Around us, the auditorium bore the scars of my rage. My fire had blown massive holes in the wood of the stage. The curtains no longer existed, save for thin ribbons of torn fabric dangling from the rings. The orchestra pit was just a gaping hole exposing bare rock beneath. There didn’t seem to be a single seat in the audience that wasn’t mangled or broken or torn from its brackets.
“That’s why we need Ataturk. He knows all about ancient wossits. He’d figure this out.” Quinn pulled a bag of weed from his pocket and proceeded to roll a joint. I glared at him.
“What?” Quinn looked down at his joint. “No one’s gonna notice. This whole place reeks of smoke.”
He wasn’t wrong. The scent of fire scratched the back of my throat. Hot air clung to my skin as if somewhere in the room, the flames still burned. Unlike the fire that gutted my old apartment building, there was no damp furniture or buckled floors from the water sprayed in by firefighters. No firefighters had been called. The fire had burned itself out… somehow.
Stop calling it the fire as if it is somehow an accident. It wasn’t the fire. It’s my fire.
And it didn’t burn out. I poured it into that pillar. I sucked the flames and the heat from the room and gave it to that strange obelisk. And I’ve got no fucking idea why.
I picked my way across the ruined stage, staring up at the pillar. Is it my imagination, or has it grown since we fled the auditorium? Fresh cracks latticed themselves across the ceiling, and the top of the sigil had disappeared into the roof above.
I jumped down from the stage, picking my way around mangled chairs and singed carpet. The pillar called to me, drawing me into its dark depths. The rest of the room receded as I leaned close, studying the polished surface of the stone.
Quinn called out to me, but I ignored him. I pressed my fingers to the stone.
Something inside pressed back.
The god tugged inside my head, his cry without form or meaning. For the first time since I’d stared into the void, I had a sense of him as he was, right now – not as he liked to show me in his visions. He slumbered in his prison, teetering on the brink of death, but could a god made of the stars even die? He’d collapsed in upon himself in his prison – a black hole of cruel energy growing denser and more dangerous as he faded. In his dreams, he called to me, the same way I called to him…
A thread of darkness poured through the pillar, coiling around my fingers. It stretched down, down, down, to the slumbering god at the other end. The pillar connected us somehow, but I didn’t understand. Weren’t we already connected by our dreams?
Scritch-scritch. Scritch-scritch.
That wasn’t the god speaking. I tore my eyes from the depths of the stone to glance over my shoulder. The familiar scrabbling of tiny rodent feet called me back from the hum. Trey and Quinn dived for cover as rats leaped over the chairs, tumbling down the aisle and catapulting from the stage. They circled the pillar, their noses turned toward me – twitching, expectant.
Scritch-scritch-scritch-scritch-scritttttttttch.
I hadn’t seen them since the day we found Greg and Zehra, when they let me to my friends and showed me the names they’d scrawled in the wall. But they followed us across the school to the auditorium, and there had to be a reason for that. The rats always looked after me. They urged me forward when I was on the right track, and forced me back when I was about to do something stupid. Why are they here? What do they know about the pillar?
They circled the pillar, spinning in alternate circles before breaking in half. They formed up two jagged lines, rearing up on their hind paws before running and crashing into each other, forming a mass of indistinguishable bodies. They separated along the same jagged line, creating a gap down the middle like a lightning strike. As I watched in amazement, they ran at each other again and again, their bodies fitting together into one big mass before separating once more.
What are they showing me? It’s like a zipper being pulled or… or…
Hands wrapped around my waist, tearing me away. My fingers scraped at the pillar, desperate to retain my tether to the god. But they grabbed only air. I yelled as the darkness tore from my mind, flaring pain across my temples.
“You shouldn’t touch that thing,” Trey whispered. “You don’t know what it does.”
“Actually, I think I do.” I grinned down at the rats, who had stopped their strange dance and stared up at me expectantly. You guys always have the answers, if only I’d listen. “It’s a lock. And I’m the key.”
Chapter Five
“A key to what?” Trey asked as we slipped out of the auditorium.
I shrugged. “I could start guessing. The destruction of all humankind. A treasure chest of unimaginable riches. An entire mansion filled with gummy bears.”
“What are the chances it’s the latter?” Quinn had his eyebrow raised in his cheeky way, but there was no smile in his voice. He looked completely rattled.
We rounded the corner, our voices echoing in the vast atrium as we took the marble stairs down to the ground floor. “You’re right about one thing, Quinn.” My gaze flicked over to the blinking screens that hung over the staircase, flashing the class lists with their scores. Ayaz’s name was at the top of the list, with Tillie Fairchild underneath him. I could have beaten them both, if this was a normal school and points weren’t awarded just for being rich, and Trey would’ve wiped the floor with Ayaz if he hadn’t given me half his points to save me. “If anyone can figure out what this pillar is about, it’s Ayaz. We need him. We need—”
A dark shadow stepped in front of me, blocking our path. Not one of the god’s shadows – this one was pure flesh and blood and human evil.
Pale hands reached up to flick back a black hood, revealing the cruel, hard face of the Deadmistress.
I spun around, but more robed figures teamed up the stairs, black robes flapping as they moved to surround us, blocking our exits.
I turned back to the first shadow. Ms. West flashed me her cold smile. Her talons tightened around my shoulder. “Well, well, well. Hazel Waite returns.”
Chapter Six
The Deadmistress folded her arms and studied me with those piercing eyes of hers. “That was quite a stunt you pulled, Ms. Waite. I don’t believe the senior Eldritch Club will set foot in this school ever again.”
“Good.” I folded my own arms, hoping they’d disguise my heart thundering inside my chest. “If you’re trying to make me feel guilty, you’ve failed.”
I’m already drowning in guilt for much worse crimes, for the things I’ve done while my fire burned bright that haunt me once the flames died down. This doesn’t even register.
“Oh, no.” A smile played across her lips. “I’m pleased to see you. Your little performance has worked nicely into my own plans. I think you and I might be able to help each other, Miss Murderess.”
Is she serious? Help her with what? I remembered the faculty arranging to kidnap Courtney’s mother. I assumed my ‘little performance’ would stop their ridiculous plan, but maybe it hadn’t? I hadn’t seen Gloria since the fire started. I don’t remember seeing her in any of the cars, but in the chaos of the pillar and my fire I might not have noticed. I probably created the perfect opportunity for the teachers to grab her. The smile playing on Ms. West’s face certainly suggested so.
I might’ve played right into her plans.
So what? I don’t care.
We’d achieved what we intended – for better or worse, the students of Miskatonic Prep knew the truth about their parents, and I’d had my revenge by bringing down a reign of terror on those who’d tried to terrify me. “Oh yeah? Seeming as you’re the one who sent me away to Dunwich and tried to make me believe I was insane, how do you figure that?”
She waved a dismissive hand. “That was Vincent’s grand scheme to neutralize your influence on his sons and the god. I told him it was too risky, that you would be better kept here for close study, but he underestimated you. Men like him often do when confronted b
y clever women like us.”
I narrowed my eyes. “Don’t pretend we’re rah-rah feminism buddies. Not after the things you’ve done.”
It shouldn’t have been possible, but her eyebrow arched even higher. That thing was like the Arc de Triomphe. “The things I’ve done? That’s high praise from a girl who burned her mother and best friend alive, who just tried to raze a room filled with her classmates because she couldn’t control her anger.” Ms. West took a deep bow. “Hazel Waite, I am not worthy.”
“I know about Arkham General Hospital. I know that you were forced to resign because you experimented on bodies in the morgue. I know Vincent and the hospital board let you off and brought you here even though you’re not a qualified teacher. And I know that it was your experiments and not the god that are responsible for the hell each of these students now endures.”
“Hell? I gave them a great gift.” Something flashed in her eyes. Part anger, part admiration. “I see we both hold each other’s secrets, Ms. Waite. Very well, if you come to my office, I will give you a full account of what your little stunt may have unleashed. Mr. Bloomberg and Mr. Delacorte may join you.”
“Not before we see Ayaz.”
“Your friends have barricaded him inside the infirmary. With wounds like that, he’s unlikely to be responsive for hours or days yet. Come if you want your answers. Stay if you want to be torn to pieces when the students return inside. No one rewards a revealer of ugly truths, Ms. Waite.”
Ms. West turned on her heel and flounced into the shadows. Even though I hated myself for it, I scrambled after her, registering Trey and Quinn falling into quick steps behind me.
“Hazy, wait up!” Quinn’s boots beat a fast rhythm on the marble as we turned into the faculty wing.
I exchanged a glance with Trey and Quinn. “One of you should find Loretta and Andre, see if Ayaz is all right.”
“We’re not leaving your side.” Quinn huffed as he came up alongside me. I noticed that he still didn’t touch me, unlike Trey, who slipped his fingers through mine and squeezed. “You’re fast when you’re after a maniacal Dr. Frankenstein.”
“Quinnanigans has a point. Why are we following her?” Trey growled. “She should be running with the Eldritch Club.”
“She’s got nowhere to run,” I said. “She’s just as trapped as the rest of us. And we’re following her because she has Greg and Zehra. And because she’s done something to Ayaz’s memories. Also, there’s a huge-ass obelisk in the auditorium and we need answers.”
We ducked into the darkened corridor, our feet sinking into lush red carpet as we kept our distance from Ms. West. Her swirling black skirts flicked around a corner, past locked offices and pigeonholes for internal mail, past a dusty suit of armor and her secretary’s desk to the twin wooden doors of her office. She shoved them open and beckoned us inside.
The guys flanked me as I stood in front of her desk. Ms. West shut and bolted the door. Tension plucked the air taut. I didn’t want to be here – I longed to lay eyes on Ayaz, to make sure he was okay. The guilt of what I’d done to him gnawed at my gut.
Ms. West crossed to a wooden cart and lifted a crystal decanter filled with brown liquid. “Drink?”
“I’m not touching anything poured from your hand to my lips,” I spat.
“Funny. You never have a problem with the dining hall food I supply.” Ms. West licked her lips as she sipped her drink. “Perhaps I should simply cut off the food and see how you and your friends fare.”
I snapped my mouth shut. Even now, she still had some power over us. Trey and Quinn and the Miskatonic Prep students didn’t need food, but Loretta and Greg and Andre and I still did.
“I’ll take a drink,” Quinn quipped. I glared at him. He shrugged. “What? That’s a fine Scotch, and poison can’t hurt me. Besides, I don’t want to be cut off from the bacon. It still smells amazing.”
When she handed Quinn his glass, he went to stand beside her bookshelf, where unbeknownst to her the oak paneling could slide away to reveal a secret passage. Quinn and I used it in the second quarter to sneak into her office to copy the key to her laboratory. Why did he stand there now? He wasn’t looking at me. I didn’t want to see in his eyes the reason he was avoiding touching me or standing near me.
That he was afraid of me.
I couldn’t blame him. Not after what he’d seen me do, after what he’d heard last night. Quinn died in a fire. They all did. He’d always been jumpy around my powers, and now he knew the secret I’d tried to keep shut away – that I’d ignited the fire that killed the two people I loved most.
Fuck.
Why are you even here? I glared at the side of his head. You should be running away from me as fast as you can. I’m no good for you, Quinn Delacorte. I’m all burned up, inside and out. I don’t want to pull you into the inferno.
“Why are we here?” Trey demanded, mirroring my own thoughts as he stepped closer to me. “Did you know anything about the pillar?”
“The obelisk is a mystery to me, as it appears to be to you. But I believe the god will reveal his purpose in time.” She said nothing about his silence to her, which was more revealing to me than her total honesty. She was growing desperate, grasping at straws to try to understand why the star-devourer she’d served was suddenly changing. “As to your first question – you’re here because we can help each other.”
“What makes you think we would ever help you?” Trey said. “You did this to us.”
He gestured to his body, to his frozen state of perpetual youth.
“I gave you the greatest gift that could ever be bestowed upon a human. And now I am just as much a prisoner as you are,” she shot back. “But I don’t expect that to convince you. We’ll help each other because I can give you what you desire.”
“And what would that be?” Quinn asked as he moved back to the cart to pour another drink. He still wasn’t looking at me.
“Your freedom, of course. The chance to step outside the school gates. A second chance at life.”
Trey’s face froze. Quinn sloshed whisky over his shoes. The thing they’d wished for twenty years, a thing they’d convinced themselves had to be impossible, and here she was dangling it in front of them like candy.
What the fuck?
“I knew you had a way to reverse what you did. But you’re not offering this to all the students.” I folded my arms. “Only Trey and Quinn?”
You, Hazel Waite, don’t need my help. You can walk out of the gates at any time. In fact, I expected you to be in Buenos Aires or New Zealand by now. As for the other students of Miskatonic Prep, if my plan goes as intended, they will all have the freedom to walk unhindered out of the school grounds for the first time in twenty years. That’s what you want, isn’t it?”
Ms. West leaned back in her chair, crossing her long legs. I was reminded of the day I saw Ayaz fucking her, his nails digging into the curve of her ass as he bent her over an old desk. The way her neck bent back when he pulled her hair, exposing a long, pulsing vein…
Bile rose in my throat.
Unstoppable, my mind filled with another image of Ayaz – his eyes wide and his pain-soaked silence as flames engulfed his body.
Please be okay.
“We’d be fully human again?” Quinn asked in an awed voice. “We’d be able to age?”
She shook her head. “There is no reversing the gift, but what I can offer is even better. You would be immortal and free. You would never age, nor could you be killed by any conventional means. You would not get sick. You would not even need to eat to survive. At least, not conventional food. All would be the same as it is now, except that you could roam the earth, untethered to this school. Not only would you be free, but you would have the means to enjoy that freedom to its fullest extent.”
This is pointless. She’s not reversing what she’s done, only enabling them to walk outside the grounds, which we already know we can do by carrying around the sigils. But she doesn’t know that.
&nbs
p; One glance at Trey’s face and a new fury burned inside me. She offered them nothing they didn’t already have for themselves and acted as if it was some great boon. Trey’s hands curled into fists. “We don’t want to be immortal. We want normal lives.”
“Why be normal when you are extraordinary?” She licked her lips. “You can sup of the riches and wonders of life at your own pace, over and over again until the sun swallows this feeble planet. What you see as a curse is truly a gift – the greatest gift the god has given us.”
“You’re immortal, too,” I blurted out.
“Not exactly. Your parents’ power and the longevity granted me is nothing on what you are capable of. The god extended my life – and the lives of the faculty – but we cannot heal ourselves, nor do we possess the powers you haven’t even touched yet… such as the ability to walk in dreams.”
Hmmmm. I thought of Trey speaking to me through my dream when I was trapped in Dunwich. Little does she know…
“That’s not true.” Quinn’s eyes darted to me briefly before flicking away. “Even if the god isn’t giving them power anymore, they’ve been drinking his Kool-Aid for a long time. The god is where the real power comes from, and to him we’re nothing but a tasty snack.”
That mirthless smile spread across Ms. West’s lips. “No, no. You are so much more than that. How much do you know about the human soul?”
I narrowed my eyes. “I thought you were a scientist.”
“I am a scientist – one with an academic interest in souls as a body of energy.” Her eyes swiveled to the ceiling, a smug smile playing across her lips. “The concept of a soul is unique in that it is present across practically all earth religions and cultures. On some innate level, we all know that while our human body can die, our consciousness – what makes us who we are – lives on as a separate entity. Souls are key to our belief in a future after death. Without the soul, the world can only possibly exist in the moment. The soul gives us subjectivity. While we believe that the world has an objective truth, when observed through the lens of our own experiences and biology the world will present a subjective truth, unique to each person. Subatomic experiments bear out this fact. The universal rules we’ve bound ourselves to – rules of space and time and gravity and relativity – are tools we’ve designed to hold the subjective together. Some members of the scientific community, myself included, believe this is because the soul itself is made of a kind of energy not found elsewhere in our universe – energy that arrived on earth from somewhere or somewhen else entirely.”
Ignited: a reverse harem bully romance (Kings of Miskatonic Prep Book 4) Page 3