The Assassin Game (9 page)

She reaches the end of the pool, her head bobbing up for a quick breather.

“Cynthia!” Mr. Churley practically screams.

She stops and grasps the side, looking up at him and her friends and then the rest of us in puzzlement. She sees us looking in the water. And then she sees it. The red slick, the red swirling around her legs, trailing after her, pooling behind. Her face flashes alarm, then—oh the horror—full-on realization…

A small yellow thing pops up in the water beside her. She reaches for it and lifts it out of the water gingerly.

Pop! Pop! Pop!

More yellow things emerge across the pool. Cynthia thinks it's finally time to get out. She hauls herself up the ladder in the corner, red streaking her thin, pale legs. A friend wraps a towel around her, and the red leeches pink through the white toweling.

There's a splash beside me, and I turn to see a figure jumping clumsily into the shallows. Vaughan emerges, shaking the water off his hair, and reaches out for a yellow thing. He strides through the water, brings the yellow thing to the edge and throws it at my feet like a well-trained Labrador. I jump as it rolls against my flip-flop.

A rubber duck.

I bend slowly, picking it up between finger and thumb, as if it's contaminated—which it might be.

Someone has drawn big, fangy teeth on the duck's bill with black marker.

Back down at the deep-end poolside, Cynthia is fiddling with something on her lower back. She struggles for a few seconds, then holds whatever it is up in front of her. Difficult to see it exactly from here, but it drips red, like a giant, bloody teabag.

“Killed!” Vaughan shouts from the water. “Cynthia, you are Killed!” He runs down the side of the pool to her.

Not too far for me to see the look of disgust and anger on Cynthia's pretty face. She tosses the teabag into the water, striding up the poolside, the long, bloodied towel flying out behind her. Her chiseled features are set with anger, bony fists clenched. Everyone is laughing now; a couple more Killer Ducks are retrieved from the pool, and as Cynthia passes us en route to the locker room, someone starts quacking. She flashes them an angry look. Oh, blimey. Cynthia is going to be plagued with quacks forever, that's for sure. But I can see the relief in her eyes too; she may be the Duck Queen now, but at least she's not going to be Period Girl, because that would be utterly unbearable.

“Look around you. Who's here?” The whisper in my ear makes me jump.

Vaughan is beside me again, bare body glistening in the sunlight.

“Come on!” He grabs my arm, pulling me away from the throng and around the side of the grandstand. “Check out what I hooked with the pool net!” He holds up a sodden, very thin rectangle of material, about the size of a phone; the bloodied “tea bag” that was attached to Cynthia. It is still dripping red.

“Reasonably clever,” he says. “Muslin, with an inner layer of polymer, I'd bet. Then probably the same dye as the Killer used in the showerhead.”

“That little pouch caused all of that red in the water?”

Vaughan nods gleefully. “Along with Donald and Daisy.” He holds up a couple of the ducks. “Look—this one's still got some of the polymer attached to the back.”

“Er, poly-what?”

“Water-soluble polymer. You know, the stuff that covers dishwasher tabs? It melts off when it comes into contact with water.” He chuckles. “Pretty ingenious.”

“Who the hell has that lying around in their locker?” I'm shivering out of the sun.

“It's easy to come by. They wrap magazines in the stuff, eco-friendly, you know? Or you can buy it online.” Vaughan shrugs. “Maybe they have some in one of the labs? Or the Killer came prepared just in case?” He looks around the corner to where I can hear Mr. Churley ordering everyone back into the locker rooms. “The important thing to know is that the Killer is here right now. Someone stuck this to Cynthia's back while she was swimming; she would have noticed it otherwise. And they planted the ducks at the bottom of the pool.” His eyes narrow and he frowns. “I wonder how. Maybe they were weighted; maybe there was some kind of adhesive? But the Killer wouldn't have been able to place them there in advance because the plastic melts relatively quickly.”

I pull a face. “OK…did you see anyone planting copious ducks at the bottom of the pool, Vaughan?”

“No.” He shakes his head. “Oh, I wish I knew how it was done! Do you think Churley will notice if I jump back in and take a look?”

“I think he just might,” I say. “Because you can bet that he's going to be furious that someone ruined his precious pool, and he's going to be thinking how in the name of Bloody Mary he's going to explain to Ezra why the thing needs cleaning.” I grab Vaughan's arm. He's surprisingly warm, given that he's wet and practically naked. “Besides, you always hated the water, didn't you? We need to go and get changed.”

But in spite of playing mother hen, you can bet your life that I'm running through a mental list of who was here at the poolside this morning. I go into the girls' locker room. Everyone from the Guild was here, all except Marcia. I can probably cross her off my list of suspects. I sigh as I get my clothes out of my locker. But that would be a great way to fool us, wouldn't it?

The locker room is unusually quiet as we all get dressed. We're on edge, and no one more than me, fully expecting to find another note, a “you're next” in my shoe, or a “get ready!” in my bag, but there's nothing.

Clothes on, I feel the little black band around my wrist and get out of there—still alive, still in the Game. I loiter outside the locker rooms, waiting for Vaughan to appear, but he never does. As I'm about to give up, I notice something bright and familiar in the hedgerow that lines the path to the pool. I trot up to it and reach into the stinging nettles tentatively, grabbing a leather handle and pulling until the hedge gives up its prize.

Marcia's tote bag dangles from my hand. Unmistakable. How did it get here? I open it, but it's empty. Water drips off the material as if it's been sitting in a puddle, not stuffed into a hedge.

I run with it to the newspaper office, composing my questions for Marcia in my head as I go. The doorknob sticks in my hand; I give it a twist and a shove.

“Marcia!”

My voice sounds stern as it echoes around the room. The place is in darkness.

I dump the bag on the floor by her desk and go back to the door to leave, but it won't open. I turn the handle this way and that, pull it, and push it, but it's jammed again. Struggling, I feel my heart begin to pound. Just as I'm about to cry out in panic, the door opens and I fall outside and run the rest of the way back to Main House as if someone is chasing me.

Saturday morning. Two dead, and I'm not one of them.

Alex thumps the yellow skull down on the breakfast table and a roar goes up. The Summoning is called for four o'clock; we are more than ready.

There's no bus to the mainland today, and after morning classes, the place is busy with people running around in the late-September sunshine. I don't like this; I want everyone not Guild to just clear out and leave Skola to us. After the high-profile Kills of this week, everyone is on high alert for interference from outside.

We all get IMs from Alex. We're under strict instructions to be as sly and quiet as possible, to travel individually, to double back and give any stalkers the slip. Of course, it strikes me that this is the perfect opportunity for the Killer to catch someone alone, and that could be deadly.

But before the fun and games, I have work to do. Daniel. The time has come. On the one hand I miss him; on the other I'm sick of the puppy-dog eyes I'm getting from across the crowded dining hall. Somehow, because the sun is shining, it makes what I have to do feel safer. Behind it all, everything between us is actually sunny and light and fine, and we will banish those silly dark clouds away before they block out the light completely.

I try the music studios first. I'm surprised he's not there, but not that surprised. He often goes to the cliffs to practice on weekends—a wandering minstrel serenading the seagulls. I think a little walk may be in order. I start to cross the library quad to swing by my study and pick up a scarf, because in spite of this startling autumn sun, I know it will be windy and cold by the sea. The quad is a natural sun trap, and this morning it is as busy as it gets—kids sitting on benches, a few on skateboards, messing around in a way only allowed on the weekends. The quad is enclosed by a continuous single-level building on three sides, which houses the upperclassmen's studies. Each study is tiny—just enough room for two desks and a small sofa, and all run off a narrow corridor which looks out onto the quad. On the fourth side is the library: a mock-Tudor, two-floor building with a clock tower. At Umfraville, this quad is the center of our world.

I duck into my study and grab the scarf. Marcia is so seldom here, but she must have been in earlier because she has shut the curtains, and only a chink of sunlight illuminates the tiny room. I sigh; Marcia's tote bag is a shadowy lump on the desk. After the pool, I'd tracked her down in the common room, told her I'd found her bag in the hedge all wet, and asked how it had got there. But she was only half listening, laughing with Alex and Rick as they regaled her with the Cynthia Kill, and somehow she got it into her head that I was saying I'd borrowed her bag. She turned the questions around on me—why did I need it? How come it was wet? I gave up and left her to it. Some things kind of get lost in translation. Or maybe she was just being very, very clever.

I flick the light switch on in the room, and colors jump out at me—posters covering every inch of wall, a tasseled red-and-fuchsia scarf from Spain, and some of my more experimental acrylic paintings in bright primaries. Marcia's desk enjoys pole position on the opposite wall beside the window. There's a two-seater sofa on the other side, and there are two small bookshelves squeezed in here somehow. My desk is by the door…and on it is a steaming mug of what smells like hot chocolate.

“Ooh.” My mouth waters. It smells so good.

There's a red card—a valentine's heart—propped up beside it. I pick it up and open the card. Typed words jump up at me:

LET'S BE FRIENDS AGAIN!

DRINK ME

I blush, fingering the heart, and I know immediately who it's from: Vaughan. Has to be. We used to have hot chocolate together when we were little kids; it was one of our things. We caused all kinds of chaos by melting down chocolate bars on the stove at his house—his parents let us do such things at eight mine never would have—and we'd make ourselves sick on the hot, sticky mess we produced.

And he always loved
Alice in Wonderland
, hence the “Drink Me” ref.
Oh, Vee
, I think to myself. This is full-on corny, but it's full-on lovely too.

I pick up the mug, hugging the warmth with both hands. The heart motif is continued in chocolate syrup resting in the foam. I imagine drinking deep from the mug, that foam caressing my upper lip, the warm liquid filling me up. Maybe it's not so awkward having Vaughan around after all. He's proving to be pretty popular with the female side of the senior class in any case.

I bring the mug up to my lips, taking in the sweet, creamy smell.

And then I stop, jerking the mug away sharply, so that the liquid spills down my hand and burns me. I cry out and drop it stupidly. The stuff splashes down my jeans and onto the floor, the mug rolling under my desk.

“What the hell were you thinking?” I clutch at my throat. “You stupid fool!”

We're in the midst of the Game, and I've just had my watch returned to me with a creepy note, and now someone leaves me a hot cocoa in my study with instructions to drink it?

I assume it's Vaughan? Get real. This was left by the Killer. Seriously, is this amateur hour? Sometimes I am so preoccupied and dense.

I sit down at my desk, breathing heavily. It was
Jabberwocky
Vaughan used to like, not
Alice
. I wipe my hand on a dry bit of leg and look at the mug lying under the desk as if it's going to jump up and bite my throat. It's totally illegal within the Game now, but there could be laxatives involved. Not fun. On the other hand, hot sauce or just adding something bitter or gross-tasting but benign is completely allowed—and completely revolting. And if I was taken down by a Kill as ridiculous as this, I'd look pathetic!

I sniff at my hand. It doesn't smell hot sauce-y. That means nothing. I get down on my hands and knees and prepare to retrieve the mug, glancing behind me, up at the window. Is anyone watching? I scan the room for anything out of place, a camera, something? The other Kills were so public. This seems weirdly private—and wrong.

I lean forward and carefully pick up the mug. It's a standard white school one. Nothing special. I back out from underneath the desk and stand up slowly, looking inside the mug.

I'M WATCHING YOU

The same jagged red letters as the note with the watch scrawled inside. I nearly drop the flippin' mug again. Genuine terror rises up in me like white heat, crawling up my body and making my face hot and my head spin. Finding an insect in the bottom of your cup? This is worse, much, much worse. Thank God I didn't drink it.

A shadow passes in my peripheral vision, and my head whips around to the window. I leap toward the curtains but stop short of opening them. What if the Killer is out there? What will I see? The sunshine and the background noise of kids screaming in the quad behind me give me courage. I pull back the curtains.

Nothing. A lawn, some trees. In the distance, a gardener is raking leaves. Beyond him is the walled rose garden. Nobody else around. I breathe.

I look down at the mug again, and as the fear dissipates, my heart sinks. Am I Killed? Am I out of the Game now? I didn't drink the chocolate though, and even if I did, it just says, “I'm watching you.” Wouldn't it say something more like, er, “You're dead” or “Gotcha”? But no, he or she is just messing with my mind. Like with the watch. I put the mug back on my desk. Do I report this? Keep it to myself? I don't remember the protocol. It could be I'm not the only one getting these love notes from the Killer.

A knock on the door makes me jump out of my boots.

Shall I open it? Is this part of the Killer's plan?

I climb up onto my desk, grabbing my hockey stick and piling up some art textbooks to stand on. Leaning on the doorframe, I use the end of the stick to press the handle down and open the door slowly. I peek through the top of the door as it opens.

Daniel stands there, violin case in hand. Relief floods through me. Even Daniel is better than the Killer.

“Cate?” He's clearly freaked out by the door being answered by Ms. Invisible. And he's not holding anything. I decide to risk it.

“Hi!” I wave lamely from above. “Just thought you might be the Killer.”

“Oh! Hello, up there.” He smiles a little. “Killer? Maybe I am, but that's not why I'm here.”

“No, it's not.” I hop down, pushing the mug behind the art books so he can't see it. “Or at least if you are the Killer, I don't think you'd come knocking. You wouldn't be that ordinary.”

He likes that, nods. Then we have that silence that I knew we'd have. At last, he breaks it. “I've been looking for you.”

“Me too,” I say, exiting the room past him. Something makes me not want to share the cup situation. I haven't figured out who to share Killer stuff with yet, apart from Vaughan.

Daniel follows me, and I shut the door, babbling nonsensically. “When I say ‘me too,' I mean that I've been looking for you too, not looking for myself in some kind of existential soul-searching way or anything.” I raise an eyebrow and sigh. “We need to talk, don't we?”

He gulps, blushes. Oops, too direct. Trust me to cut to the chase.

“Yes, we do,” he says finally. “I know you've been avoiding me.”

Hmm. I'll let that one pass. I lock my door behind us. We rarely lock our study doors around here, but normal takes a rest during the Game, so Daniel doesn't comment. We walk down the corridor and out into the quad where kids are still hanging out. Someone's kicking a ball, and I can see Alex in one corner, with some of his cronies and groupies around him. He's playing his guitar and pulling his best misunderstood-rock-star face. For a moment, I wish I was sitting there too, but I banish that thought.

“Shall we go for a walk?” I say. “Far from the madding crowd?”

“Absolutely.” Daniel looks relieved. More than two people is a madding crowd for him.

We walk across the quad, dodging the skateboarders and ducking the football, and head for the archway. Then from behind us comes a scream. We both swing around.

Tesha, who had been sitting on the bench directly in front of the library, is standing, shaking her hands, and some kind of liquid is flying off them. Her friends, Whitney and Anvi, have also evacuated the bench, which is dripping with something gooey.

Splat! Splat!

Little explosions on the ground, and the goo splashes on concrete. Something is falling from the sky.

“Red,” Daniel murmurs.

“Where are they coming from?” The sun is in my eyes, and I hold up a hand to shield my face.

“Up there.” He points to the clock tower. Sure enough, another couple of missiles appear from a small window below the clockface.

“Killer!”

A shout from the archway—it's Vaughan. He runs to us, pointing to the crowd of Guild. “Quick, Cate, take it in. Who's here? Who's missing? The Killer must be in the tower. We'll catch him!”

And he takes off, sprinting across the quad toward the library. I follow, and Daniel—never given to sprinting usually—follows me. We run past the Three Witches—Tesha, Anvi, and Whitney—who are all now wearing varying degrees of blood splatter, and into the building. In the entrance hall, Vaughan pauses to look back and forth, but I'm way ahead of him.

“This way!” I beckon from a door in the corner. Vaughan doesn't know about the stairs that lead to the clock tower. It's usually out of bounds to kids, but a few of us art students were allowed up there last term to paint the view from the very window that the missiles appeared from. I race down a corridor through another door and then up the stairs. When my brain has time to catch up with my feet, I'll try to remember which Guild kids were included in that art class.

“This the only way in and out?” Vaughan bounds past me.

“I think so!”

Somewhere above us, a door slams.

“Quickly!” Vaughan leaps up the stairs, seemingly without effort. I'm close on his heels, Daniel somewhere behind.

I reach a door and stop—but Vaughan runs on.

“Here!” I hiss. “This is the room with the window!”

He jogs down the stairs again. “What's in there?”

I shrug. “Nothing much. It's a storeroom.”

“And up there?” He points up the stairs. “Only the clock?”

“As far as I know.”

Vaughan nods. “You.” He points at Daniel, who has joined us, and is doubled over, panting. “Stay here. If the Killer comes down the stairs, yell.”

Daniel looks up at him, raises his eyebrows. “Er, no.”

“Please, Daniel,” I whisper. “We'll just be a minute.”

“I don't even know why I'm here to be honest.”

Vaughan looks shocked, offended even. “You're Guild, aren't you? You want to find the Killer.”

Daniel sighs but nods. “Go on, then. I'll play along. But if I get whacked standing here like an idiot, it's on you two.”

Vaughan claps him on the back. “Understood. Good man.”

I sense Daniel stiffen, but he says nothing, and Vaughan doesn't seem to notice. Vaughan nods at me and eyes the door. “After you.”

Thanks. I give him a look, open the door slowly, and peek inside.

The first suspicious thing is that the light is on. Incongruous fluorescent strips, buzzing away in the exposed rafters of the sloped roof. Dust has been stirred up; I feel it in the air, scratching my throat and making my eyes water. I blink. The room is large and almost bare except for a few stacked library chairs, a couple folded trestle tables, and half a dozen boxes of books. There is nowhere much to hide.

I take a step in, and the bare, varnished boards creak spookily beneath my feet. There's a pillar a couple feet away from the door, and the view to the window is obscured. Vaughan and I tiptoe to the pillar and peer around it to the window.

Thock. Thock. Thock.