"Just don"t say h.e.l.lo to Ms. Bathory right after you eat one."
"Um, sure thing, sir."
I turned away and bit my finger. So that was true too!
After touring most of Central, Albright led me back out onto the lawn. The dean made busy pointing out all the buildings. That was information I had already digested from the brochures, so I turned my attention to the students. It was past midnight, but my future cla.s.smates were still milling about like it was noon. Lots of students were working outside; the library didn"t seem that popular. And it seemed group work was really important. I rarely saw a person toiling alone. Cement circles dotted the enormous lawn like tiny freckles. Each circle was outfitted with a pack of colored chalk and a broom. Some of the group members made busy drawing figures into the concrete. They referred to their notebooks as they went. Others observed the action. If their co-workers made an error, they would correct them and sweep the chalk marks away.
So that was the deal with witches and brooms?
A bit disappointing if you asked me.
The students were dressed pretty casual-sandals and t-shirts were the norm-but most everyone was wearing those dark grey coats with the wooden toggles over their street clothes.
"Sir," I asked, "what"s the deal with the grey coats?"
"You meant our student robes? Standard safety equipment. Enchanted against all the elements. They"re required for all casts."
I opened my mouth. Closed it.
Albright smiled. "I know, I know, our Elliot robes are actually modified duffle coats. We had to change with the times, son. Used to be no one batted an eye when a college student wore a robe-but that tradition died out around the time of the War for the Union. A few versions have come and gone since then. When motor coaches became popular, we even tried these hideous Western dusters..." Albright shuddered. "This model was designed in the 1950"s. The Imperiti think the coats are a quirky Elliot College tradition. They don"t even bat an eyelid."
I wiped the sweat off my brow. "But, sir, isn"t it a bit warm for coats-or robes-or whatever?"
"These are the summer models. They"re made of light linen. Oh, and do feel free to "trick yours out" if you like."
Some of the robes did have personal touches. One girl had st.i.tched a giant h.e.l.lo Kitty logo on the back of hers. Another looked like it was made of leopard print fabric. I spotted a third student sporting a red-velvet smoking jacket. I smiled. At least Elliot didn"t look like some uptight military academy. These mage folk seemed to still have a sense of humor. I was thinking I might actually like it here when some girls started screaming. A spark of blue light shot out of a circle fifty yards away. The group had been working on a sphere of the same color. Now parts of the sphere looked...unstable. Dagger-like bolts of the blue stuff were bursting off the surface only to be yanked back behind their chalked out circle. Tumbling backwards, most of the students retreated. Only one stood firm. Her arms outstretched, she strained against some unseen force. The members of her group urged her to fall back.
"And then what?" she yelled back at them. "Get back here!"
It was in that moment of distraction that one of the blue tendrils struck her arm. The girl yelped as it globbed onto her. I stared wide-eyed as the blue substance congealed around her arm and gave her body a rough tug towards the circle. Quick on her feet, the young mage dug her heels into the turf, but the stuff had a good grip. Making its way up her arm, the blue glob dragged her towards the sphere. The young mage grunted from the strain.
"Um, guys?" she asked. "A little help here?"
The rest of the group looked at one another in panic and confusion. One was hurriedly flipping through his journal. Another was biting through her thumb. I found myself instinctively looking for Rei...
"Sir?" I asked, nervously. "What on earth is that?"
"Your premise is flawed, Mr. Resnick. We are not limited to "on earth" here." Dean Albright cupped his hands and yelled, "Mr. f.u.kimura. If you wouldn"t mind, please a.s.sist Ms. Cafferty."
A diminutive little Asian kid-one of the only students working alone-stood up from his work and sighed. "Tsukoda," he cursed, and sc.r.a.pped at the concrete circle in front of him. As the chalk smeared, a rush of energy compressed the air around me. My ears popped as the pressure changed.
Ms. Cafferty was now halfway into the sphere. To her credit, she was concentrating on resisting the pull rather than freaking out.
His eyes on the orb, f.u.kimura walked the distance to Ms. Cafferty at a brisk pace. He circled the amorphous blob before taking a position opposite her. Mumbling some calculations in his head, he turned to one of Ms. Cafferty"s group members and asked, "They dislike feces, yes?"
"Huh?" I asked.
"Oh! I didn"t think of that. That"s right, Ichijo!" the girl said. And then she ran like h.e.l.l. Actually, everyone was running away. Dean Albright tapped my shoulder and made the universal sign for retreat. When everyone was about a hundred yards distant, f.u.kimura turned to Dean Albright, and Albright nodded.
"Well, at least we won"t have to fertilize this year," Dean Albright said to me with a sigh.
"Sir?" I asked.
Ms. Cafferty was almost entirely engulfed. She had managed to dig her last free foot into a tuft of gra.s.s and was doing her best to keep the blue stuff out of her mouth. Nonplussed, f.u.kimura closed his eyes and hummed. I wondered what the heck this f.u.kimura hoped to do. He obviously didn"t plan to physically pull Cafferty out. If he got that close, the blob would probably just grab hold of him as well.
So what would he do?
As if in answer to my question, f.u.kimura knelt down and placed his left hand palm down on the ground.
"A direct leyline draw," Albright commented. "Flashy."
I couldn"t see anything with my eyes, but I could certainly feel something brewing. There was energy on the move. The hairs rising on the back of my neck told me that clearly. Curious, I focused my Sight on the area around Mr. f.u.kimura.
"Wow," I mumbled.
"You can see it, son?" Albright asked, his voice raising an octave.
"You mean the gold stuff? Sure." I"d just a.s.sumed my Sight was a part of being magey.
Albright strummed his chin. "Fascinating. Be thankful, son. Few have the gift, and it usually takes decades of focused training to hone it."
"Well, I did complete a training program, but I wouldn"t recommend it." I wanted to ask Albright more about my Sight, but the scene unfolding in front of us distracted me. f.u.kimura was drawing something out of the ground. They looked vaguely like the auras I had observed in New York, but this stuff came in strands. Gold in hue, each fiber had a fluctuating glow. One particularly thick coil rose gently into f.u.kimura"s palm, where it swirled in multi-colored spirals. He drew the substance inward, and it happily complied. f.u.kimura did it with such control, like he was measuring out flour. I watched as spiraling wisps of gold collected at the very center of his body, the spot that martial artists refer to as Ki. f.u.kimura"s head was moving back and forth ever so slightly, like a violinist playing a piece by memory.
Was he visualizing? Reciting a melody, perhaps?
I was puzzling over possibilities when f.u.kimura leaned forward and jammed his right hand directly into the giant blue orb. Energy coursed out of his body directly into the sphere. This flow was different than the initial draw. I could see it without the help of my Sight. The orb shuddered, flinching inward like it was. .h.i.t by pepper spray. There was a rumbling sound, and the kids next to me began to back even further away. You could hear the buildup of pressure as the strain reached a crescendo.
I took a step back just as the blue orb burst. A septic tank full of s.h.i.t exploded in every direction. I scrunched my nose. This f.u.kimura guy had just detonated a poo-bomb. Liquid effluence rained down around the circle. Girls shrieked in disgust. That jock-a.s.shole Roster guffawed loudly.
"Doody!" he yelled. "Doody!"
Ms. Cafferty had been blown three feet from where she last stood. Stunned, she lay spread-eagle on her back. Her body looked fine, minus the film of dung covering her from head to toe. Wiping the b.u.t.t cream out of her eyes, Ms. Cafferty looked about ready to cry-but then puked all over herself instead. f.u.kimura walked away from the circle quietly. He had been completely untouched by the s.h.i.t-storm. A clean V of gra.s.s stood where he had cast the spell. Leaving the blast zone, he returned to his work without a word. The girl who answered f.u.kimura"s question removed her shoes, rolled up her jeans, and made her way through the goo toward Ms. Cafferty.
"Now that is what I call a friend," I said.
Albright chuckled. "Right. Well, you must be tired, Dieter. I"m going to have to organize a clean up. What do you say we cut the orientation short and get you settled in your learning group? Lucas can finish up the tour in the morning."
I nodded, and we walked on. More than anything, I was grateful to get away from the stench.
"Sir, you mentioned someone named Lucas? Is he an uppercla.s.sman?"
"Ah, yes, my apologies. Students here are a.s.signed into groups of twelve. That part of the brochure is true. We try to a.s.semble these groups so that individuals with different talents can learn from one another. There are actually very few resident faculty here at Elliot College. The majority of your education comes from your fellow students. Our motto is: "See one. Do one. Teach one." It"s just like that medical drama on the tube staring George Clooney."
"Got it." I"d had to teach myself for a long time. I was cool with that.
"There are twelve learning groups total. Each group is a.s.signed a Greek letter designation. The group back there in that sticky situation was Beta. You were a.s.signed to Lambda. Come to think of it, you"ve already met two Lambda members: Mr. f.u.kimura and Ms. Bathory. That is why Ms. Bathory was a.s.signed to escort you."
"But Ms. Bathory doesn"t live with the rest of Lambda, right?"
"No, she does not. Ms. Bathory lives on the other side of campus. Safety concerns and all."
I held my tongue. I was getting mad again, but, thankfully, this time it didn"t come with that strong desire to cause bodily harm. I guessed I was just too tired to get all riled up.
"Each learning group elects a captain and a lieutenant. Lambda"s captain is a wonderful young man by the name of Lucas Wright. He comes from a long line of talented mages. He will be in charge of getting you up to speed on your coursework. Your case is quite rare. You have no magical lineage, and so we didn"t discover your capabilities until recently. The Conscious are normally only born into families with a history of magical talent. The few that aren"t usually discover their talents early on and demonstrate only low-level abilities. DOMA detects and trains these prospects early in their childhood, well before they are sent for training at a DOMA college. I must be honest with you, Dieter. You have a lot of catching up to do, but judging by your academic ac.u.men, I think you"ll be up to the challenge."
Oh. Wonderful. "I"ll try my best, sir." I sighed. Maybe I should have chosen the lobotomy.
Albright chuckled. "You"ll do fine, son. Your talents are impressive. You wouldn"t have qualified for a top-tier inst.i.tute if they weren"t. And never forget that success in magic-like in so many other endeavors-is rooted in doing things smartly. Take Mr. f.u.kimura back there. He is an incredibly gifted mage with tremendous mana reserves. If he had desired, Mr. f.u.kimura could have forcibly breached that frame juncture, but he chose not to."
I thought about the way f.u.kimura had spent time thinking through his cast.
"You mean he identified some sort of weakness and exploited it?" I asked.
"Correct. That particular circle was for summoning...never mind, that"ll be too complicated. What"s important is Mr. f.u.kimura remained calm, a.s.sessed the situation, consulted with his fellow pract.i.tioners, and selected a simple, non-taxing spell. It was KISM, as I like to say."
"Keep It Simple, Magus?" I guessed.
Albright laughed, "Actually, it"s Keep It Simple, Moron, but that works too, doesn"t it?"
I mussed my hair. Egads.
We arrived at a large circle of gra.s.s behind the school. In the center, there was one of those sunken circular amphitheaters used for Greek theater. In fact, that"s exactly what a group of students was doing right now. (It looked like a scene out of the Odyssey, but they were talking in Greek so I wasn"t sure.) Around the circular amphitheater stood three large dorm halls, an activities center, and a gym all connected to each other by cement paths. All the buildings were equidistant from the center. The layout must have been carefully thought out.
Dean Albright led me to one of the three dorms. Above the large door were etched the Greek letters: , , , and .
"Iota, Kappa, Lambda, and Mu?" I asked.
"Yep," the dean replied. "The students p.r.o.nounce it "eye-cam." That"s some nasty sounding Greek, but you"ve got to give the kids some allowances. IKM will be your new home. I hope you like it."
Chapter 15.
We entered a large central hall arranged like a living room. A waif of a girl was playing "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star" on the piano in the corner. Two guys paused in the middle of their game of pool to wave h.e.l.lo. I noticed there was a ping-pong table too. I rubbed my hands together. I loved ping-pong.
As we climbed a staircase to the second floor, Albright described the practice facilities and how to use the laundry room in the bas.e.m.e.nt. We walked down a corridor to a thick wood door labeled with the bronze for Lambda. Across the hall was a door labeled I for Iota. I heard a hearty female laugh coming toward the door. It swung open to reveal a girl my age with a huge white grin.
"Joshua or Dieter?" she asked.
"Dieter...if that"s a good thing."
She peeled off a sticky nametag and stuck it on my chest. The dot on my "i" had a smiley face. "Welcome to Lambda, Dieter!" She gestured to her own nametag. "My name"s Monique Rice."
Monique was someone I instantly liked. She put off such nice vibes.
I shook her hand. "Dieter Resnick. Nice to meet you, Monique."
Dean Albright yawned. "Okie dokie, I"ll leave you to Lieutenant Rice. Your bed is already prepared. If you need any school supplies, you have an account at the student store. Your scholarship will pay for anything you need within reason. Maria Espinoza handles all of Lambda"s orders. Ask her if you have any questions." Dean Albright turned to leave. "Have a good night, you two."
"Joe, any word from Lucas yet?" Monique asked.
"Nope, no word yet," the dean replied. "There"s a transport strike in Philly. He"s probably just delayed. I"ll let you know when I hear." He continued to walk down the hall.
Monique frowned. She looked a bit troubled, but she turned her attention back to me. s.n.a.t.c.hing my duffle, she dragged me inside. Lambda had a nicely appointed common room with a big screen TV, couch, some chairs, and a galley kitchen to the side. The furniture wasn"t too fancy (in other words, ten times nicer than anything I had ever had), and the walls were plastered with movie posters: the wicked witch from The Wizard of Oz crushed under Dorothy"s house, Gandalf toking some choice weed, Apprentice Mickey in his oversized robe, on and on they went. I was about to protest that the poster of Emperor Palatine was out of place when I remembered the events of the past 24 hours. Freakin" lightning fingers...the Sith lord was probably the most accurate portrayal up there.
Monique went over the fridge rules (name and date your food or it gets tossed), the ch.o.r.e schedule (1st years: Monday-Sunday), and then grabbed my hand and dragged me up a spiral staircase. The loft had a long bench to one side full of all sorts of random ingredients. A copper pentacle engraved inside a circle lay in the corner.
"This loft serves as our workshop," she continued, "No hazardous casts up here, okay? We just finished paying off the damages from Maria"s attempted translocation of her mamma"s paella." Monique shuddered. "You wouldn"t believe how bad saffron stains-not to mention the fish smell. I dumped like a gallon of Febreeze up here and it still took weeks to go away."
Actually, the smell hadn"t gone away, but I nodded anyway.
"Not that we"ve got much to worry about out of you. You"re still just a grub, right?"
"Um, if grub means inexperienced, then yes," I offered.
"Don"t worry. You"re a grub now, but one day you will be a beau-ti-ful 4th year b.u.t.terfly like me," she said, laughing. "Lucas"ll guide you through the basics. Just promise me you"ll do your first conduit outside. That"s what the lawns are for. You wouldn"t believe it, but sometimes the first few casts backfire and set off explosions. Don"t worry, though, it"s just like an M-80 going off, nothing major."
I gave a strained smile. Thank goodness Monique hadn"t read my personnel file.
I must have looked a little pale, because Monique sensed something was up. She frowned, and I felt a gentle push of energy extend into me. It felt nice, like the excitement of telling a friend about a funny movie you just saw. But then it struck me-the sensation was similar to the time Rei had demanded that cup of coffee-except this time it wasn"t a command, just an incredibly tempting offer. An alarm bell went off in my head. Monique was using some sort of mind-based magic on me. She was trying to pry information. I panicked. I wanted her out. I pushed back, slamming the door in her face.
Monique reacted with a jolt and took a step back. When I looked up at her, I noticed she was blushing. I didn"t know the rules, but I figured I had just caught her doing something bad. What really scared me was that if Rei hadn"t already used glamour on me-if I had not recognized its signature-Monique would probably have succeeded.
"Well, anyway, that"s the workshop," she said, heading down the staircase. "Let me show you your room."
I thought about letting it go. This was my first night here. I didn"t need to start out on the wrong foot. And Monique had failed, right? That gave me a bit of confidence...but how about when I was sleeping? Rei had left out a number of details in her report. Clearly, she thought it best that no one know about what really happened in the warehouse. I didn"t know why that was, but Rei had just spent the last day saving my life. I owed her my confidence.
I grabbed Monique"s arm and she startled. Her reaction told me all I needed to know: Monique had done something wrong. And she"d underestimated me. Now she was dealing with an unknown quant.i.ty. Keeping my eyes level, I decided to bluff.
"Monique," I said coolly, "I would appreciate if you did not attempt that again. I"ve had...problems in the past. If I"m not careful, my response can hurt, badly."
Monique nodded. "Sorry. It"s force of habit. I won"t do it again."
Monique was trembling under my hand. I felt like an a.s.s, but this sorta thing had to be nipped right quick. I let her go and smiled.
"So where"s this room?"
We walked down through the common room to a hallway with three doors on each side.
"Girls to the left, boys to right, potty dead ahead. Your room is the first on the right. Jules and Sadie are across the hall. Your roommate"s name is Jay Dante. He goes by Dante. He"s a real nice guy, but kinda shy."
Monique knocked on Dante"s door, and a few moments pa.s.sed. I sensed the room was empty, but Monique kept waiting. Then, with no forewarning, the door swung open. I tensed. For the second time today, someone had managed to sneak up on me. A wiry kid about two inches shorter than me stood in the doorway. His wispy brown hair was all mussed up. Bleary eyed, he looked out at us from the dimly lit room.