Demon Accords 8: College Arcane (30 page)

“Ha ha. As if. We were turning around right
here to head back but stopped for a moment to talk.”

“Well, your tracks have already filled in, so
I wouldn’t dawdle if I were you,” he said.

“Thanks, Carl. We won’t.”

He nodded, powered up his window, and pulled
away. After a moment, I followed him and stayed two car lengths
behind him all the way back to Burlington.

We made it in time to grab a quick dinner
before the buffet got put away. We were the last ones through and
by the time we were done and had taken our dishes up, it was almost
time for class with Gina.

Before she could start the night’s
discussion, one of the remote viewer kids raised her hand.

“Gina, why did you have the entire school sit
in last night’s class? All of us Explorations of Power students I
understand, but why the Control class kids too?”

“Because Ms. O’Carroll requested it and I
liked her reasoning. She said it was about respect. The physical
minded among us have plenty of chances to impress the Explorations
of Power class during Mr. Jenks’s morning workouts. Ashling felt
that the weres and more combat-oriented kids could benefit from
seeing what was possible on your side of things, Gail.”

“Mission accomplished,” Matthew said,
glancing my way. The class laughed, even the stoic Janek smiling
briefly at the joke. Delwood just frowned.

“So, tonight I want to start with a
follow-up. I had a call from Chris Gordon today. He and his team
came back to the States last night and today they visited the scene
of that ritual murder we talked about. I say murder because they
confirmed it was a circle of witches.”

“And they’re knowing it was witches how?”
Ryanne asked.

“Ms. Reynolds apparently has
a friend in the city who is a skilled witch. She reviewed the scene
with them and actually knew some of the dead witches. So the NYPD
and FBI are aware it was a supernatural crime. Apparently so does
the media,” Gina said, holding up a tabloid with the
headline
Witches Die in Demonic Ritual.
The Hammer Investigates.
The cover photo
showed Chris coming out of an apartment building, two NYPD officers
by his side.

I was busy thinking that if he came back at
the request of the NYPD and or FBI, then it wasn’t just to train me
and therefore not my fault if any outbreaks in Europe ended in
deaths. Not all my fault, at least.

“So Dickland, why would one witch kill the
others?” Delwood suddenly turned and asked me from his spot several
bleachers away.

“Don’t know, Dullweed. I’ve never been part
of the whole circle and witch world,” I said, holding his
stare.

“How about any of our other witches?
Thoughts?” Gina asked, watching Delwood and me.

“She likely did it to steal their power,”
Tami said. She was normally so quiet, it was easy to forget about
her.

“Could you explain that to us, Tami?” Gina
asked.

“I also don’t have much experience with
circles. But among the People, the Navajo, most witches who follow
the Witchery Way are males, not females. They gain their power
through ritual murder, usually of a relative. Murdering another
witch can increase one’s power immensely,” Tami said quietly. I
hadn’t noticed it before, but now it occurred to me that the girl
had a certain darkness about her.

Mack leaned close. “Okay, that’s not creepy
or anything,” he whispered.

“And males are common?” Gina asked,
completely unruffled.

“For those that follow the Witchery way, yes.
Not among those of the Blessing Way.”

“Ah, which witch are you?” Delwood asked,
sitting forward to hear her answer.

“Some of my family follow one path, some
follow the other,” she said.

“Didn’t answer my question, sweetheart,”
Delwood said.

The quiet witch’s dark eyes flashed with the
first signs of anger. “How very astute of you,” was all she said,
turning forward and focusing on Gina.

“Are males powerful?” Gina asked her.

“Relatively. Not like him,” she said with a
quick glance in my direction.

“Wait, you’re saying you could, like, murder
me and steal my power?” Erika asked Tami, whom I recalled was her
roommate.

“Any witch could with the right spells and
rituals.”

“Hear that, Duckling? Sounds like the whole
witch world will be lining up to take you out,” Delwood said to
me.

“It’s possible, but not likely. He is wary
and well trained. It would be exceedingly dangerous. Most would try
to avoid his notice. I did not mention that if the stealing witch
makes a mistake or the victim gets a chance to counter, the results
are fairly gruesome for the robber,” Tami said. “I have no idea how
it would be done with a circle, but it seems likely.”

“She’s likely got the right ‘o’ it,” Ryanne
said. “I’ve herd tales of it from long ago. Some really powerful
Crafters got a start that away back in the day. There was one in
Germany hundreds of years ago that was fecking brilliant at it, she
was.”

“Roswitha Maier,” Zuzanna and I said
simultaneously. We looked at each other, then back to Ryanne.

“Jinx, You owe me a Coke,” Michelle said.
Some people laughed.

“I’ve heard that name before,” Gina said.

“She lived in the Black Forest and is
probably the basis for the witch in Hanzel and Gretel,” Zuzanna
said.

“Her grimoire was
The Book of Darkest Sorrow,”
I said, seeing immediate recognition on Gina’s
face.

The room was silent for a moment, then
Delwood put both hands up and shook them. “Ooooh, spooky,” he said
in a mocking voice.

“It’s said she kept two werewolves as pets.
Never let them Change back to human form. Doesn’t the mind become
all beast if you don’t Change back?” Zuzanna asked Delwood
innocently.

He sneered at her but looked away.

“Grandfather says werewolf blood is
particularly useful for dark spells,” Tami said, looking straight
ahead.

“I thought you said that most male witches of
your people followed the witchy way. You know, the dark path?”
Erika asked.

“I did,” Tami said, inspecting her nails.
Ooooh, Erika was so not getting any sleep tonight.

“Okay, that book,
Darkest Sorrow,
popped up
recently, didn’t it?” Gina asked, knowing damned well it
had.

“That’s the rumor. Some say it fell into the
hands of Chris Gordon and his people,” Britta said. Something about
the way she said it gave me the impression that she had firsthand
knowledge of it. I tried to remember how she and her family knew
Chris, but nothing came to me.

Mack leaned over to me. “It was found in the
Carolinas and Chris took it away to hide it,” he whispered.
Matthew, the closest were beside Justin, looked our way and gave
the slightest of nods, as if to confirm what Mack had said.
Interesting how many kids in this room had firsthand knowledge of
the book.

“Okay, well that’s all
pretty fascinating, but let’s not spend the
whole
class speculating on this case.
Let’s talk about any other news bites you’ve come across,” Gina
said. “Anyone?”

T.J. raised his hand, speaking at her nod. “I
saw an article about how team or product names with the word devil
in it are being changed for the most part. Like a minor league
hockey team in Albany and those snack things. The article said that
with demons being real, people avoid anything named like them.”

“Interesting, T.J. What was fiction became
too real to ignore. Anything else?” Gina asked.

“All kinds of anti-vampire and werewolf
charms are popping up for sale on the Internet,” another kid I
didn’t know added. He looked stoned.

“Yes, Jack, I’ve seen some of those myself.
What about the alarm companies hocking new and improved thermal
detectors that are supposed to pick up both vampires and weres?
Have you seen those ads?” Gina asked.

“One wonders how they are able to make such
claims without proper testing?” Katrina asked from her position
just behind me and one row over. She had sat down there as class
started, giving me a nod before turning her attention to her phone.
She seemed to always end up near our little group.

“Yeah, I read some of the technical specs,
and deep in the fine print are disclaimers that the units were
tested with objects both warmer and cooler than ninety-eight point
six, but not with real supernaturals,” Gina said with a nod. “So,
some society changes have happened very fast. Some will be
slower.”

A hand went up, a brown-haired girl who might
be one of the psychometric kids, the ones who could read objects
and find out a lot about whoever had last handled it. I was pretty
sure they all had jobs waiting for them with Oracle, as they would
make fantastic investigators.

“Yes Jillian?”

“This is off topic, but what’s the point of
most of us going to the Wytchwar class? I mean, if we can’t run
avatars?” the girl asked.

“Well, Ms. O’Carroll fully intends that all
of you will be able to run avatars, even the non-magical. She has
suggested that a certain Earth witch will be building… I guess
mini-golems would be the word. How about it, Declan? She said to
ask you about Robbie?”

I felt myself flush instantly. Ashling was
fighting dirty. “Yes ma’am, I’ve made some before that answered to
voice commands, but that might get noisy and confusing here. I have
some ideas about changing my formula that I could try out,” I said,
hoping to avoid any more conversation about Robbie.

“Who is Robbie? Your dirt sex doll?” Delwood
asked. The whole class laughed. I had to laugh, too.

“Just a golem I made,” I said.

“Jest a golem, he says?” Ryanne said. “Not a
thing to it, is there?” she asked. “Like any old witch would be
making them.”

She was right: making golems was tricky and
required a lot of power, at least for the big ones.

“He took a while, but the little ones
shouldn’t be awful hard to do,” I said.

“And jest how
big
was he, if ye don’t
mind me asking?” Ryanne asked, one eyebrow arched, giving her
question several meanings, most of which made the class
laugh.

“Seven, maybe seven-and-a-half feet tall.
Never weighed him, but we thought he was five or six hundred
pounds.”

Ryanne’s eyes narrowed as she studied me,
like she was trying to figure out if I was lying. “Ye went and made
a giant golem? What for, and how could ye hide him?”

“I did it the summer my aunt put me in charge
of the firewood supply. I could use the chainsaw and splitting
maul, but we didn’t have a tractor or ATV to haul logs, so I made
Robbie. Dressed him in a hat, big surplus coat, and and some fat
man pants I got at Goodwill. He hauled about six cords of wood for
me before my aunt found out and made me get rid of him.”

“You named him Robbie for the robot, right?”
T.J. asked.

“Yeah, from the movie
Lost in Space
,” I
answered.

“You had to dismantle him?” Erika asked.

“I was stupid. I ordered him to bring me back
dead trees. I never told him to just take lying ones, so he was
ripping standing dead trees out of the ground and hauling them
back, roots and all. It was loud and if anyone had seen this giant
man hauling a ton and a half of tree, it would have been bad.”

“Okay, well I guess that makes you our
resident golem expert. Your aunt wants you to have them done by
next Monday. Is that doable?” Gina asked.

“How many?”

“One for everyone. Say forty, maybe
forty-three to give us some spares?”

My face must have reflected my dismay. How
was I going to get over three dozen golems done, train with Chris,
work on my website project, find coding mistakes, write an English
paper, and study for upcoming tests?

“Ye know, if ye teach us how to do it, we can
help ye,” Ryanne suggested. The other witches nodded. Beside me,
Caeco stiffened slightly, which told me how she felt about me
working with the witches. Still, did I really have a choice?

“That’s an excellent idea and much in keeping
with our mission of cross-fertilizing the fields of knowledge,”
Gina said, smiling. Nope, no choice.

“Better be the
only
cross-fertilizing,”
Caeco said under her breath.

“Great,” I said to Gina, patting my killer’s
hand at the same time.

T.J. raised his hand, speaking when she
called on him. “That whole Robbie the Robot reference reminded me.
I saw some of those same sensors being discussed in an article
about DARPA. They mentioned that a company named Bolo Industries
will be incorporating them into autonomous designs selected to
compete in DARPA’s robot trials.”