Rituals… she knew about them. Could even perform a few herself. A few weeks of her fifth year class were dedicated to nothing but rituals. Despite all that, rituals had never been the subject of a significant research project for her. Zoe would classify herself as adept. Not an amateur by any means, but neither an expert.
To make matters worse, this ritual circle hadn’t been designed by human minds. It hadn’t even been designed by demon minds. A legitimate Power had designed the entire thing if Vektul was to be believed. Even Catherine had admitted that she couldn’t follow the entire thing and Catherine was well-versed in ritual circle theory far better than Zoe was.
With a sigh, Zoe finished highlighting one of the lines. Just a bright red mark to make it stand out. Sending the file back to Catherine for review—she wasn’t sure if the line was actually an error or not—Zoe spun her chair away from her computer and started rubbing her tired eyes.
“So,” a slightly muffled voice said, “what do you think?”
Zoe finished rubbing her eyes before turning to face Serena. The vampire had commandeered her office couch. Far more than just sitting on it, she spent just about every day sleeping on it, having partitioned off the entire corner with curtains. With the day already in full swing, the vampire was barely awake. She had her face covered by a pillow and her feet propped up on one armrest.
Vampires didn’t need a kitchen or even a shower unless they got dirty thanks to actual dirt and grime. Their bodies didn’t produce oils or sweat. So Zoe’s office had become her home, more or less. All while Zoe stayed next door to Ylva in the Rickenbacker.
She could understand Serena’s reluctance to live near Ylva. Still, she felt like most of Serena’s fears were entirely unfounded. The Nod Complex vampire was living in the same building and there hadn’t been any incidents between them so far. Of course, Ylva never leaving her room unless asked probably kept incidents down. It wouldn’t surprise Zoe to learn that neither knew the other existed.
Still, Ylva sometimes did come visit Zoe. If she found Serena around, who knew what she would do. Did vampires have souls? It wasn’t a question that she had ever really given much thought to. If not, Ylva might not do anything at all. Best not to risk it in any case.
Though, things had been different recently. More and more often, Zoe found herself knocking on the door only to be left outside as her knocks went unanswered. Nel and Ylva had been disappearing to parts unknown nearly every day.
“What do I think?” Zoe repeated, shaking her head. Her thoughts had wandered off from the original question. “I have no idea what to think. The whole thing is… insane. I can’t believe anyone is even considering summoning a Power.”
The former Sister Cross had her own research going. Apparently something like this had happened before. What she really was hoping was that Lynn would be able to figure out what had happened and present that as an alternative they could do instead. Of course, whatever solution she came up with would probably involve summoning some other Power if her luck continued on its current course.
“What about you?” Zoe said after a moment. “What do you think of all this?”
Serena pulled the pillow off her face with a slight groan. She sat up, face set in a grimace, looked at the clock on the wall, grimaced more, and flopped back down. “I don’t know. Whatever happens, happens, right? I’ll keep you two safe and leave everything else to everyone else.”
Irresponsible. But Zoe supposed that she couldn’t talk much. She had done little to help. In fact, with the event, her place in the televised interviews and commentating on the matches, and regular school teaching, she had almost forgotten about all the real problems going on. For a short time, things had felt… normal. How long had it been since that was the case.
And then Juliana got kidnapped and Eva dropped this bomb on her.
“Ah, what must it be like to be another professor,” Zoe said with a wistful tone of self-mockery. “Maybe at a different school. To never have to worry about anything more than how the students will perform on the next test.”
“It’s probably a whole lot more boring,” Serena said, dropping the pillow back on her face and muffling her voice part way through.
“You can have excitement without being in constant peril.” Zoe ticked off a few fingers with each choice. “Like a nice fireworks display or a vacation to an amusement park. Maybe a nice normal pie eating contest.”
“Fireworks? Dull. Amusement parks? Can’t go during the day,” Serena dismissed with a lazy wave of her hand. “Pie eating? Not exactly my cup of tea, if you know what I mean.”
“Blood pies.”
“Sounds disgusting.”
Raising an eyebrow, Zoe gave Serena a pointed look.
“When I think of pie, I imagine something breaded. Like chicken pot pie. Filling one with blood seems like it would get the bread soggy. Not to mention how disgusting bread tastes to my tongue.”
“Right. My point still stands.”
Serena didn’t respond. She slightly rolled over, keeping the pillow on her face but scrunching up her legs closer to her chest.
With a sigh, Zoe closed down the image viewing programs and locked her computer. She wasn’t quite sure how to explain it to Wayne. And she was going to do so this evening provided there weren’t any interruptions to her schedule. If only to avoid a repeat of what happened when she had been learning about demons. Wayne had not been all that enthused with her at the time. It was a small fight, but they fought so infrequently that it had been a little shocking.
But she still had a few hours to consider exactly what to do.
Leaving Serena behind, she moved into her classroom.
“Sorry for the slight delay,” she said to the gathered students. “I had a little personal matter to attend to. Today, we will be discussing, if you’ll turn to page 323, static magic fields. Areas where magic contamination has affected the very fabric of reality with no apparent fuel source.”
As the students opened their books and flipped through the pages, Zoe continued her lecture without pause. She had spent just a little too long highlighting the image and speaking with Serena.
“These can be benign, such as a slight instability in the gravitational field leading to a moon bounce-like effect. One has been documented to teleport anything that enters exactly twelve point three meters forward. Not extremely dangerous, but at the same time, not necessarily safe as two objects entering the field at roughly the same time will teleport inside each other.
“Others aren’t quite so simple to study. One that has been around since the beginning of recorded history is located in Death Valley, California. It is a constant raging inferno, reaching upwards of six hundred degrees Celsius. The area around the anomaly has been warded off to keep people stumbling across it, but it combined with the local environment is one of the primary reasons for the overwhelming heat around Death Valley.”
One of the Faultline guest students, sitting in the center of the room with her back straight and eyes glued on Zoe, raised her hand. She did not wait for Zoe to call on her. “The temperature in Death Valley fluctuates. Our school isn’t far, so we have first hand experience. In the winter, it can get quite chilly. Not as cold as it gets here, but still a little cold.”
“That would be because of magical efforts to artificially regulate the temperature. Also, to the best of my knowledge, the anomaly has been in something of a remission for the past century or so. Something researchers have been trying to replicate in other hazardous magic fields.”
Aside from that, someone who lived and spent most of their time around California probably had warped ideas of what chilly meant. Still, she appreciated the question. Older students who were ready to learn were always a treat.
“In any case, there is actually a static magic field anomaly near Brakket Academy. Provided we can get a few extra security personnel in, we will be taking a short field trip before vacation begins.”