Heart of Glass [manxman]

Chapter Twenty-One

Louis and I took the seats at the head and foot of the table, respectively. Dr. Ponds, Meredith, Remy, and Abigail were already there with files spread across the table, waiting. The younger students had been shifted around, while the eighth and ninth-years lurked in the corners of the room, desperately trying to catch something one of us said.

"So, what do we have?" Louis asked, sliding one of the files from Meredith to glance over it.

"Professor Swan just called from apartment complex C, next to the administrative building," Meredith said. "They still haven't had any activity over there. No noise, no shadows at the windows. It looks deserted."

Louis nodded. "The others?"

"Everyone's made their first call, but only Thistle Hall and apartment complex A have reported things out of the ordinary," Remy said.

"What did they see?"

"There have been sightings of an unknown creature. It has a humanoid figure, but the aura surrounding it is complicating classification procedures."

"In addition to that, the sightings have been accompanied by weird power surges," Meredith said. "The lights will flicker, the temperature will spike or plummet, it's like a demonic sensing, but more extreme. It's stronger than the usual sensations."

I frowned. It looked like a higher level demon, especially with the extreme sensations... "Sounds like they've managed the partial resurrection of the Aquireign emperor," I said. "It's matching the description anyway."

Louis nodded. "I really hope not, but it's plausible. It's likely they have your blood, so they really have no reason not to resurrect him." He looked to the others and put the file down. "Do we have any word on their potential motives or goals? Have there been any sightings of other noteworthy demons?"

They all shook their heads.

"It's only the first update. There's still several more to come, Lou," Meredith said, even and calm, like she'd done this before—soothed Louis. She probably had. They seemed like they were close.

Letting out a long, defeated sigh, he sank into his chair. "I feel like we're sitting ducks. How did they even get through the barriers to begin with?"

"Just think about everyone that has access to the main breaker for the barriers surrounding campus," I said. "Everyone knows where they are, but who is the one person on this campus that has the key to it?"

"Jackson."

"Bingo. Of course, someone could've stolen it, but with all of the other evidence we've discussed, he seems to be the most likely suspect. There's also always the scenario that the demons were strong enough to break through the barriers, but I was one of the developers of the latest barricade system. It would take a demon stronger than even the full resurrection of the Aquireign emperor to break them."

"Would—" Louis stopped.

The speakers crackled. The lines for the speakers ran to every building on campus back to the administrative building, where announcements were made. It'd only ever been used for emergencies in the past, and it didn't run on electricity, so it wouldn't have been affected by the power outage... What was this about?

"Attention all faculty, staff, and students—" It was Rainier. He was in the administrative building making the announcement, no doubt leading the entire infiltration on the academy. Gods, this was bad. "I apologize for all the trouble; however, the urgency of the situation needed to be stressed to you. If you want to get out of this situation with as few casualties as possible, I need everyone to make a decision, building by building."