The Unholy Trinity II

Chapter Seventeen

“Welcome back, everyone,” Miss Timbers called. “I hope you all had a nice vacation, but it’s time to get back to work so get those thinking hats on. You’re going to need them.”

It turned out they needed their thinking hats for a pop quiz on something they hadn’t even learned yet. Even though Miss Timbers assured them she wasn’t going to grade them and only wanted to get an idea of their comprehension level, everyone still groaned when she made the announcement. Fallon skimmed over the equations and realized she didn’t have a clue how to solve any of them. The whole quiz might as well have been written in Greek.

The classroom telephone rang. When Miss Timbers turned her back to answer it, a few kids took the chance to sneak a look at each other’s papers. Fallon didn’t bother. If she really wanted to get the right answers, she could’ve used black magic to do it. Since Miss Timbers wasn’t grading them she didn’t see the point of wasting her effort on any kind of cheating.

Miss Timbers returned the phone to its cradle and turned to face the class once again. “Fallon Keyes, you’re to report to the office.” 

While a couple of people made cracks about her being in trouble, Fallon traded frowns with Lucian. She couldn’t be in trouble for anything because she hadn’t done anything. Okay, so she’d been cheating on her school work since last year. Considering she used black magic to do it, no one could possibly know that. And she hadn’t even argued with any of the God Squad this year so it couldn’t have anything to do with them. The only person she could think of who might complain about her would be Ted Reese, but that didn’t make sense. Except for running in to him at the book store during Thanksgiving break, she hadn’t seen the guy in ages.

When she stepped out of the north hall, her cell phone vibrated against her hip to let her know she had a text message. She extracted the phone from her pocket and looked down at the new message from Lucian. Just as she tapped the phone to retrieve the message, someone grabbed her from behind. Her phone flew from her fingers as she was dragged into the bushes that lined the side of the building. It didn’t do her any good to fight against the hold on her. The harder she thrashed, the tighter the hold became.

“I’ll bet you thought blessing your house got rid of me.”

Though she couldn’t be sure, Fallon thought the voice belonged to a female. There was a bit of softness lurking under the raspy voice, but she knew that could’ve been designed to throw her off. In the surrounding bushes, her phone vibrated once again, and she concentrated on calling Lucian to her.

“The son of Satan can’t protect you from what he can’t see. Look how much I’ve already accomplished right under his nose.”

Right under his nose?

So whoever was stalking her was someone who knew Lucian and probably someone who knew her. Fallon wracked her brain for ideas of who it could be. It had to be someone who knew black magic, which made the list pretty short.

“You’ll be dead long before you figure it out.”

“So will you. As soon as Sinister figures out who you are, he’s going to kill you.”

“I know, and I’m not ready to die yet. Until then, you and I will definitely meet again.”

Whoever was behind her suddenly shoved her forward with enough force to lift her from the ground. Fallon came back to the ground just as fast she’d left. Her less than graceful landing found her half sprawled in the bushes and half on the sidewalk that circled the north hall. She began to paw through the bushes in search of her cell phone. As she came up with it, someone cast a shadow over her. Fallon’s heart raced out of control as she whirled around. Despite the cross look on his face, she exhaled to see one of the campus security guys standing over her.