Chapter 12 Declan
DECLAN
Grasping the desk, I steadied myself as my stomach flip-flopped. God, I hated that. It was only the third time anyone had ever teleported me in my life, but each time was awful. Veronica was on her hands and knees, eyes clenched shut and dry heaving.
“Are you good?” I whispered.
She closed her mouth and wiped the back of her hands across her eyes before nodding.
“Yeah. I’m all right. That was—”
“Fucking awful, yeah,” I said, walking over to help her up. “Where are we?”
“This is Balthazar’s classroom,” she said, her voice low, almost reverent. She pointed to a desk toward the center of the room. “That’s…that’s where I usually sit.”
“Give me a second.” I moved around the room, eyeing everything, looking for any signs of what might have gone down here. “Lock that door if it’s not already,” I added.
“You know this place is filled with witches, right?” Veronica said as she crossed to the door. “They can open a locked door pretty easily.”
I turned to give her an exasperated look. “Thank you, Miss Smart-ass. I’ll try to keep that in mind.”
She grinned at my sarcasm, but locked the door as I asked.
The room looked to have been fairly organized prior to the murder, and most items were where you’d think they would be.
No books had been pulled from the shelves, the desktop didn’t appear to have been gone through, notepads, scrolls, and pens all perfectly organized.
I pulled open the drawers of the desk, finding them unlocked, but there was nothing that might give me an idea as to what or who might have killed the man.
The drawers held nothing but more books, journals, and a folded set of school robes.
“We need to see Wendy’s room,” I said, closing the drawer. “Is it safe to go yet?”
She looked at her watch and shook her head.
“We need to wait another thirty minutes at least. “Dinner should have ended. People will still be milling around. At least, they normally are.” She shrugged helplessly.
“Things may be a little different since the founder and head instructor was killed here last night.”
“We’ll wait,” I said. “You’re probably right that standard operating procedure may have changed, but it’s better to be safe than sorry.”
Half an hour later, I eased the door open, cracking it the barest sliver, and peeked out into the hallway.
There was nothing in sight. Not that I could see, anyway.
This was incredibly dangerous, and I was even more stressed out that Veronica was here with me.
Even in the best of situations, this would have been difficult, but the only way to investigate a crime was to get the full picture, and there was no better way to do that than to see the scene.
“All clear,” I whispered, then turned to look at her. “Do you have any spells or magic that could help us get to Wendy’s room undetected?”
My biggest fear was to round a corner and run square into a powerful witch.
“Uh…” She bit her lower lip, and I recalled all her talk of being a mediocre student. “Invisibility is way too advanced for me. I could create some diversions, though. One thing I’m pretty decent at is abiogenesis spells.”
“What?”
“Making artificial life from nothing, basically. Some people can summon big animals or even magical creatures for a brief time. I can do birds and stuff like squirrels.”
I stifled a sigh. We’d have to do this the old-fashioned way. I doubted a conjured chipmunk would help us tonight.
“All right. Let’s go,” I said, stepping out into the hall.
Veronica stayed right beside me, moving faster and even quieter than I did as she moved to lead.
I kept my eyes moving, casting around for any sign of movement.
Thankfully, it looked like the students were all in their rooms, and if the professors were out and about patrolling the halls, they weren’t near us.
She ushered me along a few different corridors, pausing only once when we heard voices, but those ended up being students talking behind their closed and locked doors.
When we finally arrived at the door of Wendy’s room, I was wound tight enough that I thought I might burst apart. I imagined springs and gears flying from my skull like a busted watch.
Veronica inspected the door, most likely checking to see if there was an enchantment on the frame to alert the teachers if someone entered. Finding nothing, she opened the door.
Rather than the clean and tidy classroom we’d teleported into, this looked more like what it was, the scene of a crime.
Outside ominous dark clouds rolled by, tiny pellets of ice pattering gently against the whole windowpane but sprayed inside the broken one.
Walking over, I glanced down at the ground. A small sheen of water showed on the floor, along with some slivers and chunks of glass.
“Interesting,” I said.
“What?” Veronica asked, sidling up next to me, following my gaze down.
“This,” I said, pointing at the glass on the floor. “There’s not enough.”
She frowned. “What do you mean?”
I gestured to the window. “If whoever took Wendy came from outside, then this window would have been shattered inward, and ninety percent of the glass would be here on the floor. It’s not.”
“So…whoever took her was already inside the academy?”
I nodded. “Most likely. At least from the looks of this.” I stepped closer to the window, and a faint spray of water from the ice hissed across my boots. Lifting a hand, I touched a section of broken glass. “This is strange,” I muttered.
“What is?”
Pointing to the glass, I said, “See the bottom of this windowpane? It’s cracked badly, but still mostly whole. The top portion? It’s almost completely busted out. What does that tell you?”
“That…” Her eyebrows pinched together as she looked at the window. “Whoever came out went…up?”
“Exactly,” I said. “Whoever leapt through this window with Wendy in tow went straight for the sky rather than down to the roof or ground below. That cuts out several possibilities. Most shifters other than dragons? Out. Human? Out. Any flightless creature or being? Out. Though, it doesn’t narrow it down as much as I’d like.
Dragons, succubi and incubi, most witches, sorcerers, and warlocks, certain poltergeists, and more.
Too many to really get a lead on who it might have been, but at least we know who we can mark off the list.”
After checking the window, I searched under the bed, in the bathroom, and through the closet. Again, like the classroom, nothing appeared to be amiss or stuck out to me.
“Do you see anything weird?” I asked Veronica.
The woman stood by the bed, staring down at the sheets and blankets where they lay on the floor.
I could almost picture what she was seeing in her mind’s eye.
The young girl screaming as a stranger dragged her from her bed, small hands clawing at the sheets and mattress, desperately trying to grab something, terror flashing in her eyes as she was taken.
Veronica shouldn’t have felt guilty—there was no way she could have known what was coming—yet the look on her face showed exactly that.
“Veronica?” I said softly, putting my hand on her back. “Are you good?”
She flinched at my touch as if I’d startled her awake from some dark dream.
“Yeah. Sorry.” Her eyes darkened, mouth twisting with worry. “We need to find her.”
“We will,” I said, hoping I sounded more confident than I felt. The first forty-eight hours after a kidnapping were the most important. Every minute after that? The odds of finding the victim alive decreased exponentially.
“Can we try Balthazar’s office now?” I said.
She sighed. “Okay.”
Halfway back to the opposite side of the building, Veronica threw her hand out against my chest, pinning me back against the wall.
“What the—”
She pressed her hand to her mouth, giving me a warning look. That was when I heard it. Voices. In the hall ahead of us.
“...do you think we’ll have to close down?” a male voice asked, his tone deep and rumbly.
“No idea,” said a female with a high-pitched British accent.
“We’ll have to wait and see if they catch the little bitch who killed Balthazar.
Then we can figure out whether it was a crime of passion or something more sinister.
If the school itself was the target, and not just Balthazar, then yes, we may have to close. ”
I pressed myself back against the wall, readying myself to run or fight if they rounded the corner, but they veered right, their backs to us as they walked down the hall. Veronica grabbed my shirt and tugged at me.
Moving as stealthily as possible, we turned the corner and hurried away from the two patrolling teachers, reaching Balthazar’s office. This door was also unlocked, and we slipped in, locking it behind us.
Veronica held her hand palm out and muttered something.
This time, her magic worked well on the first try, and a tiny ball of light appeared, hovering an inch or two above her outstretched hand, casting a pale milky light around the room.
Taking a steadying breath, I walked to the center of the room, standing above the bloodstain on the ground in front of the desk.
“You people don’t do a very good job of cleaning,” I growled. “You’ve got all this magic, but you leave broken glass and blood…”
I trailed off when I saw Veronica’s face. She looked even worse than she had in Wendy’s room. She stared down at the dark brown stain on the carpet. Her lower lip trembled, and the shimmer of unshed tears laced her lower lashes.
This poor woman hadn’t had any time to mourn her teacher and mentor since running from this place the night before, and now she was faced with the aftermath. Stepping over, I put an arm around her shoulders, and to my happy relief, she sagged into me.
Over the last few years, I hadn’t had much practice with people, but Veronica was different. Rather than wanting to push her away like I did most everyone else, I wanted her close. It was a strange feeling, if I was being honest.