Sacrifices Read online

  Spirit wondered if she’d see Claire and Jillian at dinner tonight.

  After Math was her History of Magic Class—Ms. Groves’s class. The replacement teacher was Madison Lane-Rider, and if that wasn’t bad enough, she said from now on they’d be concentrating on the Arthurian Cycle.

  It seemed cruelly, horribly unfair. Ms. Groves had been killed for giving Spirit a book of Arthurian legends. And now Madison Lane-Rider was teaching a class in it. Spirit tried not to wonder if the class itself was some kind of elaborate drawn-out trap. Would students disappear for knowing too much of the course material? Or for not knowing enough?

  She was trembling with pent-up nerves and exhaustion by dinnertime. She barely remembered to slip her class ring onto her finger before she walked into the Refectory. The gold felt heavy and somehow greasy against her skin. Moving as if in a trance, she collected her tray and sat down at her assigned table. Joe Rogers was sitting in his usual spot, and Spirit had a flash of happiness at his irritated expression and the gold-and-brown striped tie around his neck. So you hate the new dress code too? Tough.

  That was until she took a closer look.

  The tie tack in the Oakhurst tie was a Gatekeeper emblem.

  Joe Rogers had become one of the Shadow Knights.

  * * *

  Spirit didn’t bother to look for Addie or Burke after dinner. She hadn’t slept since yesterday morning, and the last thirty-six hours had been a series of brutal shocks. Loch and Muirin could fill the other two in on what they’d told Doc Mac; Spirit just wanted to sleep. She’d thought it would be a relief to get back to her room, but the moment she walked in, she realized it wasn’t. Having it searched the way it had been had destroyed any sense of safety she felt here.

  She wanted to scream, or even cry, but she was too tired for either. She changed for bed, but just as she was about to get into it she glanced at her computer and saw the intraweb icon in the taskbar was lit. The intraweb was back up. She almost ignored it, but … what if this was the only chance she got?

  She untied the Ironkey from around her waist and sat down in her desk chair. She clutched it in her hand nervously—what would she say? What if QUERCUS wasn’t there?—then checked her email instead. She didn’t even need to open any of them to know what they were about: at least twenty of them were from Maddie Harris, which meant all of Oakhurst was privy to her hysterics about prom gowns.

  And today is Tuesday, and tomorrow is Wednesday, and that’s the last Dance Committee meeting before the Spring Fling, which is Friday—this Friday. And the Shadow Knights are going to do something at the Spring Fling—because the Hellmouth opens at every single Oakhurst dance—and last time we had some idea of what it was, and this time I have no clue at all.…

  And in six weeks Mordred was going to destroy the world, unless they could stop him. She frowned at the screen, turning the Ironkey over and over in her hands. The five of them needed help, and it sure wasn’t going to come from outside. She felt a lot better having Doc Mac on their side, but after what had happened to Ms. Groves, she knew he wouldn’t be able to do anything openly. He’d be risking enough just getting them the information Muirin’d asked for.

  One person—or even half a dozen … The Shadow Knights can just make them go away and nobody will notice. But if a lot of people stood up to them …

  She knew everybody here wasn’t falling for Breakthrough’s party line—they couldn’t be. The Breakthrough people were glamorous and almost credible, but Spirit bet that about half their current converts would ditch a future as a pawn of evil if they knew those were the actual stakes.

  We need to find some way to organize—to get what we know out there and have people believe it.…

  Yeah, like that’s going to happen. Even before Breakthrough showed up, Oakhurst was pitting all of us against each other. Mordred should have just named the school “Thunderdome” in the first place. I know it’s what we need to do. I just don’t know how to do it.

  She realized she was delaying out of sheer funk. Before she could talk herself out of even trying, she plugged the Ironkey into her machine.

  Hello, Spirit, QUERCUS typed.

  Spirit stared at the words for a very long time without typing anything. What if she’d been wrong from the beginning? What if QUERCUS was a trap? What if— What if— What if—

  She had to decide. Friend or foe? Not choosing was as bad as making the wrong choice.

  Hello, QUERCUS. Doctor Ambrosius is Mordred.

  She counted heartbeats, watching the sentence on the screen. One— Two— Three— Four— Five …

  I know.

  Spirit stared at the words on the screen, too shocked to even know how they made her feel. Questions tumbled through her mind too fast to type: Who are you? Why didn’t you tell me? Do you know what he’s planning? How can we stop him?

  You are stronger than you know. The hardest part of your task lies ahead of you. Remain vigilant and in readiness. I will contact you soon.

  She wanted to protest, to demand an explanation. But there was no one to hear. QUERCUS had logged off.

  I hope I haven’t just screwed us all over, she thought bleakly.

  When she got into bed, tired as she was, sleep took a long time to come.

  * * *

  On Wednesday morning, the “leaked” memo Loch had warned Spirit about was in her mailbox, along with a follow-up memo from STAFF telling students to delete the first email without reading it. (Maybe some of them even had.) The list of GLBT students was less than a dozen names. (Not surprising, since there were only about sixty students here now.) Spirit wondered if there was any truth to the list. Of the two people at Oakhurst she knew for sure were gay, one was on it and one wasn’t.

  She was so upset by that she almost missed the other memo from STAFF. Today “Doctor Ambrosius’s” testing began, and there was a schedule attached. The Proctors would go first, then everybody else. Doctor Ambrosius was doing all of the testing himself.

  Spirit wondered how many people he could do in a day.

  She wondered what he was looking for.

  * * *

  When Loch walked into the Refectory that morning, several of the boys made kissing noises. Loch’s was the only name from the “Platinum Spoon” group on the list. It made him a particular target—as if he “deserved” it more than the others (not that any of them deserved it).

  She watched out of the corner of her eye as Loch made his way from the door toward the serving line. At a table Loch passed, Allen Tate swung around and stuck his feet out in Loch’s path. Loch leaned over and said something—it was impossible to make out—and Allen scrambled back, tucking his feet under the bench.

  Loch caught her eye and smirked, and Spirit suppressed a sigh of relief. It was all relative (she remembered a day, years ago, teasing Phoenix to the point where Fee shrieked at the top of her lungs: “It’s all relatives!” and Mom—whose favorite saying was “It’s all relative”—had laughed until she had to dry her eyes, and then gave them both Popsicles). You didn’t worry about getting beaten up by your classmates when your teachers were trying to kill you. You didn’t worry about being outed when the world was going to end.

  * * *

  After spending the morning in Systema watching Ovcharenko try to kill Loch and Burke try to kill Ovcharenko (and oh god how she wished she was exaggerating), even lunch came as a relief (even if it put her one hour closer to today’s Dance Committee meeting). Spirit hardly noticed the fights and the quietly vicious arguments all around her. None of the fights were worse than shoving matches, anyway.

  Muirin wasn’t there (having apparently solved the problem of the dress code by deciding to stop going to classes completely).

  At least, Spirit hoped that was why she was missing.

  “Hey, where’s our warden?” Kristi Fuller asked, setting down her tray and sliding into her seat. She gave Spirit a look of friendly sympathy: Kristi was one of the former Dance Committee members.

  “Fa
culty Lunchroom. Doesn’t have to eat with us peasants anymore.” Taylor Parker was one of the three kids who’d come to Oakhurst after Spirit and Loch had. (Spirit was secretly amazed he was still here.) “They did Angie and Rick this morning, which is why they aren’t here. Zoey Young, too, and what’s up with that? I thought they were doing all the Proctors first.”

  Kristi shrugged. “Maybe somebody bailed.”

  “What’s he doing to them?” Brianna asked. “I know Rick. He’s about as sensitive as a brick.” She rolled her eyes.

  “‘Testing,’” Kristi said. “In which we are ‘reevaluated’ in order to rank us for ‘advanced placement.’” The ironic quotes stood out in her tone. She made a face.

  “What kind of advanced placement can there be?” Taylor asked in confusion. “It’s not like there’s another Oakhurst for them to send anyone to.”

  Spirit had a sudden idea. “I don’t know. But … I was in Chat last night and somebody said they heard if you don’t pass, you get your magic burned out.” She kept her voice casual, as if she was just helpfully passing on gossip. Three months ago it wouldn’t have worked. Three months ago, there’d been a hundred kids here instead of sixty. Nobody said anything in response, but Spirit was pretty sure the rumor would be all over the school by midafternoon.

  In fact, she was betting her life on it.

  * * *

  “Do you think they’ll show up?” Maddie asked, for possibly the tenth time in the last fifteen minutes. “What if they don’t show up?”

  A table and chairs had been set up in one corner of the gym, and there was a cooler full of sodas and a couple of big plates of cookies. Not much by the standards of the goodie bags Breakthrough had been providing, but lavish in terms of Oakhurst fare. Spirit wasn’t even sure why the Dance Committee was meeting here instead of in one of the lounges, or one of the empty classrooms, or the School Library, or even the Teachers’ Lounge, but it wasn’t like any of them wanted to argue with Admin.

  “We cancel the dance and close Oakhurst, what do you think?” Dylan answered.

  Spirit had done her best to keep away from Dylan since the night they’d gathered to play back Loch’s recorder. She’d been afraid he’d blurt out what he knew. But today it was Zoey who was pinging her radar. Zoey looked spooked. More than that, she looked sick.

  “Should we have gone to the funerals? Would that have been right? Have they even had them yet?” Zoey asked. “We should have gone. I bet they asked us. Our email’s been down, is that why we didn’t find out?” Her eyes were fever-bright, and she chattered randomly in a high nervous voice. Nobody’d quite dared to ask her how her retest had gone.

  “The funerals were last Friday,” Chris said. “It would’ve been awkward if we’d gone, since two of us were still supposed to be in the hospital.”

  “I’m a quick healer,” Dylan said, and snickered.

  “Yeah, well, whatever,” Kylee said. “You know they’re all going to go back and tell their families they saw all of us here today in the bloom of health.”

  I wouldn’t, Spirit thought. She still had no idea of what she was going to say to the Radial kids, but she knew whatever it was, she didn’t want to say it in the Oakhurst gym.

  Just when Spirit was starting to wonder if they were coming at all, the doors at the far end of the gym opened and Ms. Corby walked in, followed by the Committee and four Breakthrough security guards. All seven of the Radial teens were wearing black armbands. Their escort stopped at the door and—once the Townies were halfway across the floor—turned and went out again.

  Juliette, Brenda, Veronica, and Kennedy—the surviving members of the Radial committee—were there. Juliette had (as usual) brought her twin, Brett, and there were two other newcomers as well: Tom and Adam Phillips. Spirit remembered them from the field trip—Muirin had said once they’d been Seth’s partners in his smuggling business. Adam was eighteen and Tom was fourteen and it was obvious neither one gave a damn about the school dance.

  I don’t know what possible use they can be, Spirit thought in exasperation. Bodyguards? I could take them both out, and I don’t even have magic!

  “Welcome to Oakhurst,” Maddie said, standing up and holding out her hand. “I see we have two new recruits.”

  Tom sniggered and Adam snorted. Neither came forward to shake Maddie’s hand.

  “Nice place you have here,” Tom said, looking around. Spirit suddenly remembered what she’d thought the first time she’d seen the Oakhurst gym. It had looked like something out of a Hollywood fantasy of what an elite private school would be like. And she remembered how—for just a little while, back at the beginning—she’d been dazzled by the luxury Oakhurst had surrounded her with …

  “If we could just get started?” Maddie said anxiously. “We have a lot of things to cover, and not much time. Now, I know we didn’t finalize the colors for the Spring Fling, but we’re really out of time, so I thought we could reuse some of the decorations we had here, which would make the dance colors—”

  “Is that it?” Brenda said blankly. “Two of my friends are dead, the library’s a pile of kindling, and we’re just going to talk about the dance?”

  “Yeah. A dance seems like a really stupid idea in the first place when we just buried Bella and Erika on Friday,” Kennedy said.

  “Hey if we shut down Oakhurst every time somebody died we’d never have classes at all,” Dylan said.

  “I just think we should—” Juliette said.

  “Finish planning the dance,” Kylee said harshly. “That’s why you’re here, right?”

  “We’re here because your friends bought the Town Council,” Brett said belligerently. “We were going to pull out and not have a dance at all.”

  “Oh, Brett, you know we all talked about this and we agreed—” Juliette said.

  “But didn’t Mr. Rider say we had to go through with it?” Veronica said. All the Radial kids glared at her, and she blushed furiously. “I just mean I thought…” she mumbled.

  “If Breakthrough doesn’t see one hundred percent turnout from Radial at the Spring Fling, there’s going to be trouble,” Brenda said flatly. “But the thing that’s really bugging me right now is how none of you guys seemed surprised when those things showed up and tore the library apart.”

  “We were,” Chris protested. “Uh—surprised. But you know everything happened so fast—the noise, the confusion—”

  Over Brenda’s shoulder, Spirit saw the door leading from the school into the gym silently open. Teddy Rider and Anastus Ovcharenko walked in. The others were so agitated that nobody noticed them but her.

  “I didn’t even want to come today!” Juliette said. “And Mom said I didn’t have to, but she’s on the Town Board, so I know about Breakthrough, and—is this some kind of cover-up?”

  Teddy and Ovcharenko were wandering along the opposite side of the gym, apparently deep in conversation and oblivious to the meeting. Spirit poked Kylee under the table, and jerked her head in their direction. Kylee’s eyes went wide, and she turned to whisper into Chris’s ear.

  “Yeah,” Adam said. “Monster robots out of a video game?” He sounded more impressed than worried. Spirit’s stomach lurched. He hadn’t been there that day—and that meant the secret was out.

  “People died,” Brenda repeated. “And if you know anything about—”

  “If you guys keep running your mouths like this you’re going to end up mind-wiped just like everybody else who’s ever found out something Oakhurst doesn’t want them to know,” Dylan snarled.

  “Oh come on—” Kennedy said.

  “Look, will you guys all just please shut up?” Spirit hissed. “Company.”

  The Townies looked around the gym and finally spotted Teddy and Ovcharenko. Suddenly everyone stopped talking. The silence was more suspicious than what they’d been saying. In another moment, the two men would come over, and Teddy would be charming, and ten seconds after that he’d know everything.

  Spirit held her brea
th. They can’t just make the Radial kids vanish, she told herself desperately. And it won’t help to mind-wipe them, because if Adam knows what happened last Wednesday, everybody in Radial under the age of eighteen must know too.…

  But to Spirit’s deep mistrust, Teddy simply waved and smiled from across the gym, and he and Ovcharenko walked down to the outside door and went through it.

  “Boy, it really must suck to be you guys,” Brett said, when the door had crashed shut again.

  “You have no idea,” Chris Terry said feelingly.

  “So … who wants a Coke?” Maddie asked brightly.

  Nobody really wanted to talk about the Spring Fling. Every point Maddie raised—from the Spring Fling colors (silver, pink, and blue) to the song list—was waved aside by Juliette. The Townies resented being forced to attend, and the Oakhurst kids knew there wasn’t much point in trying to make decisions about music or anything else: the Spring Fling would be Breakthrough’s show from first to last. Tomorrow, Madison Lane-Rider would be bringing several racks of prom gowns to Macalister High; Spirit suspected the Oakhurst girls would just be assigned prom gowns.

  “I’m not wearing something pink and frilly,” Kennedy said through gritted teeth, when Maddie mentioned the gowns.

  “Yeah, like anybody’s going to care what you show up wearing,” Brett said. “But hey, that means there’ll be two dresses for Couch, because it’ll take two to cover that fat butt.”

  Veronica hung her head, and pretended she couldn’t hear him.

  “Hey, do you think you guys could lay off a little?” Kylee snapped.

  “Yeah, sure. It’s okay for you guys with your trust funds and your fancy school,” Tom said. “You don’t know what it’s like to be pushed around. All anybody hears is ‘Breakthrough this’ and ‘Breakthrough that.’ New library, new housing development, skate park—”

  “New sewage and water treatment plant,” Brenda said softly. “Town’s needed one for years.”

  Spirit wondered why Breakthrough was making all these long-term plans, given Mordred’s agenda. The only thing she could think of was maybe Mark Rider was buying Radial’s cooperation—but why bother? What did he need from Radial he couldn’t just take?