Chapter 16
CHAPTER
SIXTEEN
The next day, I met Asher and three others outside a special restricted building called Veil Stone Headquarters. There were half a dozen hunters, armed to the teeth, flanked around the building.
“Guarding money?” I asked.
Was this a bank?
“Something more valuable than money,” Celia told me. “Each school has a piece of the Veil Stone. A magical rock that was found to have special powers, I guess is how you would describe it. It’s what the arcanists use to make rune wafers, hunter marks, draw runes on buildings, you name it.”
Whoa. “And it’s inside?” I asked as we turned to walk toward the building.
“Stella!” an unwelcome voice called behind me, and we all turned.
What the heck?
Kitty Sinclair was standing at the end of the walkway, making her way over to us.
“What’s she doing here?” Celia muttered angrily.
Asher and the others looked at me, and I cleared my throat nervously.
I’d almost completely forgotten about this woman and wanted to keep it that way.
Celia walked ahead to meet her head-on as I staggered behind her.
“What are you doing here, Kitty?” Celia asked with a look of skepticism.
Kitty rolled her eyes. “I’m here to support my granddaughter on the biggest day of her hunter career.” She looked at me, beaming.
Celia’s head reeled back. “You’re not coming inside.”
Kitty’s pleasant mask dropped, and all of a sudden, I was staring into the eyes of hatred. “Oh really? Who bought this building?”
“Molly’s father. He donated it,” Celia said. “And you’re not allowed in. Only active hunters.”
Kitty scoffed. “Oh, so you’re shaming retired hunters now? I have more kills than you’ll ever have. You turned out to be a real disappointment, Celia.”
Celia pinned her with a glare. “Goodbye, Kitty.”
Kitty looked at me, and her face was suddenly filled with sadness. “Do you see how she treats me? Because your mother filled her head with lies.”
I stayed quiet.
“ Bye , Kitty,” Celia said.
Kitty’s jaw clenched. “Stella will come find me when she wants answers.”
My brow furrowed at that. Answers?
She walked away, and Celia turned to me. “I’m so sorry you had to see that. And right before your big moment.”
I shrugged. “It’s fine.” I didn’t really know that woman. She wasn’t my grandmother in any emotional sense.
Celia watched her leave and shook her head. “Amazing slayer, like she’s set all the records. But a horrible human being.”
Slayer? Kitty was a slayer? I assumed she’d be an arcanist like Molly.
Celia took a deep, cleansing breath, seemingly shaking off what had just happened, and then walked back over to the group. “Okay. Shall we?”
We stepped up to a set of double doors flanked by two hunters.
“ID,” the hunters said to Celia, who pulled out her badge. They scanned it and then asked for all our student IDs. One by one, we were scanned, and I began to grow even more nervous. This was feeling super legit.
Asher shifted to my right side, and I began to question if I’d even heard him correctly last night.
He fantasized about kissing me? Daphne broke up with him? He was acting totally normal. Not a tick of nervousness as he stood, feet hip width apart and hands crossed before him.
I, on the other hand, was freaking out.
Hunter marks! I was about to become a full-fledged vampire hunter in training. I mean, I wanted it, but now that it was really happening, I was apprehensive.
“Does it hurt?” I asked Celia.
She gave me a side glance as we stepped inside a tile foyer. “Not in the way you expect. Everyone has a different experience,” was all she said.
Cryptic. Okay.
We went down a hallway and moved toward another set of double doors, also guarded. The level of security here was starting to make me nervous.
“Slayer.” One of the hunters nodded to Celia.
I’d never heard anyone call her that before. I knew that was her role in her hunting unit, but the way he said it, with a reverence, made it sound a lot more like a commander or general.
They opened the doors, and Celia slowed her steps.
We followed her into the room only to find out it was a waiting room of sorts, with over a dozen comfortable chairs. There was a single door on the far side wall and then a full wall of glass that the chairs were facing.
I gasped when I saw the forty-foot iridescent crystal in the center of the courtyard outside the glass.
“The Veil Stone,” Celia said a little breathlessly as she stepped closer to the glass. As she did, her hair stood up on end.
A movement outside, near the crystal, caught my attention, and I recognized Akari as she walked very slowly toward the crystal and began to chisel a small, thin wafer from it.
When it broke off in her hand, she delicately placed it into a mortar and pestle and walked away, bowing first before exiting via a doorway at the far courtyard.
“The arcanists grind up the Veil Stone into a powder, then mix it with ink and some of our blood when they tattoo them on. It makes the hunter runes permanent. And the Veil Stone magically grows back what is taken from it overnight. It is never-ending and constantly replenished,” Celia told me.
I swallowed hard. “How do they know what runes you get?” I inspected her arm. There were five runes that I could see.
“They know. That’s their gift,” she said.
“Asher Voss!” a woman suddenly called out, and I spun to see that single door at the far wall had opened and a petite woman in all white had called Asher to her. She wore a serious expression as Asher crossed the space, glancing back at me once.
Something moved between our gaze. And all at once, I was brought back to last night.
‘I’ve never wanted to kiss her as badly as I’ve fantasized about kissing you.’
But I was also brought back to what Emilie had said about my mom and still being alive.
“Hey, Celia?” We were still alone at the window. “I have a sensitive question to ask…”
She cocked her heard to the side. “What is it, Stella?”
I swallowed hard. “Was my mom’s body ever found? I mean, you said you found her dead in Spokane, but you also had to exhume my grandfather so I wasn’t sure…”
Celia swallowed hard. “I was mortal side in Boston at the time on the night watch. Your mom had been missing almost two years. I hadn’t given up hope though. I got a call from a fellow hunter who swore he saw her in Spokane, downtown.”
My heart picked up speed in my chest as I leaned in to hear her better.
“I left my post immediately and portaled to Spokane where he saw her and…” Her bottom lip shook as a look of horror crossed her face. “I found her in an alley…dead. Now that I know your birthday, this would have been a few days later.”
I frowned. “So, do you have her body? I thought when you had to exhume my grandfather that…”
She shook her head. “I saw her body, no pulse, and there was a lot of blood. I ran to get help, and went I got back… Her body was gone.”
Chills raced up my arms. “Gone?”
She frowned. “Sometimes vampires will…take a hunter home as a trophy of their kill. For bragging rights, if you will.”
A trophy. Sick.
Celia reached out and grasped my shoulder. “I’m sorry.”
I just nodded, trying to put everything together in my head. I couldn’t help but think of the picture of my mother holding me in the storage unit, umbilical cord still attached. Had she gone to drop me off at the hospital with the humans and then been attacked?
Seemed like it.
If Celia said she was dead and with no pulse, then I believed her.
That meant Emilie was just trying to get money.
Whatever arrangement she had with my mother when she was alive for whatever reason, I wasn’t going to keep it going.
Unless Emilie was right, and somehow my mother was still alive.
A healing rune wafer maybe? My mother was supposed to be some all-powerful arcanist. What if she drew a rune on herself, that…
I don’t know, brought her back to life in case of blood loss?
I’d seen crazier things in the past month.
In that case, maybe paying Emilie just a few more months while I figured out if my mother was really still alive would be smart. After all, I had millions. What was twenty grand a month?
Another person came in wearing all white and called more names. I sat. I stood. I paced.
Finally, I pulled out my phone, logged into my banking app, and restarted the payments to Emilie. Just as a safety precaution, just in case my mother was alive. Then I turned my phone off and pushed it from my mind, trying not to feel like I was a rival.
Eventually, after what felt like over an hour, Asher was the first to come back through the door.
I stood, rushing forward to glance down at his marks.
There were four. I had no idea what they meant.
His face was unreadable. He seemed spaced out, processing. Then the mask slipped, and I saw a deep sadness cross his features.
“Are you okay?” I asked.
He nodded, and Celia congratulated him.
“Strength, speed, protection, and…loyalty. Nice.” Celia read the runes easily.
“Will that make him a slayer?” I asked out of curiosity.
She shook her head.
“Striker,” Asher said.
Oh. I had assumed he’d be a slayer.
I opened my mouth to ask something else when my name was called.
Turning, I saw Akari in the doorway. She smiled softly at me and waved me over.
Nervousness filtered through my body, and I glanced at Asher for reassurance.
“Be strong,” he whispered, and I frowned.
Be strong? Why? Was there something I needed to be strong against?
I walked over and followed Akari down a cream-walled hallway made of all glass on the right side. We were walking past the Veil Stone, and it was like a drum inside my chest had begun to beat. I felt pulled to the right, like I wanted to touch the glass.
“You feel the call?” Akari asked.
I glanced at the Veil Stone again and had the strangest urge to touch it. Had we been outside and close, I would have tried.
“Call to what?” I asked her as we passed a door on the left and kept moving.
“To touch the stone. Every hunter feels the call, but only the trained arcanist can survive touching the mother stone.”
Survive it?