“Declan!” a voice yelled out.
He stopped and turned back to look at the Quad behind him. Mack was waving one arm, jogging in his direction. His hair looked wet, like he had gotten caught in a rain shower. Overhead, the sky was clear.
“Hey buddy. What’s up?” Declan greeted his friend.
“Thought that was your skinny ass self, striding along up here,” Mack said with a grin, slowing to a stop.
“Skinny ass? Listen stubby, just because you live down there among the little people, don’t take it out on me,” Declan said, grinning back.
“Stubby? Ain’t no stubby here, Jack. Bona fide one hundred percent he stud,” Mack bragged, his grin almost impossibly huge.
“Oh? Did someone get lucky last night?”
“This morning actually,” Mack admitted.
“Your new girl? Damn, you move pretty fast there, Flash. And that’s what she said!”
“Nah son, I’m a marathon man.”
“Not the way you just sprinted all the bases and slid into home,” Declan said, smiling at his own analogy.
“Actually, I was more surprised than anyone. Who knew? Girl’s like a lady on the street and a…”
“Freak in bed,” Declan finished for him.
“Yeah, I guess,” Mack said, scratching the back of his head, a puzzled look on his face.
“And hungry too,” Declan said. When Mack gave him a confused look, he reached over and pushed the collar of Mack’s polo shirt sideways, fully exposing a massive, angry-looking hickey.
“She really marked you up, dude. Claiming her territory,” Declan said. Something else was bothering him about Mack’s neck, but it only hovered on the edge of his thoughts, not fully forming.
Mack frowned, slapped Declan’s hand away, then shoved the shirt back into place. “Not cool, dude,” he said, tone defensive and angry.
Usually Mack would laugh it off. His odd behavior puzzled Declan, who pulled back and didn’t say anything, just watching, his other unformed concern forgotten in the face of this sudden hostility.
Mack was looking around at the campus, distracted, then he turned back to Declan, expression clear and asked, “Wanna get an early dinner?” as if he’d already forgotten about the hickey incident.
Declan almost said no, mildly peeved at his buddy’s shift in attitude from bragging to defensive, but the lightning-fast shift back to normal gave him pause for thought. “Yeah, let’s hit one of the dining halls and chow down,” the young witch suggested, watching his friend.
“Yeah, that sounds good. I’m really hungry.”
Mack hated dining hall food.
“How about Harris/Millis?” Declan threw out.
“The Grundle? Yeah, that works,” Mack said, eyes on a trio of pretty girls walking past them.
Declan was seriously concerned now. Mack had eaten at the Harris dining hall, affectionately called the Grundle by the student body, exactly once in his college career. He had sworn never to go back.
“Alright, buddy, let’s head over now. Then I have to see one of my new professors in her office. She sent out an email last night that we all need to pick a topic for a paper and run it by her by the end of today,” Declan said, turning and leading his friend toward lunch.
Forty yards behind them, a pair of muscular young college guys followed, both sniffing the air occasionally when they were sure no one was looking. They also watched, with the eyes of predators, any of the other students that came near the two Arcane students Overhead, behind, in front, and on both sides of the witch and his friend, silent flying shapes either flitted from building to building or hovered so far up that their blue and white undersides disappeared against the darkening autumn sky. The ones close to the ground were small enough to either go completely unnoticed or be confused for birds, their erratic aerial paths mimicking natural avian flight.
Not far away, in the Davis Student Center, the only occupant of a girls’ restroom stared into a plugged-up sink full of clear water, her eyes watching her prey through the eyes of his best friend, listening through his ears.