Page 9 of The Exorcism of Faeries

“I don’t know that there are positions available, but you paid some upfront to be enrolled”—she checked her records for the amount Atta already knew, her entire savings—“and that covers you for a couple of weeks.” Mrs O’Sullivan looked at Atta solemnly. “Go to the rest of your classes today and I will see what I can do.”

Numbly, Atta left House 5 and walked back across campus in a daze. If she kept her job at the morgue and pilfered bodies for Achilles when she could, it might be enough to cover what the TA position couldn’t.

If Mrs O’Sullivan even managed to find her a TA job at all.

Sonder

“Why is the tongue removed during an autopsy?” Sonder slid one hand into the pocket of his trousers, waiting for the ‘best and brightest’ of his students to answer.

Predictably, it was the brown noser always up his arse at Achilles and now in class, Tom Walsh, who spoke first. “In order to examine the oral cavity thoroughly.”

Walsh was the only student who didn’t cower in Sonder’s presence. The lad was annoying for it, but he certainly studied the material.

“Correct. Once the tongue is removed to better access the oral cavity, what should be done next?” Walsh had a bright-eyed, bushy-tailed look about him and opened his mouth, but Sonder frowned, speaking before the lad could. “Anyone else?”

Classes had only been in session for a fortnight, but Sonder was already itching to be through with lectures and onto the more hands-on portion of his teaching.

“Document?” a quiet girl in the front row suggested timidly.

The classes at Trinity were small. It was a better way to teach, certainly, but it always meant the students were sonearto his person. He wished this mousey one with the sweetheart face and doe-eyes would sit in the back row. She was clearly terrified of him. He wondered how she’d ended up in his course in the first place, and predicted she would be the first to vomit when they moved on to real cadavers.

His fingers twitched, wanting nothing more than to get classes over with and head back to Achilles House. To the body waiting for him.Stage 3 Infected. A thrill shot up his spine. He was so close. If only he could encourage the infection, coax it into Stage 4 somehow?—

“Note any abnormalities,” another student’s voice broke into his thoughts.

“Correct. And?” Sonder looked over the faces, not registering any of them.

“Take tissue samples for further analysis.”Fucking Walsh.

“Good.” Sonder strode to his desk and put on his wire-framed glasses, looking down at his notes nearly lost in the disarray. “Read chapters 7-10 and have a 4,000-word essay on my desk by Tuesday.”

The entire class groaned, but he didn’t care. Easy work meant weak minds, and he didn’t teach imbeciles.

Which reminded him he needed to check in on the mess Gibbs had made—ensure the instruments were properly returned by the cadaver girl.

“All right, fuck off then.” He made a shooing motion and dropped his glasses onto the mess of papers, shucking his tweed jacket and rolling the sleeves of his shirt up his forearms.

As soon as they’d all filed out grumbling, Sonder strode through the glorious, mystical corridors of the Medical Building toward the teachers’ room. Met with the scent of burnt coffee, he picked up a stale doughnut and considered powering through the disgusting taste of it, but reconsidered the desecration of his palate and threw it in the rubbish bin since he’d already touched it. One didn’t cut open the number of bodies he had without being forever altered by the disturbing transference of bacteria.

At least he was alone in the room.

Sonder was pouring the sludge some intern or TA had made hours prior into a loathsome paper coffee cup when he heard the irritating click-clack of high heels on the floor out in the hall. Sure enough, the sound came closer until the intruder was upon him.

“There you are!” He turned to find Mariana O’Sullivan in the doorway, her ample chest heaving.

“Walking around campus might be easier if you didn’t wear those.” Sonder pointed one finger at her gaudy pink heels, the others wrapped around his coffee cup that he took a sip from and immediately regretted the act.

“You’re delightful, Professor Murdoch.” Mariana pursed her lips at him. “I’ve been looking for you because I have a proposition.”

“Ah, Mariana. I’m not going to sleep with you. I’ve told you a thousand times.”

“Would you shut up and sit down?” She said the words sharply, but she did blush. At least Mariana wasn’t afraid of him. She had been his student advisor when he was after his PhD, just a young pup herself back then, one of the only people still in his life who’d truly known himbefore.

Irritably, he did as she asked and dropped into one of the leather armchairs by the hearth, crossing one long leg over the other. “Can we make this quick?”

“You know,” Mariana plopped into the chair across from him, “you’re too old for this insolent behaviour. Christ, you’re a grown man, Sonder.” She leaned forward and inspected his chin. “You’ve even got grey hairs there in your stubble.”

“Mariana,” he warned through his teeth.

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