Mind Games (29 page)

Barry raced across the cafeteria, phasing through the food counter, tables, chairs, and children until he got to Jenna. Her attackers had not let up, despite her loss of consciousness.

Barry phased right into the middle of the fight, frightening the attackers into breaking off. It didn’t last long, but Barry was able to grab hold of the unconscious Jenna and phase out with her, something he had been trying to do for years but had never managed to make work until that moment. This time was different, though. This time he’d known he could, because Danielle Hastings had as good as told him that he could save Jenna. That confidence had given him the boost he needed to make it work.

Jenna became as insubstantial as he, and while she was a heavy load, Barry was a burly boy. He flung her over his shoulder and ran out into the yard to find Elena.

It didn’t take him long. Elena cowered behind her rock, surrounded by Amanda Roberts and at least eight others. Ms. Atkins had been unable to physically drag the girl away and had resorted to screaming herself hoarse in an attempt to talk the mob down. No one paid her any attention.

Adam had a split lip and a black eye. But he stood over his sister, his tiny little fists in the air, bravely trying to defend her.

Barry ran right into the middle of it, phasing in beside Adam, whose magic was about to explode just as Elena’s had. He set down his load behind the rock and grabbed Elena’s shaking form, slapping her across the face to get her attention. “If you don’t want to join your dead friends on the other side, you’d better link up with me right now.”

Elena, who had never been spoken to like that before, obeyed the commanding tone without question. She had only ever linked with Mom and Dad before, but she and Barry managed to join hands and link up with minimal effort. Elena told me later that they had very similar quiet places, but wouldn’t go into detail about her private refuge.

Then Barry grabbed Adam’s hand, even though he knew the six-year-old wouldn’t know how to link yet. Behind them, Jenna moaned, stiffening Barry’s resolve.

“Look,” Amanda jeered. “The witch has a boyfriend.”

Barry ignored them. “Channel your magic to me,” he ordered Elena.

She did. Barry was just learning how to shield against magical attacks, but had no idea how to shield against physical attacks. So he used the combined force of their magic in the only way he knew – he pushed. He ended up pushing with more strength than expected, because, it turned out, Adam had worked out the basics of linking. It wasn’t enough to join him fully to the bond, but he contributed unexpected power to the combined effort.

The eight attackers went flying backwards, causing numerous breaks and sprains. Only Amanda still seemed to be standing.

Barry, very clever for his age, worked out the reason right away. “You hypocrite. You’re immune to magical attacks.”

“Jesus protects me,” Amanda replied.

“Does he also show you the future?” Elena asked.

Amanda scowled. “You said you wouldn’t tell.”

Elena touched a tender spot on her head. “Guess that blow to the head made me forget.”

Barry gave her a hard, approving slap on the back. “Hey, look, it’s your backbone.”

But Elena went utterly silent, and didn’t speak again until long after it was all over.

* * *

Wesley and I arrived to a scene of utter chaos. Three other deputies and the sheriff were already on the scene, trying to work out how to separate the combatants. Most of the teaching staff had rounded up the non-hostile students and taken them a safe distance away from the school, but almost none had tried to stop the fight. I only spotted two teachers on the playground, one trying to get between Brenna Lee and her attackers, the other trying to defend a group which included Elena and Adam.

A couple dozen students remained on the playground, all of them fighting or trying to flee. The other deputies had begun removing some of the children from the fray, one at a time, but this was clearly an inefficient approach.

I found the sheriff, who stood apart from the chaos, looking more lost than I had ever seen him before. The look on his face frightened me nearly as much as the hostility of the children, and I suddenly found myself harboring a new appreciation for
Lord of the Flies
, which my tenth grade English teacher had forced us all to read.

“We’re going to have to use tasers,” the sheriff said. “Unless you’ve got a better idea?”

I turned to look for my partner, but I didn’t see him. Wesley must have headed straight into the commotion.

“I can call for reinforcements, but we can’t wait for them to arrive.” I struggled to think of any sorcerer who might be within five minutes of the school, but initially drew a blank. The high school was only a block away, but while a few of the teachers had gifts, nothing they could do would help the situation here.

I was about to phone my parents anyway, if for no other reason than to start a phone tree, when I spotted a familiar figure racing out of the drug store across the street. For the first time in a long while, Evan Blackwood’s familiar long black hair, hard, lean body, and even his Star Wars t-shirt were a welcome sight.

He didn’t waste a minute getting into the middle of the crowd, positioning himself so he could see both the blown-open cafeteria and the crumpled playground. In fact, for a few seconds, I would have sworn he’d flown the last few yards, leaping over the heads of some wild-eyed students.

Then he closed his eyes and concentrated. A paralysis began to settle over the students, slowly at first, then catching them up rapidly until no one within Evan’s field of vision could move a muscle.

Evan’s telekinetic ability is frankly amazing, but he has admitted to me that he’s better at brute strength than accuracy. I could see the strain holding almost fifty people in place without hurting any of them was causing him. When a bead of sweat trickled down his forehead, I gave the sheriff a shove. “Go!”

No one had to be told twice. The remaining deputies arrived, one on top of the other, until the entire sheriff’s department was there. But they weren’t the only ones. Parents began to arrive, many of them freaking out when they spotted their children as still as statues on the playground or in the rubble of the broken cafeteria. We ended up spending more time trying to calm the parents than we did disbanding the riot which, once frozen in place, lost steam quickly.

As more and more parents arrived, I sensed a greater danger forming and sought out the sheriff to tell him about it. “The parents may start rioting, too.”

Sheriff Adams searched the newly forming crowd, so far made up largely of parents who lived or worked in town, which meant few practitioners. That didn’t stop some of the parents, especially those who had attempted to blockade the sheriff’s department, from shooting dirty looks at anyone they so much as suspected of evil doing.

Bethany Atkins who, despite her lack of any magical ability, had been the second name on their witch hunt list, bore the brunt of their outrage when she emerged relatively unscathed from the battle below. They shouted foul names and accusations at her, but she wasted no time in telling the sheriff precisely how it had all started, providing the names of all the girls who had attacked my sister, setting her off.

Mark Roberts, who had by then joined the group of parents, took the lead in Bethany’s persecution. “How dare you accuse our children of causing this destruction when by your own admission the evil within the witch destroyed the school?”

I positioned myself between Bethany and the pastor, sensing that Bethany had just pushed things too far. If someone had to take the brunt of their anger, I’d rather it be me, since neither Bethany nor Elena could truly defend themselves.

Pastor Roberts simply glared at me, and in his eyes I saw the promise of retribution.

“We need to get these children unfrozen,” the sheriff said. “The situation has been defused and the faster we can get these kids home with their parents, the less chance for violence.”

“I’ll take care of it.” I welcomed any plan to get these angry parents away from the school.

Evan still stood absolutely still when I reached him, several beads of sweat trickling down his face as he continued his intense effort of concentration.

“You can let go now,” I told him.

Relief flooded his face and he let go, trusting in my decision that his effort was no longer needed. The children, set free, did not seek more violence. Instead, they sought the security of their parents.

In the flood of running children, I sought out the two that mattered most to me, Elena and Adam. I found them both together, along with two children I didn’t recognize, standing tall near a large rock just outside the ruined cafeteria. They had both clearly been hit in the face repeatedly, especially Elena, whose nose appeared broken and bled freely.

I ran to them, but Adam waved me to the girl. “Help Jenna!”

Jenna was the only one of the four sitting down. She used the rock for support, even seated. Her eyes appeared bloodshot and out of focus.

“She was unconscious,” the boy, who I later discovered was Barry Eagle, explained.

I radioed for help, requesting an ambulance to get the girl to the hospital. Her parents would probably remove her from the emergency room, but for now, the mundane hospital was the safest place I knew for someone with a head injury.

“Shouldn’t we wait for her parents?” Adam asked anxiously.

I didn’t know, but having done everything I could for this group, I started inside to find out if anyone in the cafeteria needed help. Most of the group had gone, but a handful remained, most of them nursing minor injuries.

Barry followed me inside. “Aren’t you Cassie Scot?”

I caught sight of a third grader cowering behind an overturned table. I rushed over, nodding my assent to Barry as I moved.

“I’m Barry Eagle,” he told me. “Did you really take on a full-fledged sorcerer in July and win?”

I paused. “Um, it’s not as cool as it sounds.”

Then I ducked under the table and found a shell-shocked Miranda Clark, clearly struggling to reign in a burst of magic before it took down the rest of the cafeteria.

“Sh.” I rubbed her back in soothing circles. “Close your eyes. Find your quiet place.”

When she didn’t immediately move to close her eyes, I placed one hand over them until I felt them flutter shut.

“Breathe in. Breathe out. Through your nose. That’s it. You’re safe in your quiet place. Let it all go. Just let it all go.”

“You’re pretty good,” Barry said.

It would be nice if I’d felt half as confident as I sounded, but I was winging it, too aware of the danger not to do anything. “Who else is in here? Who needs help?”

Barry glanced around, but most of the students were getting to their feet and making their way, on shaky limbs, out of the building. He ran off behind the lunch counter, dragging forward a small first grader. Several aproned ladies followed in their wake.

“She’s fine,” Barry called.

Miranda’s breathing returned to normal. “I’m okay.”

Dropping my hand, I searched her body for any sign of physical injury.

“I’m okay,” she repeated.

Nodding, I led her out of the cafeteria to the playground, where the deputies were rounding up all the students who hadn’t been rushed to the hospital or claimed by their parents. I delivered Miranda into the capable hands of Jane, who was handling all the magical children alongside Evan, who seemed to be keeping a careful eye on the milling crowd in case things got ugly again.

Time passed quickly after that, in a blur of duty that largely turned out to be monotonous. A team of six deputies combed every square inch of the school, looking for stragglers. I found several in a bathroom, too afraid to look outside to see if the explosions had stopped. There were a few more in the administrative office and one in the nurse’s office – a boy sick with fever who had been waiting for his parents to take him home. The nurse had barricaded the door as she kept vigil over her lone charge.

By the time we finished our careful survey of the school, most of the parents had come to collect their children, including those who had to travel from the lake district. Several fights nearly broke out when the practitioners arrived, but a combination of trained magic and the strong police force kept them from getting out of control.

It didn’t stop the hateful words, however. As I made my report to Sheriff Adams, Pastor Roberts’s commanding voice could be heard above the crowd.

“Are we going to stand here and take this? It’s a miracle nobody was killed, but let’s not make the mistake of ignoring God’s warning. It’s time we rid our community of these monstrous threats. Look at the school!”

“It’s time we rid our community of something.” I’m not sure who first said it, but the whispered muttering was taken up by a number of sorcerers.

That’s when I realized how the crowd had faced off. Pastor Roberts and his crew stood nearer to the front doors, pleading with every parent who came by to snatch away their children, whether they had been directly involved or not. The practitioners stood nearer the playground.

Rushing through the crowd, I found my parents. Actually, I found my entire family, from Nicolas down to Christina. Juliana must have come over from the high school and Isaac from the middle school. Elena and Adam looked remarkably well, meaning that Juliana had given them a dose of healing, but that didn’t surprise me. What did surprise me was that Jenna Lee looked remarkably fit as well.