Conspiracies (Mercedes Lackey) - By Mercedes Lackey Page 0,107
the Trust that was what I always want for Christmas and birthdays. Usually my box is kept in the Admin office and I get a couple of pieces each Sunday, but…” Addie shrugged. “When everything started going crazy around here, I asked if I could have it, and they gave it to me. Help yourselves.”
Gingerly, they all did. The chocolate was startlingly intense, and tasted a little like flowers. Spirit wasn’t sure she really liked it, but one thing was sure: You knew you’d eaten chocolate when you’d finished a piece.
There was a knock on the door, and Doc Mac stuck his head in. His grim expression told them that this had been worse than the last time. “You kids stay here and stay together,” he told them. “We’re missing people. There’s your group, and a couple of other knots of kids that managed to keep it together and huddle, but we know people went running out the doors in all directions. We have search parties out, but there’s a lot of ‘out there’ out there. Don’t leave this room till someone comes to tell you it’s all right.”
“Yes sir,” Burke said. Doc Mac closed the door.
“Okay,” Muirin said into the silence. “I’ll say it. Spirit was right. The Gatekeepers are Lizzie’s Shadow Knights. And they’re horrible people. The only way this could have happened tonight was from the inside.…”
“We should run.” Addie’s hand was shaking as she reached for a square of chocolate.
“To where?” Loch retorted. “And how? Steal horses and ride off to Billings? Even if we could get past Rider’s goons, and ride horses for two days, what would we do when we got there? I pretty much doubt Muirin’s and my secret charge cards are secret from Rider at this point.”
Muirin colored. “I sort of, kind of, told Madison about mine,” she muttered.
“We have to look insignificant,” Spirit said quietly. “Like we’re not worth bothering about. Us taking out the Hunt could have been a fluke—”
Burke nodded. “We didn’t really go into any detail when we told Doctor A., it’s true. We could have just gotten lucky. I don’t think any of us have done anything particularly wonderful since.…”
“We have to keep our heads down,” Loch said. “But how?”
“I know how,” Spirit said. “There’s more than one way to spread possible attention around. We need to get to some of the others, give them some idea of what to do when this happens again, and make them think it’s their idea.”
“You think this is going to happen again?” Addie began, then shook her head. “No, I’m being stupid. Of course it is, the only question is, when and why?”
“The Dance. It has to be the Dance,” Spirit said firmly. “We’re all together. Like Halloween. And New Year’s. I just don’t know how significant the date is.”
Addie’s brow wrinkled, but it was Loch who spoke up. “The dance is February Second. That’s Imbolc,” he said. “The Return of the Light. Except what if it doesn’t? What if the power goes out and there’s nothing but dark and cold and fear?”
Spirit snapped her fingers; “That’s why the fear-thing has hit us twice so far!” she said “They’ve been practicing!”
The others nodded. It all made perfect sense. “We have to figure out how we can fight off that fear.…”
“It can’t be a direct confrontation, not like the Hunt,” Burke pointed out.
“Well, both times that the Shadow Knights have shown up in person, we’ve been pretty nonconfrontational,” Muirin said sourly. “We just milled around like anyone else.”
“So we look like we’re milling around, but we do stuff.” Spirit looked down at the candle. “You know, the candle didn’t go out.”
“You know what’s better than anything…” Muirin began to smile, slowly. “A prank. We can get a lot of the kids in on a prank. All this military-school crap is starting to bite, and I’m not the only one that feels that way.”
“So, against cold and dark … fire and light. Maybe some other stuff…” Spirit nodded. “And we probably have all night to figure out what we need to put together.”
Addie got up and pulled some hoarded soda out of her refrigerator. “I’ve got the caffeine,” she said. “Let’s do this.”
SIXTEEN
When the searches were finally called off, three teachers and twenty kids were still missing. The day after that, e-mails went out that claimed they’d been found in Radial, and were electing to leave Oakhurst under the protection of Breakthrough. When Spirit counted it up, that was four teachers and