She shook her head. "We don't have anyone by that name here. Our only Jones is a girl, Sidney. Are you certain you have the right school? Did you try Snow Canyon?"
"I'm sure that he was registered here," Riley said. He leaned to the side, tried to catch a view of the screen, but the secretary hit a button and blanked it.
"I'm sorry, we don't have anyone by that name," the secretary said. "In fact, we don't have many young men here at all."
Riley felt his sizraels surface, the tips of his fingers growing hard and taut. He ached to grab this woman's cranium, draw out her secrets, but the principal stood up in his office, about to stick his head out the door.
"Thank you," Riley said.
He exited, but instead of heading out the way he'd come, he stalked deeper into the school, to a wide atrium. He found some classrooms, but there were no windows to let him peer in.
A student came down the hallway, a young man with long arms and curly hair. His slouching look suggested something criminal, and if Riley had been looking to score, he would have figured that this kid was the go-to dealer at the school.
"Hey," Riley said. "I'm looking for a kid. You know this guy?" Riley held out his cell phone, showed the picture of Bron getting into his car.
The young man reached out for the phone. Riley looked left, right, and then struck. He unsheathed his sizraels, grabbed the boy's skull in one hand, and lightning arced with an audible snap. The young man fell backward, but Riley shoved him against the wall, holding him upright.
The boy's name was Kendall McTiernan. He'd started school here near mid-semester a year ago, and his whole life centered on a pathetic little rock band that he managed. His mind was a mess, filled with terrible longings and remorse. He knew every boy in the school by sight, but had never seen Bron Jones before, had never heard his name.
There was a slim chance that the object of Riley's hunt was a new student, someone that Kendall had never met, but it was a very slim chance.
Riley ripped all memories of the encounter from Kendall's mind, and left him slumping to the floor. He glanced up, peered around. No one had seen.
Riley felt a surge of adrenaline, fought the urge to go find another student. Instead, he strode out the side exit to the school. He stood for a moment in the bright sun, inhaled the clean air, and studied the high cliffs.
A golden eagle screamed and leapt from a precipice, went hunting on steady wings, swooping to the south.
It seemed like a good omen, as if nature encouraged Riley to widen the hunt.
Chapter 14
Creatures of the Night
"To define yourself is to enter a sort of prison. By telling yourself what you are, you limit what you may become."
On the first day of school, Olivia decided to leave early. Club auditions wouldn't begin until tomorrow, so she decided to cut out earlier than she normally would.
As Olivia stopped by the office to check her mailbox, the secretary stopped her.
"A young man came by just a few minutes ago," Allison said, "looking for Bron."
Olivia's heart slammed to a halt. Her hand froze at the mailbox. "What did you tell him? Where is he?" Olivia imagined the worst.
"I sent him away," Allison said. "He told me that his mom said to give Bron a message. I knew he was lying, so I told him that he had the wrong school, and sent him packing."
Olivia nodded her head, grateful for small favors.
"What's going on?" Allison asked.
Olivia scrambled to come up with a cover story. "Bron had a girlfriend at his last school. Her old boyfriend was jealous. I think that the young man you met may have been looking for a fight. Do you have him on the security cameras?"
Allison swiveled in her chair, flipped on a monitor, behind her, and then went to channel three. She backed up the camera by fifteen minutes, until it showed Riley entering the school, pausing momentarily to look at the trophy case. The camera got a good side view of his face.
"Do me a favor," Olivia said. "If this boy comes back—or any of his friends—just do what you did today. Send them packing."
"Okay," Allison said. "Do you think we should call the police?"
"I doubt that they'd be any help," Olivia said. "No crime has been committed." Allison nodded. "Now do me another favor. Show me the parking lot view."
Allison went to work on the cameras, showed Riley arriving in a white van, then leaving not three minutes ago. As Olivia watched, her stomach cramped with nervousness.
Things were getting messy. Olivia wasn't supposed to tell a nightingale what was going on, but between the Draghouls hunting him, and Galadriel's strange illness, Bron needed to know more, and now!
Bron spent most of his last period in the bathroom, locked in a stall, panicking. When the last bell rang, he fought down his nervousness and strode down the hall.
Whitney waved at him and flashed a smile. He smiled back, turned to say "Hi."
A hand clapped his shoulder, and he jumped. Somehow, he knew that it would be one of those freaks from Best Buy. He turned to see Olivia.
"Bron," she whispered discretely, "we need to get out of here. Now!"
"What's going on?" he asked. The halls were crowded with kids, giving him a sense of anonymity.
"Just come to the car," she whispered.
Whitney came down the hall. "Hi, Mrs. Hernandez," she said. She looked as eager as a puppy.
"Nice to see you, Whitney," Olivia offered. "We've got to run to an appointment. See you tomorrow."
She steered Bron toward the door, hurried to beat the crowds. Bron waved to Whitney, who made the phone signal and said, "Call me!"
Then they rushed outside.
"You heard?" he asked softly. "About that boy?"
"I heard," Olivia answered.
"It was an accident!" Bron apologized.
"Keep quiet," she said. "We'll talk in the car."
Immediately, he realized from her tone that this wasn't going to be just any talk. This was going to be the talk. Olivia smiled as she passed another teacher. They crept out of the school in the midst of a crowd.
As they exited Olivia halted in the shadows and stood peering over the parking lot. Bron felt acutely aware that she was searching for something, someone—some sign of the enemy. The sun was so bright that every shadow became impenetrable. Any of them could have held a lurking figure.
She pulled Bron out into the sun and hurried downhill to the parking lot. When they reached the car, Bron felt a sense of relief wash over him. Tuacahn was far from the main drag down in Saint George, and though it was only ten miles outside the city, the setting was remote, off the beaten track.
They climbed in the car, and Bron asked, "Are we ready for that talk?"
Olivia opened her mouth as if to speak, closed it. She started the car, put it in drive, and joined the caravan of students heading down from the hills for the day. When she reached the main road, she drove past some homes, and finally pulled off onto a gravel road that led to a stalled housing development.
She turned off the engine, and sat.
There were no houses here, no plants. Everything had been bulldozed. The world was pared to the basics—stone, sky, sun, shadow.
Bron studied Olivia's face. He could see worry lines in her brow, and stress in her lips. She seemed to be looking inside herself more than at him. She finally let out a deep breath, and prepared to speak. "You understand what man is, homo sapiens sapiens?"