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  Stephen Greyeyes took a threatening step forward. He gave Marcus a hard push and the object of my affection slammed into the locker behind him so hard the sound of crunching metal echoed down the hallway.

  “You saying I’m a Neanderthal, Guffman? Cuz if that’s what you’re saying it’s fucking on right now.”

  I quickly got back to my feet and was about to lash out at Stephen Greyeyes with a hex that would blow him back to the stone age when Marcus motioned for me to calm down. He gave his head a small shake and then he did either the gutsiest or most stupid thing I’d ever seen him do in my life. Marcus dug his feet into the tiled floor and adopted a protective stance right in front of Mike Olsen, and mere inches from the monster linebacker’s chest, I might add.

  Marcus glared up at the towering figure and narrowed his eyes menacingly. “It’s a forgone conclusion that you could easily destroy me using less than five percent of your physical strength, Steve. It would also give all these fucking drones watching us something more to gab about while they muddle their way through yet another drama-filled day at Crescent Ridge High School. It might even give you some satisfaction to beat the living shit out of a lower life form like me… But you won’t.”

  Whoa – another F-bomb from Marcus!

  Stephen Greyeyes dug his finger into Marcus’s chest. “Big words coming from a turd like you, Guffman. What makes you think I won’t stomp all over your skinny loser ass?”

  Marcus calmly smiled and said, “Because there’s no sport in it, Steve-o. It would be like burning ants with a magnifying glass on a hot August afternoon. What’s happening here is a sociological phenomenon that entrenches the pecking order of high school. I’m no threat to your reputation, am I?”

  Stephen Greyeyes blinked. “No. You’re a fucking retard.”

  Marcus raised a finger. “Exactly. I’m a retard. Now, you’re a star linebacker for a team that just three weeks ago won the City Cup, right?”

  “Yeah… So?”

  “So, you sacked QE High’s quarterback six times during that championship game. Dude, you’re at the very apex of popularity and if you kick the crap out of me – and you just know it’ll be on YouTube within minutes – what are people going to think about a massively popular guy like you beating the living shit out of a lesser organism like me? It’s total overkill. I’m no threat to you, Steve. If there’s a threat to your popularity at all, well, it’s what you decide to do in the next ten seconds.”

  OK. The hell with what I said about Marcus dropping the F-Bomb. He’d just logic-nuked Stephen Greyeyes straight out of the freaking exosphere.

  The massive linebacker made a big show of rolling his eyes. “Whatever,” he snorted. The crowd that had gathered to watch the potential beat down whispered amongst themselves, and at least three people were holding their smart phones over their heads making a video of the proceedings.

  “Olsen’s a stoner and you’re still a retard, Guffman. I’m not going to waste my time on you.”

  And with that, Stephen Greyeyes turned on his heels and pushed through the cluster of onlookers. I dropped back down to one knee and gave Mike Olsen a small nudge.

  “Mike, do you remember anything about last Saturday? You told us that you don’t remember how you wound up at the C-Train station. You said that you were using your PlayStation. Can you tell me anything else?”

  He looked up at me and offered a tiny shrug. “It doesn’t matter, Julie. Nothing really matters anymore, don’t you get it? Someone is coming, like they’re clawing at my brain from the inside. They’re coming and nothing is going to be the same ever again.”

  “But what about football, Mike?” asked Marcus. “The NFL wild card game is next weekend. You’re going to watch, right?”

  Mike shrugged again and said, “No… I just don’t care.”

  This wasn’t Mike Olsen we were talking to. He smelled like he hadn’t showered in a couple of days and things that mattered to him didn’t even strike a chord. No emotion. Nothing.

  “We’ll talk later, Mike,” I said as I gestured for Marcus to follow me. We headed out the east doors and into the student parking lot. The sun was shining in a frigid blue sky and its reflection on the snow caused me to squint as I turned to face Marcus.

  “What do you think?” he asked.

  I shielded my eyes with my forearm to reduce the glare and said, “Mike’s been altered somehow. That spell changed him completely and the clawing at the inside of his brain reference? He’s still under someone’s control. Oh, and by the way, your little face-to-face stare down with Stephen Greyeyes was the dumbest thing I’ve ever seen you do. It was also amazingly hot. Thought you should know.”

  He smiled at me. “Like I said before, I’m an amalgam of dashing, dumb and devoted. But back to Mike, what do we do to help him?”

  I glanced at my watch. It was ten minutes to nine in the morning and the memorial service for Travis Butler would be starting soon.

  “I’m not sure if there’s anything that can be done, Betty knows more about this stuff than I do. But there’s one dead student and one zombified student in two days. There might be a counterspell. We need to talk with my mother and see if there’s anything we can do to help Mike.”

  Marcus nodded. “Any ideas on why Mike and Travis were targeted?”

  I shook my head and sighed heavily. “Not a clue. Still, the one thing that has my undivided attention is that Mike told me someone was coming.”

  Marcus grimaced. “That’s not the first time we’ve heard that. Remember back in Holly Penske’s office? Betty said that you weren’t prepared for what was to come.”

  I clenched my jaw tightly. “Don’t think that hasn’t been at the top of my mind. Let’s go to the memorial service, and after that, we’ll head back to my place.”

  “Got an idea on what we do next?” he asked.

  “Yep,” I said as I pulled open the door and headed back into the school. “We try to figure out what Mike’s cryptic message is all about. Personally, I think we’re going to be heading into a witch storm of epic proportions.”

  He locked his fingers around mine and squeezed. “And me with no umbrella. Let’s go.”

  CHAPTER 11

  There were more than eight hundred students attending Crescent Ridge High School and every one of them was packed tightly inside the gym. It was standing room only as Marcus and I pushed through the doors to see row upon row of teenagers seated on uncomfortable folding metal chairs. I scanned for a place to sit and saw there were none, so I walked over to the bleachers, noticing a solitary figure on the highest tier who was sitting all by himself.

  It was Willard Schubert and in his hands was a paperback novel. I gave Marcus a gentle elbow to the ribs and pointed at Willard.

  “There’s Willard Schubert. Remember he was at McDonalds on Saturday? Maybe he saw something we missed.”

  Marcus slipped his backpack off his back and then slung it over his right shoulder like a bag of dirty laundry. “Can’t hurt to ask, right?”

  We walked over to the bleachers and proceeded to climb up until we were a few feet away from Willard. I glanced at the title of the novel he was reading; it was Carrie, by Stephen King.

  “That’s a pretty ancient book,” I said as I took a step forward. “Ever see the movie, Willard?”

  He arched his head down and peered over his thick glasses to look at me. “Um… Yeah. It’s not as good as the book, though.”

  His hair was a stringy, greasy brown mop and I noticed that his scalp was peppered with dandruff. He was dressed in a blue and white rugby shirt with a white collar, and on the deck next to his right foot was an open bag of popcorn twists and a Red Bull energy drink. He stuck his hand in the bag and grabbed a small handful of popcorn twists, promptly stuffing them in his mouth and then wiping his hands on his jeans.

  “Nothing ever is,” I said as I threw him a smile. “I just love that old movie. You know, except for the pig blood part which was gross. Is it OK if we sit here?”
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  He cocked a wary eyebrow and said, “Doesn’t matter to me.”

  I sat down next to him as Marcus stepped gingerly over Willard’s feet and took a seat to his left. He dropped his backpack on the floor of the bleachers and then unzipped his winter coat.

  “Pretty sad about Travis Butler,” said Marcus. “A lot of people think that he killed himself, but come on, he walked out into the middle of traffic. Call me crazy, but there are easier ways to end it than that.”

  Willard placed the open book on his right knee and gazed out over the heads of the assembly. “Everybody dies. It’s just more shocking when someone like Travis Butler winds up dead,” he said quietly. “Anyway, people like to talk. All they do is live for the bullshit drama. You guys know that by sitting with me you’re going to be part of rumor central, right?”

  I snorted. “This is high school, everybody talks about everybody, usually behind each other’s backs. At a certain point in time people are going to realize there’s life beyond FB and their stupid smartphones.”

  I felt a slight tug of menace emanating from Willard as he closed his book. He examined me closely and grabbed another handful of popcorn twists. “Your funeral,” said Willard. “No wait… Travis is the dead dude and good riddance. The guy was a supreme asshole.”

  I craned my neck over Willard’s shoulder to see Marcus with a surprised look on his face. “What makes you say that?” he asked.

  Willard grunted. “A popular student like that who has everything? A good family, cash in his pocket and girls throwing themselves at his feet. Perfect skin and teeth? Look around this place, we’re having a memorial for a fucking god in a lot of people’s minds. Idiots are bawling over Travis… People that didn’t even know him and who he’d never said a single word to in his life. This is all bullshit. Everyone here is fake and I hate this shit.”

  Well, that was harsh.

  I actually placed a tentative hand on Willard’s shoulder and said, “That’s a pretty damned mean thing to say about Travis, what gives?”

  He glanced at my hand through the corner of his eye and then brushed it away. “What gives is that I’m pond scum at this school because of guys like Travis Butler. Assholes throw trash at me. People vandalize my locker. Christ, last week some dickhead broke in and stole my freaking backpack! I get pushed around in the locker room. I hear people talking about me behind my back. You know what, Julie? Maybe I’m angry because I get shit on by assholes all the time, OK? So maybe I have a right to be angry, but what burns me even more is that my guidance counselor told my Mom that she thinks I’m going to go all Columbine or something. So, I’m seeing a shrink… It’s the same shrink that’s up on the stage with the rest of the school staff. She’s OK, though. Actually sometimes I think she’s really the only person who gets me.”

  Marcus blinked. “In what way?”

  Willard shrugged and grabbed another handful of popcorn twists. “Nothing major. She just doesn’t try to tell me that I have to bottle everything up. She says that I have a right to be angry and I just need to figure out how to deal with it. I’ve seen you getting pushed around, Marcus… You know what I’m talking about.”

  I was just about to ask Willard another question when the air filled with an ear-splitting sound of feedback as Principal Eggerton tapped the microphone on the podium. “Students, if I could have everyone’s attention please,” his tinny voice echoed through the gym. I watched on as everyone in the audience turned their attention to the stage.

  Principal Eggerton stood at the podium, the gym lights glaring off his bald head and wire-rimmed glasses. To his right was Vice Principal Singh, who was dressed in a brown business suit with a red turban atop his head. It was hard to make out his expression at this distance, but I was pretty sure it matched the grim looks on the faces of all the staff present in the hall. Behind the pair were a dozen teachers seated on wooden benches to the rear of the podium and there was a face I didn’t recognize standing to the right of Principal Eggerton.

  “We’re here this morning on a day when all of you should be in class getting ready for exams,” he said. “This is a terrible day for Crescent Ridge, but it’s an even more terrible day for the Butler family. Our thoughts and prayers go out to them. To my right is Dr Caroline Dennis, she’s a clinical psychologist with the Board of Education and she’d like to speak with you all now.”

  The only sounds I heard were the occasional cough mixed in with hundreds of whispering voices inside the gym. All eyes were on Dr Dennis as she walked up to the podium. She was just about to open her mouth when my senses detected a strong ripple of someone’s magical signature. I shut my eyes and reached out with my spirit, to see if I could home in on it.

  Dr Dennis’s voice poured out of the PA system. “The loss of a fellow student can be a shock to everyone at school, even a large school with hundreds of students like Crescent Ridge. As a culture, we rarely talk about death and perhaps that’s one of the reasons why many of you may be struggling to come to terms with the tragedy that happened at the weekend. Tomorrow night is the annual holiday dance and some of you might be wondering whether or not you should come. Some of you might well feel that it would be inappropriate to have a dance so soon after a tragedy such as this. I want to announce that I have discussed the appropriateness of having the dance with the school administration, and I recommend that it should go on in spite of what has happened. We will be holding a vigil in the gym at the start of the dance. Everyone attending will receive a yellow glow stick and we’ll observe a few moments of silence in remembrance of Travis.”

  I shut out the sound of Dr Dennis’s voice and gritted my teeth together as I pushed my senses further and then I opened my eyes to see the collective auras of more than eight hundred people as a muted, gray mass of energy that hovered over their heads like a storm cloud. I gazed out from atop the bleachers and gasped as I felt an intense surge of magical energy emanating from one of the east gym exit doors. It pulsed with growing intensity and a tremor of fear passed through me. Was the person responsible for the death of Travis Butler out there?

  I spread out my fingers on my left hand to home in on the mysterious energy trace and in seconds I’d found it, so I shifted my gaze and caught a glimpse of an unfamiliar face. Her eyes were closed tightly and in her right hand dangled a small bead-covered pouch no bigger than a coin purse. The girl’s face had flawless reddish-brown skin and her shining black hair was pulled back tight into a long thick braid; as thick as a cord of rope. It rested on her right shoulder, falling down over the front of her hoodie, and seemed to be wrapped in a fine-looking strand of red, yellow and black beads. Around her neck she wore what appeared to be a hand-crafted beaded bone choker that was about two inches thick.

  Like me, the fingers of her left hand were outstretched, and she appeared to be muttering something as her lips were moving, almost in a blur.

  “Marcus, stay here for a minute,” I said firmly as I stood up. “I’ll be right back.”

  Marcus nodded and said, “Is everything OK?”

  “It freaking well wants to be,” I grumbled as I got up and proceeded to climb down the bleachers onto the gym floor. I dashed behind the crowd of students forced to stand because of the numbers in the gym, never once taking my eyes off the girl and thankfully not being cornered by any teachers. My heart was racing and I could feel my pulse throbbing in my temples as I pulled my amulet out of my pocket and snapped it into the recess on my Shadowcull’s band. Instantly my senses exploded with vibrations emanating from the auras of everyone in the gym, but that was nothing compared to the energy coming from the First Nations girl standing no more than twenty feet in front of the east exit doors.

  I couldn’t launch an all-out assault in the gym. I just needed to get the girl’s attention enough so that she’d chase me out into the hallway and away from anyone who might wind up on the receiving end of either my magic or hers. I gulped back another small phial of potion to mask my magical signature and grimaced as I ducke
d underneath the bleachers on the east side of the gym. I could see her clearly now so I slipped into the small alcove of east exit doors and then snuck up right behind her.

  I could hear her muttering. The words poured from her lips so fast that I struggled to make out even a single syllable. I got a closer look at the small pouch she was holding in her right hand. The intricate bead work created a magical pattern the likes of which I’d never seen before, and the tiny fetish appeared to be a focus of some kind. Every magical focus I’d ever seen was made from copper; the best conductor for magical energy known to anyone who practices magic. Her fetish looked the same as any other pouch a tourist might find at an Indian craft store, so that told me the strange girl must have something inside the pouch – something that amplified her power similar to that of my Shadowcull’s band.

  I took a deep breath because I hadn’t expected that I’d be duking it out with another practitioner so soon after defeating the Matthew Hopkins-possessed Marla Lavik a few weeks back. I needed to cut off the girl’s spell before she unleashed God-knows-what, so I grasped the push bar on the east exit door and then whispered the tiniest of hexes aimed squarely at the bead-covered fetish.

  A thin finger of magic shot across the alcove, hitting the fetish dead on, and it slipped from her grasp. She spun around and glared at me, her chestnut-colored eyes flashing with anger as she palmed the fetish and prepared to lash out at me, but I was ready. I pushed through the east exit door and dashed into the hallway. I raced past row upon row of lockers and then I checked over my shoulder to make sure the girl was following me.

  And she was.

  Her eyes blazed furiously as she gave chase so I ran as fast as my legs would carry me down a flight of stairs and through a pair of doors that led to the basement. I quickly looked around for anything that might wind up being used as a projectile and smiled to myself. The basement corridor was free of clutter so I sprinted down to the far end, around a hundred feet from the stairwell doors. I spun around and readied my magic to nail her the moment she came through the doors, digging my feet into the floor for traction.