Shadow Walker (Neteru Academy Books)

by L. A. Banks

  Sarah fired up the computer and waited for it to boot up. She stared at the screen, unable to read a word without concentration, and then Allie interrupted her.

  “I’m sooo excited about you two,” Allie said, squeezing Sarah’s arm. “And don’t worry about the classes you missed. I’ve got all the notes, and you can just download them from my PIU—not that much happened this morning anyway. The teachers are all pretty freaked.”

  “I figured as much. That’s why I didn’t rush back. But now I want me and you to go on an adventure. This is something that’s definitely not Tami’s style.”

  “Really? You wanna go on an adventure with me? So, like, what can I do?”

  Sarah looked hard at her friend. “Research.”

  Chapter 30

  “I think it’s real cool that your powers are coming in, Sarah,” Allie said, scanning the PirateNet site.

  “Yeah, I thought so, too, until I couldn’t read without a headache and started seeing blue light lines that nauseated me to death.” Sarah sighed. “I just know there’s something there. Some kind of pattern we’re missing.” She squinted at the screen as Allie scrolled the online Class Book pages. “I want to know everything I can about Stefan—things he liked, people he hated, people who wrote on his Class Book page alley, because if we know that, maybe we can get a clue to where he’s hiding out or who might be helping him. That way we can at least let Nana get to him before Al and his crazy posse do.”

  Sarah sat back and rubbed her palms down her face. They’d been at it for a couple of hours, trying to see who in school was linked up with whom. She sat forward suddenly. “I wonder if the two Upper Sphere students who died had pages and if they’re still up. Maybe there’d be something there.”

  “Sure thing, Sarah,” Allie said, clicking over. “But those kids, well, I don’t know how much good their pages will be ‘cuz, you know they’re dead and can’t friend us, so there’s only so much we can see.”

  “Yeah, I know. But I also wanna look at the kids who’ve gone missing.” Sarah stared at the screen, feeling the chill of Allie’s words. Gregory Duncan and Peter Matthews had had everything to live for—everything. After seeing Valencio fly majestic and free, she could only imagine what the two Upper Sphere Valkyries must have looked like taking off from the main hall platform at dusk, gleaming white wings spread… soaring, laughing, doing air wheelies and spiraling nose dives for their clapping girlfriends. Then to see it all go so horribly wrong, right before your very eyes.

  Sarah closed her own eyes for a moment, not wanting to picture the tragedy but unable to escape the images forming in her head. No wonder seers sometimes went blind. She wondered if that would ever happen to her.

  “Man,” Allie said quietly, stopping at one of the many tribute pages to the dead fliers. “Both those guys were so hot. Such a waste. Like at this guy. He has—had—green eyes and perfect blond hair, and look at this pic of him with his wings out—that’s gotta be a five- or six-foot span on each side.”

  Sarah couldn’t look as Allie prattled on with her nose practically touching the screen. All she could think about was what if something terrible like that happened to Val…or Wil…or her brother.

  “And look at the other guy,” Allie said with a soft sigh.

  Sarah cringed and rubbed her arms, tightly shutting her eyes. “Those guys are dead, Allie. Don’t talk about them like you’re going to run into them walking around the school.”

  “Sorry,” Allie said, sounding defensive. “But can I help it if I’m drawn to this guy’s strong jaw and gray eyes and—”

  “What color did you just say his eyes were?” Sarah leaned forward and squinted at the picture on the screen.

  “Gray. But an unusual blue-gray… almost like a husky’s eyes.”

  Sarah stood. “Can you come walk with me, Allie? Like…wherever I go, write it down?”

  “Okaaay,” Allie said, indulging her. “Why? And where to?”

  Ignoring the first question, Sarah said, “To follow some shadow echoes and maybe a coupla shadows.”

  “I know I said I’m ready for any adventure,” Allie wheezed, trying to keep up with Sarah. “But what are we doing?”

  “I’ve been following Stefan’s life force, his shadow echo—or as much of it as I can pick up. It’s very faint, and sometimes my concentration gets messed up, but as far as I can tell, he never came back as far as the gym.”

  The girls rounded a corner and entered the room in question just in time to see Val, wings extended, leap and soar and dunk the ball into the basket at the far end of the court.

  “Wow,” Allie whispered. “I see what you mean. I never really looked at Val like that before.”

  Sarah’s reply caught in her throat as Val swooped to retrieve the ball and stood, wiping sweat from his face.

  “Hey,” he said in a surly tone.

  “Hey,” Sarah said, and then realized that his jaw was slightly swollen, with a long blue bruise on it. “What happened to you?”

  “Nothing. It’s cool.”

  “You oughta put some ice on that,” Allie said, frowning.

  “I said it’s cool!” Val shouted, stalking away toward the bleachers where his shirt and sweater were piled.

  “Who did this to you, Val?” Sarah said quietly, going to him. “What happened?”

  “Al happened, aw’right.”

  “My brother did this to you?” Incredulous, she reached out to touch Val’s jaw, but he stepped away from her, although not soon enough.

  The moment her fingers graced his swollen jaw, intense images stabbed into her mind like a hard, fast movie.

  The boys from their compound had all been together. Val had been trying to get her brother to slow down. For a moment, she wasn’t standing in the gym; she was in the hall, reliving snatches of conversation and distorted bits of time inside her head.

  “Yo, hold up, man,” Val had said, jogging behind Al, with Miguel and Donnie on his flank. “I told you, I’m not down with burnin’ no dude without knowing for a fact that he’s a killer.”

  Val then landed a firm hand on Alejandro’s shoulder to stop him from walking away, and Alejandro swung and caught Val square in the jaw. Blood and spit flew as Val went down hard.

  Miguel bent and grabbed Val’s arm to help him up.

  Donnie wheeled on Alejandro and pointed at him in a rare display of courage, yelling, “What the hell is wrong with you, man?” He moved to grab Val’s other arm, but Val was already up and circling Al, furious.

  “What is your problem?” Val shouted, drawing onlookers into the hall.

  “You kissed my sister!” Al flung his backpack down and squared off, slapping the center of his chest. “I thought we supposed to be boyz?”

  Sarah’s mouth flew open, but the images careened inside her head as Val looked away from her.

  Stunned, the image of Val gaped at her brother. “How the hell did you—”

  “I felt it on contact!” Al yelled, dropping fang. “The bullshit came right through my shoulder, it was so recent, and you think we’d still be friends after that? Sarah’s not like that, man. All these chicas up in this school but you—my hombre, you go after my sister. Break her heart, motherfucker, and it’s on!”

  Al was about to fight Val for her? Nooo way!

  Sarah closed her eyes tightly and began to walk in a tight circle, trying to get the images to stop. Val began walking away, clearly too humiliated for words.

  “Would somebody tell me what the heck is going on?” Allie shouted, trying to get Sarah to stop walking in a dizzying circle.

  But it was no use, once Sarah had touched Val, whatever the emotional sequence was that she’d tapped was destined to run its course. Bewildered, Allie ran over to Val, blocking his exit from the gym.

  What’s happening to her? You can’t just leave her like this!” Allie shrieked, grabbing his arm.

  “She’ll be okay,” Val muttered. “Just mind your business for once, aw’ight!”

&nbs
p; “No.” Allie, said, jumping in front of him and pointing toward Sarah. “With all this freaky stuff going on around the school, we’re not leaving her in here alone.”

  “It’s okay, Allie,” Sarah wheezed, blinking hard to try to get the images in her head to disconnect. But it was like she was plugged into Val at a psychic level now, and as she stopped and stared at him and he stared back at her, she could tell he could feel it, too.

  “First of all,” Val’s image said inside Sarah’s head, and then she watched him step up and get in Al’s face, his fangs lowering to match Al’s, “I don’t think about her like that. I don’t treat girls the way you do!” He stared at Al then spat blood. “I’ve got too much respect for her to do her like that, but the next time you take a swing at your best amigo, I’ma show you what your ex-sergeant-at-arms can do.”

  Donnie and Miguel jumped between Alejandro and Val as Val advanced on Al with a level of fury that had spiked way beyond Al’s.

  “Yeah, whatever, man,” Al muttered and turned away.

  “And for the record,” Val shouted toward Al’s back, pushing Miguel and Donnie off him, “if you treat Tami like shit, I’m coming for you! I promise I’ll wax your ass up and down this hallway until they throw us both out!”

  “Walk it off, man,” Miguel said in the vision. “Walk it off. You know how Al is.”

  “I’m tired of understanding how Al is—Al needs to grow the hell up.” Val spat out more blood and started walking toward the gym.

  “You gonna be cool, dude?” Donnie asked, catching up to him.

  Val kept his head high, his gaze forward, his chest heaving and his nostrils flaring. He couldn’t answer Donnie; rage had a stranglehold on him.

  “Can I ask just one question?” Donnie asked as Miguel joined them. “Did you really kiss Sarah?”

  Miguel yanked Donnie out of the way of a hard elbow jab from Val that would have caught Donnie in the throat, then spun him around and began walking in the opposite direction. “Man, you are one stupid SOB.”

  Moments later, Sarah saw a furious Val enter the gym inside her mind. Sweat rolled down his temples, his chest and back as he ran the court bare-chested, shooting hoops alone. His backpack sat on the bleachers with his sweater and Oxford shirt flung over them. It was clear that he needed to move, had to move, and needed a distraction. Anger and hurt echoed through her soul. His boy had sucker-punched him, taking offense when none was warranted. There was no way to explain, nor should he have had to that she was someone he thought about in an entirely different way. The awareness kept the eyes on each other as the telepathic link ran its course. Val offered her a slight nod. She swallowed hard. Her mouth had gone dry from the intensity of his emotions.

  Then within the vision, Val ran down the court, spread his wings and hovered over the basket with the ball and then slam dunked it, only to grab it and dribble in down the court at a six-foot altitude.

  She looked away from Val as the vision ebbed.

  “I said it was cool. So now you know.” He began stuffing his sweater and shirt into his backpack and turned to leave in earnest this time.

  “No, it’s not cool for Al to do something like this to his best friend.” She didn’t know what else to say. The other things she’d felt within him were too deep and way too intense to name.

  “Ex-best friend,” Val said. “Man thinks I’m gonna hurt his sister, so hey…”

  Eyes wide and fascinated, Allie plopped down on the bleachers nearby.

  “Where did he get some off-the-wall idea like—”

  “I touched his shoulder, just like you touched my jaw,” Val said, frowning and turning away from her. “Didn’t know you had the gift too…guess a lot of shit is different since we got to school. But I just wanted to tell him something, wanted to get him off this crazy wolf-hunt mission and back on target with the light-binding thing. You know how it is—all us Specs are empaths. Guess how I felt was right up near the surface, and he spun and cold-cocked me for kissing his sister, but what his tiny brain couldn’t figure out was, it meant something. I wasn’t playing you the way he plays girls, so he got pissed. At least you know your big brother has your back, as messed up as his thinking is.”

  “Stop!” Sarah shouted, rounding on Val. “Listen, I know you’re angry, and I know there’s other serious personal stuff going on,” she added, trying to preserve their privacy in front of Allie and hoping Val caught her drift. “But I need your help. You’ve said a whole buncha stuff I need to absorb, but I can’t right now—can you understand that?” She reached for him, needing to feel his acceptance.

  “Yeah,” he said flatly, sidestepping her outstretched arm. “That’s exactly how I feel right now—too much filling my head. So…what do you need my help with?”

  “Stefan never came this way that night the four of us were in the hallway!”

  “How do you know?” Val looked from her to Allie, still sitting on the bleachers but leaning forward avidly.

  “My talents are starting to come in. One of the things I’m starting to be able to do is shadow echo—see shadows, follow where people have gone.”

  “Really?” Val rubbed his jaw, then winced. “I hear that’s really rare. They told us about it in Spec orientation. None of the professors here can do it, not even Nana Marlene. Al can’t do it, either. That’s deep.”

  “Well, I can do it,” Sarah said proudly. “I can’t fly, but I can read the ground—and Allie’s been my scribe while we walked all over the school following Stefan’s trail, but it never got to the gym.”

  “Trust me,” Allie said, joining them and shaking her head. “We walked this whole school like three times.”

  “The night we got attacked, something came from back toward the boiler room, because Al and Tami were over there.” Sarah started walking, with Val and Allie following her.

  “Right, they were up in the alcove, doing whatever,” Val said. “Me and you came into the hall from that way.”

  Allie started writing.

  “Tell your girl not to write that part down,” Val muttered. “She looks like she’s a reporter for the school paper or something.”

  “Allie, chill,” Sarah said, walking back down the hall in the direction she’d gone with Titan Troy. “In the morning I had to go to detention,” she went on, picking up her earlier thread, “and that’s when I found out that exit stair and the hatch to the outside. There’s a lock code, but—”

  “But somebody could get in, if they had the code,” he said, cutting her off.

  “Which senior fliers, getting ready to graduate, probably would.”

  “Valkyries?” Val said, nodding in agreement with Sarah’s assessment. “Definitely. They probably flew with the stable on a regular basis, and I doubt Titan Troy was assigned to escort them every time they wanted to go out. They would’ve been buff—the kind of guys to protect other people, not need protection themselves.”

  “Gotta agree with you,” Sarah said.

  “Buff? Buff!” Allie exclaimed. “These guys were monsters—like on steroids or something.”

  “Calm down,” Val said laughing, flexing. “All Valkyries fill out the more they fly and do airlift reps—got that crazy Viking thing going on. Have to be able to dead-weight lift a man off the battlefield at full velocity. Valkyries are the best athletes in the school.” Val rolled his shoulders and strutted a bit. “By Upper Sphere, I’m gonna be cut like…ridiculous.”

  “Focus,” Sarah said with a big smile, jettisoning the enticing image of an even buffer Val from her mind. “Okay…so what if the night the four of us got attacked someone came in from the outside, someone who knew the codes?”

  “I could see that,” Val said calmly, walking toward the boiler room. “But how’d he get away? Once the water rushed in, it would be impossible to open the door against the water pressure.”

  “Yeah, but look at the walls,” Allie said, running her hand along a series of vertical metal tracks that marked the hall on the way to the boiler roo
m. “They’d’ve thought of everything, so wouldn’t they have some kind of safety doors between the ocean mural and the boiler room?”

  “Hell yeah,” Val said, running over to where Allie stood. “The doors leading in and out are built like nautical hatches, so before you get to them, there’d be a series of spinner-sealed off the boiler room and preserve the heating and cooling systems.”

  “Which means that whoever attacked us had time to get to the hatch and then the drop-downs went back up automatically once the water receded.” Sarah pulled out her scrunchie and walked back and forth, opening her mind, focusing on the face of the dead Valkyrie with the beautiful gray eyes.

  But his wasn’t the face she saw. The attacker’s traces were faint echoes now, like visual whispers. What she did see made her hug the wall. It was huge, hunchbacked and feral—and it had definitely came through the back door. The moment the fear slammed her system, she saw Beep and Bop peek out of a corner.

  “It’s okay,” she said to her Collectors, knowing that no one else could see.

  “You okay?” Val asked hesitantly, watching her cringe against the wall like she’d seen a ghost and then walk over to the code pad.

  “I’m sure they changed the code for security purposes once those kids got killed, Sarah,” Allie said, though she sounded unsure. She hung back as Val hurried to Sarah’s side.

  When Sarah spoke, her voice sounded very far away. “But if you could hear like a dog, or a wolf…”

  “I’m part vamp,” Val said proudly. “I hear pretty good, like the best of the Audios, and no worse than Al and Miguel. Heard his fingers hit the pads and then did a little stealth to watch his movements.”

  “You saw the code pattern when Titan Troy put it in this morning?”

  Val smiled. “That was gonna be my secret, but, yeah…I think I mighta seen a li’l somethin’.”

  “Put it in,” Sarah said, looking at him.

  Allie walked away. “All this sounds way too personal.”

  Val gave a low, sexy chuckle and punched in the code. Allie and Sarah stared in amazement as the tumblers clicked.