Insidious Winds (10 page)

It wasn’t the wind that was so supernatural. Snow
blew quite violently… but not on us. Although the wind was strong, there was an
invisible barrier around the castle grounds that stopped the snow. It was past
sunset and the glow from the windows of the castle and dorms seemed to clash
against the snow and clouds.

The noise drew students and professors out of the
castle and the dormitory until the majority of the university’s population
stood outside. Suddenly, the wind changed direction to surround the campus and
formed a massive tornado. Trees were uprooted and one crashed into the ground
before me, but the space inside the tornado, which included the castle,
dormitory, and the greenhouse, was relatively calm.

“Devon, what the hell is going on here?” Marcus
asked.

*          *          *

Although the eye of the storm wasn’t that bad, we
were at risk of flying debris and the sound of the wind was deafening. “Devon,
this is unnatural,” Darwin yelled, barely audible.

I knew it was, but whatever this was, it was
affecting Darwin. I turned back to the castle and saw Hunt, Vincent, and
Flagstone standing in the stone courtyard. When Remington approached her father
to speak to him, Flagstone wrapped his arms around her and pulled her away.
Vincent and Hunt made a motion with their hands, but other than a short burst
of light, nothing happened.

Lightning struck in the dark matter of the tornado,
which was enough to convince many of the students to get back inside. I barely
heard the scream and had no idea where it came from, so I let out my power,
searching for fear instead of a particular mind.

And I found it. The greenhouse was too close to the
dangerous winds, and there were people in it. I backed out of their minds and
connected with Darwin and Henry. “
Darwin, watch out for Marcus and get him
inside. Be gentle; he’s human. Henry, with me
.” I didn’t have to look to
know they would do as I said and neither of them asked about Marcus being
human. They trusted me.

I was halfway to the greenhouse when my instincts
fired up. Before I could get down, Henry crashed into me in his shifted form.
He growled when I tried to stand, then made a painful yelp as he was thrown off
me. I climbed to my feet and turned to check on him, but he was already
sprinting to the greenhouse. By the time I reached it, six students were
scrambling out the door. I moved aside for them to go through and then entered.

The first thing I noticed was that the glass panels
of the ceiling were broken. The second was the three students in the far
right-hand corner; a first-circle male vampire, second-circle female vampire
named Misty, and a first-circle male shifter were all huddled under the long
metal counter against the entire back wall. Henry blocked me from getting
further into the building and growled at something I couldn’t see.

“What is it?” The instant the words were out of my
mouth, a glass panel in the wall on the left blew out. Henry snarled and became
invisible. I reached out with my magic and sensed something extremely powerful.
There was definitely an entity, but it wasn’t a mind I could read. What I could
feel was pain and urgency.

Misty shrieked and vanished. The vampire yelled while
the shifter changed into a large brown wolf and started growling and snapping
at an invisible opponent.

After a few seconds, both the wolf and Henry settled
down. Henry shifted back. “It is gone.”

“What was it?”

He shook his head. “I couldn’t see it. I do know it
was exceptionally powerful.”

“What about Misty?”

“She’s gone.”

“Until I see a body, I’m going to assume she was just
taken somewhere. Henry and… wolf, get everyone inside either the castle or the
dorms.” Henry shifted back into his jaguar form and he and the wolf left.
“Nobody saw anything? What all paranormals were in this class?”

“Vampires and shifters. And no, no one saw anything
except the glass breaking.”

“Can you get inside by yourself?”

“Of course.”

“Do so, and make sure no one calls Stephen.”

“Why don’t you want us calling our coven master?”

“He’s friends with Headmaster Hunt. If one of the
students calls him up in a panic before anyone knows what’s going on, it’ll
just cause problems.”

“Right.” He left and I followed.

Only the professors and Hunt were outside. I went to
Hunt and Vincent. “Please tell me you know what this is.”

“A massive, stationary tornado that is just large
enough that it isn’t damaging the castle or dormitory? Magic,” Vincent
answered.

“Yeah, I got that part. Who is doing this? Krechea?”

“I hope not,” Hunt said. “Come to my office.”

I followed them into the castle and to the headmaster’s
office, which was the same as always— dark, quiet, and cozy. I sat on the
couch, Hunt sat in the chair behind his desk, and Vincent sat in one of the
chairs by the fire.

“The wizard council has been pushing for the school
records,” Hunt started.

“So you think the council is doing this?”

“I believe so. Most likely, they hope to force my
hand by locking everyone in. Without water or food, we would be in great
danger… eventually. It is the exact kind of passive attack that the council
would use.”

“Are the other schools affected?”

“Yes. I have already sent Rosin to secure the
children’s school and orphanage. He will likely be gone for several days, so
some of the students are going to panic,” Hunt said, giving me an indicative
expression.

I knew what he was getting at; Flagstone’s temporary
departure in the previous semester left a lasting effect on the pack-minded
shifters. It did help that they had Zhang Wei taking over matters concerning
the cat shifters, but the shifters who were not wolves or cats still hadn’t
assimilated. Brian, the only hyena shifter in the university, was actually
firmly devoted to his one alpha. That one alpha was me. Even some of the wolf
shifters would look at me for confirmation before obeying Alpha Flagstone.

Hunt wanted me to help keep the shifters calm. I
nodded.

“Since Logan, Keigan, and I can go in and out easily,
we don’t have to worry about food and water,” Vincent said. “The problem is,
having worked in the council, I know that not a single wizard in the council is
strong enough to create a storm of this magnitude alone.”

“What if they worked together?” I asked.

Vincent looked unsure. “It is possible. However, if
they’re working together like this, they must be very dedicated to their goal,
because those wizards are the most temperamental, self-serving imps I have ever
met.”

“You can’t just get rid of the tornado yourself?”

“Magic like this leaves residual effects. It is very
likely that trying to destroy it without knowing what is fueling it will merely
reinforce it. The families of the students will panic when they find out the
students are trapped here. Nevertheless, we are going to keep the shadow pass a
secret for obvious reasons.”

“Maybe we should be trying to get everyone out.”

“As long as the wizard council is fighting so hard to
control the paranormal world, I believe the school is the safest place for the
students.”

“Where have you been? Jackson’s gang is taking bets
on when and how everyone is going to start dying this time. The current top
prediction is that zombies are going to attack by the third Friday of March.”

“We have had no supernatural deaths since I opened
the school until you came,” Hunt pointed out.

He didn’t mean it as a jab, but it hurt nonetheless.
It made me sick to my stomach. “So you think I’m the reason?” I asked.

Vincent stood up, but he didn’t take a step in any
direction, as if he weren’t sure what he should do. “You are not the cause of
this. Logan merely means that the frequent deaths are not the norm.”

“You could be the cause,” Hunt said thoughtfully.
Vincent glared at him, but he went on. “Had you not come here, John would not
have gone after Remy because no one would have stood in his way of starting a
war with vampires. Had you not gone after Gale, Vincent and I would have. You
can imagine what he would be like with our power. Had you not used your
wide-spread mind control, dozens of students would have died in the dorms
during that earthquake. And had you not been so determined to uncover every
secret in the university, no one would have made the connection between Krechea
and Gale.”

“Logan,” Vincent said, sighing with disapproval.

Hunt went on, uncaring. “So, yes, you could be the
cause. You should be very ashamed that we lost nearly a hundred people in a
year and a half instead of the thousands if not more we would have lost had you
not been here.”

“Is that your way of encouraging me? Because it needs
work.”

*          *          *

On the way back to my room, I had to herd people
inside and away from windows. There was something out there and we had lost
several people to it in the first few minutes. At least it wasn’t zombies.

Is this what my life has come to
?

When I opened my door, I was not surprised to see
Addie in Henry’s bed while the jaguar shifter sat at his desk. Darwin and
Amelia were sitting on the floor with about forty books spread out on the
floor. However, I had forgotten about Marcus, who was sitting in the chair at
my desk. He stood. “You look smaller on camera,” he said.

I side-stepped three stacks of books to get to my
desk. I wanted to pace, but I wasn’t willing to work that hard. Instead, I
shook his hand. “And your voice sounds a lot less paranoid in person.”

Although Marcus was my most trusted human friend, I
hadn’t seen him in over a year. I had tracked a drug operation to Marcus’s
mother when Marcus was sixteen. Lois Sinclair wasn’t intentionally involved;
she was just a tool to Simon Sinclair, or “Sin,” as he was more commonly known.
While it was one of my first cases, it was also one of my most difficult ones.

Sin was born with a silver spoon in his mouth and an
entourage of crooked lawyers. He was the type of man who wasn’t happy with just
having everything; he also wanted everyone else to have nothing. Sin was to
blame for at least a dozen murders, but every one of his witnesses was paid
off, blackmailed, or they just disappeared.

He was impossible to track. His wife wasn’t. Marcus,
who was always clever when it came to electronics, decided to turn off the
alarm system so he could sneak out to a party. I happened to be there that very
night and was able to get right up to one of the windows. If it hadn’t been for
Marcus and great timing, I would have gotten caught. Instead, I saw Sin shoot
Lois from the living room window while Marcus saw it from the balcony.

Marcus took off that night and hid at his
girlfriend’s house. The girl’s parents convinced him to go to the police, which
he did. The girlfriend’s house burned down in a fire, her parents were reported
with mental instability, and the girl was sent to a foster family. Marcus was
taken to a safe house, which lasted for about an hour before Sin found him. Sin
had many contacts in the police.

Using my skills and intuition, I found Marcus and
helped him pull his life back together. I was only five years older than him,
but I hid him at my place and got him some new records. While I attended my
college classes, he studied security. By the time I graduated, he was able to
stand on his own feet. I already had a good clientele and was able to give him
his first business. As silly as the extreme measures he went through to hide
his identity seemed to be, they kept him safe from his father for ten years.
After the first five, I thought that Sin had given up.

Apparently, I was wrong.

I glanced at Henry and Darwin. “Please tell me you
explained all of this to him.”

“We thought you wanted to do it,” Darwin said. “No
worries. I’m Darwin, half fae, half wolf shifter. This is my fiancé, Amelia,
who is a fae. That’s Henry, a jaguar shifter, and his girlfriend, Addison, who
is an ocelot shifter. Devon here is a wizard. You’re in a school full of
paranormals, including vampires, fae, shifters, and wizards. Oh, and if they
catch you here, the wizard council will probably kill you, but since there’s a
magical tornado circling the school, I don’t think you need to worry about
them. Instead, you need to worry about whatever is in the tornado that’s
attacking people. Does that cover it?”

Marcus’s eyebrows furrowed and his lips pursed.
“Okay.”

We all looked at him. “Okay?” I asked.

He shrugged. “As long as the vamps don’t want to chow
down on my neck and the werewolves don’t want to crawl into bed with me…” he
shrugged again. “It’s cool. I like fantasy, so it’s like fiction, but real.”

“What is the plan?” Henry asked, already over the
fact that Marcus was a human. It seemed like it was only the wizards that
really worried about humans finding them out.

“We have to find out what took that student.”

“Do we know who’s responsible?” Addie asked.

“Hunt thinks it’s the wizard council. It’s not like
they could do anything to him, though.”

“They have a lot magical items they confiscated from
various people, some even worse than the amulet,” Darwin argued. Henry turned
to him, very interested in knowing more. “I’ve been doing some research on the
amulet, and I found out it has a sister artifact.”

“Another amulet?” I felt a bit sick at the thought
that we would have to track another one of these things down. 

“No. They’re shackles, and they neutralize the
wearer’s power. I bet you the council has them and if they could get those on
Hunt, it wouldn’t matter how powerful he is. They could do whatever. Alpha
Flagstone wouldn’t even be able to use the headmaster’s power.”

“If it is the council doing this, are we going to
have a big fight with them?” Addie asked.