House of Korba: The Ghost Bird Series: #7 (The Academy) (36 page)

I hesitated, looking at Silas, but it was Charlie who answered. “It’s okay, doll,” he said. “Don’t worry about us.”

I almost fell apart where I stood. Was this it? Would Silas get in trouble and have to go back to Greece? I didn’t want to lose sight of him, scared to death it was going to be the last time I’d see him.

“
Aggele
,” Silas said, and then coughed. “Go. I’ll be back.”

It was like he knew exactly what I had been thinking. I had to trust him.

I turned, running after Nathan. I climbed into the seat, and Nathan turned over the engine, driving off. Kota spoke to Charlie, and then to Silas, and then to my surprise, he and North got into Kota’s car, leaving behind Charlie and Silas.

But when I turned around to see if they were going to run or get into a car to drive off, they didn’t move.

They stood together, side by side, watching the church burn sirens getting closer.

And then I knew they weren’t going to run. Whatever demons had been hidden in the past with their family, they would face them now.

––––––––

T
here were several large tents arranged across the lawn at Middleton Place. There was solid flooring under my feet, not grass like I’d been worried about when Gabriel said I’d be wearing heels.

I wore the corset dress, accessorized with a hot pink stone choker collar, a hair clip with hot pink stones, and a full mask glittering with the same pink accents, plus one in each of the boys’ favorite colors, matching their ties.

The mask was a last minute gift from the boys, presented in a velvet box by Gabriel, before getting out of the town car Victor had ordered to pick some of us up.

The dance was already starting. Music blared, some popular song I couldn’t recall the name of. The space was moderately dark, with the occasional flash of lights from projectors and other machines I didn’t know the names of.

While I was impressed with it all, I couldn’t help but seek out staff, knowing they were all Academy members.

I wasn’t sure what I thought they would be. Maybe secret ninjas with masks and lots of spy gear, but every person I saw looked completely normal. I checked for signs: the girl behind the punch bowl serving drinks, the band members, the photographer, but they all appeared to belong. Seamless. Forgettable.

Maybe they really were ninjas.

“Are you ready?” Mr. Blackbourne whispered into my ear.

He wasn’t really there beside me. He wasn’t supposed to be. But my mask was outfitted with a microphone and they’d given me an earpiece. The Academy wasn’t going to give us the night off completely.

“I guess so,” I said.

Victor stepped up beside me, after having given instructions to the driver. “Whew,” he said. He wore his black suit, a silver pin through his white tie. He wore a mask, too, a half mask that was painted the same silver as the pin. “I was afraid the signal wouldn’t make it through, what with all the interference from other devices hanging around.”

I didn’t know all the details, but Mr. Blackbourne informed us that he would, indeed, be a short distance away. He was wearing his suit, too, in case he needed to make an appearance, and Mr. Hendricks was informed of his whereabouts.

Mr. Blackbourne also had several Academy members staying by him to ensure Mr. Hendricks wasn’t going to set a trap of his own.

Gabriel, with an orange mask and matching tie, stepped up on my other side. “Okay, we might have overdone it with our costumes.”

The rest of the students had a mixture of various dressy costumes, with cats and witches and popular book and movie characters mixed in. The costumes looked good, but knowing how much the masks and our outfits probably cost, it did feel a little over the top.

“We’ll use these outfits again,” Victor said. “There is prom, after all.”

“Nu uh,” Gabriel said. “You can’t use the same stuff for prom. That’s not the same thing.”

“I like them,” Kota said, walking up behind us. I turned, surprised at seeing him for once without his glasses, the half mask on his face.

“Can you see?” I asked.

He tapped the mask close to his eye. “Contact lenses,” he said.

My mouth popped open. “You...”

“I don’t like them,” he said. “They can get really dirty and I worry about getting an eye infection. I’d rather have the glasses.”

“It’s just for tonight,” Gabriel said. “It would have looked weird with the glasses.”

“I like it,” I said quietly.

Kota’s green eyes lit up behind his mask.

“Let’s get inside,” Nathan said, following up next to Kota. He really filled out his suit, and the red tie swayed as he kept the jacket open.

“Yeah,” Luke said as he approached in his suit with the baby blue tie and mask. He cut in between Gabriel and me, taking my arm and tugging me deeper into the tent. “I smell food.”

Some of the guys chuckled.

I followed the others deeper into the tent. We broke off into pairs, me with Luke for the moment. Later, I’d be switching between all of them about every five minutes to walk around, dance, but most of all, be on the lookout in case anything screwed up.

“At least there’s no fog machines here,” Luke said.

“And no boxes with bombs in it,” I said.

“We’ve got the place covered,” Mr. Blackbourne said in my ear. “Nothing to worry about. Just make sure the students aren’t acting up.”

There weren’t two thousand students under the tent, but the place did start to fill in after a while. The lighting grew brighter and faded with the pulse of the music. There were towers of tiny pieces of cakes, little finger sandwiches and lots of bowls of punch.

I stood by Luke while he loaded his plate and kept an eye on the others. They were easy to follow with their masks. North’s was the only one that was black, and he was with Dr. Green, who wore a purple mask, and blended in with the students rather than the teachers. They stood beside a table near other students holding cups of punch and talking casually.

Only about half of the students danced at all. The rest sat at the tables, or stood and watched those dancing, checking out costumes. Some clustered around the darker corners of the tent.

Luke held up a plate full of cakes between us. “Try these,” he said. “I know the baker. These are good.”

I lifted my mask a little and I pinched off part of a square and took a bite. The cake wasn’t overly sweet. It was fresh, with a hint of chocolate. “It’s good,” I said, smiling at him.

It was a change from this morning. After returning from the church to Nathan’s house, Nathan and I waited up to hear that North was fine, that he’d just suffered some minor burns and a concussion, but he was going to be released in the morning after being monitored at the Academy hospital. Kota stayed with him.

Mr. Blackbourne and the others had left the scene at the school to take care of the Korbas. There wasn’t any more news about the fog machines or who might have manipulated the scoreboard.

The night started to pass by in a whirlwind of music and spotting Academy people. Each of the boys took turns walking around the dance floor with me.

That was until it was Victor’s turn. Instead of making a circle, he cut through the thicker part of dancers. Victor held me by the waist and swayed for a bit to one of the faster songs, but shooed Kota away from his turn, when a slow song came on. Kota relented, allowing Victor two songs and a half before he finally cut in.

After that point, I was on my feet for an hour as Gabriel, Luke, Dr. Green, and North, each took turns to dance with me at least once.

North was the quietest. “I hate this school,” he said.

I couldn’t blame him. It was hard to really relax knowing something was probably going to happen. The goal for the Academy tonight was to ensure, as far as everyone else knew, that nothing happened at all.

I stood by North as someone from the school took the mic to announce the homecoming king and queen. The king would be first.

North and I pulled back as most of the students stood up to gather around the small stage.

“Hey,” North said. “I’m going to go grab something to drink. He touched his mask, adjusting it. I didn’t think he liked it. “Do you want anything?”

I spotted Luke and Gabriel nearby. Luke made a gesture with his hand, at me, pointing to his own mask, and then pretending to lift it up.

I almost didn’t have the nerve for what he wanted me to do.

Almost.

“You know, Gabriel did a nice job on my makeup tonight,” I said to him, reciting the lines I’d practiced. “Would you like to see?”

North’s dark eyes blinked in confusion. “Uh, okay.”

“Come see,” I said.

North leaned in and I hooked my fingers under my mask, quickly lifting it. I leaned in to reveal my face, and I couldn’t help my big grin.

In a jolt, North retreated a step. “What the...Baby!”

I was already giggling, knowing my face resembled one of Nathan’s zombies. When I winked, the makeup made it look like my eyeball was hanging out of my face, and there were gashes on my cheeks and lips, fake of course. The makeup was lighter than I expected, a promise Gabriel kept when Luke came up with the idea that afternoon as we were getting ready. I could feel it, but it was comfortable enough to wear for the evening.

North shook his head. He turned around, scanned, spotted Luke and pointed a finger. “You!” He was loud enough to almost be heard over the music. “What did you do to her face?”

Luke and Gabriel made a run for it.

I laughed as I pulled the mask back down, watching North storm off after his brother. The announcer started the drum roll to declare the homecoming king.

“And the winner is...” he said, “Jared Anson!”

There was a thunderous applause. I didn’t know the boy, but I thought he was on the football team.

And my heart sunk a little.

“Hey,” said a deep voice. “
Aggele
.”

I turned, spotting the dark blue mask. He reached out and put a hand on my shoulder.

“Hi, Silas,” I said quietly, smiling at him.

“Not disappointed that I’m not homecoming king, are you?”

“Are you?” I asked.

Silas’s mask tilted toward me. “I never wanted to run.”

“Just to let you know,” Mr. Blackbourne said in my ear. “Silas, you actually came in second place. We had to manipulate the database to lower your vote count and still make it fair to the others.”

Silas chuckled. “Crazy kids.”

“So you might have gotten up there,” I said, nodding toward the homecoming king, who was receiving his crown and fanfare. “If you’d tried.”

“Not my style,” he said. “Besides, I would have been up there with...well...you didn’t run, either.”

“I wasn’t even on the roster,” I said.

“Actually,” Mr. Blackbourne said. “To be included on the roster of entrants, a person needs a hundred votes to be considered. Your name came up two hundred and eighty five times.”

I was grateful for the mask at that moment, sure that I was blushing and that my mouth was hanging open. “How?”

“It was a ballot, and people could write in names. Unfortunately, we had to erase you from the official ballot.”

“I didn’t know,” I said quietly.

“It’s been a busy week,” Mr. Blackbourne said. “I apologize for not telling you sooner.”

“Come here,” Silas said, pulling me into him and hugging me. “You and I didn’t do too badly. Maybe one day we’ll run for... well...Maybe nothing. Let’s do something else.”

“How’s Theo?” I asked him.

“Sent to a retreat,” he said. “Once the police showed up, one of our Academy team members arrived to represent him as his lawyer. He’ll go to trial soon and will probably face deportation.”

“And you?”

“It took a couple of favors from the Academy again,” he said. “I’m off the hook as far as officials are concerned, but the Academy wants a meeting with me...”

“Please don’t talk about that right now,” Mr. Blackbourne said. “The short wave radios in these masks aren’t exactly secure.”

“Nothing’s happening,” Silas said. “This was the big moment of the night.”

We watched and waited as the homecoming queen was announced. It turned out to be Jenny, the girl who had dropped off her can at the diner earlier. I almost forgot about her. “Did she get her can back with donations?”

“She actually got the most, I think,” Silas said. “When she picked it up, she had two other jars to go home with her.”

I was stunned. “She only had three days.”

“Academy people go in that diner a lot.”

“We’ve still got a couple of hours left to go,” Mr. Blackbourne said. “We don’t have to wait long before the night is over.”

I’d been glad to hear this morning that Silas was fine, not currently in trouble, and would be going to the dance location ahead of time with North and Dr. Green. I had asked a lot of questions, but it came down to Silas and Charlie admitting to the police that Theo suffered from an addiction to lighting fires.

At first, there was more excitement as other homecoming things were announced, the king and queen had a dance. When the mood change to allow the dance part to continue for all, the lighting around us changed. I didn’t realize what was different, until I looked around and saw glowing cat faces and some other costumes lighting up under black lights.

“This should make things interesting,” Silas said. “Kids could sneak kisses.”

“We’ve already caught one...young couple in the bathroom together,” Mr. Blackbourne said.

Silas sighed.

Suddenly, behind Silas, I spotted something, and at first, I thought I was losing my mind.

I blinked to make sure, but it was clear. Gabriel and Luke were facing away from us as they were checking out the photographers. On each of their backs, glowing a light green, was a mask.

Resembling Volto masks.

Stunned, I grabbed Silas’s arm and pulled him around. “Do you see that?”

“What?” Mr. Blackbourne asked in my ear. “There’s a lot of video feeds. What do you see?”

Silas had turned by then, taking several moments to stare. “Volto,” he said.

“Where?” Mr. Blackbourne said.

Silas turned around, trying to look over his own shoulder to check out his back. He was glowing, too. A big mask on his back. I felt the material. There was a distinct difference, some sort of paint that only glowed under the black light.