by Rain Oxford
I grabbed a plate and started piling it up with pot roast, mashed potatoes, corn on the cob, and garlic toast. I briefly considered getting something green, but ultimately decided I didn’t want to over-eat.
When I sat at the table with Darwin, Henry, Amelia, and Addison, they all turned their attention on me. “Henry and Darwin were telling us about your escapades this summer with the shadow man,” Amy said. “I’m glad we won’t have to worry about him anymore.”
Amelia was a gorgeous Scottish and Irish woman. She was five-five, petite, with curly ginger hair and clover-green eyes. She was also Darwin’s fiancée and the only one who could touch him without causing him pain.
Henry was a twenty-eight-year-old, six-foot-tall, muscular man with black hair, gold eyes, and a natural tan. His girlfriend, Addison, was a cute woman in her mid-twenties with wavy, golden blond hair, big, bright blue eyes, and a round face.
“I didn’t know you two were working here,” I said to Addison and Amelia.
“I was a last second addition,” Amy said. “I am teaching control to the younger psychic fae children because the woman who had been teaching it for years quit with no warning. Darwin suggested me to Ms. Hunt and she offered me the job.”
“I’m here because I’m apparently better at working with children than adults,” Addison said.
“It’s because you look younger than most of the students at Quintessence,” Henry told her.
“Is Scott getting settled?” I asked.
“He’s napping. There are very few kids here yet, so he doesn’t have anyone to play with. However, they have a pool and they teach swimming, He’s going out of his mind with excitement. Did you enjoy working for Drake?”
“It was a lot more entertaining than I had been expecting. I was attacked on my last day. How is your new little sister doing?”
“I named her Zoe. She is healthy and living at Hunt’s orphanage with an application list a mile long. There are so many loving parents eager to take her home that she’ll never want for anything. It makes me wish Luana and Matheus had had the decency to sell me, too.”
“Did any of you do anything interesting?” I asked.
“I didn’t,” Henry said. “Darwin, did you get that situation with the veterinary clinics resolved?”
“I did. I didn’t have time to solve the vampire hunters case, though, because Dad wouldn’t let me out of the house. He says now that my wolf emerged, I have to act like a member of the pack.”
“That’s uncharacteristic of him.”
“It’s supposedly for my own protection. I kind of like it. For the first time in my life, I have to sneak out. He always treated me like a frail doll. Now he treats me like his son.”
“What about your wolf?”
“When one of us is in wolf form, we’re fine. When we’re both wolf, my wolf wants to fight him.”
“What were you saying about the vampire hunters?”
“Well, you and Henry found their lair and that soul guard defeated them. But hunters don’t just crop up out of nowhere, especially ones who know the truth. These guys knew about silver and came up with the light bombs.”
“They were experimenting on them.”
“Yeah, I took that into account. I got all the records from them that weren’t destroyed. They were smart about keeping it secret, but I found some old notes. They had a leader who stayed under the radar.”
“Why is that surprising?” Henry asked.
Darwin rolled his eyes and Amelia patted his back. “Walk them through it,” she said.
“They didn’t come up with their knowledge or those tools themselves. They were brought together by someone who knows everything about vampires. A paranormal betrayed our kind.”
* * *
I sat at a round table, assessing my new coworkers. I kept my mind to myself, but I could tell that they weren’t happy. I was a stranger coming in and taking a position superior to theirs. Many of them taught Remington when she was a kid, and here she was, running the place. I was to the right of Remy, Darwin was to the right of me, and Henry was on the other side of him.
The room was small, only ten-by-ten, with a single large table. The walls were dark wood panels and the candles on the table made the room ominous. In addition to Henry and Darwin, there were five other teachers. This conference was only for the teachers who taught students fourteen to seventeen. Each teacher had a stack of papers and notebooks.
“What are you planning on changing?” Terri Holland, the history teacher asked. She was a pretty, full-figured, middle-aged woman with silver-speckled, sandy blond hair and chocolate-brown eyes.
“I trust my father that the curriculum, rules, and staff he set in place are working. I will only change something if I see that it is not in the best interest of the students,” Remington said.
“You’re barely more than a child yourself,” Judie Baumwirt, the English teacher said. She was thin with long, dark brown hair and medium blue eyes.
Henry and Darwin looked at Remy, expecting her to draw her gun. I didn’t; I knew she had better self-control than that. I was there because I believed in her. She did have a ferocious temper, but she was never irrational.
“What about all of the new employees?” William Grant, the science teacher asked. He was in his early fifties with a medium build, shoulder length, graying black hair, a thick beard and mustache, and deep blue eyes.
Most of the new employees weren’t teachers, and of the two dozen new staff members, half of them worked with the younger students, like Addison and Amelia.
“New blood never hurt anyone. My father still owns this school, but I am in charge. This is not going to change. You can’t make me want to leave by challenging me. If you oppose me, I will fire you in a heartbeat. There are numerous qualified paranormals to replace you. You don’t have seniority with me.” When a few teachers opened their mouths to argue, she held up her hand in a similar fashion to her father and they all wisely shut their mouths. “That doesn’t mean your experience means nothing to me. Nevertheless, I don’t believe that you are automatically good at your job just because you have experience.”
“If I may, Headmistress,” Darwin said, “the issue here is that you’re merging two packs. You have the original staff, which have a hierarchy, style, and trust already in place. Now you, an outsider, are taking over and adding a new pack. Everyone from the university has our own hierarchy, style, and trust. You can’t just demand that they get on with us.”
“I can,” she argued. “I am the boss. If they don’t like it, they can leave.”
“You haven’t hired enough of us outsiders to replace the entire original staff. Furthermore, I highly suggest you don’t. Building a pack from scratch is a bitch, especially if you have one of different paranormals, with different goals.”
“I will not have my staff opposing me.”
“Attaining obedience and fear is not the goal here. If that is your goal, you should quit now. The goal is what is best for the children. The only way this school can succeed is for everyone to work towards that goal. Both packs have to prove that they have the same goal. Once that is established, we can begin merging. That doesn’t mean we have to like each other or agree with each other. In fact, it’s better if we don’t. If we argue over what’s best for the kids, we can expand our minds and advance our techniques. My dad’s pack argue with him all the time, but it’s because they truly believe in what they have to say. Once he understands their argument, they stop and he uses his wisdom to decide whether their argument is valid or not.”
“So what do you suggest?” Remy asked.
“First, we need to make sure everyone here has the ankle-biters’ best interest at heart. If we can’t trust that, we can’t trust anyone.”
Remington met my eyes and I nodded. “Alright. Let’s discuss the curriculum.” While they did, I skimmed their minds, looking for warning signs without picking up any deep thoughts or memories. All I wanted to know was who would be a problem
for Remy and who wouldn’t be.
Unfortunately, except for Henry, Darwin, and Mark Whittaker (the martial arts, sports, and P.E. coach for students ten through seventeen) they were all wizards who could shield their mind from me. If I broke through their mental blocks, they would feel it and fight back. However, between my mind reading and instincts, I could detect their basic feelings.
Ms. Baumwirt, Mr. Grant, and Melody Bounds (the home economics and health teacher for students ten through seventeen) didn’t trust Remy. Ms. Holland and Mr. Whittaker eagerly accepted change and were happy to follow Remy’s lead. None of them appeared to feel any malice towards the children, but I needed to actually see them with their students to be certain.
* * *
After the conference, Remy gave me and Darwin a tour of the East. Henry said he would explore it on his own later and he wanted to get back to his son. She showed us to the library. It wasn’t anywhere near as creepy as those at Quintessence. The walls were lined with bookshelves and the eastern half of the room was taken up by aisles of bookshelves. On the end of each bookshelf was a candle sconce, which I thought was dangerous. The western half of the room was crowded with wooden, rectangular tables, each with a lantern in the middle.
“The librarian’s name is Elisa Sommerfeld. Students are not allowed in here without her or a staff member. She will post her hours on the door within the week.”
“I get it. In case there’s a fire.”
“Exactly. Also, students aren’t allowed in the school building after ten, but there is no bedroom curfew. They just have to be in the West. If they don’t get enough sleep, that’s on them. No detention happens after ten. If you want to hold a meeting, class, or club in here, there is a form for that, but if it’s an emergency or something, you can worry about it later. There are also club rooms.”
As I checked out some books, a cat leapt down from the shelf above me, narrowly missing me, and landed on a table. It was a solid black cat with blue eyes.
“Watch those claws, Midnight,” Remy said.
“Who’s this?”
“Dani’s familiar, Midnight.”
The cat ignored us and hissed at the empty air to the left of her. “Oh… is he blind? Or evil?”
“He might be confused. I’ll talk to Dani about this,” she said.
“Or he senses a ghost,” Darwin said. “Dogs and cats make great familiars because they can sense things people can’t.” The cat suddenly darted off the table and disappeared between two bookshelves.
“Alright then.”
Remington showed us to Darwin’s classroom next, which was similar to all of the other classrooms. It had a large window on the far side of the room. The teacher’s desk was in front of it, facing ten small student desks in neat rows. I actually missed the weird, unsafe classrooms of Quintessence. “Where is the pit of death?” Darwin asked.
“The castle of Quintessence was built by a madman as a home. This place was built by my father to be a school,” Remy explained.
“How are students supposed to concentrate without the threat of certain death?”
Remy rolled her eyes and held out the key to the classroom. “Here. Add this to your lanyard with your room key.”
“My what?”
“The other key I gave you.”
“Oh…” He patted his pocket and collar. “Um… did you happen to see what happened to it?”
I pulled it out of my pocket. “You left it in your doorknob,” I explained.
“Cool. Thanks, bro.”
After that, Remy showed us to the infirmary. It looked like an alchemy lab, with shelves covering most of the walls, a sink, and several randomly placed gas burners. The shelves were full of potions, potion ingredients, boxes, books, and potion utensils.
“Andrew should be here in a couple of days,” Remy said. “There really wasn’t a need for him to come early.”
Lastly, Remy took us to my office and gave me the key. The room was cozy. My desk was on the far side of the room, facing the door. It was wooden, in good condition, and already piled with stacks of papers. There was a lantern on it and four gas lamps placed around the room. Behind the desk was an empty bookshelf. To the right of the desk was a five-foot-tall, metal filing cabinet.
Along the wall to the left of the desk was a black leather couch. There was an ergonomic chair behind the desk and two simple chairs on the other side. The filing cabinet and one of the drawers of the desk locked, and Remy gave those keys to me as well.
“Like with your room, you can decorate your office as you wish,” Remy said.
“Can I change my classroom?” Darwin asked.
“No.”
* * *
Over the next week, I skimmed through the student records, making sure numbers added up and familiarizing myself with the general needs of the students. There were fewer wolf shifters and more cat shifters than at Quintessence, because pack shifters were more inclined to take care of their children. The only fae were orphans or half human, because fae children were too valuable to their tribes to expose them to outsiders. A large number of the students were throwbacks who couldn’t fit into the human world because they had magic or shifting “flare-ups” or they had emotional issues related to their paranormal side.
I also familiarized myself with the rules, which were pretty standard. Students were not allowed to have phones, even though there was no reception. I had my phone, but it was turned off and in my wardrobe along with my gun. I was prepared in case I got a case. I wasn’t convinced the school or Remy really needed me and I refused to spend nine months sitting behind a desk, skimming through disciplinary notices.
When I told this to Remy, she assured me that danger would be rampant when the students arrived. I wasn’t convinced that was a good thing. Nevertheless, I was looking forward to some cases outside the school.
I did notice strange occurrences, such as doors slamming and things moving on their own, but I preferred to ignore those. Magic attracted weirdness.
* * *
Tuesday, August 9
I was reading a mystery novel when there was a gentle knock on my office door. I looked up to see a stout woman in her early thirties with dark red hair and hazel eyes. “Hello, Mr. Sanders. Remy wanted me to drop by and introduce myself.”
I stood and met her halfway into the room to shake her hand. “Are you Dani Halstead?”
“I am. I take messages for teachers and students, and I get messages out.” She pulled out a stack of three-by-five forms and handed them to me. “Just fill out the form and give it to Ms. Hunt or slip it under her office doors. I collect them in the morning when I bring Ms. Hunt her morning tea, and then I bring back messages in the evening.”
“How long have you worked here?”
“Ten years.”
I let my power brush against her mind and sensed excitement. Surprisingly, she wasn’t a pure wizard. I detected magic, yet there was also a strange animal I didn’t recognize. “If you don’t mind my asking…”
She smiled. “Everyone asks. I’m a quarter wizard, a quarter shifter, and half fae. I’m quite the mutt, I know. Surprisingly, I’m not a throwback; I’ve got magic and I can shift.”
“What’s your animal?”
“A red panda. She’s not a particularly threatening predator, but I like her.”
Instead of asking her what that was and looking like a fool, I decided to look it up as soon as I had a chance. “How do you like Remington so far?”
“I think she’s exactly what this school needs. I respect the world of Mr. Hunt, but he was extremely hands-off. He hired staff that was good in their day and walked away. A lot of us developed our own way of doing things here and some of us, unfortunately, are doing it for the paycheck.”
“If you mean the lunch staff, that’s not a big deal,” I said.
“I wish I meant the lunch staff. I won’t name names, though. I don’t want to sway your judgment.”
“I get that, but if you see any
one acting in a way that is detrimental to the students, please tell me.”
“I will, I promise. I just mean that some of the teachers are using lesson plans that are older than me and some of them like to read murder mysteries while students read quietly out of the books.”
“I’ll keep an eye on them and talk to Ms. Hunt if it looks like the students aren’t learning.”
* * *
It was late one night when I was leaving my office that my instincts fired up. I stopped outside a classroom and put my ear to the door. When I heard arguing, I cracked the door and listened.
“He’s going to kill her,” a woman said. I didn’t recognize the voice. “He thinks she knows what he did, but she doesn’t.”
“There’s nothing we can do about it and we can’t stop him, so just stay out of his way,” a man said. I didn’t recognize the voice, either.
I pushed open the door to see who was talking… but the room was empty. “Okay…” I reached out with my power, but didn’t sense anyone near. I closed the door and went to my room.
* * *
Wednesday, August 10
I was eating lunch alone when a woman sat across from me. She was a sweet-looking woman in her late fifties with braided blond hair and sky-blue eyes. “Mr. Sanders, I was hoping to speak to you.”
“Oh? How can I help you?”
“My name is Elisa Sommerfeld.”
“Oh, yes. Ms. Hunt told me. You’re the librarian, right?”
“Yes, and I need to talk to you about our books if you have a few minutes. I ran by your office a few times and kept missing you.”
“Sure. I can talk now.”
“Great. I have tons of nonfiction classics. The teachers use classic magic books because modern magic books are a lot of hooey.”
“Okay, that makes sense.”
“But kids these days find those books boring, and we need to encourage them to read any books. We want them to enjoy reading, and that means supplying fiction and non-magic books.”