Page 52 of The Vampire and the Case of the Perilous Poltergeist

That hadn’t been my experience because he’d hardly connected with us, but this was Sidnee and she thought most people were sweet. ‘It turns out he wasn’t so sweet after all,’ I said grimly.

We hurried back to Connor’s truck. The three men and Fluffy climbed in the back, and Sidnee squeezed into the cab with me, Connor, and a sleeping Shadow. We took off, wheels spinning as we sped back to the academy.

‘We need a story, something about what happened to Danny that the humans will understand.’ I’d been worrying about that ever since Danny had woken up. We couldn’t tell the truth so we needed something believable to keep Fischer off our radar. He needed to think we were still clueless.

I reached behind us and opened the sliding window that went through to the back of the truck. ‘Hey,’ I called. ‘We have to get our stories straight for the humans.’

‘I’ll say I fell, hit my head and got lost wandering in the wrong direction,’ Danny offered. ‘Fluffy tracked me down by the road.’

‘We’ve been gone longer than that, plus there’s no bump on your head. They’ll check you for a concussion,’ Sidnee objected. She was right; they’d want him to see a doctor.

‘We could say I fell into that abandoned mine, the one Connor hid in?’ Danny suggested.

‘No. They’ll investigate, try to seal it back up and know immediately that’s not true,’ I replied.

‘A sinkhole?’

Before I could answer that it would be the same for a sinkhole, Harry’s steady voice came from the back. ‘Danny was dehydrated and became disoriented. He wandered for a while, realised he was lost and hunkered down. He was planning to wait until morning to find his way out of the woods. His headlamp was dead and he didn’t have his phone. The dog can still have found him.’

‘Simple, and believable,’ Connor said. ‘Danny, do you have your phone?’

‘No, I left it behind. We were supposed to be without tech.’

‘What about your headlamp?’

‘It must have fallen off.’

Connor nodded. ‘Okay. In case someone has found it, you say it died, you discarded it and you don’t know where it is.’

‘Yeah, that’s better,’ Danny agreed.

‘Perfect. Everyone got the story straight?’ Everyone responded in the affirmative, including a sharp bark from Fluffy.

Connor turned left and the academy loomed up on the hill ahead. ‘Here we go.’ He pulled to the front and parked. The men in the back climbed out slowly and carefully as though they were exhausted, which they probably were; I knew I was close to being unconscious. Maybe I’d get better at mesmerising in the future, but for now it left me weaker than a day-old baby.

Like me, Sidnee – who’d done the most work – looked like she was hanging on by her fingernails. We were vulnerable right now, which was all the more reason for Fischer to believe the BS we were peddling.

I placed Shadow on the passenger side seat and slipped out. The poor exhausted little fella didn’t stir when we shut the doors.

We gathered together and went through the front doors. Recruits and officers were scattered about the building, but someone noticed us and a shout rang out. ‘You found him!’ Several people pulled out phones to call their friends or fellow squad mates to tell them to come back in

‘Go check on Margi,’ I whispered to Sidnee before we were surrounded by a lot of relieved-looking recruits. Sidnee slipped away.

Danny was being hugged and clapped on the back. Lieutenant Fischer was glaring at our group from where he was leaning against the wall next to the reception window. He had slightly more than a five o’clock shadow and I wanted to smirk because I knew that we’d been stressing him out. He was the only one, besides whatever MIB plants there were and possibly Sergeant Marks, who knew the truth.

A table had been set up with doughnuts, coffee and hot chocolate for the searchers. They’d been going out on rotation to avoid getting too wet and cold, as well as to get some rest. We went to get a sorely needed hot drink.

Fifteen minutes later, Sergeant Marks burst through the door, took one look at us and pulled Danny into a brief man hug. ‘Are you alright? What happened?’ He looked sincere and I really hoped he wasn’t one ofthem.

I heard Danny start to recite the story we’d come up with, but Sidnee was signalling me from the stairs and I couldn’t hang around to listen. I squeezed Connor’s hand, pointed at Sidneeand left him with Danny, Fluffy and the others, then I slipped behind the crowd and ran up the stairs.

It was dark upstairs and no one seemed to be around. ‘Margi isn’t in our room,’ Sidnee said grimly. ‘I checked everywhere upstairs. She’s not here and neither is Eben.’

‘Shit. Do we know if they made it back?’ I asked.

She shook her head. ‘I didn’t want to draw attention to the fact that they’re missing.’

‘We have no choice. Let’s go back downstairs and ask if anyone has seen them.’

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