Ink & Quill

Chapter 12

~ Jaxon ~

Snooping around Harbor City College proves harder than I'd hoped.

My 'boss' is a heavy-set older man who smells like tobacco and corn chips, and his job seems to be to sit in his stuffy little office all day and assign me whatever maintenance requests come in.

He'd given me a set of master keys, which open all the classrooms and supply closets and bathrooms and things, but none of the places that really interest me. The professors' private offices, the college archives, and certain special collections in the library have unique keys I have to request from 'Administration.' To do that, I need a valid excuse, and there are only so many excuses I can invent without arousing suspicion.

In the meantime, I'm stuck living out the role of campus handyman, doing everything from trimming back hazardous eye-level branches to unclogging unholy gunk from drains. As the 'new guy,' I have to do the job if I want to keep it, but by the end of the day I've almost forgotten that it's only a cover for the real reason I'm here.

As for that, I do my best to listen and observe, to learn everything I can, but so far 'everything' is a whole lot of 'not much.'

It makes me wonder what Aurelio was thinking, setting me up with this job. If he had a sense of humor, I'd think it was a joke.

At least Sylas fits in well and seems to enjoy playing student. I'd been angry at Aurelio for including him in this scheme at all, but now I'm grateful. Between attending classes and talking to a few professors, I doubt Sylas will discover anything useful, but at least he'll think he's helping, and in the meantime he'll be safe and out of harm's way.

As I contemplate this while painting over some graffiti on the side of a wall, my phone pings with yet another maintenance request.

A stuck window in the art building, this time. At least it's somewhere I haven't seen already.

Sighing, I give up on the graffiti.

It's the third time I've painted over it, but the design just keeps seeping through. It's obviously Spelled—some little Crafter shit thinking he's clever—and it'll take more than paint to make it come off. If he were here, Sylas could undo the spellwork easily, but 'Jason Smith,' handyman extraordinaire, doesn't know 'Sylas West,' innocent student of Craft history.

Unfortunately.

If I could just see him and talk to him throughout the day, I'd find all of this more bearable, but we have to maintain the pretense of our respective disguises. So, while he studies in the library, doing his earnest and level best to succeed in classes that he's not really taking, I have a sticky window to fix.

Packing up my useless paint, I climb aboard the ridiculous little golf cart laden with tools and supplies I'm forced to drive and make my way over to the northeast corner of campus.

The art building sits nestled against the base of the steep, forest-clad hills that flank the back of the grounds, blending with the shadows of coastal evergreens. A modern construct of metal and glass, it's a piece of art in itself.

I enter, locate the classroom listed on the maintenance ticket, and find it locked.

Getting out my keys with a grumble, I open it and step inside.

It's a big room, with tall windows all along one side to let in lots of natural light, and instead of desks, rows of large easels fill the space. It looks as if a class just ended; the students leaving their work on display, perhaps for the teacher to judge.

Unable to help myself, I walk among them, going row by row. It looks as if the students were doing an exercise, lifting the pencil as little as possible while capturing what they observed. Most are crap, but here and there I see real talent shining through.