Ayaz slammed his book shut. “I want to get a good fucking grade on this project, and I’m not going to let some gutter whore scholarship student ruin it for me.”
The comment stung. I bit back a retort.Don’t take it personally. He’s doing exactly what you do, exactly what a bully does – lash out because he’s upset.
Ayaz grabbed another book. Seizing my chance, I yanked the picture out from under his stack and thrust it in his face. “Are you angry about her?” I demanded. “Because I saw her and you didn’t? I didn’t ask her to rescue me from the cave.”
He tore the paper from my hand. “Twelve years I thought she was dead,” he growled. “She never bothered to let me know otherwise, but she seeksyouout?”
“Maybe there’s a reason she hasn’t been able to get to you.”
“I won’t know, will I?” he said bitterly. “You never bothered to ask her.”
Is he blaming his bad mood on me?“I was a little busy trying not to die. Maybe instead of sitting around moping, you go back to the cave and look for her. While you’re there, maybe you could tell me about that sigil I saw and why it burst into flame?”
Ayaz glanced over his shoulder. Three tables over, a couple of juniors had their heads bent in their textbooks, no doubt trying to listen to every word we said. “We can’t do this here.”
“Fine.” I flipped a page in the book and started reading about mediums and seances. I quickly discovered this book wasn’t exactly a history of the occult. It was a history of the Spiritualism movement that started in the late Victorian era. The author exposed the frauds that had been used to trick people into believing they were communicating with the dead. Back in the 40s, there was a famous Scottish medium named Helen Duncan, who claimed to produce the spirits of the dead during her seances by excreting a slimy substance called ‘ectoplasm’ from her mouth and nose. The Secret Service started investigating her after she spoke with the spirit of a deceased sailor who revealed he’d been killed when a German U-boat sank the battleshipHMS Barham. This statement was true – theHMS Barhamhad indeed been sunk by a U-boat. however for strategic reasons the War Office were keeping the tragedy a secret. They needed to know how this medium was threatening the war effort.
During their investigations, it was discovered Helen was swallowing cheesecloth and other items and then regurgitating them on command to create the illusion. In 1944 she became the last ever person to be imprisoned under the 1735 Witchcraft Act.
The book included pictures of Helen sitting in her seance chair, with what was very obviously bits of cheesecloth coming out her nose and mouth. One of the bits had a rubber glove stuck on the end, and sometimes there were also doll heads or cut-out faces from photographs stuck on the cloth. I couldn’t believe people would fall for something so stupid, and yet according to the author, even now Helen still had her believers. The book stated:
In the darkened seance room, where attendees had already entered a state of mind where they expected to meet with strange visitations, where they longed to alleviate grief with news from the hereafter, and at the hands of a master manipulator, even the cheapest parlor tricks could appear supernatural…
That gives me an idea…
I was trapped in this school with a bunch of revenants or edimmu or ghosts or whatever. I was well past the point where I thought any of this was faked. Sure, the boys could have planted those tombstones, but no one could have faked the hatred pouring from the Great Old God’s hellish prison, or the horrific visions that haunted my dreams.
But these undead had ghosts of their own. I thought of Courtney’s photograph burning a hole in the bottom of my bag, of Amber’s sisters, of Quinn’s mother and her sad eyes. I remembered all the scholarship students in the files in Ayaz’s room, their faces crossed out with jagged marks.
I’d been looking for the perfect way to get revenge on all of them, to hit them where it would really hurt. Maybe, with the help of a few friendly ghosts, I’d finally found it—
“You don’t need to study anymore, you already know everything,” an insouciant voice interrupted my thoughts.
Trey’s hand trailed across the page. I slammed the book shut and shoved it into my bag. I didn’t want either of them to get an inkling of what I was planning. “I’m studying and Ayaz is ignoring me,” I said. Trey’s cruel expression gave nothing away, which usually meant he was about to throw down something brutal. “What do you want?”
“Get out of here,” Trey said to Ayaz. “I need to speak to Hazel.”
“We’re busy.” Ayaz didn’t look up, but his voice dripped with acid.
With a sweep of his hand, Trey sent all the books flying off the table.Thump, thump, thump.They landed on the floor. The two junior students got up and rushed for the exit.
Ayaz flung his chair back and rose, shoving himself up in Trey’s face so they were nose to nose. Fury flew between them as they hurled unspoken abuse at each other. At any moment I expected lasers to shoot out of their eyes. Finally, Ayaz shoved Trey in the chest, pushing him aside as he strode out of the library.
“What was that about?” I asked.
“Don’t know. Don’t care. Did you do something to Courtney?” Trey growled, slamming his palms down on the table, leaning over me in a way that would have been intimidating if he didn’t smell so damn good.
“I haven’t touched her, or any of the other Queens,” I smirked, leaning back in my chair and flicking a pen between my fingers. It was technically true.
A vein in Trey’s neck throbbed. “She hasn’t left her room in four days. Apparently, there’s something wrong with her skin.”
“Woe is her.”
“This isn’t funny,” Trey hissed. “If she finds out it was you, she could—”
“She can’t touch me, remember?” I flicked my Eldritch Club tattoo at him. “Relax. Stop acting like you’re about to go Kanye West on me. Just tell me what the problem is.”
Trey’s shoulders sagged. He moved to stand at the window, peering out one of the clear panels at the school grounds below. He looked like he was about to launch into another tirade at me when something caught his eye. He leaned forward, squinting through the glass. “Shit.”
