by Oxford, Rain
“Does it say anything about the tower?”
“A bit. It looks like the castle was built around the tower as a conduit for summoning… the translated word would be shadow walkers. I think the tower is some kind of portal or gateway. There’s a phrase Baldauf’s daughter wrote over and over again on everything and with anything she could possibly write.” He showed me a black-and-white picture of a bedroom with writing all over every wall, etched into the wood of her bare bed, and even chalked on the floor.
There was also a close-up on the sentence. A uiv es niiso bolape odo.
“That’s like the one on Heather’s note, except it wasn’t u-i-v, it was something else.”
“From what was written, I believe I know what it means.”
I let out my power to connect with his mind and he was completely welcoming. “Tell me this way. We don’t want to be overheard, apparently. The different word was es.”
“Gotcha. I’m not a hundred percent sure, but I believe it means, ‘The fourth way is open,’ which doesn’t bode well if it means a fourth doorway into the place these shadow walkers are from.”
“From your awkward silences, I feel like I am being left out,” Henry said.
“No mind melding for you, since you’re so scared of your bloody secret being known,” Darwin griped at him.
Henry sighed and pulled a textbook off his shelf to study.
“Darwin, lay off him. I think he wants to protect us from his secret.” I reached over and patted the head of the dried mud creature on my desk. “I still haven’t figured out why Langril wanted me to keep this.”
“Maybe he thought you were lonely, bro. Have you named it yet?”
“What do you name a clump of mud?”
“Have you asked it?” he asked.
I sighed and shook my head. “Let’s go looking for the tower.”
Darwin groaned. “In the morning.”
“Keep in mind, the full moon is coming up soon,” Henry cautioned. “I will be less helpful when that occurs.”
* * *
Saturday morning, we were sitting at breakfast when a woman sat beside Henry. It was one of the women consistently vying for his attention. She was pretty, in her mid-twenties, with short ginger hair, light blue eyes, and a sweet face.
“It is not the full moon,” Henry said immediately. I knew the jaguar well enough to see this comment as his way of being polite.
“I know; I just want a chance this time. I know you only like Addie when your hormones go nuts. Maybe if you spend more time with me, you’ll find you really like me, so when–”
Henry’s sigh cut her off. The look on his face was actually pained as he stood up and walked away. The woman stared after him in shock when he approached Addie, who was sitting a few tables away in order to give Henry his space. Addison looked up in surprise before he grabbed her by the arm, pulled her up, and kissed her deeply. Every woman in the room gawked.
After a few minutes, he sat her back down, returned to our table, and addressed the stunned stranger. “Addison is now my fulltime girlfriend; please leave me alone.” The woman got up without a word and left.
“How painful was that?” Darwin asked as Henry sat.
“Not as painful as being treated like an Olympics metal. Addison understands I am still a person even when I cannot feel passion or affection.”
“Any kind of affection? What do you normally feel?”
He considered it for a moment. “Mostly it’s just my hormones that are affected. I feel almost a full range of emotions not related to my sex drive, but many of them are dulled, such as excitement or fear.”
“So, anything that affects your judgment is dulled?”
“Yes. Under the full moon, I feel everything much stronger, which is why I am more likely to shift and kill. I see the dulling of my emotions as nature’s way of calming my jaguar. However, my senses are exceptional at any time. Thus, kissing someone outside of the full moon is rather unpleasant. I also must rely on my sense of smell to interpret the reactions and emotions of people around me.”
Right after breakfast, we headed to the underground level. The vampires were supposedly all asleep, so if we ran into a teacher, we planned to tell them we were going to the infirmary. I grabbed a torch and lit it with my lighter before we got to the staircase that led to the next level down.
“Ready?” I asked. Henry and Darwin both nodded, so we descended into the lower floor. “Remember to watch for traps.”
Henry push me back just before I took the last step off the stairs. Exactly where I would have stepped, a six-inch-long metal spike shot up from the ground.
“That wasn’t there before!” I said. “How did you know?”
“I heard the trigger. This is what I do; follow my lead.”
I nodded and held the torch out for him to take. We were careful to step where Henry did and stop when he indicated to. This was a maze of tunnels even worse than the vampire floor. We came to a tunnel split with a perpendicular, chasm in the floor.
Henry handed me the torch and jumped the gap. It was about five-foot wide, but Henry took it like it was nothing. I tossed the torch to Henry and he caught it. Darwin stood against the wall as I backed up to get a running start. “This is stupid,” he advised.
I couldn’t get far enough back to build up a good run, only a fair one. I ran, jumped, and hit the ground on the balls of my feet, immediately rolling so that I didn’t lose my balance.
“Umm… I’m just gonna wait here if it’s all the same to you,” Darwin said.
“Really?” I asked, back on my feet. “You know there are traps, so you really want to be alone here? You want to be alone in the dark with a monster on the loose that can come out of the ground? Have you seen Tremors?”
He squeaked. “Okay, okay. God, Dad’ll kill me for this. For the record, I hate you both.” He backed away to get a running start.
“No! Stop!” Henry shouted. Darwin, already running, hit the ground and slid to a stop just an instant before a stone column slammed down from the ceiling to block the gap.
“Darwin!” I yelled.
“I’m okay!” I heard his muffled yell back. “It’s just really dark!”
I cussed with relief. “Stay there and we’ll find you!”
“I’m not moving a muscle with a graboid-rex on the loose!”
“With a what?” Henry asked.
I shook my head. “Don’t ask. He called the cook an inglorious mop-dip the other day. The guy is brilliant, but I don’t think he realizes what he’s saying sometimes. How do we get back?”
“It might be wiser to continue without him and come back for him when we’ve found the tower.”
“What if he gets attacked?”
“That is more likely if he goes with us. I believe he has more to fear from traps since Hunt had this place searched. Now let’s hurry.” He turned and walked away.
“I hope we’re not just wandering around,” I said, following him.
“I am following something. I’m not sure what, but my cat senses something. I feel like I am hunting a predator. I can sense its power.” We walked for another half an hour before Henry froze. “Shit.”
“What?” I asked. He held out his hand to stop me when I tried to step in front of him.
“I’m stepping on a trigger.”
“Like a mine trigger?”
“Exactly like a mine trigger. Here, take the torch and go get Hunt. If he can walk through the shadows, he might be able to get me and get out before it goes off.”
My senses instantly warned of danger when he said it. “No. This feels like a trap to get us all separated.” I started to reach for the torch when a strangely cool gust of wind blew through the tunnel. “Not again.” The torch flame died. As the last glowing embers of the torch faded and left us in utter darkness, I felt like we were surrounded.
The ground shook, a roar echoed, and the temperature rose ten degrees in a matter of seconds.
I had no warning bef
ore something enormous crashed into me, tossing me to the ground. It was on top of me and heavy, but not crushing me. Although I heard the explosion and the rumbling of the cave around me collapsing, I was uninjured. The ensuing roar right above me left a ringing in my ears.
The creature’s skin was hot, dry, and rough, not slick and cold like it looked when Langril fought it. When it lifted off me, the air was nearly too hot to breathe. “Henry, are you okay?” I asked.
No response.
“Henry!”
He coughed. “I’m okay. Get down!”
I dropped and covered my head as fire flooded the tunnel. When I moved my arm, the only thing on fire was the torch and we were alone. Henry, who was on the ground beside me, quickly grabbed the torch.
“We need to get out of here before we suffocate.” He seemed to instinctively know the way to get out. When we reached the tunnel where we left Darwin, the partition was up. He was sitting against the wall with his knees to his chest.
“Oh, thank god,” he said, standing when he saw the torchlight. “Get yur arses over here before it closes again.”
Henry tossed the torch and Darwin caught it. Once again, Henry jumped and made the gap easily, but I wasn’t going to risk it. He was technically as much a cat as a person and they were known for their jumping skills. I took a running start again and was in the air when I heard the rock wall come down behind me. When I hit the ground, I rolled. Instead of landing on my feet, I was flat on my back, panting.
“I’m too old for this shit.” I climbed to my feet and Henry led us back to the vampire level. “Why the hell did we go down there in the first place?”
“We were trying to find the tower,” Henry said.
“Screw the tower,” Darwin said.
“We almost died and the only thing we discovered is that Hunt did not take care of whatever is down there. More people are going to die if we don’t do something.”
“What about the amulet?” Henry asked.
“It’s most definitely an unrelated case. We need to work on both. First, we need to tell Hunt.”
“You think he doesn’t already know?” Darwin asked as we made our way through the vampire level.
“I hope not.”
Darwin was in front and opened the door. When he screamed, I grabbed him by the back of the hoodie and pushed him behind me. Alpha Flagstone stood right in front of the door. “Sorry, man, you scared me,” Darwin said to him.
“We need to see the headmaster.”
Flagstone nodded, turned, and walked away. We followed him to Hunt’s office, where Flagstone entered without knocking. “He will be here in a moment,” the shifter said, motioning to the black leather couch. Henry and I sat on the couch while Darwin sat on the chair.
“I tried to warn you to stay out of this. We all did,” the wolf said.
“And we acknowledged your warning. We’re going to investigate anyway.”
“We will assist you as much as we can,” Hunt said, appearing from his private library. “Believe us or not, we are on your side.”
“Then tell us about the key you and Langril are after. Tell us about the tower.”
“If I told you about the key and why Vincent and I must attain it before Langril, you would go after it yourself. Four of us are risking our lives to get this key and you are no match for any of us.”
Sure, let’s play the pronoun game. “Four of you? I count you, Vincent, and Langril. If Alpha Flagstone is manning the school, who’s the fourth?”
“Please trust me. Vincent and I will win and everything will be fine.”
“Are you going to kill Langril?”
“Only if I have to. Leave it alone, Devon. Whatever you do, you must not help him.”
“Then why did you make him my elemental mentor?”
“Because he is the best professor I have in earth magic and you need the best right now. I had hoped you would not blindly trust him.”
“I don’t blindly trust anyone, but he lies to me less than you.” Oddly enough, I trusted Henry a lot even knowing that he had a big secret.
“Has he offered you a contract?”
“No,” I said. He sighed with relief. “I believe Heather has, though.” I didn’t like the sound of a contract. From a private investigator standpoint, it didn’t sound legitimate, and I hadn’t even heard the terms.
His eyes narrowed slightly. “Then she is trying to come back. Please tell me you refused her. Nothing they could offer you is worth a contract with them.”
“I haven’t agreed to anything.”
“Quit while you are ahead. Drop the case. Help Stephen with the amulet case.”
“I will work on the amulet case, but I’m not dropping this. There is something underground, and it will kill again.”
“You think the two cases are connected?”
“We went down there to find the tower, but that doesn’t necessarily have anything to do with creature that attacked the vampires.”
“What are your instincts telling you?”
My instincts were telling me that the creature was targeting Dr. Martin in the tunnels. They were also telling me I could trust Hunt. “I will focus on the amulet case for a few days, as long as you deal with this. If another person dies from whatever the hell is underground, I will blame you.”
Chapter 9
We were all frustrated when we got back to our room. We were no closer to solving either case, Hunt was obviously up to something huge, and we still didn’t know where Amelia was. “How do you normally find something that has been moved?” I asked Henry.
“Normally, I get to it before it is moved. Sometimes, the target is routinely moved, in which case it is usually best to attain it during transport, when the guards can be more easily distracted.”
“Okay, hold up,” Darwin said. “You need to explain that because my brain is jumping to conclusions.”
Henry gave a pained sigh. “I am a thief, Darwin,” he said.
Darwin blinked, obviously not expecting that. Henry was about to explain when Darwin shrugged. “Okay, that makes sense. What’s the plan then?”
It was Henry’s turn to look startled. “You don’t want to know why or yell at me about how wrong stealing is?”
“I trust you, bro. I know you wouldn’t steal for fun because I would have caught onto that a long time ago. I’m sure you have good reasons and will tell me when you feel like it. ‘sides, I stole a bar of soap from my aunt’s house because I liked the smell, so I’m a bit of the wild card myself.”
“You stole soap? Maseré is a billionaire, why couldn’t you have just asked him to get you the same soap?”
“Well… at dinner that night, my aunt asked if anyone had seen the soap and I broke down crying. I was only eight and I didn’t want a record. I gave it back and then my dad laughed and bought me the same soap.”
I laughed, but Henry looked green. “Your father is Maseré Mason? You may want to invest in better security. You are all over my parents’ hit list and a four-year-old can hack your server.”
Darwin smirked evilly. “That’s the decoy system, mate. I designed it with more traps than the castle and I dare anyone to so much as try. By all means, invite your parents to find my address. I’ll have their birth records, social security, bank accounts, personal diaries, and Facebook accounts before they could log into their own wifi.
“One billionaire had been giving my dad shit for supporting an abuse relief organization and the man made the mistake of trying to hack my system. I was waiting for him, of course, and within fifteen seconds, every penny of every account the man had was pouring into the relief organization.”
“Unfortunately, the wizards don’t have computers to hack,” I said. “I’ve seen the man who has the amulet, but I don’t know his name.”
“Can you describe him?” Henry asked, reaching for the notebook on his desk. I figured he was writing down the description as I recalled the man in the vision, but when he turned the notebook around so I cou
ld see, I was shocked. “Is this accurate?” he asked.
I had seen professionals who worked with the police draw less perfect depictions of the suspect than Henry’s drawing. “This is your ‘useless hobby’? That’s brilliant.”
He started to turn away when Darwin snatched it out of his hand and started flipping through pages. “These are amazing! Why don’t you do this professionally?”
“My parents have burned every drawing and painting of mine they found since I could remember and reminded me over and over that I was horrible at it.”
“Devon, where is your gun? We’re gonna hunt us a couple o’ panthers.”
“Jaguars, not panthers.” He took his notebook back. “And it hardly matters. If I want to stay out of prison, I have to steal for them.”
“Okay, jaguar hunting is first on the list of things we’re doing this summer,” I said. Darwin nodded firmly. “What’s the difference between a jaguar and a panther, anyway?”
“A panther is not actually a type of cat. It can refer to leopards or jaguars. I despise being confused with a leopard. They are smaller and slimmer. Also, jaguars live in America, whereas leopards live in Asia and Africa.”
“I’ll be sure not to confuse the two then,” I said. Darwin turned the notebook so I could see a perfectly drawn talisman, front and back. “Is that what we’re after?” I couldn’t tell its size from the drawing, but it was circular. On one side, it had a pentagram enclosed in a circle. The outside ring was full of esoteric letters. On the other side was an even more intricate design of a triangle inside a square with the same letters all over it.
“That is the amulet, yes,” Henry said. “It’s the size of a standard pocket watch and about the same weight.”
“How do we go about finding this bad guy? Last time I tried to get into the big guy’s head, I ended up finding the house instead. Also, I can’t read the ringleader’s mind.”
