Heartless (Blue Fire Saga) (4 page)

Jones shook his head in exasperation. “I think you and I both know that was no fraternity prank, Miss Farnsworth.”

“May we come in?” Smith asked.

Cali didn’t see any reason to keep them out. Besides, she would much rather talk to them about all this inside her room than with them standing in the hallway. Besides, she didn’t have anything to hide—except some knowledge about Leesa, Rave and Dominic, and no way was she going to give any of that up.

“Sure, c’mon in.”

She backed up into the room. She could have sat on her bed, leaving the two chairs for the agents, but instead she turned her desk chair around and sat down. Smith and Jones followed her in, but the woman disappeared down the hallway. Cali wondered what she was doing out there.

The two men glanced around the room. They seemed reluctant to sit on her bed, and with only one chair available, they both chose to remain standing, which was just fine with Cali.

“Why do you say it was a fraternity prank, Miss Farnsworth?” Smith asked.

“That’s what campus security is calling it, isn’t it? My boyfriend is in a fraternity, and he says the police have been coming down hard on all the frats.”

“That’s the story for public consumption, yes,” Jones said. “It wouldn’t do to tell people there were zombies on campus—I’m sure you agree.”

Cali pretended to be deep in thought. “Yeah, I guess not,” she said after a moment. “I could see how that might cause problems.”

“But you know better, don’t you?” Smith pressed.

“Well, they sure seemed like real zombies to me,” Cali admitted. “But I didn’t get that good a look at them. I was too busy spraying one with a fire extinguisher. I didn’t really care if he was some stupid frat guy in costume or a real zombie. He deserved to get sprayed in the face. Big time.”

Jones pulled a small, sealed plastic baggie out of his jacket pocket. Inside, Cali saw her purple pen with the lavender fur on the end.
Uh, oh
, she thought.

“Do you recognize this?” Jones asked.

Cali feigned confusion. “Uh, should I?”

“It’s been identified as your pen,” Jones said. “It’s really quite distinctive, wouldn’t you say?”

“Yeah, I guess maybe it could be mine. But so what? It can’t be the only purple pen with fur in the world.”

“Maybe not, but it’s the only one found on this floor, sunk into the eye socket of a dead zombie.”

Smith moved a step closer to Cali. “If you thought the zombie might just be a frat guy in costume, why did you stick your pen in his eye? That wouldn’t be very nice, no matter how much he was scaring you.”

No good answer came to Cali, so she decided to remain silent. The female agent chose that moment to enter the room, which provided a bit of a distraction for Cali’s silence. As before, the woman positioned herself behind the men and said nothing.

“I’m curious about another thing,” Smith continued. “According to the autopsy, all three of the zombies suffered broken necks. Do you have any idea how that happened?”

Cali shrugged. “There was an awful lot going on at the time, as I’m sure you can imagine. But those things were pretty clumsy, staggering around and bumping into the walls and everything. Maybe that’s how it happened.” She paused for a moment. “Or maybe they all had broken necks
before
they came back to life.” She shrugged. “I really don’t know how all that stuff works. I haven’t had any classes on zombies yet.”

Both agents were clearly skeptical of Cali’s suggestions.

“Let’s get back to your pen for a minute,” Jones said. “Was it after the zombie’s neck was broken that you stuck the pen in his eye? You wouldn’t have done that if you had any thought at all it might just be a fellow student, would you?”

Cali knew there was a limit to how dumb she could play.

“Yeah, I guess not. I could see bone beneath some of the rotting skin on his cheek. No way it could have been makeup. I’ve seen lots of zombie movies and shows. I know you have to kill their brains to kill them. So I used my pen.” She batted her eyelashes. “I hope I’m not in trouble for that.”

“No, you’re not,” Jones said. “It turns out there are no laws on the books about killing zombies—who’d have guessed?”

“We’re just trying to gather as much information as we can about what happened,” Smith said. “Where those things came from, why they chose your dorm, anything like that.”

Cali was struck by the thought that if the BSI guys had come yesterday afternoon, she would not have had a clue to any of those answers. After last night, though, when Leesa had shared her full story, Cali now knew about the Necromancer and the black waziri. She was not about to tell any of that to these agents, though. She hoped their arrival today was just coincidence and nothing more.

“I’m sorry I don’t know more,” she said. “There was just so much going on—kids running and screaming, the fire extinguisher blasting—I just never got a clear picture of anything.”

Smith and Jones exchanged glances. Both were clearly frustrated. They edged apart and turned their heads toward the woman, who nodded. Cali watched her nervously. For some reason, she seemed far more threatening than the two men. Cali didn’t know if it was the woman’s silence, her expressionless face, or the cold look in her dark eyes, but something about her was giving Cali the willies.

“Miss Rome needs to touch you,” Smith said. “Would that be all right?”

Cali pushed herself back in her chair. She did not like the thought of this woman touching her.

“Why?”

“She has the ability to sense magic,” Jones said. “We want to make sure your encounter with the zombie did not infect you in any way.”

Yeah, right
, Cali thought. More likely they were checking to see if she possessed any kind of magic of her own. But since she didn’t, she saw no harm in proving it to the agents. Still, the idea of the Rome lady touching her made her nervous. She didn’t see how she could stop the woman, though.

“Oh, okay. That would be great.” Cali flashed her widest smile. “I feel fine, but I guess a girl can never be too sure where zombies are concerned. I sure wouldn’t want to be infected by those things.”

Rome stepped forward, her face still a blank mask, and reached out with both hands.

“Don’t worry. You won’t feel a thing.”

They were the first words she had spoken. Cali was surprised at how soft and feminine Rome’s voice was, given the severity of her appearance.

Rome placed her hands lightly on either side of Cali’s head. Her dark eyes narrowed into a look of intense concentration, and then her eyelids closed for about ten seconds. When she opened her eyes, she removed her hands from Cali’s head.

“Nothing,” she said to her two comrades. “She possesses no magic of any kind.”

“What about in the room?” Smith asked. “Any sign of magic in here?”

Cali stiffened. Apparently, the woman could detect magic in ways other than by touching a subject, and Leesa had just performed magic in here the day before. Luckily, both agents were looking at Rome and did not notice Cali’s reaction. She wondered how she was going to explain it if Rome sensed Leesa’s spell. She decided her best choice would be to continue to play dumb and to hope for the best.

“I don’t sense any in the room, either,” Rome said.

Smith nodded. Cali thought he looked disappointed. She was glad Leesa’s magic was so weakened right now, because had it been at full strength, she was pretty sure Rome would have detected it. Cali tried not to show her relief. She decided now would be a good time to try to gather as much information as she could, without seeming unduly interested.

“What happens when you detect magic in someone?” she asked, thinking that sounded like a perfectly logical question for an ordinary human to ask.

“I’m afraid we can’t tell you that,” Jones said.

“Let’s just say we have a few tricks of our own up our sleeves,” Smith added.

Cali thought she saw Rome frown at Smith’s statement, but with the woman’s face already looking so hard and expressionless, it was difficult to tell.

Jones turned his head toward Rome. “What about out in the hallway?” he asked her. “Did you detect anything out there?”

Rome nodded. “Faint traces in all three places where the report says the zombie corpses were found. The magic is congruent with reanimation, but I can’t tell any more than that. It’s been too long.”

“Okay. I guess that’s it, then.”

“There’s one more thing,” Rome said.

Cali held her breath. In the movies, these “one more things” often turned out to be critical. She waited for the proverbial “other shoe” to drop.

“What is it, Tiffany?” Jones asked.

“That same very low level blanket of magic I started sensing about five miles outside of town is everywhere. I’ve never felt anything like it before. For all I know, it could be masking faint traces of old magic here.”

“Any guesses what it could be?” Smith asked.

Cali smiled inwardly. She wondered how they would react if she told them the mysterious blanket of magic originated from fell powers far beneath the earth and was weakening the powers of every magical being in the whole area. Of course, she was not about to volunteer any of that information. And if that magic happened to be masking some of the magic that had been performed around here, all the better.

“Not a clue,” Rome said. “Perhaps it would help if we determined how widespread this thing is, but I really don’t know.”

Smith and Jones looked at each other and seemed to come to an unspoken agreement.

“I guess we’ve got some driving ahead of us, then,” Jones said. “We’ll crisscross the entire area until we determine the boundaries.”

Cali was glad to hear that. Leesa had told her the affected area extended at least twenty miles in every direction. The BSI agents would be busy for awhile, with a mystery much bigger than a couple of dead zombies. Still, she needed to warn Leesa about all this as soon as possible.

Smith moved closer to Cali, looming over her.

“Please do not discuss this with anyone,” he said. “BSI likes to keep a low profile. There’s no sense upsetting people by letting them know that creatures from their nightmares really do exist.”

Cali put on her most serious face.

“Don’t worry. I wouldn’t dream of telling anyone. They’d just think I was a nut job, anyhow.” She circled her index finger by her temple to emphasize her last point.

“That’s a good girl,” Smith said. He took out his billfold and pulled out a card, which he handed to Cali. “If anything else unusual happens, Miss Farnsworth, please call us right away.”

Cali glanced down at the card and nodded.
Fat chance
, she thought.

“Oh yes, sir. I’ll certainly do that.”

6. CALI’S TALE

W
hen Leesa returned to her room after her last class, she found Cali sitting on the floor alongside the door, waiting for her. This was never a good sign—since Cali lived only one floor down, she could have easily just left a note on the door and returned to the comfort of her room to wait. Obviously, whatever was going on was important enough that she wanted to talk to Leesa as soon as possible. Leesa hoped it wasn’t anything that was going to get in the way of her being a normal student for awhile, but doubted she was going to be that lucky.

Cali scrambled to her feet as soon as she saw Leesa emerge from the stairwell.

“Hey, Cali,” Leesa said as she fished inside the pocket of her jeans for her keys. “What’s up?”

“Not out here,” Cali said, her voice low, yet urgent. “Inside.”

Leesa’s sense of foreboding grew as she inserted her key into the lock and pushed the door open. She stepped into her room and Cali followed close behind, shutting the door behind them.

“You’ll never believe what just happened,” Cali said before Leesa even had time to remove her coat.

Leesa shrugged off her jacket and hung it on the hook in her closet.

“Are you kidding? With everything I just told you yesterday, do you really think there’s anything you could tell me that I wouldn’t believe?”

Cali grinned. “Yeah, I know. But this is different.” She frowned. “Well, actually it’s related to all that stuff, but there’s still something different about it.”

Leesa’s curiosity was definitely piqued now. She sat down on the edge of her bed. Cali remained standing.

“Okay, let’s hear it,” Leesa said.

“Two guys stopped by my room a little while ago.” Unable to stand still, Cali paced in a small circle in front of Leesa’s bed while she spoke. “There was a woman with them, too, but I’ll get back to her in a minute. The guys were wearing cheap blue suits. They looked like federal agents, the kind you see in TV shows all the time. And that’s just what they were—from something called the Bureau of Supernatural Investigations. BSI, they said. They wanted to talk to me about the zombie attack on my floor.”

“Supernatural Investigations?” Leesa said skeptically. “Are you sure? I never heard of anything like that. It sounds fishy.”

“I know, right? But they had very official-looking ID’s. And get this—their names were Smith and Jones!”

Leesa smiled. “Are you sure someone isn’t just having a little fun with you? Some of Andy’s frat buddies, maybe? Playing a joke?”

“That’s what I thought at first, but their questions were pretty serious. These guys were much too old to be in college, too. And then there was the woman.”

“Let me guess,” Leesa said, still a bit skeptical. “Her name was Ms. White, or Ms. Black or something like that.”

Cali grinned. “Close. Smith and Jones called her Miss Rome.”

“Ha! I knew it. I bet there’s a Miss London or a Miss Berlin back at the BSI, too.”

Cali shrugged. “Maybe, but if there are, I hope they’re not anything like Miss Rome. She was pretty scary.”

Leesa’s brow furrowed. Cali was not easily scared.

“What do you mean?”

Cali stopped pacing and sat down on the bed next to Leesa.

“Just the feeling she gave off. She’s real severe looking—she looked like she had never smiled in her life, like her face would crack if she did. And if her hair had been pulled back any tighter, I think it would have ripped out of her head.”