Chapter Twenty

At least, I thought that was the case; as we move further over the pastel mosaic floor and into the round central part of the temple, I start to feel something beneath that, something slimy and unpleasant, and it makes my magic stir uneasily as the Darkness within perks up its interest.

That can't be good.

"Guy's, I'm fairly certain that the object is here somewhere; it"s got that same feeling that it had in the library. Except here, it was almost completely covered up by the wave of peace that the temple gives you, that"s part of its own magic." I tell everyone.

Mav nods, his expression serious, "Okay, everyone needs to be incredibly cautious then. If you find anything made out of this material, for the love of the Gods do not touch it."

"Good call," Cole replies and makes me giggle.

"We'll search in this main room first and then move to the smaller offshoots," Hunter suggests.

"Sounds good. It will keep us all in each other"s sight lines as well. The last thing we need is for one of us to go missing," Jax adds.

"Or, to start a fight in the temple. I imagine that the Gods wouldn't take kindly to that," Asher adds.

Knot, in her fox form, yips in agreement, confirming that starting a fight here would not be a good idea. She lets me know that only if it's absolutely necessary will it be allowed.

"Well, that confirms it then," I smile.

After I have one last look at the picture to make sure that if I see it, I will recognize it, I move to one side of the room and start to comb through the area. There are only a few display cases in here, but there are various alcoves in the curved walls that are holding objects and it does occur to me that if I had to have an object that was capable of controlling many supernaturals but that needed to be hidden, then I would make sure that it was something small. Something that would be easy to hide, something that you could blend in, maybe with something else?

This line of thought makes my intuition ping, and because of that, I know that I'm on the right track. It's also because of this revelation that I stop looking in the display alcoves and instead start looking at the seating, the walls, and even the floor, just trying to see if anything sets off my intuition or lets me know that I'm at least on the right track.

The room is silent as everyone looks for anything that could be it.

"I think I've found something made from the material," Jax says, although he doesn't seem too sure about whether he's right or not.

We all quickly make our way over to him. He's pointing at a green statue of one of the Gods, not Kronos, thank fuck, but one that I don't recognize, as he studies it closely.

Maverick gets up close and personal with the statue, or at least as up close and personal as he can get without actually touching it and potentially triggering something that protects it if it is the object.

"Dude, careful, you don't want your tombstone to read, died because he licked a magical object," Cole comments.

I burst out laughing at the look of pure indignation on Maverick's face as he turns around to look at Cole, "I'm not licking it."

"You may as well be. You really are that close," Jax adds with a smirk.

"Fuck off," Mav throws back with a smirk and then adds, "This isn't the right sort of material. I think this might be Jade, and I'm not getting any magical signature from it, so it's not a potential for the object either."

"It's a good job, really. If the object does have protection spells on it, then you most likely would've been taken down by a little green statue," Hunter points out, raising his eyebrow and crossing his arms over his chest.

Maverick thinks about it for a second, and his shoulders slump. He runs his hands through his hair and says, "Shit, you're right. I'm sorry. I should have been more careful. I promise that I won't get close to the next object that we think may be the one that's controlling the teachers. I just got so excited that we might've actually found it that it seems all sense went out of the window and I ended up getting too close in order to see if we could finally end this."

"And leave," Jax adds, saying what Maverick didn't but what we all knew that he meant.

I think that after all of this is said and done, we're going to have a whole other issue that we need to deal with pretty damn quickly because although everyone has made it known that they want to leave the academy, we actually have no idea how to go about it and we're not going to be able to find out if we can while we're still dealing with this so it's going to have to wait until after.

"Alright," Cole says, refocusing everyone who's gone quiet, "let"s get back to searching. We know it's here because Sage has said it is, and let"s face it, when it comes to intuition, she's rarely wrong."

"Thanks, I think," I interrupt with a smile.

Cole smirks, "You're welcome. Now let"s find this damn object and get things back to normal."

"Yes sir," I salute him sassily, making him chuckle.

We all split up again with renewed energy this time and start looking for the damned object, as Cole called it. I move away from where I was looking before and closer to the front of the temple. I decide to go about it methodically this time, and so I start by looking at the floor, at the base of the seats, and that sort of thing. I'm trying to be as thorough as possible because, like Cole said, I know that it's here somewhere, I've just got to find it.

I don't know how long I spend literally crawling on my hands and knees before something catches my eye at the very bottom of the wall. It"s not quite the floor, but it"s close enough. This part of the wall is highly decorated with a mural of some of the Gods, and it"s done in small mosaic-like tiles. There's a vast array of different colors used in it, and at the bottom, where their feet stand on grass, one of the tiles looks slightly different than the others.

At least, it does to me.

Once again, following my intuition I get closer to it. Also, as if it can sense that my focus is not on the whole but on it, I suddenly feel a wave of that evil and slimy magic, and I know for a fact that I've found it. I've found the fucking object that is controlling the teachers.

"Guys, I've found it," I say, not bothering to see if they've heard me because I outright refuse to take my eyes off of the tiny piece of green tile just in case it does a disappearing act on me.

Knot nudges my shoulder, and Ghost chirps happily as they move up next to me, they were checking up in the ceiling of the temple, and while I thought it would've been unlikely that the object was up there, it could've been and no one else but them could've gotten up there to check.

"Where?" Maverick is the first to arrive after my familiars, the footsteps of the others quickly following behind him.

I point at the tiny tile that is giving me the bad vibe as I make sure that I'm super careful not to touch it or get too close, I know that it wouldn't be good, and my stirring magic lets me know that there are spells protecting it and nasty spells too, ones that I absolutely do not want to mess with.

"Do you see that tiny green tile," I say, hoping they can see what I'm talking about, or they're just going to have to trust me.

"Oh shit yeah, I think I see the one you mean," Maverick agrees.

"Yeah, that's definitely it. I didn't feel it before but now I can sure as hell feel the bad juju vibes," Cole agrees with a shudder.

"No one touch it," Hunter warns us, not that any of us were going to touch it anyway.

"If we don't touch it, how are we going to make sure that it's not moved again and break the spell so that it can't control the teachers and we can finally get everything back to normal." Jax asks.

"I don't know," Maverick replies honestly.

"It's got some pretty fucking strong spells guarding it," I say, "my magic is at least telling me that much although it's not telling me exactly how bad they are or what they do."

"Okay, well, at least we know for certain that it"s dangerous," Cole mutters. "Although a bit more information would've been more helpful. Is anyone else getting any information from it?"

Now that everyone knows exactly where it is I get up off the floor, Ghost landing on my shoulder and resting his massive head on mine while Knot sits down beside me, happy in her fox form as she presses against my leg and watches the others.

They all take turns getting reasonably close, and I feel the air stir with their individual magics as they each probe it to see if they can get any information from it.

"Anything?" I ask.

"Nope, pretty much just the same as you," Asher says, sounding thoroughly disappointed.

Everyone else says the same, and it just means that we're once again stuck.

"So, what do we do?" Cole asks.

"There's not much that we can do if we can't move it," Maverick replies with a deep frown, "and we don't want to trigger anything by trying."

"But we also don't want it to somehow let the Order know that we've found it, and then they move it," Jax points out.

We're all silent for a moment while we try to think of a way that we can stop the object being moved again and break the spells on it, all of them.

"Alright, so now that we know that it's definitely in this material, maybe we should find as many books as possible on it. Surely it should say somewhere how you put spells into it, but also how you de-spell them," Asher suggests.

"That's a great idea, but in order to do that, we'd need access to the library, and that's being guarded by the Order," Cole points out.

"Fuck, you're right," Asher curses.

"Maybe we can get Erin to help get one of us in to get the books?" I suggest, "We're less likely to get caught if there's only two of us trying to sneak in and Erin and Asher are probably the best people to go since Erin can shield, and the library likes and trusts Asher."

"That's a good idea," Maverick agrees, "but what do we do about making sure that it doesn't go anywhere."

Knot nudges my hand, "Knot and Ghost can stay here and keep watch. They'll be able to let me know if anyone comes along to move it or even to see it, so then at least we would know if anyone is more involved with it than anything else."

"Are they going to be comfortable leaving you?" Cole asks as he looks at Ghost and Knot, who are now shifting uneasily, "they don't look too keen on the idea."

"I don't think they are, but Knot suggested it, and not only that but this is pretty important. There's no other way that we're going to be able to keep an eye on it," I explain.

"Well, if they're willing, then I think that's probably the only way that we can do it without having some of us keep watch. Which would be incredibly dangerous." Asher replies.

"Exactly," I reply and then turn to Ghost and Knot, "I promise that if there's an issue at all I will call for you and remember you got stuck outside of the academy grounds, and the temple is absolutely well and truly inside the academy grounds."

They both nod and rub against me, giving me some love. I understand why they're so worried, and if I'm being honest, I'm a bit anxious too. I'm not too fond of the idea of them not being able to get to me if I need them or if they need me, but this is really important, and there really isn't another way around it.

"Stay safe, and let me know immediately if you see anyone over in this area. We can't risk it being moved now," I tell them.

They both nod, and Ghost flaps his giant wings, soaring up into the high domed ceiling, perching on a ledge. When he settles and stills, I can't see him in the shadows, even though I know that he's there. Knot nudges my hand one last time before her magic engulfs her, and she changes into her raven form and flies up into the rafters to perch next to Ghost.

"Come on, it's way past lunch and the guys were cooking," Cole says, "plus, we've run out of coffee, and maybe more importantly, we need to plan when we're going to get into the library to find books on the material that holds the spell and how to break it."

"Maybe more important?" Asher asks, his eyebrow raising and amusement and love dancing in his eyes as he watches Cole.

"Yes, maybe. Coffee," Cole replies as if that's an answer in itself.

I take one last look in the vague direction of my familiars as we all head back out of the temple.

"They'll be fine," Hunter reassures me as he wraps his arm around my head and drops a kiss on my forehead.

"You'll know if they aren't," Jax adds as he threads his fingers through mine and then kisses the back of my hand.

"But I didn't realize that there was anything wrong before and I still don't know why I didn't realise that they were missing," I retort, not meaning to sound argumentative but worried about it nonetheless.

"Probably, something to do with the Order," Hunter replies.

"Yeah, I guess," I reply.

I wouldn't say I like that I didn't realise that something so important to me was missing, and I really hope that it was something to do with the Order and not because my magic is changing and the Darkness is growing.

"Hey, isn't that the Enforcers?" Cole asks.

We all turn to where he's pointing, and I see uniformed supernaturals heading into the main doors of the academy.

"It looks like Harry managed to get through to his friend," Jax says.

"Thank fuck for that," I agree, and then add, "although that does complicate the getting into the library plan, just a little bit."

"Yeah, it means that if we get caught instead of having to deal with the Order, we're going to look like we're the ones who are up to no good, and then we might end up being suspects," Hunter suggests.

"Which is exactly what the Order wanted in the first place, which is why we need to be extremely careful going forward," Asher replies.

"All very good points, but why don't we get back and fill the others in," I suggest.

Cole interrupts me before I can say anything else, "And eat. I can never think on an empty stomach."

"Me neither," Jax agrees, and his statement is backed up as a loud growl comes from his stomach, making me chuckle.

We move quickly through the castle until we get near the library and see the teachers that were guarding the library trying to stop four Enforcers from entering.

"We can't allow you access," one of them says, and the Enforcers all seem to just stare in shock for a moment.

It's not often that they're told they can't go somewhere, especially when they're on a case like they are now.

"Maybe you didn't hear us. We are Enforcers, and we know that there has been a murder, possibly two, and as such, we require access to the murder scene," one of them says firmly.

The teachers suddenly become twitchy, entirely unsure before they seem to freeze completely and then just step to the side. It's weird and doesn't seem natural at all, not just because of the way that they move, almost jerky like their limbs are being controlled by something other than them, but because they've gone from arguing and confrontational to silent, staring blankly.

"There's something strange going on here," we hear a different one mutter quietly as we walk past, trying not to make it too obvious that we're listening.

"I agree. Those students over there are the first that we've seen, and it's the weekend. I know that I'm getting on a bit but weekends at the Black Onyx Academy were a blast. The castle came alive with chatter and laughter but this place is just dead; it"s like everyone is in hiding," the Enforcer that seems to be in charge replies.

"I agree. Let's get to the bottom of this," a different one replies, as they all watch the teachers cautiously as they move past them and into the library.

Once we're out of earshot of them, Maverick says, "Well, that was interesting, at least it's not just us that sees just how weird everything is around here."

"Yeah, you're right. Do all Enforcers come from Black Onyx Academy?" Hunter asks curiously.

"Yeah, depending on how well that they do in the games, if they survive it, depends on their rank and things like that," Cole replies.