Chương 7: Chapter 6 - Settling In

When we got to the guest room, Miller let us inside, gave us the key and the school schedule, and bid us goodbye. He left us standing, three in a row, inside the door. The moment the door closed, Darius said under his breath, "Conrad?"

"He's leaving. There's no one in the rooms beside us."

"Has anyone been in this room?"

"The boys who brought our bags up. They lingered for about five minutes."

"Around the luggage?"

"Around the window." The vampire turned.

"The window?" I rolled my eyes and grabbed my bag.

"They were ditching class for five minutes. That's what you do when you have an excuse." Our guest room included a front room, bedroom, and a bathroom. The front room had a desk, an armchair, and a tiny couch with a coffee table in front of it. I walked over to the door in the right wall and looked into the bedroom. It was as small as the front room. There was one bed. It could, theoretically, fit two people—but they'd have to like each other a lot.

"I call the couch!" I yelled. Darius moved so fast I couldn't see him. He appeared at my shoulder and looked in the room.

"Hmmm." He turned to Conrad.

"I guess that means we're sharing the bed."

"What size is it?" the wolfman asked.

"It looks slightly smaller than a double." Conrad made an ugh sound.

"No, this will work out," Darius said.

"You get it at night, and I'll get it during the day." Conrad picked up his duffel bag and walked toward the bedroom.

"If Conrad gets it at night," I said, "what will you be doing?"

"Emerra, you know I can't sleep at night," Darius said.

"Ah, yes. The joys of being a vampire." I cocked my head.

"Did you bring blood?"

"Only an emergency ration. I stocked up before we came."

"What's an emergency? Do you get hunger pangs?" Conrad passed between us.

"He needs it if he gets badly injured." The count walked over to his messenger bag.

"Give me a minute to set up before we continue this conversation." He pulled out a black velvet sack. Around the material, I could see a fine dusting of magic glinting various shades of blue and purple. He reached in and pulled out a small, brass weight. He flowed from one corner of the room to another, a blur of motion, stopping at each one to lay down a weight. A shimmering indigo curtain grew up around me until their wavering corners met in the center of the ceiling.

"What's this?" I muttered.

"That's right, you can see it." Darius stopped by the door to the bedroom and whistled for Conrad's attention.

"Get all the corners, will you?" He tossed the sack into the bedroom, then came out to me.

"Is the light going to bother you?" If you stumble upon this tale on Amazon, it's taken without the author's consent. Report it. I laughed with delight.

"It's beautiful."

"I'm glad." He picked up his luggage. As he crossed toward the bedroom, he said, "It's a barrier. No one outside the room can hear anything that goes on inside it." I followed him.

"Does the headmaster know that you're a vampire?"

"No one here does, and I don't want them to know. It'll give me certain advantages during the investigation. Do you need any of the wardrobe, Conrad?" The wolfman shook his head and went back to transferring his clothes to the dresser. I said, "I thought we were here to review the school." The count put his luggage on the bed.

"Over a third of their students claim to have psychic powers. As far as we know, none of those powers existed until they enrolled here. Something is going on in this school. We're here to find out what."

"And put a stop to it?"

"That depends on what it is." He opened his case and pulled out his suits. They were already on hangers and still covered in dry-cleaning plastic. He put them in the wardrobe exactly two inches apart from each other.

"So what are you going to do at night?" I asked.

"I might wander around. Do a little reading. Try to see all the things they don't want us to see."

"And during the day, you want me to keep my eyes open?"

"Exactly."

"I couldn't see it though."

"Couldn't see what?"

"That kid—the one who brought up our bags."

"What about him?"

"He did that thing where you make stuff float." Both Conrad and Darius stopped and turned to me.

"You saw him use telekinesis?" Vasil said. I pointed at him." That's the word! I would have thought of it eventually." Darius walked over and sat on the bed.

"Tell me what you saw."

"It wasn't a big deal. The kid opened his hand, and my bag floated up until he grabbed the handle."

"That was all you saw?" I scrutinized my memory.

"Yeah."

"You didn't see any magic?"

"I didn't see any purple or white if that's what you're asking."

"Did you see any other colors, shadows, images, or anything out of the ordinary?"

"You can stop it with the inquisition eyes! No. There was nothing out of the ordinary."

"Conrad, can you double check?" The wolfman came over. He paused beside me and said in a quiet voice, "May I smell your luggage?" That topped my chart for weirdest question I'd been asked all week.

"Sure," I said.

"Knock yourself out." I stayed by the bedroom door while Conrad walked over to my suitcase. He picked it up and turned it this way and that, sometimes lowering his nose toward the case. Darius came to stand beside me. Conrad put my luggage down.

"Nothing."

"What kind of nothing?" Vasil asked.

"I can smell Olivia and Emerra on it, and I can smell the boy, but there's nothing I wouldn't expect to smell there."

"Did you expect him to find anything?" I asked Darius.

"Not really. Three teams have already come through. They said the psychic abilities were real, but…"

"But you wanted to confirm it?"

"I was hoping we might have a way to trace it that they didn't." He took a deep breath and straightened his jacket.

"Which leads me to the second half of your instructions, Emerra."

"I have two-part instructions, and the second part isn't to pretend to be professional?"

"Would you be willing to work with the students?"

"I don't mind."

"Even though it's almost three hundred teenage boys?" I scoffed.

"Don't worry, Darius. I'm not exactly teenage fantasy material." The vampire paused, then tilted his head.

"That's true."

"There were so many different ways you could have responded to that. Thanks a lot." Conrad went past us, into the bedroom. The count followed him while saying to me, "I'd also like you to keep quiet about your powers." I pushed away from the wall and turned.

"Sure, but—" I ran into Darius's upheld hand.

"Where do you think you're going?" he asked.

"I'm talking to you?"

"Conrad and I are unpacking. This is our room. You can talk to us from outside the door."

"I was in there a second ago!"

"It's not proper."

"Darius, you know you're my favorite Victorian antique"—I motioned to the door on the far wall—"but the bathroom's through there."

"And it's our bathroom."

"Right. So I get to shower with the three hundred teenage boys." Conrad chuffed. It took all my willpower to not ruin my sassy expression by smiling.

"It's all right, Darius," Conrad said.

"I won't let her ravish you." The wolfman's back was to us, so he couldn't see my grin or the vampire's glare. Darius turned to shoo me out the door.

"At least give us some privacy while we unpack."

"Okay! Okay! I'll let you deal with all your"—I whipped out some air-quotes—"'unmentionables.' Tell me when you're done."

"If you're bored, there's some paperwork in my messenger bag. You might find it interesting." He shut the door behind me. I went over, picked up the bag, and hauled it to the desk.

"Can't let a woman see his underwear," I grumbled under my breath, "but he'll let me root around in his messenger bag? I ought to leave my bra in here." From behind the closed door, Darius yelled, "I heard that, Emerra!" Still snickering, I pulled out the file tucked next to his laptop. I walked over to the couch, crashed down on it, and flipped back the cover on the file. A pang of homesickness hit me when I recognized Iset's handwriting on the post-it notes.

She had divided the papers into three sections: psychic abilities, Setlan on Lee, and Wayne Wuller. I turned to the section on psychic abilities.