Page 34 of Messenger of Death (Ouroboros Academy #2)
I felt like I failed and I hated that feeling because it didn’t happen often.
I should have found the Forsaken Ones before they hurt anyone again.
Still, I was motivated. Headmaster Mykene would have sent for Khalid, not the rest of us.
Whoever died was, apparently, snatched up by Professor Gefn.
She was awake enough in her previous life to be teaching here, so I didn’t know what they needed with Khalid, but I’d be listening to everything because it was just rude to kill students and disappear them.
Professor Gefn was waiting in Headmaster Mykene’s office when we got there. I already knew she would be.
“I see the Scooby Death Gang is here,” she drawled.
“Faye, we probably need them,” Headmaster Mykene said.
“Sorry, but I’m pissed. Selene and Kira didn’t deserve what happened to them and neither do the missing students.”
“Khalid, you did a good for your first time helping a soul to the afterlife, but Faye got a little more information from Selene than you did from Kira. We need you to cross into Duat, find Kira, and ask her a few questions.”
“I didn’t know I could do that, but it makes sense. You’ll have to walk me through how.”
“Selene was a vampire. A pretty powerful one and as close as a vampire can be to royalty without being the reincarnation of Vlad the Impaler. She wasn’t some spoiled princess, either.
There are humans who know about the supernatural.
They like kidnapping the kids and selling them to rich people to keep as pets.
Selene was training to join special ops to extract them and get them back to their parents.
She was a warrior,” Professor Gefn snapped.
I met her. She was one of the few vampires that didn’t kiss my ass and treated me like a regular person. She was the TA for my vampire class. Fuck, I liked her. I failed. This was on me. I should have caught the Forsaken Ones by now. Fuck!
“Erica is missing and Mazen said she thought she was the original gryphon. The fairies said Star was a healer, not a fighter. Saffron said Elen was a healer, too. Does that mean anything?” Sage asked.
“Gryphons are fighters,” Liam said. “At least in the lore.”
“They are. The original gryphon was a hero. It was one of those things where the original gryphon didn’t do anything unholy, it was done to them. I’d say we have a pattern, but Erica doesn’t make sense,” Headmaster Mykene said.
“ Where are they?” I asked. “Sage would have screamed if they died. Khalid and Professor Gefn would know if they were dead.”
Liam shared what happened with the trees. I was the only person in the room that could hear heartbeats. Headmaster Mykene and Professor Gefn were scared. This was unlike anything they’d seen before.
“We don’t know. Khalid, Selene mentioned a serpent.
She felt something bite her and the venom immobilized her vampire abilities so she couldn’t run.
She said as soon as the fight turned in her favor, the person fighting her shifted into a giant serpent, wrapped themselves around her, and constricted until she died.
Selene also heard two heartbeats, so there were two other people there. ”
At least there were only two. Alexios said Forsaken Ones and everyone had been operating off the theory that there were just two, but there could have been more than that.
“Kira didn’t say anything about that,” Khalid said, frowning.
“People are disoriented when they first die. They are obviously upset, even if they weren’t murdered and it was expected.
There’s a certainly type of delicacy that’s needed for what we do.
I’m sure you’re a very caring man, but I wouldn’t expect you to get it right only a few days after finding out who you are.
Under normal circumstances, I would have stepped in to help you when you got a little more settled here, but these are perilous times and nothing is how it’s supposed to be. ”
“That’s fair. What do I need to do?”
“Slipping past the veil takes immense concentration. I’d recommend never doing it unless you’ve got people to watch your back.
You’re going to need to come work with me on your lunch break instead of going to the library or goofing off like some of your classmates are doing.
You’ll need to learn to keep one foot in the real world and the other in Duat when people die or you’ll be a sitting duck if these Forsaken Ones want to take you out. ”
“I can do that. I want to do that. How do I contact Kira?”
“Baby steps, little one,” Professor Gefn said with a smile. “Right now, you’re forced into the veil when you’re needed. Traversing the veil is a skill, and a complicated one. Sage should attend these lessons, too. You have abilities in the veil, as well.”
“I’ll be there,” Sage said immediately.
“That’s refreshing. Some of your class is hopeless. Elliot and Petros take the piss out of everything, but they take their school work seriously. I look forwards to giving a good bit of your class a nice F.”
Pretty sure she was talking about Lola and it had nothing to do with the fact that Freya and Thor were close in their original life.
Burying a magic rock under the waning moon and calling it birth control went against my very nature.
Before I got kidnapped, I would have left the room if someone told me they did that and expected me to have sex with them.
I also would have informed them what an utter fucking moron I thought they were on the way out.
But I did it anyway because I realized I was out of my depth and there were obviously a lot of things I didn’t know. Lola just didn’t do the assignment and decided to mouth off about it.
“We’re going to start with basic meditation. You have to go in a bit of a trance. Those of you that have no connection to the veil are going to want to guard them when they practice because they will be vulnerable.”
“You might have to resort to violence, Prince of Darkness,” Liam smirked.
“Actually, Lucian being a bit of a pacifist is probably a good thing when it comes to him losing control. The lore behind his origin is enough that he probably just has to flash some fang and red eye at someone to warn them off unless they are really stupid.”
Ugh. Yeah, something told me two people with a darkness power that killed everything and could turn into a giant snake could afford to be fucking stupid.
I hated stupid people, and I hated violent people.