by Lily Luchesi
“They gave you perfect change? Every time?”
“Didn’t charge ’em. Look, my family is part of the problem, the Darkness. Least I could do to heal them, right?” Caelum shrugged. “It all worked out. Old Piper gets paid, you get paid, people got healed…”
This day seems to be full of surprises, Salem thought. “I promised Daphne and Silver we’d meet them and see what caused the outbreak of Darkness. Smith, too, probably.”
Caelum nodded. “All right. I’ll go fetch them. Wait here. We can go see Edelstone together.”
Salem waited, fixing the money in the register and keeping what was rightfully his. In about ten minutes, the foursome came up the walkway. Daphne looked better, but she was still ghastly pale and had the same dark circles under her eyes.
“Are you okay?” he asked her.
She nodded. “Thanks to you, Sal. Now come on. I want answers, and I want them now.”
Salem nodded, locked up the shop again, and the group began to walk toward the castle. To get there from the business section, you had to pass through the less affluent section of town, where Salem was staying with Robert and their guardian, an apprentice named Rylie Stanton. It was as they closed in on that area that Daphne whimpered.
“Guys, I feel something,” she said weakly.
People were rushing by and Caelum, tall and imposing even at sixteen, grabbed one of them by the edge of their cloak. “Oi, you. What’s happening here?”
The wide-eyed man said, “There’s been a murder!”
Chapter 8
“Murder?” Caelum asked.
“What do you mean, murder?” Draven demanded, face pasty white.
“I believe he is trying to say that someone has died by nefarious means,” Salem said sarcastically.
“Where? What happened?” Daphne asked, ignoring the boys.
“In a house just up that way,” the man said, still unblinking. “We have to alert the PID!” And he dashed off without another word.
“What do we do?” Draven wondered.
“We go see what happened. I can feel the Darkness,” Daphne said. “It’s getting stronger and stronger with each step we take in this direction.”
That was the deciding vote and the five of them kept walking, guided by Daphne’s Fraser senses. With each step, it was Salem who was now filled with foreboding, however. Because they were closing in on the house he and Robert lived in.
His fears were confirmed when they reached the end of the road and found a group of magicians gathered around his house, 109 Dahlia Lane. Voices were murmuring and people seemed generally spooked.
“What happened here?” Salem asked the first person to meet his eyes. She merely shuddered and left.
He grabbed someone else by the collar of the cloak, a fellow student whose name he couldn’t place. “Hey, you. I live here. Tell me what happened this instance!”
The poor boy stuttered and couldn’t say a thing.
“Salem!”
Salem turned to see Robert near the doorway of their house, his face sombre. “It’s Ms. Stanton. It’s bad. Really bad.”
Daphne clutched her head and said, “My body can already tell that much.” She began to walk toward the house and Salem grabbed her by the sleeve.
“Is it wise for you to go inside? With the way your head is already?”
“Yeah, I have to agree with Sinclair. Don’t go inside,” Michael said, arms crossed.
Daphne whirled around. “You, Mike, don’t ever tell me what to do. Sal, I appreciate the concern, but I have to know what’s happening.”
Salem nodded and let her sleeve go. “All right. Come on, then. Robert, did you call the PID? Or go to the castle?”
Robert said, “That bloke who ran off was going to call. Figured someone who lived here should stick around. Come on, if you guys really want to see. I wouldn’t.” He turned around and the five teens followed him into the house.
“Something smells awful,” Draven said almost immediately after he crossed the threshold.
Salem didn’t smell anything at first, until they got past the foyer. Then it hit him. When he was a boy, a few older boys had killed a small deer and left it to rot in some underbrush near a stream. During the summer, the heat had risen and cooked the rotting carcass. This sickly sweet, gaseous smell was similar to that.
Ms. Stanton was in the living room, on the sofa. She had been knitting when she’d been murdered. But the only reason Salem knew it was Stanton was because he recognised her grey and pink ombre robe, which she wore constantly. The body was decayed to the point where only a magician with the PID could have identified her with magic.
Her skin was wet and greenish, broken open in parts where old blood and Gaia knew what else was leaking out. Her mouth was open, lips blue, tongue black and lolling out the side. One of her eyes was normal, the other hanging from its socket on a long, sticky string of sinew.
“I’m gonna be sick,” Michael said, dashing from the house.
“Me too. The smell,” Draven groaned, following Michael.
Daphne whimpered. “It’s not the corpse making me sick. It’s the Dark magic.”
“The Decaying Curse,” Salem said softly. “The Darkest spell ever created. No wonder everyone in Clan Fraser was sick. That curse hasn’t been used in the Coven in over a century.”
Caelum was staring at the body, eyes glancing at Robert. “And you were where when this happened?”
“Taking a nap. I woke up when Stanton screamed, and by the time I got downstairs … this was what I found.” He gestured to the corpse.
“You know what this means?” Caelum asked darkly. “Someone is targeting apprentices. And this time, it’s not my family.”
A hush settled over the group and they stood there, each one worrying and trying to comprehend what was happening. Apprentices hadn’t been murdered like this, in public in the Coven, since the First Clan War. Not until Medics bustled in to collect Ms. Stanton did they move. They went outside, where Michael and Draven seemed to have composed themselves.
“What do we do?” Draven asked, voice hushed.
“We wait,” Robert said. “This is in Edelstone’s hands now.”
When a week went by and no one spoke of the murder again, Daphne was upset, and she told Salem as much while they were studying in the Common Room.
“Don’t you find it odd?” she asked.
He nodded. “Yes, but perhaps we are not seeing the whole picture. Maybe there is an investigation going on.”
“No, there isn’t.” Caelum and Draven suddenly plopped themselves down at the table where they were studying. “Draven talked to his dad last night. He didn’t know anything about a murder in the Coven. He thought Draven was pranking him.”
Daphne’s mouth dropped. “Are you sure?”
Draven nodded. “Unfortunately. Dad was pretty concerned.”
Salem sighed. “You think they glossed over the murder? Because of the negative attention Edelstone’s regime might get?”
Caelum nodded. “Wouldn’t put it past the old bastard. He doesn’t like confrontation very much, does he? He lets everything slide.”
Boy, do I know that, Salem thought bitterly. Or else you would have been kicked out on your arse.
“Did you hear?” Robert said, plopping down at the end of the table. Michael was behind him, face dark with concern. “Our guardian was murdered and no one is doing a damn thing!”
“Lower your voice,” Daphne hissed as people turned to eavesdrop. “It seems like everyone conveniently forgot about it.”
“Which is really bloody strange,” Michael said. “I am gonna have nightmares until death of what I saw.”
Draven nodded, as did Daphne.
“So we get to have this torment?” Caelum asked, indignant. “We get to see that rubbish over and over in our heads and never get an answer?”
Salem sat back and sighed. He did not like the sound of that, but what could he do? What could any of them do? They were kids, at t
he mercy of Elders and the PID, all of whom claimed to know better than they did. Though, this time, it seemed even the PID was being kept in the dark.
“We can go see Edelstone,” he suggested. “I think Robert and I have a legal right to know what’s going on. She was our guardian after all.”
Ever since the murder, the boys lived apart now, with different guardians. Robert was with a family Salem didn’t know well, and Salem was going to spend the next year and a half living with Pat and Martha Quigley, newlyweds who were barely older than he was. At least he liked both of them.
Daphne nodded. “Sal’s right. Let’s go. He usually has some free time around now.” She stood up and everyone followed her without question as they left the Common Room and went to the staircase that would lead them to the Elder’s offices. The level above that was the Coven King’s office.
To get to his office, you needed to know a password, and none of the students knew it.
“Let me ask Donahue,” Caelum said. “Mike and I are her favourites, she’ll tell us.”
“Modesty is not your strong suit, is it, mate?” Robert asked with a smirk.
They waited while Caelum and Michael knocked on Mrs. Donahue’s door. It opened after a moment’s pause and the old woman looked at them warily. She was most likely unused to the disparate group doing anything together that didn’t involve one or more parties being sent to detention.
“May I help you?”
“Hey, Mrs. D,” Michael said with a bright smile.
“We needed to talk to the King. You wouldn’t happen to know the password, would you?” Caelum asked.
“And to what does this pertain?” Donahue questioned, eyes hard behind her spectacles.
The two boys glanced at each other, obviously surprised at being questioned. Because they were the school’s golden boys, most people gave them whatever they wanted without question.
“Well, you see…” Michael trailed off.
“It’s about me,” Salem broke in. “And Robert. We were wondering if anyone knew what happened to Ms. Stanton, if they caught the magician who killed her.”
Donahue’s eyes softened for a moment before the hard expression was back on her face. “It is out of the King’s hands and in the hands of the PID now. So please go back to your studies, children. There is no information you can glean here. Good afternoon.” With that, she slammed the door in their faces.
Caelum looked stunned. With his winning smile and charm, Salem was sure that this was the first time he had ever been turned down for anything.
“But — but…”
“Lynx got your tongue?” Salem drawled. “Silver, you said your father works for the PID and he knows nothing about an investigation, is that right?”
Draven nodded.
Daphne furrowed her brow. Salem thought she looked adorable when she did it. “Call him again. Tell him what we just heard. Something isn’t right here. My whole Clan was suffering, someone was killed, and no one will tell us anything. I don’t like this. At all.”
“Well … what if something is wrong?” Salem asked.
Daphne squared her shoulders and replied, “Then we get to the bottom of it.”
The only class all six people had together was Donahue’s Everyday Spells class. It was also one of the only two mandatory classes that every student had to take until they graduated.
Salem was studying, sitting next to Robert, when he saw Michael whisper to Caelum. Caelum handed Michael a piece of paper, folded. Using magic, Michael sent the paper to Daphne’s desk.
She jumped, opened the paper, glanced at Michael, and nodded. She then scribbled something on the outside of it, and used magic to send it to Salem’s desk.
It was a note, written in Draven’s neat handwriting.
“Talked to my dad again. There is something really wrong here. I think we all need to talk, come up with a plan. The Household Spells classroom is vacant during study hall. We can all meet there then.”
Salem showed the note to Robert, who nodded.
Daphne turned to look at him and Salem gave her a thumbs up, to show that they both agreed.
Study hall wasn’t mandatory, and many students used the time to hang out with friends, read, or go sit in the gardens. However, being December, it was a bit too cold for that, so most opted for the fireplaces in the Common Room. Which meant it was so crowded, no one missed the six of them as they all filed into the classroom.
“So I called my dad again at the PID,” Draven said as they all sat around the empty classroom. “And he thinks that we’re doing the right thing by asking questions. I didn’t tell him everything, but enough to know that we’re not overreacting. If the PID wasn’t told about this murder, then there’s a cover up going on.”
“What is the PID?” Michael asked. “I keep hearing it mentioned but no one ever explains.”
“It’s like the paranormal government,” Daphne explained. “My father used to work for them, too. Before he died. They make sure all paranormal species are fed and happy so that they don't harm humans. And they monitor crime within the paranormal community as well.
“This Darkness us Frasers are feeling? It’s something that they work hard to prevent. So if it keeps growing like I think it is, then we’re in trouble.”
Salem saw how pale and worried she was and placed his hand in hers. She squeezed tightly, gratefully, while Michael gave them a dirty look.
“You two are going to make me vomit,” Michael snipped.
“Why? We haven’t held up a mirror to your face, have we?” Daphne asked.
“Can we get back to the important things, please?” Draven asked, holding his hands up.
Caelum nodded. “The bloody government is being kept out of the loop, when they are supposed to be investigating murders. What could possibly be going on that the Coven isn’t telling the PID?”
Robert smirked. “From what I know, when the First Clan War happened, not when Munro and Fraser separated, but when King Augustus was killed? People ignored it until Clan Munro was literally right on their doorstep. So Lynx is right. If they’re keeping it from the PID, it’s serious.”
Draven spoke up again. “Dad says it might be because their leader’s in town. Some woman. They don’t want her coming to stick her nose in Coven business.”
“Angelica Cross,” Caelum spoke up. “My family hates her. She’s a vamplet.”
“What the Hell is a vamplet?” Michael asked.
“It’s a half vampire, half something else. Usually human, sometimes magical,” Daphne explained. “It means she’s immortal, but she has limitations on her vampiric abilities. She can go out in daylight, but she has to drink blood as well as eat real food to live.”
Robert gave a little shiver. “How can you drink human blood when you’re part human? That’s vile.”
“Vamplets don't have a choice,” Draven said sharply. Well, sharply for him, being so soft-spoken. “Most of them hate it, too.”
Salem glanced at the pale boy, how the whites of his eyes looked more bloodshot than was normal. How he went to the Medics so often with a phantom weakness. How, when they’d first met, he’d run away from Salem’s bloody knee. How he always advocated for creatures.
He’s a vamplet, he’s part vampire, he thought, eyes widening. Apparently a vampire who never drinks blood, since he’s always weak. Was Edelstone crazy, letting him in here? He could kill us all!
Draven caught his eye, and something there must have shown him that Salem knew his bloody little secret. He gave a minute shake of the head, eyes pleading. For the moment, Salem kept his mouth shut. Only because he didn’t want to be the cause of pandemonium.
“So what’s Edelstone doing to combat the Darkness?” Michael asked.
“Probably an arse load of nothing,” Caelum replied, brushing his hair from his eyes.
“He’s right,” Daphne said. “He doesn’t seem to be taking this as seriously as we are, unless they are going to take care of it on their own. Which I do
ubt.”
Caelum scoffed. “That’s because he’s a bloody coward. He doesn’t want to take action against his own bloodline, but he’ll sure as Hell punish us as often as he can.”
“His bloodline?” Salem asked.
Caelum nodded. “Edelstone is part of Clan Munro. Surely you all knew that?”
“I did,” Robert said.
He was the only one, however. Daphne, Michael, and Draven all looked like someone had hit ‘pause’ on them: they were completely still, identical looks of astonishment on their faces.
Salem hadn’t known, either, and that made him wonder why Edelstone was so against the Dark. “Well, that doesn’t mean he’s evil, does it?” he asked. “Or are you going to try and tell the three of us that it’s worrisome?” He gestured to himself, Caelum, and Robert.
“What’s worrisome about it is that, unlike you three, he’s not doing anything to stop the growing Darkness,” Daphne said. “Not everyone in Clan Munro is evil, but if he keeps on ignoring the danger at his feet, we have to say something. Maybe to your dad, Draven.”
Draven nodded, but he didn’t seem all that enthusiastic about the prospect.
His father must be the vamp, Salem thought.
“Fraser, your mum should go talk to him,” Michael suggested. “She’s an Elder, after all. He’ll listen to her more than he would to us.”
“I’ll talk to her,” she said.
Salem looked around at everyone, all sitting there in secret, discussing things far above their pay grade … considering that they didn’t even have jobs yet. They weren’t supposed to be there. The kids weren’t supposed to save the world. That was what the books and movies said. Not reality.
“Does anyone else think that this is absolutely mental?” he asked. “Edelstone should be taking care of this, not us! Where are the adults when we need them?”
Caelum leaned back and smirked, but there was no happiness in the small smile. “They’re up our arses when we don’t want them. ‘Do this, go here, get married, stop bringing shame to the family’. But when Hell’s about to rain down, they’re suspiciously silent.”
