But we aren’t here to fight, Helena had to remind herself. They were just gathering intel right now.
The fight would come later tonight.
Still following Dinah, the three passed the main building, a towering structure surrounded by beautiful statues that looked like it had been built centuries ago. Helena would have spent more time appreciating the architecture had they not been in a hurry. It really was something though, the intricate spires unlike any building she’d ever seen in Centralia.
Dinah still in the lead, they came to a side entrance, the ghost woman pressing through the door.
“Should we just go in?” Ozella asked.
“I don’t know…” said Juniper.
Dinah pushed her head out of the door, her body still inside. She gave them a look as if to say, “What are you waiting for?” and motioned them in.
“I trust Dinah,” Helena said as Ozella opened the door. They went in to find themselves in a side corridor with polished wood floors that immediately started showing the remnants of the snow they had dragged in.
“I’ve got it,” Juniper said, casting a rune that scrubbed the floor behind them. They followed Dinah to the second floor where they came to a locked door, the doorknob fashioned into the head of a bearwolf.
“Is anyone on the other side?” Ozella asked Dinah.
Dinah peeked in, and returned her gaze to the group’s statkeeper. She made a gesture with her hand telling them to wait a moment as she looked back in, pulled her head back out, and gestured them in.
“It’s locked,” Helena said as she tried the door.
“I’ve got this,” said Juniper, and with a few motions of her finger, the bearwolf door handle eventually twisted, the door sliding open.
They entered a large room with an elaborate red carpet, a fireplace in the corner, study tables and another room at the back, where they saw a mohawked man sitting in front of some books, pouring through the pages.
His back was to them, but it was pretty clear who it was.
“Donavan…” Ozella whispered.
Still holding Helena’s hand, she focused on him intently, taking in as much about him as she possibly could based on the stat template that she and Helena had devised. She nodded, just as Donovan looked over his shoulder, staring right in their direction.
Helena stopped breathing for a moment, and even though Donovan only looked toward them for a few seconds, it felt like an eternity, all three of them trying not to gasp after he looked away, back to his reading material.
They shuffled out of the room, only able to truly regain their composure once they made their way down the hallway.
“He’s a telepath too,” Ozella confirmed. “That’s… that’s how he was able to trick you back in Centralia!”
“Do you think he picked up on us in there?” Helena asked.
“He shouldn’t have,” said Juniper. “He definitely sensed something, which was why he looked up. But without seeing us, he wouldn’t even know we were there to dive into our minds, and I’ve been trained in dealing with telepaths. I didn’t feel anything.”
“Damn,” Helena said as they made their way down a spiral staircase. “Let’s hope the others are close then.”
Dinah nodded as she skipped down the stairs, the ghost woman completely oblivious to the danger of what they were attempting.
They came to an exit door and stepped aside just in time for the door to swing open, a professor walking into the space, the lean woman with greenish skin making her way up the stairwell. Once they were sure she had moved onto another floor, they slipped out the door, following Dinah down a set of stairs that were mysteriously tidy.
Helena knew it was the doing of a rune, but that didn’t stop her from pausing for a moment and looking at just how strange the completely clean stairwell was, not even a speck of dirt on it. They came to another building, this one with guards out front.
Dinah made a gesture that indicated a big person was in there, and Helena and Ozella knew instantly she was referring to the gray vampire that had been traveling with Donovan.
They still didn’t know who this vampire was, and it was possible that Dinah’s gesture was intended for Mia.
There really was no telling.
The three of them paused for a moment, wondering how they should go about doing this. Dinah slipped into the door and pressed back out when she saw that they hadn’t followed her. She pointed to the two guards in front of the door, both men in robes with furry hats on their heads.
“No,” Ozella whispered, shaking her head at the ghost woman.
Their ears perked up when they heard someone approaching. Helena turned to see Essem, the man with the bladed arms. His arms were normal at the moment, and as he approached the guards they stepped aside, giving Ozella plenty of time to get his details.
She nodded at Helena, Juniper tensing, squeezing Helena’s hand and jerking her to the right.
“What is it?” Helena whispered as they started to move away, their tracks in the snow still being covered by Juniper’s magic.
“I’m sensing something,” she whispered once they were away from the guards.
“What are you sensing?” Helena asked.
“Something… Something…”
Another man appeared, one whom they had never seen before. He wore his hair long and had a perfectly trimmed beard, and was clad in a set of red robes that looked different than any of the robes Helena had seen before. They glowed in a way, and she had the sneaking suspicion that this was a man of importance.
The man stopped, and the three of them froze in place, Dinah already appearing next to him, ready to pounce. He was looking directly at them now, a sly grin on his face.
“Your powers won’t work here,” he said.
As he spoke, Dinah jumped for him. The man immediately caught her by the neck.
Helena knew it was now or never, so rather than run, she jumped into action, ready to protect her friends.
Letting go of their arms, she came forward with a kick that would have knocked the head off a normal man’s neck. Only it stopped in front of this man, Helena frozen in space, struggling to keep her foot erect. Something glowed around the man’s arms as he brought his hands into a prayer position, placing them before his lips.
“I suggest the three of you stop. There is no escape now.”
A portal opened up and he cast it away with a blink.
“Like I said, Girl of the Script, there is no escape. You have officially been caught. This is the end of the road for you three,” said the man. “Interesting to see a daughter of Southern Alliance royalty here, but I’m not surprised that your script spell ultimately failed. You see, I have been tracking you since you came through the front gate. And while most of the people here may not have noticed the spell you cast, it is quite evident to me. And how clever, to make everyone hallucinate that you are invisible,” he told Helena. “How very clever.”
The long-haired man was still holding Dinah by the neck, the blue ghost woman struggling, kicking her feet.
“Let her go!” Ozella triggered her weapon and the blast tore into his chest. The man tossed Dinah to the ground as he bent forward, his arms wide, the energy pooling at his chest and spinning.
“Argh!” he shouted as he released the blast into the air. “Nice try,” he told Ozella.
Donovan came around the side of the school, a smug look on his face when he saw Helena with her leg suspended in the air, Ozella pointing her wrist guard at the man standing before them, Juniper trying desperately to dial-up a rune and failing.
“Ah, Donovan, glad you could join us.”
“I see you’ve found a few intruders, Sugoz,” said Donovan. “I figured they would come around at some point, but I didn’t expect them to be this bold.”
“And to think they could have just gone back to their countries, oblivious to all this. Oh well. They’ve made their beds, and now they will lie in them.” Sugoz ran his hand through his beard for a mome
nt as he looked the three of them over, Helena’s leg still suspended in the air. “The students will be out of class soon; and as headmaster here, it would be best if you weren’t seen. We’d better get you three someplace where no one can find you. We can do this the easy way, or the hard way. The easy way is for you to simply follow me,” the man said. “The hard way is…”
“We’ll come with you,” Juniper volunteered, bowing her head.
“Good call,” Sugoz said, “you wouldn’t have liked the hard way.”
Chapter Thirty-Nine: Snow Daze
(Nope, Helena was totally wrong. Back to the drawing board.)
Occasionally, Zoe Goa Ramone would stop and kick some of the snow out of spite, the tiger girl needing some way to release tension. “They should be back by now,” she said for the umpteenth time.
“They really should,” said Sam, who kept looking up at the canopies in the trees, as if there were an interesting bird hopping between the branches.
“What do you keep looking at?” Zoe asked.
“I have an idea.”
“Unless it involves going to save their asses, I don’t want to hear it. It’s been too long, Sam. You know it, I know it. Helena is tough and all, but we really don’t know how strong Juniper is, and Ozella’s power lies in her ability to use Dinah. If Ozella passed out…”
“I think Juniper can handle herself. Seriously, we have no idea what kind of runes she’s able to cast. She seems to know a lot of them.”
“But there is constant mention that she didn’t graduate from the school…”
“Maybe she has her reasons,” Sam said, still looking up at the tree. “Anyway, I think I’ll try to climb up that tree and activate my enhanced sight. Maybe I’ll be able to see what’s going on in the school grounds.”
“That tree?” Zoe asked, looking up at the tree skeptically.
It was larger than any tree either of them had ever seen in Centralia, definitely more than seventy-five feet tall, and Sam seemed pretty sure that he could get a pretty fair view of the school if he could make it to the top.
But to do so, he would have to climb pretty high, and while he may have climbed trees at his family’s vineyard when he was young, Zoe surmised that he had probably never been in a tree as high as this.
“That’s the plan. Hopefully I will be able to get a glimpse of what’s happening, or maybe see them coming back.”
“There’s no way you’re going to get up there,” Zoe said. “Not trying to burst your bubble here, but there is just no goddamn way.”
“I sure as hell am going to try,” Sam said as he moved to the tree. He put his hand on it, wiping some of the snow away.
“Seriously, Sam, there has to be a better way we can do this. Plus it’s snowing pretty hard. You aren’t going to be able to see anything.”
“We can try to get closer, but then I wouldn’t have the height advantage,” he told her.
“What do you expect to see anyway? Really, think about this for a moment. Even if you can see into the school, if they’re on the other side of the main building, or if they are already, I don’t know, in a dungeon, you’re not going to be able to see shit.”
“Okay,” Sam said, bringing his hands down. “Maybe you’re right. What do we do then?”
“I don’t know, but we need to get some information to work from. Anything. And we are definitely not getting it from the middle of this forest.”
“But if we leave this space, and they come back…”
“They would have already come back by now,” Zoe said. “It has been several hours. Think about it, Sam. Helena’s power only works for one hour, and even if they are just hiding out… No, I can sense it. Can’t you? Something is wrong.”
“How are we supposed to go against whatever they have in there, especially with just the two of us?”
“Speak for yourself, Sam.” Zoe wasn’t stupid, and neither was he. If something had taken the other three out, it would be even harder for them, but that didn’t change the fact that they needed to go after their teammates. “They would come for us if we were the ones who were captured. So we have to do the same for them.”
“Yeah, you’re right there,” said Sam. “The odds are definitely stacked against us though, so we need to be ready.”
“But we definitely should wait till dark. Crap. I hope that they do the whole supervillain thing and don’t kill them immediately, giving us time for the rescue. You know, they could do that.”
“Do what?” Sam asked.
Zoe bit her lip as she shook her head. “Just kill them, and be done with it. That is a possibility here. But for some reason, I don’t think that’s what they’re going to do. Just a hunch.”
She turned to the path the three women had left in the snow. It was still visible, but as the forest opened up to a wide field, Zoe knew that it would be harder and harder to see their footprints, especially with the snowfall overhead.
Luckily, she had her powers, and tracking was definitely something Zoe was capable of.
“Follow me,” she said.
“Yeah,” Sam said, steeling himself with a deep breath. As he followed Zoe, he slowly checked his wrist guards, making sure everything was in place.
Zoe stopped every couple of steps, her ears perking up, the tiger girl moving once she caught the scent again.
She wasn’t actually sniffing as much as she was looking at changes in the snow with her eyes, Zoe able to do most of the heavy lifting here, so Sam could save his power up for later.
More snow started to fall as they moved away from the canopy, enough that it blurred the space in front of them. They could only see about fifty feet out now, and the school was all but invisible behind the flurries whipping in the air.
They reached the edge of the forest and paused there for a moment.
“What are you thinking?” Sam asked.
“First of all, I am cold. Damn this cold weather,” she said, wiping ice away from her whiskers.
“It is pretty chilly out here,” Sam said. “I keep trying not to think about it, but it’s kind of hard.”
“And it’s only going to get colder when it gets dark…”
“Yeah. And I’m hungry. Are you hungry?”
“Not really,” Zoe said, touching her stomach. “But some real food would be nice. I don’t how much longer I can munch on fucking runes.”
“You and me both,” said Sam.
“Okay, let’s use this ledge for protection against the snow for the time being,” Zoe said, pointing at a spot to her left.
“Maybe we should get closer.”
“No, we need a way for the snow to die down first,” said Zoe. “I know the track that they took to the school, and I want to stay near it. We’ll wait for dark to come, and the snow to die down, then we’ll make our move.”
“Do you think it’s important to stay on the exact same path they went on?” Sam asked as he sat, Zoe taking a place next to him.
“I don’t know, but if the snow is still coming down pretty hard, it will at least get us to the school.”
“Good point.”
“I hope you don’t mind if I’m sitting this close to you.” Zoe pressed her hip next to Sam’s, moving up a little bit so she could adjust her tail. “This fucking tail. I am getting more and more used to the face, but this thing?”
Sam laughed. “I guess it is kind of strange to get used to.”
“Definitely,” Zoe said, and Sam naturally placed his arm around her shoulder.
“Hope we don’t die out here,” Zoe told him as she got comfortable.
“That’s a pretty morbid thing to say.”
“It could happen…”
“Well, if that’s what happens, at least we made it this far.”
Zoe had to laugh. “All the way to the southernmost part of the Southern Alliance, huh?”
“In pursuit of vampire children, yes, sounds about right.”
“So a suicide mission?”
Sam nodded. �
��Pretty much.”
While Zoe didn’t always get along with them, she absolutely did not want to see any harm come to the three women. Nor did she want to see any harm come to Sam.
Zoe didn’t care about herself. If she died in all this, then so be it, that would be the path presented to her.
But not her friends, not her goddamn teammates, the people she had formed the strange group with.
And as more snow fell, Zoe moved even closer to Sam, bringing her hood as far over her head as she could. She psyched herself up in that moment; she would see this to the end.
“We will rescue them,” she said suddenly.
“Yes,” Sam agreed.
“And we will take care of the vampire kids.”
“But how?” Sam asked.
“Unfortunately, neither of us have the power of luck, but I have the power of stealth, and with your enhanced senses, we should be able to pull this off. With an emphasis on the word ‘should.’”
“Definitely,” Sam said. “Definitely.”
Chapter Forty: Just in Case We Die
(What better time than now to make a confession?)
“Maybe we should make sure they didn’t go back to the original spot,” Sam suggested. It was dark now, and the snow had settled some. There were still some flurries in the air, sparkling in the lights coming off the School of Heart, not quite a winter wonderland, especially considering all the shit that was about to go down.
“I think you and I both know that they were caught,” Zoe said. “I checked an hour ago; there was no one there. I don’t see why they would be there now. Sam, we’re gonna have to do this. And it’s going to be risky as fuck.”
“Yeah,” Sam said.
“And because we might die, I just want you to know…”
“What?” Sam asked, turning to her. Both were still sitting with their backs against the ledge, close to each other, a bit of shared warmth taking up the space between them.
“Look, I know that you have sensed it, but…”
“But...?” Sam asked. He had sensed a lot since coming to the Southern Alliance. A few things he wasn’t quite sure about, other things made quite a bit of sense to him.
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