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

by Savage, Vivienne

  “I’m off to a work thing.” I paused for a second, considering the rules. “Wanna come along?”

  “Yes!”

  Anji and Cole pulled up less than a minute later in Cole’s brand-new Camaro. I stared.

  “What the hell happened to the shitbucket?” I asked, referring to what he’d called his old box of rust.

  “Dad treated me to an early grad present. We were going to joyride around in it before you called.” He grinned. “Now I get to joyride and show off. C’mon.”

  Teresa and I hopped into the rear seat where we oohed and ahhed over the specs all the way up to the guard post. Once we hit the open road, I started to wonder if a need for speed was a raven shifter thing. He punched the gas so hard I thought we’d jumped to light speed.

  I squealed and held on to the seat. Teresa laughed at me.

  “You ride with my brother. How is it you aren’t used to this?”

  “Are you kidding? I have to practically prod and coax Gabriel to go ten miles over the limit if I’m in the passenger seat.”

  “It’s roomier on the inside than I expected,” Teresa noted.

  “Well…”

  Anji nudged her boyfriend in the shoulder. “Go on and tell them. You know you want to.”

  “He sprang for the magical upgrade to extend the interior cabin space.”

  I blew out a whistle. Magical upgrades weren’t cheap. It cost a lot of faerie dust, and topnotch enchanters like my dad charged a lot of money to perform the service. “Your father sounds cool.”

  “Yeah, he’s awesome. Wishes he was a shifter, too, so he lives vicariously through Jess and me.”

  “Cole is so spoiled.”

  “Yeah, well, as an only son that’s how it goes,” Cole quipped.

  “So basically, your penis got you a sweet-ass ride,” Teresa said as she stared down at her phone. “This thing has its own Wi-Fi hotspot?”

  “Yup.” Cole cast a big grin at us from the front seat.

  “I wasted my ‘Could have had a free car’ token on Gabriel. It’s fine since I hate driving anyway.”

  With Cole at the wheel and my glamours, we made good time, and since we were expected, an alert guard waved us through into the employee garage. Matt met us at the elevators.

  “New faces,” he said by way of greeting.

  “Yeah. Gabriel is out on a job so I brought along two friends. Cole and Anji.” I gestured a hand to each as I introduced them.

  “And this young lady?”

  “I’m Gabe’s sister.”

  “Oh, yeah. Heard all about you.”

  Teresa’s face fell for about three seconds before her eyes burned with indignance. “What did he say about me?”

  Instead of answering her, Matt shooed us all from the elevator onto the busy floor. No one paid us much attention, everyone occupied with their own cases and duties, though I did spot Daniela and gave her a quick wave. It wasn’t odd to see a campus sentinel here considering the current situation, but if I’d known she was coming I’d have tried to get a ride with her so as not to ruin Anji’s date night.

  Oh well.

  “You guys know how this goes—well, everybody but you,” Matt said, glancing at Teresa. “All of this is official, classified sentinel business. Not a word of it to anyone who isn’t already cleared.”

  “Right,” I agreed. Gabriel’s license authorized him to receive key info, but a friend like Ben was barred from knowing more than surface details.

  “Not a word from me,” Teresa promised.

  “All right, so here’s the deal. We found her actual hideout in a derelict gas station out near Halstead. It’s been abandoned for a year or so now, and she must have decided to move in. Had it all tidied up inside, too, with a nice storm basement.”

  Matt slid his laptop in front of me. With Anji and Cole standing to my rear and Teresa squeezing in to my left, I felt like everyone was waiting with bated breath while I clicked through the photos.

  “Only the one coffin. So she wasn’t sharing this place with any nosferatu,” I murmured. “This was hers and hers alone.”

  “That’s what it looks like,” Matt agreed. “We didn’t see any signs of anyone else occupying the place. You’ll take some interest in these next photos, though.”

  A photo of me shopping with Pilar at Victoria’s Secret came up on the next slide. There were dozens of images capturing me or my friends; Holly at Bathory’s sipping a blood tea, Gabriel and Teresa photographing landmarks in the city, oblivious to their spy. In another series of images, captured on different days, someone had photographed Pilar and Dain walking together in downtown Chicago. I almost didn’t recognize my mentor with his human ears and hair glamoured mousy brown. Last in the collection of horrifying images, we came to Ben and Anji running together on the sentinel compound’s obstacle track.

  “This is on campus.” I tapped the screen and looked first to Anji, then Matt. “How could she have even taken this?”

  “It’s evidence that we needed to prove another student or faculty member continues assisting them from the inside,” Matt said. “We could only speculate before, but now we know it for sure. Problem is, we can’t root out every sympathizer until we find a link to them. Unfortunately, they’re wise to that and refer to each other in code names. Her contact was someone named Glinda. Spelled with an I. Ring a bell?”

  “Glinda with an I? As in the good witch from the Wizard of Oz?” Teresa asked.

  The seasoned sentinel blinked at us. “That’s the reference?” When Cole nodded, Matt cleared his throat and continued, “Either way, does it sound familiar?”

  We all shook our heads.

  “Notice anyone behaving in a peculiar way? Any friends or teachers dipping in and out? Anyone seen following you?”

  Anji shook her head. “Not that I can think of, but I feel stupid for not realizing. Look, there’s a photo of me and my sister entering a movie theater. That was over the summer.”

  “And me with Gabriel.” I felt sick. Some of the photographs went as far back as New Orleans over a year ago, but the most recent was a picture of Gabriel and I leaving a wine bar in Suffolk less than three months ago. Bile rose in my throat, infiltrating my mouth with the sour taste of my disgust. How had none of us noticed we were under scrutiny?

  “Is that all you found though?” Teresa asked. “I mean, this is creepy and all but not exactly worth inviting Sky down here off campus.”

  “This is only part of it. Follow me for the rest.” We moved from his office to a larger room with a long stainless-steel counter running along one wall. Several items had been laid out, each of them in an evidence bag. Matt pointed out three boxes of disposable gloves hanging on the wall. “Forensics finished with this shit, so you’re free to take a look. Just glove up and keep it all where it belongs.”

  “Wow. This is hardcore,” Anji said, staring at the far side of the room. She didn’t take a pair of gloves and watched from afar, wrinkling her nose. I wondered if the artifacts from Tricia’s hideout smelled offensive to her lupine senses.

  They’d taken an entire section of the floor from the gas station, concrete neatly removed from the ground and transported, intact, to their laboratory. I stared at the intricate circle painted in blood, the lines neat and precise but faded rusty brown. The photographs hadn’t done it justice.

  This was precisely one of those times I wish Holly were with us. I didn’t know crap about mage spells, and this screamed ritual magic.

  “What is this?”

  “It’s a demonic summoning circle,” Kendra announced as she stepped into the room.

  “That is some serious shit.” Cole took a step closer and crouched by the edge. “You think it worked?”

  “Hard to say, but I’d be surprised if it didn’t. Everything is drawn correctly and we already know that Tricia was an advanced student. Summoning creatures and beings from other realms and dimensions usually doesn’t come into play unless you’re a grad student at Shangri-La. They won’t e
ven teach it at PNRU. Too dangerous.”

  “So where did Tricia learn it?”

  Kendra shrugged. “From a Shangri-La student maybe? From an older wizard? She apprenticed with Doctor Hoffman and his school records indicated two years spent abroad. Hell, I even enjoyed a year there. It’s not too uncommon for advanced wizards, so narrowing it down to one mage won’t be easy.”

  “Shit.”

  “Yeah, welcome to our world,” the mage replied, chuckling. “We’re combing through the evidence collected from Hoffman’s lair again and comparing tomes found in Tricia’s place to determine if anything was lifted from the hospital. Forensics will cross-reference it, take samples from the books looking for residual magic keyed to Hoffman. It’s time-consuming work and not always accurate but…it’s all we’ve got.”

  “Is there a way to tell by the circle what purpose she was summoning the demon for?” I asked.

  “Possibly. Demonology isn’t my area of expertise so we’re touching base with other mages and hunting down a specialist in the field. We’ll know more once we can identify what ritual she was using, but there are lots of variables.”

  “Such as?”

  “Some people summon them to make deals for more power. Others to try and glean knowledge. Those are the more inoffensive rituals. Gleaning knowledge from a demon won’t get you Bound, but there are some who call on demons to do harm to their enemies. The most dangerous act is calling a demon and setting it loose in our world. Doesn’t happen often. Not since…hell, when was that, Matty?”

  “Eighty-eight. The Los Angeles Incubus murders. He claimed about forty-three young women over three years before sentinels took him down. The seventies and eighties were a rough time.”

  Cole swore. Teresa had gone pale, and Anji bit her fingernails.

  “That’s awful,” Teresa blurted out.

  “That’s what you’re in for,” I told her. “Sure you want to be a sentinel like your big brother?”

  The answer didn’t come right away, a few seconds passing of her staring at the bloody glyph. “Yeah. I am. Someone has to stop people like her.”

  “Good answer, girl,” Kendra replied. “We need good people out there to help take down some of the bad.”

  None of the remaining evidence was as intense as what they’d already shown us. Before I knew it, three hours had flown by and I still felt no closer to understanding why Tricia had taken such a dark path.

  A path I feared might be calling to Holly. Sooner or later, I’d have to make the decision to inform PNRU administration of her shifting personality, and I dreaded the outcome.

  17

  Sealed

  Tension only continued to build on campus between students and faculty on opposing sides of the darkling debate. Thankfully, most members of administration seemed to be on the side of their colleague. Many sent out individual or group letters of support over the school network urging all students to see beyond their prejudices. Entire departments penned letters and signed them.

  From others, the silence was louder than words.

  With Halloween two days away, it made sense that I’d find Holly working on her senior project. Every vampire in the senior class was responsible for ensuring the star attraction went off without a hitch.

  Except I couldn’t find Holly among her classmates and when I asked around, they told me she hadn’t shown up to most of her assigned tasks. Eventually sunrise arrived and all the vampires around campus retreated to their coffins for the day.

  I caught up with Pilar on the way to our early morning fae classes.

  “She returned to the townhouse this morning,” Pilar said, a frown on her face despite the attention she attracted. The tiara resting atop her head, composed of living silver and opalescent leaves, sported the most brilliant emeralds I had ever seen in my life.

  Dain took betrothal seriously. Because of that, everyone across the entire campus now knew Pilar was entangled with a fae lord. They disappointingly lived up to expectations. Requests for favors rolled in and the editor of the campus newspaper tried to get her in for an interview.

  Me learning from a fae lord hadn’t been news. Sometimes that happened. A student becoming engaged to one, though? Big deal.

  “Yeah? Was she okay?”

  “No. Victor was with her. They were fighting. He…” Pilar sighed. “He thinks she is cheating on him.”

  “No!” For the first time, I wondered if it was true. “Is she?”

  Pilar shook her head. “I mean, maybe? Possibly? I do not know, Skylar. Looking at her aura is a…a clusterfuck of problems now. It is all bloodred with frustration. Her Destiny Lines make no sense. They are blurred and garbled. One line says she has a beautiful future, then it tangles in the web with another that says her future will be filled with strife and fury.”

  I sighed. “Maybe she did turn to another man—”

  “Or woman,” Pilar cut in.

  “Or woman,” I agreed. “Someone who isn’t Victor. If she did, that’s awful.”

  “But it does not feel like that is the case. The Holly we know loves Victor.”

  “Yeah, but the Holly we know also doesn’t skip out on her obligations. She’s been excited as hell for this haunted house thing. But…”

  “But?” Pilar coaxed.

  “Sometimes people change.” Even as I said it, I doubted myself. Holly wouldn’t cheat on Victor. I didn’t want to believe she would no matter how much his sacrifice strained their relationship.

  A little over three hours later, I left class and beelined to Tristal’s office. Of course, once I got there I hesitated outside her door, unsure whether I was doing the right thing. Worried I might be making a fuss over nothing.

  No. This was about more than my friend. This was about finding answers.

  I knocked.

  “Come in.”

  Too late to turn back now. I pushed open the door and peeked my head in. Tristal sat at her desk, pale yellow hair bound up in its usual ballerina knot with the addition of a pencil sticking through the bun. For the briefest of moments, I wondered if she realized it was there.

  “Miss Corazzi, how may I help?”

  I lingered in the open doorway. “Did you mean what you said about being an open ear?”

  “Of course. Come in.”

  After ensuring the door was closed tightly behind me, I helped myself to an empty seat, surprised when she chose to sit in the chair beside me rather than the impressive recliner behind her desk. The worst part was deciding where to start now that I’d committed to talking to someone.

  “Why did Tricia do it?” I blurted. “I know things were crap sometimes on campus, but she wasn’t alone. There were people who stood up for her.”

  People like Pilar. That was the first time I saw more than the spoiled rich girl in my roommate.

  “I don’t have any certain answers for you. My descent seemed so innocent at the time. So harmless. When it happens, you don’t believe you’re doing wrong. The lines blur. I’ve known others who turned out of anger at the world or from desperation. Tricia is—was—full of potential and ability, but also bitterness. She reminded me, in fact, of a girl I once attended this school with.”

  “Oh?”

  “Yes. Her name was Annalise.”

  The name made me straighten from my slump. “I’d heard there was someone by that name, but isn’t she dead?”

  “She is, yes, but I doubt you’ve heard the whole story.”

  “All I heard was that she was Bound and then killed herself.”

  Tristal leaned back in her seat and folded her hands together. “She was a night student. A raven. I remember her as a rather vibrant girl, full of life, always ready with a prank. She was smart, too.”

  “What happened to her?”

  “I don’t know all the details, but the way I heard it, she was with a group that got into a little too much mischief. A human died as a result. Annalise was Bound while her fae ward received a mere slap on the wrist for her part in t
he matter.”

  “What? But that’s unfair!”

  “It is. You yourself have seen the inequality between our kind and those deemed beneath us. Times were harsher then, the divide deeper.”

  A deep furrow creased my brow. “So what happened to her then?”

  “She gave up on life, and a child was left without a mother.”

  “That’s…awful. I can’t imagine leaving my kid alone in the world.”

  “Imagine never getting to fly with your child,” Tristal spoke softly, her voice colored by sadness. “Imagine never getting to show them how to do magic and instead watching others do so for you. Imagine not hearing their heart song. Imagine that when they cross over into Tir na Nog for the first time, you are unable to join them, forever barred from entering without the assistance of a full-fledged fae and that those fae who can, will not do so, because they look down upon you for an error that was not your fault.”

  She painted a dismal picture with her words. I was struck silent, my heart aching for a woman I had never met. The professor didn’t rush me to comment, but she did give my hand a light, gentle pat.

  “I’m…I’m worried about Holly,” I finally said, coming around to the true purpose behind my visit. “She’s been really off ever since the spell she cast to save Sebastian last year.”

  “Blood magic is a slippery slope, but I am not an expert on such things. Have you spoken with the provost?”

  “No way,” I said quickly. “I’m not trying to get Holly into any sort of trouble.”

  “It isn’t a matter of trouble, Skylar. There are times when…” Tristal’s mouth flattened into a severe line. “There are times when it is better to ask forgiveness of a friend after they have received necessary and urgent help critical to their wellbeing. If Miss Burke appears to be abusing her magic, your concern may be a nudge in the proper direction for her.”

  “I don’t think she’s abusing magic. I haven’t seen it.”

  “Yet you brought up your worries for a reason.”

  “She’s been…reclusive. Her roommates say the house feels oppressive whenever she’s around, like someone’s watching—” It was like a light flipped on in my brain, bringing along instant clarity. I jumped from my seat, eyes wide. “You’re right, professor, we need the provost. Now.”