Storykiller (12 page)

“I’m not sure. He
said
he was there to help. He mentioned me needing a new Advocate. Is that something I need?”

“It certainly would make things easier. And perhaps you’d annoy
me
less.”

“Very funny.” Tessa sat in silence for a moment.

“Did he provide any actual help?” Snow asked, pushing a strand of white hair from her face.

“No. I threw him out.” Tessa paused. “Should I have let him help?”

“I have no idea, Scion,” Snow said, and it sounded both honest and as if she didn’t much care one way or another. Tessa frowned and looked at Snow.

“Is there another Advocate? I mean, can I just go to The Advocate store and get a new one?” she asked, and then bit her lip. Bishop hadn’t even been dead for two days and here she was trying to replace him. She felt like a complete jerk.

“I don’t know much,” Snow said. “There used to be loads of Advocates, a handful of families that knew about the Story dimension and The Scion, that trained and studied and helped new Scions, that passed information down to their children, almost like a calling. Like any kind of tradition, I guess, with parents wanting kids to grow up and be doctors or lawyers, but these families wanted them to be Advocates. A lot of honor in it, I suppose.

“Knowing secrets that nobody else does, knowing magic is real, all that crap. I don’t know how they decided who was next amongst the handful of families involved, who should be called, if there was anything prophetic about it or if they just drew straws. We didn’t have a lot of direct contact with them. The relationship between Story and The Advocate has always been a bit
adversarial
. When Scions stopped being called, we stayed in touch with some Advocate families for a while.

“But a hundred-and-fifty years is a long time for Mortals and most of us in Story honestly believed it was over. That ‘The Last Scion’ prophecy was hogwash and that you’d all died out.” Snow cast a glance at Tessa who was gripping the dash in silent protest of their bracing speed. “Obviously, that’s turned out not to be the case.”

“Bishop seemed to know a lot, like he had training or something,” Tessa said, gritting her teeth.

“Could be,” Snow said, disinterested. Tessa scrunched down in her seat. Her stomach hurt. Not from the crazy driving which she was actually getting used to but from a feeling of dread in her gut. She didn’t know if it was guilt tied to Bishop’s death or something else, but whatever it was, it was horrible.

The car screeched to a halt in the barren school parking lot. “Not here,” Tessa said, looking around. “In the back, where the faculty parking is,” she said, pointing to the side of the building. Snow drove them around to the back and parked in a space up front marked with yellow lines. Tessa almost said something and then figured it was pointless. She
was
The Snow Queen,
surely she could get out of something as mundane as parking tickets. Snow looked at Tessa and raised her fingers on the wheel expectantly.

“What now?”

“I’m going into the school. I want you to go stand by those windows,” Tessa pointed to a bank of windows perhaps fifty yards away under a large tree. “In about five minutes I’m going to drop this bag out that window,
and I want you to take it to your apartment for safe keeping.”

“Ugh,” Snow rolled her eyes. “It’s going to be heavy,
isn’t it?”

“Yes. Yes, the bag will be heavy,” Tessa said, annoyed. Snow motioned around the car dramatically.

“You know Scion, has it occurred to you that I don’t actually have any minions here? This is minions work. Why don’t you get yours to—”

“No. We’re leaving them out of this. Besides, neither of them have cars, or at least I can’t imagine they do,” Tessa said opening the door.

“Fine, Scion, but if I break a nail—”

“—If you break a nail, what? You’ll just have to magic it back together?”

“Well,
yes
,
” Snow said, pouting her lip out.

Tessa rolled her eyes. “Oh, the horror!” she said, her face wrenched in mock terror. “Get over it,” she added, yanking the duffel out and slamming the door. Tessa leaned down through the window. “And pick me up at 2:55 this afternoon out front. I need your help with something else.” Snow scowled and then did a half-decent impression of what Tessa thought a real minion probably did sound like.

“Yesssss my lieeeegeeeee.”

Tessa rolled her eyes again and ran toward the school. Snow sat in her car for five full minutes without moving. She thought about leaving for every second of those five minutes and then sighed, opened her door in a huff,
and hiked through the damp grass over to the windows Tessa had indicated.

Tessa had timed the visit just right, likely thanks to Snow’s insane driving. As it was, it was late enough that the doors were open and early enough that there were only a few crazy over-achieving souls present. Tessa ran down the hall to the administrative office and, after a quick peek assuring her it was still quiet and dark, she walked through the open space, past the massive front desk, and to a small cluster of offices to search for Bishop’s office. It was the first one, with his name on a plaque beside the door and two chairs, Tessa assumed for misbehaving students, in the hallway beside it.

Tessa pushed on the handle but the door was locked. She then pushed harder, a whole lot harder, and it snapped open. Tessa edged the door open and strode inside. It felt wrong to be there, but ever since The Stranger had appeared Tessa hadn’t been able to shake the idea that there might be something here that could help her, even if she wasn’t ready or willing to have a new Advocate. Looking at the small office, she discovered she had been really, really right. So right that she should have brought another bag, or five. The whole wall was bookshelves and they were filled beyond capacity, mostly with books that looked like they had nothing to do with being a high school counselor and everything to do with Scions and Stories.

Tessa flung the massive duffel onto the desk and opened the mouth widely. She surveyed the wall of books and tried to decide what to take, where to start. She began yanking the largest books off the shelves, as well as the ones that looked the oldest and most worn. In moments, the bag was filled to bursting. She zipped it up just as she heard people in the hallway. Tessa had intended to toss the bag out the window by the front desk, but Bishop’s office had a window and so she used that instead, hoping Snow wouldn’t be thrown by the small change, if she was even still out there. Tessa opened the window and tossed the bag, with all the gentleness she could muster, onto the damp grass below. Tessa thought of going through the window herself, but there was no time as the voices were now upon her. Instead, Tessa let the window fall shut behind her and reached for another book on the now somewhat ransacked shelves. She looked up as she heard a key in the lock.

“That’s strange, his office isn’t locked—”

Tessa tried not to look guilty as the woman who had given Tessa her class schedule on her first day pushed the door open and snapped on the light before clutching at her chest in surprise to see Tessa standing there. Tessa tried hard to remember her name…Amy or maybe Angela, something like that. Damn. She wasn’t sure.

“Sorry,” Tessa said, one hand raised in what she hoped was a calm,
‘let me explain’
kind of way. Behind the startled blonde administrator were two people that were in no way schoolteachers or administrators. A black woman, about five foot eight with close-cropped hair stood directly behind the administrator. She was fit and maybe thirty years old, wearing a white t-shirt, jeans, flat boots, and a brown leather jacket. She was striking, with large dark eyes that seemed like they didn’t miss anything. Tessa immediately felt anxious under her gaze. The man next to her was slightly taller and perhaps half a dozen years older, white, with short, dark-brown hair. He was ruggedly handsome and wearing similar clothes to the woman, but his t-shirt was black as were his boots and leather jacket.

They both had shiny Detective badges dangling from their necks on chains.

Crap!
Tessa thought inside her head so loud that she was sure everyone in the room could hear it.

“Miss…” the administrator trailed off as if searching for Tessa’s name the same way Tessa had searched for hers a moment ago. Tessa quickly volunteered her last name.

“Battle.”

“Yes,” the blonde woman said looking at her and then back to the Detectives, “Miss Battle, whatever are you doing in Mr. Bishop’s office unattended? How did you even get in here? It should have been locked,” she looked around, a bit thrown.

Tessa shook her head and shrugged her shoulders. “It was open.”

The administrator squinted her eyes at Tessa waiting for her to answer the other questions.

Tessa looked at the book in her hands.

“Oh. Uh. My book, I came back to get my book, which I left here, yesterday,” she said, hoping the lie sounded remotely plausible. “So um, I have it now and so I’ll just be going then,” Tessa said, and made a slight movement toward the three of them. The administrator moved a bit as if to let Tessa through but the detectives didn’t move at all. The man looked at the administrator and smiled charmingly.

“Angela. Thanks so much for your help, we can take it from here.” Angela
fairly melted into herself, nodded, said something even Tessa’s superhearing couldn’t pick out and excused herself. The whole time the other detective stared at Tessa, who had begun to sweat.

“Um, is there a problem?” Tessa asked, knowing full well there was a very serious problem.

“Miss Battle,” the female detective began, “I’m Detective Wade, this
is Detective Ripley. We’re investigating the death of Mr. Bishop.” Tessa was a practiced liar, but she found something especially repellant in lying about Bishop, pretending she didn’t know and faking concern when she felt quite real guilt and sadness.

“I…I’m sorry,” Tessa began, “I didn’t know.” Tessa tucked her head and clutched the book to her chest.

“How could you have?” Detective Wade said, looking at Tessa even more intently than before. Wade finally broke the stare and turned to Detective Ripley,
who was examining the ransacked shelves.

“Looks like everyone took a book, Miss Battle,” he said, his words careful but somehow not as accusatory as they seemed. Tessa glanced at the shelves.

“I wouldn’t know. I only took this one. Mine.”

Detective Wade reached out her hand. “May I see it?” Tessa hesitated,
she didn’t even know which one she had taken. Could be something horribly implicating, or totally innocuous.

“Of course,” she said, extending it to the detective, her heart hammering in her chest so loudly it was making it hard for her to hear herself speak. As she did so, she saw that it was emblazoned with elaborate gold foil script that said only
Fairy Tales
. Detective Wade raised an eyebrow at the title while Detective Ripley shot her a look Tessa couldn’t quite understand.

“Fairy Tales?” Detective Wade asked.

“It’s—a family heirloom.”

“And so why did Bishop have it?” Ripley cut in smoothly.

“He asked to see it,” Tessa said, wishing she had something to do with her hands and so she thrust them in her jacket pockets. Wade flipped through the book casually.

“Where were you last night between the hours of eight and ten p.m., Miss Battle?” Wade asked, without looking up. Tessa noticed that now while Wade ignored her, Ripley was clearly studying her.

“Home,” she said flatly. Ripley opened his mouth to speak. “Yes, alone. No, nobody can verify it,” Tessa continued, growing weary of the charade.

“Well, aren’t we a little Miss Junior Detective,” Wade said, looking up from the book and smiling. Tessa returned the smile, growing bold, perhaps foolishly.

“No. Just seen enough
Law & Order
episodes to last me a lifetime.” She caught Ripley smiling despite himself.

“Your parents can’t verify this?” Ripley asked.

“My dad is in San Francisco for work. My mom isn’t in the picture.”

Wade looked at something in the front of the book she had taken from Tessa and then snapped it shut. “Here,” she said, handing the book back to Tessa. “Don’t leave the county, Miss Battle,” she added, as if that was a way of saying goodbye. Tessa rolled her eyes.

“I’m seventeen, where do you think I’m going? Cross-country murder spree?” Tessa took the book back and was outside the busted door before either of them could answer her. Standing just around the corner, catching her breath and trying to not sweat through her jacket, she overheard Ripley speaking.

“Why’d you give it back to her?”

“Had her name in it,” Wade said matter-of-factly.

Tessa blinked and threw open the book. Sure enough, inside, written in faded but otherwise elaborate, elegant, and absolutely perfect calligraphy were the words “
Property of The Battle Family
.” Tessa’s head rocked back in surprise, her mouth open.

“Holy crap.”