(28) Melliford Anarchy

The tunnel is empty. Not that there's any reason it wouldn't be; we heard Massingham and Mrs. Hardwick leave. But my mind has flipped a switch now, and every sound in the hallway is a threat as me and Exie tiptoe up it once again. We both tread lightly and keep a hand to the wall; by unanimous decision, I haven't relit our candle. I can't shake the terror that I'll step on a body in the darkness, but I'm so used to that fear by now that I can focus on other things than useless paranoia. Also, Exie's still holding my hand. Which is probably more responsible for my anti-dead-body defenses than my own willpower, to be honest. I'm trying not to think about it.

We reach the backside of the portrait without bodies, screams, or stubbed toes, a triple win not at all attributable to any competence on my part. We're just moving slowly. Too slowly, maybe, but if there's anything this encounter has instilled in me, it's the settled understanding that we're dealing with a demon here. We cannot, under any circumstances, afford to get caught. Exie still wants to move faster, I can tell, but she defers to the pace I set and I don't question it. At the end of the day, I think I do still have more stealth experience. If Exie's trembling hand is to judge, I'm certainly less scared than she is.

I listen through the portrait for a count of ten before pushing it open a crack. Predawn grey leaks through, but that's not all; shouts reach us immediately. Exie and I exchange a glance in the gloom. She pushes me lightly. I nod back and swing the portrait open far enough for both of us to dart through. In a moment, we've plunged into the shadows beneath the school's second-floor balcony at the hall's edge. Lady Luck decides to come out of her hermitage and bless me today; nobody lurks around the ash-smear where we burned Barnabas's dove. Everyone's occupied at the school's other side.

I can smell smoke, and it's not my doing. It could yet be a hell-spawn passing wind, but a couple pyromaniacs seems a more likely explanation. The dorm end of Melliford Academy has devolved into anarchy. Exie and I creep back towards it and blend seamlessly into the crowd. Students mill about the school's empty spaces, looking lost, and I can't see the source of the smoke-smell. Given that nobody's evacuating, it must be a small burn—the type a fire-fingered delinquent would light for fun in the excitement of having overwhelmed the functional authority of our academic overlords.

Two teachers guard the door to the room Barnabas occupied when we exorcized the demon living rent-free in his head. I can't tell if his roommate is still in there somewhere. The door is closed, and there's a crowd outside that would really like to open it. Another, bigger cluster has formed just a short jog from the school's library, marking the infirmary before I have to search. The popular kids I faced down yesterday are standing shoulder to shoulder in front of three teachers blocking the door. The girl has adopted her best posh-angry-stern stance. The boy—Gilbert—stands with arms crossed in an attempt at intimidation much better achieved by the burly kid mirroring him one step behind. He's recruited a bodyguard.

There's yet another student cluster by the common room, which they seem to have barricaded. A stray student hammers on a dorm door I know for a fact is not his, and is let inside. Another boy slips past me, grinning. By the lumps under his blazer, he's made off with something expensive from the school's currently-unguarded library. There's no sign of Clarice anywhere.

Our problem here isn't going to be finding the infirmary; the student body has already taken care of that. Our problem is going to be getting in. I pass this news to Exie, whose face has lost a little of its pallor now that we have plausible deniability for being awake despite the sun still groaning at its own celestial alarm clock outside.

Faced with a new problem to creatively solve, Exie's brow creases. Then she points to my hands. "Take those off."

I stare at her.

"The bandages, you ninny. Take them off."

"Do you have a plan?"

"I always have a plan." Exie's dark eyes glitter, emboldened once again by whatever mental security her plotting has granted her. "How well can you act?"

I'm leaning against the wall like a frat boy when the teachers outside the infirmary finally manage to turn their posh clientele away. Gilbert and the girl lock eyes with me immediately, and both their faces darken. I adopt my most insufferable smirk.

"So, who lost the bet on this one?" I say. "Please, tell me. I want the full satisfaction of saying I told you so."

"He's just sick," snaps the girl. She's doing a very bad job of hiding her fear. "He's going to be fine."

"Fine as Colson, yes. Where is Colson, by the way?" I exaggerate my look around. "Did the teachers make off with him, too?"

It's a calculated joke; me and Exie already heard Leander Massingham telling Mrs. Hardwick to separate the other kids with doves in case we came for another one. It's another clue to the zombie-state's mutability. They wouldn't be so scared if the affected students' brainwashing couldn't be reversed.

My calculation lands true, despite my incompetence at math. The girl's voice shoots up an octave. She'd make a good soprano. "What are you hiding?"

"Wouldn't you like to know?"

"Are you in league with the... whoever keeps doing this?"

"If I was, I'd have called this circus off before they took your precious friend. I liked him better than Colson. Convinced they're not here to preserve your own safety yet?"

"This isn't the school! They're—they're here to..." Her voice breaks, and her shoulders slump like I've deflated her. "They're here to help us," she finishes, her voice small and altogether too close to crying. She's trying to convince herself. I almost feel bad for her. Then motion catches my eye, and I glance up just in time to see Gilbert give the ghost of a nod over his shoulder. I throw up my hands in mock fear as the burly kid advances on me.

"Oh no, not getting beat up in front of all the teachers. Whatever shall I do?"

Muscles Strongman says nothing. I stand my ground like the psycho they think I am as he reaches me, seizes me by the collar, and flings me backwards down the hallway. I could catch myself, but don't, executing a fall that would probably earn me accolades in opera houses. It's only half theatrical. I clamp my jaw as my skinned hands—bandages gone—tear open on the cold stone again. I hope no teacher asks why my socks are wet; I'm still leaving very faint, damp footprints along the floor.

I force another sneer. "That all you got?"

The burly kid comes for me again. Before he arrives, the sharp voice of Mr. Worsley breaks through the fight. The kid brushes past our math teacher like he's some new breed of gnat, and gets intercepted by Mr. Ashcroft instead. Mr. Ashcroft successfully towed me to a disciplinary room for smashing a chair through a classroom window. Not that I'm all that intimidating an opponent to tow, but I trust that he can handle this kid.

That presumption proves correct. Then I remember that I'm supposed to be acting, and lean into my pain grimace as I sit up again and press a bleeding hand to my head.

Exie rushes across the hall to "help" me. "Teacher?" she calls to the school at large. "Teacher? She's hurt!"

Gilbert snorts and spins away. The speed of his retreat calls foul on the condescension he executes it with. He's scared. His girlfriend is already gone. I mutter and act disoriented until Mr. Worsley crouches at my side.

"How are you hurt?" he says, with a dart to his eyes that betrays a sentiment less altruistic than undiluted care. I mutter about my head again.

He reaches out a hand. "Can I see it?"

I let him pry my fingers from my blood-smeared hair, though not without just enough resistance to seem like I'm not thinking straight right now. What he uncovers is the double bruise I've obtained by whacking my head twice in the last week: once on the curve of my "secret" hideout's windowsill, the other on the altar by this school's cursed subterranean pool. It's not the first time I've passed a clumsy injury off as something that better suits me, but it's the first time I've actually been glad I have no sense of where I flail my own thick skull sometimes.

Mr. Worsley clucks in a good pantomime of concern, but his face shadows when he thinks I'm not looking. His eyes dart towards the guarded infirmary. No other students are supposed to be in there right now. If Massingham is to be believed, that infirmary will shortly host a cult ritual, if it isn't underway already. I let my eyes unfocus and fake a sway. Exie grabs me, letting her already affected voice jump again into something more panicky. She grabs Mr. Worsley's sleeve, begging and pressing to get me help. For someone who's professed to have learned social interactions and masks from scratch, she's good at this. I'm proud.

The act is working. Mr. Worsley looks increasingly cornered as he faces down what he believes to be a concussed student and her frantic friend. He makes the judgment call we already suspected he would. With the school in shambles already, there's nothing to be gained by abandoning an obviously injured student in the middle of the floor. Not if they're still making any attempt to preserve the benevolent image they've been cultivating. That itself is a bit of a gamble, but Exie's intuition for this school's masquerades pulls through.

"Come, then," says Mr. Worsley, and supports me to my feet. I flop obligingly against him, exaggerating my injured helplessness all the way to the infirmary door. The teachers there see the blood on my hands and smeared—artistically—down the side of my face, and part just enough to let us by. They block Exie from following. More teachers inside look up sharply from one end of a long, narrow room. It's dark: the school infirmary has no windows. I've never seen an infirmary without windows before. Unless that's just its cover story. I wouldn't be surprised.

Layout-wise, the place is pretty standard aside from the lack of natural illumination. The teachers are gathered around a bed, obscuring whatever's on it. And so I stumble near to falling, prompting another to abandon her post and its little halo of lantern-light to come support me. Her departure confirms I've found Barnabas. The new teacher and Mr. Worsley between them wrangle my best octopus impression to the other end of the room. Here, the lantern's gleam does little more than fling light's ghosts across the walls. They don't light another one. Mr. Worsley sits me down on a bed while the other teacher leaves to fetch something. She returns with a little cup of foul-smelling liquid and holds it up for me to drink.

I run a split-second calculation, then accept the proffered liquid. It's little enough for me to stash without swallowing; I mock-swallow and nod to cover that the motion is faked. My eyes water from the cloying bitter-sweetness. The teachers guide me down with various inane reassurances about being okay and getting some rest; that they'll be back to see to me after they've addressed the student more in need of attention. I wait until they're gone, then roll over and spit the drink into the bedsheets. It reeks like a sweetened compost pile. Already, my mouth has gone numb and tingly, so I spit several more times for good measure, and hope I kept enough of that out of my system to function through this harebrained scheme. Exie won't be here to help me with this one.

I'm supposed to be drugged, so I slow my next roll, then fall still, facing where the teachers have gathered. Several shoot glances towards me and murmur to one another. Emboldened by my faked condition, maybe, they're not being very subtle. When I've lain still for long enough, one takes a second lantern and comes to check on me. I slow my breathing in my best imitation sleep. It's convincing. The teacher hovers the lantern over me in several directions before drawing a curtain along the bed's mounted rail and returning to the room's other side.

I reopen my eyes and smile. They thought they were blocking my groggy view of whatever is about to go down here. They've given me a convenient shield instead. I ease myself to the bed's back side and slip off it. Just in time. I crouch in the shadows just as Leander Massingham arrives—robes changed, face grim, and a large, battered red book in his hands.