Chương 41: Chapter 40 - One in a Billion Chance

When I got back to our rooms, Darius and Conrad both turned to me.

"It's not Reisig," I said. Conrad let out a sigh through his long nose and looked away. Darius grunted.

"I suspected as much."

"You knew?" I asked.

"When I was at the Psychic Society, I looked up Reisig. He has quite a large file. The society was split on whether or not he was a fake." Darius moved away from the desk chair where he'd been sitting and went over to the couch. Since Conrad was already in the armchair, I sat next to Darius.

"You won't tell Wuller, will you?" I asked.

"Is there a reason I shouldn't?" Darius said.

"Can you give me a few days? Please?" The count considered me for a while before answering.

"Fine."

"Have you talked to Wuller again?"

"Not since I asked him if Circe could visit."

"What are you going to tell him?"

"We'll tell him about the building, and that Circe confirmed there were psychic echoes. I think he'll like that."

"Psychic echoes?" Conrad said.

"Is that a real term?"

"It is now," Darius said.

"If we're telling him all this, does that mean he's no longer a suspect?" Darius rubbed his cheekbone with the edge of his thumb. Conrad and I waited.

"It's first of all a precaution," Darius said.

"Wuller doesn't seem inclined to kick us out at the moment, and I'd like to keep it that way. I could get a warrant to continue our investigation, but I'd rather avoid having to do that." I was not about to let him get away with that.

"You didn't answer Conrad's question."

"Everyone remains a suspect until they're proven innocent or the real culprit is found."

"How can it be him?" Conrad asked.

"Wuller knows about psychics and a little bit about the magical community, but we've never found a tool, and he's not a magician."

"Or a psychic," I said. My comment hit the conversation like a blunt ax. The vampire frowned.

"That's true. And now we have a much better understanding of why he built the school."

"But he's still a suspect?" I prompted.

"An unlikely suspect is still a suspect, Emerra." You had to admire his stubbornness.

"What about Reisig?" Conrad asked.

"It's the same problem, isn't it?" I said.

"He knows stuff about psychics, but he isn't one. Besides, he's got no motive. The more attention the school got—especially from the Torr—the more likely it was he'd be exposed."

"Could it be Miller?" Conrad asked. Darius said, "Of everyone we've found so far, Miller has the most knowledge about psychic and magical powers, but everything I've learned says that he has no power himself."

"You checked?" I asked. My chest felt tight. I hated the idea that Miller had been a suspect before I realized it. Of course, if I had been thinking, I might have realized it about the time I learned he was a member of the Psychic Society.

"I was at the Torr headquarters and the Psychic Society," Darius said.

"I checked every name I had." The tension in my chest eased. I didn't mind that; it seemed like a nice, democratic mistrust of mankind. Conrad said, "With his knowledge, that still makes him a more likely suspect than Wuller or Reisig."

"What would be his motive?" Darius asked.

"Emerra said that he was jealous of power."

"I think that was before," I murmured.

"Before what?" Conrad said.

"Before he got scared."

"But that could just mean that his experiment got out of hand," Darius said. Stolen story; please report. A flush of anger crept up my neck. This was Miller, they were talking about. Our pillar Miller! The world's greatest assistant. He wasn't like that. He was thoughtful, and he cared about the truth.

"Then how's he doing it?" I demanded. Conrad and Darius didn't answer.

"It's easy to say it's him because of his background, but how's he doing it? Can you even use magic to make a psychic?"

"Iset and I have talked to a number of experts. Everyone's said they don't know a way," Darius admitted.

"Several of them have told us it's impossible. Currently, our only lead for how the perpetrator is doing it are the psychic echoes."

"Circe said they couldn't create psychics," Conrad pointed out.

"Not unless there is a psychic," I said.

"But why would a psychic want to make more psychics?" Conrad asked.

"At least Wuller's and Resig's motives made sense."

"Maybe they're doing it to see if it's possible," Darius said.

"But if the echoes are the cause, then it would only work while they're in the school."

"The psychic might not care, or it's possible he isn't doing it on purpose." Conrad and I both fell silent. I don't know what the wolfman was going through, but the moment Darius uttered his last suggestion, a black hole opened in my head, stretching my thoughts, sucking them in.

"That's why there's no good motive," I said.

"There isn't one." I looked up. Conrad's ears were alert, but there was a slight frown of concentration at the edge of his muzzle.

"Is it possible for someone to turn one hundred and eight boys into psychics on accident?" he asked. Darius frowned and a hand went to his face.

"No! Guys, think about it!" I scooted to the front of the couch.

"There's only one lead for how this is being done—the echoes. The echoes would require a psychic. So let's say there's a psychic here. Those echoes are powerful enough to bother me. I've been here, what? Five days? Six? Can you imagine how bad it'd be for a psychic to live here?"

"Bad," Conrad said. His voice was soft and empathetic. I looked up in surprise. When my eyes met his, his gaze darted off into a corner, and his ears wiggled around in embarrassment.

"I've seen you dealing with your nightmares," he said. Tag me in, bro! My turn to be embarrassed. Cheeks still aching, I said, "Exactly! Reisig told us that psychic powers are at their peak when the psychic is upset, and you"—I pointed to Darius—"said that the psychics tend to appear at night. Circe said that people like—" My throat suddenly withered up to the size of a pin. Why was this so hard to say? I had to swallow before I could speak.

"She said people like us are most vulnerable when we're drunk or asleep. So he falls asleep, and he's hit by all the echoes. That would upset anyone, and he's probably not going to have a lot of control over his power when he's asleep. It lashes out randomly."

"If the psychics were only accidentally in the line of fire, that could explain why most of them only manifested a power once or twice," Conrad said.

"What about the boys who can control their powers?" Darius asked.

"They're the most psychically inclined," I suggested.

"Maybe the touch of the real psychic's powers was enough to push them into it."

"And the echoes might be acting like some kind of amplifier," Conrad said. Darius murmured, "If you take someone who's only psychically inclined and give them power, it seems natural they'd develop a low complexity talent." He was rubbing his jaw again. After a hundred years of being way too thoughtful, I'm pretty sure the only reason he hadn't rubbed a hole in his face was because of his ultra-healing ability.

"For this theory to be true," Darius said, "the psychic would need to have both a perceptive and influential talent."

"Sure," I said.

"They'd have to be influenced by the echoes."

"And they'd have to be able to influence the world around them— a lot. Fire? Electricity?" Darius dashed his hand off to the side.

"That's nothing. We're talking about the ability to influence another person's nature. That means aurakinesis or better. We're most likely looking for an elite psychic."

"What's an elite psychic?" Conrad asked.

"A person with a rare and exceptional psychic talent," Darius said.

"The higher you go along the complexity scale, the more likely you are to find psychics that have more than one talent. The ones at the top are the elite psychics."

"They have them all?" I asked. The vampire nodded.

"They're the most sensitive and the most powerful."

"Is this something you learned at the Psychic Society?" Conrad asked.

"I heard about them at the Psychic Society. I researched them while I was at the Torr's headquarters. The Torr's had to deal with most of them."

"Why?" I demanded.

"Because they're the ones that cause the most trouble." When I clenched my teeth, I realized it was aggravating a headache that had snuck into my skull, unnoticed. Whoever this theoretical psychic was, my heart went out to them. Darius continued, "If they are an elite psychic, they should have both telepathic and empathic abilities, but none of the psychics at this school have ever demonstrated either of those talents."

"It's because they're hiding," Conrad said.

"Do you think so?"

"We've been talking like people would want these powers," I said, "but it's not like that—not when they actually have them. Jolie is terrified to leave his body when his power activates. Wes won't even show his parents what he can do. Miller got freaked out when he saw them. Even Wuller! He's the most excited about these powers, but what did he say?

'The life of a psychic—'""'—is a hard one,'" Darius finished for me.

"Full of pain and uncertainty," I added. The count sighed.

"All right. Theorize. Let's say this psychic exists. What do we know about him?"

"He's been here for at least a year," Conrad said, "and he's still here."

"He most likely sleeps in the building," Darius noted. I said, "He's going out of his way to hide his abilities, even in a place that's supposed to welcome them. To me, that sounds like he's had problems with them in the past."

"He's probably upset and scared," Conrad added. Darius sat up in his chair.

"He's a student." Conrad and I glanced at each other. After all that stuff about everyone being a suspect, it seemed weird that Darius was willing to write off the teachers and staff.

"You're sure?" I asked.

"Emerra, bring me the map that Miller gave you." While I did that, Darius said, "The third-year students are staying in a different building. That's why they're not affected. None of the teachers have manifested a power either. Why? Because they sleep in a different part of the school." I laid the map down on the coffee table in front of Darius. He leaned over to inspect it. Conrad said, "Reisig told us most abilities appear when the psychic is a teenager. Maybe the boys are more receptive."

"I heard him having a nightmare," Darius said.

"Our second night here, I was outside, walking the grounds." He put his finger down in the center of the back wing.

"That is where the first- and second-year dorms are, correct?" He was right, but I didn't bother confirming it.

"Why are you so sure it was the psychic?" I asked.

"Because at first I thought it was you," he said. The hair on my arms stood up.

"We have to find him." Darius pushed the map away.

"I agree. The powers are getting stronger and becoming more frequent. If he's doing this on accident, that means he's under stress and losing control." I thought about the teachers quitting mid term and the students jumping over the wall. The idea that there was a boy at the end of this all, struggling to hold it together, dealing with nightmares like mine, made my whole body ache with sympathy.

"Right!" I said.

"What do we do?"