Hungry Earth (Elemental Book 2) (9 page)

On Wednesday, I was sitting in Kale’s class about ten
minutes early. Two vampire women were speaking to each other one table over and
there was almost nobody in the room, so I overheard them easily. “They’re
saying we’re the damn monsters. A shifter passed me in the hallway, knocked the
books out of my hand, called me a bloodsucker, and kept on walking without even
looking at me.”

“I thought this was supposed to be a university. I
haven’t seen behavior like that since high school,” her friend said. “There was
a group of them waiting for our class when we had to go to the forest. They
threw rocks at us, and the professor just ignored them. He probably made us do
the lesson outside and told them so they could attack us.”

“Isn’t the council supposed to do something?”

“From what I can tell, they’re not doing anything.
Stephen sure as hell isn’t doing anything to help.”

“Has anyone told him what’s going on?” I asked. They
both gaped at me, wide-eyed. “Sorry to interrupt, but it’s not like you’re
whispering or anything.”

“Well… I’m sure Clara knows, and she would tell her
father.”

“I’ll see what Clara knows. They may not be treating
her the same way because everyone knows she’s holding all the strings.”

“Why would you–”

“You’re Devon Sanders, right?” the second woman
interrupted. She smacked her friend’s arm. “He’s the one Cody was talking
about. Can you help?”

“I can try.” I may not have wanted to work with them,
but no one had the right to treat others like dirt. “Have there been other
instances where the teachers were involved?”

“Professor Anderson refers to Stephen as ‘That
Bastard’ all the time. I know that’s not physical or even an attack on us, and
none of us have been willing to confront him, but Stephen is like a father to many
of us. Professor Anderson and Professor Hendricks are constantly criticizing us
for stupid things, and we’re pretty sure it’s because they hate vampires.”

*          *          *

After class, Darwin and I went to find Hunt. It was
the last day of the full moon, so Henry was busy. We found Hunt easily, but had
to wait outside when we did because we could hear the argument even with the
door closed.

“You can’t tell me not to be with him!” Remy screamed
at her father.

“You cannot expect me to be okay–”

“Of course I expect you to be okay with it! You
should be happy for us! At least you know your daughter is safe!”

“I cannot rely on Rosin when his loyalties are
split.”

“You make him do too much as it is! He’s been
avoiding me all semester because he can’t handle keeping your secrets from me!
What’s this damn key Vincent is looking for?”

“Who told you about that?”

“I overheard you and Keigan arguing last night. What
key?”

“Knowing that could get you killed.”

“Like Cooper was killed?”

“Yes. However, Cooper didn’t know anything; I believe
he was just unfortunate.”

“If you don’t quit with the secrets and constantly
scheming with people, you’re going to end up losing everything.”

A low growl made Darwin and me turn. Alpha Flagstone
did not intend to harm me, so my instincts hadn’t warned me of his approach.

“Devon and Darwin, you should both know better than
to eavesdrop,” Hunt said through the door.

I opened it and the three of us entered. “I wouldn’t
learn anything people don’t want me to know if I didn’t snoop, hack, and
eavesdrop. Besides, all you wizards with your familiars don’t have to
eavesdrop; you can just send others out to do your dirty work for you.”

“It is not so easy having a familiar,” the headmaster
lectured. Flagstone growled and put his arm around Remy’s shoulder.

Darwin scoffed. “When Devon gets his familiar, I hope
it’s a dog so I can have him fetch food from my house.”

“Getting back to the matter at hand, something needs
to be worked out between the vampires and the others,” I said. “This isn’t
people fighting for hierarchy; many of the students are harassing the vampires
that are not fighting back. Most of the vampires seem to want any place
available to them. Don’t get me wrong, there are some vampires who don’t
hesitate to fight, but this is cruel.”

“Humans had to go through stages to eradicate
segregation. We are making progress.”

“Yes, and that’s good, but this is your school, and
your students can’t learn in this environment.”

“What do you suggest? If I limit the interaction of
the students, they will feel like this is a prison. I cannot put cameras up
like a public university has. If I separate the classes, then it will encourage
unequal treatment. Next we would have separate drinking fountains.”

“We don’t have any drinking fountains,” Darwin pointed
out.

“Remy, order some drinking fountains,” Hunt said
absentmindedly. “This is not an ideal situation, but it will take time. Kale
will tell you if he ever gets around to teaching that this community was not
constructed overnight. Wolf shifters and even wild wolves used to work with
vampires to protect each other. I have faith that you and Clara can handle the
disputes until they die down.”

“Let the students handle it,” Darwin suggested.
Everyone looked at him and he shrugged. “Dad says it doesn’t take a litter to
build a pack. There are a lot of students here who want peace and routine in
our school; we want it to be a safe and secure home away from home. It’s only a
few dozen who are ruining it for the rest of us. I say let the other
paranormals see the vampires as part of the pack.”

“How so?”

“Human colleges have sports, so you can start
something like that. Clubs, too, which everyone would be interested in. Come up
with a committee of students with treasurers and whatnot, and let them plan and
design extracurricular activities. Graduation is sooner than with human
schools, but that doesn’t mean we can’t do with some fun and stress relief.”

“It sounds good to me. You will be in charge of
setting up the committee. Your father might have mentioned a few times that you
were good at that sort of thing.”

Darwin shrugged and blushed. “He’s always bragging on
me. I don’t know why, when I can’t even shift.” He turned and walked out.

“How did it go in the underground level?” I asked
Flagstone. “What did you find?”

“It has been taken care of,” he said vaguely.

I rolled my eyes. “What did you find?”

He looked to Hunt. “Devon, you need to focus on
finding the witness and keeping the vampires and wizards from killing each
other. Rosin and I have everything else taken care of.”

I turned and walked out, frustrated, but not
surprised. Although Hunt was not forthcoming the previous semester, I thought I
could at least trust him. This time, it looked like Hunt was either up to no
good, or he was very worried about something.

Or both.

*          *          *

The next night, when I showed up for my earth
training, I found a note taped to a tree at the edge of the forest.

Devon,

I have to miss our appointment.

Sincerely,

K. Langril

Great. That was very clear.
However, when I
thought about it, it wasn’t the professor’s normal, neat handwriting that I had
seen in other notes to the class. It looked like it had been written in a
hurry.

Snow began to fall then and I had no real reason to
stick around the creepy forest at midnight, so I returned to the dorms. It was
my intention to ask Darwin to take a look at the book I found in the library
when I got back to my room, but Addison and Amelia were there. Darwin had
already recruited Amelia into helping him set up a student activities committee.
Addison was clearly trying not to irritate Henry, as if she finally realized he
wasn’t just being a jerk.

“If you can affect moods, can you help Henry?” Darwin
asked Amelia. Addie sat up in Henry’s bed, hopeful but unwilling to beg.

Amelia looked pained and blushed. “I’m trying not to
use my magic for a while. Things didn’t go very well last time.”

I fully expected Darwin to push, as he always did,
but instead he just patted her knee in sympathy and returned to reading his
manga to her while she thought up clubs.

*          *          *

Friday and the weekend were more of the same; fights
between vampires and the other students, fights between Addison and Henry, and
sappy mush between Darwin and Amelia. Amelia and Darwin were together every
minute and he acted so goofy around her that I usually had to leave the room.

On Tuesday, Professor Langril was still missing, but
Dr. Martin was his sub. Everyone sat down immediately and waited without a word
to see what the doctor would do. It was actually funny, since class was always
set off with some explosions and usually screaming from Mack.

The entire class, with the exception of Mack, loved
Becky’s scorpion. The scorpion apparently loved Mack and was often seen chasing
the guy around the room.

Dr. Martin stood in the front of the room and fidgeted,
shifting from foot to foot. He didn’t look like he had ever dealt with students
before. “Okay, what does Keigan normally have you do?”

“Make potions,” Becky answered helpfully.

“He said we could make a poison today,” Tali lied.

Jessica nodded. “He also said we could try it out on
Mack.”

We ended up making a sleeping potion. Although Dr.
Martin was extremely good at making such concoctions, he was not the best
teacher because he expected us to already be advanced. I felt like I was a high
school chemistry student in a graduate chemistry class, which was not a
phenomenon I was familiar with or happy about.

Either way, we did end up learning a lot.

On Wednesday afternoon, I was heading to lunch when I
ran into Erik and Clara in the hall. Erik was frantic about something and
furiously working the gray substance, which I had learned was a kneaded eraser.

“Whatever it is, the headmaster will do something,”
Clara told him.

“He didn’t last time. Now people are dying!”

“What’s going on?” I asked when they noticed me.

“It attacked us!” Erik exclaimed, startling three
other students that were passing by at that moment.

I could understand their flinches since the vampires
shouldn’t have been out yet. The hallways had no windows, but the exterior door
was only ten feet away and there were windows in other halls.

“We were looking for Hunt’s office, but we kept
getting turned around and ending up back here,” Clara explained calmly. Erik
nodded furiously as nervous energy built up inside him.

“Alright, you two need to get into a closet or
something and I will take care of this,” I said without thinking. It wasn’t as
strange as I would have thought that my first instinct was to get them
somewhere safe. I noticed the two brown blankets on the ground at their feet, which
they must have used to make it as far as they did.

“It’s down there killing people!” Erik said. There
was a panic in his eyes that was more human than anything I had seen since
joining the paranormal community.

“I know, but it won’t help to get everyone out if
they all burn up in the sunlight.” As I spoke, I reached out for Darwin’s mind.
“Hey, do you know where Zhang Wei is?”

“Yeah. What’s wrong?”

“Something is going down in the underground level
and I might need his tracking senses.”

“On it.”

I led Clara and Erik to the closest closet and then
made my way to the door that entered into the underground, where Henry was
waiting. “I thought Darwin was sending Zhang Wei.”

“Jackson antagonized Li Na and she bit him. Zhang Wei
is dealing with it. I should at least be of some help to you.”

I nodded and opened the door. The underground level
was dark, which I expected, but there was no light at all. Last time, the
torches only went out when nobody was around. This time, the torches were unlit
and it was as silent as a grave.

“The vampires must have turned out the lights in
order to hide,” Henry said. “It makes sense; they can see very well in the
dark.”

“Good for them, I can’t see anything.” I pulled out
my penlight and clicked it on. I wasn’t expecting Henry to be so close, so the
first thing I saw was his eyes, which were almost entirely pupil and had the
reflective silver that cat eyes had. He flinched away from the light as his
pupils contracted. “Sorry,” I said, aiming the light away from him.

“I smell fear, but nothing else unusual.” He started
off down the hallway without another word, so I followed. Henry stopped to
sniff at every closed door we passed and then moved on within a few seconds. A
few rooms were open, but they were all empty.

“Is everyone gone?”

“No, they’re in their rooms. I can smell their fear,
but they are only hiding. Whatever it is they’re hiding from, it has no scent.”

A few minutes later, we were still making our way
further in when my instincts suddenly fired up.
Danger… surrounded…
Something was horribly wrong. I headed for the infirmary, which was only a few
hundred feet away. When I turned the corner, I froze. Dr. Martin was faced-down
on the ground in the open doorway, lying in a pool of blood.

I tried to go to him, but Henry grabbed me by the
upper arm to hold me back. “Wait, something’s in there. I can hear it.” The
words were barely out of his mouth when I heard glass break.

I leaned to the left to try to see through the
doorway, but we were too far down the hallway. My sense of danger increased and
my light flickered. There was a torch on the wall right beside me, which I took
from its sconce. I didn’t bother patting my pocket; I had left my lighter on my
desk. “Hold this,” I whispered to Henry, passing him my penlight. When he took
it, I focused on the heat that built in my chest. I didn’t know how to control
fire, but I had done it before.