Haunted (28 page)

We started our search where we’d begun—in the janitorial rooms below. As we hurried down the hall toward the lunchroom and office, something clattered to the floor in one of the storage rooms, like a broom or mop falling over. I veered toward it. Then, from the end of the hall came the muffled sound of a phone ringing. Someone answered after the first ring, with a reedy, feminine-sounding “Hello.”

Trsiel changed course. I darted ahead of him and ran through the closed office door. On the other side, back to us, stood a slight, pale-haired figure. Tinny music wafted from a cheap radio on the desk, the rise and fall of the music cutting into the phone conversation. I took a step closer, then saw the gnarled hand clutching the receiver. The elderly male janitor.

As I turned to leave, the song on the radio ended, and the janitor’s words became clear.

“…exit door shouldn’t be locked. I opened them all myself this morning.” Pause. “Which room is it?” Pause. A sigh. “I’ll send Lily.” He hung up, then muttered, “If I can find her. Damned girl is making herself scarcer than usual today.”

He lifted the walkie-talkie. Trsiel and I stayed where we were, hoping to catch the room number so we could head off Lily there. The janitor pushed the Call button four times, but only static responded.

“Lazy kids,” he grumbled.

He stalked to the door and yanked. It didn’t open. Another pull, but it stayed shut.

“Goddamn it!” he said as he yanked on the door.

I stepped through to the other side. A broom had been jammed through the handle. Trsiel and I looked at each other, then dashed for the stairs.

On the main level, doors all along the corridor banged open and slammed shut as kids raced out of classes. We headed for the gym. As we turned the corner, a shriek cut through the din. I leapt through the wall and came out in the boy’s changing room. Two ten-year-olds were whipping each other with wet towels, dancing out of the way, and screeching with laughter.

We walked through the next wall and found ourselves in the men’s shower room.

“Circle around back to the hall,” Trsiel said. “But keep your eyes open in here for that young man Brett.”

As we stepped into the changing area, a loud pop sounded. A man leaning into a locker jumped, head clanging against the metal shelf.

“Damn it!” he said. “Did those boys get hold of caps again?”

“Nah, that came from the classrooms. Science club, I’ll bet,” another man said with a laugh. “Those kids. Remember when they made that—”

Three more pops. Then a scream. As Trsiel and I ran for the hall, one of the men shouted, “Someone’s shooting. Oh, my God! Brooke! Brooke!”

We raced through the wall, into the women’s changing area. Inside, women were shouting their children’s names as they ran, half-dressed, for the door. Others grabbed their cell phones to call 911, while more raced to a rear emergency exit, only to find it locked.

“Fire alarm!” someone yelled. “Pull the fire alarm!”

A teenage girl dove into our path, racing for the alarm, but it sounded before she reached it.

The hall was now jammed with people, all trying to get to the front door. I thought I heard a shot, but the screams and shouts all around us were too loud for me to tell, much less pinpoint a direction. I soon lost sight of Trsiel. I didn’t stop to look, just kept plowing forward through people.

Trsiel’s hand grabbed mine, tugging me backward.

“This way,” he said. “The first shots came from over here.”

One of the distant screams took on a shriller note, filled with more than panic. Screams of pain.

We followed the sounds into a room of stationary bikes. A woman lay huddled in the corner, screaming as an elderly woman tied a tourniquet around her thigh, trying to stanch the flow of blood. Jaunty music played, then a man’s chipper recorded voice came on, enjoining listeners to “pedal faster, but not too fast—save your strength for the big hill at the end.”

Across the room a woman my age still sat on a bike, pedaling erratically, stopping, then restarting, eyes wide with shock. Blood dribbled from a bullet nick under her arm. More blood, mixed with flecks of gore, spattered her face. That blood came not from her, but from the man in front of her. He lay backward over his bike, feet still trapped in the pedal straps, a hole through his eye socket.

Behind them, a young woman lay on the floor, convulsing, as a young man in sweats hunched over her, telling her, “It’ll be all right, honey, just hold on, honey, help’s on the way.”

As I looked around the room, I remembered those newspaper clippings I’d seen in Lily’s memory. Not single murders, but killing sprees. Lily said she wanted to be noticed. She wanted to be remembered. This wasn’t about killing one man who ignored her. It was about killing everyone who ignored her, and that meant everyone she met, everyone she could hit.

“Savannah!”

Trsiel grabbed my arm.

“No!” I said, trying to yank free.

His grip only tightened, as firm and unyielding as the Nix’s. “Go and make sure Savannah is safe. Then start hunting. If you see Lily—if you even
think
you see her—call me. Don’t try to stop her. You can’t.”

“I know.”

He released my arm and I tore off in the direction of the gym.

28

THE HALL HAD CLEARED AS EVERYONE JAMMED INTO
the section near the narrow front doors. The panicked screams had given way to sobbing and angry shouts of “Move!” and “Get out of my way!” Through the commotion, though, the sound
I
heard loudest was the softest—the whimper of frightened children. I tried not to think about them, packed into that seething mob. People knew there were kids here—they wouldn’t let panic override caution. Or so I told myself. It was the only way I could keep going in the opposite direction.

“Eve!”

I was almost at the gym when Kristof hailed me. I looked across the scattering of people to see his blond head cutting through them.

“Savannah,” I said, rushing to him. “Where is she?”

“I can’t find her.”

“Here, I’ll—”

He grabbed my arm as I raced past, toward the gym. “She’s not there, Eve. The courts are empty. They closed for lunch hour. She must be in the cafeteria. Where is it?”

“No, Lucas just dropped her off. If her class was after lunch, she’d have eaten at home. She—Art! She has art class on Saturdays. They were downtown last year, but they must be here now. The studios are up the hall.”

I turned and ran in the other direction, passing through the logjam at the front door and racing to the studios on the other side. Distant sirens blared. Then a shot. Another. More screams behind us.

The first studio door was closed, the room dark and empty. In the next, we found the remains of a class—a half-dozen adults huddled behind tables, a few whaling at the locked exit door. Unfinished sketches papered the floor. One middle-aged man grabbed an upended easel and threw it at the window, but it only bounced off the thick glass. A younger man raced for the hall.

“No!” a woman screamed after him. “It’s blocked. Stay here!”

My gaze swept across the faces, seeing no Savannah, no one even close to her age. As I turned, I caught a shimmer in the corner—like a portal, but much weaker, the glimmer so slight only a practiced eye could see it.

“There!” I said, pointing. “She’s cast a cover spell.”

I raced across the room and knelt beside the empty spot.

“Good girl,” I whispered. “Smart girl. Stay there. Stay right there.”

A shot sounded in the hall. A young woman to my left screamed. A figure wheeled through the door. Another young woman—skeletal-thin, all jutting bones, with greasy brown hair and an acne-pocked face.

She lifted a gun.

I started to call Trsiel. The woman beside me dove to the floor, sailing through me and knocking against Savannah. The cover spell broke, and Trsiel’s name died on my lips.

Savannah lifted her head. She saw Lily. Saw the gun.

“Cast, baby,” I said. “Cast it again. Hide!”

Her lips started to move…in a binding spell.

“No! Hide. Just hide!”

Lily turned toward Savannah. Something flickered in her eyes, something I recognized from the day before. The Nix. Her gaze fixed on Savannah, and her eyes flashed with jubilation.

Lily swung the gun in Savannah’s direction.

“Trsiel!” I screamed.

The gun fired. Kristof leapt into the bullet’s path, but it shot right through him. Savannah had no time to duck, no time to finish her cast. I threw myself over her, knowing even as I did that it would do no good, that my gesture was as futile as Kristof’s.

Someone gasped. Someone behind me. I twisted to see the other young woman, the one who’d hit the floor beside us. She was lying on her side, face contorted with pain and shock, hands on her stomach, blood flowing through her fingers.

I looked back at Lily. She stood there, a tiny smile on her face, gaze and gun fixed on her intended target—the dying woman, not Savannah. The Nix’s rage flashed behind her eyes. The air around Lily rippled, as a formless vapor flowed from her body.

Trsiel sailed through the doorway, sword raised. With a perfect lunge, he swung it and the sword cleaved through Lily. It passed right through her, bloodless, as it had when I’d used it on him. But Lily felt it. Her eyes went huge, hands dropping the gun as she clenched her heart.

“Trsiel!” I yelled, pointing behind Lily.

He saw the vapor, now taking on the faintest outline of the Nix. He charged, sword raised, and slashed at her, but she vanished before the blade made contact.

Lily slumped to the ground, slack-jawed, dead.

“Theresa? Theresa!”

Savannah was crouched over the young woman on the floor. As she cast a healing spell, her hands fumbled at the woman’s shirt, ripping it away from her stomach. The woman’s eyes stared, empty, at the ceiling. Savannah pressed her hands to the woman’s neck, feeling for a pulse.

“She’s gone, baby,” I said.

I reached for Savannah. My hands passed through her as she lowered her mouth to perform CPR. I tried again, tried with everything I had, to touch her, to hold her, but my fingers just slid through her body, my words tumbling out unheard.

I screamed with rage and frustration. Kristof’s arms wrapped around me, and he hugged me tight as we watched our daughter desperately try to resuscitate a dead woman.

“They’re coming,” Kris said, striding back into the studio. “Lucas dropped Paige off at the door. He’s parking the car now, and she’s running in.” He knelt beside Savannah. “Come over to the window, sweetheart. You can see Paige. She’s on her way.”

Savannah just kept rocking, her bloodied hands wrapped around her knees, gaze straight ahead. Two medics had arrived and were tending to Lily and the other woman, but no one had time for Savannah. Her classmates had fled the moment Lily dropped the gun, leaving Savannah alone with two dead bodies.

“Wasn’t fast enough,” Savannah mumbled, mouth pressed against her knees. “Should have picked another spell. A faster one.”

“You did fine, sweetheart,” Kris said. He reached for her hands, lips twitching as his fingers grasped only air. He threw a glare over his shoulder. “Where’s Paige?”

I walked to the window. From there, I could see the drop-off circle, now hastily taped off. Paige was stuck on the other side, arguing with a young officer. Her face was taut, eyes simmering, and I knew she longed to knock the officer flying over his yellow tape with a knock-back spell, and charge in here after Savannah. But I also knew she wouldn’t, not until she’d exhausted all the safe routes.

A young man strode up behind Paige. Tall, thin, Latino, wearing wire-rimmed glasses and a battered leather jacket.

“Lucas,” I breathed. “Thank God. You tell them.”

“He will,” Kris said from across the room.

Even from here I could see Lucas’s quiet demeanor fall away as he drew himself up, snapping orders with the air of authority only a Cabal son can muster. As he spoke, he eased sideways, pulling the officer’s attention with him. Paige sidestepped in the other direction, then darted under the tape and ran for the building.

“She’s coming,” I said.

I hurried into the hall to coax Paige along. Even if she could have heard me, she didn’t need the encouragement. She made a beeline for the studio, flying through the door and across the room, then dropped to embrace Savannah.

Savannah melted in Paige’s arms, sobbing against her shoulder. Lucas wheeled through the doorway a minute later. He left Savannah where she was, still clinging to Paige, face buried, but took her hand. With his free hand, he reached into Paige’s purse, dug out a tissue, and gingerly began to clean the blood from Savannah’s fingers. As I watched them, my heart ached. Part of me was happy, knowing that my daughter had the best guardians I could want for her. And yet another part of me hurt so bad seeing them there together—a family that didn’t include me and never would.

“I couldn’t help her,” I whispered. “I couldn’t do anything. I tried—I’ve been trying so hard. I thought maybe, just maybe—but I was wrong. I can’t do anything.”

Kristof’s arms went around me and I collapsed into them.

Paige and Lucas took Savannah home a few minutes later. Kristof led me around the back of the building and we walked the trails there for about an hour, saying nothing. I couldn’t stop thinking about that moment in the art room when Lily had lifted the gun, playing it and replaying it as I searched for a solution, something I could have done. There was an answer. One answer. Become an angel.

As I turned to Kristof, the words were on my lips.
I could protect her, Kris. If I became an angel, I could protect her. I could have stopped Lily and the Nix.
But as I imagined saying it, I knew his response. He’d see it not as the perfect solution, but as another step down into the quagmire—giving up my afterlife to serve as an angel so I could protect our daughter.

So instead I said, “Maybe I can’t help Savannah, but I can show the Nix that this little ‘demonstration’ hasn’t done anything but piss me off.”