Something in the atmosphere vanished, some feeling of oppression. It was noticeable enough that Irene almost slumped over as the tension left her muscles.
Professor Zagan just let out another dark chuckle.
“Your finger! The nurse–”
Irene stopped, gaping open-mouthed as the professor held up his hands. She counted to ten. Neither of Professor Zagan’s hands looked like a sixth finger had just been severed either.
“An illusion?”
“Oh no,” Professor Zagan said. “Not in the slightest. Had you dipped your finger in, you would be missing it or worse. But,” he said before Irene could protest, “I’m surprised you don’t recognize the contents.” He tapped again on the brass ball.
Irene blinked, gears churning in her head. She couldn’t think of any reason that should be familiar. “Why would I recognize it?”
“This soul-analogue came from the creature you summoned, yeah? You should keep track of the things you summon.”
It took a moment to fully process what he said. Irene stiffened and clamped her mouth shut.
He knew about the class. Did all the teachers know? Was it okay to talk about it without breaking the contract?
Irene kept her jaw firmly clenched shut. She wasn’t going to take any chances.
Thankfully, two students in her class walked into the room.
The professor’s gold eyes flicked over towards them. A slight frown crossed his face before he placed the brass sphere into a drawer in his desk.
Irene retreated from his desk, moving to stand and wait by her usual training dummy as the rest of the class slowly trickled into the room.
Shelby managed to make it–dragged in by Jordan–just a handful of seconds before the bell rang. She looked about as Irene had expected her to look. With her hair standing on end in abject defiance of gravity, eyes half-shut, and clothes looking like she had pulled them from the floor.
Between her sister’s appearance and everything else that had happened to her on her way to class, Irene decided that next time, she would stay behind and demand her sister wake up on time for school.
Professor Zagan started class the moment the bell rang, as usual. He paired everyone off at random and started them off on continuing the tactics lesson from the last class.
Only to be interrupted as three students walked into the classroom almost a full five minutes after the bell rang. Max, Drew, and Kristina all wandered in. Max ran up to the professor with a note in his hand.
A look of unmitigated annoyance crossed Professor Zagan’s face as he glared first at the note then at the three students. The note burst into bright green flames. The all-too-familiar scent of sulfur stung Irene’s nose.
Irene narrowed her eyes. Neither of the professor’s hands held a wand, rings, or any other type of foci.
“Ah, too good to show up to my class on time? Then I’m sure you wouldn’t mind serving detention tomorrow.”
“What?” Drew shouted. “He just gave you a note from the nurse excusing us.”
“A note? From the nurse?” Professor Zagan drew in a mocking gasp. “Oh no! I guess I had best pack my bags. My efforts to slay you will have to go on hold while you take the time to heal.” He narrowed his eyes as he looked over the suddenly still students. “That is exactly what someone making an attempt at your life would never have said.
“You,” he pointed at Kristina, “had a broken nose? An assailant wouldn’t wait for you to run to the nurse.”
A snapping sound echoed through the room, followed quickly by a scream. Blood started dribbling from Kristina’s nose.
“They’d use your pain and distraction to abuse your openings in any way possible.”
She started running for the door.
And slammed straight into a brick wall. The door had simply vanished. The room’s normal wall just continued past where the door had once existed, seamlessly meshing to the point where Irene couldn’t pick out exactly where it used to be.
“You’ll be allowed to flee to the nurse after class ends,” the professor said with a blasé tone of voice. “For now, fight through your pain. Push past it and learn to deal with it. You’ll be paired off with…” he glanced around the room. For just a moment, his eyes settled on Irene.
She shook her head back and forth as subtly as she could. Irene did not want any extra attention sent her way. As… conflicted as she was feeling watching some of the worst people she knew getting a beat down by a teacher, she didn’t think she would survive any retaliation.
Eventually, Zagan passed her by. “Anderson,” he snapped. “Hold back and you’ll be in detention every weekend for the rest of the year.”
Jordan frowned, but nodded.
“For your detention…” He turned back to the crying Kristina, Drew–who obviously was wanting to look tough in front of his girlfriend but not quite willing to attack the professor–and the bewildered Max. “I’m sure the dean’s secretary would be perfectly willing to supervise tomorrow at noon.”
The slight smile on Professor Zagan’s face slipped.
It didn’t take Irene long to realize what he was unhappy with.
While both Kristina and Drew looked aghast–at the professor’s actions or detention, or both–Max had a wide smile on his face.
“On second thought, I will be supervising your detention.”
Irene let out a small shudder. Professor Zagan could be scary when he wanted. He had assigned a number of detentions over the course of the year. Not once had he supervised them himself, choosing instead to delegate to Catherine.
And then the nose breaking. Callously harming the students like that had to be against the rules. Yet as Irene watched him pick up where he left off before the interruption, she couldn’t detect the slightest hint that he cared about either Kristina or the consequences.
And vanishing the door.
Irene hadn’t the slightest idea how he had managed that beyond preparing ahead of time with some enchanted instant-wall item. Or a complicated bit of order and earth magic to conjure an entire wall.
Either way, scary.
Thankfully, she was paired off with Shelby. She had managed to avoid drawing any extra attention to herself.
So long as she kept her head down until the weekend started, she might just escape unscathed.
A heated glare from Drew partway through class told her otherwise.
Chapter 013
Eva tossed a book over her shoulder.
Worthless.
It didn’t matter how many tomes she went though, none of them described anything remotely similar to the enigmas. A number of creatures had violet blood. Humans could have blood that appeared purple under the right lighting and oxygen levels. A very select few mundane creatures even had natural purple blood.
As such, blood wasn’t much to go off of. Not for her at least. Wayne had taken a sample from the iced enigma to use in alchemy and regular science in an attempt to identify it. Thus far, Eva hadn’t heard back from him.
That left its appearance. Dog-shaped with snake-like tentacles growing from its spine, a round head that opened to the point that Eva’s entire leg could fit within, and a thin tail tipped with a triangle.
Though the color of its blood discounted demons, the shape of its tail and the fact that the creatures were associated with Hell both times Eva had seen them led to her pouring though every demonology book in her library. She even scoured all the books Devon left behind.
No results.
After exhausting that library, Eva moved on to books pilfered from the school library. Several at the recommendation of Bradley Twillie. Though he hadn’t been brought to the creature, Eva had described it to him just to see if he knew anything. He didn’t.
The books he suggested were dead ends as well. Surprisingly, a good number of them–the ones written in the last thirty or so years–were authored by Juliana’s father. That, in and of itself, had pushed Eva’s idea to contact him back to the front of her mind.