Spirit Prophecy
Page 33
Our rescue by the Caomhnóir had been cold and efficient. In fact, other than brusquely ensuring we were not hurt, not one of them had spoken a single word to us. Before I could say anything else to Finn, before I could beg him, even with one last look, to stick to my story, Savvy and I were led up the embankment, ushered into a car, and driven away. My last glimpse, as we peeled out into traffic, was of Finn walking around the still smoking wreck and pointing to various parts of it as one of the Caomhnóir scribbled in a small, black notebook.
Had he told them everything? Would they guess what was going on? And what would happen to Annabelle, Pierce, or Tia if they did? My stomach was churning, and I was suddenly fighting the urge to be sick. I swallowed convulsively.
“Thanks for sticking with my story,” I whispered to Savvy when it felt safe again to open my mouth.
“You got it,” Savvy said with a wink. She winked more than anyone I’d ever met, and the fact that she could still pull it off, with what must still have been a sky-high blood alcohol content, was impressive. “I’m no snitch. Besides, no one’s going to have a problem believing I went out in search of a good time.”
“Psst! Jess!”
Milo was hovering just around the corner, beckoning to me.
“What is it, Milo? I can’t talk right now, I have to —”
“This is really important!” he said.
I half-stood to see what he wanted, but just then, the door beside us swung wide, and Finn stalked out of it. He brushed by us without so much as a glance of acknowledgment, and disappeared around the corner just as a voice inside the room called, “Jessica. Savannah. Come in, please.”
I turned back to Milo. “Wait for me here,” I said. “I’ll be right back, if they don’t kill us. In which case I will probably be right back anyway.”
He made an impatient noise, but nodded as we stood up, Savvy a bit unsteadily, and turned to face our doom. Marion stood before us, her face pale with rage. She leaned forward and placed both hands on the polished wood surface of the conference table, her fingernails drumming.
I groaned inwardly. Of course it was Marion. Because that was exactly the kind of luck that I had. “Well, I’d like to say that I’m surprised to be standing here, but that would be categorically untrue.”
She pierced us with the kind of icy glare meant to make mere mortals squirm. I glared back. Savannah was actually smiling in an amused sort of way.
“I need hardly tell you why you are here, so let me rather begin by expressing my deep, deep disappointment. Do you have any appreciation at all for the seriousness of this situation?”
I said nothing, not knowing yet exactly what Marion thought the situation was. Savvy, on the other hand, chose that moment to pop her gum loudly, which we all took to mean “no.”
“You have both been on very thin ice since you arrived here. Savannah, you have shown nothing but the most blatant disregard for every single rule and regulation we have implemented here, despite the fact that most of them are for your own and others’ safety. I’m just not sure at this point what we can say or do to make you realize the gravity of what you’ve agreed to in coming here.”
She paused and raised an expectant eyebrow.
Savvy snapped to mock attention. “Sorry, was that a question?”
Marion’s eyes narrowed. “What do you have to say for yourself?”
“Only this,” Savvy said, crossing her arms. “If it had been made clear to me that I was gonna be cooped up here in the middle of this godforsaken wilderness with nothing to do and nowhere to do it, I’d have said thanks, but no thanks.”
“Your responsibilities were made clear to you,” Marion said with a dismissive wave of her hand.
“Sure, they explained about the ghosts. I know I’ve got to cross ‘em over, and I’ve agreed to learn how to do it. I know how bad it is for them to be trapped here, and I know how important it is for me to step up and do this job. But no one told me about the boundaries and the lectures and the bleeding curfews. Hell, we’re not children!”
“Your behavior thus far contradicts that statement,” Marion said. “The rules are the rules here, and you will abide by them or you will be shown the door.”
“Oh, I know where it is, thanks, and I’m about ready to walk out of it myself!” Savvy said, stepping aggressively forward. I grabbed her arm and pulled her back to stand beside me, and though she yanked it out of my grip, she stayed where she was.
“I’m sorry to say that threat is empty,” Marion said. “You’ve begun the journey here, and we must tolerate you until you finish it. But until that happy day, you will abide by our rules or suffer the consequences.”
Savvy rolled her eyes but did not retort.
Perhaps seeing that she would get nowhere with Savannah, Marion turned to me.
“Jessica, you owe us all an explanation for the considerable trouble you’ve put everyone through tonight. I’ve already spoken to Finn, as you very well know, and he has informed me that this little excursion was all your idea.”
Damn it, Finn.
Marion walked around the desk, closing most of the distance between us. I took an involuntary step back. “I must say that I was not expecting to hear this, seeing as Ms. Todd is our resident party animal. I thought surely she must have talked you into one of her outings. I’ve taken you for many things, Jessica, but that was never one of them.”
I squirmed, but kept quiet, fighting the impulse to shout down her accusations. It was harder than I’d imagined, sticking to my own cover story in the face of someone like Marion.
“Well? What possible explanation can you give?”
I cleared my throat a bit and found my voice lurking in the back. “We’re all under a lot of pressure here. I just needed a night to unwind, without any responsibility.”
“Well, responsibility is certainly one thing you completely ignored, I think we can both agree on that point,” Marion said with a tittering little laugh that put my teeth on edge. “You led a fellow Apprentice, however willing, to sneak off campus and engage in the worst kind of excesses, and for what? A good time? And did you have a good time, Jessica? Was it all kinds of fun, being harassed by inebriated men and then run off the road and nearly killed by a driver who, most unfortunately, shares your complete lack of self-control in the face of alcohol?”
I started to answer and then halted, completely wrong-footed. “I… what?”
“Perhaps you are still having too much fun to understand me?” Marion suggested, her voice sagging with the weight of her own sarcasm. “I asked if a car wreck with a drunk driver qualifies as an appropriate activity with which to ‘unwind’?”
“Did Finn tell you that?”
“Of course!” Marion said. “You didn’t think he’d try to cover for you, did you? I must say, your understanding of the Caomhnóir/Durupinen dynamic is sadly lacking. Finn Carey is under no obligation to lie for you, or to in any way make excuses for your abominable behavior. His one and only job is to protect you. You might think about him before you make that job quite so difficult.”
I couldn’t believe it. I’d been so convinced that he would tell them everything.
I tried to pull myself together before I rendered Finn’s unexpected loyalty pointless by blowing my own cover story. “How is Finn?”
“Your concern is too little, too late, I must say. His Caomhnóir superiors will deal with him and his own questionable decisions. You should be worried about yourself at this point, and what your late night jaunt will mean for your future at Fairhaven.”
I cast my eyes down and tried to look contrite; there were plenty of appropriate moments to rebel and show my general contempt for Marion, but now was not one of them, not when she had the power to make my life measurably more unpleasant than it already was.
“Have you anything else to say in your defense?”
I took a deep breath, more to give an impression of penitence than anything else. “We just wanted a night out. Had things gone the w
ay we had planned them, I think it would have been a pretty harmless excursion. We could have been caught and reprimanded, but no one would have been hurt or really even inconvenienced. We might be able to see ghosts, but we aren’t psychic, and we could never in a million years have predicted how the night would turn out, and if we had, we certainly never would have gone through with it. I’m really sorry for all of the trouble we put everyone through, especially Finn and the other Caomhnóir.”
Marion kept silent, staring at me expectantly as though I’d stopped speaking midsentence.
“I…don’t really know what else to say,” I said. “We’re sorry, we really are.” I found Savvy’s foot with mine and kicked it. She started and added, “Yes, very sorry indeed. Yep.”
“Very well, if that’s really all you have to say for yourselves,” Marion said. She retreated around the desk and flipped open a file folder that had been laying on it. She started writing in it as she spoke, “I’m sorry that you both find your duties here so taxing and that you can find no constructive way to spend your free time that will not endanger your lives and the lives of others. To that end, I will be recommending to the Council that you both be put on work detail for the next month during free periods. Perhaps if you are more constructively engaged, you will better appreciate your role here. We shall also have to determine how you will make reparations to the Caomhnóir for the loss of their vehicle.”
Savvy opened her mouth, presumably to argue, but I kicked her again, harder this time, and she closed it with a snap and proceeded to fume is silence.
Marion set down her pen and ran one long, perfectly-manicured finger over her mouth before speaking again. She seemed to be weighing her words carefully, no doubt torn between what she ought to say to us as an administrator and what she’d like to say as a person who hated us on principle. She then smiled, a strange phenomenon in a face that did not seem to crease regardless of expression. It made her mouth look oddly disembodied. “It really is too bad. There are some among the Council who would have all clans on equal footing. They would suggest that history, tradition, and service should have no weight, that each clan should be treated with the very same level of respect and given the same opportunities. And here you stand before me, proving them absolutely and incontrovertibly wrong. How very disappointed they’ll all be. I really ought to be thanking you for proving my point.”
“Glad to be of service,” I said.
Savvy curtseyed elaborately. “Is that all?”
“Yes, that is all. You will be notified of the details of your punishment as soon as they have been decided. In the meantime, you should both consider yourselves on probation and tread carefully from here on out. Another breach of this nature will not be tolerated.”
“Is that a promise?” Savvy asked.
I grabbed her arm and pulled her out the door before Marion could call us back or berate us any further.
Milo was bobbing with a manic sort of energy outside the door when we walked back through it and closed it behind us. I let out a long sigh of relief.
“Still alive, I see,” he said.
“Yeah, thanks to Finn,” I said. “He covered for us. I can’t believe it.”
“Well ponder his charity later, I have something important to tell you!” Milo said, throwing his hands in the air in characteristically dramatic fashion.
“Right, sorry. What is it?”
“I saw who was driving the car that hit us!” Milo cried.
My jaw dropped. “You’re kidding me! How did you manage that?”
“He was ramming the car, and the windows were all tinted, and I suddenly thought to myself, maybe I can just pop into his car and freak him out! Scare him or distract him, you know, so that you guys could get away. So I tried it. He couldn’t see me at all, even though I was trying to manifest, but I sure as hell saw him. But then he hit you guys and I went for help, and —”
“Who was it? Was it someone we know?”
“It wasn’t anyone I’d ever seen before, but I think I could show him to you.”
“How?”
“We could use your gift. I could try to send the image to you and see if you can draw it.”
“Milo you’re a genius!” I cried.
Milo shrugged. “This I knew, but I’m glad you’re coming around.”
“Let’s go!” I said. “My sketchpad is right here in my bag.”
We arrived in our room out of breath to find Hannah practically in a state of nervous collapse. I sat her down and explained everything that had happened, assuring her that we were not going to be kicked out, and that everything was okay.
“Jess, I was so scared. I thought you were dead,” she sobbed into my shoulder.
“I’m not even hurt. Seriously, Hannah everything is okay.” I looked over the top of her trembling head to see that she had obsessively organized the entire room in my absence, something she hadn’t done nearly at all in weeks. “I’m so sorry. I’m sorry we scared you.”
“It’s okay,” she said with a shuddering sigh. It’s okay, I’m glad you’re safe,” she said, rubbing at her streaming eyes with her sleeve.
“Right now we have to try something,” I said, extracting myself from her vice-like grip. “Milo saw the driver of the car, and I want to see if I can get a good drawing of him.”
I spread several sheets of paper on the floor around me and fished a charcoal pencil out of my bag. “Okay, Milo. I need you to concentrate as hard as you can on just one image of him, the clearest one you can remember. Try not to get distracted, and concentrate on the details. I’m going to focus myself and see if we can get anything down on paper.”
I took a deep breath. I half-wished Fiona was here to oversee this, to make sure I was doing it right, but she’d probably just yell at me and rip up the results anyway.
“Ready?” I asked.
“I don’t know,” Milo said. “I don’t really know how to do this.”
“Neither do I,” I admitted. “Anytime it has happened before, I wasn’t even aware of it. But Fiona said that the harder you concentrate on sending the image and the more I concentrate on receiving it, the better the odds that I’ll get something on paper.”
“Okay, I’ll try,” Milo said.
I closed my eyes and rested the tip of the charcoal pencil on the paper. Then I cleared my mind and tried to reach out beyond myself to where Milo was, opening myself to him and what he wanted to show me.
The next thing I knew, the pencil dropped from my hand which was cramped into a fist. I clutched at the seizing muscles and tried to pull my fingers straight.
“Jess! Are you okay?”
I groaned, massaging my hand. “It worked didn’t it?” I asked. “Damn it, that hurts!”
“That was one of the coolest things I’ve ever seen!” Milo said. “Your hand was moving so fast it was a blur! Don’t you remember doing it?”
“Not a stroke,” I said, looking around on the floor now for the result. My eyes fell on the paper to my right and I gasped.
“Neil!”
It was Neil Caddigan, there was absolutely no doubt. He stared up at me with his cold, pale eyes from the floor as if he were looking up through a window. His expression was hungry and fierce, so unlike any expression I’d ever seen him wear in life, when he’d appeared so calm, so scholarly.
“Do you know him?” Hannah asked, stunned.
“Yes,” I breathed. "This is the guy I’ve been trying to get in touch with, the team member I told you was from England. And he was walking in to Pierce’s office on the last day I saw him, the last day anyone saw him.”
“What is that symbol there on his shirt?” Hannah asked sharply.
I followed her gaze below Neil’s face to a small insignia near his throat.
“It wasn’t on the shirt, it was a pin or something,” Milo said.
I stared at it. It was familiar, but I couldn’t place it. The symbol looked like an archway with a ring encircling both sides of the threshold.
I stared at it again. She was right. My head swam and my stomach heaved. I closed my eyes and put my head down between my legs. Neil Caddigan was a Necromancer, and he had found me. He had tried to kill me. And if he had been the last one to see Pierce alive…“I’m going to be sick.”
I jumped up and ran across the hall to the bathroom. I skidded to my knees in front of the toilet and was violently ill, retching and heaving until there was nothing left in me but crippling fear and worry.
“They’re supposed to be gone,” I said. “They’re supposed to be dead and gone. Why are they suddenly back again, and what would they want with us?”
Hannah knelt behind me, stroking my hair. “I don’t know. Jess, we have to tell someone.”
“Who? Who do we tell? No one’s going to believe us, and even if they did, what can they do?”
“They can use their resources. They can help you find Pierce. They know so much more about the Necromancers than we do, they might be able to help. And they’ll want to protect us, Jess. If the Necromancers are really back then they need to know.”
“I can’t think,” I said. “I can’t think, I need to sleep,” I said. “We can talk about it later. We need to be careful who we talk to, and I don’t want to do anything rash.”
“Half the Durupinen in this place already want you both out of here,” Milo said. “If they know the Necromancers are after you, they might throw you to the wolves just to protect themselves.”
“They would never do that,” Hannah said harshly. Milo shrugged but looked unconvinced. “So far I haven’t seen a lot of loyalty in this happy little sisterhood, especially toward you.”
“I need to lie down. I need to sleep,” I repeated.
“It’ll be okay, Jess. It will be okay,” Hannah intoned, still stroking my hair.
But she couldn’t know that. Nobody could.
My dreams that night had one, disturbing difference. The Silent Child stood where she always stood, before the wall of flames. But now a second figure stood beside her, his hand resting on her shoulder, a malicious smile narrowing his pale, silvery eyes.