Hexbound (The Dark Elite 2)

The giant hag floated for another few seconds, before shrinking back to by Temperance’s slightly mousy appearance. “There are needles. Bandages. Monitors. It looks like a clinic to me.”

I bobbed my head at her. “Thank you.”

“You are welcome, Lily.”

“Well, that’s definitely new,” Scout said, frowning. “What could Reapers need with medical facilities?”

“The Reapers get weaker over time,” Jason pointed out. “Maybe they’re trying to figure out some way to treat that?”

“Maybe so,” I said. I liked the idea of Reapers turning to medicine—instead of innocent teenagers—to solve their magical maladies.

But I still had a pretty bad feeling about it.

We couldn’t avoid a return to the Enclave. Not with that kind of information under our belts. We also couldn’t risk another trip through the Pedway, so after meeting up with Jamie, Jill, and Paul, we took the long way back, Detroit checking her locket every few hundred feet to make sure we were on track. The route was definitely longer, but it was also vampire-, Reaper-, and slime-free. Thumbs-up in my book.

Daniel, Katie, and Smith jumped up from the floor when we walked in, their smiles falling away as they took in our expressions.

“It’s all bad news,” Scout said. “Might as well cop a squat again.”

When we were all on the floor—the JV Adepts exhausted, the Varsity Adepts in preparation for the shock—we laid out the details. We told him the slime was gone, but the Reapers had been there. We told him about the new sanctuary—the medical facility—and the other things Temperance had seen.

Daniel rubbed his forehead as we talked, probably wishing he hadn’t taken over the unluckiest of the Enclaves.

“We didn’t see anyone the entire time we were there,” Jason pointed out. “And Temperance said the building looked unused. So that means they’re gone, right?”

“Not necessarily,” Daniel said. “Sometimes they rotate sanctuaries, especially if humans get too close. They move around to decrease the odds they get discovered, so an empty sanctuary doesn’t mean an abandoned sanctuary.”

“We planted a camera,” Detroit said. “We’ll have Sam call you if there’s anything to report.”

“Sam?” I asked.

“Sam Bayliss. Head of Enclave Two—and Daniel’s girlfriend,” Detroit helpfully threw in. All eyes went to Daniel; Scout let out a low swear. So much for her happily ever after with Daniel.

“Thank you,” Daniel grumbled. “If that’s all—”

Scout held up a hand. “Before you send Enclave Two off into the sunset, you’ll probably want to hear the rest of it.”

“The rest of it?”

“I’m gonna throw a word at you.” She mimicked throwing something at him. “Vampires.”

Daniel’s expression turned stone cold. “Spill it.”

“Well,” Scout said, “as it turns out, we needed to use a little, tiny, eentsy bit of the Pedway, and ran into a couple of warring nests of vampires. Long story short, I used a charm to rile them up against each other; then Lily doused the lights so we could escape back into the tunnels. Oh—and Detroit’s great with locks and such.”

“Warring nests of vampires?”

“Turf war,” Jason said. “Two covens. Nicu and Marlena. I think she said she made him.”

Daniel frowned. “She must have made him a vampire. He was in her coven, then broke off to start his own. Covens don’t split very often. That’s probably not good news.”

“Especially if we want to use the Pedway,” Detroit mumbled. “Double your vamps, definitely not double your pleasure.”

Daniel made a sound of agreement.

“You know,” Scout said, “those things that attacked us had fangs. First we see them, and now we find out vampires are in some kind of turf war? That’s a lot of fangs for a coincidence.”

“That’s a good point,” Daniel said. “Not a happy one, but a good one.” He looked at Smith. “Do some research. Figure out what you can about the vamps, about the coven split.”

Smith flipped his hair out of his eyes, an emo “yes.”

“And us?” Jason asked. “What are we going to do?”

“I’ll be in touch,” Daniel said. “In the meantime, stay away from fangs.” He rose, then walked to the Enclave door and opened it.

“Go home,” was all he said.

9

I knew they were busy. I knew they had lessons to prepare and exams to write. But what was no excuse.

What made teachers think having students grade each other’s trig homework was a good idea? My carefully written pages were now in the hands of the brattiest of the brats—Mary Katherine—who kept giving me nasty looks as our trig teacher explained the answers. By some freak accident of desk arranging, this was the third time she’d ended up with my paper. She took notes every day with a purple glitter pen, so my trig homework came back with huge X-marks on my wrong answers . . . and nasty little notes or drawings wherever she could find room. Seriously—she was such a witch.

And not the good kind.

When the time came to pass back everyone’s answers, I noticed she’d added a special note this time: “Loser” in all caps across the top of my page, right next to the total of wrong answers. Since I’d gotten only one wrong—and I also knew how many M.K. usually got wrong—I held up my paper toward her, and batted my eyelashes.

She rolled her eyes and looked away, but the paper on her desk was dotted with X-marks. I guessed she was going to have to find a tutor soon, ’cause money or not, I couldn’t imagine Foley would be happy about her failing trig.

Between classes I checked my phone and found a message from Ashley, my BFF from Sagamore. She was still in the public school back home since my attempt to move in with her and her parents—or have her parents ship her out here—failed pretty miserably. I felt a little guilty when I saw the message. Ashley and I hadn’t talked as much since I’d started at St. Sophia’s. There was the usual adjustment period, sure, but she had her own stuff in Sagamore, and I had a lot of paranormal (and brat-pack) drama. Add those to mandatory study hall, and I didn’t have a lot of texting time.

But that didn’t make it any less fun to hear from her, so I tapped out a quick response. I’d actually gotten halfway through asking her to come visit me until I realized what a truly horrible idea that was. I added “hard to have non-Adept friends” to my list of Adept downsides. You know, in addition to the Reapers and lack of sleep and near-death experiences.