Page 50 of Soulbound Shadows: Part 2

“This isn’t just a box,” I said. “Gabriel?”

Gabriel typed quickly, then turned the screen toward her. I had a bad angle on it, but I could see a YouTube video of someone playing a video game.

“All right, guys, this is my nether portal speed run, third attempt,” said a voice over the tinny speakers.

Merri was absolutely riveted, floating right in front of the screen with her mouth hanging open. Without looking away, she waved a hand at one of the walls, and suddenly, it was like a door had always been there. It creaked open, revealing a dark hallway beyond it.

“Don’t touch any of the doors with copper knobs, and look out for the tripwire by the bathrooms,” she said absently. “There are a bunch of people penned up downstairs, over in the music rooms.”

“There are prisoners here?” I blurted, but she ignored me.

“Down the hallway, take a left, take the first right, go past the art rooms, then take another right. Music rooms are all right there. Don’t go into the teacher’s lounge. That’s my room, and absolutely no boys are allowed under any circumstances. It is booby-trapped, so no funny business.” Then she snickered, probably because of the word ‘booby’. I thought a silent apology to all the teachers I’d had when I was her age.

Gabriel carefully set down the phone in one corner, making sure it was propped up against the wall. “Pleasure doing business with you,” he said.

“Mmhmm,” Merri mumbled, still staring at the screen.

“I think we just turned a ghost into an iPad baby,” I whispered to Gabriel as we went for the now-visible door.

“Bye!” Merri yelled after us. “You two are way nicer than that other guy.”

What other guy? I spun back around, but Merri was gone, and she’d taken the phone with her.

“Other guy?” I said to Gabriel.

He shrugged, looking worried. “We’ll keep an eye out, but our first priority should be the prisoners.”

We crept down the hallways, following Merri’s directions. It was bright enough that I could drop my light spell, although the gray light that filtered in from the windows mostly just showed off the dirt and moss on the floors.

A left, a right, past the art rooms. Near what looked like a pottery classroom was a heavy door with a sign that read: TEACHERS’ LOUNGE. Someone had added in an apostrophe with marker. The door was covered with mismatched posters and flyers that must have been stolen from around the school and pinned up as decorations. The words MeRRi’s Room!! had been written across them in red paint, which was also splattered across the floor. It would’ve been a more convincing fake blood illusion if Merri hadn’t left the tub of paint on the floor.

The music wing was hard to miss. For one thing, it was brightly lit. Someone had brought in big industrial lights—the kind you’d see at a construction site—and set them up all over the place. Magic hummed in the air, an annoying mosquito whine.

“Hold on.” I put up a hand. “Wards.”

Whoever had put the wards up had gone for quantity over quality, and the magic in them was nothing impressive. They crumpled easily when I focused on them. Not Morgana’s work, I was certain.

“There’s no way she did those herself,” I told Gabriel. I didn’t have to clarify who ‘she’ was. “Which means she’s got other witches working for her, not just the vampires who followed your dad.”

“I wonder who else she’s brought in on her scheme,” he said darkly. “Would the werewolves fall for it? The fae? The ghosts?”

With the wards down, we continued cautiously. In one classroom, the chairs had been pushed aside, papers and ledgers stacked on the teacher’s desk. I flipped one of the ledgers open. The handwriting was neat and in some sort of code, but I could make some guesses. Each entry had a line with two words, which must have been first and last names. Then one word, and the same few ones popped up over and over again through the entries, so I guessed that that was species. Most of them had a paragraph or two that came next, which I didn’t even try to decipher. Some of the entries were crossed out with one quick line of red ink.

“They’re keeping track of the dead,” I said hollowly.

Gabriel squeezed my shoulder. “Which means if we decode these, we can inform the families,” he said. “But first we need to help the living.”

There were so many names. The reality hit me at the worst possible time. I’d dealt with death before—it was part of the job. Sometimes the cases I solved were horribly brutal, the sort that made you grateful to whoever had invented alcohol. I’d dealt with murderers, even a serial killer once. A few times, I’d found the bodies.

Before this, the most lethal case I’d ever worked on involved six victims, and I’d been just in time to save a seventh.

How many people were in those books? Dozens? More than that, clearly. A hundred? Two hundred? And those were just the books being kept here. How many people had Morgana killed to steal their power?

“Evangeline,” Gabriel said, gentle but firm. “Right now, I need you here with me.”

I sucked in a rough breath and nodded. “I know. Yeah, I’m good, it’s…” I didn’t know what to say. Had they kept a red pen next to the books to mark off the dead? Had someone gone to Staples to get some red ballpoints so they could keep track of who they’d killed?

“Use the anger,” Gabriel said. “Leave the grief for later.”

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