Knight of the Black Rose

by Nissa Gordon

  "I thought it was just killing plants and animals," Troy said. "Do you think they'll be alright?"

  "Dad and the others are good, nothing can get them," Jake told him.

  "Dad said that animals had been killed in the village before we came home," Will told them.

  "Yeah I heard that, but they weren't killed by that thing, they weren't black...but just killed and some of them had disappeared," Jake told them.

  "I don't want to talk about this anymore..." Jess said pushing her food away. "Maybe we should find out what we're supposed to do now,"

  "We'll probably just stay here, until they want us to leave," Jake told her, then looked at his sister. "How many do you think they'll put on security?"

  "Probably half a dozen more, just tightening it up," Lucy told him, knowing that he was asking her what they were up to and not just asking her opinion.

  "You know, they're kind of acting as though this sort of thing happens all the time," Troy said.

  "I was just thinking that," Alex agreed.

  "This village is kind of joint to the one on Earth; they want to be prepared in case anything happens," Jake explained.

  "Oh, okay," Troy nodded as though that explained everything.

  Alex scanned the crowd of people for his parents and was pleased to see that they were stood with Troy's mum. "Mum will probably go back with your mum,"

  "Probably," Troy agreed.

  Aaron walked over to them in a large blue coat with Arvin at his side, who was scanning the area as though he was expecting someone to jump out at them any second.

  "Lucy, Jake; your mum wants you to go back to the house," Aaron told them.

  "Clair's already gone ahead with Benjamin," Arvin told them. "Will and Ella, you can come as well,"

  "What about me?" Jess asked in a small voice.

  "You're Jess?" Aaron asked, and she nodded. "Your mum's over there, with Lucy's,"

  "Sorry Jess that the party's been cut short," Lucy said as Jess stood to leave, they hugged quickly before Jess ran over to her mum.

  "You two must be Troy and Alex, they said they're setting up doorways back to your house," Aaron told them.

  "Okay then," Troy said as he swung his leg over the bench standing up with Alex, Will quickly followed suit even though he wasn't leaving with them. "We'll see you in a couple of days,"

  "You'll have to tell us what ever happens here," Alex told him.

  "Nothings going to happen here," Aaron assured them.

  "They mean if they hear anymore on what's been going on, why everyone’s been called away," Arvin told him. "Smart kids,"

  "See ya later," Lucy said smiling slightly as they walked off, then Will came around to join them as they walked back to her house.

  "You've got nothing to worry about," Arvin told them.

  "Oh yeah, Lu; dad said that he wants to talk to you again when he gets back," Jake said as though it was an after thought.

  "He spoke to you before he left?" Lucy asked annoyed, not that she was surprised even if he had only been a couple of feet away from her, he had always kind of treated her different than the others.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  New Year was over and everyone had gone back to school disappointed that most of the celebrations had been cancelled, but considering the increase of attacks and now on people, they understood why they had. There had been loads of things about all of the attacks in the papers, though what was a little surprising was that nothing had been in the human papers, which meant that whoever had been sending all of the information into them hadn't had anything to send in over Christmas. They had also found out after their parents had come home, that none of the people had been killed, only drained a lot of their life force putting them in coma's; doctors were working around the clock to try and save them.

  Will was also pressuring Lucy to find out whatever she could on the black rose that had been left in his room, but so far she hadn't found much out only that it was made up of at least a dozen different ingredients telling them that it had been made for something, but she hadn't been able to figure it out yet and she was spending hours in the library studying. Will had told Lucy that he would meet her and help, not that he would have any clue what he was looking for, but he couldn't really leave her to do all of the work. Troy and Alex had told him that they would meet him later, as they still had some homework that they needed to finish, so he had left them back in the common room telling them that they would meet up for dinner.

  The library was deathly quiet; Will had always found it kind of creepy and wondered how Lucy could spend so much time in here and how she managed to find anything, considering how many books and files there were. The shelves themselves were over ten foot tall, and you needed ladders if you wanted anything off of any of the higher ones, but somehow she had always managed to get everything she needed, except for this rose, not that he was going to hold that against her.

  Will stopped suddenly in the middle of the aisle, no idea where he was or where Lucy was, she had told him what section she would be in and what general direction it was, but he was starting to think that he had gone the wrong way because he hadn't seen anyone for about ten minutes, nor had he seen a sign that she had told him to look out for. He stood there debating what to do, when someone touched his shoulder making him yelp and jump out of his skin as he spun around.

  "Did I scare you?" Seth asked smirking with his arms folded and holding a piece of paper.

  "What do you think? Creeping up on me like that...and with everything that's been going on," Will shot at him as he straighten himself, wishing that he hadn't just done that in front of him.

  Seth just looked at him for a moment before he unfolded his arms. "I was looking for you,"

  "Me?" Will asked confused and then looked around, wondering if this was some sort of set up and hoping that it wasn't, as he wasn't really in the mood. "What would you want with me?"

  "My sister had this at home," Seth told him waving the piece of paper in front of him. "I checked it out. It was actually hard to find...which I thought was strange, especially after I found out what it was. She isn't really into that sort of thing, nor would I have thought that you and your friends would be,"

  "What’re you talking about?" Will asked confused, as he had no idea what he was talking about.

  "Fine, if you want to act stupid, that's up to you." Seth told him angrily as he thrust the paper at him. "Just don't get my sister in trouble, and don't say that I didn't help,"

  Will was even more confused as he looked at the paper, it was a list of ingredients and a summoning spell; making him wonder if this was what Lucy's been working on. "How did you get this?"

  Seth stopped and turned around. "It wasn't easy...as it wasn't in any of normal books. No one at the school would have a clue how to do something like this, only perhaps a teacher; it's far too advanced for any of the students,"

  "Is it dark magic?" Will asked him, but he already knew the answer to that considering everything else he had seen so far.

  "Really old dark magic," Seth told him. "Like I said, make sure that my sister stays out of trouble, or else I'll come after you,"

  Will nodded a couple of times, completely believing him, that he would do something if anything happened to his sister and then watched him walk away before he turned and carried on. He looked over what Seth had given him, but he had to admit, the potion did look complicated. He would also never be doing it, as it called for sacrificing animals in several rituals; but thinking about that made him stop because of all those animals that had gone missing in the village before Christmas. He started to walk again, as he really needed to speak with Lucy now, to find out if any of this was true; especially if it was, then that meant that it was one of the teachers who were working for 'The Shadow Order'. Will actually considered shouting out for her, knowing that she would be able to find him as she could find anyone anywhere, and he really needed her to find him now.

  Will walked around for another te
n minutes until he finally found her sat at a desk full of books, she looked up at him as he sat down taking in everything that she was doing, he had known that she said there was a lot to research but this was far more than he had expected.

  "Will, you were supposed to meet me half an hour ago," Lucy told him.

  "I couldn't find you," Will told her.

  "It's a library not the maze for Firmasca," Lucy told him smirking.

  "You don't give good directions...but here, take a look at this," Will told her as he handed over the paper.

  Lucy took the paper off of him and read through it, looking over at Will every so often scowling at him, until finally she put it down completely. "So what, you didn't need my help after all. What's all of this then?" She waved at the books in front of her.

  "I didn't find it, it was Seth," Will told her as he picked up a couple of the books turning them over, then putting them back down again.

  "Seth...Seth who? Do I know a Seth? I'm not very good with names, unless I've known them for a while," Lucy told him, but she kind of felt that she knew the name but she couldn’t place the face.

  "Selena's brother," Will told her smirking.

  "Oh...yeah...I remember..." Lucy said nodding picking the paper up again. "I searched everything I could get my hands, and obliviously there's a lot to read. The computers didn't tell me much either..."

  "He said it was old dark magic, meaning we probably wouldn't be able to find it in the normal library or database," Will told her.

  "Then how did he find it?" Lucy asked annoyed that someone had found out all of this after everything that she had done, and still she had come up with nothing.

  "I have no idea," Will said. "Maybe his dad has a secret library like ours, but he can actually get into his,"

  "Fair point, I guess," Lucy said. "But..."

  "I was thinking while looking for you, the animals that were killed and went missing...they were probably used for this," Will told her. "It would have had to be one of the teachers,"

  Lucy looked up at him, she didn't like to think that one of their teachers were behind this, someone that they actually trusted.

  "Hunter didn't seem to like Loring," Will pointed out.

  Lucy shook her head. "No, I've seen them alone...I actually think they're friends...wait a minute, what if they know it's one of the teachers,"

  "So, then it's Jevidah," Will said as though that settled it; not surprised that she hadn’t mentioned that Hunter and Loring were really friends, she did have a lot on her mind after all.

  "I don't like him either...he doesn't seem to like anyone," Lucy said scowling; yes she didn’t like him, but they couldn’t really just go around pointing fingers at the teachers. "Isn't there another science teacher...err...a woman, Professor Alcott I think..."

  "Jevidah missed some of our lessons," Will added.

  "So what, we're just going to point fingers at him?" Lucy asked not sure where he was going with this. "Should we tell someone that we've found this, like they told us to? Loring already has what I found on the dead plants,"

  "So you trust him?" Will asked her.

  "They said that they know my dad," Lucy told him. "I could always ask him, if he does. But my dad then might get a little weird,"

  "Fine then, we'll find out a little more before we tell them; it isn't as though we have anything to begin with," Will told her wanting to find out more himself, before they had to hand everything over; she smiled at him as though she was probably thinking the same thing, so it looks like they'll look into this some more before they hand it over.

  It had been two weeks since Will and Lucy had been given the list of ingredients, but they haven't had a chance yet to check out Jevidah’s office considering that he never let anyone in there, no matter how much Lucy had tried to get in there asking loads of questions about so-called projects that she was considering.

  They had actually been looking forward to today all week, yes normally they would have been going to watch the Firmasca match, as all of the match were being held nearly every Saturday to make up for the lost time before the holidays.

  They walked along the corridor together with Tory and Alex just behind them, trying to make up their minds, what they wanted to do as it was almost time and they still hadn't made them up.

  "Come on guys," Lucy said impatiently.

  "If he is behind this, then he could kill us," Alex told them.

  Will and Lucy stopped turning around to look at him.

  "You do know that he shouldn't even be there," Will told him.

  "Oh, I left all our info behind, so if something does happen to us, they'll still find it and it'll all point to him," Lucy told them smiling as though she had figured the whole thing out, but they just looked at her as though she was crazy.

  "I don't think that was the point," Will told her.

  "You actually did all that?" Troy asked her, impressed and kind of scared at the same.

  "You seriously weren't raised the same way as us," Alex said.

  Lucy just smiled, as they were right, but it wasn't as though she could tell them just how right they really were or she'd end up in more trouble than they were probably going to get into for this.

  Before Alex could ask her anymore questions, screams sounded down the next corridor, they all looked at each before they turned and ran in the direction of the screams; but before they could get that far Selena ran around and right into Will almost knocking him over and stumbling back herself.

  "Selena are you alright?" Lucy asked.

  "Selena, what happened?" Will asked as he helped her up.

  Selena looked pale and she kept looking over her shoulder. "Holly and Helena...I err...I was walking over with them, but..."

  "Are they alright?" Will asked beginning to step around her.

  Selena nodded. "It's their cat...its dead...back there...black..."

  Before any of the others could say anything the alarms went off startling them all, making them look around to see who had done it; then they saw Alex stood with his hand on the button next to the door behind them. Teachers teleported in around them, before they could even do anything.

  "Well, I'm not surprised to see the same crowd here," Domnus said, as Burnhill went to Selena.

  "Are you alright?" Burnhill asked her gently.

  Selena pointed down the corridor she had come. "Holly and Helena...they found their cat down there,"

  "We'll check it out." Domnus told them as he walked off with Fortis at his side.

  The alarm went off as suddenly as it had come on, as Lucy spun around to face Hunter and Loring.

  "Did you lot see anything?" Hunter asked them.

  "Not this time," Lucy answered.

  "We just heard the screaming," Will told them.

  "I didn't scream," Selena told them, making them all look at her. "It was them...I don't scream,"

  "I do, I mean if I need to," Lucy told her smirking. "It scares the hell out of everyone,"

  "Yes, thank you girls...but can we keep it on point," Hunter told them. "Has anyone of you noticed anything odd around here, heard anything. Anything you might think of that is out of place?"

  They all just stood there like they were thinking, but none of them said anything, then Lucy stepped forward suddenly.

  "Why's Professor Jevidah not here?" Lucy asked, Will grabbed her pulling her back.

  "Excuse me?" Hunter said startled by the question. "I don't see why that has anything to do with any of this,"

  "He wasn't here when that happened in Will's room, or when those animals went missing, nor is he here now," Lucy told them with Will still holding onto her, whispering to her to stop.

  Hunter and Loring looked at each other, Loring even smirked, but Hunter scowled at him before he turned back around to Lucy and her friends. "He's away on business, as you know, he's a top scientist,"

  "So he's helping to try and cure those people of their coma's before they die?" Lucy asked him.

  "Maybe he's a w
erewolf," Alex said excitedly, then scowled. "But I guess then he'd be more scary then he is now,"

  "He's not a werewolf...and it isn't the full moon either..." Lucy told him dismissively; but she also knew that Hunter and Loring was hiding something.

  "If you didn't see anything, then perhaps you should carry on with what you were going to do, while we check the area out," Hunter told them.

  "Is it safe, I mean considering that this thing keeps getting in here?" Lucy asked as none of them moved.

  Hunter hesitated for a moment before he answered. "Our barriers are up to their highest,"