Shadow Grail #2: Conspiracies (12 page)

Probably they’d all be recruited for stuff. Espionage, intelligence-gathering, assassination. Somewhere, she thought, the ghost of her hippie father nodded with approval at her reasoning.

The flaw in Dylan’s reasoning was that this place had Money, and if she had learned anything from her folks, it was that the government never, ever bothered anyone with Money. Wacky cultists had “compounds” that could be raided. When people with Money built the same sort of places, and stockpiled an equal amount of weaponry, the places were called “estates” and the weapons were a “collection” or a “private security arsenal.”

She checked the private chat window.

Never seen or heard of any magic that would do that,
Addie was typing.
It took everyone I saw by surprise, unless there are people that are better actors than I think they are.

What was the point?
Loch asked.
Whatever happened, the question is, why did it happen in the first place? I could see it if something had followed up on the fear, but nothing did.

Loch was right. If an attack had taken place, whether it was the Wild Hunt or Dylan’s black-helicopter commandos, no one would have been able to do anything to protect themselves. But there had been no attack so—why?

In answer, Muirin pasted some lines from Elizabeth Walker.

EW: It only makes sense as a test. Otherwise something would have happened while we were all frozen. Maybe a test to see which of us could stand up to the terror.

Spirit emptied her glass, poured another, and thought about that. It was a good idea, actually. The only problem was that the teachers had all been caught, too.

Wait a minute …

It got the CHAPERONES too,
she typed, putting the word in all caps so they remembered that not all of the teachers were there, chaperoning. Not more than half, so far as she could tell. So had the teachers who were not in the gym been affected, too? Or had they been the ones behind it?

But surely Doctor Ambrosius would think of that, first thing. And surely the absent teachers would be the first ones he questioned.

In brightest day in blackest night,
Burke typed.

She blinked again, looked down at the ring with the stone still turned into the palm of her hand, and clenched her teeth. Their rings had glowed. And no one else’s had. So what did
that
mean? She yanked it off, shoved it in the box, and shoved the box to the back of the desk drawer.

And what was it that Doctor Ambrosius had been looking for, back there when he’d been babbling about Magnetic Waves? His eyes hadn’t been down, as they would have been if he had been looking for glowing rings, but he had definitely been looking for something.

Maybe Elizabeth was right. Maybe it had been a test that Doctor Ambrosius himself had run, to find out who was able to withstand whatever it was.

But then wouldn’t he have warned the teachers first?

You’d think.

Actually, he’d have had to, wouldn’t he? Because if he didn’t, they wouldn’t be braced in case one of the students really ran amok. Maybe had a psychotic break, or went postal. No, that would have been monumentally stupid.

Did you guys all see the sparks that lit up first?
she asked, hoping to remind them that—hello! The rings glowed!

The chorus of “yes’s” at least told her she hadn’t been seeing things.

Might have been some kind of spillover from the fear-thing,
Loch typed.
Might work as an early warning if it happens again.…

If???
she typed, wishing there was a sarcasm emoticon. Because hadn’t she told them? Hadn’t she warned them?

And the glowing rings … she mentally thanked Burke for coming up with a code-way to remind the others without saying “what’s with the rings?”
But hey, Green Lantern effect? What was that? Did anyone else see that?

Nobody but us,
Addie typed.
I couldn’t see the whole gym, though, too many peeps. I’ve never, ever heard of or seen that effect before, though.

Same here,
typed Muirin.

Teacher on main chat,
Burke warned. Well that was different. The teachers almost never logged on main chat, permitting the students to pretend that they weren’t being eavesdropped on. They all fell “silent,” as they watched MOD1, MOD4, and MOD7 try and calm some of the hysteria. Dylan was soothed and reminded that the school had a direct feed from the nearest NWS weather station and that any army of helicopter-carried commandos would show up on the radar. Fortunately, he didn’t immediately think about flying “below the radar.” All the students were reminded that this
was
a school full of the best magicians in the world, and although they might not be aware of them, there were “protections in place” against “perfectly mundane dangers.”

There was more technobabble about “freak Magnetic Resonance Fields” and a link to some research papers in the school e-library.

Evidently this was going to be the Official Explanation.
Just like all UFOs were swamp gas,
she thought cynically.

Alles ist in Ordung,
typed Loch.
Everything is in order
. Even if the German hadn’t been easy to guess, it wouldn’t take a genius to figure out he had come to the same conclusion about the Official Explanation as she had.

Nothing to see, move along,
typed Addie.
These aren’t the droids you’re looking for.

Peace is war,
Spirit responded.
I guess since no one was hurt, it’s All Better now, and they’ll probably have donuts at breakfast to reward us for being good and going to our rooms.
That was about as dangerously close to what she
wanted
to say as she was going to go.

The fact was, it wasn’t All Better, and at least now the others could see that for themselves.

Okay, no one got hurt. That didn’t mean anything.

The big point was, there were only two things you
could
say about the Terror.

If it had come from outside, it had gotten past all the protections and wards on the school and the grounds. Not even the Hunt had been able to do that, and according to Kelly Langley, one of the proctors, the protections and wards had been
seriously
beefed up since then. The only way the Hunt had gotten inside the grounds had been because they’d been let inside by someone able to control the wards.

That would have been teachers and staff. Unless there were some third parties who were neither teachers nor staff, and had been able to get into the school, take down the wards, and get out again without anyone seeing them. More than that, get out and get to Radial or had some hidden form of fast transportation to get them away. Fast car? Possible, but not likely.

If, however, it had come from
inside …

It meant that whoever had taken down the protections for the Hunt was still here, and hadn’t given up.

And even if the Terror had come from outside, someone from inside would
still
have had to take down the protections. So, the logic came full circle. There was still someone, or several someones, in here, in the guise of one of Doctor Ambrosius’s trusted people. Someone who was trying to kill them all.

*   *   *

There were, in fact donuts. And danishes, and bear claws, and fritters, and eclairs, and bismarks, and cinnamon buns. And pancakes and waffles. And bacon and sausage, mounds of both, which the health-conscious cooking staff never, ever served in any quantity. In short, it was a forbidden-food-fest, and Spirit immediately eyed the buffet with suspicion. What was the point here, recovery or distraction? Although Murr-cat was perhaps one of the biggest junk food fiends at Oakhurst, she was by no means the only one, and all these piled-high treats were going to distract a lot of people. And maybe send them out into the snow for the only day of no-kidding ungraded playing that they’d gotten during the so-called “break.”

Ungraded, because there weren’t any teachers in sight. Anywhere.

The group met at their usual table; Muirin hadn’t needed to be hauled out of bed by the hair, because she had gotten wind of the pastry-avalanche awaiting her. The mere sight of Muirin’s plate made Spirit’s eyes glaze over, and she stuck to scrambled eggs and fruit.

“If this is how we’re going to get fed after mysterious attacks, I vote for more of them,” Muirin said around a glazed donut, her eyes blissful.

“Thanks,” Burke replied dryly. “I’ll pass.”

Spirit lowered her voice to a whisper. “The stones of Burke’s ring and mine lit up last night … I think it was after the attack, though, because if it had been during it, I would have noticed the glow. Yours did, too. Anyone else or just us?” She had brought her ring with her, but didn’t put it on. After last night she was even more reluctant to do so.

They all shook their heads.

“I didn’t see anyone else. Uh, something else,” Loch said, chewing his lower lip. “My stone didn’t just glow. Now it has a Destiny in it.”

Spirit stared at him. “What?” hissed Addie. “Let me see!”

He slid his hand into the middle of the table, and they all peered down at the ring. Sure enough, there was the image of a tiny … stick?

“That’s not a magic wand is it?” Spirit asked dubiously.

“Get your eyes checked; it’s a spear,” snorted Muirin, but Burke was already looking at his ring, and without a word, slid his hand to the center of the table to join Loch’s. Burke’s Destiny was easier to see: a shield. The boys pulled their hands back before anyone could take notice.

“Murr-cat?” Addie asked.

“Does it matter?” Muirin replied crossly. “Big deal, it looks like everyone and his dog has a Destiny now.”

“No, they don’t. If the Destiny came up with the glow, it’s only us. I am absolutely positive no one else had glowing rings last night,” Addie retorted, her eyes narrowing.

“I don’t care,” Muirin began, when Spirit managed to grab hold of her ring hand.

“You may not, but we do,” Spirit told her, and since Muirin couldn’t pull loose without making a fuss and getting people to notice there was more going on at their table than eating, she gave in sullenly, and shoved her hand where they could see it.

And there was a Destiny in the depths of her ring, too; a bird in flight.

“A bird?” said Loch, puzzled.

Spirit peered closely at it. “A raven, I think.” One of her mother’s friends had been an avid bird-watcher. “It’s got the right beak, anyway.”

“Quoth the Raven, Nevermore,” said Muirin, in tones that made it clear she wasn’t even remotely happy about this. “Thanks a bunch, Blondie. Anyway, big deal, it doesn’t mean anything, I knew about it before…” She stopped, and looked even more stubborn. And guilty.

“What do you mean, you knew about it ‘before,’ Muirin?” Burke asked quietly. “Before what? Before when?”

All four of them glared at her, and finally she scowled and shook her hair back. “Okay, okay, I saw it Christmas Day when we all showed our rings. And it wasn’t there a couple months ago when I took it out to wear it to one of Doc A’s goofy tea parties, and that was the last time I looked at it.” She turned a glare of her own on Spirit. “So what about you? Does yours have an angel or something in it? I bet it’s an angel, or a fairy, or a rainbow, or a unicorn.”

Spirit took her ring out of her pocket and put it on the table.

Just as it had been when she had taken it out of the box this morning, the stone in it was blank and unchanged.

SEVEN

The kids who actually made it down for breakfast seemed to stuff themselves, as if they had been starved all last night. That didn’t make any sense to Spirit, since she hadn’t seen anyone avoiding the food at the New Year’s Dinner; it had been really good, actually, even if the atmosphere had been strained. Maybe there was something else going on. Could they have been—oh, drained or something, by that fear?

Or maybe some of them had been so frightened they’d gone back to their rooms and thrown up. Spirit wouldn’t have blamed them.

After a huge breakfast and what could not have been a very restful night, if she had been in their shoes, Spirit would have wanted a nap. Mind, she could see why Muirin didn’t—Murr-cat had gotten so much sugar and chocolate she must have been buzzing. But a lot of the kids had shoveled in heaps of hash browns, huge omelets, and mountains of bacon, ham, and sausage, and that kind of thing put Spirit to sleep. If she hadn’t been so determined to use this opportunity to convince the others to get serious about the threat, she probably would have been thinking about going for the protein herself and sacrificing this rare free day in favor of sleep.

As their group gathered for Monopoly in the lounge, she couldn’t help notice that the lounge was practically deserted—and so were the grounds. There were three or four die-hard winter-lovers outside—ones who’d made big inroads on the pastries and were probably on as much of a sugar-high as Muirin. They were mostly skating. There couldn’t be more than a dozen people in the lounge, including Spirit and her friends.

Or maybe the missing weren’t napping, just huddling in their rooms, alone or in twos or threes, still scared, maybe chattering away on the computer. Spirit didn’t blame them. None of them had faced the Wild Hunt. None of them had known that the students who had supposedly run away had, in fact, been murdered by the Hunt. Oh, they were told often enough that the reason they were here was because there were people out there who wanted to kill young magicians—and some of them might have the idea that those same people were the ones who had killed their own families and left them orphans. But there was no proof of any of that, and it was one thing to hear this story out of Doctor Ambrosius but it was quite another to show up at the school dance and have something try to scare you to death.

Spirit couldn’t keep her attention on the game, and for once, it seemed the others, even Addie, were having the same problem.

“I just don’t get it,” Loch whispered, finally. “There doesn’t seem to have been a point.”

They didn’t have to ask what he meant. Muirin bent down over the board, her voice even lower than Loch’s. “They were saying before I came down to breakfast that three kids and a teacher were missing from their rooms this morning.”

“If they even got there,” Spirit replied darkly. “I mean, who would know if they just went missing after the dance?”

“The chaperones and proctors, I guess,” Addie said in tones of uncertainty. “But Loch’s right. Nothing really
happened.
We just all saw some lights and got scared. Horribly scared out of our minds, but no one was actually hurt.”

Spirit threw the dice and moved her Scottie dog at random. No one objected. “If it was a test, like Elizabeth said, it probably did exactly what it was supposed to.”

“A test for
what
?” Burke asked.

“Not
what,
not exactly.” Spirit was thinking out loud. “More like—a test to see what everybody’s reaction would be. I mean, the lights went out, right? And aren’t some of you supposed to be able to make light? So why didn’t anyone?”
I sure would have if I could have,
she thought a little sourly.

“We weren’t supposed to use magic at the dance,” Addie objected. But it sounded as if she knew how lame that statement was the moment it was out of her mouth.

“Well, duh, the dance was pretty effectively over when the lights went out, and I’d say that was an emergency situation, wouldn’t you?” Spirit retorted. “And why didn’t the
teachers
do something about it? They’re supposed to be really hot magicians! You’d think one of
them
could make a light!”

“So, you’re thinking what was being tested was how we all responded to something no one expected?” Burke hazarded.

Spirit nodded. “I mean, think about it, whoever sent the Hunt is still out there. Or in here. But they’d want to know if
we
all thought that was the end of it. But they don’t want to let
us
know what they’ve got. So they just whip something up to scare us, then sit back and see what we do.” She was very proud of herself. For something that she was just coming up with on the fly, it sounded really good, like she’d been working it out all night.

The others exchanged glances, and for once, they weren’t the condescending
“Oh, humor her,”
looks they’d been giving each other lately.

“It’s what I’d do,” Burke said reluctantly.

“If that’s what happened, we flunked,” Muirin added darkly. “Teachers and Doctor Ambrosius, too.”

Nobody moved. Nobody spoke. On the one hand, Spirit couldn’t help but have an “I told you so” moment. On the other hand—

On the other hand, I wish I didn’t get to say “I told you so.”

*   *   *

They gave up trying to play the game and instead took over one of the TVs and DVD players in the lounge and put on something utterly mindless and outdated. A musical,
Thoroughly Modern Millie,
which was pretty much typical of the stuff in the DVD library in the lounge, which was a mix of “classic cinema” that you were supposed to study and take seriously like
Citizen Kane,
stuff you saw on late night movie channels, documentaries (boring ones, not good stuff like
MythBusters),
and Arts stuff like ballet and opera. It was as if the school didn’t really want kids getting together to watch something; the entertainment you could pull up out of the digital library was so much better.

Maybe that was the point of having lame lounge entertainment. It would go right along with the atmosphere of competition. You wouldn’t really want kids getting together and having fun … they might make friends.

Each of them brooded about the situation in his or her own way. Muirin chattered cattily nonstop. Addie put in pithy comments about the movie. Loch stared out the window at the snow sculptures, not even pretending to watch. Burke stared a hole in the screen without really seeing it.

And Spirit twisted a strand of hair around and around her finger, occasionally responding to Addie and Muirin, trying to figure out if there was any way, any way at all, they could get
some
idea who had created last night’s terror, and what that shadowy enemy might do next.

Breakfast had been more-or-less brunch and the dining room was still open at noon; the guys got hungry again and went and made bacon sandwiches, bringing a stack of them for everyone back to the lounge because there were still no adults in sight to object. Seeing that, Muirin dashed out and returned with another giant plate of pastries. Addie and Spirit rolled their eyes and got milk and tea. They put on another lame movie, and another. No one talked.

It was a relief to hear the summons to dinner; at least it got them out of the lounge.

They’d barely gotten their seats when Mr. Wallis came in; something about the way he moved made her think he wasn’t there just to eat. A moment later, when he picked up a glass and a fork and tapped the latter against the former to get their attention, she knew she was right.

“Just to forestall any rumors,” he said, once the room had quieted down, “we took Jack Croder, Susan Menners, and Judy King to the Infirmary last night. Ms. Carimar also went to the Infirmary under her own volition. After several hours in which their conditions worsened, it was determined they needed to see specialists. No one wanted to risk their health after such a shock, so they were on their way to Billings by sunrise. We took them by special rail as the fastest and safest means possible.”

Of course,
Spirit mused, watching Mr. Wallis through narrowed eyes,
there’s no way to prove you aren’t lying.
Absolutely no one had been awake this morning at dawn, not after going to bed exhausted, knowing there was no reason to set your alarm because breakfast was going to be held open.

On the other hand, she knew that she had seen at least two of the four mentioned passed out cold, and she was pretty sure if she asked around, she’d find out that all four had been laid out. So it wasn’t completely insane to think that they might still be in bad shape. Ms. Carimar wasn’t young, and if you had any sort of heart issues, last night’s terror would have been enough to give you a heart attack.

“We’ll keep all of you posted,” Mr. Wallis said, wearing a look of concern that couldn’t go any deeper than the first layer of his skin. With that, he sat down, and slowly the buzz of conversation got back to hushed-normal.

Hushed enough that Spirit was able to pick out some threads of conversation at other tables. At least two of the students had left e-mails for their friends.

Interesting. If only she could see what had been
in
those e-mails!

Not a chance of that, of course. It wasn’t as if she was a hacker.

*   *   *

By common consent, they all went back to their own rooms after dinner. Too much time spent together was going to get attention they didn’t want. But as soon as Spirit got to her computer, she found a message from Addie.

Gym.

She bundled on her coat, peeked out the door of her room to make sure no one was watching, and slipped out. It was already dark, and really cold. She shivered her way to the gym, did another furtive check to make sure no one was around, and slipped inside. The foyer was dimly lit, the big room itself dark except for safety lights and still decorated for the dance.

Straining her ears, she heard the faintest of whispers and followed it. At the side of the gym proper was a kind of corridor; that was where the voices were coming from. The door, which had always been closed, and presumably locked, was slightly ajar. There was faint light at the far end of the corridor. She closed the door behind her, noticing as she did that there was tape over the dead bolt, keeping it from locking in place.

It smelled musty back here, the kind of aged-sweat-and-neglect sort of musty that made her think of her dad’s old athletic gear that had been stored in a box in the attic. And there were a lot of doorless rooms along this corridor. She peeked inside one, and made out some really wrecked gymnastics equipment in the dim glow of an exit light. So this was where the old stuff went to die?

She scuttled to the end of the corridor and stuck her head into the room.

It was the furnace room for the gym. The others were sitting on metal folding chairs in a huddle in the light from a single overhead fixture. Muirin and Loch both had little netbooks and were typing furiously. Muirin was talking as she typed.

“… all that might mean is Big Brother learned from the last time,” Muirin was saying. “Vanishing into nothing and telling us they ran away didn’t exactly work to hide what happened to the Tithed.”

“Burke and I both got e-mails from Ms. Carimar,” Addie countered. “Canceling her class, basically, and giving us options for what to take in its place.”

“Doesn’t that seem a little, I don’t know, odd to you?” Spirit said from the door. “Here she’s supposed to be half passed out, stressed to the max, and sick, and she’s sending out individual course recommendations?”

“Well, no duh,” said Muirin, looking up. “Hey. Grab a chair.”

“Wouldn’t be that hard to hack the personal e-mail accounts,” Loch put in, and shoved the last empty chair toward her a little. “You wouldn’t even need to hack them if you had Admin status.”

Spirit pulled the chair to herself and plopped down in it. “Why are you typing?” she asked. “And where did you get those netbooks?”

“There’s a WiFi hotspot here, and we’re acting like we’re in our rooms,” Muirin said with a smirk. “Loch and I are always in chat, and it would look weird if we went missing from it. You three, on the other hand, aren’t in public chat much. I’m told you are actually known to do something quaint and antiquated called
reading a book
. How very analog of you.”

“I had the netbooks, they were in my luggage.” Loch shrugged. “Old ones I wasn’t using anymore. Father was always upgrading me to the newest model, so they were at the house, so I guess the secretary threw them in with the rest of the stuff she sent for me. At least these are useful, unlike most of the stuff that was sent.”

“So you’ve got no jeans and t-shirts, but you’ve got a tailored tux and two netbooks?” Spirit hazarded.

“Four netbooks, and yes.” Loch sighed. “But Murr-cat’s right, even when we’re studying, we’re in chat, so we need to look like we’re where we should be.”

“Back to the subject,” Spirit said firmly. “What’s going on?”

“Two of the missing persons left e-mails for their friends, too,” Muirin told them. “I just got sent copies.”

Addie frowned. “And?”

“I don’t know. I didn’t know them well enough to tell if it actually
sounds
like them,” Muirin replied. “It’s only a couple of lines each, just that they can’t take it here, and they want to get out, they can’t eat or sleep, they feel like they’re going to die any second, and Doctor Ambrosius wants to send them to Billings.”

“Uh—if they were in the Infirmary, and never went back to their rooms, where would they have gotten a computer?” Spirit pointed out.

Muirin looked up, and Addie’s eyes narrowed. “That is a good point,” Addie said slowly. “And actually, why would anyone bother to have them e-mail their friends if they were sick enough to need to be sent to Billings?”

There was silence, broken only by the powerful fans of the furnace. Then Burke spoke up.

“They might not have been sick, as such, at all,” he said. “Just still insanely scared, and wanting to get out of here. That would leave Doctor Ambrosius with the choice of trying to keep them here and having crazy people on his hands, or letting them go and shipping them off to shrinks. Which would get the problem out of
his
hands anyway.”