Fantastic Schools: Volume 2

by Nuttall, Christopher G.

  Back in her room, Ulrykah managed to write a couple more passable paragraphs but couldn’t quite summon the energy to complete the paper, having spent so much of it feeling sorry for herself after learning about the party. She stuffed a couple granola bars in her pocket and headed to Rav’s dorm, where she found Rav and Dan watching anime.

  Dan sniffed the air.

  “Is that food?” he asked. Ulrykah pulled out a granola bar and tossed it to him.

  “Thanks!” he said, ate it in two bites, and burped loudly.

  “That was beautiful,” Ulrykah said.

  “Not my best work, I’ll admit, but not bad for a granola bar.”

  Ulrykah sat on the floor, slumped against Rav’s bed and let her hopelessness seep into her expression.

  “Aw, is someone sad?” Rav finally asked, after she had sighed loudly a couple times.

  “Yes!” Ulrykah said, and told them her sad tale.

  “And now it turns out that Morgan only switched shifts with me so she could go to the party that I hadn’t been invited to yet!”

  “Bummer. Guess I won’t see you there,” Dan said.

  “Dan!”

  “What? I just found out about it today, too. I would have told you.”

  Ulrykah sighed heavily.

  “I know.”

  “Maybe you can sneak away for a bit and come?” Dan asked.

  “Probably not. The old dungeon stairs under Graeme Hall are on my walk list. I have no idea how long it’ll take to make it down.”

  “Too bad the old tunnel is blocked off,” Dan said. “If you could take it out from the dungeon, you’d be almost halfway to the grove. It’d at least get you near the tree line.”

  “It’s probably enchanted though, isn’t it? I bet sirens would go off if I tried to unlock the gate.”

  “That’s likely,” Dan agreed. “Something to look into for a future event, though.”

  “I guess so,” Ulrykah said. She was fairly confident she could learn how to get past it, given enough time, but wasn’t sure she wanted to, at least not to wind up at a party where there might be rule-breaking that she would be obligated to report.

  “Well, what are you up to, Rav? My route might sorta take me near your dorm.”

  “Oh, I won’t be here. I’ll be over in MacGregor Hall.”

  “‘Kay…” She looked up at him with widening eyes. They were just starting to tear from lack of blinking when he said, “You can’t come.”

  “Dammit, why not?”

  “Because. Things. Reasons. Besides, you’re busy,” Rav pointed out.

  “Not THAT busy, and MacGregor is close enough that could totally stop by without getting too off-schedule!”

  “You’re busy being a prefect,” he hinted. She got it then.

  “Why are you such a stoner?” Ulrykah complained.

  “I am what I am.”

  “You better not fail any classes this semester. They’ll kick you out regardless of your dad.”

  “Yeahhh, I know.”

  “Hey Rika, wanna come to my live action role play group this Thursday night?” Dan asked.

  “Uh, sure, I think I can make time.”

  “You should. There are girls there, and you need more female friends. And friends who don’t do drugs. Sorry, just saying.”

  “No offense taken,” Rav said.

  “I guess,” Ulrykah said, although she knew he was right. “Actually, yeah, I do. I just suck at making friends in general. Why is that?”

  “Dunno,” Dan said, “but you need to suck less at it, and practice is the best way to suck less at anything.”

  “I’ll give it a shot. But what do I do about Friday? James is gonna be at the party, along with lots of other girls, and I won’t be there. Or maybe he really likes me and will wait for me to be free next week?”

  Dan snorted. “I told you what to do,” he said, “sneak away from your prefect snooping.”

  Ulrykah looked at Rav for a more favorable response, but he had already tuned out and was watching TV again.

  “I dunno, I just thought maybe James and I had a connection,” Ulrykah said.

  “That’s a nice thought,” Dan said. Ulrykah gave him an annoyed eye roll before following Rav’s example and staring at the screen. She didn’t know who the characters were or why they were fighting, or why one had just sprouted an extra arm, but it was a decent distraction from the unavoidable truth that she needed her job even more than she needed a real human connection with more than two of her peers.

  Friday night came, and, as much as she wanted to take Dan’s advice, Ulrykah dutifully made her rounds through the passages, hidden and otherwise, of her dorm building. She carried her wand, just in case she came upon something dangerous, something faculty and staff didn’t anticipate, but which to Ulrykah seemed perfectly possible.

  Why did they make someone so small and unthreatening a prefect? Seriously, what am I going to do if I come across people doing drugs or messing with explosives—say, “Pardon me while I go report this?” They’ll probably tie me up and leave me behind a wall somewhere, at least until they hide the evidence.

  She gripped her wand, partially concealed in her jacket pocket, tightly, although in a fight it would probably only help if she could manage to stick it in an assailant’s eye—but it was silly to worry about being attacked. If she came across anything actually illegal, she would probably have better luck making a deal. She did know the prefect rounds schedule and wasn’t above trading that for her life.

  Okay, stop being so dramatic, she told herself as she slipped behind a wall-hanging and through the third-floor hidden passage. Uncovering a student drug cartel is very unlikely, and even if I do, I can just name-drop Rav, and if that doesn’t work, hit them with a super bright flashlight spell and run away. Yep. That’ll work. Maybe.

  She ducked under a beam and whispered a spell to push the cobweb hanging from it back. Spiders were probably the worst thing she’d run into. The entire school was protected by magical wards, so it wasn’t like a serial killer could just happen to walk onto campus while she made the trek in the dark from her dorm to Graeme Hall. And, as she had almost convinced herself, the possibility of running into serious trouble with another student was very slight and manageable. There was nothing to worry about—except maybe that hydra Dan had mentioned, but surely someone would have said something if there were a monster roaming the grounds. Either way, she also carried mace.

  After thoroughly checking the girls’ side of her dorm and the basement, Ulrykah dutifully headed across the lawn for Graeme Hall. Inside, the entry hall lights were dimmed. There were a couple study lounges in the building, and takeout in the dining room was still available, but she didn’t hear any activity as she headed for the stairs to what the students and even some of the professors referred to as the dungeon. It was really just a cold damp basement with stone walls, used primarily for storage. There were also a couple potions labs down there, although the better ones were in the new science building. At night, the hall to the labs and storage rooms was locked, so anyone heading down the stairs was either up to no good or a prefect.

  There were small round light panels set into the outer wall that gave off just enough light to see the steps by. She took a deep breath at the top of the stairs and wondered, Why don’t they just install a door here to keep anyone from going down the stairs at all? This is so stupid.

  She sighed and began her winding descent. The further she went, the fewer lights worked. After about eight full circles, she ran out of working lights, so she conjured a little ball of light that floated just above the tip of her wand. But because it was about as good an idea to walk down stairs with a wand out as with scissors, she tacked on a spell to make it float above her left shoulder instead and tucked her wand safely away.

  There were some places on campus that felt undeniably haunted by restless spirits; this one felt like the murder hadn’t happened just yet. She followed her shadow down, trying to keep her footst
eps quiet, even though the light orb hovering over her shoulder would give her presence away to anyone below. But maybe that was fine with her after all, since it would let anyone up to anything run away, allowing her to avoid an awkward confrontation. She wondered if she should hum something, loudly, just to make sure, but her mind was blank of familiar tunes. She let her boot heels hit the worn stone steps as loudly as they wanted to—it made her feel bigger, which made her feel braver.

  It was even colder now; little trails of water had frozen on the walls and the air smelled like moss Popsicles. Ulrykah questioned the sanity of anyone using the passage below for hookups. Maybe they’d be warm for a bit, but on the way back the sweat they’d worked up would freeze. She tried to see her breath. It wasn’t quite cold enough yet, but she hadn’t reached the bottom. The steps kept coming; her thighs were both chilled and burning.

  Further and further she descended, ten more steps, twenty more. Her breath came out in misty puffs, and she kept one hand on the lichen-splotched wall to guide her as she let gravity pull her down faster. She gasped as her heel caught on one of the steps and quickly shifted her feet to keep from tumbling down into the darkness. She leaned against the cold stone wall to catch her breath, drawing it in deeply, gradually slower.

  And then she heard a scratching noise; from deep below, an intermittent sound of metal on metal whispered up the stairs.

  What was she supposed to do? Prefects were sent down these stairs at irregular intervals to dissuade students from getting up to anything naughty at night, but what if it wasn’t a student? Or what if it was, but an upperclassman with dark inclinations?

  She put her hand on the wall and quietly snuffed out the light orb. As carefully and silently as she could, she made her way down the last turn of the steps, stopping when she saw a flickering light.

  “Dammit, stupid thing,” someone male said.

  The light flashed around the small hall haphazardly, then settled on a far wall. Ulrykah slunk down a few more steps to get a closer look.

  A hand, greenish-white in the light that shone from the wand it held, hovered near the metal door that led, not toward the labs, but into the underground passage. And, as she blinked and looked closer, she saw that it wasn’t just a hand—there was a dark sleeve attached, and presumably a body, as well. The other hand came into view, holding a large metal key that the holder was able to insert into a padlock, but not turn.

  The key holder stepped back and sighed. She couldn’t run. Now that he wasn’t trying to open the lock, the hall was completely silent, and he would hear her footsteps. If he gave up and turned his light toward the stairs, he would see her. It would be better to fake being brave than to be caught off-guard, Ulrykah reasoned. She took a deep breath and said, “Need some help?” as she flicked her wand light on.

  The man’s shoulders jumped, and his hand blocked the light from his eyes.

  Ulrykah blinked. It hadn’t been a trick of the light—his hands really were pale and greenish. And scaled.

  She aimed the light just past his head so he’d move his hand from in front of his eyes, and when he did, she realized—

  “You’re a lizard person. Huh,” she said stupidly as her brain accepted that she was, in fact, in a creepy basement with a real live lizard person. Not like Dan, who claimed to be part dragon, but probably just suffered from dry skin—an actual lizard person, a being of myth and legend, like Bruno, only much less popular.

  “Good eye,” he said with an edge to his tone.

  “I think I saw you earlier today,” Ulrykah said. “Were you by the stables?”

  “Who the hell are you?” he asked.

  “A prefect. I’m supposed to be here. Are you?”

  “Luckily for you, yes, I am. I work here.”

  “Oh.”

  “Yeah, see?” he said, and unzipped his thick black hoodie to reveal a Pender Academy polo shirt.

  “I’m pretty sure you can buy those at the gift shop.”

  “Do you want to see my ID?”

  “Actually, yes.”

  He rolled his reptilian eyes and reached, she hoped, for his wallet—and it was his wallet he pulled from his pocket. She tried to exhale her relief quietly.

  “Here,” he said, and handed her the card. She took a step off the stairs to grab it, then retreated backward to read it.

  “Zachary Voss, Grounds and Maintenance,” she read aloud while studying the photo, his mostly-human mouth and nose, and the very reptilian brow bone. If the card hadn’t listed his department, she’d have assumed he was a student. But then, did lizard people show their age like non-lizard people did?

  “And you are?” he said as she returned the card.

  “Ulrykah Fletcher. Um, just call me Rika.”

  “Rika. And you’re snooping around on Friday night because?”

  “I told you, I’m a prefect. I’m supposed to make sure no one’s up to anything they shouldn’t be.”

  “Uh huh. And if you were to stumbled upon some sort of nefarious act?”

  “I haven’t figured that out yet. I mean, I went to the training, but it wasn’t actually very helpful in that area.”

  “Unhelpful training,” Zachary said. “I can relate. I’m supposed to be able to open this lock with this key, but it won’t turn, and no one mentioned I should bring the WD-40,” he joked.

  “There’s got to be some kind of enchantment on the lock.”

  “There were several enchantments on the lock,” Zachary corrected her, “and I thought I’d undone them all, but I must have missed one.”

  “Why do you need to get in there?” Ulrykah asked.

  “Because the trap I set yesterday got sprung by something other than what I intended to trap.”

  “Uh, what were you trying to trap?”

  “Nothing,” he said.

  “Really.”

  “Actually, it probably is nothing, but I thought just in case, I’d better at least set a trap.”

  “For…?”

  Zachary licked his upper lip with a very thin tongue.

  “I don’t know if you may have heard a rumor about a hydra in the woods-”

  “The hydra! So it really wasn’t caught?”

  “No. No one’s seen it since last year, before I started working here, but trapping monsters is one of my specialties, and probably the main reason they hired me.”

  “So there’s still a hydra out there!”

  “Somewhere,” Zachary said. “Hopefully no longer on school grounds, but that hasn’t been confirmed.”

  “This is not good,” Ulrykah said.

  “Why? What is it?”

  “If there’s a chance that there’s a monster on school grounds, shouldn’t some announcement have been made?”

  “Well, that would make sense, but I guess since no one’s seen it in months they decided to assume it’s gone off back to wherever it came from, to live with the bears and wolves and other potentially dangerous animals. At least until it’s hunted down.”

  “But no one’s found it, and there’s a huge party happening in the woods tonight.”

  “Ah, these kids… I was told that parties in the woods were against school rules because of something that happened last semester.”

  “It is against the rules, very against the rules! But I didn’t report it because I don’t wanna be the queen of no fun for half the school… Of course, if I’d known there was definitely still a hydra out there, I would have said something.”

  “Great,” Zachary said. “Well, now I’m gonna have to deal with breaking that party up, too. Just as soon as I can get in here and reset this trap.”

  “What do you think set it off?”

  “Something big enough to trigger the spell and close the gate at the other end, but small enough to squeeze through the gate after springing the trap. A really skinny coyote, maybe?”

  “Okay, well, please hurry. My friend is out there! And other people, who are also important, of course,” she added quickly.

/>   “Hold your light on the lock, please?” Ulrykah did, and Zachary tried one more disenchantment.

  “Let’s see if this works,” he said, plugging the key back into the lock and turning it with a satisfying click.

  “Yesss, who’s awesome?” he said.

  After a too-long pause, “You, you’re super awesome,” Ulrykah chimed in. Zachary eyed her over his shoulder. “Sorry,” she said. “I don’t have great timing.”

  “That’s something we can work on,” Zach said as he removed the padlock from the door and hooked it on his belt loop. “I’ll go check on the kids. Where are they?”

  “It’s a place they call the Grove, down near the lake. There are a bunch of paths that lead there. If you see the Temple of Artemis, you’re too far north.”

  “The what?”

  “That stone gazebo thingy. It’s just a nickname. Um, if there is a hydra rampaging, maybe you should let me know so I can call for help?”

  “If there’s a hydra rampaging, I’m gonna call security for help,” Zachary said.

  “Right. But what if you can’t? You know, because of the rampaging hydra?”

  “Fine, I’ll call you if everything’s fine, and it’s just a normal boring bacchanalian booze-fest. If I don’t call you in fifteen minutes, assume we’re all dead. Would that make you feel better?”

  “Much,” Ulrykah said, and gave him her phone number.

  “Okay,” he said, and handed her back her phone. “Here I go,” he added teasingly, and pulled the door open.

  The tunnel beyond was, not surprisingly, dark, only dimly lit by wand light and faint moonbeams from the gate at the far end. Neither of those light sources explained the odd shimmer Ulrykah saw behind Zachary.

  “Um, Zach?”

  “What?”

  “There’s something behind you.”

  He turned back toward the tunnel just in time to see the shimmer materialize into a half-grown, five-headed hydra. Its bulk nearly filled the tunnel, and its long undulating necks lashed toward the doorway.

  “Oh, shit!” he said and slammed the door on two of the hydra’s heads and one of its long-clawed feet.