Knight of the Black Rose (33 page)

"Damn it!" Will muttered. "Don't you know any spells?"

"Oh yeah, I know loads of spells that stops a person who can suck the life out of things," Lucy said sarcastically.

"I meant like opening a door...or blasting a hole in a wall," Will told her as they rounded another corner onto another darken corridor.

"I...I don't know..." Lucy said panicked, trying to think of something, but her mind wasn't focusing on anything except running and not falling over.

They ran for a couple more minutes, hearing the other person following them the whole time, but for some reason they weren't gaining on them; not that they wanted to hang around to find out why or who it really was, all they wanted was to get out of there as quickly as possible.

Lucy pulled out her wand and pointed it at the wall that they were quickly approaching. "Ap...Apertus!"

Light suddenly shot out of the end of her wand, and shot straight at the wall shaking it violently; a door shaped hole appeared in it, and light flooded into the corridor as they ran flat out towards the opening. The foot steps echoing behind them seemed to suddenly get closer as though whoever it was was actually now in the same length of tunnel that they were in.

They ran straight out into the brightly lit corridor, almost running straight into the wall, but Will hit off of it as they quickly turn to carry on up the hall; but a moment later they both stopped as they heard something heavy hitting the wall behind them. They slowly looked back, but there was nothing there, not even the hole that Lucy had just opened; just another corridor back at the estate.

"Oh, my, goddess." Lucy said as she bent over breathing heavily.

"It had been right behind us." Will said staring at the wall that they had just come through.

"Do we have to stay...?" Lucy started as she looked up suddenly and over her shoulder behind her; and Will nervously followed where she was looking.

"There isn't anyone there, seriously don't do that to me," Will told her.

"They're coming," Lucy told him.

"What? Who's coming? I can't see anyone," Will said distractedly as she stood up and pulled on his sleeve to get him moving.

"The teachers," Lucy told him.

"Good, we can tell them what happened," Will said not understanding why she would want to get out of there.

"They told us not to go through the doorways, we went through one," Lucy told him as she tugged harder on him, pulling him back towards a door and quickly opening it. "We can tell them later,"

They stumbled into the room that she had just opened, and turned around to take in what was there; they were even more horrified to find themselves in what looked like a the teachers staff room.

"Okay...err...what do you suggest now?" Will asked her as she quickly looked around the room, but all he could see were over stuffed old chairs and a few tables pushed up against the walls with papers on them.

Lucy looked over her shoulder, and found just what she needed and pulled Will along with her. "There's another door back here,"

"You're crazy, we could just tell them," Will told her as she opened the second door, but this one led into a closet which she pushed him inside of and then she got in behind him. "This is insane..."

"We can find out what happened back there, and then we can tell them what happened to us," Lucy told him.

"We're gonna step out of the closet while they're talking?" Will asked amused, when he knew that he shouldn't be, because they would probably end up in a world full of trouble for spying on them.

"No...no, later on...afterwards," Lucy told him as though this was obvious stepping back quickly as the door to the office opened and the teachers started to pile in.

"This is ridicules, the schools supposed to be secure," a woman said somewhat alarmed as she came in and sat down heavily in an arm-chair.

"Twice now, that thing...whatever it is, has gotten on the island and into the school grounds," a slightly older man added as he took the seat beside of her.

"Scans have been rounding around the clock, and we still don't know how it's gotten in undetected," Domnus told them.

Loring struggled inside pushing Hunter out of his way, who glared after him. "I just ran into a couple of students from the hanger, they said that on the stairs coming out of the stadium, two of them disappeared,"

Everyone turned around to look at him, before Domnus walked over to the notice board on the far wall, he pressed something that they couldn't see and then it shimmered slightly, it was a computer console.

"A school wide scan, says that everyone is accounted for," Domnus told them as he turned back around. "But there are a couple of doorways on each of the stairwells, and with them acting up lately; we should have them checked out,"

"So basically, because you haven’t been able to fix the problem, all the students are in danger of this thing?" Loring asked.

Domnus shook his head slightly. "I doubt it. Whoever is behind these attacks have managed to get into some pretty secure places in the city,"

"As you know Domnus, the school has more security than anything else on the planet," Jevidah pointed out as he calmly took his seat.

"You honestly don't believe pointing fingers at each other is going to help solve this problem?" Burnhill asked them beside of Domnus.

Jevidah smirked at her. "We all know that the only reason that you're siding with him, is because the two of you are sleeping with one another,"

Lucy and Will really had to restrain themselves from saying anything after hearing that.

"I don't see what that has to do with anything," Burnhill told him. "If I saw something wrong with his assessment of the situation, I would still tell him, as he would want to know. He's a grown man, who can take being talked back to; unlike some I know and work with,"

"You should be careful, not to step outside of your comfort zone Adela," Jevidah warned.

Burnhill just smiled at him as though his threat didn’t bother her, only amused her, as it seemed to amuse Validus who came up behind Jevidah.

"So, how has the analyse gone from the samples of the trees?" Validus asked him.

Jevidah slowly turned around to face him. "I haven't been able to figure out what caused it. But as we already know, whatever it was, drained the life out of them,"

"So have Wraths been completely taken out of this?" Hunter asked.

"I would take them off my list, mainly because they don't have this kind of control," Loring said sarcastically. "Shouldn't you know that, considering the subject that you teach?"

Will and Lucy looked at each other, they couldn't believe that their teachers actually talked to each other like this, especially considering that they kept telling them all, that they had to try and get along with everyone.

"I'm well aware of the normal behaviour of Wrath, thank you," Hunter said controlling his temper. "But I'm also sure that the Order is probably behind all of this, meaning that they could have someone controlling them, it isn't unheard off,"

"Why do you always balm everything on the Order, are you so afraid of them?" Loring asked.

Hunter suddenly shoved him making Loring stumble backwards, before he could catch himself. "I'm not afraid of those bastards!"

"Gentlemen, please calm yourselves, this isn't helping," Domnus said calmly beside of him.

Hunter pointed at Loring. "You should learn to keep your mouth shut,"

"Only when I have nothing of value to say," Loring said smiling at him calmly as he brushed down his jacket.

"We all know that it's the Shadow Order behind this," Validus told them as though he wasn’t at all bothered by their behaviour, like this happened all the time. "The school took on more students from non-magical families this year than any other year..."

"Then that's the reason," Jevidah said standing suddenly as though everything had been solved.

"But our school wasn't the one that took on the most," Validus informed him. "There are basic magic schools, that have taken on those this year that just show the smallest sign,"

"He has got a point," Burnhill agreed. "If they wanted to attack any schools, you would have thought it would have been one of them,"

"So what, you don't think it is the Order now?" Jevidah asked seeming a little confused as he sat back down.

"The problem is, we haven't yet figured out what it's really after," Burnhill said.

"Actually, my dear; we already know that it's after life force," Eldamar said from the door. "The only problem is that we haven't figured out why it needs it, or how much it needs,"

A man at the back of the room cleared his throat loudly before he stood up to be seen. "It could be some sort of creature or being, it could be hurt or between this plain and the next, living off of others,"

"That's a very good point Balfour," Domnus said thoughtfully. "Can you think of anything that might have that sort of ability, or even change to be able to do something like that?"

"I guess there are a couple, but I'll have to do some proper research on the matter to be sure," Balfour told him.

"Thank you," Domnus said.

"I've gone through my references, but I can't seem to be able to find anything like this ever happening," Prewitt told them. "I've also been looking into the sealed records, hopefully they'll be something in them, but you know how difficult that's going to be to find,"

"Anything you can do the better," Domnus told him.

"The Lictores officers are already running scans on the lake," Eldamar told them. "They'll want to speak to you all. Jevidah, I asked them to give you some samples, which they were more than happy to do,"

"How come he's the only one who gets samples?" Loring asked annoyed.

"Because he's the head of the department," Eldamar told him calmly.

"That means that he's probably better than you," Hunter said smirking.

"It's like working with a bunch of children," Eldamar said shaking his head as he turned and left.

"Okay then, anything any of you can think of, you can bring to me," Domnus told them. "We could use all the ideas you can think of,"

"Us head of estates, should check in with the students," Hunter told them turning to leave, but then he stopped suddenly turning back around. "What are we going to do about the kids writing home to their parents about this? It could end up in the human newspapers,"

"Nothing more than we're already doing, as we can't stop them from writing home as it'll cause more of a problem," Domnus said. "We'll just have to hope that who ever sent in the last story, has a bit more common sense not to send this one,"

"I doubt it," Hunter said annoyed about the situation, before he walked off closely followed by Loring.

"It's going to get out sooner or later," Jevidah agreed as he slowly got up. "I have a lot of work to do," Then he walked past them and out of the office.

"That went better than I thought it would," Validus said as he walked in front of Domnus and Burnhill. "Though he was right about the two of you. I think it's just the students that haven't realised, even though they're normally quite good at getting that sort of thing."

"It isn't that obvious," Burnhill said.

"Actually it is, considering that the two of you live together outside of school," Validus told her.

"It's fine, it wasn't was as though we were keeping it a secret," Domnus told her as he linked her arm, and smiled. "It's perfectly fine, and you can move into my quarters properly now,"

They watched from the cupboard as the rest of the teachers slowly filed out, not sure how long they were actually in there, only knowing that it was a very long time until they could finally step out and breath properly not having to worry if someone would over hear them.

"I can't believe we just did that," Will said as he slowly went over to the door to look out, to see if the corridor was clear or not.

"At least we found some interesting stuff out." Lucy said smiling as she came up behind him opening the door wider before he even told her that it was safe to go out, then she pushed him out in front of her. "We should get back though,"

"I can't believe you just did that, what if they would have still been stood out here?" Will asked annoyed.

Lucy smiled at him. "We could tell them that we fell through a doorway into their staff room,"

Will looked at her as though she was crazy, but then seemed to realise that she had a good point. "That's not bad, it would have explained why we were there,"

"See," Lucy said walking down the corridor.

"So how long did it take you to think that up?" Will asked her.

"A couple of minutes after they mentioned that the doorways have been acting up," Lucy told him. "Basically they could be going anywhere, and they wouldn't know about it until someone fell through one,"