Chapter 28 Atticus
Atticus
You will think me cruel, very selfish, but love is always selfish; the more ardent the more selfish. How jealous I am you cannot know. You must come with me, loving me, to death; or else hate me, and still come with me, and hating me through death and after.
—Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu, Carmilla
The paramedic’s hands are cold as he takes my pulse.
“Can you tell me your name?” he asks.
“Atticus Garcia,” I say. He’s checking if I’m in shock. I might be.
My back may have been healed, but my body remembers. With a shudder, I recall the way the claws sliced my skin and how cold I felt, like I’d never be warm again. I think…I think I almost died. The realization hits like a hammer.
We sit outside the perimeter of the Arches demolition area with the paramedics.
Raven is talking while an EMT bandages a small wound on her arm.
Dorian lets another paramedic check his blood pressure.
I’m seated in the back of an ambulance, draped in a shiny shock blanket.
There’s yelling from people in yellow vests, and the sound of construction equipment rolling out of the way, and a crackle of static from a radio.
I feel hollow, small, and fragile, like a porcelain doll with a crack in its body.
The paramedic attending me asks something else, but I don’t hear him. He asks again, and the world snaps back into focus.
“What?” I ask, dazed.
“Your heart rate is elevated, but that’s to be expected. Are you hurt?” he asks.
“No,” I say, shaking my head. Because of Dorian…
“What’s all this blood, though? Are you injured somewhere?”
He gestures to my hair and to my hands, finding nothing that would cause it.
“It’s…” I don’t know what to say. I don’t know if I should tell anyone about Dorian or what he did for me. I don’t know if he’d want me to. I don’t quite understand it. Maybe Dorian doesn’t understand it either. I spot him again, leaning against another ambulance, and my urge to be with him surges.
He’s standing with a blanket wrapped around his shoulders, his gaze distant. He almost died. Maybe he did die, or was close to dying.
Raven is talking to a police officer who just arrived.
She’s holding herself tightly across her chest, looking like she climbed down a chimney.
Soot covers almost every inch of her. Her magic saved us all.
Raven showed us just how strong she is. She twisted her hands into empty air and conjured fire, tearing the fabric of reality as easily as tearing paper. Beautiful. Terrifying.
“All this blood,” says the paramedic. “Are you sure you’re not hurt?”
I sense his growing concern for my lack of answers.
His thoughts swirl with worry, medical jargon overwhelming me. Concussion…? Possible internal bleeding…? Acute stress reaction…?
He might take me to a hospital, or worse, he might call my mother. I don’t want her to worry, and I definitely don’t want anyone to know about what just happened to us. It’s a miracle that we made it out alive…No, it’s because of Dorian and Raven that we’re alive.
“I’m fine, I swear,” I tell the paramedic.
He seems to believe me. There’s nothing wrong with me, physically at least.
Before he can say anything, I leave the ambulance and head straight for Dorian.
When he sees me coming, relief warms his eyes. “Hey,” he says.
“Hey. Are you all right?”
He nods, swallowing thickly. “Yeah, they checked me out. They were pretty confused by all this blood, though.”
“Same,” I say, eyeing the nearby paramedics, who are speaking to each other and looking over at us suspiciously. But this is Sibylline. A lot of weird stuff happens here all the time. They must be used to it.
“Are you…” Dorian trails off, and his gaze lowers, toward where the gashes would be in my back. I pull my shock blanket tighter around my shoulders.
“I’m fine,” I say. “Thank you.”
Dust from the tunnels has turned his hair gray.
I like it. It gives him a kind of mature, regal appearance.
I have an urge to run my fingers through it, combing it back into place the way he likes it, but I stop myself when his gaze shifts to Raven.
She’s still talking to the police officer, holding her own against his questions.
Dorian’s gaze softens when he looks at her.
He may have saved my life, but his heart still lies elsewhere…
I swallow down the hurt that threatens to creep up my throat.
He’ll always want her over me. I was never in the running.
“What you did was…” I clear my throat, keeping my voice low. “That day on the subway you told me about…”
Color drains from Dorian’s cheeks.
“You said he woke up after you touched him. So am I the second life you’ve saved?”
There’s silence between us as Dorian sits with the realization.
“Maybe,” he says with a slight smile.
Over his shoulder, I spy a man swiftly approaching.
A familiar face stalking toward us through the crowd of people who have gathered at the demolition site.
Warden Stone. He’s flanked by two police officers, parting the sea of onlookers.
He spots the three of us, unmistakably the ones responsible for all this.
He points to us. “You three. My office.”
—
Warden Stone’s office is a mess. Papers are stacked in teetering piles on his desk, and boxes litter the floor.
Brochures for Old Bones’s new exhibit lie haphazardly on a chair.
The room is cold. He’s thrown open the windows, admitting the freezing late autumn air.
But the cold isn’t what makes me shiver.
I’m still in shock, I think. Raven hugs herself tightly, eyes downcast, but rage and anxiety hum around her, making my skin itch.
On my right, Dorian stands tall, his back straight.
It’s like he’s trying to reach through the ceiling with the top of his head.
I want to touch both their hands. I want to feel them, to know they’re here, even though they’re right next to me. Warden Stone looks out the window. The sky is gray and the leaves have fallen from the trees, leaving the branches empty. Like skeletal claws they scrape at the slate-colored sky.
“Care to explain to me why you were down there?” Warden Stone asks us.
Dorian catches my eye, as if asking permission. I offer him a single nod, knowing what he’s going to say before he says it.
“Sir, there’s something under the ruins of Arches,” says Dorian. “It tried to kill us.”
“A malum,” Raven adds. “A creature of darkness that was brought to life by magic.”
“A malum?” The warden still doesn’t turn to face us.
I would have liked for him to wheel around, confused, asking us to tell him more.
Maybe we could be lauded as heroes who saved the day.
But Stone doesn’t even flinch. His hands are clasped tightly behind his back, and the only movement he makes is the slight squeezing of his fingers around his wrist.
Raven continues, unabashed, unapologetic. “We found a chamber, a workshop covered in sigils, and a prison cell. I think someone summoned the malum and bound it to the underground tunnels years ago, but now it’s escaped.”
Again, Stone doesn’t move. I’m not convinced he’s even listening, or maybe…“You know what we’re talking about, don’t you,” I say, realization dawning on me.
“A malum hasn’t been seen on this campus in a hundred years,” Stone says languidly.
“We encountered one under Arches. If you go now, you’ll find it,” says Dorian.
“We’ll investigate. It’s what we do.”
Why don’t I believe him? Do I have to tear off my shirt to show him the mark on my back as proof? I catch Dorian’s eye again, and I know he has the same thought. How else will we get him to listen?
The journal, of course, would absolve us.
I reach for Raven’s bag to show Stone the journal, but she blocks me with her hand. She meets my eye, her expression hardened, then shakes her head, telling me to wait.
I want to argue, but I can’t get a read on Raven at all; it’s like she’s closed herself entirely off from me.
Meanwhile, Dorian pleads with Warden Stone. “I know it sounds crazy, but I think the malum killed that student—”
“Pippa,” says Raven.
“We ourselves barely made it out alive,” he continues.
Warden Stone remains unfazed. “Thankfully, no one else was hurt.” Finally, slowly, he turns. His icy blue eyes are as cold as the room, and he looks down his nose at us. “And yet somehow I can’t help but be disappointed by the fact that you’ve violated almost every Sibylline policy.”
“We’re just staff members,” I say. “We didn’t do anything wrong.”
“You’ve been caught trespassing in a restricted area, a place scheduled for demolition. It’s a miracle you weren’t killed. What were you doing? Looting?”
He is more right than he knows, so I change the subject. “Sir, please. You have to listen to us. There is something down there in the ruins.”
“Yes, something that we are capable of handling. Thank you.”
Anger rushes to my face. “Go do something about it, then,” I say. “Stop the demolition and search the tunnels right now.”
Warden Stone is uninterested. Then understanding dawns on me. I’m not a student or a teacher or a graduate of Sibylline. I am no one.
“What about Pippa?” asks Raven. “She didn’t get crushed to death. We all know it. You’re lying—”
Warden Stone’s eyes flash dangerously. “I’ve read the investigation report. What happened to Pippa was an accident.”
“I saw the claw marks on her body,” Raven says flatly. “I know she was attacked.”
“We need to call the authorities,” I say.
“I am the authority,” Warden Stone’s voice booms, making me flinch.
His thoughts are as strong as steel, his conviction unmatched.
“For decades, the country has turned to us to handle matters relating to magical crime. As warden, I lead such investigations. Thus, if there is a malum in the ruins, I’ll be the one to handle it.
Not you. You have no training, no knowledge of the art. ”
Contempt rolls off of him like oil. I can taste it on the back of my tongue, bitter as bile.
I try to rid myself of his thoughts, but it makes me sick.
A lump forms in my throat. I try to swallow it down, but it’s stuck there.
I’m choking on dread. I can’t bring myself to look at him, so I lower my gaze to his desk.
There, buried amongst the pile of papers, is a familiar illustration: a body sprawled on a pentagram.
I’m so fixated on it, I almost don’t hear it when he says, “You have violated rules and ignored repeated warnings. I have no choice in the matter.”
“Sir, please—” starts Dorian.
“Therefore,” continues Stone, “you three are hereby unwelcome on this campus, even as staff members. This school is private property, and every inch of it is now off-limits. You are forbidden to set foot within these gates.”
I lift my head and balk. “What? But how are we supposed to—”
“You’re fired, Mr. Garcia. As are the rest of you.”
The world tips underneath me. Fired? Me? That can’t be right. How will I learn from the students and teachers at Sibylline? How will I ever understand my power?
The answer hits me like a sledgehammer: I won’t.
“That is all,” he says, not even bothering to meet my eye. Settling into his chair, he opens a large, leather-bound tome, dismissing us with a casual wave of his hand.