“Fine.” Courtney gave the chisel a few half-hearted taps. A few minutes later she yelped again. “Ow. It hurts!”
Not-quite-undead-children-of-the-cosmic-god sure do know how to complain.
“Out of my way.” I grabbed the chisel and shoved her aside. “I liked it better when we were enemies.”
I slammed the chisel into the small split Courtney had made and bashed it with the hammer. A chunk of stone flew out and skittered across the ground.
“Wow. You’re good at this,” Courtney remarked.
“It’s easy. I just imagine I’m hammering your perfect nose.”
Courtney snorted with laughter. After a few more hits, I felt the chisel slide through to meet the first cut. I bashed out the last of the loose stone and lifted out the sigil, my tired arms struggling with the weight. I dropped it into Courtney’s lap. “There you go. Are you ready for a walk?”
“Hell yes.” Courtney strained to push the sigil into her backpack. Once she’d drawn the string around it, she threaded her arms through the holes and tried to stand, only to slide back down again.
“I’m never going to be able to carry this.”
I smirked. “Not even for the chance to go to a real nail salon?”
Courtney bit her lip and struggled to her feet. She wasn’t used to being ordered to do things that made her uncomfortable. There was always some boy ready to help her. But not tonight.
Once Courtney looked steady and like she wasn’t going to try to palm off her sigil to me, we hiked along the ridge to meet the others. Trey had gathered the group in a semicircle. There were about forty of us, including me and the Kings. Eleven bulging backpacks were stacked in the center. Courtney’s and mine made thirteen sigils in total. We’d left the sigils carved into the cliffs that bordered the raging sea. In front of us were all the stones from across the peninsula – boundary stones that sealed the Edimmu within the school.
I stepped into the circle, meeting the eyes of every person there. When I got to John Hyde-Jones, he turned away and scowled.Great. Why’s he here again?“We’re splitting into groups. One sigil per group. Taking your sigil with you extends the boundary of the school to where you are. You won’t be able to move in front of it, but you can carry it as far away as you want. You have to stick together in your group or you risk being hurt as the sigils move. The most important thing is to come back with cash – as much as you can carry, but I’m giving you free rein to do whatever you please while you’re outside the boundary, as long as you don’t hurt anyone else and you don’t get caught. You have until the sun comes up to be back at Miskatonic Prep – drop the money into our dungeon room in the basement, and get back to your dorms before you’re caught. And don’t think about skipping out or reporting to your parents. I’ve got spies watching you.”
I clapped my hands. Through cracks in the rocks, shadows sprang up, circling the sigils with hissing cries. Amber shrieked and clutched Tillie’s shoulder. Other students shuffled away from my servants.
I clapped again, and the servants rose into the clouds, scattering across the sky, waiting and watching. “We chose you because we believed we could trust you. Don’t disappoint us. As far as the teachers and your parents are concerned, tonight never happened. Are we clear?”
John grabbed one of the sigils and raced off, Courtney hot on his heels. The others whooped and yelled as they leaped over the invisible line that had divided them from the real world for two decades. In their glee, they made those heavy stones look as light as feathers.
I watched them disappear with a sense of trepidation. Tonight was about more than just a means to get our hands on much-needed funds – it was a test, although they didn’t know it. Could I count on them to leave Miskatonic Prep without becoming a scourge on the world? Would I live to regret my part in making them free?
The shadows swooped after them, promising that my dreams would soon be filled with reports of the students’ activities.
“Why are they going back that way?” I demanded as I watched Courtney, John, Derek, and some others doubling back toward school.Great. I’m already regretting my decision.
“Probably to get Courtney’s car.” Trey picked up his satchel and followed them.
“Courtney has a car?”
“Of course. Lots of us do. Our parents left them behind after the fire. What’s an abandoned luxury vehicle to them? There’s an old stable building near the entrance to the school, but you wouldn’t see it unless you knew to look for it. Courtney’s Lambo and Quinn’s truck and my Porsche are all inside. In the early days of being Edimmu we’d drag race down the driveway, but that got old. It’s tough to get excited about driving fast when you can’t go anywhere. But Paul’s a bit of a hobby mechanic, so he’s been keeping them in working order.”
I glared at him. “Why the fuck were you trying to shove me into a boat when you could’ve just given me some keys and let me drive away?”
“Are you kidding?” Quinn laughed. “That car is Trey’s baby. He wouldn’t trust anyone else behind the wheel.”
“True.” Trey smiled. “But that wasn’t the reason. Like all the mobile phones, Ms. West keeps all the keys locked up somewhere. Ayaz tried to find them on at least two occasions, but no luck. We didn’t have the resources we do now.”
“You mean, like a scrappy thief from Philly?” I dug Ms. West’s keychain from my pocket. A couple of keys on there looked suspiciously like they belonged to cars.
Trey’s lips found mine, and his kiss seared with danger. I could feel the excitement rolling off him at the thought of getting behind the wheel again. “C’mon, our little thief. It’s time you discovered how Kings like to play.”
* * *
Trey was right – I never would have noticed the stable hidden in a thicket of trees. A round arena out front had grown over with thistles that reached nearly to the roofline, completely obscuring the entrance. By the time we arrived, Courtney’s group had already flung open the door and flattened a path out toward the drive. Even so, Trey got several thorns in his arms hacking his way inside. Judging by the grin on his face at the thought of seeing his beloved car again, he didn’t feel a one.
Icared. My arm stung like fuck from tugging out thorns. And I was concerned about all the evidence of our escape – the flattened weeds, the tire tracks, the sound of engines. “Walking would be much less conspicuous.”
