by Rain Oxford
“This is a family matter, Mr. Sanders. I do not want this getting into the media.”
“So a family member took her?” I always turned down cases involving custody battles. I saw the child as a victim no matter how they turned out, and I didn’t want to be privy to that. If the child’s life was in danger, it was a different matter, but that was never the case.
“No, she was kidnapped. I will pay twice your usual fee, plus expenses, and this,” he pushed the stack of twenties at me, “is a bonus to give my case priority.”
I almost told him I had no cases at the time, but I figured it would make up for the money I wasted on my plane ticket. I wanted to reject the case, but I had the feeling he wasn’t going to the police no matter how much danger the child was in.
“What is your name and how can I contact you?”
“My name is John Cross. My daughter is Reagan Cross, and she was last seen at her elementary school. I will contact you when you have found her.” With that, he turned and walked out of the office.
I sighed. Give me a tomato and expect me to make lemonade. How he expected me to find his daughter without even giving me the name of her school, I don’t know, but I was paid well for a reason; I was good at my job.
Reagan Cross was not a common name, and I knew she was in pre-k to first grade. Location meant nothing; John could have traveled hundreds of miles to find me. First I searched John’s name on Google and found nothing, not even a Facebook page. There were others with the name, but none with the appropriate picture.
I searched for Reagan Cross, and Honor Roll. How a first-grader got on the honors list, I don’t know, but there she was, so I had the name of her school. Since my car was in the clutches of my ex-wife, I borrowed my friend’s spare car and drove three hours to the small town. First I got a motel, because I didn’t know how long it would take. Knowing the best place to get information around this kind of town was at the local diners, I walked down the main street to the school and found a diner right across from it.
The town was quaint to a fault; it was the type where a young couple would have car troubles, be forced to stop for the night, and were never seen again. This was the type of town where people would come together to cover up their dark secrets.
The waitress smiled at me as soon as I entered and asked if I wanted a booth or a table. When I said a booth, she looked behind me and asked if it was just one.
“Yes,” I said happily. Just one was plenty for me. With a single menu and roll of silverware, she led me through the cramped little dining room. We were passing an empty booth when my instincts warned me I was about to miss something. “I want to sit here,” I said quickly. She looked a little startled, but not offended, so I sat down.
“No problem. What can I get you to drink?”
“Coffee and a water.”
“I will be right back with that.” She set down the menu and silverware before disappearing into the kitchen. There were only a dozen other customers, since it was too late for lunch and too early for dinner. Still, it was a lot for one waitress to handle and I didn’t see anyone else.
“They found Toby,” a woman in the next booth said to her friend.
“That dog is a menace. He always barks at the neighborhood kids.”
“That’s how they found him. Reagan missed the bus again and was walking home. Toby was barking at her from the alley behind the school.”
This was the reason my instincts directed me to sit here. I was always in the right place at the right time when I followed my instincts.
“Where is Reagan? She hasn’t been into class the last two days. I tried calling her home, but the line was disconnected.”
I looked out the window at the school and wondered which way she went. There was a forest surrounding the town, so I would start my search there. Of course, I hoped I didn’t find her; nothing good ever happened in a forest.
When the waitress came back, I ordered a burger and fries without looked at the menu and waited about ten minutes. Neither woman in the booth next to me said anything else helpful. One of them was Reagan’s teacher, and Reagan was apparently the brightest student she had. I felt bad for the other students in the woman’s class if she was constantly comparing them to Reagan.
I scarfed down my burger, which was about as good as diner burgers got, and headed straight to the forest. I considered getting my gun from the motel, but I figured time was more important than having a weapon. My judgment had never let me down before.
I searched for an hour before I came upon a rundown, abandoned house. It was a one-story thing that was barely more than a cabin. The front porch had rotted and collapsed and weeds were growing up through the wood. I tried the door, but water damage had sealed it permanently. I would have passed it by if my instincts hadn’t screamed that something was wrong.
A sharp chirp broke the silence and I jumped a little. I took my cellphone out of its holster on my belt and checked the text message.
I see you changed your number again. I ran low on money this month, so you need to pay my electric bill.
I cursed quietly; Regina was somehow always able to get my number, no matter how many times I changed it. I deleted the text and put the phone back in its holster.
When I circled the house, I found no other doors, but I apparently didn’t need one; there was a hole in the living room wall from a tree that fell on the house. Mindful of sagging places under the molding red carpet, I tested every step gently. Brown water dripped from the incurved ceiling as I tested each of the four doors. Only one of them opened. Inside was a set of stairs leading into absolute darkness. It was the smell, though, that made me hesitate. There were few things, in my opinion, as bad or distinctive as the odor of rotting flesh.
I unbuttoned my over shirt, took it off, wadded it, and held it to my nose. Unmanly, maybe, but gagging wasn’t going to help anyone. I took the penlight out of my pocket and headed down the steps carefully. There was not a drop of blood until I reached the bottom step, which was soaking in it. The basement was concrete, so it hadn’t been exposed to the elements like the rest of the house, but the fact that it was meticulously up kept was as obvious as the two-inch deep pool of blood. There were the severed legs and arms of multiple bodies, symbols all over the walls written in blood, and a little girl.
Reagan Cross was very much dead with two distinct punctures on her neck that were impossible to miss. I realized at that moment that this wasn’t a human case and I was in over my head. I didn’t deal with the paranormal beings because they made their own rules. Vampires were especially unpredictable and untrustworthy.
Sickened by the sight, I went back to the motel. Once the adrenaline started to come down, I tried to call the police, only to find that my cellphone was missing. The last place I used it was at the house. It must have fallen out of the holster there or on the way here. I didn’t want to ask anyone to borrow their phone because I couldn’t risk questions. I had to keep it quiet. Knowing there was no other way, I returned to the decomposing house in the middle of the forest, down into the basement…
And it was clean. The blood and bodies had all been removed, the symbols written in blood all over the walls were washed away, and my phone was placed carefully on a metal stool in the middle of the room. It was a warning. I drove back to my apartment that night without stopping once even for gas. I didn’t call the police.
I expected threats or even outright attempts on my life after that, but I heard nothing from my client or those responsible for the girl’s murder. There were no bombs on the car, though I carefully checked each time, no horse heads were presented to me on my pillow, and I no longer felt like I was being watched.
Instead, I got a letter from someone else. It wasn’t in the mailbox or slipped under my door, but set directly on my desk. Although I was skittish as I opened it, nothing exploded and I found only a letter, a hand-drawn map, and a check for five thousand dollars.
I read the letter, still clutching the check
in my left hand. The letter was written by hand with a spidery script in green ink.
Dear Devon Sanders,
I am well aware of your reputation for solving problems in a timely, efficient, and discreet manner. I have an assignment for you I believe you will find interesting and worthy of your talent. Logan Hunt, headmaster of the paranormal university, Quintessence, has reason to believe his school has been infiltrated.
Mr. Hunt is desperate to discover who is stealing their confidential information and for what purpose. To do this, he suggests you attend the university undercover as a student. Mr. Hunt alone will be aware of your true identity and purpose at the school, and will admit you as a wizard.
You will receive a payment of five thousand dollars each week, room and board for the duration of the semester, and any necessary ‘protection’ from previous dealings with unseemly characters of the paranormal community. This includes members involved in your most recent case.
I need not tell you how important it is for you to keep this secret from the human population. I chose you first and foremost for your discretion and inconspicuousness. If you are willing to accept this case, go to the university before the first of the semester, which begins on the first of September.
Best Wishes,
V. K. Knight
They had me at “protection.” Thus, I found myself rushing to get the last bus to a small town in Maine. It was early autumn and the New England countryside was starting to shed its summer coat.
Oddly, the map did not give me the actual location to the esoteric university, only the nearest town which was, quite frankly, a ghost town. The bus driver gave me a severe stare as I exited, as if I was entirely out of my mind. I assumed he actually skipped this stop normally and I wasn’t exactly surprised.
It was dark and thick clouds obstructed any light the moon or stars could have otherwise offered. The streetlights flickered systematically all the way down the deserted road. Stores lining the main street— the only street from what I could tell— were visibly rundown if not abandoned altogether.
A black, nondescript Saturn drove slowly up the road a few minutes after the bus disappeared. The streetlights blinked out as it passed, only to flicker back on when it was far enough away. It stopped right in front of me.
I was left with a decision; I could wander the streets, looking for a motel that was probably run by a psychotic, axe-wielding mass murderer waiting to find me sleeping and play show-and-tell with my internal organs, or I could get in the car that was probably driven by a psychotic, axe-wielding mass murderer waiting to drive me to his small cabin in the woods and play show-and-tell with my internal organs.
I got in the damn car.
It was a two hour drive into the northern part of the state, winding over backwoods roads where the branches of the trees often met overhead to create dark tunnels. When the clouds cleared, the moonlight cast eerie shadows through the trees. During the entire trip, the driver never looked at me or said a word.
Finally, the driver stopped the car and I took a long look at the mysterious university.
Picturesque is how one might describe the scene. Spooky and weird would work just as well.
It was a castle, but not one from any era or country of origin that I could identify. The closest I could describe was modern Gothic. There was a peaceful stone courtyard in the front, which came across as a trap. From the unsymmetrical towers and unusual windows, which were different shapes and sizes, I guessed that the castle was built by at least three different architects. Nestled in the mountains of northern Maine with a huge lake to the west, it was not something that could easily be overlooked, yet this was one of the most obscure paranormal establishments unknown to man.
Not being able to come up with any really substantial reason for retreat, I continued with the alternative; I got out of the car with my bags and walked up the looped gravel drive. A stone path led up to the castle from this point, winding through bushes and trees that hid all but the topmost part of the second floor. When I got to the front door, I looked back, but both the road and car were hidden from view. The place was one to warm the back recesses of any hardcore hermit’s heart.
There was a simple but massive brass knocker on the door, yet before I could try it, the door opened to reveal the headmaster. “Welcome, Devon Sanders. I’m Logan Hunt. Leave your bags and follow me.” Without another word, he turned and led me through the hallways and into the room where I met the other twelve members of the school board. Even knowing that I was going to be accepted into the school, it was daunting.
The problem was that I wasn’t a wizard. I had to pretend to be able to do magic well enough to fool actual witches and wizards, not to mention shifters and fae. This was a prestigious university even in the paranormal world; everyone was going to be asking me how I got in. Even the deputy principal, Mrs. Ashcraft, didn’t know I was here for other reasons than to learn.
And apparently, I had to do more than worry about keeping my lies and covers straight; some of these people could read minds. Fortunately, there were no vampires. I would have refused the case if vampires were allowed in the school, because there was nothing that could convince me to work with them.
* * *
The door burst opened, startling me from my thoughts. A man who couldn’t have been more than twenty came in wearing only jeans and socks. He had light, shaggy blond hair and deep blue eyes. At five-five, he was fine-boned and verging on too thin, but he struck me as naturally scrawny instead of malnourished. The man looked right up at me and smiled brightly. “Hey, man, you must be one o’ me roomies!”
I sighed, sat up, and had to duck to avoid hitting my head on the ceiling tiles. “I guess so.”
“I’m Darwin.” He sat in the seat under the bed with dark blue blankets.
“I’m Devon. Are you Australian?”
“English, but I grew up all over the world. Never spent more than six months in one country ‘til I was fifteen.”
“That must have been difficult growing up. It probably made it hard to make friends.”
“Naw, bro. It was me mouth that got me no friends. Never ever stop talking. I even talk in my sleep.”
Great. “I don’t know if it’s rude or not to ask, but are you a wizard or one of the other paranormal beings?”
“Not a wizard, bro. I’m just a throwback.”
“You’re going to have to explain that one to me.”
“He means his parents aren’t the same kind of paranormal,” another man said, walking in through the still-open door. He shut it behind him and turned the deadbolt. He was right at six feet tall, about twenty five, and muscular. He wore a dark green t-shirt with jeans. “And you shouldn’t speak so loudly about it,” he scolded Darwin.
I could sense it easily; he was a shifter. By his black hair and gold eyes, I figured he was probably a black panther. He didn’t have the same aura as a wolf. His naturally tan skin was ambiguous; he could have been Mediterranean or South American. Whereas Darwin had more of an Australian accent, the shifter had a British one.
Darwin didn’t seem to notice the stranger’s admonishment. “Aye. Mother’s a forest spirit. Dad’s a wolf shifter. I can neither do magic nor shift.”
The shifter began reorganizing his already-organized books. “If a paranormal and a human have a child, nine times out of ten, the child will take the stronger paranormal gene and be just fine,” he explained. “Of those remaining ten percent, nine out of ten will be considered gifted humans.”
“And that last tenth of a percent?” I asked.
“They are children who end up with maybe wolf ears and a tail or wings or something, but will be unable to shift or do magic. They’re called throwbacks. However, when two different kinds of paranormals have a child together, the chance of the child being functional is only about fifty percent. Those who are messed up are also called throwbacks.”
Darwin showed no sign at all that he was upset over basically being called a genetic screw
-up. “If you have no magic or shifting abilities, how did you get in here?”
“My parents went here and I was smart enough to get into the sapling. I guess they just pushed me through because my parents were so successful. Hunt suggested I could be a scientist or something. What are you?”
“Wizard. What is the sapling?”
“It’s a nickname,” the shifter answered. “This school is strictly for adults, but there is another school for children and an orphanage for paranormal children or children whose parents were paranormals. Stemming from the Tree of Life stuff, this is the tree, the school for children is the sapling, and the orphanage is the seedling. How did you get in without knowing at least that much?”
I considered my words carefully. Without breaking my cover, I was going to have to live with these two guys. They would figure out I didn’t know anything and I would screw up if I pretended to. “I know very little about the paranormal world.”
They both stared at me for a moment. Then, finally, the shifter shrugged. “You must have been good enough because they let you in here. I’m Henry Lycosa, jaguar shifter.”
“I’m Devon Sanders.”
“There’s something very odd about you, Devon Sanders. Something my cat senses.”
“I’m Darwin Mason,” our other roommate volunteered.
“Good,” Henry said. “Now that we have all met, I suggest we go to bed.”
“We’re not going to get to know each other?” Darwin asked, despondent.
In response, Henry began turning off the lanterns. It seemed like Darwin was going to be great at keeping suspicion off me.
Chapter 2
I woke way too early in the morning to persistent knocking. When it didn’t go away on its own, I sat up and hit my head on the ceiling. After cursing the ceiling, I climbed down the ladder carefully and leisurely. If someone was rude enough to wake me at this time of night, I wasn’t going to kill myself rushing to answer the door. When I finally made it to the door and opened it, I was surprised.
