heading back to my room, Astrid and I went to the top floor of the dorms. Although Astrid had a phenomenal sense of smell, she didn’t know the professor’s scent. She could tell me which rooms were occupied and which were empty, but we didn’t have time to quietly break into thirty rooms.
The world’s worst meow made us turn to see Ghost halfway down the hallway. “Is that Professor Watson’s room?” I asked.
The cat nodded. Astrid broke the lock and had the door open as easily as if it hadn’t been locked. I followed her in after giving the cat a quick pat. Even though she didn’t need it for herself, Astrid lit the lantern over the professor’s desk.
Professor Watson’s room looked unused. The bed was dressed with a white sheet and a small pillow, the desk was cleared off and empty, and the bookshelf had only a few very typical and impersonal books. We spent half an hour searching for anything that would give us a clue, but not even my instincts gave off a vibe.
“I think we’ll call it a night.”
We stepped out into the hall, shut the door behind us, and were immediately intercepted by Ghost. When he had our attention, he ran over to a door and started rubbing against it. “I thought this was Watson’s room,” Astrid said.
“He said it was. There’s no telling what he’s doing, but he has saved the day a few times.” Astrid and I went to the door and she turned it. I didn�
��t hear the sound of a lock snapping.
“That’s odd,” she said, confirming my thought.
Inside, there was a fireplace already crackling, but the inhabitant was gone. I saw the charring on the wooden floor, the bed that didn’t even have sheets, and the open box of gems on the desk. “I’m betting this is Professor Nightshade’s room.” I scanned the books on the bookshelf and was about to start on her wardrobe when Astrid made a sound.
“This doesn’t look like it belongs.” She tossed an iron ankh to me when I turned.
The instant I caught it, my mind flooded with a vision. Bright sunlight muddled the image until it resembled the quality of an old VHS, but what I saw was unmistakable.
I saw Professor Asrik Watson tied to a wooden post in a bed of blazing hay as dirt-covered villagers screamed for the witch to burn.
Chapter 10
Darwin and I were in our room, reading through every book we could find on controlling and possessing people. The book Langril gave Darwin was all about summoning and driving away entities that were non-living. I figured it would be invaluable in defeating Krechea, but not all that useful in fighting Gale.
Obviously, Gale could control his victims after killing them. Astrid, however, wasn’t dead, and vampires weren’t the undead like in the movies, so how was he controlling her? I stopped to scan my notebook, which had a whole lot of questions and no answers.
Is Astrid different because of who she is or can Gale control people without killing them? What does Langril have to do with it?
Why do I keep remembering when Astrid and I were kids? Why was her grandfather there?
Why did Watson die so quickly? Because he was a professor? Was Nicholas correct that he wasn’t dead? If so, did Gale make him fake his death because we locked Astrid up? What did that ankh mean?
“Are there anti-possession amulets?” I asked.
“Only like a million. Every culture has a bunch of those. I visited a town in Asia that was selling them on the street corner.”
“Then why aren’t we given them during admission?”
“Because they’re a hype scam, bro. Wizards like Hunt, Vincent, and Langril will have some form of magic to protect themselves. Hunt’s wards are probably keeping normal possession out. If Gale wasn’t using contagion magic, there’s no way he could get past Hunt’s ward. This generation, though, doesn’t want to think they’re susceptible to possession, so they wouldn’t wear it anyway.”
“How is that a scam?”
“Those who believe in it either don’t wear it or don’t need it. Therefore, they’re sold to those who don’t believe in it. You got a religious nut, yeah? He’s preachin’ from a church step that the devil’s gonna take everyone’s soul. Here comes a man who did something like stealing or lying and got smacked hard by karma. He’s feeling low and scared of doing wrong again. He stops, listens, and asks the preacher what protects him. The preacher pulls out this big flashy necklace and says he gots a charm to keep the devil out. Five bucks. The man thinks it can’t hurt and buys it. Nothing bad happens to him for the rest of the day so he goes and tells all his friends that his soul was saved by this amulet. Ta-da! A dozen new customers for the man who isn’t really a preacher, just someone lookin’ to make money.”
“You’re so optimistic.”
“That’s the difference between a realist and a realtor, yo. I sell the truth, not the dream.”
I had to stop and laugh for a minute. “My point was, maybe we can get something like that for the sick students to slow their degeneration.”
“Unfortunately, almost nothing works on someone after contagion magic has a bite in them. Don’t think infection, think of the old vampire myths. Some people thought that in order to turn a converted vampire back to human, you had to kill the vampire who converted them. It’s crap, of course, but not with contagion magic like this. We need to kill Gale.”
“I agree, but we don’t have the amulet, so we need to find it or get something else to kill him with.”
“And what’s Hunt doing while we’re trying to save his students?”
“Keeping Krechea off our backs. Seriously, we don’t need more shadows trying to eat people.” A loud, pissed off meow filled the room and Ghost appeared on my desk. “What do you want?” I asked. Then I saw he was sitting on Vincent’s book and I stood. “Hey, maybe that can help.” I reached for the book and wasn’t expecting the loud hiss, followed by a sharp pain in my hand. “What the hell?!” My hand now had four ugly scratches on it.
“I’d get a rabies jab if I were you,” Darwin advised.
“If this gets infected, you’re going to be Chinese food,” I warned the cat. He glared at me. When I reached for the book again, he lifted his paw in warning. Just as I was about to cuss him out, I realized he had something caught on his back paw. Cautious of the psycho cat’s claws, I reached around and untangled the nylon string. He stopped glaring so hard when I got it off.
It was the pouch I kept around my neck with my ring in it.
Shocked, I patted my shirt collar to find it was missing. “When the hell did you take this?” In answer, he stepped off the book.
“Is it just me, or is Vincent’s cat a psycho?” Darwin asked.
“Vincent’s familiar,” I corrected. “He thinks he’s clever, but if he was so smart, he would be helping us, not stealing something we already have. How is Vincent’s book and the ring supposed to help us fight–” I stopped as a thought struck me. As if he knew what I was thinking, the cat purred. I glanced down at the book. “I’m an idiot.”
“You gonna clue me in or do I have to guess?”
“I’m a complete idiot. Ghost isn’t trying to help us with Gale; he’s trying to help us with Krechea. Vincent gave me this book at the very beginning and told me there was more information in this book than the words could tell me. Just like with Henry’s sketchbook, I should be able to induce a vision with the ring and learn about the tower and the key.”
“I don’t know that’s such a good idea,” Darwin said. “You can’t be sure what you might see. You can’t unlearn something about someone, and Vincent is the only family you have.”
“He is my family, so I’m going to trust that I won’t learn anything horrific about him. No matter what he might have done, he can’t be as bad as John.” I pulled the ring out of the silk sack and Ghost vanished.
“Are you sure about this?”
“No.” I opened the book to the middle and slipped on the ring.
* * *
The old man dying on the bed didn’t strike me as the all-powerful master wizard his sons believed him to be. He was far too thin, his hair was as white as snow, and there were dark blotches around his eyes. A smear of blood below his lip refused to dry. He was too weak to wipe it away anymore, so as he opened his mouth to speak his last words, another drop ran down his chin.
Based on Vincent’s height as I saw through his eyes, I assumed he was fully grown. The man reached out his hand weakly and Vincent took it tightly in both of his. I felt my uncle’s regret, but I didn’t hear his actual thoughts. It occurred to me that this was my grandfather and I didn’t even know his name.
He swallowed and licked his bottom lip, not actually having enough saliva to moisten it. Unfortunately, Vincent was impulsive at that age. “Don’t try to talk. You need your strength to get better. I know John did this and I’ll find a way to undo it.”
His father groaned and tried again to speak.
“Tell me how to help you.”
The man managed enough strength to squeeze Vincent’s hand lightly, effectively shutting the younger wizard up. “Forgive him. John… will never find peace,” he whispered. “My sins are worse.” He tried to swallow again.
“What do I do?”
“Find Logan Hunt at the wizard council. Your path will be dangerous and painful… but… the alternative… is unimaginable…” His eyes slipped closed, his breath stuttered, and then his chest stilled.
Vincent’s eyes
stung, but he refused to wipe at them and only let his eyelids close for a few seconds. A few seconds to let the world around him cease to be. He wanted everything to just stop. He opened his eyes in time to see John walk past the room. The twelve-year-old grinned cruelly when his eyes met his brother’s, and then he was gone.
Vincent packed everything that was important to him into a single suitcase, got into his father’s 1958 Ford Fairlane, and drove for many hours. He knew where the council was because his father used to be a member. Vincent spent the first ten years of his life playing in the elaborate mansion before one day, with no warning, his father quit. Vincent wondered about it some during his drive. He knew nobody just walked away from the council. Then again, Vincent Knight’s father was not a nobody.
When my uncle made it to the council, he was worried. For the first time since he saw his brother’s malicious grin, he hesitated. He parked his car in front of the door and concentrated. He had not yet learned to induce or suppress his visions, but he was used to it.
What appeared in his mind, much to his shock, was a huge black wolf. In his vision, the wolf was going for his throat. He pushed the vision away as best as he knew how and forced himself to get out of the car. He tried and failed to hide the trembling of his hand as he knocked on the white door.
A young woman answered and asked if he had an appointment. “I don’t, but I’m here to see Logan Hunt.”
She frowned. “There is no one by that name here.” She tried to close the door, but Vincent grasped her wrist. His vision shifted instantly to a place in broad daylight on a busy street. He saw a car run over the curb and hit her.
Vincent jerked his hand away. He wanted to warn her— he always wanted to warn people— but they never believed him. Sometimes, he wished he had his brother’s power. “I need to see Logan Hunt and I will not leave until I do.”