Hex Hall (14 page)

"What . . . what about those Irish people?" I'd croaked.

Mrs. Casnoff's eyes had slid away from mine. "The Brannicks are not a concern at this time," was al she had said. I knew she was lying, but I'd been too shel-shocked to cal her on it.

"Is it true?" I asked Mom now. "Did Dad put me here because I'm in danger?"

"I want you to put Mrs. Casnoff on the phone right now,"

Mom said, not answering my question. There was a lot of anger in her voice, but there was fear too.

"Is it true?" I repeated.

When she didn't answer, I shouted,
"Is it true?"

A door somewhere in the hal opened, and I glanced over my shoulder to see Taylor sticking her head out of her room. When she saw me, she just shook her head slightly and closed her door.

"Soph," Mom was saying, "look, we'l . . . we'l talk about this when you're home for winter break, okay? This is not something I want to get into over the phone."

"So it
is
true," I said, crying.

There was such a long silence on the other end that I wondered if she'd hung up. Then she gave a long sigh and said, "We can talk about this later."

I slammed down the receiver. The phone made a jangly sound of protest.

I slid down the wal to the floor and drew my knees in so I could rest my head on them.

For a long time I stayed that way, breathing slowly in and out, trying to stop the steady flow of tears. There was a little part of me that felt weirdly guilty, like I should be super pumped about being a kick-ass witch or something. But I wasn't. I felt more than happy to leave the glowing skin and floating hair and smiting to Elodie and those girls. I could just run a little tea shop or something, where I could sel books about astrology and chakras. That would be fun. I could maybe wear a floaty purple muu--

I lifted my head and cut off my mental rant. That weird goose-bump feeling was back.

I looked up and saw the girl from the lake standing at the end of the hal. Up close I could see that she was about my age. She was frowning at me, and I noticed that her green dress was flapping around her calves as though a wind were blowing.

Before I could open my mouth to ask her who she was, she turned abruptly on her heels and walked off. I listened for her shoes on the wooden steps, but there was no sound.

Now the goose bumps weren't just on my neck, but everywhere. It probably seems weird to go to a school populated by monsters and stil be afraid of ghosts, but this whole thing was getting ridiculous. This was the third time that I'd seen this girl, and every time she seemed to be studying me. But why?

I slowly stood up and walked down the hal.

I paused before rounding the corner, afraid she might be standing there, waiting for me.

What's she going to do, Sophie? I thought. Yel "Boo"?

Walk through you? She's a ghost, for God's sake.

But I was stil holding my breath as I hurried around the corner.

And ran into something very solid.

I tried to scream, but it came out more of a breathy

"Urrrgh!"

Hands reached out to steady me. "Whoa," Jenna said with a little laugh.

"Oh. Hi," I said, out of breath from the colision, and overcome with relief.

"Are you okay?" She studied my face with a look of concern.

"It's been a long day."

She smiled a little. "I'm sure. I heard about what happened with the Vandy."

I groaned. What with the family secrets and assassins and ghosts, I'd forgotten al about my more imminent danger.

"It's my own fault. I never should have listened to Elodie."

"No, you shouldn't have," Jenna said, twirling her pink streak. "Is it true you have celar duty for the rest of the semester?"

"Yeah. What is that, by the way?"

"It's awful," she replied flatly. "The Council stores al its reject magical artifacts here, and they're al just jumbled up in the celar. People who get celar duty have to try to catalogue al that junk."

"Try?"

"Wel, it's al crap, but it's magic crap, so it moves around.

Cataloguing it is pointless because it doesn't stay in the same place."

"Great," I muttered.

"Careful, Sophie. The Leech is looking kind of hungry."

I looked over Jenna's shoulder and saw Chaston standing at the end of the hal. I'd never seen her without Elodie and Anna, and the effect was a little jarring.

Chaston sneered at us, but it looked more like an impression of Elodie than a genuine expression.

"Shut up, Chaston," I said irritably.

"Witch: It's what's for dinner," she said with a nasty laugh before disappearing into her room.

Next to me, Jenna looked even paler than normal. It could have been a trick of the light, but for just a second I thought her eyes flashed red.

"The Leech," she murmured. "That's new."

"Hey," I said, giving her a little shake. "Don't let them get to you. Especialy not
that
one. She's not worth it."

Jenna nodded. "You're right," she said, but she was stil looking at Chaston's door. "So, you coming to Classifications of Shapeshifters?"

I shook my head. "Casnoff gave me the day off," I said.

Thankfuly, Jenna didn't ask why. "Cool. See you at dinner, then."

After Jenna left, I thought about going to my room to read or lie down, but instead I went downstairs and into the library. Like the rest of the house, the room now looked a lot less shabby to me.

The chairs looked less like fungi ready to swalow me, and much comfier.

I only had to scan the shelves for a little while before I found what I was looking for.

The book was black, with a cracked spine. There was no title, but a large golden eye was stamped on the front.

I sat down in one of the chairs and puled my legs underneath me, opening to the middle of the book. There were several glossy pages of pictures, most of them reproductions of paintings, although there were a few grainy photographs of a crumbling castle in Italy that was supposed to be the headquarters of L'Occhio di Dio. I flipped through the pages, stopping when I came to the same picture I'd seen in Mom's book. It was as horrible as I remembered: the witch on her back, her eyes wild with fright, and the dark-haired man crouched over her holding a silver knife. The Eye tattooed over his heart.

I turned away from the pictures to skim the text.

Formed in 1129, the society began in France as an
offshoot of the Knights Templar. Originally a group of holy
knights charged with ridding the world of demons,the group
soon relocated to Italy, where they took on the official title,
L'Occhio di Dio--The Eye of God. The group soon became well
known for their brutal acts against all manner of Prodigium,
but they were also known to attack any human who aided
Prodigium. Over time they morphed from holy warriors into
something more akin to a terrorist organization. Highly
secretive, L'Occhio di Dio is an elite group of assassins with
only one goal--the total destruction of all Prodigium.

"Wel, that's nice," I murmured to myself.

I flipped through more pages. The rest of the book seemed to be a history of the group's leaders and their most notable Prodigium victims. I scanned the list of names, but I didn't see Alice Barrow on there. Maybe Mrs. Casnoff had been wrong and she wasn't that big a deal after al.

I was about to put the book back on the shelf when a black-and-white ilustration caught my eye and sent chils through me. It showed a witch lying on a bed, her head loling to the side, her eyes blank. There were two somber men in black standing behind her, looking down at the body. Their shirts were opened just enough so that I could see the tattoos over their hearts. One was holding a long thin stick with a pointed end, almost like an ice pick. The other man held a jar of suspicious-looking black liquid. I glanced down at the caption under the picture.

Although the removal of the heart is the most common
means of execution employed by The Eye, the group has been
known to drain the blood of Prodigium. Whether this is done to
implicate vampires or some other reason is not known.

I shivered as I stared at that blank-eyed witch. There weren't any holes in her neck, like they'd found on Holy, but the men had clearly drained her blood somehow.

But that was impossible. We were on an island, and there were more protection spels around this place than I could count.

Surely there was no way a member of The Eye could get in undetected.

I flipped back through the book, looking for any chapters about The Eye getting past protective spels, but everything I read said that The Eye didn't use magic, just brute force.

Later, after I'd snuck the book up to my room, I showed the picture to Jenna.

I thought she'd be interested, but instead she barely looked at it before turning away and climbing into her bed. "L'Occhio di Dio doesn't kil like that," she said as she turned out the lights. "They're never secretive, or anything. They want people to know it was them."

"How do you know that?" I asked.

She just lay there, and I thought she wasn't going to answer me.

Then, out of the darkness, she said, "Because I've seen them."

T
wo days later I started celar duty.

I should say upfront that I have never been in a celar in my life. In fact, I can see no reason why anyone should ever go into a celar unless there is wine involved.

This celar seemed particularly unwelcoming. For one thing, the floor was just hard-packed dirt, which . . . ew. The air was cool despite the heat outside, and it smeled musty and damp. Add to that the high ceiling with its bare lightbulbs, the one tiny window that looked out on the compost pile behind the school, and the endless shelves of dusty junk, and I suddenly understood why a ful semester of celar duty sucked so bad. Not only that, but the Vandy had decided to be especialy evil and give it to us three nights a week, right after dinner. So while everyone else was hanging out in their room, or working on one of Lord Byron's epic essays, Archer and I would be cataloguing a bunch of crap the Council thought was too important to throw away but not important enough to store at Council headquarters in London.

Jenna had tried to cheer me up that morning, saying, "At least you have it with a hot guy."

"Archer isn't hot anymore," I'd fired back. "He tried to kil me, and his girlfriend is Satan."

But I have to admit that as we stood beside each other on the celar steps and listened to the Vandy ramble on about what we were supposed to do down there, I couldn't help but sneak sideways glances at him and notice that, homicidal tendencies and evil girlfriends aside, he was stil hot. As usual, his tie was loose and his shirtsleeves were roled up. He was watching the Vandy with this bored, vaguely amused look, arms crossed over his chest.

That pose did most excelent things for his chest and arms.

How unfair was it that Elodie of al people got that as a boyfriend? I mean, where is the justice when--

"Miss Mercer!" the Vandy barked, and I jumped high enough to nearly lose my balance.

I clutched the banister next to me, and Archer caught my other elbow.

Then he winked, and I immediately turned my attention back to the Vandy like she was the most fascinating person I'd ever seen.

"Do you need me to repeat anything, Miss Mercer?" she sneered.

"N-no. I got it," I stammered.

She stared at me for a minute. I think she was trying to come up with a witty put-down. But the Vandy, like most mean people, was dumb, so in the end, she just sort of growled and pushed between me and Archer to stalk up the stairs.

"One hour!" she caled over her shoulder.

The ancient door didn't so much creak as scream in pain as she pushed it closed.

To my horror, I heard a loud click.

"Did she just
lock us in
?" I asked Archer, my voice sounding way higher than I'd intended.

"Yep," he replied, jogging down the steps to pick up one of the clipboards the Vandy had left precariously perched on a row of jars.

"But that's . . . isn't that ilegal?"

He smiled but didn't look up from his clipboard. "You've realy gotta let go of charming human issues like legality, Mercer."

He looked up al of a sudden, his eyes wide. "Oh! Just remembered something."

He put the clipboard down and fished in his pocket for a second.

"Here," he said, walking over to me and pressing something light into my open hand.

I looked down.

It was a wad of Kleenex.

"You're a jackass." I tossed the tissues at his feet and stomped past him. My face was flaming.

"No wonder Elodie's your girlfriend," I muttered as I picked up the clipboard. I made a big show of flipping through the pages.

There were twenty in al, with about fifty items listed on each. My eyes skimmed over some of them, noting things like "Noose: Rebecca Nurse" and "Severed Hand: A. Voldari."

I ripped off the top ten pages and handed them to Archer, along with a pen.