by Nissa Gordon
They edge a little more closer to the doors, Lucy could see Eddie and Methos sneaking through, which meant that if they could do it, then so could they if only given a chance. Will shuffled forward with Lucy right behind him and the others right behind her; she so wasn't going to let him out of her sight.
"We're almost there...I can actually see the stairs," Will told them over his shoulder, moving through the crowd knowing the others would be following as closely as possible.
"Awe!" Lucy shouted as someone pushed into her making her stumble again.
"Are you alright?" Will asked concerned.
"Yeah, just keep going...the sooner we get out of here the better," Lucy told him, as they finally made it to the stairs.
There were still loads of people coming down from the upper levels, and as she looked over the railings she could see that there was students on every level trying to get down to the ground. She felt Jess tugging on her arm, but that was fine because it meant that she was still there. She kept hold of Will in front, and being carefully where she put her feet as they slowly headed down not feeling comfortable walking down stairs when she couldn't see the steps.
"Quite pushing!"
"Hay, that was my foot!"
"We're all going the same way!"
"This is crazy," Lucy whispered.
"Tell me about it," Will said as they slowly stepped down onto the first landing between the floors; but then he suddenly felt someone pulling him. "Hay!"
"What's wrong?" Lucy asked.
"Just some idiot, trying to get past me," Will said loudly not caring who heard him, but then he felt it again; this time though it was much stronger, he was almost pulled right off of his feet with Lucy falling into him. He spun around trying to see who it was while Lucy righted herself, keeping hold of him, which he was kind of glad about otherwise he probably would have ended up on the floor or over the railing.
"Are you already mate?" Troy asked.
"Someone keeps pushing and pulling me," Will said kind of rattled by the feeling, as he moved forward slightly closer to the wall turning so they could head down the next level.
"Everyone’s pushing and pulling in here," Alex reminded him.
Will felt it again, someone that he couldn't see grabbed his arm and pulled him towards the wall, but this time he struggled more even though whoever it was, was much stronger than he was.
"Will?" Lucy said uncertainly behind him as she grabbed his other arm.
"Lucy don't let go!" Jess shouted behind her.
Will was suddenly sharply pulled forward with such force that he was literally pulled off of his feet, straight for the wall along with Lucy holding onto him as though her life depended upon it, he heard screaming somewhere close by before everything went black.
Chapter Seventeen
Will woke with a start on his side and blanketed in blackness, on a cold damp hard floor, and there was someone on him; he tried to push whoever it was off of him but stopped when he heard her moan loudly.
"Lucy...is that you?" Will asked feeling around, hoping that it was her and that he wouldn’t touch anything that he wasn’t supposed to.
"Yeah...where are we...? And why's it so dark?" Lucy asked as she slowly got off of him so he could sit up.
"No idea," Will answered as he looked around, his eyes adjusting slightly to the dark, so now he could just about make out that they were in some sort of tunnel.
Lucy moved onto her knees looking around as her eyes adjusted as well, and she couldn't sense anyone close by or hear anything at all only her own heart beat that was beating twice as fast as normal.
"Do you think we're in some sort of secret passageway?" Lucy asked encouragingly.
Will shook his head. "Something grabbed me,"
"What do you mean something grabbed you?" Lucy asked her voice rising suddenly.
"Something grabbed my arm and pulled me in here," Will told her. "That's the second time it’s happened,"
"You've been in these tunnels before?" Lucy asked confused, wondering why he wouldn't tell her that, she told him everything; well almost everything that she was allowed to tell him.
"No...not here...but I have been pulled through a doorway," Will told her, not seeing any harm in telling her now considering everything that had happened.
"Wait a minute, that Monday when you didn't turn up to class, and I was pulled out to be questioned about when I fell through one of them?" Lucy asked him.
"Yes," Will answered simply.
"What happened?" Lucy asked.
Will looked back at her. "I saw a black figure, a couple of trees died and Domnus gave me a lift back to the school,"
Lucy just stared at him, not sure what to say; he had actually seen the person behind all of this. "Oh, my goddess. That's why you were pulled in here; it probably wants to kill you because you saw it,"
"What?" Will asked panicked as he shot to his feet, Lucy quickly following him. "What do you mean, it wants to kill me?"
"You saw it...no one else has," Lucy pointed out as she looked up and down the tunnel, but she still couldn't really make anything out clearly enough.
"Shit...we so need to get out of here," Will said hoping that she wasn't right as he grabbed her arm and pulled her along, he also hoped that he was going the right way since neither of them knew where they were going or which would be the best way to get out of there.
Lucy quickly followed after him, wishing that he had waited until they had gotten out of the tunnels to tell her about seeing the guy who was probably behind all of this, now all she could hear beside her own heart beat was echoing foot steps moving quickly in their direction.
Will led the way hoping to see light, which would lead to a way out of here, but there still wasn't anything; except that the tunnel had seemed to have gotten a little lighter so that he could see a bit better, but it hadn't helped in finding a way out. There wasn't any doorways either, as every time in touched the stone walls, they felt solid and there was no way that he would be able to see the shimmering effect of the doorways in this kind of light. He just kind of hoped that Lucy was just freaking out, and whoever was behind these things didn't really want him dead, because it wasn't as though he actually got a good look at the guy, since he was stood in the middle of a field, no where near him.
"Do you hear that?" Lucy whispered nervously, as she hated it when her senses didn't work properly.
"Hear what?" Will asked confused, as he could only hear them walking.
"That...the foot steps," Lucy said pointedly.
"That's us, Lu," Will told her as calmly as he could.
Lucy wasn't convinced as she looked over her shoulder but she couldn't see anything as though the blackness was swallowing everything up behind them; she was sure that she could hear more foot steps then just theirs, unless it was just the echoing. She stopped and made Will stop as well putting her hand over his mouth before he could protest. Unfortunately, everything didn't fall silent; someone else took two more steps and then stopped also. They both looked at each, before they broke out into a run.
"Oh my goddess, oh my goddess, oh my goddess," Lucy panted as she ran beside of Will, the foot steps following them.
"Damn it!" Will muttered. "Don't you know any spells?"
"Oh yeah, I know loads of spells that stops a person who can suck the life out of things," Lucy said sarcastically.
"I meant like opening a door...or blasting a hole in a wall," Will told her as they rounded another corner onto another darken corridor.
"I...I don't know..." Lucy said panicked, trying to think of something, but her mind wasn't focusing on anything except running and not falling over.
They ran for a couple more minutes, hearing the other person following them the whole time, but for some reason they weren't gaining on them; not that they wanted to hang around to find out why or who it really was, all they wanted was to get out of there as quickly as possible.
Lucy pulled out her wand and pointed it at the wall
that they were quickly approaching. "Ap...Apertus!"
Light suddenly shot out of the end of her wand, and shot straight at the wall shaking it violently; a door shaped hole appeared in it, and light flooded into the corridor as they ran flat out towards the opening. The foot steps echoing behind them seemed to suddenly get closer as though whoever it was was actually now in the same length of tunnel that they were in.
They ran straight out into the brightly lit corridor, almost running straight into the wall, but Will hit off of it as they quickly turn to carry on up the hall; but a moment later they both stopped as they heard something heavy hitting the wall behind them. They slowly looked back, but there was nothing there, not even the hole that Lucy had just opened; just another corridor back at the estate.
"Oh, my, goddess." Lucy said as she bent over breathing heavily.
"It had been right behind us." Will said staring at the wall that they had just come through.
"Do we have to stay...?" Lucy started as she looked up suddenly and over her shoulder behind her; and Will nervously followed where she was looking.
"There isn't anyone there, seriously don't do that to me," Will told her.
"They're coming," Lucy told him.
"What? Who's coming? I can't see anyone," Will said distractedly as she stood up and pulled on his sleeve to get him moving.
"The teachers," Lucy told him.
"Good, we can tell them what happened," Will said not understanding why she would want to get out of there.
"They told us not to go through the doorways, we went through one," Lucy told him as she tugged harder on him, pulling him back towards a door and quickly opening it. "We can tell them later,"
They stumbled into the room that she had just opened, and turned around to take in what was there; they were even more horrified to find themselves in what looked like a the teachers staff room.
"Okay...err...what do you suggest now?" Will asked her as she quickly looked around the room, but all he could see were over stuffed old chairs and a few tables pushed up against the walls with papers on them.
Lucy looked over her shoulder, and found just what she needed and pulled Will along with her. "There's another door back here,"
"You're crazy, we could just tell them," Will told her as she opened the second door, but this one led into a closet which she pushed him inside of and then she got in behind him. "This is insane..."
"We can find out what happened back there, and then we can tell them what happened to us," Lucy told him.
"We're gonna step out of the closet while they're talking?" Will asked amused, when he knew that he shouldn't be, because they would probably end up in a world full of trouble for spying on them.
"No...no, later on...afterwards," Lucy told him as though this was obvious stepping back quickly as the door to the office opened and the teachers started to pile in.
"This is ridicules, the schools supposed to be secure," a woman said somewhat alarmed as she came in and sat down heavily in an arm-chair.
"Twice now, that thing...whatever it is, has gotten on the island and into the school grounds," a slightly older man added as he took the seat beside of her.
"Scans have been rounding around the clock, and we still don't know how it's gotten in undetected," Domnus told them.
Loring struggled inside pushing Hunter out of his way, who glared after him. "I just ran into a couple of students from the hanger, they said that on the stairs coming out of the stadium, two of them disappeared,"
Everyone turned around to look at him, before Domnus walked over to the notice board on the far wall, he pressed something that they couldn't see and then it shimmered slightly, it was a computer console.
"A school wide scan, says that everyone is accounted for," Domnus told them as he turned back around. "But there are a couple of doorways on each of the stairwells, and with them acting up lately; we should have them checked out,"
"So basically, because you haven’t been able to fix the problem, all the students are in danger of this thing?" Loring asked.
Domnus shook his head slightly. "I doubt it. Whoever is behind these attacks have managed to get into some pretty secure places in the city,"
"As you know Domnus, the school has more security than anything else on the planet," Jevidah pointed out as he calmly took his seat.
"You honestly don't believe pointing fingers at each other is going to help solve this problem?" Burnhill asked them beside of Domnus.
Jevidah smirked at her. "We all know that the only reason that you're siding with him, is because the two of you are sleeping with one another,"
Lucy and Will really had to restrain themselves from saying anything after hearing that.
"I don't see what that has to do with anything," Burnhill told him. "If I saw something wrong with his assessment of the situation, I would still tell him, as he would want to know. He's a grown man, who can take being talked back to; unlike some I know and work with,"
"You should be careful, not to step outside of your comfort zone Adela," Jevidah warned.
Burnhill just smiled at him as though his threat didn’t bother her, only amused her, as it seemed to amuse Validus who came up behind Jevidah.
"So, how has the analyse gone from the samples of the trees?" Validus asked him.
Jevidah slowly turned around to face him. "I haven't been able to figure out what caused it. But as we already know, whatever it was, drained the life out of them,"
"So have Wraths been completely taken out of this?" Hunter asked.
"I would take them off my list, mainly because they don't have this kind of control," Loring said sarcastically. "Shouldn't you know that, considering the subject that you teach?"
Will and Lucy looked at each other, they couldn't believe that their teachers actually talked to each other like this, especially considering that they kept telling them all, that they had to try and get along with everyone.
"I'm well aware of the normal behaviour of Wrath, thank you," Hunter said controlling his temper. "But I'm also sure that the Order is probably behind all of this, meaning that they could have someone controlling them, it isn't unheard off,"
"Why do you always balm everything on the Order, are you so afraid of them?" Loring asked.
Hunter suddenly shoved him making Loring stumble backwards, before he could catch himself. "I'm not afraid of those bastards!"
"Gentlemen, please calm yourselves, this isn't helping," Domnus said calmly beside of him.
Hunter pointed at Loring. "You should learn to keep your mouth shut,"
"Only when I have nothing of value to say," Loring said smiling at him calmly as he brushed down his jacket.
"We all know that it's the Shadow Order behind this," Validus told them as though he wasn’t at all bothered by their behaviour, like this happened all the time. "The school took on more students from non-magical families this year than any other year..."
"Then that's the reason," Jevidah said standing suddenly as though everything had been solved.
"But our school wasn't the one that took on the most," Validus informed him. "There are basic magic schools, that have taken on those this year that just show the smallest sign,"
"He has got a point," Burnhill agreed. "If they wanted to attack any schools, you would have thought it would have been one of them,"
"So what, you don't think it is the Order now?" Jevidah asked seeming a little confused as he sat back down.
"The problem is, we haven't yet figured out what it's really after," Burnhill said.
"Actually, my dear; we already know that it's after life force," Eldamar said from the door. "The only problem is that we haven't figured out why it needs it, or how much it needs,"
A man at the back of the room cleared his throat loudly before he stood up to be seen. "It could be some sort of creature or being, it could be hurt or between this plain and the next, living off of others,"
"That's a very good point Balfour," Domnus said thoughtfully. "
Can you think of anything that might have that sort of ability, or even change to be able to do something like that?"
"I guess there are a couple, but I'll have to do some proper research on the matter to be sure," Balfour told him.
"Thank you," Domnus said.
"I've gone through my references, but I can't seem to be able to find anything like this ever happening," Prewitt told them. "I've also been looking into the sealed records, hopefully they'll be something in them, but you know how difficult that's going to be to find,"
"Anything you can do the better," Domnus told him.
