Heartless (Blue Fire Saga) (21 page)

A sharp pain shot through Cali’s head. For a moment, she felt as if someone had shoved a hot stick into her eye. She yelped and tried to pull away, but Rome held her tightly. The xenorian woman was surprisingly strong. The intense pain faded, leaving behind a dull ache.

“Don’t move,” Rome said. “You’ll only make it worse.

“What happened?” Cali asked. “It didn’t hurt at all last time. I don’t like this.”

“I’m going deeper this time, to make certain I don’t miss anything. Just think of the pain as your little sacrifice for the cause.”

What cause
? Cali wondered. Not any cause she supported, that was for sure.

Rome’s eyelids closed for about ten seconds. Cali felt another small surge of pain, but nothing close to the original jab. Finally, Rome opened her eyes and removed her hands from Cali’s head. The hurt lingered for a moment and then disappeared.

“Nothing,” Rome said, glancing up at Smith and Jones. “No sign of any infection.”

Cali knew that “infection” really meant magic, but she gave no sign that she understood.

“Whew, I’m glad to hear that. Thanks so much for coming back to check on me. It sure hurt, but I guess it’s worth it to know I’m okay.”

“No problem,” Rome replied. “Besides, a little pain now and then is good for the soul.”

Spoken like someone who would have enjoyed being a torturer for the Inquisition, Cali thought, but kept the thought to herself.

“Well, let’s go,” Smith said. “We’ve got lots of girls to talk to.”

Cali looked up in surprise. She did not like this turn of events at all. She needed to learn everything she could about what the xenorians were up to.

“You’re checking everyone on my floor? I thought you were just worried about me because I stabbed one of the zombies.”

“We’re checking the whole dorm,” Smith said. He looked back to the open door. “Missi is introducing us to the kids we didn’t meet the last time we were here.”

Missi smiled weakly in at Cali, obviously not realizing that Rome had been going to hurt Cali.

Missi was a good choice for taking the xenorians around, Cali realized. She was probably the only girl in the dorm who knew at least a little bit about every resident. Cali made a mental note to check in with Missi when she was done guiding the BSI agents around. Maybe Missi would pick up some information that might be useful to Leesa.

“Like I said,” Jones added, “better safe than sorry.”

Cali tried to keep her expression neutral. When Smith had said earlier they were doing follow-up exams, she thought he just meant of the kids on her floor, where the zombies had been. But they were going to be checking everyone in the dorm. Thank goodness Leesa was away with Rave for a couple of days. Cali wondered what the agents would do about girls like Leesa who weren’t here now. Maybe that was something she could find out from Missi later.

“Thanks again for coming back to check on me,” she said, smiling. “It’s nice to know I’m okay.”

“No problem,” Smith said. “You still have my card, right? Call right away if you see anything unusual."

“I will,” Cali said, nodding. “I’ve got your card right in my desk drawer.”

The agents seemed pleased by her response. They smiled at one another and left the room, following Missi down the hallway. As soon as they were gone, Cali grabbed her cell. She needed to tell Leesa about this immediately, or text her if she didn’t pick up.

Cali switched on her phone, but then thought better of it. No sense doing it from here inside the dorm, especially with the BSI people right down the hall. Instead, she grabbed her coat from the closet and slipped it on. Five more minutes would not matter. She would contact Leesa from the safety of the sidewalk, at least a block away from the dorm.

Smith, Jones and Rome trailed Missi from room to room, always following the same routine. Smith and Jones would ask questions about whether anything unusual had been seen or heard, and Rome would touch the occupant under the guise of checking for infection to make sure they had no hidden magic.

From time to time, they would come upon a room whose resident was not home. When that occurred, Missi would let them into the room with a master key provided by the dorm’s Resident Advisor. Rome would enter the room to make sure there was no residual magic. None was found anywhere—until she entered Leesa’s fourth floor room. Located at the end of the hallway, it was the very last room she needed to examine.

Rome spent nearly five minutes inside, moving slowly back and forth, surveying the entire room. Smith and Jones quickly knew something was up, but said nothing.

“Whose room is this?” Rome asked Missi when she finally emerged, pulling the door closed behind her.

“Leesa Nyland’s,” Missi told her. “She’s really nice. I like her. She’s from California, which is kinda cool.”

“Do you by any chance know where she is right now?” Smith asked.

Missi looked concerned. “Why? Is something wrong with her?”

“No, no,” Rome replied quickly. “There’s just a slight irregularity. It’s probably nothing, but we should check her as soon as possible, just to be sure she’s okay. Do you know where we might find her?”

Missi shook her head. “Sorry, no. I haven’t seen her all day. She’s usually here for dinner, but not always. Her mom lives in town and she has a boyfriend, so sometimes she’s with one of them, I guess.”

The three agents exchanged looks.

“Thank you, Missi,” Smith said. “That’s all we need from you. You’ve been a big help.”

“Yes, you have,” Rome added. “We won’t keep you any longer.”

“Glad to help.” Missi smiled and then turned toward the stairwell. She wasn’t quite sure what had just happened in Leesa’s room, but she knew who she was going to tell about it the first chance she got.

“What did you find?” Jones asked Rome after Missi disappeared down the stairs.

“Traces of magic, of course. Faint and not very recent, but definitely there.”

“What kind?” Smith asked.

Rome frowned. “That’s the tricky part. It’s very strange and confusing. The closest thing to it would be wizard magic, but I felt other elements mixed up in it as well—elements which do not really seem to belong together. I can’t describe it any better than that. It’s unlike anything I’ve ever sensed before.”

“Does it feel powerful?” Jones asked.

Rome shrugged. “I can’t really say. The magic used in the room certainly wasn’t very strong, but I felt hints of great power in it, if that makes any sense. I wish I could tell you more—but like I said, it’s very strange.”

Smith and Jones looked at Rome in silence, waiting to see if she had anything more to add. It was rare to see her puzzled by anything magical, especially to this degree.

“One thing is for sure,” Smith said when it was clear Rome had nothing more to add. “We definitely need to talk to this Leesa Nyland. And the sooner, the better.”

27. ILL NEWS

C
ali had been back in her room for almost twenty minutes when Missi knocked tentatively on her doorframe. Leesa had not answered her phone, so Cali left a detailed text about the xenorians’ visit and asked Leesa to call as soon as she got the chance. She told Leesa not to come back to the dorm until they had talked.

“Hey, I was going to come looking for you,” she said to Missi. “C’mon in.”

She stepped into the room and then moved aside so Missi could enter. As soon as Missi moved past, Cali shut the door to give them privacy. She had turned Pink back on when she returned to her room, and now the singer was singing about broken promises and punching someone out in “Who Knew.” Cali crossed the room and shut the music off, knowing that Missi’s coming here meant something important had happened—and Cali had a sinking feeling in her gut that she knew what it was going to be.

“What’s up?” Cali figured she would give less away by letting Missi take the lead than by peppering her with specific questions.

Missi glanced around the room, seemingly looking for a place to sit down, but she remained standing.

“It’s about those government agents,” she began, “and Leesa.”

This was exactly what Cali had been afraid of. She tried not to let her concern show on her face or in her voice.

“Leesa? What about her?”

“I took the agents through the whole dorm,” Missi said. “There were five or six rooms with no one home, which was no big surprise, kids being at class or somewhere. I had a master key for just that reason, so I opened up each of the rooms. Agent Rome would go inside, walk around for a minute or so, and then come right back out. She would shake her head at Smith and Jones, and we would move on to the next room. When we got to Leesa’s room, though, it was different.”

Cali felt her heart beginning to beat faster. She forced herself to remain calm. She did
not
want to let Missi know how worried she was.

“Different, how?”

“Well, Rome was in there for at least five minutes, for one thing. Way longer than in any of the other rooms.” Missi sat down on the edge of Cali’s bed. “And when she came out, she didn’t shake her head like the other times. Instead, she exchanged some kind of look with Smith and Jones. You know how expressionless her face is, so it was hard to tell what it was all about, but there was definitely something going on.”

Cali was pretty sure she knew what had happened—Rome had sensed Leesa’s magic. The question now was: what were the agents going to do next? She remembered the pain Rome had caused her, even though she had no magic. She did not even want to imagine what they might do to Leesa if they discovered she possessed magical powers.

“So then what happened?” she asked Missi.

“I asked if anything was wrong. Rome said there was a ‘slight irregularity,’ whatever that means, but that it was nothing to worry about.” Missi looked at Cali questioningly. “Was Leesa down here for that zombie thing? Could she maybe have caught that infection the agents were talking about?”

Cali decided there was no point in revealing that Leesa had indeed been here at the end of the zombie attack, since the whole infection thing was a crock anyhow. As far as Cali knew, she was the only one who knew about the volkaanes killing the zombies and that Leesa had watched it all. There was so sense in sharing any of that information now, particularly since it might make its way back to the xenorians, who were conducting a far more thorough investigation than Cali had initially thought.

“No, Leesa wasn’t here. I don’t see how she could have been infected by the zombies. What happened next?”

“They asked me a couple of questions. Did I know where Leesa was, or when she might be back? Stuff like that.”

Cali had to fight hard to keep her voice from sounding overly concerned. “What did you tell them?”

“I told them the truth. That I didn’t know where she was, and that she was usually here for dinner, but not always. I said sometimes she eats at her mom’s. I figured you’re her best friend—you might know.”

“Did you tell the agents that?” Cali asked worriedly. “That I’m her best friend?” If the xenorians discovered how close she and Leesa were, they might come back with a whole new set of questions—and a whole new level of pain.

Missi shook her head. “No, I didn’t think of it at the time. Besides, something in the way they looked at each other when Rome came out of Leesa’s room makes me think there’s something important they’re not telling us. Plus, as soon as I answered their questions, they shooed me away, like they had things to discuss in secret. I’m not sure I trust them completely.”

Cali was glad to hear that. “Me either. I think the less we tell them for now, the better. I’ll shoot Leesa a text and tell her what happened. She can decide what she wants to do about it.” She sat down next to Missi. “I’m glad you told me about this. It’s probably no big deal, but let’s keep it all between us just the same, okay?”

“Yeah, sure. The more I think about it, the less I like those three. I just hope Leesa is okay.”

“I’m sure she is.” Cali stood up and moved toward the door. “I’ll text her right now. Thanks again for letting me know. I’ll take it from here.”

Cali pulled the door open and Missi got to her feet. As soon as Missi was gone, Cali picked up her cell and donned her sweatshirt to head outside one more time. When she was a block away from the dorm, she began texting Leesa more details.

Two hours later, Leesa was growing increasingly glum as she read through the second of Cali’s long texts. She had been out enjoying a ride through the hills in Raves arms, taking a break from practicing her magic, when Cali had called. When they had stopped to enjoy a particularly pretty spot, she had checked her phone for messages.

The news was not good, not good at all. Apparently, traces of her magic lingered in her room, even though it had been weeks since she had done any spells there. Thank goodness she had been away with Rave when the xenorians came to her room—who knows what would have happened if they had surprised her there and detected her magic.

She pecked out a quick reply to Cali letting her know her messages had been received and that Leesa would definitely be staying away for at least a few more days. After hitting send, she turned off her phone and looked up at Rave, who had been watching her closely as she read the texts. She would tell him everything Cali had said, of course, and then she needed to call Dominic and see what he had to say about this unsettling development.

Leesa wasn’t certain what their plan would be, but she was pretty sure about one thing—she was probably going to be away from school for more than just another day or two.

28. TWO DECISIONS

L
eesa sat on a wooden bench in a riverside park located on the outskirts of a small town about thirty miles from the caverns where she and Rave were staying. At this hour of the night, she and Rave had the park all to themselves. A bright three-quarter moon and a myriad of stars provided more than enough illumination in the deserted park. Rave had carried her here so she could call Dominic—while she could text from up in the mountains, the signal there was much too weak for calls. Of course, that particular inconvenience of their secluded hideaway was of no matter to the volkaanes.