Chapter 5 CHAPTER 5: The Prophecy
ANDY’S POV
Elizabeth Siege didn’t show up to the first period. I noticed because her seat was empty and because since she arrived three days ago she had been in every class before the teacher walked in.
I noticed and told myself it wasn’t my business and opened my notes. She still wasn’t in the second period either.
By third period Kae Armstrong was not sitting in his seat. I looked at the empty chair and then at the door and then back at my notes and tried to focus on what the teacher was saying but I couldn’t.
I hope that’s true. That was what I said to her yesterday in the library. I had replayed it approximately forty times since then and it sat worse each time.
She had looked at me with those steady eyes and said I didn’t send it clearly and without flinching and I had stood up and walked away, and said I hope that’s true like she was a suspect and not a girl who had been at this school for three days and had already been slapped twice and dragged through a hearing and eaten lunch alone at the back of the dining hall.
My sister had received a cruel message from an account with Elizabeth’s name on it and I had gone straight to her with printed evidence and a cold face.
And for some reason, I just believed she had told me the truth yesterday. I closed my notes and left the class.
I found Kae in the east corridor moving fast with his jaw set.
“She was not in all the class today.” I said.
“I know.” He didn’t slow down.
“Where are you going?”
“I went to her dorm but she wasn’t there,” he said. “I already checked the library and the dining hall. I really want to apologize for siding with Jasmine when I knew the truth.”
I fell into step beside him without deciding to. “Well that’s your problem to sort out. How long has she been missing?” I asked instead.
“Since last night probably.” He said it and something in his voice was not calm at all under the surface. “Her roommate said her bed wasn’t slept in.”
We rounded the corner and nearly walked into Lucif Boston coming from the other direction. He stopped when he saw us. We stopped when we saw him.
“You’re looking for the new girl right?” Lucif asked. Well I couldn’t say anything, because I was wondering why he was looking for her. But I didn’t ask because I also don’t know the reason why I was also looking for her.
Kae also didn’t answer him either. He just kept staring at him blankly. Maybe confused like me too.
“I’ve been looking since this morning.” Lucif said again. “I went to the vice principal an hour ago. And told her to file a missing student report, but she said she will do that after twenty four hours, and I should leave.”
The three of us stood in the corridor for a second and didn’t say anything.
It was Lucif who found the lead. He had contacts in the wizard network that moved information faster than the school’s official channels and by evening he had a location, he said it was gotten from the building secret footage.
The location was an old building on the south edge of the school grounds that hadn’t been used for classes in years.
After much contemplation, we went there. And it was already getting late. And honestly, I am still wondering why the heck I am doing all of this.
The door was locked with something that wasn’t a standard school lock. Lucif looked at it for three seconds then pressed his hand flat against it and it opened without a sound. That was one of the Wizard’s powers.
Inside was dark and it smelled like….OLD MAGIC. The kind that didn’t come from any single species.
We moved through the building quietly and slowly without speaking, it was till the last room before we found her.
She was on the floor in the center of the room with her hands tied and her eyes closed but she was breathing.
I confirmed that first, she was breathing. Around her on the floor was a circle drawn in something dark and inside the circle were symbols I had seen before in texts I had read when I was twelve years old and had never expected to see in person.
Kae was already moving toward her. “Elizabeth.” He said her name urgently as he wanted to crouch down beside her.
“Don’t cross the circle.” Lucif said quickly, making Kae stop instantly.
Lucif crouched at the edge of the circle and looked at the symbols carefully, moving his eyes around the full shape of it without touching anything.
His expression was doing something I hadn’t seen on his face before.
“What is it?” I asked.
He didn’t answer immediately. He stood up slowly and looked at Elizabeth in the center of the circle and then looked at me and then at Kae.
“These are summoning preparation symbols.” He said. “Specifically for a tribrid sacrifice.”
The room was quiet.
“A tribrid hasn’t existed in three hundred years.” Kae said.
“I know.” Lucif said.
I looked at Elizabeth on the floor. Her face was still. Her chest was rising and falling slowly. I thought about the corridor outside the dormitory that Kae had described to me, the moment she slapped Jasmine Donid and Jasmine went down bleeding.
I thought about what Kae had told me privately, that the force that came out of her wasn't that of a wolf, it also wasn't a vampire’s own either. Neither was it a witchcraft power.
He said it was something he had never felt before and he had felt a lot of things.
I thought about the tale of the prophecia. How my grandma said it will come. And immediately I knew. She’s A Tribid, and her powers were about to get unlocked.
“I think she’s a tribid.” I said. Both of them laughed.
“Let’s just get her out of the circle.” Kae said. “Later we can talk about that.”
“I need two minutes to dissolve the boundary.” Lucif said and crouched back down.
Those two minutes were the longest two minutes I had stood through in a long time. I watched Elizabeth breathing and didn’t look away.
When Lucif said it was clear Kae moved immediately. I moved at the same time. We reached her at the same moment from opposite sides and both of us stopped.
Lucif stepped up behind us. Three of us stood over her, with none of us willing to step back.
Kae looked at me. I looked at Kae. Lucif looked at both of us.
Elizabeth Siege lay unconscious between us, the first tribrid in three hundred years, and it seems as if a war is about to break between three men that were supposed to help her.
And honestly, I’m starting to think. What is Kae’s agenda? And also Lucif, especially Lucif.