So here's the next chapter guys. I hope you guys like it!
Dislcaimer: I own nothing at all, except for the people you don't recongize, everything else is Disney and Tolkien.
" 'There are many powers in the world, for good or evil. Some are greater than I am. Against some I have not yet been measured. But my time is coming,'"~ Gandalf from "The Fellowship of the Ring" by J.R.R Tolkien.
"Dave? Um…excuse me, Dave?" A tiny hand tapped his shoulder. He turned to find one of the many students from the lab he TAed following after him. "Do you have a minute?"
"Yeah?" He checked his cell phone. He could give maybe five minutes. "What's up…?" he went through the class roster in his head but her name escaped him. He should have known her it; she'd sat in the front row since classes started.
"Annabelle." She replied in an even tone. She pushed her glasses a little farther up her nose and pushed a long strand of curly dark hair behind her ears. "Annabelle Montgomery." She was short, tinier than Becky and thin to match. Even the skinny jeans she wore seemed too big for her.
"Right, right. Sorry about that. So what can I do for you?" He asked as they made their way out of the building.
"A few of us were wondering if you did any tutoring?" she fastened her hands to messenger bag strap. "You know, outside of class?"
"Well, I'm going to be doing the first, third and fifth review sessions starting next month. If that helps any."
"Yeah, I know, I read the syllabus." She grinned. Dave didn't think anyone read the syllabus until finals time to find out the absolute lowest grade on the final and still pass. Not that he had … more than twice. "But a few of us are already confused by Dr. Teara's lecture the other day and we were hoping that maybe you'd help us out." She looked so hopeful that he couldn't tell her 'no' flat out.
But the question was when? He was already stretched thin between his own classes, TAing, lessons with Balthazar and time with Becky. Praying that she would figure it out on her own, he just said: "Get whoever else is confused together and e-mail me; I'll see what I can do, okay?"
"That sounds awesome!" Annabelle clapped her hands together in excitement. "Thank you!"
He checked his phone again. He had exactly two minutes. "Anything else?"
"No, just the tutoring. Where are you going?" She craned her neck around, looking as if the answer would appear in the air before them.
"Washington Square Park. I've got to meet my girlfriend."
"Oh…well," Annabelle lost her effervescent tone. "See you later then." She disappeared into the mass of other students.
But Dave thought nothing more of it or her as he approached the bench where they always met. He kissed her cheek as a greeting, sliding next to her. Her hands weren't shaking too badly, he noted, and she wasn't nearly as pale as she had been a few days ago.
"How was the interview?" He asked her.
She shrugged. "Sort of normal, I guess." She'd been on the list of students who had seen Dr. Shapiro a week before his death and the police had absolutely no other leads to go on. So Becky had to skip her first three classes and go down to the station to be interviewed. "They asked me how I knew him and where I was on the night he was murdered."
"So just the usual stuff then?"
Becky nodded. "But I did get this." She pulled a folded sticky note out of her jeans pocket.
"Please don't tell me that it's something that's going to get you arrested," Dave pleaded.
Becky grinned. "It's the list of books stolen from Dr. Shapiro's office." She replied in a low voice. "I looked them up; they all have to do with Morgana."
He whistled appreciatively. "You know, you should be a spy…"
Becky flipped her hair ostentatiously and fluttered her eye lashes. "Call me Bond…Becky Bond."
"Shaken, not stirred?" He wondered, looking over the list.
"Actually I like stirred better." Becky admitted.
Dave wasn't familiar with any of the books, him being a Physics nerd and all. He pointed to the first one. "The Morgan le Fay: Complex Feminist theory in Arthurian Legends."
"That was one for our class." Becky recited. "It was looking at Morgana's character through the different legends, seeing the different ways that women and women's spirituality were represented and valued in England."
"And this one?" He pointed to the next one on the list: "The Fata Morgana"
"It's a collection of paintings of Morgana and just sort of a general autobiography of her life and different legends included the 'Fata Morgana.'"
He just looked at her, puzzled.
"It's this weird phenomena where mirages look like their floating above the horizon line. There's a place in the Sicillian Bay that does it and lots of historians think that's where all the Flying Dutchman sightings come from."
Dave sighed. "I think we should take this to Balthazar."
Annabelle watched from across the street. She ducked in between a few girls who had to be on the basketball team and a couple who were in the midst of a total emotional breakdown. No one would notice her. There'd be no reason to. She was a skinny little thing and she knew it; most people's eyes just passed over her without the double take of recognition. She did it to herself, she knew. She had to. But soon, everything would change and she wouldn't have to hide anymore.
The blonde had to be the girlfriend, Annabelle reasoned…from the way they whispered together and the little smiles that jumped from one to the other. She was very pretty in the average sort of way, Annabelle supposed; blonde, blue-eyed, and delicate. Probably stupid too. It was always the same. No matter where you went. As long as a girl was pretty there was no reason for her to be smart.
Annabelle rolled her eyes at the girl flipped her hair and Dave laughed. But Annabelle was smart and she had other things to worry about at the moment. She pushed her glasses back up her nose and turned to go to her next class.
"Let's just get this over with." Balthazar hissed to Veronica as they moved through the New York City necropolis also known as the morgue, in Manhattan.
Veronica chuckled, the shadow of the laugh echoing in the near empty hallway. "Well, well, well…"
"What?" Balthazar growled.
"You'd think after all this time…" Veronica was incredulous in her observation. "we'd know each other backwards and forwards."
"What are you going on about, dear?" Balthazar stressed the 'dear' part.
"The great sorcerer Balthazar Blake is afraid of dead bodies!" Veronica chortled.
"No! I am not afraid!" Balthazar tried to clarify. "They're just…un-nerving."
Veronica laughed again as they pushed through a set of double doors. Dressed now as doctors, no one would bother them. Not that there was anyone there to bother them. The morgue was empty and silent as a tomb; funnily enough. Veronica casually glanced at the list of bodies currently awaiting autopsies and told Balthazar which drawer to look in.
Balthazar flinched as they opened it and pulled out the body of John Shapiro. Veronica pulled back the sheet as Balthazar placed his hands on either side of the man's gaunt cheeks without actually touching him. He closed his eyes and breathed deeply.
"Dave and Becky were right. Something's strange." He remarked.
"What is it?"
Balthazar frowned and pointed to the small white mark on the man's temple. "Look here. What does this look like this to you?"
Veronica narrowed her eyes. "The remains of a parasite spell. But this man…he's not even a sensitive. The spell sucked the life and the knowledge out of him. "
"It's what made him age so rapidly….what made his neck so weak and so easy to break." Balthazar replied.
"I haven't ever seen anything like this before," Veronica was worried. "Have you?"
"I've known sensitives who have tangled themselves up in sorcerer business but this man was a civilian, through and through."
"If nothing else, it proves that Horvath did not do this," Veronica crossed her arms over her chest. "The mark is too small."
"And so the question remains: who did this?" Balthazar looked over at her.
Veronica closed her eyes as well, holding her hands over the man's face. It glowed briefly and then faded but it was enough to bring out the perfect shadow of a child's handprint.
"That doesn't make any sense," Balthazar frowned.
"None of this makes any sense, Balthazar." Veronica replaced the sheet. "At least we know it's human, a sorcerer. Something we know how to fight."
"Only if we figure out who it is."
hehehehe Big bad balthazar's afraid of the morgue... LOL! Anyway, now stuff's gonna get really interesting