Conspiracies (Mercedes Lackey) - By Mercedes Lackey Page 0,19
right over in this place. Or become invisible, like that song from Chicago.” She did a shuffle-step and sang a couple lines from “Mister Cellophane.”
“I didn’t know you liked musicals,” Addie said, surprised.
Muirin smirked and appropriated the computer chair. “It’s got gangsters and murder and prison numbers, what’s not to like?”
“Well, what do you think of her?” Spirit said to Addie, interrupting before they could get off on a tangent.
Addie shrugged. “I think she’s just really shy. Why are you so interested in her? You didn’t get assigned to her.”
By now Spirit knew that the proctors set up an informal “safety net” for the new arrivals; it irritated her, as if Addie and Muirin were her friends only because they’d been assigned to be—as if that were possible at Oakhurst. “I don’t know,” Spirit replied, a little fretfully. “It just seems like there is something important about her, but I don’t know what it is, and it’s making me crazy—”
“—er,” said Muirin. “Crazier.”
Nettled, Spirit counted to ten before she snapped back. “If it’s crazy to think we’re all still in danger—”
Then she stopped as a new thought struck her. “You know, maybe that’s it. She acts like she’s scared. Like she already knows there’s something here out to get all of us, and she doesn’t know who to trust!” Crazy as the idea was, it just might explain Elizabeth’s behavior.
Muirin rolled her eyes, but Spirit wasn’t going to give up this time. “Look, the Hunt didn’t come out of nowhere. It didn’t migrate across half the world from Ireland by itself. Someone, and it was probably someone right here in this school, set kids up as sacrifices for it!”
“Right, but we chased the Hunt off.” Addie lay back on Spirit’s bed, staring at the ceiling.
“We might have chased the Hunt off, but we didn’t do squat about whoever is right on this campus. I went over this with Loch. Someone set it up, or at least kept it going by supplying sacrifices. Someone dropped the wards so it could get in. Even if Doctor Ambrosius decided to do something after we told him about it—I don’t know about you, but I didn’t see anybody missing from among the adults here—either he hasn’t done squat, or he couldn’t find the person, either!” She didn’t say so there, but she sure felt like doing it.
Muirin turned around in Spirit’s computer chair and gave her an odd look. “Huh,” she said.
Addie sat up. “Well even if that’s true—and I’m not saying it is!—since you talked to Loch about this, he had to tell you cui bono.”
Muirin made a face. “Yeah. Or for us normal people, ‘follow the money.’ Who here would benefit from killing us off? It’s not like Oakhurst is in our wills or like that—sure, Daddy Dearest left me a little trust fund, and Addie’s an heiress, and even you probably have an insurance settlement waiting for you back in the world—but the only way Oakhurst gets any of it is if we live to graduate, get our hands on it, and feel generous.”
For a second, Spirit’s attention was diverted. She’d spent all this time thinking she was a pauper, but Muirin might be right—about part of it, anyway. She knew Mom and Dad had insured everything—the house, the car, her and Phoenix’s lives—and Oakhurst had paid all her hospital bills from Day One.…
Then she shook her head and went back to the important subject. “I don’t think it’s about money, Muirin. We saw the records. You saw them. This … This Tithing went back maybe to the beginning of Oakhurst, and that would be more than thirty years. So what if the wizard war that Doctor Ambrosius told us about is already going on?”
“And he hasn’t mentioned anything?” Muirin asked dubiously.
“Well, wouldn’t you freak if he did? I know I would.” Spirit chewed a nail.
“Don’t do that, it’s disgusting,” Addie said automatically. “And you’re already freaking.”
“Well someone should!” Spirit hoped she sounded resolute instead of hysterical, but in her own ears she sounded shrill.
“Okay, let’s break this down.” Addie ticked off a one on her fingers. “Oakhurst has been graduating kids since the seventies. So some of them were our parents. And when we were born, we automatically became Oakhurst Legacies, so when we were orphaned, we ended up here. So, if this wizard war has already begun, everyone here is an orphan. And if it hasn’t”—she ticked off a two—“some of the kids here have live parents and were