Void Domain, Book 01 полностью

Rather than visiting his students again, Wayne elected to return to town and continue sweeping it for any remaining creatures.

The familiar wrongness of between almost overwhelmed his gut in the brief instant it took to appear in town. Getting Zoe to agree to learn that spell had taken months of prodding. When she finally relented and learned from him, she spilled her lunch the first several times. She had told him that she never intended to use it again.

Unfortunately for the both of them, its sheer utility outweighed the sickening sensation it caused.

Wayne walked down the street. He kept an ear out for anything unusual. He patrolled around, suppressing any lingering idle thoughts. Distractions could get him killed.

He froze at a movie theater. There was something off about the building. It looked right, no blood or displaced posters. But it bothered him. It bothered his gut.

Wayne growled and marched towards the building, tome at the ready. There would be zombies inside, stragglers from the night before. He was sure of it.

His gut told him so.

— — —

Shouts pierced the wall of Rickenbacker three-fifteen.

Irene pulled her covers over her head and tried to avoid eavesdropping. Even with the privacy enchantments on the rooms, such a task was near impossible today.

“Zoe says you have been afraid to leave your room for three days.”

“Zoe doesn’t know what she is talking about. The first day, I had an injured roommate I was looking after. The second day I went to the hospital with that injured roommate and stuck by them for most of the day. Today I decided to stick around the dorms since you were coming. I can see that was a mistake now.”

“Juliana Laura Rivas. Do not talk to me that way. Gather your things, we are leaving.”

They had been arguing for the better part of an hour. Pretty much from the moment Mrs. Rivas arrived. It had been silent at first, then their voices escalated. It triggered the safety systems in the enchantments to let distressed voices through–in case of an emergency in another room–and they hadn’t let up since.

Irene shut her eyes and desperately wished humans could shut their ears. Such a feature would certainly help with Shelby’s snoring.

She almost wished her mother had shown up to pull her out of the academy. Irene was the one who hadn’t left her room in three days. Sadly, her parents hadn’t come. Her parents originally wanted Shelby and herself to attend a different school. Since her father lost his job during government reorganization, the prospect was off the table.

Several other students were already home. The prospect of near free schooling was outweighed by unchecked hordes of zombies that the staff apparently knew about for months.

Irene doubted that claim.

While the zombies were scary, and she definitely did not wish to come across any, they weren’t her main concern at the moment.

Some Elysium Sisters arrived to investigate earlier in the morning. They were famous for being the most experienced organization in matters of undeath. They’d have whatever mess happened on Halloween cleaned up by the weekend.

Her issue was with the thing living in the neighboring room. Irene knew the ‘spider’ Eva had shown them wasn’t a real spider. She knew it. Every time she brought it up with Jordan, he would just hum and shrug with a smile.

He also knew it wasn’t normal.

He probably knew what it was.

If Jordan knew what it was, she definitely didn’t want to be near it.

Luckily for Irene, it had stayed out of sight for most of her time at Brakket. She’d only seen it once or twice during study sessions. Even then, it was mostly just the thing’s legs poking out of Eva’s shirt.

Until Halloween. It showed up, just glaring at them–at her–wearing human clothes. It took a few minutes, but Irene made the connection. Eva and Juliana’s reactions helped. Shalise, oddly enough, just looked confused.

Irene wished she could have seen Jordan’s reaction through his stupid shadow mask.

Shortly after, she made the excuse of being sick. Lucky too. Irene and Shelby arrived at the dorms before anything truly terrible happened.

It showing up at the same time as the zombies couldn’t have been a coincidence.

Still, Jordan acted nonchalant about the entire thing. He’d rushed to the dorms with Max and stayed with the twins over night. He was far more worried about the zombies. Even when Irene asked about the thing, he just shrugged and said it wasn’t his business as long as they stayed out of his affairs.

Max told his story of how the thing tore apart zombies with its bare hands.

That did nothing to make Irene feel better.

Irene peeked out of her covers at the empty room around her. It was only Shelby and herself in room three-fifteen and her other half wasn’t scared of leaving the room.

Shelby was afraid of the zombies, but decided the opportunity to hang off Jordan’s arm without Irene around was worth whatever fears she felt.