The Puppet Master: The Paranormal University Files: Skylar, Year 4

by Savage, Vivienne

  After a while, my tears finally slowed and I could breathe again, but exhaustion weighed heavily on my limbs. Gabe’s heartbeat beneath my palm steadied me, and his warm arms, as always, made me feel secure. It never failed.

  “I’m good now,” I whispered.

  “You sure?” He trailed a hand through my hair and kissed the top of my head.

  “Yeah. Sorry, I didn’t mean…” I sighed and turned my face into his throat again. “The prophecy frightened me, and I’m not even sure why because none of it makes any clear sense.”

  “It sounds like death.”

  “Yes,” I breathed, voice rattling. I cleared my throat a few times and then raised a hand to wipe my face. Gabriel beat me to it, drying my cheeks with a swipe of his thumbs.

  “But prophecies are never straightforward. Going into shadow could be anything.”

  “You’re the only raven I’m close to, Gabriel. Closest to. What if—”

  “Prophecies are meant to be symbolic, rarely straightforward,” he repeated. “It’s too early to panic or start planning for my death. It says two lives will be saved.”

  “What if you aren’t one of those lives?”

  “I will be.” His smile warmed my heart and turned my insides funny until all I wanted was to spend the day in his arms. He took my face between his palms and kissed me sweetly with increasing passion. “I love you, Sky. Just fucking…just trust me from now on and share shit with me, okay?”

  “I do trust you. I trust you with my life, Gabe.” I shifted on his lap until my legs were to one side. Once I placed my cheek on his shoulder, he held me while we listened to the disconcerting silence of our apartment. Without Ama chirping, screaming, or chattering, it was too quiet.

  “Do you miss her too?” he asked suddenly.

  “Every day,” I said, laughing. “I never thought I would miss that little brat.”

  “Do you think she’ll be home soon?”

  I thought about it. Gamayun would have told us if it was goodbye forever. So would Ama. She’d never leave without saying goodbye. “Yeah. I do.”

  7

  Doubt

  An early morning call came in for the senior sentinel students, meaning Gabe and I both dragged ourselves from bed and reported to the armory. Anji was there with Cole, but Holly was nowhere to be seen, which made sense. Vamps had to sleep. While she could technically go out in daylight, she wasn’t at her best until sunset. Carmilla’s powerful blood gave her an advantage over most vampires, but she still loathed the sun.

  “Hey, any idea what’s going on?” Cole asked.

  “Not yet,” Gabe replied. He chucked his empty Red Bull into a nearby wastebasket.

  “We’re going out on a call,” Simon announced once the doors closed. “Local SBA agents are already there, but since this pertains to our active investigation, you all are going to go over it a second time.”

  “Where we headed, boss?” someone called out.

  “Lake Forest. We have ourselves a dead fae family.”

  We chatted amongst ourselves during the ride out to Lake Forest. I couldn’t remember the last time any excursion had ever taken me to the Chicago suburb, but we rode in a huge white SUV with the PNRU SBA logo on the side. Nothing about it was nondescript.

  “Since we’re going over it a second time, does this mean they’ve already pulled all the evidence from the scene?”

  “Evidence has been noted but with the exception of a few delicate pieces that would suffer from waiting, they’ve left everything alone. And what they have will be on site, as well as the team who went over everything,” Sebastian replied.

  “Sounds good.”

  After driving down the forested road, we pulled into a long driveway to a house that had three garages, a tennis court, in-ground pool, and lawn that could have doubled as a golf course, it was so big and green. Sebastian parked behind two other official vehicles, and Simon parked behind us with his carload.

  An investigator provided clean coveralls for us to wear inside and booties to put over our shoes, emphasizing the importance of not contaminating the scene. We didn’t receive much time to wonder about the type of evidence that would be left behind, nor much explanation beyond that before someone ushered us inside.

  I tried to brace myself for whatever awaited us within the upscale manor—but nothing prepared me, not even the touch of Gabriel’s hand between my shoulder blades—for the nightmarish crime scene in the entrance foyer. An older half-fae man lay on his back, dead eyes staring at the chandelier above him. Blood seemed to splatter every wall, and the grisly, open cavity that remained of his chest confirmed what most of us had guessed along the way.

  The valravn had been here.

  As part of their evidence collection, they’d left numbered markers on the floor. The smell was atrocious, worsened each second we lingered within its miasma.

  “It only gets worse from here,” a kind-faced sentinel said to us, her gray-streaked hair pulled back into a tight bun. “Bucket’s over by the stairs, kids.”

  It was a close thing, getting my stomach under control. Others didn’t fare so well—mostly the mages who had tagged along. Anji looked pale, but as a shifter she didn’t shy from the scent of blood.

  Another good reason the vampires weren’t here, other than the few trained sentinels.

  “I don’t want to see the kids,” I said in a soft voice. Even from across the foyer, Sebastian turned toward me and dipped his chin.

  “Sorry, kiddo, it’s part of the job,” he said in a gentle tone.

  I swallowed, having already known what he’d say.

  We got through it. Somehow. Cataloguing evidence and writing down detailed reports of everything we saw. Walking from room to room treated us to a new horror each step of the way, an immersion into the macabre that would haunt my sleeping hours.

  For the first time in years of desperately wanting to become a sentinel, I doubted my dream. I doubted everything. I didn’t know if I could endure those tiny bodies again.

  “She’s evil,” said one of the other sentinel girls, a werewolf with snow-white hair and big blue eyes.

  “Completely evil. I don’t understand it. Why would anyone, for any amount of power, think this was acceptable?” said another shifter, still green from puking in the trash bin.

  “You just answered your own question,” Anji replied. “Evil.”

  “But what is her motivation?” I asked. “No one wakes up one day and decides they want to commit a massacre and gobble the hearts of the innocent.”

  “A crazy person,” Anji said without pause. “Serial killers don’t always have a logical reason. They just have a screw loose.”

  “Maybe it’s a revenge thing,” Cole suggested.

  “On who?” I asked. “The whole damn supernatural world?”

  “Maybe.” The raven shifter frowned. “I mean, look at the motivations of the people joining the Hidden Court. Monica wanted revenge on you and to keep the powers the Council took from her. The Plague Doctor wanted power. Carmilla wanted her dead lover. They all had an actual reason for being nutty assholes.”

  “Point.”

  By the time we were finished and the medical examiner finished removing the last of the five corpses, our group had fallen silent and introspective. We had a long drive back to campus, and an even longer night ahead of us.

  I couldn’t sleep. Not after seeing that.

  “I want full reports and analyses on everything you saw today,” Simon said from the front seat.

  “When is it due, sir?” asked Bartholomew, the mage I hadn’t known by name until today.

  “You have until Friday. I want them uploaded into the campus Dropbox with diagrams and at least three theories. One should be thoroughly developed.”

  “Can we work together?”

  “Yes, but I expect everyone to file their own report. No copies. You can share theories and ideas, but they need to reflect your own observations.”

  He looked at us all thr
ough the rearview mirror. “I know that was rough in there. You did good.”

  “Does it ever get easier?” Anji asked.

  “Yes. And no. But keep in mind, the day you no longer feel something for the poor souls you come across is the day you’ve lost yourself.”

  * * *

  Our illustrious professors took us by the Cook County SBA, where we spent a few more hours learning the ropes, touring the building, and chatting with the lead investigators over the case. The group tasked with it had their own ideas and theories, which they did not share with us.

  When Laura, the sole raven shifter girl in our group pleaded for Sentinel Holgenson to share just a few ideas, the big bear shifter smiled and crossed his beefy arms against his chest. “As I understand it, Sentinel Kane is requiring the group of you to turn in reports. It would be cheating if you were to write anything beyond your genuine assessment of the scene.”

  “Dammit.”

  His friendly smile didn’t fade. “It was a nice try, sweetheart. Anyway, that’s how the data is filed into the computers. Back in the day when all of us started this bullshit, we didn’t have scanners and personal laptops to take with us. We had to handwrite it. All of it.”

  A couple guys grimaced.

  “Hey, uh, Professor Bostwick said we’re allowed to probe you about matters you’ve already investigated.”

  “You can do that, correct,” he replied to me.

  “Has anyone cross-referenced all female raven shifters named Annalise and checked in on them?”

  “First thing we did, believe me. There was a raven by that name who went to PNRU about twenty-five years back, but she was bound a couple years later and took her own life. Rough thing, that.”

  “Why was she Bound?” Bartholomew asked.

  “I don’t recall the particulars, to be honest. Had to move our focus elsewhere once we determined she wasn’t a candidate.”

  “What about a relative?” Cole asked. “Vengeful sibling or mother?”

  “We tried that too, but it was a dead end. Literally. Her mother died about two years after her suicide. Vehicular manslaughter. Some irresponsible human was driving under the influence and crashed into her. Pronounced dead at the scene.”

  “Damn. That’s awful.”

  “Yeah, it really was. You can read about it if you run a search on wereraven Sophie Dekker. According to the records we pulled, she’d been in and out of the hospital before that, suffering immense depression related to her daughter’s death.”

  “That sucks.” I didn’t want to imagine how poorly my parents would take my death. I didn’t want to think about that at all, especially since I strolled into danger at least three times a week. Still, something about the neatly tied ends pulled at the conspiracy theorist in me. “A little convenient that she died, though, isn’t it?”

  “If you’re hinting as a cover-up, we had the same thought and had Judge Powers sign a warrant to exhume both bodies. Rotting away as expected. The human responsible for Ms. Dekker’s death served seven years and now has a comfortable life in San Diego as an engineer. I followed that lead, too.”

  “Damn.”

  “I’m not really the religious sort,” Holgenson said, “but I like to think maybe they’re together now. Unfortunate shit that happened to her kid, but that’s sometimes how it goes when a shifter is Bound. Could you imagine being stripped of your raven side, kid?”

  Cole shuddered. “Hell no.”

  “That would be hell on Earth,” Gabe added, voice subdued.

  I could only imagine myself. Yes, I’d given up my light, but that wasn’t all I was. I still had magic, still had my wings. I could still cross into Tir na Nog and use Faerie Circles wherever I found them.

  Being Bound took everything away. You had your life, but what sort of life would it be, to be stripped of everything that made you you?

  “What other cases are you guys working on right now?” Cole asked.

  “Not sure how much they’ve mentioned to you guys about this, but we have a new magical drug on the market. Pixie dust is the big shit right now in the city. It’s less lethal than heroin, but just as addictive. You get the high associated with a crack rock and a few secondary benefits that make it popular as hell for people looking to lose weight. It’s like a speed that turns you sexy.”

  I perked up. “Pixie dust. That’s pixie weed pollen, right?”

  “Right. Refined and tooled around a little by a fae or a mage. Shit’ll rot a human from the inside out and disconnect them from the Twilight eventually. When they die, you get a poltergeist that can’t pass through the Veil into the afterlife. The dealers claim it’s all-natural because the effects aren’t physical, but…let’s just say you’re better off snorting a line of coke.”

  Pixie weed was harmless to the supernatural community, a magical equivalent to marijuana that a lot of my kind cultivated in Tir na Nog. There, no one cared if you had it. Pilar mentioned seeing fields of it growing wild in abundance in the Emerald Vale—more reason to believe she was definitely shacking up with Dain over the summer—during her visit to see Lia.

  Alone and in its natural state, the leaves and fragrant flowers caused no more harm to the fae than rolled tobacco leaf. The problem was when it was brought over to the mortal plane and peddled to humans. They loved it. They felt magical and in tune with nature. They heard songs in the breeze and read messages in sunbeams. Everything was rainbows during their high.

  And then it ended, leaving them to chase the pink unicorn again.

  “About two nights ago, a woman OD’ed on the shit. Nobody believes the warnings, of course. Most junkies claim that’s just some shit rumor started by greedy fae who don’t want to share their stash.”

  “Christ,” Gabriel said. “I read that report. She hoped it would get her to Tir na Nog, right?”

  “Yeah. They think if you overdose on it, your spirit rises as a fae on the other side.”

  My nose wrinkled. “Yeah, no. That’s not how it works.”

  We chatted a while longer about the other non-darkling related cases to pass by their desks. Crime rings with vampire bank robbers, mages peddling phony trinkets to ignorant humans, and the stuff that wasn’t glamorous like fighting bad guys, but a very, very necessary part of sentinel work.

  A werewolf named Gregory logged into his computer and let me sit down to review old case files of similar darkling incidents. While I read, he and Gabriel chatted about random sentinel matters like a pair of old pals who knew each other.

  It turned out that Gregory and Sam had been roomies together during their PNRU days.

  “Your brother should join us here. Shame he’s wasting that license like that.”

  “Not everyone wants the life. He likes working cybersecurity. In fact, Riordan has had him upgrading the campus systems.”

  “Good for him.” He twisted my way. “You doing all right over there?”

  “I’m good,” I answered. “There’s some pretty bleak stuff in here.”

  “Yeah, you’re telling me. But nothing that lines up with the stuff we’ve been seeing lately.”

  They must have had dozens upon dozens of analysts combing through the old files. Since Sentinel Holgenson mentioned the last wereraven named Annalise crossed the system two decades ago, I began my search there. I clicked file after file about darklings of all varieties, only to pause when I saw a huge REDACTED in capital letters.

  I double-clicked the file, hoping to find something juicy.

  Regarding Cath Palug (Redacted) brought in alive by Sentinels Bostwick and Kane, the creature has provided information critical to the capture of several darklings and pleads guilty to lesser charges of voluntary manslaughter. Sentencing will commence in one week.

  Juicy indeed. I continued reading, disappointed to find so many names stricken from the record.

  “How come these are so heavily redacted?”

  Gregory moved closer and leaned over my shoulder to see which exact file I was in. “To protect peop
le, generally. You see, some folk will judge an entire family for the crime of one. If we really need to know the names of people involved, there’s a whole lotta paperwork involved to get access to the full file.”

  “So what about this fae? Have they been questioned at all?”

  “You’d have to ask Simon and Sebastian about that. Since it was their old case, they followed up on it.”

  “I guess I will. Thanks.” I wrapped up my notes, since that was the only case of interest I could find in that time frame, then let another student behind the computer to have their turn.

  By the time we wrapped up, twilight had fallen and scant rays of sunlight gleamed above the horizon. I let my drowsy head rest against Gabriel’s shoulder during the long ride back to the campus, lulled by the low hum of Cole and Anji’s excited voices behind me.

  Next thing I knew, Gabe was rousing me. I blinked bleary eyes at him and then sat up sharply, wiping my chin with the back of one hand.

  “I’m awake. S’all good.”

  “C’mon, sleepyhead, let’s get you tucked in.”

  “Food first.”

  “You’re welcome to join us,” Anji said. “Cole ordered a bunch of food from that Italian place that delivers.”

  “Eggplant parm?”

  “Of course,” Cole confirmed. “Chicken, too, and about half their menu.”

  “Up to you, babe,” Gabe said with a shrug.

  Ugh, choices, choices. Italian with my pals, or go home alone with Gabe and get our own dinner sorted?

  “Italian sounds amazing, but I’m really in the mood for something different.” I could eat delicious Italian any time and had developed a really snobby outlook toward it coming from a home where Dad made every meal from scratch and Grandpa had introduced me to authentic cuisine in a dozen little Italian communities and cities.

  Cole laughed as he stepped down from the van. “Oh yeah. I bet you’ve had it all, huh?”

  “And makes it all,” Anji said, grinning. “You’ve missed out on some good meals by not dating me earlier.”