Something Wikkid This Way Comes by Nicole Peeler Read Free Book Online Page A

face as I register everything. She smiles when she sees my expression flash from anger to fear to curiosity.
    “It’s blood all right,” she says. “Real blood. From a live pigeon.”
    I arch an eyebrow. “Are we going to have two active cults to worry about?”
    Shar smiles. “Not two, only one. Tonight Jodi brought another animal sacrifice, but this one wasn’t already dead. It was a live pigeon. She killed it in front of us with a kitchen knife. Jenny fainted. Jodi told her she could go.”
    “And?” Moo asks impatiently from behind me. I hadn’t heard her come in.
    “And that leaves just me. I won.”
    “Won what?” I ask.
    “According to Jodi, I get to meet the Master.”
     
    * * *
     
    This is so “Buffy , ” I think to myself as we descend into the bowels of Holy Trinity Academy. Buffy the Vampire Slayer is one of Moo’s favorite shows, so we have to watch it all the time. We all know Moo has a crush on Spike, but she’d never admit it. I wish I could needle her about it, but Moo’s back in the Bronco, keeping tabs on our progress through all of her gadgets, while Shar walks ahead of me, blindfolded and led by Jodi.
    Once again I’ve got the camera on my head and I’m micked up to Moo through my earpiece. And once again I’ve got my camo up and ready. Unlike last time, however, I’m very hopeful to end this case tonight.
    And if anything goes wrong, Moo’s Alfar powers can rip the whole school off its foundation. But I still keep a carefully camouflaged feel out for any magic, and I know Moo’s Alfar senses are doing the same from where she’s parked outside in the Bronco. Because there has to be magic involved for the girls in the cult to be able to stay hidden and to keep f-ing up the school the way they are. And yet we’ve never felt anything the least bit supernatural coming from anywhere nearby.
    I keep pondering this fact as Shar and I ascend into the subbasement of the school. It’s creepy down here—the lighting is dim, and it’s a very old school that used to be a nunnery, so it’s a real basement, not one of those brightly lit new-build basements. There also doesn’t seem to be anyone around besides Jodi, Shar, and me.
    We keep going farther into the basement, until Jodi leads Shar into a room full of old desks, chairs, boxes of textbooks, and dilapidated shelving units. We go through another similar room, and then another. It’s only when we’re in the last room that I start to get worried. I haven’t seen hide nor hair of another human being, and I know exactly where we are, since I’d had to cart up a whole load full of desks from this very room one afternoon.
    This is the last of the storage. There’s nothing else past here. What the hell?
    And yet Jodi’s calmly walking Shar directly toward the back wall of the room. Jodi never slows down and neither does the blindfolded Shar, but they’re on a collision course with concrete. I watch with rapt attention as Jodi walks right through the seemingly solid wall. I scamper to keep up, tucking myself right in behind Shar’s now-disembodied arm. I squeeze my eyes shut as concrete looms alarmingly, feeling a slight tingle on my shields as I walk through the wall.
    When I open my eyes, we’re in Cult Central.
    There are cots lining the walls, which have been festooned in black and red bunting. It would look festive if it weren’t so bedraggled and covered in pentagrams and anarchy signs. On one end of the room looms an old, dilapidated altar, also painted black. Only the middle of the floor is swept clear, one enormous pentagram painted on the concrete.
    It’s like a bad seventies horror set , I marvel.
    Jodi leads Shar to the middle of the pentagram, and I back up against a wall where I can give Moo a good view of the action. I carefully pan the camera around so that Moo can see that sprawled around the room are all the missing girls.
    “They’ve been under the school the whole time?” Moo hisses in my ear. I don’t