Chapter Ten #2
Something slammed into my side, snatching me from the air. My head rattled like a maraca, jarring my sense loose and disorienting me.
I don’t know how long it was before my mind cleared enough to realize I wasn’t falling, something was holding me up by the shirt and pants, and someone was bellowing their head off.
“—the fuck did you do that?!” Iarla was an angry speck on top of the tower. “Son of a whore! This isn’t fucking over, you hear me? You and that little troll are dead, you get me? Dead!”
I craned my neck around, and locked eyes with the creature gently floating me down to the ground. It was the imp, but it also—
A wicked glint shown in his suddenly red eyes.
—wasn’t the imp.
“You took your time with that catch, Luce,” I grumbled. “For a second there, I’d thought you were going to let me fall.”
“Moi? Let you fall?” He tsked. “Come now, darling, you’re going to need to have a little faith in me.” Lucifer winked. “I am your guardian angel after all.”
LUCIFER DEPOSITED ME way the hell away from Ravenscar—practically on the other side of the castle. Then, he took off and left me there without another word or glance back.
Flopping down on the cobblestones, I just lay there for a good spell, wondering how in the world my life came to this?
Ravenscar tried to get me to kill myself. A little sweet imp was beaten and imprisoned for protecting me. Fifteen people have been killed and Sabrina swears I’m at the center of it all. My sister is still missing and I have no idea where to start to find her and—
“Well, that was a merry little ride you went on.” Professor Santino stepped from the shadows of the covered breezeway. “You really do have that imp tamed.”
And, oh yeah, I’m being stalked by a ravenous vampire!
“How much of that did you see?” I demanded. “Did you sit by and watch a maniac order a student to jump off the roof? Please tell me I can get you fired for that?”
Radu crouched down next to me, blocking my view of the cloudless, sunless sky. There was no reaction to my threat or my raised voice as he lazily lit a cigarette. “So, what did you want?”
“What?” My brow crumpled. “What are you talking about?”
“Yesterday, you said you needed me.” He took a long drag and blew the smoke out the side of his plump, pale, pierced lips.
I didn’t like smokers because it skeeved me out that someone could care so little about their health and body, they’d deliberately poison it.
But my boy Radu was dead as a dodo and wasn’t about to die again from lung cancer, so where did that leave me and the confusing thoughts filling my head of how sexy he looked smoking that cig?
“Pardon?” I roughly shook my head, snapping out of my trance. “Yesterday? When did I—?” The memory hit me like a brick. “Wait a second. Are you talking about the offhand comment I whispered to myself in another professor’s busy classroom?”
“That’s the one,” he drawled.
My jaw dropped. “Oh my gods! You really are stalking me!”
Amusement bled into his voice. “I never denied it, little one, so, out with it. What is it that you...” Cold, bloodless fingers brushed my cheek. “...need from me?”
“I... I...” Everything I wanted to know tumbled through my brain.
I wanted to ask him if he knew so much about the witches because he was undead and walking around above when supernaturals and witches clashed.
I wanted to know what he knew about the Avos coven, and if it was true that these murders were just the beginning of something even more horrible to come.
I wanted to ask if he really was the deadly, unstoppable assassin of the underworld, could he hunt down one sister-stealing son of a bitch for me.
I wanted to know so many things, but instead, I closed my mouth... and said nothing.
Sabrina said I had no friends or allies in this school. She was wrong. I did have people on my side...
...and Santino Radu wasn’t one of them.
If my instincts are telling me anything... I gazed into those too-bright eyes. It’s that this guy is the scorpion offering to carry me on its back. Even if it means we drown together, if I trust him, I won’t get away alive.
“It’s nothing, Professor.” I scooted out from under him and got to my feet. “Or at least, it must’ve been nothing since I don’t remember what I wanted to ask you. Nope. Definitely wasn’t important.”
Smoke enveloped his head in a gray, almost ominous cloud. Those lamp eyes pinned me through the haze. “Are you certain?”
“Yes.” Hard, thick seriousness laced my words. “I am absolutely sure that I need nothing from you.”
Turning around, I walked away to the sound of his low, musical laugh.
HOW DID I MAKE IT THROUGH the rest of the day? The answer is: I didn’t try to.
It was a long trek, but when I reached the demon side of the manor, I went straight to my room and didn’t leave my bed until Sabrina demanded to be let in.
And after that, I went right back to sitting on my bed with my notebook, trying to devise some kind of plan to move along my efforts to find Dora.
I didn’t know if classes were canceled for the day, so there was every chance I was courting expulsion, but I didn’t care. It just couldn’t go on like this anymore— Dora and I couldn’t go on like this anymore.
I’d been at Abaddon Academy for days, and so far, I’d racked up a mess of enemies, but zero viable suspects.
“How do I get her kidnapper to reveal themselves?” I muttered to myself as I stared at all the ideas I wrote down and then crossed out. “If they really need me for something, could I use myself as bait somehow? Can I draw them out with something else they want?”
I looked over to Sabrina. She was snoozing away on her armchair.
“Sabrina? Sabrina?”
“What do you want, human?” She answered without opening her eyes. “It is hard enough to sleep with your scribbling. Must you shout at me as well?”
“I just want to know if getting a closer look at the crime scene taught you anything?”
“It did.”
I shot up. “What? Really? What did you see?”
“I gleaned that the wolves were killed with magic. Not just because there were no other marks on them, not even signs of struggle, but also because the enucleation was too clean. No tool marks. No fingermarks.” She raised her head. “Enucleation is—”
“I know what it is,” I sliced in. “It means to remove someone’s eyeballs.”
“Well, how am I to know what you do and do not recall from your studies? Memory diseases are common among the elderly.”
“Seriously, Sabrina, quit it with that already,” I snapped—more than a little testily. “How old are you, O queen of youth!”
“Me? I am four yearsss old.”
Goodness, four years old? No wonder she kept calling me old. Anyone more than five times older than you is going to seem ancient.
“Anyway, why does that matter?” I asked, veering back on track. “I already assumed they were killed by magic. What difference does it make to confirm it?”
Sabrina waited me out. “Think it through, human.”
I frowned at her, mind turning over what she said. What is it? I don’t get it. Of course they were killed by magic. Especially the super speedy vampires who could outrun a stake any day. They—
“Ooooh,” I breathed, falling back on my bed. “Of course. If they were killed my magic, then the vampires and werewolves are automatically excluded. They don’t have magic.”
“Precisely.”
I nodded to myself, then frowned again. “But still, that’s not enough. There are a lot of demons and fae in this school. That’s still dozens upon dozens of suspects.”
“Keep working that single brain cell,” she drawled. “It’ll come up with the right conclusion eventually.”
I blew out a hard breath, seriously considering how hard it would be to strangle someone who was basically just one long scaly rope. “We talked about this,” I gritted. “If you’ve got something to say, just spit it out.”
“Your instructor did spit it out. Yesterday. When he told you exactly what you are refusing to see.”
“Yesterday? What instructor? When—?”
“Demonic magic is dark magic. And dark magic is so named because it demands a price. A price that must be paid by you, a sacrifice, or your victim.”
“Of course,” I whispered, eyes squeezing shut. “Demon blood. Vampire hearts. Werewolf eyes. They’re the price that has to be paid. And if there’s a price, it’s—”
“Demonic magic,” Sabrina finished. “I couldn’t be sure before, but now I am absolutely. The one behind this is a demon. Not a fae, and most certainly not a witch.”
I lurched forward. “Can we figure out who the demon is by the horrible things they’ve been doing? Is there a certain demon known for these sick rituals?”
“No, but I can tell you that whatever it is they’re trying to do with these sacrifices, it can only be attempted by a powerful demon,” she said.
“True sacrificial magic, as in the exchanging of a life—undead or otherwise—for power is advanced demonic magic. This subject isn’t even touched until your fourth year at Abaddon. ”
“Do we know all the powerful demons at Abaddon?” I burst out, snatching up my notebook. “Can we make a list?”
“There are three names you know without my input. Instructor Erlik, Professor Somnus—”
“Seriously? That drunk?”
She bobbed her head. “He once fought off a swarm of griffins single-handedly. All without spilling a drop.”
“’Course he did,” I mumbled, writing his name down. “What’s the third name?”
“You know this, girl.” Her slitted eye beheld me. “Ronin Belphe.”
I hesitated a second, then wrote it down. “But these can’t be the only three, can they?”
“No, they aren’t, and it’s fortunate for you, human, that you’ve finally made a request of me that isn’t impossible. I have explored the vampire and werewolf wings for you, and now, I will explore the demon wing—finding all the demons powerful enough to make it on your list.”
“Will you be able to get into all the rooms?”
Sabrina turned her head. I followed her gaze up the wall.
“The vents?”