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“You are cheeky tonight, Adam.”
“Sorry. It’s been a rough couple of weeks.”
“Go.”
He did. The mirrors and clear glass walls made for a brief challenge as he found his way through. Once or twice, as kids, they’d gone to Frontier City in Oklahoma. It had a similar attraction. They’d distorted his reflection. He’d laughed at the tall or wavy versions of himself.
Now, his reflection laughed or teased him. A few threw compliments. One sat sulking in his mirror, not wanting to engage.
Adam ignored them all and continued on until he found the exit. Another shift, a change in the light and temperature.
The cinder block walls glowed a faint green, with most of the light coming through the mortar. Above, old-fashioned incandescent lights hung in rows, making a chain until they faded into darkness.
He hadn’t been in this part of the school, but knew it from the walls. This was Rogue Community College.
Argent stepped through the air to stand beside him.
From the slight damp and the stone floor, he suspected they were underground.
“RCC?” he asked. “Why not just use the entrance at the eastern anchor?”
“To obfuscate our destination. I do not wish the school to be a target, not again.”
It made sense. It put a weight in his chest, something heavy and blackish, to remember what had happened.
Seamus had sent an assassin to the school to kill a prisoner locked in its vaults. These vaults, if Adam guessed where Argent had brought him.
The killer had gotten his target, but he’d had a second goal: to kill the school’s heart. He’d struck a fatal blow, and Vran had given his life to save the school and his classmates. The elf had been a friend, something like a little brother. The wound ached less than it had, but it still hurt. It probably always would.
“Come,” Argent said. “We must see Shepherd about the body.”
Adam grimaced but he followed her through the halls.
This was a reunion he was not looking forward to.
One of the strangest choices Silver had made in founding RCC was to give shelter to a group of demon refugees.
Adam had first met Shepherd in the underworld, where he’d led a group of ghosts not ready to let go of their mortal lives. That entire journey had been nightmarish. In the end it had helped Adam let go of some things. Still, he reserved the right to not enjoy being reminded of it.
They reached a heavy steel door. Argent knocked.
“It is open,” a voice called.
Shepherd hadn’t changed since Adam had last seen him. His face and body were a patchwork, made up of various people, pieces of the ghosts he’d consumed to gain sentience. The demon wore a white suit and half a mustache. Blue light glowed through the seams, not unlike the walls.
Perhaps Shepherd did belong here. RCC was a school for misfits, and Shepherd was an outlier among his kind.
The demon looked up. Surprise washed through his mismatched features, expressing itself unevenly as bits and pieces took it in different ways.
“Adam.”
“Yeah.” He waved hello. “It’s okay, I didn’t expect to see you again either.”
The smell of the room was faint, but unpleasant. Something chemical and astringent tried to suppress the odor of rotting flesh but did not quite succeed.
It reminded Adam of the time they’d found a dead opossum under the trailer. He’d been the smallest member of the family, so his mother had sent him inside the metal skirt with a rake to get the thing out.
August in Guthrie could be sweltering, and the trailer’s underside, which should have been cool with shade, practically steamed. It had intensified the smell that had crept up into their home.
