Legacies (Mercedes Lackey) - By Mercedes Lackey Page 0,80
it was only a short walk back to their rooms where they could shower in privacy, but everybody changed back into their regular clothes. There was no actual rule about wandering around in your gi outside of class, but the minute someone did it, there probably would be.
Kylee looked up, her expression guarded. “Because nothing happened.” She studied Spirit’s face for a moment, then sighed. “Look, Spirit. A little advice. You don’t get the teachers involved, ever. No matter what. You do that, and you’ll be looking over your shoulder for the Gatekeepers.”
What Gatekeepers? What’s a Gatekeeper? Spirit wanted to ask. But she was too late. Even as she was forming the words, Kylee hefted her bag of equipment onto her shoulder and turned and walked out, leaving Spirit staring after her.
But figuring out Kylee’s cryptic comment was the least of her worries. This was December eighth. They had less than two weeks to figure out not one, but three plans of attack, and figure out how to use them.
Slow, Spirit. We’re going half-speed. Let’s walk that block through one more time. And blessed salt will banish a wandering spirit,” Burke said reassuringly. “That’s in pretty much every tradition I’ve found. So that takes care of any possible ghosts.”
They couldn’t risk being seen together as a group anymore. With the winter break coming up, everybody at Oakhurst was excited and on edge—and some of the excitement was playful, and some of it was malicious, and it wouldn’t really matter either way if it made the teachers notice the five of them and decide to do something to break them up. But pairs didn’t come up as high on the Oakhurst radar as a group of five would. So Addie and Muirin were researching the best way to destroy the Wild Hunt if it was composed of elves, and Spirit and Loch were looking for a good way to banish a demonic force. Fortunately at Oakhurst, neither research project looked at all out of the ordinary to anyone who might notice it. They might even be able to use what they found for an extra-credit paper when this was over. Right now, though, an extra-credit paper was the last thing on Spirit’s mind, because even now none of them could stop doing everything they were officially supposed to be doing. And that meant homework, and extracurricular activities, and going to the Friday night basketball games. Spirit had begun to cherish the few hours a week she got to spend practicing her martial arts with Burke; it was starting to seem like the only chance she got to actually relax.
At least when she wasn’t worrying about how they were going to destroy the Wild Hunt.
“But I—Burke, how are you going to get anything like that?” she asked, trying to keep her voice from rising in a wail of despair. “You can’t go into Radial. And I don’t think that Doctor Ambrosius is an actual minister. Even if he’d—”
Burke shook his head at her, smiling gently. “Anyone who believes can bless salt, so long as they’re acting with respect and mean to do good with it. And I guess keeping folks from being murdered—and letting some poor spirits find their rest—counts as good.”
“I guess,” Spirit echoed, confused. Burke was the last person in the world she would have imagined to be a devout Christian—he certainly didn’t spend his time either quoting Bible verses at the drop of a hat or ranting about the evil of “witches” and “magic.” I suppose that wouldn’t go down too well at a school for magicians, she thought irreverently. And apparently Burke had read the “other” Bible, the one that contained such verses as: Thou shalt not avenge, nor bear any grudge against the children of thy people, but thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself . . .
How had he managed to keep Oakhurst from poisoning him? He’d been here longer than any of them.
“Penny for your thoughts?” Burke asked.
“Oh, nothing,” Spirit said, and grimaced. “I just hope taking out the elves will be as simple. Walk me through the block again?”
After a solid week of research—more search than research, as Addie said to Spirit one evening when Addie and Spirit were studying in Spirit’s room—Addie and Muirin had settled on iron (“cold iron” as it was called in all the folklore databases) to get rid of the Wild Hunt if it turned out to be composed of elves. As Addie explained (sounding more than a little