“Sorry, doll,” I said. “This is going on our lovely Enchancellor’s dance card.”
Allorah looked up from the pile of books in front of her. She did not look happy. “Oh, is it, now?” she asked. “What about Jane’s health? She keeps wanting to go home and shower, but I convinced her that’s not a good idea right now.”
Jane nodded, then scooped up a large glass from the lab table. “I’ve traded up,” she said. “I’ve switched to drinking water, which helps kill the craving to shower.”
“That’s good,” I said.
“Not really,” Allorah said. “That’s her twenty-eighth glass.”
“Twenty-eighth?” I repeated.
Jane put her hand on my arm. “It’s okay. I feel fine.”
“That’s what worries me,” I said. “That would kill a normal person.”
Jane gave a grim smile. “As the mark indicates, I’m not normal.”
A moment of awkward silence passed, before the Inspectre cleared his throat. I snapped out of my fog and held the shoulder bag out to Allorah. “This is for you,” I said.
“Do I not seem busy enough trying to save your girlfriend’s life here? I would think you’d show some appreciation for that.”
The Inspectre stepped forward into the room. “Please, Allorah. As a personal favor to me.”
Something in the seriousness of his tone softened her in an instant. “Of course, Argyle. For you, anything.”
“Thank you,” he said. “I owe you.”
Allorah waved his words away and rose up from her desk. She took the bag from me and brought it over to her workbench, emptying its contents out onto it. “What are we looking at here?”
“We found this,” I said, “in the same lighthouse that Professor Redfield converted into his impromptu workshop. It belonged to one of his students, but he bled him out to barely living and then fed him to. . . something. I’m not sure what. There was a sort of disposal-pit-well thingie underneath a hidden room where he had been keeping all this arcane paraphernalia. It was too dark for me to see when I flashed on it.” I stepped over to the workbench. “Let me get one last read off of it now that I’m not at the bottom of a feed pit.”
I pulled off my gloves and slapped my hands down on the bag, pressing my power into it. I feared seeing any of the gory details of Professor Redfield’s actual carving up of George so instead focused my energy on pulling a location on the rest of the students from it. A dorm room at New York University and a slew of classrooms flew by my mind’s eye as I went back in time. Through all the flashes, one location stood out among the more mundane ones. It was a poorly lit section of the university where George skulked along, hoping that no one was following him as he slipped into a room marked 247. When I pressed my vision for further details it blanked out and I was forced to bring myself back to reality.
Hungry from the rush of low blood sugar, I went for the Life Savers in my jacket pocket.
“Anything, kid?” Connor asked, coming over to no doubt make sure I didn’t pass out on anything expensive near the lab equipment.
I nodded as I stuffed my mouth full of rainbow-colored salvation. “I think I’ve got an address.”
“Excellent,” the Inspectre said. “We should get moving.”
I held up a finger. “In a minute,” I said. I turned to Jane. “You might want to take a look through his computer as well.”
“Me?” she said, surprised. “What for exactly?”
“We found this in the water below the lighthouse,” I said. “That place may be connected to that she-bitch. It might help out with your. . . situation.”
Jane’s face was a little sad, but she nodded. “Okay,” she said. “Can I consider that a prezzie from you, then?”
I kissed her on the cheek, then joined the Inspectre and Connor by the door leading out of Allorah’s office.
“Be careful,” Jane called out.
“Why start now?” Connor darkly added.
“Don’t be so pessimistic,” the Inspectre said, twirling his sword cane around in his hand with a bit of a flourish. “Not everyone gets to spend field time with a member of the old guard.”
“No offense, boss,” Connor said, heading out the door, “but I’m going to stick with my pessimism. It’s served me well.”
Connor walked out the door, leaving the two of us standing there. I looked over at the Inspectre and he looked hurt. Even his mustache seemed a little sadder.
“Don’t worry, sir,” I said, gesturing him politely to go next. “Beating up some college students should improve his mood.”
I was weirdly glad to see that my powers were still keeping us on track and that the greater traumas of people dying seemed to suppress any flare-ups of the tattooist’s emotion. It was a shame that it took panicked flashes of someone dying to trump my other issues, but at least my powers were focused on the case at hand now.
I found the old hallways of the unused theater space in one of the New York University buildings along the east side of Washington Square. Room 247 was exactly as I had seen it, with the exception that it had been closed off by copious amounts of yellow caution tape.
I reached for the door with one hand while unhooking my bat from its holster with the other.
Connor stopped the hand I was reaching with and used his other to point at the strip of yellow NYU caution tape across the door. It was split where the door met its frame.
“Guess they probably aren’t expecting company,” he whispered.
I pulled out my bat, extending it. “Too bad for them,” I said.
My blood was up after what we had found earlier. On a silent count of three, Connor kicked the door in. I ran in first, bat at the ready. We were in a dark, cluttered space filled with stored bits of classrooms past. The only light in the room came from far off in the middle of it through a maze of desks, chairs, and old-style chalkboards. Three of Professor Redfield’s favorite students—Elyse, Darryl, and Heavy Mike—were sitting around a circle of desks, each with a laptop open in front of them. All three heads popped up from their screens and turned our way.
“Freeze!” I shouted, waving my bat as I started working my way through the jumbled accumulation in the room.
The girl with the short shock of blond hair, Elyse, slammed her laptop shut. “Crap,” she said, jumping up. She looked across the circle of desks at the tall guy with the gauged ears sitting across from her. “Darryl, I told you we should have booby-trapped the door.”
Darryl stood up as well, cradling his laptop in his arms, still typing at it with one hand. Between him and the girl was the chunkier guy, Mike, who was already cramming books and notebooks into a large duffel bag.
“What part of ‘freeze’ did they not teach you at this institute of higher learning?” I shouted.
Connor and the Inspectre began picking their way through the jumble of furniture, but the going was slow. We’d never catch them at this rate. I leapt up and took to the tops of the desks in front of me and ran across them as fast as I could, hoping my precarious path held up under my feet as I went.
Heavy Mike kept stuffing his bag, looking over to the tall one. “Is it ready?” he called out.
“Almost,” Darryl said, still typing away at the keyboard. “Get the hell out of here.”
Heavy Mike didn’t need to be told twice. He snatched up his bag, threw it over his shoulder, and disappeared into the shadows that stretched out behind him. The sounds of stuff falling over left and right rang out as he ran off. I looked around the room, searching for the blond girl again, but I couldn’t see her anywhere. Then I spied her shock of blond hair lowered down inside the center of circled desks. She was knelt down in the middle of them with a sizable curved blade in her hand, and she was not alone. The other freshman from Eccentric Circles, Trent, was tied in place on the floor with several computer cables draped across his body. The open ends of them were frayed with the other ends running up to several of the laptops.