Blood Prophecy
Page 12

“Nice misdirection with the party-girl yell,” she said.
“How did you guys find the video so fast?” I asked, shrugging out of my coat.
“Hunter bugged Theo’s desk in the infirmary,” Chloe said.
Hunter just shrugged unrepentantly. “I think we’ve all spent way too much time in there. And every time, some big secret bites us in the ass. I’m sick of it.”
“They’re going to make action figures of her,” Jenna predicted. “The Hunter doll, complete with pink cargo pants, stakes, and microchips.”
“I heard him get a call about a vic outside one of the college dorms. The League has hidden cameras throughout Violet Hill, near the bars and college mostly,” Chloe explained to me, while I wiped my damp palms on my jeans. “So I hacked in.”
“Show me,” I said quietly, even though I’d just seen it for myself.
The four of us stared at the screen as Chloe played the video clip. The light came from a streetlamp and some sort of night-vision lens. It made the shadows fluid, the light a strange acidic green. It was like watching a horror movie when you didn’t want to see what would happen next but you couldn’t help yourself. Chloe cut to a clip of the victim being brought in to the infirmary. There was no mistaking the spiky hair and the paint-splattered jeans. The clip cut off abruptly.
“They cut my feed,” Chloe admitted, disgruntled. “I hate that.”
I sank onto Hunter’s bed. “Is that public access to the League?
“No.”
“There’s something really weird going on,” I told them. “I just can’t seem to figure it out. I’m not even sure where to start. So what’s our next step?” I asked Hunter hopefully. She was the straight-A vampire hunter student, she had six plans going before most of us had finished breakfast. “Logan thought magic was involved that last time I talked to him.”
“What about Isabeau?” Hunter asked. “What did she say?”
“He’s asking her now. But she’s out of range so it might take some time. Plus, you know, a Hound. Not exactly chatty.”
“We need Spencer,” Hunter said finally. “Magic is his speciality.”
Jenna snorted. “Specialty if you pretend that spell he tried last year didn’t make him smell like cheese for a month.”
“Plus, he’s barred from the grounds,” Chloe added. “Some idiot might try to stake him.”
“We’ll just have to meet him off campus,” I said. “Do your hacker thing and get a hold of him.”
Chloe rolled her eyes. “It’s called a phone. No hacking required.” She blinked at me when I stood up. “What are you going to do?”
“I’m going to the library.”
They all stared at me. Chloe shook her head. “Okay, that I wasn’t expecting.”
Jenna went with me. I let her since I was babysitting her because of her injuries, and she probably thought she was babysitting me because I now had a rep for being a little crazy. “Shouldn’t you be in bed or something?” I asked her.
She rolled her eyes. “Shut up.”
“You’re a charming patient. I can’t imagine why Theo didn’t want to keep you longer for observation.”
She grinned. “Please. I heard he had to physically lock you out.”
“Yeah, yeah.”
Campus was quiet and cold, with thousands of stars burning overhead. It was the kind of night Nicholas and I usually spent counting falling stars. I wondered what he was doing right now. Was he safe? Did he know Solange had just broken a hard-won treaty that had been in place since before we were even born? Did he care? He had to care. Because every Helios-Ra agent who wasn’t on board with Hart’s progressive attitude would be coming for the Drakes now. Not to mention, Huntsmen who had no affiliations to begin with.
And as a student at the Helios-Ra Academy, I was suddenly on the wrong side of the fence.
I kicked a pebble into the pond, accidentally scaring the sleepy swan. He squawked and burst into flight, scattering feathers. Jenna and I both squawked back and threw a stake at it. He dive-bombed us, insulted.
“Oops,” I said as we caught our breath. “I guess we’re a little tense.”
“You think?” Jenna slid me a suspicious sidelong glance. “You’re not going to start ohm-ing, are you?”
“Mom claims it helps.”
“Let me guess. Your mom eats a lot of tofu, doesn’t she?”
“You have no idea.”
We crossed the lawn toward the buildings clustered in the center of the campus and surrounded with security lights. “You know, you don’t exactly seem like the library type. Tyson would be so proud.”
“I have to start somewhere,” I grumbled. “Much as I’d like to just punch everyone in the face until this all makes sense, that seems like a lot of work.”
The library was nearly empty. We only had a half hour until curfew and since we didn’t have exams or essays due this week, everyone was pretty much anywhere else. The light was soft and the wooden study tables gleamed.
“Do you even know what you’re looking for?” Jenna asked as we wandered in the back stacks.
“Not really,” I admitted. I pulled out books on magic, ghosts, and vampires. It didn’t take long before the pile grew to eye level. I was trying to figure out how to carry them all when Jenna checked her cell. “Chloe finally reached Spencer. He’ll meet you at 2:00 a.m. tomorrow. Hunter says you know where.” I knew exactly where she meant. As the only two hunter students currently dating vampires, we knew the best and most private routes to the borders of the campus. Jenna blinked at the teetering pile. “Enough books there, Hamilton?”