The Assassin Game

by Kirsty McKay

  “OK, OK,” Alex says. “You have the guts to come here and throw your cards on the table? Let’s talk. But first”—he looks around the cave—“you droogs need to get back to civilization. Only Elders for this.”

  Everyone groans, reluctantly beginning to leave. I cannot wait to get out, but I’m terrified of what Vaughan is going to lay on them when I go. In any case, I don’t get the chance to escape.

  “Cate!” Alex says. “This nut job is your friend. You can stay.”

  Great.

  Everyone looks at me as they leave. Especially Daniel.

  When they have all cleared out, Alex sits, and the rest of us—Carl, Rick, Marcia, Cynthia, and lil’ old me—follow suit. Except Vaughan. He stands in the middle of the cave, still wearing the cape, looking a little like a disheveled crow that got left out in the storm. But he has a glint in his eye and the air of one who tastes victory. That’s a little premature of him, I think.

  “I know you all have trust issues.” Vaughan grins at Alex. “That’s only sensible. But I’m good at this. Ask her.” He looks at me again.

  Marcia looks at me too. I don’t like her expression.

  “He is good at this,” I say. “Well, I think so anyway; I haven’t seen him since we were eight. But even then he used to take computers apart and put them back together, program games for us to play, and that kind of thing. Then we…moved apart…and I heard he was a whiz kid. He was at Cambridge, I think?” I look at Vaughan. He nods encouragingly. “He probably knows a bit about computers.”

  Vaughan snorts at this. “A bit?” He thinks about it, smiles. “Oh, a bit! I get it. Quite good!”

  Alex looks him up and down. “We’re not lacking in talent at Umfraville, if you haven’t already noticed. Don’t you think that if anyone had the skills to effectively hide something like that, they would have done it already? What makes you so certain your site could stay hidden?”

  “Because it already is.” Vaughan points his dagger at the laptop. “Wi-Fi. Are we capable here?”

  “Only just,” Marcia says. “We put signal boosters on the cliff, directing the signal down from Main House, but it’s patchy.”

  “Well done you,” Vaughan says, moving to the laptop. “May I?” he asks no one in particular and brings up the Umfraville home page. He taps away with his slim, quick fingers. “Et voila. A portal.”

  A piece of art pops up on the screen. Seeing as art is the only thing I know anything about, I recognize it. It’s by William Blake. My tastes are pretty modern, but this guy I like; he knows his spooky all right. And this picture doesn’t disappoint. It’s of a wood, with two people walking through it, and three weird owl creatures sitting in the trees. And on first glance you don’t necessarily see it, but the trees are made of people. There are faces and body parts in the trunks, as if they are trapped there. It’s heavy stuff. I can’t remember the title, but is it something to do with murders?

  “Excuse the obviousness. I couldn’t resist.” Vaughan moves his mouse in a pattern over the owl creatures, then clicks on something and a password prompt shows up over the signature at the bottom. He types something quickly, and the picture explodes in a thousand pixels. It is replaced by a faded-red background with a watermarked image of a skull and the header, CRYPT, at the top. Below there is what looks like a news feed, with pictures down the side.

  “When I knew I’d be coming here, I hacked the Umfraville intranet and built this. I’ve been updating regularly. Rather a strange business, posting while no one’s watching. If a tree falls in the forest and nobody is there to hear it, does it make a sound?” He grins. “This site went live four months ago. Plenty of time to have shown up on the radar by now.”

  “Some of that was break.” Alex is reading the screen, shaking his head. “Nobody would be looking.”

  “Wrong,” Vaughan said. “The school intranet had a lot of tinkering over the summer. They had someone do some serious coding to keep the likes of me out. Nobody noticed I was already there.”

  Marcia guffaws. “I have a couple kids on the newspaper who always have their heads in the intranet, trying to hack out into the net or, er, into school records.” She shrugs at us, semi-apologetically. “‘Crypt’ has been live four months, you say?” She raises a thick eyebrow at Vaughan, and he nods at her. “That’s more than enough time for my guys to have found it.” Her dark-brown eyes flick to Alex. “He must be very good indeed to hide it for so long.” She leans in and starts scrolling through the feed, clicking on links to other pages. “This is incredible. There’re so many possibilities, Alex!”

  “It won’t last.” Rick is showing his disapproval by not looking at the laptop, at Vaughan, or at anyone. “Even the fact you just shot your mouth off to the Guild. They’ll talk, the staff will hear, and they’ll kill it.”

  “The Guild will talk? Tsk.” Vaughan shakes his head. “I thought this was a secret society? No matter. If anyone outside does get wind of it, they still won’t find it.” He stands up and flourishes a hand at the screen. “Say bye-bye!” He hits a couple keys and the screen flickers back to the Umfraville intranet home page. He turns his back and begins to walk away. As he reaches the way out, he turns and looks at us, dramatically.

  “You take the next twenty-four hours and look for the network. Get your best minds on it. If you find any trace, any trace whatsoever—if you even find the portal, the William Blake page—fine, I won’t join. But if you don’t—and you won’t—then I’m in. Do we have a deal?”

  Alex’s jaw clenches, his chest puffs out ever so slightly. He’s still faking the laid-back ’tude, but if you know where to look, you can read his indecision. “It’s sad, Vaughan, because I almost like your swagger. You’ve got stones, I’ll give you that. But that’s all I’ll give you, because we will find the site. You think you’re some computer hotshot? You’re at Umfraville now. You’re not special; you’re just the norm. So better get used to it.”

  Vaughan blinks. “Er. OK.” He laughs. “So nice to find a place where I fit in.” He looks at me. “Especially among old friends.” He chucks the dagger in the sand at my feet. “Have fun looking, Alex.” He winks at him. “Because I know you will.”

  And he’s gone.

  Chapter 7

  I spend Sunday hiding. Hiding from the Killer, hiding from Daniel, hiding from Vaughan and questions about Vaughan that inevitably will come my way from Marcia and Alex. I camp out in the art studio and get a lot done. Mr. Flynn will be delighted with me.

  On Sunday night I dream of being stuck up a tree in the garden where I used to live, before we moved away. I’m shouting for Vaughan to come and help me, which is stupid because, in reality, it never worked that way. He was always the one who was stuck. That’s not the case anymore. And in my dream, he doesn’t come. Daniel appears at the foot of the tree, but he doesn’t see me. He just sits at the bottom and weeps and weeps. I feel awful. Bad about being stuck and bad that I don’t want Daniel to see me there.

  Yeah. The alarm screeches, and I wake up in a super mood.

  But not as bad as Marcia. Marcia and I share a dorm, and she is not a morning person. There are days when I literally have to drag her out of bed before our housemistress comes in and gives her a detention for lateness. For a progressive school, we still have some pretty archaic ideas about scheduling. Genius does not keep ordinary hours, but for the most part, Umfraville does. I don’t like getting up any more than the next healthy teenager, but mostly I’m grateful for the normality of routine.

  This week though, Marcia and I are on wake-up duty. Each dormitory rotates, and lucky us, it’s our turn. Our dorm is on the corner of the east corridor and the south corridor of the girls’ wing, and we divide and conquer by 7:15 a.m., then shed our jammies and head for the shower room.

  “I hate Mondays. And it’s so cold.” Marcia shivers as we walk down the hall; she’s naked under her tightly wrapped camel-colo
red towel, and is wearing fluffy pink bunny slippers on her feet. “And it’s only September! I will never get used to it.”

  It’s a little chilly, she’s right; I pull my dressing gown collar in a little. The school’s radiators are probably originals. They are scorching to the touch but do little to heat the rooms. The plumbing is ancient too. If our showers are anything other than lukewarm this morning, then that will be a win.

  “Are you awake enough to tell me what the Elders decided about Vaughan?” I whisper. I have been dying to ask her. She didn’t get into the dorm until close to lights out and didn’t say a word to me last night. “Did you find the site? Was that what you were doing all yesterday?”

  Marcia rolls her big browns at me. “Have you talked to Vaughan?”

  I shake my head. “I haven’t seen him since Saturday night in the cave.”

  “And you guys were friends at home?”

  “We were eight.” I keep looking straight ahead. “I haven’t seen him since we moved away.”

  “I know you haven’t, lady,” Marcia singsongs. “Otherwise I would have heard about him. Talk about fine. Crazy, but muy hermoso.” She whistles.

  For some reason, this makes me blush, but luckily we reach the bathroom, so I can turn away from her. Already there’s activity. There are only seven shower cubicles, and all are occupied. The trick is to try to get one as close to the window side of the room as possible. That’s the start of the line, and that’s where the water is hottest. By the time the water makes its way to the last cubicle, it’s goose bumps and icy nips all around.

  “OK, do not say anything, but I’ll tell you this.” Marcia drops her sponge bag on the tiled floor beside me as we stand in line for the showers. “We couldn’t find the site.” Her voice is so low I almost can’t hear it over the noise of the water running. “Everyone was on it all weekend. Alex and I even broke into Ms. Lasillo’s office to access her machine and the main server. No trace. Vaughan has got skills.”

  “So is he in?”

  Marcia looks at me sharply. “You want him to be?” When I don’t reply, she continues. “We’ll see. Alex is keen as hell on the site, but it’s how to break protocol and ask Vaughan in without losing face. Some of the others are dead against it. Rick, mainly.”

  I don’t know whether to be pleased or afraid. A big part of me is very uncomfortable with Vaughan being at Umfraville, because he’s a part of the old me, and his very presence reminds me of how I once failed him. But as long as he is here, maybe it would be good to have him in the Guild.

  Marcia looks at the cubicles, frowning. “What’s taking everyone so long?”

  Monday morning reluctance to get into cold water, that’s what.

  Becky—one of my fellow apprentices—has the prime cubicle, as always. Up early, hitting the track, working those already-perfect muscles. Her reward is the hottest shower, and it’s only fitting. She’s altogether a hot kind of girl. She speaks six languages fluently, has a banging figure and the shiniest black hair you ever did see, and she plays the flippin’ harp. She was a shoo-in at the Guild’s harvest—first to be selected, I’m sure. I think she’ll probably end up Secretary-General of the UN, but for now she’s every straight Umfraville boy’s dream girl.

  And what they wouldn’t give to see what I can see. She casually discards her bright-yellow towel over the hook by the cubicle, and I marvel at the perfect caramel skin, long limbs, and gentle curves. She sets the water running and steps tentatively into the shower. The door shuts and the steam rises and fogs the glass.

  “Aargh!”

  A dripping head sticks out of the cubicle at the other end of the line. Tesha.

  “It’s running cold!” she screams, water bouncing off her curls, eyes glaring down the line in the direction of Becky’s shower.

  There’s no response. Tesha ducks inside again, knowing how futile it would be to protest further. Becky can’t help that her shower sucks the heat out of everyone else’s any more than she can help that her cleverness and her beauty cast everyone else in the shade. It’s true, she makes sure she bags that shower every single morning, she lingers over undressing, often spending several minutes twisting her licorice hair into a shiny knot on the top of her head before peeling off her towel and stepping in. And then once showering, she makes sure she spends just enough time in there to wind everyone up, but not enough time for anyone to call her on it. I glance at the cubicle, seeing her hands moving behind the steamed glass, massaging shampoo into that lovely hair, the suds appearing in the drain outside the cubicle. One of the hands reaches out to the glass door to steady herself. Her palm bleaches on the glass, and then…I see the red.

  Red.

  Becky’s palm on the glass squishes the red, and it runs down the inside of the door. Red drips down the glass in long, graceful drips. The suds in the drain have turned deep pink. I gasp and take a small step toward the cubicle. Behind the steam, I can see the red better now, running down her body, dripping off her hair. Has she cut herself? She doesn’t even realize it. Should I tell her—?

  “¡Dios mío! What’s that?” Marcia has seen it too.

  The other girls in the line look, and there’s a buzz of noise.

  Becky’s scream cuts through everything. The door flies open, and she stumbles out, holding her hands in front of her in horror, blood and shampoo suds running down her glistening body.

  “What is happening?” she howls, blood pooling on the white tiles.

  Someone—Whitney—runs up to her, grabbing the yellow towel and throwing it around her shoulders, someone else holds her arms, searching for the wound.

  “My hair! Is it coming from my head?” Becky wails.

  “No, it’s not,” Marcia says quietly, beside me. I follow her gaze; she’s looking at the shower cubicle. The door is still open, the water still on. And it is red. Blood flowing from the showerhead.

  More people notice—those who were still in their showers abandoning them, gathering to look at the blood shower. I glance down the line of showers. The rest of the water runs clear.

  “Killer,” Marcia mutters to me. She pushes through the crowd, walks up to the shower, and turns it off, all business. “Becky, you’ve been Killed.”

  “What?!”

  The showerhead is removed, red powder paint turned to goo is discovered. Becky’s fear turns to rage, then to laughter, and finally to disappointment. She’s out of the Game, and what’s worse, she was first.

  Showers are hurriedly finished, and we all head back to our dorms to dress. The halls are alive with the news.

  “You should see her face. She’s all stained!”

  “Is she ever going to get that stuff out of her hair?”

  “How did the Killer know she’d be in that shower?”

  “Becky’s always in that one!”

  “Still, the Killer must be a girl! Who else could know it would be a Guild member in that shower?”

  I close our door behind Marcia and, my heart beating fast, we start to get dressed.

  “Thus it begins.” I can’t help the excitement I feel. “You think it is a girl? Kind of specialized knowledge.”

  Marcia raises an eyebrow at me. “Not necessarily. Remember after sports day last term, when we all went to the cliffs for a smoke? Bunch of kids joking with Becky about how she always grabs that shower? It was this whole big laugh. Most of the Guild would have been there; anyone could have heard.”

  “Wow. You have a good memory.” I blink at her. “Unless you’re trying to deceive me, of course. You could be the Killer.”

  “Or you could be.” She smiles at me. “And you’re faking not remembering the conversation.”

  “I couldn’t have got my act together so quickly.” I shake my head. “It’s only Monday! No way was I expecting things to kick off just yet.”

  “Sometimes it’s like that.”

>   “But the preparation!” I say. “This Killer had stuff up their sleeve, just in case they were chosen.”

  “Meh.” Marcia shrugs. “Red powder paint in the shower? Easy. Done a couple times in the nineties. The kid just had to duck into the art studio and voila!” She looks at me, fake realizing. “Oooh! Art studio!”

  I laugh. “No, it’d be too obvious!” I wish I could tell her I’m not the Killer. I wish she could reassure me that she isn’t.

  Later that day, Becky’s black wristband is found nailed to the common room bulletin board. First Kill. First player down and out, and the place is jumping. Becky is a minor celebrity; at first she is embarrassed, but as the news spreads through the school, it’s obvious she starts to like the attention. By the time the day is through, I reckon she’s lapping it up.

  After lessons are over for the day, I get my first real chance to do some sleuthing, solo style. I go to the dormitories; there’s never anyone around at this time of day. I make a beeline for the showers.

  I open the door to the bathroom, and he is standing there. Vaughan. Hands on hips, looking at the row of showers. I shut the door quietly behind us.

  “Becky always chooses the same shower?” He doesn’t turn around.

  “You are going to get into so much trouble if you’re found here,” I say quietly, walking up behind him. “You’re lucky it was me. How did you know it was me anyway?”

  He turns, looks me up and down in that way again, smiles. “I dunno. Pheromones?” Before I can respond, he turns and goes to the windows. “All but the tiniest of windows are locked down and painted over. Probably some major flouting of fire regulations, but Ezra doesn’t strike me as someone who gives a flying fairy about that kind of thing.” He feels along all the window ledges. “At least we know the Killer didn’t enter here.”

  “Er, no.” I join him. “But then, why would she have to if she could just walk through the door?”

  “Ah!” Vaughan says. “But that’s assuming it is a she!”

  “And you’re assuming not?” I say. “The probability is that the Killer is female. This Kill was set up at night, and that means no easy access for anyone with a Y chromosome. Plus, us gals all know Bec’s routine. And look at the numbers: thirteen Guild members—not counting Alex, who can’t be the Killer—eight are girls, only five are boys.”