Snakes and Shadows Read online

  “Oh, shit!” Penny’s jaw hung open for a moment before a grin spread over her face. “I was right!”

  A guttural scream interrupted anything else she might say. The girl, now standing and cuffed, struggled in vain as Delouise held her tight.

  “Hey, Walker! This one’s ours. Take care of her, will you?” Agent Delouise shoved the girl into the waiting arms of a uniformed officer. Free of her prisoner, Delouise strode over to where Penny stood with Crenel. This time, her glance was accompanied by a small smile. “You did good, kid.”

  Crenel handed her the book, and Delouise hefted it appreciatively. “I told you she was worth it.”

  “Crenel, how exactly are you wrapped up in the Academy?” Penny asked bluntly. She’d had enough of the pussyfooting around, and figured her efforts this evening had given her the leverage she needed to insist on an answer.

  Delouise snorted, and Crenel looked at his feet. Neither answered.

  “Really?” Penny sighed in defeat. Guess I was wrong.

  “Penny!” Amelia’s head popped through a doorway. “I’ve been looking everywhere for you!”

  Penny waved at Crenel and Delouise. “That’s my cue. I’ll see you guys around?”

  “Only if you’re in trouble,” Delouise said crisply. “So let’s hope not.”

  “I’ll be knocking around the Academy at some stage,” Crenel said. At Delouise’s lifted eyebrow, he smirked. “They gave me the liaison job. No, I don’t know why, either.”

  “God help you all,” Delouise muttered. She glanced at Penny. “Make sure you give him hell.”

  Chapter Seven

  Penny stumbled into class the next morning, still wearing the smeared remnants of last night’s mascara. She had a purple bruise blossoming from her lower back to her mid-thigh, although that, at least, was easily covered by her usual uniform of worn jeans.

  To her surprise, the professor was nowhere to be seen. Penny carefully eased herself into an empty seat near the front, next to Red. She leaned past him so she could see Cisco and hissed to catch his attention.

  “Cisco! Where’s Amelia?”

  Cisco thumbed the empty doorway. “First aid room. I don’t know what you two were doing last night, but that bruise down her arm was pretty vicious.”

  His remark reminded Penny of her own throbbing ache. I swear it didn’t feel that bad last night. “And the professor?”

  Cisco lifted his hands. “No idea. No one has seen her this morning.”

  “Am I in your way?” Red leaned forward to insert his grinning face between Penny and Cisco. “Because I feel like I’m interrupting something really important.”

  “Not at all, Red,” Penny said. “Just glad I didn’t miss the start of class.”

  “The start?” Red snorted. “This class ain’t happening. It’s been fifteen minutes! Either someone messed up the schedule, or they’re havin’ a laugh. I’m outta here, friends.” He stood, stacked his things, and marched out of the room with a backward salute.

  Two more students followed, leaving the rest to shuffle in their seats uncomfortably while they waited. After another ten minutes, Penny started shoving pens back into her pencil case. “Red was right,” she told Cisco. “I’m going back to bed.”

  Footsteps in the corridor made her pause, and a moment later, Special Agent Crenel strode in, a folder in one hand and his phone in the other. He slipped the phone into his pocket and slapped the folder on the desk.

  “Good morning, class. You’ve probably figured out I’m not the lovely professor Katie Marcus.”

  “You’d look great in a dress, though,” Kathleen called from the back.

  Crenel just gave her a smooth smile. “Thanks for the vote of confidence. However, your dean asked me to slip by on my way out to— Well, I’m here to let you know classes today are canceled. They’ll resume as normal Monday. Have a great weekend, kids, and don’t get into too much trouble.”

  Crenel stepped back to avoid being crushed by a half-dozen students who, spurred by the lure of a long weekend after twenty-five minutes of boredom, rushed for the door.

  Penny waited for the rest to wander out before approaching the agent. Cisco hovered behind her, listening.

  “Where’s the professor?” she asked.

  “She’s the only expert in mythological items we have on hand,” Crenel said. He didn’t explain further, leaving Penny to fill in the gaps.

  “You need her to look at the book I found?” she asked.

  “What book?” Cisco finally spoke up. “What the hell else did I miss last night? Apart from the ghosts. Exactly how did you and Amelia get involved in that again?”

  Penny coughed. “I wouldn’t say we were involved.” She realized she hadn’t seen Cisco after he’d fought the ghost off. “Where’d you go last night, anyway?”

  Cisco blushed.

  “No shame in running from something like that, son,” Crenel assured him. “I damn near crapped my pants as well, and I’ve faced that kind of thing before.”

  “Don’t sweat it.” Penny refrained from teasing Cisco. She had, after all, screamed like a girl when she’d first come face to face with the ghost.

  “Listen, Penny, I wanted to thank you for your help,” Crenel cleared his throat before speaking. “That book is a huge win for us.”

  Cisco’s head bounced from Crenel to Penny, then back again. “What book?”

  “Take care, kid.” Ignoring Cisco’s questions—in fact, ignoring him altogether—Crenel picked up his papers and walked out.

  “Penny? Come on!” Cisco’s desperation would have been funny if he weren’t so earnest. “You have to tell me!”

  “Ok, fine.” Penny sank back down into her chair and gestured for him to do the same. “It went down like this…”

  It was another week before Penny got to meet the elusive Professor Katie Marcus. Penny had to admit, she was quite impressed. The professor’s mousy appearance and quiet demeanor belied her passion for mythological artifacts, quickly made apparent as Marcus introduced her students to a very recent find.

  "I almost had to mortgage my soul for permission to show this to you," the professor explained, holding up the very book Penny had fought so hard for the previous week. "This, students, is none other than the Book of Thoth.”

  "Is it like a book of shadows?" Kathleen asked, flicking back her new dreadlocks. She’d had them done the previous weekend and took every chance she could to show them off. "Every witch has one. It’s, like, a list of spells they’ve made up."

  Professor Marcus just smiled. "It does have similarities. The Book of Thoth is an Egyptian artifact, but it is full of spells.”

  "How was it used to summon the ghosts?" Penny blurted.

  Rather than admonish Penny for speaking out about classified events, Professor Marcus clapped her hands. "That's exactly what I was hoping you would ask. I take it everyone knows of the events that led to the discovery of the book?"

  The professor's eagerness wasn't diminished by the blank faces that met her question. "Well, I suppose most of the details are irrelevant. What you need to know is simply this—the group that procured this artifact used it to summon upwards of four ghosts. They didn't mean to, and in fact, the ghosts already existed to some degree.”

  She leaned forward conspiratorially. “What we theorize happened is this. One of the spells in the book—marked with fluorescent pink pen, so probably a recent notation—was one that calls to the undead. It seemingly can’t be used to raise them, although there are other spells that will do that. This spell was used to summon forth the ghost that had been haunting the bathrooms, but its power extended further than the participants in the ritual expected it to."

  Corey made a woofing sound. “That’s ‘cos dudes are strong, yo. Overpowered!”

  Penny rolled her eyes. The bro club he and Jason had formed reeked of arrogance, the two eager to attack anyone they deemed as inferior to them—which seemed to be everyone.

  “The young women who create
d the spell may have been overpowered,” Marcus admitted with a tight grin at Corey’s scowl. “They are a very industrious young group.”

  “That spell seems awfully unspecific.” With the attention of the class turned his way, Red blushed. “I mean, if the people using the book knew there was a chance it’d summon a bunch of ghosts they didn’t want, why would they use it in the first place?”

  Professor Marcus pressed her lips tightly shut. Then, she put the book down carefully. “The motivations of the people who found this book are not the subject of this class. Suffice it to say, they have been dealt with. Now, any questions about the book itself?”

  “It’s just a book,” Kathleen said dubiously. “Does this mean all magic is real now?”

  “Not quite. The archetype of the ‘magical book that provides a power source’ is a common one.” Marcus walked over to the board and started scribbling on it with a piece of chalk, listing titles as she wrote them.

  “The Coven. Blair Witch—the second one, not the first. Nowhere Boys—Penny, you might know that one?”

  Penny recalled a vague memory of an Australian tv show some of her self-defense students had talked about after class. She hadn’t seen it, though.

  Professor Marcus continued. “Charmed—that one is quite well known. Supernatural, very well known... “ She placed the chalk down carefully. “And of course, that doesn’t even begin to touch upon the crossovers with the Necronomicon.”

  "So, the only people who can use this fancy book are tv geeks or emo girls who listen to heavy metal and chant spells to make guys’ dicks fall off?" Jason asked.

  Heddy stood, stacked her books, and stormed out of the room while Kathleen squealed in outrage. She spun around in her seat, scowling. "I'll have you know I'm a dedicated Wiccan, and I only listen to country music." She turned back to her seat, throwing herself back in the chair with a flounce.

  "Your theory has merit but was proven incorrect, Jason, although I am glad we have a Wiccan in the class," Professor Marcus said. "One of the things you will need to learn as part of your studies is the concept of conditional belief—although you should note, this is only a working concept at this point. If enough people believe, it will appear behind the Veil and has the potential to slip through. Once it has, anyone can use it—if they can see it for what it really is. That is a whole other kettle of fish!”

  "I don't believe in leprechauns," Clive protested. "I still saw one at a party a few months ago."

  Marcus looked at Clive over her glasses. "The events that we are witnessing could have an unprecedented effect on the belief systems of the general population."

  Professor Marcus clasped her hands behind her back, pacing back and forth across the room as she spoke. "A year ago, I would wager none of you believed in the Easter Bunny. However, most of you probably believed that an Easter Bunny mascot could attend a corporate event, yes?" Most of the heads in the room nodded.

  The professor continued. "There is a specific type of plasticity in the brain unique to those in your approximate age group. From around the age you begin to assert your independence, up until the age most people discard their faith for such fairytale concepts as justice or the overall fairness of life.

  She lifted her head and ran her eyes over the room. “Sometimes, it lasts into adulthood—sometimes not. However, your ability to rationalize unusual events combined with your ability to accept even the strangest things, when presented with enough proof, make those of you in this classroom particularly suited to the specific coursework we are covering. In short, you have the capacity to believe."

  The room was silent, the students listening, enraptured, and the professor knew it was because they’d witnessed the impossible already. "Everyone here has seen enough over the past months to understand that something is happening. Myth and legend are becoming fact. Creatures that never before existed now walk amongst us. You have seen the proof, and you have accepted it. Part of my job, and the job of every professor in this building, is to teach you how to interact with those from beyond the Veil."

  "So, we can cast a spell from the book?” Kathleen asked.

  Professor Marcus nodded. “We believe so. We haven’t had the chance to test it yet. A quick glance shows most of the spells require reagents that don’t exist or at least haven’t appeared on this side of the Veil yet.”

  "Can a curse hurt someone who doesn't believe?” Trevor pressed. “My dad doesn’t believe in any of this. He was at that bar with the leprechaun, you can see him in the YouTube clip. He swears it’s fake, that he was just talking to a regular, short man. He was green, though! My dad doesn’t remember that bit at all.”

  Professor Marcus nodded. “Unfortunately, rigidity of the mind is no protection. You may not be able to see the short-statured man in your local bar as a leprechaun, but he can still tip a beer over your head. At that point, a flexible mind may reveal the truth—we’ve learned that those under threat can often see the reality of what they face, instead of the mundane veneer their mind normally cloaks it with. But disbelief is not protection, I’m afraid."

  An awkward silence fell. After a moment, Professor Marcus reached beneath the heavy desk and withdrew a solid wooden box. “Let’s move on, shall we?”

  Penny immediately winced. The box closely resembled one she had seen in another class. That class had ended in her being attacked by a psychotic gnome. Looking around, Penny realized she wasn't the only one who’d come to that conclusion. A couple of the other students were nervously pushing themselves away from their desks, as if ready to run.

  Noticing the reaction of her students, Professor Marcus tittered a laugh. "Oh, it's not going to hurt you, I promise." The lock on the box clicked open, and Professor Marcus lifted the lid. A moment later, she drew out a blackened, withered hand, placed the book inside, and locked it again. "Does anyone know what this is?"

  Blank stares were her only answer. Penny squinted, wondering if the disembodied appendage was about to start skittering toward her. Nothing happened.

  "This is a Hand of Glory," Professor Marcus explained. Holding the gruesome item aloft, she walked over to the windows and drew the heavy blinds. Once closed, Penny had to stifle a hint of concern. Not even a sliver of light peeked through the edges.

  Once the room was devoid of natural light and only the humming fluorescent bulb overhead was left, the professor walked over to the door. She closed it with a click, then reached for the light switch. "If anybody is afraid of the dark, I suggest you speak up now.”

  The switch clicked, and the room was plunged into darkness. "You'll find most of the classrooms in the Academy are sound- and light-proof," the professor explained. “This comes in handy in several ways, but today it's to show you a demonstration of how the hand works."

  Penny heard footsteps as the professor walked around the room, seemingly unbothered by the darkness, “One of the benefits of the hand is that it allows the bearer to see in complete darkness. To demonstrate this, we are going to pass it around the class. If you are touching the hand, you will be able to see without a problem. If you are not, please stay seated. We don't want any accidents to occur, do we?"

  "Woah!" Penny recognized Clive's voice. "It's like daylight! Or maybe infrared? I can't see colors, so I guess it’s not infrared."

  "So far, we haven't been able to quantify what exactly allows you to see with the device," the professor answered.

  Penny sat patiently, listening to the gasps of awe and exclamations of disgust as the item was passed around the classroom.

  When it was her turn, Cisco quietly explained what he was doing. "I'm going to take your hand first," he told her. "Then I'm going to put the glory thing in it. As soon as you’re touching it, you'll be able to see. Don't take it off me completely until I'm back in my seat, though." He laughed nervously.

  Penny felt warm, living fingers touch her hand, cupping it carefully. Then, something dry and hard grazed the skin of her fingertips. The sudden blossoming of her vision took h
er by surprise.

  Even though Penny had been expecting it, the clarity of her sight was beyond what she had imagined. Although the room was as bright as it had been earlier, her eyes needed no time to adjust to the sudden disappearance of the void that had swallowed her sight when the room went dark. As Clive had mentioned, the colors in the room were washed out—muted shades of gray and brown, with anything brighter indistinguishable.

  Penny held one end of the hand while Cisco grasped the other, carefully moving back to his chair and gripping the desk.

  He nodded to her, then let the hand go.

  Penny watched until he had awkwardly slid into his seat again before she took a moment to look around the room. She had never used infrared goggles, so she didn't know what that would be like. This seemed like it would be pretty close, though, based on what she'd seen on tv. It certainly wasn't heat-sensitive—her fellow students were no brighter or clearer than the coldest, darkest corners of the room. "What was it used for?” Penny asked as she made her way over to the next student’s desk.

  "Thieving," Professor Marcus said simply. "It's the holy grail of a medieval thief. It lets you see in the dark, sneak around the house without having to light candles or lanterns—or switch on a light. We’re not sure where the myth originated from, likely the Middle East. The item itself is the desiccated hand of a former thief."

  Just as the professor finished her explanation, Penny touched Mara’s arm, intending to give her the item.

  Mara shrieked, flailing her arms in the air. "Get it off, get it off! I'm not touching no dead guy."

  Penny snatched back her hand. "That was my hand, Mara.”

  "I don't care!” Mara had shrunk back in her seat, eyes wildly darting around the dark room. “That thing you’re holding is a piece of dead human!"

  "It's not really —“

  Mara cut off Professor Marcus’s explanation. "It's close enough," she snapped. "And I'm not touching it. You can't pay me enough. I don't care if you fail me out of this class, if anybody brings that dead piece of flesh anywhere near me, I'll...I'll punch you in the face!"