There was only one Professor Alexander Dakin. Ever. In the whole wide world. He lived in Egypt and taught students about Ancient Egypt. It relieved me that there was only one person with that name, therefore it wasn’t necessary to visit more than one place; saving us time. We had to get to him the quickest way possible, and that was by teleporting.
Years ago when I’d completed the tasks as set out by my father, my rite of passage into the family, I mastered one of his powers; teleporting. It was only possible to teleport myself for now, and I no longer experienced any nausea.
“Ready?” River asked, holding out his hand. Luna sat beside him with one paw on his shoe and her long tongue sticking out one side of her toothy jaw.
“I can get there myself,” I said, raising my chin.
“I know, but I’d rather we arrive at the same place together instead of at different locations. I don’t feel like searching for you first and then for the professor. It’s a waste of time,” he moaned, arching an eyebrow.
I curled my lips over my teeth as I tried to smile. He was right, and I hated that. “Fine,” I grumbled and grabbed his hand, squeezing that much harder. “Let’s get this over with.”
“I don’t know why you’re angry. You’re the one who left me.” He squeezed gently back and closed his eyes. The warmth from his hand reminded me of our good times together, and my heart fluttered inside my chest. “Let’s work together for a couple of hours… for your father. Then you can go back to hating me.”
I exhaled an irritated breath. He was right. I could work with him for a day or two. We were doing this to save my father. “Fine,” I said, glancing at his profile. “Let’s do this.” I smiled inside—I could do this—and closed my eyes.
Wind smacked my face and my long hair floated as we moved through space and time. Before I could open my mouth to complain we were moving too fast, we landed with a thud on solid ground.
Usually, when I teleported myself, the landings were gentle, but doing it with River now threw me off balance and my face smacked into his chest. It was like my cheek hit a soft brick wall. I let go of his hand and pushed him away from me.
Luna jumped up and down with excitement and barked at a butterfly near her face.
“We haven’t done that in a while,” River said with a smirk, rubbing the spot where I’d hit him with my face.
I grunted in response and tied my hair in a low ponytail.
“Your hair has grown,” he said, reaching for it. “Still as beautiful as ever.”
Frowning, I didn’t know if he was referring to my hair or me and stepped farther away from him, so he couldn’t touch me more than necessary. “I’m growing it.” I flicked the ponytail over my shoulder so that it could rest between my shoulder blades. The end of the ponytail almost reached my bum. “Where must we go?” I said, glancing around and desperately wanting to change the subject.
The large university seemed ancient, with its columns, high ceilings, and the smell of ancient dusty books. I wanted to say something when a murder of crows flew overhead; none were my crows though. If I needed my spirit animals, all I had to do was call Jake and the rest would follow. I didn’t need them… yet.
River crossed the courtyard without answering me, and I followed closely behind him. We entered the double doors leading us to the lecturers’ lounge, but the room was vacant, neat, and tidy. The smell of ancient, dusty books was strongest here, along with the stench of day-old sandwiches.
There were frames with pictures of all the university lecturers on the walls and old books on the tables in the room. Some books were open, as if the teachers were reading when asked to vacate the premises.
“What day is it?” I asked, trying to open the door leading to the staff kitchen.
“It’s still Sunday,” River said, holding up a newspaper and pointed at the date. “Not much time had passed since you left your mother in Sterling Meadow.” Then he pointed at something behind me.
I turned around and on a corkboard stuck with a thumbtack, was an A4 piece of paper with all the lecturer's room numbers printed in small font. I neared and squinted as I traced with my finger until I found the professor’s room on the map at the bottom of the page.
“That’s where we have to go,” I said, beaming as a flutter of joy flowed through my chest that we were a step closer to finding the mask than before.
The hallways were quiet apart from our footsteps hitting the ceramic tiles. “I know it’s Sunday, but aren’t universities always open?” I whispered, but my voice still bounced off the walls in stereo. “Usually there are staff members around every day of the week. Why is it so empty?”
River pointed to the right. “Not sure why it’s empty, but we need to go that way.”
As we turned the corner, a dark green and red blur smashed into us, knocking us into each other, and we crashed to the floor.
“What the hell?” River said, rubbing his forehead. Luna barked and ran after the blurry figure. River jumped up and started after the person, but they were already gone. “Where did he go?”
Luna continued barking until another butterfly sat on her nose, quietening her.
“Ow,” I said, rubbing my head. I sat up and watched River saunter back to me. My hands began to sweat, and my heart raced inside my chest. I glanced away and used the wall to climb to my feet.
“He’s gone. Whatever he was, he flew out,” River said when he reached me and flapped his hands in the air like he was a bird.
Luna ran toward us, her long tongue flapping outside of her mouth. She looked goofy, yet adorable.
“Let’s find the professor’s office.” I turned, still rubbing my head, and quickened my step in that direction.
River and Luna were behind me, but I didn’t wait for them to catch up to me. I found the professor’s office and stopped in the doorjamb. My fingers dug into the wooden frame while my eyes danced across the messy floor. There were papers strewn everywhere, along with shattered glass. But it was the red liquid seeping in the light-brown carpet near his desk that caught my attention.
I ran inside and fell to my knees on the edge of the widening red liquid. I reached over and felt his pulse near his neck, but there was none. My hand came away with his still warm blood. River handed me a tissue he’d grabbed from the floor, and I wiped my hand clean; but his blood had already stained the creases of my palm.
Luna sniffed around the professor’s body and whined.
“I can safely assume that thing that smacked into us did this.” I stood and pointed at the deceased as I tried to recall what I had seen before it smashed into us. All I could remember was dark green and red blurs and then River and me connecting heads.
“Uh-huh,” River said as he surveyed the room. “My vision is good, but I didn’t see it coming,” he said, deep in thought. “And it’s obvious it was here looking for something.” He crouched near a heap on the floor, using his index finger to pick through the mess.
“Maybe the same thing we’re here for.” The room was a mess, and I didn’t know where to start.
“Uh-huh,” River said nonchalantly and crossed the disorderly floor to look at the books on the shelves against the wall. “We’ll need to get out of here quickly before they think we did this,” he said absentmindedly.
I felt the professor’s pockets for anything but found nothing. A locket on a chain moved out from under his clothing. I opened it and smiled when I saw a picture of two young boys kicking a ball.
I stood and searched his desk, moving pens and papers out of my way. I lifted ornaments and paperweights to see what they were holding down, but there was nothing of interest. It wasn’t as if I was making a mess to an already mess, but I neatened the papers and stacked them to one side.
Then I searched inside the drawers, flipping through booklets, and felt at the top for any secret compartments. If there was one thing I’d learned since working with my mother was that more people had little hideaways for their secret stash. The trick was to find them. When my hand found a button, my heart raced with excitement as I pressed it. Something sounded behind me like cogs moving and a book popped out of the shelves without crashing to the floor. The entire experience reminded me of an adventure movie.
I reached for the book when River’s hand joined mine. I smacked his hand away. “Mine,” I said with a playful growl. “Go get your own book from a secret compartment.”
River chuckled and stood closer. “I wonder what else he has hidden here.” He glanced up at the high ceiling and the walls lined with bookshelves.
“Continue looking before others arrive.” I opened the book and leafed through the pages. It had diary entries from 1988. I browsed through the diary, reading a few entries mentioning Alec and an institute. The professor felt guilty for leaving him there and not being able to help. Then the entries stopped, and I wanted to understand what the professor meant when he had written he couldn’t stop them. Who was he talking about?
Someone coughed behind me, and I froze. River was still beside me and continued rummaging through the bookshelves as if he had heard nothing. “River?” I whispered. “Did you cough?”
“Huh,” River said, looking at me with a confused expression. “No.”
Slowly, I turned around. A gray figure with his throat slit, no blood, floated above the professor’s corpse. The translucent figure pointed at his neck, then at the neck of the corpse on the floor. The locket still lay open on his chest, but the picture of the two boys had changed.
I pushed souls out of bodies, and I saw souls. That was my dominant power. I could also animate corpses by bringing their souls back into their bodies, but I didn’t do that often because I didn’t like a live offering in which to do it; sacrificing an animal just to bring someone back was dark magic. I wanted nothing to do with it. But when a soul reached out to me, they usually had something to show me; sometimes they could speak, other times they were mute and had to point at certain things to explain what was going on.
I slipped the book inside my satchel and approached the corpse cautiously and crouched down.
“What are you doing?” River asked, but I ignored him.
I stared up at the gray figure floating above my head. He moved backward, pointing at his neck again. I nodded my understanding and picked up the locket, carefully removing it from the professor’s neck. The last thing I wanted was an angry soul because I wasn’t gentle enough with his head.
River stood beside me, watching intently, and wearing a confused expression. “What are you doing and what do you keep looking at?” When I didn’t answer him, I saw in my peripheral vision his nod. “You’re communicating with his soul, isn’t it?” For some strange and twisted reason, River couldn’t always see souls like I could. He could kill a human by snapping his finger, but souls, nope, he only saw them sometimes.
When working a case with Mom, we sometimes needed information from the recently deceased. That was the only time I could channel my power by returning their soul to their body, animating the corpse, and without a sacrifice. But they had to have died within the last thirty minutes of their death or it wouldn’t work; unless I sacrificed an animal. But today I didn’t feel like bringing the professor back to life, since his soul was already helping us.
I stared at the picture in the locket; it had changed, showing two older boys fighting. “Is this you?” I asked the gray figure. He nodded and started fading. “Is there anything else you want to show me?” I asked quickly, standing up. “Do you know who did this to you?” I pointed at the professor.
The figure shook its head, then pointed at the window the moment sirens wailed outside as police vans pulled up, their blue and red lights a warning.
“We have to go,” I said, turning back toward the figure. “Is there another way out of here?”
The figure slowly started fading, but before it disappeared completely, it pointed toward the far corner of the room, near the door.
“That way,” I said confidently, pointing and heading that way.
As I passed the figure I whistled that specific tune and the ferryman appeared. The ghostly figure floated into the boat and they sailed away peacefully. And something told me his soul would be well looked after.
When the sound of someone yelling and approaching footsteps neared, I snapped out of it and headed for the corner the soul had pointed at.
River was already there, feeling the sides of the bookcase. He flicked something, and the bookcase moved away from the wall. “Bingo,” he said and entered with Luna hot on his heels.
When the shouting and footsteps outside became louder. I grabbed the door, stepping through the opening, and closed the bookcase behind me as they others burst through the professor’s door.