My left eye started to twitch. “A substitute teacher?”
My mind flooded with thumbtacks on desk chairs and Saran Wrap over the toilets in the teacher’s lounge. Suddenly, I longed for my cozy Underworld Detection Agency job, where no one touched my wedged-between-two-blood-bags bologna sandwich and a bitchy band of ill-tempered pixies roamed the halls.
“A substitute teacher,” I repeated, “who saves the world?”
Sampson’s shrug was one of those “hey, pal, take one for the team” kind of shrugs and I felt anger simmering in my gut.
“You can ‘teach’”—he made air quotes that made me nauseous—“any class you’d like. Provided it’s in the approved curriculum. And not already assigned.”
I felt my lip curl into an annoyed snarl when Sampson shot me a sparkly-eyed smile as if being given the choice to teach freshman algebra or senior anatomy was a tremendous perk.
“If this high school isn’t about to slide into the depths of hell or in the process of being overrun by an army of undead mean girls, I’m going to need a raise. A significant one,” I said, my voice low. “And a vacation.”
Sampson nodded, but didn’t say anything.
“So,” I said, my eyebrows raised.
“Do you remember last year when a body was found on the Mercy High campus?” Sampson asked.
My tongue went heavy in my mouth. Though I was well-used to the walking undead and the newly staked, the death of a young kid—a breather who would stay dead—made my skin prick painfully. I nodded.
“That’s what this is about?
Sampson didn’t answer me.
“Her name was Elizabeth Thompson, right?”
It had been all over the papers: a local student mysteriously vanishing from an exclusive—and, before that day, safe—high school campus. A week later, her body had been discovered dumped near Fort Cronkhite, an old military installation on the Marin side of the Golden Gate Bridge. Though the story was told and retold—in the Chronicle, the Guardian—and the Mercy High School campus was overrun with reporters for the better part of a semester, there weren’t a lot of details in the case. Or at least not a lot were leaked to the press.
“That murder was never solved,” Sampson said, as he slid the file folder over to me.
“Didn’t someone confess? Some guy in jail? He was a tweaker; said something about trying to sacrifice her.” The thought shot white-hot heat down my spine, but I tried my best to push past it. “I still don’t have to see what this has to do with the high school. Or with me having to go into it. I followed the case pretty closely”—I was somewhat of a Court TV or pretty much anything-TV junkie—“and I don’t remember any tie-back. I mean, the girl was found in Marin.”
“She was dumped in one of the tunnels at Battery Townsley.”
I shuddered. “People go through there all the time.”
“Her killer obviously wasn’t concerned about keeping Elizabeth secret.”
I shook my head. “I still don’t understand what this has to do with us—with the Underworld. Everything about it screams human.”
Sampson gestured to the folders and I swallowed slowly, then looked down at them. Directly in front of me was a black-and-white photo of a smiling teenager—all perfect teeth and glossy hair—and it made my stomach roil even more. My high school picture was braces doing their darnedest to hold back a mouthful of Chiclet teeth and hair that shot straight out, prompting my classmates to announce that my styling tools were a fork and an electrical socket. I yanked my hand back when I realized I was subconsciously patting my semi-smoothed hair.
“What? The prom queen—” I stopped and sucked in a sharp breath when my eyes caught the headline plastered over the photo: MERCY HIGH STUDENT MISSING.
I scanned quickly.
Mercy High School student Alyssa Rand disappeared Monday afternoon. Erica Rand, Alyssa’s mother, said that she last saw her daughter when she boarded the number 57 bus for Mercy as she always did; teachers confirmed that Alyssa attended her classes through lunch period, but did not show up for afternoon classes. Police are taking student statements and a conservative approach, unsure yet whether to classify Alyssa as a runaway or an abductee.
I looked up, frowning. “I don’t understand. I mean, it’s horrible, but we don’t even know if she’s really missing.”
“She is, Sophie.”
Sampson pressed his lips together and sighed, his shoulders falling in that way that let me know that he wasn’t telling me everything. “There has been talk of a coven on campus.”
Relief washed over me and I sort of chuckled. “Sampson, every high school has a coven on campus! It’s called disgruntled teenage girls with black dye jobs and too much angst-y time on their hands pretending to read tea leaves and shoot you the evil eye.” I waved the article in my hand. “I don’t see how one has to do with the other.”