Read Industry & Intrigue Online
Authors: Ryan McCall
But how w
ould Michael find out the exact
room? It hadn’t been reported, not to mention the fact that there
would be a guard or magical lock on the door.
Knowing Michael, he’ll try to
chat up one of the staff
thought Reese,
but if has no luck there then…the files
room.
There would an
incident report
that would have to be filled out with a death and Michael would
have no qualms at breaking into the files. Reese scanned the
smaller map of the building he was in and found it. The filing room
was about thirty meters north around a corner, then another ten
meters down the hall. Reese walked as fast as he could without
making much noise.
When he arrived
the door was
already open and light was coming from the room, he could see that
the lock looked undamaged. He walked in to see Michael with his
back to him, his hands buried in a filing cabinet.
“
So you managed to pick
the lock without anyone seeing you?” Reese loudly asked.
“
Ahhh
!” cried Michael. Papers flew to the
floor as he pulled his hands out of the files and turned in fear.
Seeing Reese, his expression of fear vanished and was replaced with
anger. “Son of a bitch! You scared the hells out of me,” he
said.
“
Serves
you right,” said Reese, “what if I
had been one of the staff?”
Michael went back to the files. “Well
you’re not so it doesn’t matter.”
Reese shook his
head
, “Why
are you so bent on finding out? I know he was your little cousin
and all, but can’t you leave it to the watch?”
Michael continued his search through the
files and said, “I know how Kyle’s parents will handle this. They
never gave a shit about him. They’ll use their influence to
pressure the watch into sweeping it all under the rug. Then I’ll
never know what happened.”
He hated it, but his friend
wa
s right.
“Fuck,” muttered Reese, finally giving in. “You’re putting yourself
into a position to get an official reprimand, not to mention
interfering in an official watch investigation. But I’m here now,
so I’ll help.”
Despite his idiotic behavior right now,
Michael was his best friend and had always stuck by him, even the
time he’d been falsely accused of stealing back in school. “I know
I’m going to regret this. I’ll keep a look out for you. But if we
can’t get into the room, locks, magic, whatever. Then we’re
leaving, deal?”
“
Absolutely,” said Michael, “And
this is where we need to go.” He excitedly pulled out a file with
the details of Kyle Dunn’s death. “Student building two, Room
four-zero-nine.”
Chapter 6
Zuri had easily managed to
disable the guardian to Kyle’s room. It was a simple stone
dog
statue
that would bark an alarm and try to pin down intruders. The school
put it in place until the room could be cleaned. Her absorption
amulet had powerful magic that could de-power artifacts like the
guardian but it only lasted for a few minutes.
She opened the door and stepped
inside
. The
room was still in disarray from the search the watch had conducted
although there were several items packed into boxes from the
workers earlier in the day. The bookshelf had remained untouched.
She went over and pulled out all the books at the shelf she had
scanned during her projection spell. She grabbed at the large black
book and it fell on the floor, covers open. She had guessed right,
it was a fake book with only a cover, inside was the blue diary she
was after. As she picked it up, the light around her absorption
amulet went out.
S
he heard voices outside the room; someone
must have disturbed the guardian. Before she could move the door
burst open and the stone dog made a loud noise. It leapt into the
room towards her but with her skylord agility she managed to roll
out of the way and it crashed into the bed.
She used her wings to propel
herself towards the door before it made another go at her and she
flew through
, only to crash into two people. All three of them sprawled
onto the ground. She grunted slightly, she had hit her back on the
stone floor.
She looked up at whoever she had crashed
into. They looked like students, but not mages, more like
university students. She stood up and said, “Who in the hell are
you two and what are you doing here?”
One of them, the tall, blond
one, put his hand to his head.
“Uh…we were…um,” he stammered, struggling
to come up with an answer.
The other one
spoke up next, “We
were passing by here when we noticed this stone guardian wasn’t
functioning. It came on and started-”
Before he
could finish what he was saying
the guardian emerged from the room. It let out another loud growl
and pounced towards Zuri, its mouth open and aiming to grab her
arm. She flashed her amulet at its head and it stopped moving, the
head dropping and facing the ground.
She turned back to the two
s
tudents,
anger on her face, “The noise of that guardian will have attracted
security, so I suggest you tell me what you’re doing here before I
hand you over to them.”
The sho
rt, dark-haired boy wasn’t fazed by
this, “Go ahead, by all means. We were strolling past when we
noticed the open door and inactive guardian, I’m certain they’ll
have questions for all of us.”
Zuri gave him a look of absolute fury, “I
am a master mage and a teacher at this school. Do you think they’ll
believe two university students over my word?”
“
That’s up to
you
,” he
replied.
“
What the fuck are you doing?”
asked the other one. “You’re threatening a master mage.”
“
Yes
,” he said, smirking, “I guess I am,
but the fact that the guardian was inactive tells me she doesn’t
want to be here when the guards show up any more than we do. Isn’t
that right?” he asked Zuri.
She muttered something in Cartralan, then
said, “Fine you’re right, I don’t. I still want to know why you’re
here, but this isn’t the place. Follow me.”
“
Where are we going?’
asked the tall one.
“
My office in the pyromancy
building. If I don’t like what you have to say for yourselves, I
will turn you over to security.” They both nodded and followed her
quietly through the campus pathways.
Her
office was sparse with little more
than a desk and chair, a book case and a smaller table opposite the
desk. Zuri placed Kyle’s diary on her book shelf and sat at her
desk. She stared hard at the two students and tapped her fingers on
her desk.
“
Well
,” she said, “I’m waiting to hear
what you have to say.”
One of them started to
speak
, “Look
we only-ooph!” The other one had elbowed him in the
chest.
“
Master-mage, my friend here is
a relative of the deceased student and he let curiosity get the
better of him. He wanted to find out what happened to his cousin.
We came here, broke into the filing room and disturbed that
guardian when we arrived. That’s it, nothing else. We’ll get out of
your way, we won’t say anything and I’ll talk some sense into
him.”
Zuri tapped her fingers again, but slower
this time. “You’re related to Kyle?” she asked, looking at
Michael.
He nodded. “Second cousin, on
my mother’s side
,” he replied.
“
And you’re students from the
other campus yes?” she asked and they both nodded. “Your
names?”
“
I’m Reese Galius,” said the
tall, Estaran-looking one and he pointed to his shorter friend,
“and that’s Michael O’Daly.”
“
You both took a stupid risk,
you know
,”
she said. “But I cared about your cousin too, which is why I was
there.”
“
So you don’t trust the watch to
uncover the truth either?” asked Michael. As a relative he would
know how Kyle’s parents would handle the matter.
“
No I don’t. They consider it an
open and shut suicide, but I
don’t believe it,” she replied. “Since you two
like playing investigator so much, you can do me a favor.” She had
decided that Kyle’s cousin and his friend could be useful. “Keep an
eye out around your campus for watch officers and who they’re
talking to. In return I’ll keep tonight’s little escapade between
the three of us.”
“
You want us to spy on
watch officers?” asked Michael.
“
Not spy, observe,” replied
Zuri, “I suggest you leave the campus with all speed. The guards
could make a sweep of the school and you don’t want to be around to
get noticed if they do.”
Both of them nodded and quickly exited her
office. With them gone Zuri looked over at Kyle’s diary, it was
time to find out exactly what had been going on in his head and why
he had turned to tarcaine.
She started
reading. It began innocuously
enough but as she read she soon came upon several pages worth of
entries that had made her sick to her stomach. Her insides roiled
and she bent over, vomiting into the waste bin beside her desk. She
wiped her mouth and went back to the diary.
Kyle had written the
entries
in
his second year at Warded Spirals, when he was only eleven. It
didn’t mention a name, but it went into detail about the abuse done
to him and what he had been forced to do.
Someone
…no, some monster did that to
him
she
thought in fury. The details described someone known only as
‘master’ who had forced him to engage in sexual acts. Skylords were
more empathic than other races and Zuri burned with disgust and
anger over what she read on the pages. The pages continued and she
felt her stomach quiver again. She wasn’t certain she could keep
reading more of this.
But I have to
she thought.
It’s the only way
I’ll find out who was behind this. Then I’ll make them pay!
With that thought
she lashed out at the glass of water on her desk and it flew into
the wall, smashing to pieces.
Despite not having a name it was clear
from the diary that it was someone of authority at Warded Spirals
and as the details began to fade from the diary entries she reached
a point in the entries where it appeared as if Kyle had forgotten
the entirety of the abuse. Had he suppressed it due to trauma or
had his mind been altered with magic?
There was certainly an
indication of
mental alteration by the sudden change in style of Kyle’s writing.
Combine that with the memory loss and it suggested a mage highly
skilled in mental magic. It was a place for her to start
anyway.
She contemplated whether she should tell
the watch or not. She doubted that it would help. They were set on
it being a suicide and writing it off. In addition the Dunn family
would not want details like this to be made public, as concerned
with their reputation as they were.
They had the power to order the watch to
bury the incident if they wanted. No, she would keep this to
herself for now. Once she had hard evidence on who was behind this
atrocity, she would decide what to do.
She pulled out a fresh piece of paper and
began writing down a suspect list along with identifying details
she could take from the diary. Based on the sexual acts Kyle had
described, his abuser was male, ruling out a good portion of
suspects. Forty percent of all mages of master level and above were
female.
Powerful
mental magic-that ruled out a
few more. But there were still plenty of mages that used it outside
of the mind discipline and she didn’t want to automatically assume
a teacher or master of mind was responsible. There was something
else, Kyle had mentioned details of the Circular Tower.
The only way students or low level mages
were allowed in there was with direct oversight from the higher
mages. If someone had taken him there they had to have a lot of
authority. She began writing down names of everyone she could think
that matched the pieces of evidence.
There were ten names on
her
list,
she would have to proceed carefully here. Each of them was a
powerful figure and if she was caught asking the wrong questions
she could land herself in hot water. For now, it would be best to
look for further clues outside the school, like his drug
habit.
Clearly his memories had come
back to him and he had
used tarcaine in order to drown out the trauma;
the person who sold him the drugs could know something. It would be
safer than asking questions at the Center.
She remembered the watch
officer,
Sergeant Moreland, had been interested in the man she had
seen Kyle with. Tomorrow after classes she would head to the
Justice Branch and see if they had information on him.
Chapter 7
The
man next to her rested his head back
onto a pillow, sighing with pleasure. “That was wonderful,” he
said. She let her own head fall down on the pillow next to
him.