The Guardian Lineage (13 page)

 

 

“Come on,” Aaron urged as he ran through the halls. “Everybody's waiting downstairs.”

Mike and Zachariah followed Aaron down the staircase and turned into Monster Hall, as the corridor with all the vampire paintings was now called. There was a collection of eight or nine guys poking fun at a painting that depicted a Gargoyle tearing flesh off of a carcass of some sort. Mike recognized Aaron's roommate – what was his name again? – and a few of the other guys from his classes, but he didn't really know any of them.

“You know there are cameras everywhere, right?” Mike said to Aaron. He'd seen them all over; just something he'd noticed as part of his paranoia training with his mom.

Mom
.

I hope you're all right.

And if she's not, DuBois… I'm going to rip your limbs off and feed them to a gargoyle.

“Got that covered,” Aaron said as he nodded to his roommate. “Take it away, Toadman.”

Mike had to admit, the short fat kid with horrendous acne did seem to resemble a blown-up amphibian. Either way, Toadman picked up a book that was lying on the floor and opened it to where his thumb held the place. He started mumbling, words Mike didn't recognize. As Toadman's eyes started fluttering, Mike got a strange sense that this was a great idea about to go terribly wrong.

“Uh, what's he doing?” Mike said nervously as Toadman's pitch got a little louder.

“Illusion spell, to cover up the cameras,” Aaron said, his face eager. “Found it in a book in the library. It's completely safe, don't you worry.”

Something about ‘found it in a book in the library' did not sound completely safe. “What does it do?”

Aaron said, “It puts a fake image in front of a camera, basic stuff. We've staked out all the cameras in the place – there are almost a hundred – and it's just taking a minute for the Toad to cover ‘em.”

“You don't think they've put spells on the cameras to prevent tampering?”

Zachariah said, “Shut up or don't come, Prior.”

“Fair point,” Mike allowed. Of course, there was no way he wasn't coming; this was nothing short of an inauguration into the cool clique at Windham, and he was
not
missing out on it.

Finally, Toadman's eyelids stopped trembling. “We're ready,” Toad proclaimed.

“Let's do it!” Aaron took the lead.

Mike followed towards the back of the group. From behind he could tell Aaron was checking to see if any Guardians were in the hallway. As it was around 11:00 pm, Mike knew most of them had to be sleeping. Of course, he couldn't imagine that one or two Guardians would
not
be on duty, watching the cameras, just in case anything went wrong. After all, he had just come out of a meeting with Garzan and Stockton a few minutes ago, so they couldn't have gone to sleep yet…

“Come on, quick,” Aaron whispered. Toad dissolved the video. Zachariah slipped ahead to hold open the door.

And then Mike was out in the open, following the guys who had poured down the steps. They tiptoed as they went, trying their hardest to move across the marble floor without making noise.

Mike's heart was in his throat. Somehow his mind was more alert than he could ever remember. He felt everything, as if the sensations could give him away at any moment. The strained breathing of the guys around him. The residual smell of gargoyle hide. The warmth of the lights as they burned down on his neck. His mind was fresh with memories of Yaris creeping up on him from behind Garzan's office, and every sound of foot on marble echoed in his mind as if someone was beating a gong.

As soon as Mike's foot touched the marble staircase, he heard a creak from behind, as if the front door had opened. Instinct kicked in, and he bolted up the stairs. Apparently some of the other boys had heard it too, because this triggered a miniature running of the bulls, which culminated with about ten boys plowing into each other on top of the landing.

“Get off of me,” somebody whispered.

“Come on!”

“Move it, go!”

Finally, somehow, they were past the glass doors that led to the girls' dorms. Mike took a peek behind him. The Greeting Hall was empty.

For what seemed like an eternity, no one moved.

“I think we're in,” Aaron murmured.

The mood in the hallway lightened immediately, and Mike found himself grinning and slapping palms with guys he didn't even know. Which was a pretty awesome feeling in its own right.

“Okay, what's the plan?” Zachariah said.

Aaron removed a sheet of paper from his jeans pocket. It seemed to be a list of some sort, a few pages stapled together.

“Zachariah, Annabella is Room—”

“I know where she is,” Zachariah dismissed him with a wave of a hand.

“Fair enough. Jonesy,” Aaron said to another kid, running a finger down the sheet of paper. “Sara Borders, room two-oh-one.”

Jonesy nodded and repeated the number. “Two-oh-one, got it.”

Mike slapped his forehead. So
that's
what they were doing… for some reason, Mike had it in his head that they were going on a destructive raid. Well, this was interesting…

Aaron pointed to Toad. “Jessica Robinow, right?” Toad nodded as Aaron flipped to the third page. “Room three-ten.” Quickly, Aaron read off a few more names. Then he turned to Mike.

“Mike, who're you raiding? Steph?”

“Sure, why not.” It wasn't like he had another option. His first choice lived a hundred and fifty miles away.

“What's her last name?”

“Er… I don't know.”

That caused a chuckle or two. Aaron frowned. He flipped over the sheet and skimmed it again, running his finger down to keep place. “That's funny. I don't see a Stephanie on the roster anywhere.”

“Really?” Mike said. “Lemme check.”

Handing the papers over to Mike, Aaron said, “Okay guys, you know where to go. You have one hour until the camera spell wears off. Probably a little less.” He spread his arms out wide, as if he was Santa giving out candy canes. “Enjoy yourselves!”

Mike turned back to the roster as the guys went off, hooting quietly amongst themselves. Steph wasn't on the student list? How could that be? Maybe she had a first name she didn't like, and Stephanie was her middle name? Had she transferred in late? No, that was impossible – any list would probably have the whole of the Guardian family, regardless of when they had arrived at Windham…

After running through the list three times, Mike realized he would just have to suck it up and ask somebody. He headed towards the stairwell, his heart racing, but not from fear. The last time he'd felt this way, he'd been standing outside Forest Hills High, holding a bouquet of flowers and getting ready to ask Laura out after the school play.

He took a deep breath and steadied himself. There were shrieks coming from inside the corridor, surely girls yelling in surprise over their male visitors. Mike smiled and reached for the door.

But then he heard more screaming, coming from upstairs. This had a different quality to it, almost… scared, desperate. In his curiosity, Mike abandoned the first floor and skipped up to the second, taking two steps at a time. But before he could reach the landing, a train of girls piled out past him.

They were squealing, crying, pushing each other down the stairs. Their faces were red, and they had expressions of terror on their faces.

What the…

Mike pushed past the flood of girls in pajamas and burst into the hallway.

Then he stopped dead in his tracks.

The walls, which Mike assumed were usually white, were splotched red, as if an elephant had dipped his nose in paint and sprayed it everywhere. Clothes, shoes, and books littered the floor.

And lying on the floor were two pairs of legs extending into the hallway, their upper bodies hidden from Mike's line of sight.

The limbs were as lifeless as a Barbie doll.

Holy hell…

Something caught Mike's eye. There was a video camera stuck into the top of the wall, in the corner. Surely the Guardians had seen whatever had attacked—

Mike swore under his breath.

The cameras weren't working. Because of Toad's spell.

That meant there were no Guardians coming to help.

Mike looked for some weapon to grab, very aware that whatever had attacked them was probably still here. He was too raw with his electrokinesis, he felt, to grab electricity from the light bulbs up like Stockton had done in class. There was no fire or water nearby. Mike cursed and resigned himself to telekinesis. He crept along the suddenly silent hallway, hands at his sides as if ready to pull a revolver from its holster.

What could it be? A vampire? A Slayer? One of the Brethren? Mike's imagination ran wild, causing his heart to beat at an insane level—

Then he heard the noise.

Terror flooded Mike's brain. It was not a human noise. It was animal in nature. Almost cat-like.

There was sudden movement from across the hallway. Mike tensed, but it wasn't a Calebra.

Zachariah exploded through the door.

“Get back!” Mike waved his arms frantically. “Get out, get out!”

“What?” Zachariah said, moving slowly towards Mike. “I heard the commotion, and then a ton of girls piled through – what's going on with—”

Out of nowhere, a flash of orange and black jumped through the air towards Zachariah's head. And then Zachariah was on the floor.

“No!” Mike ran through clothes and strewn books. He threw telekinesis in Zachariah's direction, hoping to knock the Calebra off him. His fourth shot hit its mark; the creature slammed into the wall and bounced off, twirling around and landing on its feet as if it was Sonic the Hedgehog.

This one was much bigger, almost the size of a small dog. Its face had a line straight down the middle, orange fur on the right, black on the left. Protruding from the black side was an enormous saber-toothed fang, almost vampiric in appearance. The creature's mouth was splotched with red. Mike prayed that was its natural color, whatever natural meant, because otherwise—

The creature reared back and zoomed off the floor as if it had rockets attached to its legs. Mike instinctively threw up a shield. The creature hit the shield with such force that Mike fell backwards, and for a moment the shield disappeared. Mike panicked, expecting the Calebra to charge at him, but no such attack came. Mike reformed the shield and scrambled to his feet.

It was halfway between him and Zachariah, who was back on his feet. The Calebra squealed like it had just been neutered.

“What
is
that thing?” Zachariah yelled from across the way. He formed a shield as well.

Mike realized Zachariah had never seen anything like it. Which meant he didn't know how dangerous it truly was.

“Go get the Guardians!” Mike called. He pointed to the end of the hallway. “The cameras are out!”

The Calebra darted back and forth, head whipping back and forth, apparently trying to decide who was an easier target. Its eyes were repulsive – yellow, bulging, different sizes… Mike smelled decaying flesh, and for a moment, bile rose in his chest, threatening to explode out his esophagus. He forced it back down.

“I'll get that thing,
you
go get the Guardians!” Zachariah said.

Mike wanted to strangle the kid. Just like in the park, this was not the time to get into a power struggle. Then Mike noticed Zachariah had one hand on the shield, one hand on his neck. Had he been bitten? What would happen to someone who was bitten by a Calebra? Was it a vampire-type thing? Or more like a dog-bite, where the worst thing you could get was a shot in your stomach to stop the rabies or whatever…

Mike fired telekinesis at the creature, but his attack was off the mark. Zachariah had grabbed a lighter from inside his pants pocket – that was a good idea, Mike had to get one of those – and fired as well. The creature jumped out of the way with incredible speed, ricocheting off the walls like a pinball. Zachariah's pyrokinesis collided with a strewn t-shirt and exploded into flame.

“What are you doing?” Mike yelled.

The Calebra spun off the wall and rocketed in Zachariah's direction. Mike heard a whoosh of flame as Zachariah fired again. This fireball shot over Mike's shield and straight past his ear. He jerked out of the way and watched the flames collide with the wall at the far end of the room. Paint peeled off and started burning on the floor.

When Mike turned back, he saw Zachariah engaged with a twirling ball of orange and black. He could see the Calebra's method of attack clearly now. The creature remained spinning the entire time, once in a while extending a claw or a mouth to bite, but always moving at astonishing speed. Zachariah kept his shield pressed against his body, flailing uselessly at the creature with his other arm. He fired more flames from overhead, but that missed and started another fire on a pair of jeans.

“Zachariah, you're gonna burn us in here!” Mike's body was slick with sweat. His breaths were coming in more laborious patterns now, as the hallway was starting to fill with smoke. He fired more telekinesis, but one of them inadvertently hit Zachariah's shield, causing him to stagger backwards. The Calebra seized the opportunity and pounced, coming out of its spin and sinking its teeth into Zachariah's arm. Zachariah screamed, and his shield disappeared.

“Help, somebody!” Mike yelled desperately above noise of the flames and Zachariah's howling. He fired again at the Calebra and connected, detaching the creature from Zachariah's arm. Blood squirted out of a hole the size of a dime. Zachariah fell to his knees, holding his bloody arm with his other hand.

The fire alarm rang out, compounding the noise in the hallway. Mike couldn't hear, he couldn't think – his only instinct was to shoot with one arm and hold his shield in the other. By now the Calebra had shaken off the effects of Mike's telekinesis and skirted out of the way to reroute its attack towards Mike, like a boxer dancing around a woozy opponent.