Page 90 of Magical Academy for Delinquents
If she was calling, either something had happened to Matthew or she had information.
I didn’t get a chance to call her back until I’d gotten Ben settled with the nurse and washed off my hands. I took the long way back to class, in case any of Ben’s blood had gotten on me. I ducked behind the corner of Building B and dialed.
“Hey,” I said in a low voice. “I’m in class and I’ll have to get back. But I wanted to see if something had happened.”
“You know that friend-with-benefits I’ve got?” Potts responded.
Annoyance and suspicion crept over me. She better not have called me to terrorize me with awful stories again. Was she referring to the guy who’d actually made it to Unnatural? I thought for a second. That was the only guy she’d ever mentioned, so I assumed she meant him. “Yeah.”
“He just had a job interview with a lab.”
“Okay?” I glanced at my watch. I had maybe a minute before Trusk started wondering what was taking me so long.
“The lab creates polyurethane coatings, enamels, that sort of thing. They’re filing for a patent for a new kind of paint.”
“I’m about to leave—can you get to the point?”
“This new kind of paint is magically reinforced. They’re calling it Eternal Paint.”
I spotted a stone lion heading toward me through the trees. Shit. I didn’t want to be caught by it. I slid around the corner of the building. But then I was facing the quad. I squatted down, trying to make myself less prominent in case someone was looking out the window.
“The point, Potts?” I growled.
“He smelled something odd in one of the vats when he went through their plant. Shifter nose, you know? He stole a sample while he was there. Tested it. Guess what they’re using in that paint?”
“I don’t have time for Twenty Questions,” I growled, deciding to stand up and just walk back to Trusk’s class. This conversation was going nowhere.
“He found blood. And not just any blood. Vampire blood. They had vats and vats of this paint.”
Dread.
Horror.
Disgust.
I stopped walking.
I froze right in the middle of the quad, phone held to my ear. “Why?”
“All those studies they’re doing on finding ways to make norms magical … you and I thought they’d be doing something to find a way to make magicals immortal. But nobody’s gotten there yet. Meanwhile, vamps are just sitting there. Like cattle in a penfor eternity.”
I got where she was going. Claude’s favorite phrase morphed in my head and spilled out my lips. “What a waste of eternity, that could be put to better use,” I whispered, heart cracking. “God, that makes me sick.”
“Doesn’t it though? There’s a lovely little article in this morning’s paper about an entire set of new rockets preparing to go to Mars and then to its moon. The magical heat shields for space travel—yeah, those are intense. Burn up rather quickly from the bit of research I’ve done. But the interesting thing is they’re now claiming the rockets will be reusable due to new, unspecified ‘advances.’ And if you follow the more elite papers, there are a couple journalists hinting about expensive new shield spells written with a special ink. They’re saying the U.S. is better protected than ever before …”
My own vision went dark for a second. I was so stunned that my power overwhelmed me. Goosebumps rose on my skin. “Are you sure?” I whispered.This is so widespread already? So many people have bought onto this? Agreed to this? Do they even know?
Potts sent me links to the articles.
I scrolled through them, feeling dizzy and off-balance as I did so. The world beneath me had shifted. I didn’t even stop when I saw one of the stone lions head toward me. The stone monster shocked me when he scooped me up into his mouth.
At first, fear lit through me like lightning.So, this is how I die,I thought.And I was so close.
But the beast cradled me with surprising gentleness between his massive teeth as he tromped toward the administration building. He made no attempt to eat me, even when I tried and failed to wriggle out from between his teeth. The lion’s warm breath blew across me as he set me down on the just-greening grass by the butterfly fountain and pinned me to the ground with his paw. He let out a roar (to alert the faculty I guessed). Sure enough, an assistant marched outside, retrieved me, and led me to the headmaster’s office.
This office was dull compared to the one at Medeis. Spartan, just like most of MAD. I stared dully at Headmaster Griffin’s bald head while he droned on and on about responsibility and crap like that.
I didn’t really listen.
