23. Chapter 23

Chapter 23

The classroom door slammed open and an arctic wind rushed through the room, scattering books, paper and writing utensils. Students rolled around on their wheelie chairs then jumped up to seek shelter. Tables flipped and recruits were being pummelled by their own belongings.

‘Everyone get out!’ Fischer yelled. Trying to protect our heads, we rushed for the door. Several students had minor cuts and I was sure others had some nasty bruises. The lieutenant was the last out, and he looked the worst; he’d taken a beating. He shut the door behind him and shuddered.

Looking pale, Jones demanded, ‘Sir, what the hell?’

‘Someone left a hallway window open,’ Fischer said firmly. ‘It let in the bad weather. Now, those of you who need first aid follow me. The rest of you can go to lunch.’ He stalked away.

Jones watched him go with a frown. ‘This shit doesn’t happen because of inclement weather,’ he said slowly.

Danny shrugged. ‘It’s that or a ghost. Personally, I’m rolling with the weather thing.’

Jones shook his head. ‘Something weird is going on.’

‘Come on,’ Danny said, changing the subject. ‘Let’s go eat.’

‘We’ll follow you in a minute,’ I told him. ‘I need to change out of my wet clothes.’

‘Yep, that’s two for two the weather got you!’ Danny teased. ‘See you in the food hall.’

Sidnee and I ran up to our room. Once we were alone, she looked at me wide-eyed and I noticed that her hands were trembling. She noticed me noticing and shoved them into her pockets. ‘That’s not good,’ she said grimly. ‘Petty hasn’t even been gone seven days, and he seems more powerful than before. Bunny, I don’t think we can force him out by ourselves.’

I shook my head. ‘I don’t either. We need to solve whatever he’s upset about, then maybe he’ll settle down or move on.’

‘Yeah,’ she said slowly. ‘I think so too. But we have to tread carefully.’

‘I hear you.’ I squeezed her arm so she’d know I wasn’t being flippant about her warnings; a poltergeist had taken family from her.

I filled a mug from a bag of O-, plugged my nose and guzzled it. Yuck; it was cold and gloopy. I was actually looking forward to warm blood.

Sidnee went into the shower to shift, and I stripped out of my soaking clothes to pull on some dry ones. I unfastened my hair, brushed and re-plaited it, then washed my face. Finally I looked presentable again.

By the time I was done, Sidnee was getting out of the shower, healed, clean and happier. ‘Sometimes I love being a supernat,’ she said. ‘Well, okay – always!’

I agreed. It hadn’t been my choice to become supernat. At the time I’d been happy as a human – although my job choices were definitely better now. I had hated being a waitress and constantly fighting off obnoxious, handsy customers. Maybe if I’d had my vamp fangs back then, they wouldn’t have tried to take liberties. Whatever: I was much happier being a Nomo officer, kicking ass and taking names. Except for poltergeists who continued to kick our arses.

I hoped Petty had burned itself out, but we checked to make certain on our way to lunch. Sure enough, the classroom was as still as a millpond. We retrieved our things and put them on our desks. I thought about righting the whole room but we didn’t have much time, so we straightened a few chairs as we walked out. It looked like a few other recruits had slipped in to do the same; most people here were good eggs.

Lunch was good – lasagna with salad and garlic bread – and the mess room was humming with chatter about the latest incident. Plenty of humans were scoffing at Fischer’s explanation of bad weather, though they didn’t have another explanation to offer.

I knew what was attacking us but I didn’t know why, and without knowing that I couldn’t stop Petty’s temper tantrums. I needed to get back into the office and access his records. I’d have to break curfew and do it in the middle of the night; I didn’t think that would be difficult, but I really didn’t want to get kicked out of the academy for rule breaking if I got caught. How would I explain that to Gunnar? I was sure he’d back my choices, but if I got caught I could kiss goodbye to being a detective. The thought of that made my determination falter until I told myself to woman the fuck up.

When I’d finished eating, I sidled close to Sidnee. ‘Hey,’ I said quietly. ‘I’m going back into the offices tonight. I’ve got to find whatever is setting off Petty.’

‘I’m in,’ she murmured back.

I blinked. I should have thought that through; of course she’d want to come with me, but I couldn’t risk it. ‘If we get caught, we’ll both be expelled. You’d better stay in bed.’

‘Fuck off, Bunny,’ she replied conversationally. ‘You’re not doing this without me. So what if we get caught? Gunnar will understand. We won’t lose our jobs, so how bad could it be?’

‘Bad. I want to be a detective and I know you do, too. If we get kicked out, I doubt we’ll be able to take any other classes. We’ll be expelled with a big old red cross against our names.’

‘So we’d better not get caught.’

I smiled ruefully; I loved the faith she had in us, but that didn’t change the fact that we’d be screwed if someone came by or was working late. Luckily there were no security cameras, but there was a host of other things that could go wrong.

Sidnee was right, though: we stood a better chance if we worked together. One of us could act as a lookout – if we dressed in pyjamas, could we pretend to be sleepwalking? It might look suspicious but they wouldn’t boot us out of the program for sleepwalking, right? ‘How well can you fake sleepwalking?’ I whispered.

‘What?’ Sidnee frowned at me like I was mad. Maybe I was.

I waved it off. Okay, no to the pyjama plan. ‘Never mind. We’ll talk more about it in our room later.’

Fischer entered the lunch hall covered in bandages; he was escorted by Wilson, who was glaring at us like we had personally harmed his commander. My resolve to break into the office hardened. We couldn’t let this continue because nobody was safe.