CHAPTER THIRTY
The halls of Clementine Preparatory seemed far more ebullient than the last time he’d entered them.
Students chatted and laughed, risking punishment for a little heady horseplay.
The cloud that had overlain the place before had lifted, replaced by giddy relief.
Even the instructors, nuns, priests and the few laymen on the staff smiled easily and shook their heads at the students’ liveliness, granting them unusual indulgence.
Keen could hardly believe how quickly the news of Jerry Braun’s arrest had traveled, but it really shouldn’t have surprised him.
Nothing happened in Havenside without everyone knowing about it immediately.
Still, it annoyed him. It meant someone among the peacekeepers had leaked the information, most likely hours before Kellan had attacked Jerry in his cell – well before they had even confirmed his guilt .
I still don’t believe it. I won’t believe it. Ever.
Nevertheless, Jerry Braun was now condemned by the court of public opinion.
There was an undercurrent of smug satisfaction beneath the relief, as if finding out the murderer was from notorious Otherside was only to be expected.
This fact had restored the order of things.
No one from the good side of town would ever commit such an atrocious crime.
He caught a few looks as he navigated the halls, broad smiles dissolving when they met his gaze, heads turning, kids scurrying away.
His uniform seemed to draw the glances and the smiles, but something changed the moment eyes landed on his face.
It wasn’t until he passed a trophy case and caught a glimpse of himself did he understand why.
His features were screwed into an expression of pure rage, head sunk between hunched shoulders.
He didn’t walk down the hall; he stalked like a lion hunting prey.
It took effort to lose the scowl from his lips and loosen his posture, but somehow he managed before he arrived at the office of the revered mother.
He had with him a list of names he’d discovered among the papers taken from Jerry Braun’s apartment.
He recognized some of the surnames, families he had known from his time at Clem, all of them donors to Bright Renewal, although they gave freely to Clementine too.
All of them had children enrolled at Clem Prep.
He was here to find Abby, but he also wanted to confront Mother Francesca.
Was she complicit in what was going on at Bright Renewal?
Did she know but didn’t care? Was she being deliberately blind or was she truly unaware?
He’d argued with Hero about the revered mother so many times. Was he the one who’d been blind?
He rapped sharply on the door and a nun answered after a moment: Sister Agnes. She smiled brightly.
“Oh, DH Keen, how wonderful to see you well,” she said, ushering him into the reception room, which was mostly empty but for Agnes’s small desk in the corner and a line of chairs against the wall for visitors. “We were all so worried after… well, after the other night.”
Keen started; it felt like an eternity had passed since he’d emerged from the catacombs, and her words sent him right back down there.
That presence – it had been real, not a figment of his imagination, not some trick Hero had played on him, no matter what Abby or anyone else might think.
Looking down at Agnes’s sympathetic moue, certainty clicked into place with the sharpness of a stone and he knew that his and Hero’s suspicions were accurate.
Everything led back to the Academy, and to that malevolent presence.
And everyone was in on it.
But Keen had come prepared. He was full to the brim with every potion of Reveal he could swallow. Nothing from Hell would be able to hide from him. Not this time.
“Yes, well, what we discovered is rather worrying, I would think.”
His flat tone made her expression dim. She blinked rapidly for a moment, then resumed her vapid smiling. “If you could have a seat, DH, I will let the mother know you’re here.”
He took a seat while she went to the massive oak door separating the waiting room from the mother’s sanctum. It wouldn’t be the first time Francesca had allowed him inside – she’d even let Hero into her office – but it would be the first time he’d entered armed, so to say.
Agnes tapped the door lightly and was summoned within by a muffled command. She threw him a nervous glance before slipping into the next room, the door closing behind her, a soft click telling him he was locked out. He waited, knee jiggling, hat in one hand, the list in the other.
Finally, after a few endless moments, Agnes emerged from the mother’s office looking chastened. She had no smiles for him this time.
“The mother is not to be disturbed,” she said, pulling the door shut behind her with marked finality. “Please tell me any business you wish to and I will relay the message to her.”
Keen stood up, unsurprised, the list crumpled in his grip. “You should have told us about Jerry Braun,” he said. “You cost our investigation days.”
She blanched. “Yes, I know. I’m sorry. I – I was afraid.”
He frowned and slapped his cap back on his head.
“We’re not the ones you should fear, Sister.
Here, give this to the mother. I want to know if she knows what her generous benefactors have been up to concerning Bright Renewal Academy.
Or does the Church only care about missing children from the good side of town? ”
Tentatively, she reached out to take the list from him. Her eyes roved down it, widening. She had to recognize most of the names. “I – I don’t know anything about this,” she said, the denial falling a bit flat.
“Yes, but the mother does, doesn’t she?”
Her eyes cut to the side. “I’ll give her the list, but don’t expect her to welcome you back anytime soon.
She’ll hear no ill words about Bright Renewal Academy.
They’ve saved many a wayward soul, and that’s all you need to know.
” She met his gaze again, her chin trembling only slightly.
Darkness swirled in her gaze, a film of oil over her hazel eyes.
Keen nearly gasped, but his training helped him conceal his shock.
By now, the potions he’d downed before stepping into Clementine had reached full strength.
He could See clearly now, even better than Hero could when she unshielded her eyes, and what he Saw filled him with dread.
He cursed his stupidity. Why had it taken him so long to believe Hero, to take her warnings seriously?
But… these nuns were part of a sacred order established to fight Pandemonium!
The power it would take to corrupt them was mind-boggling.
He looked around the room, shocked and dismayed.
Shadows bled down the wall, great gobbets of darkness dripping like thick paint.
His breaths grew quicker, but he gave no other sign of his distress.
The room was a hotbed of demonic activity, centered on the heavy, closed door leading into the next room.
It was a veritable vortex of evil, which reminded him eerily of the dark presence beneath Bright Renewal Academy.
The mother had been avoiding them, obfuscating and refusing to cooperate from day one.
No wonder Hero had suspected her so fiercely!
They were all under a dark spell, one even more powerful and direct than the Fog blanketing the town.
It couldn’t have been at full strength until now or Hero would have caught it.
While they’d been focused on Bright Renewal, it had sunk its claws deep into Clementine.
Dear Goddess, the power needed for a spell of this magnitude!
The shadows began to move toward him, as if sensing his presence. Demonhunters were often targets of Chaos; he and his kind were their biggest threat.
No, Hero Viridian is. It’s why they’ve targeted her and disrupted her power.
“Don’t bother the mother,” Keen said, keeping one eye on the encroaching shadows as he backed toward the exit. “I’ve learned all I need to know. Good day, Sister Agnes.”
Her expression turned vicious. Something else stared at him using her eyes. “You cannot win, Oleander Keen, little charity case. You were born a loser, and you will stay a loser. Go back to your precious Citadel. You are done here.”
Her lip lifted into an actual snarl and Keen nearly reached for a repellant potion.
Instead, he clutched the hilt of his saber and lunged for the door behind him, trying at the same time to keep the black-eyed woman in his sight.
Scrabbling at the doorknob, he managed to turn it and pull.
He had to look away from her briefly to slip out the doorway, and when he glanced back a final time she was looking at him placidly, as vapid as ever.
With a shudder, Keen slammed the door closed and retreated down the bright hallway.
He wanted to flee the place entirely, but now he was even more desperate to see Abigail.
His gut screamed at him that she was in great danger.
There was no way he would leave her in this place with darkness encroaching on all sides, and he could not let her return to Bright Renewal Academy.
But when Keen found his way to the nurse’s office, Abigail was absent.
“Oh, she’s been called to Bright Renewal today,” the woman who’d replaced her told him brightly, completely oblivious to his ragged emotional state.
“Some sort of medical emergency.” She lowered her voice to a conspiratorial whisper.
“Probably an outbreak of some sort. Most of those children come from terrible homes, you know. Bad hygiene.”