Dark Waters (Elemental Book 1) (14 page)

“Go back to your dorm, Mr. Sanders,” Hunt said
calmly.

“Logan, it’s obvious he’s the one behind these---”

“That is enough, Rebecca. Rosin already said Mr.
Sanders is innocent.”

Undeterred, Mrs. Ashcraft glared at me. I decided not
to push it.
Surely Remington is just lost in one of the weird hallways and
Alpha Flagstone will find her within the hour.

*          *          *

I headed back to my dorm on autopilot, so I didn’t
immediately sense that I was being watched. By the time I realized my instincts
were warning me of danger, it was too late. I had just reached the main door of
the dorms when something slammed me into the wall.

“Welcome to the paranormal world, Devon Sanders.”

It was a masculine voice, but it wasn’t human. The
sound was half hiss, half growl. I could feel it as easily as I could sense a
shifter; he was a vampire. With his fist wadded in the back of my shirt, he
pulled me away and then slammed me back into the wall. I tried to turn my head,
but nausea and a massive headache slowed me. I closed my eyes because, while
blood didn’t make me squeamish, I preferred when it wasn’t running into my
eyes.

When images of blood all over the floors and walls
tried to cripple my mind, I forced it away and instead focused on all the
sunrises I had watched. It was the most peaceful time of day; the time when all
the monsters had to go back into the closet.

At least these monsters did.

Like with Remington, I acted on instinct. I reached
out for his mind, locked onto it, and pushed the images in my head onto him. I
did it fast enough that he couldn’t see any more of my thoughts and I couldn’t
see any of his. He was a vampire; I didn’t want to see what was in his mind.

I pushed not only the images but also the feeling of
warm sunlight on my skin. Within a few seconds, the vampire cursed and let me
go and I slid to the ground. I didn’t have to let his mind go; he seemed to
just disappear. After a few moments, the nausea settled enough for me to sit up
and looked around.

I was alone.

I stumbled back to my room with my shirt pressed
against my forehead where my skull had met brick. Fortunately, nobody was in
the halls. When I got to my room, Darwin was asleep and Henry was studying. He
took one look at me and started gathering bandaging and sanitizing supplies
from his dresser.

He didn’t ask me what happened; he knew it had
something to do with my investigation and respected my secrecy. I sat in my
chair while he took care of my cut. It was a comfortable silence.

I pulled the note from my pocket and unfolded it. The
language was foreign and not anything I recognized, written hastily with blood
red ink.

A es niiso bolape odo.
Just one sentence.

What I focused on was the design drawn under the
words. There were intricate designs and symbols in a circle. I had seen it
before, but I couldn’t remember from where.

*          *          *

The next day, I noticed at breakfast that more people
were staring at me than usual. Before, students were excitedly talking up my
powers in facing Zhang Wei, the vampire, and Jackson’s posse in the bathroom.
Everyone assumed I was all-powerful and that gave them all kinds of fuel to
embellish the minor events. This wasn’t the same excitement as before.

This was fear.

Darwin sat in his usual place next to me and Henry
sat across from us. “They’re saying you were the last to be seen with Remington
Hunt,” Darwin said. “Jackson is saying he saw you and Heather arguing right
before Hunt found you in the closet with her dead body.” He said it so
matter-of-fact as he shoved too much bacon in his mouth that it was almost
comedic.

“How the hell does Jackson know about Heather?”

“So you did get in an argument with her?” Henry
asked.

“Of course not. I was with Remington when I found
Heather’s body.”

“So you were the last person to see Remy alive?”

“Yes… shit… we don’t know that anything happened to
Remington,” I argued. “We found Heather’s body, which I had nothing to do with,
and Remington ran off to get her father. Maybe she got lost.” Except she
obviously hadn’t because Alpha Flagstone would have found her already if that
were the case.

Mostly out of curiosity, I pulled the letter out of
my pocket. There had to have been a reason why Heather had it on her. “Darwin,
can you read this?” I asked, passing it over discreetly. He caught on and hid
it from view as he opened it. Henry glanced around as if keeping watch.

Darwin folded the note back up and handed it back to
me.

“No clue, bro, but that symbol looks familiar. I’ve
seen another like it in some old journals I ran across. The language was the
same and the symbol wasn’t exactly the same, though, so I don’t know anything
helpful. By the way, what happened to your head?”

“I ran into a friend.”

“You shouldn’t have been running,” he said.

*          *          *

Alpha Flagstone’s class had been cancelled while he
was hunting down the headmaster’s daughter. Since there was no substitute for
Professor Hans,
Magic in Everyday Life
was also cancelled. I was at the
lake, feeding the kappa when Hunt found me.

“You know, people are going to start spreading rumors
about you if they see you feeding the pests,” he said.

I tossed my last cucumber out. “Did you find Remy?”

“No. Let’s go.”

I stood. “Where?”

“To get her back, of course.”

“So you know where she is?” I followed him back to
the school.

“I know where to start looking.” We stopped in his
office just long enough to trade his wizard robe for a long, black coat and
grab a cane.

We were in a black SUV ten minutes later with Alpha
Flagstone as the driver and Professor Nightshade in the passenger seat. I
wondered why Mrs. Ashcraft wasn’t part of this, but then I figured that someone
had to take care of the school. As I watched the university disappear behind
me, there was a change in the atmosphere of the car.

Professor Nightshade still looked ridiculously young,
but seriousness emanated from her as much as the other two. There was something
very powerful about her, like she was hundreds of years old and no more human
than the wolf shifter who was driving.

I studied Hunt’s cane. It was about three feet tall,
a little more than an inch in diameter, and made of a dark wood. Every inch of
it was covered in carefully carved magic symbols and sigils, starting at a
skull with vampire fangs. The top of the staff was a silver oval that unscrewed
in the middle, and the staff ended with a silver spike.

Nobody spoke the entire drive, which was well over
two hours long. Most of the drive was through back roads and mountain passes.
Finally, we pulled into a manicured lawn just as dusk was settling in.

Like something out of a Lovecraft novel, the house
was a two story Gothic monster crouched halfway up the hill; the setting sun
glittered on the fanlights and small spires. The windows were blank. Not
surprisingly, the hair on the back of my arms and neck stood. The thing looked
like a predatory beast waiting for some unsuspecting prey to pass by. It looked
as if it had been waiting for a long time.

I found myself pondering if it was wondering how I
would taste.

Every instinct suddenly screamed at me that this was
a bad idea. “Where are we?”

“At the home of Stephen Yocum; the vampire king of
the largest coven in the country,” Hunt answered. “If a vampire took Remy, he
would know.”

“And he’ll tell us the truth?” I asked doubtfully.

“Vampires are like women; success lies in your tone
of voice. If you go in there and make demands, he will bite first and bury
whatever is left later. That is the problem with the wizard council; they never
think before they bark.”

Whereas vampires were all bite.
“Can I wait in
the car?”

“No.”

“Vampires suck,” I muttered as Hunt opened the door.
Professor Nightshade came around to my side and looped her arm around mine like
an excited girlfriend. Since she looked like a teenager, it bothered me. At
least she didn’t wear miniskirts and tube-tops like some girls liked to. Too
many children thought dressing slutty was cool. I found it sad.

“Not all of them suck,” she said. “Yocum’s preferred
method of punishment for dishonor is defanging those who failed him.”

“Great.”

“You two take a look around to make sure we do not
get ambushed by shifters,” Hunt said. Professor Nightshade and Alpha Flagstone
took off in opposite directions parallel to the house. When we were alone, he
handed me a Glock and shoulder holster.

I checked the butt of the gun to see a small dent in
the black metal. “This is my gun! How did you get my gun?” I took off my black
leather jacket, strapped the holster on, set the gun in it, and put my jacket
back on.

“I went to your apartment to see if anyone had
searched the place. Someone is onto you. I could not place who, but someone had
definitely been there. As far as I could tell, nothing was stolen or broken.
Also, you had a message. Your ex-wife wants a new car and demands that you buy
her one. I deleted the message so you had room for something important.”

“Thanks. Some women should have warning labels glued
to their foreheads.” I was just trying to distract myself at this point. A man
opened the front door. He was tall and thin with an Italian heritage. His shirt
was black satin and his pants were a dressy, pressed, black material. He didn’t
look like a vampire to me. I patted my gun anyway.

“Be polite,” Hunt warned. He used his cane as if he
needed it, even though I knew he didn’t.

We went inside and the door shut behind me just as it
occurred to me that Alpha Flagstone would have been great backup. He was still
outside with Professor Nightshade. I was sure they had a good reason not to
come in, but a trained wizard, a powerful shifter, and whatever the hell
Professor Nightshade was, seemed like a better team than me and my gun against
a vampire attack.

I guess fighting a vampire army isn’t covered
under teacher duties. It’s probably an insurance thing.

The house was modern with high ceilings, blank white
walls, and sophisticated furniture that looked uncomfortable. Of course, this
was a vampire coven, so maybe they were into that. My sense of danger was
growing with each step as the Italian vampire led us through the brightly lit,
spacious hallways and rooms.

We were shown into a room that had the most lived in
appearance and left alone. It was a large ground floor room that served as a
library. Shelves packed with books lined two walls while a fireplace occupied
most of a third. There was a large desk, two chairs, a couch, and a coffee
table. The desk had a fairly clear space on it and there was a coating of dust
over everything, as if no one had been in here in a very long time.

Books and papers were piled on most of the available
space, as well as some rather esoteric looking odds and ends. It gave the
impression that vampires were not above cracking open a book on occasion.

There must have been well over two thousand books and
bound manuscripts on the shelves. As I read some of the titles, my curiosity
about this vampire was reaching critical limits. There were volumes on
chemistry, biology, and psychology, as well as highly esoteric works on physics
and mathematics. Sharing the shelves with these were occult classics,
alchemical texts, ancient grimoires, and leather bound manuscripts concerning
things either long since dismissed or banned by all sane men. It was a
fascinating and rather frightening compilation of scientific and cabalistic
lore.

Just as I was about to ask Hunt how long we were going
to wait, I heard a sound; something between a bass violin note and the moan of
the wind, from behind me. I turned back.

A man sat behind the desk. “Good evening, Logan,” he
said as he stood. He was a few inches taller than me with black hair and dark
brown eyes. He wore a business suit, of all things, which made him more like a
human than I was comfortable with. This vampire could go out on the streets,
blend in with the unsuspecting humans, and get away with anything.

And he was oddly familiar.

“Good to see you, Stephen,” Hunt said smoothly.

The vampire grinned at me. “I see you brought a gift.
I always appreciate when you bring dinner, wizard, but you know I prefer
women.” His fangs glinted in the light.

I made a sound I had never made before, something
between a cough and a squeak.

“Relax, Devon, he is just messing with you,” Hunt
assured me. “We are here on business, Stephen. Remy’s missing. One of my
teachers and some of my students were killed. Tell me what you know.”

Obviously, these two had a history. It was disturbing
to be so close to a vampire and not try to kill him, but it seemed Logan Hunt
was more open minded when it came to vampires than other wizards. Still, my
sense of danger was increasing.

The vampire sat back down in his leather office chair
with a sigh. “Why are you asking me? You know I wouldn’t move on your school.
Now, the wizard council has something coming to them if they don’t stop---”

“Stephen!” Hunt barked, interrupting the vampire. “My
daughter is missing!” He said each word slowly, emphatically.

This was the headmaster as I hadn’t seen him before.
He was worried about his students, but he had been able to hide his emotions
like I learned to. This was fear for his daughter’s life.

The vampire sighed and rubbed his eyes. “I don’t know
anything. There were two rogues that invaded my territory and started a mess a
few months ago, so I told my guys to lay low for a while. The last thing we
needed was humans getting a serial killer stuck in their heads. I will keep an
eye out and listen for her name. It would be best if no one knew you came to me
because if it is a vampire who took Remy…” he trailed off as an odd expression
crossed his face. Then he sighed. “Call off your dogs, Logan. Have some
decorum.”