Chapter 15. Annette
Annette
Salem High School was in the southwest part of town.
We parked Ronnie’s mother a block away, not wanting to draw attention to a lone van in the school parking lot.
As we approached the building, Temple cast a spell to fritz any security cameras that looked our way, as well as whatever alarm systems the school had in place.
Ronnie was clearly excited about escaping the shop and going on a real mission. He’d donned his trench coat and was carrying his katana sheathed over his back.
Temple was limping more than usual. That could have been from his dust-up with Jenny this morning. He’d changed into black sweatpants and an old flannel over a maroon T-shirt. Tonight’s hat was that narrow-brimmed brown trilby he liked.
Jenny had donned wide-legged pleated pants, comfortable sneakers, and a too-large black zip-up top I was pretty sure she’d swiped from my closet.
She walked with purpose, outpacing the rest of us.
Her movements were taut with barely contained energy.
She’d been quieter than usual since we left the house.
I was especially worried about Jenny. I’d seen her upset, even angry on occasion. I’d never seen her so coldly focused. I distracted myself by giving Ronnie crap about his katana. “We’re lucky you’re here to protect us if we run into an evil night-shift janitor.”
“Lesson one: always be prepared,” he said.
“Lesson two: try not to look like you’re on your way to Comic-Con.”
Lamps on tall posts illuminated the front of the three-story brick building. It was just past eleven, so the school should be empty.
I took my lockpick kit from my purse and dropped to one knee at the front door. A minute later, we were inside.
“Where to?” asked Jenny.
“You’re the Hunter,” I grumbled. But I was the only one who’d been here before. For some reason, neither Jenny nor Temple had wanted to come with me to see the school’s performance of Aladdin. Not even when I told them Morgan was playing Iago.
Their loss. He’d been brilliant.
Jenny sniffed the air. “Smells like sweat and anxiety and cafeteria food.”
In the past, my first step would have been breaking into the main office.
Attendance and disciplinary records would give me the names of the students who’d been hospitalized.
But these days, everything was on computers.
Even if I could bypass user logins and passwords, I’d have to figure out how to use the school’s software.
I went with plan B. “Temple, see if you can find any more of those shoggoth pills.”
“The containment spell on the capsule makes the contents difficult to detect, but I might be able to pick up the containment spell itself.” He removed his hat and reached inside, his arm disappearing to the elbow.
He brought out a small brass compass. After replacing his hat, he whispered a Mandarin phrase.
The compass needle spun and glowed with harsh red light. “Interesting.”
“What does red mean?” asked Jenny.
“I’m getting traces of minor summoning and binding magic.” He started down the hall.
We followed his compass past walls lined with lockers and murals and bulletin boards.
It brought us to a classroom door with little chemistry-themed posters that had cutesy sayings like, If you’re not part of the solution, you’re part of the precipitate and How are the Oxygen and Potassium today? They’re OK.
I made short work of the lock, then opened the door.
Slate-topped tables filled most of the room, each with chrome valves and nozzles for Bunsen burners.
A large periodic table hung on one wall.
There was an emergency eye-washing station, a set of shelves filled with books and folders, and several crudely drawn penises on the nearest lab table .
. . everything you’d expect from a high school chemistry class.
“Over here.” Temple tapped the end of his cane against a locked cabinet in a corner of the room. His compass was significantly brighter.
This lock was almost insultingly easy. Inside were shelves with small jars and bottles and boxes. Some had vividly colored warning stickers. “Acetone,” I read. “Blood typing kit. Carbon. Charcoal. How nice, they’re alphabetized.”
I glanced at the S section. I saw no jars labeled Shoggoth Slime, but . . .“That’s an awful lot of sulfur for high school chem.”
“It’s a useful ingredient in summoning spells.” Temple peered over my shoulder. “So is sodium chloride—salt—and mercury. You could cause a lot of chaos with this stuff if you knew what you were doing.”
Several places on the shelves were noticeably empty, with ring-shaped stains showing where canisters and jars had been removed.
“Bastard.”
I had my knife out before I registered who had spoken. Anger had made Jenny’s voice almost unrecognizable.
She stood behind the teacher’s desk, gripping the back of the black roller chair with both hands. Her fingers had pierced the thin padding. Her eyes shone. “It’s him.”
“Alex?” I replaced my knife and stepped closer.
“His smell has changed a bit over the years, but . . .” She nodded. “He’s been teaching them, Annette. For weeks, judging from the scent. Maybe months. Right here in Salem. Right under my nose all this time.”
“Morgan mentioned getting a new chemistry teacher back in February,” I said slowly, trying to remember the details. “A long-term sub. None of them knew what happened to the usual teacher.”
How hard had Jenny clung to the possibility she’d been wrong?
I’d had my share of betrayals and cheating lovers but nothing like this.
Jenny’s old team had been like family. Finding irrefutable proof of Alex’s lies must have been tearing her up inside.
I searched for words that would bring any measure of comfort, but this kind of comfort had never been my strength. “What can I do?”
She turned toward me. “Help me stop him.”
That, I understood. Set emotions aside and focus on solving the case. Work through the facts. “Was Alex qualified to teach chemistry?”
“I don’t think so.” Jenny’s forehead crinkled. “He told me he was dating a chemistry teacher.”
“Maybe he was.” I should find out more about the teacher Alex had replaced. “Or maybe he was dropping half-truths to toy with you.”
“If he wanted this job, he had ways to make it happen.” She pulled open one drawer after another, examining the contents.
“We all picked up tricks and trinkets over the years. There was an amulet with persuasion magic Raj took from a shapeshifting con artist. Emily had a beauty charm she kept after we busted an illegal magic shop.”
“Could Alex have taken the amulet after Raj died?” I asked.
“I wouldn’t have thought so, but . . .” She shrugged and slammed a drawer.
Why pretend to be a teacher? There were other ways to get access to kids, but he’d chosen to work at a high school. To return to the environment where he and Jenny and their friends had first come together. “He’s stuck in the past.”
A clatter drew our attention to Temple, who’d been going through the supply closet. He had paraffin, chalk, and rubbing alcohol laid out on the table closest to the closet, and he’d just knocked over the rubbing alcohol.
Ronnie caught the bottle before it fell to the floor.
Temple barely noticed. He used the chalk to draw a ring of symbols on the table. Then he licked the block of wax.
“If you’re hungry, I’ve got granola in my purse,” I said.
“Saliva’s part of the spell.” Temple rolled the wax into a ball, tossed it onto the center of the table, and snapped his fingers. A deep red flame grew from the wax-and-spitball. Rivulets of molten wax dripped and spread across the tabletop.
“Alex worked magic in this room. I’m trying to see what he did.” Temple doused his hands with rubbing alcohol and waved them over the red flame. The fire jumped to his hands. He pressed them together, then flicked his fingers. Tiny dots of fire rained onto the table.
The flames spread out, merging with the liquid wax to take on the shapes of seven tiny students seated at a table. An eighth figure joined them. While the figures had few details, this one was clearly missing most of his left arm.
Neon blue sparks formed a triangle between the people.
“They’re using sulfur for the base of the spell,” Temple murmured. Yellow sparks joined the blue. “Salt. I can’t tell what kind.” A scattering of purple appeared within the triangle. Temple cocked his head. “No idea what that might be. This could take a while to decipher.”
I grabbed Jenny. “Come on.”
“Where are you going?” asked Ronnie.
“Alex put these kids to work making magic,” I said. “And sulfur has a very distinct smell. The Hunter and I are going to do a locker inspection.”
As we left, Jenny said to Ronnie, “Stay here and keep an eye on Temple. I don’t need a second burned-down school on my conscience.”
· · ·
It took six minutes for Jenny to find the first locker. I needed two more to pick the tiny lock in the center of the combination dial.
Inside the door was a miniature basketball hoop and a dry-erase board with a note to Remember math homework.
We found nothing to identify the owner. No mess of old papers or personalized graffiti. But tucked inside a compact, folded-up umbrella was a paper envelope with three black pills. I grabbed those, made a note of the locker number, and moved on.
The next one was more promising. There were no pills in this locker, but Jenny said the sulfur smell was all over the dial and the inside.
A series of photobooth pics was stuck inside the door.
I tugged them free of the magnet and studied the two boys hamming it up, laughing together, and making out.
I recognized the kid on the right. I’d broken his nose two nights ago in the parking lot at the Gauntlet.
A pile of graded papers at the bottom gave me a name: Noah Hovenkamp.
Jenny had already moved down the hall. She stood with her arms crossed in front of another locker. “Annette . . .”