Feeling a rough hand on my shoulder, I wake with a start. A beady-eyed man with a big nose and an even bigger potbelly peers down at me. He’s dressed in light blue coveralls and is holding a broom.
“Sorry, miss,” he says. “Library’s closed. And it’s well past curfew. You’d better get back to the dorm before Johan catches you.”
Wow, how long was I out for? I scramble to my feet, forgetting I have a pile of books still on my lap, and they all go crashing to the floor. The janitor looks down, his eyes widening as he catches a glimpse of them.
“Fairies?” he asks, looking up at me suspiciously.
“Um, yeah. I have a ... project,” I reply, not knowing why I suddenly feel so nervous. What do I care what some janitor sees me reading? “An essay about the history of the Sidhe.”
The janitor gives me a hard stare—like he doesn’t believe me—and I squirm under his gaze. Am I in trouble here? Did I just give myself away? I try to surreptitiously glance over my shoulder to see if I’ve suddenly sprouted wings. I don’t see anything, but still ...
The janitor shrugs and starts picking up the books. “I’ll re-shelve them for you,” he tells me. “You’d better get back to your dorm.”
I nod and grab my coat, hurrying toward the library entrance, completely creeped out. I look back at the janitor, who has taken a seat in the armchair and is paging through my books. I shake my head. Seriously, paranoid much, Rayne? I mean, who cares if the janitor knows what I’m reading? Or anyone else, for that matter? It’s not like someone’s going to be all “Hey she’s reading a book about fairies—I bet she actually is one!”
Still, I can’t shake the nervousness as I slip out of the library and start heading up the cobblestone path toward the door. The campus is quiet and dark, all good slayers have long since gone to bed.
Except for one building where the lights are blazing and I can see shadows moving through cracks of boarded-up windows. A strange hum of electricity dances in the air, igniting my vampire senses. Little hairs prickle my arms and a chill crawls down my back as I study the building curiously, wondering what on Earth could be going on in there. Are there really Alpha slayers training for secret ops inside? And if so, why are they doing it late at night? Do they have some sort of secret they don’t want the rest of the slayers to see?
I take a step closer, curiosity overwhelming me. Suddenly the front door creaks open and a solitary figure steps out, dragging a large bag. I leap aside, trying to retreat to the shadows, but the figure’s eyes are already locked on me. Crap. I’ve been spotted.
“Rayne McDonald?” it demands. “What are you doing out here?”
Oh great. It’s Headmistress Roberta, of all people. The last person on Earth I wanted to run into after curfew. After all, she’s practically looking for an excuse to nano me anyway and here I go, handing her one on a silver platter.
“Um, sorry, I just fell asleep in the library,” I stammer. “I didn’t mean ... I’m ... I’m heading back to the dorm now.”
The headmistress narrows her eyes at me, pursing her lips together in a deep frown. At first I think she’s going to say something, but then she seems to change her mind. She shakes her head and points up the hill.
“Very well,” she says. “But get inside immediately. And don’t let me catch you out after dark again.” She pauses, then adds in a menacing voice, “Or else.”
I don’t try to argue and head up the hill double time. As I go, I can feel her hard stare behind me. In fact, if eyes could really burn holes in someone’s back I’m pretty sure I’d be Swiss cheese right about now.
I pull open the dorm room door and slip inside, not able to resist the urge to take one last peek down the hill before I close it again, even though I’m pretty sure it’ll turn me into a pillar of salt if the headmistress catches me doing so. Luckily, Roberta has evidently tired of watching my retreat and is back to dragging the large bag down the street toward the sanitation building at the very end of the road.
I squint at the bag. Is that what I think it is? And did it really just ... move?
I bolt into the dorm, not caring as the door slams behind me, probably waking half of Slay School. Leaning against the wall, I suck in a shaky breath, my thoughts whirling like crazy in my head.
’Cause that bag she was carrying? It looked a lot like a body bag. And whatever was inside? It didn’t seem all that dead.
What the hell is really going on at Night School?
9
Argh, my back! I wake up the next morning, feeling like two knives are simultaneously stabbing me between my shoulder blades. Seriously, I’m starting to think there’s some kind of Princess and the Pea thing going on with my mattress. (Since I technically am a fairy princess, after all!) I mean, sure, I’ve worked out a lot lately on the training field, but I’m also in pretty good shape from being a cheerleader. There’s no way I should be this sore.
I glance over and see Sunny is already awake, lying in bed, staring at her useless cell phone, probably flipping through old texts from Magnus. “Hey, Sun!” I call to her. “Will you take a look at my back for a second? Tell me if I have any weird bruises?” I climb out of bed and walk over to her side of the room, turning around and lifting my shirt over my head so she can get a good look.
“Oh my God!” she shrieks. I whirl around, just in time to see her stumble backward onto her bed, trembling hands covering her wide open mouth, her eyes as big as saucers.