Everything Vampire Academy belongs to Richelle Mead, I'm just playing with her stuff :-D.

Once inside the monitoring station, Katya acted as if nothing had happened, so Dimitri did his best to act normal, too. He focused on the new class material, both to learn the new skills and to ignore the mess inside his head. Ivan Zeklos was here and there was nothing he could do about it – at least not until Zeklos dropped the Prince Charming act and showed his true nature.

Forgetting about Zeklos turned out to be fairly easy in the face of the effort required for monitoring. The class was long and Dimitri found the new challenges mentally exhausting. Hunting Strigoi through endless surveillance video, local law enforcement reports and real-time radio chatter, internet social media, internet news, and local news feeds took a whole different skill set. He hated it.

Monitoring was usually an elective class for the novices. Personal protection for the Moroi was simply too important: with the dhampir population decreasing (and the enrollment in the academies decreasing even more), the novice curriculum stressed physical defense skills and bodyguard surveillance. Monitoring and advanced notice of Strigoi movements was still needed, but was generally undertaken by injured or disabled guardians, or occasionally, non-royal Moroi. Novices who showed exceptional aptitude or interest in monitoring were encouraged to learn and refine those skills, but only as an adjunct to one-on-one protection.

"I've figured out why they've suddenly made monitoring mandatory," Katya said in an undertone to Dimitri after nearly an hour of working together. "I've actually got it narrowed down to two possibilities. One, they've realized that they haven't been using us as slave labor nearly enough. Two, they hate us."

They were reviewing video from a human hotel frequented by Moroi. Strigoi moved so quickly that humans could rarely – if ever – notice them on video, and even if they did, the Strigoi would only be on the film for a frame or two and would likely be dismissed as a glitch. The old guardian in charge of monitoring, Guardian Petrov, had been excited about video computer software in development in America, but it was at least six months from release. That left dhampir visual acuity as the most effective – though excruciatingly mind-numbing - method for identifying Strigoi movement.

Dimitri didn't smile. He was used to Katya's snark, and knew that if he gave her any reaction it would only encourage her – and experience had taught him that encouraging her only got them both in trouble. He enjoyed her irreverence, though, and she knew it. Novice training was difficult; being a guardian would be even more so. Dimitri was serious by nature, but he appreciated Katya's ability to find humor in almost any situation.

"I think they are more concerned than they are admitting," Dimitri murmured instead. He noted the mismatched, rickety, extra tables crowding the small station, and the practically antique computers, viewing screens, and radios that had been pressed into service. Guardian Petrov had even introduced them to two truly ancient beasts he called a CB radio and a HAM radio. When considering those possibilities, Dimitri was somewhat grateful that he and Katya had drawn video monitoring. At least with video they were allowed to talk - as long as they kept their attention on the screen.

"I don't know what they expect," Katya continued, voice low. "We see a Strigoi at the Sibir Hotel. What next? We're not allowed to hunt them down, so really, what? Send a greeting card to the basement? 'Dear Strigoi: we see you. Please don't kill anyone. KTHXBAI'."

Sasha, overhearing Katya's American internet lolspeak, made a choking noise. Dimitri mentally counted to ten. Katya grinned wickedly, mimed licking her finger, and - making sure no instructors were looking - drew a quick line in the air.

Dimitri managed to keep his composure and shook his head. Katya, acknowledging that she'd taken the joke as far as she could, smiled, sighed, and settled her chin in her hands, focusing on the screen again. That was something else Dimitri appreciated about Katya: she joked and teased, but she knew that their training and ultimate responsibilities were vitally important. Her irreverent observations and snark rarely got in the way – she excelled at virtually every task they were given.

As class went on, the novices – even Katya – became more and more quiet and slightly grim. Katya and Dimitri scanned through just over forty hours of video in the three-hour class, and they found Strigoi. Just one Strigoi, but in a hotel with Moroi, one was too many. Their classmates had similar bad luck, finding evidence of at least six more Strigoi. All seven were far from campus; the furthest, Dimitri and Katya's sighting in the Novosibirsk hotel over four hours away, the nearest, an internet blogger describing activity in abandoned rail tunnels located about an hour from the academy. However, one other reason monitoring had such a low priority among the guardians was simply because Strigoi excelled at evading detection. The fact that seven had failed to escape the notice of a small group of novices was especially troubling.

Unfortunately – or possibly, fortunately – the novices lacked information, and Guardian Petrov would only say that they would learn more as necessary in the coming weeks. They were finally dismissed and left the building as a group, unconsciously walking to the cafeteria en masse. Dimitri, Katya, and Sasha clustered together at the outer edge of the group.

"Why do I feel like we're living at the center of a target?" Katya muttered.

Dimitri started to shrug, then mentally plotted the sightings. She was right. They had found no Strigoi in a wide radius from the academy, but after that, the sightings were scattered in a wide, uneven circle. Theoretically, if the academy was a target… He tried to dismiss it as coincidence, as an artifact of how the monitoring was done, but he felt uneasy all the same.

"I doubt it," Sasha said; their logical, practical friend. "It would take a lot more than seven Strigoi to be any threat to the school. We've got the wards, the guardians, and us. There must be something else going on."

"You're probably right," Katya answered, shaking off her grim mood. Her eyes lit up as they entered the cafeteria. "I'm going to go sit with them," she pointed out a group of non-royal Moroi friends. "Join me?"

Dimitri was relieved that she didn't point to the table of royals nearby, but his bad mood returned. "Thanks," he managed, "maybe another day."

I finally got Spirit Bound and I finished it! I'm dying to talk about it but I'll be good :-D. I don't think it's a spoiler to share that there's not a word about Ivan! On one hand I'm almost disappointed because I am so positive I am right about his connection to Dimitri! On the other hand, I feel better not being right because I know I can't ever measure up to whatever Richelle actually has in mind, so now I feel more free to "play".

I have lots of visitors to this story and I'd love more reviews… (though I definitely appreciate the ones I've gotten so far!).

Thank you for reading!

Oh! Edited thanks to my best reviewer! Novosibirsk is quite a ways away from the academy - I remembered it wrong! Thank you!