Hungry Earth (Elemental Book 2) by Rain Oxford Read Free Book Online Page B

happens if I refuse?”
    His eyes narrowed in a scowl. “Then you will be
detained until we can get the information ourselves. We would also lock up your
roommates.”
    “You don’t get told no very often, do you?”
    “No, we don’t.”
    “Twice my normal fees. I’ll do it, but none of you
are allowed to follow or confront me or my roommates. If the other students
think I’m working for you or that you are looking over my shoulders, they’ll
clamp up.” I didn’t feel the need to mention that my classmates already thought
I was working for the council to help the vampires.
    I knew I was going to regret this.

Chapter 3
    When I got back to my room,
Henry was asleep and Darwin was studying at his desk. “Did you find anything?”
I whispered.
    He shook his head. “Not yet. Nobody knows about the
death except for those of us who saw the body and the witness. I figure that it
will slip out of someone within a few hours and when it does, I’ll find out who
knows something they aren’t supposed to.”
    “What if someone makes something up?”
    “I’m good at what I do.”
     
    *          *          *
     
    I was lying in the snow, but I wasn’t cold and it
didn’t feel wet. After a moment, I realized I was on the roof of the building
that Astrid and I used to visit. Suddenly, Astrid was there, sitting next to
me. I smelled her first; her wild, odd, but not unpleasant scent. Although she
wasn’t a child anymore, she wore the same old-fashioned white nightgown she had
when we were kids.
    When she leaned against me and kissed me, I thought
it was going to be like the chaste kiss we shared when we were preteens.
Instead, she kissed me passionately, like a lover. I reached up and ran my
fingers through her hair until she broke the kiss and leaned back a little. She
opened her mouth to speak and I wanted to stop her. I didn’t want to hear what
I knew she was going to say.
    A loud roar startled me awake. I opened my eyes and
sat up, confused and disorientated. I was in my bed at the school.
    “What the hell was that?” Darwin asked Henry, having
been woken as well.
    “Vampire. I smell a vampire.” He pointed to the
window, which was open. A small gust blew a little bit of snow in. “Whoever it
was is gone now.”
     
    *          *          *
     
    Tanaka-Sensei closed her eyes, expecting us to do the
same. I had been dreading this class; how was I supposed to be graded on
meditation? There were six of us students sitting on mats in the martial arts
room, including Becky, Amelia, and three others. We were supposed to begin
class with meditation every time.
    “How did we end up in this class?” Becky asked.
    “It’s random,” Tanaka-Sensei said. “There are a
number of classes like this, and which one you end up in happens by chance.”
    “Can we transfer out?”
    “No. You can request a class starting in your third
circle, though. In this class, you will learn to focus and visualize. What is
more powerful, a knife or a flashlight?” she asked.
    Becky opened her mouth, but I put my hand on her arm
to stop her. Obediently, her mouth snapped shut, so one of the other students,
a wizard my age named Oden, stated what was apparently the obvious. “A knife
can kill someone.”
    I interrupted. “Actually, if you judge its ‘power’ on
its ability to be used as a weapon, you could kill someone by beating them over
the head with a flashlight.”
    “You should be the teacher, Devon; we can learn all
kinds of mundane objects with which to bludgeon people,” Becky said.
    “Focus, students,” Tanaka-Sensei said. “Devon is
correct, and so is Oden. The light of a flashlight itself is not dangerous. For
the most part, people think that the most dangerous thing any light can do is
blind someone. How many of you have played with a laser before?”
    “I had one of those that my cat used to chase,” Oden
said.
    “A laser is an intense, concentrated beam of light
that can range