by Rain Oxford
“I’m not trying to control him, only practice communicating.”
When Henry got up, went to his desk, pulled his student handbook from his shelf, and started swatting at something on the desk, Darwin and I stared at him. Then he set down the booklet and returned to his seat. “Sorry. It was a spider.”
“At least we found a good use for the handbook,” Darwin said.
He closed his eyes, his face tight with worry. I closed my eyes and opened my mind. Like I had done hundreds of times in my life, I searched for the nearest minds.
I felt two of them, as I expected. One person was full of loneliness. He would take the pain in exchange for another person’s touch, but he couldn’t stand seeing their death. The other person was full of shame and frustration. He had a purpose that he was good at and hated, a different purpose that he was terrible at and loved, and his family was proud of him for all the wrong reasons.
“I can feel you,” Henry said.
I could feel him, too; my presence in his mind wasn’t welcome. “Sorry. I haven’t got the steering right.”
I focused on the welcoming mind. Darwin wasn’t ashamed of his thoughts or actions. His family loved him for who he was and he never tried to be anything different. Unfortunately, that was just the very surface of my young roommate. The isolation forced an already brilliant mind into a state of perpetual analyzing. Every word anyone ever said in his life, everything he saw, every note he read was carefully considered, catalogued, and filed away in his mind. This was more than just a photographic memory; Darwin’s brain was like a supercomputer.
Even as I was peering into the very edge of his consciousness, he was taking in every single sensation and breaking it down. Most of his thoughts were too fast for me, like a code. His thoughts were like shorthand. He could also fluently read and speak over thirty languages, and many of his thoughts were not in English.
I thought of Henry telling me what a throwback was and Darwin’s mind reacted instantaneously. I was bombarded with numbers, genetic formulas, photographic memories of newspaper clippings, words people have called him, more code, more foreign language… it hurt.
It always hurt.
Darwin understood the way people acted, but he couldn’t make himself think like them. Everything a person did was broken down and considered from a biological standpoint. He accepted that people didn’t always do what was rational, and that was his way of fitting in. Darwin acted with humor he artificially constructed based on observation because he knew it was a defense mechanism.
He wanted people to know he was there. He wanted his parents to know it hurt. It wasn’t just the fact that nobody could touch him; he was alone in the world. Nobody had a mind like his. There were super geniuses that were probably as brilliant as him, but they couldn’t think like him. We were all alone in our own way, only he was aware of it.
He could never stop thinking. Not for one second of his entire life had he ever stopped thinking. It hurt and it was exhausting.
“Can you make it stop?” he whispered in my mind.
It wasn’t his magic that allowed him to talk to me but the understanding of how magic worked. He was using my magic to his will. It was a friendly exchange, and I knew I had to be very careful to keep it that way, because Darwin was suddenly the last person in the universe that I wanted as an enemy.
“I don’t know. Maybe I can narrow your focus. Think of your mother’s face.”
“You are supposed to be practicing.” Suddenly, my senses vanished. I literally felt nothing, heard nothing, and saw nothing. I was in absolute darkness and silence. “Now force my mind to bend to your will.”
It wasn’t inviting anymore. I had been lured in by the easy control, but that was gone now. I couldn’t pull away. The only option was to force my way in control… without hurting him.
Fear. Fear could make people either retreat or fight back. Having seen Darwin’s reaction to death in the morgue, I bet on him retreating. I pulled up the image of Heather. I focused on the blood all over her chest and her neck twisted at a horrible angle.
Except he didn’t retreat. Instead, another image forced its way into my mind; my parents on the floor of the kitchen. There was so much blood. It had been a trap. Darwin had fooled me the way he was constantly fooling everyone. His smile was a lie, but so was that shudder of fear in the morgue. Normal people feared death.
But not Darwin. Death was a way to cull the weak, sick, and old from this world so the strong could thrive. Yes, the smell was irritating, but the idea of death was accepted as a necessary factor of life. He was fascinated by it. He had considered if his pain would end with death.
“You’re not trying,” he told me tauntingly. That was fake as well; he felt no joy in this. Darwin only felt joy in absolute understanding.
I focused on the memory of him telling me about his girlfriend in high school. My mind was at least connected to his enough to spark his own memories. Her face appeared. Pain. It hurt him to remember her.
This wasn’t working. I didn’t want to hurt my friend. Instead, I thought of anything I could that was joyful. The one Christmas that both my parents were home and we were snowed in without any alcohol in the house. I remembered the colorful wrapping paper on the presents. I remembered the soft glow of lights on the tree next to the crackling fire, how cold it looked outside while it was so warm inside. I smelled the pine of the natural cut tree and the apple pie my mother made. Christmas music played on the radio, low enough to be cheery without being annoying.
“Stop.”
But he didn’t really want me to. It wasn’t his joy, but he could feel it as strongly as I did. I thought of sitting on the roof of the abandoned building with Astrid. That was when I still loved her. More memories of Astrid came to mind; all of the times we were happy. After that horrible night, there were very few happy moments in my life.
Because I didn’t love anyone.
I was afraid to love anyone.
“Stop.” It was me this time. I stopped everything. I inhaled slowly and exhaled even slower. For a few peaceful moments, maybe seconds, maybe minutes, not a single thought came to mind for me or Darwin.
And then it was over. I opened my eyes, my mind my own again. Darwin didn’t open his eyes, he just cried. Henry looked worried, afraid I had hurt our friend.
“How?” Darwin whispered.
“I wanted to heal you like I did Astrid, if only for a second.” Although his pain had returned instantly afterward, he had peace for once. It was enough, and his tears were happy.
* * *
I sat on the black leather couch in Hunt’s office, he sat in one of the two matching chairs, and Darwin sat beside me. He had gloves on, but he still sat as far away as the couch would let him. Although he was prepared to help me in this, neither of us wanted him to accidentally see my death… especially if it was coming anytime soon.
“What is Vincent’s part in this?” I asked.
“He is spying on the wizard council to make sure they do not make any moves against the school. He is also trying to find Remy, but with any luck, you can shine some light on her location.”
I nodded and took the hint. Back to work.
I closed my eyes and remembered what Remy’s mind felt like. With a better understanding of how my power worked, I knew what I had overlooked the first time. I thought Remy was simple, but nobody was simple. Instead of opinionated, I thought of her strong determination to make people do what she thought was best for them. Instead of impatient, I thought of her frustration in herself for being unable to convey her desires calmly and rationally.
It was only because of the fact that I knew her mind and I practiced this magic that I even had a chance. Normally, my power was short-ranged. I didn’t search for minds around me this time; I looked for her mind. She wasn’t close, so I widened the search.
It felt like hours before I finally sensed her unique mind. I knew it was her instantly and I felt her recognition as well. Although she hated it
when she first felt my invasion of her consciousness in the castle, she welcomed my presence in her isolation.
No. She wasn’t alone. Her abductor was there with her. He taunted her for hours on end. It was dark where she was, so I could see very little. The abductor stood in front of her, but I could only make out a vague shape. What I felt, however, was horrifying.
It wasn’t my fear but hers. Remington felt soft, light creatures crawling all over her body. She was strapped to a bed. While I would never have been able to identify distinct bugs crawling over my skin, the man had taken great pleasure in telling her exactly what they were.
Brown recluse.
There were hundreds of brown recluse spiders crawling all over her. He reached for her face and I realized there was a gag in her mouth. I could taste salt in the cloth, either from sweat or tears. The man didn’t remove it, only adjusted the tape holding it in. As his hand passed through a beam of light from the partially open door, I saw his ring, which was simple but distinctive. The piece of jewelry was more a symbol of dark power than a decorative item; it was a brown recluse spider trapped in amber.
Familiar. Out of all her thoughts, jumbled by fear and dehydration, that one word appeared clearly.
“He’s familiar or his ring is familiar?” I asked.
He put his hand over her eyes and my instincts warned of danger. I let go of her mind instantly and opened my eyes.
I was dizzy for a few minutes, so Hunt and Darwin let me get myself together. “She’s alive,” I said. “She’s tied up and there are spiders, but she’s alive. I didn’t see the man who kept her because it was too dark, but he had---”
The door burst open and Professor Nightshade stood there on the verge of panic. “Sorry, Logan, but Rebecca has been killed. Rosin caught a scent and tracked it to one of the students. We put him in a cell, but he swears he didn’t do.”
“What student?” Hunt asked.
“He has no alibi, no one knows where he was for the last hour, and Rosin swears his scent was all over Rebecca’s cell.”
“What student?” Hunt asked again.
“One of the students is the daughter of Grayson on the council, and she already contacted him. The council is almost certainly on the way.”
“What student?” I asked.
She looked at me and hesitated, then glanced at Darwin. “Henry Lycosa.”
* * *
Nightshade left to inform the teachers that they needed to hide their more dubious effects. Darwin and I told Hunt that Henry couldn’t have done this. Even though we had no alibi for him, Hunt didn’t argue. His expression was thoughtful, as if he was trying to think of a way out of this. Finally, he stood. “Vincent is trying to contact me. Please return to your room and wait for me to find out what exactly is going on. Some members of the council might see you as an unwelcome threat.”
“Why? They don’t know me.” Instead of answering, he gestured politely at the door. Darwin and I left and returned to our room to devise a plan. We sat at our desks in silence as we considered our options.
The easiest, and most risky, was to break Henry out. Of course, we didn’t know where the dungeon was or what kind of guards there could be. Also, that would mean further incriminating him. I also considered forging an alibi, but that would be nearly impossible with Alpha Flagstone’s evidence. In fact it would be suspicious that Henry wouldn’t know what his alibi was.
“You can control someone’s mind and make them confess,” Darwin suggested.
“That would be wrong. No, we need to either prove his innocence or find out who really killed Mrs. Ashcraft.”
“Are we really sure he’s not guilty? We were never actually with him during any of the murders.”
“I’m sure he’s innocent. We would have known if we were sharing a room with a murderer. Let’s try to find evidence proving his innocence, because that should be faster. It can’t be that hard. Where was he?”
“We can sneak in and ask him.”
I nodded. “We’ll do that. I’ll just focus on finding him. That seems to work in finding Hunt or Dr. Martin.” A familiar meow let us know we were no longer alone. Dr. Martin’s cat was suddenly sitting on my desk. “Do you know where we can find Henry?” I asked.
The cat dipped his head as if in a nod, but he didn’t stand or go to the door.
“Did you see what happened?”
Again, the cat dipped his head.
“Did Henry kill those people?”
Instead of answering, the cat turned to study my bookshelf, then intentionally reached up and scratched at the spine of the textbook that I was hiding my files in. I went to the desk and pulled out the book.
“Is this what you’re looking for?” I pulled out the pictures of the council letters. “Maybe Henry knows one of the vampires on this list.”
The cat’s ears flattened slightly and Darwin approached us to see the pictures. “What’s this?” He pushed the pictures aside and opened one of the files.
“Those are the reports of the students who were killed before the start of school. What’s wrong?” He was frowning as he opened the second file. Hurriedly, he opened the remaining files.
“I know these guys. Not personally, I mean, but I read their campaigns. They’re all students who are actively involved in fighting for peace.” I could see it in his eyes as he pulled up mental files and reports. “These students were all protesting the segregation of vampires. They wrote letters, even threats in these two’s cases, against a possible attack on vampires. It’s odd.”
“Because they want peace?”
“Because Luck Auberry isn’t in here. He fought even harder than these guys to get equal rights for fae. Madison Gibson… Michele Valentine… these people weren’t killed for power, they were killed because they wanted equality for vampires in the paranormal world.”
“Why didn’t Hunt find out about this?”
“Because their protests weren’t made public. I read about them all in the private council files. Look, some of these pictures are of the campaigns.” He held up some of the council letter photographs.
“I couldn’t make those ones out.”
“I can only because I saw the originals. You had the connection between these people all along. So why the change? None of the students who were killed since school started had anything to do with vampires.”
“So the first time murders were just to get the vampire activists out of the way, and the second five were to frame vampires in order to start a war between wizards and vampires. Only Henry got blamed for Mrs. Ashcraft’s murder. Was he framed, or did he have a legitimate reason for being at her cell?”
“Henry shouldn’t have known anything about the first five people,” Darwin said. “Only three people aside from myself have access to those files, and my involvement isn’t exactly legal.”
“Who?”
“Um…” He closed his eyes and accessed those “files.” “James Chambers, John Cross, and Vincent Knight.”
“Vincent Knight? V.K. Knight?”
“Why didn’t he tell Hunt about the connection?”
“I have no idea, but I think it’s time we find out.”
* * *
We returned to Hunt’s office just as the headmaster was done with his “call.” “The council is holding for the moment, thanks to Vincent,” Hunt said.
“How long have you known Vincent?” I asked. “How well do you trust him?”
“I trust him.”
“All of the students killed before the beginning of school were highly involved in keeping peace between vampires and wizards,” Darwin told him. “The only people who knew that were James Chambers, John Cross, and Vincent Knight.”
“And John Cross’s daughter was just killed, supposedly by vampires,” I added. If Vincent killed her, then he may have hired me to investigate the school, knowing full well I hated vampires and would jump on any evidence to convict them with.
“Well, that is unfortunate. James Chambers was
found dead in his office ten minutes ago. Vincent convinced the council to worry about their own murderer instead of ours.” Nightshade and Flagstone arrived at the door. Hunt’s wizard cane appeared in his hand, as he could apparently summon it with his mind. “Let’s go. Mr. Mason, you are going to have to stay at the school.”
He nodded. “I’m going to try to find evidence of Henry’s innocence.”
“Where are we going?” I asked as I followed Hunt out of the office.
“To the wizard council. We have a suspect now.”
* * *
The drive took over six hours, most of which I slept through. I was a little embarrassed about being so exhausted, but Hunt seemed to understand. “You are not used to using so much power, so your body must learn to cope. It is like with running; you cannot run a five-k without practice. Keep in mind other wizards have to learn to use the magic that you seem to pick up on naturally.”
“But I don’t know any magic. I can set a fire, but other than my ability to talk to animals and control people’s minds, I don’t know anything.”
“Your ability to heal is phenomenal. You do not seem to realize that your mental connection with other people and animals is unique.”
“You can read someone’s mind.”
“I can, but anyone can protect themselves from that. You have a much more powerful ability. Unfortunately, that could be your downfall in the end. I am sure you have heard that power corrupts.”
I nodded. “Mrs. Ashcraft was powerful. It felt like I could take her power.”
“You could. When you kill someone with magic, you will take their power. I can tell you it is never worth it.”
“You’ve killed someone with magic?” I asked.
He stared at his staff and rolled the silver oval at the top under his fingers. Then he unscrewed the oval and opened. Inside, it was hollow and lined with green velvet. There was a white, cotton bundle which he removed and unwrapped. It was a spherical, blood-colored crystal, only about half an inch in diameter. He wrapped the white cloth around it and closed his fingers over it.
