SIXTEEN
When the searches were finally called off, three teachers and twenty kids were still missing. The day after that, e-mails went out that claimed they’d been found in Radial, and were electing to leave Oakhurst under the protection of Breakthrough. When Spirit counted it up, that was four teachers and almost forty kids that she knew of who had “left” Oakhurst, including the kids who had been Tithed or driven crazy in the last two years. It was a staggering total of dead and just-as-good-as. She knew the kids who were left wanted desperately to believe the missing ones had really gone off somewhere; there was no point in trying to tell them otherwise.
More Breakthrough people came to replace the missing (dead) teachers. The new teachers meant a new round of discipline-tightening, more classes, even less free time, and more of Mark Rider’s security goons prowling the campus, giving people the hairy eyeball, trying to chase them back to their rooms when they weren’t in class. And that was where Mr. Rider made his big mistake.
Maybe he figured that kids would do what they were told. Maybe he figured they were so scared by now they’d agree to anything as long as they were safe. Spirit remembered her parents having long debates about that with their friends—how some people would put up with just about any restrictions as long as they thought they’d be safe.
The thing was … even if she didn’t like a lot of them, Spirit knew that none of the kids at Oakhurst were stupid. Smart people tended to ask questions, and tended to resent it when they had to give up privileges and freedoms. She remembered her mom saying, “Stupid people are satisfied with stuff. Smart people can make themselves stupid by being willing to settle for stuff. It’s all about what you’re willing to settle for.”
The kids didn’t say anything openly—some of them were afraid to, truth to tell—but there was a lot of grumbling when Breakthrough people weren’t there.
The Breakthrough people got wind of it, of course, and another e-mail went out reminding everyone that the dance was still on, and that “the goal of Breakthrough was to get things back to normal as quickly as possible, so relax and enjoy your evening.” As if one of the Oakhurst dances was going to make up for being shadowed by a goon when you just wanted to take a walk and be alone for a while. As if the soda and otherwise-forbidden snacks would make up for knowing the Breakthrough geeks were monitoring every single keystroke when you chatted.
Combine the sort of strict regime that the kids brought up like Addie weren’t used to and strongly resented with the tension of wondering when the next “incident” would happen, and you had a tightly wound bunch of kids who were just looking for an outlet for all that nervous energy. It didn’t take much in the way of a hint here, a suggestion there, to get the “prank” rolling.
By the night of the dance, everything was primed to explode.
* * *
“The best thing is,” Addie observed, as she twined Spirit’s hair into a loose French braid, “even if nothing happens, the prank will still go off, and Rider’s people will have a hundred ‘suspects’ to watch. None of whom will be us.”
“You don’t really think that’s likely, do you?” Spirit asked, staring into the mirror so she could look into Addie’s reflected eyes.
“No,” Addie admitted, and rubbed the back of her neck. “I can feel it. It’s like a thunderstorm on the horizon.”
This wasn’t a formal dance, like New Year’s, but Muirin had insisted they all wear something besides Oakhurst clothing, so Spirit had her new red sweater and a pair of black pants Muirin had whipped up out of some velour from the theater supplies, and Addie had a similar gray outfit she said was cashmere. Those outfits would have gotten really warm after a while at a normal dance, but none of them figured they would be in the gym long enough for it to matter.
As for dates, in the end, Spirit had asked Loch and Addie had asked Burke; Muirin went through with going with Dylan, “Because it would look weird if I backed out after I already asked him.” Not that who you asked made any difference in the end, because they were all herded out to the gym in a group under the watchful eye of the Breakthrough guards. Even the real couples were looking resentful. It was pretty hard to get romantic when you had an expressionless Security Goon carefully not-staring at you.
No one had really known how to decorate for a “Sadie Hawkins Day Dance,” so they’d done a sort of pre-Valentine’s Day generic pink background of balloons and Mylar streamers with a disco ball in the middle. The usual soda-and-snacks tables were set up, but with a difference. Some of the Breakthrough geeks had made their own additions—a light show and a real DJ.
Much as Spirit hated to admit it … both were good. The light show was spectacular, and the DJ really knew his stuff.
Plus, he was playing music that was definitely not available in the Oakhurst official music libraries. Everyone started to relax when they realized there weren’t any members of the Goon Squad in the gym and the music was going to be fantastic.
It’s a good thing that this is all going to fall apart before the evening is over, or I’d be worried, because this kind of treatment is pretty tempting, Spirit thought. Loch got her a drink, then drifted away to the “spot” he was going to cover for a while. Dylan hauled Muirin out onto the dance floor right away, but he didn’t even make it through two songs before Ovcharenko materialized out of the shadows and cut in. The DJ immediately faded into a ballad, which more or less forced Muirin into a slow dance with him. Loch moved out of his corner and onto the edge of the dance floor and made a little finger motion, since Dylan appeared to be too intimidated by Ovcharenko to cut back in. But Muirin shook her head, and Loch went back into his own little pool of shadow.
As Spirit stood there, nursing her soda, she felt someone come up close beside her. She turned. It was Mandy, the girl-geek from Breakthrough, and she had a guy with her. A guy who was pretty much a dead ringer for Jensen Ackles from Supernatural, except with a pair of wire-rim glasses that made him look even hotter. If that was possible. Spirit’s Spidey-Sense went off the scale, because Breakthrough could not possibly have picked someone more like what her Dream Guy would have looked like … a year or two ago.
“Hey,” Mandy said, far too casually. “This’s Clark, he’s another codehead. He saw you in the dining hall and wanted to meet you, so I said I’d introduce you. Clark, this is Spirit.”
“Hey,” Spirit said, forcing herself to look pleased. “My so-called date kind of ran off on me.”
“Yeah, I saw,” Clark said, with a far-too-ingratiating grin. “Well, it’s supposed to be a Sadie Hawkins thing, right? So, can you pick someone else instead?”
Way to go with the subtle hints, bozo, she thought. “I don’t know,” she replied hesitantly. “I mean, he—”
“You do know he’s gay, right?” Clark interrupted, getting a little closer as Mandy vanished into the crowd around the soda table. “I mean, I could tell when I walked in, and … uh, magician here. Sorry.”
If Loch hadn’t told her himself— If they all hadn’t known what the Breakthrough people were doing— Spirit shut those thoughts away and concentrated on acting like this was a confusing—and unwelcome—surprise.
“Wait, what?” she said. “What do you mean? He’s—”
“I mean, if you think he accepted your invite for any other reason than to drool over the other guys, Spirit, I’m sorry.” Clark moved even closer. “Don’t think I’m gay-bashing. I’m not. But I thought you had the right to know in case you were going to fall for him. And I think whatever the rules for this thing are, if he didn’t tell you he wasn’t really interested, that pretty much undoes you inviting him, doesn’t it?”
Now Spirit was actually beginning to feel a little alarmed—first that this “Clark” was coming on so strong, and second that if she wasn’t nice to him, he’d out Loch, right here at the dance. She really didn’t know what to do, and her apparent confusion was very real.
“Come on, try me out with a dance,” Clark coaxed. He took her hand and gave her no alternative other than to pull away—which was no alternative at all, if she wanted to keep up the pretense of being the shy little hippie chick.
Which was right when Burke swooped in from out of nowhere and saved her.
“Hi, this is my dance, I think,” he said, cutting in. “Besides, I bet there are a lot of Breakthrough gals closer to your age who’d appreciate someone who can dance.”
Clark colored a little. “Look, kid, just because you’re one of the Big Bad Jocks—”
“Seriously, didn’t anyone ever teach you that you don’t try and make moves on a girl who’s going steady?” Burke said, with a mocking tone to his voice Spirit had never heard before. “Oh wait—you’re a code-monkey, and that sort of etiquette goes straight over your head, right? Well, here’s your fast education. You don’t haul someone else’s girl off for a dance, and you don’t ever mess with a jock’s steady. Got it? Great. Buh-bye.” He made a little finger-wiggle at Clark, who slunk away, muttering. Then he put his arms around Spirit and they started slow-dancing away from the Breakthrough geek corner. Before the crowd hid them, Spirit saw Clark arguing with Mandy.
“Um. Thanks,” Spirit said, feeling awkward. “The only thing is, that wasn’t true.”
“I know,” Burke replied, and flushed as he looked down at her. “But would you like it to be?”
All she could do was look up into his eyes and say, “Um—”
Which was precisely when the lights went out, the temperature dropped down to freezing, and the terror descended.
The terror wiped away her astonishment at Burke’s question. Before the terror could take hold, she took a deep breath and yelled into the silence: “Rave! RAVE!”
Burke bellowed the same word as he seized her hand. He hauled her across the dance floor by memory to one of the preset spots where the decorating committee had stashed a cache of flashlights and chem-lights. They stumbled into a few people on the way, and the silence had been replaced by deafening noise, but this time the noise was less screaming in fear and more shouting rave. Loch was already passing out chem-lights and flashlights from his station. And Addie, with chem-necklaces aglow around her neck and fistfuls of more chem-lights, was opening the fire exit door to the outside.
Addie was supposed to jam it open with a cinder block that had been left outside; Spirit couldn’t see if she had, because she was too busy handing out lights. Once she and Burke got that box started, they moved to one of the others—and by the time they got that one started, there was a huge whoosh outside, and the fire exit doorway lit up with a bright yellow light. The pranksters had been building an enormous bonfire in the sunken garden’s drained fountain all week, and someone had just lit it. Muirin’s illusion had fooled everyone not in on the scheme into thinking there was nothing in the sunken garden. She’d held that illusion 24/7 for days, and Spirit couldn’t wait to really congratulate her for it.
Everyone who had lights streamed out into the now brightly lit night. The rest scrambled through the boxes frantically to get something. Within minutes of the power going out, everyone was heading for the fire—and that was when they set off Part Three of the Great Rave Prank.
A wall of sound erupted from the vicinity of the fire.
A sound system, powered by batteries stolen from idle Breakthrough construction equipment, bellowed out the most cheerful, high-energy songs that any of the pranksters could think of. There were six hours’ worth of songs on the iPod that was running the show, and if the terror went on for more than six hours, well—it would be more than anyone could fight.
Everyone started dancing around the fire, which was easily fifteen, maybe twenty feet across, huge, and burning too high and hot for anyone to have a hope of putting it out, thanks to a five gallon jug of vegetable oil and a lot of candle-ends. Addie wasn’t the only one who liked to have scented candles in her room, and the Christmas decorations had included hundreds of candles. As the terror closed in on them they translated their hysterical energy into equally hysterical dancing, and—
—and that was where things got weird. Spirit knew what the plan was—Loch and Addie were somehow supposed to be feeding Muirin and Burke with the emotions and energy they were getting, and Muirin and Burke were supposed to be turning that into a shield against the fear. But as Spirit hung on to Burke’s hand as hard as she could, she could feel … something.
It was like there was this river flowing through her; not something she could stop, or do anything with, but—somehow, she needed to let this happen. Because somehow, what was flowing into her was much more powerful than what was flowing out of her. Which made no sense. So she hung on to Burke’s hand and tried to focus on the bonfire, and the music, and the kids all dancing around like a bunch of barbarians in a Viking movie.
Then, out of nowhere, she knew, she knew, the terror wasn’t all there was going to be this time. “They’re coming—” she said, breathlessly, then tugged on Burke’s hand, and repeated, more urgently, “They’re coming!”
And a moment later, they were there.
Shadow Knights.
Some on horseback, some on foot, a few on ATVs and snowmobiles, they surrounded the bonfire and the Oakhurst kids. They were all wearing the same outfit the attackers who’d come after the endurance riders had been wearing: gray hooded parkas, gray scarves over their faces. This time, Spirit could tell that there were illusions on all of them to keep their faces in shadow, because the bonfire was throwing off so much light there was no way their faces could have been hidden otherwise.
The terror increased exponentially.
One of them charged the sound system; somehow he must have figured out where it was. It was one of the ones on a snowmobile; he gunned the engine, and the snowmobile careened toward the station. He just ran the machine over everything, ice forming ahead of the skids to give him a surface to drive on, his passenger whacking at everything in the way.
He managed to connect with something vital. The music cut off, alerting even the kids who were still dancing that something was wrong.
Silence and the fear descended.
But this time was different. This time they could all see, there was light, light that the Shadow Knights couldn’t put out.
Before the Shadow Knights could move, Dylan grabbed a piece of burning wood, and charged the nearest Knights with a bellow of fury. The three Knights might have been ready to fight, but their horses weren’t ready to face a screeching maniac flailing at them with fire. They bolted.
At that, almost the entire student body broke out into shouts of defiance and anger. The fear strengthened; people stopped shouting, and started to back away—but there was nowhere to back up to except the fire.
Do something! Spirit thought, desperately.
“What are you waiting for?” Dylan screeched, his voice sharp with hysteria. “Are you a bunch of sheep, or what?”
The Knights struck first. They raised their arms as one, and a howling wind filled with ice fragments sprung up behind them, cutting everyone off from anyone not around the fire.
“Not this time!” Kelly screamed, and picked up a snowball and threw it at one of the Knights. It hit him in the middle of his chest. He looked down at the splotch of snow. Looked up at her. Started to raise his hand.
Somehow that was the one thing that the paralyzed students needed. Kelly was as popular as anyone could be at Oakhurst; she was fair, and when you got caught at doing something minor, more often than not she would cut you a break.
Instead of hammering a helpless teenager with his magic, the Knight suddenly found himself and his friends the focus of a school full of terrified, but angry, young magicians. Again, Spirit felt that strange sensation of being the conduit for something—and it all erupted at once.
It was like being in the middle of that attack on the endurance riders, except this time, both sides were playing. Those who had Combat magic used it. Those who didn’t looked for a weapon of any sort. Fueled by energy frantic for any sort of outlet, the Combat magicians of Oakhurst filled the air with spells. Fueled by—what? The fear? According to Ms. Groves, the fear of someone else was a great fuel for spells. Spears of ice, gouts of fire, deadly little tornados and fierce blasts of straight-line wind pummeled the Shadow Knights who’d been expecting to confront a huddle of terrified youngsters.
And at first, the unexpected attack worked. The Shadow Knights actually stood there, stunned, for a long moment. Then they were forced to duck for cover under the barrage of magical weaponry.
But a moment later the Shadow Knights were rallying. The ice-weapons were vaporized by shields of fire; fireballs impacted planes of force. And the little tornados found themselves sucked into a greater whirlwind. A hurricane-force wind whirled around the Oakhurst kids; the Air Mages were forced to give up their offense in order to keep the kids and the bonfire shielded from it.
Fireballs arced toward the Oakhurst line, joined by lightning out of the whirlwind. Spirit gasped as one kid was hit by lightning and went down; another had to drop and roll in the snow when a fireball struck him and set his coat ablaze. All around her, she could hear cries of pain, and screams.
The Breakthrough guards who were supposed to be keeping the kids safe were nowhere to be seen.
Of course. Some tiny, calm part of Spirit’s mind wondered what excuse they would use for not being here.
But the Oakhurst students weren’t down yet. Illusory copies of Dylan led the kids charging at the lines; kids who were throwing whatever came to hand found themselves with piles of perfectly round ice balls beside them. There must have been a couple of people who had Animal Telepathy and Animal Control, because the mounted Knights found their horses practically turning themselves inside out to be rid of their riders.
The Knights managed to deflect the magical weapons, but they did so at the expense of not deflecting the physical objects being hurled like missiles. And the Oakhurst kids had been getting a lot of target practice these past several weeks. It showed. Spirit had the satisfaction of seeing one of her own ice balls make a direct hit inside the hood of the Knight nearest her, and seeing him go down. Silence from the Shadow Knights turned to cries of fury and pain of their own.
Thank goodness they hadn’t brought any physical weapons along!
Please, please, please let them NOT remember there are a lot of guns here!
Someone here could Jaunt—Spirit couldn’t make out who it was in the chaos, just a kid-shaped blot against the bonfire. Just as her eyes fastened on him, he vanished—then returned a split second later with his arms full of kendo weapons and fencing sabers. He dropped them and vanished, returned again, and repeated the trip three more times in the space of a minute or so … but on the last return, he swayed and pitched over, exhausted. She pulled on Burke’s arm and pointed.
Burke dropped her hand and they both ran for the pile of weapons. The barrage of fire, ice, and wind was falling off, as everyone reached the end of their energy.
There was a moment of utter stillness as the winds fell and the fire and ice stopped The circle of Knights faced the circle of kids again. It was deathly quiet.
One, then another, and another of the Knights revved their snarling snowmobile and ATV engines. The mounted Knights got their horses under control again.
Spirit’s heart nearly stopped. No—no—
The terror swelled, pressing down on them. Someone sobbed.
And that was when some of the others, now with real weapons in their hands, turned to face the Knights.
Dylan stepped forward defiantly, head up. He didn’t look cowed or frightened. In fact, he looked as if he was out for some blood.
“CHARGE!” Dylan screamed at the top of his lungs. He seized a kendo sword from someone next to him and brandished it over his head before bullrushing the line. His impromptu army, including Spirit and Burke, followed on his heels.
The Shadow Knights broke and ran. And the terror collapsed.
Those who could still control their horses picked up some of those on foot. The rest were snagged by those on ATVs and snowmobiles. There was no way the students could catch them on foot, but they pursued them out past the bounds of the campus, returning only when they were sure the Knights would not be back.
And that was when the party really started.
* * *
There was no chance the teachers would be able to chase them back to their rooms before dawn, so no one even tried. Doc Mac and Lily Groves even made a raid on the kitchen and put sandwich fixings out with the drinks at the gym—probably to ensure the students didn’t tear the kitchen apart looking for something to eat.
While Doctor Ambrosius didn’t go out to the celebrants having a pagan war dance around the dying bonfire, he did go around to those who’d decided to go back to the gym where it was warmer. By the time he got around to Burke, Addie, and Spirit, the consensus was that this had all been Dylan’s idea, from the “prank” to the defense of Oakhurst, a tale none of them intended to dispute.
Spirit felt as cratered as if she’d been on an all-day endurance ride, and when Burke suggested they move over to the lounge, she readily agreed. It wasn’t as if she had any more energy for dancing.
“I’m starving,” Burke said, looking with dismay at the food table in the gym, which seemed to have been attacked by swarms of locusts.
“I heard a rumor Doc Mac got someone to put food out on the buffet line at the Refectory, too,” Spirit told him. “Bet Murr-cat’s there.”
They headed back to the main building. “Bet the Breakthrough goons all have a good excuse for why they weren’t around when the balloon went up,” Burke observed sourly.
“Probably lots of excuses,” she agreed. Burke reached out and took her hand halfway to the building. “And probably lots of doctored evidence ‘proving’ they were where they’ll claim they were. But if Mr. Ovcharenko shows up tomorrow with a black eye, be sure to thank me.” She had been pretty certain the guy she’d nailed with her ice ball had been Ovcharenko.
“One day it’s going to be more than just a black eye,” Burke muttered, then stopped, just as they reached the door. “And you never did answer my question.”
Now she was confused. “What question?”
“You said me saying we were going steady wasn’t true, and I asked you if you wanted it to be,” Burke told her, pulling on her hand a little so she faced him.
Once again, Spirit felt as if she’d been stunned stupid. But she managed to stammer out something enough like “yes” that Burke pulled her into his arms for a kiss that lasted long enough that she started going weak in the knees.
Then his stomach growled loudly.
They both laughed. “I guess we’d better find you some food,” she teased, and they went inside.
The rumors were true; anything leftover that could be made into a sandwich or thrown into the microwave had been put out on the line. To Burke’s immense satisfaction, Spirit identified some bits of meat in a pan as the leftover steak from three nights ago, and the two of them made a plate of steak sandwiches, which they took into the lounge.
There they found the rest of their friends presiding over the remains of their own feast.
“We did it,” Muirin said, in tones of disbelief. “We did it.”
“And Dylan got all the credit,” Loch grumbled.
“Blame,” Spirit reminded him. “Believe me, this is one we don’t want extra credit for.”
“Mark and Madison are really not going to be happy about this,” Muirin agreed. “And Dyl’s going to be Anastus’s little chew toy from now on.”
“Better him than me,” Burke muttered, then spoke up after inhaling half his sandwich. “So … now what? They lost this round, but they aren’t going to give up.”
“We keep our heads down until we find a good way to get out of here,” Spirit said firmly. “We need somewhere safe to go, and we need a way to get there. Meanwhile, we hide right here.”
Addie nodded; so did Loch. “My father had a lot of vacation properties,” Loch said slowly. “I just need to remember where some of them are. We had a system of where we hid spare keys and I know all the alarm codes.”
“We might be able to use the horses, or maybe steal a car,” Addie said. “Once we get out and get somewhere safe, Loch and I can get to people on our Trusts.” She got a sly look on her face. “I know just the person, too. He hates video games. All I have to say is that Breakthrough took over the school to get the kids hooked on games and he’ll help us figure out what to do.”
Spirit nodded. “Okay then. Until we get a plan and a way to get out of here, it’s hide in plain sight. Don’t fail anything, because we don’t want them to cull us, but don’t be outstanding, either. Just look absolutely normal and average.”
Burke squeezed her hand. “Got it,” he said, and cracked a small smile. “Just a regular guy and his steady girl. What could be more normal than that?”
Spirit almost giggled at the looks on the faces of the other three, and enjoyed her moment of happiness. Tomorrow they’d have to deal with the repercussions—and there would be repercussions. They’d have to figure out how to keep Mark Rider and Breakthrough from figuring out what they were doing. They’d have to find out how to get away. She’d have to decide if QUERCUS was a friend who could help, or a trap. And somehow, they would have to figure out who Mordred was—and where—and how to take him out for good. Because she knew in the depths of her soul that Mordred wasn’t going to stop until they were all dead … or his servants.
But not this minute. She squeezed Burke’s hand back. Tonight, at least, was going to be theirs.