Party Ghoul

by Sarina Dorie

  And the kind of person who doctored her coffee with a little bit of alcohol.

  The sound of someone being sick came from behind her. Mr. Tybalt was vomiting over the side of his broom onto a group of gnomes. They shook angry fists at him. A moment later, he crashed into a hedge.

  Vega sighed in exasperation. How could flyer-ed class be so challenging to teach? These were adults, not kids.

  She snapped her fingers at Mrs. Angelopoulos. “Get your broom ready. I’ll be back to talk to you in a minute.”

  When she returned from assisting Mr. Tybalt, she found Mrs. Angelopoulos closing her purse. She was seated in a clawfoot bathtub. It was an unusual mode of transportation, though Vega supposed it was more practical for a lamia’s long tail. Vega had never tried fitting anything so large as a bathtub in her purse, but many spells for transferring objects through portals could condense mass through an aperture—another reason this form of magic wasn’t suited for people.

  For future reference, it was good to keep in mind it was possible to fit something so large in her own purse.

  “Here is what we are going to do,” Vega said. “The three of us will fly together. We will start off slow, low to the ground, and we will keep to the paths of the school.”

  Mr. Tybalt wasn’t a problem. So long as he flew slow and only a few feet off the ground, he was fine. Mrs. Angelopoulos was a demon in a bathtub. She crashed into a hedge. Enchanted topiary animals shuddered away from her erratic movements. Instead of improving with instructions, her flying grew worse.

  Mrs. Angelopoulos dabbed at her sweaty face with a handkerchief. She looked winded as she sat back in her bathtub. The reek of garlic wafted away from her.

  “Perhaps the problem is your vehicle,” Vega said, hoping to offer a solution. “It might have too much mass and be difficult to levitate and control at the same time. You should try—”

  “No, I can handle flying anything just fine. The problem is him.” Mrs. Angelopoulos nodded to Mr. Tybalt, her gesture loose like a rag doll’s. “He’s flying too slow and keeps getting in my way. I keep crashing into things to avoid him.” She mumbled a few additional things Vega couldn’t quite hear.

  “You need to stick by my side, not his.” Mrs. Angelopoulos lowered her voice. “I’m the one with an enemy in class, not him.” She glanced over her shoulder as she said it and hugged her purse more tightly to herself.

  Mr. Tybalt rolled his eyes.

  “Fly slower, and it will be easier for everyone,” Vega said through clenched teeth.

  “He needs to keep up with me,” Mrs. Angelopoulos said. “He keeps getting in my way.”

  Vega doubted Mr. Tybalt was the problem. If she had a guess, she would suspect Mrs. Angelopoulos was inebriated. “What was your flying violation that landed you in this class?”

  “It’s none of your damned business!” Mrs. Angelopoulos lifted her nose up at Vega.

  “Actually it is,” Vega said. “I’m supposed to help you with your weak areas of—”

  “I am not weak! You know who is weak? The Department of Magical Violations. That Hildy Heathgard who gave me the ticket is a petty tyrant.” Mrs. Angelopoulos continued to rant, only occasionally stopping to gulp down some of her iced coffee before storing it back in her purse.

  Vega had mixed feelings about Hildy, as she’d also given Vega a ticket. She was fairly certain Mr. Reade had been the largest influence in getting Vega her flying license back, mostly because he’d agreed to take Hildy out on a date. It might have helped that Vega had done the groundwork and found out who had sabotaged her broom and been able to prove it to Hildy.

  Mrs. Angelopoulos looked unsteady, her words occasionally slurred. Mr. Tybalt shook his head in disgust.

  “Are you drinking alcohol during class?” Vega asked, nodding to the plastic cup.

  “This is coffee, honey. Do you want to smell my breath?”

  “Not really.” Vega could smell the garlic from where she was.

  Unlike the regular school year when Vega could assign detentions, there was no consequence for churlish adults in flyer-ed classes. Mr. Reade hadn’t informed her of the protocol necessary if she wanted to kick a student out of class permanently. She supposed she would have to ask him after class and come up with a plan for this student.

  Vega ensured Mr. Tybalt stayed out of Mrs. Angelopoulos’s way as she barreled down the path. The old woman was all over the place in her speed and altitude. Vega hadn’t smelled alcohol on her, but her perfume was so strong, it even managed to mask some of her garlic odor.

  “She’s a maniac. I can see why she got a ticket,” Mr. Tybalt muttered.

  “Let’s make sure next week you’re signed up during a time with someone who’s less likely to run you over,” Vega said.

  Two minutes later, Mrs. Angelopoulos’s bathtub came hurtling toward them from above. Vega used an Elementia wind charm to sweep them out of the way. Mrs. Angelopoulos headed straight toward a marble statue of the Lady of the Lake. The statue was an artistic masterpiece rumored to be a thousand years old.

  Panic shot through Vega as she thought of the principal raking her over the coals for all eternity if it was so much as chipped.

  Vega tried to use the same wind spell to push the bathtub to the side, but it was traveling too fast, and the spell couldn’t move that much mass. Desperately, Vega tried to construct a ward to stop the bathtub, but as her heart hammered in her chest, she halted midway, knowing it would take too long.

  Vega reached for the next spell she had available. A portal.

  She constructed a portal in front of the statue just in time. It opened to the back of the school closer to the stadium. The bathtub soared through. Vega closed it right after. Hopefully, Mrs. Angelopoulos didn’t continue toward any more structures and cause any property damage.

  Like the stadium or sports field.

  Vega gasped for breath, not realizing she’d been holding it. That had been a close call. Of all the spells she could have used, portal magic was her least favorite. It was the most dangerous, but the occasion had warranted it.

  Mr. Tybalt had covered his eyes. He now opened them, looking around in confusion.

  “She should be behind the school. I need to go check on her. Follow at your own pace.” Vega swept her broom in an arc around the school.

  Long brown trails where the feet of the bathtub had gouged into the earth led her past the stadium. Vega found Mrs. Angelopoulos’s bathtub overturned. The witch lay on the ground, her long tail stretched out behind her, partially under the tub.

  “Mrs. Angelopoulos?” Vega asked. “Are you all right?”

  The witch didn’t answer.

  Vega slowed her broom and hopped off. Mrs. Angelopoulos’s green kerchief lay beside her in the grass, displaying her thinning gray hair. Her eyes were open wide. It was clear blood vessels had burst as the whites of her eyes were now red.

  A vision from the past flashed before Vega’s eyes, a face young and handsome—aside from the broken capillaries in his eyes after a portal accident. It was a vision that had haunted her, even now, five years later. She still blamed herself for causing that accident.

  “Mrs. Angelopoulos?” Vega crouched and shook the woman’s shoulder.

  Penelope Angelopoulos was still. She wasn’t breathing. Vega felt for a heartbeat. There was none.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Peace Corpse

  Alarm rose in Vega. Had she killed a student? Was it her portal?

  She needed to get someone—a teacher. But it was summer vacation. The administration and teachers weren’t here. She was the only teacher on campus at the moment.

  Vega fought the tide of hysteria wanting to sweep her away, but she forced herself to breathe, to stay calm. She was the adult in charge. She needed to act.

  Vega used an Elementia wind charm to gently push air into Mrs. Angelopoulos’s lungs. She hadn’t ever used the spell for massaging a heart except in practice on an
imals that had been half dissected in classes. Vega attempted to direct her Celestor affinity into the heart and force it to contract, but she didn’t know if she was doing it correctly. She removed her wand from her sleeve to direct her magic to a more focused point and tried again. Air wheezed out of Mrs. Angelopoulos’s lungs. Vega thought that meant she was breathing on her own, but a few seconds later she realized she’d squeezed the lungs instead of the heart.

  As much as Vega detested manual labor, she resorted to the Morty method of chest compressions. She forgot to count and resumed the wind charm.

  Vega checked for a pulse, but her fingers were slick with sweat and slid against Mrs. Angelopoulos’s scaly skin. She couldn’t tell if her efforts were working.

  “You’re doing it wrong,” a voice said from behind Vega.

  A woman with blue-tinted hair and a gauzy skirt, riding a broom sidesaddle, glided to a stop. She eased herself off it and kneeled at Mrs. Angelopoulos’s side. Vega recognized the student from the adult class. Janis Meadowcloud’s bracelets jangled as she placed a hand over Mrs. Angelopoulos’s heart.

  Mrs. Angelopoulos’s chest compressed as Mrs. Meadowcloud used a wave of kinetic energy. Her rhythm was steady.

  Vega wasn’t so much in a panic that she didn’t recognize that this was the same student who had argued with Mrs. Angelopoulos in class. They were enemies. It was oddly coincidental that she just happened to arrive when her rival died.

  “What are you doing here?” Vega asked.

  Mrs. Meadowcloud kept up the steady pace of chest compressions with magic, her expression full of genuine worry. “It’s five thirty. It was time for our appointment, but I saw you flying away. Mr. Tybalt told me you had to check on a student.”

  Mrs. Angelopoulos hadn’t wanted to be in the same class with her enemy. Could it be because her ravings weren’t imagined, and Janis Meadowcloud had caused her erratic flying? Vega had humored Mrs. Angelopoulos’s concerns but assumed she’d been a paranoid lush. But Vega knew from past experience that a broom—or other vehicle—could be influenced by someone else’s magic.

  Had Janis Meadowcloud really signed up to be her five-thirty appointment, right after Mrs. Angelopoulos, and she hadn’t noticed? She could have kicked herself for that.

  After ten minutes of trying to resuscitate Mrs. Angelopoulos, she still wasn’t breathing, and she didn’t have a heartbeat. Vega stared at the corpse, failure pressing in on her.

  Mrs. Gordmayer had specifically told her no one was allowed to die. She was going to kill Vega when she found out.

  A moment later, Mr. Tybalt arrived on his broom at his snail’s pace. Accompanying him was Vega’s other five-thirty appointment, Kyle Hoffman, clad in his Hawaiian shirt. “Dude! Did someone get a fireball in the face?”

  Vega ignored the insipid remark. This was her first week of class and someone had died. She had to be the worst teacher ever. Who would want to hire her for next year after this?

  Mr. Tybalt cringed, looking like he might be ill. “Oh no! What happened?”

  Vega’s mouth went dry, and it was an effort to speak. “An accident.”

  Or was it?

  * * *

  Vega wasn’t usually in the habit of finding dead bodies—and when she did, they had been dead for quite some time. A student dying in class was the sort of thing she’d have reported to a principal or secretary. But neither were present. There were only a few people working in the summer.

  Vega was the person in charge. That meant this was her problem.

  She sent her students away—the ones who were still alive. Mrs. Meadowcloud and Kyle Hoffman could have their lesson a different day. Mr. Tybalt was all done for the day anyway.

  There was probably a procedure for what to do with dead bodies, but Vega didn’t know what it was. She constructed wards of protection to keep the body safe from gnomes or interference from anyone else. Next, she intended to call Mr. Reade via the magic mirror to ask him what she should do. That meant she required her makeup compact from her purse.

  Her purse was in her room, but the contents weren’t out of reach. Vega used her Celestor powers of starlight to construct a small portal in her pocket, linking it to the contents of her purse. This form of magic was best fueled by celestial energy, though it didn’t take much, unlike the amount needed to create the kind of portal that was safe to transport people. She was out of practice creating portals safe for conveying people, preferring the method of broom travel.

  Sweat prickled the back of Vega’s neck as she considered that her lack of practice might have caused her to open the wrong kind of portal for Mrs. Angelopoulos. The old woman’s eyes looked like what Vega had seen that one time in her teenage years after the wrong kind of portal had been created. Then again, it couldn’t be a coincidence that Janis Meadowcloud had shown up right after Mrs. Angelopoulos had died. She could have murdered Mrs. Angelopoulos.

  Out of all the staff Vega knew, Mr. Reade was the person least likely to rat her out to the principal. Unfortunately, he wasn’t available when she called him. She left a message with his magic mirror.

  Vega didn’t know what the next step was. Was it irresponsible to leave the body? Should she call the Witchkin Council? Her former principal hated the council. One of the reasons he hadn’t offered her a permanent contract was because she had exposed a murderer at his school and gotten the Witchkin Council involved. At least that was one of the reasons he hadn’t wanted her to work there. The other reason was that she’d been nosy and had threatened to expose his secrets.

  Mrs. Gordmayer probably wasn’t doing anything unethical at the school, but it didn’t mean she would want the Witchkin Council snooping around. It would make the school look bad if parents thought murderers worked there.

  Murderers like Vega.

  That was the other reason it might not be a good idea to call the Witchkin Council. For all she knew, it might have been her portal that had killed her student. Even if it was deemed an accident, Vega already had a record. She didn’t need more eyes on her. If the council set their spies on Vega and found out about her ghoulish ancestry and her dirty habits as a necrophage, they would expose those secrets.

  She thought of the word “ghul” on the graves and shivered.

  The smartest thing was to figure out whether she was an accidental murderer. Or someone else was an intentional murderer. Vega could figure out what to do after she proved she was innocent. If it was her portal that had caused Mrs. Angelopoulos’s death, that was a different scenario entirely.

  Vega crouched, trying not to choke on the cloud of old-lady perfume. Twenty minutes must have passed since her death, but she smelled even more strongly of garlic. Usually dead bodies smelled like pastries to Vega’s ghoul senses, but this corpse was still too fresh for that.

  Vega used two spells to detect hexes and curses. The third spell required the contents of her purse again, which meant she needed to activate her pocket as a portal to excavate the proper accoutrements. It was safe digging her hand—and even her arm—down deep to reach the contents, but it was important to never step through or fall through this kind of portal.

  Storage portals weren’t meant for the living. Would Vega have reached for this kind of portal in a panic—like when Mrs. Angelopoulos had been hurtling toward the statue?

  Vega groped the inside of her pocket purse. It was always awkward fumbling around without being able to see the contents. It took several attempts for Vega to extract what she needed. She retrieved a bowl, a jar of water, and a small vial of oil.

  Orsolya eventually wandered over, a shovel in hand. Her troll-sized frame cast a large shadow over the corpse. “What’s going on? Is this lady all right?”

  “No, she’s dead.” Vega poured water into the bowl.

  Orsolya’s eyes went wide. “Is she one of your students?”

  “Was one of my students.” Vega plopped three drops of oil in the water and held it over the deceased. She closed her eyes
and channeled starlight into the bowl.

  “How is that going to help?” Orsolya asked.

  “Could you just close your mouth for a minute?” Vega snapped. “I’m trying to use powers of divination to see what happened.”

  She refocused. When she opened her eyes, she saw the oil had spiraled in the bowl, so she knew magic had been at work. It hadn’t formed the shape of an eye, which meant no one had put a malocchio, or curse, on Mrs. Angelopoulos.

  All this proved was no one had hexed Mrs. Angelopoulos, including her enemy. Just because no one had used intentionally malicious magic didn’t mean Vega was guilty of accidentally murdering her. There had to be another explanation, something else she could use to try to confirm someone else had killed her.

  “She doesn’t look any better,” Orsolya said.

  “Of course not. She’s dead.” Vega stood and dusted off her skirt with a simple charm, grass drifting away. “The only way she might look better is if I cured her, which would be illegal, because that would be necromancy.”

  Orsolya lifted her hands in a placating gesture and stepped back. “Sheesh. I was just trying to help.”

  From her response, Vega could see the groundskeeper was like every other Witchkin out there, afraid of the dead and everything related to death magic. Orsolya would have been horrified to know that Vega was part ghoul.

  Vega bristled. “Unless you know of a way to detect how she died, then I suggest not trying to help.”

  “Is that all you’re trying to do?” Orsolya shrugged. “Look at her eyes. They’re red like blood. Her blood vessels ruptured. That should narrow it down for you. That could be from a stroke.”

  “How do you know?” Vega asked.

  Orsolya stabbed her shovel into a mound of dirt that had probably been caused by a gnome. “My grandfather died of a stroke.”

  Vega disliked Orsolya less now that she knew she’d lost someone. Death always had a way of making Vega feel fond of people.